Isis
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Isis in Egyptian Mythology
Originally, she was a goddess of royalty (her hieroglyph includes the word for "throne"). During the later period of Greek dominance, she was the patron goddess of sailors.
To the ancient Egyptians, the constellation Virgo represented Isis. Her star Spica was sometimes called "Lute Bearer" and associated with wheat or corn. At an early period, she absorbed the functions and persona of the goddess Sopdet.
Isis was married to her brother Osiris. Osiris was murdered by Seth but she reassembled his body (leading to her association with the underworld and the funerary cult), impregnated herself with his body and gave birth to their son Horus in swampy Khemnis. Together they brought Osiris back to life and to rule the land of the dead.
With her sister Nephthys, the two goddesses can be seen on the sides of Egyptian coffins in human form, with outstreched wings protecting the dead.
Isis is often symbolised by a cow, or a cow's head or horns (illustrating a connection with Hathor). In art, she was depicted with her son, Horus, with a crown and a vulture, and sometimes as a kite flying above Osiris' body. She also came to be identified as the scorpion goddess Serq or Selk.
Isis in Greco-Roman Times
The cult of Isis rose to prominence in the Hellenistic world beginning in the last centuries BC, until it was eventually banned by the Christians in the 6th century. Herodotus identified Isis with the Greek goddess of agriculture, Demeter. In Yoruba mythology, Isis became Yemaya.
Despite the Isis mystery cult's growing popularity, there is evidence to suggest that the Isis mysteries were not altogether welcomed by the ruling classes in Rome, where she was identified with the Roman goddess Ceres. Her rites were considered by the Emperor Augustus to be "pornographic" and capable of destroying the Roman moral fibre. It is not surprising, therefore, that part of Augustus' program for reconstruction after the fall of the Roman Republic was an attempt to infuse new life into the old gods of Rome.
Tacitus writes that after Julius Caesar's assassination, a temple in honour of Isis had been decreed; Augustus suspended this, and tried to turn Romans back to the Roman gods who were closely associated with the state. Eventually the Roman emperor Gaius abandoned the Augustan wariness towards Oriental cults, and it was in his reign that the Isiac festival was established in Rome. According to Josephus, Gaius himself donned female garb and took part in the mysteries he instituted, and Isis acquired in the Hellenistic age a "new rank as a leading goddess of the Mediterranean world."
Roman perspectives on cult were syncretic, seeing in a new deity merely local aspects of a familiar one. For many Romans, Egyptian Isis was an aspect of Phrygian Cybele, whose orgiastic rites were long naturalized at Rome. In the Golden Ass (1st century), Apuleius' goddess Isis is identified with the Phrygian Cybele:
- Behold, Lucius, I have arrived. Thy weeping and prayers have moved me to succour thee. I am she that is the natural mother of all things, the Mistress and Governess of all the Elements, the initial Progenitrix of all things, the Chief of powers divine, Queen of Heaven, the First of the Gods celestial, the light of the Goddesses. At my will, the planets of the air, the wholesome winds of the Seas, and the silences of hell are disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in various manners, in various customs and in many names, for the Phrygians call me the Mother of the Gods.
Among these names of Roman Isis, "Queen of Heaven" is outstanding for its long and continuous history.
Some scholars argue that aspects of Isis worship have influenced the practices of early Christianity in regards to the Virgin Mary's attributes and veneration.
There has recently been a revival of Isis worship among neopagans and feminists who are attracted by the matriarchal notions of goddess worship.
Modern worship
Ancient worship
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