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I wouldn’t say that the Alexamenos Graffito is proof of the existence of Jesus Christ; it is rather proof that the legend of Jesus Christ was present in Rome, Italia, during the early third century. The Alexamenos Graffito, which was drawn in A.D. 200, can be described as a stick-figure drawing of a Roman civilian worshipping an image of a crucified person that has a donkey’s head. The inscription, Ᾰλεξᾰ́μενος σέβεται θεόν, which is written in Greek, translates to “Alexamenos worships his god.”
The drawing was scratched onto a plaster wall in a house that is located on Palatine hill, which is one of the Seven Hills of Rome. The house was purchased by the Roman Emperor, Caligula, circa A.D. 40, and was later changed to a boarding school for Roman noble’s messenger boys. Some observers of the drawing conclude that the drawing is proof of Jesus’ existence, as it was drawn a mere 166 years after his death, and describes the crucified being as a “god.”
The Alexamenos Graffito can effectively be seen as a drawing that one student scratched onto a wall to tease another student named Alexamenos. Perhaps Alexamenos expressed an affinity for Christianity and his peer took the opportunity to make fun of the boy by scribbling a cartoon of Alexamenos’ god. It should be noted that Christianity was roundly derided in Rome at this time, and Christians were believed to engage in a religious practice called Onolatry (donkey worship,) which would explain the depiction of Jesus Christ as a humanoid donkey.
I am inclined to believe that the Alexamenos Graffito was a childish prank, not much unlike the kinds of pranks that children of today engage in, e.g., writing puerile messages on bathroom stalls, school lockers, and classroom chalkboards. The boarding school for messenger boys was without a doubt filled with young boys that occasionally became bored and engaged in mischief. In A.D. 200, the Gospel of Mark, one of the books of the Four Gospels, had already been printed, and it is likely that the legend of Jesus Christ was fairly well-known in Rome.
Furthermore, by this time, in history, Christianity had already become an institution in the Roman Empire, although still a fledgling institution, as only one country in the entire world, namely Edessa, southeast Turkey, accepted it as the State religion. This would mean that the core doctrines of Christianity were already in the consciences of the populaces of quite a few Roman provinces, and certainly the capital city of the empire where the drawing was found. The drawing was taken out of the house at Palatine and is now located in the Palatine Hill Museum in Rome, Italy.
Public Domain Pictures of the original drawing and a trace-over of it can be seen here:
Picture 1 is a rendering of the original graffito.
Picture 2 is a modern-day trace-over of the graffito.
Picture 3 is a screen capture of a boss battle in Konami’s 1993 video game, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. An image of a cross that resembles the Alexamenos Graffito, namely, on account of the humanoid figure on the cross accompanied by a deformed, animal-like, head, can be seen. This goes to show that Roman legends and Christianity have both had a profound influence on modern entertainment.
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