Observations placeholder
Circa 350, Emesa, Syria - Eusebios ‘s dialogue with a sacred baitylos
Identifier
028759
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
baitylos (plural baityloses) A small stone pillar in ancient Greece
It may have come from an Intelligence, the months are named after Intelligences " mese del calendario gregoriano; gennaio, febbraio, marzo, aprile, maggio, giugno, luglio, agosto, settembre, ottobre, novembre, dicembre'
NOTES from Unexplained Aerial Objects From Antiquity To Modern Times - and Their Impact on Human Culture, History, and Beliefs - Jacques Vallee and Chris Aubeck
1. Cinnabar was employed widely in antiquity as a pigment for calligraphy and for decorating precious objects, such as in jewelry. The bright red pigment, whose name has been traced to the Persian zinjifrah ("dragon's blood"), was held in extraordinary esteem in ancient times.
2. Meteoric stone is dark, not white, and any trace of mercury sulphide is unlikely to be visible to the naked eye. In nature, certain stones, such as opal and limestone, can display narrow veins of cinnabar …. but this would not explain the anomalies in Eusebios' baitylos.
A description of the experience
Arthur Bernard Cook's Zeus, A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. Ill, 888:
The Life of Isidorus, relates that one sacred baitylos was kept by a man named Eusebios, who acquired it in strange circumstances. A Byzantine scholar called Photios, who lived in the 9th century A.D., described the story in his own writings.
"This man stated that there had once come upon him a sudden and much unexpected desire to roam at midnight away from the town of Emesa as far as he could get towards the hill on which stands the ancient and magnificent temple of Athena. So he went as quickly as possible to the foot of the hill, and there sat down to rest after his journey.
Suddenly he saw a globe of fire leap down from above, and a great lion standing beside the globe.
The lion vanished immediately, but he himself ran up to the globe as the fire died down and found it to be the baitylos. He took it up and asked it to which of the gods it might belong. It replied that it belonged to Gennaios, the Noble One.
He took it home the self-same night, traveling, so he said, a distance of over 210 furlongs. ...It was, he says, an exact globe, whitish in color, three hand-breadths across. But at times it grew bigger, or smaller; and at others it took on a purple hue. He showed us, too, letters that were written into the stone, painted in the pigment called cinnabar. "