ANTONIUS SUBIA VISITS THE OBELISK OF ANTINOUS

FLAMEN Antonius Subia, as part of his Sacred Pilgrimage to Rome, visited the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS.

As Flamen Antinoalis or "high priest," Antonius is the first practicing and widely recognized modern-day priest of Antinous to bow down in front of the Obelisk since the Fall of Rome and the rise of Christianity.

The Obelisk currently stands on the Pincian Hill in Rome, but no one is quite certain where it originally stood.

We know for certain that Emperor Hadrian commissioned the Obelisk after the tragic death of Antinous. It is thought that the Obelisk originally stood at Hadrian's Villa, but some experts have also speculated that it could originally have been located at the Mausoleum of Hadrian.

The original location is of importance because the Obelisk contains clues as to the whereabouts of the LOST TOMB OF ANTINOUS.

Under the direction of Hadrian, the Obelisk was incised with EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS which provide us with the most important Sacred Text concerning the Sacred Nature of Antinous the Gay God. Alas, the portion of the text which discusses Antinous's earthly life is almost entirely illegible, with only faint references to his family, but not enough to provide any information.

The Obelisk text discusses in some detail His deification and the Sacred Miracles he can work.

But one of the most tantalizing portions of the hieroglyphic inscription refers to the location of the Tomb of Antinous. The text says:

ANTINOUS THE GOD IS HERE!

HE RESTS IN THIS PLACE

WHICH IS IN THE BORDER FIELDS 

OF OUR LADY ROME!

Clearly, those words indicate that the Obelisk once stood at the Tomb of Antinous. But because the Obelisk has been moved several times over the centuries ... we do not know where the tomb is!

ANTINOUS WORKS MIRACLES FOR YOU WHILE YOU DAYDREAM AT WORK

NEXT time you have a difficult problem to solve, and concentrating on it just isn't getting you anywhere, consider this: Maybe you're thinking too hard.

"Walk over to a window and think about the people or cars going by for a few minutes, until you get bored," suggests Josh Davis, research director at the New York Neuro-Leadership Institute. 

"Let your mind wander."

How will that help? "Always being 'on' blocks the brain processes that occur when we daydream," says Davis. 

His book, TWO AWESOME HOURS Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done, draws on new discoveries in brain science.

The idea is certainly not new. This enkoimesis (ἐγκοίμησις) "dream-incubation" was used in Abaton sleep chambers of Aesculapius temples where worshipers sought healing visions from the god to cure their ailments.

The Ancient Priests of Antinous knew that enkoimesis "dream-incubation" and zoning out, even for a few minutes, allows your brain to tackle tasks it can't handle when you're busy. 

They called it the medium for Antinous to work miracles in your life.

In ancient times, Antinous was known as a miracle worker. His worshipers prayed to him for miracles, oracles, visions and answers to problems in their daily lives.

The Egyptian hieroglyphs on the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS state clearly that Antinous answers the prayers of all who call upon him through dreams and visions, for example.

The hieroglyphs also make cryptic references to his ability to work magic through his heart. This is a reference to the Ancient Egyptian concept of the "Intelligence of the Heart."

The Egyptians knew that the brain is the center of motor activity and sensory perception. 

But they believed the heart is the center of a form of intelligence which has baffled most mainstream Egyptologists ... who assume the Egyptians believed the heart was where cognitive thinking occurs.

But the Egyptians had a very different view of the universe from our rational, scientific view of the universe. 

We dissect facts and analyze them. But while the Egyptians were very good at analyzing facts, they also retained the Zen-like ability to see the whole ... which leads to contemplation ... not analysis.

The Egyptians understood that if you want to find an intelligent solution to a problem, your brain can do the work. You have all the necessary intelligence inside the bone in your skull.

However, most people use their brains the same way they use their muscles. You can strain your head just as if it were a muscle, and work very hard trying to arrive at an answer, but it doesn't really work that way.

When you really want to find an answer to something, what you need to do is contemplate the problem. Visualize your question as well as you can, and then simply wait.

If you don't, and if you instead try to find the solution through brute mental strength, you may be disappointed, because any solution that comes in that way is likely to be wrong.

But when you have waited for a while, the solution will come of itself. That is what the Egyptians called the Intelligence of the Heart ... using your heart instead of your head.

It will work for you in the same way your stomach will digest your food for you without your having to supervise it consciously. Our attempts to supervise everything consciously have all led to consequences that aren't too good for our stomach, and the reason for that is quite simple.

Conscious attention, which employs words, cannot think of very much. We are forced, therefore, to ignore almost everything while we are thinking. We think along a single track, but the world doesn't proceed along a single track.

The world is everything happening altogether everywhere, and you just can't take all that into consideration because there isn't time.

However, the Intelligence of the Heart can take it all into consideration because it is capable of handling innumerable variables at once, even though your conscious attention cannot...

The hieroglyphs on the Obelisk of Antinous promise that Antinous the Gay God enables us to discover the Intelligence of the Heart ... the Intelligence of HIM ... he opens his heart to you ....

THE DISCOVERY OF THE STAR OF ANTINOUS

ON January 29th in the year 131 AD a new star appeared in the constellation Aquila, the Eagle.

The court astrologers declared that it was Antinous taking his place in the heavens. Hadrian ordered them to draw a new constellation embraced by the Eagle, and called it ANTINOUS.

Our Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia explains:

"The Roman historian Dio Cassius was skeptical that a new star had appeared in the sky, but simultaneously, the leader of the Jewish revolt named Bar Kochba, which means 'Son of the Star,' was declared the Messiah because a celestial event had proclaimed him the savior of Israel. The mystery of the star is real, a celestial even of great magnitude occurred shortly after the death of Antinous within the constellation of the Eagle for the New God.

"The three sacred stars of the constellation Aquila, named Tarzad, Altair and Alshain, rise above the horizon just after dark on this night and are an allegory of the assumption of Ganymede into heaven. This date is suggested by Chinese Novae observations which have been dated as occurring on the 29th of January 131 AD, and are compared to the Star or Comet of Antinous."

THE SACRED STAR OF ANTINOUS

 

 (To be said before a sacred flame of Antinous)

Antinous of the Heavens, God of Eternal Fire

In your name, Uranian Lord, Antinous Phanes,

May this consecrated Lucerna shine forth

With the celestial light of your Sacred Dark Star.

Antinous our God, whose Star has Come into Being

We are the Influence of your holy constellation,

May our devotion ignite the burning embers

Of your flame among the ashes of the world.

Arise Antinous Ganymedes as the Eternal Narcissus,

Your Homotheosis shines from this tongue of fire

Let this Flame commemorate the conflagration

That once consumed the Sacred Sodomites

Purify us in the pain and brilliance of Gay Splendor.

We rise as the Unconquered Sun

Soaring as a falcon among the heroes.

Your Hand turns the everlasting sky.

You pass through Heaven before the Starry Beings

You are the Golden Eagle of the Heavens

In whose wings all Catamites are assumed

Into the glory of Eternal Homotheosis

Antinous Phanes, twofold, egg-born,

Glorying in your golden wings,

Antinous of celestial power, ineffable,

Dark Star, all-shining flower of flame, glory of the sky.

“Hadrian declared that he had seen a star

Which he took to be that of Antinous,

And gladly lent an ear to the fictitious tales woven by his associates

To the effect that the star had really come into being

From the spirit of Antinous

And had then appeared for the first time.”

Behold the Star of Antinous!

(light a flame for Antinous)

THE MEN WITH THE PINK TRIANGLES VICTIMS OF THE GAY HOLOCAUST

IN Nazi Germany, on January 28th, 1935, the Ministry of Justice revived and amended "Paragraph 175", the old Prussian statute created in 1871 that made Homosexuality a crime punishable by imprisonment. 

The law was increased in severity and became the legal basis for the systematic persecution of male Homosexuals. 

The Nazis believed that homosexuality endangered to the purity of the German people, that gay men corrupted the youth, preventing them from living normal married lives, and were therefore a threat to the race. 

Homosexuality was denounced as an unnatural lust, and accused of being intrinsically Un-German, a disease imported by Jews and supported by Communists, the enemy of the Aryan People. 

Imprisonment and sterilization were the initial penalties, but Heinrich Himmler revealed his true design when he said that the "extermination of degenerates" was in keeping with ancient Nordic principles (an interesting idea considering that many of the Dying-Boy-Gods, to whom we compare Antinous, were killed as ritual human sacrifices.) 

Men were arrested and sent to the concentration camps by the tens of thousands. 

They were distinguished by the sign of the pink triangle, and subjected to extreme conditions of abuse. 

The Men of the Pink Triangle were beaten regularly, subjected to hard labor, deprived of food and exposed to the elements. 

They were abused by the Nazi guards and by other prisoners alike because everyone considered homosexuality the lowest of low, a sin and an aberration, even the homosexuals themselves. 

An estimated 60,000 men were legally sentenced under "Paragraph 175," nearly all of them died, and this number only includes those documented in Germany. The number of unrecorded homosexuals, and those outside of German is impossible to know, but may be twice as many. 

The Men of the Pink Triangle were so successfully persecuted that even after the Nazi defeat, Paragraph 175 remained law, and many gay inmates were sent to regular prison to complete their sentences. It was not until 1969 that the law was finally repealed. 

We sorrowfully remember the legions of Men of the Pink Triangle who died cruel and vicious deaths under the Nazis. 

We remember the evil that was perpetrated with the blessing of "Paragraph 175." 

These men are our Martyrs, our Holocaust, our Guardian Saints, they suffered so that we would be Free.

We will never forget their painful and miserable deaths, and we pray to Antinous the God of Homosexuality, to watch over their immortal souls and give them rest. On this day we remember the horrors that were raised against us through the Amendment of "Paragraph 175."

ANTINOUS SHOWS TOURISTS HOW TO GO STRAIGHT THIS WAY ... TO RENTAL CARS

ANTINOUS shows the way ... for tourists in Naples Italy looking for their vehicles at a SIXT car rental agency.

The famous Delphi statue of Antinous miraculously has a left arm to show customers how to "Go straight this way."

We wonder if the pun was intended by the advertising agency!

And look what a tourist in the Middle East spotted recently ... street art depicting Antinous giving his blessings to passersby from the walls of a five-story combination retail and residential building.

Antinous and Hadrian toured the Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire in 128, 129 and 130 AD.

That fateful tour culminated in Antinous dying tragically in the Nile in Egypt in October 130 AD. 

Grief-stricken Hadrian proclaimed Antinous a god, and issued an imperial command that the Religion of Antinous be spread throughout the world for all time ... a command which modern-day priests of Antinous continued to strive to carry out to the best of our abilities!

We love it when Antinous makes cameo appearances in advertisements.

He is routinely seen around Los Angeles on the sides of organic produce delivery trucks and WAS SIGHTED RECENTLY by our own Flamen Antonius Subia.

Meanwhile, Antinomaniacs in Britain and Europe could hardly believe their eyes when Antinous made a cameo appearance in a TV COMMERCIAL for an eyeglasses firm.

And Antinous miraculously also appeared recently literally around the corner from the Hollywood Temple of Antinous. 

A larger-than-life, hand-painted wall advertisement adorned a building at the corner of La Brea and Melrose in Hollywood for a month.


The advertisement was for Sabrina Carpenter's single "Almost Love", and the image was all over social media. 

The ANTINOUS MURAL featured Sabrina kissing the Townley Antinous/Dionysus bust.

That is the famous British Museum bust ... an exact replica of which adorns the altar of the HOLLYWOOD TEMPLE of Antinous.

"As soon as I saw the picture I knew where it was and ran down to see if it was true," our spiritual leader Antonius Subia says. "It's a miracle! It's a great sign from Antinous!"

WORSHIPERS ON BOTH SIDES OF ATLANTIC CELEBRATE HADRIAN'S BIRTHDAY

WORSHIPERS on both sides of the Atlantic joined hands via Zoom in ceremonies celebrating Emperor Hadrian's birthday at the Hollywood Temple of Antinous.

Flamen Antonius Subia had issued a global invitation via social networks for participation in the evening's ceremonies commemorating the 1,946th anniversary of the birth of Hadrian.

"We honor Hadrian because without him there would be no Religion of Antinous," Flamen ANTONIUS SUBIA told the worshipers in North and South America, Europe and Africa. 

"Hadrian loved Antinous with all his heart and with all his soul. And yet, when Antinous died he could have kept Antinous in his heart to treasure alone for all eternity," Antonius said.

"But instead, he shared Antinous with the world," he added, raising his hands toward images of Hadrian and Antinous on the temple's sacred altar.

"He issued an imperial command that temples to Antinous be erected throughout the Empire," the Hollywood high priest explained, "and that statues, busts and sacred images of Antinous be created to perpetuate his memory."

Even in the darkest times after the Fall of Rome, Antinous continued to serve as a beacon for homosexuals through the centuries.

"Antinous was revered by gay people throughout the centuries, even in the Killing Times when gays were burned and persecuted, even during the Gay Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis ... and also as gay people continue to suffer today," he said.


"Instead of keeping Antinous locked in his heart, Hadrian shared a portion of Antinous with us," Antonius added. 

"He permitted us to share in his loving relationship with Antinous, and in doing so, he forever changed the way gay people have seen themselves," he told the congregants.

Officiating at the Hollywood Temple as others took part via Skype, Antonius lighted incense and offered libations in celebration of the birth and life of Hadrian and his unprecedented step to deify his gay lover ... the ultimate Classical deity.

"He was the most powerful man in the world, who loved Antinous so much that he declared him a god," Antonius told worshipers.

"He did that as representative of Zeus on Earth, emblem of the ruler of the Cosmos, the great eagle," Antonius added. 

"Hadrian is the bringer of order out of chaos, founder of our religion," he went on. "He is the divine lover of Antinous ... our model ... and our God."

Future interactive ceremonies will be announced in advance.

THE BIRTH OF HADRIAN

ON January 24th the Religion of Antinous celebrates the Birth of the Divine Hadrian.

Publius Aelius Hadrianus was born on this day either in Italica, Spain, or else in Rome, in the year 76.

His father was Publius Aelius Afer, his mother was Domitia Paulina. His uncle was the Emperor Trajan who had been adopted by Nerva.

Trajan employed Hadrian as a general in his conquests across the Danube, where Hadrian proved his military prowess, and gained the love and devotion of the Legions.

It is said that the relationship between Hadrian and his uncle was strained, and they are even known to have quarreled over beautiful boys. But Hadrian was very close to the Emperess Plotina, whose intellectual depth he preferred to the military harshness of Trajan.

During the unsuccessful campaign against the Parthians, in modern day Iraq, Trajan suddenly fell ill and died. Plotina is said to have insured that Hadrian be his successor, allegedly even forging the documents of adoption.

The New Emperor Hadrian inherited the largest Empire that the world had ever known, the borders of Rome had reached their greatest extent.

Hadrian is the Father of the Antonines, the bringer of the Golden age of Rome. He put an end military expansion of the Empire and turned instead to improving the interior.

He is the prime deity of the imperial cult as recognized by the Religion of Antinous. He is the representative of Zeus on Earth, emblem of the ruler of the cosmos, the great eagle. Hadrian is the leader of the Archons, the bringer of order out of chaos, founder of our religion.

He is the divine lover of Antinous, our model and God.

THE MARTYRS OF ANTINOOPOLIS

ON January 23rd the Religion of Antinous honors the first of the many Christian Martyrs of Antinoe, also known as Antinoopolis. The first of the Egyptian martyrs with whose name and acts we are acquainted was Asclas of Antinoopolis.

This part of Egypt, near the nome sacred to Anubis, has always been a hotbed of religious fervor ever since the days when the "heretic pharaoh" Akhenaten built his capital city here, a scant 20 kms from our Sacred City of Antinoopolis. Christians and Jews constituted a major portion of the population of Antinopoolis. 

After all, the city was the flower of Greek civilization deep in the desert of the Thebaid, and it was a haven for dispossessed and exiled thinkers and theological revolutionaries.

There was a period of time in which Antinoopolis fell under the sway of the fear and violence that had swept across the world. The Christian faith was suffering one of the bloodiest persecutions in its history. Diocletian had sought to curb the rising tide of Christianity with brutal violence. He issued decrees that all citizens should be compelled to demonstrate their piety to the Roman Gods by offering sacrifice. It was a direct challenge. Any person who refused was not only insulting the Gods of Rome, but showing disloyalty to the Emperor and to Rome herself.

Such treason was punishable by death. This was a legal way to persecute Christianity, it was not an attack on the Christian doctrine, or its practices, but was an unavoidable line that no Christian would cross.

It is interesting to note that though many of the Christians were executed by beheading or by being shot through with arrows, some were executed by being drowned in the Nile. This similarity between their death and the death of Antinous must have been very moving to the Ancient Priests of Antinous. And it is also interesting that the authorities were not sensitive to the nature of this form of execution in the Sacred City of a boy who had become a god simply by drowning in the Nile.
The first was Asclas, who was arrested and tortured for his faith by order of Arrian, the governor of Antinoopolis who himself would later convert to Christianity. While Asclas was being tortured in prison by hot irons which left his flesh hanging down in strips, Arrian had reason to cross the River Nile to go to Hermopolis on government business.

Antinoopolis lies on the east bank of the Nile (depicted at left in its heyday), and Hermopolis (Sacred City of Hermes) is located diagonally across from Antinoopolis on the west bank of the Nile. But inexplicably, Arrian found he was absolutely unable to leave the water's edge.

Asclas sent word that the governor would never be able to cross the river until he acknowledged Christ in writing. Arrian wrote out the statement, and was promptly able to leave the river bank. He crossed the Nile, and the moment he was on the other side, he ordered that Asclas be thrown into the Nile with a stone tied around his neck, whereupon he drowned. 
This story, while odd-sounding to us today, was very clear to Egyptians. Hermopolis is the Sacred City of Hermes/Anubis, or Hermanubis.

This remarkable deity, who lives on in Christianity as St. Christopher, is responsible for conveying souls across the Celestial Nile after death. People in Antinoopolis worshipped both Antinous and Hermanubis.

The miracle of St. Asclan is meant to show that the Christian god is the equal of Hermanubis. Within a few generations, Hermanubis "morphed" into Christopher who, in this early Coptic mural at right, still has canine features. Next time you see a plastic St. Christopher statuette on a taxi dashboard, remember that it is actually Anubis without his doggy ears. He's not carrying the baby Jesus on his shoulders. He's carrying the Boy God Antinous over the celestial Nile to eternal divinity.

Against that background of intermingling spiritual beliefs, the Religion of Antinous acknowledges the suffering of St. Asclas and of all the Christian Martyrs of Antinoopolis out of our Love for Antinous in whose Sacred City they died. Though their faith was in Christ and not in Antinous, we nevertheless honor them and glorify them because they were Antinoopolitans, people of Antinous.

We ask their forgiveness for the murder and persecution of the Christian Martyrs and in their memory ask that we may be free from intolerance and never again partake in the crime of the ancient citizens of Antinoopolis.

The image above left is not Asclas, but is a burial painting of a person whose mummy was buried in the desert of the Fayoum in Egypt, which is the region of Antinoopolis. It is presented here as a contemporary image of what St. Asclas may have looked like. 

ANTONIUS SUBIA STRIDES THROUGH HADRIAN'S GATE AT PHILAE ISLAND

A highlight of my pilgrimage to Egypt

Was the Philae Island Temple 

On the Upper Nile

Last stand of the Pagan religion.

Long after Theodosius outlawed the old religions,

The priests of Isis continued their devotions.

It was a great honor to visit that beautiful little island

And there is a corridor called Hadrian's gate

In my photo at the top of this entry!

Ave Antinous!

~ANTONIUS SUBIA

                        MORE PHOTOS BELOW:

THE ASSUMPTION OF GANYMEDE

OUR Father Jupiter descended upon the slopes of Mt. Ida in the form of an eagle and carried away Ganymede, the beautiful young prince of Troy, ravaging him, and elevating him to live among the immortals.

At the table of the Olympian gods, Jupiter installed his Ganymede as the divine cup-bearer who pours out nectar-wine from the cup of eternal life.

This love affair between the Phrygian prince and the Father of the Gods is a divine parallel of the love between Antinous and Hadrian.

Ganymede is the emblem of the coming Age of Aquarius, when peace and love will rule the hearts of all men.

On this day, the beginning of the sign of Aquarius, we observe the deification of Antinous as having made union with the Thunderbird-Phoenix-Eagle, and having been elevated to reign among the immortals in the manner of Ganymede. And we pray for the hastening of the coming age.

WE HAVE A PRIEST OF ANTINOUS IN AFRICA FOR THE FIRST TIME Priest Adriaan van den Berg

WE have a new priest of Antinous! Adriaan van den Berg of Blomfontein, South Africa, was consecrated tonight as the priest of the newly established Temple of Antinous in Southern Africa.

His priestly name is Adriaanus Hostilius van den Berg and he took his vows during international Zoom ceremonies attended by attendees in North America, South America, Britain and Europe.

Below is Adriaan's formal statement of faith:

My Declarion of Belief 

Pledge of Duty and Commitment 

My Request for Blessings

By Hadrianus Hostilius van den Berg 

as a Priest of Antinous

To be Presented and Read at My Consecration 

as a Priest of Antinous on 20 January 2022

To be consecrated as a Priest of Antinous, I render this Declaration of Belief and a Statement of Acceptance of Commitment as a Priest -

With this Declaration, I hereby acknowledge the god Antinous and state my belief in him.

1) As such qualify this belief as belief that recognizes •The earthly life of Antinous as a mortal, •His life as the companion and as the beloved to the founder ofour faith, the Emperor Hadrian and •The death of Antinous in the Nile and his descent into the underworld,

2) I believe in and bear testimony of these as the important seeding experiences and events that would culminate in and become the great sacred gifts of •His deification, of •His faith and •His mysteries.

3) I hereby specifically proclaim Antinous’ deification as a god as an article of my belief since it is the foundation of Antinous’ godliness central to my belief in him…I therefore recognize our Founder Hadrian for deifying Antinous and for calling upon the gods for his deification and pay tribute to the gods here amongst us who attended to Antinous’ deification since I believe that it was by confluence of their wills, by their decrees and powers that Antinous was given his divinity and granted his godliness, they bestowed upon him their essences and conferred upon him some of their powers, they wished humanity to receive as a helper and a friend such a being as they raised from the dead and for whom they threw open the gates of the underworld and who stepped from the Nile as our god Antinous. My beliefs therefore recognize the honored gods Hapi, Anubis, Osiris, Persephone, Re-Herakte, Horus and Thoth and the gods with whom Antinous would become syncretized, and I include the godly deity whom the Obelisk of Antinous names as the Lord of Time and as the Creator who according to the Obelisk “filled Antinous with his seed” upon elevating him to godliness.•I declare belief in and bear testimony that Antinous was made and confirmed a god several times over, and upon this god I fix my beliefs. 

4) My belief in Antinous’ godliness also is inspired by and encompasses recognition and belief in his miracles:In his two greatest miracles of which the first was •his great inundation and flooding of the Nile to end an enduring drought visiting the horrors of famine upon Egypt upon whose harvests an entire Empire depended and whereby Antinous’ fed and saved the people of nations upon three continents.

5) My belief recognizes the 400 years of ancient worship of Antinous and of his service and relationship with humanity and •the innumerous private and personal miracles that Antinous had worked in the lives of his believers for which he was known, loved and worshipped by his ancient believers as the Great and the Good God Antinous.

Insofar as my belief in Antinous the miraculous and in his miracles concern his second great miracle, I have to remember how this 400 year-long ancient worship and relationship with humanity was ended by an upsurge of fanaticism and hatred in which Antinous was especially singled out for his homosexual relationship with Hadrian during his mortal life and for supposedly being the god of the sexually perverted and of the gender deviant. This hatred and destruction and the thousand two hundred years of darkness that came in its wake, invited and prompted and was followed by the second of his two greatest miracles. 

6) And arriving at this second of his greatest miracles, my belief professes that his second great miracle was the triumph of Antinous over death a second time, being his triumph over the murder and death visited upon the ancient gods conceived and attempted within the fullest of human abilities and begun by Theodosius in the year 395AD.This belief of mine recognizes Antinous the miraculous persevered for a thousand two hundred years without sustenance and support of belief and prayers from followers, that he survived without offerings and devotions from Priests, that grievous willful destruction and desecration of his statues and of anything that bore his image did him no harm and that his temples was toppled yet that he would endure a thousand two hundred years without sanctuary and without any of these things.

Thus my belief is in a god who prevailed and triumphed over the attempted murder and destruction of the pagan gods’ in all their known forms of existence, their toppling from all their earthly stations and above all their total banishment from human hearts, minds and lives and the inference and imposition of death upon them by the complete denial of them and their existence and its replacement with belief in their non-existence and that they were dead.

The second great miracle in which I believe is however not merely Antinous’ survival and endurance and his second triumph over death, but also his triumphant and magnificent re-emergence and manifestation in what was the beginning of the modern world. As such my belief in the second of Antinous’ great miracles is based on what are recognized and recorded real world events and verifiable historical facts which began his stunning re-emergence and manifestation in the world with the people supposedly still dedicated to blotting out any trace of him suddenly beginning to seek and to dig out his statues and likenesses with their own hands and to lovingly restore and to protect it as their very own leaders (like the cardinals de Medici and Albani and the pope himself)becoming the most ardent collectors and protectors of Antinous’ statues and objects bearing his images until these stood and were presented in their highest seat of power of the Vatican itself where they still remain under Christian protection today. My belief is inspired by the then unprecedented coinciding eruption at that same moment in history of curiosity and interest in Antinous that compelled people to speak of him, and by the fact that books of the early Church Fathers that inveighed against him and which intended to destroy any belief in Antinous became sources of learning about Antinous and his cultus, from the writing of Oregen of Alexandria, to Saint Jerome, Prudentius, Tartullian, Celement and Saint Athanasius and Justin Martyre whose god has anyway been allied with Antinous since the time of Antinoopolis and whom Antinous has never nutured any enmity for.

7) It is my belief that since the advent of the second great miracle, Antinous has persistently manifested and assumed a place in the modern world for more than three centuries since that astonishing miraculous emergence right at the beginning of the modern world. I believe he persistently assumes new forms and manifestations and ways and means of speaking to people in contemporary idioms and through available artistic conventions and in guises recognizable to modern people and my belief hereby becomes based on my personal witnessing of Antinous in his most vibrant presences, forms, with his likenesses recreated, updated, glorified, adorned and exalted by numerous contemporary artists and by ordinary people in the newly created virtual worlds, in the digitalized dimensions and in the electronic ether and in the media and lives online of people today. Thus I believe in the last of the ancient classical gods who is now also a thoroughly modern deity.

8) My final belief in Antinous is in and recognizes two of his divine purposes: 1) Antinous’ first divine purpose is to not force belief in him, but to open a way to experience with him. Thus he inspires private as well as open public worship of him as conduits for this experience –and open public worship of him was initiated in the year 2000, in the exact birth year of the new millennium, by the vanguard of a small inspired cadre of believers. 2) His second divine purpose recognized in my beliefs is that Antinous has come to be the god and the recourse of an outcast, despised, oppressed and persecuted people who have been denied even the right to turn their faces to and to address themselves to any god and who has been the victims of the longest and most enduring holocaust in human history who were and are still punished for their love: So my beliefs salute the god who came to be a god of homosexuals, to lesbians and to the transgender and to people of every sexual orientation and every possible gender variant but also for all and any people who may need and want him as friend and to be a god to them.

9) This is the Antinous I believe in: Conceived from divine seed, as the son of gods, made immortal and divine to be a gift from the gods to us, whose coming was marked by appearance of a star that has signalled his presence to successive generations ever since and that has recently been recognised to be a pulsing supernova also known as the Star of Antinous that at the right times can also be visible to all and any of you in the night sky, a befitting reminder that this also the god who is to be a beloved to other gods and to us, the agatho daemon, a godly spirit servant and helper to mankind, a faithful attendant to us throughout life who is tasked with also being a companion to us in the passing over of death and then to also be a guide in the beyond, this is the god unlike any other, known since ancient times as the Great and Good God Antinous.

10) I hereby end my declaration of belief with expressed gratitude to you who were witness to it. I seek not to convince you to share in my beliefs, neither does Antinous, my attempt was rather aimed at declaring my belief to ground and motivate and qualify my decision to become his Priest. It is my hope that you and Antinous could discern by my declared beliefs just how I see and perceive him and that him and you will consider it as a view and belief befitting of and qualifying me as worthy of becoming his Priest.

Acceptance of Commitments and Duties

and of Recognition as a Priest of Antinous

 

I hereby acknowledge and accept the following commitments and duties as a Priest of Antinous…

·       That I will commit myself to Antinous the god for as long as I live, and commit myself to his faith and to his believers.

·       That as such, I will offer Antinous devotions, offerings, hymns and prayers– thus rendering it as a daily and lifelong service to him.

·       That I will maintain and promote his faith in accordance with its ancient and contemporary customs and forms.

·       That I will be of service and succour to his believers and care for their welfare and wellbeing.

·       That as a mark of my acceptance of these commitments and duties as a Priest of Antinous, I accept the priestly names of Hadriaanus Hostilius in honor of Antinous and Hadrianus the Founder and Hostilius Marcellus, the ancient Priest of Corinth

And as a Priest, I recognize:

·       The cadre of pioneering believers who re-established worship of Antinous in and since the year 2000 as the founders of our modern Antinoan faith, who consecrated themselves as the first new Priets of Antinous in the modern world and whose legacy I will protect and advance.

·       The Temple of Antinous as my spiritual home and the organisation within which I will live and develop my spiritual life as a believer and Priest of Antinous.

·       I recognize within the Temple of Antinous: Flamen Antonius Subia as our spiritual leader, the Priest Hernestus as our Epistrategos and as my personal priest and mentor, the Sacerdotium of Priests and the Priests as my peers as my fellows and as my brothers, teachers and guides.

·       I recognize and accept that I will abide by the authority, customs, rules and directives of the Temple, the Sacredotium and our leaders.

·       Finally, I wish to recognize and state my gratitude three believers for having been my teachers and mentors: The Priest and Epistrategos Herenestus whose apprentice I have been, Flamen Antonius Subia and Doctor P. Sufenas Virius Lupus whose student I had been. To the three of them I offer special thanks.

May Antinous and you all be witnesses to allow this and may Antinous bless you all.

Ave Antinous!

ADRIAAN VAN DEN BERG

Priest of Antinous

SAINT SEBASTIAN

ON January 20th the Religion of Antinous honors SAINT SEBASTIAN who, despite being a Christian martyr, has been identified by homosexuals of all beliefs over the centuries as a symbol of our persecution and suffering.

Sebastian was an officer in the Imperial Guard of Emperor Diocletian, and he was a Christian.

In 302 A.D. Diocletian subjected the Christians to a brutal persecution, and it was during this period that Sebastian was "outed" to the Emperor as a practicing Christian.

When asked to sacrifice before a pagan altar, Sebastian refused and  was sentenced to death. He was tied to a column before Mauritanian archers, who shot him with arrows...but to no effect. 

Sebastian was strengthened by his faith, and did not die. He was finally clubbed to death in front of Emperor.
  
Homosexuals over the centuries have looked to Sebastian as a patron saint. His manner of death, which is like an affliction of Eros, and the sight of the beautiful young soldier plumed with arrows, has moved our hearts over the ages more than all other Christian saints.

In the Middle Ages, he was said to have power over the plague. And during the Black Death, his popularity grew among the penitent flagellants.

His image was a favorite subject of homosexual artists during the Renaissance who were fascinated by the erotic charge of his death. 

During the early 19th Century he was taken up as the model for homosexual suffering and persecution, some writers even claiming that he was the young lover of Diocletian and that his martyrdom had a jealous, sexual subtext.

In our time, the power of St. Sebastian over the Plague has made him a spiritual force in the fight against AIDS. And so we recognize his sanctity as the patron saint of homosexuals and as a protector from our modern plague. 

We consecrate him to the Religion of Antinous and offer our own quivering-hearts as a target for his thousand arrows of love.

THE GOING FORTH OF ANUBIS

ON January 20th is the Ancient Egyptian Feast of "The Going Forth of Anubis" (Yinepu) when his statues are carried through the streets for worshipers to honor ... in hopes that Anubis will convey them through the darkness of death to eternal light and life. 

This feast occurs between the completion of the mummification of Antinous on January 11th and the birthday of Hadrian on January 24th.

Anubis leads the new god Antinous to the Home of the Gods amongst the Imperishable Stars.

FEATURED ANTINOUS STATUE OF THE DAY THE ANTINOUS OF ELEUSIS

THIS statue of Antinous from Eleusis - Ἐλευσίς - is the only one that seems to refer back to an incident in his life, his initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries of death and resurrection in September 128 AD.

The sculpture was erected after his death in the outer courtyard of Eleusis and captures this instant of his life, though officially it depicts him as the god Dionysos Zagreus, a divinity of suffering abd resurrection associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Technically it is not one of the best of the depictions of Antinous, but it evokes a mood and a moment.

The sulptor clearly envisaged the young lad draped in his himation, standing in the darkened Telesterion (the initiation hall) and confronted with the Eleusinian Mysteries of death and resurrection.

He clutches at the folds of his himation anxiously, insecure, staring wide-eyed, his mouth pursed in awe, with an expression of apprehension, intent rapture and awareness of the tremendous significance of what was being revealed to him.

Even though it is a mediocre statue in workmanship and details it is redeemed by its expressiveness and pathos.

This statue is now housed in the Archaeological Museum of Eleusis: Antinous as Dionysus Zagreus, Inv. 5092, 1.83 m, in marble of Thasos.

A PRAYER FOR ANTINOUS By Our Priest Adriaan van den Berg

Worshipers often ask us how to pray to Antinous. While there is no mandatory official prayer, I suggest this prayer as an example:

Oh, Antinous, hear these words that speak our hearts & our minds -

Young Master of the hunt, help us to live bravely too, guide us to avoid the pitfalls and traps on this path of this life.

Slayer of beasts, help us vanquish the lion of all that vexes us and to avoid all that is grievous, painful and that will bring us harm as a hunter evades the abominable tusks of the boar.

Young Lover of Hadrian, you who knew love, guide us towards it, will you fill the unloved & loveless' hearts?

Faithful Companion, stay with us as we endure our plight, be with the broken, the outcast, those who struggle, with the lonely and with the forlorn.

Healer, tend to our sick, offer them reprieve from their suffering, place your hand upon their brows - you have healed for millennia, remain with us doing so & curb this blight amongst us now.

Our Master & Teacher, bless & assist your scattered followers, your Priests, scholars, scribes, artists & apprentices, our families & friends.

Liberator, guide & inspire those who worship & aspire to know thee - amidst darkness, help us to bring light, in the face of evil, marshall us to fight.

Antinoo-Osiris, you who stride different worlds, tend to our departed, afford them peace, vanquish our fears of the final transition, and when it is upon us, welcome us in your arms beyond.

Agatho Daemon to all of an afflicted, divided & conflicted humanity, us with our perilous, uncertain & muddled future... Grant us vision to see a new future, allow us possibilities.

Tireless Helper, we are grateful for all done in our interest & at our behest, for being able to pass our burdens to thee.

Let the star of Antinous continue to shine as our beacon of hope, may our recourse in thee be our certainty.

Ave Antinous!

ADRIAAN VAN DEN BERG

SEEK THE LOST TOMB OF ANTINOUS WITH BEN PASTOR'S 'THE WATER THIEF'

IT's summer vacation time ... for our many thousands of Antinous devotees in the Southern Hemisphere ... and anyone who is interested in historical fiction in general and Antinous in particular should read this book by Ben Pastor, the award-winning Italian-American historian and author. 

She knows more about Hadrian and Antinous than almost any other living expert. 

Her historical novel THE WATER THIEF is an example of fine scholarly research, as are indeed all of her books.

This novel traces the efforts of Aelius Spartianus to discover the fabled LOST TOMB OF ANTINOUS. 

Aelius Spartianus is a true-life figure who did in fact write a biography of Hadrian nearly 200 years after the death of Antinous.

Set in the year 304 AD, it tells of this very literate Roman army officer who is commissioned by Emperor Diocletian to do research on his predecessor the Divine Hadrian, who had died nearly two centuries earlier. 

It is while delving into the mystery of the death of Antinous and while trying to learn the whereabouts of the Boy's tomb that the officer stumbles onto evidence of a letter penned by Hadrian uncovering a covert conspiracy to bring down the Empire ... a conspiracy that is still very much at work in 4th Century Rome. 

As Spartianus comes ever closer to finding the answer to the death of Antinous, the conspirators' efforts to thwart him become ever more violent, resulting in numerous brutal murders and attempts on the officer's life.

Pastor's descriptions of Rome in the year 304 AD are superb. You get a real feel for the teeming city in mid-summer, with all the odors and noise, colors and steamy heat that that implies. 

Best of all, for those of us who love and worship Antinous, are the chapters in which Spartianus ensconces himself in Hadrian's derelict villa outside Rome. 

It is there, as he stares up into the stars at night, that he makes a startling connection between the layout of the villa and the eight visible constellations in the nighttime sky in late October when Antinous died ... indicating that Hadrian's obsession with horoscopes and astrology led him to create an earthly universe where time stood still at the death of Antinous.

Did Hadrian's belief in astrological fate compel him to have Antinous killed? Or did Antinous take his own life in a bid to fulfill his astrological fate? 

Or was it more mundane? Did he and Hadrian have a lovers' tiff that ended tragically? Was he done in by young male rivals intent on gaining Hadrian's affections for themselves? 

Or was something even more sinister at work? And why is someone desperate to preventing the officer from finding out what happened to Antinous all those years ago?

For those of us who love Antinous, this book is a joy to read. Pastor works in many small and obscure details which are well known to his modern-day followers. 

To give just one example, the Roman officer expends a great deal of effort trying to locate and decipher the OBELISK OF ANTINOUS which today stands in a park in Rome and is the focus of much current research in the 21st Century.

The obelisk's key inscription, which is the focus of modern experts seeking his tomb, says that Antinous "rests within the garden bounds of the great lord of Rome". 

Just as today's researchers have puzzled over the meaning of that phrase, Ben Pastor's protagonist must also make sense of it ... and he arrives at a startling answer that almost costs him his life and jeopardizes future of the Empire.

The novel's characters are well drawn and the reader identifies with Spartianus as he attempts to unravel this Gordian Knot while at the same time pulling together the strands of his own personal life.

There are numerous gay characters and they emerge as well-rounded and believable characters, especially the flamboyant Egyptian gays who find themselves unwittingly the target of unscrupulous killers in their very midst.

The tales of Antinous and Hadrian which unfold as the investigation progresses are a true pleasure to read, if only because they are all so contradictory and often far-fetched ... precisely as they are to today's researchers. 

Spartianus must work his way through this thicket of tall tales and outright lies and defamations in order to determine precisely what sort of persons Hadrian and Antinous were ... in order to save the Empire two centuries after their deaths.

One of the more outlandish tall tales is told to Aelius by a Roman transgender hustler named Cleopatra Minor who claims to have frequented a notorious whorehouse which specializes in boys for aristocratic customers whose villas line the Bay of Naples. 

Cleo claims it is "well-known there" that Antinous was a boy prostitute who had just arrived from Bythinia and "had barely become accustomed to his little bed" when Hadrian stopped by the whorehouse and took a fancy to him.

There are lots of other, equally intriguing characters in this book. But the most intriguing character of all, of course, is the one character who cannot take active part in the plot but whose presence is felt at every turn of the plot:

Antinous himself.

Though the 4th Century murders take center stage in the story, this book actually is more concerned with telling the story of Antinous and Hadrian and their abiding love affair which spans the gulf of the centuries.

As you read the novel, you get a growing awareness of Antinous as the living, breathing, three-dimensional human being that he must have been in life. 

The more Spartianus looks into the life of Antinous, the more he becomes obsessed with the Blessed Boy. He simply has to find that tomb, even if it means his death and the downfall of Rome.

We won't give away the thrilling ending, except to say that, when Spartianus finally "exchanges glances" with Antinous (in a manner of speaking), Spartianus is overcome with emotion ... and the reader finds it hard to hold back the tears.

CLICK HERE to order, but don't wait too long ... or the Water Thief will catch up with you.