Serapis or Sarapis is a Greco-Egyptian deity. The cult of Serapis was introduced during the 3rd century BC by order of Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter of the Ptolemaic Kingdom as a means of unifying the Greeks and Egyptians in his kingdom.
Although Ptolemy I may have created the official cult of Serapis and endorsed it as the patron of the Ptolemaic dynasty and Alexandria, Serapis was a syncretic deity derived from the worship of the Egyptian gods Osiris and Apis and also gained attributes from other deities, such as chthonic powers linked to the Greek Hades and Demeter, and benevolence linked to Dionysus.
There is evidence that the cult of Serapis existed before the Ptolemies came to power in Alexandria: a temple of Serapis in Egypt is mentioned in 323 BC by both Plutarch (Life of Alexander, 76) and Arrian (Anabasis, VII, 26, 2).
1. Bibliography
Serapis, also spelled Sarapis, the Greco-Egyptian deity of the Sun, was first found in Memphis, where his cult was celebrated in association with that of the sacred Egyptian bull Apis (who was called Osorapis when he died). Originally, he was a god of the underworld, but Ptolemy I Soter (reigned between 305 and 284 BC) reintroduced a new deity with many Hellenic aspects and centered the worship of the deity in Alexandria.
The Serapeum in Alexandria was the largest and best known of the temples of God. The cult statue depicted Serapis as a figure with a robe and beard, with his right hand resting on Cerberus (the three-headed dog that guards the gate of the underworld), while his left hand held a raised scepter. Gradually, Serapis became venerated not only as a sun god (“Zeus Serapis”) but also as a lord of healing and fertility.
2. Origins
“Sarapis” was the most common form in ancient Greece until Roman times, when “Serapis” became common.
3. History
The first mention of a Sarapis occurs in the disputed scene of Alexander’s death (323 BC). Sarapis has a temple in Babylon, and is of such importance that only he is named as consulted on behalf of the dying king.
According to Plutarch, Ptolemy stole the cult statue from Sinope in Asia Minor, after being instructed in a dream by the “unknown god” to take the statue to Alexandria, where the statue was declared Sarapis by two religious experts.
The ancient family from which the hierophant of the Eleusinian Mysteries had been chosen since before recorded history, and the other was the learned Egyptian priest Manetho, who gave weight to the judgment for both the Egyptians and the Greeks.
Serapis was among the international deities whose cult was received and spread throughout the Roman Empire, and Anubis was sometimes identified with Cerberus.
4. Cult
The Cult of Serapis was promoted by Ptolemy I Soter (Ptolemaic dynasty) as a means of fostering harmony between his Greek and Egyptian subjects. The god combined Osiris and the Apis Bull (the sacred bull of Memphis) with aspects of the Greek gods Zeus (the king of the gods), Dionysus (also known as Bacchus, the god of wine), Helios (the personification of the Sun).
Hades (the god of the underworld) and Asclepius (god of medicine). Linguistically, his name is the result of the fusion of Osiris and Apis, and there is evidence that a cult of Osarapis existed before the Ptolemaic period, but the Ptolemaic version was a much more Greek conception.
Serapis personified divine majesty and represented the sun, fertility, healing, and the afterlife. His consort was Isis, the wife of Osiris and the most popular goddess during the Ptolemaic period.
Serapis was depicted as a man with an elaborate Greek hairstyle wearing a Greek-style tunic and a full beard. He often carries a corn sheaf or a sheaf of wheat on his head and is less frequently depicted as a crawler in recognition of his connection with the underworld and fertility.
The cult of Serapis was that of the ancient Egyptian religion that survived longest into the Greek and Roman periods, even if it was an altered religion that was heavily influenced by Greek religion.
5. Names
The name Serapis is a combination of Osiris (Egyptian Osiris, Usir) and Apis (Egyptian Apis, Hapi). He is actually the deceased Apis, a fertility god from Memphis in the form of a bull, who had become immortal as Serapis, hence the connection with the Egyptian god of the underworld, Osiris.
Osiris-Apis was already being worshipped as a god of the underworld in Memphis since the New Kingdom (2nd half of the 2nd millennium BC). So he was not a new deity, but his cult was. Because the Greeks were not interested in traditional Egyptian animal gods, Serapis was depicted in human form like the Greek gods.
His traditional Egyptian name was preserved and translated by the Greeks as Serapis. The god’s jurisdiction was also considerably extended. He was not only still worshipped as a god of fertility and the underworld, but also as a god of medicine, patron of sailors, and even as the new chief god.
The most popular Egyptian god at the time was Osiris, and Osiris-Apis was being worshipped in the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis, making him particularly suitable as the god of the new Hellenic capital of Alexandria. However, Serapis was only successful among Greek immigrants concentrated in the Alexandria region, while the natives of the rest of Egypt were largely unaware of his cult. Although the deity is definitely Egyptian, his cult itself was purely Greco-Hellenistic.
Serapis – Cereerus
Serapis, as a kind of reincarnation of the fertility god Apis, is also a god of fertility. This is clearly demonstrated by the measure of corn that the deity carries on his head. In addition, Osiris is also a god of grain, although he is primarily the god of the underworld.
It is not surprising that Serapis, the immortal god who rose from the deceased Apis, is also the god of the underworld. Like the Greek god Hades of the underworld, he is accompanied by a three-headed dog. This dog bears a strong resemblance to the Greek Cerberus, but usually has a snake coiled around its body and bears the heads of a dog, a wolf, and a lion.
As a revived god, the immortal Serapis is also a healing god with a reputation at least equal to that of the Greek Asclepius. His healing powers are probably symbolized by the snake. As a god of the sea, he also replaced the Greek Poseidon. His followers even considered him the new chief god instead of Zeus.
The universal Serapis was therefore the right god for the Gnostic movement in Egypt. This philosophical-religious movement in the early centuries AD was a combination of Eastern religious ideas from Syria, Persia, and Judaism, and Greek philosophical elements from Plato and Neoplatonism, Pythagoras and Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Stoicism.
Serapis and Osiris: Appealing to the Egyptians
The man responsible for the creation of Serapis was Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great’s most capable generals and the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty.
It is said that the name of this god was a fusion of the Egyptian deity Osiris and the sacred bull Apis. Before the arrival of the Ptolemies, the cults of these two deities had already merged, and a combined god, Osirapis, was worshipped by the Egyptians.
It can be said that Osiris represented the essence of the ancient Egyptian religion of the time. Thus, using these deities as the core of Serapis, the Egyptian subjects of Ptolemaic Egypt could easily identify familiar elements in the new deity.
