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.