St Paul’s Journey to Atlantis -Part One. The Birth of Aphrodite

© Nicholas Costa 2024

The Millennial Mission

Nobody seems to have noticed the significance of the locations in St Paul’s missionary journey other than to note that there were Jewish communities in those locations. Paul was evidently on a millennial mission in his promotion of Christianity.

In fact he seems to have deliberately chosen to focus his efforts upon locations which had been at the centre of previous catastrophic episodes.

Zeus fights the serpent-footed giant Typhoeus, Chalcidian black-figure hydria C6th B.C., Staatliche Antikensammlungen

Indeed his own city Tarsus was just some 96.5 km (60 miles) from Corycus where the famed Cilician cave, the bed of the giant Typhon or Typhoeus,was located. _{Pindar (Pyth. i. 31), Aeschylus (Prom. Vinct. 350), and Pomponius Mela (1.76.)}

Mela wrote as follows:

§ 1.76 Farther on is another cave, which they call the Cave of Typhon, with a narrow mouth and a very tight squeeze, as those who have experienced it have reported. That is why the cave is permeated by an unending night and never easy to investigate. Because this cave was once the bedchamber of Typhon, however, and because now it instantly deprives of life anything and everything that goes down into it, it is worth recording for its nature and its legend.

Paul’s first journey saw him traveling to Paphos in western Cyprus. This was the prime location in antiquity dedicated to the worship of the goddess Aphrodite.

Old Paphos, Archaic figurine of a worshiper of Aphrodite

Hesiod and the Birth of Aphrodite: A Metaphor for a Fragmenting Comet.

In the version of Aphrodite’s birth as recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony, the god Chronos (time) severed the genitals of his father Uranus (sky) with a long sickle and threw them behind him into the sea. This seemingly outlandish metaphor of a long sickle and severed genitals has a rational explanation. What the myth evidently recalls is the fragmentation of comet. The sickle acts a metaphor for the comet’s tail, whilst severed genitals represent not only meteoric fragments but also the pungent smell of urine which emanated from the fragments as they fell to earth.

The Perfume of a Comet

Anybody who doubts this interpretation needs only to look at the work of Kathryn Altweg. She is the Swiss scientist in charge of the 2014 comet-sniffing project. The work focused upon comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and what was described as its strong smelling and heady “perfume” bouquet emissions, “with the odour of rotten eggs (hydrogen sulphide), horse stable (ammonia), and the pungent, suffocating odour of formaldehyde. This is mixed with the faint, bitter, almond-like aroma of hydrogen cyanide. Add some whiff of alcohol (methanol) to this mixture, paired with the vinegar-like aroma of sulphur dioxide and a hint of the sweet aromatic scent of carbon disulphide, and you arrive at the ‘perfume’ of our comet.” _{(The perfume of the comet, Kathrin Altwegg, Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) of the University of Bern, 2014)}

Note also The Chelyabinsk meteor. “This was a superbolide that entered Earth’s atmosphere over the southern Ural region in Russia on 15 February 2013. It was caused by an approximately 18 m (59 ft) diameter, 9,100-tonne near-Earth asteroid that entered the atmosphere at a shallow angle several minutes after sun rise.

The light from the meteor was briefly brighter than the Sun. Eyewitnesses reported feeling intense heat from the fireball. The explosion generated a bright flash, followed by a loud boom. It produced a hot cloud of dust and gas and many surviving small fragmentary meteorites. Most of the object’s energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, creating a large shock wave… The air of the city smelled like “gunpowder”, “sulfur”, “burning odors” or “ozone” starting about 1 hour after the fireball and lasting all day. (Note the similarity of the latter with the reported aroma associated with Sekhmet’s sons Maahes and Nefertem with their bouquets of lotus flowers. A correspondent on Reddit in 2018 noted the following: “Having worked around ozone, it’s a sickly sweet smell, almost strawberry like. If you breathe too much, it’ll make you very sick to your stomach, and can kill you in higher concentrations.” This is evidently why Maahes was depicted as holding two very sharp knives in addition to his bouquet of flowers).” _{(Sekhmet daughter of the Sun, Nicholas Costa 2024)}

No wonder therefore that mythology should encapsulate this as severed masculine genitals coupled with the sweet aromatic perfume of a woman.

Athenaius wrote the following re Aphrodite: “Cypris was their only queen. Her they propitiate and duly worship With pious images, with beauteous figures Skilfully carved ; with fragrant incenses, And holy offerings of unmixed myrrh, And sweetly smelling frankincense ; and many A pure libation of fresh golden honey They poured along the floor.” (The Deipnosophists, 12)

No wonder therefore that mythology encapsulated this as severed masculine genitals coupled with the sweet aromatic perfume of a woman.

According to Hesiod the goddess Aphrodite arose from the foaming sea following the fall to earth of the severed “genitals”, hence her name “foam-given”.

This is how he described her birth:

“180 With his left hand, while with his right he swung The fiendishly long and jagged sickle, pruning the genitals Of his own father with one swoop and tossing them Behind him, where they fell to no small effect. Earth soaked up all the bloody drops that spurted out.

185 And as the seasons went by she gave birth to the Erynyes And to great Giants gleaming in full armor, spears in hand, And to the Meliai, as ash-tree Nymphs are generally called. The genitalia themselves, freshly cut with flint, were thrown Clear of the mainland into the restless, white-capped sea,

190 Where they floated a long time. A white foam from the god-flesh Collected around them, and in that foam a maiden developed And grew. Her first approach to land was near holy Cythera,And from there she floated on to the island of Cypros.”

As stated the myth is evidently recounting the fragmentation of a near earth comet which scattered meteoric fragments over a wide area. This is evidenced by the preservation and worship of bolides/ baetyls in the temples of the variously named goddesses in the middle east. Baetyls, then, were closely associated with the regional goddess cults which all came into existence at approximately the same time. _{(Transformation of a Goddess: Ishtar – Astarte – Aphrodite, Edited by: Sugimoto, David T. 2014)}

Central to the worship of Aphrodite in Paphos was a baetyl said to have fallen from the sky. _{(What are “baetyls” and what do they tell us about religious belief? Caroline J. Tully, 2007)}. Tacitus describes it as follows:”The statue of the goddess does not have human form; it is a circular block, larger at the bottom and growing smaller to the top, as a cone. The reason for this is obscure.” _{(Histories, 2.3)}

Kouklia, Baetyl

For the Greeks the event as was signified as the “birth” of the goddess Aphrodite, other cultures in the Middle East adopted largely female deities with different names or guises as a result of the same event. Memory of this is evidenced by the fact that Aphrodite was equated in antiquity with others goddesses such as Isis, Ishtar, and Astarte.

In Soli in Cyprus for example there was a sanctuary jointly dedicated to Aphrodite and Isis. _{(Strabo, Geography, 14.6.3 )}. On Delos a votive inscription carved on a marble base was presented by the donor to Isis, Astarte, and Aphrodite. _{(IDélos 2132)}.

Notably in ancient Pella there was the Sanctuary of the Mother of Gods and Aphrodite dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite and the Mother of the Gods (Cybele). It was a Panhellenic sanctuary and a place of pilgrimage from all over Greece. Cybele’s centre of worship was at Pessinus in Asia Minor where the goddess who came down from the sky was worshiped like Aphrodite in the form of a baetyl.

The Erinyes, the Giants, and the Meliae

The myth speaks of the incident directly engendering, from the “drops of blood”, the “birth” of three additional entities. These were:

1. The Erinyes. They were depicted as vengeful goddesses who swoop down from the sky. They were symbolized by snakes and blood. They are evidently metaphors in this instance of hot meteoric fragments raining down upon the earth (hence the snake imagery). Interestingly the Erynies are depicted with wings and a blue skin. In terms of heat a blue flame is the hottest of all flame colours.

Erinyes: National Archaeological Museum of Naples. Fresco. Pompei

2. The Giants. In this context “gleaming in full armor, spears in hand” they are evidently metaphors for volcanic eruptions.

3. The Meliae. Interpreted simply as trees or ash trees in particular (which burn readily). One only has to look at the images from the Tunguska air burst to understand the meaning of this particular metaphor. ( For their relationship to fire see Melian Nymphs by Ruth Scodel (University of Michigan) CAMWS 2013)

Fallen trees at Tunguska in 1927. Credit: Wikimedia

Similar stories can be found commemorating the same catastrophic event from neighbouring regions. For example The Song of Kumarbi, an ancient Hittite epic poem in which the god overthrows his father and bites off his genitals, causing him to become pregnant and give birth to Ishtar and her brother Teshub currently interpreted as the Hittite ‘storm’ god.

Euphemisms

Classical mythology is full of euphemisms. The gods were in fact ultimately signifiers of various terrifying events directly related to the forces of nature. As with bullies, the gods therefore had to be treated carefully, they had to appeased by means of flattery.

So whilst Aphrodite was eventually depicted as the beautiful goddess of Love in the classical period, her true nature is revealed by some of her surviving epithets as listed by Karl Kerényi _{(The Gods of the Greeks, 1951):}

Skotia ” the Dark One”,

Androphonos ” the Killer of Men”,

Anosia ” the Unholy”

Tymborychos “the Gravedigger”

Ambologera “She who Postpones Old Age” This is not a benign metaphor, she kills people before they reach old age.

Bird face Aphrodite, The Cesnola Collection

None of these epithets suit a goddess of Love. Notably the earliest traces of Aphrodite on Cyprus are the highly eroticized bird-faced figurines that are in evidence throughout the island by the LC II period (c1450–1200 BC). The bird-face evidently acting as a celestial metaphor. _{(Transformation of a Goddess: Ishtar – Astarte – Aphrodite, Edited by: Sugimoto, David T. ,2014)}

Indeed Aphrodite’s link to other regional goddesses has been know since antiquity as evidenced by Herodotus _{(1.105, 131)} and Philo of Byblos _{(Eus. Prep. Evang. 1.812)}. Walter Burkert writes in confirmation of this that ‘Behind the figure of Aphrodite there clearly stands the ancient Semitic goddess of love, Ishtar-Astarte.’ _{(Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion, 1985)}

Next: St Paul’s Journey to Atlantis- Part Two- Dating the Birth of Aphrodite