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The Philosopher's Shirt

My Body is a Temple of Dionysos

Ton corps est bien un temple. La question est pour quel dieu tu l’as construit, et ici, les papiers disent clairement Dionysos.

Un cadre classique, des intentions pas du tout classiques. Sur tous nos supports, fabriqué à la commande au moment de ton achat, des vêtements aux accessoires. Un cadeau philo drôle pour les hédonistes. Apollon peut garder les matinées. Le reste est déjà pris.

Questions about this design

What does My Body Is A Temple Of Dionysos mean?
It takes the familiar line my body is a temple – usually said by people who skip dessert – and asks which god the temple belongs to. The answer here is Dionysos, god of wine and ecstasy, crowned with grapes and ivy on a classical marble head inside a Greek meander border. A temple, yes; just not the abstemious kind.
Where does the saying my body is a temple come from?
From the apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 6.19 – do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you. Paul wrote it around AD 55 to warn the Christians of Corinth against sexual immorality. Today it is mostly used as a reason to eat well and avoid alcohol, which is precisely what this design turns on its head.
Who is Dionysus in Greek mythology?
Dionysus is the Greek god of wine, the grape harvest, festivity, ritual madness and theatre, the son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. Unlike the remote Olympians he arrives among people, frees them from everyday constraint and punishes those who refuse him, as in Euripides’ Bacchae. The Romans called him Bacchus.
What is the difference between Apollonian and Dionysian?
The pair comes from Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872). The Apollonian stands for form, clarity, measure and the individual, like a dream image; the Dionysian for intoxication, ecstasy and the dissolving of the self into collective life. Greek tragedy, Nietzsche argued, was great because it fused both.
Why was Nietzsche obsessed with Dionysus?
For Nietzsche, Dionysus stood for saying yes to life in its entirety, including suffering and loss – the opposite of what he saw as Christianity’s denial of the body and of this world. In Twilight of the Idols he calls himself the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and Ecce Homo (written 1888) ends with the line Dionysus versus the Crucified.
Why is Dionysus the god of theatre?
Greek tragedy and comedy grew up in Athens as part of his worship. Plays were performed in competition at the City Dionysia, his great spring festival, in the Theatre of Dionysus on the south slope of the Acropolis, and his priest had a seat of honour in the front row. Thespis is traditionally named as the first winning tragedian, around 534 BC.
Is it Dionysos or Dionysus?
Both are correct. Dionysos is the direct transliteration of the Greek name, preferred by many classicists; Dionysus is the Latinised spelling that became standard in English. Bacchus is a separate Roman name for the same god, taken from the Greek epithet Bakchos.
Is My Body Is A Temple Of Dionysos a good gift for classics or philosophy lovers?
Yes – it suits classicists, philosophy students, Nietzsche readers, theatre people and anyone who takes wine more seriously than diets. The design comes as a Unisex Classic T-Shirt (also with a back print), Women’s T-Shirt, Sweatshirt, Premium Hoodie, Mug and Sticker.