Decline of ancient Egyptian religion

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The decline of ancient Egyptian religion is largely attributed to the spread of

early centre of Christianity, especially in Alexandria where numerous influential Christian writers of antiquity such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria
lived much of their lives, and native Egyptian religion may have put up little resistance to the permeation of Christianity into the province.

Background

Egyptian religion during the Pharaonic era had its roots in prehistory. For a period of nearly three millennia, Egypt largely assimilated any conquerors or invaders from outside of the country who entered. Rulers who came from outside, such as the Hyksos, did not have a significant impact either genetically or culturally, and state support of Egyptian religion rendered it essentially stable throughout the country's ancient history. Specific towns and areas of Egypt usually placed varying emphasis on different gods, and most temples were dedicated to a specific god. The religion played a critical role in the life of every Egyptian.

History

Late Period

Nectanebo I, the founder of the 30th Dynasty

The establishment of the

Darius I respected Egyptian culture and religion and made no attempts to suppress it. Though Herodotus describes the Persian rule of Egypt as tyrannical and oppressive, and this is partly supported by the conscription of Egyptians into the Persian army and some slavery by the Persian upper classes, religious practices specifically did not suffer. Egyptian admiral Wedjahor-Resne, serving under Cambyses, records in his autobiography that Cambyses respected tradition and observance of religious customs in Egypt. When Cambyses placed a garrison of troops nearby the Temple of Neith at Sais
, Wedjahor-Resne convinced the king to move them, as their presence may have been viewed as sacrilegious by the gods.

The

Philae. His grandson, Nectanebo II (who succeeded him after leading a military coup against the designated successor Teos), improved on this legacy and further established the dynasty as a time during which Egyptian culture thrived. The latter Nectanebo was thoroughly involved with religion and was quite enthusiastic about the cults of the gods, and art under his reign left a distinctive mark on the art of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.[3] Nectanebo, though perhaps one of the more competent Egyptian kings of the Late Period, was ultimately unable to undo the centuries-long decline of the civilisation. Egypt would be conquered again by the Persians under Artaxerxes III in 343 BC, then by Alexander the Great nine years later in 332 BC. Although the deposition of Nectanebo II in 343 BC represents the end of Egyptian autonomy until the Republic of Egypt
in AD 1953, over two millennia later, the end of native hegemony over Egypt can in no way be considered the end of ancient Egyptian culture in the country.

Syncretism with Graeco-Roman religion

Distinctively Roman statue of Isis holding a sistrum and a situla, though they were added in a 17th-century reconstruction.[4]

Egyptian religion initially came into contact with

Hellenisation) of native Egyptian gods so that they were more palatable to converts.[9] The form that Isis took among Greeks and Romans combined her Egyptian traits with Graeco-Roman ideas.[10]

Christianity enters Egypt

The largest and oldest Christian church in Egypt, the

Constantinopole
as an influential Christian city.

Diocletianic Persecution

The Emperor

Era of Martyrs dating system later created by the Church of Alexandria, but many Egyptian Christians survived the persecution because they were instead sent to work in quarries and mines, as penal labour
. Overall, however, the persecutions of Christianity were not successful anywhere in the Empire in ceasing its growth. Traditional religion was already beginning to suffer, even more so in Egypt, where Alexandria was an established and bustling centre for Christianity.

Decline of paganism in Egypt

Native Egyptian religion had at least a somewhat substantial effect on Graeco-Roman polytheism; in Egypt itself however, native religion likely felt little other effects from the new pagan rulers,

Nerva-Antonine dynasty
that Egyptian religion began to fragment and localise in the wake of the loss of centralisation as in Pharaonic and Ptolemaic Egypt.

Where the

demotic inscription, dating to AD 452. The temple was closed in AD 553 by Byzantine emperor Justinian I,[20] who ruled from 527 to 565. As official temples fell into disrepair, and religious structures across Egypt declined, the religion gradually faded away.[21]

Though imperial edicts fostered a negative atmosphere towards the pagans, they did not ultimately have a large effect on the disappearance of native religion by themselves.[22] Provincial governors often found that enforcing "anti-pagan" edicts such as those of Theodosius I was incisive, especially in unstable regions, and especially so in Egypt.[23] Though undoubtedly effective to check the civil authority of the cults, local village and town based practices seem to have been mostly unaffected by these edicts themselves.[22] Rather, the erosion of native religion, and eventual destruction altogether, can be attributed to the priests, bishops, and monks who rampaged through the countryside, intent on "eradicating demons".[23] A fiat of AD 423 prescribed penalties to Christians who disturbed the homes (including the shrines) of pagans who were "living quietly" and not breaking the law.[22]

Instead, it is more appropriate to trace the decline of native religion to the state of its infrastructure.[22] Where Augustus and other emperors of the first and early second centuries AD built in Egypt, and their benevolence is attested to at temples throughout the country, the Crisis of the Third Century exhibits much less imperial activity in the region and religion. Temples during this era entered "a state of progressive ruin", falling into disrepair.

The end of any vital existence for most village temples stripped away the literate and respected leadership class the priesthood had long provided and no doubt eliminated to a large degree the ritual occasions that lent the village a sense of itself as a community.

— Roger S. Bagnall, in Frankfurter 1998, p. 28

This degeneration of pagan temples for the final time (as opposed to previously, when religious infrastructure would still be repaired or replaced by the pharaonic, Ptolemaic, or early Roman rulers) represents the main cause for the fragmentation of native Egyptian religion in its later forms. Long since missing the central authority given by a pharaoh or even an emperor as seen with Augustus and other first-century emperors who conserved religious infrastructure in the country, Egyptian religion became more and more localised. Religious leaders gradually lost their authority, a probable factor in the conversions to Christianity contemporaneously and later on.

Still, at the end of the 5th century, the Neo-Platonist philosopher Heraescus, possibly the uncle and father-in-law of Horapollo,[24] was buried according to pagan rites.[25][26]

Legacy

One of the final bastions of Egyptian religion, the

liturgical language by the 16th century. Coptic would give later Egyptologists a crucial insight into the phonology of the Egyptian language, partly because it is not an abjad and thus records vowels, unlike hieroglyphics and hieratic
.

Perhaps the most influential and recognisable legacies of Egyptian religion are the monuments erected in honour of it throughout Egyptian history. Temples, statues, the world-famous pyramids, the Great Sphinx of Giza, and other creations were heavily influenced by religion. In turn, the distinct style of ancient Egyptian architecture has reached the modern day through styles like Egyptian Revival architecture, and the integration and adaptation of religious motifs from Egypt into Western art after Napoleon's campaign in Egypt.[27]

In late antiquity, however, the effects of Egyptian religion are clear on other religions. The Greeks and Romans both regarded Egypt as exotic and mystic,[28] and this fascination with the country and its religion led somewhat to its diffusion around the Mediterranean.[29] Deities like Isis and Bes made their way across the Mediterranean and the Near East, and the recherché view of Egypt sparked some Greek and Roman esoteric belief systems, Hermeticism being a notable tradition which arose from the reticent magical wisdom of Thoth.

Interest in Egyptian religion has led to attempted renewings of the religion. The contemporary revival of ancient Egyptian religion is known as Kemetism. It arose along with other neopagan religious movements in the 1970s.[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ Allen, James; Hill, Marsha (October 2004). "Egypt in the Late Period (ca. 712–332 B.C.) - Heilbronn Timeline of Art History - The Metropolitan Museum of Art". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 21 December 2017. During the Late Period, the re-emergence of a centralized royal tradition that interacted with the relatively decentralized network inherited from the Third Intermediate Period created a rich artistic atmosphere.
  2. ^ Mark, Joshua J. (12 October 2016). "Late Period of Ancient Egypt - World History Encyclopedia". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  3. ISBN 0-8014-8630-0
    .
  4. ^ Tiradritti 2005, p. 210
  5. ^ Orlin 2010, p. 211
  6. ^ Donalson 2003, pp. 138–139, 159–162
  7. ^ Bricault, Laurent, "Études isiaques: perspectives", in Bricault 2000, p. 206
  8. ^ Bricault 2001, pp. 174–179
  9. ^ Bommas 2012, pp. 431–432
  10. ^ Sfameni Gasparro 2007, pp. 71–72
  11. ISBN 978-977-424-757-6
    .
  12. ^ Pearson, Birger A. "Earliest Christianity in Egypt" (PDF). austingrad.edu. Austin Graduate School of Theology. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 September 2017. Retrieved 22 December 2017. Philo claims that "no less than a million Jews" lived in Egypt, most of them in Alexandria, especially in the two quarters mentioned above.
  13. ^ Sawyer, Kenneth; Youssef, Youhana. "Early Christianity in North Africa" (PDF). TENET. Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  14. ^ "Egypt - Egypt under Rome and Byzantium, 30 B.C.-A.D. 640". Country Studies. U.S. Department of the Army. 1986–98. Retrieved 22 December 2017. The Egyptian church was particularly affected by the Roman persecutions, beginning with Septimius Severus's edict of 202 dissolving the influential Christian School of Alexandria and forbidding future conversions to Christianity. In 303 Emperor Diocletian issued a decree ordering all churches demolished, all sacred books burned, and all Christians who were not officials made slaves. The decree was carried out for three years, a period known as the "Era of Martyrs". The lives of many Egyptian Christians were spared only because more workers were needed in the porphyry quarries and emerald mines that were worked by Egyptian Christians as "convict labour".
  15. ^ David 2002, pp. 325–28.
  16. ISBN 9780500280362
    .
  17. ^ Joann Fletcher (2016). The amazing history of Egypt (MP3) (podcast). BBC History Magazine. Event occurs at 53:46. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  18. ^ Dodson, Aidan (17 February 2011). "Egypt: The End of a Civilisation". bbc.co.uk. BBC. Retrieved 21 December 2017. By the fourth century AD, the old ways were largely concentrated in the south of Egypt and the remote Western Desert oasis of Siwa.
  19. ISBN 978-9042920316
    . To describe the process of religious transformation in Late Antique Egypt, it, therefore, seems best to follow Bagnall in his ideas that ancient Egyptian religion as an institution (with which temple cults, rituals, festivals and sacred scripts in regular use and an organized priesthood are thus meant) had mostly faded away in the fourth century and that institutionalized Christianity expanded considerably in that century, while at the same time allowing for Frankfurter's point that the process was much more dynamic and much could continue on a local level beyond that century, such as local religious practices or rituals. In other words, Christianity may be organized to a large extent in the fourth century but it took more time before the new religion was fully integrated into society.
  20. ^ Procopius, Bellum Persicum, i. 19.
  21. ^ Frankfurter 1998, pp. 23–30.
  22. ^ a b c d Frankfurter 1998, p. 27.
  23. ^ a b Frankfurter 1998, p. 26.
  24. ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5
    .
  25. ^ Haas, Christopher J. (1997). Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict. Baltimore. p. 129.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  26. ISBN 978-3-11-087572-0
    .
  27. ^ Hornung 2001, pp. 75
  28. ^ Hornung 2001, pp. 19–25
  29. ^ Bremmer 2014, pp. 140–141
  30. ^ Daugherty, Michelle (2 October 2014). "Kemetism_Ancient Religions in our Modern World". Michigan State University. USA. Archived from the original on 28 February 2018. Retrieved 18 January 2017.

Bibliography

Further reading
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