Baccanarists, a society in the Church of Pome, founded in Italy by one Baccanari after the suppres- sion of the Jesuits in 1773. Its object was to restore the order under a new name and form. Pius VI fa- vored the organization, and it spread into Austria, Hol- land, and England. In 1*14 its members were united with the re-established order of Jesuits. See Jesuits.
Bac'chides (Bmcyi'c'jjc, son of Bacchus'), a friend of Antiochus Epiphanes (Josephus, Ant. xii, 10, 2) and governor of Mesopotamia (lv -oj iripav tov jrora/toS, 1 Mace, vii, 8), who was commissioned by Demetrius Soter to investigate the charges whicli Aleimus (q. v.) preferred against Judas Maccabaeus. He confirmed Aleimus in the high-priesthood ; and, having inflicted signal vengeance on the extreme party of the Assidw- ans (q. v.), he returned to Antioch. After the expul-
sion of Aleimus and the defeat and death of Nicanor, he led a second expedition into Judea. Judas Macca- beus fell in the battle which ensued at Laisa (B.C. 1G1), and Bacchides re-established the supremacy of the Syrian faction (1 Mace, ix, 25, oi aatfiuc avtipeg ; Joseph. Ant. xiii, 1, 1). He next attempted to surprise Jonathan, who had assumed the leadership of the na- tional party after the death of Judas; but Jonathan escaped across the Jordan. Bacchides then placed gar- risons in several important positions, and took hostages for the security of the present government. Having completed the pacification of the country (Joseph. Ant. xiii, 1, 5), he returned to Demetrius (B.C. 160). After two years he came back at the request of the Syrian j faction, in the hope of overpowering Jonathan and Si- I mon, who still maintained a small force in the desert ; j but, meeting with ill success, he turned against those | who had induced him to undertake the expedition, and sought an honorable retreat. When this was known by Jonathan he sent envoys to Bacchides and con- cluded a peace (B.C. 158) with him, acknowledging him as governor under the Syrian king, while Bacchi- des pledged himself not to enter the land again, a con- dition which he faithfully observed (1 Mace, ix, 70 sq. ; Joseph. Ant. xii, 1, G ; xiii, 1 ; comp. 2 Mace, viii, 30). He must have been a different person from the Bac- chides, the general of Antiochus Epiphanes in charge of the fortresses of Judaia, whom the Asmomean priest Matthias, with his sons, slew with their daggers (Jo- seph. War,, i, 1, 2).— Smith, s. v.
Bacchu'rns (Bn/>-\of'poc ; Vulg. Zaccarus), given as one of the "holy singers" (tmv 'teno^aXrwr') who had taken a foreign wife (1 Esdr. ix, 24); but no name corresponding with this is added in the genuine list (Ezra, x, 24).
Bac'chus, the Latinized form (in the Auth. Vers, at 2 Mace, vi, 7 ; xiv, 33) of the heathen deity called by the Greeks Dionysus (q. v.). The latter occurs also in (the so-called) 3 Mace, ii, 29. In all these in- stances this mythic deity is named in connection with circumstances which would indicate that he was an object of special abhorrence to the Jews; for in the first it is stated that the Jews were compelled to go in procession to Bacchus ; in the second, the erection of a temple to him is threatened in order to compel the priests to deliver up Judas to Nicanor; and in the third, the branding with the ivy leaf, sacred to him, is reported as inflicted on them by way of punishment. This falls in with what Tacitus says, that it was a mis- take to imagine that, because the priests of the Jews ac- companied their singing with flute and cymbals, and had garlands of ivy, and a golden vine was found in the Temple, they worshipped Bacchus, for that this was not at all in accordance with their institutes (nequa- quam congruentibus institutis, Hist, v, 5). As Bac- chus was the god of wine, and in general of earthly festivity and jollity, and as his rites sanctioned the most frantic excesses of revelry and tumultuous ex- citement, he would necessarily be an object of abhor- rence to all who believed in and worshipped Jehovah. Probably also the very fact that some things connected with the Jewish worship had, as mentioned by Taci- tus, and still more full}' by Plutarch (Symposiac. iv, qu. 6), led to the supposition that they reverenced Bacchus, may have produced in their minds a more de- termined recoil from and hatred of all pertaining to his name. In the pagan system Bacchus is the god of wine, and is represented as the son of Jupiter and Semele, the daughter of Cadmus. His mother per- ished in the burning embraces of the god, whom she persuaded to visit her with his attribute of royalty, the thunderbolt; the embryo child was sewn up in Jupiter's thigh, whence, in due time, he was produced to light. Mythology abounds with the adventures of Bacchus, the most noted of which are the transforma- tion of the Tyrrhenian pirates, who carried him off to
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sell for a slave, into dolphins; his revenge on the scoffing Pentiums and his invasion and conquest of India. Bacchus was generally figured as a young man of effeminate appearance (3tjA.v/m>p^o£, Eurip. Bacch. 353 : Euseb. Chron. p. 29), with a garland of ivy bind- ing his long hair (Strabo, xv, p. 1038) ; in his hand he" bore a thyrsus, or rod wreathed with ivy, and at his feet lay his attendant panther. His compan- ions were the Bacchantes, the Lenae, the Naiads and Nymphs, etc., and especially Silenus. His wor- ship seems to have arisen from that "striving after objectivity" (Wachsmuth, Ilellen. Alterthumsk. ii, 2, p. 113), which is the characteristic of a primitive people. The southern coast of Thrace appears to have been the original seat of this religion, and it was intro- duced thence into Greece shortly after the coloniza- tion by the iEolians of the Asiatic coast of the Helles- pont. " The admission of the identity of Osiris and Dionysus by Plutarch and other mythological theo- rists," as well as Herodotus's simple statement of the assertions of the Egyptian priests to that effect, is no proof of the common origin of the worship of this di- vinity in Egypt and Greece; but there is no doubt that "certain modifications of the Dionysiac rites took place after the commencement of the intercourse be- tween the Ionians and the Egyptians {Penny Cyclop. s. v.). The worship of Bacchus was intimately con- nected with that of Demeter, and under the name of lacchus he was adored along with that goddess at Eleu- sis. Virgil invokes them together (Georg. i, 5) as the lights of the universe. According to the Egyptians, they were the joint rulers of the world below (Herod. ii, 123). In a cameo he is represented as sitting with her in a chariot drawn by male and female centaurs. (For a fuller account of the mythological history and attributes of Bacchus, see Creuzer, Xymbolik unci My- thologie, pt. iii, bk. 3, ch. 2 of Moser's Abridgment.)