The Ape of God

JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 813 

These two interesting and complex images of the goddess Isis1, dripping as they are with symbolism and reference, are most interesting to me because of the depiction of man as the ape of god.  (No, not the Wyndham Lewis  Apes of God reference to poseurs and scumbags and indolents in the art world, just man in general.)

The first and second image both show Isis standing on land and in the water, bridging the two, being the goddess of each; she stands slightly bent over in each, and has long flowing hair, a symbol of her as the nurturer of the Earth, as is the  adornment of the fertility symbol of the Moon in her stomach/womb.  The two Isis carry different things: the first, a pail (symbolizing the Nile, which she controls and floods with her tears for the loss of her Osiris) and a sistrum (a musical instrument peculiar to her celebration).  The second image’s hand-connections are more complex:  Isis’ right hand is connected directly to the creator, reaching from a cloud above the upper firmament of angels; her left hand is connected to our title’s interest, the ape of god—man.  The ape/man is seated on the

 

Earth, surrounded by concentric spheres of animals, minerals, intellectual practices (I can easily see “arith”metic, “geom.”etry, “musica” and others represented), water and Earth, the planets(including the Sun) in their courses, the starry realms, and then several spheres of I’m-not-sure but heavenly and ethereal. Man as ape is seated chained to Isis, the giver of life, and contemplates (with dividers) a model of the sphere on which he is seated.

Notes

1. Isis (also know to different cultures as Minerva, Aphrodite, Ceres, Hecate) was an ancient Egyptian/Greco/Roman goddess, idealized as the perfect mother, the Great Mother, patron and issuer of nature, magic and fertility—the giver of life, a Madonna.  She was the daughter of Geb and Nut (god of the Earth and goddess of the sky) and husband of Osiris, and was in general very high-power stuff.