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| Isis-Aphrodite, a form of the ancient goddess widely wor- shipped in the Roman Period. Isis was one of the last of Eg- yptian deities to survive his- torically. University of Leipzig Mueum. Egyptian Gods. |
A·bra·ham·ic Adjective /ˌābrəˈhamik/Historically, a fatal denial awaited the Egyptian gods. The eventual rise of Christianity and later of Islam spelled doom for the old pagan religion, but it did not die easily. In AD 383 pagan temples throughout the Roman Empire were closed by order of the Emperor Theodosius and a number of further decrees, culminating in those of Theodosius in AD 391 and Valentinian III in AD 435 sanctioned the actual destruction of pagan religious structures. Soon most of Egypt's temples were shunned, claimed for other use, or actively destroyed by zealous Christians, and the ancient gods were largely deserted. But signs of their tenacity are evident in many historical records.
- Denoting any or all of the religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) that revere Abraham, the Biblical patriarch
- the monotheistic faiths that grew out of the Abrahamic heritage
- Relating specifically to the Biblical patriarch Abraham
As late as AD 452, under a treaty between the Roman government and native people in the south of Egypt, pilgrims travelled north to the temple of Philae and took from there the statue of the goddess Isis to visit her relatives, the gods in Nubia. This situation was remarkable, as Eugene Cruz-Uribe has stressed, because it occurred at a time when Roman law had prohibited the worship of the old cults and officially endorsed Christianity as the "only religion of Egypt and the empire". Clearly, in at least this outpost, and perhaps in others, and through secret worship, the old deities hung on for a time. By AD 639 when Arab armies claimed Egypt they found only Christians and the disappearing legacy of ancient gods who had ruled one of the greatest centerss of civilization for well over 3,000 years. Yet, while the old gods had almost vanished, they left influences which would persist for thousands more years...
