Only this past week while I was checking my own understanding of the religious mix in the city of Ostia Antica under the Romans did I learn that Serapis devotees were espousing such similar ideas about eternal life and redemption from sin that when the authorities tried to regulate early xtian communities and native Jews they would lump Serapeans in with them -- and that in some extant materials the Serapis clergy called themselves Bishops of Christ. We can never really know how things came about, for sure.
Only this past week while I was checking my own understanding of the religious mix in the city of Ostia Antica under the Romans did I learn that Serapis devotees were espousing such similar ideas about eternal life and redemption from sin that when the authorities tried to regulate early xtian communities and native Jews they would lump Serapeans in with them -- and that in some extant materials the Serapis clergy called themselves Bishops of Christ. We can never really know how things came about, for sure.