Serapis

When Alexander the Great invaded Egypt in 332 BC, he attempted to bridge the geographic and cultural gap between the Greeks and the Egyptians, and thus he visited Amon's temple in the Western Desert in order to show respect for the Egyptian major deity, and perhaps more importantly, to gain the priests' support. At any rate, and regardless of the success or failure of this attempt in making the Egyptians accept their new invaders, the invasion initiated a new era that is unique in human history, the "Hellenistic Era". The era was characterized by the rule of the dynasties of the major leaders in Alexander's army over the various occupied territories. Ptolemaic dynasty (after Ptolemy I) ruled Egypt for about 300 years, Seleucid dynasty (after Seleucus) ruled the Eastern territories, and Antigonid dynasty (after Antigonus) ruled Greece. Due to its focus on science and knowledge that was exemplified in Alexandria Library and School , the Ptolemaic dynasty was particularly famous in history.

Nevertheless, it is not my goal in this short article to discuss the great achievements of the Alexandria School in astronomy, geometry, mathematics, and science. My goal is to discuss a particular invention that the Ptolemaic dynasty came up with in the beginning of their long rule, and that became a famous icon of Hellenistic paganism. Particularly, Ptolemy I introduced a new deity (Serapis) in an effort to mix the Egyptian and Greek deities. Egyptians were very proud of their own deities who often had anthromorphic characteristics (i.e. they mixed animal and human characteristics). Greeks, on the other hand, were not used to these kind of deities that were portrayed as animals. So the idea was to introduce this god, Serapis, who was a combination of Apis (the "bull" deity of Memphis) and Osiris (the Egyptian god of the afterlife, usually depicted as a man). Serapis was depicted with a Greek outlook that was very similar to that of Zeus, but was also depicted as a bull in relationship to Apis, its origin.

Indeed, Serapis was a very successful attempt. It gained a lot of popularity among Egyptians with its main temple in Alexandria (the Serapium) turning into a focal point of the Hellenistic civilization. Was it popular in all Egypt? Did the Egyptians give up their own deities? No... and that's the key point of the Hellenistic era and its successor, the Roman era. Serapis is but one example of the exchange of deities across the territories. Osiris and Isis became widely worshiped and indeed very popular in various parts of the Greco-Roman world. They were worshipped in Rome! Egyptians, on the other hand, imported many deities from the East and the West alike! Basically, the idea was to accept the plurality of deities and free exchange of them across the Mediterranean. Of course, this is not to say that the invaders were not trying to impose their own deities upon the defeated but they did not have a problem in, besides exporting their deities, importing the deities of the defeated, or combining them with their own deities, as what happened with Serapis.

Classical paganism was very tolerant when it came to religion... But in fact, this was not an exceptional episode in human history. Actually, human beings lived for a million of years before the emergence of Monotheistic religions without religious wars and with a very high level of religious tolerance. I am not saying that humans were not fighting then... Of course, they were fighting on food and shelter, but I can safely claim that they were not fighting over gods and the road to heaven. Yet, the emergence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in chronological order changed the human lot! For the first time, these religions, that by the way appeared very very very recently in human history, claimed that there is only ONE god and more importantly, that they know him (her for feminist readers?), and hence they rejected all the deities of the pagan world. Jews became an isolated closed group of Chosen people who viewed all the other people as astray. Christianity and Islam were supposedly more open, however, they assumed that they "know" while the others do not know, and they used the carrot and the stick in making the other know!

When Christianity emerged in the Roman world, the people thought that Christians wanted to add Jesus to the list of deities that they already had, and they did not have any problem with that! However, Christians insisted on rejecting all these deities and having ONLY Jesus; something that was unacceptable to the mentality of the people at the time. Christians suffered persecution and intolerance perhaps as a result and finally managed to win by having the Roman emperor Constantine converting to Christianity when he was dying. Then Christians burned all the pagan temples, and ended this period of darkness in human history!

Islam, later on, did pretty much the same, but it did not wait to be persecuted. It started right away with a series of holy wars that converted half of the Roman world to Islam (the half that became known as the Arab/Islamic world starting from that point onwards). What remains striking to me in all this evolution of religions is how human beings evolved from religious tolerance and plurality of deities during most of their history to religious intolerance and monotheism with the rise of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

I am writing this article, while I am observing insane religious clashes in my home country, Egypt, between Christians (the descendants of those who did not convert to Islam upon the Islamic conquest... they themselves were the descendants of those who converted to Christianity from paganism some hundred years before the Islamic conquest) and Muslims (the descendants of those who converted twice to Christianity and then to Islam plus those who immigrated to Egypt)... Such clashes make me think and impose the question: Why is it so hard to invent a Serapis nowadays?