Chapter II: The Alexandrian Divinities (2)

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.