Jesus & Dionysus Links: Deeper Than You Think

The Jesus story is a retelling of the ancient Greek Dionysus myth

Gnostic Informant: Jesus and Dionysus (also called Bacchus, Zagreus, Sabazius & Liber) both are the Son of God. But not just any of the sons of God, these two are the only two that are chosen to be the heir of the Kingdom of Heaven itself. They are THE Son of God. I will show why Dionysus stands above all other sons of Zeus later in the video. But in short, in the Dionysaica, as well as older legends and fragments concerning Dionysus, Zeus, in the form of a dragon impregnated the Perpetual Virgin, or Kore, aka Persephone, and chose the child to wield the thunderbolt and become the Prince of Olympus, and the heir to Zeus’s throne, a status that no son of Zeus had ever been promised before. Like Jesus, who is the Heir of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Logos, who was one with God. In the same sense, Dionysus, called Sabazius by the Phrygians, was “In the Bosom of the Father Zeus”. (Clement)

Dionysus & Jesus both have a mortal human mother and are miraculously born.

Unlike Jesus, Dionysus has 2 mothers, one divine, one mortal. But one of them, Persephone, had the epithet of Kore, which can mean Virgin or Young Maiden. Similar to Hebrew word עלמה Almah, used in the famous “Virgin Birth Prophecy” by Isaiah, cited by Christians and used for Mary and Jesus. Persephone’s name was so sacred that it was not permitted to be spoken aloud by mortal lips, so the Virgin, or Kore, is who gave birth to the first Dionysus, called Zagreus. And the Dionysaica, reports that Dionysus, called Zagreus, was conceived during the time when “the Full Moon was seen in Virgo”. And two times the author Nonnus reports that Virgo was present during his conception.

There is also the Sabazius, who Diodorus calls the oldest Dionysus, who according to multiple inscriptions and passages from Diodorus and Cicero, is the Son of the Great Mother Cybele, who like Mary holds the title for Mother of God. I will argue that the Veneration & Worship of Mother Mary has some of its roots of influence in Phrygian Cybele. More on this to come later.

After Dionysus’ death and resurrection, he was born again by the other mortal mother, Semele, was reported to be a virgin according to commentary about the wedding between her and Zeus, but no virgin-birth in a miracle sense. The text clearly says she had intercourse with Zeus, and that Zeus loved her more than anyone before her and the love was real love. Regardless of the details, a mortal-virgin-miracle birth scene is present in both the Gospels and in the Dionysaica legends and fragments.

Jesus and Dionysus died in violent ways but were reported to have been bodily resurrected within a matter of days.

Jesus and Dionysus both want one thing, and one thing only from their followers. Devotion. At the end of the Bacchae, Dionysus tells Agave, that the wages of sin is death, and she is told that it is too late to repent, for she did not believe in him before the hour was too late. This is the very attitude that Jesus has for people who do not believe in him and will be cast into hell when it is too late for repenting.

By about 150 years after Jesus lived, people started to really notice these similarities, and they talked about them a lot. Early 2nd century Christian Preachers compared Jesus with Bacchus, and later Nonnus, a Pagan Poet who wrote the famous Dionysaica, the most extensive mythology of Dionysus, in the form of Homeric Prose, was reported by Church tradition to have converted to Christ, and wrote extensively on the Gospel of John, comparing the life of the Johannine Jesus to the life of Dionysus.

So, when Greek people who believed in many gods heard about Jesus turning water into wine, they would have thought it was very much like what Dionysus could do. Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "I am the true vine," another phrase that would readers of John’s Gospel would hear and think of Dionysus, the Vine God, but could arguably be interpreted as Jesus' supplanting of Dionysus, as the TRUE Vine God. By this, Jesus was like a new version of Dionysus but even more important.