“Alexamenos is faithful.”

One of the earliest depictions of Jesus is a sketch mocking him. The Alexamenos graffito, also known as the graffito blasfemo, was scratched into the plaster of a wall near Palatine Hill in Rome around 200. The building had been an imperial house for Caligula then a boarding school for imperial page boys. It seems the graffiti was done during this time, by boys mocking a Christian in their ranks. The wall was covered up when extensions were added and remained hidden until 1857.

The image shows a figure being crucified with a head of a horse or donkey and a man dressed as a Roman soldier or guard looking on. There seems to be a Greek upsilon, tau cross, or Y written above. The Greek words below say, “Alexamenos worships his god.” It seems to be graffiti mocking a Christian named Alexamenos. There seems to have been a common claim among pagan Romans that Jews and Christians worshiped god in the form of a donkey around the first century. It’s possible that’s why the Christ figure in the drawing has a donkey head.

Tacitus claims the Jews, when wandering in the desert, followed a herd of wild asses to water, and so in the Temple, "they consecrated an image of the animal which had delivered them.” And even though, upon entering the Temple, found its sanctuary to be empty, it must have been from this story, that the notion that Christians, coming from Judaism, also worshipped that image, supposed Tertullian. Contemporary Jewish and Christian writers like Josephus and Tertullian both are seen refuting the charges of donkey worship.

Marcus Cornelius Fronto, an orator and rhetorician who was the tutor of Marcus Aurelius, asserted that Christians “worship a crucified man, and even the instrument itself of his punishment. They are said to worship the head of an ass, and even the nature of their father."

Because Christians were meeting in secret because of fear of persecution, and because the beliefs of monotheism were so different from that of the Roman polytheism, there were several misinterpretations and lies about Christianity being spread at the time, like that the Eucharist was cannibalism. The boys of the school had clearly heard the rumor of donkey worship. Whether they truly believed it or knew it was just a way to mock Christians, they used it to mocked Alexamenos. Though we are used to seeing art of the crucifixion now, crucifixion was still a very real form of execution and not used as a Christian symbol (and wouldn’t be for a few more centuries) when they wrote the graffiti; it was part of the mockery.

In the next room, there is an inscription in Latin says, “Alexamenos is faithful.” As Christianity gains protection and then power, it is safe to express pride in faith. Maybe this was written in those later, safer times. Or maybe this was a defiant retort, written before that era of safety.

Poor Alexamenus had to endure libel and mockery and who knows what else. But now his faith amidst mockery is still remembered. The graffiti is in a museum. Alexamenus’ name is connected along with the earliest depiction of Christ. Who’s laughing now?