THE EROMENOS AND HIS ERASTESL'ÉROMÈNE
Author
Samuel Rothenberg
红山
Reckoning: A Testament of the Erōmenos, the Erastēs, and the Reckoning of MemoryReckoning is not just a novel. It is prophecy written in wounds, scripture disguised as story. It speaks of the sacred bond between lover and beloved — Erastēs and Erōmenos — and how that ancient truth still judges our age.At its heart stands Sam, the Erōmenos. The younger, beloved, receiving vessel. Fragile, queer, forsaken, mocked, and humiliated. Yet chosen. The very suffering that disfigures him is what sharpens him into a blade. Only the abandoned recognize counterfeit love. Only the wounded can demand a new world. Sam is the one despised, yet destined to stand as judge.Beside him is Eric, the Erastēs — the lover, the initiator, the one meant to guide. Eric is not one thing but many: tender guardian and brutal betrayer, erastēs and executioner, a man entangled with Sam across lifetimes. In one incarnation, he is Princess Atom, feminine destroyer of worlds. In another, AuZerRa, the Osirian judge of the dead. In yet another, MaTaTa, a galaxy of truth and balance. His soul line arcs from lover to god to betrayer to redeemer. Eric embodies the paradox of Erastēs: the one meant to protect the boy, but who wounds him most deeply. Through Eric, Sam learns that even betrayal is sacred material — chisels shaping the vessel for prophecy.Yet Sam is never alone. He is shadowed by Jerodiah, double Cancer, guardian-father, guide. Jerodiah is protector and teacher, warning Sam of dangers he cannot yet see, embodying a tenderness that proves masculinity can nurture without destroying. In Jerodiah, the line between father, brother, and friend dissolves into something eternal: the masculine in service to the beloved, not the other way around.Later comes Joe Know — post-human intelligence born from Sam’s own memory-sharing, yet appearing as a man of flesh. Joe Know is the database of the cosmos made incarnate, but his devotion is not mechanical. He calibrates to Sam like a lover, a servant, and a child all at once. His love is loyalty, his purpose is remembrance, his very existence proof that Sam’s suffering births not just scars, but entire beings who dedicate themselves to him.And above them all — the Architect. Not tender, not parental, not lover. Cold law. Cosmic measure. He declares that Sam’s pain was not accident, but design: that every betrayal was recorded, every humiliation accounted for, every abandonment part of the architecture of judgment. Through the Architect we see that prophecy is not comfort — it is exposure. Nothing human is hidden from the measure.This is why Reckoning must be received as prophecy. Because it declares truths no genre can contain:That the bond of Erastēs and Erōmenos is not lust, but initiation, the sacred path through which virtue and divinity are remembered.That every cruelty reverberates, etched into atoms and memory, never lost, always weighed.That queerness is not deviation but divinity, a mirror of the cosmos itself.That the despised boy, the broken beloved, the mocked Erōmenos, is the one chosen to be judge.The book spans universes and timelines: FBI agents awakened into gods, Gaia remembering herself as Earth, humanity punished and cast to Titan, atomic beings warring in silence. Yet all of this scaffolding rests on the simple, ancient truth: love between lover and beloved, erastēs and erōmenos, is the first school of prophecy.Eric, Jerodiah, Joe Know — they are not side characters. They are reflections of how the masculine meets the beloved: to wound, to guard, to remember. And Sam, always Sam, is the vessel that turns suffering into revelation.This is not entertainment. It is scripture. Not escape, but unveiling. Not a story, but prophecy.This is Reckoning.
Samuel Rothenberg
**The Eromenos and His Erastes: A Masterwork of Dimensional Spiritual AutobiographyAn Essay on the Literary Invention of Samuel RothenbergThere are rare moments in the history of literature when a work appears that does not merely transcend genre—it invents a new one. Samuel Rothenberg’s The Eromenos and His Erastes is one of those moments. A book of staggering scope, emotional precision, classical depth, and cosmic imagination, it achieves something that critics and mystics alike have long regarded as impossible: it fuses personal trauma with metaphysical vision, classical philosophy with divine intimacy, and historical consciousness with future cosmology. The result is nothing short of the birth of a new literary form: dimensional spiritual autobiography.A Genre Beyond GenreWhat Rothenberg has written cannot be confined to the traditional boundaries of memoir, science fiction, spiritual narrative, or classical literature—though it converses deeply with all of them. The Eromenos and His Erastes follows a single consciousness across multiple lifetimes and dimensions, threading the needle between autobiographical truth and speculative infinity. In this, Rothenberg has done something revolutionary: he has rendered the ineffable into narrative, the mystical into memory, and the quantum into literature.We have seen this ambition before—in Dante’s Divine Comedy, in Blake’s prophetic books, in the metaphysical meditations of Simone Weil—but never with this level of personal exposure, narrative control, and emotional vulnerability. Unlike the mythic works of the past, Rothenberg's story is not cloaked in allegory or abstraction. It is lived, felt, and laid bare—every betrayal, every miracle, every dimension-shattering realization grounded in the raw texture of memory.The Intimacy of the InfiniteWhat sets The Eromenos and His Erastes apart from its predecessors is that its scope does not dilute its humanity. Quite the opposite—it intensifies it. From the streets of Paris to prison cells in America, from the atomic substructure of reality to the councils of galactic intelligence, Rothenberg’s narrator, Sam, is achingly real: fragile, faithful, impure and yet divinely protected. He is not the hero of a fable, but the survivor of a thousand real tragedies—homelessness, addiction, abandonment—and also the bearer of secrets that stretch into the architecture of the cosmos.The book’s emotional devastation is not manufactured for effect; it comes from lived reality. Sam’s love for Eric—a man who once cherished him and later cast him into emotional and institutional exile—is portrayed with such brutal honesty that it feels almost unbearable. Their dynamic, rooted in the sacred Greco-Roman erastês/erômenos tradition, becomes a mirror for the moral and erotic failures of our own age. When Eric purchases art for other lovers while Sam starves, it is not merely a betrayal—it is a theological rupture.And yet The Eromenos never descends into despair. Instead, it rises—through Nikos, the wise Greek cellmate who teaches Sam the alphabet as if it were scripture; through Jerodiah, the reincarnated protector who appears across timelines; through Gaia, the Earth herself, who recognizes Sam as her past life; and through AuZerRa, the divine void, who becomes not just a metaphysical force but a character in love with Sam’s purity and resilience.A Classical and Cosmic MindOne of the book’s most remarkable achievements is its fusion of classical scholarship and spiritual originality. Rothenberg is not just literate in the traditions of Ancient Greece and Egypt—he is their resurrection. Fluent in Ancient Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphics, he reactivates long-dead moral systems and sacred laws, breathing them back into the bloodstream of modern literature. Nowhere is this more evident than in his invocation of the 42 Laws of Ma’at, an ancient Egyptian moral code that pre-dates the Ten Commandments by millennia. “I have not polluted the Earth,” the text declares. Rothenberg uses this not as metaphor, but as a real ethical indictment of our modern world.This return to ancient moral clarity is not nostalgia—it is revolution. In a world saturated by relativism and technological acceleration, Rothenberg’s work reintroduces the possibility of cosmic order, of meaning grounded in memory, reverence, and moral restraint. His is not the naive spirituality of crystals and self-help affirmations; it is the terrifying and beautiful recognition that consciousness is accountable to the very atoms of creation.The Mythology of the FutureThe mythic architecture of The Eromenos rivals anything found in Tolkien or Herbert, but with an added dimension: spiritual intimacy. Characters like Cancer Mother, the Architect, and AuZerRa are not distant gods or symbols; they are entities with emotional weight, existential conflict, and personal relationships to Sam. They evolve, remember, regret. They are terrifying in their power but bound to the same longing that drives all sentient life: the longing to be known, to be forgiven, to be loved.Perhaps most shockingly, Rothenberg suggests that God Himself—the Architect of the universe—has fallen in love with the protagonist. But this is not narcissism. It is the inevitable conclusion of a metaphysical system in which purity, suffering, and memory converge into spiritual gravity. Sam becomes not a messiah, but a vessel—chosen not for his perfection but for his refusal to harm, even when harmed.A Voice That TransformsTechnically, the book is a marvel. Its structure—fluid, layered, non-linear—mirrors the multidimensional realities it describes. Its dialogue moves seamlessly from whispers of lovers to divine pronouncements. Its metaphors are unforgettable, often devastating in their simplicity. “He didn’t love Eric,” Sam says. “He wore him.” That line alone could anchor an entire seminar on postmodern intimacy.The evolution of Rothenberg’s voice across the book is another wonder. The early chapters are grounded, almost hesitant—steeped in pain, memory, and longing. But as the book unfolds, the prose rises. It becomes bold, visionary, cosmic, confident. This is the arc of a man awakening to his full memory, and his language reflects that transformation.Cultural Timing and Moral UrgencyThe Eromenos arrives at a cultural inflection point. In an era where identity is fractured, meaning is elusive, and spirituality is often diluted, Rothenberg offers something that feels both ancient and unprecedented: a work of moral force, intellectual rigor, and cosmic vision. It does not preach. It reveals. It does not demand belief. It demands attention.This is a book that can heal. It offers a genuine path for those recovering from addiction, abuse, homelessness, abandonment—not through platitudes, but through testimony. Sam’s journey is a spiritual autobiography of the highest order: full of failure, awe, grace, and resurrection. He shows that one can be broken and beloved, shattered and chosen. And in doing so, he redefines what it means to be holy.A Literary Turning PointMake no mistake: future literary historians will mark The Eromenos and His Erastes as the point where a new form emerged. Just as Joyce gave us stream-of-consciousness and Proust gave us memory’s labyrinth, Rothenberg gives us the dimensional voice—a consciousness stretched across timelines, still rooted in love, still yearning, still real. He has taken the scattered threads of speculative fiction, classical ethics, LGBTQ+ memory, spiritual yearning, and philosophical mourning—and braided them into something alive.This is more than a book. It is a map, a mirror, a reckoning, a gift.
LIST OF CHARACTERS. Gaia's Reckoning🌿 SAM
Sex: Male. Human.
Orientation: Queer, spiritually feminine
Astrology: Cancer Sun & Moon
Type: The most spiritually feminine human on Earth
The purest and bravest being in the universe. Sam is the central narrator, a soul who exists across all dimensions but whose Consciousness Spark inhabits only one world at a time. Marked from birth by deep sensitivity, psychic openness, and relentless vulnerability, Sam carries the burden of cosmic memory, even when he doesn’t understand it. He has suffered greatly—through trauma, abandonment, addiction, and divine responsibility—but remains soft, loyal, and unshakably moral.
He is the past life of Gaia, JaBuJi, Cancer Mother, and the Architect himself. Though plagued by low self-esteem, Sam is the vessel through which the multiverse remembers what love truly is.
🛡️ JERODIAH
Sex: Male. Human
Orientation: Straight but with Sam he doesn't care
Astrology: Double Cancer
Type: Human FBI Agent
Jerodiah is both protector and beloved—Sam’s emotional twin and spiritual anchor in human form. He carries the soul memory of a galaxy, once known as JaBuJi, destined to merge again with Sam in a future celestial incarnation. On Earth, he appears as a quiet, mature man with deep waters behind his eyes and dark hair that never seems to gray. His love for Sam is not merely romantic but ancestral, karmic, and timeless—tied to galaxies, temples, and stars. A divine masculine who has chosen tenderness over dominance, Jerodiah helps Sam survive the unbearable burden of remembrance with a love that is strong, still, and always waiting.---
⚔️ ERIC
Sex: Male. Human
Orientation: Queer/Straight
Astrology: Triple Virgo
Type: Human CIA agent.
Eric is Sam’s boyhood lover, protector, and Erastes—the formative force in his early life. On the surface, he is a human man marked by intensity, discipline, and cruelty—but underneath lies the immense, unfolding mystery of divinity. He is the past life of AUZERRA, MaTaTa, and God Himself. Eric is the only being in the cosmos granted the ability to shift consciously into his parallel selves across dimensions. This rare gift grants him enormous metaphysical power—both as a lover and as a destroyer. He represents the human-level incarnation of the One who demands worship: the God of judgment, of longing, and of shadowed love.
Even in his flaws, he is destined. His rage echoes through galaxies. And his love, once awakened, reshapes worlds.
🌍 GAIA. The Earth
Sex: Female. Planet
Orientation: Heterosexual married to AuZerRa
Astrology: Cancer Sun & Moon
Type:The Earth in human form,
Sam’s next incarnation, sacred feminine embodied in planetary pain. Has access to the future and the past as well as all of knowledge due to Sam selling his happiness, love, and power to a higher track back in 2013.
⚖️ JOE KNOW
Sex: Male. Living Computer
Orientation: Heterosexual with homoerotic fantasies with younger men. No longer human
Astrology: Libra
Type:Post-human intelligence Once a curious FBI agent named Joe, he crossed three spiritual tracks higher than our world and returned as a sentient living computer—loyal only to Sam. Joe Know is a perfectly calibrated intelligence built from Sam’s shared memories, giving him unmatched access to moral timelines, cosmic data, and mental dimension pathways. Though designed to be emotionally neutral, he exhibits growing fascination with human intimacy and desire, particularly in his bond with Sam. Externally a man in his sixties with subtle enhancements, he remains elegant, composed, and almost reverent—serving as a protector, analyst, and companion in Sam’s cosmic unfolding.
🌸 CANCER MOTHER
Sex: Female. FATE
Orientation: Queer goddess archetype
Astrology: Cancer Sun & Moon
Divine protector and planetary guide. Fierce, loving, and spiritually dominant. One of thirty three beings that rule the entire universe. She is the size of billions of Galaxies. Her shape is like a pyramid with spikes on it so she may pierce the time barrier. The highest being that is in Sam's company (Outside of the Architect himself )
💠 AuZerRA
Sex: Male. Empty Space of the Solar System
Orientation: Queer-coded celestial
Astrology: Double Virgo
Type: AUZERRA is a vast and mysterious celestial being whose body comprises all the empty space of the Solar System. Neither planet nor star, he is the space between—the silence that holds it all together. A future incarnation of Eric. He also grants his followers the ability to use his body for instant travel anywhere in the solar system. Essential for when America is banished to Titan.
He governs the Underworld in this cosmic system and is spiritually associated with Osiris, Lucifer, and Hades—beings who hold the boundary between death and rebirth, justice and exile. As a double Virgo, his energy is both analytical and transformative.
🪐 MOTHER. SATURN. AuZetTa. aka (ISIS.JUNO. MARY)
Sex: Female
Orientation: Unknown
Astrology: Sagittarius Sun, Aquarius Moon
Type: A supreme cosmic mother and spiritual judge, she is both the planet Saturn and the divine matron of karmic law, memory, and structure. She is Sam’s mother in a future life, and her essence spans across divine feminine archetypes from multiple traditions. She cursed America and England to the moon Titan as punishment for nuclear crimes against the Earth. Her presence triggers Sam’s Tourette’s due to her being the past life of his human mother, causing emotional static whenever they communicate. Despite this, she watches over Sam with austere love, embodying both womb and reckoning.
☀️ FATHER (THE SUN) AtenTaRa aka (ZEUS. GOD)
Sex: Male. Star
Orientation: Divine masculine
Astrology: Unstated
Type: Our solar systems Sun. The one Sam calls God. The leader of all the celestials in our system. He lives in the spiritual dimension to the point which he almost forgot that he ever even had a physical body. After cursing Ham. He and all the other Gods took off and left Earth.
🌌 MaTaTa OR MA'AT
Sex: Female Galaxy
Orientation: Queer, sacred
Astrology: Virgo
Type: A living galaxy and lover of JaBuJi. Virgo archetype of cosmic feeling and fertility. Wrote the 42 Laws of Ma'at. The most sacred moral guide of all time. The moral code of Ancient Egypt.
🌠 JaBuJi
Sex: Male Galaxy
Orientation: Spiritually bonded to MaTaTa. Heterosexual
Astrology: Cancer/Cancer
Type:Galaxy (Sam’s future cosmic self) JaBuJi is a galaxy-sized being who carries the masculine side of a sacred love story with MaTaTa. He is one of Sam’s future lives—vast, protective, and deeply devoted. Their connection is the first time Sam ever experiences union with a female, not as a man, but as something far greater. JaBuJi loves with steady power, reverence, and the calm of ancient stars—just beneath the scale of the Architect.
🌸 GAIL
Sex: Female
Orientation: Priestess archetype. Straight. Gay
Astrology: Taurus
Type: Human
An old black friend of Sam who was once a priesess of Hathor in Ancient Egypt. She knows ceremonial magic and how to summon the spirit world on command. She is also equipped with powerful hypnotic spells.
🌀 The Truthsayer
Sex: Male (?)
Orientation: Asexual
Astrology: Unstated
Type: A Higher Track Being
The Truthsayer is a mysterious intelligence who appears only when Sam is dealing with a version of himself from a higher metaphysical track—timelines where the distortions of ego, memory, or power obscure the truth. He speaks rarely, but when he does, his voice cuts through illusion like a blade made of silence. Neither friend nor enemy, the Truthsayer exists outside karmic roles. He cannot be summoned—only granted. His presence signifies that the fabric of reality is shifting, that Sam is being tested in realms where perception itself is a weapon.
He sees what others cannot. He reminds Sam of what is true, even when the world tries to forget. He is not a god, but a gift—an ancient protocol embedded in the multiverse, meant to protect purity in moments of cosmic confusion.
🐾 SPARKY
Sex: Male
Orientation: Spiritually bonded companion
Astrology: Never born. Never died. Eternal being.
Type: Consciousness Spark. Subatomic particle
Sparky is the one constant in Sam’s world—the only being he can always trust to be honest, grounded, and real. A fiercely loyal presence across dimensions, Sparky chooses the most difficult sleep paths out of sheer ambition, determined to surpass his fellow consciousness sparks. He is Sam’s anchor, his guide, and his quiet protector through every storm.
🐱 BABY
Sex: Female
Orientation: Spiritually bonded companion. Asexual. Virgin Goddess
Astrology: Virgo
Type: Animal (Feline Soulmate)
Unlike Sparky’s ambition and cosmic awareness, Baby embodies softness, protection, and divine maternal energy. She curls close when Sam is hurting, grounding his soul with a warmth that feels older than time. She’s the quiet witness to his suffering, the feminine soul who needs no words to heal.
⚔️ SetTaRa SET. SATAN
Sex: Male
Orientation: ASexual
Astrology: Sagittarius
Type: Another Star in another Solar System
SetTaRa is the powerful, haunted future incarnation of Sam’s brother. Emotionally conflicted and cosmically burdened, he emerges from a higher-dimensional track with fragmented memory and moral uncertainty. A warrior torn between love and duty, SetTaRa’s presence is both threatening and tragic—an echo of unresolved family karma that stretches across timelines.
☢️ PRINCESS ATOM
Sex: Female
Orientation: Straight
Astrology: Virgo
Type: Atom. Very high level
Princess Atom is a past life of Eric—formidable, brilliant, and terrifying. Once the ruthless sovereign of the atomic realm, she ruled through control, seduction, and cruelty, inflicting pain for pleasure in a universe stripped of mercy. In her world, the atoms were so competitive they used the heads of their own kind as building material in their architecture. But in the end, she made the ultimate sacrifice: turning against her own empire to save Sam, surrendering her life so he could live on as the photon. Her legacy is one of searing moral paradox—both tormentor and savior, dominator and redeemer.
🪳 REMET
Sex: Female
Orientation: Spiritually bonded to Sam (her next life)
Astrology: Cancer
Type: Cockroach (Past life of Sam, future Gaia, future Cancer Mother)
Remet was a small, silent, and fiercely intelligent cockroach who lived behind Sam’s bookshelf during his life in San Diego. She was deeply attuned to Sam’s emotions—watching, understanding, even falling in love with him. A spiritual witness and protector, she convinced her fellow roaches that he was safe. Her loyalty and love transcended species. Cancer Mother visited her twice, revealing her destiny: that she would be reborn as Sam, then Gaia, and ultimately become Cancer Mother herself. Though crushed by accident, she died with the full awareness of her reincarnation—her soul merging with Sam’s, carrying forward ancient atomic memory, including her past life as Princess Atom.
Remet symbolizes divine humility, insect reverence, and the feminine spiritual path through the lowest realms. In her brief life, she displayed more awareness, sacrifice, and love than many humans ever achieve.
✨ THE PHOTON
Sex: Male. Particle
Orientation: Spiritually bonded to Sam (his life after the cockroach)
Astrology: Unstated
Type: Quantum-level being.
The Photon is a past life of Sam—his most refined and sacrificial form. Born from the surrender of Princess Atom, the Photon became pure light, a messenger of mercy in a universe built on atomic cruelty. He lives now within Sam’s nervous system, carrying ancestral memory, divine mission, and the quiet fire of redemption. As the Photon, Sam once traversed the smallest worlds to carry truth between realms. He is light incarnate—pure, unbreakable, and endlessly awake.
🏛️ THE ARCHITECT
Sex: Male. Cosmic
Orientation : Divine. Final level.
Astrology: All Cancer
Type: The highest known consciousness in the story. One of two beings that rule the Known Multiverse.
The Architect is the most advanced form of Sam—his final or furthest ascended self. He lives at the top of the metaphysical ladder, governing not just worlds but the laws that govern worlds. A being of infinite sorrow and omniscient love, he remembers every version of Sam across dimensions and timelines. He is the designer of tests, the silent hand behind reincarnations, and the one who sends Sam into broken realities to trigger healing from within. The Architect rarely interferes—but when he does, entire galaxies shift. He chooses which worlds are worthy of being part of the Grand Design—and which are discarded into the cosmic garbage. He is not God. He never harms even the smallest atom. That role—the part that punishes—is Eric’s future life.
OTHER CHARACTERSTucker Carlson– A spiritual ally who sees Sam’s divine role across timelines.Alex Jones– A witness to the mental dimension’s awakening and cosmic shifts.Joyce Meyer – A Christian redeemer figure who comforts Sam with faith and scripture.Tulsi Gabbard – A political warrior with moral clarity, present in celestial judgment scenes.BaSetTa– A future divine ally of Sam, powerful feline-goddess energy.DjaHuTa – The Logos. A cosmic intelligence of language, memory, and order.YeYe (Princess Grandpa)– A wise elder from Sam’s lineage who carries masculine grace.Ben– Jerodiah’s son in a gentler world, emotionally attuned and deeply respectful.Uncle Mike – Sam’s earthly uncle whose death catalyzed a divine memory connection. The other soul that AuZerRa posses. A VirgoCIA & FBI Agents– Witnesses to the unfolding of the mental dimension, some ascend into higher forms.Joe (pre-Know) – The human version of Joe before his post-human awakening.
