Forbidden protection: amulets in early Christianity
PhD defence
For centuries, the Romans turned to amulets to protect themselves or their surroundings. Research by PhD candidate Patricia Kret shows that this tradition continued into the early days of Christianity.
In the Roman Empire, between 100 BC and 600 AD, amulets could be found everywhere. They were hung on houses, placed beside fields or carried by people. ‘Location is important when it comes to amulets,’ explains Kret. ‘The object must be placed in the spot it is intended to protect, heal or bring supernatural benefits to. It is striking that this core aspect of their use hardly changed when Christianity made its entrance into the Roman Empire.’
Kret also discovered that the appearance of the amulets hardly changed either. ‘Body amulets, for example, often remained pieces of text, written on a metal plate or a scrap of papyrus, which hung around the neck of the person to be protected.’ What did change, however, was the text inscribed on the amulets. ‘It gradually became more Christian in nature, just like the shape of the amulet,’ says Kret. ‘It takes the form of a cross, for instance, but people still wear it round their necks with the aim of being protected.’
Bishops versus priests
This Christianisation is striking within a religion that, in principle, rejects the use of amulets. ‘The upper echelons of the ecclesiastical institutions were strongly opposed to the use of amulets during this period,’ explains Kret. ‘Bishops, for example, wrote in sermons that you would be excommunicated if you used amulets. At the same time, in those very same sermons, they said that priests must stop making amulets. We know they did so frequently, because the amulets often bore quotations from the Bible. In those days, it was often only priests who had access to Bible manuscripts to copy them.’
In this way, the amulets not only protect their owners, they also bring Christianity closer to them. Kret: ‘The world is becoming increasingly Christian. In that new, Christian context, amulets offer a new Christian experience. It was often the only part of the Bible to which people had access. Just like relics, which also emerged during that period, amulets fulfil the need for a tangible Christian faith. It was something Christian that people could take home with them.’
From Bible text to abracadabra
Whilst the manufacture of amulets can be reasonably reconstructed using manuals, their actual use is more difficult to ascertain. Kret: ‘We have little text describing how people used the amulets. I have mainly looked at the objects themselves: what might they have smelled and felt like?’ The text on the amulets could also be helpful. ‘In the end, I analysed about three hundred of them,’ says Kret. ‘Sometimes the amulet literally states the illness against which it offers protection, or specifies the distance within which it is effective. That was very useful for my analysis of the relationship between the amulet and the place where it is found.’
Other times she was less fortunate. ‘Sometimes it literally said “abracadabra” on the top line,’ she says. ‘In the lines below, the outermost letters would then be omitted. As the number of letters gradually decreased, so too was the fever supposed to subside.’
Reusable protection
Another important discovery is that amulets were regularly reused. ‘Sometimes it was an heirloom; at other times, so many centuries had passed that we don’t know exactly why it was brought back into use, but it shows that faith in amulets was strong.’
Krets’s personal favourite is also one such reused amulet. ‘It’s a small metal plate bearing an inscription stating that it is used to treat migraines,’ she explains. ‘It was found alongside three other amulets in a single grave, but it is much older than the rest. Migraines run in families, so perhaps that is why it has been passed down through the generations.’