ANTINOUS IS THE GOD OF THE GAYS BUT WAS HE GAY IN THE MODERN SENSE?

WE are often asked whether Antinous was gay during his mortal lifetime ... truly gay, at least as we understand the complex sociological and orientation that exist today.

This stunning portrait by famed collage artist DOUG STAPLETON shows modern faces superimposed on the face of Antinous.

But was Antinous "gay" in the modern sense?

Scholars have quibbled ... especially in Victorian times ... that Hadrian and Antinous were not homosexuals in the modern sense.

Instead, they were engaged in a socially acknowledged erotic relationship between an adult male (the erastes) and a younger male (the eromenos) usually in his teens ... or so the uptight scholars argued.

These semantic nuances allowed academics to sidestep the socially loaded issue of calling some of the greatest figures in history "practicing homosexuals" ... because that might imply that homosexuality was in fact not a degenerate mental illness, but instead was perfectly normal.

Even up until the turn of the 21st Century, many academicians (mostly male) persisted in avoiding the "G" word when referring to Hadrian and Antinous.

All of that changed at a news conference in London a few years ago.

"Hadrian was gay, and we can say that now. The Victorians had a problem with it. But we can say it." Thorsten Opper, a British Museum curator of Greek and Roman sculpture shocked the stuffy world of academia when he made that statement ... at a news conference announcing the Museum's Hadrian: Empire and Conflict" exhibition in 2008.

The British Museum, that bastion of staid and conservative scholarship, signaled a paradigm shift in historical awareness of homosexuality. 

The collage portrait of Antinous by artist Doug Stapleton on this page symbolizes the many layers of perception of gayness through the ages.

Our own high priest, Flamen Antonius Subia, explains the change in attitude that has taken place ... it is not so much gayness which has changed ... but rather the cultural perception of gays has changed ... not only society's perception of gays ... but more especially the perception of gayness amongst gays.

"Gay has always been and always will be, or so I feel," Antonius says. "Antinous was gay in the way that gays were in Roman times, which is different from how gays were in the 1950's, which is different from how gays are now," he says.

"Antinous represents the divine essence that we all hold in common, so yes, I believe that in his own way and for his time, Antinous was gay just like we are now."

PERGAMUM FETED ANTINOUS & HADRIAN AS THE NEW GANYMEDE AND JUPITER

ANTINOUS and Hadrian were welcomed as the new Ganymede and Zeus/Jupiter when they arrived in the fabulous city of Pergamum in Asia Minor in the spring of 129 AD.

The people of Pergamum having once been firmly under the control of the Persian Empire, and then living under the domination of the Hellenistic kings of the Attalid Dynasty, were accustomed to worshipping their rulers as gods, and it is believed that the province of Asia is the birthplace of the Cult of the Emperors.

Hadrian was declared and openly worshipped as a living god by the residents, an honor that he did not refuse. Antinous being his chosen favorite was also viewed with interest, and began to take his place here as the Divine consort, as the Ganymede, who was a local deity.

When Alexander the Great died, one of his generals, named Lysimachus, made Pergamum his capital. The Kingdom of Pergamum, under the Attalid Kings was to become the strongest power in Asia Minor for the centuries preceding conquest by Rome.

It remained a grand and wealthy city throughout Roman times, and was mentioned in the Christian Book of Revelation as one of the Seven Churches of the world.

The main temple of Pergamum was dedicated to Zeus, and was richly ornamented by a frieze depicting the war between the Olympic gods and the Titans. Portions of that frieze are now on permanent exhibit at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

Hadrian built a magnificent Temple to the Divine Trajan, his Father, and so it is in this vein that we consecrate the visitation of Hadrian and Antinous to Zeus, as the spirit of the Divine Emperors, and as the conqueror of Titanic chaos.

We in the Religion of Antinous remember the gentle love of Hadrian for his beautiful Antinous in an age when the virtues of Hellenism and divine order prevailed over the chaos of fear and rage and the desire to destroy.

REMEMBER WHAT THE ROMANS SAID: FORTUNE FAVORS THE AUDACIOUS!

ON April 5th we remember the anniversary of the Temple of Fortuna Publica for the city of Rome.

It was one of three temples of Fortuna on the Quirinale Hill, where Fortuna Primigenia, Fortuna Brevis and Fortuna Euelpis were worshiped.

The symbol of Fortuna is the ever turning wheel, found in the Tarot pack as the Wheel of Fortune, this indicates that things change and that you should not rest on your laurels but be prepared to grasp opportunities. It also tells us that things will not stay bad forever, the wheel will turn and things will get better.

Remember what the Romans said: "audica favet fortuna" ... fortune favors the audacious.

Fortuna Publica Romani symbolised the luck of the Roman population and state. Sje is an aspect of the Roman Goddess of luck, fate, and chance, Fortuna. As Fortuna Publica, she ensures the luck of the populice or state, and is a complimentary idea to Fortuna Privata, the Luck of the Individual.

Fortuna was honored with three temples on the Quirinal Hill in Rome in the neighborhood called tres Fortunae, "the Three Fortunas". 

At least two of those three temples were to Fortuna Publica. One was to Fortuna Primigenia, whose full title in Rome was Fortuna Publicae Populi Romani, "the Luck of the Roman People".

Another was to Fortuna Publica Citerior (citerior meaning "nearer", probably because it was closer to the center of the city).

There is not much known of the third temple to Fortuna. Some identify it as again belonging to Fortuna Primigenia.

But it is possible that it was more specifically dedicated to Fortuna Publica. The first temple had as its festival date the 25th of May, and the one to Fortuna Publica Citerior the 5th of April.

Fortuna Publica was sometimes known as Fortuna Populi Romani, the "Luck of the Roman People". Under this name She had an altar way up on Hadrian's Wall, at the fort of Vindolana, at modern Chesterholm in Northumberland, England.

WE CELEBRATE THE MEGALENSIA GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS

AT the Megalensia we celebrate the introduction of the Cult of Magna Mater, the Great Mother of the Gods, into Rome.

During the War with Hannibal, the Senate consulted the Sibilline Book and received an oracle instructing them to bring the Great Mother of Phrygia to Rome. 

They sent an embassy to the city of Pessinus and amazingly, the Phrygian priests freely handed over the black heavenly Stone that was the most sacred emblem of their goddess. 

The Black Stone was brought to Rome, and met at the port of Ostia by a large congregation of the matrons of the city. They carried her in their arms, from one lady to another, into the city.

Within a year, Hannibal left Italy and was soon defeated. So it was that Magna Mater became one of the guardians of Rome.

The religion of Magna Mater is one of the oldest faiths of mankind, extending far back into prehistory. Evidence has been found of her veneration in one of the oldest human settlements known as Catal Huyuk in modern Turkey. 

The image above shows a mother figure on a chariot drasn by two lions, an image always central to the Great Mother. 

She was known under several names, Idea, Dydima, Sipyla, Agdistis, Rhea, Kubaba, Khaba, Khabala, and Cebele, daughter of Uranus and Gaia, wife of Saturn, mother of all the gods. 

It is believed that her religion was spread throughout the Middle East during the conquests of the Hittite Empire, led by eunuch priests headed by the Archigallus, who was the earthly representative of the divine consort Attis. 

The sacred shrines of the goddess were established where a black stone had fallen from heaven, and there a prophetess, known as a Sybil took up residence, speaking oracles from Apollo. The religions of Dionysus, Apollo, Diana and Persephone are deeply and intimately related, through their connection to Magna Mater. 

They are the vestiges of a faith and culture that long preceded Greece, yet whose traces remain even now, in the concept of Holy Mother Church, in the black stone embedded in the Khaba at Mecca, and as the spirit of the Holy Tree known as the Kabalah in Jewish mysticism. 

Antinous was very probably brought up as a devotee of her religion, since Bithynion had a mountaintop shrine to Attis, and was very near to the center of her worship at Pessinus. 

We adore and venerate the Great Mother on this day, as the savior of Rome, and as the Goddess whose religion was central to the formation of the young Antinous, who is the New Attis.

The bisexuality of her incarnation as Agdistis, and the transvestitism of her priesthood makes her religion of extreme importance to the concept of Homo Deus and of the New Religion of Antinous.

We praise the Great Mother of the Gods on this night.

Ancient goddess of Phrygia, who has watched over us since the down of time, seated upon her throne of Lions

Mother of the Holy Mountain, Queen of Beasts, 

Lover of Grandfather Saturn with whom she gave birth

To the Gods of Olympus.

It was on this day that the sacred black stone arrived

In Rome from Pessinus, carried by the Matrons

Together with the transgender priestesses of Magna Mater

It was prophesized by the Sibyl of Cumae that

So long as the black stone was venerated that no enemy

Would ever penetrate the walls of Rome, a prophecy

That remained true until the black stone was desecrated by The Christians, a few years later the city was destroyed

Magna Mater Deum Ideum, Cybele, Rhea

Queen of the Titans, Mother of the Gods

Watch over us, bless our black stones, make us invincible

Let our hearts be an impenetrable fortress of black stone

Ave Magna Mater

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN SAINT OF ANTINOUS

WE remember Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen as a Saint of Antinous because he was gay although he may never have acted on his gayness.

Biographer Jens Andersen says the author could not overcome societal strictures against homosexuality ... but also could not bring himself to marry a woman.

In modern parlance, "he was just not that into girls", according to the author.

In an almost Freudian manner, Andersen channeled his sexual energies into his writing, creating some of the finest fairy-tale fiction ever written.

He fictionalized his biography as a wonderful fairy tale, even naming his autobiography "The Fairy Tale of My Life".

His own life read like a fairy tale. He was born April 2, 1805, in Odense, the son of a poor shoemaker and an illiterate laundry woman. 

Like "The Ugly Duckling", he was an eccentric boy who was teased merciless by other children for being odd-looking and awkward and for wearing hand-me-downs.

At age 14 he moved to Copenhagen in hopes of finding other misfits like himself. He succeeded beyond his dreams, winning the hearts of leading bourgeois families, who sponsored his education. 

Andersen finished his secondary schooling in 1828 and determinedly set about establishing himself as a writer. He published his first novel within a year and was soon on his way to fame, churning out novels, travel books, dramas, autobiographies and poetry. 

Firmly established as a Danish man of letters, he turned his talents to fairy tales in 1837, he began writing the fairy tales that won him international fame and access to the royal houses and cultural elites of Europe. 

He travelled widely, touring Europe and Britain. In London, he stayed with Charles Dickens, who found the effeminate, fussy, self-centered and hypochondriacal bachelor a tiresome guest.

While Andersen's novels are traditional romantic works celebrating religion and nature and displaying a deep faith in God, his fairy tales offered room for his subconscious mind to work out "relationship issues", according to his biographer.

Many of the fairy tales may be read as gay allegories, and some are clearly autobiographical. 

For instance, "The Little Mermaid" was written after a crisis Andersen suffered in 1836 at the marriage of Edvard Collin. 

Andersen's novel "O.T.", depicting an intimate male friendship, is also influenced by this unrequited love, according to the biographer.

Although Andersen typically conducted one-sided infatuations with young men, he did experience a more reciprocal romantic friendship with the Hereditary Grand Duke of Weimar, Carl-Alexander von Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, whom he met in 1844. 

In his later years, Andersen was infatuated with the young ballet dancer, Harald Scharff.

Andersen died on August 4, 1875. It was not until 1893 that his sexuality was publicly discussed, when a newspaper hinted that he may have been a homosexual. 

In 1901, an article in Magnus Hirschfeld's Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen also discussed him as a homosexual.

Actually, says his biographer, Andersen may never have had sexual relations with anyone. The pages of his diaries are festooned with crosses which he used to indicate masturbation.

The famous crosses suggest that he was an ardent masturbator, who meticulously recorded this act, as he recorded everything else in his life.

Throughout his life, Hans Christian Andersen thought of himself as the ugly duckling … a misfit undeserving of being loved by anybody.

ON THE VENERALIA By Flamen Antinoalis Antonius Subia

Mother Venus, Queen of Heaven

I lift up my heart to you.

When I was lost,

You brought me to the ruins of your temple

And all my doubts vanished among the stones.

You have forgiven my transgressions

And restored me to the path of destiny

She-Wolf, Mother of the Romans

In whose border-fields Antinous dwells forever

Gather them around me now

Let the key open the darkest doors

The splendor of your beautiful child

Radiates between us and binds us together

I will spread his power to the far corners of the world

Love, Pleasure, Beauty, Feeling

We are invincible.

Ave Venus

~ANTONIUS SUBIA

THE VENERALIA WHEN VENUS BLESSES HOMOSEXUAL LOVE

ON April 1st we honor Venus Urania, who blesses homosexual love.

When Saturn castrated his father Uranus, and separated the sky from the earth, by cutting away the testicles of heaven, Venus, the Great Goddess of Love was born, where the foam of the testicles washed ashore on the island of Cyprus.

She was attended by the Erotes, the spirits of desire, as seen in this image: "D'après Botticelli" 1984, acrylic on canvas, by the noted Italian artist, Marco Silombria. Soon afterwards she created the three Graces.

She was brought into Olympus by marrying Vulcan, the smith god, but Venus is an older, and more powerful than the Olympians, except for Zeus, because she is directly descended from Uranus, the heavens.

Venus shared her love with almost all the gods, to the humiliation of Vulcan, Juno's son, but her most ardent desire was for the war god Mars, whose virile masculinity is in direct contrast to her voluptuous feminine grace.

Together Mars and Venus fought for the Trojans against the other jealous goddesses, and though Zeus gave victory to the Greeks, he promised Venus that her chosen people would have their revenge.

Flamen Antonius Subia says:

So it was that Venus guided her son Aeneus and his followers out of the burning city and across the world to the place where Rome would one day stand. The descendants of the Trojan refugees and of Mars were Romulus and Remus who founded Rome, whose sons, through War and Love would conquer the world.

Julius Caesar claimed to be descended from Venus through Aeneus, and so she became the guardian spirit of the Emperors.

In the year 135 Hadrian dedicated the Temple of Venus and Roma. Hadrian built one of the largest Temples in Rome for the Great Goddess of Love and for the Spirit of the Deified City. 

Hadrian intended with this Temple to proclaim to the Romans that the Empire was the child of Love and War, but that Love, through the Goddess Venus, was to be the foremost power. We dedicate this day to Venus Urania, who blesses homosexual love.