The Christians were accused by Pagans of worshipping an ass, and the slander in question is not of their own devising; it is referable to the Jews of Samaria, who expressed Kabalistic ideas on the Divinity by means of Egyptian symbols. Intelligence was represented in the symbol of a magical star, venerated under the name of _Rempham_; science was depicted by the emblem of _Anubis_, the latter name being altered into _Nibbas_; whilst vulgar faith or credulity appeared in the likeness of _Thartac_, a god represented holding a book, wearing a mantle and having the head of an ass.[136] According to the Samaritan doctors, Christianity was the reign of _Thartac_, or blind faith and vulgar credulity set up as an universal oracle, superior to understanding and knowledge. This is why, in their intercourse with Gentiles and when they heard themselves identified by these with Christians, they protested and begged not to be confounded with the worshippers of an ass’s head. The pretended revelation diverted the philosophers, and Tertullian mentions a Roman caricature, extant in his days, which exhibited _Thartac_ in all his glory, identified as the god of Christianity, much to the amusement of Tertullian, though he was the author of that famous aphorism: _Credo quia absurdum_.[137] The Golden Ass of Apuleius is the occult legend of _Thartac_. It is a magical epic and a satire against Christianity, which the author had doubtless professed for a period, or so at least he appears to intimate under the allegory of his metamorphosis into an ass. The story of the work is as follows. Apuleius was travelling in Thessaly, the country of enchantments. He received hospitality at the house of a man whose wife was a sorceress, and he seduced the servant of his hostess, thinking to obtain in this manner the secrets of her mistress. The maid promised to deliver to her lover a concoction by means of which the sorceress changed herself into a bird, but she made a mistake in the box and Apuleius was transformed into an ass. She could only console him by saying that to regain his proper form it would be sufficient to eat roses, the rose being the flower of initiation. The difficulty at the moment being to find roses in the night, it was decided to wait till the morrow and the servant therefore stabled the ass, but only for it to be taken by robbers and carried off. There was little chance now of coming across roses, which are not intended for asses, and gardeners chased away the animal with sticks.