The Serapeum of Alexandria
In 389, Theodosius made the pagan holidays into workdays, at least those that had not been appropriated by the Church. In 391, he outlawed blood sacrifice and decreed "no one is to go to the sanctuaries, walk through the temples, or raise his eyes to statues created by the labor of man". Not a law that the Church was to follow itself! In Egypt, Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria, saw the opportunity to strike out and destroy the remaining temples. First, he obtained legal authority, over an abandoned temple, to turn it into a church. He stripped the pagan statues and art works and displayed them in his new church in a mocking fashion. He was good in the role of agent provocateur; the pagan population rose up in riots, as he may have planned, and he laid low for awhile. The pagan defenders now withdrew into the Serapeum, the most imposing of the city's remaining sanctuaries and proceeded to fortify it.
The Serapeum was by all accounts a building of startling size and striking beauty. Ptolemy lll had had it built in honor of Isis and Serapis, a syncretistic Greek/Egyptian deity who combined aspects of Osiris, Zeus, Pluto and the Egyptian 'Apis' bull. He was associated with both the dead and healing. The temple itself opened onto a courtyard surrounded by a complex of buildings which included housing for the priests, priestesses, and people who came for a retreat. It also housed part of the public collections of the city's fabled Library. People came for something called incubation: they would sleep in the temple with the intent of receiving a dream that would be healing or direct them towards a treatment or resolution of a problem. Sacred banquets were also given in the precincts. The statue of the god seemed even larger than it was because it had outstretched arms with hands that touched the walls of the temple. It was constructed of wood, metals and stones of contrasting colors. The body was painted dark blue, the clothing and sandals were covered with silver and golden grain and fruit spread from his headgear (calathus).15 According to Clement of Alexandria, the sculptor had used fragments of sapphire, hematite, emerald and topaz. There were seats by the statue where people could sit and meditate on the god, a kind and gentle god who set souls free according to, the pagan emperor, Julian the Transgressor. Here Isis became associated with the Greek goddess Demeter.
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