Mysteria : history of the secret doctrines and mystic rites of ancient religions and medieval and modern secret orders by Henne am Rhyn Otto 1828-1914 & Fitzgerald Joseph 1837-

Author:Henne am Rhyn, Otto, 1828-1914 & Fitzgerald, Joseph, 1837-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Secret societies, Mysteries, Religious
Publisher: New York : J. Fitzgerald
Published: 1894-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Of these the best known was Alexander of Abonotichus, in Asia Minor, a man greater in fraud, says Lucian, than his namesake, the son of Philip, in heroism. He was a large, handsome man, and by scrupulous care of his complexion, his hair, and his beard, enhanced the advantage nature had given him. But his character was "a compound of mendacity, fraud, perjury, and low tricks of every kind." In his boyhood he was apprenticed to a quack of Tyana, a renegade disciple of Apollonius (whose life, by the way, Lucian, who lived nearer to him than Philostratus, calls a "comedy"), and by him was instructed in all the artifices whereby one can outwit and defraud his fellows. After his master's death Alexander went into business on his own account. In Macedonia he procured one of the large harmless serpents found in that province and went back to his native town—Abonotichus—there to set up an "oracle factory," as Lucian calls it. At Chalcedon he secretly placed on a roadside a tablet bearing the inscription that the god Aesculapius, with his father, Apollo, was soon to be at Abonotichus; the finding of this tablet caused great excitement. Meanwhile Alexander, in his native place, went about with his long, curling locks falling over his shoulders, wearing a purple robe with white stripes, and armed with a sabre. His stupid fellow townsmen, though they knew his parents, who were poor, believed him when he claimed descent from Perseus, and when they heard of the tablet set about erecting a temple to Aesculapius. Between the foundation stones of the temple Alexander secretly placed a goose eggshell containing a newly-hatched snake; then with the wild gesticulations of a god-inspired enthusiast, hastened to the marketplace, and there announced 'to the people that Aesculapius had just been born at the temple in the form of a serpent. To prove his oracle true he held up before them the egg with the snake. On the publication of this wondrous news, the populace flocked to the market-place. Alexander had a hut of boards erected, within which he seated himself in a reclining chair; then taking up the large snake already mentioned, which he had kept out of sight, he laid it on his breast, drew over its head a linen mask, painted to resemble a human face, the mouth of which would open and shut on pulling a string, and gave out to the people that the newborn god had already grown to that great size, and was now ready to give oracles. From all Asia Minor and Thrace the people came in thousands to witness the miracle. The mystic semi-obscurity of the hut and the magical effects of artificial light magnified the impression that the charlatan and his snake made on the people. Whoever wished to receive an oracle of the god had to write his question on a tablet, which was then to be sealed with wax and handed to the prophet. When the people had retired

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