The Anathemata
Mabinog’s Liturgy (continued)
place-giver and power-channel.
Venerated in image on the legionary signa1
his weather-eye on the Diaspora.a
Joint-Consul
Prime Minister
cosmocrat
in his apex year.
But one more yet before they have him, before Tiber, by way of the Mamertine,b has his broken body.
Lucius Ælius Lamiac
nominate legate of Syria
still not posted.
Under the fifth procurator
of Judaea
in the third or fourth
severe
April
of the ten, sharp
Aprils of his office.2
On Ariel mountain3
on Flail-floor Hill d
(here the articulated instrument of wood and here the bruised flesh for the wheat-offering.)4
David Jones notes
1 The effigy of the minister, Sejanus, was worshipped among the standards of the legions, as though he were himself emperor.
2 Pilate was governor of Judaea for the exceptionally long period of ten years (AD 27-37). It was the opinion of Tiberius that change of governor meant only fresh bleeding of a province by the new nominee.
3 Cf. ‘Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt.’ Is. XXIX, 1. (A.V.)
4 Cf. ‘and the threshing instruments for wood and the wheat for the meat offering’. I Chron. XXI. And cf. the instrument joinered for ‘the sweet load’.
additional notes
DJ note 3: ‘Ariel’ (‘Lion of God’) is used in Isaiah 29:1 for Jerusalem.
DJ note 4: articulated instruments: the hinged flail and the jointed Cross.
a i.e. the Diaspora, the great dispersal of the Jews after the capture of Jerusalem and the desecration of the Temple by Titus in 70 CE, is yet to come.
b Sejanus was imprisoned in the Mamertime prison before being thrown into the Tiber.
c Lucius Aelius Lamia (before 43 BCE – 33 CE). A Roman civil servant. In 22 CE he was appointed imperial legate to Syria by Tiberius but was detained in Rome and never traveled to Syria in person.
d Flail-floor: from David’s building of the Temple (1 Chronicles 21:18) ‘on the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite’.
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comments
This section is a transition from the previous time setting of the year to the date of the crucifixion.