The Dionysian Gospel: The Fourth Gospel and Euripides

MacDonald observes that the Fourth Gospel sounds themes proper to the Greek god Dionysos (the Roman Bacchus), not least as he was depicted in Euripides’s play The Bacchae. A divine figure, offspring of a divine father and human mother, takes on flesh to live among mortals, but is rejected by his own; miraculously provides wine; includes women as his close devotees; dies a violent death—and returns to life. The Johannine Evangelist not only imitated Euripides but expected his readers to recognize Jesus as greater than Dionysos.