Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

The Bull and the Sun in Egypt 435

death3. So the cult of Apis went on from the days of Menes
(Mfaity, the first king of the first dynasty, to the downfall of
paganism3. Apis was commonly4 identified with Osiris3. Most
of the priests taught that the former must be regarded as a comely
image of the soul of the latter6. More exactly, on the death of
Osiris his soul passed into Apis and was re-incarnated in the
succession of bulls that bore that name. Others said that, when
Osiris was slain by Typhon, Isis gathered up his remains and
deposited them in a wooden cow {boils) wrapped about with fine
linen (byssos), from which fact the town of Bousiris was supposed
to have drawn its name7. Osiris-Apis {Asar-Hdpi) under the
name of Sarapis was worshipped far and wide throughout the
countries bordering on the Mediterranean during the Hellenistic
age8, till Tertullian exclaimed indignantly: ' It is not Egypt now-
adays, no, nor Greece, but the whole world that swears" by this
African! '9 He was regarded as lord of the underworld, an
Egyptian Hades10. But his powers were not merely chthonian, as
appears from the fact that he was frequently identified with Zeus
and with Helios11. This last identification squares with the opinion
of those who assert that Apis, if we could but recover the Egyptian
conception of him and get rid of the comparatively recent
classical tradition, would prove to have been a solar before he
became a lunar deity. That is the view of O. Gruppe12, of
E. Meyer, and of W. H. Roscher13, who all lay stress on the disk

G. Maspero The Passing of the Empires London 1910 p. 501 ff., E. A. Wallis Budge The
Gods of the Egyptians London 1904 ii. 350 f.

1 Diod. 1. 85, Loukian. de sacrif 15, de dea Syr. 6, Tib. 1. 7. 28, Amm. Marc. 22. 14.
7, Solin. 32. 18, Myth. Vat. 1. 79.

2 Ail. de nat. an. 11. xo. The Apis-cult, like the Mnevis-cult, was founded by king
Kaiechos of the second dynasty, according to Manethon (supra p. 431 n. 4).

3 E. A. Wallis Budge The Gods of the Egyptians ii. 351.

4 Apis was also compared with Horos, whom the Egyptians deemed the cause of good
crops and prosperous seasons; and the diverse colouring of Apis was taken to symbolise
the diverse crops (Ail. de nat. an. 11. 10).

5 Strab. 807.

e Plout. de Is. et Os. 29, cp. ib. 20, 43. At Memphis Apis was regarded as the
' second life of Ptah ' (E. A. Wallis Budge The Gods of the Egyptians ii. 350).
7 Diod. 1. 85. ' 8 Supra p. 188 ff.

9 Tertull. ad nat. 2. 8. 10 C. Soherer in Roscher Lex. Myth. i. 1803 f.

11 Supra p. 188 ff.

12 Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 1572 n. 9 : ' Nun ist dies allerdings eine Neuerung; der
altagyptische Apis tragt zwischen den Hornern die Sonne unci scheint dieser geweiht
gewesen zu sein.'

13 E. Meyer and W. H. Roscher in Lex. Myth. i. 420: ' Daher hat auch Apis (wie
ubrigens alle Stiergottheiten Agyptens) eine solare Natur; als Symbol wird ihm der
Sonnendiskus zwischen die Horner gesetzt. [Die Scheibe zwischen zwei Hornern ist in
Agypten imraer die Sonne, nie der Mond.] '

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