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)

________________________________

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).

Scripture as Trash in Roman Oxyrhynchus

 

Excavations in the trash mounds at Oxyrhynchus

 

A number of years ago AnneMarie Luijendijk (a professor at Princeton University) wrote an article addressing the state of biblical manuscripts discovered in the trash heaps of Roman Oxyrhynchus.

 AnneMarie Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus," Vigiliae Christianae 64 (2010): 217-254.

In this article she notes that many complete manuscripts of both secular classical literature and Christian literature were discarded as trash, often torn up into several pieces before being thrown away (Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures," 244). The fact that these seemingly useful manuscripts were intentionally torn up before discarding is noted as far back as the original excavation reports at Oxyrhynchus by Grenfell and Hunt (Grenfell and Hunt, “Excavations at Oxyrhynchus," 361). Don Barker has also noted that many of the book fragments found at Oxyrhynchus give evidence of being torn up before being discarded (Barker, “Codex, Roll, and Libraries in Oxyrhynchus,” 140, n33). It is nearly impossible to know the exact circumstances of why these papyri were torn up. Luijendijk gives an insightful answer at the end of the article, comparing the late antique practice of destroying sacred icons before discarding them as a way of breaking the sacred image away from the physical icon.

"I consider it quite likely that people, in this case early Christians from Oxyrhynchus, purposely shredded sacred scriptures when they discarded them in order to definitely break the link between sacred text and sacred manuscript." (Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures," 249)

At the end of the article Luijendijk lists out several copies of New Testament writings (and a few of the Shepherd of Hermas) that where likely thrown out as whole or nearly whole manuscripts, yet torn up into smaller fragments before being tossed into the trash mound. Why would Christians feel the necessity to throw away a copy of their scriptures, even if they were damaged? Luijendijk, indirectly gives an answer, a likely scenario is that these papyrus copies of the New Testament (and the Shepherd of Hermas) were replaced by new parchment copies (Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures," 230-231). Jerome informs us that at one point, an extensive project was undertaken at the Cesarean Library to restore the aging papyrus manuscripts onto parchment codices.

"Euzoius was educated as a young man at Caesarea along with Gregory, the bishop of Nazianzus, under the rhetor Thespesius and later became bishop of the same city; with very great toil he attempted to restore on parchment the library of Origen and Pamphilus that had been damaged." (Jerome, Vir ill. 113; translation taken from Carriker, p. 23, n. 70)

This possibility becomes more likely when considering that there was a manufacturer of manuscript parchment located in Oxyrhychus. Luijendijk argues this fact in another work, suggesting that Sotas, the third century bishop of Oxyrhynchus was likely involved in the production of books, noting that he wrote two letters on fragments of parchment, rather than papyrus. This was highly unusual and indicates that scraps of parchment left over from book production were available for use in letter writing (Luijendijk, "Greetings in the Lord," 144-151).

There are two implications that can be drawn from this evidence concerning the early Christian view of scripture, at least as it was held in Roman Oxyrhynchus at the time these manuscripts were discarded. First, Christians seem to have viewed the “text” of their scripture, the message that they conveyed, as more important than the physical objects of the scriptures. They did not hold onto their physical books as sacred relics to be worshiped, rather, they valued the message that the texts conveyed.

Second, related to this idea, these Christians did not seem to give greater value to the these more ancient books for their closer proximity in time to the “autographs.” In other words, they saw no need to hold onto and preserve these older copies of the New Testament writings as if they would help to safeguard the New Testament from textual corruption. Once good copies of these manuscripts were made, the old ones could be discarded.

Though admittedly speculative, these observations push hard against the idea that the “autographs” of the New Testament survived for centuries. As I have noted in a previous post, it is highly likely that early copies of at least some of the New Testament books lasted for many years. Yet, if the attitudes of Christians at Oxyrhynchus can be extrapolated more broadly in the early Christian community, it is likely that many of the “autographs and first copies” (to borrow Craig Evans’s language) of the New Testament writings were tossed into the trash heaps once good copies were made. It wasn't the guarding and keeping of the "autographs" that preserved the New Testament so amazingly well, it was the early and widespread abundant copying of the New Testament that ensured its preservation.

_______________________

AnneMarie Luijendijk, Greetings in the Lord: Early Christians and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Cambridge/Massachusetts:Harvard University Press, 2008.

  

AnneMarie Luijendijk, "Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus," Vigiliae Christianae 64 (2010): 217-254.

 

Andrew James Carriker. The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea. VCsup 67. Leiden: Brill, 2003.

 

Craig A. Evans, “How Long were Late Antique Books in Use? Possible Implications for New Testament Textual Criticism,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 25.1 (2015): 23-37.

 

Don C. Barker, “Codex, Roll, and Libraries in Oxyrhynchus,”Tyndale Bulletin 57.1 (2006): 131-148.

 

Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, “Excavations at Oxyrhynchus: Fifth Season (1905-6).

Cicero On Repairing His Damaged Books

Repairing a loose fragment of P.Oxy 3203 using small ‘tabs’ applied with tweezers.
Image from the British Museum Blog
Faith after the pharaohs: Egyptian papyri conservation - British Museum Blog

I have written elsewhere of the various circumstances that could shorten the useful life of ancient books (See Here). Not only could books be outright destroyed, ancient documents could be damaged by use and environment to such an extend as to be almost unusable (See Previous Post Here). Cicero (106 BCE-43 BCE), was sent into exile to Thessalonica by a law introduced by Publius Clodius Pulcher. In his absence, Cicero's library had been damaged, dispersed, and a portion of it possibly destroyed (Houston, 218). Upon his return from exile, he began to re-assemble and repair his library. In order to do this, Cicero aquired the services of the Greek Scholar Tyrannio of Amisus. Cicero also turned to his friend Atticus, asking him to send slaves that could repair damaged papyrus and parchment, and to attach titles to rolls.

"It will be delightful if you come to see us here. You will find that Tyrannio has made a wonderfully good arrangement of my books, the remains of which are better than I had expected. Still, I wish you would send me a couple of your library slaves for Tyrannio to employ as gluers, and in other subordinate work, and tell them to get some fine parchment to make title-pieces, which you Greeks, I think, call "sillybi." But all this is only if not inconvenient to you. In any case, be sure you come yourself, if you can halt for a while in such a place, and can persuade Pilia to accompany you. For that is only fair, and Tullia is anxious that she should come. My word! You have purchased a fine troop! Your gladiators, I am told, fight superbly. If you had chosen to let them out you would have cleared your expenses by the last two spectacles. But we will talk about this later on. Be sure to come, and, as you love me, see about the library slaves." (Att. 4.4b)

From this interchange it can be seen that the care of a library in antiquity took a considerable amount of work by scholars and slaves alike. It goes to show how precious and valuable it is that we have so many manuscripts that have survived (in various states of completion) from antiquity.

___________________

English translation of Cicero's letter to Atticus by Evelyn Shuckburgh
Letters to Atticus/4.4b - Wikisource, the free online library

Houston, George W. Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2014)

Did the New Testament Autographs Wear Out?

P.Fam.Tebt. 15. British Library Papyrus 1885 (ca. 114 CE)

It has been a common statement for scholars to claim that the autographs of the New Testament writings would have worn out quickly through their frequent use. Metzger's comments in his The Text of The New Testament are representative;

"Their [the autographs] early loss is not surprising, for during persecutions the toll taken by imperial edicts aiming to destroy all copies of the sacred books of Christians must have been heavy. Furthermore, simply the ordinary wear and tear of the fragile papyus, on which at least the shorter Epistles of the New Testament had been written (see the reference to χαρτης in 2 John, verse 12), would account for their early dissolution. It is not difficult to imagine what would happen in the course of time to one much-handled manuscript, passing from reader to reader, perhaps from church to church (see Col. 4.16) and suffering damage from the fingers of eager, if devout readers as well as from climatic changes." Metzger and Erhman, p. 266, footnote 20)

Though these kinds of statements about the autographs appear reasonable, they are rarely supported by any actual evidence.

A recent issue of Mnemosyne highlights some documentary evidence that might shed light on these common claims of the New Testament autographs wearing out.

Mark de Kreij, Daniela Colomo, Andrew Lui, “Shoring Up Sappho: P.Oxy. 2288 and Ancient Reinforcements of Bookrolls,” Mnemosyne (2020):1-34.

This article discusses in detail a fragment of Sappho's Ode to Aphrodite with an underlying layer of papyrus used as a repair to the Sappho roll. It is section 4 of the article that is relevant to the New Testament autographs, "Papyri Repaired or Reinforced in Antiquity." This is a brilliant discussion of the remains of two papyri that were part of a family archive in Tebtunis Egypt. There was a dispute regarding the poor state of the documents found in the public archives of the Arisinoites. The first papyrus P.Fam.Tebt. 15 dates to ca. 114 CE, and the second, P.Fam.Tebt. 24 dates to 124 CE.

The court case involved the terrible state the public archived documents were in. Accusations arose between clerks charged with the care of the archival rolls and there were disputes as to whom the responsibility of repairing the documents fell. It is apparent that the records were in disrepair for some years as the earliest reference to the poor state of the archive was made in 71 CE (Jennifer Cromwell, "Law and the Art of Bookroll Maintenance," Papyrus Stories). The disputes between clerks in taking responsibility in repairing the damaged rolls continued into the ensuing decades with the clerks' heirs. Eventually the Prefect steps in to settle the argument (for a summary of the entire dispute spanning decades and involving the heirs see P.Fam.Tebt 24).

The relevance to the longevity of New Testament autographs can be found in the description of the state of the papyrus documents;

"The documents shown to me by the clerk Leonidas … were in some cases deprived of their beginning, or damaged, or moth-eaten, and do not allow an estimation of the cost of the διακόλησις." (P.Fam.Tebt. 15, ll. 35-37. transl. by the authors)

The beginning and end of these documents were missing and other damage such as by moths is mentioned. The explanation as to why these records were in such a poor state comes later;

"Since the books have been hastily moved from one place to another, repeatedly, lying on top of each other and unattached, due to the quantity, since the nome is so large, and since they are being handled daily, and their material is brittle, it happened that some were destroyed in parts, some others were without beginnings, and some had even fallen apart." (P.Fam.Tebt. 15, lines 68-71. transl. by the authors)

It is this description of the worn papyrus rolls and other documents that sheds some light on the autographs of the New Testaments writings. If the New Testament writings began to be copied and distributed rapidly (within a few years) throughout the first century Mediterranean world, then it is possible that the "autographs" (however one may define this) would have been subjected to similar miss-handling and damage through frequent use.
It is difficult to know precisely how long these official archival records were in a bad state, though it is clear that they were in a poor condition for at least forty years. Significant portions of these documents had to be reconstructed from duplicate archives.

"And Mettius wrote to Archelaus, sometime strategos, to make sure that we copied the missing parts from the documents entered at Alexandria and completed those rolls in the archive that are without beginnings." (P.Fam.Tebt. 15, ll. 83-85. transl. by the authors)

It is important to note here that there was text missing from these documents that had to be compared with duplicate copies in Alexandria for the missing text to be restored. Thus, if the state of these records can be compared with the "original" copies (however one may define this) of the New Testament writings, then their ability to be used by scribes as master copies in order to transcribe new copies would greatly diminish at a rapid rate. Using the example of the archival documents, within a period of 50 years the "autographs" of some of the New Testament writings could have been in an almost unusable state of preservation.

___________________________________

Bibliography

Mark de Kreij, Daniela Colomo, Andrew Lui, “Shoring Up Sappho: P.Oxy. 2288 and Ancient Reinforcements of Bookrolls,” Mnemosyne (2020): 1-34.

Metzger, Bruce Manning, and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.