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An early Byzantine inscribed amulet and its narratives1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Jacquelyn Tuerk
Jacquelyn Tuerk*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Abstract

How did an early Byzantine hematite amulet address physical illness? Contemporary medical texts explain that the stone itself was believed to cure bleeding, but how can we account for its engraved words and images depicting Christ healing the bleeding woman? The biblical narrative offers a persuasive analogy to the personal narrative of the Byzantine woman’s own sickness, positing the possibility of a cure for the Byzantine woman through identity with the biblical woman. It provides a model for the infirm Byzantine woman to understand her own personal narrative, and a model of the desired ending to the Byzantine woman’s narrative.

Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 23 , 1999 , pp. 25 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1999

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Footnotes

1.

I presented a version of this paper at the 23rd Byzantine Studies Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, 1997, and am grateful for the comments of those present, esp. Anthony Cutler.

References

2. I have changed the spelling from the text on the amulet for sake of clarity, however, this does not mean that I consider the amulet’s text to be ‘misspelled’ or ‘corrupt’. The amulet reads: ‘KEHTVNI/OVCAPVCHE/MATOCETI/KEΠOAA/OVCAHKEEΔA/ΠANICAMIΔ/E/NOΦEΛEΘO/CAAΛAMAA/HΔP/A/MO VCA … (other side) ΞΗΡΑΝ/ΘΗΗΠΗΓΗΤΟ/VMATHCM/O VA VTHCENTO/NOMATIT/HCΠICTEOCAV/TIC.’ Transliterated by Kotzsche, Lieselotte, Age of Spirituality, exhibition catalogue, ed. Weitzmann, Kurt (New York 1978) #398 Google Scholar, but still not standard spelling: ‘KE H ГVNI/ OVCA PVCH E/MATOC ETI/KE (ΕΠΙΚΕ?) ПОΛА [ΠVΘ]ΟΥCA H KE EΔA/ΠANICA ΜΑΛ[ΛΟΝ]/ ΗΔΕ/Α/MOVCA [E]BHPA[V]/0H H ПНГН (ТНГН?) TO[V]/ VMATHCM/OV AVTHC ENTO [O] NOMATI Т/НС ШСТЕОС AVTIC’. Note line 9, where Kotzsche reads ΗΔΕ whereas I read ΗΔΡ, as part of APAMOVCA. It is also transliterated by Peter Bol and Herbert Breck, Spätantike und frühes Christentum, exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt am Main, 1983, #165: ‘καὶ ή γυνή οΰσα [έν] ῤύσει αἵματος ἕτη, καἱ πολλά παθοῦσα ἣν καἱ έδαπάνησα μηδἑν ώφεληθεῖσα άλλά μᾶλλον ἥν δραμοῦσα / έξηράνθη ή πηγή τοῦ αἱιματησοῦ αύτής έν τῷ όνόματι τῆς πίοτεως αὐτῆζ.’ The passage from the Gospel of Mark (5:25-34) reads: ‘καί γνυνή οὔσα ῤὐσει αἳματοζ δώδεκα ἔτη. καἱ πολλά παθοῦσα ύπὸ πολλῶν ἰατρῶν καἱ δαπανήσασα тἁ παρ’ άυτής πάντα, καἱ μηδἑν ώφεληθεῖσα άλλά μαλλον εἰζ тò χεῖρον έλθοῦσα, άκούσασα тὰ περὶ τοῦ Ίησοῦ, έλθοῦσα έν τῷ őχλω őπισθεν ἤψατο τοῦ ίματίου αύτοῦ ἒλενεν γὰρ ὄτι έάν ἄψωμαι κἃν τῶν ίματίων αύτοῦ, σωθἠσομαι. καί єνθὑζ έξηράνθη ή πηγή τού αἴματος αύτῆς, καί ἕγνω τῶ σώματι ὄτι ἵαται άπο τῆζ μάστιγος. καί εύθύς ὁ ‘Iησοῦζ έπιγνοῦς έν έαυτφ τήν έξ αύτοῦ δύναμιν έξέλθοῦσαν ὲπιотрαфєἱс έν τῷ ὂχλῳ ἕλεγεν. τίς μου ἤψατο τών ιματίων; ό δἑ εἲπεν αύτῇ. θυγάτερ, ή πίοτιζ σου σέσωκέν σε …’ ‘And a woman, having been in a flow of blood for twelve years, and suffering many things by many physicians, and having spent all her money, and nothing having been profited but rather having come to the worse, hearing the things about Jesus, coming in the crowd behind (him) she touched his garment. She said: If only I may touch his garments I shall be healed. And immediately her fountain of blood was dried up, and she knew in her body that she was cured from the plague. And immediately, Jesus, knowing that power had gone forth from himself, turning in the crowd he said: Who touched my garments? And he said to her: Daughter, your faith has healed you’. Also see Luke 8:43-49 and Matthew 9:20-22, however, these two other versions do not include the spending of much money and much suffering that is in Mark and on the amulet.

3. Leviticus 12 categorizes menstruation as an ‘issue of blood’. Apart from this more usual meaning of ‘issue of blood’, the phrase (a translation of the Hebrew ‘maqor’ and the Greek ‘ῤῦσις’) is also used Biblically in connection with disease (in Lv. 9:7, our text Mk. 5:25, Lk. 8:43, and Mk. 9:20).

4. The amulet is published in the Age of Spirituality, exhibition catalogue, ed. Weitzmann, Kurt (New York 1979) #398 Google Scholar. Also, Spätantike und frühes Christentum, exhibition catalogue, (Frankfurt am Main 1983) 560 f., #165; Breek, and Rogers, , Guide to the Pierpont Morgan Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York 1925) 42 Google Scholar; and mentioned in a footnote by Spier, Jeffrey, ‘Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets and Their Tradition’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 56 (1993) 44 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 111.

5. The Age of Spirituality exhibition catalogue as well as the Spätantike und frühes Christentum catalogue mention ‘magic’ in connection with this specific amulet, the latter more explicitly than the former. Other corpora of so-called magical amulets include Campbell Bonner’s Studies in Magical Amulets (Ann Arbor 1950) and Waegeman, Maryse, Amulet and Alphabet: Magical Amulets in the First Book of the Cyrandies (Amsterdam 1987)Google Scholar. Authors of articles that name such amulets as ‘magical’ include Spier, Jeffrey, ‘Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets and Their Tradition’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 56 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kadar, Z., ‘Bermerkungen uber byzantinische Amulette und magische Formeln’, Arts Antiqua Aca. Scient. Hung. 10/4, no. 4 (1962) 403-11Google Scholar; and Menzel, H., ‘Ein christliches Amulett mit Reiterdarstellung’, Jahrbuch Rom.-Germ. Zentralmus 2 (1955)Google Scholar. The same observation applies to the papyri fragments published under the title Papyri Graecae Magicum, eds. Preisendanz, Karl et al. (Leipzig 1928-31, 2nd ed. Stuttgart 1973-74)Google Scholar, and translated by Hans Dieter Betz (Chicago 1985).

6. See Taylor, Edvard, Origins of Culture (New York 1871)Google Scholar; Frazer, James, The Golden Bough; a study in comparative religion (London 1890)Google Scholar; Malinowski, Bronislaw, ‘Magic, Science, and Religion’, Science, Religion, and Reality (New York 1925)Google Scholar; Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, Mentalité Primitive (Paris 1922)Google Scholar; Piaget, Jean, Causalité Physique Chez l’Enfant (Trubner 1930)Google Scholar; Lévi-Strauss, Claude, La Pensée Sauvage (Paris 1962)Google Scholar; Tambiah, Stanley J., Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality (Cambridge 1990)Google Scholar.

7. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, xxxvi, 37-38 (Paris 1827-32), trans. Rackham, H., Loeb Classics 17 (Cambridge 1949)Google Scholar. Soranus of Ephesus, Gynaecia (Leipzig 1882), Sorani Gynaeciorum, ed. Ilberg, Johannes (Leipzig, 1927)Google Scholar, trans. Owsei Temkin (Baltimore 1956).

8. S.J. Tambiah applies these categories to other types of ‘magical’ words in ‘The Magical Powers of Words’, Man; the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, n.s. 3, #2 (June 1968) 175-208; ibid., ‘Form and Meaning of Magical Acts: A Point of View’, Modes of Thought; Essays on Thinking in Western and Non-Western Societies, eds. Robin Horton and Ruth Finnegan (London 1973) 199-229.

9. See below Pliny and Soranus on using hematite to address bleeding. Also, according to Papyri Graecae Magicae, ed. Preisendanze, K. (2nd ed. Stuttgart 1973-74)Google Scholar and The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, ed. Betz, Hans Dieter (Chicago 1986) 167–169 Google Scholar,I.410; papyrus #XXII.401-44 gives ‘blood of a snake’ as a code word for hematite. The etymological and medicinal link between hematite and blood reveals a world view that was informed by systems of correspondence. Also discussed by Scarborough, John, ‘The Pharmacology of Sacred Plants, Herbs, and Roots’, Magika Hiera, eds. Faraone, Christopher and Obbink, Dirk (Oxford 1991) 159 Google Scholar. I am grateful to Gideon Bohak for informing me that the experiments of Galen (fl. c. 131-201) show that the most sophisticated physician in the ancient world believed that peony root and green jasper could influence internal organs even when suspended externally, suggesting that hematite could have been thought of in the same way; Galen, in Medicorum graecorum opera quae extant, ed. Kuhn, Karl Gottlob (Lipsiae, Libraria Car, Cnoblochii 1921-33) XI. 859 Google Scholar & XII. 207.

10. Tambiah, S.J., ‘Form and Meaning of Magical Acts: A Point of View’, 203 Google Scholar.

11. Pliny, xxxvi. 37.

12. Pliny, xxxvi. 37.145, ‘sistit profluvia mulierum potus’, xxxvi. 38.147, ‘Experimentum eius esse in cote ex lapide basanite — reddere enim sucum sanguineum’.

13. Soranus of Ephesus, Sorani Gynaeciorum, ed. Ilberg, Johannes, Medicorum Graecorum, iii. 42.3 & xxxvi. 38.147–148 (Leipzig 1927)Google Scholar.

14. Soranus, Bk. III entitled ‘Whether Women Have Conditions Particularly Their Own’, or ‘Eὶ ἒστιν ὶδία πάθη γὐναι ἒχωσι’, chapter X entitled ‘On Hemorrhage of the Uterus’, or ‘Περἱ αίμορραγὐσζ ὔστερος’, sec. 42.3 reads ‘καἱ γἁρ εί μηδἑν ἑξ εύθείας παρέχει тὁ περίαπτον, άλλ’ ούν δι’ έλττίδος εύθυμότεραν τήν κάμνουσαν τάχα παρέξει’.

15. Tambiah, S.J., ‘The Magical Power of Words’, Man; the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, n.s. 3/2 (June 1968) 202 Google Scholar; ibid., ‘Form and Meaning of Magical Acts: A Point of View’, Modes of Thought, Essays on Thinking in Western and Non-Western Societies, ed. Robin Horton and Ruth Finnegan (London 1973) 219.

16. The fetishistic quality given to Christ’s robe in the context of healing the bleeding woman, through a culture that valued relics, developed to such a height that by the 14th century Maria Phrangopoulina, who had a menstrual disorder for twenty years, reportedly was cured by burning tiny pieces of cloth stolen from patriarch Athanasios’ garments and inhaling the fumes, in conscious imitation of the woman in the Gospel of Mart, see Theostiskos, The Logos, trans. Talbot, Alice-Mary, in Faith Healing in Byzantium (Brookline, Massachusetts 1983)Google Scholar ch.63. Although this example is almost a millennium after our amulet, it is too interesting to exclude here.

17. Gospel of Mark 5:30.

18. See note #2 for variations of the text.

19. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, 7.18.2, ‘έστάναι γάρ έϕ’ ὑψηλοῦ λίθου πρὁς μἑν ταῖς πὐλαζ τοῦ αύτής οἴκου γυναικὁζ έκτὑπωμα χάλκεον, έπί γόνυ κεκλιμένον καἱ τεταμέναις έπί тὁ πρόσθεν ταῖς χερσἱ ικετευοὐστη έσικός, τούτου δέ ἄντικρυζ ἄλλο тῆζ άυτης ὔλης, άνδρὁς ὄρθιον σχῆμα, διπλοίδα κοσμίως περιβεβλημένον καἱ τήν χεῖρα тῆ γυναικί προτεῖνον, ού παρά тоῖζ ποσίν έπή τῆζ στἡης αύτῆς ξένον τι Βοτάνης έίδος ϕύειν, ὃ μέχρι τοῦ κρασπέδου τῆζ τοῦ χαλκοῦ διπλοíδοζ άνιόν, άλεξιϕάρμακόν τι παντοίων νοσημάτων τυγχάνειν’. I owe the mention of this passage to Gideon Bohak, who very generously has discussed many points of this paper with me.

20. In early Byzantine iconography, palm trees and leaves often but not always designated martyrdom or sainthood, for example, the procession of saints mosaic in St. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, sixth century. Palms are also seen in the procession of saints in the dome mosaic of the Arian Baptistery in Ravenna, fifth century. This imagery in part derives from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (9:24-25): ‘Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable’. Though sainthood is probably not the meaning on our amulet, at least a blessedness is conveyed by the palms. Palms also accompany salvine miracle scenes, for example, on a glass bowl from Cologne, second half of fourth century, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y., showing Lazarus and Christ standing by a palm tree, reproduced by Thomas Mathews in Clash of Gods (Princeton 1993) 56; on a red earthenware bowl, fourth century, Mainz, showing the paralytic with his bed and two palm trees, reproduced by Mathews, op. cit., 60; the Traditio Leges Sarcophagus in Ravenna, fifth century, also shows palm trees (see Mathews).

21. Spier, Jeffery, ‘Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets and Their Tradition’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 56 (1993) 25–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, fig. 38 pl.3d. Palm leaves appear on at least two other Byzantine amulets that address the uterus. The first is in Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, inv. #1980.5, silver, measures five cm, and is from Asia Minor. One side shows a conglomeration of scattered images, including three palm branches placed tips together, radiating at 90 degree angles; it also includes a face with seven radiating snakes, identified by Spier as an image of the ‘wandering womb’. Also shown is a coiled snake, a five pointed star, a ‘ring sign’ of six tips, a bust with a cross above its head (of Christ?), a nimbed standing figure holding a staff (and a snake?). A scattered inscription reads: ‘PAYMPTOY, РФАГС, EW ΔОМОНОС, ΠΙΝW’. And around the edge: ‘ONNMATI XMIAM ΔΡ.ΚΟΝ ΙΛΙΟΥ … OC ΛEON ΟΡΥΟΥΑΛΑ OC ΠΡΟΒΑΤΟΝ E …’ The other side shows the Holy Rider trampling a female demon, near by is an angel with one wing raised. The inscription reads: ΎΓΕ ABIZOY ΑΝΑΒΑΡΔΑΛΕΑ CICINIC CE ΔΟΙΚΙ С АГЕΛОС АРАФ …’ The second one is in a private collection, is bronze, and shows a single palm branch, a lion, a ‘ring sign’ in the form of a Z, another ‘ring sign’ of eight radiating lines, and Christ healing the bleeding woman. Both amulets are published by Spier, pl.3a and pl.6c. The orant pose, among various interpretations is also a mimetic sign linked to the crucified Christ and enacted by the orant subject; see Saxor, Victor, Ecclèsia Orans: mélanger patristiques offerts au Père Adalbert G. Hamman (Rome 1980)Google Scholar.

22. Geertz, Clifford, ‘Religion as a Cultural System’, Interpretation of Cultures (New York 1973)Google Scholar.

23. The catalogue entries (Kotzsche, Bol, Breek, and Spier) privilege one side as obverse. I am grateful to Robert S. Nelson for pointing out the problems concerning the categories of obverse and reverse.