ISIS WORSHIP TRANSFERED TO THE
VIRGIN MARY
The
astronomical idea of Isis has exercised the minds of many from early times.
Anubis, the dog-headed god, is the guide and attendant of Isis during her
search for the remains of her husband. Abbe Dupuis calls her "the
Virgin of the constellations, the Isis who opened the year." Taylor the
Platonist spiritualizes the conception; saying, "This is not the moon,
but one of the divinities that revolve in the lower spheres, as an attendant
on the moon." But the moon, not less than the sun, traverses the
constellations. She was represented, as Murillo has pictured the Madonna,
standing on the crescent, with an arch of stars above her head. The two
similar forms may, by a curious coincidence, be seen in the Vatican Museum;
their juxtaposition there is suggestive.
Isis has been commonly esteemed
to be the Virgo of the zodiac. On some of the earliest plates of
the signs, Virgo has the appearance of Isis. The Arabian philosopher,
Abulmazar, is explicit on this. "One sees," he says, "in
the first Decan of the sign of the Virgin, according to the most ancient
traditions of the Persians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, of Hermes and of
Esculapius, a chaste, pure, immaculate virgin, of a beautiful figure, and
an agreeable face, having an air of modesty, holding in her hand two cars
of corn, seated on a throne, nourishing and suckling a young child."
That her worship was early
transferred to the Virgin Mary we know from the best testimony. The
Collyridions and Marians were in force before the Council of Nice in A.D.
325. They distinctly deified her. The Melchites at the Council of Nice
contended that the one true Trinity was the Father, the Virgin Mother
Mary, and the Son Jesus. As Isis was carried to heaven by her Son Horus,
Ariadne by Bacchus, and Alemenae by Hercules, so, in the early Christian
Church, the Virgin Mary was declared to have been carried to heaven by her
glorified Son. This is, at least, a striking testimony of that craving for
a female side of deity in the human breast.
The
grand procession of Isis was in the month Athyr, when her ark, containing,
according to King's "Gnosticism," the emblems of the masculine
and feminine principles, was borne by the priests, and Collyris
cakes were eaten in her honour. These cakes were marked with the sign of
the cross. Costard speaks of other cakes, on the seventh of the month
Tybi, in remembrance of her return from Phoenicia. A dog led the
procession. Ezekiel saw in the secret court of the temple her worship. The
Athyr festival commemorated the weeping of Isis for her lost lord. Plato
refers to the melodies on the occasion as being very ancient. The Miserere
in Rome has been said to be similar in its melancholy cadence, and to be
derived from it. Weeping veiled virgins followed the ark. The Nornas,
or veiled virgins, wept also for the loss of our Saxon forefathers' god,
the ill-fated but good Baldur.
