John
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Marble Roman sarcophagus depicting the Triumph of Bacchus returning from India. The top course shows Dionysus’s birth from the thigh of Zeus.
Below: Birth of the Buddha, Kushan period. Gandhara, probably Takht-i-Bahi. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Many have noticed the similarities between Bacchus and Buddha, Buddha and Christ, and Bacchus and Christ. The images of the trio are like that of the Three Hares of the Silk Road, sharing components as they endlessly circle each other.
Left: 2nd century Roman statue of Dionysus leaning on a herme, after a Hellenistic model (ex-coll. Cardinal Richelieu, Louvre)
Dionysus or Dionysos is the ancient Greek god of wine, the god who inspires ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology. Dionysus was a god of resurrection.
He was also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the Romans. (In Greek “both votary and god are called Bacchus.” Burkert, Greek Religion 1985:162, noting, for the initiate, Euripides, Bacchantes 491, for the god, who alone is Dionysus, Sophocles Oedipus the King 211 and Euripides Hippolytus 560.)
Scholars have discussed Dionysus’ relationship to the “cult of the souls” and his ability to preside over communication between the living and the dead. (Riu, Xavier, Dionysism and Comedy, Chapter 4, Happiness and the Dead, p.105, “Dionysus presides over communications with the Dead”.)
In Greek mythology, Dionysus is made out to be a son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. Dionysus was born on Mount Pramnos in the island of Ikaria, where Zeus went to release the fully-grown baby from his thigh.
Dionysus is a god of mystery religious rites. In the Thracian mysteries, he wears the bassaris or fox-skin, symbolizing new life.
The Dionysia and Lenaia festivals in Athens were dedicated to Dionysus. Initiates worshipped him in the Dionysian Mysteries, which were comparable to and linked with the Orphic Mysteries, and may have influenced Gnosticism[citation needed]. Orpheus was said to have invented the Mysteries of Dionysus. (Apollodorus (Pseudo Apollodorus), Library and Epitome, 1.3.2. “Orpheus also invented the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been torn in pieces by the Maenads he is buried in Pieria.”)
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Wheel of Konark Sun Temple in Orissa, India Later tradition and legend characterized the Buddha’s father, King Suddhodana as the descendant of the Solar Dynasty of Ikshvaku, in the Vedic civilisation of ancient India. Aspects of this story may have been borrowed from Hindu texts, such as the account of the birth of Indra from the Rig Veda. The story may also have Hellenic influences. For a time after Alexander the Great conquered central Asia in 334 BCE, there was considerable intermingling of Buddhism with Hellenic art and ideas. There also is speculation that the story of the Buddha’s birth was “improved” after Buddhist traders returned from the Middle East with stories of the birth of Jesus. |
Introduced into Rome (c. 200 BCE), the bacchanalia were held in secret and attended by women only, in the grove of Simila, near the Aventine Hill, on March 16 and 17. Subsequently, admission to the rites were extended to men and celebrations took place five times a month. The notoriety of these festivals led to a decree by the Senate in 186 BCE — inscribed on a bronze tablet discovered in Calabria — by which the Bacchanalia were prohibited throughout all Italy except in special cases that required specific approval by the Senate.
Parallels between Dionysus and Christ can be traced to Friedrich Hölderlin, whose identification of Dionysus with Christ is most explicit in Brod und Wein (1800–1801) and Der Einzige (1801–1803). (The mid-19th century debates are traced in G.S. Williamson, The Longing for Myth in Germany, 2004.)
Modern scholars such as Martin Hengel, Barry Powell, and Peter Wick, among others, argue that Dionysian religion and Christianity have notable parallels. (Studies in Early Christology, by Martin Hengel, 2005, p.331; Powell, Barry B., Classical Myth Second ed. With new translations of ancient texts by Herbert M. Howe. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1998.; Wick, Peter (2004). “Jesus gegen Dionysos? Ein Beitrag zur Kontextualisierung des Johannesevangeliums”. Biblica (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute) 85 (2): 179–198.)
They point to the symbolism of wine and the importance it held in the mythology surrounding both Dionysus and Jesus. (Pausanias, Description of Greece 6. 26. 1 – 2; Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 2. 34a)
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Good shepherd, Chi-Rho, swastika, anchor, fish, and ichthus from Catacombs of St. Sebastian, Rome There are many parallels between Dionysus and Christ: both were said to have been born from a mortal woman but fathered by a god, to have returned from the dead, and to have transformed water into wine. The modern scholar Barry Powell also argues that Christian notions of eating and drinking “the flesh” and “blood” of Jesus was influenced by the cult of Dionysus. It is also possible these similarities between Christianity and Dionysiac religion are all only representations of the same common religious archetypes. According to Martin A. Larson in The Story of Christian Origins (1977), Osiris was the first savior, and all soteriology in the region borrowed this religion, directly and indirectly, including Mithraism and Christianity, from an Osirian-Dionysian influence. As with their common dying and resurrected saviors, they all share common sacraments, ostensibly grounded in their reliance on seasonal cereal agriculture, having adopted the rituals with the food itself. Larson notes that Herodotus uses the names Osiris and Dionysus interchangeably and Plutarch identifies them as the same, while the name was anciently thought to originate from the place Nysa, in Egypt. |
Some scholars argue that both Dionysus and Jesus represent the dying-god mythological archetype. (Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion, 1985 pp. 64, 132)
Other elements, such as the celebration by a ritual meal of bread and wine, also have parallels. (Powell, Barry B., Classical Myth Second ed. With new translations of ancient texts by Herbert M. Howe. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1998.)
Powell, in particular, argues precursors to the Christian notion of transubstantiation can be found in Dionysian religion.
Dionysus has changed appearances over the centuries many times over, yet one attribute has been consistent time and time again: his dominion over the vine. Dionysus provides the sweet grapes and the intoxicating wines of the Earth; in fact, Dionysus IS the wine. It should then follow suit that if Dionysus IS the wine and the grapes, he is also of the and IS the Eartha doctrine which is also seen in Christian beliefs of the Eucharist as the body of Christ and the wine as his blood. Similarly, worshippers of Dionysus offered libations of wine, usually in a goblet or dish, in reverence of the god for fertility and bountiful harvest; a ritual which today is a part of both Christian and Catholic mass.
– Parallels of Christianity: Paganism, and the Modern World: Bacchus
In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche contrasted Dionysus with the god Apollo as a symbol of the fundamental, unrestrained aesthetic principle of force, music, and intoxication versus the principle of sight, form, and beauty represented by the latter.
Right: 2nd century CE Roman statue of Apollo depicting the god’s attributes—the lyre and the snake Python. God of music, poetry, plague, oracles, medicine.
There are generally two broad opinions on the origins of Apollo: one derives him from the East, the other connects him to the Dorians and their apellai (cf. also the month Apellaios). (Fritz Graf, Apollo, p. 104-113)
Homer pictures him on the side of the Trojans, against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War and he has close affiliations with a Luwian deity, Apaliunas, who in turn seems to have traveled west from further east.
The Late Bronze Age (from 1700–1200 BCE) Hittite and Hurrian Aplu, like the Homeric Apollo, was a god of plagues, and resembles the mouse god Apollo Smintheus. Here we have an apotropaic situation, where a god originally bringing the plague was invoked to end it, merging over time through fusion with the Mycenaean healer-god Paeon (PA-JA-WO in Linear B).
Paeon, in Homer’s Iliad, was the Greek healer of the wounded gods Ares and Hades. In other writers, the word becomes a mere epithet of Apollo in his capacity as a god of healing, but it is now known from Linear B that Paeon was originally a separate deity.
Homer illustrated Paeon the god, as well as the song both of apotropaic thanksgiving or triumph, and Hesiod also separated the two; in later poetry Paeon was invoked independently as a god of healing. It is equally difficult to separate Paeon or Paean in the sense of “healer” from Paean in the sense of “song.”
Such songs were originally addressed to Apollo, and afterwards to other gods, Dionysus, Helios, Asclepius.
About the fourth century BCE, the paean became merely a formula of adulation; its object was either to implore protection against disease and misfortune, or to offer thanks after such protection had been rendered. It was in this way that Apollo had become recognised as the god of music. Apollo’s role as the slayer of the Python led to his association with battle and victory; hence it became the Roman custom for a paean to be sung by an army on the march and before entering into battle, when a fleet left the harbour, and also after a victory had been won.
Unusually among the Olympic deities, Apollo had two cult sites that had widespread influence: Delos and Delphi.
The Roman worship of Apollo was adopted from the Greeks. Helios was increasingly identified with the god of light, Apollo. The equivalent of Helios in Roman mythology was Sol, specifically Sol Invictus.
Apollo with a radiant halo in a Roman floor mosaic, El Djem, Tunisia, late 2nd century
We know this image of Apollo, of course, from Helios; and we can recognise him as Alexander the Great as Helios. See also: Helios and Selene in Alexandria on the Oxus.
Hellenistic cultures in different locations – including both Greco-Roman and Greco-Indian – and periods, each interpreted Helios as a divine man in their own manner.
Bacchanalian scene, representing the harvest of wine grapes and a drunken Dionysos, Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, 1st-2nd century CE.
Among the earliest and most celebrated Christian martyrs, originally commemorated in the Eastern and Western churches, are Saints Sergius and Bacchus.
According to their hagiography, Sergius and Bacchus were officers in Caesar Galerius Maximianus’s army, and were held high in his favour until they were exposed as secret Christians. They were then severely punished, with Bacchus dying during torture, and Sergius eventually beheaded.
Left: Floor Plan of the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Abu Serga), a 4th century church and today is considered to be the oldest of Cairo’s Christian churches. It is traditionally believed to have been built on the spot where the Holy Family, Joseph, Mary and the infant Christ, rested at the end of their journey into Egypt. Many patriarchs of the Coptic Church were elected here: the first was Patriarch Isaac (681-692). It is the episcopal church of Cairo, and it was the episcopal See of Misr (the district of Old Cairo) that replaced the former See of Babylon. The church is considered to be a model of the early Coptic churches and its basilican style is easily recognisable, resembling religious structures in Constantinople and Rome. It has two aisles with a western return aisle (a passage at the west end of the church), along with a tripartite sanctuary that measures 17 x 27 meters and is 15 meters high. Within the sanctuary is an altar surmounted by a wooden canopy supported by four pillars. On the east wall of the sanctuary rises a fine, semi-circular tribune with seven steps. There was probably a khurus, a transverse room preceding the sanctuary, in front of the sanctuary but which no longer exists.
There is no firm evidence for Sergius and Bacchus’ scholae palatinae having been used by Galerius or any other emperor before Constantine I.
The saints’ story is told in the Greek text known as The Passion of Sergius and Bacchus. The Passion, replete with supernatural occurrences and historical anachronisms, has been dismissed as a reliable historical source. (Woods, David (2000). “The Origin of the Cult of SS. Sergius and Bacchus”. From The Military Martyrs.)
Helios was sometimes referred to with the epithet Helios Panoptes (“the all-seeing”) and perhaps we will see later how this relates to the office of episkopos, the Persian and Greek “king’s eye”, the Roman office of hostage-holder and the Christian office of bishop.
This series of posts has spanned from Alexander the Great to Alexander Lysimachus and across the many Alexandrian cities from Egypt, into the eastern satrapies of Persia, as far as the Indus, and across seven or more centuries of cultural tradition. Yet, the major changes – as evidenced by the appearance of divine men – take place in a much tighter time frame and geography.
Despite the traditions (Eastern and Western), the archaeology of these divine men begins in the last century of the last era at the very earliest. If one takes a conservative view, then we must move forward into the first century – and maybe even the second – of this era.
We have identified kings as the prime movers and an occasional assistant, such as Agesilas, who oversaw work at Kanishka’s stupas, and the monk, Lokaksema. We must not ignore, however, those of ambition, such as the Lysimachus, who have pretensions to royalty. Kings or pretenders, these are dynasties vying for power across the Greco-Roman world and over centuries.
These contenders for power, using trade (taxation) and faith (organised state religion) as their means, become the priest-kings of Antiquity. We shall have a lot more to do with them.
PDF Related posts:
- Helios
- Helios and Selene in Alexandria on the Oxus
- Archaeology of a magical, distant land
- Alexander the Great as Helios
- Hadrian’s perverted insanity
- The message of Alexander the Great
- Hadrian’s parody
- Chrest Magus
- The Loss of Reason
- The Gordion Knot of Classical Antiquity
- Chrestians and the lost history of Classical Antiquity
- The Zen of Buddhist archaeology: earliest texts
- The Sun of righteousness
- Archaeology of faith and trade
- Archaeology and identity of the first Buddhists
There has been much discussion, over the years, of how Christian rituals – traditionally originating from the secrecy of Roman catacombs – derive from bacchanalia in the same places and period.
The Catacomb of Priscilla on the Via Salaria in Rome, Italy, is situated in what was a quarry in Roman times. This quarry was used for Christian burials from the late second century through the fourth century. Some of the walls and ceilings display fine decorations illustrating Biblical scenes. The Catacombs of Priscilla are believed to be named after Priscilla, a member of the gens Acilia and who was probably the wife of the Consul Acilius who became a Christian and was killed on the orders of Domitian.
New research has begun to suggest that the scenes traditionally interpreted as the deuterocanonical story of Susannah (Dn 13) may actually be scenes from the life of a prestigious Christian woman of the second century CE.(Nicola Denzey, The Bone Gatherers: The Lost Worlds of Early Christian Women,Boston: Beacon Press 2007)
Is this the Priscilla associated in the New Testament with Aquila?
Acts 18:2-3: There he (Paul) met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.
Acts 18:18: Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.
Acts 18:19: They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila.
Acts 18:26: He (Apollos) began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.
Romans 16:3-4: Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.
1 Corinthians 16:19: The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house.
2 Timothy 4:19: Greet Priscilla and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus.
We have an historical Aquila of Pontus related to the Emperor Hadrian:
And he took the Aquila mentioned above, who was a Greek interpreter. Now Aquila was related to the emperor by marriage and was from Sinope in Pontus. Hadrian established him there in Jerusalem as overseer if the work of building the city.
- Epiphanius, On weights and measures 14-15
This real Aquila of Pontus is truly remarkable:
Marcion had travelled to Rome about 142–143. (Tertullian dates the beginning of Marcion’s teachings 115 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, which he placed in 26–27 (Adversus Marcionem, xix).) He created a strong ecclesiastical organisation resembling the Church of Rome, appointing himself as bishop. Or is that just an episkopos?
So: Helios the Greek sun god is Dionysus, Apollo, Buddha and Bacchus. Also the image of Alexander the Great, who was venerated as a god alongside other divine men. This same image became that of Christ.
This happened across the Greco-Roman world, because of the conquests of Alexander and the resultant Hellenisation, from India to Judea and Egypt.
The period for this was not, as supposed previously, from the 6th century BCE, but in the time of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, and into the 1st two centuries of this era.
The rationale for this was political power, with an moral base of ‘good governance’ as set by Diodotus I, based on Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great.
The means was state control of money, through tax on trade, and faith, through the establishment of a state religion managed by episkopos.
The leaders in this were the successors of Alexander the Great – the Seleucids and Ptolemies (not forgetting the Lysimachus descendants), and the rulers of Greco-India, who began as satraps, who were overtaken by invaders who became Hellenised.
The places where this happened were, broadly, the Alexandrian cities and within them, the new temples – synagogues and monateries. Later, there were churches.
I take it we will see how these faiths developed?
That’s a fair summary of where we are, Sovereign.
I would add that the link to Christ is strong and in time, perhaps we will add Khrisna, in face of the opposition offered by scholars to date.
Mamallapuram
The relief contained in the Krishna Mandapa was carved in the mid-7th century. Its subject is Krishna Govardhana, in which Krishna lifts up the mountain to shelter his followers from a storm. The columns in the foreground are a later addition.
As with a lot of indian archaeology, the dates for this deity are all over the place and in my opinion, unreliable.
The connection with christ is usually dismissed with the linguistic argument, that the two names are unrelated, but – again, in my opinion – this carries little weight, for a number of reasons.
The Sanskrit word kṛṣṇa means “black”, “dark” or “dark-blue” and is used as a name to describe someone with dark skin. Krishna is often depicted in murtis (images) as black, and is generally shown in paintings with a blue skin.
Is Sanskrit the original language? Can we be sure black means black skin? Could there be other meanings, mythologies and implications?
Mahabharata’s Udyoga-parva (Mbh 5.71.4) divides kṛṣṇa into elements kṛṣ and ṇa, kṛṣ (a verbal root meaning “to plough, drag”) being taken as expressing bhū “being; earth” and ṇa being taken as expressing nirvṛti “bliss”. In the Brahmasambandha mantra of the Vallabha sampradaya, the syllables of the name Krishna are assigned the power to destroy sin relating to material, self and divine causes. Mahabharata verse 5.71.4 is also quoted in Chaitanya Charitamrita and Prabhupada in his commentary, translates the bhū as “attractive existence”, thus Krishna is also interpreted as meaning “all-attractive one”. This quality of Krishna is stated in the atmarama verse of Bhagavatam 1.7.10.
So much for the facile linguistic dismissal.
The earliest text to explicitly provide detailed descriptions of Krishna as a personality is the epic Mahābhārata which depicts Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu.
The best, earliest date range I know for the Mahābhārata is 200 BCE – 400 CE. This is Greco-Indian and links us to all the Alexnadrias, right to Egypt and the great Library there.
Most of these divine men are not historical figures. When there is such a historical figure, as with Alexander the Great, we find very little fact and all overwhelmed by myth and legend. Was there a Jesus? Perhaps the high priest who was disposed of in short order, but not the 2nd-century biblical character now called Christ.
Dating these figures is very, very difficult. Drawing parallels is therefore also problematic.
For now, I think it best to say they are drawn on Helios.
Russian president asked to investigate alien claims
Richard Galpin
BBC News, Moscow
A Russian MP has asked President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate claims by a regional president that he has met aliens on board a spaceship.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the southern region of Kalmykia, made his claim in a television interview.
He has made this republic famous for two things: Buddhism and chess.
First, let’s admit, Ilyumzhinov is as mad as a March hare.
After his re-election in 1995, Ilyumzhinov reportedly told a journalist from the Russian daily Izvestia, “Irrespective of what I tell people, I give them instructions on a sub-conscious level, a code. I do the same thing when I communicate with Russian citizens from other regions. I am creating around the republic a kind of extra-sensory field and it helps us a lot in our projects.” (“No cheque mate”. IndianExpress.com. 11 January 1998)
From November 1995 to present Ilyumzhinov has been President of the World Chess Federation, investing a large amount of his private fortune into the game. His flamboyant plans to build an extravagant Chess City in the republic led to protests by some people, but have been praised by others for generating good publicity.
The Kalmyks are the only nation of Europe whose national religion is Buddhism.
Ilyumzhinov has built 30 Buddhist temples. The Dalai Lama has visited Kirsan Ilyumzhinov on many occasions and has blessed a number of the temples in Elista, as well as Kalmyk Buddhist temples overseas.
Kalmyk political refugees opened the first Buddhist temple in Central Europe, located in Belgrade, Serbia. Their offspring relocated to the United States in late 1951 and early 1952, where they established several Kalmyk Buddhist temples in Monmouth County, New Jersey.
Geshe Wangyal, a Kalmyk Buddhist monk, established the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center and monastery in Washington, NJ.
Why chess and Buddhism? What is a Buddhist state doing on the eastern fringe of Europe?
The answer to both is the ancient trade routes between East and West. As we see on the map of these routes (left), the Republic of Kalmykia is placed on a northern branch.
The current form of the game emerged in Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from a much older game (Shatranj) of Indian origin.
Shatranj is an old form of chess, which came from India to Sassanid Persia. The word shatranj is derived from the Sanskrit chaturanga (catuḥ=”four”, anga=”arm”).
The game came to Persia from India in the early centuries of this era. The earliest Persian reference to chess is found in the Middle Persian book Karnamak-i Artaxshir-i Papakan, which was written between the 3rd to 7th century. This ancient Persian text refers to Shah Ardashir I, who ruled from 224–241, as a master of the game.
During the reign of the later Sassanid king Khosrau I (531–579), a gift from an Indian king (possibly a Maukhari Dynasty king of Kannauj) included a chess game with sixteen pieces of emerald and sixteen of ruby (green vs. red). The game came with a challenge which was successfully resolved by Khosrau’s courtiers. This incident, originally referred to in the Mâdayân î chatrang (c. 620 CE), is also mentioned in Firdausi’s Shahnama (c. 1010 CE).
The rules of Chaturanga seen in India today have enormous variation, but all involve four branches (angas) of the army: the horse, the elephant (bishop), the chariot (rook) and the foot-soldier (pawn), played on a 8×8 board. Shatranj adapted much of the same rules as Chaturanga, and also the basic 16 piece structure.