the sight of a serpent hanging on a pole. From it was derived the cure.
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of
the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the
communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one
bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of one bread."—I
Corinthians x: 16, 17.
Bread and wine are the body and the blood of Christ;
the food of the immortals who are brothers with Christ,
[Greek: a)delphoi/], those who come from the same womb. We
who are reborn again from the mother are all heroes
together with Christ, and enjoy immortal food. As with
the Jews, so too with the Christians, there is imminent
danger of unworthy partaking, for this mystery, which is
very closely related psychologically with the subterranean
Hierosgamos of Eleusis, involves a mysterious union of
man in a spiritual sense,[102] which was constantly misunderstood
by the profane and was retranslated into his
language, where mystery is equivalent to orgy and
secrecy to vice.[103] A very interesting blasphemer and sectarian
of the beginning of the nineteenth century named
Unternährer has made the following comment on the
last supper:
"The communion of the devil is in this brothel. All they sacrifice
here, they sacrifice to the devil and not to God. There they
have the devil's cup and the devil's dish; there they have sucked
the head of the snake,[104] there they have fed upon the iniquitous
bread and drunken the wine of wickedness."[105]
Unternährer is an adherent or a forerunner of the
"theory of living one's own nature." He dreams of himself
as a sort of priapic divinity; he says of himself:
