THE DEVIL'S THRONE
ONE of the "mysterious" pieces of the natural landscape in the Languedoc, where all the hullaballoo is directed, is The Seat of the Devil. When we first saw a picture of it, in Genisis, by David Wood, we could easily see images of Eliphas Levi's Baphomet sitting there, giving initiations after the model of the traditional Sabbat. Anoint those broomsticks! Well, even before that place became one of the many tourist destinations in the area, there was yet another "seat of the Devil" - this time in Pergamon, otherwise known as the Devil's Throne, by writers like Alexander Hislop, who saw a papist plot in just about everything under the sun. First, some more background notes, leading up to it:
So, then, what we can say is that before we get to the Ophites as a Gnostic Sect, this Serpent Tribe was at the back of the institution of the Mysteries. In Greece, in Asia Minor, and throughout the Mediterranean, including Israel. For a long time, a segment of these Initiates were settled in or around Pergamon, and some of their number became what was later known as the Essenes.
[We have to remember that several of these groups became associated with the Essenes: The Solis Serpentis, the Qadosh Fathers, the Dionysians, the Chasidim, The Chaldees, the Zoroastrians, the Magi, the Buddhist Initiates, the Lords of the Flame of the Umpteenth Ray, headquarters located somewhere under the Gobi Desert underneath the parking lot to the trinket factory, etc. Not to forget Thothmes IV, and all the other ancestors of the "rosicrucians" of today...]
We must backtrack to Jennings' Ophiolatreia. He says that there was a city on the Tigris, named Opis, named after the Ophites or the Serpent Tribe that lived there. Perhaps migrated there, is a better word choice. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, we find some interesting information:
"Close to the mouth of the Adhem (on the Tigris), are the ruins of an ancient city probably to be identified with Xenophon's OPIS." - EB-22:211c (14th Ed.)
We are told that this is also known as UPE. In another article,
"In 538 B. C., Cyrus invaded Babylonia. A battle was fought at Opis in the month of June in which the Babylonians were defeated, and immediately afterwards SIPPARA surrendered to the invader." - EB-2:857c. (14th Edition, second only to the 11th Edition!)
In addition to the changes brought on by the shifts in the political climate in the 6th Century BCE, religious changes were taking place. Changes which, if the Sons of EnKi, the Serpent Tribe, were to survive, would facilitate a vast migration.
"RELIGIOUS STRUGGLES. - Nebuchadrezzar and his successors were engaged in a desperate rivalry with the Medes, and later with the Persians; in addition to continual political strife, new religious ideas were causing a ferment in the whole world of the time, and some effects of this unrest can be found in Babylonia. Some no longer tolerated the images erected TO OBSCENE CULTS; [see our previous comments] Thus the men of ERECH AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 8TH CENTURY HAD PULLED DOWN A SHRINE OF ISHTAR IN WHICH THERE WAS A FIGURE OF THE GODDESS WITH A TEAM OF SEVEN LIONS, A GODDESS WHOSE CULT IS KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN LICENTIOUS. [NOTE:: Ditto.] NABONIDUS ENGAGED IN A RECONSTRUCTION OF TEMPLES AND COMMITTED CERTAIN ACTS AT THE NEW YEAR FESTIVAL WHICH THE PRIESTS DID NOT HESITATE TO DENOUNCE AS IMPIOUS. [NOTE: Ditto...] The evidence is not sufficient to allow of any clear ideas being formed upon the exact nature of these religious troubles." - EB-2:252b-c.
Perhaps it has to do with the coming change in Religious Behavior, brought on by the Yahweh Cult, on the one hand; and the Zoroastrian on the other. Perhaps the Priesthood was trying to maintain "traditional family values" of its own, which the Rulers were insensitive to, or ignorant of. Perhaps there were rival factions of Priests, one side being like our fundamentalists today, the other like Thelemites, or perhaps like Modernists. We must turn now to the writings of the Enemy, for an interesting story, which fits into the Story as we have it. We quote at length now, from The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop: [pp. 240-41, 6th Edition] Chapter VII, Sec. I., The Great Red Dragon:
"The true legitimate Babylonian Pontiff had his seat beyond the bounds of the Roman empire. That seat, after the death of Belshazzar, and the expulsion of the Chaldean priesthood from Babylon by the Medo-Persian kings, was at Pergamos, where afterwards was one of the seven churches of Asia. * There, in consequence, for many centuries was "Satan's seat" (Rev 2:13). There, under favour of the deified ** kings of Pergamos, was his favourite abode, there was the worship of Aesculapius, [4] under the form of the serpent, celebrated with frantic orgies and excesses, that elsewhere were kept under some measure of restraint.
* BARKER and AINSWORTH'S Lares and Penates of Cilicia. Barker says, "The defeated Chaldeans fled to Asia Minor, and fixed their central college at Pergamos." Phrygia, that was so remarkable for the worship of Cybele and Atys, formed part of the Kingdom of Pergamos. Mysia also was another, and the Mysians, in the Paschal Chronicle, are said to be descended from Nimrod. The words are, "Nebrod, the huntsman and giant--from whence came the Mysians." Lydia, also, from which Livy and Herodotus say the Etrurians came, formed part of the same kingdom. For the fact that Mysia, Lydia, and Phrygia were constituent parts of the kingdom of Pergamos, see SMITH's Classical Dictionary.
** The kings of Pergamos, in whose dominions the Chaldean Magi found an asylum, were evidently by them, and by the general voice of Paganism that sympathised with them, put into the vacant place which Belshazzar and his predecessors had occupied. They were hailed as the representatives of the old Babylonian god. [1] This is evident from the statements of Pausanias. First, he quotes the following words from the oracle of a prophetess called Phaennis, in reference to the Gauls: "But divinity will still more seriously afflict those that dwell near the sea. However, in a short time after, Jupiter will send them a defender, the beloved son of a Jove-nourished bull, who will bring destruction on all the Gauls." [2] Then on this he comments as follows: "Phaennis, in this oracle, means by the son of a bull, Attalus, king of Pergamos, whom the oracle of Apollo called Taurokeron," or bull-horned. This title given by the Delphian god, proves that Attalus, in whose dominions the Magi had their seat, had been set up and recognised in the very character of Bacchus, [3] the Head of the Magi. Thus the vacant seat of Belshazzar was filled, and the broken chain of the Chaldean succession renewed.
At first, the Roman Pontiff had no immediate connection with Pergamos and the hierarchy there; yet, in course of time, the Pontificate of Rome and the Pontificate of Pergamos came to be identified. Pergamos itself became part and parcel of the Roman empire, when Attalus III, the last of its kings, at his death, left by will all his dominions to the Roman people, BC 133. For some time after the kingdom of Pergamos was merged in the Roman dominions, there was no one who could set himself openly and advisedly to lay claim to all the dignity inherent in the old title of the kings of Pergamos. The original powers even of the Roman Pontiffs seem to have been by that time abridged, but when Julius Caesar, who had previously been elected Pontifex Maximus, became also, as Emperor, the supreme civil ruler of the Romans, then, as head of the Roman state, and head of the Roman religion, all the powers and functions of the true legitimate Babylonian Pontiff were supremely vested in him, and he found himself in a position to assert these powers. Then he seems to have laid claim to the divine dignity of Attalus, as well as the kingdom that Attalus had bequeathed to the Romans, as centering in himself; for his well-known watchword, "Venus Genetrix," which meant that Venus was the mother of the Julian race, appears to have been intended to make him "The Son" of the great goddess, even as the "Bull-horned" Attalus had been regarded. *
* The deification of the emperors that continued in succession from the days of Divus Julius, or the "Deified Julius," can be traced to no cause so likely as their representing the "Bull-horned" Attalus both as Pontiff and Sovereign.
Then, on certain occasions, in the exercise of his high pontifical office, he appeared of course in all the pomp of the Babylonian costume, [5] as Belshazzar himself might have done, in robes of scarlet, with the crosier of Nimrod in his hand, wearing the mitre of Dagon and bearing the keys of Janus and Cybele. *
* That the key was one of the symbols used in the Mysteries, the reader will find on consulting TAYLOR'S Note on Orphic Hymn to Pluto, where that divinity is spoken of as "keeper of the keys." Now the Pontifex, as "Hierophant," was "arrayed in the habit and adorned with the symbols of the great Creator of the world, of whom in these Mysteries he was supposed to be the substitute." (MAURICE'S Antiquities) The Primeval or Creative god was mystically represented as Androgyne, as combining in his own person both sexes (Ibid.), being therefore both Janus and Cybele at the same time. In opening up the Mysteries, therefore, of this mysterious divinity, it was natural that the Pontifex should bear the key of both these divinities. Janus himself, however, as well as Pluto, was often represented with more than one key."
OUR NOTES TO HISLOP
[1.] Old: EnKi? Anu? Oannes?
[2.] The Gauls are the inhabitants of Galatia.
[3.] Dionysos.
[4.] Imouthis, Eshmun, Agathodaimon.
[5.] Not unlike the British Royalty, or its Clergy, undoubtedly to which the author of this work was loyal.
The author of the above finds 'papist plots' everywhere, as Nesta Webster finds the International Zionist Plot everywhere. Be that as it may, if we had more certifiable proof on the subject, it would show that two, possibly three forces met in Pergamon:
1.) The Qadosh Fathers / Solis Serpentis Priests / Ophites / Dionysian Artificers
2.) The Chaldean Priesthood from Opis
3.) The remnants of Troy, since Pergamon was situated on the Troad, where Troy was, and, according to many, was, in fact, in Troy itself
[NOTE: The Citadel of Troy itself. Zimmermann's DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY says, p. 95, that 'Pergamos was the citadel of Troy,' citing Virgil's Aeneid, Bk. I, and Homer's ILIAD, Bk 4, for refs. Also, the word Pergamos is sometimes used for Troy.]
Now we are connecting dots together, since we demonstrated above that the Merovingians claimed a descent from Troy, as did the Italians and Britons. In fact, Most French histories reach back to Troy for the origins of the Race of Kings. Early Kings, that is. Prior to Faramund. It is said that Carcassonne had Trojan origins. These aren't the things which make certain parties very happy. They can laugh at us for believing what they consider to be fictions - myths - legends, but one who has studied genealogy, even as lightly as we have, can see the patterns and make assumptions based on the data available, and likely be correct when and/or if the desired confirmations become available and can verify and vindicate the so-called legends of the past.
"Gaul" is not only France, but Galatia, adjacent to Phrygia. The Priesthood set up the rites of Bacchus there; that is, Dionysos, who is Adonis and Tammuz, when syncretized. Remember Tammuz is one of EnKi's sons. The Dionysian Artificers were supported by the Kings of Pergamon, from Attalus I onwards. Under this same king, a Stoic school was set up, as well as a great library. And, while a great number of the Saints of the Gnosis came out of Alexandria and Samaria, it was from Phrygia and Pergamon that the Ancestor and Successor of all the Gnostic sects, the Naassenes and/or Ophites, came.
PLUTARCH, in his Life of Sylla, states:
"About the time that Sylla was making ready to put off with his force from Italy, besides many other omens which befell Mithridates, then staying at Pergamus, there goes a story that a figure of Victory, with a crown in her hand, which the Pergamenians by machinery from above let down on him, when it had almost reached his head, fell to pieces, and the crown tumbling down into the midst of the theatre, there broke against the ground... for having wrested Asia from the Romans, and Bithynia and Cappadocia from their kings, he made Pergamus his royal seat, distributing among his friends riches, principalities, and kingdoms. His generals... Archelaus, in particular... all the other islands as far as Malea and had taken EUBOEA itself."
Mithridates Eupator ruled from 124/123/120 BCE (depending on the account) to 91/88/63 BCE (depending on the account). This was not long after Pergamon was granted to Rome, and a treaty was made in 92 BCE.
This, then, is the historical background of the location responsible for the Seed Tradition, as Helen's face launched a thousand ships, the Ophites launched a thousand sects and saints. Pergamon was famous for its library, which was rivalled only by that of Alexandria, and which was bequeathed to Cleopatra by Mark Antony.
