THE CONSTRUCTION OF A GODDESS: ISIS IN APULEIUS'53 AIETAAJORPHOSE,f Susan L. Haskinss Introductioni As part of the feminist mc,vement, there has been an undertaking in religious scholarship to resituate the goddess within that scholarship and, especially among radical feminists,2 to recover the female eleinent in the divine-a divine feminine principle with many incarnations or faces who, as Harvey ancl Baring put it, is the "Divine Mother that heals and consoles, sustains and encourages. . 3 'll his nurturing, motherly image is in contrast to the male divinc principle which currently dominates modern religions, and who, they feel. promotes fear and anxiety.4 One of the main goddesses from the ancient world to be co-opted to this cause is the goddess Isis. ' She was a popular and powerful goddess, worshipped not only iii her native Egyptf but also later by the Greeks and Romans as the center of a mystery cult.; Mystery cults were cults that tended to locus on the worship of a single de- ity who offered individuals salvation from the ricissitudes of fate through secret initiation ceremonies.~' Within this cult setting Isis also underwent the universalizing of a single deity typical in Hellenistic religiont) when she became a deity of conilirchensive abilities, including being a caring, loving wife and mother.10 This conception of her as an all-encompassing. nurturing figure has macie her a popular choice for a feminist agenda. One of the main texts used to elucidate the lsis of this period is book 11 of the 2nd century CE Latin novel Ale/amo/phoses' I by Apuleius.'2 In this novel the main character and narrator Lucius, after a series of perilous /M·/. 5~.'1-53. i (.,ti ttl 1111 1 2020-Spi'i ng 2021) .7