Sounds rather is if Mithraism ignored women, while Isis-worship ignored men - but Christianity hit the happy medium.
Sounds rather is if Mithraism ignored women, while Isis-worship ignored men - but Christianity hit the happy medium.
Posted a thread way back about Isis superseding Christianity and how that would affect Rome and it's possible collapse in such a TL.
It came up on the thread I mentioned before of these two merging and creating that happy medium. It might have lead to less sexist post-Roman sphere of nations overall.
Because it was a religious cult practised overwhelmingly by women only, thus mothers usually did not hand it down to their sons, just their daughters, meaning it had little support among the ruling male elites in Rome. But while the Isis cult itself did not survive, its' iconography did, it was syncretisized into christianity, where Isis lactans became the Virgin with child.
Sounds rather is if Mithraism ignored women, while Isis-worship ignored men - but Christianity hit the happy medium.
Several male authors composed hymns to Isis. Four hymns of Isidorus of the Fayum still exist on the stones of a ruined temple to Isis at the site now called Madinet Madi, in the Fayum region of Egypt. In the prayer known as "Hymn III", Isidorus writes what men who believe in Her can expect:"...the best of men: sceptre-bearing kings and those who are rulers,if they depend on You, rule until old age, leaving shining and splendid wealth in abundance to their sons, and their sons' sons, and men who come after..."
When the divine Image had spoken these words, she vanished away! By and by when I awaked, I arose, having the members of my body mixed with fear, joy and sweat, and marveled at the clear presence of the puissant Goddess, and being sprinkled with the water of the sea, I recounted orderly her admonitions and divine commandments. Soon after, the darkness chased away, and the clear and golden sun arose, when as behold I saw the streets replenished with people going in a religious sort and in great triumph. All things seemed that day to be joyful, as well all manner of beasts and houses, as also the very day it self seemed to rejoice. For after the hore-frost, ensued the hot and temperate sun, whereby the little birds singing that the spring time had bin come, did chirp and sing in their steven melodiously: the mother of stars, the parent of times, and mistress of all the world: The fruitful trees rejoiced at their fertility: The barren and sterile were contented at their shadow, rendering sweet and pleasant shrills! The seas were quiet from winds and tempests: the heaven had chased away the clouds, and appeared faire and clear with his proper light. Behold then more and more appeared the pomp and processions, attired in regal manner and singing joyfully: One was girded about the middle like a man of arms: Another bare and spare, and had a cloak and high-shoes like a hunter! another was attired in a robe of silk, and socks of gold, having his hair laid out, and dressed in form of a woman! There was another bare leg harness, and bare a target, a sallet, and a spear like a martial soldier: after him marched one attired in purple with vergers before him like a magistrate! after him followed one with a maurell, a staff, a pair of pantofles, and with a gray beard, signifying a philosopher: after him went one with line, betokening a fowler, another with hooks declaring a fisher: I saw there a meek and tame bear, which in matron habit was carried on a stool: An Ape with a bonnet on his head, and covered with lawn, resembling a shepherd, and bearing a cup of gold in his hand: an Ass which had wings glued to his back, and went after an old man, whereby you would judge the one to be Pegasus, and the other Bellephoron. Amongst the pleasures and popular delectations, which wandered hither and thither, you might see the pomp of the Goddess triumphantly march forward: The woman attired in white vestments, and rejoicing, in that they bore garlands and flowers upon their heads, and spread the ways with herbs, which they bore in their aprons, where this regal and devout procession should pass: Others carried glasses on their backs, to testify obeisance to the Goddess which came after. Others bare combs of Ivory, and declared by their gesture and motions of their arms, that they were ordained and ready to dress the Goddess: Others dropped in the ways as they went Balm and other precious ointments: Then came a great number, as well of men as women, with candles, torches, and other lights, doing honor to the celestial Goddess: After that sounded the musical harmony of instruments: then came a faire company of youth, appareled in white vestments, singing both meter and verse, with a comely grade which some studious Poet had made in honor of the Muses: In the means season, arrived the blowers of trumpets, which were dedicated unto Serapes, and to the temple before them were officers and beadles, preparing room for the Goddess to pass. Then came the great company of men and women, which had taken divine orders, whose garments glistered all the streets over. The women had their hair anointed and their heads covered with linen: but the men had their crowns shaven, which were the terrene stars of the Goddess, holding in their hand instruments of brass, silver and gold, which rendered a pleasant sound.
The principal Priests which were appareled with white surpluses hanging down to the ground, baring the relics of the puissant Goddess. One carried in his hand a light, not unlike to those which we used in our houses, saving that in the middle thereof appeared a bole which rendered a more bright flame. The second attired hike the other bare in his hand an Altar, which the Goddess her self named the succor of nations. The third held a tree of palm with leaves of gold, and the verge of Mercury. The fourth showed out a token of equity by his left hand, which was deformed in every place, signifying thereby more equity then by the right hand. The same Priest carried a round vessel of gold, in form of a cap. The fifth bare a van, wrought with springs of gold, and another carried a vessel for wine: By and by after the Goddess followed a foot as men do, and specially Mercury, the messenger of the Goddess infernal and supernal, with his face sometime black, sometime fair, lifting up the head of the dog Anubis, and bearing in his left hand, his verge, and in his right hand, the branches of a palm tree, after whom followed a cow with an upright gate, representing the figure of the great Goddess, and he that guided her, marched on with much gravity. Another carried after the secrets of their religion, closed in a coffer. There was one that bare on his stomache a figure of his God, not formed like any beast, bird, savage thing or humane shape, but made by a new invention, whereby was signified that such a religion should not be discovered or revealed to any person. There was a vessel wrought with a round bottom, having on the one side, pictures figured like unto the manner of the Egyptians, and on the other side was an ear, whereupon stood the Serpent Aspis, holding out his scaly neck. Finally, came he which was appointed to my good fortune according to the promise of the Goddess. For the great Priest which bare the restoration of my human shape, by the commandment of the Goddess, Approached more and more, bearing in his left hand the tumbrel, and in the other a garland of Roses to give me, to the end I might be delivered from cruel fortune, which was always mine enemy, after the sufferance of so much calamity and pain, and after the endurance of so many perils: Then I not returning hastily, by reason of sudden joy, lest I should disturb the quiet procession with mine importunities, but going softly through the press of the people, which gave me place on every side, went after the Priest. The priest being admonished the night before, as I might well perceive stood still and holding out his hand, thrust out the garland of roses into my mouth, I (trembling) devoured with a great affection: And as soon as I had eaten them, I was not deceived of the promise made unto me. For my deformed and Assy face abated, and first the rugged hair of my body fell off, my thick skin waxed soft and tender, the hooves of my feet changed into toes, my hands returned again, my neck grew short, my head and mouth began round, my long ears were made little, my great and stony teeth waxed less like the teeth of men, and my tail which combed me most, appeared no where: then the people began to marvel, and the religious honored the Goddess, for so evident a miracle, they wondered at the visions which they saw in the night, and the facilities of my reformation, whereby they rendered testimonies of so great a benefit which I received of the Goddess. When I saw my self in such estate, I stood still a good space and said nothing, for I could not tell what to say, nor what word I should first speak, nor what thanks I should render to the Goddess, but the great Priest understanding all my fortune and misery, by divine advertisement, commanded that one should give me garments to cover me: Howbeit as soon as I was transformed from an ass to my human shape, I hid the privities of my body with my hands as shame and necessity compelled me. Then one of the company put off his upper robe and put it on my back; which done, the Priest looked upon me, with a sweet and benign voice, gain say in this sort: O my friend Lucius, after the endurance of so many labors, and the escape of so many tempests of fortune, thou art at length come to the port and haven of rest and mercy: neither did thy noble linage, thy dignity, thy doctrine, or anything prevail, but that thou hast endured so many servile pleasures, by a little folly of thy youthfulness, whereby thou hast had a sinister reward for thy unprosperous curiosity, but howsoever the blindness of fortune tormented thee in divers dangers: so it is, that now unawares to her, thou art come to this present felicity: let fortune go, and fume with fury in another place, let her find some other matter to execute her cruelty, for fortune hath no puissance against them which serve and honor our Goddess. For what availed the thieves: the beasts savage: thy great servitude: the ill and dangerous waits: the long passages: the fear of death every day? Know thou, that now thou art safe, and under the protection of her, who by her clear light doth lighten the other Gods: wherefore rejoice and take a convenient countenance to thy white habit, follow the pomp of this devout and honorable procession, to the end that such which be not devout to the Goddess, may see and acknowledge their error. Behold Lucius, thou art delivered from so great miseries, by the providence of the Goddess Isis, rejoice therefore and triumph of the victory of fortune; to the end thou may live more safe and sure, make thy self one of this holy order, dedicate thy mind to the Obsequy of our Religion, and take upon thee a voluntary yoke of ministry: And when thou begin to serve and honor the Goddess, then thou shalt feel the fruit of thy liberty: After that the great Priest had prophesied in this manner, with often breathings, he made a conclusion of his words: Then I went amongst the company of die rest and followed the procession: every one of the people knew me, and pointing at me with their fingers, said in this sort: Behold him who is this day transformed into a man by the puissance of the sovereign Goddess, verily he is blessed and most blessed that hath merited so great grace from heaven, as by the innocence of his former life, and as it were by a new regeneration is reserved to the obsequies of the Goddess. In the mean season by little and little we approached nigh unto the sea cost, even to that place where I lay the night before being an Ass. There after the images and relics were orderly disposed, the great Priest compassed about with divers pictures according to the fashion of the Egyptians, did dedicate and consecrate with certain prayers a fair ship made very cunningly, and purified the same with a torch, an egg, and Sulphur; the sail was of white linen cloth, whereon was written certain letters, which testified the navigation to be prosperous, the mast was of a great length, made of a Pine tree, round and very excellent with a shining top, the cabin was covered over with coverings of gold, and all the ship was made of Citron tree very faire; then all the people as well religious as profane took a great number of Vines, replenished with odors and pleasant smells and threw them into the sea mingled with milk, until the ship was filled up with large gifts and prosperous devotions, when as with a pleasant wind it launched out into the deep. But when they had lost the sight of the ship, every man carried again that he brought, and went toward the temple in like pomp and order as they came to the sea side. When we were come to the temple, the great priest and those which were deputed to carry the divine figures, but especially those which had long time been worshippers of the religion, went into the secret chamber of the Goddess, where they put and placed the images according to their order. This done, one of the company which was a scribe or interpreter of letters, who in form of a preacher stood up in a chair before the place of the holy college, and began to read out of a book, and to interpret to the great prince, the senate, and to all the noble order of chivalry, and generally to all the Roman people, and to all such as be under the jurisdiction of Rome, these words following (Laois Aphesus) which signified the end of their divine service and that it was lawful for every man to depart, whereat all the people gave a great shout, and replenished with much joy, bare all kind of herbs and garlands of flowers home to their houses, kissing and embracing the steps where the Goddess passed: howbeit I could not doe as the rest, for my mind would not suffer me to depart one foot away, so attentive was I to behold the beauty of the Goddess, with remembrance of the great misery I had endured.
I'd love to read it. Do you have a link to it?
Not sure how you'd manage to merge two religions with widely different beliefs. Ice and fire don't mix either.
It wasn't my idea, and stranger things have merged together to form something new.
Here's the thread, but it's just discussion.
Isis Cult
It wasn't my idea, and stranger things have merged together to form something new.
I am she that is the natural mother of all things, mistress and governess of all the Elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of powers divine, Queen of Heaven, the principal of the Gods celestial, the light of the Goddess; at my will the planets of the air, the wholesome winds of the Seas, and the silences of Hell be disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in divers manners, in variable customs and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the mother of the Gods; the Athenians, Minerva; the Cyprians, Venus; the Candians, Diana; the Sicilians Proserpine; the Elusions, Ceres; some Juno, others Bellona, others Hecate; and principally the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies are accustomed to worship me, do call me Queen Isis.
For the issue of the cults I think this may have a answer.
She was the Queen of Heaven. Soft Polytheistic view that all goddesses are manifestations of Isis, much as some Hindus view All gods as manifestations of Brahma or Vishnu.
Likes. I'm going to have to use some of these ideas for designing my made up faith in my TL. It comes more out of Neo-Plantonic writings, enlightenment ideas of Deism, and the insanity of it's founder. But the 'Supreme Being' was suppose to be a 'goddess of liberty'.
http://neosalexandria.org/syncretism/the-history-of-serapis/Menu
The History of Serapis
Jeremy J. Baer
Egyptian and Ptolemaic Origins
In Memphis the Apis bull was the most sacred of animals, and something of a national mascot for all Egypt. In life the animal was considered a manifestation of the creator deity Ptah. But in death the creature was considered as embodying Osiris. When the animal died it was treated as if Osiris had died, and was given lavish rites due its station.
We therefore cannot repeat an old and now demonstrably false adage that Ptolemy Soter invented the god Serapis, for the conflation of Osiris with the Apis bull was an ancient Egyptian tradition. However, we might be able to say with somewhat more truth that Ptomely Soter reinvented the cult, or at least gave it new marketing for a new audience.
Accustomed as they were to Homeric deities and beautiful anthropomorphic depictions of said gods in art, what the Greeks (and later Romans) objected to most in Egyptian religion was its inherent animal fetish. The Greeks who theoretically were in awe of Egypt’s ancient and mysterious legacy were most often in practice derisive of its animal headed deities. Thus if Ptolemy were to promote an Egyptian cult to his Greco-Macedonian companions, iconographically the deity had to be rendered more aesthetically pleasing to Hellenic sensibilities. Serapis was often portrayed as a benign Pluto, with elements of other deites such as Dionysus and Zeus.
The refashioned cult of Serapis did indeed begin to pentrate into the Hellenic psyche. Under Ptolemy III a Serapeum was built in Alexandria that quickly became one of the largest and most prestigious sanctuaries in Antiquity. In this large complex of buildings, which included an annex to the famous Library of Alexandria, the cult practiced incubation – sleeping to obtain divinely inspired dreams, usually a prophecy as to how to cure an illness.
Serapis thus resembled Pluto iconographically, was linked mythologically with Osiris as lord of the underworld, and in cult shared powers of some of the Greek healing gods. He could also be indentified with Dionysus-Sabazius as another resurrected vegetation deity. His consort Isis could be linked with the Greek Demeter or Greek Aphrodite. These identifications helped the cult of Isis and Serapis spread to other Hellenes throughout the Mediterranean.
Journey to Rome
Sailors, traders and emmigrants from Alexandria did much to further the spread of the cult. We find cults of Isis and Serapis formed as private associations throughout many major port towns of the Mediterranean, with official temple cults erected not long thereafter. Egyptian slaves sold in foreign markets often carried the cult with them to new lands. Interestingly enough, foreign merchants and slave traders were just as likely to adopt the cult, for they found in Isis and Serapis universal deities with powers to grant great boons.
Serapis made a home fairly early at Delos, one of Apollo’s island sanctuaries. It seems there was even some rivalry between these two gods of healing, not least of which is because the cult of Serapis was linked with Ptolemaic imperialism.
From the slave trade at Delos, Serapis and Isis spread to the Italian ports. In importance and prestige Isis always seemed to eclipse her consort. The conservative Republican senate treated the cults with suspicion and did not allow them to be permitted within the sacred city limits. Private chapels to the gods were ordered destroyed – but they were quickly rebuilt by the faithful. The cults were increasingly practiced not only by Greco-Oriental slaves and emmigrants, but by native Italians as well.
With the memory of Cleopatra in mind, who had proclaimed herself Isis on earth, Augustus was not keen on officially promoting any Egyptian cult in Rome, and in fact discouraged it. Yet within the house of the imperial family one can see paintings with a strong Egyptian theme! Tiberius was no hypocrite; he despised the cult and in fact strongly persecuted it after a sex scandal involving the cult became public.
Imperial Ascendance
Caligula was descended through Marc Antony, and perhaps it is not suprising a touch of Alexandrian devotions remained with the family. Caligula’s chamberlain was an Egyptian who perhaps assisted the emperor in the study of the cult’s mysteries. Caligula had a temple to Isis built on the Field of Mars.
From now on the Nilotic gods would be at home on the Tiber. The Flavian and Severan dynasties became duly enamored with the Nilotic cults. Vespasian claims to have been proclaimed emperor by an oracle from Serapis, and with the deity’s help performed a healing “miracle.”
But it was not until Caracalla that Serapis finally moved out under an Isiac shadow. The emperor erected a special cult to Serapis as god of healing and issued coins with his likeness. After a retreat to the Serapaeum at Alexandria , he was bestowed with the title philosarapis, or beloved of Sarapis. The zenith came when Caracalla constructed a gigantic temple to Serapis which seems to have dwarfed that to Captoline Jupiter, who had for centuries been officially the patron god of Rome. The Serapia of April 25th may have been to celebrate the commemoration of this temple.
By Caracalla’s reign Serapis was increasingly equated with such other deities as Mithras and Helios, and became a solar and sky deity. Mithraeum in Caracall’s baths show such syncretic insciptions. The number of Egyptian slaves serving in the imperial household seems to have been large. From Emperor to slave the religion of Serapis thrived. There was no port in the empire where it did not spread, but always it was linked to that of the Isiac cult. Apuleius does however inform us that the Mysteries of Serapis were separate from
that of Isis.
The related cults of Isis and Serapis would remain a major religious force in the Roman empire until their outlaw by Christian emperors. In many ways, the destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria signified the death of paganism in Antiquity.
Robert Turcan. Cults of the Roman Empire
Geraldine Pinch Egyptian Mythology
Apuleius The Golden Ass
http://neosalexandria.org/syncretism/a-history-of-the-worship-of-the-goddess-isis/A History of the Worship of the Goddess Isis
Jeremy J. Baer
Genesis in the Land of the Pharaohs
Isis (“Aset” in the native language) had her start as a comparatively minor deity of Egypt. She was a protector of the throne of Egypt, perhaps in some ways the personification of Royal Power. But she had been subordinate in the official Egyptian pantheon to deities more intimately connected with the great king, like Ra and Horus.
The collapse of the Old Kingdom brought about several sweeping changes in Egyptian religion. Eternal life, which had once been viewed as the sole province of the King, came to be seen as the reward for all those willing to submit to the proper cults. In this new paradigm Isis took center stage and became the central goddess in the popular religion of the Egyptian people.
Myth tells how Osiris, the first god-king of Egypt, introduced laws and agriculture to humankind. He was then deceived and murdered by his scheming brother Seth, god of chaos. Seth hacked Osiris’ body into pieces and scattered them across Egypt, intending to rule Egypt himself. Isis collected the pieces and magically revived her brother-husband Osiris, who became King of the Underworld. She also magically conceived a son, Horus. Isis and her supporters warred against Seth for the throne of Egypt. A council of gods eventually decided that Horus, as son of Osiris, was the rightful ruler, and Seth was demoted to fighting nocturnal demons. A new paradigm emerged in which Osiris ruled the underworld, Horus ruled Egypt (and the Pharaohs were considered the incarnation of Horus) and Ra the sun god ruled the heavens.
But Isis as mistress of magic resurrected Osiris, and thus was superior to him. She conceived her son Horus magically and was superior to him. With her magic, she even had power over Ra the sun god. In short, she was the real power behind the universe, which lead her cult adherents to proclaim her as Mistress of Heaven. More importantly, she had the power over life and death and could resurrect her followers in the same manner that saved her husband from oblivion. As the myth of Isis and Osiris grew, Isis began displacing other deities in the loyalties of the population.
The Hellenes Conquer and Are Conquered by Egypt
The conquest of Egypt by Alexander opened a new era for the cult. 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 Greco-Roman society. 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. 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. In those days when the provincial city-states of the Hellenic world fell to Alexander’s 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. More importantly, the exotic Egyptian mysticism could offer the Greeks of the Hellenistic age something their own gods could not – a way to cheat fate and death.
Isis and Osiris 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. Isis became the protector of family (especially women), the protector of newborns, the goddess of fertility and good fortune, and the goddess whose magic could cheat Fate and Death. 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.
The Nile Flows into the Tiber
The Roman Senate was not amused with Ptolemy’s attempt to craft a universal religion. When the cult of Isis swept into Rome via Hellenistic sailors and Egyptian emigrants, it became outstandingly popular with women and the lower classes, including slaves. Fearing a religious unification of the lower strata of Roman society, and fearing the loss of piety in the traditional Roman gods of the state, the Senate repeatedly placed restrictions on the new cult. Private chapels dedicated to Isis were ordered destroyed. When a Roman Consul found that the demolition team assigned to him were all members or sympathizers of the cult and refused to destroy their chapel, he had to remove his toga of state and do the deed himself.
Augustus found the cult “pornographic,” though the cult was known to proscribe periods of sexual abstinence to its adherents. The real reason for Augustus’ wrath was that the cult was linked to Egypt and thus the power base of his rival, Antony. Cleopatra had even gone so far to declare herself Isis reincarnated. Nonetheless, Augustus’ scorn did little to stem popular opinion. Officials and servants of the imperial household were members of the cult. It seems even his own infamous daughter was a member; whether her belief was genuine or merely another aspect of her defiance against her father cannot be determined.
Tiberius, upon hearing of a sexual scandal involving the cult, had the offenders crucified and images of Isis cast into the Tiber. But much like Christianity, periodic and sporadic persecutions did nothing to stem the tide. What was death when one’s deity promised salvation and resurrection?
As part of undoing the policies of Tiberius, Caligula legitimized the religion. Temples to Isis were permitted construction. Aspects of the Isiac festivals became public and part of the civil calendar (though there were still mysteries celebrated in private). It is also known that Caligula had an Egyptian chamberlain who exerted influence on the emperor and helped him progress in the mysteries of the goddess. Perhaps this even helped play a role in Caligula’s infamous promotion of himself as an autocratic, Hellenistic-like ruler. Whatever the truth, Isis was now part of Roman paganism for good.
The emperor Vespasian became acquainted with the cult while serving in the Eastern legions, and seems to have adopted Isis and Serapis as his personal savior deities. Domitian owed his life to fleeing opponents in the garb of Isiac cultists, and continued the family’s association with the cult.
Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius were friendly to the cult, but most likely not initiates. Commodus, on the other hand, shaved his head bald like the priests of Serapis. He used to beat those around him with a mask of Anubis that was common in the processions of the cult.
Septimus Severus was fascinated with the cult, and his son Caracalla dedicated a giant temple to Serapis that rivaled the one built to Jupiter, Rome’s original patron god. The meaning was clear – the gods of the East that had once been maligned by the ruling classes of the Republic were now on equal footing with the traditional gods of the State. Among the common people, they were more important.
Stoic and Neoplatonic intellectuals tried to reinterpret the cult in terms of their own highbrow philosophies, with the deities of the cult serving as metaphors for great cosmic principles. While this may have held some influence in the literate classes, its doubtful it had any impact on the vast majority of followers. To the average person Isis was not a metaphor or concept; she was as real to her followers as the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, is to billions of Christians around the world today. More to the point, she performed much the same function.
The Un-Roman Roman cult
The Cult of Isis was, thanks to Ptolemy, Hellenized to a degree that the Roman mind could understand it, and yet still foreign enough to be exotic and alien.
Unlike most religious structures in the Roman world, the Iseum did not open to the streets or forum where public spectators could view the proceedings inside. The Iseum was walled off from the surrounding world, suggesting a space of inner sanctity. Even within its walls, there was a “sanctuary” much like modern monasteries where only clergy and the initiated could enter. In there rituals involving fire, water and incense were conducted in front of a sacred statuary of the deities concerned. This secret religious life that was set apart from the community and the State is what helped arouse the suspicions of the conservatives back in the days of the Republic.
Not much is known about the details of the inner workings of the mysteries, as they were by definition secret. Prospective initiates were called to the goddess by dreams and visions. Intense preparations of purification and meditation (and abstinence) were followed by exotic rites designed to recreate the myth of Isis and the resurrection of Osiris. By enduring these rituals, the adherent was reconciled to the magic of Isis and effectively granted a favorable afterlife. He or she was in a sense spiritually reborn in a manner common to Greco-Oriental savior religions.
But there were more public festivals too that didn’t require initiation. The first was conducted on March 5th. In honor of Isis sailing the seas to find pieces of her lost husband, a colorful procession of costumed people, including especially sailors, marched to port and ritually blessed a boat. The second festival was held October 28th to November 3rd. This was an ancient passion play Again, costumed enactors took to the streets, this time to reenact the death and resurrection of Serapis. Roman conservatives complained the festival was too loud and colorful.
People also had private shrines to Isis and Serapis in their homes.
The subject of the ethics of the cult is a complicated one. We know that Egyptian culture as a whole was free with sexuality compared to Roman culture. Isis was in fact rather popular with courtesans and other such professions, and there are speculations that Isiac cults may have promoted a kind of “positive sexuality” among a more conservative Roman population. Augustus and Tiberius took this as proof of a “pornographic” cult. Yet the Isiac cult also demanded regular periods of sexual abstinence from its adherents for purposes of ritual purification, and even apparently courtesans readily submitted to these observances. Curiously enough, the early Christians who were quick to complain about the degeneracy of pagan cults could not offer as much criticism about Isis as they could about some other cults in the Empire.
Universal Religion
Unlike Mithraism which was confined to a small percentage of “middle class” Roman males, the Isis cult was truly universal. Unlike Mithraism it could be practiced by both men and women, and it was women who perhaps took it up most enthusiastically. Unlike Mithraism it appealed to all classes; the lower classes and slaves were the mainstay of the cult, but as we have seen even those at the very top of the social strata were also adherents. Unlike Mithraism which was mostly confined to the Latin West, Isis was honored in both halves of the empire. Isis was long honored in the Greek East, and penetrated into the Latin West in even barely Romanized areas such as Britain or northwest Gaul. Isis was however a cult of city dwellers; we see little evidence of Isiac cults in rural areas outside of her native Egypt.
There was little danger of the small cult of Mithras, influential though it was, stemming the tide of Christianity and taking over the world. However, the cult of Isis had the numbers and the appeal to mount a serious threat to Christianity. Some scholars assert that the Holy Trinity of Isis, Serapis and Horus were not really defeated – they were merely absorbed into the new Holy Trinity of Christianity. The reverence for Mary among high Christian churches is similar to faith in Isis. We should consider at the very least that many chapels to the Virgin were built purposely on the remains of temples to Isis, and that furthermore the iconography of the Madonna and Christ is quite similar to Isis and Horus.
Today, Isiac religion is undergoing something of a revival. Among New Age crowds, Isis is a popular symbol among those seeking an alternative to “patriarchal” religions. In fact, Isis worship is part of the “goddess spirituality” movement promoted by feminist and other postmodern identity groups. However, their understanding and practices related to Isis are sometimes more conditioned by revisionist politics than by anything resembling history or archaeology. Nonetheless, alternative religious movements have coincided with periodic bursts of “Egyptomania” to open the door for a second look at the Isiac cults.
This a history of Serapis I think would also provide a useful resource.
http://neosalexandria.org/syncretism/the-history-of-serapis/
And Isis
http://neosalexandria.org/syncretism/a-history-of-the-worship-of-the-goddess-isis/