'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.