# Alexamenos Graffito ## Intro Somewhere around AD 200, someone in a building on the Palatine Hill in Rome scratched a cartoon into the plaster. It shows a man on a cross with the head of a donkey. Beside it a young man raises his hand in a gesture of worship. Underneath, in rough Greek, are the words "Alexamenos worships [his] god." It is a joke at a Christian's expense, and that is what makes it valuable. The person who drew it knew two things about Christians: that they worshipped someone who had been crucified, and that they treated him as God. Paul had written that a crucified Messiah was "unto Gentiles foolishness" ([1 Corinthians 1:23](/codex/1-corinthians-1-23/), ASV). Here, cut into a wall, is what that foolishness looked like to an outsider. ![Photograph of a pale plaster panel with faint scratched lines showing a figure on a cross and Greek letters below](/codex/assets/alexamenos-graffito-palatine-photo.jpg) _The Alexamenos graffito, plaster, probably late 2nd or early 3rd century AD, found on the Palatine Hill in 1857, now in the Palatine Museum, Rome. Photo (contrast enhanced): Justin Benttinen, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexamenos_graffito_high_contrast.jpg), resized._ ## In full The Alexamenos graffito is an incised drawing with a Greek caption on a plaster wall of the so-called *Paedagogium* on the Palatine Hill, a building (often identified with the *Domus Gelotiana*) that was absorbed into the imperial palace complex and appears to have housed or trained imperial pages. It was discovered in 1857, later cut from the wall, and is now displayed in the Palatine Museum (Museo Palatino). Most scholars date it to the late second or early third century, often around AD 200, though proposals range from the late first to the third century. The drawing shows a figure with a donkey's or mule's head on a T-shaped cross, seen from behind, and a youth to the left with a raised hand. The caption reads ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟϹ ϹΕΒΕΤΕ ΘΕΟΝ, commonly taken as a misspelling of *Alexamenos sebetai theon*, "Alexamenos worships [his] god." A second graffito in an adjoining room reads "Alexamenos fidelis" ("Alexamenos is faithful"), which some read as a reply. The image fits a charge known from Christian and pagan literature that Christians, like Jews before them, worshipped a donkey. Tertullian answers it (*Apology* 16; *To the Nations* 1.14), Minucius Felix reports it (*Octavius* 9.3), and Origen records similar slanders in Celsus's attack on Christianity. Read in that light, the graffito is a non-Christian witness that, by about AD 200, Christians in Rome were known for worshipping a crucified man as a god, and that the cross was the obvious point of ridicule. ## Discovery and location - **1857.** Uncovered when the rooms of the building on the southwest slope of the Palatine were cleared. The building had been sealed by later construction, which preserved the plaster. - **Removal.** The panel was later detached from the wall for preservation and is displayed today in the Palatine Museum. - **Context.** The building is usually linked with the training of imperial page boys, which fits a schoolroom taunt between young men in palace service. ## The image and caption 1. **The crucified figure** has a human body, an animal's head and outstretched arms on a cross shaped like a T, with a short crossbar for the feet. It is shown from the back. 2. **The worshipper** stands to the left, one hand raised in a gesture widely used in ancient prayer and salutation. 3. **The caption** is in Greek with a spelling error. The verb is usually taken as *sebetai*, "worships," with "his" understood. 4. **The reply** in a nearby room, "Alexamenos fidelis," may be Alexamenos or a friend answering back. That reading is attractive but uncertain. ## Interpretations - **Majority view: anti-Christian mockery.** The donkey head echoes the ass-worship slander; the cross marks the god as crucified; the caption mocks Alexamenos for worshipping him. Tertullian's report of a caricature labeled "the god of the Christians" carried in Carthage shows the joke was current. - **Alternative: a pagan cult image.** Some nineteenth-century writers proposed a reference to an Egyptian deity such as Anubis or Seth, who could be shown with an animal head. Joan E. Taylor has discussed the Seth connection. Most scholars find the cross and the worshipper make the Christian reading far more likely. - **Alternative: Christian self-parody.** Isaac Soon has argued the drawing could be Christian in origin. This is a minority view. ## What it shows 1. **Christians were known as worshippers of a crucified man.** That is exactly the scandal Paul names: "we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness" ([1 Corinthians 1:23](/codex/1-corinthians-1-23/), ASV). 2. **Jesus was worshipped as a god.** The caption says *theon*, god. An outsider understood Christian devotion to Jesus as worship, not mere admiration for a teacher, which fits Pliny the Younger's report around AD 112 that Christians sang hymns "to Christ as to a god." 3. **The cross was not hidden.** The very thing that should have embarrassed the movement is what outsiders knew about it. 4. **It is among the earliest surviving images of a crucifixion.** Christian art rarely depicted the crucifixion before the fifth century, so this hostile cartoon preserves an early view of how the event was imagined. ## What it does not show - **It does not prove the resurrection** or any event of Jesus's life. It is a witness to Christian belief and practice around AD 200. - **It is not first-century.** It cannot be used as evidence for the earliest decades on its own. - **The identification of Alexamenos is unknown.** He is otherwise unattested. ## Biblical references - [1 Corinthians 1:23](/codex/1-corinthians-1-23/), *"but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness"* (ASV). - [Philippians 2:6-11](/codex/philippians-2-6-11/), the early hymn to the crucified and exalted Christ. - [Galatians 6:14](/codex/galatians-6-14/), boasting in the cross. ## Evidential status **Genuine and broadly agreed in meaning.** The object's authenticity is not in question, and the anti-Christian reading is the mainstream view. In the [New Testament Archaeology Evidence Catalog](/codex/new-testament-archaeology-evidence-catalog/) it is graded B: a strong, early, hostile witness to Christian worship of the crucified Jesus, but indirect for the New Testament itself and later than the first century. ## Scholarship Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record. - Larry W. Hurtado, *Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity* (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2003). [doi:10.5040/bci-003q](https://doi.org/10.5040/bci-003q) ## See also - [Historicity of Jesus](/codex/historicity-of-jesus/), which uses this graffito among the non-Christian witnesses - [Crucifixion Remains of Yehohanan](/codex/crucifixion-remains-of-yehohanan/), the physical evidence of Roman crucifixion - [Tertullian](/codex/tertullian/), who answers the donkey-worship charge - [Tacitus](/codex/tacitus/), an earlier hostile Roman witness to the crucified Christ - [Extra-Biblical Case for Jesus, Objections and Responses](/codex/extra-biblical-case-for-jesus-objections-and-responses/), the wider case from outside sources - [New Testament Archaeology Evidence Catalog](/codex/new-testament-archaeology-evidence-catalog/), the graded catalog ## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is the Alexamenos graffito?** It is an ancient drawing scratched into plaster on the Palatine Hill in Rome, usually dated around AD 200. It shows a man with a donkey's head on a cross and a young man worshipping, with the Greek caption "Alexamenos worships [his] god." It is generally read as a pagan joke mocking a Christian. **Q: Is the Alexamenos graffito the earliest image of Jesus?** It is among the earliest surviving images of a crucifixion and probably the earliest that refers to Jesus, but it is a hostile caricature, not a Christian portrait. Christian art rarely showed the crucifixion before the fifth century. **Q: Why does the Alexamenos graffito show a donkey's head?** Pagan critics claimed that Jews, and later Christians, worshipped a donkey. Tertullian and Minucius Felix both report the slander. The artist combined that insult with the cross to mock Christian worship of a crucified man. **Q: Where is the Alexamenos graffito today?** It was found in 1857 in a building on the Palatine Hill, later removed from the wall, and is now displayed in the Palatine Museum in Rome. **Q: What does the Alexamenos graffito prove?** It shows that by about AD 200 outsiders in Rome knew Christians as people who worshipped a crucified man as a god. It is evidence for Christian belief and the scandal of the cross ([1 Corinthians 1:23](/codex/1-corinthians-1-23/)), not for the events of Jesus's life themselves.