The earliest representational image of Christ
In the entire historical record
Is on the wall of an ancient house
On the Palatine Hill in Rome
It shows a crucified man
With the head of a donkey
Being adored by a boy
With an inscription: "Alexamenos worships his God"
And in Egypt and Asia Minor
Antiquarians have recovered Gnostic gems
Carved with images of ass-headed men
The fancy word for that is onocephalic
These gems often bear the inscription IAO
Sometimes the onocephalic figure
Is teaching from a scoll
Sometimes he is enthroned
Other times he is crucified
And we can read also in the Gnostic Scriptures
Specifically the Gnostic Gospel of Mary
Regarding Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist:
For...the reason why Zechariah was slain in the temple
was that he saw... a vision.
And when he wished to tell the vision
his mouth froze from fear.
For... in the hour of the offering of incense
he saw, as he was offering incense,
a person standing at rest, having... the form of an ass.
And when he went outside... and wanted to say,
"Woe unto you! What are you worshiping?"
the thing he had seen inside in the temple
froze his mouth, so that he could not speak.
And when his mouth opened so that he might speak,
then he revealed it to them,
and they slew him. And thus...did Zechariah die.
And this writing of the Barbelo Gnostics
Was preserved by the Christian saint Epiphanius
In his work Medicine Chest Against Heresies
He also relates this passage:
... the reason why the priest was commanded
by the lawgiver [Moses] himself
to have bells [on his garments]...
was so that whenever he entered
to perform priestly duties,
the being who was worshiped
might hear the noise and hide,
lest the... nature of his form be disclosed.
This strange story corroborates the Roman historian Tacitus
Who explained Hebrew religion
As a thorough rejection and reversal
Of the Egyptian system of religion
He alleged that in the Hebrew temples
They would consecrate a donkey statue
And sacrifice a ram
"in contumeliam Ammonis"
that is, in ridicule of Amun
The classical Jewish historian Flavius Josephus
Wrote to dispute the claims
Of the Egyptian historian Apion
Who had written that
"the Jews placed an ass's head in their holy place"
Apion wrote that the fact was discovered
When the temple of Jerusalem was sacked
By the Tyrian Antiochus Epiphanes
The conquering troops were supposed to have found
An ass's head there made of gold
And worth a great deal of money.
Flavius Josephus complains
That Apion is a black pot to call him a kettle
"since an ass is not a more contemptible animal"
Than various beasts deified by the Egyptians
Note that Josephus was a Pharisee
He is the only author whose writings we possess
Who claims that Jewish sect for his own
He was a priest who would have had access
To Herod's temple and its inner sanctuary
Well and widely schooled in the religions of his day
He should have known that the Egyptians
Associated the ass with Set
Who was then regarded more as a devil
Rather than a divine benefactor
And considered to dwell in Asia
This counter from Josephus is suspiciously rhetorical
And is undercut by its own substance
But Apion is a liar nevertheless
One who tells stories of Gentiles
Fattened up in temple captivity
For Jewish cannibalism
The prohibition of graven images was very serious
In the Judaean religion of that time
If there were an idol of an ass
Then it could not be their god
If their god were an ass
Then there could not be an idol of it
Leave the idols for the Templars
But remember the Gospel of Mary
Jehovah is a Living God
One who likes his priests in bells
In order to be warned of their approach
Was there a live donkey in the sanctuary?
Or--as some commentators would have it
Was Jehovah an onocephalic angel?
A spirit whose long ears
Would pick up the sacerdotal jingling
A genius to feast on thistles
A celestial intelligence braying its wisdom
IAhOh! IAhOh!
Thou shalt have no other gods before me!
http://www.hermetic.com/dionysos/donkey.htm
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