Evidence of Early Christianity in Northern Europe
A tiny inscription with massive implications
The Frankfurt Silver Inscription. Courtesy Stadt Frankfurt.
Excavations of a cemetery in the ancient Roman town of Nida, located in a suburb of modern Frankfurt, Germany, have revealed the earliest evidence for early Christianity north of the Alps. The discovery—a small silver foil with a Latin inscription—highlights both the rapid spread of the fledgling religion and also opens a window onto early theological beliefs.
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The Frankfurt Silver Inscription
The silver foil (dubbed the Frankfurt Silver Inscription) was uncovered in a grave in Heilmannstraße cemetery in Frankfurt. The inscription was tucked away inside a small silver amulet, just over an inch tall, that had been buried around its owner’s neck. The amulet likely served as a phylactery, a container worn on the body that held magical contents or religious relics that could protect the wearer. Dated to between 230 and 270 CE, both the amulet and the inscription were too poorly preserved for the silver foil to be unrolled and read. However, after carrying out a series of CT scans and computer tomography, researchers were able to digitally unwrap the foil to discover the inscription hidden inside.
The unrolled inscription. Courtesy Leibniz Institute for Archaeology in Mainz.
Consisting of 18 lines, the inscription reads:
[In the name?] of St. Titus. Holy, holy, holy! In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God! The lord of the world resists to the best of his [ability?] all seizures(?)/setbacks(?). The god(?) grants well-being Admission. This rescue device(?) protects the person who surrenders to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, since before Jesus Christ bend all knees: the heavenly ones, the earthly and the subterranean, and every tongue confess (to Jesus Christ).
Notably, the inscription is at least half a century older than the previously known earliest evidence of orthodox Christian belief north of the Alps. Historical records do refer to early Christian groups in Gaul and the province of Upper Germania already in the second century, but conclusive evidence dates back to the fourth century, and while other inscriptions referencing Christian beliefs are known, they typically blend Christian practices with Judaism or pagan influences.
The inscription is also intriguing because it was written completely in Latin. “That is unusual for the time. Normally, such inscriptions on amulets were written in Greek or Hebrew,” said Markus Scholz from Frankfurt’s Goethe University who translated the inscription. The text itself also contains a number of words and phrases that are not attested until decades later, including the reference to St. Titus and the invocation “holy, holy, holy.” Remarkably, the end of the text also contains a nearly literal quotation from the Book of Philippians (2:10–11).
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Hmm . . . I wonder what Joseph Atwill might think of this Christian amulet inscription, with its reference to “St. Titus” in Latin — presumably the original text read “Sanctus Titus” — with the “Holy holy holy” immediately following this Title-and-Name being “Sanctus sanctus sanctus” (it would have been better if this article actually gave the original Latin as well as the English tyranslation). Atwill’s thesis is that the career of Jesus (the 3 & a half-year ‘Ministry’) was typologically modeled upon the 3 & a half-year military campaign of Vespasian’s son TITUS during the Jewish War which began in 66 CE and resulted in Jerusalem and its Temple being destroyed in 70 CE. Might not this Frankfurt Silver inscription, then, be a piece of evidence tying the ‘Jesus’ religion to Titus Flavius, he having been made into a ‘holy’ [‘sanctus’] figure by the unwitting followers of this Flavian religion intended to supplant Jewish Messianism, as per Atwill’
s thesis?