A Christian in Syria or Asia Minor wore this stone in a ring, some 1,800 years ago. It shows Jesus Christ on the cross, and the first words engraved next to Him are these:
The oldest image of Jesus Christ on the cross
The next Christian images of the crucifixion come from Rome, around 420 to 430 AD: a wooden church door and a small ivory panel. This stone is about 200 years older.3
One drawing in Rome may be just as old, but it was scratched on a wall by a mocker and gives the crucified man a donkey's head.
The oldest "Jesus Christ" written out in full
The early Bible manuscripts shorten the holy names to two letters with a line above. Here the full name stands in stone. I noticed this as a teenager, about 25 years ago, and I have said it ever since. If you know an older example, please show me.
The oldest Alpha and Omega for Christ
Follow the letters Α and Ω through the middle lines: Alpha, Omega, four times in a row. Stephen P. Laurie was, as far as I know, the first to publish this, and to say that it is clearly intentional. I cherish his work for that.4
"Oldest" always means: the oldest that has survived and that we know of today.
There is one person in the picture: Christ on the cross. All the titles are addressed to Him. "O Son, Father, O Jesus Christ" means to say: He who is Son and Father is Jesus Christ.
The apostle John writes in the same way. He pairs Jesus with Christ, and the Son with the Father, and he tells us that whoever has the Son has the Father also. The gem says it in four words.
The Scriptures had prepared every one of these words. The child that is born to us is called "The everlasting Father" (Isaiah 9:6). Jesus says: "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9), and "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30).
"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. [...] he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also."
"O Son, Father" on the gem is almost one to one this word. The old writers use it when they describe the believers who confessed Christ as the one God. About Noetus of Smyrna, who taught around 180 to 200 AD, we read:
"He taught Christ as the Son-Father".
Epiphanius, Panarion, summary of sect 57 (υἱοπάτορα τὸν Χριστὸν ἐδίδαξε)5
This faith is called Monarchian, from monarchia, "one rule": God is one, and Jesus Christ is that one God, both visible and invisible, in heaven and on earth. Today many call it Oneness.
A scholar has seen this on the gem before me. In 2014 Attilio Mastrocinque, who catalogued the magical gems of the French National Library, wrote about the Pereire Gem:
"Personne ne s'est aperçu, jusqu'à présent, qu'il s'agit d'une définition typique du monarchianisme."
"Nobody has noticed until now that this is a typical definition of Monarchianism." Mastrocinque 20146
He still worked with an older reading of the first word ("one Father"). The corrected reading, "O Son, Father", says it even more clearly. Roy Kotansky, who gave us the best edition of the text, does not follow Mastrocinque here. Look at the witnesses below and judge for yourself.
The simple believers, "who always constitute the majority of believers", say: "We maintain the Monarchy."
Tertullian, Against Praxeas 3, about 213 AD. He wrote against them, and he admits they were the majority.7
The gem was made in exactly these decades. In Rome, bishop Zephyrinus said in public: "I know that there is one God, Jesus Christ". In Smyrna, Noetus was asked why he taught this way, and he answered: "What evil, then, am I doing in glorifying Christ?"8
Until the days of Callistus I know of no bishop who wrote against this faith, and of none who is clearly trinitarian. The early leaders are either clearly Monarchian, or they say things that fit the Monarchian faith best. Here they are on one line, with the gem among them.
Dates are approximate. Where we only have the words through an opponent, I say so.
Look at where these men lived: Antioch, Smyrna, Sardis, Rome, Lyons. Smyrna and Sardis are two of the seven churches of the book of Revelation. The gem comes from the same world.
The words are written without spaces, as was normal then. The upright beam of the cross cuts most lines into a left and a right half. Lines 1 to 3 and 7 to 9 are plain Greek. Lines 4 to 6 are the riddle. Tap through the layers.
My drawing of the text, after Kotansky's edition.1 A dot under a letter means: hard to read on the stone. Not to scale.
Top: Υἱέ, πατήρ, Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, "O Son, Father, O Jesus Christ". Bottom: ἀρτάννα λυσίου υἱοῦ, "O crossbeam of the redeeming Son".
The three lines in between were long called "magic words", which is a polite way to say: nobody could read them. Roy Kotansky showed in 2017 that they are carefully designed. He calls the front of the stone "less magical than usually understood" and sees a hymn of an early Christian group in it.9
Text: scholars agree Monarchian: Mastrocinque and ISon. Father. Jesus. Christ. The name "Jesus" even runs over the end of line 2 into line 3, because nobody left spaces between words.
The Son is named first, and then He is called Father. A third person is nowhere on the stone. Everything is said to the One who hangs on the cross.
Take only the letters Α and Ω in lines 4 to 6. They take turns, eight letters long, and never break the order. In line 5, the centre line of the stone, an Α stands left of the cross and an Ω right of it.
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last" (Revelation 22:13). In the whole Bible this title stands only in the book of Revelation, and Jesus Christ says it about Himself. It is our "from A to Z": the first letter and the last, and everything between them.
Rows of vowels are also found on pagan gems of that time. Here they stand next to the crucified Christ, on a stone full of His titles.
Found by Kotansky, 2017Α Ε Η Ι Ο Υ Ω. Start at the last letter of line 5 and read on through line 6. Anyone who knows the Greek alphabet can check this in ten seconds. Older editions read the first letter of line 6 as a Σ. Kotansky saw that it is an Ε without its middle stroke.9
What did seven vowels mean to people then? Kotansky points to the church historian Eusebius, who wrote about 315 AD:
"They say that the seven vowels, joined together, give the sound of one unspeakable name, which the Hebrews write with four letters".
Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 11.6, my translation10
The name with four letters is YHWH, the name of God. Eusebius then quotes an old Greek verse: "Seven vowels praise me, the great immortal God, the tireless Father of all". On the gem, the seven vowels stand next to the One who is called Father in line 2.
Found by Kotansky, 2017The letters ΣΟΑΜΝΩΑΜ can be sorted into two Greek words: ἀμνὸς ἄμωμος, "unblemished lamb". Some letters are used for both words.
These are the words of 1 Peter 1:19: "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot". And John the Baptist said: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
This layer shows how the engraver worked: one row of letters can carry more than one word at the same time.
ΑΜΝ in line 4 is Amen, written the Hebrew way: three consonants, A-M-N. In Revelation 3:14 "the Amen" is a title of Christ.
Directly below, in line 5, stand the letters of ΜΑΡΙΑ: Maryah. In the Aramaic Bible of the Syrian churches, Maryah is written where the Hebrew has the name of God. Early Christians used it the way our Bibles use "LORD" in capital letters.
You will notice that one letter of the word is covered by an Ω of the Alpha-Omega row (marked). Why it is built like this, I explain in a study that is being prepared for a journal. Until it is out, please take this layer as my proposal.
Kotansky also finds the name of God in line 5, in a different way.
Read by Kotansky, 2017ἀρτάννα comes from the Greek verb "to hang": the beam on which He hangs. λυσίου means "redeeming", "setting free". The last line is damaged, and "of the Son" fits the letters that are left.
"God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14).
Top and bottom: scholars agree Amen, Maryah: my readingEvery word is said to Jesus Christ, and every word is a title of honour. The stone asks for nothing. It only names Him.
"O Son": Jeffrey Spier and Roy Kotansky. Seven vowels, Lamb, crossbeam: Kotansky. Alpha and Omega: Stephen P. Laurie. Monarchian: Attilio Mastrocinque. Amen and Maryah: my proposal.
Read Revelation 22 next to the gem. The same names meet there: the Lamb, the Alpha and Omega, the Root and the Offspring, the Amen, the Lord.
The engraver knew what a Roman crucifixion looked like. And he shows Christ as the victor: head up, body upright, no sign of defeat.
In 1968 the bones of a crucified man, Jehohanan, were found in Jerusalem. An iron nail of 11.5 cm was still in his heel. His legs were bent to one side, and his arms show no nail wounds: they were tied to the beam. The gem shows the same: legs to one side, wrists tied.11
Later Christian art gives Christ a loincloth or a robe. The gem shows the cross as it was. Shame was part of the punishment, and here it is turned into a sign of victory.
The cross is a tall post with a beam on top, a Tau. The last words of the gem speak to this beam: "O crossbeam of the redeeming Son".
The edge of the stone is cut at an angle, so that it fits into a ring, and it has no hole for a cord. In a ring, part of the writing disappears in the setting. Campbell Bonner, the great expert on such gems, wrote that the inscription then became "the wearer's secret".12
So these words were written for one believer and for God. They were never meant to win a debate, and this is why I trust them.
Christians of that time did wear rings with signs of their faith. Clement of Alexandria, around 200 AD, tells them what to engrave: a dove, a fish, a ship, an anchor (Paedagogus 3.11).
"Engraved" is the exact word. A gem cutter did not scratch or carve. He ground the picture and each letter into the hard stone with a small turning drill and fine sand.
Nobody knows where it was found. It came through the art market. The back has a second inscription that I leave aside here.
The gem comes from a region that was mixed, Greek and Aramaic, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. And the gem is written in Greek letters. So even if there is Aramaic on it, and I believe there is (Amen and Maryah), we expect the letters to follow the Greek alphabet, just as the seven vowels on the gem stand in Greek alphabet order.
The picture of "first and last letter" is also stronger in Greek. In Hebrew and Aramaic the names of the letters are real words with their own meaning: Aleph is an ox, Tav is a mark. Alpha and Omega are simply the first and the last.
In Greek letters the name Maria and the Aramaic title Maryah look the same. But every other word on this side of the stone is a title of Christ, and the stone names nobody else. A title of Christ in the centre continues what the stone does from the first line to the last.
It belongs to a family of small engraved stones that scholars call "magical gems", and the row of seven vowels is typical for them. But this stone asks for nothing: no healing, no protection, no curse. It only praises Christ. Kotansky himself calls the front "less magical than usually understood".9
It has been known since before 1964. The seven vowels were first recognised in 2017, and the reading "O Son" not long before that. A forger would have had to hide things on the stone that nobody could read for fifty years, and then tell nobody. The museum and the specialists treat it as ancient.
The date comes from the style of the cutting and the letters. The British Museum says 2nd to 3rd century. Kotansky says late 2nd or early 3rd century. It could be some decades later. Even then it is far older than any other Christian image of the crucifixion, and it still falls in the time of the Monarchian majority.
The message of the stone is clear: Jesus Christ, He who was crucified, is the Alpha and Omega, the unblemished Lamb, the Amen, the LORD. He who is Son, and Father.