7 ms·

Discovery of fresco portraying Dionysian mysteries at Pompeii

149 points by dr_dshiv 2y ago

echelon 2y ago
> [...] about to be initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, the god who dies and is reborn and who promises the same destiny to his followers. Sounds an awful lot like Christianity. I remember growing up, pastors lecturing me that "no other religion is like Christianity". It would appear there are a lot of similarities to contemporary cults. > the frieze can be dated to the 40s-30s BC > In antiquity, there were a series of cults, including the cult of Dionysus, that were only accessible to those who performed an initiation ritual, as illustrated in the Pompeian frieze. They were known as “mystery cults” because their secrets could only be known by initiates. The cults were often linked to the promise of a new blissful life, both in this world and in the afterlife. How related are the ideas of Christianity to these mystery cults?
- jfengel 2y ago
  It sounds like a lot of religions. It's a pretty common idea. Christianity certainly had mystery cults, but so did all of the other Mediterranean religions, including its immediate ancestor Judaism. It's hard to tell how much Christianity cribbed from other religions and how much is just the same idea recurring over and over because it's a common human theme. Your pastors were wrong to say that Christianity is totally unprecedented. But neither is it just a cynical pastiche of existing ideas. It arose out of the time and place that surrounded its creation. Like all human ideas it's a blend of old and new thoughts.
- panagathon 2y ago
  You can read Brian Muraresku's The Immortality Key for a detailed exploration of this topic. It certainly isn't beyond criticism, but it's points are substantive and well referenced, giving the reader enough scope to tackle the controversial points themselves, not just take the authors presentation on face value.
  - ithkuil 2y ago
    A good interview with him: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/346-the-best-kept-secret-in-history https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/346...
- felizuno 2y ago
  Check out The Immortality Key by Brian Muraresku, it has a few theories on through lines. The book is about these mystery cults, and specifically how they may have been using and early form of LSD. Part of the theory is the classically reported ego death experience might be what is referenced by the rebirth/resurrection claims. As for overlaps with Christianity, there are lots of fun theories including that John the Baptist was an initiate and may have actually initiated Jesus. This is a little difficult to square with the fact that the greek mystery cults claim to have exclusively initiated women, but hey they don't call them mystery cults because they are fully understood.
  - panagathon 2y ago
    That's only potentially true for the Dionysian. Others were open to both. See 76e in Plato's Meno, for reference.
- dismalaf 2y ago
  I mean, there's a bunch of religions that have figures that die and are reborn in some way. There's also dharmic religions that believe in various degrees of escaping the cycle of death and rebirth. Christianity was somewhat unique to the middle east in believing that there would be a final resurrection and earthly paradise, versus simply being reborn as a god, having a more comfortable underworld existence, etc... As for Dionysus, he was more of an Osiris-figure... Resurrected from pieces in the underworld and his death-rebirth was associated with the seasons especially the growing and harvest of wine. The practices of the cult was to enter an ecstatic frenzy while drinking wine (probably laced with psychedelics). If he did influence Christianity it would be to the same degree as Osiris, Horus, Inanna or other similar deities. But IMO Christianity probably derived from dharmic religions (the Buddha was known to early Christians...). But that's another topic.
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    > Christianity was somewhat unique to the middle east in believing that there would be a final resurrection and earthly paradise, versus simply being reborn as a god, having a more comfortable underworld existence, etc... I think the final resurrection concept mostly comes from Judaism, where the Messiah will come and resurrect the people of Israel.
  - AStonesThrow 2y ago
    >> to the same degree as Osiris, Horus, Inanna or other similar deities. The NT arose in a Hellenistic context, but the OT was inherently anti-Egypt and that's where you'll see more direct references (Book of Exodus, ten plagues, etc.) By the Apostolic Age/early Church, Egyptian deities were syncretized and interpreted by the Greeks, and Egypt was a safer place to hang out during the Massacre of the Innocents. But Jesus returned home with all the Moses we'd ever need.
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  >> no other religion is like Christianity Isn't that a tautology? LDS, JWs, Messianic Jews, Oneness Pentecostals, Iglesia ni Cristo: are they Christianity or another religion? How different can a religion be until it isn't "like Christianity"? Soundbite doing some heavy lifting out of context. The NT writers used Koine Greek to evangelize a Hellenistic world. Anybody from a pagan tradition reading those books could've found aspects of Dionysus in Jesus, and because Greek Paganism wasn't untrue but simply incomplete, bound to a territory and lacking in universality. Pagans personify and explain nature and the supernatural through deities, while for Christians, the Holy Trinity is the lens through which we see all truth, beauty and goodness.
  - krapp 2y ago
    The Trinity is a recent addition to Christian doctrine, relatively speaking, and certainly not universal if one considers the entire history of the religion. It is delightfully weird, though, in a "we have polytheism at home" kind of way.
    - AStonesThrow 2y ago
      Many, perhaps most, mainstream Christian churches define Christianity as Trinitarian, and that dogma is the “bright line” between Us & Them. It's absolutely not “recent”. You're confusing “additions/accretions to doctrine” with the way the Church worked in reality. Doctrines and dogmas were believed but not defined or formulated until heresies and controversies arose. The definition of a doctrine is a final way to settle a controversy in favor of orthodox belief. The definition of the Holy Trinity was simply when the reality was put into human words. Lest we forget that the Church produced Scripture, because it seems like folly for this to be turned upside down, but for 500 years, Scripture has begotten churches.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      Christianity has an entire pantheon, and always has. It's replete with angels and demons, even a Zoroastrian-like evil deity not to be worshipped. Multitudes of saints in most traditions. For that matter, they can't even all agree on the name of their primary deity, and I think one might be forgiven if they were to confuse the many names as not "many names of a single deity", but "many names for many deities".
- neuronic 2y ago
  Appear? One of the only ways to get people to convert was to actually take some of their beliefs and traditions and assimilate them into Christianity. Just google how the Christmas tree came to be or better yet Christmas itself... the Bible is also just an anthology, a politically (!) hand-picked collection of texts, from various streams which fit the interests of the dominant sect at the time (400+ years after Jesus!). Also... "Christianity began as an outgrowth of Second Temple Judaism,..." [1] It's all related. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible
  - gpderetta 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism
- sapphicsnail 2y ago
  I'm not sure why you're being down voted. You're not the first person to make that observation. There's an actually an ancient author who wrote a whole epic about Dionysius and also wrote his own version of the Gospel of John. Ideas have always been moving around and mixing.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  > I remember growing up, pastors lecturing me that "no other religion is like Christianity". These pastors should go back to school; they should have gotten education about other religions in their training so that they fully understand the origins, similarities and differences between them. They should know the origins of their own religion, like how the date of Christmas was established in the 4th century based on the date of the winter solstice in the Roman Empire. These pastors are reciting dogma instead of learning.
  - bjourne 2y ago
    That Christmas is a Christianized version of Saturnalia is a myth: https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/is-christmas-a-pagan-rip-off https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/is-christmas-a-pagan-r...
    - sethammons 2y ago
      Interesting read. I'm not convinced. It predicates it's assertion on the idea that profits die on the same day they were conceived or born. That is a very unconvincing start. Even if Jesus was born on Christmas, it is undeniable that having a similar dated holiday to co-opt is a marketing win. Other overlaps exist with stories thousands of years older, including virgin births, death and resurrection, and dying for humanity.
      - wahern 2y ago
        It's easier to understand the evidence when you appreciate that most early Christians for the first few centuries were semitic peoples (Jews, Syrians), Greeks, Copts and Berbers in the Levant and North Africa. Even the church in Rome used Greek, not Latin, for its liturgy until the 3rd century. There are multiple historical sources mentioning a March annunciation (i.e. conception) and December/January nativity[1] in the 2nd century, well over a century, if not two centuries, before Christianity was adopted by a significant number of Romans proper. Alexandria and Antioch were far more influential centers of Christian theology and scholarship, where Jewish (and related?) and Coptic calendars were the point of reference. Moreover, during this time Christian theologians were adamant about not mixing pagan Greek and Roman practices with Christian practices. And let's not forget the persecutions. The Roman calendar and the dates of its festivals were largely irrelevant to them in terms of establishing mythological dates or community festivals. And the nativity just wasn't a very important date--and never important enough to be an origin for other dates--to Christians until much later, long after a rough consensus on dates had been established. Theologically the annunciation (conception of Christ) was vastly more important, second only to easter. There's significant substantive evidence for these dates being established independent of the Roman festival, based on transparent and consistent rationales. The only real evidence for the date being chosen because of the Roman festival is basically a curious coincidence that stands out as significant from a Western European cultural perspective, rooted in a Roman centric historical narrative, by those living many centuries later. The coincidence feels particularly strong and intuitive in modern times, where Christmas is seemingly synonymous with Christianity. Plus, much of the modern narrative regarding the origins of Christmas arises from attempts by Protestantism to delegitimize Roman Catholicism, without appreciating that during this time the church in Rome wasn't nearly as preeminent as they would become [long] after Constantine. The conception of Catholicism as a religion dictated by clergy in Rome who could successfully scheme to set a date for Christmas comes largely from the Middle Ages, after the Great Schism with Constantinople, when Rome no longer had to justify itself to any of the other early Christian churches. This image was later reinforced and refined by Protestantism literally attempting to paint the Catholic church as a malevolently scheming institution. Now, the spring dates for the annunciation and death of Christ... you could easily trace it back to pagan origins, but rooted in semitic culture, not Roman or even Greek. The sources spell this out for you; no need to connect the dots. [1] In some instances the dates were mentioned alongside alternative opinions that were significantly different (some web articles seem to mention only these non-concordant alternatives), but that's beside the point. The point is that the relevant dates were rooted at a time when most Christians couldn't care less about the Roman festival, except in so far as they wanted to avoid any conflation.
- bjourne 2y ago
  What distinguishes Christianity from contemporary pagan cults and Judaism are the concepts of sin, repentance, salvation, and atonement. In Christian theology God sacrificed Jesus to offer people the option of "paying off their sin debts" which they otherwise wouldn't have been able to pay. This is in stark contrast to the mystery cults for which enlightenment came through secret knowledge. Romans in general didn't really think in terms of sin. That said, we don't know exactly what rituals the earliest Christians practiced and to outsiders they may have looked similar to the rituals of the mystery cults. Especially since Christians at times were persecuted all over the Roman empire and therefore may have had to keep a low profile.
  - bregma 2y ago
    Offering a human sacrifice to an angry god to redeem us of our sins is not that uncommon and certainly not unique to Christianity. Perhaps what makes Christianity unique is the ritualistic cannibalism in many major sects, but there is much less archaeological remains of such practices in other religions and lack of evidence is not proof.
    - bjourne 2y ago
      Sin is orthogonal to sacrifice. Pagans had sacrifice, but not sin. Jews had sacrifice and sin. Christians had sin but not sacrifice. That was the whole point of the religion, you did not have to "pay up" because God had already paid for you. At the time it was a novel (even revolutionary) idea and most certainly contributed to Christianity spreading so quickly because poor people generally had very little to sacrifice.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    What makes Christianity unique is its attempt at universalism. Prior to it there weren't really belief systems that tried to make a claim to being both exclusively true and universal across all people. e.g. Judaism was/is explicitly for the Jewish people, the Romans freely borrowed from other pantheons and had no concern about other peoples worshiping whatever gods they wanted, etc. etc. Christians are the first major belief system we know of that declares not only that it is universal for all humans, but that if you don't believe/practice its specific faith you are damned, and that it is the duty of every Christian to convert others to the faith. This is one of the reasons why many in pre-Constantine Rome found it so objectionable and disruptive. Islam obviously followed in the same tradition. Various strands of Christianity go even further, making your practices almost entirely irrelevant and the inside of your thoughts being the key determinant on whether you are eternally damned or not. Ancient belief systems were very concerned about rituals and practices and sacrifices etc, vs e.g. strains of modern evangelical Protestantism that is obsessed with your feelings/thoughts/internal mental state.
- shrubble 2y ago
  No other religion has ever had quite the impact on the world as Christianity; but I’m not sure if that’s the context of what your pastor was saying.
  - krapp 2y ago
    That's more due to the power of the imperialist governments that spread the religion by force rather than any innate property of the religion itself.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  For me the starkest contrast is that Christianity introduced the idea of thoughtcrime, though they didn't call it that. In Christianity it is important that you believe the correct things, whereas the pagan religions only cared if you performed the rituals.
  - dr_dshiv 2y ago
    Emperor Justinian instituted that… and built the Hagia Sophia from the ashes of the ensuing riots
triyambakam 2y ago
The bolding of certain phrases and words makes me think of how many popular language models write. And even more interesting now is the skepticism of, "Did a human write this?" I'm not a purist and use models at times in my writing, but try to keep it matching my own voice and what I would actually say.
- janwillemb 2y ago
  This made me also think of an LLM. But looking into their other press releases this seems to be their style if writing, also for the press releases predating LLMs.
- the-rc 2y ago
  This is the way Italians write, especially academics, translated into English words. Even in mundane, everyday documents the style has plenty of fillers and embellishments, unlike the more straightforward one of everyday English.
- darkwater 2y ago
  It's just Italian style for this kind of press releases, especially if it involves publicly funded studies. Source: I'm Italian.
  - lurk2 2y ago
    It's like they figured out how to put emphatic hand gestures into the written word.
- deleted 2y ago
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- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  You're beating around the bush but you seem to want to accuse this of being AI generated, just because it's unfamiliar to you. I get it though, and it's going to get worse. Was this written by an AI? Who knows? Maybe I put all my HN comments over the years into an LLM and it's now writing comments for me?
eurekabot123 2y ago
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ojo-rojo 2y ago
The painting is described in detail, but there is no photograph of it. Isn't that strange? Did I miss a link somewhere?
- Jtsummers 2y ago
  Check the bottom of the page.
  - ojo-rojo 2y ago
    That's what I missed. Very very nice to see the detailed photos.
  - rob74 2y ago
    Thanks for the pointer! Those photos are the typographical version of a post-credits scene in movies - you generally don't expect to find something interesting below the listing of all participants in the project (even below the social media icons!).
- defrost 2y ago
  There's a photo at the top of the article: https://pompeiisites.org/wp-content/uploads/MegalografiaRegioIX-1.jpg https://pompeiisites.org/wp-content/uploads/MegalografiaRegi... There's an interview held in front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK6pisszEyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK6pisszEyo and there are other articles with more detailed images: https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca-dalla-casa-del-tiaso/ https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca...
  - deleted 2y ago
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monero-xmr 2y ago
The wealthy ancients cared so much about aesthetics. Imagine hosting a party in such a room, surrounded by such beauty, the paintings, the columns. I live in a very old home, built by a wealthy man almost 200 years ago. The cost to rehabilitate this property was staggering and I had to pay extra to get foreign workmen to fly in who had the skillset necessary to do the work properly. If you have the money and appreciate aesthetics, living in an ornate home that is beautiful inside and out is a pleasure. The Scandinavian modern minimalist style is so anathema to me, it goes against everything we as humans appreciate. Classical style, Greek columns, open spaces, ornate decoration. The ancients understood this and modernity forgot what these styles provide to the human psyche. I see these monstrosities for sale in the $5 million+ range that wealthy Americans build as new construction. You don’t need or want ~10,000 sqft. You want livable space that gives you emotional resonance. You need a home that is pleasing to work in, relax in, sleep in, view externally and internally. I think modern society has forgotten so many things. You can build things for the same cost that reflect these ideals but for whatever reason we don’t anymore. Every room in my house has a vibe. I care very deeply about the vibes of every single location. The walls, the art, the motifs, how it appears as you walk up the frontage, enter the vestibule, the space, what it means. Guests to my home sense this instantly. I can’t express the pleasure I get from living in a house I have perfectly created to my exact intention. Some people argue it is financially beneficial to rent vs. own. I argue the benefit of owning, having exact precision and control over every aspect of the surroundings you spend the majority of your life in, far surpasses whatever benefit not investing money into your own home can provide. I want every moment to be surrounded by pleasurable aesthetics as much as I can.
- mattlondon 2y ago
  Each to their own - I personally find the ornate decoration, richly coloured walls, large pictures etc quite unpleasant, almost eerie. It is mentally too noisy and overwhelming - I much prefer a simpler approach - not necessarily "minimalist", but simple, light and plain are best for me. Calming, relaxing, peaceful, quiet. More important than decoration though for me is the quality of the architecture, the quality of the space it self - light, human-scale, how you move through the spaces, outlook and views etc
sapphicsnail 2y ago
Just want to add that there is no one thing that is Greek Paganism or Christianity. Any belief system of sufficient age is incredibly diverse and I'd be wary of people online making big generalizing statements about them. There's actually an epic called the Dionysiaca, about Dionysius, that's longer than the Iliad and Odyssey combined. I think there's still only one English translation of it but it's pretty interesting. It has a story of Dionysius being reborn that might be related to this.
- wdutch 2y ago
  Plug for my favourite podcast Literature and History which has convered this topic: https://literatureandhistory.com/episode-096-the-last-pagan-epic/ https://literatureandhistory.com/episode-096-the-last-pagan-...
  - intrasight 2y ago
    Thank you!
  - jpster 2y ago
    Thanks! You might like the In Our Time podcasts from the BBC.
- Telemakhos 2y ago
  You left out the best part: the author of the Dionysiaca, Nonnus of Panopolis, also wrote an abridgment of the Gospel of John.
  - alsetmusic 2y ago
    I’ve been a student of early christianity (first three centuries) for just over a year. The wiki entry on Nonnus is scant. Can you please recommend quality literature to learn more about the Metabole? It’s not clear to me the purpose of the text.
    - Telemakhos 2y ago
dr_dshiv 2y ago
“Let us not forget, however, that for the Roman religion, conceived as a rigid state religion, the unbridled nature of a cult like that of Dionysus was considered dangerous. Arriving from Campania, the Dionysian cult spread rapidly to Rome, where the famous scandal of the Bacchanalia broke out and the devotees were deemed dangerous for the stability of the res publica itself. In 186 BC a famous senatus consultum prohibited the cult of the god and prosecuted transgressors. Numerous places of worship were destroyed and even death sentences followed. In Pompeii, a sanctuary dedicated to the god and dating back to the middle of the third century BC remained in operation until the end of the city, in 79 AD and Pompeii always showed a fervent and growing devotion to the mysterious manifestations of the god.” https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca-dalla-casa-del-tiaso/ https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca... And more from Wikipedia on the cult and its violent suppression—nearly 7000 killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchanalia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchanalia
- techload 2y ago
  An interesting account of these related persecutions, etc.: LETTER TO A BRAZILIAN MASON UNEXPURGATED: http://www.themasonictrowel.com/ebooks/freemasonry/eb0158.pdf http://www.themasonictrowel.com/ebooks/freemasonry/eb0158.pd...
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    Blavatsky? Incarnate God? this might be an attempt to smear masonry.. what giant quasi-government institution in Brazil might have interest in doing that?
- ourmandave 2y ago
  Shout out to the Maenads, the OG Girls Gone Wild. Fun times, except they'd occasionally rip dudes limb from limb along with the local fauna. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ScBPfrSl6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ScBPfrSl6Q
doodlebugging 2y ago
I'm gonna let all of y'all discuss the religions and cults. I'll go off topic for a bit. I have to put in a plug for all the craftsmen (and women?) who did the tile inlay work on those floors. I've seen lots of pictures of mosaic floors and I am always impressed by the skills of the artists who created those designs and how they were able to use colored bits of rock to craft intricate portraits that have lasted millenia. In the last photo of the series you see one of my favorites. The section between columns depicting fish in the four corners with the circular design using hexagonal symmetry shows how they were able to combine elements with entirely different symmetries and the fish, which were mirrored corner to corner, and do it coherently. I would love to see a photo of the individual tile work. The only thing that drives me nuts about that element is the placement of the two columns. The artist should've scaled the design to fit between the columns so that the column on the right overlaps the outside black boundary the same as the left column. I'm thinking that they used a bottom-up building technique where the walls are established and then the floors are laid first and then after the walls are complete they add a roof so that the column placement comes into play later in the building process. This means that the motif is likely complete under those columns instead of the floor being tiled up to the columns. The section between the columns to the left of the fishes is a really nice intricate design incorporating small equilateral triangles with a central strip that appears to have some Greek lettering, perhaps the letters phi or psi. I can't make it out. Does anyone have an idea about the methods and materials used for roof construction? I suspect that timbers were used as you can see at the tops of the walls how they would've been spaced by the layout of openings that I think would've held the ends of large timber beams just above the dark painted columns on the wall. The stone columns appear to line up with the nooks so that one can picture something akin to a coffered ceiling design where the timbers, since they are oriented with their widest sides horizontally instead of the stronger vertical orientation, needed the column support at intervals to prevent collapse. I also can appreciate the level of detail work that went into the motif that used the squares cut by a small black diagonal on a 45 degree angle so that the design is a combination of squares and right triangles. The thin diagonals are made using individual black tiles and the triangles are infilled with similar sized white tiles. It's a really nice geometric design that would've been easy to lay out and execute if the materials were consistently cut. I can imagine the materials list that the tile crew would get and how specific the designer would be about tile dimensions. I've done a bit of tile work in the houses that we've owned and tried to make each special. Tiling is a lot like needlepoint in that you are laying things out on a precise grid and everything in the design has a specific location and orientation and the sizing of elements really is important to avoid visual artifacts that will draw the eye of someone like myself whose eyes are magnetically drawn to imperfections. I see all the defects all the time. That character defect made me a nice career doing QC work though I know that some people hated to discover that I was the one checking their work. I get it. It's hard being me sometimes and harder to work with me most times.
curtisszmania 2y ago
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neuroelectron 2y ago
Better article with photos: https://eng.obozrevatel.com/section-news/news-bloody-ritual-for-the-afterlife-found-on-unique-frescoes-in-pompeii-01-03-2025.html https://eng.obozrevatel.com/section-news/news-bloody-ritual-... Edit: link fixed
- PretzelPirate 2y ago
  I think you pasted the wrong link. Your link is about a car.
  - zaat 2y ago
    One can still hold that it's a better link, it's a matter of preference. Anyways, if you scroll the original article to the very end it does contain an impressive set of photos. It is beautiful.
  - velcrovan 2y ago
    Maybe they just think theirs is an objectively better article, even though their topics differ. And that it also has photos.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
Just stumbled upon an interesting episode in Roman Republic history: The Social War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_War_(91%E2%80%9387_BC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_War_(91%E2%80%9387_BC) Pompeii and Herculaneum are identified as “having joined insurgents” (see color coded map)! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii#The_Roman_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii#The_Roman_period Fewer than 180 years before the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii and Campania had been subjugated by Republican armies after their rebellious insurrection. Here, have a erudite post-punk music video (1986) about the eruption: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=wsOHvP1XnRg&si=kNoAj2scal8q4ej0 https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=wsOHvP1XnRg&si=kNoAj2scal8...

149 points by dr_dshiv 2y ago

> [...] about to be initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, the god who dies and is reborn and who promises the same destiny to his followers. Sounds an awful lot like Christianity. I remember growing up, pastors lecturing me that "no other religion is like Christianity". It would appear there are a lot of similarities to contemporary cults. > the frieze can be dated to the 40s-30s BC > In antiquity, there were a series of cults, including the cult of Dionysus, that were only accessible to those who performed an initiation ritual, as illustrated in the Pompeian frieze. They were known as “mystery cults” because their secrets could only be known by initiates. The cults were often linked to the promise of a new blissful life, both in this world and in the afterlife. How related are the ideas of Christianity to these mystery cults?

jfengel 2y ago
It sounds like a lot of religions. It's a pretty common idea. Christianity certainly had mystery cults, but so did all of the other Mediterranean religions, including its immediate ancestor Judaism. It's hard to tell how much Christianity cribbed from other religions and how much is just the same idea recurring over and over because it's a common human theme. Your pastors were wrong to say that Christianity is totally unprecedented. But neither is it just a cynical pastiche of existing ideas. It arose out of the time and place that surrounded its creation. Like all human ideas it's a blend of old and new thoughts.
panagathon 2y ago
You can read Brian Muraresku's The Immortality Key for a detailed exploration of this topic. It certainly isn't beyond criticism, but it's points are substantive and well referenced, giving the reader enough scope to tackle the controversial points themselves, not just take the authors presentation on face value.
- ithkuil 2y ago
  A good interview with him: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/346-the-best-kept-secret-in-history https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/346...
felizuno 2y ago
Check out The Immortality Key by Brian Muraresku, it has a few theories on through lines. The book is about these mystery cults, and specifically how they may have been using and early form of LSD. Part of the theory is the classically reported ego death experience might be what is referenced by the rebirth/resurrection claims. As for overlaps with Christianity, there are lots of fun theories including that John the Baptist was an initiate and may have actually initiated Jesus. This is a little difficult to square with the fact that the greek mystery cults claim to have exclusively initiated women, but hey they don't call them mystery cults because they are fully understood.
- panagathon 2y ago
  That's only potentially true for the Dionysian. Others were open to both. See 76e in Plato's Meno, for reference.
dismalaf 2y ago
I mean, there's a bunch of religions that have figures that die and are reborn in some way. There's also dharmic religions that believe in various degrees of escaping the cycle of death and rebirth. Christianity was somewhat unique to the middle east in believing that there would be a final resurrection and earthly paradise, versus simply being reborn as a god, having a more comfortable underworld existence, etc... As for Dionysus, he was more of an Osiris-figure... Resurrected from pieces in the underworld and his death-rebirth was associated with the seasons especially the growing and harvest of wine. The practices of the cult was to enter an ecstatic frenzy while drinking wine (probably laced with psychedelics). If he did influence Christianity it would be to the same degree as Osiris, Horus, Inanna or other similar deities. But IMO Christianity probably derived from dharmic religions (the Buddha was known to early Christians...). But that's another topic.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  > Christianity was somewhat unique to the middle east in believing that there would be a final resurrection and earthly paradise, versus simply being reborn as a god, having a more comfortable underworld existence, etc... I think the final resurrection concept mostly comes from Judaism, where the Messiah will come and resurrect the people of Israel.
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  >> to the same degree as Osiris, Horus, Inanna or other similar deities. The NT arose in a Hellenistic context, but the OT was inherently anti-Egypt and that's where you'll see more direct references (Book of Exodus, ten plagues, etc.) By the Apostolic Age/early Church, Egyptian deities were syncretized and interpreted by the Greeks, and Egypt was a safer place to hang out during the Massacre of the Innocents. But Jesus returned home with all the Moses we'd ever need.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
>> no other religion is like Christianity Isn't that a tautology? LDS, JWs, Messianic Jews, Oneness Pentecostals, Iglesia ni Cristo: are they Christianity or another religion? How different can a religion be until it isn't "like Christianity"? Soundbite doing some heavy lifting out of context. The NT writers used Koine Greek to evangelize a Hellenistic world. Anybody from a pagan tradition reading those books could've found aspects of Dionysus in Jesus, and because Greek Paganism wasn't untrue but simply incomplete, bound to a territory and lacking in universality. Pagans personify and explain nature and the supernatural through deities, while for Christians, the Holy Trinity is the lens through which we see all truth, beauty and goodness.
- krapp 2y ago
  The Trinity is a recent addition to Christian doctrine, relatively speaking, and certainly not universal if one considers the entire history of the religion. It is delightfully weird, though, in a "we have polytheism at home" kind of way.
  - AStonesThrow 2y ago
    Many, perhaps most, mainstream Christian churches define Christianity as Trinitarian, and that dogma is the “bright line” between Us & Them. It's absolutely not “recent”. You're confusing “additions/accretions to doctrine” with the way the Church worked in reality. Doctrines and dogmas were believed but not defined or formulated until heresies and controversies arose. The definition of a doctrine is a final way to settle a controversy in favor of orthodox belief. The definition of the Holy Trinity was simply when the reality was put into human words. Lest we forget that the Church produced Scripture, because it seems like folly for this to be turned upside down, but for 500 years, Scripture has begotten churches.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    Christianity has an entire pantheon, and always has. It's replete with angels and demons, even a Zoroastrian-like evil deity not to be worshipped. Multitudes of saints in most traditions. For that matter, they can't even all agree on the name of their primary deity, and I think one might be forgiven if they were to confuse the many names as not "many names of a single deity", but "many names for many deities".
neuronic 2y ago
Appear? One of the only ways to get people to convert was to actually take some of their beliefs and traditions and assimilate them into Christianity. Just google how the Christmas tree came to be or better yet Christmas itself... the Bible is also just an anthology, a politically (!) hand-picked collection of texts, from various streams which fit the interests of the dominant sect at the time (400+ years after Jesus!). Also... "Christianity began as an outgrowth of Second Temple Judaism,..." [1] It's all related. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible
- gpderetta 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism
sapphicsnail 2y ago
I'm not sure why you're being down voted. You're not the first person to make that observation. There's an actually an ancient author who wrote a whole epic about Dionysius and also wrote his own version of the Gospel of John. Ideas have always been moving around and mixing.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
> I remember growing up, pastors lecturing me that "no other religion is like Christianity". These pastors should go back to school; they should have gotten education about other religions in their training so that they fully understand the origins, similarities and differences between them. They should know the origins of their own religion, like how the date of Christmas was established in the 4th century based on the date of the winter solstice in the Roman Empire. These pastors are reciting dogma instead of learning.
- bjourne 2y ago
  That Christmas is a Christianized version of Saturnalia is a myth: https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/is-christmas-a-pagan-rip-off https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/is-christmas-a-pagan-r...
  - sethammons 2y ago
    Interesting read. I'm not convinced. It predicates it's assertion on the idea that profits die on the same day they were conceived or born. That is a very unconvincing start. Even if Jesus was born on Christmas, it is undeniable that having a similar dated holiday to co-opt is a marketing win. Other overlaps exist with stories thousands of years older, including virgin births, death and resurrection, and dying for humanity.
    - wahern 2y ago
      It's easier to understand the evidence when you appreciate that most early Christians for the first few centuries were semitic peoples (Jews, Syrians), Greeks, Copts and Berbers in the Levant and North Africa. Even the church in Rome used Greek, not Latin, for its liturgy until the 3rd century. There are multiple historical sources mentioning a March annunciation (i.e. conception) and December/January nativity[1] in the 2nd century, well over a century, if not two centuries, before Christianity was adopted by a significant number of Romans proper. Alexandria and Antioch were far more influential centers of Christian theology and scholarship, where Jewish (and related?) and Coptic calendars were the point of reference. Moreover, during this time Christian theologians were adamant about not mixing pagan Greek and Roman practices with Christian practices. And let's not forget the persecutions. The Roman calendar and the dates of its festivals were largely irrelevant to them in terms of establishing mythological dates or community festivals. And the nativity just wasn't a very important date--and never important enough to be an origin for other dates--to Christians until much later, long after a rough consensus on dates had been established. Theologically the annunciation (conception of Christ) was vastly more important, second only to easter. There's significant substantive evidence for these dates being established independent of the Roman festival, based on transparent and consistent rationales. The only real evidence for the date being chosen because of the Roman festival is basically a curious coincidence that stands out as significant from a Western European cultural perspective, rooted in a Roman centric historical narrative, by those living many centuries later. The coincidence feels particularly strong and intuitive in modern times, where Christmas is seemingly synonymous with Christianity. Plus, much of the modern narrative regarding the origins of Christmas arises from attempts by Protestantism to delegitimize Roman Catholicism, without appreciating that during this time the church in Rome wasn't nearly as preeminent as they would become [long] after Constantine. The conception of Catholicism as a religion dictated by clergy in Rome who could successfully scheme to set a date for Christmas comes largely from the Middle Ages, after the Great Schism with Constantinople, when Rome no longer had to justify itself to any of the other early Christian churches. This image was later reinforced and refined by Protestantism literally attempting to paint the Catholic church as a malevolently scheming institution. Now, the spring dates for the annunciation and death of Christ... you could easily trace it back to pagan origins, but rooted in semitic culture, not Roman or even Greek. The sources spell this out for you; no need to connect the dots. [1] In some instances the dates were mentioned alongside alternative opinions that were significantly different (some web articles seem to mention only these non-concordant alternatives), but that's beside the point. The point is that the relevant dates were rooted at a time when most Christians couldn't care less about the Roman festival, except in so far as they wanted to avoid any conflation.
bjourne 2y ago
What distinguishes Christianity from contemporary pagan cults and Judaism are the concepts of sin, repentance, salvation, and atonement. In Christian theology God sacrificed Jesus to offer people the option of "paying off their sin debts" which they otherwise wouldn't have been able to pay. This is in stark contrast to the mystery cults for which enlightenment came through secret knowledge. Romans in general didn't really think in terms of sin. That said, we don't know exactly what rituals the earliest Christians practiced and to outsiders they may have looked similar to the rituals of the mystery cults. Especially since Christians at times were persecuted all over the Roman empire and therefore may have had to keep a low profile.
- bregma 2y ago
  Offering a human sacrifice to an angry god to redeem us of our sins is not that uncommon and certainly not unique to Christianity. Perhaps what makes Christianity unique is the ritualistic cannibalism in many major sects, but there is much less archaeological remains of such practices in other religions and lack of evidence is not proof.
  - bjourne 2y ago
    Sin is orthogonal to sacrifice. Pagans had sacrifice, but not sin. Jews had sacrifice and sin. Christians had sin but not sacrifice. That was the whole point of the religion, you did not have to "pay up" because God had already paid for you. At the time it was a novel (even revolutionary) idea and most certainly contributed to Christianity spreading so quickly because poor people generally had very little to sacrifice.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  What makes Christianity unique is its attempt at universalism. Prior to it there weren't really belief systems that tried to make a claim to being both exclusively true and universal across all people. e.g. Judaism was/is explicitly for the Jewish people, the Romans freely borrowed from other pantheons and had no concern about other peoples worshiping whatever gods they wanted, etc. etc. Christians are the first major belief system we know of that declares not only that it is universal for all humans, but that if you don't believe/practice its specific faith you are damned, and that it is the duty of every Christian to convert others to the faith. This is one of the reasons why many in pre-Constantine Rome found it so objectionable and disruptive. Islam obviously followed in the same tradition. Various strands of Christianity go even further, making your practices almost entirely irrelevant and the inside of your thoughts being the key determinant on whether you are eternally damned or not. Ancient belief systems were very concerned about rituals and practices and sacrifices etc, vs e.g. strains of modern evangelical Protestantism that is obsessed with your feelings/thoughts/internal mental state.
shrubble 2y ago
No other religion has ever had quite the impact on the world as Christianity; but I’m not sure if that’s the context of what your pastor was saying.
- krapp 2y ago
  That's more due to the power of the imperialist governments that spread the religion by force rather than any innate property of the religion itself.
amanaplanacanal 2y ago
For me the starkest contrast is that Christianity introduced the idea of thoughtcrime, though they didn't call it that. In Christianity it is important that you believe the correct things, whereas the pagan religions only cared if you performed the rituals.
- dr_dshiv 2y ago
  Emperor Justinian instituted that… and built the Hagia Sophia from the ashes of the ensuing riots

triyambakam 2y ago

The bolding of certain phrases and words makes me think of how many popular language models write. And even more interesting now is the skepticism of, "Did a human write this?" I'm not a purist and use models at times in my writing, but try to keep it matching my own voice and what I would actually say.

janwillemb 2y ago
This made me also think of an LLM. But looking into their other press releases this seems to be their style if writing, also for the press releases predating LLMs.
the-rc 2y ago
This is the way Italians write, especially academics, translated into English words. Even in mundane, everyday documents the style has plenty of fillers and embellishments, unlike the more straightforward one of everyday English.
darkwater 2y ago
It's just Italian style for this kind of press releases, especially if it involves publicly funded studies. Source: I'm Italian.
- lurk2 2y ago
  It's like they figured out how to put emphatic hand gestures into the written word.
deleted 2y ago
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Cthulhu_ 2y ago
You're beating around the bush but you seem to want to accuse this of being AI generated, just because it's unfamiliar to you. I get it though, and it's going to get worse. Was this written by an AI? Who knows? Maybe I put all my HN comments over the years into an LLM and it's now writing comments for me?

eurekabot123 2y ago

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ojo-rojo 2y ago

The painting is described in detail, but there is no photograph of it. Isn't that strange? Did I miss a link somewhere?

Jtsummers 2y ago
Check the bottom of the page.
- ojo-rojo 2y ago
  That's what I missed. Very very nice to see the detailed photos.
- rob74 2y ago
  Thanks for the pointer! Those photos are the typographical version of a post-credits scene in movies - you generally don't expect to find something interesting below the listing of all participants in the project (even below the social media icons!).
defrost 2y ago
There's a photo at the top of the article: https://pompeiisites.org/wp-content/uploads/MegalografiaRegioIX-1.jpg https://pompeiisites.org/wp-content/uploads/MegalografiaRegi... There's an interview held in front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK6pisszEyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK6pisszEyo and there are other articles with more detailed images: https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca-dalla-casa-del-tiaso/ https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca...
- deleted 2y ago
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monero-xmr 2y ago

The wealthy ancients cared so much about aesthetics. Imagine hosting a party in such a room, surrounded by such beauty, the paintings, the columns. I live in a very old home, built by a wealthy man almost 200 years ago. The cost to rehabilitate this property was staggering and I had to pay extra to get foreign workmen to fly in who had the skillset necessary to do the work properly. If you have the money and appreciate aesthetics, living in an ornate home that is beautiful inside and out is a pleasure. The Scandinavian modern minimalist style is so anathema to me, it goes against everything we as humans appreciate. Classical style, Greek columns, open spaces, ornate decoration. The ancients understood this and modernity forgot what these styles provide to the human psyche. I see these monstrosities for sale in the $5 million+ range that wealthy Americans build as new construction. You don’t need or want ~10,000 sqft. You want livable space that gives you emotional resonance. You need a home that is pleasing to work in, relax in, sleep in, view externally and internally. I think modern society has forgotten so many things. You can build things for the same cost that reflect these ideals but for whatever reason we don’t anymore. Every room in my house has a vibe. I care very deeply about the vibes of every single location. The walls, the art, the motifs, how it appears as you walk up the frontage, enter the vestibule, the space, what it means. Guests to my home sense this instantly. I can’t express the pleasure I get from living in a house I have perfectly created to my exact intention. Some people argue it is financially beneficial to rent vs. own. I argue the benefit of owning, having exact precision and control over every aspect of the surroundings you spend the majority of your life in, far surpasses whatever benefit not investing money into your own home can provide. I want every moment to be surrounded by pleasurable aesthetics as much as I can.

mattlondon 2y ago
Each to their own - I personally find the ornate decoration, richly coloured walls, large pictures etc quite unpleasant, almost eerie. It is mentally too noisy and overwhelming - I much prefer a simpler approach - not necessarily "minimalist", but simple, light and plain are best for me. Calming, relaxing, peaceful, quiet. More important than decoration though for me is the quality of the architecture, the quality of the space it self - light, human-scale, how you move through the spaces, outlook and views etc

sapphicsnail 2y ago

Just want to add that there is no one thing that is Greek Paganism or Christianity. Any belief system of sufficient age is incredibly diverse and I'd be wary of people online making big generalizing statements about them. There's actually an epic called the Dionysiaca, about Dionysius, that's longer than the Iliad and Odyssey combined. I think there's still only one English translation of it but it's pretty interesting. It has a story of Dionysius being reborn that might be related to this.

wdutch 2y ago
Plug for my favourite podcast Literature and History which has convered this topic: https://literatureandhistory.com/episode-096-the-last-pagan-epic/ https://literatureandhistory.com/episode-096-the-last-pagan-...
- intrasight 2y ago
  Thank you!
- jpster 2y ago
  Thanks! You might like the In Our Time podcasts from the BBC.
Telemakhos 2y ago
You left out the best part: the author of the Dionysiaca, Nonnus of Panopolis, also wrote an abridgment of the Gospel of John.
- alsetmusic 2y ago
  I’ve been a student of early christianity (first three centuries) for just over a year. The wiki entry on Nonnus is scant. Can you please recommend quality literature to learn more about the Metabole? It’s not clear to me the purpose of the text.
  - Telemakhos 2y ago

dr_dshiv 2y ago

“Let us not forget, however, that for the Roman religion, conceived as a rigid state religion, the unbridled nature of a cult like that of Dionysus was considered dangerous. Arriving from Campania, the Dionysian cult spread rapidly to Rome, where the famous scandal of the Bacchanalia broke out and the devotees were deemed dangerous for the stability of the res publica itself. In 186 BC a famous senatus consultum prohibited the cult of the god and prosecuted transgressors. Numerous places of worship were destroyed and even death sentences followed. In Pompeii, a sanctuary dedicated to the god and dating back to the middle of the third century BC remained in operation until the end of the city, in 79 AD and Pompeii always showed a fervent and growing devotion to the mysterious manifestations of the god.” https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca-dalla-casa-del-tiaso/ https://www.classicult.it/pompei-una-megalografia-dionisiaca... And more from Wikipedia on the cult and its violent suppression—nearly 7000 killed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchanalia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchanalia

techload 2y ago
An interesting account of these related persecutions, etc.: LETTER TO A BRAZILIAN MASON UNEXPURGATED: http://www.themasonictrowel.com/ebooks/freemasonry/eb0158.pdf http://www.themasonictrowel.com/ebooks/freemasonry/eb0158.pd...
- mistrial9 2y ago
  Blavatsky? Incarnate God? this might be an attempt to smear masonry.. what giant quasi-government institution in Brazil might have interest in doing that?
ourmandave 2y ago
Shout out to the Maenads, the OG Girls Gone Wild. Fun times, except they'd occasionally rip dudes limb from limb along with the local fauna. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ScBPfrSl6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ScBPfrSl6Q

doodlebugging 2y ago

I'm gonna let all of y'all discuss the religions and cults. I'll go off topic for a bit. I have to put in a plug for all the craftsmen (and women?) who did the tile inlay work on those floors. I've seen lots of pictures of mosaic floors and I am always impressed by the skills of the artists who created those designs and how they were able to use colored bits of rock to craft intricate portraits that have lasted millenia. In the last photo of the series you see one of my favorites. The section between columns depicting fish in the four corners with the circular design using hexagonal symmetry shows how they were able to combine elements with entirely different symmetries and the fish, which were mirrored corner to corner, and do it coherently. I would love to see a photo of the individual tile work. The only thing that drives me nuts about that element is the placement of the two columns. The artist should've scaled the design to fit between the columns so that the column on the right overlaps the outside black boundary the same as the left column. I'm thinking that they used a bottom-up building technique where the walls are established and then the floors are laid first and then after the walls are complete they add a roof so that the column placement comes into play later in the building process. This means that the motif is likely complete under those columns instead of the floor being tiled up to the columns. The section between the columns to the left of the fishes is a really nice intricate design incorporating small equilateral triangles with a central strip that appears to have some Greek lettering, perhaps the letters phi or psi. I can't make it out. Does anyone have an idea about the methods and materials used for roof construction? I suspect that timbers were used as you can see at the tops of the walls how they would've been spaced by the layout of openings that I think would've held the ends of large timber beams just above the dark painted columns on the wall. The stone columns appear to line up with the nooks so that one can picture something akin to a coffered ceiling design where the timbers, since they are oriented with their widest sides horizontally instead of the stronger vertical orientation, needed the column support at intervals to prevent collapse. I also can appreciate the level of detail work that went into the motif that used the squares cut by a small black diagonal on a 45 degree angle so that the design is a combination of squares and right triangles. The thin diagonals are made using individual black tiles and the triangles are infilled with similar sized white tiles. It's a really nice geometric design that would've been easy to lay out and execute if the materials were consistently cut. I can imagine the materials list that the tile crew would get and how specific the designer would be about tile dimensions. I've done a bit of tile work in the houses that we've owned and tried to make each special. Tiling is a lot like needlepoint in that you are laying things out on a precise grid and everything in the design has a specific location and orientation and the sizing of elements really is important to avoid visual artifacts that will draw the eye of someone like myself whose eyes are magnetically drawn to imperfections. I see all the defects all the time. That character defect made me a nice career doing QC work though I know that some people hated to discover that I was the one checking their work. I get it. It's hard being me sometimes and harder to work with me most times.

curtisszmania 2y ago

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neuroelectron 2y ago

Better article with photos: https://eng.obozrevatel.com/section-news/news-bloody-ritual-for-the-afterlife-found-on-unique-frescoes-in-pompeii-01-03-2025.html https://eng.obozrevatel.com/section-news/news-bloody-ritual-... Edit: link fixed

PretzelPirate 2y ago
I think you pasted the wrong link. Your link is about a car.
- zaat 2y ago
  One can still hold that it's a better link, it's a matter of preference. Anyways, if you scroll the original article to the very end it does contain an impressive set of photos. It is beautiful.
- velcrovan 2y ago
  Maybe they just think theirs is an objectively better article, even though their topics differ. And that it also has photos.

AStonesThrow 2y ago

Just stumbled upon an interesting episode in Roman Republic history: The Social War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_War_(91%E2%80%9387_BC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_War_(91%E2%80%9387_BC) Pompeii and Herculaneum are identified as “having joined insurgents” (see color coded map)! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii#The_Roman_period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii#The_Roman_period Fewer than 180 years before the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii and Campania had been subjugated by Republican armies after their rebellious insurrection. Here, have a erudite post-punk music video (1986) about the eruption: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=wsOHvP1XnRg&si=kNoAj2scal8q4ej0 https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=wsOHvP1XnRg&si=kNoAj2scal8...