'n Analise en evaluering van die Isisgodsdiens te Rome
Abstract
The object of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive
sµrvey of the Isis Cult in Rome. I started with the
origin of Isis in Egypt . There she personified the throne
of the Pharaohs'. There she became "the mother of all things,
the lady of all the elements,, the beginning of all time". That
the cult made its way to Rome via Greece is significant. The
constant exchange between the Greek and Roman worlds had the
"complete Roman" as its result. I found that many Romans
participated in the cult from the second century B.C. until
the fourth century A.O., in spite of the fact that it had been
fiercely opposed by the government for many centuries. Isis
the goddess with the many names who presided over everything
that deals with human life, promised new things to the Romans
which no other religion before had been able to do. The main
attraction of her cult was purification and a new life after
death.
Romans suffered various abstinences to have part in the
rewards that Isis preferred. It is of vital importance to
take into account that the cult flourished at the time when
Christianity started its way in Rome. I concluded by stressing
the fact that the Isis cult in Rome had a definite influence
on certain rites of early Christianity. Isis worship influenced
conceptions of the Virgin Mary. The madonna in Italy was
really Isis renamed.
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