Phylactery
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a charm, spell, or amulet worn as a preservative against disease or danger. In Judaism, small square boxes, made either of parchment or black calfskin, in which are inclosed slips of vellum inscribed with passages from the Pentateuch and which are worn to this day on the head and on the left arm by every orthodox Jew on week days during the daily morning prayer. The box of which the phylactery worn on the arm is made consists of one cell wherein is deposited a parchment strip, with the following four sections written on it in four columns, each column having seven lines: I. 11. Deut. xi: Deut. vi: Exod. xiii: 13-21. 4-9. 11-16. These are the passages which are interpreted as enjoining the use of phylacteries. The box of which the phylactery for the head is made consists of four cells in which are deposited four separate slips of parchment, on which are written the same four passages of Scripture. On the outside of this phylactery to the right is impressed the regular three-pronged Hebrew letter shin, and on the left side is the same letter consisting of four prongs, which are an abbreviation for the Hebrew word Shadai, the Almighty. The phylacteries are generally made an inch and a half square, and have long leather straps attached to them, with which they are fastened to the head and arm. They are worn during prayer and sacred meditation. Also a case in which the early Christians inclosed the relics of their dead.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The ritual Collier's described in 1921 is performed the same way today, though almost no one now calls it a "phylactery" — the Greek word, which reaches English through Matthew 23:5 and carries the amulet sense given in the first line, has largely given way in both scholarship and general use to the Hebrew tefillin, precisely to avoid the implication of a charm against disease or danger. The largest real change is archaeological: the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea, excavated from the late 1940s onward, produced dozens of tiny tefillin parchments and leather cases from around the turn of the era, the oldest physical examples known, and some carry scriptural selections differing from the four passages Collier's lists as fixed. The claim that they are worn "by every orthodox Jew" also needs widening now: Chabad's public tefillin campaign, launched in 1967, brought the practice to many non-observant Jews, and women lay tefillin in Reform, Conservative and some Modern Orthodox settings.
Written for this edition, 2026.