The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene by Frank G. Slaughter

Author:Frank G. Slaughter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Frank Slaughter, Mary Magdalene, historical fiction, Magdalene, Magdala, life of Jesus, life of Jesus Christ, Christian fiction, Joseph of Arimathea, classic fiction
Publisher: eChristian, Inc.
Published: 2012-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

XIII

The festival of the Great Dionysia in Alexandria was traditionally held at the end of March, when the chill of wintry breezes no longer attacked the city from the Great Sea and the air was already warm with the promise of summer. Flowers grew in great profusion everywhere then, and for the three days of the festival the public parks, the streets, the gardens along the shore of Lake Mareotis, and the islands off the shore were a riot of color.

Joseph had heard of this spectacle, when the people of Alexandria literally went mad in a surfeit of excitement and search for pleasure, but he could hardly believe it still, even seeing it with his own eyes. The racing season began several days before the Great Dionysia itself, and thousands thronged daily to the great Hippodrome beyond the Canopic Gate. In the evenings, the drinking establishments were crowded and there was merriment everywhere. Since Dionysos was considered by the Greeks to be the same as Bacchus, and by the Egyptians as Osiris and Serapis under another name, the festival of the Great Dionysia was a legal excuse for all sorts of bacchanalian celebrations. It was hard to believe that many people in Alexandria slept at all during the entire festival, for the streets were thronged both night and day with merrymakers.

Each day one of the great Greek dramas was presented in the theater, climaxed on the day before the symbolic marriage and death of the god by a presentation of the Bacchae of Euripides, in which Dionysos came to earth in the city of Thebes in human form and preached his own worship. Rejected by the women, he then used sorcery to arouse in them an ecstasy of adoration for the god Dionysos, the same ecstasy in which during ancient times women had torn men to pieces and sacrificed infants and later animals to the bacchant god. When, in the play, the king of Thebes, Pentheus, opposed the wild orgies of the cult, Dionysos, still disguised, used his magic talents to send the king among the Bacchae clad as a woman. And when he was discovered, the women, led by his own mother, tore him to pieces in a frenzy of ecstatic insanity.

Mary was dancing the part of Pentheus’s mother, the leader of the Bacchae. As the tragic ending of the scene rose to its inevitable climax, she staggered from the place in the hills where the final tragedy had occurred, carrying the dripping head of the king who was her son in her hands. Joseph could not help shuddering with horror, so realistic was her portrayal, even to the last lines when she realized what she had done and, revolted, cried out against the god who had caused her to kill her own son.

Then the god spoke the line, “Ye mocked me, being God; this is your wage.” And she answered, “Should God be like a proud man in his rage?” before beginning the tragic dance that ended the play, culminating in death by her own hand in expiation for her sin.

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