The Messenger Of To Ena (Ο Αγγελιοφόρος Του Ένα)

-From The Meletic Tales.

The olive trees swayed gently in the warm breeze along Corinth, where marble temples whispered old songs to the shepherds. A solitary figure strode along the worn stone path, robes swaying, eyes fixed on the sun’s descent beyond the horizon. His name was Aristodemos, a philosopher of Meleticism—and the last of his kind to speak freely in public.

In an age where words had become dangerous, Aristodemos' voice was both fire and light. The Christian Church, newly endowed with imperial favour by Constantine the Great, had branded his speech blasphemous. Not for the power it wielded, but for the truth it dared unveil. Aristodemos questioned the godhood of Jesus, offered To Ena, the One—as an alternative to divine fragmentation, and taught that all wisdom was borne not of revelation but of profound reflection.

He lectured still in hidden gardens and quiet amphitheatres, where candles flickered against the night’s resistance. To the powerful Christians, he was a threat. To the seekers of philosophy, he was wisdom.

He stood in a clearing ringed with broken columns and wild thyme, his listeners seated upon the earth like children around a flame. The sun filtered through the fig branches overhead, catching the amber dust that danced with each breath.

‘You have been told that divinity rests upon a cross. That salvation is found in another man’s death, but I say to you all that truth is not inherited. It is discovered. A man who needs a kingdom, is but a man disguised as a king. Is this what Jesus represented, a king?' he said.

He walked slowly amongst them, barefoot on the ancient stones.

‘To Ena is not a god. It has no image, no wrath nor crown. It is unity before all division. It is not worshipped—it is remembered’.

A few heads nodded. Others glanced around nervously.

‘Is this not heresy?’ Someone whispered.

Aristodemos turned, not with challenge, but with calm. ‘If asking what is true is heresy, then heresy is the beginning of wisdom', he replied.

Aristodemos was not born in Corinth, but it had become his home. Once a student of both geometry and the Stoics, he had wandered from Athens in his youth, seeking not temples, but silence. There, in the neglected sanctuary of an old grove, he began to speak. Not to trees, but to people who gathered.

His words spread—slowly, like roots beneath the earth. Artisans came. Midwives. Travelling traders. Curious monks. A few soldiers, even. All sat quietly under the trees, listening not to sermons, but to questions.

‘If Christ was one with the Logos as you holy book says, why must he be worshipped, instead of understood?’ Aristodemos asked one evening.

'We are taught that Paul referred to Jesus as the Logos', one person uttered.

'Paul made one mistake. Jesus is not the Logos, but instead, he is a part of the Logos'.

'But how can that be?' said another person from the crowd.

'Jesus was man of flesh, and he died as a man of flesh like us. It is the Nous that gave him form, through the Logos, but it was To Ena who gave him life'.

'But Jesus resurrected from the dead', another person said.

'I ask of you, was Jesus not mortal in flesh?'

'Yes!' said most of the crowd.

'Jesus was a man who the Church made into a god. When we all die, our bodies shall return to the earth, our souls to the breath of nature, and our ousia, our true essence, shall remain. Our existence does not end in death, nor is it resurrected, we simply are reintregrated into that which gave us life'.

'But how is that possible?' Another person asked.

'It is not a question of possibility or impossibility. It is more a realisation that we are mortals and not immortals. That existence is a state of being that does not end with the flesh, but begins with the ousia'.

'But we have the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Why do we need to worship To Ena, the Logos and the Nous?' Asked a young woman.

'To Ena, the Logos and the Nous are not worshipped or divine. They are not gods, but the Logos and the Nous are emanations of To Ena, the One'.

'If they are not divine, then what are they?' A man enquired.

'They are natural, and both the Logos and the Nous flow from To Ena'.

The questions were not attacks. They were invitations, but the Christian Church did not see them that way.

News of Aristodemos’ gatherings reached the ears of Bishop Demetrios of Corinth, a stern man who saw danger in even the softest dissent. He sat upon a marble chair in the basilica of the Holy Martyrs, robed in purple, frowning as his deacons recited the charges.

Three deacons stood before him, their hands trembling slightly with the parchments they held.

‘He denies the divinity of our Saviour. He claims Christ is a reflection, not a redeemer’, one said.

‘He teaches that salvation lies not in the Church, but in reflection. That man can save his own soul, without a Saviour,’ said another.

'He tells people that Jesus was not the son of God, but instead, a man who came to teach people. That he should be remembered as a mortal, not as divine king'.

The bishop leaned forth.

‘It is not blasphemy that concerns me. It is his influence. The people begin to think. When they think, they ask. When they ask, they cease to obey’, he said coldly.

He waved his hand, and the deacons withdrew like shadows returning to corners.

Demetrios had dismissed his scribes and sent for a quiet man in darker robes.

From behind one of the tapestries, a man emerged in darker robes. He said nothing.

‘You have heard. The man speaks still. He speaks gently, but the fruit of his words is disobedience’, said Demetrios.

The dark-robed man—Giannis—nodded. His eyes were unremarkable, but hollow in the way of men who had witnessed things that never left them.

‘Do not make a public display. The Empire still treads delicately with us. Let the murder be swift—and without scandal’.

Giannis bowed and left the basilica by a side door, disappearing into the incense-stained alleys of Corinth like a thought unspoken.

‘His tongue must be stilled. Let his death be swift—and without scandal’, Demetrios said.

The man bowed and left.

That evening, as the bells of evening prayer echoed across the hills, Demetrios stood before the sanctuary lamp and crossed himsels, but his mind was not still.

Even though he had given the order, something in him remained unsettled. Not out of guilt—he had cast aside such sentiments long ago—but because Aristodemos did not behave as a heretic should. He did not froth or rage. He quoted no forbidden texts. He merely thought, and worse, he invited others to do the same.

What Demetrios feared most was not insurrection, but revelation. Not that Aristodemos might break the power of the Church—but that he might illuminate the cracks already within it.

Back in the grove, Aristodemos had begun writing with renewed intensity.

By day, he still taught, although the gatherings had grown thinner. The old woman who sold figs no longer greeted him. The boy who once asked him about the soul’s motion had been seen attending mass with a guarded stare.

Aristodemos did not forget them. He understood. Fear was an old companion to faith.

Each night, he returned to his modest stone dwelling near a ruined Meletic temple. He lit a single oil lamp and dipped his stylus into ink ground from walnut and ash.

His scrolls were not defiant. They were steady—like river stones polished by time and clarity.

‘Jesus never called himself god. He called himself light, bread, a door—but never deity. These were metaphors, not mandates. The Church built a crown upon his head and called it revelation, but it was only fear wearing gold’.

‘The Logos is not confined to one man. It is the pattern within all. Christ was a bearer, not the boundary’.

Aristodemos wrote on linen, on vellum, even etched a few verses onto a smooth piece of polished slate—knowing that one day, parchment may decay, but stone would endure.

He no longer locked his door. He no longer looked over his shoulder. Instead, he prepared.

One scroll, he sealed with beeswax and inscribed with a symbol known only to his students—a circle within a circle, representing To Ena. This one he gave to Agape, his most trusted student and healer.

They met in the olive grove beneath the moonlight.

‘If they silence me, let my words live. Not to defy—but to awaken’, he said, placing the scroll in her hands.

Agape held it to her chest. Her eyes glistened.

‘They’ll come for you,’ she whispered.

‘They already have. I’m only waiting’, Aristodemos answered.

She hesitated. ‘You could leave. There is still time. I have friends in Naxos. We can disappear during the night’.

He shook his head slowly.

‘The tree does not flee its fall. It simply becomes part of the forest’s memory’.

They embraced beneath the darkened sky, two souls joined not by blood, but by truth.

That week, Corinth grew quieter. The market was subdued. Roman soldiers patrolled with sharper gazes. Even the wind through the colonnades seemed to hesitate.

Aristodemos continued walking the familiar path between his home and the grove. He smiled still, greeted those people who dared meet his eyes. He gave his figs to children. He helped a potter carry a broken jug to the kiln.

Some people say he knew the exact day it would happen. Others believed he had a vision, but more likely, he had simply accepted the rhythm of things. As he once said: ‘The end is not punishment. It is the pause between one verse and the next’.

Word spread quietly through Corinth that Aristodemos would speak once more in the sanctuary grove. Some people thought it a farewell. Others believed he meant to confront the Church openly, yet many people came—not only his disciples, but those who had once walked away. Even a few curious Christians, robes tight with tension, slipped into the outer edges of the crowd.

He stood before them near twilight, framed by columns overtaken by ivy and the golden hue of the descending sun. Behind him, the roots of an ancient olive tree curled around forgotten statues of old gods.

There was no anger in his voice. Only clarity.

‘I have spoken to you often of To Ena, and still many people ask: 'If there is no god, how do we explain the man called Jesus?'

A few murmured—some in curiosity, others in quiet protest.

‘Let me answer plainly. Not to challenge, but to restore what has been buried beneath centuries of fear and gold,’ Aristodemos said.

He paused, then spoke slowly.

‘Jesus was not the son of a god. He was not conjured in a womb by holy breath. He was not begotten. He was awakened. His soul became a part of his will'.

Now there was silence—not of disapproval, but of listening.

‘He was like us, born of flesh, but unlike many, he became aware of the Logos that pulses through all of life. He saw—not with eyes, but with soul—that there is a unifying order, a truth without name, beyond ritual and rule. He called it 'the Father'. Others called it 'God'. But it was To Ena—the One. That which is beyond form yet present in all existential things’.

The Christian listeners stiffened. One clutched a small wooden cross to his chest, but Aristodemos raised his hand gently.

‘Do not be afraid. I do not speak against Jesus. I honour him, but not for what he became in doctrine—only for who he truly was as a man’.

A Christian elder near the front, a man named Sebastios, stood with strained courtesy.

‘And what do you say he was, if not divine?’

Aristodemos welcomed the earnest question.

‘I say that Jesus was the Logos realised. The Nous manifested in a man. Not by miracle, but by vision. He lived as one who remembered the unity from which all things emanate. He was not the creation of a god—he was the sign of To Ena, just as you are. Just as I am’.

Gasps rippled through the grove. Some faces turned pale. Others lit with something like recognition.

‘He came into the world not to be glorified, nor to be worshipped. He came to be understood. He did not seek altars, but awareness. He did not die for sin. He died because power fears light. He was seen as a threat to the powers of Rome that ruled. Just like I am now considered a threat to Rome', Aristodemos continued.

He stepped closer to the listeners.

‘The tragedy is not the cross. The tragedy is that the cross was turned into a throne. That men clothed him in titles and used his name to claim authority—not to continue his teaching, but to replace it with greed'.

There was a long stillness. Even the wind seemed to pause in the branches above.

Then, Aristodemos raised his voice—not in volume, but in depth.

‘The Church, fearing the beauty of simplicity, invented complexity. It turned vision into myth, humility into dominion. It made of the man a god, and of his message a mandate, but Christ did not ask for worship. He asked for understanding. ''The kingdom is within you''. he said. And the Church built kingdoms upon his name with their chests of fortunes'.

A woman near the olive tree whispered, ‘Is it not faith that saves?’

Aristodemos turned to her gently.

‘Faith without consciousness is like a flame without oil—it flickers, but does not warm. Fate is not believing what one is told. It is the courage to see for oneself and accept their mortality'.

He let the words settle. Then he spoke again, softer now.

‘To Ena is the source. The root. It is not envious. It demands no sacrifice. It punishes no thought. From it comes the Logos, the cosmic order. From the Logos flows the Nous, the cosmic shape. And from the Nous comes consciousness—your own awareness, your ability to wonder, to discern and to choose'.

He placed his hand over his heart. ‘Jesus the man, walked this world bearing the Nous like a torch, but so too can you. So too can anyone who dares to see not with borrowed belief, but with an awakened mind’.

A young Christian man, no older than twenty, stepped forth.

‘If what you say is true, then the Church has lied to us’.

Aristodemos shook his head gently.

‘Perhaps they once saw the truth, but did not trust the people to bear it. They feared the wild freedom of inner vision, and so they built walls, but truth cannot be buried. It returns’.

He extended a hand towards the grove.

‘Even now, it returns—in your questions, in your doubts, in your listening. That is To Ena stirring within you’.

He closed his eyes briefly, as if listening to a sound only he could hear.

‘The path that I speak of is that of enlightenment. See Jesus not as a god who descended, but as a man who lived through awareness. Do not kneel before him—walk beside him. He was never a king. He was a mirror. And so are you’.

The sun had almost vanished behind the hills. The grove was dim with twilight, the leaves above rustling gently, as though touched by something unseen.

Some people wept. Others sat in stunned silence. Sebastios the elder removed the wooden cross from his neck and stared at it, not in anger, but in thought.

Aristodemos bowed his head once more. ‘My time amongst you is ending, but remember this: Truth is not a temple. It is not a throne. It is not a name carved in gold. It is a question carried in the soul until it becomes a light. Follow that light—not blindly, but bravely’.

'Are you a prophet?' Asked an elderly woman.

'I am no prophet, but a messenger of To Ena. A man made of flesh and bones, like all of you. That is all. Do not worship me, but heed the words that I profess. I say this not because I fear for my life, but because the truth will set you free'.

He stepped down from the speaking stone.

That night, for the first time in days, stars broke through the clouds above Corinth.

Somewhere in the shadows, someone watched with silence in their eyes and steel at their side.

The moon hung low over Corinth, a pale disc veiled in wisps of drifting cloud. In the sanctuary grove, where broken columns formed a half-circle beneath the olive branches, a group of eight sat in silence around a small fire. Its flame crackled gently, casting flickers of gold upon their thoughtful faces.

Aristodemos stood slightly apart, leaning against a stone lion worn soft by centuries of rain. His robe was plain, earth-coloured, and his sandals were caked in the dust of the path. He looked not like a prophet, nor a sage, but simply a man aware of what he must leave behind.

His eyes passed over each of them—Agape, physician and scribe; Theokharis, the stonemason; Kallianeira, a widow and dreamer; Kleon, a potter with calloused hands; and others who had braved whispers and warnings to sit with him once more.

He stepped forth. ‘This may be the last night I speak amongst you’.

The fire crackled. Agape straightened slightly. Theokharis looked down.

Aristodemos did not falter. ‘I say this not in fear, but in truth. Not all things come with trumpet or omen. Some endings are known not by signs, but by silence’.

‘You don’t have to remain in Corinth,’ said Kleon, his voice tight. ‘We can help you—hide you. There are several caves beyond the Isthmus—’

‘No,’ Aristodemos said softly, raising a hand. ‘To flee now would be to deny what I have lived. We do not run from the truth, even when it comes in the shape of death’.

He knelt by the fire, placing a small clay jar beside it. Its seal bore the mark of a circle within a circle—To Ena.

‘In this jar are six of the scrolls I have written. Others are hidden in the catacombs beneath the ruined temple. Some I have entrusted already to others who are not with us tonight, but you—’ he looked to each of them—‘you will be the guardians’.

Agape reached towards the jar but did not touch it.

‘What if they’re found?’

‘Then so be it. The truth does not beg for safety, but it deserves witness’, Aristodemos said.

'People will think of you as a martyr', Agape said.

'No, I am only a witness of To Ena'.

He paused, his eyes glinting with the firelight.

‘I have written not to resist the Church, but to restore the soul. These scrolls do not scream. They do not threaten. They reveal, and that is what makes them dangerous—not to the people, but to the order that fears a people awakened’.

Kallianeira, her hands folded in her lap, asked softly, ‘What shall we do, if they come for us too?’

‘Live. Live with consciousness. Live with care. Speak only when the soul is full, but preserve. Not just the scrolls, but the thought behind them. Do not let my words become relics. Let them become reminders. Let my death not be in vain, Aristodemos answered.

He turned his gaze upwards, to where the moon slipped behind a dark cloud.

‘Tomorrow, or the day after, a man will come. Perhaps two. They will not wear the robes of bishops or the insignia of soldiers. They will be quiet, as fear often is. One may carry a blade. The other, only silence’.

‘You speak of it as if it were already written,’ Theokharis said.

‘It is. Not by fate—but by pattern. Men of power fear what they cannot control. The moment one speaks against divinity not as law, but as awareness, the world turns its back. It has always been so’, Aristodemos replied.

He stood and walked slowly to the olive tree at the edge of the grove. Its roots emerged from the soil like sleeping serpents. He placed a hand on its bark.

‘To Ena is not watching. It does not intervene. It does not prevent. It does not protect. It simply is. The breath before the word. The sea before the tide. My death will not disturb it, but your memory will carry it forth.’

He returned to the fire and crouched beside it. ‘I am not a prophet. I do not claim revelation. I am a man who listened deeply, and what I heard was this: Jesus was not to be adored, but understood. He was the mirror, not the monarch. The Logos lived in him—but it lives in all of us. I have only tried to hold up that mirror again’.

Kleon’s voice broke the stillness. ‘Do you believe the Church can ever change?’

Aristodemos answered without delay. ‘Perhaps in the future, but not soon. Not whilst its roots are sunk in gold and fear. The Church has forgotten its own beginning. The moment it raised a man to heaven and demanded we kneel, it forgot that heaven is nothing more than a place that people yearn for than exists. We already have a heaven in the cosmos'.

Agape finally lifted the jar, holding it in both hands. ‘We shall protect this. Even if we must bury it in the earth or carry it across the sea’.

‘Good, but remember, the scrolls are only vessels. If they are lost, the truth remains—in the rhythm of thought, in the clarity of the soul. In you', Aristodemos replied.

They sat in silence for some time, the fire growing low. Someone began humming—an old melody, half-forgotten, without words. Aristodemos closed his eyes.

For a brief moment, he allowed himself grief—not for himself, but for a world that continued to choose myth over meaning. Yet he did not dwell there.

He stood once more as he raised his glass of wine to honour those companions that were close to him.

‘One day, when the empire is dust and the thrones are empty, someone will find these words. Perhaps they will not know my name. That is well. I am not the message. I am only the messenger. Let us drink not as immortals, but as mortals'.

He turned, one last time, to face his companions.

‘When I am gone, do not mourn me with sorrow. Honour me by seeking. By questioning. By remembering. If I have given anything worth keeping, let it be the courage to look inwards. That is the first step of the path, and the path is all we have in this world.’

With that, he left the grove, walking into the night alone—his shadow long behind him, cast not by the fire, but by the quiet certainty of what he had already become.

It came on a quiet dusk. Aristodemos sat outside of his small stone house, just beyond the sanctuary wall. A single oil lamp flickered beside him. He was pondering his final thought: ‘To Ena is not something to believe. It is something to become’.

A stranger who wore a traveller’s cloak approach, but no dust upon it. His eyes were narrow. His hand gripped something beneath the cloth.

‘You are Aristodemos?’

‘You already know that.’

The man drew a blade—short, simple, sharp.

‘I bring peace. The bishop sends his regards’.

Aristodemos did not step back. Instead, he placed his hand on his chest.

‘Peace does not come from silence. Do what you have come to do’, he said.

‘Die with your peace’.

The blade pierced cleanly. Aristodemos fell with grace, not fear. His eyes remained open as he dropped beside the table.

Blood soaked the scroll.

Agape arrived the next morning. She had dreamt of stillness—too still. She knew.

When she saw him, she wept, but did not collapse. She gathered every scroll she could find—many untouched, hidden in alcoves, some beneath the floorboards. She fled before noon.

Over the years, she travelled—first to the hills of Arcadia, then by ship to the caves of Cappadocia, where early seekers of Meletic thought had once lived in silence. There, she copied the scrolls by hand onto linen and wax.

She spoke to no bishops. She taught no sermons. She simply remembered. She also remembered the memory of Aristodemos.

Time buried Corinth. Empires rose, then fractured. The Church endured—but so did questions.

In 1173, beneath a collapsing monastery wall near the old sanctuary of Athena in Corinth, a mason uncovered a jar sealed with wax. Inside were writings in ancient Greek. A local priest dismissed them as pagan nonsense.

A monk named Matthaios, versed in philosophy, read the words aloud: ‘The divine is not separate. It is within. If Christ bore light, it is because we do also’.

He copied the scroll and hid it again.

In 1502, a Florentine humanist discovered fragments in a ruined Cappadocian cave. He published them in secret, attributing them to an unnamed Greek sage of the fourth century.

By the 18th century, Aristodemos’—name began to surface in scholarly whispers. His message, once called heresy, was now called insight.

In a university in modern-day Greece, a young scholar named Eleni turned a page in an old library.

The manuscript was faded, but intact. The author: Aristodemos of Corinth.

She read the line slowly: ‘The Church thought they buried me, but I am not stone. I am seed’.

Eleni whispered aloud: ‘To Ena… the One… not god, but origin’.

She closed her eyes. It was not blasphemy. It was remembrance.

Aristodemos had never sought followers. He had not claimed prophecy. He only asked that people remember what they already knew. He was the last true philosopher of Meleticism, who was silenced by the Church of Rome.

That truth cannot be silenced—only delayed.

When it returns, it speaks not in thunder, but in thought. Not in conquest, but in consciousness.

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