Gnostic Informant Neal Sendlak

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SABAZIOS , a god of the Thracians and the Phrygians, is also known from Greek and Latin sources as Sabadios, Sauazios, Saazios, Sabos, Sebazios, Sabadius, and Sebadius. His name is related to the Macedonian word sauâdai, or saûdoi, meaning "satyrs" (Detschew, 1957, p. 427). According to some scholars (e.g., Lozovan, 1968), he was a Thracian mountain god whose cult was carried by Phrygian emigrants from Thrace to Anatolia.

Greek sources from the fifth century bce onward mention Sabazios as a Thracian or Phrygian god. In Athens, his cult's initiation ceremonies took place by night, and the adepts were purified by being rubbed with mud. A sacramental drink was also involved. The identification of Sabazios with Dionysos, which occurs regularly in Hellenistic sources, is unquestionable. However, Phrygian inscriptions relate him to Zeus, and in North Africa, where his cult is attested as early as the fourth century bce, he might have had the features of a heavenly god; hence he was later identified with the Semitic god Baal, both of them receiving the Greek epithet hupsistos ("highest, supreme"). He was probably worshiped in Thrace under other local names, such as Athyparenos, Arsilenos, Batalde Ouenos, Eleneites, Mytorgenos, Ouerzel(enos), and Tasibastenus.

Sabazios's name has been connected with the Indo-European *swo-, meaning "[his] own," and with the idea of freedom, which occurs frequently among the epithets of Dionysos. Franz Cumont has suggested a relationship with the Illyrian sabaia, or sabaium, identifying a beer extracted from cereals (see Russu, 1969, p. 241). More recently, Gheorghe Muşu has translated Sabazios as "sap god," from the Indo-European roots *sap- ("taste, perceive") and *sab- ("juice, fluid"). This translation corresponds well to the pattern of Dionysos/Sabazios, who was the divinity of humidity and as such was connected with both vegetation and intoxication (see Muşu, in Vulpe, 1980, pp. 333–336).

The Jews of Syria and Anatolia identified Sabazios with Sabaoth. Under the Roman rulers Sabazios was worshiped in Thrace, where he was more often known as Sebazios or, in Latin, Sabazius, Sabadius, or Sebadius and where he received such epithets as epekoos ("benevolent"), kurios ("lord"), megistos ("greatest"), and so forth. In Crimea, probably under Jewish-Anatolian influence, he was called hupsistos. He was constantly identified with both Zeus and the sun. Motifs of hands making the votive gesture of benedictio Latina are among the distinctive features of his cult. According to several Christian writers (Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, and Firmicus Maternus), the most impressive rite of initiation into the mysteries of Sabazios consisted of the adept's contact with a snake (aureus coluber ) that was first put over his breast (per sinum ducunt ) and then pulled down to his genitals.

No less enigmatic than Zalmoxis, Sabazios was worshiped as early as the fourth century bce both as a chthonic and as a heavenly god. Scholars have too often tried to solve this riddle by supposing a borrowing from Jewish religion, but Jewish influence was not relevant in Anatolia before the third century bce. One should rather consider that chthonic features determined the character of the Thracian Sabazios, whereas the Phrygian Sabazios was probably connected with the sky.

The ecstatic Eastern rites practiced largely by women in Athens were thrown together for rhetorical purposes by Demosthenes in undermining his opponent Aeschines for participating in his mother's cultic associations:



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Cooney is a UCLA professor of Egyptology and archaeology and already a bestselling author (“The Woman Who Would Be King,” 2014, and “When Women Ruled the World,” 2019). In her latest book, she admits that her fascination with ancient Egypt has soured — so much so that she now describes herself as a “recovering Egyptologist.” The uncritical admiration of the pharaohs that has continued to the present day, she writes, is a legacy of the ancient rulers’ efforts to manipulate how they were perceived, and has even served as a narrative and cultural foundation propping up modern authoritarianism.

“How many of us have had deep obsessions with the ancient world — I just love Egyptian temples! I adore Greek mythology! — that are really symptoms of an ongoing addiction to male power that we just can’t kick?” Cooney writes.

“The Good Kings: Absolute Power in Ancient Egypt and the Modern World,” published by National Geographic, draws direct parallels between the rulers of 3,000 years ago and modern tyrants. In it, Cooney describes how the pharaohs created a compelling moral argument for power that continues to mislead people today, and which is linked directly to the current rise of authoritarianism.

Cooney explores the pitfalls of patriarchal systems that harm women and men alike, and she convincingly argues that society is duplicating the historical patterns that have repeatedly led to power collapses. Only this time, she notes, climate change has altered the rules of recovery.

Cooney is chair of UCLA’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. In an interview with UCLA Newsroom, she talks about what lessons ancient Egyptian narratives might offer in light of the societal and social challenges the world faces in 2021.

Why are the pharaohs of ancient Egypt still so relevant thousands of years later?

Pharaohs open themselves up to social justice discussions. The hard thing is that the pharaohs were arguably the best ever at presenting an authoritarian regime as good and pure and moral. That’s the underlying idea that needs to be popped first, because we still buy into it today. Concepts of patriarchal society, extraction of natural resources for profit, exploitation, overwork, misogyny and more all came pouring out of the Egyptian narrative.

Osiris (/oʊˈsaɪrɪs/, from Egyptian wsjr, Coptic: ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ ousire, Late Coptic [uˈsiræ]; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned deity with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown, and holding a symbolic crook and flail. He was one of the first to be associated with the mummy wrap. When his brother Set cut him up into pieces after killing him, Osiris' wife Isis found all the pieces and wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life. Osiris was widely worshipped until the decline of ancient Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.


The first evidence of the worship of Osiris is from the middle of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (25th century BC), although it is likely that he was worshiped much earlier; the Khenti-Amentiu epithet dates to at least the First Dynasty, and was also used as a pharaonic title.


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DIONYSUS, CULT OF, the cult of the Greek god of wine and fertility. The non-Jews of Alexandria and Rome alleged that the cult of Dionysus was widespread among Jews. Plutarch tarch gives a Bacchanalian interpretation to the Feast of Tabernacles:

"After the festival called 'the fast' [the Day of Atonement], during the vintage, the Jews place tables laden with different fruits in booths of thickets woven from vines and ivy. Their first festival is called by them Sukkah (σκηνή). A few days later, the Jews celebrate another festival, which one may simply call a Bacchanalian festival. For this is a festival on which the Jews carry fig branches and sticks adorned with ivy and carry them into the Temple. One does not know" – adds Plutarch – "what they do in the Temple. It seems reasonable to suppose that they practice rites in honor of Bacchus. For they blow small horns as the people of Argos do during the festival of Dionysus, and call upon their god. Others, who are called Levites, walk in front, either in allusion to Lysios (λύσιος) – perhaps 'the god who attenuatescurses' – or because they call out 'Euius,' i.e., Bacchus."

According to Plutarch the subject of the connection between the Dionysian and Jewish cults was raised during a symposium held at Aidepsos in Euboea, with a certain Moiragenes linking the Jewish Sabbath with the cult of Bacchus, because "even now many people call the Bacchi 'Sabboi' and call out that word when they perform the orgies of Bacchus." Tacitus too thought that Jews served the god Liber, i.e., Bacchus-Dionysus, but "whereas the festival of Liber is joyful, the Jewish festival of Liber is sordid and absurd." According to Pliny, *Beth-Shean was founded by Dionysus after he had buried his wet nurse Nysa in its soil. His intention was to enlarge the area of the grave, which he surrounded with a city wall although there were as yet no inhabitants. Then the god chose the Scythians from among his companions, and in order to encourage them, honored them by calling the new city Scythopolis after them (Pliny, Natural History 5:18, 74). An inscription found at Beth-Shean dating from the time of Marcus Aurelius mentions that Dionysus was honored there as ktistes. Stephen of Byzantium reports a legend that connects the founding of the city of Rafa also with Dionysus (for the Dionysian foundation legends of cities in the region, see Lichtenberger's study). It is wrong to assume as some do that Plutarch took his account of the festival of Tabernacles from an antisemitic source, for despite all the woeful ignorance in his account it contains no accusation against, or abuse of, the Jews. It is more likely that Plutarch described the festival of Tabernacles from observation, interpreting it in accordance with his own philosophical outlook, which does not prevent him, however, from introducing into it features of the cult of the famous Temple of Jerusalem gleaned by him in his wide reading. The description as a whole, however, is of Tabernacles as it was celebrated in the Greek diaspora at the end of the first and the beginning of the second century C.E., and not as it was celebrated in the Temple, which had already been destroyed for more than a generation. The festival undoubtedly absorbed influences from the environment, so that Plutarch could indeed have witnessed what he recognized as customs of the Dionysian feast.
By this it is conjectured that the Romans identified the Jewish YHVH Tzevaot ("sa-ba-oth", "of the Hosts") as Jove Sabazius.


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The Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is a stele dated around 840 BCE containing a significant Canaanite inscription in the name of King Mesha of Moab (a kingdom located in modern Jordan). Mesha tells how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to the Kingdom of Israel, but at length, Chemosh returned and assisted Mesha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab. Mesha also describes his many building projects. It is written in a variant of the Phoenician alphabet, closely related to the Paleo-Hebrew script.

The stone was discovered intact by Frederick Augustus Klein, an Anglican missionary, at the site of ancient Dibon (now Dhiban, Jordan), in August 1868. A "squeeze" (a papier-mâché impression) had been obtained by a local Arab on behalf of Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, an archaeologist based in the French consulate in Jerusalem. The next year, the stele was smashed into several fragments by the Bani Hamida tribe, seen as an act of defiance against the Ottoman authorities who had pressured the Bedouins to hand over the stele so that it could be given to Germany. Clermont-Ganneau later managed to acquire the fragments and piece them together thanks to the impression made before the stele's destruction.

The Mesha Stele, the first major epigraphic Canaanite inscription found in the region of Palestine, the longest Iron Age inscription ever found in the region, constitutes the major evidence for the Moabite language, and is a "corner-stone of Semitic epigraphy", and history.[7] The stele, whose story parallels, with some differences, an episode in the Bible's Books of Kings (2 Kings 3:4–28), provides invaluable information on the Moabite language and the political relationship between Moab and Israel at one moment in the 9th century BCE. It is the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to the kingdom of Israel (the "House of Omri"); it bears the earliest certain extrabiblical reference to the Israelite god Yahweh. It is also one of four known contemporary inscriptions containing the name of Israel, the others being the Merneptah Stele, the Tel Dan Stele, and one of the Kurkh Monoliths. Its authenticity has been disputed over the years, and some biblical minimalists suggest the text was not historical, but a biblical allegory. The stele itself is regarded as genuine and historical by the vast majority of biblical archaeologists today.

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The ancient Pelasgians mentioned by the Greek poet Homer were a mysterious and enigmatic people who played a significant role in early Greek mythology and history. Homer described them as a prehistoric civilization, often associated with the region of Thessaly and the city of Argos. However, the exact origins and characteristics of the Pelasgians remain a subject of debate among historians and scholars.

According to Homer, the Pelasgians were a people who lived in the time before the Trojan War and were associated with the construction of massive structures, such as the walls of Mycenae. They were considered skilled builders and were often depicted as a semi-divine or legendary group. Some ancient Greek writers even suggested that the Pelasgians were the original inhabitants of Greece, predating other Greek-speaking tribes.

The historical reality of the Pelasgians is complex and elusive, as they appear in various ancient Greek texts with different interpretations. Some scholars argue that they were a distinct ethnic group, while others propose that the term "Pelasgians" was used to refer to various indigenous populations of the Aegean region.

Ultimately, the true identity and nature of the Pelasgians remain shrouded in the mists of antiquity, leaving us with fragments of mythology and historical accounts that continue to intrigue and fascinate to this day.


The proto-Indo-European ancestors of the Greeks in and around the Black Sea region are generally believed to be the people known as the Proto-Greeks or the Mycenaean Greeks. The Mycenaean civilization, which flourished from around the 16th to the 12th century BCE, is considered an important precursor to classical Greek civilization.

The Mycenaeans were part of a broader group of Indo-European speakers who migrated into the Balkans and Anatolia during the Bronze Age. These migrations are often associated with the expansion of the Indo-European language family, which includes Greek as one of its branches. The exact origins of the Proto-Greeks are still a subject of ongoing research and debate among historians and linguists.

The Mycenaeans established a powerful civilization centered around the southern part of mainland Greece, with major centers such as Mycenae, Pylos, and Tiryns. They were skilled warriors, traders, and builders, known for their impressive palaces and fortifications. Their culture and language laid the foundation for the later development of ancient Greek civilization.

It's important to note that while the Mycenaeans and their language are considered a significant part of the proto-Indo-European ancestry of the Greeks, the complex history of ancient migrations and cultural interactions in the region makes it difficult to attribute the Greek population exclusively to a single ancestral group.


Civilization around the Black Sea region has a long and rich history, dating back thousands of years. The area has been inhabited by various cultures and civilizations since ancient times. The earliest evidence of human habitation in the region can be traced back to the Paleolithic era, around 45,000 to 12,000 years ago.

In terms of more complex civilizations, one of the notable early cultures in the region was the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, which flourished from approximately 5500 to 2750 BCE. This Neolithic culture was known for its advanced agriculture, pottery, and sizable settlements.

Moving forward in time, the Black Sea region saw the rise and fall of various ancient civilizations. The ancient Greeks established numerous colonies along the coast of the Black Sea from the 8th century BCE onward, fostering trade and cultural exchange in the region.


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DYING AND RISING GODS . The category of dying and rising gods, once a major topic of scholarly investigation, must now be understood to have been largely a misnomer based on imaginative reconstructions and exceedingly late or highly ambiguous texts.

As applied in the scholarly literature, "dying and rising gods" is a generic appellation for a group of male deities found in agrarian Mediterranean societies who serve as the focus of myths and rituals that allegedly narrate and annually represent their death and resurrection.

Beyond this sufficient criterion, dying and rising deities were often held by scholars to have a number of cultic associations, sometimes thought to form a "pattern." They were young male figures of fertility; the drama of their lives was often associated with mother or virgin goddesses; in some areas, they were related to the institution of sacred kingship, often expressed through rituals of sacred marriage; there were dramatic reenactments of their life, death, and putative resurrection, often accompanied by a ritual identification of either the society or given individuals with their fate.

The category of dying and rising gods, as well as the pattern of its mythic and ritual associations, received its earliest full formulation in the influential work of James G. Frazer The Golden Bough, especially in its two central volumes, The Dying God and Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Frazer offered two interpretations, one euhemerist, the other naturist. In the former, which focused on the figure of the dying god, it was held that a (sacred) king would be slain when his fertility waned. This practice, it was suggested, would be later mythologized, giving rise to a dying god. The naturist explanation, which covered the full cycle of dying and rising, held the deities to be personifications of the seasonal cycle of vegetation. The two interpretations were linked by the notion that death followed upon a loss of fertility, with a period of sterility being followed by one of rejuvenation, either in the transfer of the kingship to a successor or by the rebirth or resurrection of the deity.

ESHMUN was a Phoenician healer god, later identified with Asklepios, the patron of medicine, by the Greeks and the Romans. He seems to be attested since the third millennium bce in Syria, though his physiognomy becomes clear only in the first millennium bce. The etymology of Eshmun clearly connects him with "oil," which had therapeutic and ritual functions (in relationship with the kingship ritual) in the ancient Near East. In the Ebla archives (middle of the third millennium bce), the theophoric element sí-mi-nu/a is found in some personal names, written dì-giš in Sumerian, meaning "oil." In the ritual texts of Ugarit and Ras Ibn Hani, in the late Bronze Age (eighteenth century bce), the god Šmn is also mentioned as a beneficiary of offerings (Keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit 1.164:9, 1.41:[45], 1.87:50). Unfortunately nothing is known about the functions or the role of this god in the Syrian pantheons, but his connection with oil must indicate that he was "the one who oils," and thus "the one who heals." This is surely the main reason why Eshmun was later assimilated to Asklepios/Aesculapius. His occasional interpretatio as Apollo (for example, in Carthage) is also based on the same background, because Apollo was also a salvific god. According to Philo of Byblos (Eus., Praeparation Evangelica I, 10, 38)


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