CHRISTIAN ROOTS IN THE ALEXANDRIAN CULT OF SERAPIS
The basis of Egyptian salvation beliefs was
the divine nature that Egyptians attributed to their king, who was
looked upon as the human son of Ra, the cosmic god. This special
relationship between god and the king was manifested in the three
special events in the ruler's life—his holy birth, his anointing at
coronation, and his resurrection after death. It was an essence of
Egyptian belief that, while the spiritual element left the body at
death, it would return at some point in the future if the body could
be kept safe and protected, which is why Egyptians devoted such care
to mummification and secure tombs. Osiris was regarded as an ancient
king, slain by his brother Seth, who dismembered his body. However,
his wife/sister Isis was able to collect his remains and, using a
magic ritual, assemble his body again and restore him to life, not
on earth but in the underworld, where he became the god and judge of
the dead.
Following the
suppression of the Amarna monotheistic religious revolution—of
Akhenaten and Tutankhamun in the mid 14th century BC—new theology
developed within the cult of Osiris. Initially, the promise of
eternal life was confined to kings and nobles who could afford the
expensive burial rite. After the death of Tutankhamun, however, a
long process of change in the Osiris theology began, which resulted
in the emergence of the cult of Serapis, whose followers could
obtain the right to eternal life without the need for mummification
if they confessed in the deity and went through an initiation
ritual.
It was Ptolemy I Soter
(304-284 BC), who introduced Serapis. The Apis bull was sacred at
Memphis, where the deceased Apis was known as Osiris-Apis, or
"Oserapis," from which he derived the name of his new deity,
"Serapis." Ptolemy built a temple for Serapis in Alexandria, where
he placed a statue for the god: a man with curly hair, benign
expression, and a long beard, in the same style used later for the
representations of Christ in Coptic churches. Other than his temple
at Alexandria, Serapis had another centre in Memphis, where, on the
necropolis of Sakkara, the Serapeum became one of the most famous
sites in the country.
Isis became the
companion of Serapis, who also inherited many of the attributes of
Osiris, including mastery over the underworld. The mystic rites of
Isis, to which women as well as men were admitted after an
initiation ceremony, was based mainly on the explicit promise of
immortality that they offered to adherents. The Apis bull was
believed to enjoy eternal life in the sense that he was reborn as
soon as he died. When they died, Apis bulls were buried in the
subterranean galleries of the Serapeum, which was discovered by
Mariette, the French archaeologist, in the middle of last century.
Found there were 24 granite and basalt Apis sarcophagi the heaviest
of which weighed almost 70 tons. The Serapeum was served by
voluntary monks and included a sanatorium where the sick came in the
hope of receiving miraculous cures.
The cult of Serapis was
to have sweeping success throughout Greece and Asia Minor,
especially in Rome, where it became the most popular religion. There
was a Serapis temple in Rome as early as 105 BC. Initiation into the
Serapis cult included the rite of baptism, and Sir Alan Gardiner,
the British Egyptologist, argued in the Journal of Egyptian
Archaeology in 1950 that Egyptian baptism should be seen as
analogous to Christian baptism, of which he commented: "In both
cases a symbolic cleansing by means of water serves as initiation
into a properly legitimated religious life." The cults of Serapis
and Isis did not merely survive the emergence of Christianity, but
in the 2nd century AD actually increased in popularity. Serapis and
Christ existed side-by-side and were frequently seen as
interchangeable. Some early Christians made no distinction between
Christ and Serapis and frequently worshipped both, while paintings
of Isis with her son Horus became identified by early Christians as
portraits of Mary with her son Jesus. The rite of baptism, part of
the initiation ceremony of the Serapis cult, was also adopted by the
Church as part of its initiation ceremony.
In AD 134, after a visit
to Alexandria, the Emperor Hadrian wrote a letter to his elderly
brother-in-law, Servianus, in which he commented: "So you praise
Egypt, my very dear Servianus! I know the land from top to bottom .
. . In it the worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those who
call themselves Bishops of Christ pay their vows to Serapis . . .
Whenever the patriarch himself comes to Egypt he is made to worship
Serapis by some and Christ by others."
Ahmed Osman