The Greco Roman Cult of Isis

Isis was a mother-goddess personifying the power of life in nature and the unquenchable human hope for a final triumph in the conflict of life with death. She also embodied the beneficent influences of culture and religion; for she had taught men the arts and government and the mysteries. She dominated the Hellenistic cult quite as Demeter held supreme place in the Eleusinian mysteries, or the Magna Mater in those that emanated from Phrygia. In the Hellenized worship of Isis, the significant ceremonials were those secret rites that had deep meaning for the individual. Reborn through the rite of initiation, the mystic believed himself born again to a superhuman life, the immortal life of the gods…