Isis and Osiris cult
The cult of Isis and Osiris , which originally came from Egypt, were among the mystery cults widespread in the Roman Empire during the imperial period and late antiquity . It probably developed in the late Hellenism from the ancient Egyptian cult of Isis and reached with the Roman legionaries as far as Germania and Britain . In Egyptian mythology , Isis was the wife of Osiris ; in the Greco-Roman cult she became the mistress of the underworld, conqueror of death and mother goddess. The cult was one of those pagan religious communities that survived Christianization the longest; the main temple of Isis in Philae was not closed until the 6th century on the orders of Emperor Justinian .
The Osiris myth
The Osiris myth emerges from pyramid texts and the Egyptian Book of the Dead : Originally god-king of Egypt, Osiris was killed and dismembered by his brother Seth . His sister and wife Isis, however, collected the pieces of the body that were scattered all over the country and put them back together. Awakened for a moment again, Osiris fathered a son, lying on his back on the "lion bier" with Isis in the form of a falcon hovering above him, and then descended forever into the underworld.
Isis gave birth to the son in the reed-rich swamps of Chemmis and named him Horus . As soon as Horus grew up, he avenged his father and defeated Seth. In this way Osiris became the lord of the underworld and Horus the lord of the upper world. The Egyptian cult of Osiris was originally a Beweinungskult how to him from the Sumerian Tammuzkult , the Phoenician Adonis cult and the Phrygian Cybele knows her.
Herodotus
Herodotus reports in the 5th century BC. About the religion of the Egyptians: “I want to tell you who you think is the greatest deity and who you celebrate the greatest festival. When they have skinned the bull and said a prayer ... cut off the thighs etc. (while the bull skin, filled with all sorts of offerings, is burned). As the victims burn, they all wail . When they have complained enough, they serve a meal from the remaining parts. "
Strangely enough, Herodotus does not reveal the name of this "greatest god" of the Egyptians, for whom the "greatest festival" is celebrated. Here, as is often the case in his report on Egypt, he understands the Isis and Osiris cults as a secret cult that is actually not allowed to be talked about. But it is absolutely clear that with the bull the god Osiris himself is sacrificed and lamented. From other sources one learns that in this case too the grief over the death of the god soon turns into joy over his resurrection. But what is meant by the death and resurrection of God remains a mystery.
Plutarch
The Greek philosopher Plutarch , who wrote a little book "About Isis and Osiris" and who in his capacity as high priest of Delphi can be considered to be reasonably competent, explains the sacred history of the cults of Isis and Osiris as a cosmogony . He regards Osiris as the unchangeable and Isis as the changeable. "The universe born from it - (and that is) Horus - is neither eternal nor immortal, but always reborn, he tries to ... always stay young and never perish". Shortly afterwards it becomes even clearer: “Because speaking with a general sentence, we are of the opinion that these deities (Isis and Osiris) are set over the entire good part ... by the one deity the principles (“ the germs ”,“ tas archas ") delivers, but the other receives and administers them" (ch. 64). It sounds like Osiris is the procreative male seed and Isis is the womb of the universe .
It is generally doubted that there was already a mystery cult of Isis and Osiris in Egypt, as described in the second century AD in Apuleius' famous “Metamorphoses” for the Greco-Roman world. A mystery cult of this kind is actually not detectable in Egypt for the time before the Ptolemies . The report of Herodotus shows, however, that he considered the cult of Isis and Osiris found in Egypt to be a mystery cult with all the usual secrecy regulations - analogous to the Greek Demeter and Dionysos cults. But the question may also have been posed incorrectly, because if it is correct that the ancient mystery initiation arose from puberty and tribal initiation , as is sometimes assumed, the essentially ancient Egyptian cult of Isis and Osiris could still lead to puberty and tribal initiation Include tribal initiation. This hypothesis seems to some researchers to explain the figure of Horus best. A distinction is made between a boyish, who is under the care of his mother, and an adult, ruling Horus. The “Horus boy” is often depicted with the boy's typical lock of hair, which falls from the back of the head to the right breast and is only cut off at initiation. He holds a finger to his mouth, which the Greeks interpreted as an indication of the initiate's duty of confidentiality. Modern historians explain it more like a banal finger sucking.
The lock of hair also played a role in Greece in archaic times, because Plutarch reports from Theseus: “Since it was still the custom at that time for boys to go to Delphoi when they converted into manhood and offer their hair to the god, Theseus also went to Delphoi ... ". Plutarch thinks that Theseus' lock of hair was right on the front of the head and not on the back of the head, but that could also be a mistake. In any case, cutting off the boy's lock of hair was a crucial rite of puberty and tribal initiation. In the figure of the “Horus boy” there could be an indication of an Egyptian puberty and tribal initiation.
The adult, victorious, ruling Horus, on the other hand, appears as the sun god embodied in the Pharaoh . The symbol of this Horus is the falcon, which with its outspread wings and its fiery eyes is an image of the sky with the sun and moon. Horus is simply the “Great God, Lord of Heaven”, and consequently Pharaoh is also considered to be the “Great God” or “Horus of the horizon, Lord of Heaven”. Basically, Horus probably represents the community, so that in the end every free man can be viewed as an incarnation of the sun god.
Apuleius
The pair of gods Isis and Osiris did not rule the Egyptian pantheon from the start. Their importance grew gradually through the assimilation of older gods, but it is always the same pair of gods that were worshiped with changing names in ancient times from place to place and from epoch to epoch. The incorporation of Egypt into the Hellenistic and soon afterwards into the Roman Empire was decisive for the leaping of the Isis and Osiris cults into the Greco-Roman world . The Egyptian cult was met with a deep respect from the Greeks, especially the Egyptians. Egypt was considered the source of all wisdom, yes, Herodotus traces all cultural achievements of the Greeks back to Egypt. Isis evidently owed her rise to an almost monotheistic deity to Hellenism . In the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Isis appears to young Lucius by stepping out of the huge disk of the full moon over the sea and saying: “Look at me, Lucius! Called by your prayers, I am there, the mother of nature, mistress of all elements, germ cell of the sexes, - spirit princess, goddess of the dead, heavenly mistress, epitome of gods and goddesses. The dome of the sky , the sea's healing breeze , the silence of hell obey my hint. I am one being, but in many forms, with changing customs and under various names, the whole world adores me. "
See also
literature
- Jan Assmann , Martin Bommas (Ed.): Egyptian Mysteries? , Fink, Munich 2002.
- Kathrin Kleibl: ISEION interior design and cult practice in the sanctuaries of Graeco-Egyptian gods in the Mediterranean area. Worms on the Rhine 2009.
- Reinhold Merkelbach: Isis regina - Zeus Serapis , BG Teubner, Stuttgart, Leipzig 1995.