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’.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 