This first instance of an international theocrasy preced-
ed the many theocrasies of the Hellenistic age. Among these,
the Alexandrian triad of Sarapis, Isis, and Harpocrates calls
for special attention. Sarapis developed out of Osiris, Apis,
and probably a “Hades Jupiter Dis” of Asia Minor into the
god of an imperial cult that Ptolemy I (r. 323–285 BCE), with
the aid of priests, philosophers, and masters of ceremonies,
established for the Egyptians and Greeks of his empire. Isis
“of a thousand names,” the “manifestation in a single form
of goddesses and gods,” could in principle absorb every form
on her peaceful triumphal march. Harpocrates, her underage
son, who was an aspect of Horus, was equated with many
other youthful gods and finally with Herakles.
A new divinity, Hermes Trismegistos, arose through a
fusion of Hermes, the Greek god of fortunate inventions,
and Thoth, the divine scribe of the Egyptians. This new god
became the focus of an entire corpus of writings and re-
mained the master and guarantor of esoteric knowledge
down to the Renaissance.
Philo Byblius tells us of Greco-Canaanite theocrasies.
Greco-Aramaic-Iranian theocrasies were wide-spread in the
East, while theocrasies in general were rarer in the West; the
latter included ancient Spanish-Phoenician or Celtic-
Roman.
Forms of worship. When one rite adopts components
from another rite, forms of worship are combined. But be-
cause the basic stock of possible ritual actions is relatively
small, external influence in this area is often indistinguish-
able from the action of factors already present in the tradi-
tion. This situation is clearest in the area of the Christian lit-
urgy and, indeed, from the beginning as far as the sacraments
are concerned. Because ablution rituals of all kinds were so
widespread, it is often unclear whether baptism was an act
that stood out—because of its initiatory nature—in a series
of already-existing ablutions, or whether the ablutions repre-
sented secondary repetitions of an originally unique act of
baptism.
Baptism thus provides a fundamental example of the
difficulty of clearly establishing a connection between vari-
ous rites. Jewish proselyte baptism, for example, probably
originated within Judaism and was not taken from outside
baptist movements of the kind that lived on in the rites of
the Elkesites and the Mandaeans. Christian baptism, for its
part, rather than having been derived from that same external
environment, represented an acceptance and development of
the baptism of John, which itself was part of the Jewish mi-
lieu, but had acquired an eschatological dimension.
On the other hand, baptism clearly entered the Mithra
mystery cults from outside, probably from Christianity. The
ceremonies of many African independent churches and of
the cargo cults of Melanesia are fusions of Protestant liturgies
and ethnic cults. The cult of Umbanda in Brazil is a combi-
nation of the liturgy of the Catholic Mass with West African
rituals.
Parallelization. The paralleling of elements is most eas-
ily practiced when one is persuaded of the unity of truth. If
truth is one, diverse names do not point to real differences
but may be shown to be simply different names for the same
thing. This is the path very clearly taken by Greek thinkers,
and in this respect Roman thought followed Greek. Primary
among the various modes of parallelization is that of inter-
pretation.Interpretation. Interpretatio graeca and interpretatio ro-
mana were long regarded as a principal presupposition, or
even as a principal phase, of syncretism itself. This is under-
standable in view of the wide diffusion of both. Behind these
two “interpretations,” however, there was in most instances
no real theocrasy but only a tendency toward it. This tenden-
cy was most widespread in literature, so that we may speak
first of all of a literary syncretism. In Porphyry, for example,
the Arimanius Deus (“the god who apes”) is learnedly inter-
preted as antimimos daimon. Apollo appears in place of
Mithra (probably in order to show the harmony between
Greeks and Persians) on votive tablets in the Fire Sanctuary
of Persepolis during the time of Alexander. Helios stands for
Mithra in Xenophon and probably also in Plutarch (unless
he stands here for Ohrmazd), in relief sculptures of the Par-
thian period, and so on.
Greek interpretation claimed to be interested, though
not exclusively, in those individual traits of the alien object
that already seemed familiar. The Roman renaming of the
Greek gods was also clearly a form of interpretation. But a
new kind of interpretationes Romanae occurred once Rome
had destroyed the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires and con-
quered regions belonging to the Celts and the Germans.
Thenceforth interpretations no longer simply established
parallels, as they did among the Greeks; rather there was al-
ways present to some degree a subordination of the local god
to the corresponding Roman god. The counterexample of
the Hebew Yahveh, who refused even to be interpreted as Ju-
piter, throws light on the exclusive character of Roman inter-
pretation and the resultant tendency to theocrasy. Interpreta-
tions of Yahveh occurred only on the fringes of Judaism, as,
for example, in Elephantine (an island in the Nile), or among
the Hypsistarians where, characteristically, interpretation
was rendered possible only by using the Greek equivalent of
the biblical El ’Elyon (Hypsistos). Appropriative interpreta-
tions of other traditions reached their high point in gnosti-
cism, where the conviction of the unity of truth had become
a faith in the unity of redemption that would not allow any
division. For this reason, gnostic systems also provide the
most impressive instances of the various kinds of syncretism.
These were always preceded by an interpretatio gnostica.Equivalence. Clearly, equivalence is a presupposition in
all forms of parallelization, in identification and theocrasy,
and in the syncretism of complex unities. But it acquires a
special developmental significance when unities, or elements
of them, are assigned different values and are conceived as
ways to the same goal, with the stipulation that one of themSYNCRETISM [FIRST EDITION] 8931