Smith reads Apuleius’ Golden Ass (Met.) within the context of the religious competition of his day, as a promotion of the Isis cult as an alternative to Christianity (and magic). I deem this hypothesis sound. S. observes that in Apuleius’ time Jesus was represented (in a graffito, terracotta, amulets and so on) as a donkey and the Christians as donkey-lovers. I pointed out exactly this in an essay on Apuleius and Christianity in M. P. F. Pinheiro et al. (eds), Echoes of Myth, Religion and Ritual in the Ancient Novel (2013), 145–74. The donkey was also used in anti-Jewish polemics (85). A donkey’s transformation into a human might symbolise the leaving behind of Judaism/Christianity; Isis as saviour replaces the salvation offered by Christ (130, 147). Petronius was also parodying Christianity, as many points suggest, and Achilles Tatius offers elements of convergence, something I also suggested in I romanzi antichi e il Cristianesimo (2001; 2012), 163–92 (Petronius) and 81–102 (Achilles).
S. reads Jewish apocalyptic works as parallels to Lucius’ Isiac conversion. The ass was not demonised in Jewish texts (including the NT: Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey) as in the Graeco-Roman world. For the Platonist Apuleius, a transformation into an ass represented turning to a life devoted to carnal pleasures, but Lucius converts to a devotee of Isis; the robbers represent dull-witted, bestial, cruel men, in a life where Fortune reigns supreme, but all their plans fail (like the ‘Beagle Boys’ in Disney’s stories!). Both Acts and Isis (and, I add, contemporary philosophies such as Platonism and Aristotelianism) lift people from the realm of Fortune to that of Providence and freedom (Met. 11.15.5). I add as relevant Lactantius’ attestation: Isis’ sacred rites, based on the loss and finding of Osiris, show the transformation from sadness to joy (Div. inst. 23), as in Met. The myth of Cupid and Psyche lends the novel a higher seriousness: the power of Fortune can be broken in the cases of Psyche and Lucius. Indeed, divina providentia reigns in Cupid’s palace.
Lucius’ escape from his captors to Cenchreae, and Isis’ choice to deliver her message of salvation to him at Cenchreae (a shrine to Isis was there), coincide with a Pauline community at Cenchrae with Phoebe as διάκονος and προστάτις, deacon and president (113). Apuleius was probably aware of the Christians in Carthage, where he was sacerdos provinciae according to Augustine and where Tertullian would become one of the first Latin Christian authors (Apuleius and Tertullian may have known each other: 75). S. plausibly remarks that some passages in Met. may allude to Christians, including the account of the Miller’s Wife, perhaps a caricature of a Christian: I agree with S. and examined this and several other allusions in I romanzi antichi, 193–220. The use of unicus about the God of the Miller’s Wife (monotheism) and Isis (henotheism, Met. 11.51) is probably an intended convergence that points to Apuleius’ depiction of competition between Isis and the Jewish-Christian God. Apuleius’ tirade against the judges within the Judgement of Paris may lampoon Christian apologists such as Justin, Aristides and Minucius (79).
Charite’s conviction that a god is hidden in Lucius-donkey (93–4) is suggestive; it is possible that her riding on the ass, as virgo regia, reproduces Mary’s escape from Egypt on the back of an ass (97). While for virgo regia S. points to the (much later) regina caeli (97), I note that Mary was virgo regia because of her spouse’s house of David. The robbers contemplate various means to kill Charite, all used against Christians (98–9).
Lucius’ conversion to Isis parallels early Christian reports of conversion, especially Paul’s (103), including their final arrival at Rome and the sufferings Lucius will endure as an Isis-worshipper and Paul’s in the ‘Theology of the Cross’. Both Lucius and Paul are undeserving of the blessedness of conversion. The narrator at the end of Met. 10 defends Socrates — praised and appropriated by Christians and compared to Christ: Mara Bar Serapion, I add, possibly a Stoicising ‘pagan’, also draws the Socrates-Christ parallel, perhaps towards the end of the first century. But in his defense of Socrates he stops lest he be accused of being ‘an ass preaching philosophy’, ridiculing ‘Christian philosophers’, the asses wearing togas (xiii–xiv). Christianity was indeed beginning to present itself as philosophy.
Lucius in Met. 11 becomes human again and converts to the Isis cult — a religion the Christians despised. But there are convergences, e.g. Lucius’ financial burden as an Isis-follower is analogous to Jesus’ urge to sell all of one’s possessions and Christianity’s subsequent ascetic drift (109–10; see my Social Justice: The Role of Philosophical Asceticism from Ancient Judaism to Late Antiquity (2016), 101–51, 172–211). S. refuses ironic interpretations of Lucius’ conversion. Apuleius’ protagonist converts to Isis in Rome, even accepting tonsure, in competition with Christianity: Isis shared ‘with second-century Christians an interest in chastity as a sign of purity, and a guarantee of not only salvation but eternal life’ (116).
Typos are rare (e.g. ἂλλων, 173; for figure 7.3 (91) the caption is wrong). While many elements of convergence, potential allusions and parallels with early Christianity had already been pointed out by scholars, including myself (as briefly noted above), the overall thesis of this monograph that Apuleius’ novel is an Isiac response to Christianity within a context of religious competition is novel and highly interesting. S.’s hypothesis is reasonable and we should ponder it.
