Ei dian otsikkoa

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(Alexander 356 - 323 BCE.)
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Isis a cult for the Hellenistic Egypt

• The conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great
  opened a new era for the cult Isis.
• The Hellenes conquer and are conquered by the
  culture of Egypt
• In trying to find a religious cult that would
  unite both Egyptian and Hellenic subjects,
  Ptolemy Soter crafted the Isis cult as it would
  be introduced into Hellenistic society

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Ptolemy I Soter (367-283 Bc) as a Macedonian
general who became the ruler of Egypt. Founder of
the Ptolemaic Dynasty
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From Osiris to Serapis

• Osiris was renamed Serapis and identified with a
  variety of Egyptian and Hellenic gods (Osiris,
  Apis, Dionysus, Hades).
• He became a god of healing and the underworld.
• Connected with trumpets

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Harpocrates - Horus son of Serapis and Isis
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Hellenistic Isis

• Isis was identified with Hellenic deities such as
  Demeter or Aphrodite.
• Greek iconography was introduced to the cult
  which made it visually appealing to the Hellenes.

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Hermes/Thoth

• Invenctor of languages and everithing spoken,
  sung
• Mith of Hermes Trismegistus

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Isis - Demeter original differences

• Differences Isis (pharaon) - Demeter (democracy)
• Isis loves her Husband, Demeter has serious
  problems with Zeus and other husbands (Poseidon)
• Quest for the daughter (Demeter)
• Quest for the husband (Isis)
• Demeter rural - Isis urban

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Isis-Demeter

• Same sorrow in the desperate research for the
  relative
• agriculture-civilization (triptolemos)
• fertility
• connection with the world of the Dead

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Osiris-Dionysos

• Wine - beer
• Death - rebirth
• Joy and ecstasy

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A new marriage

• In Egypt Demeter-Isis and Osiris-Dionysos were
  married!

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Isis-Io

• Io, virgin of Argo loved by Zeus.
• Hera changed her in a cow
• Isis was rapresented as a woman with cowhorns
• Son Ephapus, ancestor of Danaus (Greek ancestor)
  and Aegitpus (Egypian ancestor)

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Isis and Royality

• Protector of Pharaons, Ptolemies
• and later Roman Emperors

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From City-Gods to Global Ones

• In those days when the provincial city-states of
  the Hellenic world fell to Alexanders universal
  empire, the traditional gods of the city-state no
  longer sufficed.
• Gods like Isis and Serapis were not connected
  with any specific town and were truly universal
  in scope.

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Joining the mysticism

• More importantly, the exotic Egyptian mysticism
  could offer the Greeks of the Hellenistic age
  something really important a way to cheat fate
  and death.

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Holy trinity

• Isis, Osiris and Horus were honored by Greeks and
  by Egyptian emigrants as a kind of holy trinity,
  but always it was Isis who was the dominant
  member of the trio.

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Goddess of the seas

• She was also thought to be a protector of
  sailors, and sailors sailing from the great port
  of Alexandria took her cult all over the
  Mediterranean.
• Backed by the Ptolemaic regime, the new cult
  spread throughout the Hellenistic Kingdoms.

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Lighthouse of Alexandria, symbol of a new
culture
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General goddess of civilization

• I have put an end to the rule of tyrants
• I have made justice stronger than gold
• She sent the goddess of war to the depts of
  Tartarus
• She created protection against war
• City walls
• I have invented different languages for Greeks
  and non greeks

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Oldest Great Goddess

• Elder siter of Zeus, older than Hestia and
  Demeter
• Fusion with Artemis, Leto, Selene, Hecate, Hera
• Isis/Aphrodite
• Love, sexuality, sea

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Isis/Aphrodite

• Union of sexes, bearing of children by women
• Isis has given women equal power with thir
  husbands
• I have forced women to be loved by husbands
• she have made wife obedient to her husband
• women enjoy authority over their husbands
• Isis is ruling alone after the death of Osiris

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Conceptual Isis

• Isis Nike (victory)
• Isis Tyche (luck)
• Isis prudence
• Isis providence

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Development of Isis

• From a powerful Egyptian Royal deity to a Popular
  Egyptian Pan-deity
• From an Egyptian Pan-Deity to a Greek-Egyptian or
  Mediterranean Pan-deity

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Popularity

• August and benevolent
• unlimited in her sphere she was bound to appeal
  to different people for different reasons

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Plutarc (45-125 AD)

• influential Greek philosopher and author, well
  known for his biographies and his moral treatises
• http//penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/
  Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris/home.html
• http//www.earth-history.com/Egypt
  /Legends/gods-31isis-osiris-1.htm

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Still a Greek

• Although Plutarch lived under the Roman empire
  and was a Roman citizen, his career even
  including tenure as a Roman civil servant, he was
  still Greek, writing in Greek, and very often on
  Greek history and philosophy

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Priest of Apollo

• For many years Plutarch served as one of the two
  priests at the temple of Apollo at Delphi
• Plutarch's essays and his lectures established
  him as a leading thinker in the Roman empire's
  golden age

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Plutarch

• Insits on the universal importance of Isis and
  Osiris (Not only the Nile and Egypt)
• Seth is called Typhon, is everithing that is
  harmful, the power of drought
• Osiris is the moisture necessary for life

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Dualism

• Story of Isis and Osiris interpreted as an
  allegorical scheme
• few exoticism
• Connection with the greek philosopy
• dualism moist/dry, warm/cold
• good/evil, knowledge/ignorance, order/kaos

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Isis I know

• Religion is a search for the Truth and the fact
  that the name "Isis" is derived from the Greek
  verb "I know" shows that her worship has
  knowledge as its goal.
• The behaviour of her enemy Typhon shows him to be
  opposed to knowledge.

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IIIsis is knowledge

• For "Isis is a Greek word, and means
  "knowledge,"
• and "Typhon" the name of her professed adversary,
  is also a Greek word, and means "pride and
  insolence."

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II Morality

• The Isiss doctrine inculcates a steady
  perseverance in one uniform and temperate course
  of life, and an abstinence from particular kinds
  of foods,
• it restrains the intemperate and voluptuous part
  within due bounds
• habituates her votaries to undergo austere and
  rigid ceremonies

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Knowledge

• The end and aim of all these toils and labours is
  the attainment of the knowledge of the First and
  Chief Being, who alone is the object of the
  understanding of the mind
• and this knowledge the goddess invites us to seek
  after, as being near and dwelling continually
  with her.

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II

• if we approach the temple of the goddess rightly,
  and with purity, we shall obtain the knowledge of
  that eternal and self-existent Being

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III Civilization and genealogy

• The goddess Isis is said by some authors to be
  the daughter of Hermes, and by others of
  Prometheus, both of them famous for their
  philosophic turn of mind.
• The latter is supposed to have first taught
  mankind wisdom and foresight, as the former is
  reputed to have invented letters and music.

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V

• the priests abstain not only from most sorts of
  pulse, and from the flesh of sheep and swine, but
  likewise, in their more solemn purifications,
  they even exclude salt from their meals.

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VI Wine

• The priests of the Sun at Heliopolis never carry
  wine into their temples, for they regard it as
  indecent
• The priests of the other deities are not so
  scrupulous in this respect, for they use it,
  though sparingly.
• During their more solemn purifications they
  abstain from wine wholly,
• they give themselves up entirely to study and
  meditation

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VI Vine-Blood

• For they believe the vine to have first sprung
  out of the earth after it was fattened by the
  bodies of those who fell in the wars against the
  gods.
• And this, they say, is the reason why drinking
  its juice in great quantities makes men mad

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VII a sacred fish

• As to sea-fish, the Egyptians in general do not
  abstain from all kinds of them, but some from one
  sort and some from another.
• they pay especial reverence to the Oxyrhynchus
  Fish this fish is observed by them to make his
  first appearance upon their coasts just as the
  Nile begins to overflow, they pay special regard
  to these voluntary messengers as it were of that
  most joyful news

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VIII - No superstition, but morality

• the religious rites and ceremonies of the
  Egyptians were never instituted upon irrational
  grounds never built upon mere fable and
  superstition
• but founded with a view to promote the morality
  and happiness of those who were to observe them

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Abhorrence for luxury

• All agree, however, in saying that so great was
  the abhorrence which the ancient Egyptians
  expressed for whatever tended to promote luxury,
  expense, and voluptuousness

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IX - Kings and hidden philosophy

• Now, the kings of Egypt were always chosen either
  out of the soldiery (valour) or priesthood
  (wisdom),
• If the choice fell upon a soldier, he was
  immediately initiated into the order of priests,
  and by them instructed in their abstruse and
  hidden philosophy
• a philosophy for the most part involved in fable
  and allegory, and exhibiting only dark hints and
  obscure resemblances of the truth

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Sphinxes - riddles

• The sphinxes were
• placed designedly before their temples as types
  of the enigmatical nature of their theology
• (According to the Greek Myths, the Sphinx are
  linked to riddles)

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Athene-Isis the veil of the mysteries

• Inscription engraved upon the base of the statue
  of Athene at Saïs, whom the Egyptians identify
  with Isis
• "I am everything that has been, that is, and that
  shall be and my veil no man hath raised."

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The hidden Amon-Ra

• the word "Amoun," which is generally looked
  upon as the proper name of the Egyptian Zeus
• is interpreted by Manetho to signify
• "something which is hidden."

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X Wisdom-travels

• And this is still farther evinced from those
  voyages which have been made into Egypt by the
  wisest men among the Greeks, namely, by Solo,
  Thales, Plato, Eudoxus, Pythagoras, and, as some
  say, even by Lycurgus himself, on purpose to
  converse with the priests

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Pythagoras the world is a riddle

• Pythagoras
• particularly imitated their mysterious and
  symbolical manner in his own writings,
• and like them conveyed his doctrines to the world
  in a kind of riddle

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XI - Animal symbolism

• For can it be imagined that it is the dog itself
  which is reverenced by them under the name of
  Hermes (Thoth)?
• It is the qualities of this animal, his constant
  vigilance, and his acumen in distinguishing his
  friends from his foes, which have rendered him,
  as Plato says, a meet emblem of that god who is
  the chief patron of intelligence.

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Natural symbolism

• I think that, in all likelihood, we should
  welcome those peculiar properties existent in
  natures which possess the power of perception and
  have a soul and feeling and character.
• It is not that we should honour these, but that
  through these we should honour the Divine, since
  they are clearer mirrors of the Divine by their
  nature also, so that we should regard them bas
  the instrument or device of the God who orders
  all things

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The nature have a portion of Divine soul

• But the nature that lives and sees and has within
  itself the source of movement
• and has drawn to itself an efflux and portion
  of beauty from the Intelligence "by which the
  Universe is guided,"

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XIII Myth of Osiris

• Osiris having become king of Egypt
• applied himself to civilizing his countrymen
• He taught them how to cultivate and improve the
  fruits of the earth, and he gave them a body of
  laws
• With the same good disposition he afterwards
  travelled over the rest of the world.
• From this last circumstance the Greeks identified
  him with their Dionysos, or Bacchus.

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• Osiris was killed by Seth
• (myth of the chest)

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XIVSorrow of Isis

• As soon as the report reached Isis, she
  immediately ... put on mourning
• the place has ever since been called "Koptos,"
  or the "city of mourning,"
• After this she wandered round about through the
  country, being full of disquietude and
  perplexity, searching for the chest

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XV

• At length Isis received more particular news that
  the chest had been carried by the waves of the
  sea to the coast of Byblos, and there gently
  lodged in the branches of a bush of tamarisk
• the king of the country, amazed at its unusual
  size, had cut the tree down, and made that part
  of the trunk wherein the chest was concealed into
  a pillar to support the roof of his house.

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XVI Isis nurse as Demeter

• Isis immediately went to Byblos ...
• The queen therefore sent for her to court, and
• made her nurse to one of her sons.

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Immortalization by fire (Demeter and Demophon)

• Isis nursed the child
• She likewise put him each night into the fire in
  order to consume his mortal part
• This she continued to do for some time, till the
  queen, who stood watching her, observing the
  child to be all of a flame, cried out,
• and thereby deprived him of some of that
  immortality which would otherwise have been
  conferred upon him.

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• The goddess then made herself known, and asked
  that the pillar which supported the roof might be
  given to her.
• Having taken the pillar down, she cut it open
  easily, she took out what she wanted (the chest)

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XVII

• When this was done, Isis threw herself upon the
  chest, and made at the same time such loud and
  terrible cries of lamentation over it
• Isis set sail with the chest for Egypt
• At the first place where she stopped, and when
  she believed that she was alone, she opened the
  chest, and laying her face upon that of her dead
  husband, she embraced him and wept bitterly.

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XVIII

• Isis deposited the chest in a remote and
  unfrequented place
• when Typhon was hunting by the light of the moon,
  he came upon it by chance, and recognizing the
  body
• he tore it into several pieces, fourteen in all,
  and scattered them in different places up and
  down the country

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Phallophories of Osiris (Dionysos)

• Isis found all the pieces but but was never
  able to discover the phallus of Osiris
• In order, however, to make some amends for the
  loss, Isis consecrated the phallus made in
  imitation of it, and instituted a solemn festival
  to its memory

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Battle of Horus

• After these things Osiris returned from the other
  world,
• and appeared to his son Horus, and encouraged him
  to fight
• Afterwards a battle took place between Horus and
  Typhon, which lasted many days, but Horus was at
  length victorious, and Typhon was taken prisoner

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XX - sepulchres of Osiris

• That the history has a substantial foundation is
  proved by the opinion which obtains generally
  concerning the sepulchres of Osiris.
• There are many places wherein his body is said to
  have been deposited, and among these are Abydos
  and Memphis, both of which are said to contain
  his body.

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FIRST EXPLANATIONXXII - XXIV

• Plutarch didnt like the explanation that the
  whole story was a mere commemoration of the
  various actions of their kings and other great
  men, who, by reason of their excellent virtue and
  the mightiness of their power, added to their
  other titles the honour of divinity
• The kings who have accepted the title of gods
  have afterwards had to suffer the reproach of
  vanity and presumption, and impiety and
  injustice.

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SECOND EXPLANATION

• Isis and Osiris were certain great Daemons or
  demigods
• They are, at the same time, inferior to the pure
  and unmixed nature of the gods ...
• as partaking of the sensations of the body, as
  well as of the perceptions of the soul, and
  consequently liable to pain as well as pleasure

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Mysteries memory of sufferences

• In memory of all she had done and suffered, Isis
  ... established certain rites and mysteries which
  were to be types and images of her deeds
• and intended these to incite people to piety,
  and, to afford them consolation

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From Deamons to Gods

• Isis and Osiris were translated from good Daemons
  into gods (as Heracles)
• they enjoy double honours
• their powers extend everywhere, but are greatest
  in the regions above the earth and beneath the
  earth

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Serapis - Hercules
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THIRD EXPLANATION OF THE STORYXXXII

• there are others who pretend to explain the story
  upon other principles, and in more philosophical
  manner
• these philosophers say that by Osiris the
  Egyptians mean the Nile,
• by Isis that part of the country which Osiris, or
  the Nile, overflows,
• and by Typhon the sea, which, by receiving the
  Nile as it runs into it, does, as it were, tear
  it into many pieces, and indeed entirely destroys
  it

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4th Explanation of the story XXXIII

• Some of the more philosophical priests assert
  that Osiris represents the principle and power
  of moisture in general,
• and that Typhon represents everything which is
  scorching, burning, and fiery, and whatever
  destroys moisture.

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Sun and Moon support moisture

• The Sun and Moon are represented ... as sailing
  round the world in ships
• which shows that they owe their motion, support,
  and nourishment to the power of humidity
• "water was the first principle of all things, and
  the cause of generation."

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Isis - Moon

• Isis is none other than the Moon for this reason
  it is said that the statues of Isis that bear
  horns are imitations of the crescent moon
• For this reason also they call upon the Moon in
  love affairs, eand Eudoxus asserts that Isis is a
  deity who presides over love affairs.

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Moisture-fertility

• Osiris is the great principle of fecundity, which
  is proved by the Pamylia festivals, in which a
  statue of the god with a triple phallus is
  carried about.

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Drought

• the drought by which he destroys many of the
  living creatures and growing plants, is not to be
  set down as the work of the Sun,
• but rather as due to the fact that the winds and
  waters in the earth and the air are not
  seasonably tempered

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doleful rites

• As to what they relate of the shutting up of
  Osiris in a box, this appears to mean the
  withdrawal of the Nile to its own bed in the
  month of Hathor
• At this time the priests celebrate doleful rites

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doleful rites

• The priest mourn
• 1. The falling of the Nile
• 2. The cessation of the north winds
• 3. The decrease in the length of the days
• 4. The desolate condition of the land.

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Procession of the Chest

• On the nineteenth of the month Pachons they march
  in procession to the sea
• whither the priests and other officials carry the
  sacred chest, wherein is enclosed a small boat of
  gold

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Typhon eclipse

• There are some who give the name of Typhon to the
  Earth's shadow, into which they believe the moon
  slips when it suffers eclipse.
• Some philosophers say that the story is nothing
  but an enigmatical description of the phenomena
  of Eclipses.

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Dualism

• Plutarch discusses the five explanations which he
  has described, and begins to state his own views
  about them.
• It must be concluded, he says, that none of these
  explanations taken by itself contains the true
  explanation of the foregoing history

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Two principles

• Typhon means every phase of Nature which is
  hurtful and destructive, not only drought,
  darkness, the sea
• It is impossible that any one cause, be it bad or
  even good, should be the common principle of all
  things.
• There must be two opposite and quite different
  and distinct Principles.

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Good vs Evil

• The great majority and the wisest of men hold
  this opinion they believe that there are two
  gods, rivals as it were, the one the Artificer of
  good and the other of evil.
• Osiris represents the good qualities of the
  universal Soul, and Typhon the bad

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Persian Dualism

• Plutarch compares this view with the Zoroasters
  and Magian belief in Ormazd and Ahriman, the
  former springing from light, and the latter from
  darkness.
• (A midway between the two is Mithras for this
  reason the Persians give to Mithras the name of
  "Mediator.)

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Greek dualism

• Plutarch quotes Empedocles, Anaxagoras,
  Aristotle, and Plato in support of his hypothesis
  of the Two Principles

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Zeus - Hades, Aphrodite and Ares

• The beliefs of the Greeks are well known to all
  they make the good part to belong the Olympian
  Zeus and the abominated part to Hades
• Concord is sprung from Aphroditê and Ares, the
  one of whom is harsh and contentious, and the
  other mild and tutelary.

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Pythagorean dualities

• The adherents of Pythagoras include a variety of
  terms under these categories under the good they
  set Unity, the Determinate, the Permanent, the
  Straight, the Odd, the Square, the Equal, the
  Right-handed, the Bright
• under the bad they set Duality, the
  Indeterminate, the Moving, the Curved, the Even,
  the Oblong, the Unequal, the Left-handed, the
  Dark, on the supposition that these are the
  underlying principles of creation.

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Plato

• Plato asserts, not in circumlocution or
  symbolically, but in specific words,
• that the movement of the Universe is actuated not
  by one soul
• but perhaps by several, and certainly by not less
  than two, and of these the one is beneficent, and
  the other is opposed to it

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Complex creation

• The fact is that the creation and constitution of
  this world is complex, resulting, as it does,
  from opposing influences,
• which, however, are not of equal strength, but
  the predominance rests with the better.

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Innate evil

• Yet it is impossible for the bad to be completely
  eradicated, since it is innate, in large amount,
  in the body and likewise in the soul of the
  Universe,
• and is always fighting a hard fight against the
  better

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Osiris

• in earth and wind and water and the heavens and
  stars that which is ordered, established, and
  healthy, as evidenced by season, temperatures,
  and cycles of revolution, is the efflux of Osiris

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Marriage

• The marriage of Osiris and Isis represented how
  the amorphous material became something definite
  (kosmos)
• The point of view of Plutarch is rationalistic
  and theoretical

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Typhon

• But Typhon is that part of the soul which is
  impressionable, impulsive, irrational and
  truculent
• and of the bodily part the destructible, diseased
  and disorderly as evidenced by abnormal seasons
  and temperatures, and by obscurations of the sun
  and disappearances of the moon

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Osiris, far from the death!

• Osiris himself is far removed from the earth,
  uncontaminated and unpolluted and pure from all
  matter that is subject to destruction and death

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Osiris leader of the contemplative souls

• when the ... souls are set free and migrate into
  the realm of the invisible and the unseen, the
  dispassionate and the pure,
• then this god becomes their leader and king,
• since it is on him that they are bound to be
  dependent in their insatiate contemplation and
  yearning for that beauty

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Isis mediator of the universal beauty

• With this beauty Isis, as the ancient story
  declares, is for ever enamoured and pursues it
  and consorts with it
• and fills our earth here with all things fair and
  good that partake of generation.

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Mystic Philosophy

• Plato and Aristotle call this part of philosophy
  the epoptic or mystic part,
• in as much as those who have passed beyond these
  conjectural and confused matters of all sorts by
  means of Reason proceed by leaps and bounds to
  that primary, simple, and immaterial principle
• the contact with the pure truth

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SISTRUM Bronze Roman Period (1st-2nd centuries
CE) Italy Gift of Van Deman, 1938 KM 6671
Seistron (se?st???)(metallic rattle). The most
simple version consist of little metal bars tied
up to two wooden arms. . It was held in the
right hand and shaken, from which circumstance
it derived its name.
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The Sistrum From Plutarch's Isis and Osiris

• The Sistrum is designed to represent to us,
  that every thing must be kept in continual
  agitation, and never cease from motion

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Sistrum

• upon the upper part of the convex surface of the
  sistrum is carved the effigies of a cat with a
  human visage (Sphinx)
• on the lower edge of it, under those moving
  chords, is engraved on the one side the face of
  Isis, and on the other that of Nephthys -by these
  faces symbolically representing generation and
  corruption.

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The Moon and the 4 elements

• Now the outer surface of this instrument is of a
  convex figure the sphere of the moon
• four chords or bars are the four elementary
  bodies fire, earth, water, air

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Temple of Isis - Delos

• Small Doric temple within a sanctuary shared by
  the familiar triad Serapis, Isis and Anubis,
  located on a high terrace by the foothill of
  Cynthus.
• Built at the beginning of the 2nd century B.C.,
  it was repaired by the Athenians in 135 B.C. and
  still contains the cult statue of the goddess.

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• By 100 BC Delos was a free-port with a population
  of 25,000 controlled from Rome and Athens
• birth place of Phoebus Apollo!

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the first truly cosmopolitan port in Europe

• Delos is said to have been the first truly
  cosmopolitan port in Europe.
• Everything from grain to slaves were sold on the
  island - and it was like a vast wholesale food
  market for the whole region.
• In the process, religions from many cultures
  were made welcome there were temples to Syrian
  and Egyptian deities.
• There's also one of the first synagogues outside
  the holy lands around Jerusalem.

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