Mother.of.God.Emasculating.Music
"Mother of God: Background to Sounding Brass and Clanging Cymbals: For all agree in regarding the women as the chief founders of religion, and it is the women who provoke the men to the more attentive worship of the gods, to festivals, and to supplications. He found it significant that, on the whole,
The "speaking" connected with tongues outlaws instruments: when you speak the LOGOS it is opposite to music.only women and effeminate men fell into this folly." Paul speaks to ritual women in First Corinthians 13-14 and forbids it. A dominate theme of this article is the power of sounding brass and clanging cymbals or musical worship in general as a sign of the restoration of the worship of the Mother of the gods
Ephesians 4 Unity in Diversity
Ephesians 5 Singing amd Making Melody
Clangs and Gongs in the Classics
Ephesians 6 We Wrestle not with Musical Instruments.
See the Twanging and "music" connection which speaks of warfare: not worship. THIS CONNECTS ABADDON OR APOLLYON WITH THE MUSES OR LOCUSTS AND THE END-TIME HOLY WHORE. DON'T MISS IT.
One of the "original" Mother of heaven was Inanna or Ishtar. She got Enki or Ea drunk and stole the powers for her own shrine. Inanna says: "I, the Queen of Heaven, shall visit the God of Wisdom." In the process
Added verse 3 on the burning body.
- My father has given me the me:
- He gave me the high priesthood.
- He gave me godship.
- He gave me the noble, enduring crown.
- He gave me the throne of kingship.
Some of these links have beein changed and I have not corrected them. the dash - in front means that the link now works.
Inanna was the mother of Marduk who was the national god of Babylonia. Therefore, she is the first Mother of the God.
Paul speaks to ritual women in First Corinthians 13-14 and forbids it. A dominate theme of this article is the power of sounding brass and clanging cymbals or musical worship in general as a sign of the restoration of the worship of the Mother of gods. Music is closely identified as the weapon and mark of Satan used to call out (beyond redemption) people to worship Satan or Lucifer who is defined much like Sophia (Wisdom) and Zoe (Life).
Image of Sophia-Zoe much as Mary is pictured. "Extreme as this statement may sound, it contains a powerful and often overlooked truth. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have fixated their spiritual imaginations upon the image of God as a unitary supreme reality - an image which excludes diversity and plurality.
The rising feminist consciousness of our era has identified one result of this view of God as "Patriarchy" and taken exception to it.
The remedy suggested for this is the replacement of the solitary male God with a Goddess, or, as she is frequently called, "the Goddess." Stephan A. Hoeller
Sophia from The Book of Wonders by David Jors, 16th century. Goddeses and Today's Culture. To revive gods and goddesses is no small task. Above all, it is not a task that reason or personal motives can accomplish or even assist in. One cannot construct archetypes on the basis of recognitions reached by the personal complex of mind and emotions.
American Spectator Thursday 18 February 1999 Victoria Combe: Methodist and The Mother of God"THE Methodist Church broke with centuries of Christian tradition yesterday and included the first prayer to "God the Mother" in its worship book for the Millennium. The prayer, which initially was removed from the book because of protests from traditionalists, appears in one of nine services for Holy Communion. It reads: It reads:
"God our Father and our Mother , we give you thanks and praise for all that you have made, for the stars in their splendour and the world in its wonder and for the glorious gift of human life. With the saints and angels in heaven, we praise your holy name.
"It is the first time in Britain that a mainstream Church has referred to God as a woman in an official service book, although feminists and liberals have been pressing for it for decades. The 600-page Methodist Worship Book, which has taken nine years to complete, replaces the 1975 text and will be used for the first time in Methodist churches on Easter Sunday.
"Among all the women who have ever lived, the Mother of Jesus Christ is the most celebrated, the most venerated...Among Roman Catholics, the Madonna is recognized not only as the Mother of God, but also, according to modern Popes, as the Queen of the Universe, Queen of Heaven, Seat of Wisdom, and even the Spouse of the Holy Spirit." (Time Magazine, "Handmaid or Feminist?", December 30, 1991, p. 62-66).
This is a statement of Gnosticism. Sophia or Wisdom is the feminist (effeminate) superior of Jesus and even of Jehovah. She is known as the SEREPNT. Her daughter, Zoe or Eve, is the female instructing principle, mediator and know as THE BEAST. Click for the details.
Then the female spiritual principle came in the snake, the instructor; and it taught them, saying, "What did he say to you? Was it, 'From every tree in the garden shall you eat; yet - from the tree of recognizing good and evil do not eat'?"
The carnal woman said, "Not only did he say 'Do not eat', but even 'Do not touch it; for the day you eat from it, with death you are going to die.'"
And the snake, the instructor, said, "With death you shall not die; for it was out of jealousy that he said this to you. Rather your eyes shall open and you shall come to be like gods, recognizing evil and good."
And the female instructing principle was taken away from the snake, and she left it behind, merely a thing of the earth.
However, the prophets warn:
The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Jer 7:18
But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. Je.44:17
But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. Je.44:18
And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men? Je.44:19
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows. Je.44:25
Therefore hear ye the word of the Lord, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt; Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the Lord, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, The Lord God liveth. Jer 44:26
Behold, I will watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until there be an end of them. Jer 44:27
Hislop in The Mother and Child notes that: "In connection with this, it may be observed, that the name of Juno, the classical "Queen of Heaven," [mother of god] which, in Greek, was Hera, also signified "The Lady"; and that the peculiar title of Cybele or Rhea at Rome, was Domina or "The Lady." (OVID, Fasti) (See the worship of the air goddess Juno in Corinth)
See Miriam and the connection with the Egyptian Mother of God
Paul's warning: of the gods, of the gods, of the gods,
After warning the Corinthians that they were all performing signs but not all of them had the gift, Paul warned them about music and the mysteries:
THOUGH I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:2
Paul was speaking directly about the wine- and beer-gods and goddesses who could be attracted by "getting drunk even without wine." The Mother of the god in all pagan religions took top billing.
-Pseudo-Apollodorus Library e.7.14 of the gods, of the gods,
The
word church derives from Circe who seduced with drugs and
music.
skilled in all enchantments was she.(Note 1) of the gods,
Having divided his comrades, Ulysses himself abode by the ship, in accordance with the lot, but Eurylochus with two and twenty comrades repaired to Circe.
Note 1: As to the adventures of Ulysses and his comrades with the enchantress Circe, see Hom. Od. 10.133-574; Hyginus, Fab. 125; Ov. Met. 14.246-440. The word (pharmaka) here translated " enchantments" means primarily drugs; but in the early stages of medicine drugs were supposed to be endowed with magical potency,
partly in virtue of the spells, that is, the form of words, with which the medical practitioner administered them to the patient.
Hence druggist and enchanter were nearly synonymous terms. As Circe used her knowledge of drugs purely for magical purposes, without any regard to the medical side of the profession, it seems better to translate her pharmaka by " enchantments" or "charms" rather than "drugs," and to call her an enchantress instead of a druggist.
And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. Re.18:23
Pharmakeia (g5331) far-mak-i'-ah; from 5332; medication ("pharmacy"), i.e. (by extens.) magic (lit. or fig.): - sorcery, witchcraft.
Pharmakeus (g5332) far-mak-yoos'; from pharmakoćn , (a drug, i.e. spell- giving potion); a druggist ("pharmacist") or poisoner, i.e. (by extens.) a magician: - sorcerer
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. Re.21:8
Josephus notes that: "Lamech was also the father of a daughter, whose name was Naamah. And because he was so skillful in matters of divine revelation, that he knew he was to be punished for Cain's murder of his brother, he made that known to his wives. Nay, even while Adam was alive, it came to pass that the posterity of Cain became exceeding wicked, every one successively dying, one after another, more wicked than the former. They were intolerable in war, and vehement in robberies; and if any one were slow to murder people, yet was he bold in his profligate behavior, in acting unjustly, and doing injuries for gain.
This was speaking in tongues in Corinth by the women in the belief that what came out of their own spirit or mind was their old gods or goddesses prophesying through them. Paul said that they were speaking to god (generic) and therefore "just speaking into the air." The use of tongues throughout the Bible is a form of musical magic, is just soothsaying and is outlawed.
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Glossolalie and its interpretation are mentionned in the Old Testament
(Deuteronomy 18:10) as part of pagan religious
practices (deu 18:9). The words used in the
Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament
are:
It is noteworthy that in this verse (Deut. 18:10) glossolalia is listed along with practices such as divination and witchcraft (oiwnizomenoV et farmakoV) and is strictly prohibited.
Click for the full article. (may still be under construction?) |
And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; Revelation 18:22And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. Revelation 18:23
Pharmakeia (g5331) far-mak-i'-ah; from 5332; medication ("pharmacy"), i.e. (by extens.) magic (lit. or fig.): - sorcery, witchcraft.
The female or bisexual Lucifer is represented by the agents of the king (queen) of Babylon and the king of Tyre. Tyre is especially condemned for seducing her commercial partners and music represents all of this power of seduction. We have the story of Wen Amun the Egyptian merchant being seduced in an "eat, drink and be merry" musical performance while Lucifer's agent plotted the thief of what he had just bought and the murder of Wen Amun. Tyre also sold Israelites into slavery. The king of Babylon enslaved Judah and tried to force them to fall down in front of "her" huge phallic pillar during the playing of music.
[1.9.7] Salmoneus at first dwelt in Thessaly, but afterwards he came to Elis and there founded a city. And being arrogant and wishful to put himself on an equality with Zeus, he was punished for his impiety; for he said that he was himself Zeus, and
- he took away the sacrifices of the god and
- ordered them to be offered to himself;
- and by dragging dried hides, with bronze kettles, at his chariot,
- he said that he thundered,
- and by flinging lighted torches at the sky
- he said that he lightened.
But Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt, and wiped out the city he had founded with all its inhabitants.
Note: In the traditions concerning Salmoneus we may perhaps trace the reminiscence of a line of kings who personated the Skygod Zeus and attempted to make rain, thunder and lightning by means of imitative magic. See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i.310, ii.177, 180ff. Sophocles composed a Satyric play on the subject (The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 177ff. ). 19) Pseudo-Apollodorus Library 1.9.7 (Loeb
(Salmōneus), a son of Aeolus by Enarete, and a brother of Sisyphus. (Apollod. 1.7.3; Schol. ad Pind. Pyth. 4.252.) He was first married to Alcidice and afterwards to Sidero; by the former wife he was the father of Tyro. (Hom. Od. 11.235; Apollod. 1.9.8 ; Diod. 4.68.) He originally lived in Thessaly, but emigrated to Elis, where he built the town of Salmone. (Strab. viii. p.356.) He there went so far in his presumption and arrogance, that he deemed himself equal to Zeus, and ordered sacrifices to be offered to himself; nay, he even imitated the thunder and lightning of Zeus, but the father of the gods killed the presumptuous man with his thunderbolt, destroyed his town, and punished him in the lower world. (Apollod. 1.9.7; Lucian, Tim. 2; Verg. A. 6.585, &c. ; Hyg. Fab. 60, 61, 250; Claudian, in Rufin. 514.)Verg. A. 6.585ff. This is the Greek version of Lucifer cast as profane out of heaven and as the singing and harp playing prostitute in the garden of Eden.
In Revelation the people are on Mount Zion, perhaps the church as New Jerusalem. They hear sounds from heaven or "in the air." When you hear these IMITATED sounds they are all which create fear or anxiety.
-Apollodorus, Library [3.5.2] Having traversed Thrace and the whole of India and set up pillars there,1 he came to Thebes, and forced the women to abandon their houses and rave in Bacchic frenzy on Cithaeron.And I heard a voice from heaven
Keladeo sound as flowing water 2. of persons, shout aloud, atar keladēsan Akhaioi, in applause. keladeonti amphi Kinuran phamai Pi.P.2.15: c. acc. cogn., k. humnous lSound of the grasshopper, ring bells, of the flute, sing of, celebrate loudly.
..........like the sound of many waters and
..........like the sound of loud thunder; the voice I heard was
..........like the sound of harpers playing on their harps Revelation 14:2RSV
Rev. 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven,
having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth,
and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
Rev. 14:7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him;
for the hour of his judgment is come:
and worship him that MADE heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
Rev. 14:8 And there followed another angel,
saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city,
because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
In Revelation 17 John warned about the Babylon mother of harlots: in Revelation 18 she uses lusted after "fruits" as speakers, singers and instrument players. John called them sorcerers and consigns them to the lake of fire.
But Pentheus, whom Agave bore to Echion, had succeeded Cadmus in the kingdom, and he attempted to put a stop to these proceedings. And coming to Cithaeron to spy on the Bacchanals,
he was torn limb from limb by his Mother Agave in a fit of madness; for she thought he was a wild beast.
And having shown the Thebans that he was a god, Dionysus came to Argos, and there again,
because they did not honor him,
he drove the women mad,
and they on the mountains devoured the flesh of the infants whom they carried at their breasts.-[3.5.3] And wishing to be ferried across from Icaria to Naxos he hired a pirate ship of Tyrrhenians. But when they had put him on board, they sailed past Naxos and made for Asia, intending to sell him.
Howbeit, he turned the mast and oars into snakes,
and filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes.
And the pirates went mad, and leaped into the sea, and were turned into dolphins.Thus men perceived that he was a god and honored him; and
having brought up his Mother from Hades
and named her Thyone (Semele), he ascended up with her to heaven.
At Mount Sinai Israel rejected God's Covenant of Grace and turned back to the worship of Osiris of Egypt. "Sending across the sea" was to bring a "god" back from the dead to give them a message. This was a total repudiation of Yahweh. Paul warned the Corinthians (10:20) and the Romans about this pagan ritual always conducted with music:
For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. Romans 10:5
But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Romans 10:6
Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) Romans 10:7
But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; Romans 10:8
Paul, of course was speaking of Mount Sinai where they rose up to play in musical idolatry. God turned them over to worship the starry host. This was the worship of Chiun (Saturn = 666) and Lucifer who was the musical enchanter (Nachash) in the garden of Eden. Isaiah 14 describes him as trying to USURP the rule of God:
All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you. Is.14:11
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! Is.14:12
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: Is.14:13
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Is.14:14
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Is.14:15
-Apollod. 3.5.3 "Dionysus is said to have gone down to hell to fetch up his Mother Semele at Lerna, where he plunged into the Alcyonian Lake, a pool which was supposed to be bottomless and therefore to afford an easy access to the nether world.
Never having been in hell before, Dionysus did not know how to go there, and he was reduced to the necessity of asking the way. A certain Prosymnus pointed it out to the deity on condition of receiving a certain reward.
When Dionysus returned from the lower world, he found that his guide had died in the meantime; but he punctually paid the promised reward to the dead man at his grave with the help of a branch of fig wood, which he whittled into an appropriate shape.
This story was told to explain the similar implements which figured prominently in the processions of Dionysus
Every year the descent of the god through the deep water was celebrated with nocturnal rites on the reedy margin of the pool. The pious Pausanias shrank from divulging the nature of the rites; but from Plutarch we learn that a lamb was thrown into the lake
as an offering to the warder of hell,
while on trumpets hidden in the god's leafy emblems the buglers blew blasts which,startling the stillness and darkness of night, were believed to summon up the lost Dionysus from the watery depths.
Perhaps in answer to this bugle call
an actor, dressed in the vine-god's garb, may have emerged dripping from the pool to
receive the congratulations of the worshippers on his rising from the dead.-[3.13.8] When Achilles was nine years old, Calchas declared that Troy could not be taken without him; so Thetis, foreseeing that it was fated he should perish if he went to the war, disguised him in female garb and entrusted him as a maiden to Lycomedes. his court, Achilles had an intrigue with Deidamia, daughter of Lycomedes, and a son Pyrrhus was born to him, who was afterwards called Neoptolemus.
But the secret of Achilles was betrayed, and Ulysses, seeking him at the court of Lycomedes,
discovered him by the blast of a trumpet. (Note 2)And in that way Achilles went to Troy. He was accompanied by Phoenix, son of Amyntor. This Phoenix had been blinded by his father on the strength of a false accusation of seduction preferred against him by his father's concubine Phthia. But Peleus brought him to Chiron, who restored his sight, and thereupon Peleus made him king of the Dolopians.
Note 2:. The usual story was that the crafty Ulysses spread out baskets and women's gear, mingled with arms, before the disguised Achilles and his girlish companions in Scyros; and that while the real girls pounced eagerly on the feminine gauds, Achilles betrayed his sex by snatching at the arms. See Philostratus Junior, Im. i; Scholiast on Hom. Il. xix.326; Ov. Met. 13.162ff. Apollodorus tells us that Achilles was detected by the sound of a trumpet. This is explained by Hyginus, Fab. 96, who says that while Achilles was surveying the mingled trumpery and weapons, Ulysses caused a bugle to sound and a clash of arms to be heard, whereupon Achilles, imagining that an enemy was at hand, tore off his maidenly attire and seized spear and shield. Statius gives a similar account of the detection (Statius, Achill. ii.167ff.).
-Aristotle Poetics 1456a he gods, of the gods,
Musical performance was always a competition and sometimes deadly. The applause was not so much to honor the victor as to mock or ridicule the looser and the Jewish clergy mocked Jesus "piping to make Him dance." Modern spectacles usually dominate over the paying "audience" and because the music is self-composed it is a triumph over God Himself.
The fourth element is spectacle, like the Phorcides and Prometheus, and all scenes laid in Hades. One should ideally try to include all these elements or, failing that, the most important and as many as possible, especially since it is the modern fashion to carp at poets,
and, because there have been good poets in each style,
to demand that a single author should surpass the peculiar merits of each.Note: The text is obscure, and our ignorance of the play or rhapsody adds to the darkness, but the reference may be to the ruse, common in detective stories,
of misleading the audience by false clues in order to make the final revelation more effective.
-Arnobius of the gods, of the gods, of the gods,
As music can be an attempt to win out over God it can also be an insult. For instance, modern Musical Worship Facilitators and worship teams claime to "lead the worshipers into the presence of God." Some claim to be "the platform upon which God lands." In all it is an attempt to "connect" with God Whom they arrogantly believe is "far off beyond the seas" and needs to be called into their temples:
"Are the gods moved by garlands also, wreaths and flowers, by the jingling of brass also, and the shaking of cymbals, by timbrels also, and also by symphonious pipes? What effect has the clattering of castanets,
that when the deities have heard them, they think that honor has been shown to them and lay aside their fiery spirit of resentment in forgetfulness?
Or, as little boys are frightened by giving over their silly wailings by hearing the sound of rattles,
are the almighty deities also soothed in the same way by the whistling of pipes?
And do they become mild, is their indignation softened at the musical sound of cymbals?'What is the meaning of those calls which you sing in the morning, joining your voice to the music of the pipe.
Do the gods of heaven fall asleep, so that they should return to their posts?
What is the meaning of those slumbers to which you commend them with auspicious salutations that they may be in good health?
Are they awakened from sleep; and that they may be able to overcome by it, must soothing lullabies be heard?" (Arnobius Against the Heathen, Ante-Nicene Fathers, VI, p. 531).
"You are persuaded that, by the crash of cymbals and the sound of pipes, by horse-races and theatrical plays,
the gods are both delighted and affected and
that their resentful feelings conceived before are mollified by these... we judge it incredible that...
they should be pleased and delighted with those things which a wise man laughs at, and which do not seem to have any charm except to little children." (Arnobius Against the Heathen, Ante-Nicene Fathers, VI, p. 533).
Augustine helps clarify Paul's message to the Greek World:
"Again, if you prefer to test the presence of God by the agreeable effects on the hearing, and not sight, or smell, or taste,
harps get their strings and pipes their bones from animals; and these become musical by being dried, and rubbed, and twisted. (or by making melody upon them to abrade them)
[Melody is derived from psocho (g5597) pso'-kho; prol. from the same base as 5567; to triturate, i.e. (by anal.) to rub out (kernels from husks with the fingers or hand): - rub. Thus Paul could call them lifeless or carnal instruments.]
So the pleasures of music, which you hold to have come from the divine kingdom,
are obtained from the refuse of dead animals, and that, too, when they are dried by time, and lessened by rubbing, and stretched by twisting. Such rough treatment, according to you,
drives the divine substance from living objects; even cooking them, you say, does this. Why then are boiled thistles not unwholesome? Is it because God, or part of God, leaves them when they are cooked? ST.AUGUSTIN: ON THE MORALS OF THE MANICHAEANS, Ch 16,46
-Catullus Commentary on Lesbia 6
16. But whenever these poems were written, they spring from experiences that did not touch deeply the soul of the writer. A passing fancy, a moment's passion, an evanescent humor brought them forth. But at Rome, and not long after he arrived at Rome, Catullus met the mastering passion of his his life, and beside the verses to which it gave birth the melodious chamber ditties of Horace and the elaborated passions of the elegiasts are but as tinkling cymbals. To the woman who exercised this wonderful power over him he gives the name of Lesbia.
"The self-mutilation and subsequent lament of Attis, a priest of Cybele. The centre of the worship of the Phrygian kube/lh or kubh/bh, was in very ancient times the town of Pessinus in Galatian Phrygia, at the foot of Mt. Dindymus, from which the goddess received the name Dindymene. Cybele had early become identified with the Cretan divinity Rhea, the Mother of the Gods, and to some extent with Demeter, the search of Cybele for Attis being compared with that of Demeter for Persephone.
The especial worship of Cybele was conducted by emasculated priests called Galli (or, as in vv. 12 and 34, with reference to their physical condition, Gallæ).
Note: (Deut 23:1 No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD).
Their name was derived by the ancients from that of the river Gallus, a tributary of the Sangarius,
by drinking from which men became inspired with frenzy (cf. Ov. Fast. 4.361ff.).
The worship was orgiastic in the extreme, and was accompanied
by the sound of such frenzy-producing instruments as the tympana, cymbala, tibiæ, and cornu,
and culminated in scourging, self-mutilation, syncope from excitement.
and even death from hemorrhage or heart-failure
-Tympănum , i (collat. form typă-num , Cat. 63, 8 sq.), n., = tumpanon,I. a drum, timbrel, tambour, tambourine.-Tībĭa , ae, f.,
A. Esp., as beaten by the priests of Cybele, Lucr. 2, 618; Cat. 63, 8 sq.; Verg. A. 9, 619; Ov. M. 3, 537; 4, 29; 4, 391; id. F. 4, 213; Plaut. Poen. 5, 5, 38; Caes. B. C. 3, 105; Curt. 8, 11, 20; 8, 14, 10; Tac. H. 5, 5, Also by the Bacchantine females, Ov. M. 11, 17.Beaten by the Parthians as a signal in battle in place of the tuba, Just. 41, 2, 8.B. Trop., a timbrel, etc., as a figure of something effeminate, enervating: tympana eloquentiae, Quint. 5, 12, 21: in manu tympanum est, Sen. Vit. Beat. 13, 3.
-Cymbălum ,I. gen. plur. cymbalum, Cat. 63, 21), = kumbalon, a cymbal.I. Prop., an instrument consisting of two hollow plates of brass, which emit a ringing sound when struck together. They were used in the festivals of Cybele and Bacchus, and on other festive occasions; also to hinder the flight of bees, etc. (usu. in plur.), Lucr. 2, 619; Cat. 63, 21; 63, 29; Ov. F. 4, 213; Verg. G. 4, 64; Liv. 39, 8; Cic. Pis. 9, 20 sq.; Plin. 5, 1, 1, § 7; Quint. 11, 3, 59; Plin. Ep. 2, 14, 13.B. Transf., in hydraulics, a sounding basin of similar form, a bell, Vitr. 10, 8, 5.
I. he large shin-bone, tibia (cf. sura).
II. Transf., a pipe, flute (orig. made of bone; syn. fistula): age tibicen, refer ad labias tibias, Plaut. Stich. 5, 4, 41: si tibiae inflatae non referant sonum, Cic. Brut. 51. 192: quemadmodum tibicen sine tibiis canere non possit, id. de Or. 2, 83, 338: et fidibus et tibiis canere, Quint. 1, 10, 14: cantus tibiarum, id. 1, 11, 7: tibia digitis pulsata canentum, Lucr. 4, 585: modulate canentes tibiae, Cic. N. D. 2, 8, 22: septenarios ad tibiam fundere, id. Tusc. 1, 44, 107: ubi curva choros indixit tibia Bacchi, Verg. A. 11, 737: biforem dat tibia cantum, id. ib. 9, 618: tibia non ut nunc orichalco vincta tubaeque Aemula, sed tenuis simplexque, Hor. A. P. 202: Phrygio curva sono, Tib. 2, 1, 86: sub cantu querulae tibiae, Hor. C. 3, 7, 30: acris, id. ib. 1, 12, 1: Berecyntia, id. ib. 3, 19, 19; 4, 1, 23: sonante mixtum tibiis carmen lyra, id. Epod. 9, 5: adunco tibia cornu, Ov. M. 3, 533: infracto Berecynthia tibia cornu, id. ib. 11, 16: longa,singular GALLUS, priests, often temple attendants or wandering mendicants, of the ancient Asiatic deity, the Great Mother of the Gods, known as Cybele, or Agdistis, in Greek and Latin literature. The galli were eunuchs attired in female garb, with long hair fragrant with ointment.
Together with priestesses, they celebrated the Great Mother's rites with wild music and dancing until their frenzied excitement found its culmination in self-scourging, self-laceration, or exhaustion. Self-emasculation by candidates for the priesthood sometimes accompanied this delirium of worship.
The name galli may be Phrygian, from the two streams called Gallus, both tributaries of the Sangarius (now Sakarya) River, the waters of which were said to inspire religious frenzy.
-Catullus Commentary 63The early connection of Attis with the Mother of the Gods seems to point to the association of an original male element with an original female element as the parents of all things.
But in the age of tradition Attis appears as a servant instead of an equal,
and the subordination of the male to the female element is further emphasized by the representation of Attis,
like the Galli of historic times, as an emasculated priest.Catullus departs from this form of the Attis myth, and makes Attis a beautiful Greek youth who in a moment of religious frenzy sails across seas at the head of a band of companions to devote himself to the already long-established service of the goddess
Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. Galatians 5:11
As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves! Galatians 5:12
The Goddess Cybele (The Sophia - Zoe Usurpation) (Origin)
"Here, devote to me thy manhood and become one of my faithful dogs! (emasculated priests) I shall be quick, and the cut will be clean!!!" Catullus:
"Oh, Great Goddess, Goddess Cybele, Goddess and Lady of Dindymus! May all your fury be far from my house! Incite others, go! DRIVE OTHER MEN MAD!!!"
- Carried in a fast ship over profound seas
- Attis, eager and hurried, reached the Phrygian grove,
- The goddess's dark places, crowned with woodland.
- And there, exalted by amorous rage, his mind gone,
- He cut off his testicles with a sharp flint.
- While the ground was still spotted with fresh blood
Quickly took in his snowy hands a tambourine
- Such as serves your initiates, Cybele, instead of a trumpet,
- And shaking the hollow calf-hide with delicate fingers,
- Quivering, she began to sing to the troop this:
- Go together, votaresses, to the high groves of Cybele.
- Go together, wandering herd of the lady of Dindymus.
- Quick into exile, you looked for foreign places
- And, following me and the rule I had adopted,
- You bore with the salt tide and the violence of the high sea
- And emasculated your bodies from too much hatred of Venus:
- Delight the lady's mind with your errant haste.
Overcome your reluctance: together
- Go to the Phrygian shrine of Cybele, to her groves
- Where the voice of cymbals sounds, the tambourines rattle,
- Where the Phrygian piper sings with the deep curved pipe,
- Where Maenads wearing ivy throw back their heads,
- Where they practice the sacred rites with sharp yells.
- Where they flutter around the goddess's cohort:
- It is there we must go with our rapid dances."
As Attis, the counterfeit woman, sang this to her companions,
- The choir howled suddenly with tumultuous tongues.
- The tambourine bellows, the cymbals clash again;
- The swift troop moves off to Ida with hurrying feet.
- Crazy, panting, drifting, at her last gasp,
- Attis with her tambourine leads them through the opaque groves
- Like an unbroken heifer refusing the yoke:
- The swift votaresses follow their swift-footed leader.
- When they reach Cybele's shrine, feeble and worn,
- From too much toil they take their rest without bread (Ceres).
- Sleep covers their eyes with a heavy blanket;
- Their rabid madness subsides to a girlish quiet.
But when the golden sun with his streaming eyes
- Purified the white sky, hard land, wild sea,
- And drove away the shadows of night with his thundering horses,
- Attis was aroused and Sleep went quickly from her
- Back to the trembling arms of the goddess Pasithea.
- Then from her girlish quiet, with no hurrying madness,
- Attis remembered what she had done
- And saw in her lucid mind what was missing and where she was.
- Tempestuously she turned back to the shore.
- There, looking at the open sea with tearful eyes,
- With grief in her voice she addressed her native land:
- "Land which begot me, land which brought me forth,
- I am abject to abandon you like a runaway slave.
- My feet have carried me to the groves of Ida
- To be among snow in the cold lairs of wild beasts;
- I shall visit their violent haunts.
- Where, O my land, can I imagine you are?
- My eye desires you and narrows as it turns toward you
- In this short interval when my mind is unfrenzied.
- Shall I be carried to the forests, from my far-off home?
- Away from country, goods, friends, family?
- From the Forum, palaestra, racecourse, and gymnasium?
- There is nothing for me but misery.
- What shape is there that I have not had?
- A woman now, I have been man, youth, and boy;
- I was athlete, the wrestler.
- There were crowds round my door, my fans slept on the doorstep;
- There were flowers all over the house
- When I left my bed at sunrise.
- Shall I be a waiting maid to the gods, the slave of Cybele?
- I a Maenad, I a part of myself, I impotent?
- Shall I live above the snow line on green Ida?
- Shall I pass my life under the rocky peaks of Phrygia
- Where the doe runs in the woods, where the boar mooches in the glade?
- I regret now, now, what I have done, I repent of it, now!"
As these words hurried away from her pink lips,
- Bringing a new message to the ears of the gods,
- Cybele, letting her lions off the leash
- And urging forward the beast on the left hand,
- Said,
- "Get on, be fierce, see that he's driven mad;
- Make him insane enough to return to the forest
- He has had the impertinence to want to be out of my power.
- Come on, lash around with your tail till you hurt yourself:
- Make the whole neighborhood ring with your bellowing roar.
- Be fierce, shake the red mane on your muscular neck."
- Thus the threatening Cybele, and she wound the leash round her hand.
- The beast stirs up his courage and rouses himself to fury.
- He is off, he roars, he breaks up the undergrowth.
- When he came to the wet sand on the whitening shore
- And saw tender Attis by the waters of the sea,
- He charged: Attis, mad, flew into the wild woods:
- There, for the rest of her life, she lived as a slave.
- Great Goddess, Goddess Cybele, Goddess lady of Dindymus,
- May all your fury be far from my house.
- Incite the others, go. Drive other men mad.
Why need I speak of the banquets of those days, why of your joy and self-congratulation, why of your most intemperate drinking-bouts with your crew of infamous companions? Who in those days ever saw you sober, who ever saw you doing any thing which was worthy of a freeman; who, in short, ever saw you in public at all?
- while the house of your colleague was resounding with song and cymbals,
- and while he himself was dancing naked at banquets; in which even then,
- when he was going round in the circle of the dance,
- he seemed to have no fear of any revolution of fortune.
But this man, who is not quite so refined in gluttony nor so musical, lay stupefied amid the reeking orgies of his Greek crew.
The banquets celebrated by that fellow at the time of all this misery of the republic, resembled what is reported of the feast of the Centaurs and Lapithae; and it is quite impossible to tell in what sort of debauchery he indulged to the most disgraceful excess. Will you dare to make mention of your consulship? will you dare to say that you ever were consul at Rome?
(Amos 5, 6, 8; Job 21; Isaiah 5 and Ezekiel 33 identify music with refusing to listen to God)
For what, in the name of the immortal gods! what good can our embassy do to the republic? What good, do I say? What will you say if it will even do us harm? Will do us harm? What if it already has done us harm? Do you suppose that that most energetic and fearless desire shown by the Roman people for recovery of their liberty has been dampened and weakened by hearing of this embassy for peace?
What do you think the municipal towns feel? and the colonies! What do you think will be the feelings of all Italy! Do you suppose that it will continue to glow with the same zeal with which it burned before to extinguish this common conflagration?
Do we not suppose that those men will repent of having professed and displayed so much hatred to Antonius, who promised us money and arms; who devoted themselves wholly, body, heart, and soul, to the safety of the republic!
How will Capua, which at the present time feels like a second Rome, approve of this design of yours? That city pronounced them impious citizens, cast them out, and kept them out. Antonius was barely saved from the hands of that city, which made a most gallant attempt to crush him. [8] Need I say more? Are we not by these proceedings cutting the sinews of our own legions; for what man can engage with ardor in a war, when the hope of peace is suggested to him?
Even that godlike and divine Martial legion will grow languid at and be cowed by the receipt of this news, and will lose that most noble title of Martial; their swords will fall to the ground; their weapons will drop from their hands. For, following the senate, it will not consider itself bound to feel more bitter hatred against Antonius than the senate.
I am ashamed for this legion, I am ashamed for the fourth legion, which, approving of our authority with equal virtue, abandoned Antonius, not looking upon him as their consul and general, but as an enemy and attacker of their country. I am ashamed for that admirable army which is made up of two armies; which has now been reviewed, and which has started for Mutina, and which, if it hears a word of peace, that is to say, of our fear, even if it does not return, will at all events halt. For who, when the senate recalls him and sounds a retreat, will be eager to engage in battle?
(Compare St. Paul,--For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? I Cor. 14.8.)
Clement of Alexandria notes that:
"the writer of comedy, expressing his dissatisfaction with the common usages, tries to expose the impious arrogance of the pravailing error in the drama of the Priestess, sagely declaring:
- 'If a man drags the Deity
- Whither he will by the sound of cymbals,
- He that does this is greater than the Deity;
- But these are the instruments of audacity and
- means of living
- Invented by men.
(Clement, Exhortation to the Heathen, Ante-Nicene, II, p. 193).
"Let revelry keep away from our rational entertainments, and foolish vigils, too, that revel in intemperance. For revelry is an inebriating pipe, the chain of an amatory bridge, that is, of sorrow. And let love, and intoxication, and senseless passions, be removed from our choir. Burlesque singing is the boon companion of drunkeness. A night spent over drink invites drunkeness, rouses lust, and is audacious in deeds of shame.
For if people occupy their time with pipes, and psalteries, and choirs, and dances, and Egyptian clapping of hands, and such disorderly frivolities,
they become quite immodest and intractable, beat on cymbals, and drums, and make a noise on instruments of delusion." (Clement, Instructor)
Clement further Noted
"The earth, again, which had been in a state of commotion, it has established, and fixed the sea as its boundary. The violence of fire it has softened by the atmosphere, as the Dorian is blended with the Lydian strain; and the harsh cold of the air it has moderated by the embrace of fire, harmoniously arranging these the extreme tones of the universe. And this deathless strain,-the support of the whole and the harmony of all,-reaching from the centre to the circumference, and from the extremities to the central part, has harmonized this universal frame of things,
not according to the Thracian (Barbarian) music, which is like that invented by Jubal,
but according to the paternal counsel of God, which fired the zeal of David.And He who is of David, and yet before him, the Word of God,
despising the lyre and harp, which are but lifeless instruments,and having tuned by the Holy Spirit the universe, and especially man,-who, composed of body and soul, is a universe in miniature,
makes melody to God on this instrument of many tones; and to this instrument-I mean man-he sings accordant:
"For thou art my harp, and pipe, and temple. -a harp for harmony-a pipe by reason of the Spirit-a temple by reason of the word;
so that the first may sound, the second breathe, the third contain the Lord.
Cybele
Cybele was born the daughter of a Phrygian king who wanted a son. He abandoned her on Mount Kybelon. She later fell in love with the shepherd Attis and was ready to bear his child when the king brought her back. The king was upset that she had fell in love with a lowly shepherd and had Attis murdereed and his body cast out to rot.
"In a frenzy of grief Cybele rushed out of the palace into the countryside where she roamed alone,
- crying aloud and beating upon a drum,
- while pestilence fell upon human beings and the land itself ceased to bear fruit.
An oracle advised the burial of Attis and honoring Cybele as a goddess. Since Attis' body had disapeared in the course of time, an image of Attis was made before which the people sang dirges. They made altars and performed sacrifices, and later erected a costly temple for Cybele in Pessinus." (Finegan, Jack, Myth and Mystery, p. 194, Baker)
In Rome, Cybele was honored by ceremonies "which would involve the use of musical instruments and the utterance of cries of grief."
"In Rome the annual festival in honor of Cybele was the Megalensia, and it is understandable from the foregoing
that the ceremonies would involve the use of musical instruments and the utterance of cries of grief." (Finegan, p. 194)
"The festival of the Idaean Mother will have come. Eunuchs (known as Galli) will march and
thump their hollow drums,
and cymbals clashed on cymbals will give out their tinkling notes...the goddess herself will be born with violent crying through the streets in the city's midst." (Finegan, p. 194)
DeVaux
Of the musical worship and wounding of the priests of Baal and Asherah who had often emasculated themselves in subjection to queen Jezebel:
"We have evidence of ritual dances in the context of other Syrian cults. One of the Ras Shamra poems, in a passage...mentions mrqdm 'dancers' apparently in connection with a sacrifice. Herodian depicts Heliogabalus at a sacrifice to his god of Emesa,
'dancing round the altars to the sound of every kind of musical instrument;
with him certain women of his country performed a sprightly round,
with cymbals and tambourines in their hands.At Dair ee-Qala'a, near Beirut, there was a sanctuary dedicated to Baal-Marqod, 'Baal of the Dance' whose cult evidently involved dancing. An inscription relating to the sanctuary mentions a deuterostates, a technical word for one who stands in the back row of the choir." ( de Vaux, Roland, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, Doubleday, p. 241).
"This is how Apuleius describes the cortege of the Syrian goddess '...they began to howl all out of tune and hurl themselves hither and thither, as though they were mad. They made a thousand gestures with their feet and their heads;
they would bend down their necks and spin round so that their hair flew out in a circle; they would bite their own flesh; finally, every one took his two-edged weapon and wounded his arms in divers places." (de Vaux, p. 242)
Chorus
Once with swift foot the mountain Mother of the gods rushed through the wooded glen, and the river's streams and the deep-thundering sea wave, yearning for her lost daughter, whose name may not be spoken.
The loudly rattling castanets cried out a shrill sound,
when they, swift-footed as whirlwinds,followed the goddess on her chariot yoked to wild creatures, after the girl that was snatched away from the circling chorus of maidens--
here Artemis with her bow, and there the grim-eyed goddess, in full armor, with her spear. But Zeus, who sees clearly from his throne in heaven, brought to pass another destiny.
When Israel rejected Yahweh and demanded a king like the nations so that they might worship like the nations God warned that the King and kingdom would enslave and then destroy them. In addition to taking the tithe the King:
And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. 1 Samuel 8:11
And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. 1 Samuel 8:12
The word "instrument" includes the psaltery.
Chorus
When the Mother ceased from her wild wandering toil, searching for the treacherous rape of her daughter, she crossed the snow-capped heights of the nymphs of Mount Ida; and in sorrow cast herself down in the rocky woods deep in snow;
and, by not making fruitful with crops the barren fields of the earth for mortals, she destroyed the human race.
She would not send forth the rich nourishment of leafy tendrils for the herds, and life was leaving the cities. No sacrifice was offered to the gods, and on the altars were no cakes to burn; she made the dew-fed springs of clear water cease flowing, the avenger in sorrow for her child.Chorus
When she made an end to banquets for gods and the race of men, Zeus spoke out,
appeasing the 's gloomy wrath:"Go, holy Graces, go and with a loud cry take from Demeter's angry heart her grief for the maiden; and you,
Muses, with song and dance." Then Kypris, fairest of the blessed gods,
first took up the rumbling voice of bronze and
the drum with tight-stretched skin; and the goddess smiled,
and received in her hand the deep-toned flute, pleased with its loud note.Chorus
You made burnt offerings that were neither right nor holy, in the chambers of the gods, and you have incurred the wrath of the great, child, by not honoring her sacrifices. Oh! Great is the power of dappled fawn-skin robes, and green ivy that crowns a sacred thyrsos,
the whirling beat of the tambourine circling in the air,
hair streaming wildly for the revelry of Bromios,and the night-long festivals of the goddess. . . . You gloried in your beauty alone.
XIV. Homer, Hymn to Rhea TO THE Mother OF THE GODS
I prithee, clear-voiced Muse, daughter of mighty Zeus, sing of the Mother of all gods and men.
She is well-pleased with the sound of rattles and of timbrels,
with the voice of flutes and the outcry of wolves and bright-eyed lions, with echoing hills and wooded coombes.And so hail to you in my song and to all goddesses as well!
"Now Rhea, as Ceres, in Hymn XIV, is called 'brass-sounding' and 'drum-beating'.
This has reference to the mystical results of certain sounds and rhythm,part and parcel of what the Hindus call Mantravidyâ. I remember reading a curious old French book in the Bibliothèque de la Ville of Clermont-Ferrand, one of the books confiscated from the Minime Monastery of the same town, at the time of the Revolution.
This work dealt with the magical properties of music, and described for what especial purposes the various instruments of music were used in the Temple-service of the Jews. Now Iamblichus (De Mysteries, III.ix) goes into the matter of the
so-called Corybantic and Bacchic 'frenzies' produced by musical instruments in the Mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus; and in his Life of Pythagoras (xxv) he, further, tells us that:
'The whole Pythagoric school went through a course of musical training, both in harmony and touch, whereby, by means of appropriate chants, they beneficially converted the dispositions of the soul to contrary emotions.
"For, before they retired to rest, they purified their minds of the [mental, says Quintilian] confusion and noises of the day, by certain songs and peculiar chants, and so prepared for themselves peaceful repose with either few or pleasant dreams. And again, when they rose from sleep, they freed themselves from drowsiness by songs of another character.
"Music and Mantras, therefore, were used by the OrphicsAnd sometimes by means of melodies without words they cured certain affections and diseases, and this they said was the real means of "charming".
And it is most probable that the word "charm" (epode) came into general use from them. It was thus, then, that Pythagoras established a most salutary system of
regenerating the morals by means of "music"
[Mantravidyâ].' (Op. cit. Kiessling's text, pp. 245, 246; see also Taylor, Iamblichus on the Mysteries, 2nd ed., pp. 130, 131, n.)
to attract, or call down, the influence of the Mother of the Gods,who at the same time was the 'Store-house of Life', of Divine Nature. Thus Proclus in his Commentary on Euclid (ii) tells us that 'the Pole of the World is called by the Pythagoreans the Seal of Rhea' (Myst. Hymns, p. 63). Now the pole is the conductor of the vital and magnetic forces of the earth-envelope, and is, therefore, appropriately called by this name, as being the seal and signature of the vital forces of Divine Nature, whereby all diseases can be healed and all states of the soul vitalized. (G. R. S. Meade, The Orphic Pantheon)
The word "melody" in an external sense was connected with grinding something or someone to power, like the sop Jesus gave Judas.
Paul identified musical devices as both "lifeless" and "carnal."
And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? 1 Corinthians 14:7
He repeated the warning in his second letter which gives them little hope of reforming. In both Hebrew and Greek the same word is used for both a weapon and a musical instrument.
For the weapons (instruments) of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; 2 Corinthians 10:4
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; 2 Corinthians 10:5
job 21, amos, isa 5, exe 33
One arms themselves metally to do battle with carnal or lifeless instruments through the Word:
FORASMUCH then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; 1Pe.4:1
And when the purpose of great Zeus was fixed in heaven, she was delivered and a notable thing was come to pass. For then she bare a son, of many shifts, blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods.
Born with the dawning, at mid-day he played on the lyre,
and in the evening he stole the cattle of far-shooting Apollo on the fourth day of the month;
for on that day queenly Maia bare him.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
"The merriest of all the festivals, was the 'Feast of Drawing water' . It was the most joyous and the most musical of the temple's festivities. Its description in the Mishna text opens with the significant words: 'Whosoever has not seen the joy of the House of Water-drawing has never seen real joy in his life' (M. Suk. 5.1). After the preparations, which occupied the entire afternoon of the first day of Tabernacles, the 'men of good deeds' began to dance before the people in the temple court with burning torches. The Levites having stationed themselves upon the fifteen steps leading from the women's court to the Inner Court, took up their harps, lyres, cymbals, trumpets, pipes, flutes, clarinet, etc., all instruments greatly augmented in number, and intoned the fifteen 'Songs of Ascent.'
Thus, the night passed in dancing, singing, and general merrymaking. At the sound of the first cockcrow, the priests intoned the triple blast upon their ritual trumpets. These signals ended the general frolicking, and the crowd ranged itself into an orderly procession to the well of Siloah. (Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, p. 463)
"water drawing festival was celebrated during the week of Tabernacles with popular games and dances in which even the elders took part, and the streets were so brilliantly illuminated with torches that scarcely an eye was closed in Jerusalem during the week." (Int. Std. Bible Ency., p. 1104)
"Today, this music and dance festival is understood as the one remnant of the old Canaanite fertility rituals, which, in the monotheistic pseudomorphosis of the temple ceremonies, was to ensure an abundant crop of plants, animals, and even human beings." (Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, p. 463)
"This was perhaps the only occasion where popular music-making was allowed to mix with the otherwise sternly guarded prerogative of Levitical music. Consequently, secular, superstitious, even popular licentious elements were here introduced in the performance of the temple's liturgical music." (International Dictionary of the Bible, p. 463, Abingdon).
The cult Cybele, the
"Magna Mater, the Mother Goddess of Phrygia, was braought
to Rome in 205/4 BCE. The Goddess was served by
self-emasculated priests known as galli. Until the emperor
Claudius, Roman citizens could not become priests of
Cybele, but after that worship of her and her lover Attis
took their place in the state cult. One aspect of the cult
was the use of baptism in the blood of a bull, a practice
later taken over by Mithraism.
- Wherefore great Mother of gods, and Mother of beasts,
- And parent of man hath she alone been named.
- Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece.
- Seated in chariot o'er the realms of air
- To drive her team of lions, teaching thus
- That the great earth hangs poised and cannot lie
- Resting on other earth. Unto her car
- They've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny,
- However savage, must be tamed and chid
- By care of parents. They have girt about
- With turret-crown the summit of her head,
Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high,
- 'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned
- With that same token, to-day is carried forth,
- With solemn awe through many a mighty land,
- The image of that , the divine.
- Her the wide nations, after antique rite,
- Do name Idaean , giving her
Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say,
- From out those regions 'twas that grain began
- Through all the world. To her do they assign
- The Galli, the emasculate, since thus
- They wish to show that men who violate
- The majesty of the Mother and have proved
- Ingrate to parents are to be adjudged
- Unfit to give unto the shores of light
A living progeny. The Galli come:
And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines
Resound around to bangings of their hands;
The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray;
The tubed pipe excites their maddened minds
- In Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives,
- Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have power
- The rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts
- To panic with terror of the goddess' might.
And so, when through the mighty cities borne,
- She blesses man with salutations mute,
- They strew the highway of her journeyings
- With coin of brass and silver, gifting her
- With alms and largesse, and shower her and shade
- With flowers of roses falling like the snow
- Upon the Mother and her companion-bands.
Here is an armed troop, the which by Greeks
- Are called the Phrygian Curetes. Since
- Haply among themselves they use to play
- In games of arms and leap in measure round
- With bloody mirth and by their nodding shake
- The terrorizing crests upon their heads,
- This is the armed troop that represents
- The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete,
- As runs the story, whilom did out-drown
- That infant cry of Zeus, what time their band,
- Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy,
- To measured step beat with the brass on brass,
- That Saturn might not get him for his jaws,
- And give its Mother an eternal wound
- Along her heart. And it is on this account
- That armed they escort the mighty ,
- Or else because they signify by this
- That she, the goddess, teaches men to be
- Eager with armed valour to defend
- Their land, and ready to stand forth,
- The guard and glory of their parents' years.
- all hail the new god Bacchus! Either thou
- must build a temple to this Deity,
- or shalt be torn asunder; thy remains,
- throughout the forest scattered, will pollute
- the wood with sanguinary streams; and thy
- life-blood bespatter with corrupting blots
- thy frenzied Mother and her sisters twain.
- And all shall come to pass, as I have told,
- because thou wilt not honour the New God.
- And thou shalt wail and marvel at the sight
- of blind Tiresias, though veiled in night."
- And as he spoke, lo, Pentheus drove the seer:
- but all his words, prophetic, were fulfilled,
- and confirmation followed in his steps.--
- Bacchus at once appears, and all the fields
- resound with shouts of everybody there.--
- men, brides and matrons, and a howling rout--
- nobles and commons and the most refined--
- a motley multitude--resistless borne
- to join those rites of Bacchus, there begun.
- Then Pentheus cries; "What madness, O ye brave
- descendants of the Dragon! Sons of Mars!
- What frenzy has confounded you? Can sounds
- of clanging brass prevail; and pipes and horns,
- and magical delusions, drunkenness,
- and yelling women, and obscene displays,
- and hollow drums, overcome you, whom the sword,
- nor troops of war, nor trumpet could affright?
- "How shall I wonder at these ancient men,
- who, crossing boundless seas from distant Tyre,
- hither transferred their exiled Household Gods,
- and founded a new Tyre; but now are shorn,
- and even as captives would be led away
- without appeal to Mars? And, O young men,
- of active prime whose vigor equals mine!
- 690
- But Pentheus answered him: "A parlous tale,
- and we have listened to the dreary end,
- hoping our anger might consume its rage;--
- away with him! hence drag him, hurl him out,
- with dreadful torture, into Stygian night."
- Quickly they seized and dragged Acoetes forth,
- and cast him in a dungeon triple-strong.
- And while they fixed the instruments of death,
- kindled the fires, and wrought the cruel irons,
- the legend says, though no one aided him,
- the chains were loosened and slipped off his arms;
- the doors flew open of their own accord.
- But Pentheus, long-persisting in his rage,
- not caring to command his men to go,
- himself went forth to Mount Cithaeron, where
- resound with singing and with shrilly note
- the votaries of Bacchus at their rites.
- As when with sounding brass the trumpeter
- alarms of war, the mettled charger neighs
- and scents the battle; so the clamored skies
- resounding with the dreadful outcries fret
- the wrath of Pentheus and his rage enflame.
- About the middle of the mount (with groves
- around its margin) was a treeless plain,
- where nothing might conceal. Here as he stood
- to view the sacred rites with impious eyes,
- his Mother saw him first. She was so wrought
- with frenzy that she failed to know her son,
- and cast her thyrsus that it wounded him;
- and shouted, "Hi! come hither, Ho!
- Come hither my two sisters! a great boar
- hath strayed into our fields; come! see me strike
- and wound him!"
- As he fled from them in fright
- the raging multitude rushed after him;
- and, as they gathered round; in cowardice
- he cried for mercy and condemned himself,
- confessing he had sinned against a God.
- And as they wounded him he called his aunt;
- "Autonoe have mercy! Let the shade
- of sad Actaeon move thee to relent!"
- No pity moved her when she heard that name;
- in a wild frenzy she forgot her son.
- While Pentheus was imploring her, she tore
- his right arm out; her sister Ino wrenched
- the other from his trunk. He could not stretch
- his arms out to his , but he cried,
- "Behold me, !" When Agave saw,
- his bleeding limbs, torn, scattered on the ground,
- she howled, and tossed her head, and shook her hair
- that streamed upon the breeze; and when his head
- was wrenched out from his mangled corpse,
- she clutched it with her blood-smeared fingers, while
- she shouted, "Ho! companions! victory!
- The victory is ours!" So when the wind
- strips from a lofty tree its leaves, which touched
- by autumn's cold are loosely held, they fall
- not quicker than the wretch's bleeding limbs
- were torn asunder by their cursed hands.
- Now, frightened by this terrible event,
- the women of Ismenus celebrate
- the new Bacchantian rites; and they revere
- the sacred altars, heaped with frankincense.
or working at the web. So they corrupt
- Minyeides.
- Alcithoe, daughter of King Minyas,
- consents not to the orgies of the God;
- denies that Bacchus is the son of Jove,
- and her two sisters join her in that crime.
- 5
- 'Twas festal-day when matrons and their maids,
- keeping it sacred, had forbade all toil.--
- And having draped their bosoms with wild skins,
- they loosed their long hair for the sacred wreaths,
- and took the leafy thyrsus in their hands;--
- 10
- for so the priest commanded them. Austere
- the wrath of Bacchus if his power be scorned.
- Mothers and youthful brides obeyed the priest;
- and putting by their wickers and their webs,
- dropt their unfinished toils to offer up
- 15
- frankincense to the God; invoking him
- with many names:--"O Bacchus! O Twice-born!
- O Fire-begot! Thou only child Twice-ed!
- God of all those who plant the luscious grape!
- O Liber!" All these names and many more,
- 20
- for ages known--throughout the lands of Greece.
- "Thy youth is not consumed by wasting time;
- and lo, thou art an ever-youthful boy,
- most beautiful of all the Gods of Heaven,
- smooth as a virgin when thy horns are hid.-
- 25
- The distant east to tawny India's clime,
- where rolls remotest Ganges to the sea,
- was conquered by thy might.--O Most-revered!
- Thou didst destroy the doubting Pentheus,
- and hurled the sailors' bodies in the deep,
- 30
- and smote Lycurgus, wielder of the ax.
- "And thou dost guide thy lynxes, double-yoked,
- with showy harness.--Satyrs follow thee;
- and Bacchanals, and old Silenus, drunk,
- unsteady on his staff; jolting so rough
- judasgif
- 35
- on his small back-bent ass; and all the way
- resounds a youthful clamour; and the screams
- of women! and the noise of tambourines!
- And the hollow cymbals! and the boxwood flutes,--
- fitted with measured holes.--Thou art implored
- 40
- by all Ismenian women to appear
- peaceful and mild; and they perform thy rites."
- Only the daughters of King Minyas
- are carding wool within their fastened doors,
- or twisting with their thumbs the fleecy yarn,
the sacred festival with needless toil,
keeping their hand-maids busy at the work.
And one of them, while drawing out the thread
So, as she counted in her well-stored mind
with nimble thumb, anon began to speak;
While others loiter and frequent these rites
fantastic, we the wards of Pallas, much
to be preferred, by speaking novel thoughts
may lighten labour. Let us each in turn,
relate to an attentive audience,
a novel tale; and so the hours may glide.
it pleased her sisters, and they ordered her
to tell the story that she loved the most.
the many tales she knew, first doubted she
whether to tell the tale of Derceto,
that Babylonian, who, aver the tribes
of Palestine, in limpid ponds yet lives,
her body changed, and scales upon her limbs;
or how her daughter, having taken wings,
passed her declining years in whitened towers.
Or should she tell of Nais, who with herbs,
too potent, into fishes had transformed
the bodies of her lovers, till she met
herself the same sad fate; or of that tree
which sometime bore white fruit, but now is changed
and darkened by the blood that stained its roots.
Pleased with the novelty of this, at once
she tells the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe;
and swiftly as she told it unto them,
the fleecy wool was twisted into threads.
O father! hear me mother! grant to me
this boon; to me whose name is yours, your son;
whoso shall enter in this fount a man
must leave its waters only half a man.
Moved by the words of their bi-natured son
both parents yield assent: they taint the fount
with essences of dual-working powers.
Now though the daughters of King Minyas
have made an end of telling tales, they make
no end of labour; for they so despise
the deity, and desecrate his feast.
- While busily engaged, with sudden beat
- they hear resounding tambourines; and pipes
- and crooked horns and tinkling brass renew,
- unseen, the note; saffron and myrrh dissolve
- in dulcet odours; and, beyond belief,
- the woven webs, dependent on the loom,
- take tints of green, put forth new ivy leaves,
- or change to grape-vines verdant. There the thread
- is twisted into tendrils, there the warp
-Ovid Metamorphoses 7.159 More
- O wonder-working Moon, I draw you down
- against the
- -making sound of gongs
- and brazen vessels of Temesa's ore;
I cast my spells and veil the jeweled rays
- of Phoebus' (Apollo) wain, and quench Aurora's fires.
- "At my command you tamed the flaming bulls
- which long disdained to bend beneath the yoke,
- until they pressed their necks against the plows;
- and, subject to my will, you raised up war
- till the strong company of dragon-birth
- There is a spot
- convenient in the center of the world,
- between the land and sea and the wide heavens,
- the meeting of the threefold universe.
- From there is seen all things that anywhere
- exist, although in distant regions far;
- and there all sounds of earth and space are heard.
- Fame is possessor of this chosen place,
- and has her habitation in a tower,
- which aids her view from that exalted highs.
- And she has fixed there numerous avenues,
- and openings, a thousand, to her tower
- and no gates with closed entrance, for the house
- is open, night and day, of sounding brass,
- reechoing the tones of every voice.
- It must repeat (echo) whatever it may hear;
- and there's no rest, and silence in no part.
- There is no clamor; but the murmuring sound
- of subdued (whispering or muttering) voices, such as may arise
- from waves of a far sea, which one may hear
- who listens at a distance; or the sound
- which ends a thunderclap,
- when Jupiter
- has clashed black clouds together. Fickle crowds
- are always in that hall, that come and go,
- and myriad rumors--false tales (1 Tim 4:7) mixed with true--
- are circulated in confusing words. (like speaking in tongues)
- Some fill their empty ears with all this talk,
- and some spread elsewhere all that's told to them.
- The volume of wild fiction grows apace,
- and each narrator adds to what he hears.
- Credulity (god) is there and rash Mistake, (god)
- and empty Joy, and coward Fear alarmed
- by quick Sedition, and soft Whisper--all
- of doubtful life, sees what things are done
- in heaven and on the sea, and on the earth.
- She spies all things in the wide universe.
Plato: Apology of Socrates and Crito crito,17.2 speaking directly to the charismatic prophesying being practiced by the women in Corinth:
- hoi korubantiôntes: here a species of madness seems to be indicated,
- under the influence of which men
- imagined that they heard the flutes
- that were used in Corybantian revels.
- and the song of the bacchanals in Eur. Bacch. 123-127,
- Corybantes, wearing helms three-rimmed,
- Stretched skins to make my drum's full round;
- Then they, in hollowed caves, lithe-limbed,
- With drums, and, with the flute's shrill sound
- Full Phrygian, bacchic ditties hymned.
This is Paul's meaning of "clanging brass and tinkling cymbals" which, in church, was equated to speaking in tongues.
[664a] of how one can, if he tries, persuade the souls of the young of anything, so that the only question he has to consider in his inventing is what would do most good to the State, if it were believed; and then he must devise all possible means
to ensure that the whole of the community constantly, so long as they live,
use exactly the same language, so far as possible, about these matters, alike in their songs, their tales, and their discourses. If you, however, think otherwise, I have no objection to your arguing in the opposite sense.
[664b] Clinias: Neither of us, I think, could possibly argue against your view.
Athenian: Our next subject I must handle myself. I maintain that all the three choirs must enchant the souls of the children, while still young and tender, by rehearsing all the noble things which we have already recounted, or shall recount hereafter; and let this be the sum of them: in asserting that one and the same life is declared by the gods to be both most pleasant and most just, we shall not only be saying what is most true,
[664c] but we shall also convince those who need convincing more forcibly than we could by any other assertion.
Clinias: We must assent to what you say.
Athenian: First, then, the right order of procedure will be for the Muses' choir of children to come forward first to sing these things with the utmost vigor and before the whole city; second will come the choir of those under thirty, invoking Apollo Paian as witness of the truth of what is said, and praying him of grace to persuade the youth.
[664b] Clinias: Neither of us, I think, could possibly argue against your view.
Athenian: Our next subject I must handle myself. I maintain that all the three choirs (Note 1) must enchant the souls of the children, while still young and tender, by rehearsing all the noble things which we have already recounted, or shall recount hereafter; and let this be the sum of them: in asserting that one and the same life is declared by the gods to be both most pleasant and most just, we shall not only be saying what is most true, (Note: At Spartan festivals it was customary to have three choirs--of boys, young men, and older men.)
[664c] but we shall also convince those who need convincing more forcibly than we could by any other assertion.
Clinias: We must assent to what you say.
Athenian: First, then, the right order of procedure will be for the Muses' choir of children to come forward first to sing these things with the utmost vigor and before the whole city;
second will come the choir of those under thirty, invoking Apollo Paian (note 1) as witness of the truth of what is said, and praying him of grace to persuade the youth.
- (Note 1: "the Healer." Cp. the medicinal sense of epaidein, " enchant,"
- above. Music is to be a medicine of the soul.)
[664d] The next singers will be the third choir, of those over thirty and under sixty; and lastly, there were left those who, being no longer able to uplift the song, shall handle the same moral themes in stories and by oracular speech.
[6.1]These were not the only advantages Pericles had of his association with Anaxagoras. It appears that he was also lifted by him above superstition, that feeling which is produced by amazement at what happens in regions above us. It affects those who are ignorant of the causes of such things,
and are crazed about divine intervention, and confounded through their inexperience in this domain;
whereas the doctrines of natural philosophy remove such ignorance and inexperience, and substitute for timorous and inflamed superstition that unshaken reverence which is attended by a good hope.
[6.2] A story is told that once on a time the head of a one-horned ram was brought to Pericles from his country-place, and that Lampon the seer, when he saw how the horn grew strong and solid from the middle of the forehead, declared that, whereas there were two powerful parties in the city, that of Thucydides and that of Pericles, the mastery would finally devolve upon one man,--the man to whom this sign had been given. Anaxagoras, however, had the skull cut in two, and showed that the brain had not filled out its position, but had drawn together to a point, like an egg, at that particular spot in the entire cavity where the root of the horn began.
[6.3] At that time, the story says,
it was Anaxagoras who won the plaudits of the bystanders; but a little while after it was Lampon,
for Thucydides was overthrown, and Pericles was entrusted with the entire control of all the interests of the people.
Now there was nothing, in my opinion, to prevent both of them, the naturalist and the seer, from being in the right of the matter; the one correctly divined the cause, the other the object or purpose. It was the proper province of the one to observe why anything happens, and how it comes to be what it is; of the other to declare for what purpose anything happens, and what it means.
[6.4] And those who declare that the discovery of the cause, in any phenomenon, does away with the meaning, do not perceive
that they are doing away not only with divine portents,
but also with artificial tokens, such as the ringing of gongs,
the language of fire-signals, and the shadows of the pointers on sundials.Each of these has been made, through some causal adaptation, to have some meaning. However, perhaps this is matter for a different treatise.
Quasten
"Philodemos considered it paradoxical that music should be regarded as veneration of the gods while musicians were paid for performing this so-called veneration. Again, Philodemus held as self-deceptive the view that music mediated religious ecstasy. He saw the entire condition induced by the noise of cymbals and tambourines as a disturbance of the spirit.
He found it significant that, on the whole, only women and effeminate men fell into this folly."
"According to Philo, the gods of the pagans exploit this weakness of men. For the sake of a better effect, and with the intention of more easily CHEATING their devotes, that they have set their lies to melodies, rhythms and meters.." (Quasten, p. 52)
"Among the Oriental cults, that of Cybele strongly resembles the cult of Dionysus in this respect. Here, too, are the typically orgiastic instruments -- tambourines, cymbals, rattles, horns and flutes.
To their accompaniment the worshipers of Cybele,
in a state of enthusiasm approaching madness, would untie, pull and shake their har and then lash themselves with whips. This rite is described in numerous texts by the authors of antiquity.
"Come follow me to the house of the Phrygian Cybele, to the grove of the Phrygian goddess! There sounds the clang of cymbals, there echo the tambourines, there the Phrygian flutest plays upon his deep-sounding twisted reed. There the Maenads, adorned with ivy, toss their head wildly. There they celebrate the holy rites to the sound of shrill screams. There the roving band pursues the goddess. There would we also hurry with quickening dance-step.
"This rite was carried out in a fit of holy frenzy induced by the Phrygian manner of singing, as well as the rapturous music of the tambourine, the cymbal and the flute. (Quasten, p. 36).
I Corinthians 13: Sounding Brass and Tinkling Cymbals
"This passage (1 Cor. 13) cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of the attitude toward music taken by Pharisaic Jewry. Explicitly stated here is the primacy of vocal performance over any instrumental music. Implicit is the contempt of all instrumental music, and the emphatic disparagement of 'gong' and cymbals, two of the temple's percussion instruments... Paul, however, denounced their usage on account of their role in the mystery cults, and thus reflected the views of the orthodox Pharisees as well as some ideas of Philo's philosophy." (Interpreter's Dict of the Bible, Music, p. 466).
Sibylline Oracles, a song reads--
-
They do not pour blood on altars in libations of sacrifices.
-
No drum sounds, no cymbal.
-
No flute of many holes, which has a sound that damages the heart,
-
No pipe, which bears the imitation of the crooked serpent,
-
No savage-sounding trumpet, Herrald of wars,
- None who are drunk in lawless revels or dances,
- No sound of the
lyre,
no
evil-working devices.
17) Strabo Geography 7.3.4 (Loeb)
"All the Thracians, and most of all we Getae (for I too boast that I am of this stock) are not very continent;" and a little below he sets down the proofs of their incontinence in their relations with women:
"For every man of us marries ten or eleven women, and some, twelve or more; but if anyone meets death
before he has married more than four or five, he is lamented among the people there as a wretch without bride and nuptial song."
Indeed, these facts are confirmed by the other writers as well. Further, it is not reasonable to suppose that the same people regard as wretched a life without many women, and yet at the same time regard as pious and just a life that is wholly bereft of women. And of course to regard as "both god-fearing and capnobatae"
"capnobatae," or "smoke-treaders" (see Herodotus 1. 202 and 4.75) to the custom of generating an intoxicating vapor by throwing hemp-seed upon red-hot stones. Berkel and Wakefield would emend, respectively to "capnopatae" and "capnobotae" ("smoke-eaters," i.e., people who live on food of no value).
those who are without women is very much opposed to the common notions on that subject;
for all agree in regarding the women as the chief founders of religion,
and it is the women who provoke the men to the more attentive worship of the gods, to festivals, and to supplications,
and it is a rare thing for a man who lives by himself to be found addicted to these things.George Girardeau notes of the Red Sea Victory:
In the first place, it will be noticed from the account of the triumphant rejoicing on the shore of the Red Sea that the men sang only: "Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying," etc. What can be gathered from this simple singing of the males of Israel, in praise of God for their great deliverance, in favor of instrumental music in worship, it is rather difficult to see.
In the second place, it was Miriam and the women who used instruments of music on the occasion: "And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went after her with timbrels and with dances."
See again what the same poet says when he introduces as speaker
the man who is vexed by the money spent by the women in connection with the sacrifices:
"The gods are the undoing of us, especially us married men, for we must always be celebrating some festival;" and again when he introduces the Woman-hater, who complains about these very things:
"we used to sacrifice five times a day, and seven female attendants would beat the cymbals all round us, while others would cry out to the gods."
Worship at the central temple in all "nations" including Israel was a national worship involving the priesthood, the king and representatives of the people. For instance, David added certain rituals when he set up a secular capital separated from Gibeon where even Solomon still went to consult with God.
When Solomon died, the northern tribes or Israel adopted the national rituals to a daily "act of worship" for the rich at the expense of the poor. God through Amos supports the idea that women tend toward ritual or ceremonial worship:
1 Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, "Bring us some drinks!" 2 The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his holiness: "The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks. 3 You will each go straight out through breaks in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon, " declares the LORD. 4 Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years. 5 Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings-- boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do," declares the Sovereign Lord. Amos 4
10 you hate the one who reproves in court and despise him who tells the truth. 11 You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine. 12 For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts. 23 Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! 25 Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel? 26 You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god -- which you made for yourselves. 27 Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus," says the LORD, whose name is God Almighty. Amos 6
[10.3.13] The poets bear witness to such views as I have suggested. For instance, when Pindar, in the dithyramb which begins with these words,
"In earlier times there marched (drawled from the lips of men) the lay of the dithyrambs long drawn out, mentions the hymns sung in honor of Dionysus, both the ancient and the later ones, and then, passing on from these, says,
To perform the prelude in thy honor, great , the whirling of cymbals is at hand,
and among them, also, the clanging of castanets,
and the torch that blazeth beneath the tawny pine-trees,
he bears witness to the common relationship between the rites exhibited in the worship of Dionysus among the Greeks and those in the worship of the Mother of the gods among the Phrygians, for he makes these rites closely akin to one another. And Euripides does likewise, in his Bacchae, citing the Lydian usages at the same time with those of Phrygia, because of their similarity:
- But ye who left Mt. Tmolus, fortress of Lydia,
- revel-band of mine,
- women whom I brought from the land of barbarians
- as my assistants and travelling companions,
- uplift the tambourines native to Phrygian cities,
- inventions of mine and Mother Rhea. [Zoe]
And again, happy he who, blest man, initiated in the mystic rites, is pure in his life, . . . who,
preserving the righteous orgies of the great Mother Cybele,
and brandishing the thyrsus on high, and wreathed with ivy, doth worship Dionysus. Come, ye Bacchae, come, ye Bacchae, bringing down (back home) Bromius, (boisterous one) god the child of god, out of the Phrygian mountains into the broad highways of Greece.
And again, in the following verses he connects the Cretan usages also with the Phrygian: (Cretans were "liars" because they claimed to have the tomb of the real Zeus)
O thou hiding-bower of the Curetes, and sacred haunts of Crete that gave birth to Zeus, where for me (leader/spokesperson for the chorus) the triple-crested (helment)
Corybantes (Phrygian castrate priests of Cybele) in their caverns
invented this hide-stretched circlet, (tambourine) and blent its Bacchic revelry with the high-pitched,
sweet-sounding breath of Phrygian flutes, and in Rhea's hands placed its resounding noise, to accompany the shouts of the Bacchae, (ev-ah!) Mother and from Mother Rhea frenzied Satyrs obtained it and joined it to the choral dances of the Trieterides, (Triennial Festivals) in whom Dionysus takes delight. Bacchae And in the Palamedes the Chorus says,Thysa, daughter of Dionysus, who on Ida rejoices with his dear mother
in the Iacchic revels of tambourines."This Eve, on account of her having been in the beginning deceived by the serpent, and become the author of sin,
the wicked demon, who also is called Satan,
who then spoke to her through the serpent,and who works even to this day
in those men that are possessed by him
invokes as Eve." (Theophilus, p. 105)Eve is ZOE in the Greek Version.
"Jubal... exercised himself in music; and invented the psaltery and the harp. But Tubal... exceded all men in strength, and was very expert and famous in martial performances. He procured what tended to the pleasures of the body by that method; and first of all invented the art of making brass... Naamah was so skilful in matters of divine revelation, that he (Lamech) knew he was to be punished for Cain's murder of his brother." (Josephus, Ant., Adam and Eve).
-[10.3.14] And when they bring Seilenus and Marsyas and Olympus into one and the same connection,
and make them the historical inventors of flutes, they again, a second time,
connect the Dionysiac and the Phrygian rites; and they
often in a confused manner drum on Ida and Olympus as the same mountain.Now there are four peaks of Ida called Olympus, near Antandria; and there is also the Mysian Olympus, which indeed borders on Ida, but is not the same. At any rate, Sophocles, in his Polyxena, representing Menelaus as in haste to set sail from Troy, but Agamemnon as wishing to remain behind for a short time for the sake of propitiating Athena, introduces Menelaüs as saying,
But do thou, here remaining, somewhere in the Idaean land collect flocks of
Olympus and offer them in sacrifice.
[10.3.15] They invented names appropriate to the flute, and to
the noises made by castanets, cymbals, and drums,
and to their acclamations and shouts of "ev-ah," and stampings of the feet; and they also invented some of the names by which to designate the [homosexual, often emasculated]ministers, choral dancers, and attendants upon the sacred rites,
I mean "Cabeiri" and "Corybantes" and "Pans" and "Satyri" and "Tityri,"and they called the god "Bacchus," and Rhea "Cybele" or "Cybebe" or "Dindymene" according to the places where she was worshipped. Sabazius also belongs to the Phrygian group and in a way is the child of the Mother,, since he too transmitted the rites of Dionysus.
It is fundamental to the meaning of "inspired" to believe Jesus who said that truth had been hidden in parables from the foundation of the World. This was to fool the mercinaries who otherwise would understand too much and keep from making fools of themselves. Therefore, much of the Bible POINTS to pagan myths, legends and even history to CORRECT the meaning of the worship of a Spirit in the place of the human spirit: a God who serves rather than enslaves:
Richard Burton wrote:
"The physiological act of sex and orgasm not only greatly enhances the prospects, but also fires up further excitement.
"Repeatedly induced states of orgasmic collapse can produce, and have been used to produce, states of deep trance."
This is precisely the sexual purpose of an orgy as religious rite, and, in part, what the Greek God APOLLO fed CYPARISSUS in the wilds. The orgia, from which our word orgy is derived, of THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS of DIONYSOS and his homosexual SATYRS, were (in addition to the magic mushrooms and other psychoactive potions) rituals of this kind.
Candidates for initiation into the KABIRI were crowned with a garland of olive and wore a purple band round their loins. The dancing was then begun.
In fact, homosexuality was part of the ritual, what the historians in their scholarly dungeons called their "most immoral tendencies." The purpose was to evoke a passage beyond earth to a higher life. That is, "to lead the worshipers into the presence of the gods."
That is, in their mystical dances, continued leaping into the air achieves a shamanic state of trance, a transfer of consciousness analogous to the transformation of the magician into a bird whereby the apprentice masters his powers to join a gay brotherhood "who, by nature, are superior to other men." Resource
Tubal-Cain is a Kabir, "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron"; or, if this will please better, he is one with Hephaestos or Vulcan -- Vul-cain, the greatest god also with the later Egyptians, and the greatest Kabir. The god of time was Chium in Egypt, or Saturn, or Seth, and Chium is the same as Cain. Jabal is taken from the Kabiri -- instructors in agriculture, "such as have cattle," and Jubal is "the father of those who handle the harp," he, or they who fabricated the harp for Kronos and the trident for Poseidon.
Jabal is taken from the Kabiri -- instructors in agriculture, "such as have cattle," and Jubal is "the father of those who handle the harp," he, or they who fabricated the harp for Kronos and the trident for Poseidon. Theosophy, The Timeless Kabiri
Of the rites of Dionysus condemned by Paul in First Corinthians and the wine drinking musical worship in Ephesus:
Also resembling these rites are the Cotytian and the Bendideian rites practiced among the Thracians, among whom the Orphic rites had their beginning. Now the Cotys who is worshipped among the Edonians, and also the instruments used in her rites, are mentioned by Aeschylus; for he says,
O adorable Cotys among the Edonians, and ye who hold mountain-ranging instruments;
And he mentions immediately afterwards the attendants of Dionysus: one, holding in his hands the bombyces (reed flute),
toilsome work of the turner's chisel,
fills full the fingered melody, the call that brings on frenzy, while another causes to resound the bronze-bound cotylae. (cupped cymbals or vases) "and again, stringed instruments raise their shrill cry, and frightful mimickers from some place unseen bellow like bulls, and the semblance of drums, as of subterranean thunder, rolls along, a terrifying sound.Note: In connection with this bold use of "semblance" (eikôn) by Aeschylus, note Strabo's studied use of "resembles" (eoike, twice in this paragraph) and "unlikely" (apeikos). Others either translate eikôn "echo," or omit the thought.
The sounding brass (echoing) in First Corinthians thirteen was a Greek military instrument or hollow vase. It is directly related to the Chaldean which is a synonymn for astrologer. It was used like the familiar spirit or "old wineskin" of the witch of Endor to call up a ghost from the subterranean world. By whispering and murmuring into the skin the client heard mysterous sounds which were interpreted as from the gods. At the same time, it was used as a musical instrument or weapon to try to panic the enmy with the noise.
In connection with this bold use of "semblance" (eikōn) by Aeschylus, note Strabo's studied use of "resembles" (eoike, twice in this paragraph) and "unlikely" (apeikos). Others either translate eikōn "echo," or omit the thought.
Vergil
Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow'rs arose.
In humble vales they built their soft abodes,
Till Cybele, the Mother of the gods,
With tinkling cymbals charm'd th' Idaean woods,
She secret rites and ceremonies taught,
- The Isle of Crete, abode of lofty Jove,
- rests in the middle sea. Thence Ida soars;
- there is the cradle of our race. It boasts
- a hundred cities, seats of fruitful power.
- Thence our chief sire, if duly I recall
- the oIden tale, King Teucer sprung, who first
- touched on the Trojan shore, and chose his seat
- of kingly power. There was no Ilium then
- nor towered Pergama; in lowly vales
- their dwelling; hence the ancient worship given
- to the Protectress of Mount Cybele,
- of Gods, what time in Ida's grove
- the brazen Corybantic cymbals clang,
- or sacred silence guards her mystery,
- and lions yoked her royal chariot draw.
- Up, then, and follow the behests divine!
- Pour offering to the winds, and point your keels
- unto that realm of Minos. It is near.
- if Jove but bless, the third day's dawn should see
- our ships at Cretan land." So, having said,
- he slew the victims for each altar's praise.
- A bull to Neptune, and a bull to thee,
- o beauteous Apollo! A black lamb
- unto the clouds and storms; but fleece of snow
- to the mild zephyrs was our offering.
- -Vergil Georgics 4.51
- What more? When now the golden sun has put
- Winter to headlong flight beneath the world,
- And oped the doors of heaven with summer ray,
- Forthwith they roam the glades and forests o'er,
- Rifle the painted flowers, or sip the streams,
- Light-hovering on the surface. Hence it is
- With some sweet rapture, that we know not of,
- Their little ones they foster, hence with skill
- Work out new wax or clinging honey mould.
- So when the cage-escaped hosts you see
- Float heavenward through the hot clear air, until
- You marvel at yon dusky cloud that spreads
- And lengthens on the wind, then mark them well;
- For then 'tis ever the fresh springs they seek
- And bowery shelter: hither must you bring
- The savoury sweets I bid, and sprinkle them,
- Bruised balsam and the wax-flower's lowly weed,
- And wake and shake the tinkling cymbals heard
- By the great: on the anointed spots
- Themselves will settle, and in wonted wise
- Seek of themselves the cradle's inmost depth.
Vincent
1Co 13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."The verb rendered tinkling, alalazo, originally meant to repeat the cry alala, as in battle. It is used by Mark (6:38) of the wailings of hired mourners. Hence, generally, to ring or clang. Rev., clanging cymbal, is derived from (the Greek) a hollow or cup. The cymbal consisted of two half-gloves of metal which was struck together." (Vincent, p. 263).
Iamblichus.html
The chief token may be adduced as follows: Many, through the divine affiatus, are not burned when brought to the fire, nor when the fire touches them. Many, also, who are burned, do not perceive it, because in this case they are not living the life of an animal. Some, also, who are pierced with spits do not feel it; and others who have been struck on the shoulders with axes, and others still whose arms are cut with knives,11 do not mind12 it at all. Indeed, their performances. are not at all usual with human beings. For to those who are divinely possessed inaccessible places become accessible: they are thrown into the fire; they go through fire they pass through rivers like the holy maids in Kastabalis.13 From these examples it is shown that they who are enthusiasts do not have any thought of themselves, and that they do not live a human or an animal life so far as relates to sense or natural impulse, but that they exchange it for another more divine life by which they are inspired and by which they are held fast.
11. This is probably an allusion to the mutilations practiced at Rites like the orgies of the Great Mother. Similar suspensions of sensibility are reported in cases of burning alive and the tortures inflicted upon religious devotees. The enthusiasm or mental ecstasy overcomes the corporeal sensation.
12. Greek, parakolonthéw to follow a subject. It implies an understanding, together with a fixing of the attention till external consciousness is lost sight of.
13. Kastabalis was a city in Kappadokia. In it was a temple of Artemis or Anahita, whose priestesses or holy maids, it was affirmed, walked with bare feet upon the snow and upon burning coals without harm.
Kenneth Sublett Comments Welcome
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