Serapis… The mysterious god of Sinop in Egypt.

Some historians believe that the worship of Serapis originated on its own from the ancient Greeks of Egypt, and others see that it was Alexander who established this worship. 

The prevailing view is that Ptolemy I established this worship.

It's Plutarchus and Taktius that founded this worship, "Ptolemy I," and it's supported by the ancient sources of our belief in this worship, such as the poet Mandros, who died in 291-290, and Dumitrios Valeri, who was hosted by Ptolemy I for a period of time.

When Ptolemy I ruled Egypt and gained independence (306 B.C.), it was Ptolemy's foreign policy to establish a maritime empire that included the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea. 

For this purpose, there must be ample economic conditions in the country, and in order to achieve this, he must form the two constituent elements of the Egyptian society,

 after the conquests of the Alexander. Egyptians and Ancient The Greeks brought their religion with them, so their concern was to overcome religious aversion.

The pivot of the new religion should have been an Egyptian sect that could convince the Greeks to embrace it, for as much as the Greeks' faith was weakened and their doubts about the competence of their gods (after the Blues and later the leadership of Macedonia),

Egyptians held fast to their religious beliefs and were proud of them.

If we search all the Egyptian gods, we find no god who can meet these conditions more than Osiris, he used to occupy a high place among the Egyptians.

 On the other hand, we can convince the Greeks that he is the god Dionysius Zaggreus who was killed by the Titanus.

 That is why such a god was the best one to stand for worship between the beliefs of Egyptians and Greeks.

At the time, the Egyptians in Manf worshiped a god called Osirabis, and Ptolemy I's desire to bring Serapis into Egypt convinced the priests that Serapis was nothing more than an Osiribis.

Since then, Serapis was the Greek name of Osirapis, and his adoption of Ptolemy I was an Egyptian-Greek around him Official faith is held as follows: (in the name of "Serapis" and "Isis" and other gods.)

As Pleutarchus quotes Manthon about the mysterious Synod of God coming to Egypt, he says that Ptolemy I saw the God Serapis in his sleep, and he hoped that he would bring his statue to Egypt,

So that his worship with the statue would move to Egypt. 

Since Ptolemy I had not seen this God before, he called a man of his own He had traveled the world, stood up to the news, and told Ptolemy that he had seen the God in the city of Sinop, and accordingly,

Ptolemy brought him to Alexandria, where he had built a great temple over the ruins of an ancient temple of Isis and Serapis. 

Herius said, according to Joseph Spius, bringing the statue of Serapis to Egypt was 286 The God was Serapis, whose name was derived from the deities Osiris and the calf Abis, the god of fertility and healing, the senior leadership and the afterlife.

Construction of the Alexandria Serapis Temple:

When the King's capital moved to Alexandria, it was natural that a large temple was built in Alexandria, the capital of Alexandria, and a statue of him was erected in that temple.

The statue was originally built by Isis in Alexandria. 

Since it was clear that Ptolemy I did not build a synagogue for Serapis in Alexandria, he built the statue in the Temple of Isis, the foundation of which Alexander put.

It is likely that Philo Motor built its pillar instead of setting up a new temple for Serapis, because of Ptolemy's keenness It is known that Ptolemy I established the new worship and chose the statue of Serapis.

It was known that the Serapis were built in the place of the ancient temple of Isis.

It must have been long since the ancient temple of Isis, which was conceived by many as the origin of the First Ptolemy, the First Temple, 

When the Great Temple was set up by the Great Temple The First Moos has built the huge Serapium, the site of the Great Temple, and on its pillars, to house the worship of Serapis and Isis.

In this huge temple, we find the god Serapis equal to his throne in the form that the king saw in his vision. 

This is why the ancient example of Priakis created his image with the poetry and the beard of Ashthen with his head full of grain, and on the base of a statue of a statue dedicated to "Serapis" in Greek and Greek letters shows that the inscription dates back to the first half of the third century.

The Spread of the Serapis:

The god Serapis became the number one in Alexandria, and then he built many temples in the Egyptian country. He even had 42 temples in Egypt, but his main temples were in Alexandria and Manaf.

After the worship of the God Serapis was established in Alexandria by Ptolemy I, it was necessary that this new god show the Greek features of the ancient gods.

They described him as the God of healing, where the sick went to sleep in his temple, where the God would dictate to them in their sleep to heal every disease, and a Greek inscription within 300 history was discovered. 

There is a small Greek temple next to the road linking Serapium Menff and the Temple of Anubis, in which we read that Greece thanks God Serapis for his recovery from the disease he suffered.

Some ancient Greek papyrus documents that have arrived at us in this regard, and are now stored in the original library in Vienna, are a petition from a Greek woman named Artemisia to the god Serapis, to bring down his vengeance on a man who gave birth to a daughter who died and sold her dead body but did not live in his religion. Step in a nose.

The worship of Serapis was initially restricted to private communities, but it became official, as was the case in Athens, Dimitris, Lindos, Delos, and others. 

There was a strong propaganda of the God Sirabies in Egypt, and his worship spread rapidly in the Ionian world and in Athens.

At the turn of the first century B.C., the worship of Serapis and Isis was considered an international religion. Their worship spread so widely that the worship of Isis had reached Babylon, while the worship of Serapis had reached India.

The gods Zeus, Harris, and Schlebos were considered to be the nature of Serapis, as it was a characteristic of the ancient Egyptian religion that the gods of the modern state and beyond, when one of the gods was elevated, he dominated the characteristics of other gods.

The God Serapis fused to the concepts of the Egyptian and Greek religions, mainly in Alexandria. Ptolemy I began his culture and built his first tomb to worship him.

 He was called serapium. He continued to be revered during the Roman era and temples were spread in the Roman Empire.

Sometimes the god Serapis was integrated into other gods of Egypt and Greece. This integration is like Serapis-Zeus, Serapis-Helio, Serapis-Amon.

End:

The fame of Isis in the Roman era overshadowed the popularity of the Divine, Serapis. 

This was the beginning of the end of the worship of this god, as Christianity was later at the hands of St. Mark Morkos. 

The end of the Machine began with the end of the period of worship of God, the one God.

 The age of worship of God fell from paganism The waves of persecution against their pagan adversaries and their temples culminated in the reign of Emperor Theodosius I (379-395 A.D.), 

Who waged a fierce campaign against paganism and all its temples throughout the empire.

 At one stage of this campaign, Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria, received permission from the Emperor to convert the Temple of Dionysus Church This provoked the feelings of pagans and Christians,

And the pagans found no place more or more suitable than the site of serapium, which was like a fortress or a fortress, because of its size and elevation on a mound of land.

Bishop Theophilus sent to Emperor Theodosius the demolition order of the serapium, and it came in 391 AD, fulfilling all the hopes of Bishop Theophilus.

The Emperor ordered the destruction of the temples in Alexandria, and Theophilus with a large crowd of his followers to the square of the Serapium Temple,

And the Imperial ordered them to flee Theophilus went up to the temple and beat the statue of God the first blow, followed by the other Christians who destroyed the temple, as much as they could destroy, rob and rob.

 Theophilus carried out the order, transferred the building to St. John the Baptist, which was demolished in 600 AD, and Patriarch Isaac rebuilt it (681-684) in the 10th century.

The Islamic religion then came to complete what the Christian religion had begun: to eliminate the age of the multiplicity of gods and consolidate the worship of God alone.

References.

Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt by: 2001 Family Library Selim Hassan.

Book: The lexicon of ancient Egyptian civilization by George Posner and others. Family Library Safety Secretary 2001,

Book: Ancient Egyptian religion by author: Adolf Ehrman translated: Dr. Abdel Moneim Abu Bakr & Dr. Mohammed Anwar Shokri, Family Library, 1997,

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