Photo: Antakya Archaeological Museum

An amulet from fourth or fifth century Syria, engraved on silver. Amulets like this one would be produced and "activated" by a magic workshop. The inscription explicitly states it is intended to ward off harmful magic. This was then rolled up, placed in a tubular case, and worn as a pendant. The Greek inscription begins with an invocation to 36 magical names, who are hailed as "holy, mighty and powerful." The addressees are then asked "to preserve and protect from all witchcraft and sorcery, from curse tablets, from those who died an untimely death, from those who died violently and from every evil thing, the body, the soul, and every limb of the body Thomas, whom Maxima bore, from this day forth through his entire time to come." This language is very similar to that used on the curse tablets the amulet was intended to block. Amulets led to countermeasures: some curse tablets include special clauses asking the spirit or demon to break through the amuletic shield surrounding his target. Antiochene Christian leaders like John Chrysostom deplored the reliance on magic and amulets for protection. However, illustrating the great need people felt for such protection in those days, he interestingly gives them an equally superstitious-sounding replacement:"I beseech you to cleanse yourselves from this error, and to keep hold of this word as a staff; and just as without sandals, and cloak, no one of you would choose to go down to the market-place, so without this word never enter the market-place, but when thou art about to pass over the threshold of the gateway, say this word first: “I leave thy ranks, Satan, and thy pomp, and thy service, and I join the ranks of Christ.” And never go forth without this word. This shall be a staff to thee, this thine armor, this an impregnable fortress, and accompany this word with the sign of the cross on thy forehead. For thus not only a man who meets you, but even the devil himself, will be unable to hurt you at all, when he sees thee everywhere appearing with these weapons..." (Instructions to Catechumens 5). Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, inv. TL 33416.

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