San Sigismondo

Yygdrasilian

King Sigismund of Burgundy was canonized by the Roman orthodox church soon after his death in 524 AD. Although executed for reasons that had little to do with his faith, he was nonetheless counted among the martyred saints and continues to be revered on his feast day, May 1st. His rule extended over the Germanic tribe of Burgundians inhabiting adjacent regions of present day Switzerland & France, which included the former Roman town of Agaunum - made famous as the site of the legendary martyrdom of 6,666 soldiers from the Egyptian city of Thebes.

By Sigismund’s time, a basilica had been erected atop the ruins of a shrine to the god Mercury and named after the legion’s commander, Saint Maurice. According to The Golden Legend - a popular compilation of hagiographies produced in the 13th century - they were all Christian converts who had willingly accepted martyrdom rather than persecute others of their faith or give sacrifice to their pagan emperor, Maximian...

The Golden Legend said:
“Moris or Maurice was duke of the right holy legion of Thebans. They were named Thebans, of Thebes their city. And that region is in the parts of the East beyond the parts of Arabia, and it is full of richesses, plenteous of fruit, delectable of trees. The indwellers of that region be of great bodies and noble in arms, strong in battle, subtle in engine, and right abundant in wisdom...

“And Ambrose saith thus of these martyrs in his preface: The company of these true christian men enlumined with divine light, coming from the farther ends of the world, which were armed with spiritual arms, and hied to their martyrdom with stable faith and diligent constancy, whom the cruel tyrant for to fear them tithed two times by the slaughter of the sword, and after, he seeing them constant in the faith, commanded them all to have their heads smitten off. But they burned in so great charity that they cast and threw away their arms and harness, and kneeling on their knees received sufferably with a joyous heart the swords of them that martyred them, among whom Maurice, embraced in the love and faith of Jesu Christ, received the crown of martyrdom. Hæc Ambrosius.

“....Then let us devoutly beseech Almighty God that by the merits of this holy martyr Saint Maurice and his holy fellowship the legion, which is six thousand six hundred and sixty-six, that suffered martyrdom, as heretofore is rehearsed, we may after this transitory life come unto the everlasting bliss in heaven, where he reigneth, world without end. Amen.”
In 515, Sigismund had endowed the church with land & resources to build an abbey. The gesture was cited as arising ex nihilo, or ‘out of nothing’, as it was considered unusual at the time for not having originated as a movement among the clergy. Sigismund, for reasons that apparently mystified the monks tending the Thebans reliquary bones, had no apparent motive for his generosity. In addition, he instituted & financed the laus perennis - a perpetual litany that rotated five groups of monks singing in continuous praise of the fabled martyrs for the next 300 years.

Recently converted to the Nicene (trinitarian) creed of Roman catholicism, he also converted his Burgundian subjects from the ‘Arian heresy’ - a non-trinitarian form of Christianity promulgated among the Germanic tribes before the early Christian emperors adhered to the rulings of the church councils held at Nicea. Thus, Sigismund aided in resolving a schism that had divided Christendom in the centuries adjoining the decline & fall of the Roman empire to the rise of the medieval Germanic kingdoms.

Prior to his reign, the Burgundian domain had been split among the 4 sons of Sigismund’s grandfather, Gundioc - though all were soon ‘reunited’ by Sigismund’s father, Gundobad, after successively murdering each of his siblings & conquering their lands. Ruling as co-regent from 1501 until his father’s death in 516, Sigismund seemed to seek an atonement for the sins of his father by lavishly endowing the Abbey of St, Maurice. Yet, despite having accrued these pious deeds to the credit of his immortal soul, Sigismund faltered in a fit of rage characteristic of the barbarian kings by having his own son executed by strangulation in 522 - the same year in which he instigated the laus perrenis.

Repenting too late, it was said he prayed the remainder of his days for a just punishment from God for having murdered his own child. Soon thereafter he was stripped of his kingdom by the sons of the Frankish king, Clovis I, by his queen, Clotilde - a cousin to Sigismund whose father had been murdered by his, the former King of the Burgundians, Gundobad. Apprehending him at the Abbey his endowment had built, they avenged their grandfather by throwing the penitent king down a well. His body was recovered and kept at St. Maurice alongside a cache of bones presumed those of the Theban martyrs.

There arose a folk legend that Saint Maurice had carried the Holy Lance that had speared the side of Jesus on the Cross, as recounted in the gospel attributed the apostle John. And in 926, Henry “the Fowler”, founder of the Ottonian line of Holy Roman Emperors, ceded the neighboring Swiss canton of Aargau to the Abbey in exchange for Maurice’s lance, sword & spurs. It is at this point that the relic known as the Hofberg spear enters the historical record and began to be used for the Imperial coronation ceremonies.

At some unattested point, the spearhead had been adapted to enshrine a Nail that, presumably, was included among the relics retrieved from the holy land by the mother of Emperor Constantine, Saint Helena - as recounted by Saint Ambrose, Doctor of the Church and bishop of Milan. The earliest written source for the story, he tells of how in 325 AD, the first Christian emperor of the Roman empire granted his mother access to the imperial treasury that she might retrieve relics of the faith from the Holy Land. She returned 5 years later miraculously bearing the nails used in Jesus’ crucifixion and pieces of the ‘one true cross’.

Establishing that the location of the former hill of skulls, Golgatha, was occupied by a temple dedicated to the goddess Venus, the relics were supposedly excavated from beneath its ruins after Helena’s ordered demolition. The site, according to legend, is currently occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Beside the Holy Lance, another of these reliquary nails is claimed to have been incorporated within the Iron Crown of Lomabardy - a ceremonial talisman used in the emperor-elect’s obligatory coronation as King of the Italians.

In 1355, Charles IV of the House of Luxemborg became both King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor. 10 years later, after also being crowned King of Burgundy, he ordered the skull of the sainted king, Sigismund, translated from the Abbey of Saint Maurice to his capital in Prague. There Saint Sigismund became patron saint to the Kingdom of Bohemia and, in 1368, of the emperor’s newborn son, Sigismund I.

Despite being the second of Charles’ sons, Sigismund would eventually become emperor and grasp the Holy Lance for himself. And, like his patron saint, he worked to resolve a great schism dividing Christian world. As Emperor-elect, Sigismund had undertaken a diplomatic campaign to bring an end to the break up of the orthodox church into different factions that had occurred with the election of three rival popes. It was while negotiating the involvement of anti-pope John XXIII in a conference to end this schism that Sigismund’s visit to the Italian city of Cremona is said to have occasioned the adoption of Borromean rings as the heraldic emblem of that city’s ruler, Cabrino Fondulo, regarding it as a symbol of the friendship he shared with his guests, the Emperor and anti-pope.

In exchange for 35,00 gold florins, the “reguli” (‘petty king’) Fondulo surrendered Cremona in 1425 to the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, to whom the emblem then passed. Offering the city as part of his illegitimate daughter’s dowry, the Rings and the city eventually came into the possession of Francesco Sforza upon their marriage in 1441. The Abbey of San Sigismondo, where their wedding ceremony took place, was replaced in 1463 by the Church of San Sigismondo, a religious complex commissioned by Bianca Maria & Francesco Sforza. The rings, which Sforza had awarded the Borromeo family for supporting his ducal ambitions over the Ambrosian Republic, still adorn the Door leading to the church’s cloister that marks the foundations where the wedding chapel once stood.

As a member of the chivalric Order of the Dragon, Francesco Sforza’s imperial connections would have extended beyond the 3 emblematic rings, and reached into a society of knights founded in 1408 when the future Emperor Sigismund had, with his second wife, Barbra de Cille, drafted the charter for the Societas Draconistrarum. It has been suggested that it is they who are depicted in the roles of Emperor & Empress among the hand painted Viscounti-Sforza trionfi.

So, then-
At a shrine to the god Mercury (Thoth), 2 decimations of Theban martyrs (2x 666) are connected to a Nail+Spear [V=XIV] identified in Christian folklore as having pierced ‘The Sun’ upon the Cross. A sainted King (celebrated on 121st day of the year) who was thrown down a well, is ‘resurrected’ through an Emperor heralded by a Dragon biting its’ own tail, and who offers a Borromean Ring to the Bride's family emblem at the Tree where Lovers meet.

2: http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/sforza.html

3: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/De_Sphaera_-_Allegory_Sforza.JPG

1: http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl...ITEM.asp?pid=2002899&iid=1011908&srchtype=VCG

In this respect, the weave of saints, relics, and heraldry attending the union of the Visconti & Sforza families appears to link them to the central event in Christian mythology, but does so in a manner consistent with the alchemical scenario posed by the partition of the Tarot de Marseilles (as applied to the Hebrew alphabet: aleph=0) by digital root, and fit together within the geometric lattice known as the Tree of Life.
 

Yygdrasilian

Bloodline of the Dragon Emperor

☿ Odin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin

Völsungasaga - http://omacl.org/Volsunga/
Sigi - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigi
Rerir - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerir
Völsung - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Völsung
Sigmund - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund
Sigurd - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigurd
Aslaug - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraka
Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigurd_Snake-in-the-Eye
Harthacnut I - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harthacnut_of_Denmark
Gorm the Old - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorm_the_Old
Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Bluetooth
Thorgil Sprakling - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorgil_Sprakling
Gytha Thorkelsdóttir - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gytha_Thorkelsdóttir
Harald Godwinson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Godwinson
Gytha of Wessex - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gytha_of_Wessex
Mstislav I of Kiev - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mstislav_I_of_Kiev
Euphrosyne of Kiev - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphrosyne_of_Kiev
Bela III of Hungary - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_III_of_Hungary
Constance of Hangary - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_of_Hungary
Wenceslaus I of Bohemia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenceslaus_I_of_Bohemia
Ottokar II of Bohemia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottokar_II_of_Bohemia
Wenceslaus II of Bohemia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenceslaus_II_of_Bohemia
Elisabeth of Bohemia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_of_Bohemia_(1292–1330)
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_IV,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
Sigismund I, Holy Roman Emperor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
 

Rosanne

I find your posts very interesting Yygdrasilian.
The continuing connections between Confraternities, the endowments of Abbeys, Charitable works, the Golden Legend and the fascination with Relics a remarkable thing about Tarot. It sometimes does look to me, as if there is this other agenda or underground stream flowing through.
I wonder sometimes also, if these connections are more nebulous, more artificial thinking on my part- than warrants for a game of cards.
I am often guilty of over thinking the subject.
Never-the-less these symbols and signs keeping coming back time and again- as in the redman been eaten by a snake- the Visconti Viper. Then again, there was such an industry in Relics, and the stories of the business end of having a relic quite cynical. If all the bits of the 'true Cross' were collected and reassembled, all the nails- we might have a veritable forest and forge city.
It is to whom these devices and colours were given that puzzles me. Things like Sigismund's atonement seems a farcical explanation- like a cover story.
It reads like a Dan Brown novel. What power did this alchemical scenario have that it could not be shared openly? He who has the Sword has divine right to rule? It smacks of Moses's Staff of royal power- that he seems to have used to feed and water his people throughout the desert. Did they, in Medieval Europe really believe in Magic- or was it the power and money it could rake in? And why cards? Why not in Psalters and Prayer books - which would have been more effective amongst these rulers. I must admit, when sightseeing in Lombardy these symbols like on Cremona's door pop up in obscure places- like a water trough, high on the eaves of a hospital, a horse hitching post etc. They remind me of stellae in Egypt, those enigmatic boundary markers.
Maybe their original intent was lost?
~Rosanne
 

KariRoad

Rosanne said:
Maybe their original intent was lost?
Or perhaps, left to be found? Wonders abound where love provides.
 

Yygdrasilian

An Elixir of Memory & Wisdom

Rosanne said:
What power did this alchemical scenario have that it could not be shared openly?
That is the magic question.

You may recall a couple years back when we began this conversation that I was more concerned with ‘persuading’ others to look at this particular ‘card trick’ & appraise it for themselves rather than engage in draping further layers of dogma over an otherwise ‘simple’ system. At the time I had a general understanding of how it fit together, but lacked the terminology to adequately describe how it worked. My intent, then as now, has been to initiate a discussion of this ænigma that could lead to useful discoveries in the history and practice of Tarot.

In order to actually ‘see’ it, you really have to gain at least a basic familiarity with how the Puzzle Box fits together. The process itself may be likened to a distillation of the relevant material which eventually leads to the discovery of a ‘hidden stone’.

I’ll admit that my tactics have been at times a little less than straightforward, but I had hoped a certain amount of agitation would induce an increased scrutiny of my work that would help bring its’ flaws and gaps to my attention. I apologize for having offended anyone directly or indirectly by employing such methods. It is my sincere wish that you will all come to appreciate how anyone who would attempt ‘explain’ this mystery cannot avoid the role of Fool. Given the subject matter, how else is any such cypher to be regarded?

From its inception, Tarot was meant to embody the symbolic function of Letters & Numbers consistent with the structure of the Hebrew alphabet. This is neither at odds with its use as a Christian allegory, or as a mnemonic device, a form of gambling, or as an astrological calendar. You will find that it composes an uniquely illuminating picture of the ‘inner mysteries’ to the Christian faith by making use of a distinct mathematical artifice - one attuned to a specific dilemma in music theory posed by the disparity between musical scales based on Pythagorean tuning & equal temperament. In this sense, the transmutation of Lead into Gold is a process by which we come to recognize a pattern connecting this relationship between music scales to the proportions of the regular solids and the conjunctive cycles of the 7 ‘planets’ known to antiquity. All of which have a peculiar correlation to the geometry of Borromean Rings.

The alchemical scenario thus presented articulates a coronation ceremony accessible to anyone prepared to rise to the height of their Crown, but the means of getting there is the ‘trick’. I imagine this may have something to do with the secrecy attending this system as too many ‘Kings’ threaten a monopoly on Kingship. Given that the most extant hermetic documents in the world today come in the form of money, perhaps a widespread knowledge of its’ symbolism threatens to break the spell this otherwise worthless paper seems to hold over us. Yet, on a very practical level, the symbolic function of Letters & Numbers provides a convenient medium for clandestine communication that can be hidden in full view of everyone without being understood by any but the initiated.

As with any puzzle, the pieces are just pieces till you get a sense of their bigger picture - which remains unseen until you place each within their shared context. I have noticed a great deal of resistance to the notion that Tarot might have been designed to integrate with the Qabalah in this fashion - to the extent that those who have already wedded themselves to a contrary thesis refuse examining or discussing this function of the cards. It is as if so much time and energy has been invested in disproving an affiliation with ‘the occult’ that the possibility tends to get dismissed on principle. Of course, it isn’t hard to see why when discussions on the subject in an academically oriented forum frequently attracts input from members whose criteria for ‘proof’ may not meet a certain academic standard.

Up until fairly recently I had thought that the method I’ve been advocating, being based on an application of the Marseilles pattern to the Hebrew alphabet, couldn’t possibly be used to the explain any of the decks prior to Tarot’s standardization. It wasn’t until I looked into some of the emblems on the Door leading to the Church of San Sigismondo’s cloister that I began to realize the principle players attending the birth of Tarot seemed to have been weaving themselves into Christian mythology on a rather grand scale. Through their manipulation of saints, relics and heraldry, they constructed the same alchemical scenario over the broad canvas of time. Once you gain a perspective on the unified whole achieved by the symbolic function of the Hebrew alphabet you will notice that a kind of ‘plan’ is indicated - one which could never have possibly been achieved within the lifetime of a single generation. A plan which appears to be reaching the moment of fruition.

Honestly, it is almost too weird to believe. I expect this is why most of those who have figured it out have opted to describe it through works of art rather than play the role of cypher to The World.
 

Yygdrasilian

ἀποκάλυψις

There is a Church in the city of Cremona where once there was a chapel - its’ foundations, like that of many a demolished Temple, were incorporated within its’ replacement and defined the boundary of its’ cloister: an enclosed courtyard given over to monastic contemplation. "Nothing" to mark a ceremonial union of Lovers.
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/sforza.html

Snaffle Bit: hic verges nit [Forget This Not]
Soft Brush: merito et tempore [And in Time Rewarded]
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=2425969&postcount=26
Both are equestrian devices- a snaffle bit was part of a bridle used for war horses when soldiers required immediate response from their steeds, and the soft brush was used during grooming after combing out a horse’s coat to give it an extra radiant sheen. These devices, taken together, articulate an ethos concerning both ends of a horse in the ‘art of war’.

Roseanne said:
The continuing connections between Confraternities, the endowments of Abbeys, Charitable works, the Golden Legend and the fascination with Relics a remarkable thing about Tarot. It sometimes does look to me, as if there is this other agenda or underground stream flowing through.
I wonder sometimes also, if these connections are more nebulous, more artificial thinking on my part- than warrants for a game of cards.
I am often guilty of over thinking the subject.
Never-the-less these symbols and signs keeping coming back time and again- as in the redman been eaten by a snake- the Visconti Viper. Then again, there was such an industry in Relics, and the stories of the business end of having a relic quite cynical. If all the bits of the 'true Cross' were collected and reassembled, all the nails- we might have a veritable forest and forge city.
It is to whom these devices and colours were given that puzzles me. Things like Sigismund's atonement seems a farcical explanation- like a cover story.
Saint Ambrose, in his account of St. Helena’s reliquary nails, relates that one was attached to the horse of the emperor Constantine. A legend further elaborated by St. Gregory of Tours who specified that this nail was used to make the horse’s bit, and was seen as in fulfillment of a prophecy by Zecharia [whose name means 'YHVH has remembered']:
“In that day that which is on the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the lord.”

TT http://quatramaran.ens.fr/~madore/visconti-tarots/large/arcanum-08-justice.jpg

In this sense, the battle cry- A Bon Droit [A Good Law] fits well with the Dove of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the Viscounti had, at some point, become the keepers of Constantine’s bridle as well.

Charles Borromeo (to whom Francesco awarded the 3-rings of Cremona) had supposedly been a dealer in relics made with iron shavings from the original nails. Of particular importance, however, were those used in the ceremonial talismans of Imperial coronation- such as the Hofberg Spear (Holy Roman Emperor) and the Iron Crown of Lombardy (King of Italy) whose province was presumably older. The former has an interesting relationship to both Saint Sigismund, while the latter was depicted in connection with Theodelinda in a series of frescoes within the Monza cathedral. Both tales interweave at the resolution of Arian heresy and its’ denial of the trinity, and may therefore be linked to a 3rd (in the form of Constantine’s bit) among the heraldic devices upon the Church of San Sigismundo’s cloister Door.

It may be worthy of note that the III nails were reputedly 'recovered' from a temple to the goddess Venus, to whom the Visconti traced their lineage. http://trionfi.com/visconti-genealogy

The Dragon Emperor, Sigismund ["protection through victory"], was descended from the mythic Volsungs - whose saga tells the fate of the Burgundians, cursed by a Dragon’s horde. The tale also names Odin as the patriarch of his bloodline. A god the Norse equated with Mercury, who sacrificed himself to himself upon the World Tree to gain Knowledge of the runes, and for whom there is also a link to Borromean Rings.
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/vikings.html

Mit Zeit [With Time]
3 Thistles, or cardoons, may be emblematic of the offspring to flower from the union of the Viscounti & Sfora families as sanctioned by the House of Luxembourg through Sigismund. The future King of England is descended from all three families ...and he, in turn, is also related to every U.S. President (with the exception of Martin Van Buren) by being a descendant of the Plantagenets. http://current.com/news/91336104_obama-and-all-other-us-presidents-are-related-except-for-one.htm

The motto of the Scottish Order of the Thistle, founded by King James VII (also a descendant of all 3 bloodlines), can be found in connection with the Sforza sighthound: nemo me impune lacessit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_me_impune_lacessit#Possible_origin_of_the_motto

Within the Church of San Sigismondo there is a fresco depicting a specific phrase from the Gospel of John: “Lazarus is Dead” (♏ 11:14):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Camillo_Boccaccino_001.jpg

If we entertain the possibility that the Viscounti-Sforza marriage, sealed by the Emperor’s 3-ring seal, enacted an al-KEM-ical marriage as formulated by the Hebrew Letters, then this phrase can be read as the immanent resurrection of Osiris [Lazarus]. The emblematic sighthound may then represent Isis in the form of Sirius, the “dog star”.

Given that an estimated length of zodiacal precession at 1º per 72 years is 2160 years, two-thirds of such an Age = 1440 years. Thus, this ritual would have occurred in the first year of the third decanate of Pisces. In addition, October 24th is the 297th day of the year: 297 = 11x 3³

As any student of the integration of Tarot & Qabalah can attest, the symmetry of the Cube takes on an added dimension of ‘meaning’ at that point within our Tree where all Sephiroth [Enumerations] are realized as One: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daat
♐♊☊11
In a sense, Lazarus, though he be dead, is about to be resurrected by the Sun ...and the sighthound must gather his ‘pieces’ at the base of a Tree where Twin serpents meet.

The formula itself has a kind of timeless essence, founded on its’ geometric parallels with the mathematics of music theory. Particularly with respect to the interval sometimes known as diabolus in musica: the Tritone.
11 ♌ 5th House
♎ 7th House
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undecimal_tritone
11/8 < 7/5 ♐ √2 < (fishhook) XVII:XII (water)
So, the tapestry of events knitting together the heraldic emblems & relics attending the birth of Triumph do appear to constitute a ‘cover story’ ...of sorts.

The question is- what's it 'covering'?
 

Yygdrasilian

Illuminate Us

a "Son of Thunder" said:
♏ (XIII:6+6+6) “Here is wisdom: Let him that hath understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is a human number” = 666

In the year 282 AD, the Roman Empire requisitioned supplies for a legion-sized troop of soldiers conscripted from the provincial domain that had once been Upper Kemet. The papyri documenting this has been cited as ‘evidence’ for the Theban martyrs of Christian legend originating from the ancient city holy to the god Amun. Thebes had once been the capital of Waset, the fourth nome of Upper “Black” whose name in hieroglyph (meaning ‘City of the Sceptre’) appeared as the Was staff - a talisman carved with the head of Set, having been wielded by him at the prow of Amun-Ra's solar barge to fend off the Serpent who persistently threatened to swallow the Sun during His journey through the Underworld. And perhaps it was from this al-KEMical tradition that the hagiography concocted for these 6,666 soldiers attributes their commander, Maurice, with having brought the Holy Lance to Agaunum.

Though the legend makes no mention of who converted Maurice & his troops to the Christian faith, the reigning Pope at the time this garrison was created by the Roman military was one Eutychian (‘of Good Luck’) - of whom little is known other than his sanction given to the blessing of grapevines & beans upon the altar. The Liber Pontificalis puts his reign at 8 years, 11 months, and says he buried 324 martyrs with own hands. His was the last mortal coil among the early pontiffs to be interred within the Crypt of Popes carved in the catacombs of Calixtus. Canonized by the Church, Eutychian’s feast day is still celebrated on December 8th, the 342nd day of the year.

324+342 = 666
8/12 = 0.666666...
(343rd day in leap years)

His successor, Pope Caius, reigned during the year given for the Legion’s martyrdom: 286 AD, and is equally obscure in the historical record - though Catholic tradition celebrates his martyrdom on April 22nd (112th day) - a feast day he shares with Saint Soter (d.174).

343, the Cube of 7
-231, the Octahedron of 7
=112, the 7th Hepatagonal Number

286 = the 11th Heptagonal Number
174 ≈ √3 x10²
265 = September 22nd, the Autumnal Equinox: feast day of the Theban martyrs
(265/153 ≈ √3) = measure of the FISH
What is curious about the timing of these ‘events’ is they share a symmetry of Number in common with a perspective upon the Great Pyramid as seen thru Borromean Rings.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_bdZH0rEV...aI/QztaKB0t0nU/s1600/Begging+The+Question.jpg

A remarkable ‘coincidence’ in tune with the mathematics underpinning the design of the Hebrew alephbet. Tarot has emerged as a cipher for accessing this system of hidden Knowledge - a system much older than the earliest Trionfi, yet adapted to the language of heraldic protocols attending the “noble” houses of medieval Europe, the chivalric orders with which they fraternized, and those Saints to whom they prayed.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JKwrHI_rUao/TfRKPXre2eI/AAAAAAAAAXI/7yVUcBV6KUQ/s1600/Figuration.jpg

Once the symbolic attributions of the Letters are seen in their unified context, one may begin to appreciate how its’ expression through this lineage of hagiographies, emblems and talismans weaves together a historical narrative validating both the rule of Kings and the authority of Popes.

Just as their churches were built upon the foundations of pagan temples, these arbiters of orthodoxy likewise relied upon their predecessors’ almanac of festivals in celebration of “the Gods” to plot the feast days of “the Saints” upon their own sacred calendar. Mythology, and by extension the etiology of cultural identity, was a mapping reiterated through the cyclic regularity of that calendar, manifested by the geography of Temples significantly poised throughout the Realm, and sanctified by their ceremonial rites of both communion & coronation.

Whether the events themselves ever actually occurred, or, if they did, happened exactly in accord with the use of Number cited here, may be open to debate; but we cannot exclude the possibility that some of these martyrdoms could have been ritual sacrifices served in homage of a much more ancient creed. Preserving for a11 ages the very means by which we define their measure.

The eldest surviving deck of cards bearing this Knowledge evokes a mythopoetic genealogy for their maker by picking up a narrative thread running thru Dante’s Divine Comedy, Virgil’s Aeneid, The Iliad by Homer, and Rhodius’ Argonautika, back to a fabled orchard of golden apples where the allegories of Semitic & Indo-European mythology meet. For it is by that fruit, ripened upon the “Immortal” tree, that we find a diagram for understanding the harmonic of our World.

The means by which the Hebrew Letter symbols fit together to form this diagram has been expressed through the magic of names utilized within the biblical tradition. There were among the Books forming the cannon of medieval Bibles several whose authorship were attributed to the great King Solomon - an ancient Hebrew monarch famed for the Temple he had built and for “the wisdom ELohim put into his heart.” Counted among his works there was a Book of Wisdom rumored to prophesy the coming “Christos” (Χριστοῦ) via a ‘pun’ arising from the translation of his word for weakness into Greek: ἄχρηστον (achrestos).

♊ WISDOM
11: Let our strength be the law of justice, for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.
8: Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered.
And even though the “proof” of this claim might seem weak by our standards, it is perhaps worth considering that the phrase is a lie confessing the rationale of the “ungodly”. A clever ruse whose opposite implicates the “true” path to immortality.

“Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them. As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls. For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.”
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbi...modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=2&division=div1

Thus, anyone who took such words “literally” could feasibly interpret:
Let not the Lion rule the scales of Libra, for Strength = “nothing” there: 11
Let us crown ourselves with thorns, the rhodon (ρόδον) having withered: 2³
http://en.wiktionary.7val.com/wiki/rose

118 (cue: Sanctus Bell)
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt26b8.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosanna

הושיעה נא
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5uJ0tBL3Jyw/Tm2HG9-byII/AAAAAAAAAaA/gLDF_X2UG9A/s1600/Hosana.jpg

Deutoronomist (1 KINGS 10) said:
♐ “Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold.” = 666

6+6+6
“Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory (tooth), and overlaid it with the finest gold.”


“There were six steps to the throne, and the top of the throne was round behind; and there were arms on either side by the place of the seat, and two lions standing beside the arms. And twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps; there was not the like made in any kingdom.”
12 ♊ 12

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-67RdSinLyYc/TfRMa0wo8zI/AAAAAAAAAZA/CEO0YAC_PEc/s1600/FOUR.jpg