Tertullian, the Alexamenos graffito, and P66

Approximately 1800 years ago someone (a child or teenager) scrawled (in Greek) an insult into the plaster walls of Emperor Caligula's former palace, "Alexamenos worships [his] god'' along with a crudely drawn image of a figure raising their hand in worship to a crucified figure with a donkey's head. This particular section of Caligula's palace was later used as a training school for court servants who had graduated from the Paedagogium ad caput Africae (School at the head of Africa), "from the name of a street which led from the Coliseum to the aristocratic quarter of the Coelia" (Lanciani, Ancient Rome, 122). There are many inscriptions that testify to this time period. One inscription reads, Corinthus exit de paedagogio (Corinthus exits the School). The most famous inscription is the insult to Alexamenos, also known as the Alexamenos Graffitto. The crudely drawn image has the Greek phrase "Ἀλεξάμενος σέβετε θεόν," with σέβετε being a phonetic misspelling of σέβεται, the ε and the diphthong αι were pronounced the same at this time (MacLean, An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, 208).

Sketch of the Alexamenos graffito (Garrucci, Il crocifisso graffito, 5)

There have been a variety of dates given for this inscription with proposals ranging as early as 85 CE, but with the standard date given as the third century. Hans Schwarz, Christology, argues that the Alexamenos gaffito dates to 85AD (pg. 207) whereas Raffaele Garrucci, Il crocifisso graffito, argues that the graffito should be dated to the early third century (pg. 13). Peter Keegan notes that 

"[u]sing relative and internal criteria to determine various relationships between the building and the graffiti, it is possible to say that, in relative terms, the graffiti in room 6 are Trajanic, Hadrianic, or possibly Antonine (CE 98-138 or 192), while those in rooms 7 and 8 date to the second and third centuries AD. Applying internal criteria case by case allows a few graffiti to be traced specifically to the time of Septimius Severus and the Severan period." (Keegan, "Reading the ‘Pages’ of the Domus Caesaris," 72)

Image of Alexamenos graffito (Lanciani, Ancient Rome, 123)

 

The uncertainty expressed concerting the dating of the graffito has probably been leveraged too far in the case of P.Bodmer II (P66). Brent Nongbri argued that P66 was likely copied in the 4th century rather than the early 3rd-century as it has often been presented (Nongbri, "The Limits," 34-35). One piece of evidence that Nongbri points to as supporting a 4th century date is the presence of the tau-rho ligature known as the "staurogram" (see earlier post). I have already addressed some of the problems with these conclusions in an earlier post, as further support for dating the use of cruciform imagery into the 4th century, Nongbri mentioned the Alexamenos graffito (Nongbri, "The Limits," 33-34, footnote 84). He notes the certainty of the terminus post quem yet states that the 3rd century dating "was largely based upon the editor's opinion of when such a polemical graffito would have been appropriate" (Nongbri, "The Limits," 33-34, footnote 84). The editor Nongbri was citing was Raffaele Garrucci. Unfortunately, Nongbri never engages with the content of Garrucci's arguments but rather disregards it as mere editorial opinion. Garrucci actually cites several ancient sources that do in fact make a date of the early third century a more plausible date for the graffito. Lets turn to some of the evidence below.

Tertullian 

Tertullian wrote his Apology in the year 197-198 CE (Glover, "Introduction," xix). In it he quotes a common myth, perpetuated by the Roman historian Tacitus (Tertullian quotes from book five of his Annals), that Jews worshiped the head of an ass.

"For, like some others, you are under the delusion that our god is an ass's head. Cornelius Tacitus first put this notion into people's minds. In the fifth book of his histories, beginning the (narrative of the) Jewish war with an account of the origin of the nation; and theorizing at his pleasure about the origin, as well as the name and the religion of the Jews, he states that having been delivered, or rather, in his opinion, expelled from Egypt, in crossing the vast plains of Arabia, where water is so scanty, they were in extremity from thirst; but taking the guidance of the wild asses, which it was thought might be seeking water after feeding, they discovered a fountain, and thereupon in their gratitude they consecrated a head of this species of animal. And as Christianity is nearly allied to Judaism, from this, I suppose, it was taken for granted that we too are devoted to the worship of the same image." (Tertullian, Apol. 16)

Tertullian continued with the same theme of Christians being accused of worshiping an ass's head later in the same chapter.

"But lately a new edition of our god has been given to the world in that great city: it originated with a certain vile man who was wont to hire himself out to cheat the wild beasts, and who exhibited a picture with this inscription: The God of the Christians, born of an ass. He had the ears of an ass, was hoofed in one foot, carried a book, and wore a toga. Both the name and the figure gave us amusement. But our opponents ought straightway to have done homage to this biformed divinity, for they have acknowledged gods dog-headed and lion-headed, with horn of buck and ram, with goat-like loins, with serpent legs, with wings sprouting from back or foot. These things we have discussed ex abundanti, that we might not seem willingly to pass by any rumor against us unrefuted." (Tertullian, Apol. 16)

This myth was so widespread that Tertullian, living in Carthage North Africa, was able to speak of the popularity of this myth in Rome.

 

Minucius Felix 

Writing about the same time as Tertullian, Minucius Felix, living in Rome, wrote about a similar myth that the Romans believed concerning the Christians supposedly worshiping the head of an ass.

"I hear that they adore the head of an ass, that basest of creatures, consecrated by I know not what silly persuasion." (Minucius Felix, Octavius, 9)

Celsus

Origen, writing in the mid 3rd century, quotes from Celsus, the pagan philosopher who wrote a polemic against Christians around the year 180 CE (Hoffmann, Celsus, On the true Doctrine, 32). Celsus's work was called, On the True Doctrine, and he mentions the following myth concerning Jews and Christians.

"For the sake of such a monstrous delusion, and in support of those wonderful advisers, and those wonderful words which you address to the lion, to the amphibious creature, to the creature in the form of an ass, and to others, for the sake of those divine doorkeepers whose names you commit to memory with such pains, in such a cause as this you suffer cruel tortures, and perish at the stake." (Origen, Contra Celsum, 7.40)

Celsus notes that Christians are willing to die as martyrs for their beliefs and associates the image of an ass with Christian devotion.

Conclusions

The literary evidence from the first through the third centuries is extensive; the Romans believed that Christians worshiped the head of an ass. It seems very fitting then that a slave in the imperial entourage would be a Christian (see Pliny the Younger, Ep. 10.96, who describes Christian slaves as the object of his interrogation). It also seems highly plausible that one of the many other slaves would taunt this Christian with images of a donkey-headed Jesus on a cross sometime in the late second century when Celsus was writing and when Tertullian was writing about these myths. This negative depiction of Christian veneration of Jesus on the cross fits well within a late second through early third century context. This means that the use of the "staurogram" as a visual representation of Jesus on the cross in P.Bodmer II (P66) fits well within the period of it's early third century dating.

The Staurogram in P.Bodmer II (P66) 

(https://bodmerlab.unige.ch/fr/constellations/papyri/mirador/1072205287?page=140)

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Bibliography

 

Garrucci, Raffaele, Il crocifisso graffito in casa dei cesari ed il simbolismo cristiano in una corniola del secondo secolo (COI TIPI DELLA CIVILTÀ CATTOLICA, 1857)
(https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_kE9SZ86woNQC/page/n1/mode/2up)

Glover, T. R., trans. Tertullian, Apology and De Spectaculis, Gerald H. Rendall, trans. Minucius Felix, Octavius (LOEB, Harvard University Press, 1931)

Hoffmann, R. Joseph , tans. Celsus, On the true doctrine: a discourse against the Christians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). 

Keegan, Peter, “Reading the ‘Pages’ of the Domus Caesaris: Pueri Delicati, Slave Education, and the Graffiti of the Palatine Paedagogium,” in Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture, edited by Michelle George (University of Toronto Press, 2013); 69–98

Lanciani, Rodolfo, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries (Cambridge, MA: Houghton and Mifflin, 1888) (https://archive.org/details/ancientromeinlig00lancuoft/page/121/mode/1up)
 

MacLean, B.H., An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods from Alexander the Great down to the Reign of Constantine (University of Michigan Press, 2002).
(https://books.google.com/books?id=x2AD3M77TgMC&pg=RA1-PA208#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Nongbri, Brent “The Limits of Palaeographic Dating of Literary Papyri: Some Observations on the Date and Provenance of P. Bodmer II (P66),” Museum Helveticum 71 (2014): 1-35.

Schwarz, Hans, Christology (Eerdmans, 1998).