From Logos to Christos: Essays on Christology in Honour of Joanne McWilliam

1 Ancient Applied Christology: Appeals to Christ in Greek Amulets in Late Antiquity

1 Ancient Applied Christology Appeals to Christ in Greek Amulets in Late Antiquity1    THEODORE DE BRUYN AN AMULET can be defined as an item that is believed to convey in and of itself, as well as in association with incantation and other actions, supernatural power for protective, beneficial, or antagonistic effect, and that is worn on one’s body or fixed, displayed, or deposited at some place.2 While an amulet can consist simply of organic matter—a figurine, medallion, ring, or other object devoid of text—in Late Antiquity many amulets included a written charm. These texts, for all their diversity, follow a common pattern. They usually invoke the supernatural power or powers by name and then petition or adjure these powers to perform some act of protection, healing, success, revenge, or the like. Sometimes they command lesser powers—mostly demons, occasionally angels—in the name of greater powers.3 They may also narrate a short account (historiola) describing or identifying the power being invoked.4 As the influence of the Christian church—its teachings, rituals, clergy, and adherents—grew in the Roman Empire, amulets began to invoke supernatural power in Christian terms. They appealed to the divine in Christian terms, either exclusively or along with traditional Greco-Roman or Jewish deities or powers, and they recounted major events in the “history” of God. Not surprisingly, given the centrality of Jesus Christ to the new faith, christological formulations and narratives made their way into amulets. These formulations and narratives were shaped in significant ways by the credal statements and liturgical expressions of the Church. But they 3 4 CHRISTOLOGY AND TRADITION also manifested idiosyncrasies or vagaries that one would expect in the production of remedies by local priests, monks, or other experts more or less familiar with the traditions of the Church.5 Amulets thus offer us an opportunity to study Christology as it was received and applied in popular practices at the local level. In this paper I limit my investigation to amulets found in Egypt (a region where, because of its dry climate, many amulets written on papyrus or parchment have been preserved), written in Greek, and dated mostly from the fourth to the seventh centuries.6 To locate these items, I have relied upon the following instrumenta studiorum: the major collections of edited magical papyri,7 Joseph van Haelst’s 1976 catalogue of Jewish and Christian literary papyri,8 Kurt Treu’s and Cornelia Römer’s reviews of recently published Christian papyri from 1969 to the present,9 and William Brashear’s 1995 survey of Greek magical papyri.10 I have also searched papyrological journals and editions of papyri, parchments, ostraca, and tablets for amulets and formularies (recipes for amulets) published between 1996 and 2007. Forms of Address Since the appeals and adjurations written on amulets are addressed to deities, we would expect that when they invoke the power of Jesus Christ they are echoing forms of invocation found in the prayers of the Church. After all, it was the worship of Jesus by Christians, and the concomitant reflection on this worship, that attributed divinity to him.11 Thus the names or titles that appear most frequently in amulets are also widely attested in early Christian sources: “Jesus Christ,” “Lord Jesus Christ,” “Lord Jesus,” “Christ,” “Lord,” “Son,” and “Son of God.”12 These may be combined with other common epithets, such as “our Saviour Jesus Christ,”13 “Saviour Jesus,”14 or “only-begotten Son.”15 Occasionally amulets use phrases that denote the cosmological position or role attributed to Jesus Christ: “ruler of aeons,” “the king of the aeon,” “the king Christ, God,” “king of heaven,” “highest God,” and “Emmanuel.”16 Appeals addressed simply to “Jesus” are rare.17 Some amulets appeal to God through Jesus Christ or in the name of Jesus Christ,18 following well-established patterns of Christian prayer.19 Thus a fragment of the Lord’s Prayer that was likely used as an amulet ends with a doxological formula that is also found in the collection of prayers attributed to Serapion: “through your only-begotten Jesus Christ.”20 Other amulets call upon God as “the Father of our Lord (and Saviour) Jesus Christ,”21 again echoing an ancient Christian form of address.22 Many amulets, however, refer directly to Jesus Christ as the one who dispels malignant forces and protects the wearer, consonant with a long-standing Christian practice of...