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DIONYSUS AND HIS DOPPELGÂNGERS IN JOHN LYDUS
I admit that Lydos writes nothing on the relationship of the epithets, so they
can be interpreted as synonyms indicating the same quality of the god: that
he has two proodoi; or perhaps on the contrary, Dithyrambos was intended
to be completely independent from Dimétor, and the Lydus’ explanation
pertains only to the latter. However, we cannot exclude a third possibility:
that they are epithets of a “threefold Dionysus,” equivalent to the Cautes and
Cautopates of Mithras.
At first glance, it seems to be a problem that Dionysus was not a sun god,
in contrast to Mithras, but in Late Antiquity, practically any god could be
regarded as a solar deity. In Macrobius’ Saturnalia, for instance, Dionysus
was explicitly identified with the sun."
The consequences of this parallelism are far-reaching. Modern scholarship
discovered this astrological theology relatively recently, in the 1980s and 1990s.
Porphyrius is not the only source, though. There are also scattered references
in works by other authors. I applied this system to explain the doctrines of the
mysteries of Mithras because they match each other. The similarity is too close
to be a coincidence. However, this theology does not seem to be an exclusive
property of the Mithraists, even if they were its creators. As it contained
many elements inspired by Platonic philosophy, accessible to any educated
person in Antiquity, we cannot exclude the possibility that the philosophical
framework we reconstruct as Mithraic theology was or became a common
property of many other religious movements of the Roman Empire.
One observes a similar phenomenon in the case of modern esotericism:
neopaganism, popular Buddhism in the west, New Age, transpersonal
psychology and many other spiritual movements all have radically different
origins, but similar ideas turn up within their systems, (reincarnation,
a holistic approach, a material world that can be influenced by the power of the
mind etc.), perhaps because of the spirit of our time, or just because the same
person usually tries out many of them. This was typical in the Roman Empire
as well. One person could gain initiation into multiple mystery cults.
My last question is who adapted the elements of Mithraic theology to the
cult of Dionysus and when. Without further sources, we cannot do more
than create a list of the possibilities. Lydus could have made a mistake in
his interpretation of his sources, but I would exclude this possibility, as he
worked too meticulously to commit such a mistake, so close to falsification.
18 Macrobius, Saturnalia I, 18, passim. Macrobius identifies Dionysus not only with Apollo
(I, 18, 1-6) and, consequently, with the Sun as a god (I, 18, 7-10) but also with the Sun as
a celestial body. He claims that in the mysteries, Apollo is the diurnal Sun, while Dionysus
is the Sun under the horizon at night: in sacris enim haec religiosi arcani observatio tenetur,
ut sol cum in supero id est in diurno hemisphaerio est, Apollo vocitetur: cum in infero id
est nocturno, Dionysus qui est Liber pater habeatur (Macrobius 1, 18, 8). According to
Macrobius, the several different ages ofthe god in his representations (Dionysus as an infant,
boy, middle-aged and old man) hinted at the solstices and equinoxes.
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