(Essay 7) From Heaven to Hell, Virgin Mother to Witch: The Evolution of the Great Goddess of Egypt by Krista Rodin

[Author’s Note: This series based on a chapter in Goddesses in Culture, History and Myth seeks to demonstrate how many of the ideas behind the Ancient Egyptian goddesses and their images, though changing over time and culture, remain relevant today.]

The Goddesses’ Troubled Integration into a Christian World

Throughout religious history there has been a tension between solitary asceticism as the means to spirituality and a more ecstatic sensual approach. Both facets are within Isis. She is the virgin mother as well as the singer/healer. This duality and her myriad forms was one of the reasons she was so popular over such a great span of time and space, but it also helped to bring about her downfall. 

The early Christian missionaries had a number of local, regional and state supported religions to contend with, not the least of which was Mithraism, a favorite of the Roman Army, and the Graeco-Roman pantheons, in which Isis played a crucial role. Since Caesar Augustus’ death in 31 CE, Roman emperors were officially worshipped as deities, as the earlier pharaohs of Egypt had been. This caused tension with the Jewish community as well as the emerging Christian one. When Caligula tried to have his statue placed inside the Temple in 39 CE, he and his general, Petronius, who was commissioned to fulfill the emperor’s wishes, were met with considerable opposition.²⁴ The Jews were finally punished in 70 CE for not abiding by Roman rule with the destruction of the Second Temple and their subsequent banishment from Jerusalem. The Christians were punished by a series of persecution edicts, the harshest of which was Diocletian’s 4^th Edict in 303 CE. Galerius, a leading general and a follower of Isis, was probably the actual initiator of the edict rather than Diocletian. Galerius went on to become Emperor and on his deathbed, he reversed the order thereby stopping the persecutions, which had had the opposite effect of that which had been originally intended.²⁵ Rather than curbing the Christian religion, the tortures had shown the faith of the people and converted many more. Isis was set up, however, as an oppositional force to the emerging Christian faith. Shortly after Constantine took on the imperial robes and recognized Christianity as an officially recognized religion in the 313 CE Edict of Milan, he ordered a council to establish the tenets of the new faith as there were, like previously in the Egyptian religion, many versions and interpretations without clear structure and organizing principles. Over the next two centuries the Church would find itself internally at odds, with local bishops and the emperor vying for ecclesiastical control. In 386 CE, Christianity became the official religion of the Empire and the destruction of pagan temples, including those of Isis, began in earnest. The political factions within the Empire and Church, however, did not cease and by 431 CE Theodosius II and his sister Pulcheria, an ardent follower of the Virgin Mary, called for a new council in Ephesus to establish the nature of Christ, and therefore, the nature of his mother.²⁶ Cyril of Alexandria was one of the leading Bishops in the early Church and he was called to Ephesus to participate in the discussions. Isis and her tremendous influence on the people in his homeland were clearly on his mind as he traveled to the Council; he was also tightly connected with Empress Pulcheria. Witt states: 

The rivalry between the two religions can be detected when we turn to the account of an act of exorcism performed by Cyril, who was Archbishop of Alexandria early in the fifth century. As one of the leading Christians in Egypt Cyril must have been familiar with the Gnostic view, there strongly held, that Isis and the Virgin Mary shared the same characteristic, a view he could not have ignored when he was energetically championing the official adoption of the dogma of Panagia Theotokos – the All-Holy Virgin Mother of God – at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Cyril was certainly not blind to the hold that Isis still maintained over Egypt.²⁷ 

Isis, with all her innumerable shapes, forms and names, needed now to merge with Mary, Mother of God. Mary shares many of the same epithets and traits as Isis, Lady of Heaven, of the Stars, Protectress of Sailors and the waters, etc.; she saves those who pray to her, is part of the resurrection process, is the Virgin Mother, and loving wife. What she doesn’t share, her ecstatic Hathorian joy of music, dance, and pleasure, is denounced²⁸ as is her magic. 

Isis’ magic was used for healing; she was the goddess of healing and her priests were often physicians. Her medicine came from the bounty of the earth and seas. Her followers used toxins to counteract other poisons; they knew which plants and animals to use for what purposes and how to prepare them for a specific person’s unique illness. Her magic, based on the sounds and vibrations of the earth’s creatures, was a frightful mystery to the uninitiated. Her magic, like that of the Greek goddess Hecate, was dangerous if applied incorrectly. Both goddesses were at home in the heavens, Hecate is occasionally still considered the Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul,²⁹ but more importantly, after the rise of Christianity, they functioned in the Underworld.³⁰ Hecate’s name is reminiscent of Hekat, the Egyptian Frog Goddess of Childbirth who helped Nephthys and Isis in the earlier mentioned story of the royal births. Resurrection, childbirth, and the Underworld are part of a perennial cycle, and Hecate is often portrayed as a trinity, representing the phases of the moon or with various animal heads. 

     Hecate, Archeological Museum, Naples. Photo, K. Rodin 

 A black hound is usually associated with her. Isis’ black canine compatriot, Anubis, led souls down to the Underworld after death to be judged. Those who didn’t have proper burial rites performed for Hecate’s underworld were doomed to wander the earth as ghostly spirits. Those who didn’t pass Ma’at’s 42 Negative Confessions had their hearts eaten and their lives obliterated by Amit, the serpent/dog monster in Osiris’ realm. The goddess was only willing to help those who helped themselves, but she was always originally a kind, compassionate deity. The Ebers papyrus from about the 16^th century BCE, which is thought to be the first medical treatise, states: “O, Isis, thou great Mage, heal me, release me from all things that are bad and evil and that belong to Seth, from the demonic fatal sicknesses—thou has saved and freed thy son Horus.” ³¹  

Isis was worshipped as a healer from the earliest Pyramid Texts, along with her sister Nephthys and later Thoth. Thoth was the god of scribes who wrote down the deceased’s name once the person’s heart had been successfully weighed on the scales of justice so that it would not be lost in time or space. Thoth was responsible for words and writing, and as such, also for sounds. In attempting to synthesize Egyptian theology for the Ptolemaic era, Manetho identified Thoth with Hermes “through his omniscience and wisdom.”³² The combination of Isis’ magic based on the sounds and structures of the universe and, therefore, creation coupled with Thoth’s healing powers of language were strong motivators in increasing her popularity throughout the Roman Empire. People have always needed physicians, and she was the goddess who oversaw their craft. Her magic came through the healer’s selective use of the world’s flora, fauna and sounds. 

²⁴ Flavius Josephus, trans. Wm. Whiston, The Complete Works of Josephus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1981), 389-392. 

²⁵ “Galerius.” www.roman-empire.net/decline/galerius.html). 

²⁶ Krista Rodin, “Empress Influence on the Establishment and Rise in Popularity of the Virgin Mary and Kuan Yin,” Journal of Literature and Art Studies 6, no. 11 (November 2016), 1398. http://www.davidpublisher.com/Public/uploads/Contribute/5809bfd51c9c3.pdf 

²⁷ Witt, Isis, 185. 

²⁸ Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women, Bk. 1. http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf04/anf04-06.htm 

²⁹ S.L. Johnston, Hekate Soteira: a Study of Hekate’s Roles in Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature. American Classical Studies 21 (Atlanta, GA: Scholar’s Press, 1990), viii + 192. http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1991/02.06.11.html 

“Hecate” American Folkloric Witchcraft http://afwcraft.blogspot.com/2013/03/hecate.html 

³⁰ Patricia A. Marquardt, “A Portrait of Hecate,” The American Journal of Philology 102, no. 3 (1981), 252. 

³¹ Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 187. 

³² Ibid., 187.

(To be continued)
Meet Mago Contributor, Krista Rodin.