
Dionysus
As
we know, Dionysus and Attis represented the early-dying sun-god, the son of the
mother, the god who dies in the spring. The date of the Feast
of Easter has been taken over from the Feast of Attis, and mosaics were executed
in ancient Rome
with the cross with grapes around it and an invocation, “Oh thou, Dionysus,
Jesus Christ.” So at the beginning at least there was
considerable doubt as to whether Christianity did not
mean a rebirth of Dionysus – or of Attis – but in another form.
The Church Fathers tried to make a definite break and
establish Christianity, hoping in this way to prevent the new symbol from being
sucked back into the past.
