Researcher Discovers 1500-year-old Christian Charm

Thursday September 4 2014

A 1,500 year-old papyrus fragment found in The University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library has been identified as one the world’s earliest surviving Christian charms.
 
The document uniquely contains some of the earliest documented references to the Last Supper and ‘manna from heaven’. It is the earliest known surviving document to use the Christian Eucharist liturgy - which outlines the Last Supper - as a protective charm.
 
Dr Roberta Mazza, a Research Fellow of the recently established John Rylands Research Institute, came across the Greek ‘amulet’ while working on thousands of fragments of unpublished historical documents that are kept in the library’s vaults.
 
According to the researcher, the charm casts important new light on early Christianity - just 300 years after the Roman emperor Constantine converted to the religion.

It shows how Christians adopted the ancient Egyptian practice of wearing amulets to protect the wearer against dangers. This practice of writing charms on pieces of papyrus was continued by the Christians who replaced the prayers to Egyptian and Greco-Roman gods with extracts from the Bible.   

Dr Mazza also discovered the document was written on an ancient version of recycled paper. Using cutting-edge spectral imaging techniques she discovered faint lettering on the back of the charm, thought to be a receipt for the payment of grain tax. This was certified by the tax collector from the village of Tertembuthis – this is in the countryside of the ancient city of Hermoupolis (modern el-Ashmunein).   
 
Dr Mazza said: “The amulet maker would have cut a piece of the receipt, written the charm on the other side and then he would have folded the papyrus to be kept in a locket or pendant. It is for this reason the tax receipt on the exterior was damaged and faded away.”
 
The document had been held at the library since around 1901, but its significance had not been realised until Dr Mazza spotted it. She said: “This is an important and unexpected discovery as it’s one of the first recorded documents to use magic in the Christian context and the first charm ever found to refer to the Eucharist – the Last Supper – as the manna of the Old Testament."

The text of the amulet, an original combination of biblical passages including Psalm 78:23-24 and Matthew 26:28-30 among others, reads:

“Fear you all who rule over the earth.
Know you nations and peoples that Christ is our God.
For he spoke and they came to being, he commanded and they were created; he put everything under our feet and delivered us from the wish of our enemies.
Our God prepared a sacred table in the desert for the people and gave manna of the new covenant to eat, the Lord’s immortal body and the blood of Christ poured for us in remission of sins.”
 
Dr Mazza added: “To this day, Christians use passages from the Bible as protective charms so our amulet marks the start of an important trend in Christianity.
 
“Though we know almost nothing about the owner of the charm, we can say this is an incredibly rare example of Christianity and the Bible becoming meaningful to ordinary people - not just priests and the elite.
 
“It’s doubly fascinating because the amulet maker clearly knew the Bible, but made lots of mistakes: some words are misspelled and others are in the wrong order. This suggests that he was writing by heart rather than copying it.
 
“It’s quite exciting.  Thanks to this discovery, we now think that the knowledge of the Bible was more embedded in sixth century AD Egypt than we previously realised.”

Comments

There are currently no comments on this post

Add a reply

All fields are required. Email address will not be published.