Bible Dictionary: Dionysus

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International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

DIONYSUS, (BACCHUS)

di-o-ni'-sus (Dionusos): The youngest of the Greek gods. In Homer he is not associated with the vine. In later Greek legend he is represented as coming from India, as traversing Asia in a triumphal march, accompanied by woodland beings, with pointed ears, snub noses and goat-tails. These creatures were called satyrs. The vine was cultivated among European-Aryans first in Thrace, and here Dionysus is said to have established his worship first in Europe. Then the cult of Dionysus passed down through the Balkan peninsula to Thebes; and in the localized form of the myth the deity was born here-son of Zeus and Semele. "Offspring of Zeus on high.......... Thou that carest for all Who on Bacchus in Italy call And in Deo's sheltered plain Of Eleusis lord dost reign, Whither worshippers repair! O Bacchus that dwellest in Thebes, On whose broad and fertile glebes Fierce warriors from the dragon's teeth rose, Where Ismenus softly flows, The city that Semele bare!" -Sophocles, Antigone. Among all the Greek deities none appealed more vividly to the imagination than Dionysus. Greek tragedy is a form of worship, the ritual cult of the god of wine, who makes the initiate wise and the ungodly mad. Dionysus speaks most strongly to the sense and to the spirit at the same time. There is nothing monotonous in the Dionysiac legend; it is replete with both joy and sorrow-in some aspects it is a "passion" in others a triumph. All the passion plays of the world (even the Oberammergau Schauspiel) are in the ancient spirit. One Dionysus after another has been substituted, but from the first there has been a desire on the part of the devotee to realize his god vividly with thrilling nearness, to partake of his joys and sorrows and triumphs in his manifold adventures. In the early myths Dionysus was one of the lesser gods; he is mentioned only twice in the Iliad and twice in the Odyssey; but he is always represented as being more nearly akin to man than the great august deities of Olympus.

He is a man-god, or god-man. To the inhabitants of the vine-clad slopes of Attica, to which his cult had been brought from Phrygia through Thracian Boeotia, he was particularly dear. At their vintage feasts last year's cask of wine was opened; and when the new year brought life again to the vines, the bountiful god was greeted with songs of joyful praise. The burial of the wine in the dark tomb of the jars through the winter, and the opening of these jars at the spring festival symbolized the great awakening of man himself, the resurrection of the god's worshippers to a fuller and more joyous life. The vine was not the only manifestation of the god-oil and wheat were also his; he was the god of ecstasy, the giver of physical joy and excitement, the god of life, the god of certain laws of Nature, germination and extinction, the external coming into being and the dying away of all things that are, fructification in its widest aspect whether in the bursting of the seed-grain that lies intreasured in the earth, or in the generation of living creatures. Hence, the prominence given to the phallus in the solemn processions in honor of the god.

Nicanor (2 Maccabees 14:33) and Antiochus Epiphanes (2 Maccabees 6:7) thought that the cult of Dionysus would not be objectionable to the Jews. Ptolemy Philopator branded the Jews with an ivy-leaf (3 Maccabees 2:29), which was sacred to Dionysus. See also BACCHUS.

J. E. Harry

Greek

1354. Dionusios -- Dionysius, an Athenian
... Word Origin from Dionusos (Dionysus, Gr. god of wine and revelry) Definition
Dionysius, an Athenian NASB Word Usage Dionysius (1). Dionysius. ...
//strongsnumbers.com/greek2/1354.htm - 6k

Library

How Antiochus, who was Called Dionysus, and after Him Aretas Made ...
... How Antiochus, Who Was Called Dionysus, And After Him Aretas Made Expeditions Into
Judea; As Also How Alexander Took Many Cities And Then Returned To Jerusalem ...
/.../josephus/the antiquities of the jews/chapter 15 how antiochus who.htm

Flavian and Evagrius, Bishops of Antioch. The Events at Alexandria ...
... Book VII. Chapter XV."Flavian and Evagrius, Bishops of Antioch. The Events
at Alexandria upon the Destruction of the Temple of Dionysus. ...
/.../chapter xv flavian and evagrius bishops.htm

His Birth and Miracles. You Call Asclepius, Heracles, and Dionysus ...
... His Birth and Miracles. You call Asclepius, Heracles, and Dionysus gods for their
works. Contrast their works with His, and the wonders at His death, &c. ...
/.../athanasius/select works and letters or athanasius/section 49 his birth and.htm

Fabulous Heathen Genealogies.
... And therefore in the Dionysian tribe there are distinct families: the Althean from
Althea, who was the wife of Dionysus and daughter of Thestius; the family of ...
/.../theophilus/theophilus to autolycus/chapter vii fabulous heathen genealogies.htm

The Heathen Gods were Simply Men.
... Osiris is named Dionysus (Bacchus) by the Greeks." [801] "Almost all the names of
the gods came into Greece from Egypt." [802] Apollo was the son of Dionysus ...
/.../athenagoras/a plea for the christians/chapter xxviii the heathen gods were.htm

The Demons Sin among Mankind.
... Poseidon frequents the seas; Ares delights in wars; Apollo is a player on the cithara;
Dionysus is absolute sovereign of the Thebans; Kronos is a tyrannicide ...
/.../tatian/tatians address to the greeks/chapter viii the demons sin among.htm

Other Shameful Actions Ascribed to Heathen Deities. All Prove that ...
... but he deified and raised to heaven those born of his adulteries, contriving the
deification as a veil for his lawlessness: such as Dionysus, Heracles, the ...
/.../select works and letters or athanasius/section 12 other shameful actions.htm

The Gods no Gods.
... Acherusian lake; and that of Helius in Astra, and of Selene in Carræ, of Hermes
in Hermopolis, of Ares in Thrace, of Aphrodite in Cyprus, of Dionysus in Thebes ...
/.../unknown/the clementine homilies/chapter xxiii the gods no gods.htm

Artemis.
... And that troubled and drunken composition which arises from the upper and lower
vapours they called Dionysus, as troubling the intellect. ...
//christianbookshelf.org/unknown/the clementine homilies/chapter ix artemis.htm

Celsus, Then, Does not Speak as a Good Reasoner...
... of the body of Jesus, "Well, after he has laid aside these qualities, he will be
a God:" (and if so), why not rather Æsculapius, and Dionysus, and Hercules? ...
/.../origen/origen against celsus/chapter xlii celsus then does.htm

Thesaurus

Dionysus
...DIONYSUS, (BACCHUS). ... The vine was cultivated among European-Aryans first in Thrace,
and here Dionysus is said to have established his worship first in Europe. ...
/d/dionysus.htm - 9k

Bacchus
... Hebrew prophets condemned. It has been surmised that Dionysus was originally
not a Greek, but an oriental deity. His worship had ...
/b/bacchus.htm - 12k

Dionysia
... di-o-nish'-ia (Dionusia, "festivals of Dionysus" (Bacchus)): The rural (vintage)
Dionysia were celebrated in the month of Poseideon (19th day), which is ...
/d/dionysia.htm - 10k

Ivy
... On the day of the king's birth every month they were brought by bitter constraint
to eat of the sacrifices; and when the feast of Bacchus (Dionysus) was kept ...
/i/ivy.htm - 7k

Greece (15 Occurrences)
... The particular form of the god was ordinarily indicated by an epithet attached
to his name, Zeus Olympios, Dionysus Eleutherios, Athena Nike. ...
/g/greece.htm - 59k

Ancient (64 Occurrences)
... The particular form of the god was ordinarily indicated by an epithet attached
to his name, Zeus Olympios, Dionysus Eleutherios, Athena Nike. ...
/a/ancient.htm - 98k

Hellenism
... fear, and of hope. Among them we must mention Dionysus, the god of teeming
Nature (see DIONYSUS), and Orpheus. With their advent ...
/h/hellenism.htm - 26k

Hellenist
... fear, and of hope. Among them we must mention Dionysus, the god of teeming
Nature (see DIONYSUS), and Orpheus. With their advent ...
/h/hellenist.htm - 26k

Orgies (4 Occurrences)
... by certain ceremonies in honor of some pagan deity; especially, the ceremonies observed
by the Greeks and Romans in the worship of Dionysus, or Bacchus, which ...
/o/orgies.htm - 8k

Dioscorinthius

/d/dioscorinthius.htm - 6k

Subtopics

Related Terms

Greece (15 Occurrences)

Ancient (64 Occurrences)

Hellenism

Hellenist

Orgies (4 Occurrences)