Q: Pliny, who usually related popular rumors, in his tenth book wrote the phoenix bird at 770 died and was reborn, taking its own ashes with it. Let’s leave the question of 770 years alone. It can be a symbolic number, a time interval, or a deadline, but the bird carries its own ashes. We can deduce the ashes contain something important for the newborn phoenix…

The legend of the phoenix is also taken up by Ovid. The Octavian Augustus’ librarian, says that every living being has its origin in others. The only one to be born by reproducing itself is a bird that the Assyrians call phoenix. Rising from the ashes of its father… you know, not of itself, but its father. As you are your father’s son, you are not your younger father. You belong to the same family, but you are different, and, like all children, you only have some similarity to your father. A different phoenix is always born from the ashes, never the same phoenix that has died. Can one be reborn from one’s ashes? But it’s not the same person anymore. We are someone else, even a new plant that grows from a seed is not the same old plant. It’s a different plant. But Ovid also tells us that the new phoenix faithfully takes with it the cradle, the sepulcher of its father. It resembles the story of the ancestor gods, whose name is unknown even to Zeus, and known only to the scribes.

Question 1

Pliny, who usually related popular rumors, in his tenth book wrote the phoenix bird at 770 died and was reborn, taking its own ashes with it. Let’s leave the question of 770 years alone. It can be a symbolic number, a time interval, or a deadline, but the bird carries its own ashes. We can deduce the ashes contain something important for the newborn phoenix…

Accepted Answer

The legend of the phoenix is ​​also taken up by Ovid. The Octavian Augustus’ librarian, says that every living being has its origin in others. The only one to be born by reproducing itself is a bird that the Assyrians call phoenix. Rising from the ashes of its father… you know, not of itself, but its father. As you are your father’s son, you are not your younger father. You belong to the same family, but you are different, and, like all children, you only have some similarity to your father. A different phoenix is always born from the ashes, never the same phoenix that has died. Can one be reborn from one’s ashes? But it’s not the same person anymore. We are someone else, even a new plant that grows from a seed is not the same old plant. It’s a different plant. But Ovid also tells us that the new phoenix faithfully takes with it the cradle, the sepulcher of its father. It resembles the story of the ancestor gods, whose name is unknown even to Zeus, and known only to the scribes.

Question 2

Hyginus in his fables tells us the gods resurrected Aesculapius under the name of Asclepius...

Accepted Answer

Too bad that Asclepius has only some analogy with Aesculapius. So it’s not the same person anymore. Asclepius is not Aesculapius. But it only has some similarities with him.

Question 3

“Alchemists know that metals killed in a certain way can germinate again as their forms endure over time in the materials that had made their graves”.

Accepted Answer

X

Question 4

That the reborn, or son, has only analogies with the "father" is, I believe, acceptable even for a layperson, however, the fact of resemblance seems to me to be a miraculous event. Therefore the ashes are not generic waste.

Accepted Answer

The ashes have a special signature. But we must be careful that we are not mixed with anything heterogeneous.

Phoenix and Son of Phoenix, Reference Points for a Signature

Hyginus in his fables tells us the gods resurrected Aesculapius under the name of Asclepius…

“Alchemists know that metals killed in a certain way can germinate again as their forms endure over time in the materials that had made their graves”.

That the reborn, or son, has only analogies with the “father” is, I believe, acceptable even for a layperson, however, the fact of resemblance seems to me to be a miraculous event. Therefore the ashes are not generic waste.