Sarapis

Sarapis or Sérapis (in Greek old Σάραπις / Sárapis ) is a Egyptian god created by the Lagides, mixture of Osiris and Apis. In fact, the name of this god appeared on a misunderstanding: the bull Api (Apis) was a terrestrial demonstration of the Oser god (Osiris). One thus proceeded to a worship theApi one. But in Greek, “O” is an article, and the Greek priests thus transformed Dare-Api into “O Serapis”, “the” Serapis.

One of the important aspects of the practiced religion with Alexandria under Lagides is the worship of Sarapis. If Alexandre, while becoming wire of Amon, succeeded in sitting its authority within the Egyptian clergy, the Lagides them also wished to associate their name with a divinity. But to be accepted by all, this god was to agree as much to the Greeks that to the Egyptians. With the whole beginning of the 3rd century the figure of Sarapis appeared. One is unaware of which of the first both Ptolémées is in the beginning but according to a legend brought back by Plutarque and Tacite, it is Ptolémée I {{er}} which instituted it. He would have dreamed of a god who would have asked him to transport his statue to Alexandria. With its alarm clock, he told his dream and a man recognized according to the description of Ptolémée a statue which he had seen in the Greek colony of Sinope (in the south of the Black Sea). The Pharaon wanted to seize the statue but the inhabitants refused and, after three years of waiting, it decided to steal it. Another version of the legend says that the statue would have moved all alone towards the boat which was to take it along to Alexandria. On his arrival in Alexandria, this god was assimilated by the entourage of the Pharaon to the Hadès of the Greek because of the dog Cerbère represented him also on the statue.

It was already said, the worship of Sarapis existed already before Ptolémées in his Egyptian form of Osiris Apis (in Greek Osorapis ) with the Serapeum of Memphis. Ptolémée Ier made of it a mixed figure, which gathered the Egyptian symbolic system (as a demonstration of Apis dead thus of Osiris Apis) but especially the functions of the Greek gods: it receives Zeus its aspect solar, Hadès binds it to beyond, Dionysos brings it closer to the agrarian fertility and Asclépios enables him to cure the patients. That will become its principal function besides. It takes in more one appearance “in Zeus”, i.e. the long buckled hair and beard it. It is often represented with a kalathos on the head (a kind of goblet being used to measure corn, symbol of the world of dead) or trônant with the Cerberus with three heads of Hadès to its feet. Later, it was related with Isis and Harpocrate, thus creating a kind of triad alexandrine.

During the ptolémaïque time, its worship was really practiced only in Alexandria and in Memphis but at the time Roman it was spread in all the country. It was also very popular in Greece, Asia Mineure and even until Rome.

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