Serapis was the patron god of the Greco-Egyptian city of Alexandria. He combined the life-giving qualities of Jupiter-Ammon with the benefic aspects of Hades or Pluto in the underworld (wealth, good harvests, order). He was also called Userhapi or Osiris-Apis and fully represented Osiris. He was sometimes depicted with ram horns to associate him with the ecstatic attributes of Dionysius. In short, Serapis was the world of matter bestowing people with all its best gifts. He was credited with many healing miracles like Asclepius, and visiting people in dreams to announce a miracle that he would soon create.
In the centuries following Alexander’s conquest into the Roman era, Serapis and Osiris were both conflated with countless other gods and planets. One prominent cult revolved around merging Dionysius with Serapis and another did the same with Osiris. During the 3,000 years before this, Osiris was identified with a multitude of planets in Egyptian lore. Simply put, Osiris could embody all gods and all planets and stars when he chose to in the same way that Zeus did. Zeus in his Empyrean form of Sky-father was not confined to the sphere of the planets. Zeus is most frequently depicted as the planet Jupiter because it is the Greater Benefic, or the Sun.
The image of Serapis was often a mummified man with the head of a bull, a common depiction of Osiris, or a bearded king on a throne with the Cerberus hound sitting at his feet, like Hades. In his Greek likeness of Hades, he had a basket of grain and/or a grain measure on his head, symbolizing the harvest, land of the dead, and judgement/balance. Serapis was widely identified with the Agathodaimon (Good Spirit) and Aion, frequently invoked in the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) and Gnostic literature.
The Egyptian Apis or Hapis was a bull or multiple bulls, which was used in predynastic Egypt and even by the prehistoric astronomers at Nabta Playa. The bull was chosen to represent the providing of milk and nourishment. Isis was depicted nourishing the cosmos with drops of milk. Hathor and Nuit were depicted as bulls, sometimes symbolizing the Moon or the entirety of space. Over their thousands of years of history Hathor and Nuit were identified as the same goddess and assigned a multitude of different functions.
The bull represents Taurus. It is the fixed earth triplicity that produces growth and the exaltation of the Moon.
History
Serapis became extremely popular in Rome during the reign of Hadrian. His temples were reestablished with his statue and Isis placed together. Isis is another goddess who has been depicted as multitudes of celestial bodies but she is most frequently the Moon. During this period she took on the form of the “Black Virgin” that survived into medieval Europe. Black is the color of fertile muddy soil for which Egypt was famous, and this is another indicator of Taurus as the exaltation of the Moon.
According to Plutarch, the Greek Pharoah Ptolemy Soter had powerful dreams of the god. He instructed him to bring his statue from Sinope, a city in Asia Minor, to Alexandria. The Eumolpidae family pronounced in public that the spirit within the statue was Serapis, together with the respected Egyptian priest Manetho.
The Eumolpidae family had been the guardians of the Eleusinian Mysteries since prehistory, the secret cult that celebrated rites of Demeter and Persephone. They were also the officially recognized heirs of the rites of Dionysus. The hierophant of the cult had always been a member of this family; they were arguably more venerated than any royal lineage.
The Roman Emperor Vespasian performed miraculous healings credited to Serapis. Two Egyptian commoners, one blind and one with a crippled hand, claimed to have had a dream of Serapis and publicly asked Vespasian to heal them, per the god’s instructions. Although Vespasian was skeptical and reluctant, he rubbed his spit on the blind man’s eyes and he regained his sight. He placed his foot on the other man’s hand and spectators saw his hand fully healed.
This event occurred in July of the year 70 AD, according to the historian Tacitus. The dates are significant because the Sun would have been in Cancer or Leo, which corresponds to the writings of Hephaestion of Thebes. He writes that images of Serapis were fashioned under the signs of Taurus, Leo and Sagittarius, which are all fixed signs.
It’s important to consider that Egypt had a unique agricultural cycle that allowed them highly fertile farmland in an otherwise barren desert. Their fertile soil depended on the flooding of the Nile. Theirs was based on three seasons of four months.
- Flood Season (Akhet): From June to September, marked by the Nile’s flooding, depositing fertile silt for farming.
- Growth Season (Peret): From October to February, characterized by planting and cultivation.
- Harvest Season (Shemu): From March to May, the time for crop harvesting and storage.
Leo is the sole domicile ruler of the Sun and Sagittarius is the rulership of Jupiter. Both share triplicity rulership in each sign. Salutius writes, “and Jupiter, you yourself rule Leo with the Mother of the Gods.”
The latter two signs and planets are rulers of the fire triplicity and would be interchangeable for an image of Serapis. A trine aspect between the Sun and Jupiter in either sign would be mutually received by triplicity and satisfy the requirements that Hephaestion establishes at the start. Leo signifies the light of summer at its most radiant, and plant life at its fullest. Sagittarius is the benefic joyful aspects of the underworld. With Leo rising, Sagittarius is in the fifth house of Good Fortune. The Moon in Taurus in the midheaven signifies the gifts of the underworld springing up from the earth.
Sagittarius can be considered the chthonic temple of the Sun. He has fully matured here. He enters Sagittarius well after the autumn equinox and his light has decreased to its lowest proportions just before the winter solstice. In Capricorn the Sun will die and his path in the sky becomes erratic for three days. He will also be reborn here in the womb of the earth, and his light increases again.
In the context of Egypt’s agricultural cycle, the Sun in Leo would signify the Nile flooding in summer ushering in a new cycle of life, Sagittarius the growth season in autumn and winter, and Taurus the harvest season of spring.
Sources:
King, Charles William. Gnostics and Their Remains. 1887
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris
Tacitus, Hist. IV.81