Paris No. 16 / Lutetia Parisiorum / Egres / Grès

Allen (1839?) writes: "The inscription is ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ (Lord) wash my sin and not my face only,) it will be readily perceived that this Greek inscription reads either backward or forward. This monostich appear to have been adopted from the Greek church. It is, or was to be seen, on the font of the basiilica of St. Sophia at Constantinople. In this country its occurrence is frequent, in particular on the covers of the fonts at Dulwich College, and Worlingworth church Suffolk, a festive basin at Trinity College Cambridge, on the font at Harlow in Essex, and at Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, and in France on a marble benitier in the church of Notre Dame, and the fonts at St. Stephen d'Egres at Paris, and in that of St. Menin's Abbey near Orleans." The Note and Queries issue of Oct. 8, 1853 [352 / http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Brri34stXrwC&pg=PA352&lpg=PA352&dq=st+etienne+d'egres&source=web&ots=sv4It6ADUc&sig=fVNAa7PUUnNjLc3IqDY6ZcBQ19E&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA352,M1 [accessed 28 July 2008] reproduces a quoted text from 'Voyages liturgiques de France, par Sieur Molcon, p. 219, 1718' in which a reference is made to the appearance of this palindrome on a holy-water stoup at St. Etienne d'Egrès" [i.e., Saint-Étienne-des-Grès]. The remarkable inscribed stoup was mentioned also noted in Description historique de la ville de Paris et de ses environs [...] (vol. 10, Paris, 1765: 495), and in Jacques-Benjamin Saint-Victor's second edition of his Tableau historique et pittoresque de Paris depuis les Gaulois jusqu'à nos jours (tome 3, part 2, 1824: 425): "Sur la droite du maître-autel, un tableau représentant la Vierge et l'Enfant-Jésus caressant saint Jean-Baptiste; par un peintre inconnu. Sur la tranche d'un bénitier de marbre, placé au pied d'un des piliers de l'orgue, on lisoit une inscription grecque récurrente [...] copiée sans doute d'après les bénitiers de la croisée de Notre-Dame, où elle se trouvoit également gravée, mais beaucoup plus anciennement. Elle étoit conçue en ces termes: ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ. 1626. Lava peccala non solam faciem. On prétend que cette inscription étoit primitivement gravée sur le bénitier de l'église de Sainte Sophie a Constantinople". [NB: not known whether the date 1626 was that of the stoup or just the inscription -- we have no information on the font(s) of the original and medieval churches here, nor of the present whereabouts of the stoup with the inscription].