The causes of this astonishing success must be looked for within the

religion itself. No name has come down to us of any prophet or priest of

the Alexandrian religion possessing a commanding personality like St

Paul, Mohammed, Luther, or Calvin; and we must therefore conclude that

it was its own intrinsic merits which thus commended it to so many

widely-differing peoples[172]. Foremost among these was, it would seem,

its extraordinary timeliness. Alexander’s conquests had broken down the

barriers that speech and race had set up between neighbouring peoples,

and had at the same time united many hundreds of jealous and discordant

states under a single head. In the many royal courts which had been set

up as a result of the partition of Alexander’s Empire, philosophers of

every school were chanting the political advantages of an enlightened

monarchy over the greedy scramble for place and power inseparable from

democracy, and the doctrine was bound sooner or later to be applied to

religion[173]. We have seen how far both Egyptians and Greeks had before

then carried the practice of _theocrasia_, but the founders of the

Alexandrian religion were not slow in pushing it to its only legitimate

conclusion. Serapis, unlike the Greek Zeus, from the first declined to

brook any partition of his empire over nature. “Wouldst thou know what

god I am,” said his oracle at the Alexandrian Serapeum to Nicocreon, the

Cypriote king. “I myself will tell thee. The heavenly cosmos is my head;

the sea my belly. My feet are the earth; my ears are in the aether. My

far-beaming eye is the radiant light of the sun[174].” In other words,

Serapis is himself the universe, which is probably the meaning to be

attached to the name given to Osiris in the _Book of the Dead_ which

Egyptologists translate “Lord of Totality.” But Aeschylus had already

said the same thing about Zeus[175], and as the gods of the Greeks were

never anything else than the powers of nature, Serapis thus comprised in

his single person the whole Greek pantheon. Hence “Serapis alone is

Zeus” came to be a sort of watchword in the Alexandrian religion to be

endlessly repeated on statues, gems, and all the other material relics

of the cult[176]. A little later and we find Serapis drawing to himself

the worship of all the Mediterranean gods who had a common origin with

Osiris and Dionysos. Adonis, as appears from the beautiful idyll of

Theocritus, in the reign of Ptolemy Soter’s successor was worshipped as

another form of Osiris in the royal palace itself[177]. Atys, Cybele’s

lover, was also identified with him[178]; and, as the Stoic philosophy,

which taught that all the gods were but different forms of the one

Divine energy, came into fashion, Serapis was equated with the numerous

sun-gods whose worship poured in from the Semitic east. “The eternal

sun” came to be one of his most-used epithets, and he is often invoked

as the equivalent of the Greek Helios and of the Persian sun-god

Mithras[179]. Nor did his consort long remain behind him. “I, the parent

of the works of nature” is the style in which Isis announces herself to

her votary Lucius in Apuleius’ romance,

“queen of all the elements, earliest offspring of the ages, highest

of godheads, sovereign of the Manes, first of the heavenly ones,

one-formed type of gods and goddesses. The luminous heights of

heaven, the health-giving breezes of the sea, the sad silences of

the lower world, I govern by my nod. I am she whose godhead, single

in essence, but of many forms, with varied rites and under many

names, the whole earth reveres. Hence the Phrygians, first born of

men, call me Pessinuntica, Mother of the Gods; here the first

inhabitants of Attica, Cecropian Minerva, there the wave-rocked

Cypriotes, Paphian Venus; the arrow-bearing Cretans, Diana Dictynna;

the three-tongued Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine; the Eleusinians,

the ancient goddess Ceres;—others Juno, others Bellona, these

Hecate, those Rhamnusia; and they who are lighted by the first rays

of the sun-god on his rising, the Ethiopians, the Africans, and the

Egyptians skilled in the ancient teaching, worshipping me with

ceremonies peculiarly my own, call me by my true name, Queen

Isis[180].”

As we shall see later (p. 64, _infra_) her spouse Osiris claimed also to

be the highest of godheads; and the final unity of the Divine essence to

which the μυστικὴ θεοκρασία was logically bound to lead could hardly be

stated in clearer language[181].

Thus, we see that what has been called a monotheistic pantheism instead

of an incoherent mass of local worships was one of the advantages of the

Alexandrian cult. But in the religion of the crowd, feeling plays a more

important part than reason, and the idea which it first gave mankind of

what would be now called the “fatherhood of God” was probably by far its

most alluring feature. It has frequently been said that the Greeks

although they feared, did not love their gods, and so far as the Homeric

deities are concerned, it is difficult to see why they should. Apollo

openly expresses his contempt for “pitiful mortals, who like unto leaves

now live in glowing life, consuming the fruit of the earth, and now

again pine unto death[182],” Hera does not hide her scorn for “the

creatures of a day,” and the help that Athena gives the Greeks in their

war against Troy is expressly said to be due to no kindlier feeling than

rage at the slight which Paris had put upon her beauty[183]. As for the

Egyptian religion, if it ever exhibited the lofty conceptions and

sublime ideas with which the earlier Egyptologists were inclined to

credit it, it had long before Ptolemy’s time lost all trace of them, and

had degenerated into “a systematized sorcery” in which the gods were

compelled to grant merely material benefits directly they were demanded

with the proper ritual[184]. But when we turn from the Greek and

Egyptian creeds to the new faith which was compounded from the two, we

are at once struck by the complete change which seems to have come over

the worshippers’ conception of the Divine. Isis, from the wily magician

of Pharaonic Egypt, has now become “the haven of peace and the altar of

pity[185].”

“O thou holy and eternal protectress of the race of men”

are the terms with which Lucius addresses her,

“thou who ever givest good gifts to comfort-needing mortals, thou

dost bestow upon the lot of the wretched the sweet affection of a

mother. There is no day nor night nor smallest moment which is not

occupied with thy good deeds. Thou dost protect mankind by sea and

land, and scattering the storms of life dost stretch forth to them

thy saving hand, with which thou dost even spin anew the hopelessly

twisted web of the Fates, and dost temper the blasts of fortune and

restrain the hostile courses of the stars[186].”

So Ælius Aristides in his encomium of Serapis written after having been

saved from shipwreck, as he considered, by the direct intervention of

the god, tells us that Serapis is the god who “purifies the soul with

wisdom, and preserves the body by giving it health[187],” that he alone

“is adored by kings as by private persons, by the wise as by the

foolish, by the great as by the small, and by those on whom he has

bestowed happiness as well as those who possess him alone as a

refuge from their trouble[188],”

that he is “the protector and saviour of all men[189],” “the most loving

of the gods towards men[190],” “greatly turned towards mercy[191],” and

“the light common to all men[192].” We hardly want his elaborate

demonstration that Serapis alone of all the gods is ready to assist him

who invokes him when in need, to convince us that the reign of the

warlike gods and goddesses of Homer—always, as Renan says, brandishing a

spear from the top of an acropolis—is over, and that instead of them man

has at last found

... “Gods, the friends of man

Merciful gods, compassionate”

who would certainly “answer him again,” as a father would his children.

The providence and beneficence of the Alexandrian gods towards man,

moreover, extended beyond the grave. In Homer, we find a conception of

the next world which for dreariness and hopelessness is only paralleled

by the Jewish ideas concerning Sheol. “Nay, speak not comfortably to me

of death, great Odysseus,” says the shade of Achilles to the hero who

has called him up from Hades. “Rather would I live upon the soil as the

hireling of another, even with a landless man who had no great

livelihood, than bear sway among all the dead who are no more[193].” But

the Eleusinian Mysteries were hailed as giving deliverance from these

horrors, and as robbing death of much of its terrors for those who had

been initiated. “Blessed is he,” says Pindar in a passage in which

commentators agree to see a direct allusion to the Mysteries, “who has

seen the things that are under the earth. He has seen the end of life;

he has seen also the God-sent beginning[194].” “Thrice blessed,” says

Sophocles, “are they among mortals, who after having beheld these

mysteries, go to the house of Hades: for it is theirs alone there to

live, but to the others there will arrive all ills[195].” The Homeric

_Hymn to Demeter_, which may be about a century earlier than Pindar, is

as emphatic as he as to the saving grace of initiation. “Happy,” it

says, “is the man on earth who has seen these things. But he who has not

been initiated in these holy rites, who has not shared in them, never

has the same lot, when he has utterly faded away in the dark

gloom[196].” Those who believe with M. Foucart in the Egyptian origin of

the Eleusinian rites will doubtless see in this a direct borrowing from

the Egyptian views regarding the beatitude awaiting the justified or

“triumphant” dead who in life had been worshippers of Osiris. How much

or how little of the Osirian faith as to the state of these worshippers

in the next world passed into the Alexandrian religion cannot now be

said; but it is certain that the protection of Isis and Serapis was held

to be as powerful in the life beyond the tomb as in this.

“When the term of thy life is spent,”

says the apparition of the goddess to Apuleius’ Lucius,

“and thou at length descendest to the lower regions, there also,

even in the subterranean hemisphere, thou, dwelling in Elysian

fields, will often adore me who art propitious to thee, and whom

thou shalt see shining among the shades of Acheron and reigning over

the secret places of Styx[197].”

So, too, Aristides says of Serapis, that he is “the Saviour and leader

of souls, leading souls to the light and receiving them again[198],”

that “he raises the dead, he shows forth the longed-for light of the sun

to those who _see_, whose holy tombs contain endless numbers of sacred

books[199],” and that “we can never escape from his sway, but he will

save us, and even after death we shall be the objects of his

providence[200].” We may imagine, if we please, although there is really

no proof of any connection between the two, that in its assertion of the

fatherhood of God as in earthly matters, the Alexandrian religion owed

something to the Stoic philosophy; but it is fairly certain that in the

glimpses it afforded of the next world, its inspiration must have been

drawn either from Eleusis or from Egypt.

What we know, too, of the actual worship of the Alexandrian triad shows

that it was designed to attract the devotion of the multitude with a

skill that argues the existence behind it of many centuries of

priestcraft. It is still a moot point whether Herodotus was well-founded

when he asserted the existence of “mysteries” in the Egyptian

religion[201]; and it is quite clear that the scenes in the earthly life

of Osiris and the gods of his cycle which in the case of their Greek

counterparts were carefully concealed from all but initiates, were in

Egypt openly portrayed on the walls of the temples[202]. But Timotheos

and Manetho must have been too well aware of the prestige attaching

throughout the Hellenic world to the secret worships of such centres of

religion as Eleusis and Samothrace to forgo its advantage for their new

religion; and the Alexandrian gods too had a system of initiation which

seems to have been modelled upon that of the “Goddesses Twain.” Thanks

to Apuleius we can, up to a certain point, follow the Alexandrian course

of initiation step by step. Those whom Isis singled out as fitted for

her service[203]—which we may without uncharitableness interpret as

meaning those whom the priests thought likely to be of use to the

religion—were assigned a “mystagogue” who no doubt gave them such

instructions as he thought fit in the meaning of the rites which he saw

performed in the temple, and the incidents in the life of the gods to

which they were attached. When after a course of such instruction, which

was of varying length, the mystagogue was convinced of the soundness of

the aspirant’s vocation, the formal initiation began. In strict

accordance with a ritual which Apuleius assures us was written down in

Egyptian characters and carefully preserved in the secret places of the

sanctuary (_opertis adyti_), the aspirant underwent a solemn lustration

with water or baptism at the hands of the priest, and was ordered to

abstain from all food which had had life, from wine and from the company

of the other sex for a space of ten days[204]. This period was doubtless

spent as far as possible within the temple precincts, much importance

being attached to the prolonged contemplation of the statue of the

goddess, which was, as we have seen, fashioned in a manner worthy of

Greek art, and was further adorned with rich robes and jewels after the

manner of the Catholic images of the Virgin. At the expiration of the

ten days’ retreat, the candidate was clothed in a linen garment and was

exhibited to the general body or congregation of the faithful who

presented him with gifts. The secret ceremonies were then performed

before him, the nature of which are only revealed to us in the guarded

words of Apuleius’ hero:

“I approached the bounds of death, and, borne through all the

elements, returned again to the threshold of Proserpine which I had

already trod. I saw at midnight the sun shining with pure light, I

came before the Gods of the Upper and Lower World, and I worshipped

them from anigh[205].”

Collating these hints—which Apuleius tells us are all that it is lawful

for him to give—with what we know of the origin of the Alexandrian

religion and with the scraps of information that have come down to us

regarding other ceremonies of a like nature, we may gather from this

that the candidate underwent a mock death, being probably made to enact

in his own person the passion of Osiris and his shutting-up in a

coffin[206], that he was shown the happy lot of the initiated and the

correspondingly miserable fate of the uninitiated in the life after

death, that he was subjected to certain “trials,” or proofs of his

courage and sincerity, by fire, water, earth, and air, and that he was

finally shown in a brilliant light the glorious company of the gods

represented either by their images, or by priests arrayed with their

best-known attributes. Nothing seems to have been omitted that could

impress the imagination of the neophyte, and when the night of

initiation was at length over, he was again displayed before the

congregation of worshippers clothed in what was known as the Olympian

garment (_stola Olympiaca_) consisting of a dress of byssus or linen

embroidered with flowers, over which was cast a rich mantle decorated

with figures of fabulous animals, and bearing in his right hand a

flaming torch, while on his head was a crown of palm-leaves with leaves

projecting, as he says, “like rays of light.” In this costume he was

placed in a wooden pulpit before the statue of the goddess in the public

portion of the temple, and was thus exhibited for the adoration of the

crowd, when the ceremony of opening took place[207]. As the last stage

of the secret rite seems to have been the successive imposition upon the

initiate of twelve robes, doubtless typifying the twelve signs of the

Zodiac, we hardly want the rayed crown, and the explicit words of

Apuleius to inform us that in this costume he was intended to represent

the material sun (_exornatus instar Solis et in vicem simulacri

constitutus_)[208]. The sun-god, however, was in the later phases of the

Egyptian religion not Osiris but either Ra or Horus[209], and this

last-named god was in the Alexandrian triad equated with the Greek

Apollo. It therefore seems likely that the initiate represented here the

child of Isis begotten, as has been said, by Osiris after his death and

passion, and this corresponds with the statement put into the mouth of

Isis and preserved by Proclus: “I am that which has been, is, and will

be. My garment none has lifted. The fruit which I bore has become the

sun[210].” It is significant that the later and especially the Christian

writers speak of Osiris and not Horus as the son of Isis; but the

distinction between father and son in the Egyptian triads was never

sharply defined, and there are many signs that Horus, the son of Isis,

was looked upon as Osiris re-born[211].

The initiation strictly so-called was concluded with a banquet provided

by the initiate in which he celebrated what he was henceforth to regard

as his natal day, as his formal entry into the religion was considered

by him as a re-birth. Nor was this all. Twelve months after his

initiation into the first degree or Mysteries of Isis, Apuleius’ hero is

summoned to undergo a further initiation, this time into the mysteries

“of the Great God and highest progenitor of the Gods, the unconquered

Osiris (_magni dei deumque summi parentis, invicti Osiris_),” of which

we are only told that a further preparation of ten days was necessary

and that the aspirant was in addition “enlightened by the nocturnal

orgies of the princely god Serapis (_insuper etiam Serapis principalis

dei nocturnis orgiis illustratus_)[212].” Very shortly after this a

_third_ initiation was prescribed to Lucius and was backed up by a dream

in which Osiris “the God of the great Gods, or rather the Highest of the

Greater Gods and the Greatest of the Highest and the Ruler of the

Greatest (_deus deum magnorum potior et majorum summus et summorum

maximus et maximorum regnator Osiris_)” appears to him; but we learn

nothing of the nature of this fresh initiation, save that it was

preceded like the two others by a ten-days’ fast[213]. No other text or

monument that has yet come to light gives any hint as to the revelations

made in these two last degrees or initiations; but it seems likely from

the words above quoted that they were concerned with the true nature of

Osiris[214], and that he must have been finally proclaimed to the

initiate as the one and only Source of Being. The apparent inconsistency

between this and Isis’ own statement given above that she is herself the

“highest of godheads ... first of the heavenly ones, one-formed type of

gods and goddesses” can perhaps be got over by supposing that the

Supreme Being was supposed to be at once the father and mother of the

inferior gods, an idea of which there are many traces in the Egyptian

myths of later Pharaonic times[215]. Some connection between Osiris in

his Egyptian form and the Greek wine-god Bacchus may be implied by the

dream which heralded the second initiation showing “one clothed in

consecrated linen robes, and bearing thyrsi, ivy and certain things

which I may not mention[216]”; but M. Baillet has found a bronze statue

of the Ptolemaic period in which Osiris is represented with grapes and a

vine-shoot[217], and it is therefore unlikely that any identification of

the kind formed part of the secrets reserved for initiates[218].

This, therefore, seems to be all that can be usefully said about the

secret part of the worship of the Alexandrian gods. But the founders of

the cult must have always borne in mind that while in every religion

there are a few devotees who are prepared to go all lengths in theology

or enquiry into the nature of their gods, the majority are attracted to

it more from a vague desire to enter into amicable relations with the

spiritual world than from any other feeling. Even with the Mysteries of

Eleusis, it is fairly certain that only a very small proportion of those

who attended the ceremonies really grasped the full meaning of what they

saw and heard. “Many are the thyrsus-bearers,” quotes Plato in this

connection, “but few are the mystes[219]”; and it is plain that, as the

Telesterion at Eleusis could at the outside accommodate three thousand

persons, the greater part of the huge crowd in the Iacchos procession

must have come only to look on[220]. But even this more or less careless

multitude did much to spread the fame of the Eleusinian religion, while

it was doubtless from their ranks in the first instance that the true

initiates were drawn. With this in view, the Alexandrian priests laid

themselves out to cater for the half-convinced crowd as well as for

their real devotees, and did so with a success which put the Eleusinian

Mysteries entirely in the shade. In this, they were much helped by the

practice of the native Egyptian temples in Pharaonic times which has

been clearly set forth by M. Moret. Every day in every temple in Egypt

there seems to have been a solemn Service of Opening when the statue of

the god was taken from its resting-place, purified with incense,

dressed, and anointed before the doors were opened, and the public, or

perhaps only the king as representing mankind in general, were admitted

to adore the god[221]. This practice was copied with great fidelity in

the worship of the Alexandrian gods, and “the morning opening of the

temple” (_templi matutinas apertiones_) became an elaborate ceremony in

which the white curtains which hid the statue of Isis from the gaze of

the worshippers were drawn back (_velis candentibus reductis_), and it

was displayed blazing with actual robes, gems, and ornaments, like a

Madonna in Southern Europe at the present day[222]. We also learn from

Apuleius that prayers to the goddess were offered at the same time,

while one of the priests made the circuit of the different altars within

the temple, pouring before each of them a libation of Nile water, and

“the beginning of the First Hour” was solemnly proclaimed, with chants

and shouts which have been compared to the muezzin of the Mahommedans,

but which more probably resembled the choral singing of a morning hymn

by the assembled congregation[223]. We know also from a casual allusion

in one of Martial’s Epigrams, that the eighth hour was also celebrated

by a chant of the priests, and it seems likely that this announced the

closing of the temple to the profane, and was attended by similar

solemnities to those of the opening[224]. But it is abundantly plain

that between these hours the temple remained open for what may be called

private worship, and that this took the form of meditation or silent

adoration before the statue of Isis. Apuleius’ Lucius repeatedly speaks

of the pleasure that he derived even before his initiation from the

prolonged contemplation of the goddess’s image[225], and the Roman poets

are full of allusions to the devout who passed much of their time seated

before her statue on benches, the place of which is clearly marked out

in Isiac temples like that of Pompeii[226]. That such “meditations” were

thought to have in them a saving grace is apparent from a passage in

Ovid, where he tells us that he had seen one who had offended “the

divinity of the linen-clad Isis” sitting before her altar[227], and it

also seems to have been part of the necessary preparation for those who

sought initiation. When we consider that the Eleusinian festivals were

celebrated at the most but twice a year, and then only in one part of

Greece, we see how greatly the daily services and frequentation of the

temples in nearly every large town in the West must have operated in

drawing to the Alexandrian worship the devotion of the citizens.

In addition to these, however, there were far more elaborate ceremonies

of which we obtain a passing glimpse. At Herculaneum, were found early

in last century two mural frescoes portraying scenes in the worship of

Isis, and of an Isis who, from the style of the paintings and the place

where they were found, can be no other than the Alexandrian goddess. One

of these, now in the Museum at Naples, shows a temple surrounded by

trees, the porch of which is approached by a staircase and is guarded by

two sphinxes[228]. Before the door and at the head of the stairs stands

a priest with the shaven crown of the Alexandrian priesthood, holding

with both hands an urn breast-high, while behind him are two others, one

of whom (probably a woman) is completely clothed, wears long hair, and

shakes a sistrum, while the other is naked to the waist and has his head

shaved like the central figure. At the foot of the staircase is another

priest bearing a sistrum in his left hand and a sort of pointed baton or

hiltless sword in his right[229], with which he seems to be commanding a

body of persons of both sexes, who from the shaven crowns of the men are

evidently a congregation or college of initiates, and are ranged in two

rows upon the steps. In the foreground are three altars, the middle one

with a fire burning on it, which an attendant is fanning, while on the

right of this is a flute-player seated on the ground, having in front of

him a priest with a wand like that before described in either hand, and

on the left a man and a woman shaking sistra. The scene evidently

represents a religious service of some kind, and this may possibly be,

as M. Lafaye suggests, the Adoration of the Sacred Water or water of the

Nile, which as Plutarch and Apuleius both hint, was considered the

emblem of Osiris[230]. If so, we may further suppose that the initiates

are here singing antiphonally, or in two choirs, the hymn to Serapis, a

particular air on the flute being, as we shall see, sacred to that god.

The other fresco shows a temple porch like its fellow, although the

steps leading up to it are fewer in number and the two sphinxes on

either side of the opening are here replaced by two Doric pillars

ornamented with garlands. The central figure is a bearded man of black

complexion, crowned with the lotus and a chaplet of leaves. One hand

rests on his hip, and the other is raised in the air, which attitude,

perhaps from its likeness to that of the statue known as the Dancing

Faun, has given rise to the idea that it is a sacred dance which is here

represented[231]. Behind this figure are two women, one of whom plays a

tympanum or tambourine, two children, and a priest or initiate with

shaven crown, sistrum in hand, and naked to the waist. In the foreground

is the altar seen in the other fresco, with a flame rising from it, and

standing to the right of it a priest with a sistrum and another musical

instrument in his hands, a flute-player, a child, a kneeling man, a

woman clothed in a long garment and bearing, besides the sistrum, a

palm-branch, and other worshippers. On the left is a priest with a

sistrum, a child bearing in one hand a basket and in the other a small

urn, while a woman crowned with leaves, with a sistrum and a dish filled

with fruits, kneels at the head of the steps. From the black complexion

of the principal figure, M. Lafaye considers that he may represent

Osiris himself and that he is here shown at the moment of resurrection,

a scene which he considers, not without reason, may have formed the

concluding act in one of the sacred dramas or mystery-plays undoubtedly

associated with the worship of the god. If so, it is unlikely that it

formed part of the initiation into the Mysteries, the particulars of

which were carefully concealed from the profane and would hardly have

been painted on the walls of temples or dwelling-houses. It seems more

probable that the scene in question, whatever be its meaning, was acted

in pantomime in, or rather before, the temple at a particular period of

the year, that the uninitiated were allowed to be present at it as well

as at the Adoration of the Sacred Water, and that these two therefore

were familiar and attractive objects to the populace throughout the

Roman world.

That the Passion—as it was distinctly called—and Resurrection of Osiris

were yearly and openly celebrated by the worshippers of the Alexandrian

gods with alternate demonstrations of grief and joy, the classical poets

have put beyond doubt. The celebration took place in the month of

November and began with a ten-day fast on the part of all the faithful

which was often spent in the temples. Then followed the representation

of the passion of and the seeking for Osiris, and its result, which a

Christian writer of the IIIrd century A.D.[232] thus sums up:

“You behold the swallow[233] and the cymbal of Isis, and the tomb of

your Serapis or Osiris empty, with his limbs scattered about....

Isis bewails, laments and seeks after her lost son[234], with her

Cynocephalus[235] and her bald-headed priests; and the wretched

worshippers of Isis beat their breasts, and imitate the grief of the

most unhappy mother. By and by, when the little boy is found, Isis

rejoices, and the priests exult. Cynocephalus the discoverer boasts,

and they do not cease year by year either to lose what they find, or

to find what they lose.”

“These,” he says, “were formerly Egyptian rites, and now are Roman

ones”; and it is plain that all the incidents of which he speaks were

perfectly familiar to the Roman people. Juvenal[236] speaks of the

bald-headed multitude uttering lamentations and running to and fro, and

of their exultant cries when Osiris is found; and the banquets in the

temples and great festivals and public games which celebrated the

“Finding of Osiris” when the Alexandrian worship was recognized by the

state must have made the recurrence of this chief festival of the

Alexandrian religion familiar to every one[237].

How many lesser festivals than these formed part of its public

ceremonial we do not know, but they were probably numerous enough. The

Roman calendars tell us of a festival of Isis Pharia, probably in her

capacity of tutelary goddess of Alexandria, and of another of Serapis,

both in the month of April, while Plutarch speaks of the Birth of Horus

celebrated, as was natural with a sun-god, after the vernal equinox,

when nature awakens and the sun begins to show forth his power. But

there was another spring festival which took place on the 5th of

March[238] to mark the reopening of navigation and commerce after the

departure of winter, in which the faithful went in procession to the sea

(or probably in its absence to the nearest water), and there set afloat

a new ship filled with offerings which was known as the vessel of Isis.

Apuleius has left us a description of this festival at once so lively

and so imbued with the spirit of the devout Isiacist, that it may be

pardonable to quote from it at some length. The procession, which in the

case he is describing sets forth at dawn from the gates of Cenchreae the

eastern port of Corinth, is heralded by a carnival in which burlesque

representations of magistrates, gladiators, hunters, and fishermen

jostle with caricatures of ancient Greek heroes and demigods like

Bellerophon and Ganymede. After this had dispersed, “the procession

proper of the Saviour Goddess,” he says, set itself in motion, and may

be described in his own words[239]:

“Women shining in white garments displayed their joy by divers

gestures, and crowned with spring blossoms strewed from their laps

flowers upon the road over which marched the holy throng. Others,

with glittering mirrors held behind them, showed to the advancing

Goddess their ready service. Others, who bore ivory combs, by the

motion of their arms and the twining of their fingers represented

the combing of her royal hair, while yet others sprinkled the ways

with drops of sweet-smelling balsam and other unguents. A great

crowd also of both sexes followed with lamps, torches, candles and

other kinds of lights making propitious with light the source of the

heavenly stars. Thereafter came gentle harmonies, and reeds and

flutes sounded with sweetest modulations. A graceful choir of chosen

youths followed, shining in snowy dresses of ceremony and singing a

beautiful hymn which by grace of the Muses a skilful poet had set to

music, although its theme recalled the prayers of our forefathers.

Then came flute-players consecrated to the great Serapis, who on the

slanted reed held under the right ear, repeated the air usual in the

temple of the God, in order that everyone might be warned to make

room for the passage of the holy things. Then pressed on the

multitude of those who had been initiated into the divine mysteries,

both men and women of every rank and age, shining in the pure

whiteness of their linen robes, the women with hair moist with

perfume and covered with a transparent veil, the men with closely

shaven hair and glistening heads. Earthly stars of the great

religion were these, who made a shrill tinkling with brazen silver

or even gold sistra. Then came the priests of the holy things, those

distinguished men who, tightly swathed in white linen from the

breast-girdle to the feet, displayed to view the noble emblems of

the most mighty God. The first held forth a lamp shining with clear

light, not exactly resembling those which give light to nocturnal

banquets, but in the form of a golden boat and emitting a broader

flame through its central opening. The second, clothed in the same

way as the first, carried in his two hands the little altars, _i.e._

the _auxilia_ to which the helping foresight of the high Goddess has

given a peculiar name. The third bore a palm-tree with tiny golden

leaves, and likewise the _caduceus_ of Mercury. The fourth exhibited

the emblem of Equity, a left hand represented with outstretched

palm, which from its inborn disinclination to work, and as being

endowed with neither skill nor expertness, seems better suited to

typify Equity than the right. He also bore a golden vase in the

rounded shape of a female breast, from which he poured libations of

milk. The fifth carried a winnowing-fan composed of golden wires,

and yet another an amphora.

“Without interval, the Gods who have deigned to walk with the feet

of men go forward. Here—dread sight!—is he who is the messenger

between the supernal and the infernal deities. Upright, of a

complexion black in some parts, golden in others, Anubis raises on

high his dog’s head, bearing in his left hand the _caduceus_, and

shaking in his right the budding palm-branch[240]. Close upon his

footsteps, follows a cow, held on high in an erect posture—the cow,

fertile image of the Goddess who brings forth all things—which one

of the blessed ministry with pantomimic steps bears seated on his

shoulders. The chest containing the mysteries was carried by

another, thus wholly concealing the hidden things of the sublime

religion[241]. Yet another bore within his happy bosom the revered

likeness of the Supreme Divinity, resembling neither a domestic

animal, nor bird, nor wild beast, nor even man himself; but yet to

be revered in the highest degree alike for its skilful invention,

and for its very novelty, and also as that unspeakable evidence of

the religion which should be veiled in complete silence. As to its

outward form, it was fashioned in glittering gold—an urn hollowed

out with perfected art with a round base and carved externally with

the marvellous images of the Egyptians. Its mouth was not much

raised and jutted forth in an extended spout with a wide stream;

while on the opposite side was attached the handle bent far out with

a wide sweep, on which sate an asp in wreathed folds uplifting the

swollen stripes of his scaly neck.”

This description will leave little doubt on the mind of the reader as to

the supreme importance in the religion of the urn which is being held up

for the adoration of the faithful in the fresco from Herculaneum before

described; and this is borne out by a bas-relief in the Vatican in which

a similar urn to that described by Apuleius is represented as being

carried in procession[242]. “They say,” says Hippolytus speaking of the

worshippers of Isis, “that Osiris is water,” and Celsus, according to

Origen, confirms him in this[243]. According to this last, Isis

represented the earth, and the doctrine may therefore be an allegory

representing the fertilization of the land by the Nile. It is more

likely, however, that it is to be attributed to one of the older

cosmogonies current in Egypt, wherein water, personified by the god Nu,

is the origin of everything[244]. The main point to note for our present

purpose is that an urn or vase containing liquid, was, in the public

ceremonies of the Alexandrian religion, the recognized symbol of the

Supreme Being.

Apuleius next describes the procession as having reached the seashore

where the images of the gods were arranged in order[245]:

“Then the Chief Priest, pouring forth with chaste mouth the most

solemn prayers, consecrated and dedicated to the goddess, after

having thoroughly purified it with a lighted torch, an egg, and some

sulphur, a ship made with the highest art and painted all over with

the wonderful pictures of the Egyptians. The shining sail of this

blessed bark had the words of a prayer woven in it; and these words

reiterated the petition that the navigation then commencing might be

prosperous. And now the mast was stepped, a round piece of pine,

lofty and smooth, and conspicuous from the handsome appearance of

its truck, and the poop with its twisted goose-neck shone covered

with gold-leaf, while the whole hulk was gay with polished citron

wood. Then all the people, both the religious and the profane,

heaped emulously together winnowing-fans laden with spices and such

like offerings, and poured upon them crumbled cakes made with milk,

until the ship, filled with magnificent gifts offered in fulfilment

of vows, was loosed from its moorings and put to sea with a gentle

breeze that seemed to spring up on purpose. After her course became

indistinct to us by reason of the distance that she was from our

eyes, the bearers of the holy things again took up each his own

load, and joyfully returned to the fane in the same solemn

procession as before. But when we arrived at the temple, the Chief

Priest and the bearers of the divine effigies, and those who have

been already initiated into the ever to be revered secrets, entering

into the chamber of the Goddess put away the breathing images with

due ceremony. Then one of them, whom men call the Scribe, standing

before the doors and having called together as if for a discourse

the company of the Pastophori[246]—which is the name of this

sacrosanct college—forthwith recited from a lofty pulpit prayers

written in a book for the Great Prince, the Senate, the Equestrian

Order, and the whole Roman people, their sailors and ships, and all

who are under the sway of our native land, and then closed the

address according to the Greek rite thus: ‘Let the people

depart[247].’ Which announcement was followed by a shout of the

people showing that it was favourably received by all. Then the

multitude, rejoicing exceedingly and bearing olive-branches,

laurel-twigs, and chaplets, after having kissed the feet of a statue

of the goddess fashioned in silver which stood on steps [within the

porch?], departed to their own homes.”

What most strikes one in this account by an eye-witness, which must have

been written about the year 170 A.D., is the entirely modern tone of it

all. In the scene that passes under Lucius’ eyes, there is hardly

anything that might not be seen at an Italian _festa_ at the present

day. The joyous crowd, respectful rather than devout, and not above

introducing a comic or rather a burlesque element into the day’s

rejoicing, the images and sacred vessels carried solemnly along, the

crowd of tonsured priests, and the chants and hymns sung in chorus, the

return to the temple, with its prayers for Church and State, and its

dismissal of the people—all these are paralleled every day in countries

where the Catholic Church is still dominant. Not less modern, too, is

the way in which Lucius alludes to the faith of which all these things

illustrate the power. For him, there is no other god than Isis—“thou who

art all[248],” as one of her votaries calls her on his tombstone, in

whom “single in essence, though with many names[249],” all other gods

are contained. Hence, he can think of no other religion than her

worship. It is always with him “the holy” or “the sublime religion,” and

the goddess is she whom the whole earth adores. It is she in whom one

can trust not only for happiness beyond the tomb, but for present help

in all the troubles of this life, and to devote oneself to her service,

to thoroughly learn, to understand her nature, is the proudest lot which

can befall man while upon earth. Hence all her initiates were “earthly

stars,” her priests were all happy or blessed in that they were allowed

to be near and even to carry and handle the divine images, and the

religion was a real bond which united people of all ranks and ages. We

feel that we have here got a very long way from the time when the power

of each god was supposed to be limited to the small space surrounding

his sanctuary.

That this change had been brought about by the work of the Isiac

priesthood, there can be little doubt. Between the foundation of the

Alexandrian religion by Ptolemy and the date at which Apuleius wrote, a

space of five centuries elapsed, and this must have seen many changes in

the constitution of what may be called the Isiac Church. The Greeks

always set their faces against anything like a priestly caste set apart

from the rest of the community, and the priests of the Hellenic gods

were for the most part elected, like modern mayors of towns, for a short

term only, after which they fell back into the ranks of the laity with

as little difficulty as do municipal officers at the present day. The

Eleusinian Mysteries were indeed committed to certain families in whom

their priesthood was hereditary; but no professional barriers existed

between these families and the rest of the citizens; and we find

Callias, the “torch-bearer” and one of the highest officials at the

Mysteries, not only fighting in the ranks at Marathon, but

distinguishing himself by his “cruelty and injustice” in retaining an

unfair share of the plunder for himself[250]. The Eumolpidae and

Lycomidae of Eleusis, also, were probably maintained not by any

contribution from the state, but by the revenues of the temple lands and

by the fee of a few obols levied from each initiate. But the Alexandrian

Church in Egypt must from the first have been endowed and probably

established as well. To judge from the analogous case of the dynastic

cult or worship of the sovereign, which Ptolemy Soter set up, the

“sublime religion” was in its native Egypt maintained by a tax on the

revenues of those _wakf_ or temple lands held in mortmain with which the

native gods of Egypt were so richly provided from the earliest times.

When the Alexandrian religion became a missionary faith and established

itself in Athens and other parts of the Hellenic world, it no doubt

depended in the first instance on the voluntary contributions of the

associations of Sarapiasts or Isiaci founded for its maintenance. But we

may be sure that politic princes like the first three Ptolemies, who

were besides the richest and most opulent of all the Successors of

Alexander, did not let these outposts of their empire languish for lack

of funds, and we may guess that the subscriptions of their members were

supplemented in case of need by large donations from the King of Egypt

or from those who wished to stand well with him. When the faith passed

into Western Europe and into territories directly under Roman sway, it

had already attained such fame that a large entrance-fee could be

demanded from the initiates, and Apuleius tells us more than once that

the amount of this was in every case fixed by a special revelation of

the goddess, and was no doubt only limited by the length of the

aspirant’s purse and the strength of his vocation[251]. Like other Greek

priests of the time, also, the ministers of the Alexandrian religion

found a way of adding to their income by the practice of divination or

foretelling the future, and the oracle of Serapis at Alexandria soon

became as celebrated in the Hellenistic world as that of Delphi. There

were probably more ways than one of consulting this; but the one which

seems to have been specially its own, and which afterwards spread from

Egypt into all the temples of the faith in other countries, was by the

practice of _incubatio_ which meant sleeping either personally or by

deputy in the precinct of the god until the consultant had a dream in

which the god’s answer was declared. Such a practice seems to date from

the dream sent to Ptolemy Soter at the foundation of the religion, and

doubtless formed a great source of revenue to its priesthood[252]. The

highest personages in the Roman Empire deigned to resort to it, and

Vespasian was vouchsafed a divine vision in the temple of Serapis when

he consulted the god about “the affairs of the Empire[253].” Not

unconnected with this were the miraculous cures with which Serapis,

originally perhaps by confusion with Asklepios the Greek god of

healing[254], was credited. The sick man was given a room in the temple

precincts, where he doubtless lived the regular and orderly life of a

modern hospital, and before long dreamed of a remedy for the malady on

which his thoughts were concentrated. As the mind sometimes influences

the body, and a belief in the healing power of the medicine is often of

more importance than its nature, he very often recovered, and was no

doubt expected to be generous in his offerings to the god who had

intervened in his cure. Nor were worse means of raising money unknown to

the Alexandrian priests, unless they have been greatly belied. They are

said to have acted as panders and procurers for the rich, and it was the

seduction of a noble Roman lady by a lover who assumed the garb of the

god Anubis which led to their expulsion from the Pomoerium under

Tiberius[255]. Astrology, too, which depended entirely on mathematical

calculations and tables, was peculiarly an Alexandrian art, and the same

Manetho who had been one of the persons consulted at the founding of the

Alexandrian religion was said to have taught its principles to the

Greeks. Whether this be so or not, it is certain that in Ovid’s time the

Alexandrian priests used to beg in the streets of Rome after the fashion

of the Buddhist monks from whom they may have indirectly borrowed the

practice, and that it was thought “unlucky” to reject their

importunities[256].

It is plain, however, that, by the time Apuleius wrote, the necessity

for any such shifts had passed away. The Alexandrian religion had then

become a state religion, and was served by a fully organized and

powerful priesthood. As there were not less than seven temples of Isis

in Rome itself, the number of the Roman faithful must have been very

considerable, and on their offerings and the gifts of the state, a large

staff of priests was maintained. We hear not only of a high priest in

each temple to whom all the lesser ministers of the cult were apparently

subject[257], but of hierophants, scribes, stolists or wardrobe-keepers,

singing-men and singing-women, and a host of subordinate functionaries

down to the _neocoros_ or temple-sweeper and the _cliduchos_ or guardian

of the keys. Women as well as men were eligible for some of these

offices, and the inscriptions tell us of a female _oneirocrites_ or

interpreter of dreams and of several _canephorae_ or carriers of the

sacred basket, besides many priestesses whose functions are not

defined[258]. The high priest and the more important officers lived in

the temple and probably devoted their whole time to its service[259];

but the lesser offices seem to have been capable of being held

concurrently with lay occupations, like that of the churchwardens at the

present day. But one and all were devoted to the faith and its

propagation, and formed in the words of Apuleius “a sacred soldiery” for

its extension and defence. It is probable that they were all drawn in

the first instance from the ranks of the initiates only.

These were what may be called the secular clergy of the Alexandrian

Church; but there was in addition a body of devotees attached to it

whose mode of life singularly reminds us of that afterwards adopted by

the Christian monks. A lucky chance has revealed to us some fragments of

papyrus found on the site of the Serapeum at Memphis, which contain

among other things the petitions of a Macedonian named Ptolemy the son

of Glaucias to King Ptolemy VI Philometor about the year 166 B.C.[260]

From these it is evident that there were at that time a body of recluses

lodged in the Serapeum who were vowed to a seclusion so complete that

they might not stir forth from their cells under any pretence, and when

the king visited Memphis he had to speak with his namesake and

petitioner through the window of the latter’s chamber. These recluses

were in some way devoted to the service of the god, and their stay in

the temple was to all appearance voluntary, although in Ptolemy’s case,

it had at the time he wrote lasted already fifteen years. He does not

seem to have been driven to this by poverty, as he speaks of a

considerable property left him by his father; and as the object of his

petitions is to champion the rights of two priestesses of Serapis who

had been wrongfully deprived of their dues of bread and oil by the

officials of the temple, he seems to have been in some sort given to the

performance of “good works.” How he otherwise occupied his time, and

whether his title or description of κάτοχος implied any connection with

the oracle of Serapis is still a disputed point. Yet the correspondence

in which his name appears shows clearly the existence within the

Serapeum of a large population of both men and women living at the

expense of the temple revenues, some of whom took part in the ritual of

the services there celebrated, while others were fixed by their own vows

in the strictest seclusion. Whichever way the controversy alluded to

above is decided, it seems plain that there is here a parallel between

the practice of the Catholic Church with its division of the clergy into

regular and secular and the Alexandrian religion, which until the

discovery of the papyri some fifty years ago was entirely unsuspected.

It has been said above that the Alexandrian religion reached its apogee

in the time of the Antonines. How it came to decline in power cannot be

traced with great exactness, but it seems probable that it only lost its

hold on the common people from the greater attractions presented by

other religions competing with it for the popular favour. Other cults

began to press in from the East, including the worship of Mithras, which

in the time of Diocletian finally supplanted it in the favour of the

state, and acquired perhaps a stronger hold on the army from reasons to

be examined in detail when we come to deal with the Mithraic religion.

But the rise of Christianity is in itself sufficient to account for its

decline in popularity among the lower classes of the Empire. To them the

Catholic Church, purged and strengthened by a sporadic and intermittent

persecution, offered advantages that the Alexandrian religion could

never give. In this last, the possession of wealth must always have

assured its possessor a disproportionate rank in the religion, and

without the expenditure of a large sum of money, it was impossible, as

we have seen, to arrive at its most cherished secrets. Nor do we find in

any of the few documents of the faith that have come down to us any

parallel to that wide and all-embracing spirit of charity which in its

early days made the Christian Church a kind of mutual benefit society

for all who were willing to enter into her fold. To the poorest as to

the wealthiest, the Catholic Church, too, always held out the promises

of a faith to be understood by all and free from the mystery with which

the cardinal doctrines of the Alexandrians were shrouded from all but

the highest initiates. Its promises of happiness beyond the grave also

were extended to even the most degraded, and the fulfilment of them was

taught to be dependent on conduct within the reach of even the pauper or

the repentant criminal rather than on the long, difficult and expensive

course of instruction which its rival demanded. Nor were more material

inducements neglected. The highest offices within the Church were open

to the lowest of its members, and it was quite possible for a slave or a

freedman to ascend the chair of Peter, there to negotiate on equal terms

with emperors and proconsuls. Unlike the religions of the ancient world

which were first converted by Alexander’s conquests from national into

universal cults, the Christian religion was from its foundation

organized on the democratic lines laid down in the text: “He that is

greatest among you shall be your servant[261].” Moreover, the

predictions of the Christian missionaries as to the immediate coming of

the Second Advent began to spread among the masses outside the Church,

and found a soil ready to receive them in the minds of superstitious men

trampled on by the rich, harried by the tax-gatherers, and torn this way

and that by constant insurrections and civil wars stirred up, not by the

Roman mob (kept quiet as it was with State doles) but by its too

ambitious masters. Quite apart from the spiritual comfort that it

brought to many, and from the greater unity and simplicity of its

doctrines, we can hardly wonder that the proletariat everywhere turned

eagerly to the new faith.

The effect of this upon the Alexandrian religion must have been fatal.

Unfortunately the destruction of pagan literature has been so great that

we know hardly anything about its decline from the mouths of its

adherents[262]. What we are able to perceive is that the persons who

adhered to the Alexandrian faith after the time of the Antonines

generally practised many other religions as well. Alexander Severus had

in his palace a _lararium_ or private chapel in which, like most of the

later Roman emperors, he placed statues of the gods whose worship he

particularly affected. We find there Serapis and Isis, indeed, but

surrounded with a great crowd of other divinities together with the

images of philosophers like Socrates and Apollonius of Tyana, and—if the

Augustan History is to be believed—that of the Founder of Christianity

Himself[263]. So, too, the funeral inscription of Ulpius Egnatius

Faventinus, an augur of high rank who flourished in the reign of Valens

and Valentinian, records that the dead nobleman was a priest of Isis,

but a hierophant of Hecate, a hieroceryx of Mithras, and a “chief

Herdsman” of Bacchus as well. So, again, Fabia Aeonia Paullina, wife of

Vettius Praetextatus, a Prefect and Consul Designate of about the same

period, describes herself on her tombstone as consecrated at Eleusis to

Dionysos, Demeter, and Persephone, and a hierophantis of Hecate, but

merely a worshipper of Isis[264]. We see here a great change from the

exclusive fervour of Apuleius’ Lucius, who thinks it only just that Isis

should require him to devote his whole life to her service.

But a violent end was soon to be put even to the public exercise of the

Alexandrian religion. The conversion of Constantine had left it

unharmed, and we find Julian writing to the Alexandrians during his

brief reign as if the supremacy of their religion in Egypt’s capital at

any rate was assured[265]. But under Theodosius, an order was obtained

from the Emperor for the demolition of the “heathen” temples at

Alexandria, and Theophilus, “the perpetual enemy of peace and

virtue[266],” who was bishop of the city at the time, was not the man to

allow the decree to remain a dead letter. According to the

ecclesiastical historians[267], he began operations on the temple of

Dionysos, which he converted into a Christian church. In the course of

doing so, he professed to have discovered certain emblems of virility

which seem to have been used in the Mysteries to illustrate the legend

of the Diaspasm or tearing in pieces of the god, and these he had

paraded through the city as evidence of what the heathens, according to

him, worshipped in secret. The same emblems were also used in the

worship of Isis, where they probably were shown to initiates as

explaining the loss of the generative power by Osiris after his death

and passion[268]. Hence their profanation was in the highest degree

offensive to the last adherents of the Alexandrian religion, who, few in

number but formidable from their position and influence, threw

themselves into the world-famed Serapeum and determined to resist the

decree by force of arms. The Christian mob of Alexandria, hounded on by

the bishop and his monks, assaulted the temple which the philosopher

Olympius and his followers had converted into a temporary fortress, and

many attacks were repulsed with loss of life to the besiegers. At

length, a truce having been negotiated until the Emperor could be

communicated with, a fresh decree was obtained in which the defenders of

the temple were promised a pardon for their share in the riot, if the

Serapeum were quietly given up to the authorities. This offer was

accepted, and Theophilus had the pleasure of seeing Bryaxis’ colossal

statue of Serapis demolished under his own eyes without the event being

followed by the predicted earthquake and other catastrophes which we are

told the Christians as well as the heathens confidently expected. The

magnificent Serapeum with all its wealth of statues and works of art was

destroyed, and a church dedicated to the Emperor Arcadius was afterwards

erected on its site.

Thus in the year 391, the chief seat and place of origin of the

Alexandrian religion was laid waste, and the religion itself perished

after a successful reign of seven centuries. Ecclesiastical writers say

that this was followed by the conversion of several of the “Hellenists”

or adherents of the worship of Serapis and Isis to Christianity[269],

and there seems every likelihood that the story is founded on fact. Is

this the reason why we find so many of the external usages of

Isis-worship preserved in or revived by the Catholic Church? Macaulay,

in speaking of the contest between Catholicism and Protestantism at the

Reformation compares it to the fight between Hamlet and Laertes where

the combatants change weapons. The comparative study of religions shows

that the phenomenon is more widespread than he thought, and that when

one religion finally supplants another, it generally takes over from its

predecessor such of its usages as seem harmless or praiseworthy. The

traditional policy of the Catholic Church in this respect was declared

by Saint Gregory the Great, when he told the apostle to the Saxon

heathens that such of their religious and traditional observances as

could by any means be harmonized with orthodox Christianity were not to

be interfered with[270], and this was probably the policy pursued with

regard to the converts from the worship of Serapis. Gibbon[271] has

painted for us in a celebrated passage the astonishment which “a

Tertullian or a Lactantius” would have felt could he have been raised

from the dead to witness the festival of some popular saint or martyr in

a Christian church at the end of the fifth century. The incense, the

flowers, the lights, and the adoration of the relics of the saint would

all, we are told, have moved his indignation as the appanage of

heathenism. Yet none of these things would have been found in a temple

like that of Delphi, where probably no more than one worshipper or

sacred embassy penetrated at a time, and where nothing like

congregational worship was known. It was, however, the mode of worship

to which the Hellenistic world had become daily accustomed during the

seven centuries that the Alexandrian religion had endured, and it is not

to be wondered at that the converts brought it with them into their new

faith. The worship of the Virgin as the Theotokos or Mother of God which

was introduced into the Catholic Church about the time of the

destruction of the Serapeum, enabled the devotees of Isis to continue

unchecked their worship of the mother goddess by merely changing the

name of the object of their adoration, and Prof. Drexler gives a long

list of the statues of Isis which thereafter were used, sometimes with

unaltered attributes, as those of the Virgin Mary[272]. The general use

of images, the suspension in the churches of _ex voto_ representations

of different parts of the human body in gratitude for miraculous cures

of maladies[273], and the ceremonial burning of candles, may also be

traced to the same source; while the institution of monachism which had

taken a great hold on Christian Egypt, is now generally attributed to St

Pachomius, who had actually been in his youth a recluse of Serapis[274].

Prof. Bury, who thinks the action of the earlier faith upon the later in

this respect undeniable, would also attribute the tonsure of the

Catholic priesthood to a reminiscence of the shaven crowns of the

initiates of Isis, to which we may perhaps add the covering of women’s

heads in churches[275].

These instances are for the most part fairly well known, and some have

been made use of in controversy between Protestants and Catholics; but

it is probable that there were also many resemblances between the

external usages of the two faiths which would, when they flourished side

by side, strike even the superficial observer, but the traces of which

are now well nigh lost[276]. “Those who worship Serapis are Christians,

and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are vowed to Serapis,”

wrote the Emperor Hadrian[277] from Alexandria on his visit there in

A.D. 124, and this would possibly explain the respectful and almost

mournful tone in which, as Renan noted, the Christian Sibyl announces to

Serapis and Isis the end of their reign[278]. It is not impossible that

the resemblance which thus deceived the Emperor was connected with the

celebration of the Eucharist among certain sects of Christians[279]. The

Adoration of the Sacred Water as the emblem of Osiris, which we have

seen represented on the Herculaneum fresco, has many points in common

with the exhibition of the Sacrament of the Mass to the people, and it

is possible that the words of consecration were not altogether different

in the two cases. “Thou art wine, yet thou art not wine, but the members

of Osiris,” says a magic papyrus in the British Museum in the midst of

an address to “Asklepios of Memphis,” the god Esculapius being one of

the gods with whom Serapis in his day of power was most often

confounded[280]. So, too, M. Revillout has published an _amatorium_ or

love-charm in which the magician says, “May this wine become the blood

of Osiris[281].” It is true he sees in it a blasphemous adaptation of

the Christian rite; but this is very unlikely. It has been shown

elsewhere[282] that many—perhaps all—of the words used in the ceremonial

magic of the period are taken from the rituals of religions dying or

extinct, and the papyrus, which dates somewhere about the IVth century

A.D., may possibly have here preserved for us a fragment of the ritual

in use in the Alexandrian temples. “Give him, O Osiris, the cooling

water” is the epitaph often written by the worshippers of Isis on the

tombs of the dead[283], and it may seem that we have here a hint of

mystic communion with the deity brought about by the drinking of his

emblem.

The resemblances between the Alexandrian and the Christian religion thus

sketched, refer, however, merely to matters which are either external or

superficial, or which, like the worship of the Virgin, the use of images

and relics, and the institution of monachism, could be abandoned, as was

the case at the German Reformation, without necessarily drawing with

them the repudiation of the cardinal tenets of Christianity. That the

Christian Church owed at her inception any of her more fundamental

doctrines to the Alexandrian religion is not only without proof, but is

in the highest degree unlikely. The Apostles and missionaries of the

Apostolic Age, living as they did in daily expectation of the return of

their Risen Lord, had no need to go to an alien faith for the assertion

of His divinity, of the truth of His resurrection, or of His power of

salvation; nor do the Fathers of the Ante-Nicene Church speak of Serapis

and Isis as entitled to any peculiar reverence or as differing in any

respect from the other gods of the heathen. Whether the tenets of the

Alexandrian religion may not have had some influence on the discussions

which raged round the definition of the Divine nature and attributes at

the earlier Ecumenical and other Councils of the Church is another

matter. The conception of the Supreme Being as a triune god was a very

old one in Egypt, and reappeared, as we have seen, unchanged in the

worship of Serapis, Isis, and Horus. “Thus from one god I became three

gods,” says Osiris in his description of his self-creation in a papyrus

dated twelve years after the death of Alexander[284]; and the

dividing-line between the three persons of the Alexandrian triad is so

often overstepped that it is plain that their more cultured worshippers

at one time considered them as but varying forms of one godhead[285].

Hence, the Trinitarian formulas set out in the Creeds of Nicaea and of

St Athanasius would be less of a novelty to those familiar with the

Alexandrian religion than to those brought up in the uncompromising

monotheism of the Jews. Too little is known of the steps by which the

full assertion of the doctrine of the Trinity was reached for any

discussion of the matter to be here profitable[286]. The deepest

influence that the Alexandrian religion exercised upon the Church was

probably not direct, but through those scattered and heretical sects

which, although finally condemned and anathematized by her, yet ever

acted as feeders by whom she obtained converts from among the heathen.

To these we may now turn our attention.

Footnote 103:

Bouché-Leclercq, _Histoire des Lagides_, Paris, 1903, etc. t. I. p.

121. Dr Mahaffy, _Empire of the Ptolemies_, 1895, p. 11, thinks

differently, but the importance of the city to the present day is

against him.

Footnote 104:

Bouché-Leclercq, _op. cit._ t. I. p. 104. Cf. Mahaffy, _E.P._ p. 4.

Footnote 105:

Droysen, _Hist. de l’Hellénisme_, t. II. p. 96; Bouché-Leclercq, _op.

cit._ t. I. pp. 13, 14; Mahaffy, _E.P._ p. 25.

Footnote 106:

As Demetrius the City-Taker, found to his cost. Cf. Mahaffy, _E.P._ p.

57.

Footnote 107:

Droysen, _op. cit._ I. p. 14; Bouché-Leclercq, _op. cit._ I. p. 15.

Footnote 108:

Droysen, _op. cit._ II. p. 103.

Footnote 109:

Bouché-Leclercq, _Hist. des Lag._ I. pp. 24, 25.

Footnote 110:

_Ibid._ I. p. 26.

Footnote 111:

Droysen, _op. cit._ I. pp. 346, 699, 670. Cf. D. G. Hogarth, _Philip

and Alexander_, p. 144.

Footnote 112:

As when they seized the throne of Egypt at the close of the XXth

Dynasty. So in Nubia in the time of the Ptolemies, the king was a mere

puppet in the hands of the priests, who used to send him word when

they thought that he had reigned long enough. For the story of

Ergamenes (Ark-amen), who put an end to their rule, see Diodorus

Siculus, III. 6. 3, or Budge, _History of Egypt_, 1899, vol. VIII. pp.

166 _sqq._

Footnote 113:

See Breasted, _History of Egypt_, New York, 1909, _passim_; cf. Budge,

_op. cit._

Footnote 114:

Wiedemann, _The Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the

Soul_, 1895, p. viii; Maspero, _Ét. Égyptol._ I. pp. 123, 167; _ibid._

II. p. 196, n. 1.

Footnote 115:

Budge, _Gods of the Egyptians_, 1904, I. pp. 148, 149; Erman,

_Handbook of Egyptian Religion_, 1906, p. 81.

Footnote 116:

Erman, _op. cit._ p. 188. The fusion of Osiris with Ptah and Seker was

a good deal older than the Saites. Cf. Wiedemann, _Religion of the

Ancient Egyptians_, 1897, pp. 134, 135; Budge, _Osiris and the

Egyptian Resurrection_, New York, 1911, I. p. 45.

Footnote 117:

Budge, _Gods of the Egyptians_, II. p. 196.

Footnote 118:

Budge, _G.E._ II. pp. 118, 156, 264. So Naville, _Journal of Egyptian

Archaeology_, 1914, pp. 7, 8. M. Maspero thinks Apuat was originally

god of Siut and only a temple-companion of Osiris at Abydos, _Rev.

Critique_, 1904, pt. 2, pp. 194, 195.

Footnote 119:

Steindorff, _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, New York, 1905, p.

53; Erman, _H.E.R._ pp. 56, 57; Naville, _The Old Egyptian Faith_,

1906, pp. 146, 147.

Footnote 120:

Amélineau, _Essai sur le Gnosticisme Égyptien_, Paris, 1887, p. 144;

Budge, “Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu,” in _Archaeologia_, 1890, pt 2, p. 404;

Maspero, _The Dawn of Civilization_, 1894, pp. 172-174; Erman,

_H.E.R._ p. 32; Budge, _G.E._ II. p. 150. Manifest allusions to the

legend are to be found in the Pyramid Texts. Cf. Maspero, _Les

Inscriptions des Pyramides de Saqqarah_, Paris, 1894, pp. 105 _sqq._

Footnote 121:

This idea is treated at length in “The Legend of Osiris” in the

_Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology_, 1911, pp.

139-154. See also “The Greek Worship of Serapis and Isis,” _P.S.B.A._

1914, pp. 79 _sqq._

Footnote 122:

See “The Titles of the Thinite Kings” in _P.S.B.A._ 1908, pp. 86-94,

121-128, 163-177.

Footnote 123:

In Plutarch’s time the Ethiopians had a queen called Candace as in

Acts viii. 27. Cf. Strabo, Bk XVII. c. 1, § 54. One wonders whether

Plutarch in speaking of Aso did not confuse this title with an epithet

of Thueris, the hippopotamus-goddess and wife of Set, who is called in

a late magical text “Thueris, the great of sorcery, cat of Ethiopia.”

See Griffith and Thompson, _Stories of the High Priests of Memphis_,

Oxford, 1900, p. 91.

Footnote 124:

This is most clearly shown by M. Victor Loret in _L’Égypte au Temps du

Totémisme_, Paris, 1906, _passim_. Cf. the same author’s articles in

_Rev. Égyptol._ 1902 and 1904.

Footnote 125:

See Chapter IV, _infra_.

Footnote 126:

See “The Greek Worship of Serapis and Isis,” _P.S.B.A._ 1914, pp.

94-98, for this culture god of the Eastern Mediterranean. The original

home of the myth was, possibly, Babylonia. Cf. “Legend of Osiris” in

_P.S.B.A._ 1911, quoted above.

Footnote 127:

See the story of Ra and Isis, Budge, _G.E._ pp. 360 _sqq._

Footnote 128:

By far the best and most consistent account of the Eleusinian

Mysteries is that given by M. Paul Foucart in his three memoirs,

_Recherches sur l’origine et la nature des Mystères d’Éleusis_, _Les

Grands Mystères d’Éleusis_, and _Le Culte de Dionysos en Attique_. All

these appeared in the _Mémoires_ of the Académie des Inscriptions, tt.

XXXV. (1895), XXXVII. (1900), and XXXVIII. (1904) respectively.

Footnote 129:

Foucart, _Les Grands Mystères_, p. 113.

Footnote 130:

Iacchos was identified with Dionysos at least as early as the time of

Sophocles. Cf. _Antigone_, ll. 1130 _sqq._, and Dyer, _The Gods in

Greece_, 1891, p. 133. Very likely, as M. Foucart suggests, he was

originally the personification of the cry repeated by the procession

of the initiated. See _Grds. Myst._ p. 122.

Footnote 131:

It had an opening in the roof for this purpose. Foucart, _Grds. Myst._

p. 137.

Footnote 132:

So Clement of Alexandria, _Protrepticus_, c. II. The scene of the Rape

is laid in many different places. The Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_ calls

it “the Mysian plain,” meaning probably Mysia in Asia Minor. A

scholiast on Hesiod puts it in Sicily, Bacchylides in Crete, Orpheus

in “the parts about Ocean,” Phanodemus in Attica, Demades in “woodland

glades.” See Abel, _Orphica_, Fragm. 212, p. 239. Cf. Maury,

_Religions de la Grèce Antique_, t. I. p. 479.

Footnote 133:

Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_.

Footnote 134:

Foucart, _Myst. d’Él._ p. 49; _id._ _Grds. Myst._ pp. 68, 69.

Footnote 135:

M. Foucart, _Culte de Dion._ pp. 55-60, will not allow that Iacchos

was ever identified with Dionysos and believes him to have been only

the genius that led the procession. Dyer, on the other hand (_op.

cit._ p. 128), makes Iacchos the young or second Dionysos born of

Semele. But Aristophanes, _Frogs_, l. 321, and Strabo, Bk X. c. 10 (p.

402 Didot), both give him a higher position in the Mysteries than M.

Foucart would assign to him, and the older opinion that he was the

child whose birth was there shown seems to hold good. Cf. Maury, _Rel.

de G. A._ t. II. p. 341, and Arrian, _Anabasis_, Bk II. c. 16, § 3 (p.

50, Didot). So Stephani, _Compte Rendu de la Commission Imperiale

Archéologique_, 1859 (St Petersburg), p. 37, where monumental evidence

is given in its support. Cf. Daremberg and Saglio, _Dict. des

Antiquités_, _s.v._ Eleusinia (by F. Lenormant); Clem. Alex.

_Protrept._ c. II.; Libanius, ὑπὲρ Ἀριστοφάνους, vol. I. pp. 447, 448

(Reiske).

Footnote 136:

Foucart, _Myst. d’Él._ p. 66.

Footnote 137:

Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_, Bk V. c. 1, p. 171, Cruice. The whole

drama is described by Foucart, _Myst. d’Él._ pp. 43-74 q.v.

Footnote 138:

Livy, XXXI. 14. Cf. Foucart, _Grds. Myst._ p. 94. They betrayed

themselves by asking questions which showed they had not been

initiated. Hence the ἱερά or sacred objects could hardly have been

statues, as some have thought.

Footnote 139:

Foucart, _Culte de Dion._ p. 68; Stephen of Byzantium in Hesychius,

_Etymologium Magnum_, _s.v._ Ἄγραι. Cf. Maury, _Rel. de la Grèce Ant._

II. p. 324. All that Stephen says is that here was acted a pantomime

(μίμημα) of the things that happened to Dionysos.

Footnote 140:

All these ceremonies of the Anthesteria are reconstructed and

described by M. Foucart, _Culte de Dion._ pp. 107-163. That the

tearing in pieces of Dionysos and the consequent origin of man was

taught in the Little Mysteries seems to follow from Pindar’s words

(_Threnoi_ Frag. X. 7, p. 102, Cod. Bö.) that those who have been

initiated have seen “the God-given beginning of life.” Transmigration

seems to have been also taught in them (see Plutarch, _Consolatory

Letter_, § X.). There were therefore three degrees of initiation at

Eleusis: (1) The Little Mysteries showing the history of Dionysos, (2)

The Great Mysteries with the Rape of Persephone and the Wanderings of

Demeter, and (3) The Epopsy (open to initiates of the second year

only), showing the marriage of Zeus and Demeter and the birth of the

new Dionysos.

Footnote 141:

Frazer, _The Golden Bough_ (third edition), Part IV, c. 5; Part V,

vol. i, pp. 12, 263.

Footnote 142:

The end of the Athenian monarchy and flight of the Pisistratids took

place about 500 B.C. (see Chapter IV, _infra_). The Eleusinia were

probably reformed not long before.

Footnote 143:

Herodotus, Bk II. c. 49; Diod. Sic. Bk I. c. 96, § 4 _sqq._ It may, on

the other hand, have been introduced from Asia Minor or the

Mediterranean Islands, where it was certainly prevalent at a very

early date. See articles in _P.S.B.A._ for 1911 and 1914 above quoted.

Footnote 144:

Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._ c. XXVIII; Tacitus, _Hist._ IV. cap. 83, 84.

Plutarch calls Timotheos the “exegete,” _i.e._ the interpreter or

dragoman; so that his being a Eumolpid would seem to rest on the

testimony of Tacitus only; but there were “exegetes” attached to the

Eumolpids at Eleusis, see Foucart, _Grds. Myst._ pp. 79 _sqq._

Bouché-Leclercq, _Hist. des Lagides_, I. p. 118, thinks the names

Timotheos and Manetho only cover the fact that the new religion was

compounded from the Eleusinian and the Osirian cult.

Footnote 145:

Bouché-Leclercq (_Hist. des Lagides_, I. p. 129, n. 2) thinks the

tradition that the Museum was founded by Ptolemy II Philadelphus

erroneous. The date of Demetrius of Phalerum’s leaving Athens to take

charge of it marks it as the foundation of Ptolemy Soter. Cf. Mahaffy,

_Empire of Ptolemies_, pp. 91, 92.

Footnote 146:

See Mahaffy, _op. cit._ p. 98.

Footnote 147:

Dyer, _Gods in Greece_, pp. 178, 179, and pp. 73, 74. An inscription

making the identification has been found at Smyrna. See O. Rayet in

the _Rev. Archéologique_ for 1877, pp. 175-178, where its date is put

at the middle of the third century B.C., and the vases of Gerhard

there quoted. Cf. Maury, _Rel. de la Grèce_, II. p. 362; F. Lenormant

in Daremberg and Saglio’s _Dict. des Antiquités_, _s.v._ Eleusinia, p.

549, and authorities there quoted.

Footnote 148:

Damascius, _Vit. Isidor_, § 106. For definition of term, see _ibid._

§§ 3, 5.

Footnote 149:

Foucart, _Myst. d’Él._ p. 34. He suggests that the real names were

“ineffable,” _i.e._ only revealed to initiates. Xenocrates, whose date

may be put at 396-314 B.C., seems to have known of a supernal and

infernal Zeus (Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk V. c. 11), and a fragment

attributed to Euripides identifies Zeus with Hades (_id._ _loc.

cit._).

Footnote 150:

Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._ c. XXVIII.; Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ c. II.

Footnote 151:

This was noticed by Clement of Alexandria, who (_Strom._ Bk V. c. 14)

says that Homer and Orpheus both “show forth” the Christian doctrine

in this respect. The verse he quotes from Orpheus makes Dionysos both

the father and son of Zeus. Cf. Abel’s _Orphica_, Frag. 237.

Footnote 152:

As in the Orphic verse: “Zeus is a male, Zeus is an immortal virgin,”

Abel, _Orphica_, Fr. 46. Hatch, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 140, points out

that Xenocrates and the Stoics both made the same assertion. Cf.

authorities quoted by him and Euripides, _Bacchae_, ll. 330-350. A

statue from Smyrna showing a markedly effeminate type of Dionysos is

to be seen at the Ashmolean Museum.

Footnote 153:

Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, lib. I. c. 18, for authorities; also Pindar,

_Threnoi_, X. 8, p. 116 (Bergk); Plutarch, _On the E at Delphi_, c.

IX.

Footnote 154:

Lafaye, _Culte des Divinités d’Alexandrie_, Paris, 1884, pp. 6-12, and

authorities there quoted. Cf. Foucart, _Culte de Dion._ pp. 66, 67.

Footnote 155:

So Plutarch and Tacitus where before quoted. The conflicting

traditions on the subject have been reconciled by Krall, _Tacitus und

der Orient_, Th. I. Bd iv. 83, 84. Cf. Bouché-Leclercq, _Hist. de la

Divination_, t. III. p. 378, n. 1; _id._ _Hist. de Lagides_, t. I. p.

118; Lafaye, _Culte_, etc. pp. 16, 17. There is little doubt that the

statue of Bryaxis represented Asklepios as Bouché-Leclercq (_Rev.

Hist. Rel._ 1902, pp. 26, 27) surmises. Isidore Lévy sums up the whole

question in the _Revue_ last quoted, 1911, pp. 146, 147, and 1913, pp.

308 _sqq._ So Ad. Reinach, _Rev. cit._ pt 2, p. 69. The statue is

described by Rufinus Aquilensis, _Hist. Eccl._ Bk II. c. 23. Cf.

Dionysius, _Periegetes_, ll. 254, 256 (Didot, _Geogr. Gr. mi._ t. II.

p. 116); Amelung, _Rev. Archéol._, 1903, pt 2, pp. 187-204.

Footnote 156:

Probably it had some reference to his character as god of vegetation,

as shown by his epithet of “Frugifer.” The explanation of Macrobius,

_Saturnalia_, I. c. 20, which refers it to the sun, is absurd. Perhaps

it may be connected with his epithet of πολυδέγμων “receiver of many.”

So Æl. Aristides speaks of him as the receiver of souls. See p. 60

_infra_.

Footnote 157:

See last note. The eagle was adopted as a kind of family crest by the

Ptolemies and appears on all their coins. See examples in Mahaffy,

_Emp. of the Ptolemies_, _passim_. What is probably a reproduction of

Bryaxis’ statue is now at Naples and is described by Lafaye, _op.

cit._ p. 274.

Footnote 158:

See Lafaye, pp. 259, 260. Except in amulets, representations of

Harpocrates are not very common. Cf. _P.S.B.A._ 1914, p. 92.

Footnote 159:

Maury in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Sept. 1855, p. 1073; Mariette, _Le

Sérapeum de Memphis_, ed. Maspero, Paris, 1882, I. pp. 114, 115, 124.

Footnote 160:

Bouché-Leclercq, _Hist. des Lagides_, I. pp. 232, 233. Cf. Mahaffy,

_Empire of Ptolemies_, pp. 204 _sqq._ The Egyptianizing tendencies of

the later Ptolemies shown by the decrees of the priests on the Rosetta

and Canopus Stones were first pointed out by Revillout in the _Revue

Archéologique_, 1877, pp. 331 _sqq._ A new decree of the same kind

under Epiphanes has been published by M. Daressy, _Recueil de Travaux_

etc., 1911, pp. 1 _sqq._

Footnote 161:

Macrobius, _Saturn._ Bk I. c. 7.

Footnote 162:

Foucart, _Les Associations Religieuses_, p. 207, Inscr. 24; _C.I.G._

No. 120. The tablet is now in the British Museum.

Footnote 163:

Lafaye, _Culte_, etc. p. 35; Pausanias, Bk I. c. 18, 4.

Footnote 164:

Lafaye, _op. cit._ pp. 35-388; _id._ _Dictionnaire des Antiquités_ of

Daremberg and Saglio, _s.v._ Isis; Drexler in Roscher’s _Lexikon der

Mythologie_, _s.v._ Isis, esp. p. 379.

Footnote 165:

Lafaye, _op. cit._ p. 40; _C.I.L._ I. 577.

Footnote 166:

Lafaye, see last note.

Footnote 167:

Lafaye, _op. cit._ pp. 44 _sqq._

Footnote 168:

Lafaye, _op. cit._ pp. 44-47. For the story of Marcus Volusius see

Appian, _de Bello Civili_, Bk IV. c. 6, § 47.

Footnote 169:

Tibullus, _Elegiacs_, I. iii. 23; _ibid._ I. vii. 27; Ovid, _Am._ II.

xiii. 7; _id._ _op. cit._ II. xiv. The story of the expulsion is told

by Josephus, _Antiquities_, XVIII. c. 3. Cf. Lafaye, _op. cit._ chap.

III _passim_.

Footnote 170:

_Comicor. Graecor. Fragmenta_ of Didot, pp. 517 and 629, and Lafaye,

_op. cit._ p. 31.

Footnote 171:

Lafaye, _op. et loc. cit._ and especially p. 62.

Footnote 172:

So Parisotti, _Ricerche sul culto de Iside e Serapide_, Roma, 1888, p.

52 _sqq._; and Dill, _Nero to Marcus_, pp. 564, 565: “The history of

the Isiac cult at Rome from Sulla to Nero is really the history of a

great popular religious movement....”

Footnote 173:

See Chapter I, _supra_, pp. 12, 14. Cf. Droysen, _op. cit._ II. p.

471.

Footnote 174:

Macrobius, _Saturn._ Bk I. c. 20. Bouché-Leclercq (_R.H.R._ 1902, t.

XLVI. p. 19, n. 1) says these lines are a forgery of late date. Krall,

_Tacitus_, etc. Th. I, Bk iv., is of the contrary opinion. Nicocreon

of Cyprus was certainly a contemporary of Ptolemy Soter, and helped

him against Perdiccas.

Footnote 175:

Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk V. c. 14. So Ælius Aristides, _in Serapidem_,

p. 91 (Dindorf), says that Serapis “is present in all things and fills

the universe.”

Footnote 176:

Lafaye, _Culte_, etc., pp. 306, 307, 324, 325, for examples. Cf.

Inscription from Kios in Bithynia given by Robiou in _Mélanges Graux_,

Paris, 1884, pp. 601, 602; Parisotti, _op. cit._ p. 55.

Footnote 177:

Theocritus, _Idyll_, XV.; Damascius, _Vit. Isidor._ 106; Socrates,

_Hist. Eccl._ Bk III. c. 23. In _Le Culte d’Adonis-Thammuz_, Paris,

1901 (pp. 51-54, 69, 109), M. Ch. Vellay has shown the fusion in early

Christian times of the legends of Adonis, Atys and Osiris.

Footnote 178:

Frazer, _Golden Bough_, Part IV, p. 357 and n. 1; cf. Stephen of

Byzantium, _s.v._ Ἀμαθοῦς; Döllinger, _Jud. und Heid._ I. p. 145;

Decharme in Daremberg and Saglio, _s.v._ Cybele for authorities.

Footnote 179:

Julian, _ad Reg. Sol._ Orat. IV. cc. 135, 136; Eusebius, _Praep. Ev._

Bk III. c. 15; Kenyon, _Greek Papyri in British Museum_, 1893, p. 65;

Wessely, _Griechische Zauberpapyri von Paris_, etc., Wien, 1888, pp.

61 _sqq._; Leemans, _Papyri Graeci Mus. Ant. Pub. Lugduni-Batavi_,

Leyden, 1885, II. pp. 26, 27; Parthey, _Zwei griech. Zauberpapyri_,

Berlin, 1866, p. 127.

Footnote 180:

Apuleius, _Metamorphoses_, Bk XI. c. 5.

Footnote 181:

So Ramsay, _Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia_, Oxford, 1895, I. p. 92,

says that “the essential idea” of the mysteries was that all the gods

there worshipped were but different forms of the one. In the “Greek

Worship of Serapis and Isis,” I have endeavoured to show how this idea

was elaborated in the cult of the Alexandrian divinities.

Footnote 182:

Homer, _Iliad_, XXI. 462 (translation by Lang, Leaf and Myers).

Footnote 183:

Cf. Penelope’s speech on the jealousy of the gods, _Odyssey_, XXIII.

208.

Footnote 184:

Sayce, _Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia_ (Gifford Lectures),

Edin. 1902, p. 201; Naville, _The Old Egyptian Faith_, pp. 308, 309;

Maspero, _Ét. Égyptol_. I. p. 163 and II. p. 277.

Footnote 185:

Apuleius, _Met._ Bk XI. c. 15.

Footnote 186:

_Ibid._ c. 25.

Footnote 187:

Aristides, _in Serapid._ p. 89.

Footnote 188:

_Ibid._ _loc. cit._

Footnote 189:

_Ibid._ p. 90.

Footnote 190:

_Ibid._ p. 97.

Footnote 191:

_Ibid._ _loc. cit._

Footnote 192:

_Ibid._ p. 100.

Footnote 193:

_Odyssey_, XI. 491 _sqq._ (Butcher and Lang’s translation).

Footnote 194:

Pindar, _Threnoi_, Frag. X. p. 102, Cod. Bö.

Footnote 195:

Sophocles, _Triptolemus_ (Plutarch, _de Audiendis Poetis_, 21 F),

Frag. 348 of Didot.

Footnote 196:

Homeric _Hymn to Demeter_, ll. 480 _sqq._ So an inscription on the

statue of a hierophant quoted by M. Foucart, _Myst. d’El._ p. 55, says

that death to the initiated is not an evil but a good.

Footnote 197:

Apuleius, _Met._ Bk XI. c. 6.

Footnote 198:

Aristides, _in Serapid._ p. 93.

Footnote 199:

_Ibid._ p. 95.

Footnote 200:

_Ibid._ p. 96.

Footnote 201:

Maspero says (“Les Hypogées Royaux de Thebes,” _Ét. Égyptol._ II. p.

178) that “if ever there were in Pharaonic Egypt mysteries and

initiates, as there were in Greece and Greek Egypt,” it was in the

time of decay evidenced by the rare books preserved in the tombs of

the kings of the XXth and later Dynasties. Later, _ibid._ p. 180, he

says that they must have been confined to a very small class. Cf.

_ibid._ p. 278.

Footnote 202:

_E.g._ the mystic marriage of Zeus or Dionysos with Demeter, which

according to Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_, Bk V. c. 1, § 8, p. 171,

Cruice, and Clement of Alexandria, _Protrept._ c. II., formed the

crowning scene of the Eleusinian Mysteries. At Dendera, the

corresponding union of Osiris and Isis, from which, according to M.

Foucart, the Eleusinian legend was derived, was depicted in the most

realistic way on the temple walls. See Mariette, _Dendérah_, Paris,

1875, t. IV. pl. 65 _sqq._, or Budge, _G.E._ pp. 132-137.

Footnote 203:

Apuleius, _Met._ Bk XI. c. 21, _queis tamen tuto possint magna

religionis committi silentia, numen deae soleat elicere_.

Footnote 204:

_Ibid._ cc. 22, 23.

Footnote 205:

_Op. cit._ end of c. 23.

Footnote 206:

Perhaps this is the meaning of the formula said by Clement of

Alexandria, _Protrept._ c. II., to be repeated by the initiates at

Eleusis: “I have fasted ... I have drunk of the cyceon ... I have

entered into the chest (παστός).”

Footnote 207:

Apuleius, _Met._ c. 24.

Footnote 208:

See last note.

Footnote 209:

Ra was always the material sun; while Horus was probably in ancient

times the god of the sky: Maspero, _Ét. Égyptol._ t. II. p. 229. With

the Middle Empire the emblem of Ra began to be added to that of Horus

as the “crest” of the Pharaoh’s cognizance, showing that the king was

himself regarded as the representative of a composite divinity,

Horus-Ra. Cf. “Titles of Thinite Kings,” _P.S.B.A._ 1908, p. 89.

Footnote 210:

Proclus, _in Timaeum Platonia_, I. 30 D. (Schneidewin).

Footnote 211:

Minucius Felix, _Octavius_, c. XXI.; Arnobius, _adv. Gentes_, Bk I. c.

36; Athenagoras, _Presbeia_, c. XXII. Cf. also Griffith and Thompson,

_Stories of High Priests of Memphis_, pp. 107, 121; Maspero, _Ét.

Égyptol._ II. p. 246, and especially p. 361; _P.S.B.A._ 1914, pp. 92,

93.

Footnote 212:

Apuleius, _Met._ Bk XI. c. 27.

Footnote 213:

_Op. cit._ c. 28.

Footnote 214:

Ælius Aristides (_in Serapid._ p. 88) refuses to discuss this; but

Athenagoras (see note 5 p. 63, _supra_) says that when the members of

the body of Osiris were found, they were presented to Isis with the

remark that they were the fruits of the vine Dionysus and that Semele

was the vine itself. But see p. 65, _infra_. Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._

c. LXXIX. says that “the priests of these days,” meaning, as is

evident from the context, the priests of the Alexandrian divinities,

“try to conceal” the fact that Osiris rules over the dead. The old

religion of Egypt never did; but perhaps this, too, was part of the

secret teaching of the Alexandrian Mysteries.

Footnote 215:

Maspero, _Ét. Égyptol._ II. pp. 254-255, 361, 446; _P.S.B.A._ 1914, p.

92.

Footnote 216:

Apuleius, _Met._ c. 27.

Footnote 217:

“Osiris-Bacchus” in _Ägypt. Zeitschr._ 1878, p. 106.

Footnote 218:

Unless we suppose that the statue was one of those used in the

mysteries, see note 3 p. 64, _supra_. Plutarch, however, in his

address to Klea makes no secret of the identification. See _de Is. et

Os._ c. XXXV.

Footnote 219:

Plato, _Phaedr._ in Abel’s _Orphica_, Fragm. 228. Olympiodorus says

that the verse comes from Orpheus.

Footnote 220:

Dyer, _Gods in Greece_, p. 209. He thinks the crowd sometimes numbered

30,000, relying upon the story in Herodotus, Bk VIII. c. 65, of the

Spartan who before the battle of Marathon heard the Iacchos-song sung

“as if by 30,000 persons.” Cf. Foucart, _Les Gds. Myst._ p. 136.

Footnote 221:

Moret, _Le Culte Divin Journalier en Égypte_, Paris, 1902, p. 9.

Footnote 222:

Apuleius, _Met._ c. 20. Lafaye, _Culte_, etc. p. 136, gives the

“trousseau” of a statue of Isis found in Spain including earrings,

necklaces, etc.

Footnote 223:

See the scene in the Herculaneum fresco described on p. 68, _infra_.

Footnote 224:

Martial, Bk X. Epig. 48. Apuleius, _Met._ c. 17, describes the

ceremonies which included a solemn dismissal of the people, and the

kissing by them of the feet of a silver statue of the goddess.

Footnote 225:

Apuleius, _Met._ c. 19.

Footnote 226:

Lafaye, _Culte_, etc. pp. 118, 119, and Plate facing p. 192. Cf. Ovid,

Propertius and Tibullus, where quoted by Lafaye, _op. cit._ p. 120.

Footnote 227:

Ovid, _Pontic. Epist._ Bk I. Ep. 1, v. 51.

Footnote 228:

The Baron von Bissing thinks this is a copy of the Serapeum of

Alexandria. See _Transactions_ of the Third International Congress of

Religions, Oxford, 1908, I. pp. 225 _sqq._

Footnote 229:

Is this the _bacchos_ or short rod carried by the faithful in the

Iacchos-procession at Eleusis? See Scholiast in _Knights_ of

Aristophanes, l. 408 (p. 48 of Didot).

Footnote 230:

Hippolytus puts it quite plainly: “Now Osiris is water.” See

_Philosophumena_, Bk V. c. 7, p. 149, Cruice. Cf. Lafaye, _Culte_,

etc. p. 115. So Origen, _c. Cels._ Bk V. c. 38, says that the fables

of Osiris and Isis lead men to worship cold water and the moon.

Footnote 231:

von Bissing in the paper quoted in note 1 p. 68, _supra_, suggests

that this is the dance of the god Bes.

Footnote 232:

Minucius Felix, _Octavius_, c. 21.

Footnote 233:

The swallow refers to the story that Isis changed herself into a

swallow who flitted round the pillar containing the coffin of Osiris.

Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._ c. XVI.

Footnote 234:

Evidently a confusion between Horus and Osiris which would have been

impossible had not the Isiacists looked upon Horus as Osiris re-born.

Cf. Lactantius, _Institutes_, Bk I. c. 21, where the same confusion

occurs; _P.S.B.A._ 1914, p. 93.

Footnote 235:

The “dog-headed” Anubis.

Footnote 236:

Juvenal, _Satir._ VI. l. 533; _ibid._ VIII. l. 30.

Footnote 237:

Lafaye, _Culte_, etc. p. 128.

Footnote 238:

Lafaye, _Culte_, etc. p. 120.

Footnote 239:

Apuleius, _Met._ cc. 9, 10, 11.

Footnote 240:

Is this the “golden bough” of initiation? Cf. Baillet,

“Osiris-Bacchus,” cited p. 65, _supra_.

Footnote 241:

Probably the _pudendum_ of Osiris. See Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_,

Bk V. c. 7, p. 149, Cruice; Socrates, _Hist. Eccl._ Bk V. c. 16; Clem.

Alex. _Protrept._ c. II., says the Corybantes did the same thing with

that of Bacchus.

Footnote 242:

Lafaye in Daremberg and Saglio’s _Dict. des Antiq._ _s.v._ Isis.

Footnote 243:

See note 3 p. 68, _supra_. Cf. Leemans, _Papyri Gr._ pp. 26, 27.

Footnote 244:

Maspero, _Ét. Égyptol._ II. p. 345, says this Nu was “neither the

primordial water, nor the sky, but a very ancient god, common to all

humanity,” whom he compares to the Thian of the Chinese, the Dyaus of

the pre-Vedic, and the Uranos-Oceanos of the pre-Hellenic peoples. “At

the beginning,” he continues, “he is himself the Celestial Ocean.”

Footnote 245:

Apuleius, _Met._ Bk XI. c. 16.

Footnote 246:

The bearers of the sacred Pastos (box or coffin?). He says elsewhere

that this particular college dated from “the days of Sulla,” _i.e._

87-84 B.C.

Footnote 247:

The reading has been contested, but is well established. Cf. the

concluding words of the Mass: “Ite, missa est.”

Footnote 248:

“_Una quae es omnia_,” _C.I.N._ 3580. The stone was found at Capua.

Footnote 249:

Apuleius, _Met._ Bk XI. c. 5.

Footnote 250:

Plutarch, _Aristides_, c. V.

Footnote 251:

Apuleius, _Met._ cc. 21, 28, 30.

Footnote 252:

See p. 48, _supra_. Oracles given in dreams were, however, an old

institution in Egypt. See the dream of Thothmes IV concerning the

Sphinx, Breasted, _History of Egypt_, p. 325, and _Ancient Records_,

Chicago 1906, vol. II. No. 815.

Footnote 253:

Tacitus, _Hist._ Bk IV. cc. 81, 82.

Footnote 254:

Asklepios or Esculapius was one of the gods absorbed by Serapis. It is

most probable that the great statue by Bryaxis in the Alexandrian

Serapeum was originally an Asklepios. See Bouché-Leclercq, _Rev. de

l’Hist. des Rel._ 1902, pp. 26, 27, 28. There seems also to have been

a chapel to him in the Greek Serapeum at Memphis. See Brunet de

Presle, “Le Sérapéum de Memphis,” Paris, 1865, pp. 261-263. Cf.

Forshall, _Greek Papyri in the British Museum_, 1839, p. 33, and note

1 p. 80, _infra_.

Footnote 255:

Josephus, _Antiquities_, Bk XVIII. cc. 3, 4.

Footnote 256:

Lovatelli, _Il Culto d’Iside in Roma_, Roma, 1891, p. 174; Ovid,

_Pontic. Epist._ Bk I. Ep. I.

Footnote 257:

As M. Lafaye (_Culte_, etc. p. 132) points out, the hierophant in

Apuleius calls the other priests “his company,” _suus numerus_ (_Met._

c. 21).

Footnote 258:

For all these, see Lafaye, _op. cit._ chap. VII: _Le Sacerdoce_.

Footnote 259:

Lafaye, _op. cit._ p. 150.

Footnote 260:

These fragments are scattered among the different European museums.

Some are in the Vatican Library and were published by Mgr. Angelo Mai

in 1833 (Brunet de Presle, “Les Papyri Grecs du Louvre,” _Mém. de

l’Acad. des Inscript._ XVIII. pt 2 (1865), p. 16), others in the

Leyden Museum (Leemans, _Papyri Graeci_, I. pp. 6 _sqq._), others in

the Louvre (Brunet de Presle, _op. cit._ p. 22), and the largest

number in the British Museum (Kenyon, _Greek Papyri_, p. 1). The whole

story, so far as it has been ascertained, is told by Brunet de Presle,

_op. cit._ pp. 261-263, and by Sir Frederic Kenyon, _op. cit._ pp.

1-5, and the questions arising out of it are admirably summed up by M.

Bouché-Leclercq in his article, “Les Reclus du Sérapéum de Memphis” in

_Mélanges Perrot_, Paris, 1903, p. 17.

Footnote 261:

Matth. xxiii. 11. Cf. the Pope’s title of “Servant of the Servants of

God” (_Servus servorum Dei_).

Footnote 262:

Julian in his letters (_Ep._ 52) speaks of Alexandria even in his time

as being given up to the worship of Serapis. It is probable that in

this, as in other matters, the philosophic Emperor believed what he

wished to believe. Yet his contemporary, Ammianus Marcellinus, _Hist._

Bk XXII. c. 16, § 20, speaks of the elements of the sacred rites being

still preserved there in secret books, by which he seems to be

referring to the worship of the Alexandrian divinities.

Footnote 263:

See Renan, _Hibbert Lectures_, 1884, p. 197, for authorities.

Footnote 264:

Orelli, _Inscript. Latin. select._ pp. 406-412. All these have now

been transferred to the _Corp. Inscr. Latin._ _q.v._

Footnote 265:

See note 2 p. 82, _supra_.

Footnote 266:

Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_ (Bury’s edition), III. p. 200.

Footnote 267:

Theodoret, _Hist. Eccl._ Bk V. c. 23; Socrates, _Hist. Eccl._ Bk V. c.

16 Sozomen, _Hist. Eccl._ Bk VII. c. 15.

Footnote 268:

See note 1 p. 73, _supra_.

Footnote 269:

Socrates, _op. cit._ Bk V. c. 17.

Footnote 270:

Renan, _Marc Aurèle_, Paris, 1882, p. 630, for authority. Cf. Gibbon,

_Decline and Fall_ (Bury’s edn.), IV. pp. 78, 79.

Footnote 271:

Gibbon, _op. cit._ III.

Footnote 272:

Drexler in _Roscher’s Lexikon_, _s.v._ Isis. Cf. Maury, _Rel. de la

Grèce_, t. II. p. 222.

Footnote 273:

Amm. Marcell. _op. cit._ Bk XXII. c. 13. According to Deubner, _De

incubatione_, Leipzig, 1900, c. IV. Cyril of Alexandria had to

establish the worship of two medical saints in the Egyptian hamlet of

Menuthis near Canopus to induce the people to forget the miraculous

cures formerly wrought there in the sanctuary of Isis.

Footnote 274:

Bury in Gibbon, _op. cit._ vol. IV. Appendix 3, p. 527.

Footnote 275:

Cf. Apuleius’ description of the veiling of the women’s heads in the

Isis procession, p. 72, _supra_.

Footnote 276:

A writer in Maspero’s _Recueil de Travaux_ for 1912, p. 75, mentions

that the Isiac _sistrum_ or rattle is still used by the Christians of

Abyssinia.

Footnote 277:

Vopiscus, _Saturninus_ (_Hist. August. Scriptor._ VI. t. II. pp.

718-730). The authenticity of the letter has been defended by

Lightfoot, _Apostolic Fathers_, 1891, I. p. 481. The date is fairly

well fixed by the death of Antinous in 122 A.D., and Hadrian’s visit

to Syria a few years later. Ramsay (_Church in Roman Empire_, 1903, p.

336) makes it 134 A.D.

Footnote 278:

Renan, _Marc Aur._ p. 433.

Footnote 279:

In the Catholic Church at this period the Eucharist was celebrated, if

we may judge from the _First Apology_ of Justin Martyr (c. LVI), in a

very simple manner, but apparently in the presence of all the

faithful. In that part of the Apostolical Constitutions (Bk VIII. c.

66), which is probably later in date than Justin, the catechumens,

heterodox, and unbelievers are directed to be excluded before

consecration (see Hatch, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 301). It does not

follow that the ceremonial was as simple with the Gnostics. Marcus is

said by Irenaeus (Bk I. c. 6, pp. 116, 117, Harvey) to have made the

mixture of wine and water in the cup to appear purple and to overflow

into a larger vessel; while similar prodigies attend the celebration

in the _Pistis Sophia_ and the _Bruce Papyrus_, for which see Chap. X,

_infra_. As such thaumaturgy was intended to astonish the onlookers,

it is probable that the elements were displayed before the whole

congregation. That the later form of the ritual of the Christian

sacraments was taken from the Gnostics, see Hatch, _Hibbert Lectures_,

pp. 295-305, and 307-309, and de Faye, _Introduction à l’Ét. du

Gnosticisme_, Paris, 1903, pp. 106, 107.

Footnote 280:

Kenyon, _Greek Papyri_, p. 105. Sir Frederick Kenyon questions the

_theocrasia_ of Serapis and Esculapius, but see Bouché-Leclercq, _Rev.

Hist. Rel._ 1902, p. 30.

Footnote 281:

Revillout, _Rev. Égyptol._ 1880, p. 172.

Footnote 282:

“The Names of Demons in the Magic Papyri,” _P.S.B.A._ 1901, pp. 41

_sqq._

Footnote 283:

Lafaye, _Culte_, etc. p. 96, and inscriptions there quoted.

Footnote 284:

Budge, “Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu,” p. 442.

Footnote 285:

See “The Greek Worship of Serapis and Isis,” _P.S.B.A._ 1914, pp. 93,

94.

Footnote 286:

That the Trinitarian doctrine of the Creed of Nicaea evolved gradually

will now, I suppose, be admitted by all. Mr Conybeare, _Apology of

Apollonius_, 1894, p. 14, probably goes too far when he says that “the

doctrine of the Trinity in Unity” is not met with till the end of the

third century. So Guignebert, _L’Évolution des Dogmes_, Paris, 1910,

pp. 293, 294, tells us how in his opinion the dogma followed “at some

distance” the assertion of the Divinity of Christ. Harnack, _Expansion

of Christianity_, Eng. ed. 1904, II. pp. 257, 258, seems to attribute

the first formulation of the dogma to Tertullian who, according to

him, owed something to the Gnostics. It is at any rate plain that

neither Hermas, nor the Apologists, nor Irenaeus, nor Clement of

Alexandria, nor Origen were in accord with later orthodoxy on the

point. Monsignor Duchesne, _Early History of the Christian Church_,

Eng. ed. 1909, p. 20, puts the matter very frankly when he suggests

that the average Christian troubled himself very little about it.

“This is the Christian doctrine of the Trinity,” he says after

defining it, “not certainly as it was formulated later in opposition

to transient heresies, but as it appeared to the general conscience of

the early Christians.... The generality of Christians in the first

century even in apostolic days stood here almost exactly at the same

point as present-day Christians. Theologians knew, or at any rate

said, far more about it.”

CHAPTER III

THE ORIGIN OF GNOSTICISM

The worship of the Alexandrian gods was in every sense a religion. Not

only did it form a common bond between men and women of different rank

and origin, but it had its roots in the idea of propitiating the

spiritual world. In the belief of its votaries, the blessings of health,

of riches, of long life, and of happiness in this world and the next,

were the gifts of Serapis and Isis, which they might extend to or

withhold from mortals as seemed to them good[287]. But now we approach

beliefs and practices, for the most part formed into organized cults,

which were founded on the opposite idea. Those treated of in this and

the seven succeeding chapters all have as their common root the notion

that it is possible instead of propitiating to compel the spiritual

powers. If these beings, greater and stronger than man as they were

thought to be, were once invoked by their real names and with the proper

ceremonies, it was said that the benefits demanded of them would follow

as a matter of course without regard to the state of mind of the

applicant and without the volition of the invisible ones themselves

entering into play. This idea appears so early in the history of

religions that it is thought by some to be the very source and origin of

them all. A number of able writers, of whom Lord Avebury[288] was one of

the earliest, and Dr Frazer[289] is one of the latest examples, contend

that there was a time in the history of mankind when man trusted

entirely to his supposed powers of compulsion in his dealings with the

invisible world, and that the attempt to propitiate it only developed

out of this at a later period. It may be so, and the supporters of this

theory are certainly not wrong when they go on to say that the same idea

probably inspired those earliest attempts at the conquest of Nature

which formed the first gropings of man towards natural science[290]. Up

till now, however, they have failed to produce any instance of a people

in a low state of culture who practise magic—as this attempted

compulsion of the spiritual world is generally called—to the exclusion

of every form of religion; and until they do so, their thesis cannot be

considered as established. On the contrary, all researches into the

matter lead to the conclusion that magic generally begins to show itself

some time after the religious beliefs of a people have taken an

organized shape, and most prominently when they have passed their period

of greatest activity[291]. This is particularly noticeable in the case

of Ancient Egypt, which affords, as M. George Foucart has lately shown

with much skill[292], a far more lively and complete picture of the

evolution of religious ideas than can be found in the beliefs of

savages. Here we see beliefs and practices, once religious in every

sense of the term, gradually becoming stereotyped and petrified until

all memory of their origin and reason is lost, and the religion itself

lapses into the systematized sorcery before referred to.

This phenomenon appears with great regularity in history; and it is an

observation very easily verified that the practice of magic generally

spreads in places and times where the popular religion has become

outworn[293]. As, moreover, enquiry shows us that words taken from the

rituals of dead faiths play the chief part in all ceremonial magic[294],

we might be led to conclude that magic was but an unhealthy growth from,

or the actual corruption of, religion. But if this were the case, we

should find magicians despoiling for their charms and spells the rituals

of cults formerly practised in their own countries only; whereas it is

more often from foreign faiths and languages that they borrow. The

tendency of all peoples to look upon earlier and more primitive races

than themselves as the depositaries of magical secrets is one of the

best known phenomena[295]. Thus, in modern India, it is the aboriginal

Bhils and Gonds who are resorted to as sorcerers by the Aryans who have

supplanted them[296], while the Malays seem to draw their magic almost

entirely from the beliefs of their Arab conquerors[297]. So, too, in

Egypt we find that the magicians of the XIXth Dynasty made use in their

spells of foreign words which seem to be taken from Central African

languages[298], and those of early Christian times use Hebrew phrases

with which they must for the first time have become acquainted not very

long before[299].

At the same time there are many proofs that magic is something more than

a by-product of religion. No people, however backward, who do not

practise magic in some or other of its forms, have yet been discovered;

while at the same time it has always persisted among those nations who

consider themselves the most highly civilized. Thus, we find the

Mincopies who inhabit the Andaman Islands and are thought by some to be

the lowest of mankind, threatening with their arrows the spirit that is

supposed to cause tempests, and lighting fires on the graves of their

dead chiefs to drive him away[300]. At the other end of the scale we

have the story of the Scottish Covenanter,

“John Scrimgeour, minister of Kinghorn, who, having a beloved child

sick to death of the crewels, was free to expostulate with his Maker

with such impatience of displeasure, and complaining so bitterly,

that at length it was said unto him, that he was heard for that

time, but that he was requested to use no such boldness in time

coming”:

and a similar story is told of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the

Jesuits[301]. It seems then that magic is so inextricably intertwined

with religion that the history of one of them cannot be effectually

separated from that of the other, and neither of them can be assigned

any priority in time. This does not mean, however, that they are

connected in origin, and it is probable that the late Sir Alfred Lyall

was right when he said that magic and religion are in their essence

antagonistic and correspond to two opposing tendencies of the human

mind[302]. The same tendencies lead one man to ask for what he wants

while another will prefer to take it by force, and it is even possible

that the same alternative of choice is sometimes manifested in the lower

animals[303].

Now it is evident that in the practice of cults where the idea of the

compulsion of the invisible powers is prominent, the essential factor

will be the _knowledge_ of the proper means to be adopted to attain the

end sought. But this does not at once strike the observer, because at

first sight these appear to be the same as those used in the cults which

rest on the idea of propitiation. Prayers and sacrifices indeed appear

in magical quite as often as in the case of propitiatory rites, but the

reason of them is entirely different. Prayer in a religion—could any

such be found—entirely free from all admixture of magic or compulsion,

would be based on the attempt to move the pity of the divinity invoked

for the miserable and abased state of the suppliant, or by some other

means. A striking example of this can be found in the Assyrian prayers

from the palace of Assur-bani-pal, which might be, as the rubric informs

us, made to any god[304]. Says the suppliant:

“O my god my sins are many, my transgressions are great.

I sought for help, and none took my hand.

I wept, and none stood by my side;

I cried aloud, and there was none that heard me.

I am in trouble and hiding, and dare not look up.

To my god, the merciful one, I turn myself, I utter my prayer.

The feet of my goddess I kiss and water with tears....

O Lord, cast not away thy servant....”

The same spirit may be noticed in the early religions of the Greeks,

although here the worshipper uses, as his means of propitiation,

flattery rather than entreaty, as when the Achilles of the _Iliad_ tries

to move Zeus by an enumeration of his different titles, addressing him

as “Father Zeus, that rulest from Ida, most glorious, most great[305],”

and Athena is appealed to by Nestor in the _Odyssey_ as “Daughter of

Zeus, driver of the spoil, the maiden of Triton[306]” and so on. As,

however, magical ideas come to the front, we find these prayers giving

way to others containing neither appeals for mercy nor flattery, but

merely long strings of names and attributes, all designed to show an

acquaintance with the antecedents and supposed natural disposition of

the divinity addressed, and inspired by the fear that the one name which

might exert a compelling effect upon his answer might accidentally have

been omitted[307]. So, too, the sacrifices, which in early times were

chosen on the sole principle of giving to the god what was best and

costliest, came later to be regulated by the supposed knowledge of what

was especially appropriate to him for reasons based on sympathetic magic

or the association of ideas. Thus, swine were sacrificed to Demeter,

he-goats to Dionysos, cattle and horses to Poseidon, and rams to

Heracles[308], instead of the animals, chosen only for their youth and

beauty and with or without gilded horns, that we read about in the

_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_[309]. Clearly such distinctions necessitate a much

closer knowledge of the divine nature than where the answer to prayer or

sacrifice depends merely on the benevolence of the deity.

It is also evident that such ideas will give rise to curiosity with

regard to the nature and history of the gods, to their relations with

one another, and to the extent and division of their rule over Nature,

which would hardly affect those who think that all events depend simply

upon the nod of the super-human powers[310]. Hence it is evident that

one of the first consequences of a large admixture of magic in a

religion will be a great increase of myths and legends in which the

actions of the gods will be recounted with more or less authority, and

some observed natural phenomenon will be pointed to as evidence of the

truth of the stories narrated[311]. Moreover, the means by which the

consequence of any voluntary or involuntary transgression of the

supposed commands of the gods can be averted will be eagerly sought

after, and these, whether they take the form of purifications,

lustrations, or other expiatory rites, will all be strictly magical in

character, and will generally consist in the more or less detailed

representation of some episode in their history, on the well-known

principle of magic that any desired effect can be produced by imitating

it[312]. In all these cases it is knowledge and not conduct which is

required, and thus it is that _gnosticism_ or a belief in the importance

of acquaintance with the divine world, its motives, and the influences

to which it is subject, enters into religion. Then it comes about that

man begins to trouble himself about the origin of the universe and its

end, the cause of his own appearance upon the earth, and the position

that he occupies in the scale of being. Hence theogonies or tales

relating how the gods came into existence, and their kinship to one

another, cosmogonies or accounts of the creation of the world, and

apocalypses or stories professing to reveal the lot of man after death

and the fate to which our universe is destined, take shape to an extent

unknown to religions which remain merely or chiefly propitiatory.

There is, however, another and a less sublime kind of knowledge which is

everywhere associated with the appearance of gnosticism. This is the

knowledge of ceremonies and formulas, of acts to be done and of words to

be said, which are thought to exercise a compelling effect on the

supra-sensible world, and which we may class together under the generic

name of ceremonial magic. Our acquaintance with these at the period

under discussion has lately been much enlarged by the decipherment and

publication of the so-called Magic Papyri found for the most part in

Egypt and now scattered throughout the principal museums of Europe[313].

These turn out on investigation to be the manuals or handbooks of

professional sorcerers or magicians, and to range in date from the IIIrd

century before to the IVth or Vth after Christ. They contain, for the

most part without any order or coherence, details of the different

ceremonies used for the personal aggrandizement of the user, for gaining

the love of women and (conversely) for putting hate between a man and

his wife; for healing disease and casting out devils; for causing

dreams, discovering thieves, and gaining knowledge of the thoughts of

men and of things past and to come; and for obtaining, by other than

direct means, success in athletic competitions. In others, we find

directions for evoking gods or spirits who may thus be bound to the

service of the magician, for raising the dead for necromantic purposes,

and for the destruction of enemies, mingled with technical recipes for

making ink and for the compounding of drugs. A feature common to nearly

all these charms is their illustration by certain roughly-drawn pictures

and formulas which seem at first to be mere strings of letters without

sense.

A few specimens of these charms may help to make this description

clearer. In a papyrus now in the British Museum which is said from the

writing to date from the IVth century A.D.[314], we find the following

charms for obtaining an oracular response in a dream:

“Take of the inner leaves of the laurel and of virgin earth and

wormwood seeds flour and of the herb cynocephalium (and I have heard

from a certain man of Heracleopolis [now Ahnas el-Medineh] that he

takes of the leaves of an olive-tree newly sprouted).... It is

carried by a virgin boy ground up with the materials aforesaid and

the white of an ibis’ egg is mixed with the whole compound. There

must also be an image of Hermes clad in the chlamys, and the moon

must be rising in the sign of Aries or Leo or Sagittarius. Now let

Hermes hold the herald’s wand, and do thou write the spell on

hieratic paper. And take a goose’s windpipe, as I also learned from

the Heracleopolite, and insert it into the figure so as to be able

to blow into it. When you wish for an oracular answer, write the

spell and the matter in hand, and having cut a hair from your head,

wrap it up in the paper and tie it with a Phoenician knot, and put

it at the feet of the caduceus, or, as some say, place it upon it.

Let the figure be in a shrine of limewood, and when you wish for an

oracular answer place the shrine with the god at your head, and make

invocation, offering frankincense on an altar and some earth from a

place where there is growing corn, and one lump of sal ammoniac. Let

this be placed at your head and lie down to sleep after first saying

this, but giving no answer to anyone who may address you:

“Hermes, lord of the world, inner circle of the moon

Round and square, originator of the words of the tongue

Persuading to justice, wearer of the chlamys, with winged sandals

Rolling an ethereal course under the lower parts of the earth

Guide of spirits, greatest eye of the sun

Author of all manner of speech, rejoicing with lights

Those mortals whose life being finished are under the lower parts of

the earth.

Thou art called the foreknower of destinies, and the divine vision

Sending oracles both by day and by night.

Thou dost heal all the ills of mortals with thy medicines.

Come hither, blessed one, greatest son of perfect memory

Appear propitious in thy own shape, and send a propitious form

That by the excellence of thy divining art I, a hallowed man, may

receive what I need.

O Lord grant my prayer, appear and grant me a true oracle!

“Make the adjuration at the risings of the sun and moon.” (The

inscription to be written on the paper wrappings of the figure.)

“_Huesemigadôn, Orthô Baubô, noê odêre soire soire

Kanthara, Ereschchigal, sankistê, dodekakistê_” etc.

In this charm we have nearly all the typical elements of the magic of

the period. The windpipe of a goose or other long-necked animal was, we

learn from Hippolytus, inserted into the hollow head of the metal statue

of the god, in order that the priest might use it as a speaking tube,

and thus cause the statue to give forth oracular responses in a hollow

voice[315]. Hence its use would be thought particularly appropriate when

an oracle was sought, although in circumstances where it would be

ineffective for purposes of deceit. The fragment of a hymn in hexameter

verse to a god whom it addresses as Hermes is doubtless of great

antiquity and taken from the ritual of some half-Greek, half-Oriental

worship such as we may imagine to have been paid to the Cabiri, in which

a god identified by the Greeks with their own Hermes was particularly

honoured. The words of the spell to be written on the paper are by no

means the mere gibberish they seem, although they have been so corrupted

that it is almost impossible to recognise even the language in which

they are written. The word _Huesemigadôn_ is, however, an epithet or

name of Pluto the ruler of Hades, and occurs in that connection, as has

been shown elsewhere, in many of these magic spells[316]. The _Orthô

Baubô_ which follows it is generally found in the same context and seems

to cover the name of that Baubo who plays a prominent part in the

Mysteries of Eleusis and appears to have been confused in later times

with Persephone, the spouse of Pluto[317]. _Ereshchigal_ [Eres-ki-gal],

again, is a word borrowed from the first or Sumerian inhabitants of

Babylonia, and means in Sumerian “the Lady of the great (_i.e._ the

nether) world,” being a title frequently used for Allat the goddess of

hell, who appears in the very old story of the Descent of Ishtar and is

the Babylonian counterpart of Persephone[318]. Why she should have been

called _dodekakistê_ or the 12th cannot now be said; but it is possible

that we have here a relic of the curious Babylonian habit of giving

numbers as well as names to the gods, or rather of identifying certain

numbers with certain divinities[319]. On the whole, therefore, it may be

judged that the words of the spell once formed part of the ritual of a

Sumerian worship long since forgotten and that they travelled across

Western Asia and were translated as far as might be into Greek, when

that language became the common tongue of the civilized world after

Alexander’s conquests.

This may be taken for a spell having its origin in, or at any rate

depending for its efficacy upon, the relics of some Western Asiatic

faith. The following taken from another papyrus now in the Bibliothèque

Nationale at Paris shows acquaintance with the Egyptian

religion—probably through the Alexandrian or Isiacist form of it

described in Chapter II—and is perhaps a more salient example of the

compulsive element common to all magic, but particularly associated with

the Egyptian magicians. It is given in the shape of a letter purporting

to be addressed by a certain Nephotes to the Pharaoh Psamtik whom the

Greeks called Psammetichos, and who managed, as has been said above, to

drive out the Ethiopians and to rule Egypt by the help of Greek

mercenaries. There is no reason to suppose that this attribution is

anything more than a charlatanic attempt to assign to it a respectable

origin; but it is probable from certain indications that it was really

taken from an earlier hieratic or demotic MS. of pre-Christian times. It

has been published by Dr Karl Wessely of Vienna[320] and is written in

Greek characters of apparently the IIIrd century A.D.

“Nephotes to Psammetichos king of Egypt, the ever living, greeting.

Since the great god [Serapis?] has restored to thee an eternal

kingdom, and Nature has made thee an excellent adept, and I am also

willing to show forth to thee the love of art which is mine—I have

sent to thee this ceremony, a holy rite made perfect with all ease

of working, which having tested, you will be amazed at the

unexpected nature of this arrangement. You will see with your own

eyes in the bowl in what day or night you will and in what place you

will. You will see the god in the water, receiving the word from the

god in what verses you will. [It will reach also?] the world-ruler

and if you ask a question of him he will speak even of all the other

things you seek. [A description of the ointment to be used doubtless

once followed, but has been omitted in the Paris MS.[321]] Having

thus anointed yourself and having put together before the rising of

the sun in this form (?) what things you will, when the third day of

the moon has come, go with the mystagogue upon the roof of the

house, and spread upon the earth a clean linen cloth, and having

crowned yourself with black ivy at the 5th hour after noon, lie down

naked on the linen cloth, and order him [the mystagogue] to bind

your eyes with a bandage of black linen; and having laid yourself

down like a corpse [or, on your back?], close your eyes, making the

sign of consecration towards the sun with these words:—

“O mighty Typhon of the sceptre on high, sceptred ruler, God of

Gods. King _Aberamenthôu_[322], hill shaker, bringer of thunder,

hurricane, who lightens by night, hot-natured one, rock shaker,

destroyer of wells, dasher of waves, who disturbs the deep with

movement. _Io erbêt autauimêni._ I am he who with thee has

uprooted the whole inhabited world and seeks out the great Osiris

who brought thee chains. I am he who with thee fights on the side

of the gods (some say against the gods). I am he who has shut up

the twin sides of heaven, and has lulled to sleep the invisible

dragon, and who has established the sea [and?] the red springs of

rivers. Until thou shall no longer be lord of this dominion, I am

thy soldier, I was conquered [and hurled] headlong by the gods. I

was thrown down by [their] wrath in vain [or, because of the

void]. Awake! I come as a suppliant, I come as thy friend, and

thou wilt not cast me out, O earth-caster. King of the gods.

_aemonaebarôtherreethôrabeaneïmea_[323]. Be strong, I entreat!

Grant me this grace that, when I shall command one of the gods

themselves to come to my incantations, I may see them coming

quickly! _Naïne basanaptatou eaptou mênô phaesmê paptoumênôph

aesimê trauapti peuchrê, trauara ptoumêph, mouraianchouchaphapta

moursaaramei. Iaô aththarauimênoker boroptoumêth attaui mêni

charchara ptoumai lalapsa trauei trauei mamôphortoula[324] aeêio

iou oêôa eai aeêiôi iaô aêi ai iaô_[325]. On your repeating this

three times, there will be this sign of the alliance[326]. But you

having the soul of a magician will be prepared. Do not alarm

yourself, for a sea-hawk hovering downwards will strike with his

wings upon your body[327]. And do thou having stood upon thy feet

clothe thyself in white garments, and in an earthen censer scatter

drops of frankincense speaking thus: ‘I exist in thy sacred form.

I am strong in thy sacred name. I have lighted upon the

flowing-forth of thy good things, O Lord, God of Gods, king demon.

_Atthouin thouthoui tauanti laôaptatô’._ Having done this, you may

descend like a god, and will command the [order?][328] of Nature

through this complete arrangement of autoptic [_i.e._ clairvoyant]

lecanomancy. It is also a way of compelling the dead to become

visible. For when you wish to enquire concerning [any] events, you

must take a brazen jar or dish or pan, whichever you will, and

fill it with water, which if you are invoking the celestial gods

must be living [Qy. running or sparkling?]; but, if the

terrestrial divinities, from the sea; and if Osiris or Sarapis,

from the river [Nile?]; and, if the dead, from a well. Take the

vessel upon your knees, pour upon it oil made from unripe olives,

then bending over the vessel repeat the following invocation and

invoke what god you will and an answer will be given to you and he

will speak to you concerning all things. But if and when he shall

have spoken, dismiss him with the dismissal which you will wonder

at, using the same speech.