Christians, like their neighbors,
considered the fish to have apotropaic power. The individual letters of
the Greek word for “fish,” ICHTHYS, also formed an acronym representing
the Greek Words Iēsous Christos,
THeou Yios Sôtêr
(“Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior”). The term ICHTHYS thus was
considered an employed by Christians as a powerful apotropaic. Where found as
an inscription, the acronym generally identifies distinctly Christian apotropaic
and amulets. An amulet in the Berlin Bode Museum (previously the Kaiser
Friedrich Museum) shows two fish under a cross. A phallus amulet shaped like a
fish at one end and having its own end, a mano fica is a composite amulet,
which shows even more clearly the Christian association of fish, phallus, and mano
fica as related conventional designs for warding off the Evil Eye. The
Christus Rex (“Christ the King”) monogram on phylacteries also was ascribed
apotropaic power and marked the phylacteries as Christian. (John H. Elliott, Beware
the Evil Eye: The Evil Eye in the Bible and the Ancient World, 4 vols. [Eugene,
Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2017], 4:103)