The idea that Jesus is the result of various amalgamated pagan gods goes back to the Enlightenment. (No surprises there, since the Enlightenment as a movement sought to separate itself from Christian orthodoxy.) Beginning in the eighteenth and continuing throughout the nineteenth century, certain aristocratic writers expressed doubt that Jesus existed as a historical figure and tried to tie his origins to various ancient deities in the Near East and Mediterranean. Among the most influential of these writers (and the one I know the most about) is Sir James Frazer. He wrote The Golden Bough, originally published in 1890, which was the largest work of comparative anthropology ever written at its time. Frazer’s thesis is that almost every religion centers around the ritualistic death and resurrection of a king or god, which represents the cycles of vegetation and so on and so forth. Frazer never explicitly says that Christianity is or is based on a pagan cult, but the implications are obvious — Jesus is just the latest iteration of this “dying-and-rising god,” and Christianity is just another version of this supposedly-universal ancient agricultural cult:
On the one hand, there is no doubt that during [Frazer’s] undergraduate years he became a confirmed atheist or agnostic, and that one of the purposes of The Golden Bough was to discredit Christianity. The most important argument of the whole work was that ancient peoples had believed in a dying and reviving god, who represented the animating spirit of vegetation postulated by Mannheim and had been represented in human form by sacred kings who were killed after a set term or when their power of mind or body failed. Frazer’s implication was that the figure of Christ had been an outgrowth from this body of (to him erroneous and unnecessary) belief, and he may well have intended it to be the more effective in that it was never made blatantly. He came closest to stating it plainly in the second edition of The Golden Bough, when he suggested that both the Jewish Purim festival and the Christian story of the Crucifixion were derived from the sacrifice of men representing the nature-god. If so, he continued, then this would reduce Jesus to “the level of a multitude of other victims of a barbarous superstition.” […] The effect was not so much to demolish the claims of Christianity as to dilute and weaken them by setting them in a more general context of ancient religion. — Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon
Frazer’s real goal was not to study any of the pagan religions on their own terms and in good faith, but to implicitly compare these “savage” and “barbaric” religions against the religion that is at the pinnacle of “civilized” Western culture. It’s all a big “fuck you” to organized religion — “Ha! All your treasured beliefs and practices are actually savage Oriental peasant nonsense!” — and it comes at the expense of paganism. An agenda like that can really interfere with impartial scholarship. The biggest problem is that Frazer began with this thesis and then set out to prove it, interpreting evidence to fit this conclusion. Like most of the academics of his day, he didn’t really care about the people he was studying, viewing them more like exotic zoo animals than like actual people with cultures and traditions of their own. To use Hutton’s words, Frazer “systematically ignores explanations which ancient or tribal peoples or European commoners offered for their own customs.” He never bothered to ask them what their Solstice rituals are actually intended to represent, or what their symbols actually mean, or how old these traditions and symbols actually are. He interpreted them all according to his “dying-and-rising god” theory, i.e. through the lens of Christianity. Therefore, he ironically made all of these other religions, most of which have nothing to do with each other, seem a lot more like Christianity than they actually are. Among modern scholars, Frazer’s work does not pass the sniff test; it’s long since been discredited. Pretty much all the “Jesus was really pagan” arguments fall into the same problem. At best, they take religious beliefs and practices out of context, making them seem more alike than they really are. At worst, they literally make shit up. Far too many of these “Jesus is really [insert god here]” memes repeat things that are factually untrue, showing that the people who share them do exactly zero research. Like Frazer, they are far more interested in discrediting Christianity than in doing any justice to the ancient religions that they use as a bludgeoning tool. They spread outright lies about both Christianity and paganism that no one thinks to question. So, I’m going to debunk them.
Before I do that, a quick note about how anthropology works: Even if there are legit parallels between Jesus and a pagan god, that’s still not enough to prove that the cult of this god directly influenced the development of Christianity, let alone that Jesus is “a copy” of said god. It’s not enough for two things to be similar, or even for them to have coexisted. In order to prove that one influenced or was the basis for the other, you have to have a missing link, something that traces a direct line between the two. For example, in one of Hutton’s other books, The Witch, he provides evidence that proves that the Western tradition of ceremonial magic has its origins in ancient Greco-Egyptian magic. One piece of evidence is the exact same phrases being used in spells from Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance — because the same phrase is used in books of magic from all these different time periods, that proves that the later variants must have evolved from the oldest version. Another example is books of spells in England or Germany recommending the use of body parts from a specific bird that lives only in the Mediterranean; the only reason a Mediterranean bird would be mentioned in an English spellbook is if the spell had originally come from the Mediterranean. Any claim of Jesus having been “copied” from another god would need substantial evidence of this nature to support it. You’d need to have actual written or archeological evidence that some ancient Jewish person looked at these other gods and intentionally appropriated aspects of them to create a new deity. Good luck with that. Okay, let me go through each of these other gods, one by one, and debunk some of the ridiculous memes about them.
Horus
Out of all the gods that are compared to Jesus, the popularity of Horus baffles me the most. There are at least real parallels between Jesus and Dionysus, Jesus and Krishna, even Jesus and Attis. But Horus? Jesus and Horus have basically nothing in common. So why is Horus brought up so often? Well, it’s because some guy called Gerald Massey tried to claim that Christianity has its roots in Ancient Egyptian paganism. (And he really was just some guy, not a professional Egyptologist.) He wrote about his theories in a book called Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World, published in 1907. In order for the claim to make sense, Massey needed a Jesus figure in Ancient Egyptian paganism, and because there isn’t one, he picked the nearest equivalent.
That’s how we ended up with all this bullshit:
Let’s start with the claim that Horus was born of a virgin. This one is particularly laughable to anyone who knows the first thing about Egyptian mythology, because the myth of Horus’ conception is one of the more famous ones: Horus’ father, the god Osiris, was murdered and dismembered by his brother Set. Isis reassembled her husband’s body. She found every piece of him except for his penis, which had been swallowed by a catfish. In order to conceive Horus, she had to create a prosthetic phallus for Osiris and then temporarily resurrect him.
Of the parts of Osiris’s body the only one which Isis did not find was the male member, for the reason that this had been at once tossed into the river, and the lepidotus, the sea-bream, and the pike had fed upon it; and it is from these very fishes the Egyptians are most scrupulous in abstaining. But Isis made a replica of the member to take its place, and consecrated the phallus, in honour of which the Egyptians even at the present day celebrate a festival. — Plutarch, Isis and Osiris
Isis had sex with his half-alive, Frankenstein-stitched mummy in the shape of a bird, using the prosthetic. Don’t believe me? Here it is:
I’m not entirely sure what this is, but it’s definitely not a virgin birth. The next claim that the meme makes is that Horus’ birthday is on Dec. 25th. There’s nothing to substantiate this. Firstly, Ancient Egyptians did not use the same calendar as we do. That should honestly go without saying, but apparently I have to say it. The real question is whether Horus was born on the winter solstice or not. And… that same source from Plutarch actually does describe Horus’ birthday as being on the solstice:
For this reason also it is said that Isis, when she perceived that she was pregnant, put upon herself an amulet on the sixth day of the month Phaophi; and about the time of the winter solstice she gave birth to Harpocrates [Horus], imperfect and premature, amid the early flowers and shoots. — Plutarch, Isis and Osiris
…However, in context, Plutarch is actually mocking the people who believe that the stories of the gods directly mirror the progression of the seasons and other natural functions. Here’s the whole paragraph:
In this way we shall undertake to deal with the numerous and tiresome people, whether they be such as take pleasure in associating theological problems with the seasonal changes in the surrounding atmosphere, or with the growth of the crops and seed-times and ploughing; and also those who say that Osiris is being buried at the time when the grain is sown and covered in the earth and that he comes to life and reappears when plants begin to sprout. For this reason also it is said that Isis, when she perceived that she was pregnant, put upon herself an amulet on the sixth day of the month Phaophi; and about the time of the winter solstice she gave birth to Harpocrates, imperfect and premature, amid the early flowers and shoots. For this reason they bring to him as an offering the first-fruits of growing lentils, and the days of his birth they celebrate after the spring equinox. When the people hear these things, they are satisfied with them and believe them, deducing the plausible explanation directly from what is obvious and familiar. […] In the second place, and this is a matter of greater importance, they should exercise especial heed and caution lest they unwittingly erase and dissipate things divine into winds and streams and sowings and ploughings, developments of the earth and changes of the seasons, as do those who regard wine as Dionysus and flame as Hephaestus. — Plutarch, Isis and Osiris
In short, it is too neat and tidy for gods to be placed in line with seasonal changes, or for them to be expressions of singular natural functions. Religion in general is often far more complex than that. And as I’ve put it in many of my answers, gods are powerful entities that control natural phenomena rather than actually being those natural phenomena, or metaphors for such. The reason why people do that is because it seems “obvious and familiar,” like religion “should” follow seasonal cycles to the letter and that gods “should” have a one-to-one relationship with nature. But it doesn’t, and they don’t. TAKE THAT, FRAZER! Plutarch wrote a smackdown of your thesis thousands of years before you were even born!
Because Plutarch is being derisive here, I don’t think we should take him at face value. It’s possible that Horus’ birthday was acknowledged as being on or around the winter solstice, or it’s possible that Plutarch is just trying to make a point. Actual Egyptian sources would be more useful. I did some research into it, and it seems as though the five “leap days” that regulate the calendar are the ones recognized as the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys (in that order). (These are five “extra” days that Thoth won from Khonsu to extend the solar year for five extra days in which Nut could give birth.) It’s hard for me to tell exactly when they are, but the consensus seems to be that they are all grouped in roughly mid-August. I looked at some modern Kemetic pagan calendars (festival calendars based on ancient ones, designed to be used by modern practitioners), because I figure that Kemetic pagans probably know more about Egyptian calendars than me, and most of the ones I found put the leap days in July or August.
Moving on. The next point is complete nonsense. There were no “wise men” of any kind attending the birth of Horus, nor is there a star anywhere that leads anyone to his birthplace. The star in the East and the wise men are some of the things that are very specific to the Jesus myth, and to my knowledge, there aren’t any similar stories in other mythologies or religions. So, I have no idea where the meme is getting this from. Regardless, it’s completely made up. So are most of the following points. Horus couldn’t have “fled to Egypt” because he’s already in Egypt, and he was kept hidden from Set (whom Plutarch referred to as “Typhon,” using typical interpretatio graeca syncretism) in the marshland in which he was born. It could be called a legit parallel that Jesus and Horus both have to hide from a powerful older deity that intends to persecute them, and we’ll come back to that, but that’s not a lot to go on when the surrounding circumstances are so different. Two of the points, the ones about “Anup the Baptizer” and “El-Azur-us” play a misleading little name-game. Most of the major Egyptian gods are best known by Hellenized versions of their names, because those were the only names we had for them until hieroglyphics were deciphered. Anubis’ actual name is Anpu, Thoth’s is Djehuty, Isis’ is Aset, and Osiris’ is Asar (actually wsjr, but “Asar” is one of the potential pronunciations of that). I’ve already explained how Isis resurrected Osiris, not Horus. Osiris was only resurrected for the brief amount of time needed to conceive Horus, and then he stays dead and rules the Underworld. (Also, I shouldn’t have to say this, but just because two words or names sound vaguely alike does not mean they are related, especially if they’re from different languages.) As for “Anup the Baptizer,” that’s Anubis (Anpu). I should not have to say that baptism as we know it did not exist in Ancient Egypt. Anubis is the god of embalming, not baptism or anything akin to baptism. But Gerald Massey tries to claim that baptism and embalming are totally the same thing:
The karast is literally the god or person who has been mummified, embalmed, and anointed or christified. Anup the baptizer and embalmer of the dead for the new life was the preparer of the karast-mummy. As John the Baptist is the founder of the Christ in baptism, so Anup was the christifier of the moral Horus… — Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World
Real disingenuous there, Massey.
Also, there’s no reason why Horus should have to be baptized or “christified,” because he’s already a divine being. (Technically, so is Jesus, but Jesus at least lives like a mortal man.) Suffice to say, the concept would not occur to Ancient Egyptians.
On that note, most of the rest are based on misconceptions about what exactly a god does, that come from projecting Jesus onto pagan deities instead of understanding how they actually work within their own context. Jesus’ behavior is very much a product of his time and place — he was one of many preachers of his kind that existed in Judea in the first century CE. Throughout his story, he behaves exactly like a human religious leader and rarely ever like a god (which honestly is one of his perks). By assuming that Horus and other deities act like Jesus — wandering around with a train of disciples, performing miracles for people and preaching on hills — they’re assuming that the majority of deities act like street preachers. Gods don’t typically wander the earth performing miracles for people, accompanied by a band of loyal followers (there’s an exception, but we’ll get there). They don’t preach, in temples or elsewhere. They don’t need to. You go to them, by approaching their temples or earthly representatives, and praying and sacrificing to them in the way you’re supposed to. If you supplicate the god properly, then the god will answer your prayers. It’s miraculous if a man heals you with a touch, and perhaps proof that a god lives in the man, but it’s not anything special if a god heals you because that’s what gods do. There’s no myth about Horus walking on water, for the same reason — why? Horus was not so grounded. He is a great and transcendent sky god who lacks any real mortal presence beyond that of the Pharaoh himself, who was believed to be an earthly manifestation or incarnation of Horus. And… well… let’s just say that pharaohs don’t go around preaching and performing miracles, either.
The meme randomly claims that Horus has all the same epithets as Jesus, including “the way, the truth, and the life,” “the Messiah” or “the anointed,” “Son of Man,” “the good shepherd” and “the lamb of God,” “the Word,” “the Morning Star,” and “the Light of the World.” All of these epithets are very specific to Jesus and have nothing whatsoever to do with Horus. Horus isn’t any kind of Messiah figure. What’s he supposed to be saving people from? Set? Set is just another god, and he isn’t always necessarily evil or antagonistic (though that’s a whole other story). Horus is associated with light, but he is definitely not associated with sheep in any capacity. Nor is devotion to Horus specifically really any different from devotion to any other Egyptian deity, because pagans don’t make a big deal out of a single deity being “the [only] way, the truth, and the life.”
What were Horus actual epithets? This prayer to Horus from a temple wall includes a lot of them:
Praise to you, the Behdetite, lord of the sky, the noble winged disc, who shines in the horizon, the beautiful sun disc, who illuminates the darkness. The noble child, who illuminates the banks, iris of the wedjat-eye, who lights the two lands with his rays; his rays illuminate the whole earth. Horus of the east, Horus, who shows himself in heaven, who sprinkles the land with the rays of his sun disc. An old man in the darkness, a young child in the morning, the unique god, master of all the gods. He is conceived everyday upon his lotus, who brightens the land, he shows himself in the horizon, rising in the east in his body (as) Re everyday, entering the west in his body (literally says “after his belly”) as Re. One who swims his sky daily, who traverses the sky without being tired. The one who illuminates in the morning those who are in the morning boat. The bas of the east rejoices for his ka. The one who sets in the west at night. The bas of the west receive him in peace. The noble winged disc illuminates the two lands with his rays and causes everyone to see; one who shines with gold, who illuminates cities and nomes. Morning begins in order that he is born to the limit of everyday. He is the one, who does all this, the lands emerge from the raising of his beauty, he who sails the sky in his boat daily, who sails the sky everyday in the morning boat, the great illuminator, who illuminates the two lands from darkness, who illuminates the Double Sanctuary with his two eyes, who arrives with his uraeus, who controls his two lands. The Rekhyt-people kiss the earth before the bas of his majesty. The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Horus the Behdetite, the great god, lord of the sky, him of the dappled plumage, who comes forth from the horizon, the foremost of the Double Sanctuary of the south and the north. May your beautiful face be satisfied at the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, lord of the two lands, the heir of the beneficent spirit, son of Re, lord of the crowns, the beloved one of Isis, who builds this monument for your house. — Amr Gaber, The Central Hall in the Egyptian Temples of the Ptolemaic Period
This prayer syncretizes Horus with Ra, the god of the sun. Among the epithets in this prayer are “the Behdetite” (I’m not sure what that means, but I think it references a particular aspect of Horus associated with kingship), “lord of the sky,” “he of the dappled plumage,” “master of all the gods,” and “the great god.” This characterization of Horus is of the same might and splendor that the Abrahamic God is sometimes described with, and none of the humility or humanity of Jesus.
This is what I mean when I say that these memes and mythicist posts make pagan gods seem a lot more like Jesus than they really are. All of these supposed “parallels” with Horus simply do not exist. They’re lies, and they’re so lacking in any kind of credibility that I can’t understand how anyone might take them seriously. The ultimate example of this is the claim that Horus was crucified. Crucifixion was a form of execution in Ancient Rome. It did not exist in Ancient Egypt. If nothing else, crucifixion is the thing that distinguishes Christ from all the other gods who may or may not be like him. The idea of a god who willingly puts himself through a degrading punishment for the sake of his worshippers is utterly absurd to the ancient pagan mind, and it’s right at the core of what makes Christianity what it is. Attempting to claim that any other gods were crucified is a cheap, ahistorical potshot that manages to misunderstand and devalue the context of both Christianity and paganism in one fell swoop.
I could honestly stop there, because exactly the same kind of misleading tactics are used with all the other gods on this list.
Attis
Attis was a Phrygian mythological figure (whether he’s really a god or not is debatable) worshipped as the consort of the Phrygian mother goddess Kybele. There’s various myths about their relationship, but in all of them, Attis castrates himself and dies from the blood loss. This great Mystery was reenacted by the priests of Kybele, called galli, who willingly castrated themselves for the sake of the goddess and dressed and acted like women. The cult of Kybele and Attis became very popular throughout Ancient Greece and Rome. I know much less about Attis than the other gods on this list, and everything I have read about him and Kybele is equal parts fascinating and confusing. Someday I might write a longer answer about this cult and the implications regarding gender and sexuality, but I’m not going to do that now. For now, all that matters are the comparisons between him and Christ.
Attis is the only god on this list who could be said to have been born of a virgin… sort of. His mother, Nana, was impregnated by an almond. An almond is not a penis, not even a prosthetic one, so I suppose that counts as a virgin birth. But the almond is still clearly a metaphor for male genitalia, since it grew from the castrated genitals of an intersex daemon called Agdistis. (Agdistis themself is a really interesting figure. They were castrated because the gods apparently felt threatened by a hermaphroditic entity, and after they lost their male part, they became the goddess Kybele. One could interpret Kybele and Attis as the separated male and female “halves” of Agdistis.) Therefore, I wouldn’t call it an “immaculate conception” in the same manner as the Jesus version. Mary’s conception of Jesus is distinctly non-sexual, as opposed to a complicated sexual metaphor.
The similarities end there. There’s nothing to connect Attis’ birth to Dec. 25th or to the winter solstice, and Attis’ death is almost always a result of his castration, not crucifixion. Castration was clearly as important to the devotees of Kybele as crucifixion is to Christians, though the reason why is unclear. Attis’ death is usually a direct result of his castration, though sometimes it’s conflated with the Adonis myth and it’s a wild boar that kills him. He is not pinned to a tree, and his sacrifice is not for the sake of mankind. Usually, it’s to punish himself for having cheated on Kybele, though in one version a king tries to rape Attis and castrates him when he resists. Sometimes it’s just plain madness. However it happens, it’s for the sake of Kybele, not for the humans’ sake.
He even hacked his body with a jagged stone, and dragged his long hair in squalid dirt, shouting, “I deserved it; my blood is the penalty. Ah, death to the parts which have ruined me! Ah, death to them!” he said, and cropped his groin’s weight. Suddenly no signs of manhood remained. His madness became a model: soft-skinned acolytes toss their hair and cut their worthless organs. — Ovid, Fasti
Whether Attis rises from the dead or stays dead is also really unclear. I’m pretty sure he stays dead in most of the surviving versions of his myth. Arnobius’ version explains that Jupiter (or the corresponding Phrygian deity identified with Jupiter) did not bring Attis back to life, but did prevent his body from decaying, so that he would remain forever beautiful. In other versions, Kybele changes him into a fir tree. However, we have sources describing an Easter-like spring festival, called the Hilaria, which apparently associated with rebirth (or could at least be interpreted that way):
And at first we ourselves, having fallen from heaven and living with the nymph, are in despondency, and abstain from corn and all rich and unclean food, for both are hostile to the soul. Then comes the cutting of the tree and the fast, as though we also were cutting off the further process of generation. After that the feeding on milk, as though we were being born again; after which come rejoicings and garlands and, as it were, a return up to the Gods. The season of the ritual is evidence to the truth of these explanations. The rites are performed about the Vernal equinox, when the fruits of the earth are ceasing to be produced, and day is becoming longer than night, which applies well to spirits rising higher. (At least, the other equinox is in mythology the time of the rape of Kore, which is the descent of the souls.) — Sallustius, On the Gods and the World
Sallustius is probably one of those “tiresome people” Plutarch was complaining about who interprets every myth in terms of natural functions. But his description of the Hilaria does, admittedly, sound a lot like Easter. It’s a vernal festival in which a fast is followed by feasting and a sense of being “born again,” or returned to the gods. Does this mean that Easter was inspired by the Hilaria? No, because there’s no source that connects them directly. Besides, this ritual structure of an image of a god being brought into a temple, in this case a tree, and fasting followed by feasting was a really common ritual structure for pagan festivals. What makes this one unique is that it happens to be at the vernal equinox. Even if it did influence Easter, that’s still not nearly enough to say that Jesus is a “copy of” Attis. The similarities between them are pretty superficial, and the differences are glaring. If there was a notable story in the New Testament about Jesus being castrated as a punishment for cheating, and priests of Jesus were crossdressing eunuchs who danced ecstatically and banged cymbals on the regular, then maybe we’d have something to talk about.
I took this picture. I’m not 100% certain that it’s of Attis, but it’s got the Phrygian cap, and a tree, so it’s likely.
The other connection that people try to make between Jesus and Attis is Attis’ association with pine trees, which is sometimes claimed to be the origin of Christmas trees. The tradition of decorating Christmas trees dates from the sixteenth century at the earliest, which is way too late to have anything to do with Attis.
Mithras
Mithras or Mithra is an ancient Zoroastrian deity, originally from Iran, whose mystery cult gained a lot of traction in Rome. The claims made about Mithras in relation to Jesus are mostly the same ones:
I’ve already explained how the idea of a god as a “traveling teacher and master” is actually an atypical one, and that most ancient deities can’t be characterized that way. It’s also, once again, completely wrong to claim that Mithras has all of the Jesus-specific epithets like “the Good Shepherd,” “the way, the truth, and the life,” and “the Messiah.” Actual epithets of Mithra, from the Avesta (the Zoroastrian scripture), include “lord of wide pastures,” “of beautiful weapons,” “truth-speaking,” and “of the myriad eyes.”
In Zoroastrianism, the original Persian Mithra was/is characterized as a god of light who defends against evil:
Oh! may we never fall across the rush of Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, when in anger May Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, never smite us in his anger; he who stands up upon this earth as the strongest of all gods, the most valiant of all gods, the most energetic of all gods, the swiftest of all gods, the most fiend-smiting of all gods, he, Mithra, the lord of wide pastures… — Yast 10 (Hymn to Mithra)
I’m not super familiar with the Avesta, but it seems as though Mithra is a kind of mediator between Ahura Mazda, the supreme being, and humans. He is primarily associated with the brightness of the stratosphere, i.e. “ether,” and with political power and destruction of evil spirits. Although Mithra is technically a god in his own right, functionally, he is very similar to the Archangel Michael — the mediator role, the association with light and brightness, the demon-smiting with divine weapons, and the eldritch descriptions (having a multitude of eyes and ears). Another thing that Mithra has in common with angels is that he acts as a celestial judge, who guards the Bridge of Separation and determines who goes to the Zoroastrian equivalents of Heaven and Hell. (Michael is a psychopomp in some sources.) Maybe there’s an argument to be made that Mithra somehow influenced Michael (though the entire discussion around to what extent Zoroastrianism influenced Christianity, if at all, is an entirely different can of worms). But Mithra definitely doesn’t share Jesus’ origin story. The one very indirect connection that Mithra has to Jesus’ origin story is that the three magi who visited Jesus were Zoroastrian priests (that’s what “magi” are).
If any version of this deity influenced Jesus, it would be the Roman version, Mithras. Unfortunately, we have a lot less to go on here. The nature of a mystery cult is that they keep their secrets, sometimes under pain of death, which means that they can be widespread and popular and we in the future will still know basically nothing about them. Most of what we do know about Mithraism comes from artwork, which suggests a complex mythology that we don’t know the context of. One of the most famous pieces of Mithraic imagery is this scene of Mithras slaying a bull. Like Attis, Mithras wears a “Phrygian cap,” which means he’s from further east than Greece. In most of these depictions, he has his cape blowing out behind him, and looks over his right shoulder. The bull is almost always in this exact pose, and it’s also being attacked by a dog, a snake, and a scorpion. Clearly, this myth of Mithras slaying the bull was extremely significance, but that significance has been lost.
Another thing we know about Mithras from artwork is that Mithras was born, not from a virgin, but from a rock:
All of these depictions show Mithras rising out of a rock with a torch in one hand and a knife in the other. So, definitely not a virgin.
The Dec. 25th connection does exist, but it requires a bit of explaining: According to the Chronograph of 354, Dec. 25th is the birthday of Sol Invictus. Sol Invictus is — in true Roman fashion — a syncretic amalgam of multiple solar deities, including Helios, Elagabalus, and Mithras. His sacred day was Sunday, because — get this — it’s the day named after the sun. (Our modern days of the week still use the Roman naming convention, though in English the Roman gods are substituted with their nearest Anglo-Saxon equivalents. In Hebrew, the days are literally just numbered, and Sunday is Day 1.) Sol Invictus played a significant role within the Mithraic mysteries, but we don’t know what that was. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with his birthday being on Dec. 25th — the Sun being born on or around the winter solstice is pretty self-explanatory. So… maybe Mithras was born on the 25th, if we assume that Sol Invictus is a version of Mithras and not a separate entity, and if we assume that the public cult of Sol Invictus was the same as/influenced by/somehow related to the Mithraic one. That seems like a bit of a reach. Also, our earliest source for Christmas being on Dec. 25th is the same one, the Chronograph of 354. So, it’s impossible to tell which came first or if the dates influenced each other.
As for the line about Mithras being identified with a lion and a lamb, that’s half-right… sort of. I’m not sure about the lamb, but another Mithraic image is this one of a naked boy with wings and a lion’s head, entwined with a serpent.
He’s called Arimanius. His name comes from Ahriman, the evil deity in Zoroastrianism, though he doesn’t seem to be evil in the context of Mithraism. His role is extremely obscure. Personally, he reminds me a lot of Phanes, the Orphic creator deity, who is also depicted as a winged figure entwined with a serpent. According to some Orphic sources, Phanes has the heads of a bull, a serpent, a ram, and a lion. Lion-headed serpents are also used as a magical symbol, often representing Abrasax, the Gnostic supreme being. This image is steeped in mysticism, but we don’t know exactly what it means or the role it played in Mithraism, let alone if it represents Mithras himself.
One of the only written sources we have that might concern the Mithraic Mysteries is the “Mithras Liturgy,” PGM IV.475–834. This is how it starts:
Be gracious to me, O Providence and Psyche, as I write these mysteries handed down [not] for gain but for instruction; and for an only child I request immortality, O initiates of this our power […], which the great god Helios Mithras ordered to be revealed to me by this archangel, so that I alone may ascend to heaven as an inquirer / and behold the universe.
This is definitely more mystical than some of the other PGM spells for things like love or revenge. The initiate requests to be transmuted and “born again” as an immortal god, and witness the realm of the gods for an hour. While experiencing the divine realms, the initiate goes through a spiritual death and rebirth in the presence of a shining god:
O lord, while being born again, I am passing away; while growing and having grown, / I am dying; while being born from a life-generating birth, I am passing on, released to death — as you have founded, as you have decreed, and have established the mystery.
A full analysis of this, and how it relates to other mystical texts I’ve read, would require its own answer, and this one is already long enough. So for now, I’ll just summarize: This fixation on death and rebirth is extremely characteristic of mystery religions. Most Greek and Roman mystery religions — the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Dionysian or Orphic mysteries, and Christianity (which isn’t technically a mystery cult but may as well be one, and evolved in the same place) — are all about the possibility of the initiate to transcend death and ascend to a better afterlife, a higher state of being, or even godhood. That’s normal for mystery cults. So, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that the “Mithras Liturgy” focuses on the same thing. The question is whether it is authentically Mithraic. Mithras’ name is only used that one time, and he’s identified with Helios, who shows up a lot in the PGM. It’s possible that Mithras’ name is just being attached to Helios, and that this ritual doesn’t otherwise have anything to do with him or his cult. It would be even harder to prove that this ritual had any impact on Christianity. Speaking for my academic mind, I don’t think it’s proof of anything, but speaking for my mystical mind, I consider it to be nice validation that all initiates learn similar stuff in different ways. I might have to try out this ritual!
Krishna
Krishna is one of the most important and popular deities in Hinduism. He’s worshipped as a god of love, joy, compassion, beauty, enlightenment, and all that good stuff. Krishna is the only god on his list who has been actively and consistently worshipped until the present day; there’s so much material related to him that I can’t possibly address it all in this answer. I’m also not familiar with most of it, and I don’t want to be here all week. So, I’m going to keep this section brief, and just debunk the memes.
The mythicists have no excuses with this one. Hinduism is a living religion! All the rest of the ridiculous Jesus claims can be chalked up to modern people being misinformed about the ancient world, and gods’ know I’ve seen enough examples of that. But more than a billion people on this planet worship Krishna. Making these kinds of claims about Krishna is straight-up telling all those people what they believe. But internet atheists have a tendency to assume that every religion works like Christianity anyway, so, I don’t expect any of the people making these absurd memes to ask a Hindu about anything.
Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first: Saying “River of Ganges” is as absurd as saying “River of Danube” or “River of Nile.” Nobody talks like that. The River Ganges is associated with purification (theoretically — it’s actually extremely polluted) but there’s no direct Hindu analogue to baptism, because it’s a different religion. Also, “Jezeus” doesn’t sound anything remotely like Sanskrit. I’ve never studied Sanskrit or Hindi, and I know that. The actual Sanskrit word with the closest meaning to “pure essence” is सत्, “sat.” Honestly, the fact that they think adding a ‘Z’ to “Jesus” makes it sound more vaguely “exotic” shows just how starved for material these memes are.
I should say that while “Krishna” and “khristos” may sound similar, they are not related. “Khristos” means “anointed,” a Greek translation of the Hebrew word “messiah”; “Krishna” comes from Sanskrit and means “black,” referencing Krishna’s dark blue skin tone, which indicates that he is an avatar of Vishnu. Actual epithets of Krishna include Hari (who takes away [sins/illusions/obstacles]), Mohan (enchanter), Muralidhara (who bears the flute), Keev (prankster), Govinda (herdsman), and Mukunda (who offers liberation). None of the ones I found are exactly translated as “savior,” but the sentiment is often similar; Krishna and Jesus share a divine herdsman/shepherd aspect that is a metaphor for guiding and protecting souls.
Now, onto the claim that Krishna is the supreme deity of Hinduism. That’s not wrong, but, well… I’ll try to explain this as best I can. Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu, making him an incarnated version of one of the most important and powerful gods — an aspect of an aspect of the Supreme Being. That means that Vishnu, an effulgent cosmic entity, squeezed himself down into a little human shape in order to be able to interact with mortals. But Krishna is also treated as distinct from all of Vishnu’s other avatars and sometimes from Vishnu himself, making him an extremely important god in his own right, and he certainly eclipses Vishnu’s base aspect in terms of popularity. That means that most Hindus actively worship Krishna more often than they worship Vishnu, making Krishna more important on a practical day-to-day basis. There’s a lot of complicated theology around Krishna’s relationship to Vishnu, and I don’t fully understand it, so the important thing to understand about it is that it is not actually that much like the relationship between Christ and the Abrahamic God. The similarity is that Krishna is an aspect of Vishnu that is more accessible to mortals, just as Christ is an aspect of the Abrahamic God that is more accessible to mortals, but how that works is different. Jesus is both God and the mortal son of God, who lived on Earth as a human. Krishna is both Vishnu and a distinct deity — himself — and he lived on Earth, but he is not Vishnu’s son or a human version of Vishnu.
If that sounds weird, know that it’s actually pretty normal as far as pagan gods go. We like to sort gods and goddesses into easily-definable categories based on what they’re the “god of,” i.e. their domains. But that is, at best, an enormous oversimplification that doesn’t reflect the way religion actually works. Individual gods can have huge sets of different identities and bynames depending on who’s worshipping them and in what context, so, the line between different gods can be pretty thin. Hindu gods in particular regularly turn into different aspects of themselves that are often broken off and worshipped as entirely separate deities, making them both the same and different. So, assuming that Krishna plays basically the same role as Christ does already misunderstands how divinity works in Hinduism, and in paganism in general.
The “virgin birth” claim is baseless, as usual. Krishna had seven brothers, all of whom were conceived normally, so Devaki was definitely not a virgin when she gave birth to Krishna. However, there is an actual parallel with Jesus here: Both Jesus and Krishna are spirited away by their parents to protect them from evil kings who want to kill them. Krishna’s birth follows the pattern of a pretty common trope in mythology — an unborn child of divine origin is prophesied to defeat or destroy an evil ruler. Like Danae, Devaki is imprisoned by the evil king Kansa because her eighth son is prophesied to destroy him, and like Kronos, Kansa kills each one of Devaki’s children once they’re born. Krishna’s father, Vasudeva, spirits him away in the night to keep him safe from Kansa, and leaves him to be raised by another couple. (So the trope of a divine and/or royal child being raised by an ordinary peasant family is really old, too.)
Krishna actually did perform miracles. He is one of the exceptions to the general rule that gods don’t wander the earth to teach people things and perform miracles, because his existence as an avatar allows Vishnu to do precisely that. One example of a miracle is a time when, as a child, Krishna tried to buy mangos from a fruit seller with whatever grain his little hands could carry. She gave him the mangos anyway, and the grain transformed into gold and jewels. In another instance, he swallows an entire forest fire to prevent it from causing any more damage. Another example is an episode in the Mahabharata in which a group of men try to forcibly disrobe a woman, who cries out to Krishna to help her. Krishna instantly replaces her dress with a new one every time it is torn off:
Hearing the words of Draupadi, Krishna was deeply moved. And leaving his seat, the benevolent one from compassion, arrived there on foot. And while Yajnaseni was crying aloud to Krishna, also called Vishnu and Hari and Nara for protection, the illustrious Dharma, remaining unseen, covered her with excellent clothes of many hues. And, O monarch as the attire of Draupadi was being dragged, after one was taken off, another of the same kind, appeared covering her. And thus did it continue till many clothes were seen. And, O exalted on, owing to the protection of Dharma, hundreds upon hundreds of robes of many hues came off Draupadi’s person. And there arose then a deep uproar of many many voices. — The Mahabharata, Book 1
These sorts of miracles are the same kinds of things that Jesus did in his stories, so, that’s an actual parallel. Also like Jesus, Krishna imparted his teachings to mortals directly. One of the most famous episodes of Krishna’s life is the Bhagavad Gita, a section of the much longer Mahabharata, in which he drives the war chariot of the demigod-prince Arjuna and teaches him all about moral and metaphysical philosophy. However, I would say that it has more in common with a Platonic dialogue than with Jesus’ sermons.
The similarities end there. Mythologically, Krishna is more along the lines of a culture hero, kind of like if you were to combine Jesus’ compassionate teachings and miracles with Heracles’ monster-slaying and epic shenanigans. Kansa sends many different demons (asuras aren’t exactly the same concept as demons, but I’m going to identify them with demons for the sake of simplicity) after Krishna to try to kill them, and Krishna defeats all of them in spectacular fashion. One of the most famous of these is Arishtasura, a bull-demon:
9. Krsna waited spreading out his serpent-like mighty arm on the shoulder of a friend. The demon Ariṣṭa who was thus enraged, dashed at Kṛṣṇa in fury, furrowing the eaṛth below with his hoofs and dispersing the clouds with his tail upraised. 10. Thrusting forward the ends of his horns and staring fixed with blood-shot eyes, the demon, trying to cow down Krsna with his side-glances, darted at him even as the thunderbolt discharged by Indra. […] 13. As he rushed towards Krsna, the Lord seized the demon by the horns and hurled him on the ground. Pressing him down with one foot, he wrung his body as one would wring and twist a drenched cloth. Pulling out one of his horns, he struck him and the demon dropped down on the earth. — The Bhagavata Purana, 10.36
I have no idea if this story is somehow related to Mithras’ lost bull-slaying story. I’m guessing not — the bull clearly stands out in Mithras’ mythology, but here it’s just one of many similar demons that Krishna curb-stomps, each of which takes a different form. It’s an interesting parallel, though.
Krishna also has trickster aspects that Christ typically lacks. In another famous episode, baby Krishna steals butter from a pot when his mother isn’t looking. This story is ironically humanizing, since it’s in that stealing butter is exactly the sort of thing that a small child would do, but it’s also laden with spiritual significance. This mischievous and playful attitude is one of Krishna’s defining characteristics, because it demonstrates a lighthearted and tranquil approach towards life. Everything is a delightful game to Krishna, even battling demons.
Krishna’s mischievous tendencies continue into his teen years — there’s another story in which he steals the clothes of his female devotees while they’re bathing, and hangs them in a tree:
7. On one occasion (on the last day of that vow which was a full-moon day), they, as usual, left their garments on the bank, and singing the glory of Kṛṣṇa, they sported in the water merrily (as that was the concluding day of their vow). Thus they concentrated on him in mind, word and deed). 8. Understanding their intention, the glorious Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Master of all other experts in yoga, surrounded by his companions, went there to grant them the fruit of their vow. 9. It is traditionally reported that he collected all their garments and quickly climbed a Kadamba tree (nearby). Laughing loudly, he spoke to them in fun, while (other) boys also kept a-laughing. 10. “Oh delicate girls! As you are exhausted by observing a religious vow, I am not joking. Earnestly I tell you. Let each of you come here at will, and receive her respective garments. — The Bhagavata Purana, 10.22
There’s spiritual significance to this story, too, but could you imagine Jesus doing something like this? Tricksterish interpretations of Christ exist (Godspell is one of my favorites), but they’re comparatively rare, and definitely not canonized. Speaking of things that Jesus wouldn’t do, if you’re wondering what eventually happens to Kansa, Krishna straight-up breaks his neck in a wrestling ring.
Regarding Krishna’s death, someone please tell whoever’s making these memes that crucifixion did not exist outside of Rome. It’s an extremely specific thing, and its sacred significance is entirely original to Christianity. Even if we were to assume that everything else about Christianity was inspired by or appropriated form something else, that at least would be completely unique to it, because it doesn’t make sense in any other context. In fact, the idea of a god being crucified is so absurd, the only reason Christians would think that it’s common is because they are not familiar with anything else. I should not have to say that there was no crucifixion in India, but, here we are. Krishna’s death is a complete accident — he was shot by a hunter who mistook him for a deer. Not sure how you confuse a blue man with a deer, but okay. (It’s actually the result of a complicated series of events including a curse and a boy who gives birth to a mace — don’t ask. The leadup is one of the weirdest stories I’ve ever encountered in mythology, and that’s saying a lot.) Krishna forgives and blesses the boy who shot him, and then ascends directly up to the heavenly spheres, returning to his original divine form. He doesn’t really “die” or “resurrect” because, as I explained earlier, he was a god to begin with.
Bottom line: There are some real parallels between Krishna and Christ (more so than the previous three gods, anyway), but not a lot. Most of their similarities are in their domains and cultural roles, not in their mythology or theology. When we get down to the nitty-gritty of who they are and how they’re interpreted, the comparison fails. If I were being generous, I would say that they express similar ideas filtered through extremely different cultural lenses because — shockingly — Christianity and Hinduism are extremely different.
Dionysus
Okay, here we go! I am now firmly in my wheelhouse! I’ll do my best to keep this section brief, because I don’t want to keep you here all week. There’s still a lot to cover, though, so buckle up.
Dionysus is the Greek god of wine, viticulture, ecstasy, madness, festivals, liberation, androgyny, theater, and rebirth. Of all the gods on this list, Dionysus has the most actual parallels with Jesus. Therefore, the comparison between them doesn’t feel so far out of left field. That said, the memes still manage to get a lot of stuff about Dionysus dead wrong, and the context around the actual parallels is still quite different.
Some of the claims listed in these memes are actually true, but they are still presented in a way that’s misleading.
We’ll start with the same old “virgin birth” claim. Dionysus’ father is Zeus. I think that speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Zeus doesn’t have a great track record for leaving virgins untouched. But Dionysus’ mother is still worth talking about, because Dionysus has one of the weirdest and most complex origin stories in Greek mythology. In the basic version of his birth, his mother is Semele, a princess of Thebes. Her relationship with Zeus is consensual and apparently happy, until Hera goes out of her way to ruin it by placing doubt in Semele’s mind that her lover really is Zeus. Semele demands to see Zeus in his true divine form, and Zeus has to give in. He reveals his true form, and appears to Semele as a brilliant lightning storm, which incinerates her. Zeus is able to rescue Semele’s unborn child from her womb and sew it into his own thigh (which may be a euphemism for his testicles), so it’s ultimately Zeus who gives birth to Dionysus. And Zeus definitely isn’t a virgin.
In the other version of Dionysus’ origins, he was the son of Zeus and Persephone. Zeus took the form of a snake to have sex with Persephone in a cave, and Persephone gave birth to her son, Zagreus, the normal way. Zeus is delighted with Zagreus and brings him to Olympus, naming him the heir to his throne and giving him thunderbolts to play with. Hera, resentful that one of Zeus’s bastard children should be his heir, sent Titans to dismember and eat the baby Zagreus. Zeus, furious, destroyed the Titans with a thunderbolt. Exactly what happens next varies by telling, but somehow Zeus consumes or absorbs the essence of Zagreus, and Zagreus is reincarnated as the son of Semele, and the story proceeds as above. That means that Dionysus is the only god on this list who actually does die and resurrect, though it’s more of a literal rebirth than a resurrection, and definitely not after exactly three days.
Put a pin in that story of Zagreus being dismembered, because we’ll get back to it. For now, I want to further elaborate on the “virgin birth” claim. One of Persephone’s common epithets, Kore, is sometimes translated as “virgin,” but what it really means is “young woman” or simply “girl” (as opposed to parthanos, which has the same connotations of chastity that “virgin” has). In the more conventional stories in which she and Hades have no children, Persephone is interpreted as a literal virgin. In Orphism, though, Persephone is the mother of Zagreus, Melinoe, and the Erinyes, so, she’s not a virgin. Her encounter with snake-Zeus is explicitly sexual, and her pregnancy is normal:
Ah, maiden Persephoneia! You could not find how to escape your mating! No, a dragon was your mate, when Zeus changed his face and came, rolling in many a loving coil through the dark to the corner of the maiden’s chamber, and shaking his hairy chaps: he lulled to sleep as he crept the eyes of those creatures of his own shape who guarded the door. He licked the girl’s form gently with wooing lips. By this marriage with the heavenly dragon, the womb of Persephone swelled with living fruit, and she bore Zagreus the horned baby, who by himself climbed upon the heavenly throne of Zeus and brandished lightning in his little hand, and newly born, lifted and carried the thunderbolts in his tender fingers. — Nonnus, Dionysiaca, Book 6
The only context in which Dionysus’ origin story even comes close to being a “virgin birth” is in Pseudo-Hyginus version, in which Dionysus’ second conception does not involve sex. In this version, the way in which Dionysus is reincarnated involves Semele taking a potion made of Zagreus’ heart:
Liber [Zagreus-Dionysos], son of Jove [Zeus] and Proserpina [Persephone], was dismembered by the Titanes, and Jove gave his heart, torn to bits, to Semele in a drink. When she was made pregnant by this [with the god Dionysos] . . . For this reason he is called Dionysus, and also ‘the one with two mothers.’ — Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae
I mean… I guess you could construe this as an immaculate conception if you really wanted to. But this is only one source — in most versions, Semele definitely has sex with Zeus. In Nonnus’ version, Zeus takes the form of Dionysus to conceive him, which… kind of makes sense, because they’re both aspects of the Supreme Being (see below), but… you make of this what you will.
As for the date of Dionysus’ birthday, I have truly scoured every possible source for any indication of when Dionysus’ birthday is, both because I want to be able to prove or disprove this claim and also because I want to know when to celebrate it! I have found almost nothing that identifies the winter solstice as Dionysus’ birthday. The closest I’ve found is this passage, from Saturnalia by Macrobius:
They observe the holy mystery in the rites by calling the sun Apollo when it is in the upper (that is, daytime) hemisphere; when it is in the lower (that is, night-time) hemisphere, it is considered Dionysus, who is Liber. Similarly, some images of father Liber are fashioned in the form of a boy, others of a young man, sometimes also bearded, or even elderly, like the image of the one the Greeks call Bassareus, and also the one they call Briseus, and like the one the people of Naples in Campania worship under the name Hêbôn. But the different ages are to be understood with reference to the sun. It is very small at the winter solstice, like the image the Egyptians bring out from its shrine on a fixed date, with the appearance of a small infant, since it’s the shortest day. Then, as the days become progressively longer, by the vernal equinox it resembles a vigorous young man and is given the form of a youth. Later, full maturity at the summer solstice is represented by a beard, by which point it has grown as much as it will grow. Thereafter, as the days become ever shorter, the god is rendered in the fourth shape, like a man growing old. — Macrobius, Saturnalia, Book 1
Macrobius is a late and kind of weird source, but he does preserve a lot of interesting mystical lore. This section of the dialogue discusses solar worship, addressing many different gods — Osiris, Apollo, Dionysus, Hermes, Mars — as aspects of the sun. Here, he identifies Dionysus as the dark or nocturnal aspect of the sun in contrast to Apollo, the light aspect. He explains the differing depictions of Dionysus (some of which are mature and bearded and some of which are youthful and effeminate) by identifying them with the seasonal waxing and waning of the sun. Therefore, the infant Dionysus represents the sun at the winter solstice, when it’s at its “smallest.” I have no idea whether Macrobius is describing an actual belief here or if he’s just pontificating, but regardless, this passage does not describe a specific festival on the solstice that’s associated with Dionysus’ birth. So, the Dec. 25th date is a no-sell.
Unusually for a god, Dionysus actually does walk the earth to spread his teachings among humans, accompanied by a band of disciples (consisting of insane women and lust-crazed goat-men, all roaring drunk). Unlike all of the other Olympians, Dionysus spends the beginning of his life on earth, among humans. Dionysus wandered all over the eastern Mediterranean, establishing his cult and teaching viticulture to humans:
And now he was attended by holy companies, and over all the earth were spread the gifts of Dionysos, son of Thyone, and everywhere he went about showing forth his excellence to men. — Oppian, Cynegetica Father Liber [Dionysos] went out to visit men in order to demonstrate the sweetness and pleasantness of his fruit… — Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae With events like these [the miracles performed during his earthly wanderings], men learned that Dionysos was a god, and they began to honour him. — Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca After leaving the gold-rich fields of the Lydians and Phrygians, I moved on to Persia’s sun-parched plateaux and Bactra’s walls and the bleak land of the Medes and opulent Arabia and all of Asia Minor whose parts hug the salty sea with beautifully-towered cities full of Greeks and barbarians mixed together. I first came to this Greek city [Thebes] only after I had roused to dancing all those Asian lands and established my rites there so that I might be seen by mortals as a god. — Euripides, The Bacchae 13–22
However, Dionysus is still no street preacher. In Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, Dionysus quest is not a peaceful traveling teacher in the manner of Jesus, but explicitly a divine conqueror who must earn his way into Heaven by subjugating India:
Father Zeus sent Iris to the divine halls of Rheia, to inform wakethefray Dionysos, that he must drive out of Asia with his avenging thyrsus the proud race of Indians untaught of justice: he was to sweep from the sea the horned son of a river, Deriades the king, and teach all nations the sacred dances of the vigil and the purple fruit of the vintage. — Nonnus, Dionysiaca, Book 13.
(This was probably just a mythological way of explaining why some Hindus practice similar ecstatic rites that the Greeks would have associated with Dionysus.)
Dionysus also performs miracles, but not quite in the same sense as Jesus and Krishna. As I said above, miraculous phenomena are things that gods can just do, so it’s not that weird for Dionysus to turn the pirates who captured him into dolphins or to cause an earthquake that brings Pentheus’ palace crashing to the ground. But the fact that Dionysus is among humans, and that he needs to prove his divinity in a way that no other gods do, means that his shows of power are closer to our idea of “miracles” than those of other gods. Here’s some examples of Maenads performing miracles with Dionysus’ divine power in The Bacchae:
One woman, taking her thyrsus, struck it against a rock and from it a spring of fresh water leaps out. Another struck her fennel wand against the ground and for this woman the god sent forth a stream of wine. As many as had a desire for white drink, scraping through the earth with their sharp fingers they got springing jets of milk. And from the ivy thyrsi sweet streams of honey dripped. So that if you had been present to see these things, the very god you now censure you would have pursued with prayers. […] On their locks of hair they carried fire but it did not burn them. And the villagers, enraged at being plundered by the Bacchae, took to arms. That was indeed a dreadful spectacle to behold, my lord. For the men’s sharp-pointed spears drew no blood from the maenads… — Euripides, The Bacchae 704–713, 757–761
The Maenads are able to call up water, wine, milk, and honey from the earth by striking it with their fennel wands. They also raid nearby villages, and the villagers are powerless to defend themselves against the Maenads. Fire will not burn them, and weapons will not wound them.
In some context, the existence of wine itself is treated as a miracle of Dionysus, mostly because of the psychological effect of drinking it. In The Bacchae, Tiresias describes wine as liquid joy, and as the divine essence of Dionysus poured out for the sake of humanity:
But he who came afterward, Semele’s offspring, invented the wet drink of the grape as a counter-balance to Demeter’s bread. He introduced it to mortals to stop their sorrow and pain. Whenever men are filled with the stream of the grape-vine they can sleep and forget the evils of the day. — Euripides, The Bacchae 277–282
The story of Jesus turning water into wine is so Dionysian in character that I’ve heard some arguments that it deliberately appropriates Dionysian imagery in order to appeal to Dionysus’ popularity. There’s not really any evidence for that, but I’m a little more convinced by the fact that Jesus compares himself to a grapevine specifically.
There aren’t any major mythological tales of Dionysus turning water into wine, but there is this story from the Ancient Greek novel Leukippe and Kleitophon. This excerpt explains the origin of a Tyrian festival of Dionysus. In this story, Dionysus turns the water in a herdsman’s cup into wine, introducing wine to the region:
Dionysus once paid a visit to this herdsman, who set before him the produce of the earth and the result of the strength of his oxen: but their drink was the same as that of the oxen, since vines did not yet exist. Dionysus thanked the herdsman for his kindly cheer, and pledged him in a friendly cup; but his drink was wine. The herdsman, drinking of it, danced for joy, and said to the god: “Where did you get this purple water, my friend? Wherever did you find blood so sweet ? — Leukippe and Kleitophon, Book 2
There are also sources that describe real-life springs that are sacred to Dionysus miraculously flowing with wine during his festivals, like this one from Pliny:
According to Mucianus, there is a fountain at Andros, consecrated to Father Liber, from which wine flows during the seven days appointed for the yearly festival of that god, the taste of which becomes like that of water the moment it is taken out of sight of the temple. — Pliny, Natural History 31.13
Pausanias describes pots miraculously filling with wine when left in Dionysus’ temple overnight, and also mentions the same spring on Andros:
Between the market-place and the Menius is an old theater and a shrine of Dionysus. The image is the work of Praxiteles. Of the gods the Eleans worship Dionysus with the greatest reverence, and they assert that the god attends their festival, the Thyia. The place where they hold the festival they name the Thyia is about eight stades from the city. Three pots are brought into the building by the priests and set down empty in the presence of the citizens and of any strangers who may chance to be in the country. The doors of the building are sealed by the priests themselves and by any others who may be so inclined. [6.26.2] On the morrow they are allowed to examine the seals, and on going into the building they find the pots filled with wine. I did not myself arrive at the time of the festival, but the most respected Elean citizens, and with them strangers also, swore that what I have said is the truth. The Andrians too assert that every other year at their feast of Dionysus wine flows of its own accord from the sanctuary. If the Greeks are to be believed in these matters, one might with equal reason accept what the Ethiopians above Syene say about the table of the sun. — Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 6
And here’s another one from Diodorus Siculus:
The Teans advance as proof that the god was born among them the fact that, even to this day, at fixed times in their city a fountain of wine, of unusually sweet fragrance, flows of its own accord from the earth… — Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, Book 3
All of these claims are more along the lines of saints’ relics sweating myrrh or mana on their feast days than the story of Jesus turning water into wine, but it technically counts.
There’s two stories concerning Dionysus and donkeys. In the first one, Dionysus is wandering aimlessly because he was driven mad by Hera:
When he came to a certain large swamp which he couldn’t cross, it is said two asses met him. He caught one of them and in this way was carried across, not touching the water at all. So when he came to the temple of Dodonaean Jove [Zeus], freed at once from his madness, he acknowledged his tanks to the asses and placed them among the constellations [as Cancer]. — Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica
That’s not much of a “triumphal procession, though. The other one is more of a triumphal procession up to Olympus, at the end of which, Dionysus takes his rightful place among the gods. But in this one, it’s not Dionysus on the back of the donkey. In this one, Dionysus is on his way up to Olympus after having completed his descent into the Underworld. He finds Hephaestus, who had been literally thrown down from Olympus by his parents, for having gotten between them in an argument or for having bound Hera to a magic chair, or something like that. The fall permanently damaged Hephaestus’ legs, and he cannot return to Olympus by himself. Dionysus brings him back with him, with Hephaestus riding on the back of a donkey.
So, the “triumphal procession on an ass” claim has a little bit of merit, but it’s not the same kind of situation. In the first one, Dionysus is a drunk madman who rides on a donkey because he can’t cross a swamp by himself, and in the other, he helps his disabled half-brother return home.
A much bigger similarity between Jesus and Dionysus that all of these myths neglect to mention is that both are persecuted, and persecution is a running theme in both of their mythoi. Both were spirited away as babies to hide from a more powerful figure who wanted to kill them — Jesus was brought by his parents to Egypt to hide from Herod, and Dionysus was brought by Hermes to Nysa to hide from Hera. They also were both persecuted as adults — Jesus was publicly executed by the Romans, and Dionysus’ worship was suppressed by various mythological kings, including Lycurgus, Pentheus, and even Perseus. This is also very unusual for a god. The worship of Jesus being persecuted makes perfect sense in the political and religious climate in which Christianity developed, but the worship of pagan gods is self-evident and doesn’t need to be proven or justified (especially in the case of Dionysus, a very ancient deity whose worship was nothing new). But because Dionysus’ rituals and teachings tend to upend the social order and threaten those in power, there are a lot of stories about kings rejecting Dionysus’ cult and committing crimes against his worshippers, resulting in Dionysus having to prove his divinity. The most famous of these is probably The Bacchae by Euripides, which tells the story of Dionysus and Pentheus, the King of Thebes. I’ve written plenty on this play before, so the only thing I’ll say about it now is that it includes what I consider to be the single biggest point of commonality between Jesus and Dionysus, the interrogation scene:
PENTHEUS: And from what source to you bring these rites to Greece? DIONYSUS: Dionysus himself, the son of Zeus, sent me. PENTHEUS: And does some local Zeus exist there, one who begets new gods? DIONYSUS: No, we have the same Zeus who yoked Semele here in Thebes. PENTHEUS: And was it in a dream or face to face in daylight that he forced you into his service? DIONYSUS: It was face to face. He looked at me, and I at him. And he gave me his sacred rites freely. PENTHEUS: And those rites — in your view, what form do they take? DIONYSUS: That is forbidden knowledge for any mortals who are not Bacchae. PENTHEUS: And what benefit does it hold for those who sacrifice? DIONYSUS: It is unlawful for you to hear but the benefit is worth knowing. PENTHEUS: You coined that answer cleverly so that I might wish to hear. DIONYSUS: On the contrary. For the rites of the god hate the man who practices impiety. PENTHEUS: Since you say you saw the god clearly, what form did he take? DIONYSUS: Whatever form he wanted. It wasn’t for me to dictate that! PENTHEUS: Very clever, these empty-worded evasions of yours. DIONYSUS: To the ignorant man any speaker of wisdom will seem foolish. — Euripides, The Bacchae 465–480 *** Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?” “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?” Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. John 18.34–38
These dialogues both rely on dramatic irony — the audience knows that the person being interrogated is a god, but the interrogator does not know that and is incapable of seeing it. Both Jesus and Dionysus use wit and wordplay to simultaneously reveal and disguise their true nature, and subtly allude to their respective teachings.
The difference is in how Jesus and Dionysus each react to being persecuted. Jesus nobly turns the other cheek and prays for his enemies. Dionysus wreaks bloody revenge. He drives Lycurgus mad so that he will murder his own family, and has Pentheus dismembered by a band of Maenads that includes Pentheus’ own mother. Dionysus is scary. Jesus lacks many of Dionysus’ darker associations, like his association with madness and his more bloody aspects. He also isn’t the biggest fan of hedonism — or at least, Christianity itself tends to disavow hedonism — which is Dionysus’ entire thing. Christianity also doesn’t typically include any excitatory trance (except for whatever glossolalia thing Pentecostals have going on). Dionysus in turn lacks many of Jesus’ associations, like those of peace and forgiveness.
o he has to approach the entrance like a mortal, and experience true katabasis in the manner of heroes like Odysseus, Heracles, and Orpheus. This story was so popular that Aristophanes spoofed it. (The Frogs is a little bit like if Star Wars didn’t survive the ages, but Spaceballs did.) So, Dionysus did descend into the Underworld, but his descent had to take longer than three days, because it was enough time for the man who showed him the entrance (called either Hypolipnus or Prosymnos) to have died.
Dionysus’ associations with the afterlife go further than just this myth. The idea that Dionysus can bring people back from Hades appears in other contexts, such as in the Anthesteria festival in Athens, during which Dionysus brings the souls of the dead back to Earth to participate in the three-day festival. His own death at the hands of the Titans, as Zagreus, mirrors the winemaking process — grapes are torn apart and crushed into must, which is then left to ferment in caves (a tomblike, chthonic location), that is then “magically” transmuted and “reborn” as wine. When the new wine is opened at Anthesteria, it bestows vitality and mystical trance upon those who drink it. There’s also Orphism, a mystery cult that centered mainly on Dionysus and the afterlife. Some of its initiates were buried with gold tablets that are like “passports” into Elysium, the most “heavenly” part of Hades where the heroes go when they die. The tablets give the initiates passwords to say to the gods of the Underworld, which will prove the initiate’s worth and allow them to access Elysium, or even to achieve apotheosis:
Now you have died and now you have been born, thrice blessed one, on this very day. Say to Persephone that Bakkhios [Dionysus] himself freed you. A bull you rushed to milk. Quickly, you rushed to milk. A ram you fell into milk. You have wine as your fortunate honor. And rites await you beneath the earth, just as the other blessed ones. — Gold tablet from Pelinna
You will find a spring on the left of the halls of Hades, and beside it a white cypress growing. Do not even go near this spring. And you will find another, from the Lake of Memory, flowing forth with cold water. In front of it are guards. You must say, ‘I am the child of Ge and starry Ouranos; this you yourselves also know. I am dry with thirst and am perishing. Come, give me at once cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.’ And they themselves will give you to drink from the divine spring, and then thereafter you will reign with the other heroes. — Gold tablet from Petelia
A: I come from the pure, o Pure Queen of the earthly ones [Persephone], Eukles [Hades], Eubouleus [Dionysus], and You other Immortal Gods! I too claim to be of your blessed race, but Fate and other Immortal Gods conquered me, the star-smiting thunder. And I flew out from the hard and deeply-grievous circle, and stepped onto the crown with my swift feet, and slipped into the bosom of the Mistress (Kore), the Queen of the Underworld. And I stepped out from the crown with my swift feet. B: Happy and blessed one! You shall be a god instead of a mortal. A: I have fallen as a kid into milk. — Gold tablet from Thurii
The initiate claims to be of the race of gods, and the gods of the Underworld say in response that the initiate will live in Elysium with the heroes, or that they will become a god. The first one even says explicitly that Dionysus somehow freed the initiate through their death and rebirth. (There’s some other Orphic fragments that suggest that this is freedom from the cycle of incarnation, more along Hindu lines.) Dionysus died as Zagreus and was reborn, and his initiates can go through the same process by receiving his mysteries.
Does that mean that Dionysus is a “savior” who liberates people from death the way Jesus does? Well… no. Soter, “Savior,” is one of Dionysus’ epithets, but it’s a pretty common epithet of Greek gods and goddesses, referring to their ability to save people from practical and present threats to their safety and wellbeing, like war or hunger or natural disasters. It doesn’t mean the same thing as the Jewish concept of a Messiah. A little more on-point is Dionysus’ epithet Eleutherios, “liberator” or “deliverer,” but this is interpreted in the context of wine-drinking liberating one from suffering and inhibition (as in the Bacchae lines from Tiresias that I quoted above). Dionysus does not share any of Jesus’ other epithets, like “redeemer,” “anointed one,” and “alpha and omega.” Actual epithets of Dionysus include include Bakkhos (frenzied), Bromios (the roaring), Eubouleus (of good council), Maenoles (the mad), Dikerotes (two-horned), Angrogynos (androgynous; lit. “man-woman”), Dimetor (of two mothers), Lenaios (of the wine press), Kissophoros (ivy-bearer), Polymorphos (many-formed), Nyctipolos (night-wandering), and Omaphagos (eater of raw flesh). Dendrites, “of the trees,” is a real epithet of Dionysus, but all it means is that Dionysus is associated with literal trees. It is an absurd leap and logic to claim that an association with trees must mean that Dionysus was crucified. Dionysus was torn to pieces, not crucified.
The only other epithet worth talking about is “Son of God.” Dionysus certainly isn’t the only begotten son of God, as anyone who knows anything about Zeus can attest, but he does play a unique role in comparison to Zeus’s other sons and daughters. He’s the only one who is canonically Zeus’s heir! In “vanilla” Greek mythology (i.e. not Orphism), Zeus goes out of his way to avoid having an heir, which is why he swallows Metis. But in the Zagreus myth, Zeus almost literally passes the torch to Zagreus and names him heir to the Universe. This is because, in Orphism, Dionysus is the last of six gods that rule the universe in succession. The first one was Phanes, the progenitor god that brought everything into existence. Phanes was followed by Nyx, then Ouranos, then Kronos, and finally Zeus; Zeus is the fifth and current Lord of the Universe. Zeus and Dionysus have similar names and backstories, so Dionysus could be interpreted as an earthly aspect of Zeus that is more accessible to humans, kind of similar to Krishna. Several sources also identify Dionysus with Phanes — Orphic Hymn #30 calls him Protogonon, “primordial” (an epithet of Phanes), and Phanes is sometimes treated interchangeably with Dionysus. This is getting into weird mystical territory, so I’ll stop for now, but the point is that Dionysus is sometimes identified as an aspect of Phanes, the first/original Supreme Being, and that he is the designated heir apparent to the current Supreme Being, putting him in a somewhat similar position to Jesus and Krishna.
The Orphic Dionysus does actually have a lot in common with Jesus. He died and was restored to life (albeit in a different way), he is an aspect/child/incarnation/something of the Supreme Being, he descended into Hades and came back, and he can help his initiates obtain a better afterlife. If all that sounds familiar, well… that’s probably not a sign that Jesus is secretly the Orphic Dionysus with a different face. It’s because modern scholars choose to interpret Dionysus as the pagan Jesus. In an essay called “Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth,” Orphic scholar Radcliffe Edmonds points out that a lot of scholars do the Golden Bough thing and interpret Orphism through a Christian lens, making it seem more like Christianity than it really is. Our knowledge of Orphism is too fragmentary for us to know what it was “really” about, so we can’t know if the myth of Zagreus’ death and resurrection was really that central to it, let alone if that myth is somehow related to the gold tablets, etc. Super neat-and-pretty interpretations of Orphism are almost guaranteed to be inaccurate and misleading. So, if Orphism ends up sounding too much like “Dionysian Christianity,” that’s because modern Christians interpret it that way. (And then that bleeds over into neopaganism — lookin’ at you, hellenicgods.org.) It’s always frustrating to admit that we know less than we think we do, and that the sources we have are too disconnected for us to properly link them together, but that’s how ancient anthropology tends to work. And that’s why all the “Jesus is really [insert god here]” claims fall apart. That’s not how this works. No matter how many similarities I may find between Jesus and Dionysus, there is not enough evidence to link them in any substantial way.
If Jesus and Dionysus’ respective cults influenced each other in any way, I’m betting it was through syncretism. Syncretism is a completely normal thing that happens when religions exist in the same place at the same time, so it’s possible the Dionysian cult and early Christianity would have intersected somehow. That’s a lot more plausible than the claim that Jesus is a “copy of” Dionysus. For every similarity between them, there’s a glaring difference, like Dionysus’ bloodthirsty tendencies or Jesus’ teachings on disconnection from “worldly” things. There’s very little overlap between the practices associated with Christianity and with Dionysian worship, which ultimately matters far more than mythology when you’re looking for signs of syncretism. Jesus’ worship consists of sitting quietly in a church and listening to sermons; Dionysus’ worship consists of drinking contests, theatrical competitions, running wild through the mountains, and drunken processions through the streets in which men dressed as women or wore giant leather dicks. I’m not joking. If the standard liturgy of Christianity looked more like a Pride parade, then maybe we’d have something to talk about.
Why are all these gods compared to Jesus? There is actually a common thread here that I noticed while writing this — all of these deities are at the center of, or somehow significant to, a mystery cult. Dionysus and Mithras have their own mystery cults, Krishna has multiple mystery cults, Attis and Horus are relevant to those of Kybele and Isis, and Christianity is basically a public mystery cult. There’s also some symbolic continuity between them: These gods aren’t all born of virgins, specifically, but all of their births are somehow miraculous, even by the standards of gods. Most of them are somehow associated with life, death, and the afterlife. Most of them are divine kings; heirs to the Universe, if not literal incarnations of it. Most of them are born or raised in lowly circumstances and persecuted by a more powerful figure that wants to kill them — Horus by Set, Krishna by Kansa, Dionysus by Hera, Jesus by Herod. To me, that suggests that there is some inherent mystical significance to the idea of a kingly god having humble origins and being persecuted. My amateur theory (based more in my religious beliefs than in any kind of scholarly assessment) is that the cults are unrelated, but that they all express some fundamental spiritual ideas in different ways.
I do not take any of this as evidence that these cults influenced each other directly. That would be irresponsible. Proving a direct line between any of these cults and Christianity would require substantial evidence that we just don’t have. I would love it if experts in the field actually compared all of these religions to each other in good faith, but until I find a really boring and dry study that validates some of my theories (and isn’t even slightly influenced by James Frazer), I am not going to make any claims based on my mystical revelations. Unfortunately, most of the material I’ve found on this subject is sensationalist bullshit like The Immortality Key that cares much more about giving the finger to Christianity than about doing justice to any of these religions. Why can’t we just let Jesus be his own thing? I know that Christianity can be annoying as well as the next pagan, but that’s no reason to straight-up lie about its origins for the sake of a cheap gotcha.
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