Today, the Double-Headed Eagle flag still flies over those few European nations that remain outside the sway of the Globalizing Empire (the West), namely Russia and Serbia, and as of February 2022 this flag also marks the front line of the \u201cWar of the Worlds\u201d that Russia is fighting to push the Globalizing Empire back to the fields of Little Russia. To understand the full significance \u2013 and true power \u2013 of the Double-Headed Eagle symbol, however, it is necessary to look further back in time than the Eastern Roman Empire (the Golden Byzantium). Before appearing over the Christian Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), it appeared over Ancient Greece: It originates from the Temple of Delphi, where two golden eagles facing in opposite directions were fixed to the Omphalos, the \u201cStone of the Omphalos,\u201d which was located at its center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This particular iconography served to remind visitors of the origin of the Omphalos and the sacred status of the Temple of Delphi. When Zeus set out to determine the location of the Navel of the World, he let two eagles fly from the two ends of the earth, starting in opposite directions at equal speeds. The place where the eagles crossed was then designated as the Navel of the World \u2013 Zeus placed the stone there to designate it. In 390 AD, the Oracle of Delphi was abolished and the Temple of Delphi was destroyed by order of Emperor Theodosius, the last ruler of the united Roman Empire, determined to combat “pagan superstitions” in his already (largely) Christian empire. The priesthood of the temple was expelled and the temple’s valuables were scattered to the four winds. Some objects, such as the Delphic Tripod, were taken to the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) \u2013 remnants of which survive there today (e.g. the Serpent Column, located in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, and still on display in the heart of the Old City).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prestige of the abolished oracle and the closed temple, which represented the Sacred Heart of Ancient Greece, was such that some of their features became fundamental elements of the new Christian Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) state: its most famous place of worship was dedicated to the abstract principle represented by the Oracle of Delphi, namely Hagia Sophia, the legendary “Hagia Sophia” of Christianity, and the coronation of the Byzantine Emperor was traditionally held in the “Omphalos” floor section of the same church, which took its name from the Omphalos of Delphi. However, the strongest continuity from Ancient Greece to Christian Byzantium and, therefore, to modern Russia, is found in the symbol of the Double-Headed Eagle, which traces its origins to the earliest past of Europe. The golden background on which it was depicted and is depicted on the flags of the Byzantine Empire and the flag of the Greek Orthodox Church can be considered to represent the golden light of the Sun, because the Oracle of Delphi operated under the auspices of the solar deity, Diogenes Apollo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Priestess of Delphi \u2013 The Ancient Greeks saw the principle of Wisdom in various guises: natural in the omniscient Sun, divine in the prophetic god Apollo, and human in the priestess of the oracle Pythia. Obvious parallels to this view are found in other religious systems around the world, including those of the Vedic Tradition (Vak Devi) and the Gnostic Tradition (Pistis Sophia). Although the Greek “Pythonis” (an epithet referring to the dragon killed by Apollo on the site of what was to become the precincts of his temple) held great power in Ancient Greece (which de facto constituted an amphitheatre headed by her), and although her person was legally and ritually sacred, she was also simply a woman subject to the intrusions of impious invaders \u2013 several occupants of the position were abused and abducted. Alexander the Great is reported to have dragged the Pythoness, by her hair, kicking and screaming, out of her sanctuary because she refused to give him a hearing. A possible abductor may have been King Solomon, who dedicated his \u201cWisdom of Solomon\u201d to a very specific female manifestation of the principle of Wisdom in the flesh. It is also possible that, on occasion, the Pythia traveled independently: She was granted great privileges and rich offerings that would allow her to do something in the winter months when she was not performing her oracle duty \u2013 or in her retirement. It is not unusual to see the personified form of Hagia Sophia appear in the presence of Christ, and it is not inconceivable that the Pythia physically visited Christ during His earthly ministry, perhaps even among the Women at the Crucifixion. In any case, the last Pythia was expelled from her sanctuary when Emperor Theodosius closed the Temple of Delphi in 390 AD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps this explains the unique appearance of the one and only \u201cfemale philosopher\u201d of Antiquity a little later: this was the time when Hypatia made her appearance and began teaching in Alexandria, the largest city of the Roman Empire in the east and the greatest (Greek-speaking) center of learning. She may have been adopted as a young woman (she was renowned for her beauty when she began teaching) and she may have taught without revealing her previous position as Pythia \u2013 if the latter is true, she may, ironically, have disguised herself as a teacher of Philosophy while Sophia herself was. Some clues to her real position are found in the fact that she enjoyed unprecedented power in government circles, where women were forbidden to participate in official councils (key figures may have known who she was), and in the fact that she remained unmarried and celibate throughout her life (once appointed as Pythia, the priestess abstained from married life). In any case, after her murder, a symptom of the rise of “radical Christianity” and the persecution of the “old” pagans at that time, no one would have been safe in claiming the succession to the deceased Pythia’s position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, a tribute and a memory of her were introduced \u2013 whether consciously or unconsciously \u2013 into the newly founded Christian Church and the Byzantine Tradition: Hagia Sophia became the female personification of the principle of Wisdom and many great churches \u2013 and a European capital \u2013 were named after her. As the concept of the Delphic Priestess receded into the realm of mythology and as her attributes, her tripod, her laurel leaves and her vessel, were relegated \u2026 to literary tropes, the very idea that any ordinary person could embody the principle of Wisdom became absurd \u2013 and blasphemous. Some traces of the concept may have survived in occasional works of high literature (as in Dante’s enigmatic “Beatrix”) or on the margins of Orthodox spiritual life (as in the esoteric writings of the Russian Sophists), but no one has ever seriously considered the possibility that the lineage of the Pythons extended into a lineage of “Sophists,” either by birth or by initiation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today, the Double-Headed Eagle flag still flies over those few European nations that remain outside the sway of the Globalizing Empire (the West), namely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[988,7],"tags":[7599,7596,7597,7598],"class_list":["post-27006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-science","category-research","tag-delphi","tag-double-headed-eagle-symbol","tag-flags","tag-sophia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27008,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27006\/revisions\/27008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}