Bonner, SMA – PDF, 6.

very early times, to possess magical qualities in themselves, and people may well have thought that those powers could be reinforced by carving certain images or symbols upon such stones. A god who could give his worshipers desirable gifts might appropriately adorn their pendants and rings; here the contact with purely religious ideas is very close. Nowadays one type of Christian may wear the image of a saint in all reverence, gaining a certain comfort of mind from the constant remembrance of a power beyond himself; to another such an image may become a mere lucky piece, which, he hopes, may give him an undeserved deliverance from the consequences of his esca­pades. Just so in Greece one man's ring might be a sincere tribute, through a delicate and beautiful art, to a deity in whom he believed and by whom he hoped to be helped and protected; to another man such a ring might be a talisman and nothing more.¹⁷

In some instances the presumption that classical ring stones had a quasi-amuletic value is rather strong. Considering the popularity of athletics in ancient Greece, it is not hard to believe that gems representing vigorous youthful gods or heroes, such as Apollo, Hermes, and Herakles, were worn by athletes to insure their success in the games. In the case of Herakles, who was often invoked as ἀλεξίκακος, “averter of evil,” an apotropaic power might be imputed to the stone as well as a positive value in giving strength and endurance. Strong and swift animals might become popular symbols for similar reasons; and if one runs over a series of gems with other than human designs, it is no abuse of the imagination to see a magical meaning in some or many of them.

Even if we allow a potential magical value to Greek gems of the Hellenic and Hellenistic periods, and concede that magical rings made from perishable metals were known in those times, it is undeniable that a marked change took place in the first century of the Christian era. Then we begin to find rings and pendants of semiprecious stones which show that they are magical, either by designs of so peculiar a character as to admit of no other classification, or by the unmistakable evidence of inscriptions. Brief petitions such as διαφύλασσε, “preserve,” or δός μοι χάριν, “grant me favor,” could be regarded merely as a special development, in a religious direction, of the so-called motto or posy inscriptions which make their appearance in this period, and which are sometimes of amuletic character. They are expressions of good will, wishes for luck, health, or long life; many have been published by Le Blant and others.¹⁸ But the striking change just mentioned is really

¹⁷ Cf. E. Bevan, Holy Images (London, 1940), p. 577: “If in the past the question of images in religion has excited such passion, for and against, that is certainly because they were not thought of as simply a means to bring home to the mind of the worshipper an unseen person, but because the other view of them, as means to act upon the unseen person, or as themselves charged with a quasi-personal supernatural power, was always there in the background.”
H. C. Youtie, who read this chapter in manuscript, remarks: “The nobler attitude towards religious symbols is illustrated in Apuleius, Apol. 33–36; the vulgar view is exemplified by the ring made of iron nails drawn from crosses (a charm against demons) and by the speaking Apollo carved on a ring stone (Lucian, Philops. 17 and 38).”

¹⁸ Le Blant, op. cit., pp. 19–46.

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