ANTINOUS is dead. Hadrian is weeping over his limp body on the banks of the Nile where his beloved perished in late October of the year 130 AD.
While mourners wail in the world of the living, Antinous descends into the Underworld. The modern Religion of Antinous commemorates this descent into the Egyptian Duat on October 29th.
Flamen Antonius Subia says:
Antinous is embraced by Osiris beneath the water of the Holy Nile, and he is given over to Hermes-Anubis and led into the underworld.In the Religion of Antinous, this is the last day of the Ecclesiastic Year, it is spent in darkness and in solemn devotion.
He appears before the Lords of the scale of Maat, but his spirit is divine and the scales crumble at his touch.
Hermes-Anubis escorts Antinous into the Hall of the Queen of the Dead, Persephone, and because he is a witness of the Mysteries of Eleusis, he obtains from her the pomegranate of immortality.
The immortal spirit of Antinous does not taste death, and he is given to drink of the fountain that restores memory because he has learned from Orpheus that he is from the Earth but is a Child of the Stars.
Antinous conquers death and returns from darkness. At midnight Antinous the God arises from the Nile and steps onto the shore from which he fell. The spirits of the entourage of Dionysus attend his resurrection and he is reborn as the New Osiris-Dionysus.
As Antinous journeys through the underworld, we confront the weakness of being without our god, we reflect on the passage of the year, and on the influence of Antinous upon our lives, and we pray for the triumph of his return.
At midnight, a pure candle is ignited to symbolize the deification of Antinous Our God.