ph2ter

The accusation that Jews worshiped the ass was persistently made by some Greek and Latin writers.
Mnaseas of Patras (second century B.C.) claimed that the Jews worshiped the head of a golden ass. A similar charge is made by a little known Greek historian Damocritus when he asserts that the Jews reverenced the head of a golden ass, to which every seven years they sacrificed a foreigner, whom they abducted for that purpose, and cut his flesh into small pieces. According to a statement of Diodorus, when Antiochus Epiphanes entered the temple at Jerusalem, he found in the Holy of Holies the image of a man sitting upon an ass and holding a book in his hand; the king understood the statue to represent Moses. Tacitus' story runs ("Historiæ," v. 3) that the Jews suffered from thirst in the wilderness, and that they followed a herd of wild asses which led them to a spring of water; in recognition of this benefit they made the domestic ass—its nearest congener—the object of their worship.
Josephus takes ("Contra Ap." ii. 7) the whole story as a stupid calumny.

Behind those accusations probably lies something real. Maybe one of the Jewish festivals, like for example Purim. In the Purim procession Jews were wont to ride on a donkey (or horse) in honor of Mordechai's victory over Haman. Also, the effigies of Haman are made of sweet pastry, consumed during the days of Purim. They are shaped like donkey's ears allegedly because a legend says that Haman’s ears were twisted or triangular in shape like a donkey’s ears. These cookies are also known as "Haman's Donkey Ears". Haman is somehow connected with a donkey as we can see. The name Haman is very close to the Hebrew word for a donkey which is khamor.

The onolatry, was afterwards, transferred to the Christians (Tac., I, v, 3, 4; Tert., Apol., xvi; "Ad nationes", I, 14) and interpreted as defamatory accusation against the Christians. This is remarkably illustrated by a graffito found in Rome in 1856, representing a man bearing the head of an ass, and nailed to a cross, before whom another man kneels in the attitude of adoration. Beneath the cross there is a caption written in crude Greek: ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟΣ ΣΕΒΕΤΕ ΘΕΟΝ - "Alexamenos worships [his] God".
Other representations of the ‘ass-headed Christ” have been discovered including a terracotta fragment found in 1881 near Naples, which has been dated to the first century (?) and shows a figure with the head of an ass wearing a toga and seated on a chair with a roll in his hand, instructing a number of baboon-headed pupils. There is also an ancient gem with the carving of a ass-headed teacher of two human pupils who is dressed in the ‘pallium’, the form of cloak peculiar to sacred personages in early Christian art. Another ancient Syrian terracotta fragment also represents Jesus with the ears of an ass and with some book in hand.
Tertullian claimed that an “apostate Jew” “one day appeared in the streets of Carthage carrying a figure robed in a toga, with the ears and hoofs of an ass, and that this monstrosity was labeled: Deus Christianorum Onocoetes” (the God of the Christians begotten? of an ass).
The Jewish Messiah is associated with a ‘donkey’ ("Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon a donkey and upon a colt the foal of a donkey" Zachariah 9: 9.)

Paul in 1. Cor. says that "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;" and also in Gal. 3:13-14; "Christ Redeemed us from the Curse of the Law, having Become a Curse for us...for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a three".
Haman also hangs on a tree and is also considered as cursed (in reference to Purim, the Talmud states that one is to drink to the point of not knowing the difference between "cursed is Haman" and "blessed is Mordechai.") .

It seems that here Paul considers Christ to be essentially Haman for the Jews and as we can see some connections between Christ, Haman and donkey exist on the symbolical level.

Roger Pearse

Do we have references for all these statements? I'd like to see on what actual statements in the ancient sources all these are based.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

mountainman

In the apocryphal "Acts of Thomas" we have a wild donkey (ass) which exorcises a demon, and preaches to an assembled multitude against the pagans.

xaxxat

I remember reading somewhere that when the Philistines had captured the ark and opened it, they found the head of an ass in it.

Clivedurdle

http://www.articlesbase.com/science-...an-121402.html

This "interesting" site seems to have an incomplete list of references to Donkeys, unless it is treating asses and colts separately.

But at least two commandments refer to them - coveting, and Sabbath!

Roger Pearse

A google search suggests that all this material derives from modern anti-Jewish writings. Mnaseas and Damocritus scarcely seem heard of, other than in pages listing "the crimes of the Jews".

The works of Mnaseas of Patras does not seem to now exist. The *actual reference* is to Josephus, Contra Apionem book 2, chapter 9, where he quotes Apion quoting from Mnaseas:

..."while the Jews were once in a long war with the Idumeans, there came a man out of one of the cities of the Idumeans, who there had worshipped Apollo.

This man, whose name is said to have been Zabidus, came to the Jews, and promised that he would deliver Apollo, the god of Dora, into their hands, and that he would come to our temple, if they would all come up with him, and bring the whole multitude of the Jews with them; that Zabidus made him a certain wooden instrument, and put it round about him, and set three rows of lamps therein, and walked after such a manner, that he appeared to those that stood a great way off him to be a kind of star, walking upon the earth; that the Jews were terribly affrighted at so surprising an appearance, and stood very quiet at a distance; and that Zabidus, while they continued so very quiet, went into the holy house, and carried off that golden head of an ass, (for so facetiously does he write,) and then went his way back again to Dora in great haste."

Damocritus (or Damokritos) is really a reference to the Byzantine encyclopedia, the Suda. The entry is Delta #49.

Damokritos.

Historian. [He wrote] Tactics in 2 books, [and] On the Jews; in which [latter] he says that they bowed down to the golden head of an ass and every seven years hunted a stranger and attacked him and tore his flesh into thin strips and thus killed him.[1]

And repeated in Iota #429:

Joudas

and [)Ioudai=oj ] Jew.

Concerning the Jews, the historian Damocritus says that they used to worship the golden head of an ass, and every three years they hunted and attacked a stranger. They tore his flesh into thin strips and in this manner they killed him.

Note how the numeral has changed from seven to three in transmission. This seems to be all that is known of Damocritus.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Clivedurdle

You must have a different version of google!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito


JSTOR relates this to the evolution of the medieval fool.

Toto

The first part of the OP seems to have been condensed from an article on Ass Worship in the Jewish Encyclopedia. There are more complete references at that link.

Jeffrey Gibson

May we have the JSTOR reference please?

Jeffrey

ph2ter

Yes.