Protective Magic on the Byzantine Periphery

nxiety about the safety of one's family, home and health is an age-old concern.I began writing this paper on Byzantine protective magic just as the COVID-19 pandemic broke out; an unseen and harmful force which has sparked a wide variety of (largely ineffective) protective strategies like essential oils, hot baths, garlic and echinacea.For my part, I know that drowning myself in unprecedented amounts of lemonginger tea will not keep me from getting sick, but it does make me feel better.In Late Antiquity and the early Byzantine period, one of the most immediate perceived threats to be protected against was demonic activity, a similarly invisible and malevolent force.However, the methods that people adopted to safeguard themselves against harm underwent huge temporal, regional and religious variations.Even within Christianized areas in the early Byzantine period, people tended to adopt a variety of different methods to safeguard themselves from demons.Why did the same desire have such diverse manifestations in different places?My paper will trace the development of apotropaic (or protective) popular religious practices in areas where Christian ideas had only recently been introduced into pre-existing ritual efficacy frameworks.Examples will be drawn from Mesopotamia and Egypt in the fourth to seventh centuries CE.I argue that new Christian ideas and Graeco-Roman magical forms did not replace A Protective Magic v 77 existing indigenous belief systems surrounding protective practices.Christian ideas needed to operate within indigenous magical dialects and ideas about how magic "worked"; the structure of magic and ideas about efficacy remained with only a thin veneer of Christianity applied to the exterior. 1I propose that this phenomenon may be explained, in part, through the use of ritual theory.Ultimately, pre-existing ideas about ritual efficacy were much more resilient than the names of forces invoked and the theologies they implied.When it came to the safety of their homes, health, and families, efficacy generally outweighed orthodoxy.Although this study is primarily focused on apotropaic practices, I hope that these conclusions may have applicability in the broader study of Christianization processes and the nature of ritual change.Definitions of magic have themselves undergone dramatic change both historically and within academic discourse.Thus, in approaching this subject, it is helpful to provide a brief overview of what is meant by the term in this context, and to highlight some key considerations for approaching magic which have emerged from recent discourse.The earliest definitions tended to define magic in opposition to science, religion and rational thinking. 2Later scholars

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