PAGAN REGENERATION

A STUDY OF MYSTERY INITIATIONS IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD

BY HAROLD R. WILLOUGHBY

[b. 1890 d. 1962]

Chicago., Ill., The University of Chicago Press

[1929, copyright not renewed]

CHAPTER VII

ISIAC INITIATION

THE chief contribution of Egypt to the religion of the Roman Empire was the
cult of Isis in the form of a Hellenized development of that ancient Egyptian
religion. From very early times Isis and Osiris held a unique position in the
religious thought of the Egyptian people. Herodotus noted in his day that “no
other gods were worshiped in the same way by the whole of Egypt save only Isis
and Osiris.” The worship of other deities varied from place to place in different
sections of the country. By comparison with these the related cults of Isis
and Osiris were undiversified, and their hold on the religious loyalties of
the Egyptian people remained more or less constant not only in different localities
but in various ages as well. It is surely an impressive fact that in Graeco-Roman
times the reformed and Hellenized cult of Isis functioned as vigorously as the
antique Osirian religion had functioned in the times of the Pharaohs.

I

The various traditions gathering around the divine names of Osiris and Isis
were summarized in connected form by Plutarch. In addition to Plutarch’s convenient
narrative, there are a number of Egyptian monuments that preserve fragments
of the tragic tale. The oldest of these are a series of liturgical texts, hymns,
prayers, and incantations from the walls of the pyramids of Sakhara. Quite apart
from Plutarch’s rendition of the story, it would be possible, from these pyramid
texts, to reconstruct completely the Osirian legend. In its developed form,
this tradition included many different strands. The essential elements of the
tradition, however, were as follows: Osiris on earth had reigned as king over
the Egyptians, “making them reform their destitute and bestial mode of living,
showing them the art of cultivation, giving them laws, and teaching them how
to worship the gods. Afterward he traveled over the whole earth, civilizing
it.” His wicked brother Set, or Typhon, plotted against him and succeeded in
accomplishing his violent death. When Isis, his wife, heard of the terrible
deed, she put on mourning and wandered distractedly far and wide searching for
the lost body of her husband. After a long search she recovered the body and
carefully embalmed it. Over the corpse she and her sister Nephtys joined in
a lament that became classical–a type of the Egyptian lamentations for the
deceased. With the aid of the faithful god Anubis, her son Horus, and Thoth,
Isis performed certain magical rites over the body of Osiris which had the effect
of revivifying the corpse and restoring her husband to life. Thereafter he was
translated to the nether regions where he reigned as “Lord of the Underworld
and Ruler of the Dead.” Here he presided at the bar of judgment and assigned
to the souls of the departed their proper reward for virtue or punishment for
sin.

This brief summary of the Osirian tradition itself suggests that, in the
religious thought of Egypt, Osiris was a dying and reviving god like Adonis
and Attis and Dionyus, and as such a personification of the yearly vicissitudes
of vegetable life in the ever recurrent struggle of life and death in nature.
He was also an embodiment of the ideal Pharaoh and a personification of the
righteous man who, facing the mystery of death, sought the assurances of religion
regarding the future. So also Isis, like Demeter and the Magna Mater, was a
mother-goddess personifying the power of life in nature and the unquenchable
human hope for a final triumph in the conflict of life with death. She also
embodied the beneficent influences of culture and religion; for she had taught
men the arts and government and the mysteries.

Traditionally, the rites of the Osirian religion, like those of Eleusis,
were established by the goddess-mother herself. Plutarch, again, was a recorder
of this tradition. His account of the establishment of the Osiris calt was as
follows:

“But the avenger of Osiris, his sister and wife Isis, who extinguished and
put a stop to the madness and fury of Typhon, did not forget the contests and
struggles she had gone through, nor yet her own wanderings, nor did she suffer
oblivion and silence to envelop her many deeds of wisdom, many feats of courage,
but by intermingling with the most sacred ceremonies images, hints, and representations
of her sufferings of yore she consecrated at one and the same time both lessons
of piety and consolation in suffering for men and women when overtaken by misfortune.”

In the ancient Egyptian calendar of religious feasts, with its many celebrations
in honor of a variety of gods, the rites of Osiris held a place of singular
honor. When Herodotus visited Egypt, he found that next to the most important
native religious festival was the one in honor of Isis held in her great temple
at Busiris in the Nile delta. The Greek historian showed great reverence for
these rites and was very reticent about giving any precise information concerning
them. He did, however, say this much: “There, after the sacrifice, all the men
and women lament in countless numbers; but it were profane for me to say who
it is for whom they lament.” Also in speaking of similar ceremonies at Sais,
Herodotus gave but slight additional information and gave that very guardedIy.

“There is also at Sais the burial of him whose name I deem it forbidden to
utter in speaking of such a matter …. and there is a lake hard by, adorned
with a stone margin and wrought to a complete circle. . . . . On this lake they
enact by night the story of the god’s sufferings, a rite which the Egyptians
call the mysteries. I could speak more exactly of these matters, for I know
the truth, but I will hold my peace.”

The information that Herodotus records, scanty as it is, yet is sufficient
to betray the general character of these religious celebrations. They were in
the nature of a passion drama and they featured lamentations in which the spectators
participated. The suggestion is an obvious one that the death and resurrection
of Osiris constituted the subject matter of this drama and that the lamentations
were the traditional lamentations of Isis for her husband.

Herodotus’ reserve about giving any detailed information concerning the Osiris
festivals calls attention to a fact of some importance. Even in ancient Egypt
the Osirian cult included both public rites and secret ceremonies as well. Certain
things were done and certain explanations were made which were regarded as matters
of great sanctity. Only privileged people were permitted to share them. Herodotus
was so impressed by the sacred character of these revelations that he kept the
secret conscientiously. One would hardly be justified, on this basis, in speaking
of an Osirian initiation into a secret fraternity, perhaps. Nevertheless, there
was a differentiation between the public and the private Osirian rites even
in ancient Egypt, and this is an important distinction to keep in mind for the
understanding of a significant development of Isiac ritual in Hellenistic times.

Osirian rites such as Herodotus mentioned were repeated at annual festivals
at the great temples of the god in different parts of Egypt. These sacred dramas
were performed for the benefit of Osiris himself, and a statue of the god formed
the center of interest in the celebration. On a stela of the Twelfth Dynasty
dated about 1875 B.c. a state official, Igernefert by name, recounted with some
minuteness how he conducted “the ceremony of the golden chamber for the Lord
of Abydos (Osiris).” Igernefert told of the preparation of various properties
for the drama and of the part that he himself played in the performance. The
scenes included first of all a procession of the followers of Osiris, with an
attack by his enemies. The death of the god formed the second scene, to which
Igernefert made allusion quite as guardedly as Herodotus. “I performed the great
going-forth. I followed the god in his footsteps.” Then came the resurrection
and final triumph of the god. “I avenged Osiris on the day of the great battle,
I overthrew his enemies upon the river of Nedit,” declared Igernefert, referring
to such a bloody struggle as that to which Herodotus also made allusion. Then
the drama was brought to a joyful close by the return of the Lord of Abydos
to his palace, i.e., the return of the image of the god to its temple.

Not only were there occasional celebritions of the Osirian drama such as
this but in later times, especially, there were also daily commemorations of
the passion and resurrection of the god. These were enacted in the chapels of
the god and doubtless formed the secret part of the Osirian ritual. Bas-reliefs
from temples and various ritual remains enable us to reconstruct the liturgical
acts and recitations of these miniature passion plays. There was the search
for the body of Osiris and the prolonged lament of Isis and Nephtys over the
corpse. In response to their cries Horus, Anubis, and Thoth came and purified
the body and prepared it for restoration to life. Next certain magical rites
were performed. By means of the adze of Anubis the mouth, eyes, and ears of
the corpse were opened, other members of the body were put into motion, and
each organ was recalled to life separately. Then, to insure resurrection, vegetable
rebirth was represented by the germination of grain, and even an animal rebirth
was simulated. The priest playing the part of Anubis assumed a recumbent position
under the skin of a sacrificed animal. Here he symbolized the foetus in the
womb, or, more specifically, Osiris being conceived anew. Coming out from under
the skin, he typified Osiris being reborn. These rites completed, Osiris was
alive once more. His image was crowned and adored and offerings were made to
him. In these daily rites Osiris, represented by his image, passed through a
ritual rebirth.

The question at once arises, Were the benefits of these rites extended to
men, as well as to the god? In the Egyptian funeral ceremonies is found the
answer to this question, for the burial rites of ancient Egypt were but Osirian
ceremonies repeated according to the principles of sympathetic magic. The deceased
man was the dead Osiris and at his funeral the sacred drama was re-enacted.
His wife and sister played the parts of Isis and Nephtys. His son was Horus
and his friends were the helping gods. Professional priests assumed roles not
otherwise provided for. Upon the corpse of the dead man were performed the same
rites that traditionally had been enacted over the dead Osiris. His mouth, eyes,
and ears were opened and the ceremonies of vegetal and animal rebirth were repeated.
Just as Anubis “passed under the hide” in order to effect the rebirth of Osiris,
so the presiding priest “laid himself down under the hide of a cow in the land
of transformation.” By the mimicking of birth when he issued from the skin it
was believed that he accomplished the spiritual renaissance of the defunct.
“He who renews life (after death)” was an epithet applied to the man thus favored.
Such a man went to join his god on the plains of Aalu, where, if he so chose,
he might himself become a god. Many a man so privileged was specifically called
“Osiris” after his death. A familiar Egyptian text testifies most clearly to
this future hope for one who had shared in Osirian rites; “As truly as Osiris
lives,” so ran the text, “he also shall live; as truly as Osiris is not dead,
shall he not die; as truly as Osiris is not annihilated, shall he not be annihilated.”

These Osirian funeral rites, however, were entirely in the interests of the
dead, to insure them a rebirth to immortality. Was this grace ever granted to
a living person, so that even before death he might be certain of the future
benefits these powerful rites could assure? In the case of the Pharaoh this
was done. During the Sed festival a ritual death and rebirth was enacted for
the benefit of the royal personage himself. Only in later times and as a special
favor were others granted this grace. Generally speaking, the advantages of
ritual rebirth in Egyptian religion were conferred upon the dead and were confined
to the future life.

II

Notwithstanding the clear suggestions of postmortem regeneration to be found
in the Egyptian cult of Osiris, it is to a modification and further development
of this ancient religion that one must turn to find clear examples of the spiritual
rebirth of the individual during his lifetime. In the Hellenistic cult of Serapis
and Isis, such experiences may be isolated. This new cult was but an adaptation
of the venerable Egyptian religion to the spirit and needs of Hellenistic times.
Hence it assumed that individualistic, universalistic character so typical of
other contemporary religious movements. It welcomed to its membership non-Egyptians
as well as Egyptians. Osirian religion had been a pure product of the Nile Valley.
The new religion, itself a syncretism, did not know any geographical or racial
distinctions. Other contrasts, more or less superficial, might be drawn which
recorded in an external way the degree to which the old Egyptian religion was
modified to meet the social needs of the Alexandrian age. The ancient system
had centered in the god, Osiris; but in the reformed cult of Hellenistic times
he was replaced to a considerable extent by a new divinity, Serapis, and popular
interest was transferred to the more appealing personality of Isis. She dominated
the Hellenistic cult quite as Demeter held supreme place in the Eleusinian mysteries,
or the Magna Mater in those that emanated from Phrygia. In the ancient Osirian
religion, the public ritual with its strong appeal to the masses was important.
In the Hellenized worship of Isis, the significant ceremonials were those secret
rites that had such deep meaning for the individual. These were only some of
the ways in which the new cult showed adaptation to the very personal needs
of individual religionists in the Hellenized world.

The inception of this significant reform has been concealed under an overgrowth
of tradition and legend. These traditions, varying in detaill, were summarized
by two prominent writers of Roman times, Plutarch and Tacitus. The general purport
of their accounts was to the effect that Ptolemy Soter, the first of the Macedonian
rulers of Egypt, had a dream in which he saw a huge statue of Pluto, located
at Sinope in Pontus. The king was commanded to bring this colossus to the growing
city of Alexandria and install it there as the center of a new religion. It
was a magnificent piece of craftsmanship, composed of gems and precious metals,
the work of Bryaxis, the companion of Scopas. By stealth and diplomacy Ptolemy
accomplished his purpose, and the colossus was installed with due pomp as the
god Serapis in a magnificent temple, or Serapeum, especially built to receive
it. According to both renditions of the story, Ptolemy had recourse to the assistance
of Manetho, an Egyptian priest, and Timotheus, “one of the race of the Eumolpidae,
who was invited from Eleusis to preside over the mysteries.” By the collaboration
of an Egyptian priest and an Eleusinian priest–so legend affirmed–Ptolemy
was enabled to institute his new religion.

Whatever of historical truth or of fable may have been repeated by Plutarch
and Tacitus, two points stand out clearly from the traditional background. In
the first place the projection of the new cult of Serapis was but a part of
Ptolemy’s plan to bring about a fusion of races in his Egyptian kingdom; and
in the second place the cult itself was adapted to this purpose, for it was
a combination of Egyptian and Hellenistic elements.

The political purpose of this new cult was ill-disguised. It was intended
to serve as one more cultural bond uniting the inhabitants of Ptolemy’s Egypt.
We cannot be sure that Alexander cherished the scheme of uniting his great world
empire by the bonds of religion as well as by commerce and culture. It is perfectly
patent, however, that Ptolemy purposed this very thing and gave his official
patronage to the cult of Serapis for this very reason. From the first the new
cult was intended to furnish a common religious meeting ground for the Greek
inhabitants of Egypt and the natives also.

For this purpose nothing was better adapted than a modification of Osirian
rites. Through centuries of history the masses of Egyptian people had shown
a decided preference for the worship of the god Osiris, so that other Egyptian
divinities were forced to include him in their cults. Recognizing their own
Osiris in the new god Serapis, the natives of Egypt, as a rule, were ready to
give him their adherence. The Greeks, on the other hand, had long since identified
Osiris with their own Dionysus and Isis with Demeter. In the rites of the Egyptian
divinities and the myths that clustered about them, they found strange correspondences
with their own myths and rituals. Osiris had been torn to pieces even as their
own Dionysus had been. Isis had mourned for him as Aphrodite had bewailed Adonis
or the Great Mother had lamented her Attis, and she had sought for his body
even as the sorrowing Mother of Eleusis had sought for her lost daughter. In
the finding and restoration of Osiris, the Egyptians rejoiced even as the Eleusinian
devotees shared the joy of their goddess in the restoration of Persephone. The
resemblances between the Graeco-Oriental mysteries and the Egyptian cult of
Osiris were many and salient, and the Egyptian religion easily lent itself to
the process of Hellenization.

Consequently, the new religion of Ptolemy became, roughly, a compound of
the old religion of the Pharaohs and the mysteries of Greece and Asia Minor.
Whether or not Manetho the Egyptian priest and Timothetis the Eumolpid collaborated
in the institution of this Hellenized Egyptian religion, the cult of Serapis
and Isis was such a composite as would have been produced by such men. On a
foundation Osirian and Egyptian was erected the shrine of Serapis which in externals,
at least, was decidedly Hellenistic in character.

III

In order to estimate the extent to which the reformed Osirian religion was
influential in the Graeco-Roman world, it is necessary to trace the missionary
successes of this cult during the Hellenistic and early imperial periods. It
was disseminated from the Serapeum at Alexandria in somewhat the manner that
the Jewish religion spread from the temple at Jerusalem. In Egypt itself the
new religion of the Ptolemies was readily adopted. The Egyptians had long been
familiar with the process of changing the divine government of heaven in a manner
paralleling the political changes on earth. So they acceded to the Serapis of
Alexandria as they had previously accepted the Amon of Thebes. Moreover, they
recognized the essential identity of their beloved Osiris with the new god Serapis.
In the second century A.D. there were no less thin forty-two Serapeums in the
Nile Valley. Egypt, then, was an effective missionary base for the Isiacists.

Because of the political prestige of the Lagides and the extensive commerce
of Alexandria, the Hellenized religion of Isis quickly spread over the eastern
Mediterranean world. King Nicocreon, of Cyprus, consulted the oracle of the
Serapeum and, receiving a satisfactory response, ne introduced the cult into
his island. Ptolemy I (323-285 B.C.) was responsible for the establishment of
the cult in Athens where a Serapeum was built beneath the Acropolis. About the
same time a Serapiast brotherhood was instituted it the Piraeus. Ptolemy Euergetes
(246-221 B.C.) sent a statue of Isis to Seleucus Callinicus who built a sanctuary
for it in Syrian Antioch. The next two hundred years saw lsiac brotherhoods
established in Asian centers, such as Smyrna, Cyzicus, and Ephesus, and on the
islands of Rhodes, Delos, and Tenedos, as well as in Thessaly and Thrace. A
full century before Jesus of Nazareth was born, Egyptian sailors and merchants
had propagated the cult of Isis all along the coasts of Syria, Asia Minor, Greece,
and among the Aegean Islands. When Paul begin his missionary work in these regions,
he everywhere met with Isiac establishments that were already centuries old.
Here the worship of the Alexandrian deities became so firmly rooted that even
the political vicissitudes that befell the Ptolemies did not seriously affect
it. Even to the last days of paganism, Isis remained a power in the eastern
Mediterranean world.

In the Latin west even more than in the Greek east the Alexandrian cult proved
itself genuinely popular. It was probably through the Campanian ports, Puteoli
in particular, that the cult of Isis made its initial appearance in Italy. A
city ordinance of Puteoli dated 105 B.C. made mention of a Serapeum in that
city. It was not a new foundation, and the Isiac brotherhood itself must have
been in existence there at least a half century earlier. The religion of Isis,
then, antedated the arrival of Paul in Puteoli by at least two centuries. Perhaps
at about the same time the first Isium of Pompeii was built. It is a safe conjecture
that Isis worship came to Italy early in the second century B.C., during those
stirring years of religious excitement following the arrival of the Magna Mater
from Pessinus, and at the time when the dignified Roman Senate was trying to
hold in check the excesses of the Dionysus cult.

About the middle of the first century B.C. the immigrant religion was subjected
to fierce persecution in Italy. Five times during the years between 59 and 48
the Senate ordered the destruction of Isiac shrines. Yet so popular the worship
of the Egyptian goddess that in at least one instance the consul himself had
to undertake the work of destruction which he was unable to find a workman to
do. Even the Christian advocate Tertullian had to admit that “the altars which
the Senate had thrown down were restored by popular violence.” Again, after
the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, there was a natural reaction against
things Egyptian, and as a consequence Isis banished beyond the pomerium. In
A.D. 19, because of a real or pretended scandal involving a priest of Isis,
the devotees of the goddess experienced a bloody persecution and were banished
wholesale to Sardinia along with the Jews. Yet Isiaism, like Christianity later,
seemed to thrive on persecution, and at no time during this period did the devotion
of the masses to the Egyptian goddess perceptibly weaken. On the contrary, there
is every indication that the history of the Isiac cult in Italy was the story
of a really popular religion that triumphed even in the face of official opposition.

Contemporary Latin literature is rich in allusions that show the great influence
of the Alexandrian religion in Italy at the beginning of the Christian era.
Conspicuous among the devotees of Isis were the mistresses of men of letters
in the Augustan age. Tibullus, sick in Corcyra and despairing of his life, wrote
to his fiancee Delia to seek the aid of the Egyptian goddess to whom she was
so devoted. Propertius, on the other hand, complained bitterly of his Cynthia’s
loyalty to Isis rather than to himself and did not hesitate to heap up words
of reproach against the goddess. “Once more those dismal rites have returned
to plague us,” he grumbled. “Now for ten nights Cynthia has sacrificed. A curse
upon the rites which the daughters of Inachus sent from the warm Nile to the
matrons of Italy!” Ovid, despairing of his lady’s life, addressed his prayer
directly to the goddess whom Corinna particularly adored: “O Isis …. by thy
sistrums I pray thee …. turn hither thy countenance, and in one spare us both!
For thou wilt give life to my lady and she to me.” Seneca’s nephew, Lucan, paid
his respects to the worship of the Alexandrian divinities in his Pharsalia.
So did Martial and Juvenal in their Satires, and though they had scant respect
for the Egyptian religion, at least they witnessed to its immense popularity
and the great loyalty of its adherents. Juvenal in particular described a touching
scene that illustrates the devotion of a typical worshiper to the goddess Isis.

“In winter she will go down to the river of a morning, break the ice, and
plunge three times into the Tiber, dipping her trembling head in its whirling
waters, and crawling out thence naked and shivering, she will creep with bleeding
knees right across the field of Tarquin the Proud. If the white Io shall so
order, she will journey to the confines of Egypt, and fetch water from hot Meroe
with which to sprinkle the Temple of Isis which stands hard by the ancient sheepfold.
For she believes that the command was given by the voice of the goddess herself.”

Citations such as these from first-century Latin literature bespeak a really
great popularity for the Isis cult in the Roman world of that day.

With its place at Rome secure, the cult was in a strategic position to carry
on its propaganda on an imperial scale. Lucan, who in his Pharsalia spoke of
Isis and Osiris as enthroned in Roman temples, referred to them also as the
deities of all the world. Plutarch, with his elaborate attempt to reinterpret
the Isis-Osiris religion in philosophical terminology, is perhaps the most weighty
witness to this wider influence of the Alexandrian cult; for Plutarch tried
to do for the Egyptian gospel what Philo earlier attempted for Judaism, and
what only a little later the author of the Fourth Gospel essayed to do for Christianity.
He aimed to reinterpret the Egyptian religion in universal terms that should
appeal to the philosophically minded.

Of the actual influence of the cult in Roman provincial areas even in the
first century, there is plenty of evidence. Toutain is familiar with over a
hundred different documents of various dates that attest the existence of Isiac
communities scattered all over the Roman provinces. The extent of this Egyptian
Diaspora in the mid-first century measures the advantage enjoyed by Isiaism
over early Christianity in the matter of missionary propaganda. When Paul first
conceived his stupendous scheme of world wide evangelization, he was chronologically
far behind his Isiac competitors, and wherever he went in that gentile world
he found that they had preceded him. In both the western and the eastern halves
of the Mediterranean world, the Isis cult was widely known and genuinely popular
before the Apostle to the Gentiles began his work.

IV

Among other factors that accounted for the great popularity of the Isis religion
in the Graeco-Roman world was the impressiveness of its rites. In the Hellenistic
development of Isiaism, as in the ancient religion of the Pharaohs, both public
and private ceremonials were included in the cult. Notwithstanding their public
character, the former rites were of a kind to foster a feeling of intimacy on
the part of the devotee with his goddess. The public ritual included a regular
daily liturgy with matins at the beginning of the day and a benediction in the
afternoon. During the latter part of the forenoon and the early part of the
afternoon, Isiac shrines were left open, and the images of the goddess were
exposed to the silent adoration of the worshipers. Prayer, meditation, and contemplative
devotion were thus encouraged. The daily liturgy was brought to a solemn but
joyful close with the chanting of hymns, the dismissal of the people, and the
closing of the shrine. By services such as these, regular and somewhat elaborate,
the faith of the people in the Alexandrian divinities was renewed from day to
day.

In addition to the daily liturgy, there were public festivals at different
seasons that were conducted with an elaboration of pageantry dear alike to the
south European and to the Oriental. Most solemn, most stirring, and quite the
most popular of these was the November festival celebrating the passion and
resurrection of Osiris. It was a festival of great antiquity, directly elaborated
from the dramatic performances at Abydos and elsewhere, in which, from the Twelfth
Dynasty onward, the sufferings of Osiris had been reproduced. As in the passion
play at Eleusis, the worshipers themselves participated actively in the sacred
drama. When Isis mourned and sought for her husband, her devotees beat their
breasts and shared her sorrow with an effusive display of grief. Again when
the god was found, the worshipers joined in an equally extravagant demonstration
of gladness. By this alternation of extreme sorrow and joy the devotees of Isis
realized a sympathetic and highly emotional communion with their deity. In this
respect the psychological influence of the November passion play of Osiris was
strikingly like that of the spring festival of Adonis, or of the September drama
at Eleusis.

In addition to these public ceremonies, there were rites which were private
in character and fostered a very individualistic type of religious experience.
Membership in the Isiac community, as in the other mystery cults, was contingent
upon participation in certain prescribed initiatory rites, the details of which
were kept strictly secret. These private ceremonies were a direct development
from the esoteric rites of ancient Egypt, where the priests of Osiris reserved
certain interpretations and ceremonies, and imparted them only on promise of
secrecy. This condition obtained in the worship of Isis at Abydos and elsewhere.
In the Hellenization of the cult, such private rites were readily adapted to
purposes of initiation and were developed along lines similar to the rites of
Eleusis. Tradition implied that Timotheus the Eumolpid was in part responsible
for this development.

The most valuable, and almost the only source of information concerning these
important rites is Lucius Apuleius’ account of his own initiation at Cenchraea.
By following his narrative through it is possible to trace, step by step, the
procedure in Isiac initiations. One is impressed at the outset by the genuine
eagerness of Lucius for the grace of admission to the order of Isis, an eagerness
tempered by a distrust of his own ability to attain it. For–to quote Lucius’s
own words–“I had learned by diligent inquiry that her obeisance was hard, the
chastity of the priests difficult to keep, and the whole life of them . . .
. to be watched and guarded very carefully.” While awaiting the desired privilege,
Lucius lived the life of a recluse in the cloisters of the temple, attending
reverently on the regular services of worship. Such a novitiate as this was
apparently expected of those who desired initiation, and rooms were provided
for them in connection with the temple where they lived with the priests in
a sort of monastic community. The chief priest, in a kindly manner, restrained
the urgency of Lucius “as parents commonly bridle the desires of their children.”
He assured him that initiation was no light matter but that “the taking of such
orders was like a voluntary death and a difficult recovery to health.” The pontiff
urged him to await a sign from the goddess herself, and at the same time gave
specific directions as to the preparatory abstinences to be observed. Lucius
had not long to wait. In a vision of the night time the expected sign was vouchsafed
to him and Mithra, the principal priest of Isis, was assigned to him as a mystagogue.

On the following morning the formal initiation rites began. The great priest
produced “out of the secret place of the temple certain books written with unknown
characters …. whereby they were wholly strange and impossible to be read by
profane people,” and thence he interpreted to Lucius “such things as were necessary
to the use and preparation of his order.” At the propitious time after the impartation
of this instruction, Lucius, attended by a company of initiates, was brought
to the place of baptism, and there, “demanding pardon of the gods,” the priest
baptized him and “purified his body according to custom.” Christian writers
knew of this Isiac baptism and made plain that a powerful efficacy was credited
to it–indeed the selfsame effect of purification from sin and spiritual regeneration
that Christians attributed to their baptismal rite. In the thought of the Isiac
community, the waters of baptism were identified with the life-giving waters
of the sacred Nile and these in turn with the waters of the primordial ocean
whence all things, even the gods, had been created. Osiris himself had been
reborn, after his passion, from the waters of the Nile. So for the initiate
these sacred waters had a life-giving power, and Isiac baptism was in effect
regarded as a regenerative rite that meant new life to the one who experienced
it.

At the afternoon benediction on the day of baptism, the chief priest imparted
to Lucius certain secret instructions and commanded him to observe various abstinences
for a period of ten days. The ascetic prescriptions included an abstinence from
meat, wine-drinking, and other pleasures of the flesh. Strict chastity was a
particular point of insistence. It was this moral requirement particularly that
made Lucius hesitate to apply for admission into the Isiac order. It was this
requirement of purity also that made the erotic Latin poets rail so loudly against
the Egyptian goddess. Plutarch, too, stressed in particular this feature of
Isiac discipline. “By means of a perpetually sober life,” he affirmed, “by abstinence
from many kinds of food and from sexual indulgence, Isis checks intemperance
and love of pleasure, accustoming people to endure her service not enervated
by luxury, but hardy and vigorous.” After a ten-day period of ascetic isolation
of this kind, Lucius was in an impressionable state, sensitive to the full suggestiveness
of the further initiatory rites.

On the tenth day at sunset the initiation was held. After the priest had
presented gifts to Lucius according to ancient custom, the laity and the uninitiated
were commanded to depart. Then the great priest took the candidate by the hand
and led him to “the most secret and most sacred place of the temple” where the
initiation ceremony itself took place. Here the curtain falls and Lucius refrains
from telling us exactly what happened. He conscientiously kept his vow of secrecy.
“You would perhaps demand, studious reader, what was said and done there: truly
I would tell you if it were lawful for me to tell; you would know if it were
convenient for you to hear; but both your ears and my tongue should incur the
like pain of rash curiosity.” The curtain of secrecy, however, is but a thinly
drawn veil intended to protect Apuleius and his readers from the charge of sacrilege;
for he immediately proceeds to give a general impression of the ceremonies without
describing a single rite or repeating a single formula. From this general characterization
it is possible to get a fairly definite conception of what took place in the
holy of holies of the Isiac sanctuary.

“Understand that I approached the bounds of death, I trod the threshold of
Proserpine, and after that I was ravished through all the elements, I returned
to my proper place; about midnight I saw the sun brightly shine; I saw likewise
the gods celestial and the gods infernal, before whom I presented myself and
worshiped them.”

These, figurative words of Lucius, taken in conjunction with the plainer
words of the priest who characterized Isiac initiations as “a voluntary death
and a difficult recovery of health,” make it practically certain that a ritual
death and resurrection were the central features of the initiation ceremony.
Since this was an Isiac initiation, the ritual could have been none other than
an adaptation of the ancient Osirian rites that in Egypt from antiquity had
been practiced on the living Pharaoh, on the mummies of the dead, and on the
statues of the god. In remotest antiquity these rites, so the devotees believed,
had been efficacious in causing the regeneration of Osiris after his passion;
and now they were practiced on the initiate himself that he might realize communion
with Osiris in this life and share in his immortality. In the secret of the
sanctuary the initiate participated in a repetition of the ancient drama, himself
the central figure, the new Osiris whom Isis, by her power, exalted to an immortal
regeneration.

Back of Lucius’ figurative language, it is possible to distinguish the main
events in the Osirian drama. At the beginning of the ceremony, the initiate
approached the bounds of death. In other words, he assumed the role of the dead
Osiris over whom the vivifying funeral rites were performed. Osiris, restored
to life, had not returned to his earthly kingdom, but had gone to preside over
the realm of the dead. So the initiate, having been treated as the dead Osiris
and restored to life, “trod the threshold of Proserpine.” As Osiris he made
an infernal journey and visited the realms of the departed. The admixture of
solar imagery in Licius’ description should not confuse us. According to contemporary
cosmology, the sun each night visited the subterranean regions. In the rite
of initiation, therefore, the votary as a new Osiris made both the infernal
and the celestial journey like the sun. At midnight he saw the sun brightly
shine in the realm of the dead, and likewise he mounted up into the heavens
and saw the gods celestial as well as the gods infernal. In doing all this he
was but playing the part of the dying and rising god Osiris in the salvation
drama of the Isis cult.

It is superfluous to inquire just what tableaus were presented to the eyes
of the initiate at this point or how the scenic effects were managed. A first-century
imagination, habituated to simple stage effects, and stimulated by fasting,
meditation, and special suggestion, was capable of conjuring up very vivid pictures
on a comparatively simple basis. This was particularly true in the case of a
pious beIiever like Lucius, with an abundance of faith and a strong predilection
for mystical experience. For him the rite of initiation, however managed, had
as its central significance a real death to the old mortal life, and a resurrection
to a new eternal life, dramatically represented as an Osirian journey to the
regions infernal and celestial.

How complete the regeneration effected by initiation was believed to be is
suggested by the rites that took place on the following morning. At the conclusion
of the usual morning office, Lucius was brought in “sanctified with twelve stoles.”
His vestments were of fine linen embroidered with flowers, and from his shoulders
there hung down to the ground a precious cope, the “Olympian stole,” covered
with symbolical figures. In his hand a lighted torch was placed and on his head
a garland of flowers “with white palm branches sprouting out on every side like
rays.” Thus clothed, Lucius took his stand on a pedestal in the middle of the
temple before the statue of the goddess herself, and when the curtains were
drawn aside and he was exposed to public view, the faithful contemplated him
with the admiration and devotion due a god. This was essentially a rite of deification,
and Lucius with his Olympian stole, his lighted torch, and his rayed crown was
viewed as personification of the sun-god. Even without his self-identification,
one could easily have guessed it from the garments and emblems he wore, the
rayed crown especially. He was now treated as Osiris-Ra, and his apotheosis
was a fitting climax to his experiences of the night before when “at midnight
he saw the sun brightly shine and saw likewise the gods celestial and the gods
infernal.” Lucius was now more than man. Hitherto he had been treated as a human
being. Now he was regarded as divine.

His initiation was brought to a close with a sumptuous banquet “celebrating
the nativity of his holy order.” The feast was a joyous one like a birthday
banquet and, coming at the conclusion of the initiation ceremonies, it served
to accentuate the fact that Isiac initiation was believed to effect the complete
regeneration of the candidate. If we may take the initiation of Lucius as a
representative lsiac initiation of the early empire–and we are certainly justified
in so doing–it is clear that from start to finish the initiate was made to
feel he was passing through an experience that would transform his very being
and make a new man of him. At the outset the priest characterized the rites
as a voluntary death and a recovery of health. He assured Lucius specifically
that Isis had the power to make men new-born individuals (quodam modo renatos),
and thus to set their feet in the way of salvation. The rites themselves were
cast in the form of a ritual death and a resurrection culminating in a celestial
journey. And finally a birthday banquet marked the conclusion of the ceremonial.
Figuratively, the Isiac initiation was represented as a process of regeneration
and initiates were referred to as men who had been reborn (renati). This was
the regular cult formula. Actually, the rites were believed to accomplish the
transformation and divinization of human nature.

V

What were the main characteristics of the new life induced by this ritual
regeneration? In the first place, it was a life of present security lived under
the protection of a kindly mother goddess. To her devotees Isis assured long
life and happiness here on earth. The goddess said to Lucius in a vision:

“You shall live blessed in this world, you shall live glorious by my guide
and protection. And if I perceive that you are obedient to my commandment and
addicted to my religion, meriting by your constant chastity my divine grace,
know that I alone may prolong your days above the time that the fates have appointed
and ordained.”

In order to know what assurance this sense of divine protection gave to the
devotees of Isis, one needs only to read the pages of Apuleius or turn to Aristides’
fervid encomium of Serapis. Lucius addressed his goddess as the “holy and perpetual
preserver of the human race, always munificent in cherishing mortals.” Similarly,
Aelius Aristides, writing after the experience of a shipwreck from which he
was saved, as he believed, through the intervention of Serapis, spoke of his
god as the one who “purifies the soul with wisdom, and preserves the body by
giving it health,” the one who “is adored by kings and 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.” The strong fervor of such devout religionists as these leaves
no doubt that the experience of Isiac initiation gave real assurance to the
devotees of the goddess as they faced the inevitable uncertainties of life.

For the future, initiation meant the certain hope of a happy immortality.
Of Serapis the grateful Aristides declared that he was “the savior and leader
of souls, leading them to the light and receiving them again . . . . . We can
never escape his sway, but he will save us and even after death we shall be
the objects of his providence.” Apuleius, secure under the present protection
of Isis, regarded the future also with equanimity. In his account of the vision
which gave to Lucius promise of a happy life here on earth, the author represented
Isis as saying to her devotee concerning the future, “When after your allotted
space of life you descend to Hades, there you shall see me in that subterranean
firmament shining (as you see me now) in the darkness of Ackeron, and reigning
in the deep profundity of Styx, and you shall worship me as one who has been
favorable to you.”

Again and again on tombs of Isiac initiates this hope of a blessed immortality
was recorded. The expression eupsuchei, “be of good courage,” was so often iterated
as to become almost a motto of the Isiac religion. In figurative language, the
craving for immortality was represented as a thirst for the refreshment of a
drink of cold water–a natural metaphor for people living in a hot climate like
that of Egypt. “May Osiris give you fresh water,” was a typical prayer which
members of the Isis cult inscribed on the tombs of their loved ones. It is hardly
necessary to multiply illustrations; for the most indubitable item of Isiac
faith was this assurance of immortality. Reborn through the rite of initiation,
the mystic believed himself born again to a superhuman life, the immortal life
of the gods. Among the various assurances which the Alexandrian religion gave
to seekers for salvation in the Roman world, this promise of immortality was
most welcome.