About the ass as symbol of the demiurge...

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Giuseppe
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About the ass as symbol of the demiurge...

Post by Giuseppe »

The Alexamenos graffito is generally considered a Pagan mockery against all the Christians.

But in the light of the relative diffusion of the Christian separationism, particularly in the more radical dualistic form where the same Christ mocked and cursed the crucified Jesus (symbol of the crucified Law), then I wonder if the crucified Jesus, just in virtue of the his notorious full observance of the Law, represents just the same Law, and hence he allegorizes the same material world:

Galatians 6:12-15
12 Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 Not even those who are circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your circumcision in the flesh. 14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.

If the crucified man (as distinct from the divine Christ) allegorizes the material world of the creator, then could the same creator be mocked as the ass crucified in the Alexamenos graffito ?

This thread is devoted therefore to the evidence available about the identification of the demiurge with the Ass.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: About the ass as symbol of the demiurge...

Post by Giuseppe »

We start with Genesis 49:10-11:

The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come
and the obedience of the nations shall be his.

He will tether his donkey to a vine,
his colt to the choicest branch;


Here the ass is connected with the victory of the Christ.


In 1 Samuel 10:

10 Then Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying, “Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance? 2 When you leave me today, you will meet two men near Rachel’s tomb, at Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you set out to look for have been found. And now your father has stopped thinking about them and is worried about you. He is asking, “What shall I do about my son?”’
...
14 Now Saul’s uncle asked him and his servant, “Where have you been?”
“Looking for the donkeys,” he said. “But when we saw they were not to be found, we went to Samuel.”
15 Saul’s uncle said, “Tell me what Samuel said to you.”
16 Saul replied, “He assured us that the donkeys had been found.” But he did not tell his uncle what Samuel had said about the kingship.

...here the crowning of Saul as 'Christ' is connected with the finding of the donkeys.

Then we have Tacitus, Hist. 5:3:

3 1 Most authors agree that once during a plague in Egypt which caused bodily disfigurement, King Bocchoris approached the oracle of Ammon and asked for a remedy, whereupon he was told to purge his kingdom and to transport this race into other lands, since it was hateful to the gods. So the Hebrews were searched out and gathered together; then, being abandoned in the desert, while all others lay idle and weeping, one only of the exiles, Moses by name, warned them not to hope for help from gods or men, for they were deserted by both, but to trust to themselves, regarding as a guide sent from heaven the one whose assistance should first give them escape from their present distress. They agreed, and then set out on their journey in utter ignorance, but trusting to chance. Nothing caused them so much distress as scarcity of water, and in fact they had already fallen exhausted over the plain nigh unto death, when a herd of wild asses moved from their pasturage to a rock that was shaded by a grove of trees. Moses followed them, and, conjecturing the truth from the grassy ground, discovered abundant streams of water. This relieved them, and they then marched six days continuously, and on the seventh seized a country, expelling the former inhabitants; there they founded a city and dedicated a temple.

Diodorus of Sicily says that Antioch recognized, in the temple of Jerusalem, Moses as a statue of a bearded man sitting on a donkey:

His friends reminded him that Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes, after subduing the Jews, entered into the temple of God, into which none was allowed to enter by their law except the priest. When he found in there the image of a man with a long beard, carved in stone sitting upon an ass, he took it to be Moses, who built Jerusalem and brought the nation together, and who established by law all their wicked customs and practices, abounding in hatred and enmity to all other men. Antiochus therefore, abhorring their antagonism to all other people, tried his utmost to abolish their laws. 4 To that end he sacrificed a great swine at the image of Moses, and at the altar of God that stood in the outward court, and sprinkled them with the blood of the sacrifice. He commanded likewise that the books, by which they were taught to hate all other nations, should be sprinkled with the broth made of the swine's flesh. And he put out the lamp (called by them immortal) which burns continually in the temple. Lastly he forced the high priest and the other Jews to eat swine's flesh.

http://attalus.org/translate/diodorus34.html

Tertullian says (Apologeticum 16):

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.

Now this is interesting: Zechariah (Luke 1:18-22, 60-64) was made mute by the angel, because his wonder (for the birth of the Messiah) sounds too much 'marcionite' according to the editor of Mcn, 'Luke'.

But the his mutism has another explanation in an old gnostic story used by Basilides & co.

The Descent of Mary (Γεννα Μαριας or "Genna Marias")[1] is a minor work of the New Testament apocrypha which is only known through mention in the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, who gives a short passage. Epiphanius attributes the tale to the Gnostics.[2][3]
The excerpt purports to be the story about the death of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, who is supposed to have seen a vision of a man "in the form of an ass" while burning incense in the temple. When he emerges, he is unable to speak at first, but when he is able to relate the vision, those about him kill him. The story is consonant with other Gnostic writings and depiction of Gnostic thought in the writings of Origen, as well as with the Gospel of James; but there is no other testimony to this particular tale.

https://www.revolvy.com/page/Descent-of-Mary


So Zecahriah discovered that the deity adored by the Jews had the form of an ass. (Evidently 'Luke' didn't like that version of the story).


Epiphanius talks explicitly about Gnostics identifying the demiurge with an ass:

10,4 But in the eighth heaven they put the so-called Barbelo; and the “Father and Lord of all,” the same Self-begetter; and another Christ, a self-engendered one, and our Christ, who descended and revealed this knowledge to men, who they say is also called Jesus. (5) But he is not “born of Mary” but “revealed through Mary.” And he has not taken flesh but is only appearance.
10,6 Some say Sabaoth has the face of an ass;53 others, the face of a pig. This, they say, is why is why he forbade the Jews to eat pork. He is the maker of heaven, earth, the heavens after him, and his own angels. (7) In departing this world the soul makes its way through these archons, but no < one > can get through them unless he is in full possession of this “knowledge”—or rather, this contemptibility—and escapes the archons and authorities because he is “filled.”

https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/201 ... ibionites/

And still:
A gnostic gem has been preserved upon which there is a representation of an ass suckling her foal, above which is the symbol of Cancer, and the circumscription D.N.I.H.X.P.S. Dominus Noster Jesus Christus, with the supplement Dei filius.
https://books.google.it/books?id=JyXDAg ... us&f=false


The conclusion is that it is very probable that the portrait of a crucified Jesus with the head of ass allegorizes really, in pure separationist terms, the defeat of the Law and of the world of the creator, the gnostic demiurge.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: About the ass as symbol of the demiurge...

Post by Giuseppe »

And then there is Hypogeum of Vibia
The Hypogeum of Vibia is part of a small complex of pagan burial chambers in Rome which were constructed along the Via Appia in the late 4th century CE. It is named for the burials of a woman named Vibia and her husband Vincentius, a priest of the Thraco-Phrygian god Sabazios.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypogeum_of_Vibia

Wiki continues:
While some claim that this burial is also connected to the cult of Sabazios,[6] others have interpreted them as references to the Mithraic Mysteries.[7]

Now some identifies this Sabazios with the god of the Jews:
Mais la surveillance des autorités ne se relâcha pas.
En 139 des sectateurs de « Jupiter Sabazius » — proche parent de Dio-
nysos, — qui ideritifiaient leur dieu phrygien avec le lahvé Sabaoth des Juifs,
furent expulsés; par le préteur en même temps que les astrologues « chaldéens ^ » ,
https://archive.org/stream/MN40016ucmf_ ... 1_djvu.txt

If the identification is correct, then the cross who is painted on the wall of this burial chamber could represent the secret limit that separated God from the lower earth, the saved people from the damned people.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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