Journal Article

Christian Magicians, Jewish Magical Idioms, and the Shared Magical Culture of Late Antiquity

Boustan, Ra‘anan, Sanzo, Joseph E.

2017

Overview

Some time in the late-fifth or early-sixth century CE, a ritual practitioner—operating in the environs of Oxyrhynchus, Egypt—created a protective amulet that reads, “Hôr, Hôr, Phôr, Elôei, Adônai, Iaô, Sabaôth, Michaêl, Jesus Christ. Help us and this house. Amen” (Ὡρ, Ὡρ, Φωρ, Ἐλωεί, Ἀδωναί, Ἰάω, Σαβαώθ, Μιχαήλ, Ἰεσοῦ Χριστέ· Βοήθι ἡμῖν καὶ τούτῳ οἴκῳ. ἀμήν). Each of the names used in the first part of this amulet, known as P.Oxy. VIII 1152 (=PGM P6a), is familiar from other ritual objects from late antiquity (approx. fourth to seventh centuries CE). But the juxtaposition of these divine names on a single amulet presents us with a puzzle: did the ritual expert who created this artifact or his client perceive there to be a difference, tension, or even contradiction between Jesus Christ and the other names listed? Or, alternatively, would they have conceptualized all of these names as belonging equally within what they would have thought of as the “Christian tradition” or some other tradition?

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: Antiquity / Book publishing / Christianity / Idioms / Judaism / Magic & magicians / Religious history / Religious studies / Rites, ceremonies and celebrations / Theology