ABSTRACT
The gospel of John begins with irony of nonrecognition: "the world came into being through him [the Word]; world did not know him. He came into what was his own, and his own people did not accept him." Dionysus was an ancient and foreign god who reveled in the question of perception. Even for the Greeks he was a strange figure: immortal ever youthful, male with feminine qualities, foreign yet divine. Epiphanies are inherently problematic, after all. Courtney Friesen observes how for Dionysus in Bacchae, "the god's self-revelation entails his own disguise." Christ was often compared to Dionysus. The early Christian art in Rome's Callistus catacombs used Dionysian imagery, and well into the Christian era poet Nonnus composed both a tale of Dionysus and a paraphrase of the gospel of John. The ending of Mark's gospel encourages compassion and even a community that sympathizes with disciples despite their "clumsy recognitions," unreliability, and terrified running away at empty tomb.
