Isis
Isis (Ἶσις) is the Greek name for an Egyptian goddess whose worship also spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was worshiped throughout Egypt, considered the patron saint of women, mothers and children. She is also referred to as the goddess of magic.[1]
In Greco-Roman literature, Isis began to be regarded as the goddess of knowledge and wisdom. Plutarch (46 to 120 CE), an influential Greek scholar, describes her as "a goddess exceptionally wise and a lover of wisdom, to whom, as her name at least seems to indicate, knowledge and understanding are in the highest degree appropriate..."[2]
She is the sister-wife of Osiris and a virgin mother of Horus, which is related to the metaphysical meaning of Isis. H. P. Blavatsky explains that Isis "is the Sakti of Osiris, his female aspect, both symbolizing the creating, energizing, vital forces of nature in its aspect of male and female deity."[3]
In Wales, an equivalent deity was worshipped as the Welsh Isis, the goddess Ceridwen, Caridwin, Keridwin, or Kêd, but little is known of related rituals.[4]
Notes
- ↑ A Biography of the Egyptian Goddess Isis at Ancient Egypt Online
- ↑ Plutarch, Moralia (???: Kessinger Publishing , LLC, 2005), 9.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 350.
- ↑ Ivy Hooper, "The Welsh Isis and the Bardic Tradition" Theosophical Review (),542-552.