Table Of ContentDionysus, Christ, and
the Death of God
studies in violence, mimesis, and culture
SERIES EDITOR
William A. Johnsen
Th e Studies in Violence, Mimesis, and Culture Series examines issues related to the nexus of
violence and religion in the genesis and maintenance of culture. It furthers the agenda of the
Colloquium on Violence and Religion, an international association that draws inspiration
from René Girard’s mimetic hypothesis on the relationship between violence and religion,
elaborated in a stunning series of books he has written over the last forty years. Readers
interested in this area of research can also look to the association’s journal, Contagion: Journal
of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture.
ADVISORY BOARD
René Girard†, Stanford University Raymund Schwager†, University of Innsbruck
Andrew McKenna, Loyola University of Chicago James Williams, Syracuse University
EDITORIAL BOARD
Rebecca Adams, Independent Scholar Sandor Goodhart, Purdue University
Jeremiah L. Alberg, International Christian Robert Hamerton-Kelly†, Stanford University
University, Tokyo, Japan Hans Jensen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Mark Anspach, École des Hautes Études en Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California,
Sciences Sociales, Paris Santa Barbara
Pierpaolo Antonello, University of Cambridge Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Shaw University
Ann Astell, University of Notre Dame Michael Kirwan, SJ, Heythrop College, University
Cesáreo Bandera, University of North Carolina of London
Maria Stella Barberi, Università di Messina Paisley Livingston, Lingnan University, Hong
Alexei Bodrov, St. Andrew’s Biblical Th eological Kong
Institute, Moscow Charles Mabee, Ecumenical Th eological Seminary,
João Cezar de Castro Rocha, Universidade do Detroit
Estado do Rio de Janeiro Józef Niewiadomski, Universität Innsbruck
Benoît Chantre, L’Association Recherches Wolfgang Palaver, Universität Innsbruck
Mimétiques Ángel Jorge Barahona Plaza, Universidad Francisco
Diana Culbertson, Kent State University de Vitoria
Paul Dumouchel, Ritsumeikan University Martha Reineke, University of Northern Iowa
Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Stanford University, École Tobin Siebers†, University of Michigan
Polytechnique Th ee Smith, Emory University
Giuseppe Fornari, Università degli studi di Verona Mark Wallace, Swarthmore College
Eric Gans, University of California, Los Angeles Eugene Webb, University of Washington
Dionysus, Christ, and
the Death of God
volume 1
The Great Mediations of the Classical World
Giuseppe Fornari
Michigan State University Press · East Lansing
Copyright © 2021 by Giuseppe Fornari
i Th e paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
p
Michigan State University Press
East Lansing, Michigan 48823-5245
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Names: Fornari, Giuseppe, 1956– author.
Title: Dionysus, Christ, and the death of God : / Giuseppe Fornari.
Description: East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, 2020.
Series: Studies in violence, mimesis, and culture | Includes bibliographical references
and index. | Contents: Volume I: Th e great mediations of the classical world —
Volume II: Christianity and modernity.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2019030311 | ISBN 978-1-61186-356-7 (v. 1 ; paperback)
| ISBN 978-1-61186-357-4 (v. 2 ; paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Sacrifi ce. | Christianity and other religions—Greek.
| Christianity and other religions—Roman. | Christianity and other religions—Judaism.
| Sacrifi ce—Christianity.
Classifi cation: LCC BL570 .F67 2020 | DDC 200.94—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030311
Book design by Charlie Sharp, Sharp Des!gns, East Lansing, MI
Cover design by David Drummond, Salamander Design, www.salamanderhill.com.
Cover art: Detail of Isle of the Dead (1880), by Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901),
oil on canvas, 110.9 cm × 156.4 cm, from Wikimedia Commons.
G
Michigan State University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative and is
committed to developing and encouraging ecologically responsible publishing
practices. For more information about the Green Press Initiative and the use
of recycled paper in book publishing, please visit www.greenpressinitiative.org.
Visit Michigan State University Press at www.msupress.org
Contents
1 preface: The Black Sun of Europe
32 gnosiological introduction: A Disregarded Philosophical
Tradition
Mystery Cults and Tragedy
97 1. The Labyrinth of Mythology
141 2. Orphism and the Eleusinian Mysteries
182 3. In the Heart of the Labyrinth: Euripides’s Cretans and Its
Philosophical Meaning
231 4. Sacrificial and Erotic Metamorphoses in the Bacchae
263 5. The Hieros Gamos of Wet and Dry
290 6. Sapiential Reflections in the Bacchae
318 7. The Power and Failure of Divine Mediation
352 8. The Birth of Tragedy, the End of Classical Greece
Intermezzo: The Toys of Dionysus; Comparison of Civilizations
in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods
429 9. Judaism and Christianity in the Greco-Roman World
478 10. The Comparative Question between Judaism and Christianity
539 notes
596 bibliography
620 index
PREFACE
The Black Sun of Europe
1. The Bloody Magic of Mediation
A literary reference may prove an eff ective introduction to the themes of the
present work, related to ancient Greece in a comparison with Western cul-
ture passing by way of Christianity, the watershed both dividing and uniting
them. What I have in mind is the salient scene in Th omas Mann’s great novel
Th e Magic Mountain fi rst published in 1924 and possibly his masterpiece in
some respects, certainly his most ambitious work from a historical and philo-
sophical point of view.1 But in the fi rst place, if we are to interpret the novel
properly and glean what is useful for introducing the themes of my work,
we must understand the title. Th e mountain in question is magic but not by
way of metaphor in a simply psychoanalytical and impressionistic sense, but
in the fullest and most disturbing sense of the word. Th e novel recounts the
powerful, overwhelming experience of “magic” that has infl uenced the whole
of Western culture and if, on the one hand, it involves the soul of European
I want to express all my gratitude to Keith Buck, who translated much of these two volumes
from Italian, and to Kenneth Quandt, whose help in editing and improving my book
stylistically and conceptually has proved to be priceless.
1
2 Preface
man subjectively, on the other hand its roots penetrate deeply into a power-
ful, objective past that is still far from dead. Th e novel’s fl owing narrative is
intended to put this in the form of an allegory, but a credible and concrete
one, without purely aesthetic or psychological eff ects. Critics recognize the
signifi cance of the episode that I have in mind, the scene of Hans Castorp’s
dream, even if the reasons for it escape them. Th e editor of the latest Italian
edition of Th e Magic Mountain defi nes it as “one of the most controversial
passages in all of Th omas Mann’s works,” and also as “the vital heart” of the
novel,2 but when he tries to pin down its signifi cance he resorts to a psycho-
analytical kind of explanation that really explains nothing of the background
to the event, nor seriously considers the historical symbolism woven into the
scene. Certainly, Sigmund Freud’s ideas are relevant but for reasons that are
not exactly psychoanalytical. If this were not the case, the story would lack
the power to take us straight to the heart of the themes of this inquiry.
Hans Castorp is staying in a Swiss sanatorium, symbolizing Europe on
the eve of the First World War. He loses his way in a blizzard while skiing and
takes shelter behind a mountain hut but, dazed by the wind and cold, falls
unconscious. He has a vision, or rather a rapid series of visions, fi tting into
each other in a carefully calculated crescendo. At their very core is ancient
Greece, with the associations that Greek civilization could evoke when the
novel was written, but what leads up to this point cannot be reduced to
any known scheme, except superfi cially and misleadingly. Mann is never a
writer to be deciphered instantly; he wants the reader to accompany Hans
Castorp, passing through the various interpretative layers that come between
ourselves and the vision of Hellas. As a symbolic and narrative device, the
dream is indebted to Freud and psychoanalysis, but the historical references
are not allowed to be submerged into the indistinctiveness of the psyche.
On the contrary, the dream shows how the psyche itself is created by history
and history’s hermeneutic and cultural stratifi cation, of which an obscure
but traceable nucleus does exist. Freud in Totem and Taboo was the fi rst to
attempt to identify this obscure originary point, following in the footsteps
of Friedrich Nietzsche, another writer with whom Mann was quite familiar.3
In this way the dream formula is strangely helpful in gradually defi ning com-
mon ground for hero, author, and readers.
Initially, in his dream, Castorp has a vision of a green parkland, a memory
of “his birthplace” in north Germany that he has not seen for years, banished
Preface 3
in self-exile to the magic, ambiguous world of the sanatorium. Th e familiar
landscape forms a “magic whole” reminding him of the performance of “a
world-famous Italian tenor, whose throat poured forth a glorious stream to
touch human hearts with its powerful, god-given art” (Mann here indulges
in recollecting a performance by Enrico Caruso).
Th e mounting splendor of this singing is fi nally overwhelming; the scene
changes, transfi gured into an enchanting sunlit Mediterranean landscape,
full of woods, bays, and islands, and populated by fi gures that seemed to him
like “children of the sun and sea”: youths playing with horses and practicing
with bow and arrow, girls making music and dancing, lovers walking aff ec-
tionately along the shore.
“How truly delightful!—Hans Castorp thought with sheer rapture—Th ey
convey a sense of joy that bowls me over! How handsome and healthy and
intelligent and happy they are! Yes, they are not only well-made physically
. . . they are thoroughly intelligent and lovable as well. Th at is what excites
and captivates me: the spirit and wisdom, I might almost say, that presides
over their nature and makes them live and stay together like this!” By
that he meant the aff ability and polite consideration, equally distributed
among all of them, apparent in their dealings with one another, and the
easy deference, hiding behind a smile, they showed each other, that was
almost imperceptible and yet constant and quite evident thanks to the
profound understanding and idea that united them and was incarnated
[eingefl eischten] in them; also the dignity and, indeed, austerity, resolved
however in cheerfulness, that governed all they did or did not do, acting as
an ineff able spiritual infl uence, serious in character but alien to sullenness
of any kind and devout in a sensible way . . . though not entirely unceremo-
nial [ohne alles Zeremoniell].4
Here there is a double symbolic shift , from Germany to Italy and from
Italy to the classical world. At the heart of the romantic German landscape,
as its historical and spiritual necessity, a growing need develops to complete
itself with the radiant harmony of the south, which in the German tradition
has Italian connotations. Th ese are fi rst recalled by the sublime singing of
Enrico Caruso and then develop spontaneously through what Italy signifi es
and through its very geography: the long peninsula leading down to the
