Alexamenos graffito

Alexamenos graffito
Photo of the plaster Tracing of the inscription
Material	Plaster
Writing	Ancient Greek inscription: ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟϹ ϹΕΒΕΤΕ ΘΕΟΝ ("Alexamenos worships [his] god")
Period/culture	Early 3rd century AD
Discovered	1857
Present location	Palatine Museum, Rome
Culture	Ancient Rome

The Alexamenos graffito (Italian: graffito blasfemo, lit. 'blasphemous graffito',^[1]: 393 or graffito di Alessameno) is a piece of Roman graffiti scratched into the plaster of a wall in a room near the Palatine Hill in Rome, Italy, which has since been removed and is now located in the Palatine Museum. Often said to be the earliest depiction of Jesus, the graffito is difficult to date, but has been estimated to have been made around the year 200 AD.^[2] The image seems to show a young man worshiping a crucified, donkey-headed figure. The Ancient Greek inscription approximately translates to ''Alexamenos worships [his] god'',^[3] indicating that the graffito was apparently meant to mock a Christian named Alexamenos.^[4]

The image depicts a human-like figure affixed to a cross and possessing the head of a donkey or mule. In the top right of the image is what has been interpreted as either the Greek letter upsilon or a tau cross.^[1] To the left of the image is a young man – apparently intended to represent Alexamenos^[5] – as a Roman soldier or guard, raising one hand in a gesture possibly suggesting worship.^[6][7]

Beneath the cross is a crude caption written as "ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟϹ ϹΕΒΕΤΕ ΘΕΟΝ". The word "ϹΕΒΕΤΕ" can be understood as a variant (or a possible phonetic misspelling) of the Standard Greek word ϹΕΒΕΤΑΙ, which means ''worships''.^[a] The inscription would then be read as "Ἀλεξάμενος σέβεται θεόν", or ''Alexamenos worships [his] God''.^[8][9] Several other sources suggest ''Alexamenos worshipping a god'' or other similar variants as the intended translation.^{[10][11][12][13]}

In the next chamber, another inscription in a different hand written in both Greek and Latin reads as "ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟϹ FIDELIS" ("Alexamenos fidelis"), which either means ''Alexamenos is faithful'' or ''Alexamenos the faithful''.^[14] This may be a retort by an unknown party to the mockery of Alexamenos represented in the graffito.^[15]

No clear consensus has been reached on when the image was made. Dates ranging from the late 1st century AD to the late 3rd century AD have been suggested,^[16] with the beginning of the 3rd century AD thought to be the most likely.^[8][15]

The graffito was discovered in 1857 when a building known as the domus Gelotiana was unearthed on the Palatine Hill. The emperor Caligula had acquired the house for the imperial palace, which after Caligula died was used as a Paedagogium (boarding school) for imperial page boys. Later, the street along which the house sat was walled off to support extensions to the buildings above and thus remained sealed for centuries.^[17]

The inscription is usually considered to be a mocking depiction of a Christian in the act of worship. The donkey's head and crucifixion would both have been considered insulting depictions by contemporary Roman society. Crucifixion continued to be used as a method of execution for the worst criminals until its abolition by the first Christian emperor Constantine I in the early 4th century AD.^[18]

It seems to have been commonly believed at the time that Christians practiced onolatry (donkey-worship). That was based on the misconception that Jews worshiped a god in the form of a donkey, a claim made by Apion (30–20 BC – c. 45-48 AD) and denied by Josephus in his work Against Apion.^[19]

Origen reports in his treatise Contra Celsum that the pagan philosopher Celsus made the same claim against Christians and Jews.^[20]

Tertullian, writing during the late 2nd or early 3rd century, reports that Christians, along with Jews, were accused of worshiping such a deity. He also mentions an apostate Jew who carried around Carthage a caricature of a Christian with a donkey's ears and hooves, labeled Deus Christianorum ὀνοκοίτης^[21] (''The God of the Christians conceived of an ass'').^[22]

In the image, Alexamenos is portrayed venerating an image of the crucifix, a detail that Peter Maser believed to represent the Christian practice of venerating icons. The practice, however, was not known to be part of Christian worship until the 4th or 5th century.^[8]

Some scholars of the 19th century argued that the inscription is actually a depiction of the jackal-headed Egyptian god Anubis. For example, in Rev. John P. Lundy's book on early Christian history published in 1876, it identifies the inscription as the "Gnostic Anubis."^[23] He writes that the inscription depicts the "head of Anubis, or Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury and custodian of the dead".^[24] 19th-century scholar Charles William King says it is disputed whether it is a caricature of a Christian convert or an adoration of the jackal-headed god Anubis.^[25]

• Anti-Christian sentiment

• Titus Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, II (VII), 2.80
• Norman Walker, The Riddle of the Ass's Head, and the question of a trigram, ZAW 9 (1963), 219–231.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexamenos graffito.

• The Alexamenos Graffito: page by Rodney J. Decker
• Alexamenos and pagan perceptions of Christians
• Alexamenos: a Christian mocked for believing in a crucified God