Eleutherios, The Crucified One (Ελευθέριος, Ο Εσταυρωμένος)

-From The Meletic Tales.

The sun of Sestos fell like molten bronze upon the cracked stones of the agora. Traders cried out their wares, children darted between stalls, and the smell of figs and salt drifted from the harbour. Amidst this hum of life stood Eleutherios—tall, lean and unbowed. He was not a merchant nor soldier nor priest. He was a stonemason’s son, whose hands bore the calluses of labour, yet whose gaze reached farther than city walls or golden coins.

On that day, as soldiers cleared a path through the crowd gathered with the weight of their spears and sandals, a hush fell over the market. The Tyrant General Kratos, had returned from another campaign, his red cloak spattered with dust, his eyes sharp as razors. He rode with the arrogance of one who believed himself a demigod. The citizens of Sestos lowered their heads as he passed, some even knelt, whispering his name as though it were an incantation of safety, but Eleutherios did not dare to bow.

‘You there. What is your name? Kratos asked, pulling his horse to a halt before him. ‘Why do you remain upright, unlike the others?’

Eleutherios looked up, neither defiant nor afraid. ‘Eleutherios. I did not bow, because I do not serve vanity, nor do I worship men. I serve reason, not fear’.

The general's lips curled. ‘You are bold, stonemason. Do you not know what becomes of those individuals who dishonour their betters?’

‘No man is my better who believes himself a god’, Eleutherios replied.

Those defiant words ultimately cost him his freedom.

Eleutherios was seized and beaten. His trial, if one could call it that, was held in the atrium of the military hall, attended only by the general’s lackeys and an old priest too afraid to protest. Kratos pronounced the sentence with delight.

‘Crucifixion. Let the birds strip his bones. Let the winds of the Hellespont remember what happens to insolence’, he said.

He was dragged outside the city walls, where the earth was dry and stones jagged. He was to be an example of anyone who dared to defy the tyrant general. There, a wooden cross had already been raised. The soldiers bound his wrists with rope, then nailed his feet through the heels. Eleutherios did not scream. He bit down hard until blood filled his mouth, but he did not scream. The wind howled through the rocks as if mourning the cruelty of men. He did not cry out to the gods for help.

The days passed. The sky shifted from gold to crimson to starless black. The sun scorched his skin by day, and at night the cold gnawed at his bones and flesh. Crows came and left. Rain fell once, and he caught it on his tongue. The people of Sestos did not come. No one dared to be bold enough.

On the third night, a storm erupted over the sea. Lightning cracked the sky open and the sea roared like a god awoken. As Eleutherios drifted in and out of delirium or reality, he saw a figure walking through the gale—a cloaked man with a lamp that did not flicker. The stranger came silently, scaling the slope with ease, his hair wild like the sea. There were no guards present.

‘Eleutherios, I am Simmias’, the man said, his voice a low whisper.

The nailed man blinked. ‘Am I dead?’

‘No. But you are close to truth, which is not so different’.

Simmias drew a hidden blade and cut the ropes, then carefully removed the nails. Eleutherios collapsed into his arms, more breath than body. Without another word, Simmias carried him into the shade of darkness.

He awoke in a cave high above the coast. A fire burnt low beside him. His wounds were washed, his hands wrapped in linen.

‘You saved me’, Eleutherios rasped.

‘Only your flesh. The soul must save itself', said Simmias.

Eleutherios closed his eyes. ‘Why?’

‘Because I once stood upon a threshold like yours—between death and understanding. A Meletic philosopher found me and opened my eyes to To Ena, the One’.

‘To Ena, the One?’

Simmias nodded. ‘It is not a god, not a figure to worship. It is the unity of being, the seed of all that is, and the light by which we see our own essence’.

Eleutherios said nothing as he listend closely.

‘You defied Kratos not out of pride, but because something within you already knew that no man deserves worship. You honoured the self, and thus, you honoured life’, Simmias continued.

‘But I am broken now.’

‘Then begin with that. In Meleticism, suffering is not shameful. It is the crucible of human virtue’.

The weeks that followed were slow, but full. Eleutherios was taught how to meditate. At first, he resisted. His body throbbed, his sleep was haunted, but gradually he would recover from his wounds. Simmias was patient. He spoke of temperance, of fortitude and of how reason was the bridge to serenity. He explained that to live in alignment with To Ena was not to escape the world, but to see it as it truly was—interconnected, flowing, neither cruel nor kind, but whole.

‘Meditation is not escape. It is observation. You must learn to observe not only the outer world, but your thoughts, your pain and your breath’, Simmias told him.

‘I thought I was dying,’ Eleutherios whispered one night.

‘You were, but only to what you were. Now you are being born to what you must become now'.

In time, the scars on Eleutherios’ body finally faded, even though some wounds would never vanish by themselves. His gaze deepened. He began to sit by the edge of the cliff, watching the sky, tracing clouds with his breath, learning to let go of anger. He had released the anger he had for the tyrant general and being crucified unjustly.

The months passed, and Simmias disappeared one morning, leaving only a scroll etched with Meletic verses and a lyre beside the ashes of their final fire.

Eleutherios understood. He walked down to the city. Sestos had changed little. Kratos still ruled, his statues multiplied, his soldiers drunk with power, yet Eleutherios did not return to raise rebellion. He came as a Meletic teacher.

At first, the people shunned him. The memory of his crucifixion clung to them like ash, but Eleutherios did not shout in the streets nor call for vengeance. Instead, he sat beneath the olive tree near the agora and waited.

A boy came to him. ‘Are you the man who was nailed to wood?’

‘I am the man who was freed from it’, Eleutherios replied.

‘How?’

‘By discovering that the pain of the body cannot touch the soul when the soul embraces To Ena, the One’.

The boy returned the next day, and the next. Soon, others joined. A merchant curious about meditation. A widow grieving her daughter. A soldier weary of violence.

Eleutherios spoke of the balance of the mind and body, of how the soul seeks stillness, not chaos. He taught that true strength was in humility, and that wisdom was born of observation, not conquest. He spoke of his wounds as being a reminder of human cruelty, but that bravery is epitomised by one's wisdom than pride.

‘When we observe life as it is, not as we wish it to be, we begin to feel the flow of To Ena within us. It speaks not in words but in awareness', he spoke.

He taught no rituals. He built no temples. The city began to call him Eleutherios the Awakened One.

Kratos heard the daily rumours.

‘The crucified one lives? And they listen to him?’

His fury returned like a lit wildfire. He summoned his guards at once.

‘Find him. Bring him to me’.

Eleutherios did not run. When the soldiers came, they found him sitting beneath the olive tree, hands resting gently on his knees. He did not resist. He only said: ‘Will you follow the orders of a tyrant, or the burden of your conscience?’

The soldiers hesitated. One lowered his spear. Another stepped back. Eleutherios was not arrested. The sun had shone upon the faces of the soldiers, a reflection of the Nous. Something had caused them to leave then.

Kratos received the report with silence and astonishment. He stared into the sea that evening, knowing something had shifted. Power that once came from swords and fear now trembled before a quiet truth that was foreign to him.

In time, Eleutherios was no longer seen as a criminal. He became a figure of peace, guiding others through their own crucifixions—the invisible kind: of grief, of pride and of ignorance. His message spread beyond Sestos and what was ancient Trace. Travellers spoke of a man who did not condemn, but taught. Who did not demand, but listened.

He taught that meditation was not for monks in caves, but for fishermen, for mothers, for youths at the edge of doubt and anguish.

‘Each day, we crucify ourselves in some way—through regret, fear or falsehood. Each day we can descend, through awareness, into life once more’, he would say with firmness in his words expressed.

Eleutherios aged. He no longer climbed the cliffs, but still he watched the sea with its calm currents that presided over its vastness.

One morning, a young woman approached him. ‘Do you fear death?’ She asked.

He smiled. ‘No. I have already died. What comes next is only a deepening of existence’.

‘What shall we remember when you are gone?’

He took her hand and pressed into it a pebble he had carried since his release from the cross. ‘Remember this: To Ena, the One is not somewhere far away. It is here, in your breath, in the wind and in the stillness between two thoughts. The truth is not spoken. It is realised’.

That night, the wind was gentle. Eleutherios passed silently, eyes closed, mouth soft in a final breath of mortality. It is said that all the marks that were left on his body from the crucifixion had faded.

No monument was raised. No tomb engraved, but his teachings endured—not in scrolls or stone, but in the silent awakenings of those persons who learnt to look inwards. It is said that Eleutherios dwells amongst the cosmos, and that in every star that shines at night, one sees the reflection of Eleutherios. He was not divine, nor was his crucifixion. He was merely a man who survived, and became a man with a vision that was seen in his Meletic belief.

He had once defied a tyrant, but more importantly, he had defied the illusion of separation. In doing so, he became whole as a man, not to be worshipped but to be admired. He was not the face of god, but the face of the Nous'.

Long after Eleutherios' death, a lone Meletic traveller whose name was Eubolos arrived in Sestos. He sat beneath the olive tree where Eleutherios once taught. A few gathered around him, wondering whether he too bore some revelation.

The man spoke softly. ‘I bring no new truth. I only remind you of what Eleutherios once said that each of us carries the power to become free, not by fleeing pain, but by seeing through it’.

A woman asked, ‘How shall we begin?’

‘Observe. Study what you see. Then think on what it means. This is the Meletic way’.

'Will you show me the way?'

'Yes. I shall show you the way that Eleutherios showed others', Eubolos told her.

Thus, the cycle began again—not through conquest or commandments, but through quiet eyes and listening hearts.

For in Sestos, the tale of the crucified one endured. Not as tragedy, but as transformation.

The olive tree beneath which Eleutherios had once taught stood tall, its roots like fingers grasping into the stone soil of Sestos. People begin to believe that the olive tree remained, because it was a sign that Eleutherios had not perished but remained. Long after his death, the people still gathered there—not to mourn, but to remember, to reflect and to meditate. They brought no offerings, only silence and thought.

Amongst them was a young man named Nikagoras, whose father had once served as a soldier in Kratos’ legion. Nikagoras was sceptical by nature, having grown up hearing his father cursed the man who had dared to defy the state, but curiosity drew him to the tree, and the stories that lingered like mist upon the city’s lips.

One day, as the wind swept over the sea, Nikagoras sat in the very spot where Eleutherios had taught. An elderly woman beside him—blind, yet radiant in bearing—turned to him gently.

‘You seek something’, She said.

‘I do not know what,’ He replied.

‘That is already the first step’, she smiled. ‘Eleutherios used to say: “To Ena, the One cannot be found by those people who already believe they know more’.

‘Is the One... real?’ Nikagoras asked. ‘Or is it a comfort we speak of when we tire of gods and tyrants?’

The woman tilted her head. ‘It is neither god nor escape. It is what remains when all illusions fall away’.

He frowned. ‘But how does one see it?’

‘By learning to look beyond the self. To detach not from the world, but from the noise within. Sit long enough in stillness, and with awareness, you will begin to hear the natural echo of the cosmos inside you, through the Logos and the Nous'.

Nikagoras returned day after day. He sat with fishermen, former soldiers, children, widows—each with their own pain, yet all drawn by the same current: the peace Eleutherios had discovered after the nails, the clarity he had found beyond pain.

'How could a man have survived crucifixion? He must have been divine?' Asked Nikagoras

The woman responded, 'He was never divine; instead, he was awakened'.

'What do you mean awakened?' Nikagoras was intrigued.

'I mean that which belongs to the body which is pain, remains with the body, but that which belongs to the soul is awakened'.

Soon, Nikagoras began to travel, walking the coasts and inland paths of Thrace and Ionia. Wherever he went, he carried the teachings that the One—To Ena—was not to be sought in temples, but in the honesty of one’s breath, the virtue of one’s actions, and the deep stillness of meditation.

He spoke of the Meletic virtues Eleutherios had embraced: temperance, fortitude, reason, perseverance, wisdom and humbleness. He taught others not to bow to fear, nor chase ambition, but to observe life, study what they saw, and think about what it meant.

In time, small circles of Meletics emerged—gatherings of those who wished not to worship, but to wonder. They debated not for dominance, but for discovery. They meditated under trees, by rivers, in gardens. They studied the balance between the mind and body, and how consciousness was a bridge to self-awareness. The message of Eleutherios has spread onto other far regions.

It was said that in Mytilene, a dying man asked only to hear the name of Eleutherios before passing. In Ainos, a woman who had once been a slave taught Meleticism to children using stones and leaves. In Chersonesos, a mason carved a tablet not with the name of gods, but with these words: ‘I was once a man of rage, but now I have seen To Ena, the One, and in it, I find no enemy’.

Still, in some cities, rulers viewed the quiet strength of Meletics with suspicion. They could not understand how a philosophy without commands or altars could win hearts and minds so fully. Kleomedes would ultimately be assassinated by one of his guards.

In Abdera, a tyrant outlawed the mention of Eleutherios. His edict was laughed at by his own daughter, who had already memorised every verse from the scrolls of Simmias.

Eleutherios had never asked to be remembered. His only wish had been that others look inwards—not to escape the world, but to see it fully, to see themselves clearly.

Alhough his body had long returned to the dust, his presence lingered in every breath drawn with awareness.

In the stillness, he was there.

The generations passed. In a remote village beyond the old road to Sestos, a child named Melissa wandered into the hills, chasing a wild hare. She tripped upon a root and fell into a hollow in the earth. There, she found a flat stone inscribed with words in an old dialect—etched not deep, but carefully.

She could not read it then, but she brought it home, and her grandfather recognised the script.

‘It’s Meletic. Very old. From the time of Eleutherios', he whispered.

They cleaned the stone, and by the hearth, he read the words aloud: ‘The One is not far. It is not later. It is not someone. It is now. It is always. It is within. In seeing yourself, you will see the One. In loving truth, you will find peace.

That night, Melissa lay awake. She did not understand it fully, but something in her stirred. The next morning, she asked her grandfather to teach her the meditation he once learnt as a boy.

They sat quietly together by a stream, backs straight, eyes closed. Wind rustled the trees. Birds sang from unseen perches, and within that gentle silence, Melissa felt something—something whole, soft and vast.

She would grow to become a philosopher herself, even though she never wore the title. She called herself a gardener, but all who sat in her garden learnt what To Ena, the One was.

She would say: ‘Each seed you plant is a question. Each bloom is a realisation. The soil holds not just roots, but the silence between your thoughts. Listen’.

When asked who taught her such wisdom, she smiled and told them of the man who had once been crucified and lived—not just in body, but in soul, in mind, in clarity and in virtue'.

‘He did not die on that cross. He rose, not in miracle, but in meaning. And that is the greater truth’, she said.

Thus, the story of Eleutherios the crucified one did not end with wood or nails. Instead, it echoed in meditations beneath the moon, in the unshaken defiance of children who questioned cruelty, in the quiet strength of those people who chose clarity over chaos.

He had once said: ‘Freedom is not the absence of pain. It is the awareness of what lies beyond it’.

This was his lesson in life.

In that awareness, Meleticism was born anew—every day, in every seeker who dared to see beyond the material world.

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