Silver charm found in Germany is oldest evidence of Christianity north of the Alps

A silver amulet dated to the third century was discovered in Germany. Recent examination of text on silver foil inside it is now the oldest evidence of Christianity found north of the Alps.

Recently deciphered text in Latin was inscribed on foil inside the charm invoking St. Titus and Jesus Christ, including the words “holy, holy, holy!” and “before Jesus Christ every knee bows: those in heaven, those on earth and those under the earth, and every tongue confesses,” city officials in Frankfurt said in a release this month.

The amulet and foil have been dated to between 230-270.

While other references to and evidence of Christianity have been found in France and Switzerland dating back to the second century, the amulet predates any other such evidence from the northern Alpine regions of the Roman Empire by at least 50 years.

The emblem, first found in 2018 northwest of Frankfurt, is notable for more than its age.

“That is unusual for this time. Such inscriptions in amulets were usually written in Greek or Hebrew,” Markus Scholz, a professor at the city’s Goethe University, said in the release as translated from German.

The use of “holy, holy, holy!” had only previously been attested as far back as the 4th century, and the foil within the amulet was also unusual for the period in that it didn’t mention pagan gods, Jewish prophets, Yahweh or angels like Gabriel and Michael. 

Many artifacts of the time invoked Jewish, pagan and Christian figures together, whereas the foil within the Frankfurt amulet mentions only Christian figures and quotes from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians nearly verbatim.