forcible Christianization and "Dionysus"

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[edit]Origins

The Dionysian Mysteries of mainland Greece and the Roman Empire are thought to have evolved from a more primitive initiatory cult of unknown origin (perhaps Thracian or Phrygian) which had spread throughout the Mediterranean region by the start of the Classical Greek period. Its spread was associated with the dissemination of wine, a sacrament or entheogen with which it appears always to have been closely associated (though mead may have been the original sacrament). Beginning as a simple rite, it evolved quickly within Greek culture into a popular mystery religion, which absorbed a variety of similar cults (and their gods) in a typically Greek synthesis across its territories; one late form was the Orphic Mysteries. However, all stages of this developmental spectrum appear to have continued in parallel throughout the eastern Mediterranean until late in Greek history and forcibleChristianization.

[edit]Early Dionysus cult

The ecstatic cult of Dionysus was originally thought to be a late arrival in Greece from Thrace orAsia Minor, due to its popularity in both locations and Dionysus' non-integration into the Olympian Pantheon. After the deity's name was discovered on Mycenean Linear B tablets, however, this theory was abandoned and the cult is considered indigenous, predating Greek civilization. The absence of an early Olympian Dionysus is today explained by patterns of social exclusion and the cult's marginality, rather than chronology. Whether the cult originated on Minoan Crete (as an aspect of an ancient Zagreus) or Africa - or in Thrace or Asia, as a proto-Sabazius - is unanswerable, due to lack of evidence. Some scholars believe it was an adopted cult not native to any of these places and may have been an eclectic cult in its earliest history, although it almost certainly obtained many familiar features from Minoan culture.^[1]

Within the public rituals were the secret rites of initiation, the public festivals largely setting the stage for these private rites:

"Whatsoever may have remained to represent the original intent of the rites, regarded as Rites of Initiation, the externalities and practice of the Festivals were orgies of wine and sex: there was every kind of drunkenness and every aberration of sex, the one leading up to the other. Over all reigned the Phallus, which—in its symbolism à rebours—represented post ejaculationem the death-state of Bacchus, the god of pleasure, and his resurrection when it was in forma arrecta. Of such was the sorrow and of such the joy of these Mysteries".^[7]

Female initiation rituals

In contrast, the female initiate was prepared as Ariadne (bride of Dionysus), and united with him in the underworld. In reference to this, the ritual symbol of Dionysus—hidden in the liknon until the culmination of the female rites—was first a goat's penis, and later a fig-wood phallus. After this rite, she participated in a similar communion or wedding feast. Flagellation also seems to have been a basic ordeal (at least for women, according to depictions of Dionysian initiations), and there may have been ritualised hangings. The female rituals took place at the same time as the traditional Dionysian revelries.

Bacchus and Ariadne byTitian, at the National Gallery in London

The mystery religions consisted of a series of initiations, benefiting the individual or their society. Initially associated with puberty, they later became an evolutionary rite. It was in the form of a mystery religion that the cult of Dionysus evolved, probably in the civilization of Minoan Crete. The rationale for the Dionysian Mysteries was to affirm the primeval, bestial side of mankind, while integrating it into civilization. The dual role of Ariadne (as Mistress of the Minoan Labyrinth and consort of Dionysus) and the Minotaurstory may derive from the mastery of mankind's animal nature. The self-mastery thus achieved was not one of domination, as in similar cults (George and the Dragon, and the original Minotaur myth), but one of integration. While the Mysteries lightened the cult's darker aspects, they failed to reassure its civilized critics and were regarded as dangerously liberative (particularly in their egalitarianism).

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