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Firmicus Maternus on Cretan Dionysos
Firmicus Maternus wrote about what he perceived was the falsehood of paganism. In his De errore 6, written about 345 AD, he says that “Zeus” originally was a Cretan king, and that his son, “Dionysos” had been murdered. Rituals had been established in memory of the son, and over time the king & his son became worshipped as gods. This seems unlikely to be the truth, but nevertheless his account of one of these rituals is quite illuminating.
“The Cretans, to alleviate the wild rage of their tyrant (at his son’s murder), appoint ceremonial funeral days, and compound an annual sacrum with a biennial consecratio (= teleth/), doing in sequence everything that the dying boy did or suffered. They tear a live bull with their teeth, making savage feasts in annual commemoration; and hidden in the forests, with dissonant yells, they feign raving frenzy, to give the impression that the crime was committed not in malice but in madness. The casket is carried round in which his sister secretly concealed his heart, while with the melody of pipes and the clashing of cymbals they simulate the tokens with which the boy was tricked. So it was for the sake of a tyrant and by his subservient people that a god was made out of one for whom burial was impossible.”