The engagement with these objectives is perhaps most apparent in the primary publications of the project and in the three project conferences. Most importantly, Joseph Emanuel Sanzo (the PI) published a project monograph, Ritual Boundaries: Magic and Differentiation in Late Antique Christianity (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2024). The book challenges the idea that religious differentiation was primarily an “elite” concern by demonstrating that the Christian magical objects were in fact concerned with religious identification and, more importantly, with religious differentiation from Jews (Objectives 1 and 2). This latter insight has much broader implications for the study of pre-modern history since the magical objects are typically understood as one of the main sets of evidence supporting the idea that religious differentiation was primarily a concern of religious elites. The book reorients longstanding categories in the study of religion, such as syncretism, magic, and Christianity (Objective 3), and provides a new hermeneutical lens through which scholars might reread late antique patristic and monastic sources (Objective 4). This book has already been recognized as one of the pioneering studies of a new approach to early Jewish-Christian relations (see Simcha Gross, "Beyond Coexistence: Social Boundaries and Violence Between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity," Studies in Late Antiquity 9 [2025]: 379–400, especially 390–96). In addition, the dissertation of Sandrine Welte and an article by Alessia Bellusci' have detailed how the textual, visual, and material features of early Jewish and Christian magical objects participated in the construction of religious identity in lived religion (see Objectives 1 and 2).
The EJCM's three international conferences also directly engaged with the four objectives. The papers presented in the first two conferences focused on how ancient magical sources can help us assess inter-religious contact between Jews and Christians (and others) in lived religion, utilising and synthesising methods drawn from a range of disciplines (see Objective 1). Several papers engaged with Objective 2 by examining the relationship between magic and sacred history (Jacques van Der Vliet), by assessing similar practices among Babylonian Jews and Syriac Christians (Simcha Gross and Ra'anan Boustan), by bringing for the first time the Mandaean evidence to bear on discussions of early Jewish-Christian relations (Matthew Morgenstern), and by comparing Jewish and Christian approaches to harmful magical rituals in the material evidence (Miruna Belea). Other papers engaged with Objective 3 by critically engaging with fundamental categories in religious studies such as syncretism (Roxanne Belanger-Sarrazin) and liturgy (Giovanni Bazzana and Michele Scarlassara). Finally, some papers frontally dealt with Objective 4 by assessing how the works of patristic writers and hagiographers might be reread in light of the magical evidence (Julie Van Pelt and Paolo Lucca). The final conference brought together scholars of ancient Mediterranean religion and magic with scholars of Armenian magic to address the use of short stories (historiolae) in magical practice. This conference thus drew from a broad array of researchers, with interests in the visual, textual, and material features of the Armenian magical materials (see Objective 1) as a way of grappling with the relationship between magical texts and intercultural contacts (see Objective 2) as well as assessing the interface of an important ritual practice—the magical historiola (see Objective 3)—and literary genres (see Objective 4).
