Athenaeus makes it clear that Greek custom was to mix three parts of water with one of wine - thus, in social shorthand, a "Triton" - and it looks likely that Roman wine connoiseurs generally went along with that ratio.[2]
“The Christian doctrines of original sin, and of the necessity of being
born again, are evident misunderstandings of the doctrine of the
Pythagorean Metempsychosis, which constituted the inward spiritual
grace, or essential significancy of the Eleusinian mysteries; as the
classical reader will find those mysteries sublimely treated of in the 6th
book of Virgil’s Æneid. The term of migration during which the
soul of man was believed to expiate in other forms the deeds done in its days
of humanity, was exactly a thousand years; after which, drinking of
the waters of Lethe, which caused a forgetfulness of all that had passed, it
was ferryed down the river, or sailed under the conduct of Mercury, the
Logos, or Word of God, and “wind and tide serving,” was so borne or
carried, and born of water and wind,287 and launched again into humanity, for a
fresh experiment of moral probation. Hence souls that had acquitted
themselves but ill in their previous existence, were believed to be born
in sin, and to have brought with them the remains of a corrupt nature
derived from their former state, for which they were still further punished
by the calamitous circumstances in which they were born, or the difficulties
with which they should still have to contend, till they should ultimately
recover themselves to virtue and happiness. This was the doctrine, and
nothing but this, which Christ is represented as endeavouring to inculcate
upon Nicodemus the ruler of the Jews; and for his ignorance and gross
apprehensions of which, he so tartly rallies that Jewish rabbi—“Art
thou
a MASTER of Israel, and knowest not these things?”—John
iii. 10. It must be stupidity itself that could dream of any reason or
propriety in rebuking the Jewish ruler for not knowing these things, if they
were matters then first revealed, or not so common as that no
well-educated person had any excuse for being ignorant of them.”
—Rev. Robert Taylor, Diegesis, pg. 221.
287 Our English of the words εαν μη τις γεννηθη εξ υδατος και πνευματος—“Except a man be born of water and of the spirit,” (John iii. 5,) and of the words ουτως εστι πας ο γεγεννημενος εκ του πνευματος—“So is every one that is born of the spirit.” (John iii. 8,) is a jesuitical imposition upon the simplicity of the mere English reader. The real rendering is, “born of the Wind, or Puff.” So the Holy Ghost should be rendered the Holy Puff. Note, nothing makes a man so spiritually-minded as wind at the stomach.
—John Pye Smith, An Answer To A Printed Paper Entitled MANIFESTO of the CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY (by Robert Taylor)(1827).
Jesus Walks on the Water. Actually the sun, as Jesus is thought
to personify in many instances, walks on the water all the time. (Here we have an image
of the moon "walking on the water" from the popular free screensaver Johnny
Castaway.)
Actually the story of Jesus walking on the water is allegorical of the Sun crossing the Milky Way. See The Jesus Story
“The critical judgment concerning this large portion is extremely difficult. Weighty authorities are on each side of the question, but the detail of them could not be given intelligibly in a little room. Its authenticity was either denied or greatly doubted by Erasmus, Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Leclerc, Wetstein, Semler, Morus, Griesbach, and others; but maintained by Hammond, Mill, Whitby, Lardner, Doddridge, Michaelis, and Dr. Staüdlin in two able dissertations published at Gottingen in 1806. The writer of this note conceives the preponderance of evidence to be in favour of the passage, and that the suggestion of Augustine (who lived in the fourth century) probably assigns the true cause of its omission in some copies, namely, a very needless apprehension that our Lord might be thought too lenient in his treatment of the accused person.”
—John Pye Smith, An Answer To A Printed Paper Entitled MANIFESTO of the CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY (by Robert Taylor)(1827).
In John ix. 2, the disciples are represented as propounding to Jesus a
question which would never have occurred but to minds entirely possessed of
the Pythagorean doctrine—“Master, who did sin, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?” which the Master (the characteristic
epithet of Pythagoras) answers precisely as Pythagoras might have
done—“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents,” &c.
While the Jews imagine themselves to launch the severest invective against
the blind man, in holding his being born blind as a proof that he must have
been a very wicked wretch in some pre-existent state: “Thou wast
altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?”—John ix. 34.
—Rev. Robert Taylor, Diegesis, pg. 220.
"The resurrection of Lazarus is a plagiarized story taken from the Ausarian Resurrection of over 12,000 years ago, which was also based on the SUN. In the story, the God Ausar (Osirus) was killed by his brother, Set (origin of the word Satan). The son (Sun) of Ausar (Osirus), named Heru (Horus in Greek) avenged his father's death by fighting with Set. His father was resurrected from death. The European plagiarizers changed El-Ausar to Lazarus. Heru changed into Jesus, the son (SUN) of God. This original story (prototype for Constantine's bible) is published in detail in the BOOK OF THE DEAD." - http://knowledgefirst.org/freedom/jesus.htm
"Now the word "Lazarus" is a thinly disguised L-ASURAS. Asur, is the real name of Osiris in Egyptian. 'L' just means 'the,' as in the modern French." — http://web.archive.org/web/20070824040606/http://www.taroscopes.com/astro-theology/astrotheology2.html
RIDING ON A DONKEY
According to the gospel story, at the height of his popularity Jesus rides into Jerusalem while crowds sing his praises and lay branches in his path. Traditionally the crowd is said to have waved palm leaves. The palm was symbolic in the Mysteries. Plato writes of "the palm of wisdom of Dionysus." The great festival of the Mystery godman Attis began with the "Entry of the Reed-Bearers," which was followed by the "Entry of the Tree," an evergreen pine upon which was tied an effigy of the godman. One modern scholar remarks:
"It is impossible to ignore the associations with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem surrounded by palm-bearers, and his bearing of the cross or tree which became his chief symbol."
The gospels relate that Jesus goes out of his way to make sure he is mounted on a donkey. In vase representations, Dionysus is also often pictured astride a donkey, which carries him to meet his passion. The playwright Aristophanes writes of "the ass who carried the Mysteries." When the crowd of pilgrims at Athens walked the Sacred Way to Eleusis to celebrate the Mysteries, a donkey carried a basket containing the sacred paraphernalia, which would be used to create the idol of Dionysus, while the crowds shouted the praises of Dionysus and waved bundles of branches. In this way, like Jesus entering Jerusalem, Dionysus rode in triumph to his death.
The mythical motif of "riding on a donkey" is often taken as a sign of humility. It also has a more mystical meaning, however. To the ancients the donkey typified lust, cruelty, and wickedness. It symbolically represented the lower "animal" self, which must be overcome and subdued by an initiate of the Mysteries. Lucius Apuleius wrote a story called The Golden Ass, which was an allegorical tale of initiation. In it Lucius is transformed into a donkey through his own foolisbness and endures many adventures, which represent stages of initiation. At his final initiation he is transformed back into a human being. This story is symbolic of the initiate being overcome by his lower nature and then, through initiation into the Mysteries, rediscovering his true identity.
The Egyptian goddess Isis tells Lucius that the donkey is the most hateful to her of all beasts. This is because it is sacred to the god Set, who in Egyptian mythology is the murderer of Osiris. Plutarch recorded an Egyptian festival in which donkeys were triumphantly pushed over cliffs in vengeance for Osiris’ murder. Set is symbolic of the initiate’s lower self, which slays the spiritual Higher Self (Osiris) and must be metaphorically put to death for the spiritual Self to be reborn.
The donkey was also a common symbol of the lower "animal" nature in the Greek Mysteries of Dionysus. A vase painting represents a ridiculous donkey with an erect phallus dancing among the disciples of Dionysus. A design on a wine pitcher shows donkeys having sex. In another design a pilgrim is shown stopping to pull the tail of a donkey. A favorite representation of afterlife sufferings in the Underworld was the figure of a man condemned to forever plait a rope that his donkey continually eats away, symbolic of the lower self constantly trying to eat away the spiritual achievements of the Higher Self. The figure of the godman riding in triumph on a donkey symbolized that he was master of his lower "animal" nature.
It is likely that the number of fish that Pythagoras predicted would be caught was precisely 153. The Pythagoreans were renowned for their knowledge of mathematics and regarded 153 as a sacred number. It is used in a mathematical ratio that Archimedes called "the measure of the fish" to produce the mystical symbol of the vesica piscis or "sign of the fish" — the intersection of two circles which yields a fish-like shape. This was an ancient Pythagorean symbol that was used by early Christians to represent their faith. The fact that this mystical fish symbol can be produced from the number of fish that were caught in the acount of Jesus' miracle strongly suggests it has been adapted from the original miracle of Pythagoras and that this miracle story encoded sacred geometrical formulae.[1,p.39] See The Measure of the Fish.
