"The [mid-third-century] Frankfurt silver inscription [of 2018] glorifies the holy name of God" (i.e. "Jesus")

     "Scholarship labels the mid-third-century Frankfurt silver inscription [(Silberkapsel) of 2018] a phylactery.  This '[means of] salvation [(salus)]' was, from the bearer who 'surrenders himself to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son,' meant to [(soll)] fend off 'all attacks [(incursionibus)],' and procure for him 'good health [(valetudinibus salvis)].'  Via the presence of the name of God, which he bore in an amulet on [his] body, its bearer felt himself strengthened and watched over.  It is natural to suspect this of magic[al thinking] and to tie it back to the culture of the fetish and talisman common in antiquity [both within] and also outside of Christianity.  [But] a less objectionable [(harmlosere)] and [indeed] perfectly [(durchaus)] acceptable interpretation [would] proceed from biblical onomalatry [considered] as the most concentrated form of [Jewish] grapholatry, which had attained here in this [theologically legitimate] spiritual exercise a performa[tive status (die hier in einem frommen Exerzitium zur Performanz gelangt war)]."

     Eckhard Nordhofen, "'Onomalatrie':  Die Frankfurter Silberschrift:  mehr als nur eine historische Sensation," Internationale katholische Zeitschrift Communio website, December 23, 2024.  Cf. Eckhard Nordhofen, "Onomalatrie:  Die Frankfurter Silberschrift verherrlicht den heiligen Gottesnamen," Internationale katholische Zeitschrift Communio 54, no. 3 (2025): 309-318, which I haven’t yet procured.  Cf. also Santiago Guijarro Oporto, Santiago, "The amulet of Frankfurt: popular Christianity in the limes Germanicus," Isidorianum 34, no. 1 (2025): 25-48, which I have read.  Needless to say, "to the concept of grapholatry[, no more than to the concept of onomalatry,] should any pejorative connotation [(Klang)] be affixed, even if the common parallel 'idolatry,' which designates the worship of idols, is always [(durchaus)] meant disparagingly."