I just finished Apuleius' Metamorphoses (called The Golden Ass by St. Augustine, who sorta hated it, so not sure we should keep calling it that). One thing that's interesting is how everyone approaches the last two chapters as being very serious and earnest in regard to Isis-worship. I'm not sure the text supports this (note: all quotes and citations come from the Robert Graves translation. I'll read the Lindsay one pretty soon, once I, well, own it). There are two major points to be made to refute the earnestness of these last two books. The first is through an examination of Apuleius' treatment of other religions, comparing these with what is said about Isis-worship. The second is of the satire directed towards the going-ons of the temples.
Besides Isis-worship, I can think of four other major representations of religion (not myth, but the active practice of spiritual matters): the black magic at the beginning, the thieves' worship of Mars, the “one and only God” worship of the baker's wife, and finally the goddess worship of the catamite priests.
As regards Apuleius' thoughts towards black magic, there's only so much that can be gleaned from the text. It's dangerous, and, with a bit of a stretch, can be said to be generally anti-nature, pushing people or objects away from their platonic ideals (vs. white magic, which pushes things towards their ideal through healing and whatnot). There can be a bit more gained from his Apologia, which was the defense he gave for himself against charges of black magic. For my purposes, the main thing to report is the description of black magic as “left-handed.” This comes back in the Isis parade at the end of the novel: one of the holy images is that of a left hand, which, the text says, symbolizes “justice.”
I have nothing to say about the thieves' worship of Mars, other than that they seem quite sincere about it all, far more so than the other examples. Maybe that's worth mentioning, but it doesn't really tie into the broader point I'm making with the other examples, so I'll skip it.
The “one and only God” worship in the baker's wife story is rather infamous, as it's directed against Christianity and is the primary reason why the book has suffered persecution for the majority of its existence. It is in no way a favorable look on Christianity, saying that it was a religion used as an excuse to get drunk early in the name of God. The key, though, is that at the end of the novel, we see Isis and Isis/Osiris being (both) referred to as the One True God (my paraphrase). So, despite his distaste for worshipping one god, he ultimately does anyway (admittedly through the worship of multiple gods, which the real-life Apuleius was said to have done).
Of all the worshippers, though, the eunuch priests get the harshest treatment by Apuleius. They are androgynous, greedy rapists with no thought towards spiritual matters. Now, the most obvious point is that they are “goddess” worshippers, and the focus on “goddess” instead of giving a definite goddess leads me to connect their goddess with the generic representations of Isis that she goes through during her various dream-visions with Lucius. And, interestingly, cross-dressing comes back into play during the parade as well (the parade has a bit of a carnival atmosphere, so could be dismissed from this, but I think it's still a worthwhile detail).
So, of our various religions – all of which are shown, through their devotees, to be rather fallen – they all share some elements with the religion presented as “true” at the end. This leads to two possible scenarios: Apuleius is presenting the true religion as a combination of them all, or, rather, as being large and diverse enough that other religions contain some element of its truth; or Apuleius is slyly saying that all religions, the final true one included, are in some way fallen and untrue.
An element to push it towards the latter is the quiet motif of money running throughout the final two books of the novel. For being mostly a connected of initiations, rites, and dream-visions (and their fulfillments), they manage to mention money quite a bit. First he finances one temple, then spends all of his money getting to another one in order to finance it, eventually selling the shirt off his back (literally) to buy his way through another initiation. As he becomes a successful lawyer, he can afford to give even more money (at one point, having a charge directly related to how much he believed). The end result is that he shows his allegiance proudly, bearing his monkishly-shaven head around town (after putting all that money into it, it comes off a bit like Veblen's conspicuous consumption).
It leaves one a bit at an impasse. The elements of what we know of Apuleius' life definitely point towards him being rather like this, a devotee of all gods, of having gone through more or less every mystery rite he could find. But this information doesn't tell us how seriously he took the religious aspect of it all, nor does it tell us if he personally donated money to temples, or if he simply paid for the mystery initiation (was he only a religion tourist, in other words). An alternate way to simplify this debate is this: does the novel end as a comedy, or a tragedy? Does the protagonist live happily ever after, or does his series of failures continue?
There's no convention to fall back to on this, either, as the tales included in the novel go both ways (Cupid & Pysche, far and away the largest of them, ends on a happy note, while most the others end at the very least semi-tragically). Nor can you look at other Roman novels, as this is essentially the only full one we still have. I don't have a particularly good answer to this, I simply think the end of this oldest-of-novels is ambivalent moreso than is traditionally accepted, and I hope I've shown that.
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