78 
against the Jews, of whom the Christians were by the Romans 
regarded as a sect, of worshipping an ass, and of a golden head 
of an ass being preserved in the Holy of Holies at Jerusalem.* * * § 
The following Gnostic gem, which has, I take it, evident refer- 
ence to the Horus myth, will possibly throw some light upon 
the subject of the accusation. This gem represents Horus 
holding the flagellum of Khem, and which was no doubt intended 
for the Cucufa sceptre of Osiris. f He is dressed in the short 
Egyptian loin-cloth or shenti, and on his head are the horns of 
Isis and the serpent of Klmeph, the spirit. The head is, how- 
ever, unmistakably equine or asinine, with a well-defined mane 
falling on to the shoulders, j The art of the sculpture is not 
Egyptian, but Western, possibly therefore Roman ; and though 
I am unable at present to explain the myth or intention 
of the head, yet there can, I think, be no doubt that both 
the gem and the sgraffiti have reference to Christianity, and 
that if, from some reason to us now unknown, the Egyptian 
Christians so represented Horus, the analogue of their Christ, 
it was only natural that the Roman caricaturist should draw the 
figure described as an emblem of our Redeemer. 
This identification of Anubis with Horus, and by consequence 
with Christ, is one of the chief points of interest in King’s very 
interesting but somewhat confused treatise on the Gnostics and 
their remains. That he was able to trace the substitution of 
Anubis for the Christian Saviour was a felicitous accident, and 
a gem which he has engraved, and the description of which I 
shall quote in his own words, fully supports this theory. § 
“Iao, with the jackal head of Anubis, || and therefore to be 
regarded here as assuming the office of the latter, the con- 
ducting departed souls to the judgment-seat. This image, in 
such an acceptation, was adopted to typify their Christos by 
some among the Egyptian Gnostics, a fact explaining Tertul- 
lian’ s allusion, and the votive picture of Alexamenos.”^f The 
allusion cited from Tertullian is, “ Like many others you have 
dreamed that an ass’s head is our god, but a new version of 
* See Josephus contra Apion, lib. ii. secs. 7 and 10. 
f A peculiar kind of sceptre, having the head of an unidentified homed 
animal at the top, and a kind of double hook at the end. It was the peculiar 
sceptre of the male gods of Egypt. 
X Montfaucon, Antiquitfa, vol. ii. pi. 154. 
§ On an Egyptian mummy, of the period of the XXVIth Dynasty, belong- 
ing to the Duke of Sutherland, which was unrolled on the 15tli of July, 
1875, at Stafford House. The god Anubis was represented as taking the 
deceased by the hand and performing the office of Horus in the Hall of the 
Two Truths. [| But evidently an ass’s head (Westropp). 
IT King, 0 nostics , pp. 232 and 91. The quotation from Tertullian is from 
Apol. xvi. 
