Antinous Epiphanes

Today, the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, has long been observed in modern Antinoan practice as the date of Antinous Epiphanes, “He Who Comes,” in honor of the epithet of Dionysos applied to Antinous in an inscription on a statue-base from Antinoöpolis. But why? What is the connection?

I do not now recall where I heard or read this, but somewhere along the line, it was suggested somewhere that the birth of Dionysos perhaps took place on the Winter Solstice, because this is roughly the time it would take between the grape harvest (when wine would first be pressed) and the necessary interval for fermentation to take place, so that the first new wine that would be drinkable would be ready about now, and the new casks of it that are opened would be, quite literally, the “birth” of the god, and thus this is when it was celebrated. Whether or not this birth lines up with one of Dionysos’ several births (from Persephone and Zeus as the “first Dionysos” or Zagreus, or from Semele, or from Zeus’ thigh, the details of which are a major part of my recently-published article from the Neos Alexandria/Bibliotheca Alexandrina devotional anthology to Zeus) attested in literature is unknown to me, and unspecified in any source relating to this timing of it, from what I understand currently.

If anyone knows the truth of this matter, it would be my dear friend and colleague Sannion, so if you’re reading this, I hope you’ll chime in and set me straight on this matter!

But, there is a further connection, which I attribute to some of the imagery and associated vocabulary of the Christian holidays and the larger season that they are a part of that is taking place at present. The season of Advent, which comes from the Latin term adventus, the past participle of the verb advenio, “to come/to arrive,” has the same significance as the epithet Epiphanes. This is the time in Christianity in which their salvific god, in the incarnate form of Jesus, “arrives” after a very long period of expectation. And, indeed, the Christians even have a holiday from that same Greek root that takes place during this season, namely the Epiphany on January 6 (in the Western Christian calendar), when the Three Wise Men arrive from the East to present their gifts to the newborn king. This is the origin of gift-giving on Christmas, so the Christians say (though we who are familiar with the Sigillaria might have a different opinion!); and it is also interesting that the Three Wise Men were very likely astrologers, possibly even Chaldeans.

It has been said that the Three Wise Men were simply known as the “Three Wise Men” in the Gospel of Matthew, with no individual names. This was the case until a c. early 6th century Greek manuscript from Alexandria first gave them the names Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. It was said erroneously in How the Irish Saved Civilization that the Irish Christians came along and decided that they needed to have names, but this is not correct; however, their use of these names in an 8th century composition, which was then copied and distributed widely through their pilgrimage, missionary, and scholarly activity, popularized this version of the names in the West. Interestingly, in Irish tradition itself, the Three Wise Men are called the Trí Druí, which means the “Three Druids,” and therefore the feast of the Epiphany in Irish liturgical calendars is known as the Feis Trí Druad, “Feast of the Three Druids”! In some CR communities of which I’m a part, we have decided to use the date of the Irish Christian Feis Trí Druad as a hero-cultus feast for the most important druids of Irish tradition. Repurposing Christian festivals and dies sancti into dates of significance for polytheists is a useful thing to do, in absence of any other information regarding such festivals, because it is something that all religions have done–Christianity included. In fact, many pagan festivals have been re-purposed by Christianity, saints derived from former gods, and so forth; when we can detect a date of significance or a figure of importance looming behind such Christian personages and festivals, we should be free to reinterpret it for ourselves.

It is in this regard that there is a further Irish connection to this date, at least in my own view. I think this date is the birthdate of Cú Chulainn, the great Irish hero–or, at least, it might be the date of his “first birth.” Like Dionysos, Cú Chulainn was born several times: he was conceived at least three times, and born twice (whereas Dionysos was conceived twice and born two or three times), and the birth-tale which concerns these events doesn’t seem to make any distinction between the “person” involved in any of the births or conceptions, beyond death and throughout the life of the individual concerned, who is Sétanta, the young man who later earns the name Cú Chulainn after he kills a vicious guard hound. This first birth occurs when magical birds come and eat all the grass, trees, and plants from the lawn in front of the fort of Emain Macha, the capitol of province of Ulster and the seat of its king, Conchobor mac Nessa. Taking his men and setting out in chariots, Conchobor pursues the birds, accompanied by his sister Dechtine as his charioteer. They eventually are overtaken by a snow storm, and have to seek shelter for the night near Brú na Bóinne, better known as Newgrange. They find a house there, and the woman of the house is in labor, and gives birth to a child, whom Dechtine takes to her breast and treats as if he is her own; at the same time, a mare at the door of the house gives birth to two foals, who are given to the child by the men of Ulster as a birth-gift. The next morning, the house and its inhabitants are gone, and the men of Ulster and Dechtine are alone, but the horses and the child remain.

The two horses are the famous steeds Liath Macha and Dub Sainglenn that pull Cú Chulainn’s chariot later in life. Horses and hounds are, therefore, associated with the child Cú Chulainn from an early stage–indeed, before his final birth, as this child ends up dying at some unspecified stage in youth; but, Dechtine then supernaturally re-conceives him through swallowing “a small creature” and having a vision of Lug, who explains that the man in the house at Brú na Bóinne was himself, and that he has already been re-born in Dechtine from the creature she swallowed, and that the child should be named Sétanta. When Conchobor decides to marry Dechtine to his friend Sualtaim mac Roích to quell rumors that he has impregnated his sister himself, Dechtine decides that it is not right to go to her marriage bed pregnant, and so she induces an abortion and the second conception of the eventual Cú Chulainn is destroyed; but, then she conceives again immediately from Sualtaim, and this is the child who is named Sétanta and who grows to adulthood (well, almost), becomes a famed warrior, and is celebrated in song ever after.

But, getting back to the first birth: the fact that it happens after a snowstorm, and that this occurs at Newgrange (a place associated elsewhere in Irish literature with snowstorms), suggests to me that this first birth took place at Winter Solstice, which has a particular connection to the site. On the days before and after Winter Solstice, as well as the day itself, at sunrise, the dawning sun’s rays over the horizon are perfectly aligned to the “roof box” over the entrance of the tomb. This “roof box” directs the light back into the chamber and fully illuminates it for several minutes; without this illumination, the inner chamber is the darkest dark you’ve ever experienced–I know this first-hand, as I visited the site in September of 2000. The arrival of this light is, truly, an “epiphany” for the darkness of the chamber, and would have been of abundant significance to those who built the monument in c. 3000 BCE, as this is the only celestial alignment that is beyond doubt connected to the site. The possibility that this phenomenon, which was not witnessed since at least 2000 BCE when the mound collapsed over the entrance and concealed it, could have been transmitted via oral tales down to the 8th century, when the earliest manuscripts of the birth-tale of Cú Chulainn were written, is intriguing and enticing, and for my own purposes, it “makes sense” enough for me to accept it as true, even if it might not be factual.

The multiple births of Cú Chulainn and those of Dionysos seem parallel to me. Of all the Gaulish and Romano-British deities that are syncretized to Roman deities, Dionysos/Bacchus is not one of them–despite his own cultus being rather syncretistic in itself, with connections to Osiris, Serapis, and other gods like Sabazius (who is connected with horses and serpents) in the Greek world. Bacchus has a cultus in Roman Britain, but he doesn’t seem to syncretize with other deities. Why not? There is an interesting tradition, reported by Strabo, relating to an island off the coast of Gaul where a group of women worship Dionysos, and on a yearly basis, they replace the roof of his shrine, but one of the women falls and ends up being sacrificed by her fellows in the process. Who is this “Celtic Dionysos,” and does his worship or myths survive somewhere behind the name of another deity in the Insular Celtic world? I believe the answer is “yes” (and not a singular answer!), and that Cú Chulainn is part of the picture; but I will have to save the exact details and information on it for another time and a more serious context than the present reminiscences on a holy day in the calendar of the Ekklesía Antínoou.

So, there we have it: this is a syncretistic holiday, that is connected to the Solstice via various tangents through Celtic myth and Irish archaeology, which may or may not have resonances with or direct connections to Dionysian and Bacchic practices elsewhere in ancient Europe. The theme is the arrival, the epiphany, of the one long-awaited, the one longed for, the one who comes to save us from whatever it is that threatens us–whether he is Dionysos, or Cú Chulainn, or Jesus, or Antinous, or all of them, or indeed any other deity one might be awaiting at any time. The dark has increased, and we have endured it for long, but now the light begins to dawn, and just when things are darkest, then it is that the hero, the savior, the god-who-comes, emerges. This year is especially potent with this imagery, given that the total lunar eclipse took place at its beginning–and the song mentioned in that entry is as relevant to this date as it was to the time of the eclipse. (Indeed, if we are the carriers of sparks of divinity within us, as I would assert that we are, and as Semele found out when she later became divine because of her son Dionysos, we can truly say that in our current moments, “I don’t know what to do / I’m always in the dark / We’re living in a powder-keg / And giving off sparks” as we wait for the arrival of our awaited gods!)

I have had my altar lit up for most of the night, and right now, the white candle signifying Antinous the Navigator is almost burned down to nothing, with the red candle of Antinous the Liberator also getting very small. (The black candle for Antinous the Lover is shorter than it was, but not by much.) The light of his self-luminous navigation is bringing him in, I hope, though it is starting to wane, perhaps because his journey is nearly complete; the light of his liberation burns brightly, and tall, and heralds what is to come; but the light of his love will be able to burn much longer than either of these other two, and I look forward to being enflamed with it and illuminated by it in the days and weeks to come!

(As for further celebrations–I am going to write a few things in relation to Dionysos and Antinous today; and, perhaps later, I’ll be helping to celebrate the actual birth-date of my god-daughter with a Solstice Mumming!)

May your Winter Solstice be bright and warm, no matter how dark and cold the night is! May Antinous Epiphanes arrive and illuminate you, and Dionysos Epiphanes warm your heart! And may Cú Chulainn, that precocious and prodigious child, protect you with his fierceness like a hound in battle throughout this time and always!

Bendachta Dé 7 An-Dé 7 Con Culainn foraib!
Khaire Dionysos!
Ave Ave Antinoe!