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Codex Aerarius: Revelations from a sacred (or possibly sacred) codex of great antiquity, discovered in the back room of a pious coin and stamp dealer. With a commentary by the Penny Priestess.
Fragment 1
Fragment 2
Fragment 3
Fragment 4
Commentary
As a consequence of the water-stained and mouse-gnawed condition of the original, this fascinating codex is studded with lacunae, very obviously in fragment 4, where a major portion of the text has been lost.
The damage has regrettably made many surviving portions difficult to decipher and transcribe. The unusual dialect of the original—a Greco-Latin polyglot dating roughly from the beginning of the 3rd century of the modern era that intriguingly includes a few Avedic and Sanskrit terms—suggests a long history of oral transmission predating the written codex. Alternatively, the more ancient words may have been consciously introduced as a means for concealing the mystic names of the God from the uninitiated and from hostile authorities. (We must not forget that the early Tokenites, as we may call them, were savagely persecuted by both the Romans and the Christians.) And at one point it is cross-hatched with sums, either by some doodling coin dealer trying to work out his accounts, or by a mystic-economist attempting to calculate the precise date of the prophesied apocalypse. Yet the portions that do survive offer intriguing glimpses into the early worship of our Penny God. These apocalyptic fragments identify Token as an emissary or harbinger of the offended earth god (“one mightier than the Token”), who seeks to bring humankind into a repentant awareness of how they have despoiled and polluted their habitat and to thus forestall the threatened apocalypse.
[1] Token -- the Avedic word daxshtem is used throughout, egregiously mistranslated by Bablemacher in his commentary on the codex as “sign,” although its literal sense is “thought, reflection” and the context suggests it is a proper name. This is surely the earliest epithet given to the Penny God. It is a word with a rich heritage, as the related Sanskrit word dyana came to mean a form of meditation. In the protoGermanic languages, the D becomes a T, evolving to tacn (Old English), takn (Old Norse), and from thence comes our modern word Token. If we wonder why so little writing survives from the ancient world to attest to the presence of the Penny God, the persistent mistranslation of the proper name “Token” as the common noun “sign”—e.g., “sign from heaven”—suggests that many ancient scriptures bear witness to the Penny God, but ignorant, if not frankly malicious, mistranslations have almost entirely effaced the evidence of his veneration in the ancient world. To escape the vengeful sky god Jove, the Penny God travels upon the earth in many guises—as a crippled wanderer, a mischievous child, a copper coin slipping from pocket to pocket. Just so he hides himself in scriptures and books, slipping in and out of the pages, rolling and spinning on his shimmering edge throughout both literature and history. He leaves his traces as puns, apparent typos, obscure witticisms, and, most of all, references to pennies, to luck or chance, or to “a sign” (Token) from heaven.
[2] "μικρος" — A mite, a low value Judean bronze coin (equivalent to a half-prutah) dating roughly from 100 BC to 200 AD; mistranslated by Bablemacher as “a small child.”
[3] "Ex nummo crescet numinem" — A phrase of great beauty, which, incidentally, allows us to confidently date the codex as originating during the reign of Diocletian, when the copper nummus (one of the earliest pennies in the sense of a copper coin of low value) was issued.
[4] "λεπτον" — A lepton, Greek word for a coin of trifling value.
[5] "πλαστικη υλη και απορριματα" — Although “here be dragons” as in other, rather better known, apocalyptic writings, the author shows a startlingly modern, truly prophetic conception of the cataclysmic event as an environmental disaster precipitated by overconsumption and unrestrained market capitalism.
[6] The unknown apocalyptic author here celebrates an anticipated return to the innocent bronze age inaugurated by Token, resulting from a worldwide environmental/economic crash, after which the copper penny is exalted in value, so that the proud and arrogant who would not stoop for a penny (“the fallen penny, trodden upon by the worldly ...”) shall all perish in the great cataclysm.
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