The Mighty Bull of the Two Lands

Revivification

Although both Dionysos and Osiris were said to have been murdered, they both were able to regain their power and life.

An inscription from Thasos describes Dionysos as a God who renews himself and returns each year rejuvenated. (Susan Guettel Cole, Dionysos and the Dead, pg. 280 in Masks of Dionysos) The Christian author Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew grudgingly observed that, "Bacchus, son of Jupiter, being torn in pieces, and having died, rose again." Plutarch informs us that the "Phrygians believe that the God sleeps in winter and is awake in summer, and with Bacchic frenzy they celebrate in the one season the festival of his being lulled to sleep Kateunasmous and in the other his being aroused or awakened Anegerseis. The Paphlagonians declare that he is fettered and imprisoned during the winter, but that in the spring he moves and is freed again." (On Isis and Osiris 69) Diodorus Siculus says that after being torn apart by the Titans, Dionysos was pieced back together again by Demeter, and "he experienced a new birth as if for the first time." (3.62) Macrobius in the Saturnalia observed that, "In their Mystery-tradition Dionysos is represented as being torn limb from limb by the fury of the Titans, and after the pieces have been buried, as coming together again and whole and one. By offering itself for division from its undivided state, and by returning to the undivided from the divided, this Dionysian process both fulfills the duties of the cosmos and also performs the mysteries of its own nature."

Dirk Obbink observes, "Dionysos is poured out, expended in ritual, yet returns, and is present to be poured again in each new year's vintage. In Dionysos' sanctuaries, fountains flow with wine, vine bloom and produce overnight. In this very domesticated view Dionysos represents the perpetualy full cup, from which, when mixed with water in a civilized fashion, humans can drink as much as they like." (Dionysos Poured Out, pg. 86, in Masks of Dionysos) At Phillipi we find a Latin funerary inscription that suggests that the dead youth will be restored or refreshed (repartus) in the Elysian Fields, dancing as a satyr with the tattooed mystai of Bromios. (CIL 3, no. 686) Another indication of this are the Orphic bone tablets found at Olbia with the words bios - thanatos - bios inscribed on them - meaning that death (thanatos) is a passage between two phases of life bios.

And on the revivification of Dionysos, Walter Otto poetically wrote, "And when he opens his eyes, when he rouses himself, when he grows into glorious maturity, he will fill their hearts with a heavenly terror, their limbs with a maddening desire to dance." (Dionysos: Myth and Cult, pg. 81)

While it is true that Osiris, unlike Dionysos, did not return bodily to the earth, but remained a powerful being in the Underworld, he regained his power, strength, and vitality through the ministrations of his sisters Isis and Nephthys, as we see in Coffin Text 74:

"Ah Helpless One! Ah Helpless One Asleep! Ah Helpless One in this place which you know not-yet I know it! Behold, I have found you [lying] on your side the great Listless One. 'Ah, Sister!' says Isis to Nephthys, 'This is our brother, Come, let us lift up his head, Come, let us [rejoin] his bones, Come, let us reassemble his limbs, Come, let us put an end to all his woe, that, as far as we can help, he will weary no more. May the moisture begin to mount for this spirit! May the canals be filled through you! May the names of the rivers be created through you! Osiris, live! Osiris, let the great Listless One arise! I am Isis.' 'I am Nephthys. It shall be that Horus will avenge you, It shall be that Thoth will protect you -your two sons of the Great White Crown- It shall be that you will act against him who acted against you, It shall be that Geb will see, It shall be that the Company will hear. Then will your power be visible in the sky. And you will cause havoc among the [hostile] Gods, for Horus, your son, has seized the Great White Crown, seizing it from him who acted against you. Then will your father Atum call 'Come!' Osiris, live! Osiris, let the great Listless One arise!'

R. T. Rundle Clark writes, "Osiris, however, is immanent. He is the sufferer with all mortality but at the same time he is all the power of revival and fertility in the world. He is the power of growth in plants and of reproduction in animals and human beings. He is both dead and the source of all living. Hence to become Osiris is to become one with the cosmic cycles of death and rebirth" (Myth and Symbol of Ancient Egypt, pg. 97)

Of Osiris it was written, "O you four Gods who stand at the supports of the sky, my father Osiris the King has not died in death, for my father Osiris the King possesses a spirit in the Horizon!" (Pyramid Text 556) And in the Coffin Texts we find the deceased identified with Osiris proclaiming, "I enter in and reappear through you, I decay in you, I grow in you ... I am not destroyed." (330) and, "Homage to thee, O my divine father Osiris, thou hast thy being with thy members. Thou didst not decay, thou didst not become worms, thou didst not diminish, thou didst not become corruption, thou didst not putrefy, and thou didst not turn into worms.... I shall not decay, and I shall not rot, I shall not putrefy, I shall not turn into worms, and I shall not see corruption before the eye of the god Shu. I shall have my being, I shall have my being; I shall live, I shall live; I shall germinate, I shall germinate, I shad germinate; I shall wake up in peace; I shall not putrefy, my intestines shall not perish; I shall not suffer injury; mine eye shall not decay; the form of my visage shall not disappear. My body shall be established, and it shall neither Lad into ruin nor be destroyed on this earth." The King, again identified with Osiris, is hailed, "O! King, come, you also, tell of this going of yours that you may become a spirit thereby, that you may be great thereby, that you may be strong thereby, that you may be a soul thereby, that you may have power thereby." (Pyramid Text 666)

Worshippers Become Identified with the God

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