© 2009 Georges Donnadieu
© 2009 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
“In memory of the national meeting of French-speaking Readers of the Urantia Book, Notre Dame de Lumières from October 8 to 11, 2009.”
Pythagoras wanted us to pray around noon,
At a time when the sun has a brighter flame
Gild the mulberry, the aloe or the olive,
And on the land far away and the sea shines.
At this serene and sacred hour, he said,
The Luminous Beings, hosts of the other Shore,
Near us, diaphanous Legions, arrive,
And speak to our hearts through the heavy flesh.
This mystery taught by the Sage of Attica
Is a treasure that burns in every mystical soul:
You know, sons of the sun, born of Leo
Which we see, in the stained glass windows, near the Evangelist,
You know that only the invisible Being exists,
And the world passes away, and is only an illusion!
The following 7 points may evoke a response from the reader of the Urantia Book. They are, listed in reading order: 1. The Apostles — 2. The Lion — 3. Pythagoras — 4. Around noon — 5. The Luminous Beings — 6. We, Diaphanous Legions — 7. The Evangelist.
Points 1.2 and 7: They refer directly to page 1341.8.1:$ “The Gospel of Mark” and we quote: “With the exception of Andrew’s notes, it was John Mark who wrote the first, shortest and simplest story of the life of Jesus” and … “his story is in reality the Gospel according to Simon Peter”. (Our emphasis). The Lion is the emblem of Mark the Evangelist and it appears, in Venice, on the Piazza San Marco, near the basilica of the same name, perched with its mane in the wind, at the top of a column.
Points 2 & 4: But the Lion also evokes, with the meridian time “around noon”, the date and time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man and Son of God. The birth of Jesus: “and, at noon on August 21 of the year 7 before the Christian era…Mary gave birth to a male child. Jesus of Nazareth was born into the world” page UB 122:8.1.
August 21 is at the end of the sign of Leo which gives way, on August 23, to the sign of Virgo. Leo and Virgo end the summer in tropical Astrology, which we call “Astrology of the four seasons”. Two remarks on Astrology and on Nazareth, for the attention of UB readers interested respectively in astrology and toponymy:
Astrology: The vocabulary for readers of the Urantia Book by Jean Royer, cites the following passage under the word “astrology”: (UB 170:2.10 probably reference to the original edition in English): “The orbits of the stars in the sky have absolutely no connection with the events of human life on Earth. Astronomy is rightly studied by science, but astrology is a mass of superstitious errors which has no place in the gospel of the kingdom”. The sun is certainly a star in the sky, but, in appearance, mobile during the year - as well as its procession of planets - against the starry background of “fixed stars”.
Claiming that the angle of incidence of the sun’s rays during the annual swing between the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn has “no relation to the events of human life on Earth” - and, here, it is a question of the 4 seasons for the inhabitants of the two hemispheres - is very probably not the message that The Urantia Book wants to convey: the state of temperature, duration of day/night, quality of light radiation, impression of heat or cold are obviously not the same on a day in January, April, July or October!
Nazareth: no written trace of this city, before the Gospels - it is likely that the name of Nazareth results from a modification, perhaps intentional, of the name of Gennesaret from which the beginning “gé valley” was removed and the end kept which could come from the Hebrew néster “branch” or natsor * “keep, watch”. We should therefore say “Jesus of Gennesaret”.
* quoted in Isaiah 11.1 “Then a branch will come out of the stem of Isaiah”.
Points 5 and 6: The Luminous Beings may refer to the divine hierarchies and personalities who aid mortals, we, the diaphanous Hosts, completing our passage to the experiential worlds (for us, URANTIA) by “setting our affections on things above,” the height in question being different for each mortal.
Point 7: Pythagoras: Pages UB 98:1.4 and following, the UB presents “Greek philosophical thought” and in UB 98:2.6-7 are cited Pindar, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Pythagoras (- 570? — -472?) appeared on Earth at the same time as Zoroaster (UB 95:6.1), Lao-Tseu, Kong Fu -Tseu (UB 94:6.3), The Buddha (UB 94:8.2).
Plato (-428 — -347) was a friend of the Pythagorean Archytas of Tarentum (-430 — -350), after having had the geometer Theodore of Cyrene as a tutor. It was Plato, during one of his three stays in Syracuse, with the tyrants Denis the Elder and then Denis the Younger, who had the “Pythagorean Memoirs” purchased by Dion of Syracuse for one hundred nixis: the equivalent of ten thousand gold francs.
As for Philo of Alexandria, another Pythagorean: “Among the many men with whom Gonod transacted business was a Jewish banker named Alexander, whose brother Philo was a famous religious philosopher of the time. Philo had undertaken the laudable, but extremely difficult, task of harmonizing Greek philosophy and Hebrew theology. Ganid and Jesus spoke extensively about Philo’s teachings and hoped to attend some of his lectures, but during their entire stay in Alexandria, this renowned Jewish-Hellenist was ill and confined to bed_” UB 130:3.9.
Let us finally be allowed to pay homage, with the help of Pythagoras, to the marvelous article on pages 18 & 19 of Urantian Link No. 48 Fall 09, focusing in particular on bees and beekeeping (very much in favor among the Pythagoreans): “Crotoniates! Refrain from picking the flower where the bee has landed: wait until this laborious insect has completed its harvest!” (in Biblion de Pythagore — Livre des lois morales et politiques by Robert Laffont).
Georges Donnadieu aka the ploughing boar