Tag: 3rd century

Alexamenos Graffito: Was the Earliest Depiction of Jesus Christ – a Crucified Man with a Donkey’s Head? (6.9.2023)

Although this object originates from the Roman graffiti scratched into the plaster of a wall found in a room of a building (the ‘domus Gelotiana’ or ‘House of Gelotian’) – situated in the Palatine Hill area of Rome (modern Italy – the object subsequently being relocated to the Palatine Museum) – it could be that the ‘artist’ was inspired by the (197 CE) writing of Tertulliani or that Tertulliani was motivated in 197 CE by the already existing graffiti. A third scenario is that Tertulliani and the graffiti are unrelated – but that both represent an underlying and common reality – the essence of which both are referencing. Depending upon the exact date – the ‘Alexamenos Graffiti’ may well be the ‘earliest’ depiction relating to Christianity – albeit in a derogatory form. The crude Greek text scratched under the cross reads ‘ΑΛΕ ΞΑΜΕΝΟϹ ϹΕΒΕΤΕ ΘΕΟΝ’ – which seems to say ‘Alexamenos Ingests [his preferred] God’.

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Email: Luling Iron Cross Fabrication! (27.4.2023)

My personal opinion is that as ‘Crosses’ were not yet being widely used within Palestine by Jewish-Christian, I see no reason to assume that a ‘Crusader-era’ Cross would a) exist during the 3rd century CE, or b) be transported to China as an ‘act of faith’ and ‘conversion’! All these (hideous) aspects of Christian belief would not infest the teachings of Christ for many centuries to come. As I have said elsewhere, even the 8th century (Nestorian) Christian (stone) monuments preserved within China do NOT possess a single example of a ‘Cross’! 

The ‘Couplet’ was probably composed during the 14th century CE to placate and interest the ‘new’ Sun Wu Emperor – a peasant who had overthrown the (foreign) Yuan Dynasty and re-established Chinese rule of China! This Emperor apparently liked poetry and particularly favoured ‘Couplets’ – so perhaps an over-zealous Minister (who had heard of ‘Christianity’) decided to fabricate the ‘finding’ of a ‘Cross’ (also constructed during the 14th century) – which soon had to go ‘missing’ so as to prevent any serious investigation of the matter – and the entire fabrication being found out! Heads would have rolled!

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