Bacchus the Martyr." Now, no doubt, Bacchus was a "martyr"; he died a violent death; he lost his life for religion; but the religion for which he died was the religion of the fire-worshippers; for he was put to death, as we have seen from Maimonides, for maintaining the worship of the host of heaven. This patron of the heavenly host, and of fire worship (for the two went always hand in hand together), has Rome canonised; for that this "St. Bacchus the Martyr" was the identical Bacchus of the Pagans, the god of drunkenness and debauchery, is evident from the time of his festival; for October the 7th follows soon after the end of the vintage. At the end of the vintage in autumn, the old Pagan Romans used to celebrate what was called the "Rustic Festival" of Bacchus; and about that very time does the Papal festival of "St Bacchus the Martyr" occur. As the Chalden god has been admitted into the Roman calendar under the name of Bacchus, so also is he canonised under his other name of Dionysus. The Pagans were in the habit of worshipping the same god under different names; and, accordingly, not content with the festival to Bacchus, under the name by which he was most commonly known at Rome, the Romans, no doubt to please the Greeks, celebrated a rustic festival to him, two days afterwards, under the name of Dionysus Eleuthereus, the name by which he was worshipped in Greece. That "rustic" festival was briefly called by the name of Dionysia; or, expressing its object more fully, the name became "Festum Dionysi Eleutherei rusticum"--i.e., the "rustic festival of Dionysus Eleuthereus." (BEGG'S Handbook of Popery) Now, the Papacy in its excess of zeal for saints and saint-worship, has actually split Dionysus Eleuthereus into two, has made two several saints out of the double name of one Pagan divinity; and more than that, has made the innocent epithet "Rusticum," which, even among the heathen, had no pretension to divinity at all, a third; and so it comes to pass that, under date of October the 9th, we read this entry in the calendar: "The festival of St. Dionysius, * and of his companions, St. Eleuther and St. Rustic."
* Though Dionysus was the proper classic name of the god, yet in Post-classical, or Low Latin, his name is found Dionysius, just as in the case of the Romish saint. Now this Dionysius, whom Popery has so marvellously furnished with two companions, is the famed St. Denys, the patron saint of Paris; and a comparison of the history of the Popish saint and the Pagan god will cast no little light on the subject. St. Denys, on being beheaded and cast into the Seine, so runs the legend, after floating a space on its waters, to the amazement of the spectators, took up his head in his hand, and so marched away with it to the place of burial.