His actions and name indicate he is the Satan, the "Adversary", but in these religious works Satan is more like him who appears in the Book of Job with a function to fulfill under God than like Satan of later tradition who is the uttermost enemy of God. Beliar, mentioned twice in Jubilees, is likely to be identical with Mastema in this work.
When God is ready to destroy all these demons after the flood and Noah
prays that his descendants be released from their attacks, Mastema
intervenes, beseeching God to allow him to retain and control one tenth
of these demons in order to exercise his authority because they are
"intended to corrupt and lead astray before my judgement because the
evil of the sons of men is great". (Jubilees 10:8) Mastema is the tester of humans, with God's permission.
In these myths,[clarification needed] Phanes is often equated with Eros and Mithras and has been depicted as a deity emerging from a cosmic egg, entwined with a serpent. He had a helmet and had broad, golden wings. The Orphic cosmogony is bizarre, and quite unlike the creation sagas offered by Homer and Hesiod. Scholars have suggested that Orphism is "un-Greek" even "Asiatic" in conception, because of its inherent dualism.
Chronos (Time) is said to have created the silver egg of the universe, out of which burst the androgynous first-born deity Phanes, or Phanes-Dionysos. Phanes is said to have both a phallus and a vagina.
Phanes was a deity of light and goodness, whose name meant "to bring
light" or "to shine"; a first-born god of light who emerged from a void
or a watery abyss and gives birth to the universe. Nyx (Night) is variously said to be Phanes' daughter or older wife.
Many threads of earlier myths are apparent in the new tradition.[clarification needed] Phanes was believed to have been hatched from the World-Egg of Chronos (Time) and Ananke (Necessity or Fate) or Nyx in the form of a black bird and wind. His older wife Nyx
called him Protogenus. As she created nighttime, Phanes created
daytime, and also created the method of creation by mingling. He was
made the ruler of the deities and passed the sceptre to Nyx. This new Orphic tradition states that Nyx later gave the sceptre to her son Uranos before it passed to Cronus and then to Zeus, who retained it.
According to Aristophanes, whence Phanes is called Eros, he was
born from an egg created by Nyx and placed in the boundless lap of Erebus, after which he mates with Chaos and creates the flying creatures.
This passage seeks to demonstrate that the flying creatures are
considered older than all other living creatures, even older than the
other gods.
According to Damascius,
Phanes was the first god "expressible and acceptable to human ears"
(πρώτης ητόν τι ἐχούσης καὶ σύμμετρον πρὸς ἀνθρώπων ἀκοάς).
Another Orphic hymn states:
"You scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping
your wings, you whirled about, and throughout this world you brought
pure light. For this I call you Phanes." ("ὄσσων ὃς σκοτόεσσαν
ἀπημαύρωσας ὁμίχλην πάντη δινηθεὶς πτερύγων ῥιπαῖς κατὰ κόσμον λαμπρὸν
ἄγων φάος ἁγνόν , ἀφ ' οὗ σε Φάνητα κικλήσκω.")
The Derveni Papyrus refers to Phanes: "Of the First-born king, the neverend
one; and upon him all the immortals grew, blessed gods and goddesses
and rivers and lovely springs and everything else that had then been
born; and he himself became the sole one".
("Πρωτογόνου βασιλέως αἰδοίου∙ τῶι δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἀθάνατοι προσέφυν
μάκαρες θεοὶ ἠδ̣ὲ θέαιναι καὶ ποταμοὶ καὶ κρῆναι ἐπήρατιο ἄλλα τε πάντα ,
ἅ̣σσα τότ’ ἦγγεγαῶτ ’ , αὐτὸς δ’ ἄρα μοῦνος ἔγεντο.”)
Dionysus or Zagreus
of the Orphic tradition is intimately connected to Protogonos. In the
Orphic Hymn 30, he is given a list of epithets that also allude to
Protogonos: "πρωτόγονον, διφυῆ, τρίγονον, Βακχεῖον ἄνακτα,ἄγριον,
ἄρρητον, κρύφιον, δικέρωτα, δίμορφον" – "Primeval, two-natured,
thrice-born, Bacchic lord, savage, ineffable, secretive, two-horned, and
two-shaped".
In the Orphic tradition, Dionysus-Protogonos-Phanes is a dying and rising god. Eusebius tells us the story of his death and recreation. The Titans boil the dismembered limbs of Dionysus in a kettle, they roast him on a spit and eat the roasted "sacrificial meat", then Athena rescues the still-beating heart from which (according to Olympiodorus) Zeus
is able to recreate the god and bring him back to life. Kessler has
argued that this cult of death and resurrection of Dionysus developed
the 4th century CE; and together with Mithraism and other sects this cult formed, were in direct competition with Early Christianity during Late Antiquity.
This illustration is from an eyewitness account by God's scribe Enoch —Steve Quayle
Artist Brian Snoddy
Awaiting the Calling!
The sun is beaming down on the golden sands of Egypt and the reflection
gives the illusion of shimmering mirrors. In the background there is the
noise of lifting, pushing, flapping wings and hammering on stone. A
shadow is standing in the midst of the sand looking upward toward heaven
and the heat rays of the beating sun.
He is covered in sackcloth and has a wide belt fashioned out of leather
girding his loins. In one hand he holds firmly an aged book wrapped in
sackcloth and hand written by him and the others. In the other hand he
is holding a staff, which has camel hair and bone wrapped around it.
Although he has been around from the beginning he shows no sign of aging
past the age of twenty-eight years of life! His skin is caramel with a
hint of red, his eye’s searching through time seeing both the past,
present and recording the future.
As he looks upward into heaven, the sky turns dark, the water layer that
covers the earth in a humidifying blanket begins to turn and boil. A
voice from above the firmaments calls for him to come forward and
listen. He falls face forward onto the ground and asks, “What is
required of me, your servant?”
The voice from above replies, “They have left their first estate and are
causing war in heaven. I shall destroy them from my sight and seek them
where they hide from me! They have turned from me to follow pride, lust
and power and have defiled their gifts and exchanged them for the lust
of the flesh!”
The rushing of wind is felt all around the Recorder of Time. And then in the twinkling of an eye he is gone.
from The Chronicles of Enoch
Enoch Confronts Fallen Angels
The Judgment
Scene Two
The falling away: There will be no intervention for those who left there (sic) first estate. But there will be intervention for man!
This place was different from Earth. The plants were plush and green.
The sun was not the source of warmth. The planet itself gave off ground
heat to offset the distance and cold of space. There is more then one
moon and the sky is deep blue with thin clouds.
Through the foliage he could see strange beings in the air. They fly
around in a hectic pace as if there were some urgent issue at hand.
These beings are tall winged creatures with strengths unknown to
mankind. They are the Anakin: the men of renown; legends of old; the
sons of God!
The prophet moved through the plush vegetation to a place of clearing.
There in the midst of the clearing was what could only be explained as a
large dome with odd slots dug into the top. The winged beings were
working hard to construct this dome as if time was running out for them.
Then the prophet witnessed the source of the problem setting atop a
throne at the top of the dome watching while the others worked. Basking
in his own glory and beauty. He was beautiful and magnificent to look
upon. But there was something different about him now that he was
outside of the fathers will: something defiled and corrupt.
The winged ones gathered around as the prophet opened his little book
and laid it upon the stone resting before him. He began to pray and
seek God’s will for what was to be done with those who had left their
first estate and built a throne to the one who would put himself above
the father! The one who, by his sin and his twisting of the Father’s
word, caused the others to leave their first estate and fall from grace
into defilement and reprobate minds, lusting after that which was not
meant for them.
The prophet began to read from the book the names of those that had
fallen and left their first estate. As he spoke the wings of those
around him grew silent and fell limp and useless beside them. Chains
and shackles appeared in mid air and chained the winged ones to the
shackles and bound them.
What You Bind On Earth,
I Will Bind In The Heavens.
And What You Loose On Earth,
That I Shall Also Loose In Heaven Scene Three
The green planet opened up in large craters all around the giants,
swallowing them up and sealing them in their pits of torment. As the
prophet continued to speak from the little book each name given to the
fallen angelic beings, chains would bind them and shackles would draw
them into there tomb.
Not all were sealed. Those who were not fallen gathered together the
stones from which the fallen ones had cut for the building of their
dome. From the stones they constructed pyramids on top of the seals to
be a marker for those who would put themselves up on a throne, in the
attempt to be God!
They would also be a marker of time and the craftsmanship of Enoch!
The earliest known written source describing the Scythian pantheon of gods is the work of Herodotus, who describes eight gods of the Royal Scythians (the ruling tribe of the Scythian Empire).
According to Herodotus the Scythians worshiped the following gods:
Tabiti (related to the Greek Hestia) was the queen of the Scythians.
Papaios (Zeus)
Api (Gaia)
Goi-tosyr (Apollo)
Argimpasa (Aphrodite)
[no Scythian name given] (Herakles)
[no Scythian name give] (Ares)
Herodotus notes that these seven gods are worshiped by all Scythian tribes, but Royal Scythians also also made sacrificial offerings to Poseidon, whom they call Tagimasadas.
Argimpasa is mentioned several times.
In the context of her identification with the Greek Aphrodite-Urania (Heavenly).
In of the story of the Scythian Enareis (effeminate priests), who got their ‘female disease’ from Aphrodite
Finally, Herodotus tells us that the art of divination was given to Scythian Enareis by Aphrodite (Argim-pasa).
Argimpasa (Artimpasa) is the Scythian goddess of love and
fertility corresponding to the Greek Aphrodite. She lived in a cave in
Crimea. In ancient art, she was depicted as a beautiful long-haired
woman with snakes instead of legs. Argimpasa became Hercules’ wife, and
the couple had three sons. The youngest of the three—strong enough to
draw back the string of his father’s bow—was named Scyth. He sired a
great people, the Scythians.
In Hermopolis, Thoth led "the Ogdoad", a pantheon of eight principal deities, and his spouse was Nehmetawy. He also had numerous shrines in other cities.
Thoth played many vital and prominent roles in Egyptian mythology, such as maintaining the universe, and being one of the two deities (the other being Ma'at) who stood on either side of Ra's solar barge. In the later history of ancient Egypt, Thoth became heavily associated with the arbitration of godly disputes, the arts of magic, the system of writing, the development of science, and the judgment of the dead.
References to the Ogdoad date to the Old Kingdom of Egypt, and even at the time of composition of the Pyramid Texts
towards the end of the Old Kingdom, they appear to have been antiquated
and mostly forgotten by everyone except religious experts. They are
frequently mentioned in the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom. The oldest known pictorial representations of the group do not predate the time of Seti I (New Kingdom, 13th century BC), when the group appears to be rediscovered by the theologians of Hermopolis for the purposes of a more elaborate creation account.
Texts of the Late Period
describe them as having the heads of frogs (male) and serpents
(female), and they are often depicted in this way in reliefs of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
Apotheosis (from Greek ἀποθέωσις from ἀποθεόω/ἀποθεῶ, apotheoo/apotheo "to deify"; in Latin deificatio "making divine"; also called divinization and deification) is the glorification of a subject to divine level and most commonly, the treatment of a human like a god. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.
In theology, apotheosis refers to the idea that an
individual has been raised to godlike stature. In art, the term refers
to the treatment of any subject (a figure, group, locale, motif,
convention or melody) in a particularly grand or exalted manner.
The Eight Kings are eight beasts, each from a different 'King'
species of animal, individually regarded as the most powerful beings in
the world. They serve as the absolute rulers of the eight major
continents of Gourmet World,
and have since ancient times. The Eight Kings have tremendous power and
even the world's strongest individuals cannot act carelessly when in
their presence.
Usually a single species of overwhelmingly powerful beast at the
top of the food chain (sometimes called a 'King' species) provides the
individual Kings of each continent, such as the Herac of Area 8 or the Ballboons of Area 7.
Their local power thus secured, the Eight Kings and their proxies
battle each other in a constant, warlord-like rivalry across Gourmet
World.
Nevertheless, the Kings help to preserve the balance of the
complex ecosystems they rule, making them essential to the balance of
life. Further, each serves as ultimate guardian to one of the world's
own Full Course Ingredients, known to modern humans through the research
of the 'Gourmet God', Acacia. This balancing role has brought the Kings into conflict with the notorious Blue Nitro,
who regard them warily and seek to steal the ingredients they defend.
In the distant past, the Eight Kings used their power in order to free
humans and members of the Red Nitro slave caste. They also fought
against a beast which had been unleashed to cause chaos within the Human World, the Four Beast.
The eight deities were arranged in four male-female pairs (the female
names being merely derivative female forms of the male names), as
follows:
The names of Nu and Naunet are written with the determiners for sky and water, and it seems clear that they represent the primordial waters.
The fourth pair appears with varying names; sometimes the name Qerḥ is replaced by Ni, Nenu, Nu, or Amun, and the name Qerḥet by Ennit, Nenuit, Nunu, Nit, or Amunet. The common meaning of qerḥ is "night", but the determinative (D41 for "to halt, stop, deny") also suggests the principle of inactivity or repose
Ḥeḥu and Ḥeḥut have no readily identifiable determiners; according to a suggestion due to Brugsch (1885), the name is associated with a term for an undefined or unlimited number, ḥeḥ, suggesting a concept similar to Greek aion.
But from the context of a number of passages in which Ḥeḥu is
mentioned, Brugsch also suggested that he may be a personification of
the atmosphere between heaven and earth (c.f. Shu).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeon The word aeon/ˈiːɒn/, also spelled eon (in American English),
originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a
period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense
of "ages", "forever", "timeless" or "for eternity". It is a Latin transliteration from the koine Greek word ὁ αἰών (ho aion), from the archaic αἰϝών (aiwon). In Homer it typically refers to life or lifespan. Its latest meaning is more or less similar to the Sanskrit word kalpa and Hebrew word olam. A cognateLatin word aevum or aeuum (cf. αἰϝών) for "age" is present in words such as longevity and mediaeval.
8And say to them further: Anyone of the
house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them who offers a
burnt offering or sacrifice,
9and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, to sacrifice it to the Lord, shall be cut off from the people.
10If anyone of the house of Israel
or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my
face against that person who eats blood, and will cut that person off
from the people.
11For the life of the flesh is in the
blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on
the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement.
12Therefore I have said to the people of
Israel: No person among you shall eat blood, nor shall any alien who
resides among you eat blood.
13And anyone of the people of Israel, or
of the aliens who reside among them, who hunts down an animal or bird
that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth.
14For the life of every creature—its blood
is its life; therefore I have said to the people of Israel: You shall
not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its
blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off.
15All persons, citizens or aliens, who eat
what dies of itself or what has been torn by wild animals, shall wash
their clothes, and bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the
evening; then they shall be clean.
16But if they do not wash themselves or bathe their body, they shall bear their guilt.
In many Gnostic systems, the various emanations of God, who is also known by such names as the One, the Monad, Aion teleos (αἰών τέλεος "The Broadest Aeon"), Bythos ("depth or profundity", Greek βυθός), Proarkhe ("before the beginning", Greek προαρχή), the Arkhe ("the beginning", Greek ἀρχή), "Sophia" (wisdom), Christos (the Anointed One) are called Aeons.
In the different systems these emanations are differently named,
classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common to
all forms of Gnosticism.
In the Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (υἱότητες huiotetes; sing.: υἱότης huiotes); according to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called "syzygies" (Greek συζυγίαι, from σύζυγοι syzygoi).
Similarly, in the Greek Magical Papyri, the term "Aion" is often used to denote the All, or the supreme aspect of God.
Cybele (/ˈsɪbəli/SIB-ə-lee; Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya "Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; LydianKuvava; Greek: Κυβέλη Kybele, Κυβήβη Kybebe, Κύβελις Kybelis) is an Anatolianmother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations. She is Phrygia's only known goddess, and was probably its national deity. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century BC.
In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, her possibly Minoan equivalent Rhea, and the harvest–mother goddess Demeter. Some city-states, notably Athens,
evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and
processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess
who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music,
wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following. Uniquely in Greek religion,
she had a eunuchmendicant priesthood. Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis,
who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele is associated
with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals,
especially lions.
In Rome, Cybele was known as Magna Mater ("Great Mother"). The Roman state adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome's second war against Carthage. Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas. With Rome's eventual hegemony
over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele's cults spread
throughout the Roman Empire. The meaning and morality of her cults and
priesthoods were topics of debate and dispute in Greek and Roman
literature, and remain so in modern scholarship.
The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which sometimes used intoxicants
and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove
inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return
to a natural state. It also provided some liberation for those
marginalized by Greek society: women, slaves, outlaws, and non-citizens.
In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus changing his nature accordingly. By its nature as a mystery religion reserved for the initiated, many aspects of the Dionysian cult remain unknown and were lost with the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism; modern knowledge is derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies.
The original rite of Dionysus (as introduced into Greece) is
associated with a wine cult (not unlike the entheogenic cults of ancient
Central America), concerned with the grapevine's cultivation and an understanding of its life cycle (believed to have embodied the living god) and the fermentation of wine from its dismembered body (associated with the god's essence in the underworld).
Most importantly, however, the intoxicating and disinhibiting effects
of wine were regarded as due to possession by the god's spirit (and,
later, as causing this possession). Wine was also poured on the earth
and its growing vine, completing the cycle. The cult was not solely
concerned with the vine itself, but also with the other components of
wine. Wine includes other ingredients (herbal, floral and resinous)
adding to its quality, flavour and medicinal properties. Scholars have
suggested that, given the low alcoholic content of early wine, its
effects may have been due to an additional entheogenic ingredient in its
sacramental form. Honey and beeswax were often added to wine, introducing an even older drink (mead). Károly Kerényi postulated that this wine lore superseded (and partly absorbed) earlier Neolithic mead lore involving bee swarms associated by the Greeks with Dionysus.[2] Mead and beer (with its cereal base) were incorporated into the domain of Dionysus, perhaps through his identification with the Thracian corn deity Sabazius.
Other plants believed to be viniculturally
significant were also included in wine lore such as ivy (thought to
counteract drunkenness—thus the opposite of the grapevine—and seen as
blooming in winter instead of summer); the fig (a purgative
of toxins) and the pine (a wine preservative). The bull (from whose
horn wine was drunk) and goat (whose flesh provided wineskins, and whose
browsing pruned the vines) were also part of the cult, eventually seen
as manifestations of Dionysus. Some of these associations had been
linked with fertility deities (like Dionysus) and became part of his new
role. An understanding of vinicultural lore and its symbolism is key to
understanding the cult which emerged from it, assuming a significance
other than winemaking that would encompass life, death and rebirth and
providing insight into human psychology.
Assuming the Dionysus cult arrived in Greece with the importation of wine, it probably first emerged about 6000 BC[citation needed] in one of two places—the Zagros Mountains and borderlands of Mesopotamia and Persia (with a rich wine culture via Asia Minor), or from wild vines on the mountain slopes of Libya and other regions in North Africa. The latter provided wine to ancient Egypt wine from about 2500 BC, and was home to ecstatic rites involving animal possession—notably the goat and panther men of the AissaouaSufi cult of Morocco (although this cult may have been influenced by the Dionysian one). In any case Minoan Crete was the next link in the chain, importing wine from the Egyptians, Thracians and Phoenicians
and exporting it to its colonies (such as Greece). The Mysteries
probably took shape in Minoan Crete from about 3000 to 1000 BC, since
the name "Dionysus" exists nowhere other than Crete and Greece.
Easton's Bible Dictionary says, "The sin of drunkenness
... must have been not uncommon in the olden times, for it is mentioned
either metaphorically or literally more than seventy times in the
Bible," though some suggest it was a "vice of the wealthy rather than of the poor."
Biblical interpreters generally agree that the Hebrew and Christian
scriptures condemn ordinary drunkenness as a serious spiritual and moral
failing in passages such as these (all from the New International Version):
Proverbs 23:20f: "Do not join those who drink too much wine or
gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and
drowsiness clothes them in rags."
Isaiah
5:11f: "Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their
drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine. They
have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and
wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD, no respect for the work of his hands."
Galatians
5:19–21: "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: ... drunkenness,
orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live
like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."
Ephesians 5:18: "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit."
The consequences of the drunkenness of Noah and Lot "were intended to serve as examples of the dangers and repulsiveness of intemperance." The title character in the Book of Judith uses the drunkenness of the Assyrian
general Holofernes to behead him in a heroic victory for the Jewish
people and an embarrassing defeat for the general, who had schemed to
seduce Judith.
One of the original sections of 1 Esdras describes a debate among three courtiers of Darius I of Persia
over whether wine, the king, or women (but above all the truth) is the
strongest. The argument for wine does not prevail in the contest, but it
provides a vivid description of the ancients' view of the power wine
can wield in excessive quantity.
A disputed but important passage is Proverbs 31:4–7. Some
Christians assert that alcohol was prohibited to kings at all times,
while most interpreters contend that only its abuse is in view here. Some argue that the latter instructions regarding the perishing should
be understood as sarcasm when compared with the preceding verses, while others contend the beer and wine are intended as a cordial to raise the spirits of the perishing, while some suggest that the Bible is here authorizing alcohol as an anesthetic. Moreover, some suggest that the wines that Jesus was offered at his crucifixion were also intended as an anesthetic.
The Hebrew scriptures prescribed wine for use in festal celebrations and sacrificial rituals. In particular, fermented wine was presented daily as a drink offering, as part of the first Fruits offering, and as part of various supplementary offerings. Wine was kept in the Temple in Jerusalem, and the king had his own private stores.
The Last Supper by Simon Ushakov, 1685. Jesus holds a chalice containing wine.
The banquet hall was called a "house of wine," and wine was used as the usual drink at most secular and religious feasts, including feasts of celebration and hospitality, tithe celebrations, Jewish holidays such as Passover, and at burials. Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, which took place at a Passover celebration, and set apart the bread and "fruit of the vine" that were present there as symbols of the New Covenant. Saint Paul later chides the Corinthians for becoming drunk on wine served at their celebrations of the Lord's Supper.
Bringer of joy
The
Bible also speaks of wine in general terms as a bringer and concomitant
of joy, particularly in the context of nourishment and feasting, e.g.:
Psalm 104:14–15: "[The LORD]
makes ... plants for man to cultivate – bringing forth food from the
earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine,
and bread that sustains his heart." Gregory of Nyssa (died 395) made a distinction between types of wine
(intoxicating and non-intoxicating) – "not that wine which produces
drunkenness, plots against the senses, and destroys the body, but such
as gladdens the heart, the wine which the Prophet recommends"
Ecclesiastes 9:7: "Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do."
wild, ineffable, secretive, two-horned and two-shaped.
Ivy-covered, bull-faced, warlike, howling, pure,
You take raw flesh, you have feasts, wrapt in foliage, decked with grape clusters.
Resourceful Eubouleus, immortal god sired by Zeus
When he mated with Persephone in unspeakable union.
Hearken to my voice, O blessed one,
and with your fair-girdled nymphs breathe on me in a spirit of perfect agape".
"In intoxication, physical or spiritual, the initiate recovers
an intensity of feeling which prudence had destroyed; he finds the world
full of delight and beauty, and his imagination is suddenly :liberated
from the prison of everyday preoccupations. The Bacchic ritual produced
what was called 'enthusiasm', which means etymologically having the god
enter the worshipper, who believed :that he became one with the god"
The ancient Egyptians believed that a soul (kꜣ/bꜣ; Egypt. pron. ka/ba) was made up of many parts. In addition to these components of the soul, there was the human body (called the ḥꜥ, occasionally a plural ḥꜥw, meaning approximately "sum of bodily parts").
According to ancient Egyptian creation myths, the god Atum created the world out of chaos, utilizing his own magic (ḥkꜣ).
Because the earth was created with magic, Egyptians believed that the
world was imbued with magic and so was every living thing upon it. When
humans were created, that magic took the form of the soul, an eternal
force which resided in and with every human being. The concept of the
soul and the parts which encompass it has varied from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom, at times changing from one dynasty to another, from five parts to more. Most ancient Egyptian funerary texts reference numerous parts of the soul: the ẖt (Middle Egyptian /ˈçuːwaʔ/, Coptic ϩⲏ) "physical body", the sꜥḥ "spiritual body", the rn (/ɾin/, Coptic ⲣⲁⲛ or ⲗⲉⲛ) "name, identity", the bꜣ "personality", the kꜣ (/kuʔ/, Old Egyptian /kuʀ/) "double", the jb (/jib/, Coptic ⲉⲡ) "heart", the šwt "shadow", the sḫm (/saːχam/) "power, form", and the ꜣḫ (the combined spirits of a dead person that has successfully completed its transition to the afterlife).[2] Rosalie David, an Egyptologist at the University of Manchester, explains the many facets of the soul as follows:
The Egyptians believed that the
human personality had many facets—a concept that was probably developed
early in the Old Kingdom. In life, the person was a complete entity, but
if he had led a virtuous life, he could also have access to a
multiplicity of forms that could be used in the next world. In some
instances, these forms could be employed to help those whom the deceased
wished to support or, alternately, to take revenge on his enemies.
Heka (/ˈhɛkə/; Ancient Egyptian: wikt:ḥkꜣ(w); Coptic: ϩⲓⲕ hik; also transliterated Hekau) was the deification of magic and medicine in ancient Egypt. The name is the Egyptian word for "magic". According to Egyptian literature (Coffin text, spell 261), Heka existed "before duality had yet come into being." The term ḥk3 was also used to refer to the practice of magical rituals.
Name
The name Heka is identical with the Egyptian word ḥk3w "magic". This hieroglyphic spelling includes the symbol for the word ka (kꜣ), the ancient Egyptian concept of the vital force.
Beliefs
The Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts depict ḥk3w
as a supernatural energy that the gods possess. The "cannibal pharaoh"
must devour other gods to gain this magical power. Eventually, Heka was
elevated to a deity in his own right and a cult devoted to him
developed. By the Coffin Texts, Heka is said to be created at the beginning of time by the creator Atum. Later Heka is depicted as part of the tableau of the divine solar barge as a protector of Osiris capable of blinding crocodiles. Then, during the Ptolemaic dynasty, Heka's role was to proclaim the pharaoh's enthronement as a son of Isis, holding him in his arms.[4][5]
Heka also appears as part of a divine triad in Esna, capital of the Third Nome, where he is the son of ram-headed Khnum and a succession of goddesses. His mother was alternately said to be Nebetu'u (a form of Hathor), lion-headed Menhit, and the cow goddess Mehetweret, before settling on Neith, a war and mother goddess.[6]
Other deities connected with the force of ḥk3w include Hu, Sia, and Werethekau, whose name means "she who has great magic".
As Egyptologist Ogden Goelet, Jr. explains, magic in The Egyptian Book of the Dead (BD)
is problematic. The text uses various words corresponding to 'magic,'
for the Egyptians thought magic was a legitimate belief. As Goelet
explains: "Heka magic is many things, but, above all, it has a
close association with speech and the power of the word. In the realm of
Egyptian magic, actions did not necessarily speak louder than
words--they were often one and the same thing. Thought, deed, image, and
power are theoretically united in the concept of heka
The ẖt,
or physical form, had to exist for the soul (kꜣ/bꜣ) to have
intelligence or the chance to be judged by the guardians of the
underworld. Therefore, it was necessary for the body to be preserved as
efficiently and completely as possible and for the burial chamber to be
as personalized as it could be, with paintings and statuary showing
scenes and triumphs from the deceased's life. In the Old Kingdom, only
the pharaoh was granted mummification and, thus, a chance at an eternal
and fulfilling afterlife. However, by the Middle Kingdom, all dead were
afforded the opportunity. Herodotus, an ancient Greek scholar, observed that grieving families were given a choice as to the type and or quality of the mummification
they preferred: "The best and most expensive kind is said to represent
[Osiris], the next best is somewhat inferior and cheaper, while the
third is cheapest of all."
Because the state of the body was tied so closely with the quality of the afterlife, by the time of the Middle Kingdom,
not only were the burial chambers painted with depictions of favourite
pastimes and great accomplishments of the dead, but there were also
small figurines (ushabtis)
of servants, slaves, and guards (and, in some cases beloved pets)
included in the tombs, to serve the deceased in the afterlife. However, an eternal existence in the afterlife was, by no means, assured.
Before a person could be judged by the gods, they had to be "awakened" through a series of funerary rites designed to reanimate their mummified remains in the afterlife. The main ceremony, the opening of the mouth ceremony, is best depicted within Pharaoh Sety
I's tomb. All along the walls and statuary inside the tomb are reliefs
and paintings of priests performing the sacred rituals and, below the
painted images, the text of the liturgy for opening of the mouth can be
found.
This ritual which, presumably, would have been performed during
interment, was meant to reanimate each section of the body: brain, head,
limbs, etc. so that the spiritual body would be able to move in the
afterlife.
If all the rites, ceremonies, and preservation rituals for the ẖt
were observed correctly, and the deceased was found worthy (by Osiris
and the gods of the underworld) of passing through into the afterlife,
the sꜥḥ
(or spiritual representation of the physical body) forms. This
spiritual body was then able to interact with the many entities extant
in the afterlife. As a part of the larger construct, the ꜣḫ, the sꜥḥ
was sometimes seen as an avenging spirit which would return from the
underworld to seek revenge on those who had wronged the spirit in life. A
well-known example was found in a tomb from the Middle Kingdom in which
a man leaves a letter to his late wife who, it can be supposed, is
haunting him:
What wicked thing have I done to
thee that I should have come to this evil pass? What have I done to
thee? But what thou hast done to me is to have laid hands on me although
I had nothing wicked to thee. From the time I lived with thee as thy
husband down to today, what have I done to thee that I need hide? When
thou didst sicken of the illness which thou hadst, I caused a
master-physician to be fetched…I spent eight months without eating and
drinking like a man. I wept exceedingly together with my household in
front of my street-quarter. I gave linen clothes to wrap thee and left
no benefit undone that had to be performed for thee. And now, behold, I
have spent three years alone without entering into a house, though it is
not right that one like me should have to do it. This have I done for
thy sake. But, behold, thou dost not know good from bad.
An important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the jb, or heart. The heart[9] was believed to be formed from one drop of blood from the heart of the child's mother, taken at conception.[citation needed] To ancient Egyptians, the heart was the seat of emotion, thought, will and intention, evidenced by the many expressions in the Egyptian language which incorporate the word jb. Unlike in English, when ancient Egyptians referenced the jb
they generally meant the physical heart as opposed to a metaphorical
heart. However, ancient Egyptians usually made no distinction between
the mind and the heart with regard to emotion or thought. The two were
synonymous.
In the Egyptian religion, the heart was the key to the afterlife. It was
essential to surviving death in the nether world, where it gave
evidence for, or against, its possessor. Like the physical body (ẖt),
the heart was a necessary part of judgement in the afterlife and it was
to be carefully preserved and stored within the mummified body with a
heart scarab carefully secured to the body above it to prevent it from
telling tales. According to the Text of the Book of Breathings,
[They
drag Osiris in]to the Pool of Khonsu, ... and likewise [the Osirism
Hor, justified] born of Taikhebyt, justified ... after he has grasped
his heart. They bury ... the Book of Breathings which [Isis] made, which
... is written on both its inside and outside, (wrapped) in royal
linen, and it is placed [under] the ... left arm near his heart.[10]
It was thought that the heart was examined by Anubis and the deities during the Weighing of the Heart ceremony. If the heart weighed more than the feather of Maat, it was immediately consumed by the monster Ammit, and the soul became eternally restless.
The kꜣ : ?, was the
Egyptian concept of vital essence, which distinguishes the difference
between a living and a dead person, with death occurring when the kꜣ
left the body. The Egyptians believed that Khnum created the bodies of children on a potter's wheel and inserted them into their mothers' bodies. Depending on the region, Egyptians believed that Heqet or Meskhenet was the creator of each person's kꜣ, breathing it into them at the instant of their birth as the part of their soul that made them be alive. This resembles the concept of spirit in other religions.
The Egyptians also believed that the kꜣ was sustained through
food and drink. For this reason food and drink offerings were presented
to the dead, although it was the kꜣw within the offerings that was
consumed, not the physical aspect. In the Middle kingdom a form of
offering tray known as a Soul house was developed to facilitate this.
The kꜣ was often represented in Egyptian iconography as a second image
of the king, leading earlier works to attempt to translate kꜣ as double.
In the Old Kingdom private tombs, artwork depicted a
"doubleworld" with essential people and objects for the owner of the ka.
As Ancient Orient Curator Andrey Bolshakov explains:
"The notion of the ka was a dominating concept of the next life in the
Old Kingdom. In a less pure form, it lived into the Middle Kingdom, and
lost much of its importance in the New Kingdom, although the ka always
remained the recipient of offerings."
Comments
According to the Book of Jubilees, Mastema ("hostility") is the chief of the demons engendered by the Watchers/fallen angels with women.
His actions and name indicate he is the Satan, the "Adversary", but in these religious works Satan is more like him who appears in the Book of Job with a function to fulfill under God than like Satan of later tradition who is the uttermost enemy of God. Beliar, mentioned twice in Jubilees, is likely to be identical with Mastema in this work.
When God is ready to destroy all these demons after the flood and Noah prays that his descendants be released from their attacks, Mastema intervenes, beseeching God to allow him to retain and control one tenth of these demons in order to exercise his authority because they are "intended to corrupt and lead astray before my judgement because the evil of the sons of men is great". (Jubilees 10:8) Mastema is the tester of humans, with God's permission.
Phanes /ˈfeɪˌniːz/ (Ancient Greek: Φάνης, genitive Φάνητος) or Protogonus /proʊˈtɒɡənəs/ (Greek: Πρωτογόνος, "first-born") was the mystic primeval deity of procreation and the generation of new life, who was introduced into Greek mythology by the Orphic tradition; other names for this Classical Greek Orphic concept included Ericapaeus /ˌɛrɪkəˈpiːəs/ or Erikepaios (Ἠρικαπαῖος or Ἠρικεπαῖος "power") and Metis ("thought").
Mythology
In these myths,[clarification needed] Phanes is often equated with Eros and Mithras and has been depicted as a deity emerging from a cosmic egg, entwined with a serpent. He had a helmet and had broad, golden wings. The Orphic cosmogony is bizarre, and quite unlike the creation sagas offered by Homer and Hesiod. Scholars have suggested that Orphism is "un-Greek" even "Asiatic" in conception, because of its inherent dualism.
Chronos (Time) is said to have created the silver egg of the universe, out of which burst the androgynous first-born deity Phanes, or Phanes-Dionysos. Phanes is said to have both a phallus and a vagina. Phanes was a deity of light and goodness, whose name meant "to bring light" or "to shine"; a first-born god of light who emerged from a void or a watery abyss and gives birth to the universe. Nyx (Night) is variously said to be Phanes' daughter or older wife.
Many threads of earlier myths are apparent in the new tradition.[clarification needed] Phanes was believed to have been hatched from the World-Egg of Chronos (Time) and Ananke (Necessity or Fate) or Nyx in the form of a black bird and wind. His older wife Nyx called him Protogenus. As she created nighttime, Phanes created daytime, and also created the method of creation by mingling. He was made the ruler of the deities and passed the sceptre to Nyx. This new Orphic tradition states that Nyx later gave the sceptre to her son Uranos before it passed to Cronus and then to Zeus, who retained it.
According to Aristophanes, whence Phanes is called Eros, he was born from an egg created by Nyx and placed in the boundless lap of Erebus, after which he mates with Chaos and creates the flying creatures. This passage seeks to demonstrate that the flying creatures are considered older than all other living creatures, even older than the other gods.
The "Protogonos Theogony" is known through the commentary in the Derveni papyrus and references in Empedocles and Pindar.
According to Damascius, Phanes was the first god "expressible and acceptable to human ears" (πρώτης ητόν τι ἐχούσης καὶ σύμμετρον πρὸς ἀνθρώπων ἀκοάς).
Another Orphic hymn states: "You scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and throughout this world you brought pure light. For this I call you Phanes." ("ὄσσων ὃς σκοτόεσσαν ἀπημαύρωσας ὁμίχλην πάντη δινηθεὶς πτερύγων ῥιπαῖς κατὰ κόσμον λαμπρὸν ἄγων φάος ἁγνόν , ἀφ ' οὗ σε Φάνητα κικλήσκω.")
The Derveni Papyrus refers to Phanes: "Of the First-born king, the neverend one; and upon him all the immortals grew, blessed gods and goddesses and rivers and lovely springs and everything else that had then been born; and he himself became the sole one". ("Πρωτογόνου βασιλέως αἰδοίου∙ τῶι δ’ ἄρα πάντες ἀθάνατοι προσέφυν μάκαρες θεοὶ ἠδ̣ὲ θέαιναι καὶ ποταμοὶ καὶ κρῆναι ἐπήρατιο ἄλλα τε πάντα , ἅ̣σσα τότ’ ἦγγεγαῶτ ’ , αὐτὸς δ’ ἄρα μοῦνος ἔγεντο.”)
Dionysus or Zagreus of the Orphic tradition is intimately connected to Protogonos. In the Orphic Hymn 30, he is given a list of epithets that also allude to Protogonos: "πρωτόγονον, διφυῆ, τρίγονον, Βακχεῖον ἄνακτα,ἄγριον, ἄρρητον, κρύφιον, δικέρωτα, δίμορφον" – "Primeval, two-natured, thrice-born, Bacchic lord, savage, ineffable, secretive, two-horned, and two-shaped".
In the Orphic tradition, Dionysus-Protogonos-Phanes is a dying and rising god. Eusebius tells us the story of his death and recreation. The Titans boil the dismembered limbs of Dionysus in a kettle, they roast him on a spit and eat the roasted "sacrificial meat", then Athena rescues the still-beating heart from which (according to Olympiodorus) Zeus is able to recreate the god and bring him back to life. Kessler has argued that this cult of death and resurrection of Dionysus developed the 4th century CE; and together with Mithraism and other sects this cult formed, were in direct competition with Early Christianity during Late Antiquity.
Enoch Approaches Lucifer's Throne, 3284 B.C.
This illustration is from an eyewitness account by God's scribe Enoch —Steve Quayle
Artist Brian Snoddy
Awaiting the Calling!
The sun is beaming down on the golden sands of Egypt and the reflection gives the illusion of shimmering mirrors. In the background there is the noise of lifting, pushing, flapping wings and hammering on stone. A shadow is standing in the midst of the sand looking upward toward heaven and the heat rays of the beating sun.
He is covered in sackcloth and has a wide belt fashioned out of leather girding his loins. In one hand he holds firmly an aged book wrapped in sackcloth and hand written by him and the others. In the other hand he is holding a staff, which has camel hair and bone wrapped around it. Although he has been around from the beginning he shows no sign of aging past the age of twenty-eight years of life! His skin is caramel with a hint of red, his eye’s searching through time seeing both the past, present and recording the future.
As he looks upward into heaven, the sky turns dark, the water layer that covers the earth in a humidifying blanket begins to turn and boil. A voice from above the firmaments calls for him to come forward and listen. He falls face forward onto the ground and asks, “What is required of me, your servant?”
The voice from above replies, “They have left their first estate and are causing war in heaven. I shall destroy them from my sight and seek them where they hide from me! They have turned from me to follow pride, lust and power and have defiled their gifts and exchanged them for the lust of the flesh!”
The rushing of wind is felt all around the Recorder of Time. And then in the twinkling of an eye he is gone.
from The Chronicles of Enoch
Enoch Confronts Fallen Angels
The Judgment
Scene Two
The falling away: There will be no intervention for those who left there (sic) first estate. But there will be intervention for man!
This place was different from Earth. The plants were plush and green. The sun was not the source of warmth. The planet itself gave off ground heat to offset the distance and cold of space. There is more then one moon and the sky is deep blue with thin clouds.
Through the foliage he could see strange beings in the air. They fly around in a hectic pace as if there were some urgent issue at hand. These beings are tall winged creatures with strengths unknown to mankind. They are the Anakin: the men of renown; legends of old; the sons of God!
The prophet moved through the plush vegetation to a place of clearing. There in the midst of the clearing was what could only be explained as a large dome with odd slots dug into the top. The winged beings were working hard to construct this dome as if time was running out for them.
Then the prophet witnessed the source of the problem setting atop a throne at the top of the dome watching while the others worked. Basking in his own glory and beauty. He was beautiful and magnificent to look upon. But there was something different about him now that he was outside of the fathers will: something defiled and corrupt.
The winged ones gathered around as the prophet opened his little book and laid it upon the stone resting before him. He began to pray and seek God’s will for what was to be done with those who had left their first estate and built a throne to the one who would put himself above the father! The one who, by his sin and his twisting of the Father’s word, caused the others to leave their first estate and fall from grace into defilement and reprobate minds, lusting after that which was not meant for them.
The prophet began to read from the book the names of those that had fallen and left their first estate. As he spoke the wings of those around him grew silent and fell limp and useless beside them. Chains and shackles appeared in mid air and chained the winged ones to the shackles and bound them.
What You Bind On Earth,
I Will Bind In The Heavens.
And What You Loose On Earth,
That I Shall Also Loose In Heaven
Scene Three
The green planet opened up in large craters all around the giants, swallowing them up and sealing them in their pits of torment. As the prophet continued to speak from the little book each name given to the fallen angelic beings, chains would bind them and shackles would draw them into there tomb.
Not all were sealed. Those who were not fallen gathered together the stones from which the fallen ones had cut for the building of their dome. From the stones they constructed pyramids on top of the seals to be a marker for those who would put themselves up on a throne, in the attempt to be God!
They would also be a marker of time and the craftsmanship of Enoch!
The earliest known written source describing the Scythian pantheon of gods is the work of Herodotus, who describes eight gods of the Royal Scythians (the ruling tribe of the Scythian Empire).
Herodotus notes that these seven gods are worshiped by all Scythian tribes, but Royal Scythians also also made sacrificial offerings to Poseidon, whom they call Tagimasadas.
Argimpasa is mentioned several times.
Thoth's chief temple was located in the city of Hermopolis (Ancient Egyptian: ḫmnw /χaˈmaːnaw/, Egyptological pronunciation: "Khemenu", Coptic: Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛ Shmun). Later known as el-Ashmunein in Egyptian Arabic, it was partially destroyed in 1826.
In Hermopolis, Thoth led "the Ogdoad", a pantheon of eight principal deities, and his spouse was Nehmetawy. He also had numerous shrines in other cities.
Thoth played many vital and prominent roles in Egyptian mythology, such as maintaining the universe, and being one of the two deities (the other being Ma'at) who stood on either side of Ra's solar barge. In the later history of ancient Egypt, Thoth became heavily associated with the arbitration of godly disputes, the arts of magic, the system of writing, the development of science, and the judgment of the dead.In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad (Ancient Greek: ὀγδοάς "the Eightfold"; Ancient Egyptian: ḫmnyw, a plural nisba of ḫmnw "eight") were eight primordial deities worshipped in Hermopolis.
References to the Ogdoad date to the Old Kingdom of Egypt, and even at the time of composition of the Pyramid Texts towards the end of the Old Kingdom, they appear to have been antiquated and mostly forgotten by everyone except religious experts. They are frequently mentioned in the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom. The oldest known pictorial representations of the group do not predate the time of Seti I (New Kingdom, 13th century BC), when the group appears to be rediscovered by the theologians of Hermopolis for the purposes of a more elaborate creation account.
Texts of the Late Period describe them as having the heads of frogs (male) and serpents (female), and they are often depicted in this way in reliefs of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotheosis
Apotheosis (from Greek ἀποθέωσις from ἀποθεόω/ἀποθεῶ, apotheoo/apotheo "to deify"; in Latin deificatio "making divine"; also called divinization and deification) is the glorification of a subject to divine level and most commonly, the treatment of a human like a god. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.
In theology, apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature. In art, the term refers to the treatment of any subject (a figure, group, locale, motif, convention or melody) in a particularly grand or exalted manner.
Before the Hellenistic period, imperial cults were known in Ancient Egypt (pharaohs) and Mesopotamia (since Naram-Sin). From the New Kingdom, all deceased pharaohs were deified as the god Osiris.1 Maccabees 3:48
“And laid open the book of the law, wherein the heathen had sought to paint the likeness of their images.”The Eight Kings are eight beasts, each from a different 'King' species of animal, individually regarded as the most powerful beings in the world. They serve as the absolute rulers of the eight major continents of Gourmet World, and have since ancient times. The Eight Kings have tremendous power and even the world's strongest individuals cannot act carelessly when in their presence.
Usually a single species of overwhelmingly powerful beast at the top of the food chain (sometimes called a 'King' species) provides the individual Kings of each continent, such as the Herac of Area 8 or the Ballboons of Area 7. Their local power thus secured, the Eight Kings and their proxies battle each other in a constant, warlord-like rivalry across Gourmet World.
Nevertheless, the Kings help to preserve the balance of the complex ecosystems they rule, making them essential to the balance of life. Further, each serves as ultimate guardian to one of the world's own Full Course Ingredients, known to modern humans through the research of the 'Gourmet God', Acacia. This balancing role has brought the Kings into conflict with the notorious Blue Nitro, who regard them warily and seek to steal the ingredients they defend. In the distant past, the Eight Kings used their power in order to free humans and members of the Red Nitro slave caste. They also fought against a beast which had been unleashed to cause chaos within the Human World, the Four Beast.
The eight deities were arranged in four male-female pairs (the female names being merely derivative female forms of the male names), as follows:
The names of Nu and Naunet are written with the determiners for sky and water, and it seems clear that they represent the primordial waters.
The fourth pair appears with varying names; sometimes the name Qerḥ is replaced by Ni, Nenu, Nu, or Amun, and the name Qerḥet by Ennit, Nenuit, Nunu, Nit, or Amunet. The common meaning of qerḥ is "night", but the determinative (D41 for "to halt, stop, deny") also suggests the principle of inactivity or reposeThe word aeon /ˈiːɒn/, also spelled eon (in American English), originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense of "ages", "forever", "timeless" or "for eternity". It is a Latin transliteration from the koine Greek word ὁ αἰών (ho aion), from the archaic αἰϝών (aiwon). In Homer it typically refers to life or lifespan. Its latest meaning is more or less similar to the Sanskrit word kalpa and Hebrew word olam. A cognate Latin word aevum or aeuum (cf. αἰϝών) for "age" is present in words such as longevity and mediaeval.
Leviticus 17.8-16
8And say to them further: Anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, 9and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, to sacrifice it to the Lord, shall be cut off from the people.
10If anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, and will cut that person off from the people. 11For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement. 12Therefore I have said to the people of Israel: No person among you shall eat blood, nor shall any alien who resides among you eat blood. 13And anyone of the people of Israel, or of the aliens who reside among them, who hunts down an animal or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth. 14For the life of every creature—its blood is its life; therefore I have said to the people of Israel: You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off. 15All persons, citizens or aliens, who eat what dies of itself or what has been torn by wild animals, shall wash their clothes, and bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening; then they shall be clean. 16But if they do not wash themselves or bathe their body, they shall bear their guilt.
In many Gnostic systems, the various emanations of God, who is also known by such names as the One, the Monad, Aion teleos (αἰών τέλεος "The Broadest Aeon"), Bythos ("depth or profundity", Greek βυθός), Proarkhe ("before the beginning", Greek προαρχή), the Arkhe ("the beginning", Greek ἀρχή), "Sophia" (wisdom), Christos (the Anointed One) are called Aeons. In the different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common to all forms of Gnosticism.
In the Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (υἱότητες huiotetes; sing.: υἱότης huiotes); according to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called "syzygies" (Greek συζυγίαι, from σύζυγοι syzygoi).
Similarly, in the Greek Magical Papyri, the term "Aion" is often used to denote the All, or the supreme aspect of God.Cybele (/ˈsɪbəli/ SIB-ə-lee; Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya "Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian Kuvava; Greek: Κυβέλη Kybele, Κυβήβη Kybebe, Κύβελις Kybelis) is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations. She is Phrygia's only known goddess, and was probably its national deity. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies around the 6th century BC.
In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She was partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, her possibly Minoan equivalent Rhea, and the harvest–mother goddess Demeter. Some city-states, notably Athens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood. Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele is associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions.
In Rome, Cybele was known as Magna Mater ("Great Mother"). The Roman state adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome's second war against Carthage. Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas. With Rome's eventual hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele's cults spread throughout the Roman Empire. The meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods were topics of debate and dispute in Greek and Roman literature, and remain so in modern scholarship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysian_Mysteries
The original rite of Dionysus (as introduced into Greece) is associated with a wine cult (not unlike the entheogenic cults of ancient Central America), concerned with the grapevine's cultivation and an understanding of its life cycle (believed to have embodied the living god) and the fermentation of wine from its dismembered body (associated with the god's essence in the underworld). Most importantly, however, the intoxicating and disinhibiting effects of wine were regarded as due to possession by the god's spirit (and, later, as causing this possession). Wine was also poured on the earth and its growing vine, completing the cycle. The cult was not solely concerned with the vine itself, but also with the other components of wine. Wine includes other ingredients (herbal, floral and resinous) adding to its quality, flavour and medicinal properties. Scholars have suggested that, given the low alcoholic content of early wine, its effects may have been due to an additional entheogenic ingredient in its sacramental form. Honey and beeswax were often added to wine, introducing an even older drink (mead). Károly Kerényi postulated that this wine lore superseded (and partly absorbed) earlier Neolithic mead lore involving bee swarms associated by the Greeks with Dionysus.[2] Mead and beer (with its cereal base) were incorporated into the domain of Dionysus, perhaps through his identification with the Thracian corn deity Sabazius.
Other plants believed to be viniculturally significant were also included in wine lore such as ivy (thought to counteract drunkenness—thus the opposite of the grapevine—and seen as blooming in winter instead of summer); the fig (a purgative of toxins) and the pine (a wine preservative). The bull (from whose horn wine was drunk) and goat (whose flesh provided wineskins, and whose browsing pruned the vines) were also part of the cult, eventually seen as manifestations of Dionysus. Some of these associations had been linked with fertility deities (like Dionysus) and became part of his new role. An understanding of vinicultural lore and its symbolism is key to understanding the cult which emerged from it, assuming a significance other than winemaking that would encompass life, death and rebirth and providing insight into human psychology.
Assuming the Dionysus cult arrived in Greece with the importation of wine, it probably first emerged about 6000 BC[citation needed] in one of two places—the Zagros Mountains and borderlands of Mesopotamia and Persia (with a rich wine culture via Asia Minor), or from wild vines on the mountain slopes of Libya and other regions in North Africa. The latter provided wine to ancient Egypt wine from about 2500 BC, and was home to ecstatic rites involving animal possession—notably the goat and panther men of the Aissaoua Sufi cult of Morocco (although this cult may have been influenced by the Dionysian one). In any case Minoan Crete was the next link in the chain, importing wine from the Egyptians, Thracians and Phoenicians and exporting it to its colonies (such as Greece). The Mysteries probably took shape in Minoan Crete from about 3000 to 1000 BC, since the name "Dionysus" exists nowhere other than Crete and Greece.
Drunkenness
Easton's Bible Dictionary says, "The sin of drunkenness ... must have been not uncommon in the olden times, for it is mentioned either metaphorically or literally more than seventy times in the Bible," though some suggest it was a "vice of the wealthy rather than of the poor." Biblical interpreters generally agree that the Hebrew and Christian scriptures condemn ordinary drunkenness as a serious spiritual and moral failing in passages such as these (all from the New International Version):
The consequences of the drunkenness of Noah and Lot "were intended to serve as examples of the dangers and repulsiveness of intemperance." The title character in the Book of Judith uses the drunkenness of the Assyrian general Holofernes to behead him in a heroic victory for the Jewish people and an embarrassing defeat for the general, who had schemed to seduce Judith.
One of the original sections of 1 Esdras describes a debate among three courtiers of Darius I of Persia over whether wine, the king, or women (but above all the truth) is the strongest. The argument for wine does not prevail in the contest, but it provides a vivid description of the ancients' view of the power wine can wield in excessive quantity.
A disputed but important passage is Proverbs 31:4–7. Some Christians assert that alcohol was prohibited to kings at all times, while most interpreters contend that only its abuse is in view here. Some argue that the latter instructions regarding the perishing should be understood as sarcasm when compared with the preceding verses, while others contend the beer and wine are intended as a cordial to raise the spirits of the perishing, while some suggest that the Bible is here authorizing alcohol as an anesthetic. Moreover, some suggest that the wines that Jesus was offered at his crucifixion were also intended as an anesthetic.Sacrifices and feasts
The Hebrew scriptures prescribed wine for use in festal celebrations and sacrificial rituals. In particular, fermented wine was presented daily as a drink offering, as part of the first Fruits offering, and as part of various supplementary offerings. Wine was kept in the Temple in Jerusalem, and the king had his own private stores.
The banquet hall was called a "house of wine," and wine was used as the usual drink at most secular and religious feasts, including feasts of celebration and hospitality, tithe celebrations, Jewish holidays such as Passover, and at burials. Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, which took place at a Passover celebration, and set apart the bread and "fruit of the vine" that were present there as symbols of the New Covenant. Saint Paul later chides the Corinthians for becoming drunk on wine served at their celebrations of the Lord's Supper.
Bringer of joy
The Bible also speaks of wine in general terms as a bringer and concomitant of joy, particularly in the context of nourishment and feasting, e.g.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysian_Mysteries
Invocation of Dionysus (from Orphic hymns)
Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul
The ancient Egyptians believed that a soul (kꜣ/bꜣ; Egypt. pron. ka/ba) was made up of many parts. In addition to these components of the soul, there was the human body (called the ḥꜥ, occasionally a plural ḥꜥw, meaning approximately "sum of bodily parts").
According to ancient Egyptian creation myths, the god Atum created the world out of chaos, utilizing his own magic (ḥkꜣ). Because the earth was created with magic, Egyptians believed that the world was imbued with magic and so was every living thing upon it. When humans were created, that magic took the form of the soul, an eternal force which resided in and with every human being. The concept of the soul and the parts which encompass it has varied from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom, at times changing from one dynasty to another, from five parts to more. Most ancient Egyptian funerary texts reference numerous parts of the soul: the ẖt (Middle Egyptian /ˈçuːwaʔ/, Coptic ϩⲏ) "physical body", the sꜥḥ "spiritual body", the rn (/ɾin/, Coptic ⲣⲁⲛ or ⲗⲉⲛ) "name, identity", the bꜣ "personality", the kꜣ (/kuʔ/, Old Egyptian /kuʀ/) "double", the jb (/jib/, Coptic ⲉⲡ) "heart", the šwt "shadow", the sḫm (/saːχam/) "power, form", and the ꜣḫ (the combined spirits of a dead person that has successfully completed its transition to the afterlife).[2] Rosalie David, an Egyptologist at the University of Manchester, explains the many facets of the soul as follows:
Heka (/ˈhɛkə/; Ancient Egyptian: wikt:ḥkꜣ(w); Coptic: ϩⲓⲕ hik; also transliterated Hekau) was the deification of magic and medicine in ancient Egypt. The name is the Egyptian word for "magic". According to Egyptian literature (Coffin text, spell 261), Heka existed "before duality had yet come into being." The term ḥk3 was also used to refer to the practice of magical rituals.
Name
The name Heka is identical with the Egyptian word ḥk3w "magic". This hieroglyphic spelling includes the symbol for the word ka (kꜣ), the ancient Egyptian concept of the vital force.
Beliefs
The Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts depict ḥk3w as a supernatural energy that the gods possess. The "cannibal pharaoh" must devour other gods to gain this magical power. Eventually, Heka was elevated to a deity in his own right and a cult devoted to him developed. By the Coffin Texts, Heka is said to be created at the beginning of time by the creator Atum. Later Heka is depicted as part of the tableau of the divine solar barge as a protector of Osiris capable of blinding crocodiles. Then, during the Ptolemaic dynasty, Heka's role was to proclaim the pharaoh's enthronement as a son of Isis, holding him in his arms.[4][5]
Heka also appears as part of a divine triad in Esna, capital of the Third Nome, where he is the son of ram-headed Khnum and a succession of goddesses. His mother was alternately said to be Nebetu'u (a form of Hathor), lion-headed Menhit, and the cow goddess Mehetweret, before settling on Neith, a war and mother goddess.[6]
Other deities connected with the force of ḥk3w include Hu, Sia, and Werethekau, whose name means "she who has great magic".
As Egyptologist Ogden Goelet, Jr. explains, magic in The Egyptian Book of the Dead (BD) is problematic. The text uses various words corresponding to 'magic,' for the Egyptians thought magic was a legitimate belief. As Goelet explains: "Heka magic is many things, but, above all, it has a close association with speech and the power of the word. In the realm of Egyptian magic, actions did not necessarily speak louder than words--they were often one and the same thing. Thought, deed, image, and power are theoretically united in the concept of heka
The ẖt, or physical form, had to exist for the soul (kꜣ/bꜣ) to have intelligence or the chance to be judged by the guardians of the underworld. Therefore, it was necessary for the body to be preserved as efficiently and completely as possible and for the burial chamber to be as personalized as it could be, with paintings and statuary showing scenes and triumphs from the deceased's life. In the Old Kingdom, only the pharaoh was granted mummification and, thus, a chance at an eternal and fulfilling afterlife. However, by the Middle Kingdom, all dead were afforded the opportunity. Herodotus, an ancient Greek scholar, observed that grieving families were given a choice as to the type and or quality of the mummification they preferred: "The best and most expensive kind is said to represent [Osiris], the next best is somewhat inferior and cheaper, while the third is cheapest of all."
Because the state of the body was tied so closely with the quality of the afterlife, by the time of the Middle Kingdom, not only were the burial chambers painted with depictions of favourite pastimes and great accomplishments of the dead, but there were also small figurines (ushabtis) of servants, slaves, and guards (and, in some cases beloved pets) included in the tombs, to serve the deceased in the afterlife. However, an eternal existence in the afterlife was, by no means, assured.
Before a person could be judged by the gods, they had to be "awakened" through a series of funerary rites designed to reanimate their mummified remains in the afterlife. The main ceremony, the opening of the mouth ceremony, is best depicted within Pharaoh Sety I's tomb. All along the walls and statuary inside the tomb are reliefs and paintings of priests performing the sacred rituals and, below the painted images, the text of the liturgy for opening of the mouth can be found. This ritual which, presumably, would have been performed during interment, was meant to reanimate each section of the body: brain, head, limbs, etc. so that the spiritual body would be able to move in the afterlife.
sꜥḥ (spiritual body)
If all the rites, ceremonies, and preservation rituals for the ẖt were observed correctly, and the deceased was found worthy (by Osiris and the gods of the underworld) of passing through into the afterlife, the sꜥḥ (or spiritual representation of the physical body) forms. This spiritual body was then able to interact with the many entities extant in the afterlife. As a part of the larger construct, the ꜣḫ, the sꜥḥ was sometimes seen as an avenging spirit which would return from the underworld to seek revenge on those who had wronged the spirit in life. A well-known example was found in a tomb from the Middle Kingdom in which a man leaves a letter to his late wife who, it can be supposed, is haunting him:
What wicked thing have I done to thee that I should have come to this evil pass? What have I done to thee? But what thou hast done to me is to have laid hands on me although I had nothing wicked to thee. From the time I lived with thee as thy husband down to today, what have I done to thee that I need hide? When thou didst sicken of the illness which thou hadst, I caused a master-physician to be fetched…I spent eight months without eating and drinking like a man. I wept exceedingly together with my household in front of my street-quarter. I gave linen clothes to wrap thee and left no benefit undone that had to be performed for thee. And now, behold, I have spent three years alone without entering into a house, though it is not right that one like me should have to do it. This have I done for thy sake. But, behold, thou dost not know good from bad.An important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the jb, or heart. The heart[9] was believed to be formed from one drop of blood from the heart of the child's mother, taken at conception.[citation needed] To ancient Egyptians, the heart was the seat of emotion, thought, will and intention, evidenced by the many expressions in the Egyptian language which incorporate the word jb. Unlike in English, when ancient Egyptians referenced the jb they generally meant the physical heart as opposed to a metaphorical heart. However, ancient Egyptians usually made no distinction between the mind and the heart with regard to emotion or thought. The two were synonymous.
In the Egyptian religion, the heart was the key to the afterlife. It was essential to surviving death in the nether world, where it gave evidence for, or against, its possessor. Like the physical body (ẖt), the heart was a necessary part of judgement in the afterlife and it was to be carefully preserved and stored within the mummified body with a heart scarab carefully secured to the body above it to prevent it from telling tales. According to the Text of the Book of Breathings,
It was thought that the heart was examined by Anubis and the deities during the Weighing of the Heart ceremony. If the heart weighed more than the feather of Maat, it was immediately consumed by the monster Ammit, and the soul became eternally restless.
The kꜣ : ?, was the Egyptian concept of vital essence, which distinguishes the difference between a living and a dead person, with death occurring when the kꜣ left the body. The Egyptians believed that Khnum created the bodies of children on a potter's wheel and inserted them into their mothers' bodies. Depending on the region, Egyptians believed that Heqet or Meskhenet was the creator of each person's kꜣ, breathing it into them at the instant of their birth as the part of their soul that made them be alive. This resembles the concept of spirit in other religions.
The Egyptians also believed that the kꜣ was sustained through food and drink. For this reason food and drink offerings were presented to the dead, although it was the kꜣw within the offerings that was consumed, not the physical aspect. In the Middle kingdom a form of offering tray known as a Soul house was developed to facilitate this. The kꜣ was often represented in Egyptian iconography as a second image of the king, leading earlier works to attempt to translate kꜣ as double.
In the Old Kingdom private tombs, artwork depicted a "doubleworld" with essential people and objects for the owner of the ka. As Ancient Orient Curator Andrey Bolshakov explains: "The notion of the ka was a dominating concept of the next life in the Old Kingdom. In a less pure form, it lived into the Middle Kingdom, and lost much of its importance in the New Kingdom, although the ka always remained the recipient of offerings."