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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

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. similar account is found in Plutarch (I.e. iv. § 5). These accounts are essentially different from the preceding ones, for they endeavor to supply some cause for such a remarkable form of worship.

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without foundation, for neither Justin (" Diacum Tryphone," pp. 10, 17, 108, and 117) nor Origenes ("Contra Celsum," vi. Real 27) mentions anything of the kind.

is also

logus

A

Josephus knows nothing of any such alleged reason. He takes ("Contra Ap." ii. 7) the whole story as a stupid calumny, all the more desJosephus' picable as it seeks to detract from the Disproof sanctity of the celebrated Temple. for With clever irony he remarks that it the Jews, ill befits Apion the Egyptian to bring forward such an accusation, for nothing can be more absurd than the Egyptian animalworship. The falsity of this shameful charge is established by facts for Antiochus Epiphanes (Theus), Pompey the Great, Licinius Crassus, and lastly Titus, who all entered the Temple, found nothing there of that kind, but found, instead, the purest forms of divine adoration. Tacitus, as quoted by Tertullian, expressly states that Pompey found no image or idol in the Temple. Although this disproof seems quite sufficient as defense, it gives no clue concerning the origin of such a report. Tertullian indicates that he considers the calumny as simply the offspring of malevolence, for it was in like manner, he relates in his "Apologia," xvi., that a rascal in his town (in "Ad Nationes," i. 14, he is described as a Jew), who had to take care of the wild animals intended for the arena, would carry around an image with the inscription " Onokoites, the God of the Christians." The image had ass's ears, a hoof on one foot, and it carried a book and Mockery a toga. The meaning of the word of Chris- "Onokoites" is not clear. But it is tianity. very evident that the image must have been intended for the amusement of the crowds, and that the intended mockery of Christianity must have been understood as referring to one of the best-known dogmas of Christianity. The word bvoKOLTTfs, formed after the analogy of napanoirr/g though not strictly according to philological rules

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—caused

Tertullian to observe " risimus et nomen " (the very name of it made us laugh). It probably hints at something like ex eoncubitu asini (et

femince) procreaius, and is thus a malicious insult upon the Christian God, claimed to be a compound being, both God and man (H. Kellner, "Ausgewahlte Schriften desSeptimius Tertullianus," i. 62,

This anecdote, however, can not be taken 1871). as indicating that the Jews transferred the reproach under which they had suffered from themselves to the Christians; for it is simply the silly wit of a coarse hireling that had deserted the Jewish faith to become champion fighter with wild beasts, as Tertullian himself states. The Rabbis explain " tartak " (II Kings xvii. 31) as the image of an ass (Winer, " B. R. " ii. 605); but Tartak is not described as a god of the Samaritans, and the Samaritans therefore are not accused by the Jews of worshiping the ass, as is wrongly stated by Roesch (" Theol. Studien und Kritiken, " 1883, p. 523). That the Christians were accused by the Jews of this cult

Ass-Worship

Foundation On in a that

the other hand, it is quite true' the Christians accused some Gnostic sect of their own of Ass- Worship,. and, it appears, with full justification.

Gnostic Sect.

The supreme spirit is called Onoel God) by the Gnostics. According to the Gnostic work Yhva Mapmf (Epiphanius, " Hseres." xxvi. 12), Zachariah saw in a vision a man in the Temple at Jerusalem who had the form of an ass. Some Gnostics ascribed to the demon Sabaot an ass' (4vof

,

ass

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Jitf,

shape, others that of a pig (ib. xxvi. 10). Here may mentioned that according to a baraita in Yoma 196, a Sadducean high priest is said to have died in the Temple, and the imprint of a calf's foot to have been found between his shoulders. Now all these varying accounts are remarkably

also be

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 (P. S. Kraus, "Das. Spottcruzifix," Freiburg, i. Br. 1872). illustrated

1

Origin in the

Another graffito, found likewise on the Palatine in Rome, depicts the sameEgyptian man, and designates him as " fidelis " Typhon- (faithful); so that this is not intended Worship, for a caricature, as usually claimed, but for an earnestly intended symbol of faith (Wilnsch, " Sethianische Verfluchungstafeln aus Rom," p. 112, Leipsic, 1898). From the circumstance that at the right of the ass's head (see p. 222> there stands a Y, Wilnsch deduces that it is a symbol of the Typhon-Seth worship, for on the numerous, curse-tablets in Rome the same symbol always stands, at the right of the ass's head of Typhon-Seth. It is the religious symbol of the Gnostic sect of the Sethinai (from Seth, son of Adam but also from Seth, the surname of the Egyptian god Typhon); and they in their turn derived the ass's head as shown in the above-cited quotation from Epiphanius from, the representation of the "Jewish god Sabaoth." Wilnsch is therefore inclined to consider the cult of the ass as having foundation in fact and not merely

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in calumny.

course quite correct to say that the ass-cult connected with the Egyptian god Typhon (^Elian, "V. H." x. 28). Plutarch relates ("De Iside et Osiride," ch. xxx.) that in Egypt the ass. Jews was considered of " demoniac " nature Can Not Es (Sat/iovtudv, on account of its resemConnected blance to Typhon (compare ib. xxxi. with M. Wellmann, "iEgyptisches," in It is of

is

Typhon-

"Hermes," 1896, xxxi. 242). But this. would not explain the story of its adoption by Jews. Plutarch brings the Jews into direct connection with Typhon by making him beget " Hierosolymus " (Jerusalem) and "Juda^us," after having fled upon an ass subsequently to the war with Jupiter (" De Iside et Osi-

Worship,

Reinach, I.e. p. 137). Roesch, referring to the Talmudic account, that in the Second Temple the so-called foundation-stone (rpnt!> pX) took the place of the Ark of the wilderness, thinks that ride," ch. xxxi.