Secrets of the Silver Scroll

ABOVE - The Frankfurt Silver Scroll: For nearly eighteen centuries, a tiny silver scroll rested unseen beneath the soil outside Frankfurt, Germany. Rolled tightly inside a small silver capsule which resembled a Jewish phylactery. It was worn around the neck of a holy man; it was buried with him sometime during the mid third century (approx 230–260 AD). 

Archaeologists discovered the object in 2018 while excavating a Roman cemetery in Frankfurt-Praunheim, once part of the Roman settlement of Nida. The silver container was found beneath the chin of a man approximately thirty-five to forty-five years old. It had two rings attached on top suggesting that it had been suspended from his neck.

The object was so fragile that physically opening it would have destroyed it. In May 2024, specialists at the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology used high-resolution computed tomography to scan the tightly folded silver foil. Researchers then digitally “unrolled” the scroll and reconstructed its eighteen-line Latin inscription to reveal the secrets of the silver scroll. The discovery was publicly announced by the City of Frankfurt on December 11, 2024.

Living in a Roman pagan world full of people wearing amulets containing magical formulas invoking pagan gods, demons, astrological powers or mysterious spirits, this man dared to be different. He wore a Roman Catholic sacramental which bore the marks of an unmistakable orthodox theology centered entirely upon the power of faith in Jesus Christ.

The inscription has therefore been described as the earliest known material evidence of Christianity north of the Alps, predating other confirmed Christian finds in the region by at least fifty years. Even more unusual, the text is written almost entirely in Latin rather than the Greek commonly used by many early Christians. Since an incense container and a clay jar were also buried with him perhaps this was a priest. Maybe he was a missionary sent to deliver the gospel to the people and bring them the holy sacrament of the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the mass also in Latin.The burial with his thurible and humble chalice may suggest an actual saint was found.

Amulet or Sacramental?

Yet the most intriguing question may be this: Was this really an amulet or was it an early Christian sacramental?

Archaeologists understandably use the word amulet to describe an object worn on the body for protection. But the term can be misleading when applied theologically.

An amulet, in the superstitious sense, is believed to contain power within itself. Its material, symbols or secret formula supposedly manipulate invisible forces. Catholicism rejects such practices. The Catechism warns against wearing charms or treating objects as though they possess independent magical power (CCC 2117).

A sacramental is different.

A sacramental is a sacred sign through which the Church directs the believer toward God and disposes him to receive grace. A medal, crucifix, scapular or blessed object is not a spiritual machine. Its effectiveness does not arise from silver, wood, or cloth itself. It comes from God, through prayer, faith and the proper disposition of the person using those holy things.

That distinction appears to be present in the Frankfurt inscription itself.

The scroll does not claim that silver possesses power. It specifically attributes protection and salvation to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and speaks of the person who submits himself to the Lord’s will.

That sounds less like magic and more like Catholicism. It was essentially a material object as a vehicle of prayer—a practice that would later be described in Catholic theology as a sacramental.

So What does it Say?

Before we go any further, here is the full Latin inscription translated into English:

In nomine sancti Titi — In the name of Saint Titus
Agios, agios, agios — Holy, Holy, Holy
In nomine IH X P Dei filii — In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God
Mundi dominus — The Lord of the world
Viribus omnibus incurs ionibus oponit — With all his might faces attacks
Deus valetudinibus salvis accessum praestat — God, to the diseases healed, grants access
Haec salus tueat hominem, qui se dedit voluntati Domini IH X P ti Dei filii — May this salvation protect the man who surrendered himself to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God
Quoniam IH X Po omnes genua flectent, caelestes, terrestres et inferi, et omnis lingua confiteatur — For before Jesus Christ, everyone’s knees shall bend—those of heaven, those of the earth, and those underneath—and every tongue confess.

Q. What do we find in this inscription?

A. Lots of Roman Catholic stuff...

• The reverent use of a saint’s name
• sacred object worn upon the body
• a spiritual warfare prayer for divine protection
• liturgical language
• bodily submission to Christ
• incarnational union of matter and faith

A Catholic Sacramental in a Protestant Land

There is historical irony in the location of the discovery.

Germany would eventually become the birthplace of Martin Luther’s Reformation. Luther traveled through Frankfurt in 1521 on his way to the Diet of Worms. By 1533, Frankfurt’s city council had officially introduced the Reformation and temporarily prohibited the public practice of Catholicism. 

Luther claimed that the Catholic Church had become unrecognizable as being the early church that Christ had established. It had become fixated on the superstitious power of sacraments and Saints. 

But here we have a third century German man whose theology seems to align with everything Luther rejected as ‘medieval add-ons’. Beneath the soil of the land that would one day produce the Protestant Reformation, archaeologists uncovered a small silver witness to Christianity’s ancient sacramental imagination.

The Communion of Saints

The inscription appears to begin: “In the name of Saint Titus.”

That reference is striking.

Here is a third-century Christian carrying the name of a saint upon his body in a devotional context. It demonstrates that an early Christian regarded a departed apostolic figure (Titus was a companion of Saint Paul) as holy and invoked his name in connection with prayer and spiritual protection.

This is entirely compatible with the Catholic doctrine of the Communion of Saints. Christianity was not understood as a purely private relationship between an isolated individual and Jesus. The Christian remained spiritually connected to the apostles, martyrs and holy members of Christ’s Body.

The scroll therefore challenges the claim that devotion involving saints must have been a late medieval corruption. The precise form of the devotion may be debated, but the instinct behind it was already present very early.

Language of the Holy Mass

The next words are even more remarkable: “Holy, holy, holy!”

The triple Sanctus (Trisagion) echoes Isaiah’s vision of the seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,” as well as the heavenly worship described in the Book of Revelation.

The language Catholics still proclaim at every Mass was already part of Christian prayer in the third century:

“Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.”

The spirituality of the scroll is liturgical and worshipful. The Christian who wore it lived within a world of sacred words, sacred gestures and sacred material signs,  ie. Catholic.

High Christology

The inscription continues: “In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!”

This is an unambiguous expression of what theologians call high Christology. Jesus is not presented merely as a moral teacher, prophet or inspiring religious leader. He is identified as the divine Son of God and the sovereign Lord before whom the entire cosmos must bow.

The scroll is dated roughly a century before the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. It therefore provides material evidence that belief in Christ’s divine identity was well established before the fourth-century council.

A Material “Means of Salvation”

The middle portion of the inscription is damaged and difficult to translate. The reconstructed text nevertheless speaks of the Lord resisting attacks or misfortunes and of a “means of salvation” protecting the person who entrusts himself to the will of Jesus Christ.

The crucial point is that the object does not appear to operate automatically.

Protection is only connected to the human person who: “surrenders himself to the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son.”

That is the opposite of magic.

Magic attempts to control spiritual power through technique. Christian faith submits the human person to God’s will.

The scroll’s protection is therefore relational rather than mechanical. It is Christ who saves. The material object, though holy, only bears and preserves a prayer directing the wearer toward Christ.

It reflects the same incarnational principle upon which sacramentals are based:

God can and does use physical things to direct human beings toward invisible grace and as a channel of that grace.

Bodily Worship

The inscription concludes with an almost direct citation from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians:

“At the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Philippians 2:10–11).

Catholics continue to express this biblical belief bodily. We bow at the name of Jesus. We genuflect before Christ’s Eucharistic presence. We kneel during the consecration. The body participates in worship because Christianity is an incarnational religion.

For this holy man, and for every Catholic, Jesus Christ is not merely remembered or discussed. He is adored as Lord, and worshiped with our entire being body and soul as expressed in the act of genuflection and kneeling.

BELOW: We can see the skeletal remains of the Catholic man who seems to be locked into an eternal and prayerful bow of the head. The Silver Scroll is beneath his chin as indicated by the arrow.