Dionysus and Jesus and the Simultaneous Cosmic Destruction-Creation
0 Comments | October 18, 2007 at 1:30 pm by mahud
Filed under Christianity, Biblical Mythology, Greek (Classical) Mythology, The Cosmic Mysteries
Dionysus, accompanied by his army of bacchic revellers, was accredited as the universal distributor of his own worship and the knowledge of the vine. Like Noah, he was the inventor of wine, and like Soma, he himself was the ambrosial drink poured out, everywhere releasing mankind from suffering. Below, in one of many magnificent mosaics from the House of Masks in Delos, a youthful Dionysus (He was originally depicted as a bearded man, often carrying a wine cup. From the 5th Century B.C onwards he primarily took the form of an effeminate youth.) rides on the back of a leopard (The Solar Beast), holding up a tambourine, deliberately at an angle, identifying it with the new moon of rebirth.
An Attic vase from the 5th Century B.C (below), portrays the god (or rather an effigy of the god) crowned as king, and hanging from a vertical post.
Branches of ivy sprout from his body, a circular wreath hangs from his belt, and before him stand two large vases upon a table. He is flanked by four female attendants. On the left, one holds a flaming torch pointing downwards towards the realm of death, whilst to the right of the god — who is hanging in liminal space — another holds a torch upwards towards the realm of life. Dionysus was known as Dithyrambos, ‘he of the double-door’, which may originally be a reference to the lunar double-door (the waxing and waning moons, that also correspond with the twin torch bearers).
The mother of Dionysus was Semele, one of the many mortal women from various mythical episodes to be loved and divinely impregnated by Zeus. Hera, Zeus’ wife, jealous of the affair, caused Semele to question her lover’s divinity, who then forced Zeus to fully reveal his world destroying Godhead, which, in the form of a thunderbolt (akin to the solar force of transcendent reality), reduced Semele to ashes. The child Dionysus — prematurely born in the very moment of his mother’s destruction, exposed, as she was, to the indestructible wrath-bliss, — was, it seems, caught within the temporal threshold of simultaneous birth and death, between the old cosmic-lunar cycle and the new. The new-born Dionysus was then snatched up and sown inside his father’s thigh (perhaps a euphemism for penis), to be born a second time, in the heavenly realm of the Sky-God, both eternal and indestructible.
In Euripides’ (c.484–406 B.C) Bacchae, Dionysus is arrested and brought before King Pentheus, who imprisons him in the palace stables. However, we are also told that Pentheus, blinded by the god’s concealing power, had in fact, imprisoned a bull. However, The bull is clearly the god in lunar-theriomorphic form, associated with the lunar-cosmic cycle of destruction and recreation.
Dionysus’ prison is another symbolic representation of the lunar-cosmic threshold period, between death and life, the dark period between old and new moons, the dark watery womb of the lunar-cosmic Goddess, who murders her divine consort. Hidden within the darkness of the cosmic womb is the gateway to the transcendent heavenly realms. It is here that Dionysus encounters the thunderbolt presence of Zeus face to face and survives, due to his own indestructible thunderbolt nature. After storming the gates of heaven, Dionysus is reborn back into the cosmic realm, through whose death miraculously springs life, circumventing the destruction of the cosmos, symbolized by Pentheus Palace, and the death of his mother Semele, whom Dionysus later rescued from the realm of death.
From within the darkness of his prison, Dionysus shouts, calling to his worshippers, who respond…
Io, Io, our lord, our lord!
Come, then, come to our company, lord of joy! (ibid, p.199)
…asking Dionysus (as Semele had demanded Zeus) to reveal himself. The earth began to shake violently and the flame upon Semele’s tomb, the remnant of Zeus’ wrath, grew forebodingly bright. Dionysus’ worshippers cried out fearfully to their god within the crumbling walls of Pentheus’ palace, and yet remained confident in their god’s ultimate victory.
Down, trembling Maenads! Hurl yourselves to the ground!
Your god is wrecking the palace, roof to floor;
He heard our cry - he is coming, the son of Zeus! (ibid, p.200)
The double-doors are thrown open and Dionysus appears. Unlike Semele, his worshippers remained unharmed, for the son of Zeus comes not with an all-destroying thunderbolt, but rather, with the ambrosial boon of life, the new moon of rebirth (or a cup of transforming wine). With the verdict of cosmic destruction circumvented, the palace also remained intact, except for the palace stables where Dionysus was imprisoned, now reduced to rubble.
We encounter the theme again in another myth concerning Dionysus. Pirates offer to take the god, who is sleepy with wine, home to the island of Naxos, but intend to kidnap and sell him as a slave in Asia. Only one member of the crew objects to the deception, the helmsman Acoetes, who is forced to steer the ship towards the Orient:
Then the God, making sport of them, as if he’d only just perceived their treachery, gazed from the curving poop across the sea and seemed in tears and said “that’s not the shore you promised me! that’s not the shore I want! What glory can you gain, if you strong men cheat a small boy, so many against one?”
(Ovid ‘Metamorphoses’, Melville, A.D ‘trans’, 1986, p.70)
The wind drops and the ship stood immovable (Axis-Mundi) upon the ocean. The oars transformed into snakes (compare the sleeping Vishnu upon the many-headed cobra emblematic of endless time, and perhaps Quetzalcoatl’s return upon a raft of serpents). Ivy and grapevines miraculously sprout and engulf the ship (the divine and stabilizing force born from within the cosmic realm). Beasts surround the god (the lord of animals), while the music of flutes fill the air (eternal order/harmony). Dionysus then becomes a (solar) lion and launches himself (wrath-bliss) upon the pirate captain (lunar) who, along with his entire crew, excluding Acoetes the helmsman, jump overboard into the sea (of time) in the form of dolphins (crescent moon symbol).
Compare this myth with the account of Noah and the lion. Hidden within the womb of the Ark (upon the ocean of death and Life), the mythical Noah must also of undergone a second, more glorious birth as he penetrated the solar gateway to paradise and obtained the ambrosial born (Genesis 9:21), before re-entering the temporal realm. The wounding of the ‘lunar’ Noah is attested in the Sefer ha-Zohar (13th Century A.D), which states that Noah was bitten by a lion in the Ark and permanently lamed. We are also told that Noah, the first man to plant a vineyard, became drunk on his own wine and fell asleep naked inside his tent. That the mythological victim partook of his own ambrosia is well attested.
In both cases it is the lion who strikes. we also see the god as the wounded and the one who wounds, from both a lunar-cosmic (as in the case of Noah) and solar-transcendent (as the the case of Dionysus) perspective.
A similar symbolic destruction/non-destruction is reported in all three Synoptic Gospels at the very moment of Jesus’ death upon the cross:
It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun had stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this he breathed his last. Luke 23:44–46 N.I.V
Both Mark and Matthew tell us that this curtain was torn in two “from top to bottom” (Mk 15:38), to which Matthew adds;
The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life 27:51–52 N.I.V
As to which curtain was torn the gospels do not specify, however, New Testament scripture points us toward the inner curtain that set apart the Most Holy place from the rest of the temple, symbolizing that great work of Christ. In the words of Matthew Henry;
He died, to bring us to God, and, in order thereunto, to rend that veil of Guilt and wrath which interposed between us and him, to take away the cherubim and flaming sword, and to open the way to the Tree of Life (Matthew Henry, 1991, vol.5; p.349)
According to Jerome (Letter 120 to ‘Hedibia’ and ‘commentary on Matthew’ 27:51), in the Gospel of the Nazaraeans, it records that “not that the curtain of the temple was torn, but that the astonishingly large lintel of the temple collapsed” Gospel Parallels (ed by B. H. Throckmorton, jr, 1992, p.201, Nelson), echoing the destruction of Pentheus’ palace stables.
In the Hebrew religion, the High Priest alone was permitted to enter the Most Holy Place, and only then on the annual Day of Atonement, to sprinkle sacrificial blood before the atonement cover (mercy seat) of the Ark to expiate the sins of himself and the people. The Ark of the Covenant contained the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments (Deut 10:5), and also, according to the book of Hebrews (9:4), a golden jar of manna (the ambrosial bread from heaven eaten by the Israelites in the wilderness), and Aaron’s almond tree staff (compare Ex 16:32–34; Num 17:10). Upon the atonement cover, between the golden cherubim, dwelt the ‘Shekhinah’, the holy presence (wrath-bliss) of God, hidden within a thick cloud of incense, shielding the high priest from destruction. Also, the bells and pomegranates said to decorate the high priest’s robe (Ex 39:25), according to Josephus, represented thunder and lightning (Jewish War 5.5.231–234), functioning, quite possibly, as an indestructible charm against the Lord God’s lightning-bolt presence. (The Ark itself disappeared possibly during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews (587\6–539\8 B.C), and in Josephus’ day, (until the temple’s destruction in 70 A.D), the Most Holy Place was, we are told, completely empty [Jewish War 5.5.219].)
According to the book of Hebrews, it was Jesus alone, as both heavenly high priest and perfect sacrifice, and in Revelation, “the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world” (13:8), who was able to pass through the cosmic realm and enter the eternal realm beyond (Hebrews 9:11–12,24).
The Holy of Holies is clearly another variation of the threshold of simultaneous destruction and recreation, concealing the solar gateway of divine wrath-bliss, that in the words of John the Baptist, is God’s “Threshing floor”, and the judgment weapon of Annihilation and Eternal Bliss, “His winnowing fork” (Matthew 3:12).
The Threshold also corresponds with the lunar World Tree, as well as the solar Tree of Life, represented by the almond tree staff of the priestly Aaron, as well as the ambrosial wellspring, represented by the golden Jar of manna. It is also the source of the word of God, the ‘logos’ of John’s Gospel, present since the beginning of time, and here represented, in the most holiest of Places, by the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments.
In the book of Revelation we find another symbolic picture of The Most holy Place:
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, We give thee thanks, O LORD God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail. 11:15–19 KJV
In the late William Hendriksen’s commentary on the book of Revelation More than Conqueror’s, he writes, concerning this passage;
In order to understand the final paragraph of this chapter be sure to remember that this is still a vision. The apostle sees not heaven itself but a symbolic picture. In this picture the sanctuary of God in heaven is now wide open. Nothing remains hidden or concealed.
The Ark of the Covenant is the symbol of the superlatively real, intimate, and perfect fellowship between God and his people — a fellowship based on the atonement. …Hence, when this ark is now seen, that is, fully revealed, the covenant. of grace (Gn. 17:7) in all it’s sweetness is realized in the hearts and lives of God’s children. But for the wicked that same ark, which is God’s throne, is a symbol of wrath. Also this wrath will now be fully revealed. Because of this there follows flashing of lightning, and rumbling and peals of thunder, and quaking, and a great hailstorm (cf.4:5). (1967, p.133)
Returning to the non-destruction of Pentheus’ palace, we remember the unveiling of Dionysus, to the joy of his worshippers:
Dionysus: Women of Asia, why are you cowering terrified on the ground? You heard Bacchus himself shattering Pentheus’ Palace; come, stand up! stop this trembling! Courage!
Chorus: Oh what joy to hear your Bacchic shout! you have saved us. We were deserted and alone: how happy we are to see you! ‘Euripides Bacchae’ (Vellacott, P ‘trans’, 1954, p.200)
Perfect, yet condemned as a sinner, human, yet in very nature God, here, it is Jesus that bestows the ambrosial boon of divine immanence, after passing safely beyond the cosmic realm into the indestructible and all-destroying, “on the basis of the power of an indestructible life” (Heb 7:16).
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:19-22 KJV
In Romans, Paul writes;
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (5:1-2 NKJ).
William Barclay, in his Commentary to Romans concerning the Greek word prosagoge, here translated as ‘access’, was used “for introducing or ushering someone into the presence of royalty; and it is the regular word for the approach of the worshipper to God”. He continues:
It is as if Paul was saying, “Jesus ushers us into the very presence of God. He opens the door for us to the presence of the King of Kings; and when that door is opened what we find is grace; not condemnation, not judgment, not vengeance, but sheer, undeserved, incredible kindness of God” (1975,p.73).
The gospels only mention the inner curtain, and are entirely silent in regards to the outer curtain described by Josephus, in the Jewish War, as a colossal Babylonian tapestry of the heavens, some fifty-five cubits (80 feet) in height, and woven with the colours of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water (5.5.212-213). It seems to me that The outer curtain, representing creation, together with it’s symbolic non-destruction, corresponds with the non-destruction of Pentheus’ (cosmic) palace.