Hero ( Heron ) of Alexandria created all kinds of strange and wonderful mechanical gadgets and steam engines, which both entertained the royals and confounded the faithful in the temples, making him the most famous and successful scientist and engineer of the first century. The heritage of Hero is mysterious. Although he was originally from Alexandria, Egypt, Carl Boyer, a writer of science and mathematics, claims that Hero had Parthian and Greek influences.

The time of Hero’s life and work is also unknown but ingredients from Columella, a Roman forager, demonstrate that he was dead in Advertising 62. The current consensus is that Hero was born between 10 and 20 Advertising and passed away between 70 and 100 AD. Hero is known to have been resident in Alexandria, Egypt, and probably studied at the great Mouseion ( or Musaeum ), the Temple of the Muses. The Mouseion was more of a school, a hub for research and education, including the Great Library of Alexandria, than it would have been a museum or temple as we would have it to say.

In addition to making machines for the temples, Hero also designed and made a host of wonderful machines from automatic doors ( operated by lighting a fire on the altar ), to slot machines, life-sized robots, mechanical singing birds, self-trimming wicks for lamps, an odometer or distance-measuring device, the mechanism for a siphoned flushing toilet, and a highly effective fire engine. The horse’s head remained firmly but mysteriously fixed to its body, making the mechanical equivalent of a woman being split in half. The sword did n’t cut through the neck of a mechanical horse, though. Like was this ability and innovation that he was known as Michanikos, the’ System Man’.

In brief, Hero was the Leonardo da Vinci of his day, a person whose skill and knowledge spanned the several sciences and whose perception outperformed the best brains of his time. Like Leonardo, Hero was ages, if no millennia, ahead of his time, a person who could have ushered in the Industrial Revolution during the first century AD, some sixteen ages before it really happened. Here we have a impressive person, a person whose deeds had completely enthral and enthral the people. But, like Leonardo, the elite and the church were able to apprehend this trait because this man had the ability to persuade the common individuals that lord was actually present in a temple; how else could these symbols and animals move and speak?

Therefore, it is entirely possible that a new religion of Judaism used one of Hero of Alexandria’s inventions in the first century, and this cunning invention gained notoriety in after times and millennia. And we can be pretty certain that this did indeed happen, because among Hero’s some contraptions designed for entertainment, he created many unique trick jars and jugs that, through clever inside compartments, plumbing, siphons and air-holes, a magician may alternate between the pouring of water or wine from the same vessel. In Hero’s treatise on pipes, entitled” A Vessel from which Wine or Water may be made to flow, independently or mixed,” an original profile and picture of this system are available.

The Hero of Alexandria” steam engine” from the 1st century AD. ( Public Domain )

However, we find a explanation of this exact same thing being used to satisfy the Jesus home in the Gospel of John:

Jesus said unto them,’ Fill the water-pots with fluids.’ And they stuffed them to the full. And he said unto them,’ Draw out then, and get it to the government of the dinner.’ And they accepted it. When the emperor of the dinner had tasted the wine, the servants who drew the waters were aware of where it was coming from. The government of the feast called the groom… and said… you have kept the great wines until now. ( John 2: 10 )

Fig 2. The trick ‘water to wine’ jug made by Hero of Alexandria in the 1  st century AD. (author provided)

Although it is said that this is one of the greatest miracles that happened, it is very possible that it was merely a mechanical system based on the syphon’s rule. And Hero himself has provided a detailed account of how to use and design this same system. Hero’s guidance state:

” A pot can become made… in such a way that, when wine and water are poured into it, it may transfer at one time natural water, at another time pure wine, and, suddenly, a mixture of the two
We may… put out wine for some, wines and water for another, and bare water for those whom we wish to laughter with”. 1

Does this description sound familiar? Hero built these magical jars and jugs to entertain the aristocracy: it was simply a jest, an entertaining party-piece for the host of a party. However, it is likely that the Catholic Church has incorporated a description of this well-known party trick as the foundation of this new belief system.

This article was extracted with permission from the book ‘ King Jesus, Prince of Judaea and Rome’ by Ralph Ellis, available from edfu-books .com

Notes:

 

Top image: The wedding at Cana, by Carl Heinrich Bloch. The wine jars here should be made of metal, and of Hero of Alexandria’s cunning design. Source: Public Domain

By Ralph Ellis