The True God of Wine
It was common for ancient writers to try and equate the gods of one culture to the gods of the audience to which they wrote. Herodotus, for instance, repeatedly equated several Egyptian gods with Greek counterparts. Neith is equated to Athena, Mendes to Pan, Horus to Apollo, and on and on.
This practice continued to Plutarch, a Greek philosopher and essayist living in the first century, who is known for his biographies of famous Greeks and Romans (compiled in the modern day as Lives). In one of his writings, Plutarch muses on the God of the Jews, and he attempts to draw comparisons with one of the Greek gods.
Many Christians today, if forced to make a choice, might see similarities with Apollo, a representation of reason and order. And yet, as Peter Leithart points out in his Blessed are the Hungry, Plutarch draws a connection from the God of the Jews to Dionysus. Yet Dionysus, the god of revelry and disorder, of wine and drama, could be seen as the opposite of Apollo.
His reasons? The Sabbath and its invitation to drink and enjoy wine.
From Plutarch’s Quaestiones Convivales:
The Jews themselves testify to a connection with Dionysos when they keep the Sabbath by inviting each other to drink and enjoy wine; when more important business interferes with this custom, they regularly take at least a sip of neat wine. Now thus far one might call the argument only probable; but the oppposition is quite demolished, in the first place by the High Priest, who leads the procession at their festival wearing a miter and clad in a gold-embroidered fawnskin, a robe reaching to the ankles, and buskins, with many bells attached to his clothes and ringing below him as he walks. All this corresponds to our custom. In the second place, they also have noise as an element in their nocturnal festivals, and call the nurses of the God ‘bronze rattlers.’ The carved thyrsos in the relief on the pediment of the Temple and the drums provide other parallels. All this surely befits no divinity but Dionysos
And there are other places where Plutarch draws parallels.
Christians know that Dionysus is no god at all, and whatever reality he represents is, at best, just a shadow caused by the true light or, at worst, a corruption and twisting of true reality. But Christians should also take seriously that reality and realize that the God of Scripture is the true God of Wine.
He is not a god who is remote, but the God who came down to dwell with us, to bump elbows with a people who wielded nothing but rough, wild, and pointed elbows. We are tempted to think of Him as aloof and harsh, but His first miracle while on earth was to create a bunch of wine for a wedding party. And that should not surprise us.
In the Law, He commanded feasts more than he commanded fasts, and many times, drinking wine and beer was a requirement. The promise of the coming new covenant was couched in terms of a feast with rich food and well-aged wine (Is. 25:6). Psalm 104 says that God gave wine to gladden the heart of man.
The gospel invitation is partly an invitation to learn of God, but that learning takes place in the context of feasting and celebration, dining in the midst of our enemies while we raise a toast to our victorious King.
C.S. Lewis also draws this connection in Prince Caspian. The children in the story run into Bacchus/Dionysus and, with Aslan, participate in a tamer version of a Bacchanalian romp. But a romp it still is, with dancing and play and the gobbling up of perfect, juicy grapes.
They see:
…a youth, dressed only in a fawn-skin, with vine-leaves wreathed in his curly hair. His face would have been almost too pretty for a boy’s, if it had not looked so extremely wild. You felt, as Edmund said when he saw him a few days later, “There’s a chap who might do anything – absolutely anything.”
And later, Susan says:
“I wouldn’t have felt very safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we’d met them without Aslan.”
There is a part of feasting and revelry that, when submitted under the authority and guidance of Aslan, is good and true. Wine is certainly a mocker, and there are warnings against drunkenness, but that doesn’t remove the goodness of what God created.
While I think Lewis is a bit clumsy and weird in his portrayal of this truth (I think Prince Caspian is the weakest of the Narnia novels), it still points in the correct direction and towards the same truth that Plutarch recognized.
Dionysus might be famous for being the god of revelry, but he is small potatoes compared to the true God of wine. Scolding schoolmarms and joyless curmudgeons should spend less time worrying that someone, somewhere, might be having a little too much fun and more time enjoying a glass of something delicious.