The cup is the receptacle, the maternal womb, of the god resurrected in the wine; the cup is the cavern where the serpent dwells, the god who sheds his skin, in the state of metamorphosis; for Christ is also the serpent. These symbolisms are used in an obscure connection in I Corinthians, verse 10: Paul writes of the Jews who “were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (also reborn) and “did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.” They drank from the mother (the generative rock, birth from the rock) the milk of rejuvenation, the mead of immortality, and this Rock was Christ, here identified with the mother, because he is the symbolic representative of the mother libido. When we drink from the cup, then we drink from the mother’s breast immortality and everlasting salvation. Paul wrote of the Jews that they ate and then rose up to dance and to indulge in fornication, and then twenty-three thousand of them were swept off by the plague of serpents. The remedy for the survivors, however, was the sight of a serpent hanging on a pole. From it was derived the cure.
THE DRAGON IN THE GOBLET
“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, ἀδελφοί, 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,[[751]] which was constantly misunderstood by the profane and was retranslated into his language, where mystery is equivalent to orgy and secrecy to vice.[[752]] 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,[[753]] there they have fed upon the iniquitous bread and drunken the wine of wickedness.”[[754]]
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:
“Black-haired, very charming and handsome in countenance, and every one enjoys listening to thee on account of the amiable speeches which come from thy mouth; therefore the maids love thee.”
He preaches “the cult of nakedness.”
“Ye fools and blind men, behold God has created man in his image, as male and female, and has blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and make it subject to thee.’ Therefore, he has given the greatest honor to these poor members and has placed them naked in the garden,” etc.