
A 500BC picture of Dionysus, on a Greek vase, reborn in the the form of an evergreen tree.

A 500BC picture of Dionysus, on a Greek vase, reborn in the the form of an evergreen tree.

In religio-mythology, Dionysus, period of worship: c.1600-400AD, was the Greek god of wine and resurrection, himself a rescript of Osiris (Herodotus, 450BC), the Egyptian god of wine and resurrection; who later became transcribed as the man Moses in the Jewish recension, and as god Bacchus, in early Roman times.

Osiris
In 450BC, Herodotus discerned that Dionysus was a cultural rewrite or rescript of the Egyptian god Osiris; James Frazer (1907) summarizes this as follows: [1]

“Herodotus found the similarity between the rites of Osiris and Dionysus so great, that he thought it impossible the latter could have arisen independently; they must, he thought, have been recently borrowed, with slight alternations, by the Greeks from the Egyptians.”

In 100AD, Plutarch, in his On Isis and Osiris (§35) said the following:

“That Osiris is identical with Dionysus who could more fittingly know than yourself, Clea? For you are at the head of the inspired maidens of Delphi, and have been consecrated by your father and mother in the holy rites of Osiris. If, however, for the benefit of others it is needful to adduce proofs of this identity, let us leave undisturbed what may not be told, but the public ceremonies which the priests perform in the burial of the Apis, when they convey his body on an improvised bier, do not in any way come short of a Bacchic procession; for they fasten skins of fawns about themselves, and carry Bacchic wands [Thyrsus] and indulge in shoutings and movements exactly as do those who are under the spell of the Dionysiac ecstasies.”

Those, following Herodotus, as summarized by Frazer, to have identified Osiris with Dionysus, include: Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, Eusebius, Servius (on Virgil), J. Tzetzes, Nonnus, and Cornutus, Ausonius. [1]

Osiris djed pillar | Dionysus tree
The following, below left, is depiction (1250BC), of Ra being reborn out of the djed pillar or backbone tree of Osiris; below center, is a depiction of the Greek god Dionysus, in the form a tree, amid the sacrificial table of wine and bread; below right (Ѻ), a mural painting from Pompeii (Boetticher's Baumcultus, fig. 12), shows a depiction of the sacrificial table (with terminal bust of Pripns, and implement of sacrifice) and sacred tree of Dionysus (with thyrsus and tympanum):
Osiris djed pillar to Dionysus tree

In the Jewish recension, the thyrsus of Dionysus became the magical rod of Moses; in the Roman recension, the thyrsus became the thyrsus of Bacchus.

Dionysian 2

Dionysian
In 1885, Friedrich Nietzsche, in his Will to Power, in his last and final fragment (WP:1067), mentions force, energy, power, in the context of Dionysian.

“I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysos, I prefer to be even a satyr rather than a saint.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche (1888), Ecce Homo (pg. 3)

More on this Nietzsche interest in Apollo and Dionysus is in video. (Ѻ)

Quotes
The following are related quotes:

“It is impossible to ignore the similarities between the Egyptian quarternity: Isis and Nephthys (known as 'the Two Goddesses' in Egypt), Osiris and Set (personifications of life and death), and the leading characters of the Eleusinian drama: Demeter and Persephone (also known simply as 'the Two Goddesses'), Dionysus and Hades. Diodorus of Sicily, first century BC, clearly states that the initiatory rites of Demeter in Eleusis were transferred from Egypt (Diodorus Siculus, 1.29.2). Later he states: The rite of Osiris is the same as that of Dionysus and that of Isis very similar to that of Demeter; the names alone having been interchanged, and the punishments in Hades of the unrighteous, the Fields of the Righteous and the fantastic conceptions, current among the many - all these were introduced by Orpheus in imitation of the Egyptian funeral customs.' (1.96.4-5).”
— Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy (2001), Jesus and the Lost Goddess [2]

References
1. Frazer, James. (1907). Adonis, Attis, Osiris (pg. 357). MacMillan.
2. Freke, Timothy and Grandy, Peter. (2001). Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians (Osiris, 18+ pgs; quote, pg. 255). Random House.

External links
● Dionysus – Wikipedia.