The original and ultimate “four-letter word’ was and is YHWH; the unspoken name of the Jewish god revealed to Moses at Mount Horeb, according to Exodus 3:13-15.
In Koine Greek, YHWH was described as the tetragrammaton. In that Biblical translation language, “tetra” means four, and grammaton is derived from the word “gramma” or “grammat” which means letter. So, the term literally means “the four-letter word,” or “that which has four letters.”
Speaking the god’s name was considered dangerous and could invoke a curse, so it is quite interesting that in English, the term “four-letter word” has come to mean “foul or abusive language.”
Also intriguing, is that ancient Egyptians are said to have taunted the Jews and Samaritans claiming that they had adopted the Egyptian God of Chaos, Seth, as their god. It was even rumoured that when the Seleucids entered the Holy of Holies of the Second Jewish Temple during the Maccabean Revolt, they discovered a statue of an ass-headed god.
Seth (also known as Set, Suetekh, Setekh, or Setesh) was often depicted as having the head of a donkey and was an evil god responsible for war, chaos, mayhem, storms, deserts, and earthquakes. The name Satan is also thought to derive from the name Set.
This was allegedly the reason the Israelites were banned from making drawings, paintings, sculptures, and other images of anything on earth or in heaven (Exodus 20:4-5), and only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies. No one could ever discover that their god was indeed Seth.
Historically, it is known that in 167 B.C.E., Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucidan Emperor, ransacked the sanctuary of the Jerusalem temple and instituted the practice of sacrificing pigs to Zeus on the temple’s high altar.
This act became known as the Abomination of Desolation; and it so incensed the Jews that they continued the fight until they gained independence from the Seleucid Empire in 134 B.C.E.
The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah celebrates this huge victory for the Jews, who were the clear underdogs in the Maccabean Wars.
Unfortunately, their freedom was relatively short lived. The Romans conquered Judaea in 63 B.C.E. and eventually destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E. and later built a Temple to Jupiter (the Roman name for Zeus) over the Jewish Temple, where they also made sacrifices to their chief god. This was also known as the Abomination of Desolation.
After the Romans had destroyed the Jewish Temple, the Roman historian, Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56-120 C.E.), also attributed to the Jews the worship of an onocephalic (ass-headed) God. The worship of a donkey or donkey-God is known as onolatry, derived from one of the Greek words for donkey – onos.
The charge of onolatry was later transferred to Christians in the first and second centuries C.E., before orthodox Christianity became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire in the early-fourth century and violently suppressed all challenges to its supremacy. No taunts about worshipping a donkey-headed God would ever again be tolerated.
However, in 1857, a caricature of the Crucifixion was discovered engraved on a wall in the Palace of the Caesars on Palatine Hill in Rome (dated circa second century C.E.), showing a Christian boy worshipping a crucified figure with a donkey’s head. The inscription in Greek reads, “Alexamenos worshipping his God”.
Furthermore, a terracotta fragment was discovered in 1881 in Naples, which is dated to the first century C.E., depicting a figure with the head of an ass, wearing a toga, and seated in a chair with a scroll in his hand, instructing several baboon-headed pupils.
This information is taken from highly regarded Catholic sources, which attribute the inheritance of this “defamatory” charge of onolatry by Christians to incidents that occurred in Carthage in the first and second centuries.
The issue is not the truth or falsity of the charges and taunts made against the Jews and early Christians, but rather, that several people from various social classes and in different countries held these beliefs about Judaeo-Christian worship for many centuries; indeed, for a longer time than from the Renaissance to the modern era. Yet most people today know nothing about this.
The entire story is yet another example of the multiple layers of history, mystery, legend, and intrigue that influenced and shaped modern religion.
Why do people so strenuously resist the truth and would rather keep themselves and others in darkness?
Believers are strongly discouraged from looking beyond The Book, lest they might be astounded, and confounded, by what they find.
Nevertheless, it is fitting that we should all appreciate that myths and religions have a structure, a history and above all, a design and social purpose that we should never ignore.
This column was offered as a Letter to the Editor
