17,305

IVERSIT
JIVERSIANO
HE UNIT
ARTE
ICHIGAN
HIGANS
A.V
gainst
. THA
1
BRARIES
ORIENTAL RELIGIONS
IN
ROMAN PAGANISM
The Oriental Religions in
Roman Paganism
By
Franz Cumont
With an Introductory Essay by
Grant Showerman
Authorized Translation
Chicago
The Open Court Publishing Company
London Agents
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.
1911
O
GRRI
BL
810
.09
E5
COPYRIGHT BY
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO.
1911
TO MY TEACHER AND FRIEND
CHARLES MICHEL
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE ......
INTRODUCTION.-The Significance of Franz Cumont's Work,
By Grant Showerman .......
........ XV
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ....... ......... XXV
I. ROME AND THE ORIENT ....
Superiority of the Orient, 1.--Its Influence on Political
Institutions, 3.-Its Influence on Civil Law, 5.--Its In-
Auence on Science, 6.-Its Influence on Literature and
Art, 7.--Its Influence on Industry, 9.-SOURCES: Destruction
of Pagan Rituals, 11.-Mythographers, 12.-Historians, 13.
-Satirists, 13.-Philosophers, 14.-Christian Polemicists,
15.—Archeological Documents, 16.
II. WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD ......... 20
Difference in the Religions of the Orient and the Occident,
20.-Spread of Oriental Religions, 22.-Economic Influ-
ences, 23.-Theory of Degeneration, 25.-Conversions are
of Individuals, 27.-Appeal of the Oriental Religions to
the Senses, 28.--Appeal to the Intelligence, 31.--Appeal to
the Conscience, 35.-Inadequacy of the Roman Religion,
35.--Skepticism, 37.-Imperial Power, 38.--The Purification
of Souls, 39.—Hope of Immortality, 42.-Conclusión, 43.
III. ASIA MINOR . ....
R
.
Arrival of Cybele at Rome, 46.-Her Religion in Asia
Minor, 47.--Religion at Rome under the Republic, 51.
Adoption of the Goddess Ma-Bellona, 53.-Politics of Clau-
dius, 55.--Spring Festival, 56.-Spread of the Phrygian
Religion in the Provinces, 57.–Causes of Its Success, 58.
Its Official Recognition, 60.–ARRIVAL OF OTHER Cults:
Mèn, 61.-Judaism, 63.-Sabazius, 64.-Anahita,' 65.--The
Taurobolium, 66.-Philosophy, 70.–Christianity, 70.-Con-
clusion, 71.
IV. EGYPT .......................................... 73
Foundation of Serapis Worship, 73.-The Egyptian Religion
Hellenized, 75.--Diffusion in Greece, 79.-Adoption at
Rome, 80.--Persecutions, 82.-Adoption Under Caligula, 84.
-Its History, 85.--Its Transformation, 86.-Uncertainty in
Egyptian Theology, 87.--Insufficiency of Its Ethics, 90.-
Power of Its Ritual, 93.—Daily Liturgy, 95.-Festivals, 97.
-Doctrine of Immortality, 99.-The Refrigerium, 101.
...................................
THE ORIENTAL IL
RELIGIONS.
1
PAGE
V. SYRIA ..............
.............. 103
The Syrian Goddess, 103.-Importation of New Gods by
Syrian Slaves, 105.--Syrian Merchants, 107.-Syrian Sol-
diers, 112.-Heliogabalus and Aurelian, 114.-Value of Sem-
itic Paganism, 115.-Animal Worship, 116.--Baals, 118.
Human Sacrifice, 119.-Transformation of the Sacerdotal
Religion, 120.–Purity, 121.-Influence of Babylon, 122,-
Eschatology, 125.--THEOLOGY: God is Supreme, 127.-God
is Omnipotent, 129.--God is Eternal and Universal, 130.
Semitic Syncretism, 131.-Solar Henotheism, 133.
VI. PERSIA ..
............... 135
Persia and Europe, 135.--Influence of the Achemenides, 136.
--Influence of Mazdaism, 138.-Conquests of Rome, 139.
Influence of the Sassanides, 140.--Origin of the Mysteries
of Mithra, 142.-Persians in Asia Minor, 144.--The Maz-
daism of Anatolia, 146.--Its Diffusion in the Occident, 149.
-Its Qualities, 150.--Dualism, 151.-The Ethics of Mithra-
ism, 155.—The Future Life, 158.-Conclusion, 159.
VII. ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC . ......................... 162
Prestige of Astrology, 162.-Its Introduction in the Occi-
dent, 163.-Astrology Under the Empire, 164.—Polemics
Powerless Against Astrology, 166.-Astrology a Scientific
Religion, 169.—The Primitive Idea of Sympathy, 171.-
Divinity of the Stars, 172.—Transformation of the Idea of
God, 174.-New Gods, 175.--Big Years, 176.--Astrological
Eschatology, 177.--Man's Relation to Heaven, 178.-Fatal-
ism, 179.-Efficacy of Prayer, 180.-Efficacy of Magic, 182.
Treatises on Magic, 182.-Idea of Sympathy, 183.–Magic
a Science, 184.–Magic is Religious, 185.-Ancient Italian
Sorcery, 186.-Egypt and Chaldea, 187.-Theurgy, 188.-
Persian Magic, 189.-—Persecutions, 191.-Conclusion, 193.
VIII. THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN PAGANISM .... 196
Paganism Before Constantine, 196.--Religion of Asia Minor,
197.-Religion of Egypt and Syria, 198.—Religion of Persia,
199,-Many Pagan Religions, 200,-Popular Religion and
Philosophy, 201.-Christian Polemics, 202.—Roman Pagan-
ism Become Oriental, 204.-Mysteries, 205.–Nature Wor-
ship, 206.-Supreme God, 207.—Sidereal Worship, 208.
The Ritual Given a Moral Significance, 209.-The End of
the World, 209.-Conclusion, 210.
NOTES ................................................. 213
Preface, 213.-I. Rome and the Orient, 214.-II. Why the
Oriental Religions Spread, 218.-III. Asia Minor, 223.—
IV. Egypt, 228.---V. Syria, 241.-VI. Persia, 260.-VII. As-
trology and Magic, 270.–VIII. The Transformation of
Paganism, 281.
INDEX.
........ 289
INDEX
.
............................................
INTRODUCTION.
10
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FRANZ CUMONT'S WORK.
CRANZ CUMONT, born January 3, 1868, and
T educated at Ghent, Bonn, Berlin, and Paris, re-
sides in Brussels, and has been Professor in the Uni-
versity of Ghent since 1892. His monumental work,
Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de
Mithra, published in 1896 and 1899 in two volumes,
was followed in 1902 by the separate publication, under
the title Les Mystères de Mithra, of the second half
of Vol. I, the Conclusions in which he interpreted the
great mass of evidence contained in the remainder of
the work. The year following, this book appeared in
the translation of Thomas J. McCormack as The Mys-
teries of Mithra, published by the Open Court Pub-
lishing Company. M. Cumont's other work of prime
interest to students of the ancient faiths, Les religions
orientales dans le paganisme romain, appeared in 1906,
was revised and issued in a second edition in 1909,
and is now presented in English in the following pages.
M. Cumont is an ideal contributor to knowledge in
his chosen field. As an investigator, he combines in
one person Teutonic thoroughness and Gallic intuition.
As a writer, his virtues are no less pronounced. Rec-
ognition of his mastery of an enormous array of de-
tailed learning followed immediately on the publication
M.Show presentessued in a se
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
of Textes et monuments, and the present series of
essays, besides a numerous series of articles and mono-
graphs, makes manifest the same painstaking and thor-
ough scholarship; but he is something more than the
mere savant who has at command a vast and difficult
body of knowledge. He is also the literary architect
who builds up his material into well-ordered and grace-
ful structure.
Above all, M. Cumont is an interpreter. In The
Mysteries of Mithra he put into circulation, so to speak,
the coin of the ideas he had minted in the patient and
careful study of Textes et Monuments; and in the
studies of The Oriental Religions he is giving to the
wider public the interpretation of the larger and more.
comprehensive body of knowledge of which his ac-
quaintance with the religion of Mithra is only a part,
and against which as a background it stands. What
his book The Mysteries of Mithra is to his special
knowledge of Mithraism, The Oriental Religions is to
his knowledge of the whole field. He is thus an ex-
ample of the highest type of scholar~the exhaustive
searcher after evidence, and the sympathetic interpreter
who mediates between his subject and the lay, intellec-
tual life of his time.
And yet, admirable as is M. Cumont's presentation
in The Mysteries of Mithra and The Oriental Religions,
nothing is a greater mistake than to suppose that his
popularizations are facile reading. The few specialists
in ancient religions may indeed sail smoothly in the
current of his thought; but the very nature of a subject
which ramifies so extensively and so intricately into
the whole of ancient life, concerning itself with prac-
tically all the manifestations of ancient civilization
O
INTRODUCTION.
vii
philosophy, religion, astrology, magic, mythology, lit-
erature, art, war, commerce, government—will of ne-
cessity afford some obstacle to readers unfamiliar with
the study of religion,
It is in the hope of lessening somewhat this natural
difficulty of assimilating M. Cumont's contribution to
knowledge, and above all, to life, that these brief words
of introduction are undertaken. The presentation in
outline of the main lines of thought which underlie his
conception of the importance of the Oriental religions
in universal history may afford the uninitiated reader
a background against which the author's depiction of
the various cults of the Oriental group will be more
easily and clearly seen.
M. Cumont's work, then, transports us in imagina-
tion to a time when Christianity was still at least in
the eyes of Roman pagans-only one of a numerous
array of foreign Eastern religions struggling for rec-
ognition in the Roman world, and especially in the
city of Rome. To understand the conditions under
which the new faith finally triumphed, we should first
realize the number of these religions, and the appar-
ently chaotic condition of paganism when viewed as a
system.
"Let us suppose," says M. Cumont, “that in modern
Europe the faithful had deserted the Christian churches
to worship Allah or Brahma, to follow the precepts
of Confucius or Buddha, or to adopt the maxims of
the Shinto; let us imagine a great confusion of all the
races of the world in which Arabian mullahs, Chinese
scholars, Japanese bonzes, Tibetan lamas and Hindu
pundits should all be preaching fatalism and predesti-
viii
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
nation, ancestor-worship and devotion to a deified sov-
ereign, pessimism and deliverance through annihila-
tion-a confusion in which all those priests should
erect temples of exotic architecture in our cities and
celebrate their disparate rites therein. Such a dream,
which the future may perhaps realize, would offer a
pretty accurate picture of the religious chaos in which
the ancient world was struggling before the reign of
Constantine.”
But it is no less necessary to realize, in the second
place, that, had there not been an essential solidarity
of all these different faiths, the triumph of Christian-
ity would have been achieved with much less difficulty
and in much less time. We are not to suppose that
religions are long-lived and tenacious unless they pos-
sess something vital which enables them to resist. In
his chapter on “The Transformation of Roman Pagan-
ism," M. Cumont thus accounts for the vitality of the
old faiths: "The mass of religions at Rome finally
became so impregnated by neo-Platonism and Orien-
talism that paganism may be called a single religion
with a fairly distinct theology, whose doctrines were
somewhat as follows: adoration of the elements, espe-
cially the cosmic bodies ; the reign of one God, eternal
and omnipotent, with messenger attendants; spiritual
interpretation of the gross rites yet surviving from
primitive times; assurance of eternal felicity to the
faithful; belief that the soul was on earth to be proved
before its final return to the universal spirit, of which
it was a spark; the existence of an abysmal abode for
the evil, against whom the faithful must keep up an
unceasing struggle; the destruction of the universe,
INTRODUCTION.
the death of the wicked, and the eternal happiness of
the good in a reconstructed world."*
If this formulation of pagan doctrine surprises those
who have been told that paganism was “a fashion
rather than a faith,” and are accustomed to think of it
in terms of Jupiter and Juno, Venus and Mars, and
the other empty, cold, and formalized deities that have
so long filled literature and art, it will be because they
have failed to take into account that between Augustus
and Constantine three hundred years elapsed, and are
unfamiliar with the very natural fact that during all
that long period the character of paganism was grad-
ually undergoing change and growth. “The faith of
the friends of Symmachus," M. Cumont tells us, “was
much farther removed from the religious ideal of
Augustus, although they would never have admitted
it, than that of their opponents in the senate.”
To what was due this change in the content of the
pagan ideal, so great that the phraseology in which the
ideal is described puts us in mind of Christian doctrine
itself? First, answers M. Cumont, to neo-Platonism,
which attempted the reconciliation of the antiquated
religions with the advanced moral and intellectual ideas
of its own time by spiritual interpretation of out-
grown cult stories and cult practices. A second and
more vital cause, however, wrought to bring about the
same result. This was the invasion of the Oriental
religions, and the slow working, from the advent of
the Great Mother of the Gods in B. C. 204 to the
downfall of paganism at the end of the fourth cen-
* This summary of M. Cumont's chapter is quoted from my
review of the first edition of Les religions orientales in Clas-
sical Philology, III, 4, p. 467.
of
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
tury of the Christian era, of the leaven of Oriental
sentiment. The cults of Asia and Egypt bridged the
gap between the old religions and Christianity, and in
such a way as to make the triumph of Christianity
an evolution, not a revolution. The Great Mother
and Attis, with self-consecration, enthusiasm, and as-
ceticism; Isis and Serapis, with the ideals of com-
munion and purification ; Baal, the omnipotent dweller
in the far-off heavens; Jehovah, the jealous God of
the Hebrews, omniscient and omnipresent; Mithra,
deity of the sun, with the Persian dualism of good and
evil, and with after-death rewards and punishments-
all these, and more, flowed successively into the chan-
nel of Roman life and mingled their 'waters to form
the late Roman paganism which proved so pertinacious
a foe to the Christian religion. The influence that
underlay their pretensions was so real that there is
some warrant for the view of Renan that at one time
it was doubtful whether the current as it flowed away
into the Dark Ages should be Mithraic or Christian.
The vitalization of the evidence regarding these cults
is M. Cumont's great contribution. His perseverance
in the accurate collection of material is equalled only
by his power to see the real nature and effect of the
religions of which he writes. Assuming that no re-
ligion can succeed merely because of externals, but
must stand on some foundation of moral excellence,
he shows how the pagan faiths were able to hold their
own, and even to contest the ground with Christian-
ity. These religions, he asserts, gave greater satis-
faction first, to the senses and passions, secondly, to
the intelligence, finally, and above all, to the conscience.
“The spread of the Oriental religions”-again I quote
INTRODUCTION.
a summary from Classical Philology - "was due to
merit. In contrast to the cold and formal religions of
Rome, the Oriental faiths, with their hoary traditions
and basis of science and culture, their fine ceremonial,
the excitement attendant on their mysteries, their dei-
ties with hearts of compassion, their cultivation of the
social bond, their appeal to conscience and their prom-
ises of purification and reward in a future life, were
personal rather than civic, and satisfied the individual
soul.... With such a conception of latter-day paganism,
we may more easily understand its strength and the
bitter rivalry between it and the new faith, as well as
the facility with which pagan society, once its cause
was proved hopeless, turned to Christianity.” The
Oriental religions had made straight the way. Chris-
tianity triumphed after long conflict because its antag-
onists also were not without weapons from the armory
of God. Both parties to the struggle had their loins
girt about with truth, and both wielded the sword of
the spirit; but the steel of the Christian was the more
piercing, the breastplate of his righteousness was the
stronger, and his feet were better shod with the prepa-
ration of the gospel of peace.
Nor did Christianity stop there. It took from its
opponents their own weapons, and used them; the
better elements of paganism were transferred to the
new religion. “As the religious history of the empire
is studied more closely," writes M. Cumont, "the tri-
umph of the church will, in our opinion, appear more
and more as the culmination of a long evolution of
beliefs. We can understand the Christianity of the
fifth century with its greatness and weaknesses, its
spiritual exaltation and its puerile superstitions, if we
xii
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
know the moral antecedents of the world in which it
developed ”
M. Cumont is therefore a contributor to our appre-
ciation of the continuity of history. Christianity was
not a sudden and miraculous transformation, but a
composite of slow and laborious growth. Its four
centuries of struggle were not a struggle against an
entirely unworthy religion, else would our faith in its
divine warrant be diminished; it is to its own great
credit, and also to the credit of the opponents that suic-
cumbed to it, that it finally overwhelmed them. To
quote Emil Aust: “Christianity did not wake into be-
ing the religious sense, but it afforded that sense the
fullest opportunity of being satisfied; and paganism
fell because the less perfect must give place to the more
perfect, not because it was sunken in sin and vice. It
had out of its own strength laid out the ways by which
it advanced to lose itself in the arms of Christianity,
and to recognize this does not mean to minimize the
significance of Christianity. We are under no neces-
sity of artificially darkening the heathen world; the
light of the Evangel streams into it brightly enough
without this."*
Finally, the work of M. Cumont and others in the
field of the ancient Oriental religions is not an isolated
activity, but part of a larger intellectual movement.
Their effort is only one manifestation of the interest
of recent years in the study of universal religion ; other
manifestations of the same interest are to be seen in
the histories of the Greek and Roman religions by
* Die Religion der Römer, p. 116. For the significance of the
pagan faiths, see an essay on "The Ancient Religions in Uni-
versal History," American Journal of Philology, XXIX, 2, pp.
156-171.
INTRODUCTION.
Gruppe, Farnell, and Wissowa, in the anthropological
labors of Tylor, Lang, and Frazer, in the publication
of Reinach's Orpheus, in the study of comparative re-
ligion, and in such a phenomenon as a World's Parlia-
ment of Religions.
In a word, M. Cumont and his companion ancient
Orientalists are but one brigade engaged in the mod-
ern campaign for the liberation of religious thought.
His studies are therefore not concerned alone with
paganism, nor alone with the religions of the ancient
past; in common with the labors of students of mod-
ern religion, they touch our own faith and our own
times, and are in vital relation with our philosophy of
living, and consequently with our highest welfare. "To
us moderns,” says Professor Frazer in the preface to
his Golden Bough, “a still wider vista is vouchsafed,
a greater panorama is unrolled by the study which aims
at bringing home to us the faith and the practice, the
hopes and the ideals, not of two highly gifted races
only, but of all mankind, and thus at enabling us to
follow the long march, the slow and toilsome ascent,
of humanity from savagery to civilization.... But the
comparative study of the beliefs and institutions of
mankind is fitted to be much more than a means of
satisfying an enlightened curiosity and of furnishing
materials for the researches of the learned. Well
handled, it may become a powerful instrument to ex-
pedite progress...."
It is possible that all this might disquiet the minds
of those who have been wont to assume perfection in
the primitive Christian church, and who assume also
that present-day Christianity is the ultimate form of
the Christian religion. Such persons if there are
xiv
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
such—should rather take heart from the whole-souled
devotion to truth everywhere to be seen in the works
of scholars in ancient religion, and from their equally
evident sympathy with all manifestations of human
effort to establish the divine relation ; but most of all
from their universal testimony that for all time and in
all places and under all conditions the human heart
has felt powerfully the need of the divine relation.
From the knowledge that the desire to get right with
God—the common and essential element in all religions
-has been the most universal and the most potent and
persistent factor in past history, it is not far to the
conviction that it will always continue to be so, and
that the struggle toward the divine light of religion
pure and undefiled will never perish from the earth.
GRANT SHOWERMAN.
THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.
PREFACE.
IN November, 1905, the Collège de France honored
the writer by asking him to succeed M. Naville in
opening the series of lectures instituted by the Michonis
foundation. A few months later the “Hibbert Trust"
invited him to Oxford to develop certain subjects which
he had touched upon at Paris. In this volume have
been collected the contents of both series with the addi-
tion of a short bibliography and notes intended for
scholars desirous of verifying assertions made in the
text. The form of the work has scarcely been changed,
but we trust that these pages, intended though they
were for oral delivery, will bear reading, and that the
title of these studies will not seem too ambitious for
what they have to offer. The propagation of the
Oriental religions, with the development of neo-Plato-
nism, is the leading fact in the moral history of the
pagan empire. May this small volume on a great sub-
ject throw at least some light upon this truth, and may
the reader receive these essays with the same kind
interest shown by the audiences at Paris and Oxford.
The reader will please remember that the different
chapters were thought out and written as lectures. They
do not claim to contain a debit and credit account of
what the Latin paganism borrowed from or loaned to
the Orient. Certain well-known facts have been de-
xvi
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
liberately passed over in order to make room for others
that are perhaps less known. We have taken liberties
with our subject matter that would not be tolerated in
a didactic treatise, but to which surely no one will
object.
We are more likely to be reproached for an appar-
ently serious omission. We have investigated only the
internal development of paganism in the Latin world,
and have considered its relation to Christianity only
incidentally and by the way. The question is never-
theless important and has been the subject of cele-
brated lectures as well as of learned monographs and
widely distributed manuals. We wish to slight neither
the interest nor the importance of that controversy, and
it is not because it seemed negligible that we have not
entered into it.
By reason of their intellectual bent and education
the theologians were for a long time more inclined to
consider the continuity of the Jewish tradition than the
causes that disturbed it; but a reaction has taken place,
and to-day they endeavor to show that the church has
borrowed considerably from the conceptions and ritual-
istic ceremonies of the pagan mysteries. In spite of
the prestige that surrounded Eleusis, the word “mys-
teries" calls up Hellenized Asia rather than Greece
proper, because in the first place the earliest Christian
communities were founded, formed and developed in
the heart of Oriental populations, Semites, Phrygians
and Egyptians. Moreover the religions of those people
were much farther advanced, much richer in ideas and
sentiments, more striking and stirring than the Greco-
Latin anthropomorphism. Their liturgy always de-
rives its inspiration from generally accepted beliefs
PREFACE.
xvii
about purification embodied in certain acts regarded as
sanctifying. These facts were almost identical in the
various sects. The new faith poured its revelation into
the hallowed moulds of earlier religions because in
that form alone could the world in which it developed
receive its message.
This is approximately the point of view adopted by
the latest historians.
But, however absorbing this important problem may
be, we could not think of going into it, even briefly,
in these studies on Roman paganism. In the Latin
world the question assumes much more modest pro-
portions, and its aspect changes completely. Here
Christianity spread only after it had outgrown the em-
bryonic state and really became established. Moreover
like Christianity the Oriental mysteries at Rome re-
rival sects? The silence of the ecclesiastical writers
is not sufficient reason for denying it. We dislike to
acknowledge a debt to our adversaries, because it means
that we recognize some value in the cause they defend,
but I believe that the importance of these exchanges
should not be exaggerated. Without a doubt certain
ceremonies and holidays of the church were based on
pagan models. In the fourth century Christmas was
placed on the 25th of December because on that date
was celebrated the birth of the sun (Natalis Invicti)
who was born to a new life each year after the solstice.3
Certain vestiges of the religions of Isis and Cybele be-
sides other polytheistic practices perpetuated them-
selves in the adoration of local saints. On the other
hand as soon as Christianity became a moral power in
xviii
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS,
the world, it imposed itself even on its enemies. The
Phrygian priests of the Great Mother openly opposed
their celebration of the vernal equinox to the Christian
Easter, and attributed to the blood shed in the tauro-
bolium the redemptive power of the blood of the divine
Lamb.4
All these facts constitute a series of very delicate
problems of chronology and interrelation, and it would
be rash to attempt to solve them en bloc. Probably
there is a different answer in each particular case, and
I am afraid that some cases must always remain un-
solved. We may speak of "vespers of Isis” or of a
"eucharist of Mithra and his companions,” but only
in the same sense as when we say "the vassal princes
of the empire" or "Diocletian's socialism." These are
tricks of style used to give prominence to a similarity
and to establish a parallel strongly and closely. A
word is not a demonstration, and we must be careful
not to infer an influence from an analogy. Precon-
ceived notions are always the most serious obstacles
to an exact knowledge of the past. Some modern
writers, like the ancient Church Fathers, are fain to
see a sacrilegious parody inspired by the spirit of lies
in the resemblance between the mysteries and the
church ceremonies. Other historians seem disposed
to agree with the Oriental priests, who claimed priority
for their cults at Rome, and saw a plagiarism of their
ancient rituals in the Christian ceremonies. It would
appear that both are very much mistaken. Resem-
blance does not necessarily presuppose imitation, and
frequently a similarity of ideas and practices must be
explained by common origin, exclusive of any borrow-
ing
PREFACE.
xix
An illustration will make my thought clearer. The
votaries of Mithra likened the practice of their religion
to military service. When the neophyte joined he was
compelled to take an oath (sacramentum) similar to
the one required of recruits in the army, and there is no
doubt that an indelible mark was likewise branded on
his body with a hot iron. The third degree of the mys-
tical hierarchy was that of "soldier” (miles). Thence-
forward the initiate belonged to the sacred militia of
the invincible god and fought the powers of evil under
his orders. All these ideas and institutions are so much
in accord with what we know of Mazdean dualism, in
which the entire life was conceived as a struggle against
the malevolent spirits; they are so inseparable from the
history even of Mithraism, which always was a sol-
diers' religion, that we cannot doubt they belonged
to it before its appearance in the Occident.
On the other hand, we find similar conceptions in
Christianity. The society of the faithful—the term is
still in use—is the “Church Militant.” During the
first centuries the comparison of the church with an
army was carried out even in details;5 the baptism of
the neophyte was the oath of fidelity to the flag taken
by the recruits. Christ was the “emperor," the com-
mander-in-chief, of his disciples, who formed cohorts
triumphing under his command over the demons; the
apostates were deserters; the sanctuaries, camps; the
pious practices, drills and sentry-duty, and so on.
If we consider that the gospel preached peace, that
for a long time the Christians felt á repugnance to
military service, where their faith was threatened, we
are tempted to admit a priori an influence of the
belligerent cult of Mithra upon Christian thought.
XX
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
But this is not the case. The theme of the militia
Christi appears in the oldest ecclesiastical authors, in
the epistles of St. Clement and even in those of St.
Paul. It is impossible to admit an imitation of the
Mithraic mysteries then, because at that period they
had no importance whatever.
But if we extend our researches to the history of
that notion, we shall find that, at least under the em-
pire, the mystics of Isis were also regarded as forming
sacred cohorts enlisted in the service of the goddess,
that previously in the Stoic philosophy human exist-
ence was frequently likened to a campaign, and that
even the astrologers called the man who submitted to
destiny and renounced all revolt a “soldier of fate.”6
This conception of life, especially of religious life,
was therefore very popular from the beginning of our
era. It was manifestly prior both to Christianity and
to Mithraism. It developed in the military monarchies
of the Asiatic Diadochi. Here the soldier was no
longer a citizen defending his country, but in most
instances a volunteer bound by a sacred vow to the
person of his king. In the martial states that fought
for the heritage of the Achemenides this personal de-
votion dominated or displaced all national feeling. We
know the oaths taken by those subjects to their deified
kings. They agreed to defend and uphold them even
at the cost of their own lives, and always to have the
same friends and the same enemies as they ; they dedi-
cated to them not only their actions and words, but
their very thoughts. Their duty was a complete aban-
donment of their personality in favor of those monarchs
who were held the equals of the gods. The sacred
militia of the mysteries was nothing but this civic
.
OVOU
PREFACE.
xxi
morality viewed from the religious standpoint. It con-
founded loyalty with piety.
As we see, the researches into the doctrines or prac-
tices common to Christianity and the Oriental mys-
teries lead almost always beyond the limits of the
Roman empire into the Hellenistic Orient. The re-
ligious conceptions which imposed themselves on Latin
Europe under the Cæsars8 were developed there, and
it is there we must look for the key to enigmas still
unsolved. It is true that at present nothing is more
obscure than the history of the religions that arose in
Asia when Greek culture came in contact with bar-
barian theology. It is rarely possible to formulate satis-
factory conclusions with any degree of certainty, and
before further discoveries are made we shall frequently
be compelled to weigh contrasting probabilities. We
must frequently throw out the sounding line into the
shifting sea of possibility in order to find secure anchor-
age. But at any rate we perceive with sufficient dis-
tinctness the direction in which the investigations must
be pursued.
It is our belief that the main point to be cleared
up is the composite religion of those Jewish or Jewish-
pagan communities, the worshipers of Hypsistos, the
Sabbatists, the Sabaziasts and others in which the new
creed took root during the apostolic age. In those
communities the Mosaic law had become adapted to
the sacred usages of the Gentiles even before the be-
ginning of our era, and monotheism had made con-
cessions to idolatry. Many beliefs of the ancient Orient,
as for instance the ideas of Persian dualism regarding
the infernal world, arrived in Europe by two roads, the
more or less orthodox Judaism of the communities of
xxii
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
the dispersion in which the gospel was accepted imme-
diately, and the pagan mysteries imported from Syria
or Asia Minor. Certain similarities that surprised and
· shocked the apologists will cease to look strange as soon
as we reach the distant sources of the channels that
reunited at Rome.
But these delicate and complicated researches into
origins and relationships belong especially to the his-
tory .of the Alexandrian period. In considering the
Roman empire, the principal fact is that the Oriental
religions propagated doctrines, previous to and later
side by side with Christianity, that acquired with it
universal authority at the decline of the ancient world.
The preaching of the Asiatic priests also unwittingly
prepared for the triumph of the church which put its
stamp on the work at which they had unconsciously
labored.
Through their popular propaganda they had com-
pletely disintegrated the ancient national faith of the
Romans, while at the same time the Cæsars had grad-
ually destroyed the political particularism. After their
advent it was no longer necessary for religion to be
connected with a state in order to become universal.
Religion was no longer regarded as a public duty, but
as a personal obligation; no longer did it subordinate
the individual to the city-state, but pretended above all
to assure his welfare in this world and especially in the
world to come. The Oriental mysteries offered their
votaries radiant perspectives of eternal happiness. Thus
the focus of morality was changed. The aim became
to realize the sovereign good in the life hereafter in-
stead of in this world, as the Greek philosophy had;
done. No longer did man act in view of tangible real-
· PREFACE.
xxiii
ities, but to attain ideal hopes. Existence in this life
was regarded as a preparation for a sanctified life, as
a trial whose outcome was to be either everlasting
happiness or everlasting pain.
As we see, the entire system of ethical values was
overturned.
The salvation of the soul, which had become the one
great human care, was especially promised in these
mysteries upon the accurate performance of the sacred
ceremonies. The rites possessed a power of purifica-
tion and redemption. They made man better and freed
him from the dominion of hostile spirits. Consequently,
religion was a singularly important and absorbing
matter, and the liturgy could be performed only by a
clergy devoting itself entirely to the task. The Asiatic
gods exacted undivided service; their priests were no
longer magistrates, scarcely citizens. They devoted
themselves unreservedly, to their ministry, and de-
manded of their adherents submission to their sacred
authority.
All these features that we are but sketching here,
gave the Oriental religions a resemblance to Chris-
tianity, and the reader of these studies will find many
more points in common among them. These analogies
are even more striking to us than they were in those
times because we have become acquainted in India and
China with religions very different from the Roman
paganism and from Christianity as well, and because
the relationships of the two latter strike us more
strongly on account of the contrast. These theological
similarities did not attract the attention of the ancients,
because they scarcely conceived of the existence of
other possibilities, while differences were what they
xxiv
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
remarked especially. I am not at all forgetting how
considerable these were. The principal divergence
was that Christianity, by placing God in an ideal sphere
beyond the confines of this world, endeavored to rid
itself of every attachment to a frequently abject poly-
theism. But even if we oppose tradition, we cannot
break with the past that has formed us, nor separate
ourselves from the present in which we live. As the
religious history of the empire is studied more closely,
the triumph of the church will, in our opinion, appear
more and more as the culmination of a long evolution
of beliefs. We can understand the Christianity of the
fifth century with its greatness and weaknesses, its
spiritual exaltation and its puerile superstitions, if we
know the moral antecedents of the world in which it
developed. The faith of the friends of Symmachus
was much farther removed from the religious ideal of
Augustus, although they would never have admitted
it, than that of their opponents in the senate. I hope
that these studies will succeed in showing how the
pagan religions from the Orient aided the long con-
tinued effort of Roman society, contented for many
centuries with a rather insipid idolatry, toward more
elevated and more profound forms of worship. Pos-
sibly their credulous mysticism deserves as much blame
as is laid upon the theurgy of neo-Platonism, which
drew from the same sources of inspiration, but like
neo-Platonism it has strengthened man's feeling of
eminent dignity by asserting the divine nature of the
soul. By making inner purity the main object of earthly
existence, they refined and exalted the psychic life and
gave it an almost supernatural intensity, which until
then was unknown in the ancient world.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
.
TN this second edition the eight lectures forming the
I reading matter of this book have suffered scarcely
any change, and, excepting the chapter on Syria, the
additions are insignificant. It would have been an
easy matter to expand them, but I did not want these
lectures to become erudite dissertations, nor the ideas
which are the essential part of a sketch like the present
to be overwhelmed by a multiplicity of facts. In gen-
eral I have therefore limited myself to weeding out
certain errors that were overlooked, or introduced, in
the proofreading.
The notes, however, have been radically revised. I
have endeavored to give expression to the suggestions
or observations communicated to me by obliging read-
ers; to mention new publications and to utilize the
results of my own studies. The index makes it easy
to find the subjects discussed.
And here I must again thank my friend Charles
Michel, who undertook the tedious task of rereading
the proofs of this book, and whose scrupulous and
sagacious care has saved me from many and many a
blunder.
. F. C.
Paris, FRANCE, February, 1909.
ROME AND THE ORIENT.
W E are fond of regarding ourselves as the heirs of
VV Rome, and we like to think that the Latin genius,
after having absorbed the genius of Greece, held an
intellectual and moral supremacy in the ancient world
similar to the one Europe now maintains, and that the
culture of the peoples that lived under the authority
of the Cæsars was stamped forever by their strong
touch. It is difficult to forget the present entirely and
to renounce aristocratic pretensions. We find it hard
to believe that the Orient has not always lived, to some
extent, in the state of humiliation from which it is
now slowly emerging, and we are inclined to ascribe
to the ancient inhabitants of Smyrna, Beirut or Alexan-
dria the faults with which the Levantines of to-day
are being reproached. The growing influence of the
Orientals that accompanied the decline of the empire
has frequently been considered a morbid phenomenon
and a symptom of the slow decomposition of the an-
cient world. Even Renan does not seem to have been
sufficiently free from an old prejudice when he wrote
on this subject :1 “That the oldest and most worn out
civilization should by its corruption subjugate the
younger was inevitable.”
But if we calmly consider the real facts, avoiding
the optical illusion that makes things in our immediate
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
vicinity look larger, we shall form a quite different
opinion. It is beyond all dispute that Rome found the
point of support of its military power in the Occident.
The legions from the Danube and the Rhine were al-
ways braver, stronger and better disciplined than those
from the Euphrates and the Nile. But it is in the Ori-
ent, especially in these countries of “old civilization,”
that we must look for industry and riches, for technical
ability and artistic productions, as well as for intelli-
gence and science, even before Constantine made it the
center of political power.
While Greece merely vegetated in a state of poverty,
humiliation and exhaustion; while Italy suffered de-
population and became unable to provide for her own
support; while the other countries of Europe were
hardly out of barbarism ; Asia Minor, Egypt and Syria
gathered the rich harvests Roman peace made possible.
Their industrial centers cultivated and renewed all the
traditions that had caused their former celebrity. A
more intense intellectual life corresponded with the
economic activity of these great manufacturing and
exporting countries. They excelled in every profession
except that of arms, and even the prejudiced Romans
admitted their superiority. The menace of an Oriental
empire haunted the imaginations of the first masters
of the world. Such an empire seems to have been
the main thought of the dictator Cæsar, and the trium-
vir Antony almost realized it. Even Nero thought of
making Alexandria his capital. Although Rome, sup-
ported by her army and the right of might, retained
the political authority for a long time, she bowed to
the fatal moral ascendency of more advanced peoples,
Viewed from this standpoint the history of the empire
ROME AND THE ORIENT.
during the first three centuries may be summarized
as a "peaceful infiltration” of the Orient into the Occi-
dent. This truth has become evident since the various
aspects of Roman civilization are being studied in
greater detail; and before broaching the special sub-
ject of these studies we wish to review a few phases
of the slow metamorphosis of which the propagation
of the Oriental religions was one phenomenon.
In the first place the imitation of the Orient showed
itself plainly in political institutions.3 To be convinced
of this fact it is sufficient to compare the government of
the empire in the time of Augustus with what it had
become under Diocletian. At the beginning of the
imperial régime Rome ruled the world but did not
govern it. She kept the number of her functionaries
down to a minimum, her provinces were mere unorgan-
ized aggregates of cities where she only exercised po-
lice power, protectorates rather than annexed coun-
tries. As long as law and order were maintained and
her citizens, functionaries and merchants could trans-
act their business, Rome was satisfied. She saved
herself the trouble of looking after the public service
by leaving broad authority to the cities that had existed
before her domination, or had been modeled after her.
The taxes were levied by syndicates of bankers and the
public lands rented out. Before the reforms instituted
by Augustus, even the army was not an organic and
permanent force, but consisted theoretically of troops
levied before a war and discharged after victory.
Rome's institutions remained those of a city. It was
difficult to apply them to the vast territory she at-
tempted to govern with their aid. They were a clumsy
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
apparatus that worked only by sudden starts, a rudi-
mentary system that could not and did not last.
What do we find three centuries later? A strongly
centralized state in which an absolute ruler, worshiped
like a god and surrounded by a large court, commanded
a whole hierarchy of functionaries; cities divested of
their local liberties and ruled by an omnipotent bureau-
cracy, the old capital herself the first to be dispossessed
of her autonomy and subjected to prefects. Outside
of the cities the monarch, whose private fortune was
identical with the state finances, possessed immense
domains managed by intendants and supporting a pop-
ulation of serf-colonists. The army was composed
largely of foreign mercenaries, professional soldiers
whose pay or bounty consisted of lands on which they
settled. All these features and many others caused
the Ronian empire to assume the likeness of ancient
Oriental monarchies.
It would be impossible to admit that like causes pro-
duce like results, and then maintain that a similarity
is not sufficient proof of an influence in history. Wher-
ever we can closely follow the successive transforma-
tions of a particular institution, we notice the action
of the Orient and especially of Egypt. When Rome
had become a great cosmopolitan metropolis like Alex-
andria, Augustus reorganized it in imitation of the
capital of the Ptolemies. The fiscal reforms of the
Cæsars like the taxes on sales and inheritances, the
register of land surveys and the direct collection of
taxes, were suggested by the very perfect financial sys-
tem of the Lagides, 5 and it can be maintained that
their government was the first source from which those
of modern Europe were derived, through the medium
VE
ROME AND THE ORIENT.
er
of the Romans. The imperial saltus, superintended
by a procurator and cultivated by metayers reduced to
the state of serfs, was an imitation of the ones that
the Asiatic potentates formerly cultivated through their
agents. It would be easy to increase this list of ex-
amples. The absolute monarchy, theocratic and bureau-
cratic at the same time, that was the form of govern-
ment of Egypt, Syria and even Asia Minor during the
Alexandrine period was the ideal on which the deified
Cæsars gradually fashioned the Roman empire.
One cannot however deny Rome the glory of having
elaborated a system of private law that was logically
deduced from clearly formulated principles and was
destined to become the fundamental law of all civilized
communities. But even in connection with this private
law, where the originality of Rome is uncontested and
her preeminence absolute, recent researches have shown
' with how much tenacity the Hellenized Orient main-
tained its old legal codes, and how much resistance
local customs, the woof of the life of nations, offered
to unification. In truth, unification never was realized
except in theory.7 More than that, these researches
have proved that the fertile principles of that provin-
cial law, which was sometimes on a higher moral plane
than the Roman law, reacted on the progressive trans-
formation of the old ius civile. And how could it be
otherwise? Were not a great number of famous jurists
like Ulpian of Tyre and Papinian of Hemesa natives
of Syria ? And did not the law-school of Beirut con-
stantly grow in importance after the third century,
until during the fifth century it became the most bril-
liant center of legal education? Thus Levantines cul-
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
tivated even the patrimonial field cleared by Scaevola
and Labeo.8
In the austere temple of law the Orient held as yet
only a minor position; everywhere else its authority
was predominant. The practical mind of the Romans,
which made them excellent lawyers, prevented them
from becoming great scholars. They esteemed pure
science but little, having small talent for it, and one
notices that it ceased to be earnestly cultivated wher-
ever their direct domination was established. The great
astronomers, mathematicians, and physicians, like the
originators or defenders of the great metaphysical sys-
tems, were mostly Orientals. Ptolemy and Plotinus
were Egyptians, Porphyry and Iamblichus, Syrians,
Dioscorides and Galen, Asiatics. All branches of learn-
ing were affected by the spirit of the Orient. The
clearest minds accepted the chimeras of astrology and
magic. Philosophy claimed more and more to derive
its inspiration from the fabulous wisdom of Chaldea
and Egypt. Tired of seeking truth, reason abdicated
and hoped to find it in a revelation preserved in the
mysteries of the barbarians. Greek logic strove to co-
ordinate into an harmonious whole the confused tra-
ditions of the Asiatic religions.
Letters, as well as science, were cultivated chiefly
by the Orientals. Attention has often been called to
the fact that those men of letters that were considered
the purest representatives of the Greek spirit under the
empire belonged almost without exception to Asia
Minor, Syria or Egypt. The rhetorician Dion Chry-
sostom came from Prusa in Bithynia, the satirist Lucian
from Samosata in Commagene on the borders of the
Euphrates. A number of other names could be cited.
ROME AND THE ORIENT.
From Tacitus and Suetonius down to Ammianus, there
was not one author of talent to preserve in Latin the
memory of the events that stirred the world of that
period, but it was a Bithynian again, Dion Cassius of
Nicea, who, under the Severi, narrated the history of
the Roman people.
It is a characteristic fact that, besides this literature
whose language was Greek, others were born, revived
and developed. The Syriac, derived from the Aramaic
which was the international language of earlier Asia,
became again the language of a cultured race with
Bardesanes of Edessa. The Copts remembered that
they had spoken several dialects derived from the an-
cient Egyptian and endeavored to revive them. North,
of the Taurus even the Armenians began to write and
polish their barbarian speech. Christian preaching,
addressed to the people, took hold of the popular idioms
and roused them from their long lethargy. Along the
Nile as well as on the plains of Mesopotamia or in the
valleys of Anatolia it proclaimed its new ideas in dia-
lects that had been despised hitherto, and wherever
the old Orient had not been entirely denationalized
by Hellenism, it successfully reclaimed its intellectual
autonomy.
A revival of native art went hand in hand with this
.linguistic awakening. In no field of intellect has the
illusion mentioned above been so complete and lasting
as in this one. Until a few years ago the opinion pre-
vailed that an “imperial” art had come into existence
in the Rome of Augustus and that thence its predomi-
nance had slowly spread to the periphery of the ancient
world. If it had undergone some special modifications
in Asia these were due to exotic influences, undoubtedly
THE ORIENTAL T
RELIGIONS.
Assyrian or Persian. Not even the important discov-
eries of M. de Vogüé in Hauran9 were sufficient to
prove the emptiness of a theory that was supported by
our lofty conviction of European leadership.
To-day it is fully proven not only that Rome has
given nothing or almost nothing to the Orientals but
also that she has received quite a little from them.
Impregnated with Hellenism, Asia produced an aston-
ishing number of original works of art in the kingdoms
of the Diadochs. The old processes, the discovery of
which dates back to the Chaldeans, the Hittites or the
subjects of the Pharaohs, were first utilized by the con-
querors of Alexander's empire who conceived a rich
variety of new types, and created an original style.
But if during the three centuries preceding our era,
sovereign Greece played the part of the demiurge who
creates living beings out of preexisting matter, during
the three following centuries' her productive power be-
came exhausted, her faculty of invention weakened,
the ancient local traditions revolted against her empire
and with the help of Christianity overcame it. Trans-
ferred to Byzantium they expanded in a new efflores-
cence and spread over Europe where they paved the
way for the formation of the Romanesque art of the
early Middle Ages. To
Rome, then, far from having established her suzer-
ainty, was tributary to the Orient in this respect. The
Orient was her superior in the extent and precision
of its technical knowledge as well as in the inventive
genius and ability of its workmen. The Cæsars were
great builders but frequently employed foreign help.
Trajan's principal architect, a magnificent builder, was
a Syrian, Apollodorus of Damascus."
ROME AND THE ORIENT.
Her Levantine subjects not only taught Italy the
artistic solution of architectonic problems like the erec-
tion of a cupola on a rectangular or octagonal edifice,
but also compelled her to accept their taste, and they
saturated her with their genius. They imparted to
her their love of luxuriant decoration, and of violent
polychromy, and they gave religious sculpture and
painting the complicated symbolism that pleased their
abstruse and subtle minds.
In those times art was closely connected with in-
dustry, which was entirely manual and individual.
They learned from each other, they improved and de-
clined together, in short they were inseparable. Shall
we call the painters that decorated the architecturally
fantastic and airy walls of Pompeii in Alexandrian
or perhaps Syrian taste artisans or artists? And how
shall we classify the goldsmiths, Alexandrians also, who
carved those delicate leaves, those picturesque animals,
those harmoniously elegant or cunningly animated
groups that cover the phials and goblets of Bosco
Reale? And descending from the productions of the
industrial arts to those of industry itself, one might
also trace the growing influence of the Orient; one
might show how the action of the great manufacturing
centers of the East gradually transformed the material
civilization of Europe; one might point out how the
introduction into Gaul12 of exotic patterns and pro-
cesses changed the old native industry and gave its
products a perfection and a popularity hitherto un-
known. But I dislike to insist overmuch on a point
apparently so foreign to the one now before us. It
was important however to mention this subject at the
beginning because in whatever direction scholars of
10
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
to-day pursue their investigations they always notice
Asiatic culture slowly supplanting that of Italy. The
latter developed only by absorbing elements taken from
the inexhaustible reserves of the "old civilizations” of
which we spoke at the beginning. The Hellenized
Orient imposed itself everywhere through its men and
its works; it subjected its Latin conquerors to its as-
cendancy in the same manner as it dominated its Ara-
bian conquerors later when it became the civilizer of
Islam. But in no field of thought was its influence,
under the empire, so decisive as in religion, because it
finally brought about the complete destruction of the
Greco-Latin paganism.13
The invasion of the barbarian religions was so open,
so noisy and so triumphant that it could not remain
unnoticed. It attracted the anxious or sympathetic
attention of the ancient authors, and since the Renais-
sance modern scholars have frequently taken interest
in it. Possibly however they did not sufficiently under-
stand that this religious evolution was not an isolated
and extraordinary phenomenon, but that it accompanied
and aided a more general evolution, just as that aided
it in turn. The transformation of beliefs was intimately
connected with the establishment of the monarchy by
divine right, the development of art, the prevailing
philosophic tendencies, in fact with all the manifesta-
tions of thought, sentiment and taste.
We shall attempt to sketch this religious movement
with its numerous and far-reaching ramifications. First
we shall try to show what caused the diffusion of the
Oriental religions. In the second place we shall ex-
amine those in particular that originated in Asia Minor,
Egypt, Syria and Persia, and we shall endeavor to dis-
ROMÉ AND THE ORIENT.
tinguish their individual characteristics and estimate
their value. We shall see, finally, how the ancient
idolatry was transformed and what form it assumed in
its last struggle against Christianity, whose victory
was furthered by Asiatic mysteries, although they op-
posed its doctrine.
* * *
But before broaching this subject a preliminary ques-
tion must be answered. Is the study which we have
just outlined possible? What items will be of assistance
to us in this undertaking? From what sources are we
to derive our knowledge of the Oriental religions in the
Roman empire?
It must be admitted that the sources are inadequate
and have not as yet been sufficiently investigated.
Perliaps no loss caused by the general wreck of an-
cient literature has been more disastrous than that of
the liturgic books of paganism. A few mystic formu-
las quoted incidentally by pagan or Christian authors
and a few fragments of hymns in honor of the gods14
are practically all that escaped destruction. In order
to obtain an idea of what those lost rituals may have
been one must turn to their imitations contained in the
chorus of tragedies, and to the parodies comic authors
sometimes made; or look up in books of magic the
plagiarisms that writers of incantations may have com-
mitted.15 But all this gives us only a dim reflection
of the religious ceremonies. Shut out from the sanc-
tuary like profane outsiders, we hear only the indistinct
echo of the sacred songs and not even in imagination
can we attend the celebration of the mysteries.
We do not know how the ancients prayed, we can-
not penetrate into the intimacy of their religious life,
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
and certain depths of the soul of antiquity we must
leave unsounded. If a fortunate windfall could give
us possession of some sacred book of the later pagan-
ism its revelations would surprise the world. We
could witness the performance of those mysterious
dramas whose symbolic acts commemorated the passion
of the gods; in company with the believers we could
sympathize with their sufferings, lament their death
and share in the joy of their return to life. In those
vast collections of archaic rites that hazily perpetuated
the memory of abolished creeds we would find tradi-
tional formulas couched in obsolete language that was
scarcely understood, naive prayers conceived by the
faith of the earliest ages, sanctified by the devotion
of past centuries, and almost ennobled by the joys and
sufferings of past generations. We would also read
those hymns in which philosophic thought found ex-
pression in sumptuous allegories18 or humbled itself be-
fore the omnipotence of the infinite, poems of which
only a few stoic effusions celebrating the creative or
destructive fire, or expressing a complete surrender
to divine fate can give us some idea. 17
But everything is gone, and thus we lose the pos-
sibility of studying from the original documents the
internal development of the pagan religions.
We should feel this loss less keenly if we possessed at
· least the works of Greek and Latin mythographers on
the subject of foreign divinities like the voluminous
books published during the second century by Eusebius
and Pallas on the Mysteries of Mithra. But those
works were thought devoid of interest or even dan-
gerous by the devout Middle Ages, and they are not
likely to have survived the fall of paganism. The
ROME AND THE ORIENT.
13
treatises on mythology that have been preserved deal
almost entirely with the ancient Hellenic fables made
famous by the classic writers, to the neglect of the
Oriental religions.18
As a rule, all we find in literature on this subject
are a few incidental remarks and passing allusions.
History is incredibly poor in that respect. This poverty
of information was caused in the first place by a nar-
rowness of view characteristic of the rhetoric cultivated
by historians of the classical period and especially of
the empire. Politics and the wars of the rulers, the
dramas, the intrigues and even the gossip of the courts
and of the official world were of much higher interest
to them than the great economic or religious transfor-
mations. Moreover, there is no period of the Roman
empire concerning which we are so little informed as
the third century, precisely the one during which the
Oriental religions reached the apogee of their power.
From Herodianus and Dion Cassius to the Byzantines,
and from Suetonius to Ammianus Marcellinus, all nar-
ratives of any importance have been lost, and this
deplorable blank in historic tradition is particularly
fatal to the study of paganism.
It is a strange fact that light literature concerned
itself more with these grave questions. The rites of
the exotic religions stimulated the imagination of the
satirists, and the pomp of the festivities furnished the
novelists with brilliant descriptive matter. Juvenal
laughs at the mortifications of the devotees of Isis ; in
his Necromancy Lucian parodies the interminable puri-
fications of the magi, and in the Metamorphoses Apu-
leius relates the various scenes of an initiation into
the mysteries of Isis with the fervor of a neophyte and
14
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
the studied refinement of a rhetorician. But as a rule
we find only incidental remarks and superficial obser-
vations in the authors. Not even the precious treatise
On the Syrian Goddess, in which Lucian tells of a
visit to the temple of Hierapolis and repeats his con-
versation with the priests, has any depth. What he
relates is the impression of an intelligent, curious and
above all an ironical traveler. 19
In order to obtain a more perfect initiation and a less
fragmentary insight into the doctrines taught by the
Oriental religions, we are compelled to turn to two
kinds of testimony, inspired by contrary tendencies, but
equally suspicious: the testimony of the philosophers,
and that of the fathers of the cliurch. The Stoics and
the Platonists frequently took an interest in the re-
ligious beliefs of the barbarians, and it is to them that
we are indebted for the possession of highly valuable
data on this subject. Plutarch's treatise Isis and Osiris
is a source whose importance is appreciated even by
Egyptologists, whom it aids in reconstructing the leg-
ends of those divinities.20 But the philosophers very
seldom expounded foreign doctrines objectively and
for their own sake. They embodied them in their sys-
tems as a means of proof or illustration; they sur-
rounded them with personal exegesis or drowned them
in transcendental commentaries; in short, they claimed
to discover their own ideas in them. It is always diffi-
cult and sometimes impossible to distinguish the dog-
mas from the self-confident interpretations which are
usually as incorrect as possible.
The writings of the ecclesiastical authors, although
prejudiced, are very fertile sources of information, but
in perusing them one must guard against another kind
ROME AND THE ORIENT.
15
of error. By a peculiar irony of fate those contro-
versialists are to-day in many instances our only aid
in reviving the idolatry they attempted to destroy. Al-
though the Oriental religions were the most dangerous
and most persistent adversaries of Christianity, the
works of the Christian writers do not supply as abun-
dant information as one might suppose. The reason
for this is that the fathers of the church often show a
certain reserve in speaking of idolatry, and affect to
recall its monstrosities only in guarded terms. More-
over, as we shall see later on,ar the apologists of the
fourth century were frequently behind the times as to
the evolution of doctrines, and drawing on literary
tradition, from epicureans and skeptics, they fought
especially the beliefs of the ancient Grecian and Italian
religions that had been abolished or were dying out,
while they neglected the living beliefs of the contempo-
rary world.
Some of these polemicists nevertheless directed their
attacks against the divinities of the Orient and their
Latin votaries. Either they derived their information
from converts or they had been pagans themselves
during their youth. This was the case with Firmicus
Maternus who has written a bad treatise on astrology
and finally fought the Error of the Profane Religions.
However, the question always arises as to how much
they can have known of the esoteric doctrines and the
ritual ceremonies, the secret of which was jealously
guarded. They boast so loudly of their power to dis-
close these abominations, that they incur the suspicion
that the discretion of the initiates baffled their curiosity.
In addition they were too ready to believe all the calum-
nies that were circulated against the pagan mysteries,
16
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS
calumnies directed against occult sects of all times and
against the Christians themselves.
In short, the literary tradition is not very rich and
frequently little worthy of belief. While it is com-
paratively considerable for the Egyptian religions be-
cause they were received by the Greek world as early
as the period of the Ptolemies, and because letters and
science were always cultivated at Alexandria, it is even
less important for Phrygia, although Cybele was Hel-
lenized and Latinized very early, and excepting the
tract by Lucian on the goddess of Hierapolis it is
almost nothing for the Syrian, Cappadocian and Per-
sian religions.
The insufficiency of the data supplied by writers in-
creases the value of information furnished by epi-
graphic and archeological documents, whose number is
steadily growing. The inscriptions possess a certainty
and precision that is frequently absent in the phrases
of the writers. They enable one to draw important
conclusions as to the dates of propagation and disap-
pearance of the various religions, their extent, the
quality and social rank of their votaries, the sacred
hierarchy and sacerdotal personnel, the constitution
of the religious communities, the offerings made to the
gods, and the ceremonies performed in their honor;
in short, conclusions as to the secular and profane
history of these religions, and in a certain measure
their ritual. But the conciseness of the lapidary style
and the constant repetition of stereotyped formulas
naturally render that kind of text hardly explicit and
sometimes enigmatical. There are dedications like the
Nama Sebesio engraved upon the great Mithra bas-
relief preserved in the Louvre, that caused a number of
ROME AND THE ORIENT.
17
dissertations to be written without any one explain-
ing it. And besides, in a general way, epigraphy gives
us but little information about the liturgy and almost
nothing regarding the doctrines.
Archeology must endeavor to fill the enormous blanks
left by the written tradition; the monuments, especially
the artistic ones, have not as yet been collected with
sufficient care nor interpreted with sufficient method.
By studying the arrangement of the temples and the
religious furniture that adorned them, one can at the
same time determine part of the liturgic ceremonies
which took place there. On the other hand, the crit-
ical interpretation of statuary relics enables us to re-
construct with sufficient correctness certain sacred leg-
ends and to recover part of the theology of the mys-
teries. Unlike Greek art, the religious art at the close
of paganism did not seek, or sought only incidentally,
to elevate the soul through the contemplation of an
ideal of divine beauty. True to the traditions of the
ancient Orient, it tried to edify and to instruct at the
same time.22 It told the history of the gods and the
world in cycles of pictures, or it expressed through
symbols the subtle conceptions of theology and even
certain doctrines of profane science, like the struggle
of the four elements; just as during the Middle Ages,
so the artist of the empire interpreted the ideas of the
clergy, teaching the believers by means of pictures and
rendering the highest religious conceptions intelligible
to the humblest minds. But to read this mystic book
whose pages are scattered in our museums we must
laboriously look for its key, and we cannot take for a
guide and exegetist some Vincent de Beauvais of Dio-
cletian's period23 as when looking over the marvelous
18
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
sculptured encyclopedias in our Gothic cathedrals. Our
position is frequently similar to that of a scholar of
the year 4000 who would undertake to write the his-
tory of the Passion from the pictures of the fourteen
stations, or to study the veneration of the saints from
the statues found in the ruins of our churches.
But, as far as the Oriental religions are concerned,
the results of all the laborious investigations now being
made in the classical countries can be indirectly con-
trolled, and this is a great advantage. To-day we are
tolerably well acquainted with the old religions of
Egypt, Babylonia and Persia. We read and translate
correctly the hieroglyphics of the Nile, the cuneiform
tablets of Mesopotamia and the sacred books, Zend or
Pahlavi, of Parseeism. Religious history has profited
more by their deciphering than the history of politics
or of civilization. In Syria also, the discovery of Ara-
maic and Phænician inscriptions and the excavations
made in temples have in a certain measure covered
the deficiency of information in the Bible or in the
Greek writers on Semitic paganism. Even Asia Minor,
that is to say the uplands of Anatolia, is beginning
to reveal herself to explorers although almost all the
great sanctuaries, Pessinus, the two Comanas, Casta-
bala, are as yet buried underground. We can, there-
fore, even now form a fairly exact idea of the beliefs
of some of the countries that sent the Oriental mys-
teries to Rome. To tell the truth, these researches
have not been pushed far enough to enable us to state
precisely what form religion had assumed in those re-
gions at the time they came into contact with Italy,
and we should be likely to commit very strange errors,
if we brought together practices that may have been
ROME AND THE ORIENT.
19
separated by thousands of years. It is a task reserved
for the future to establish a rigorous chronology in this
matter, to determine the ultimate phase that the evolu-
tion of creeds in all regions of the Levant had reached
at the beginning of our era, and to connect them with-
out interruption of continuity to the mysteries prac-
ticed in the Latin world, the secrets of which archeo-
logical researches are slowly bringing to light.
We are still far from welding all the links of this
long chain firmly together; the orientalists and the
classical philologists cannot, as yet, shake hands across
the Mediterranean. We raise only one corner of Isis's
veil, and scarcely guess a part of the revelations that
were, even formerly, reserved for a pious and chosen
few. Nevertheless we have reached, on the road of
certainty, a summit from which we can overlook the
field that our successors will clear. In the course of
these lectures I shall attempt to give a summary of the
essential results achieved by the erudition of the nine-
teenth century and to draw from them a few conclu-
sions that will, possibly, be provisional. The invasion
of the Oriental religions that destroyed the ancient
religions and national ideals of the Romans also rad-
ically transformed the society and government of the
empire, and in view of this fact it would deserve the
historian's attention even if it had not foreshadowed
and prepared the final victory of Christianity.
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
W HEN, during the fourth century, the weakened
empire split asunder like an overburdened scale
whose beam is broken, this political divorce perpetu-
ated a moral separation that had existed for a long
time. The opposition between the Greco-Oriental and
the Latin worlds manifests itself especially in religion
and in the attitude taken by the central power toward it.
Occidental paganism was almost exclusively Latin
under the empire. After the annexation of Spain, Gaul
and Brittany, the old Iberian, Celtic and other religions
were unable to keep up the unequal struggle against
the more advanced religion of the conquerors. The
marvelous rapidity with which the literature of the
civilizing Romans was accepted by the subject peoples
has frequently been pointed out. Its influence was felt
in the temples as well as in the forum; it transformed
the prayers to the gods as well as the conversation be-
tween men. Besides, it was part of the political pro-
gram of the Cæsars to make the adoption of the Roman
divinities general, and the government imposed the
rules of its sacerdotal law as well as the principles of
its public and civil law upon its new subjects. The
municipal laws prescribed the election of pontiffs and
augurs in common with the judicial duumvirs. In
Gaul druidism, with its oral traditions embodied in
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
21
long poems, perished and disappeared less on account
of the police measures directed against it than in con-
sequence of its voluntary relinquishment by the Celts,
as soon as they came under the ascendency of Latin
culture. In Spain it is difficult to find any traces of the
aboriginal religions. Even in Africa, where the Punic
religion was far more developed, it maintained itself
only by assuming an entirely Roman appearance. Baal
became Saturn and Eshmoun Æsculapius. It is doubt-
ful if there was one temple in all the provinces of Italy
and Gaul where, at the time of the disappearance of
idolatry, the ceremonies were celebrated according to
native rites and in the local idiom. To this exclusive
predominance of Latin is due the fact that it remained
the only liturgic language of the Occidental church,
which here as in many other cases perpetuated a pre-
existing condition and maintained a unity previously
established. By imposing her speech upon the inhabi-
tants of Ireland and Germany, Christian Rome simply
continued the work of assimilation in the barbarian
provinces subject to her influence that she had begun
while pagan.
In the Orient, however, the churches that are sep-
arate from the Greek orthodoxy use, even to-day, a
variety of dialects calling to mind the great diversity
of races formerly subject to Rome. In those times
twenty varieties of speech translated the religious
thought of the peoples joined under the dominion of
the Cæsars. At the beginning of our era Hellenism
had not yet conquered the uplands of Anatolia,2 nor
central Syria, nor the divisions of Egypt. Annexation
to the empire might retard and in certain regions
weaken the power of expansion of Greek civilization,
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
but it could not substitute Latin culture for its except
around the camps of the legions guarding the frontier.
and in a very few colonies. It especially benefitted the
individuality of each region. The native religions re-
tained all their prestige and independence. In their
ancient sanctuaries that took rank with the richest and
most famous of the world, a powerful clergy continued
to practise ancestral devotions according to barbarian
rites, and frequently in a barbarian tongue. The tra-
ditional liturgy, everywhere performed with scrupu-
lous respect, remained Egyptian or Semitic, Phrygian
or Persian, according to the locality.
Neither pontifical law nor augural science ever ob-
tained credit outside of the Latin world. It is a char-
acteristic fact that the worship of the deified emperors,
the only official worship required of every one by the
government as a proof of loyalty, should have orig-
inated of its own accord in Asia, received its inspira-
tion from the purest monarchic traditions, and revived
in form and spirit the veneration accorded to the Dia-
dochi by their subjects.
Not only were the gods of Egypt and Asia never
supplanted like those of Gaul or Spain, but they soon
crossed the seas and gained worshipers in every Latin
province. Isis and Serapis, Cybele and Attis, the Syr-
ian Baals, Sabazius and Mithra were honored by
brotherhoods of believers as far as the remotest limits
of Germany. The Oriental reaction that we perceive
from the beginning of our era, in studying the history
of art, literature, and philosophy, manifested itself
with incomparably greater power in the religious
sphere. First, there was a slow infiltration of despised
exotic religions, then, toward the end of the first cen-
.
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
23
tury, the Orontes, the Nile and the Halys, to use the
words of Juvenal, flowed into the Tiber, to the great
indignation of the old Romans. Finally, a hundred
years later, an influx of Egyptian, Semitic and Per-
sian beliefs and conceptions took place that threatened
to submerge all that the Greek and Roman genius had
laboriously built up. What called forth and permitted
this spiritual commotion, of which the triumph of
Christianity was the outcome? Why was the influence
of the Orient strongest in the religious field? These
questions claim our attention. Like all great phenom-
ena of history, this particular one was determined by
a number of influences that concurred in producing it.
In the mass of half-known particulars that brought it
about, certain factors or leading causes, of which every
one has in turn been considered the most important,
may be distinguished.
If we yielded to the tendency of many excellent
minds of to-day and regarded history as the resultant
of economic and social forces, it would be easy to show
their influence in that great religious movement. The
industrial and commercial preponderance of the Orient
was manifest, for there were situated the principal cen-
ters of production and export. The ever increasing
traffic with the Levant induced merchants to establish
themselves in Italy, in Gaul, in the Danubian coun-
tries, in Africa and in Spain ; in some cities they formed
real colonies. The Syrian emigrants were especially
numerous. Compliant, quick and diligent, they went
wherever they expected profit, and their colonies, scat-
tered as far as the north of Gaul, were centers for the
religious propaganda of paganism just as the Jewish
communities of the Diaspora were for Christian preach-
24
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
ing. Italy not only bought her grain from Egypt, she
imported men also; she ordered slaves from Phrygia,
Cappadocia, Syria and Alexandria to cultivate her de-
populated fields and perform the domestic duties in
her palaces. Who can tell what influence chamber-
maids from Antioch or Memphis gained over the minds
of their mistresses ? At the same time the necessities
of war removed officers and men from the Euphrates
to the Rhine or to the outskirts of the Sahara, and
everywhere they remained faithful to the gods of their
far-away country. The requirements of the govern-
ment transferred functionaries and their clerks, the
latter frequently of servile birth, into the most distant
provinces. Finally, the ease of communication, due
to the good roads, increased the frequency and extent
of travel.
Thus the exchange of products, men and ideas neces-
sarily increased, and it might be maintained that theoc-
racy was a necessary consequence of the mingling of
the races, that the gods of the Orient followed the great
commercial and social currents, and that their estab-
lishment in the Occident was a natural result of the
movement that drew the excess population of the
These reflections, which could be developed at some
length, surely show the way in which the Oriental re-
ligions spread. It is certain that the merchants acted
as missionaries in the seaports and places of commerce,
the soldiers on the frontiers and in the capital, the
slaves in the city homes,4 in the rural districts and in
public affairs. But while this acquaints us with the
means and the agents of the diffusion of those religions,
WHY TS
25
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
it tells us nothing of the reasons for their adoption by
the Romans. We perceive the how, but not the why,
understanding of the reasons for the difference between
the Orient and the Occident pointed out above.
An example will make my meaning clear. A Celtic
divinity, Epona,5 was held in particular honor as the
protectress of horses, as we all know. The Gallic
horsemen worshiped her wherever they were cantoned;
her monuments have been found scattered from Scot-
land to Transylvania. And yet, although this goddess
enjoyed the same conditions as, for instance - Jupiter
Dolichenus whom the cohorts of Commagene intro-
duced into Europe, it does not appear that she ever
received the homage of many strangers; it does not
appear, above all, that druidism ever assumed the shape
mans would have asked to be initiated. It was too
deficient in the intrinsic strength of the Oriental re-
ligions, to make proselytes.
Other historians and thinkers of to-day prefer to
apply the laws of natural science to religious phenom-
ena; and the theories about the variation of species
find an unforeseen application here. It is maintained
that the immigration of Orientals, of Syrians in par-
ticular, was considerable enough to provoke an altera-
tion and rapid deterioration in the robust Italic and
Celtic races. In addition, a social status contrary to
nature, and a bad political régime effected the destruc-
tion of the strongest, the extermination of the best and
the ascendancy of the worst elements of the population.
This multitude, corrupted by deleterious cross-breeding
and weakened by bad selection, became unable to op-
· 26
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
pose the invasion of the Asiatic chimeras and aberra-
tions. A lowering of the intellectual level and the dis-
appearance of the critical spirit accompanied the de-
cline of morals and the weakening of character. In
the evolution of beliefs the triumph of the Orient de-
noted a regression toward barbarism, a return to the
remote origins of faith and to the worship of natural
forces. This is a brief outline of explanations recently
proposed and received with some favor.6
It cannot be denied that souls and morals appear to
have become coarser during the Roman decline. So-
ciety as a whole was deplorably lacking in imagination,
intellect and taste. It seemed afflicted with a kind of
cerebral anemia and incurable sterility. The impaired
reason accepted the coarsest superstitions, the most
extreme asceticism and most extravagant theurgy. It
resembled an organism incapable of defending itself
against contagion. All this is partly true; but the
theories summarized proceed from an incorrect con-
ception of things; in reality they are based on the illu-
sion that Asia, under the empire, was inferior to
Europe. While the triumph of the Oriental religions
sometimes assumed the appearance of an awakening
of savagery, these religions in reality represented a
more advanced type in the evolution of religious forms
than the ancient national devotions. They were less
primitive, less simple, and, if I may use the expression,
provided with more organs than the old Greco-Roman
idolatry. We have indicated this on previous occa-
sions, and hope to bring it out with perfect clearness in
the course of these studies.
It is hardly necessary to state that a great religious
conquest can be explained only on moral grounds.
1
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
27
Whatever part must be ascribed to the instinct of imi-
tation and the contagion of example, in the last anal-
ysis we are always face to face with a series of indi-
vidual conversions. The mysterious affinity of minds
is as much due to reflection as to the continued and
almost unconscious influence of confused aspirations
that produce faith. The obscure gestation of a new
ideal is accomplished with pangs of anguish. Violent
struggles must have disturbed the souls of the masses
when they were torn away from their old ancestral
religions, or more often from indifference, by those
exacting gods who demanded a surrender of the en-
tire person, a devotion in the etymological meaning of
the word. The consecration to Isis of the hero of
Apuleius was the result of a call, of an appeal, by the
goddess who wanted the neophyte to enlist in her sacred
militia.7
If it is true that every conversion involves a psycho-
logical crisis, a transformation of the intimate per-
sonality of the individual, this is especially true of the
propagation of the Oriental religions. Born outside
of the narrow limits of the Roman city, they grew up
frequently in hostility to it, and were international,
consequently individual. The bond that formerly kept
devotion centered upon the city or the tribe, upon the
gens or the family, was broken. In place of the ancient
social groups communities of initiates came into exist-
ence, who considered themselves brothers no matter
where they came from.8 A god, conceived of as being
universal, received every mortal as his child. When-
ever these religions had any relation to the state they
were no longer called upon to support old municipal
or social institutions, but to lend their strength to the
• 28
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
authority of a sovereign regarded as the eternal lord
of the whole world jointly with God himself. In the
circles of the mystics, Asiatics mingled with Romans,
and slaves with high functionaries. The adoption of
the same faith made the poor freedman the equal and
sometimes the superior, of the decurion and the claris-
simus. All submitted to the same rules and participated
in the same festivities, in which the distinctions of an
aristocratic, society and the differences of blood and
country were obliterated. The distinctions of race and
nationality, of magistrate and father of a family, of
patrician and plebeian, of citizen and foreigner, were
abolished; all were but men, and in order to recruit
members, those religions worked upon man and his
character.
In order to gain the masses and the cream of Roman
society (as they did for a whole century) the barbarian
mysteries had to possess a powerful charm, they had
to satisfy the deep wants of the human soul, and their
strength had to be superior to that of the ancient Greco-
Roman religion. To explain the reasons for their vic-
tory we must try to reveal the nature of this superior-
ity“I mean their superiority in the struggle, without
assuming innate superiority.
. I believe that we can define it by stating that those
religions gave greater satisfaction first, to the senses
and passions, secondly, to the intelligence, finally, and
above all, to the conscience.
In the first place, they appealed more strongly to the
senses. This was their most obvious feature, and it has
been pointed out more often than any other. Perhaps
there never was a religion so cold and prosaic as the
Roman. Being subordinated to politics, it sought,
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
29
above all, to secure the protection of the gods for the
state and to avert the effects of their malevolence by
the strict execution of appropriate practices. It entered
into a contract with the celestial powers from which
mutual obligations arose : sacrifices on one side, favors
on the other. The pontiffs, who were also magistrates,
regulated the religious practices with the exact preci-
sion of jurists ;' as far as we know the prayers were all
couched in formulas as dry and verbose as notarial
instruinents. The liturgy reminds one of the ancient
civil law on account of the minuteness of its prescrip-
tions. This religion looked suspiciously at the abandon-
ment of the soul to the ecstasies of devotion. It re-
pressed, by force if necessary, the exuberant manifes-
tations of too ardent faith and everything that was
not in keeping with the grave dignity befitting the
relations of a civis Romanus with a god. The Jews
had the same scrupulous respect as the Romans for a
religious code and formulas of the past, "but in spite
of their dry and minute practices, the legalism of the
Pharisees stirred the heart more strongly than did
Roman formalism."10
Lacking the recognized authority. of official creeds,
the Oriental religions had to appeal to the passions of
the individual in order to make proselytes. They at-
tracted men first by the disturbing seductiveness of
their mysteries, where terror and hope were evoked in
turns, and charmed them by the pomp of their festiv-
ities and the magnificence of their processions. Men
were fascinated by the languishing songs and intoxi-
cating melodies. Above all these religions taught men
how to reach that blissful state in which the soul was
freed from the tyranny of the body and of suffering,
30
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
and lost itself in raptures. They led to ecstasy either
by means of nervous tension resulting from continued
maceration and fervent contemplation or by more ma-
terial means like the stimulation of vertiginous dances
and dizzy music, or even by the absorption of fer-
mented liquors after a long abstinence,tlas in the case
of the priests of the Great Mother. In mysticism it is
easy to descend from the sublime to the vile.
Even the gods, with whom the believers thought they
were uniting themselves in their mystic outbursts, were
more human and sometimes more sensual than those
of the Occident. The latter had that quietude of soul
in which the philosophic morality of the Greeks saw a
privilege of the sage; in the serenity of Olympus they
enjoyed perpetual youth; they were Immortals. The
divinities of the Orient, on the contrary, suffered and
died, but only to revive again.12 Osiris, Attis and
Adonis were mourned like mortals by wife or mistress,
Isis, Cybele or Astarte. With them the mystics inoaned
for their deceased god and later, after he had revived,
celebrated with exultation his birth to a new life. Or
else they joined in the passion of Mithra, condemned
to create the world in suffering. This common grief
and joy were often expressed with savage violence, by
bloody mutilations, long wails of despair, and extrav-
agant acclamations. The manifestations of the extreme
fanaticism of those barbarian races that had not been
touched by Greek skepticism and the very ardor of
their faith inflamed the souls of the multitudes attracted
by the exotic gods.
The Oriental religions touched every chord of sensi-
bility and satisfied the thirst for religious emotion that
the austere Roman creed had been unable to quench.
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
31
But at the same time they satisfied the intellect more
fully, and this is my second point.
In very early times Greece-later imitated by Rome
-became resolutely rationalistic: her greatest original-
ity lies here. Her philosophy was purely laical ; thought
was unrestrained by any sacred tradition; it even pre-
tended to pass judgment upon these traditions and con-
demned or approved of them. Being sometimes hos-
tile, sometimes indifferent and some times conciliatory,
it always remained independent of faith. But while
Greece thus freed herself from the fetters of a super-
annuated mythology, and openly and boldly constructed
those systems of metaphysics-by means of which she
claimed to solve the enigmas of the universe, her re-
ligion lost its vitality and dried up because it lacked
the strengthening nourishment of reflection. It be-
came a thing devoid of sense, whose raison d'être was
no longer understoodh; it embodied dead ideas and an
obsolete conception of the world. In Greece as well as
at Rome it was reduced to a collection of unintelligible
rites, scrupulously and mechanically reproduced with-
out addition or omission because they had been prac-
tised by the ancestors of long ago, and formulas
hallowed by the mos maiorum, that were no longer
understood or sincerely cherished. Never did a people
of advanced culture have a more infantile religion.
The Oriental civilizations on the contrary were sacer-
dotal in character. As in medieval Europe, the schol-
ars of Asia and Egypt were priests. In the tem-
ples the nature of the gods and of man were not the
only subjects of discussion; mathematics, astronomy,
medicine, philology and history were also studied. The
successors of Berosus, a priest from Babylonia, and
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Manetho, a priest from Heliopolis, were considered
deeply versed in all intellectual disciplines as late as the
time of Strabo.13
This state of affairs proved detrimental to the prog-
ress of science. Researches were conducted according
to preconceived ideas and were perverted through
strange prejudices. Astrology and magic were the
monstrous fruit of a hybrid union. But all this cer-
tainly gave religion a power it had never possessed
either in Greece or Rome.
All results of observation, all conquests of thought,
were used by an erudite clergy to attain the principal
object of their activities, the solution of the problem
of the destiny of man and matter, and of the relations
of heaven and earth. An ever enlarging conception of
the universe kept transforming the modes of belief.
Faith presumed to enslave both physics and metaphys-
ics. The credit of every discovery was given to the
gods. Thoth in Egypt and Bel in Chaldea were the
revealers not only of theology and the ritual, but of all
human knowledge.14 The names of the Oriental Hip-
parchi and Euclids who solved the first problems of
astronomy and geometry were unknown; but a con-
fused and grotesque literature made use of the name
and authority of Hermes Trismegistus. The doctrines
of the planetary spheres and the opposition of the four
elements were made to support systems of anthro-
pology and of morality; the theorems of astronomy
were used to establish an alleged method of divination;
formulas of incantation, supposed to subject divine
powers to the magician, were combined with chemical
experiments and medical prescriptions.
This intimate union of erudition and faith continued
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
33
Ty
in the Latin world. Theology became more and more
a process of deification of the principles or agents dis-
covered by science and a worship of time regarded as
the first cause, the stars whose course determined the
events of this world, the four elements whose innumer-
able combinations produced the natural phenomena,
and especially the sun which preserved heat, fertility
and life. The dogmas of the mysteries of Mithra were,
to a certain extent, the religious expression of Roman
physics and astronomy. In all forms of pantheism the
knowledge of nature appears to be inseparable from
that of God.15 Art itself complied more and more.
with the tendency to express erudite ideas by subtle
symbolism, and it represented in allegorical figures the
relations of divine powers and cosmic forces, like the
sky, the earth, the ocean, the planets, the constellations
and the winds. The sculptors engraved on stone every-
thing man thought and taught. In a general way the
belief prevailed that redemption and salvation depended
on the revelation of certain truths, on a knowledge of
the gods, of the world and of our person, and piety
became gnosis. 16
But, you will say, since in the classic age philosophy
also claimed to lead to morality through instruction
and to acquaint man with the supreme good, why did
it yield to Oriental religions that were in reality neither
original nor innovating ? Quite right, and if a power-
ful rationalist school, possessed of a good critical
method, had led the minds, we may believe that it
would have checked the invasion of the barbarian mys-
teries or at least limited their field of action. However,
as has frequently been pointed out, even in ancient
Greece the philosophic critics had very little hold on
34
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
popular religion obstinately faithful to its inherited
superstitious forms. But how many second century
minds shared Lucian's skepticism in regard to the dog-
matic systems! The various sects were fighting each
other for ever so long without convincing one another
of their alleged error. The satirist of Samosata en-
joyed opposing their exclusive pretensions while he
himself reclined on the "soft pillow of doubt.” But
only intelligent minds could delight in doubt or sur-
render to it; the masses wanted certainties. There was
nothing to revive confidence in the power of a decrepit
and threadbare science. No great discovery trans-
formed the conception of the universe. Nature no
longer betrayed her secrets, the earth remained unex-
plored and the past inscrutable. Every branch of
knowledge was forgotten. The world cursed with
sterility, could but repeat itself; it had the poignant
appreciation of its own decay and impotence. Tired
of fruitless researches, the mind surrendered to the
necessity of believing. Since the intellect was unable
to formulate a consistent rule of life faith alone could
supply it, and the multitudes gravitated toward the
temples, where the truths taught to man in earlier
days by the Oriental gods were revealed. The stanch
adherence of past generations to beliefs and rites of
unlimited antiquity seemed to guarantee their truth and
efficacy. This current was so strong that philosophy
itself was swept toward mysticism and the neo-Platonist
school became a theurgy.
The Oriental mysteries, then, could stir the soul by
arousing admiration and terror, pity and enthusiasm in
turn. They gave the intellect the illusion of learned
depth and absolute certainty and finally-our third
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD,
35
point-they satisfied conscience as well as passion and
reason. Among the complex causes that guaranteed
their domination, this was without doubt the most
effective.
In every period of their history the Romans, unlike
the Greeks in this respect, judged theories and insti-
tutions especially by their practical results. They al-
ways had a soldier's and business man's contempt for
metaphysicians. It is a matter of frequent observation
that the philosophy of the Latin world neglected meta-
physical speculations and concentrated its attention on
morals, just as later the Roman church left to the subtle
Hellenes the interminable controversies over the es-
sence of the divine logos and the double nature of
Christ. Questions that could rouse and divide her were
those having a direct application to life, like the doc-
trine of grace.
The old religion of the Romans had to respond to
this demand of their genius. Its poverty was honest. 17
Its mythology did not possess the poetic charm of that
of Greece, nor did its gods have the imperishable beauty
of the Olympians, but they were more moral, or at least
pretended to be. A large number were simply personi-
fied qualities, like chastity and piety. With the aid of
the censors they imposed the practice of the national
virtues, that is to say of the qualities useful to society,
temperance, courage, chastity, obedience to parents and
magistrates, reverence for the oath and the law, in fact,
the practice of every form of patriotism. During the
last century of the republic the pontiff Scaevola, one
of the foremost men of his time, rejected as futile the
divinities of fable and poetry, as superfluous or ob-
noxious those of thë philosophers and the exegetists,
36
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
and reserved all his favors for those of the statesmen,
as the only ones fit for the people.18 These were the
ones protecting the old customs, traditions and fre-
quently even the old privileges. But in the perpetual
flux of things conservatism ever carries with it a germ
of death. Just as the law failed to maintain the in-
tegrity of ancient principles, like the absolute power of
the father of the family, principles that were no longer
in keeping with the social realities, so religion wit-
nessed the foundering of a system of ethics contrary
to the moral code that had slowly been established.
The idea of collective responsibility contained in a num-
ber of beliefs is one instance. If a vestal violated her
vow of chastity the divinity sent-a pest that ceased only
on the day the culprit was punished. Sometimes the
angry heavens granted victory to the army only on
condition that a general or soldier dedicate himself to
the infernal gods as an expiatory victim. However,
through the influence of the philosophers and the jur-
ists the conviction slowly gained ground that each one
was responsible for his own misdeeds, and that it was
not equitable to make a whole city suffer for the crime
of an individual. People ceased to admit that the gods
crushed the good as well as the wicked in one punish-
ment. Often, also, the divine anger was thought to
be as ridiculous in its manifestations, as in its cause.
The rural superstitions of the country districts of La-
tium continued to live in the pontifical code of the
Roman people. If a lamb with two heads or a colt with
five legs was born, solemn supplications were pre-
scribed to avert the misfortunes foreboded by those
terrifying prodigies.19
All these puerile and monstrous beliefs that burdened
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
37
the religion of the Latins had thrown it into disrepute.
Its morality no longer responded to the new conception
of justice beginning to prevail. As a rule Rome rem-
edied the poverty of her theology and ritual by taking
what she needed from the Greeks. But here this re-
source failed her because the poetie, artistic and even
intellectual religion of the Greeks was hardly moral.
And the fables of a mythology jeered at by the philos-
ophers, parodied on the stage and put to verse by liber-
tine poets were anything but edifying.
Moreover—this was its second weakness—whatever
morality it demanded of a pious man went unrewarded.
People no longer believed that the gods continually
intervened in the affairs of men to reveal hidden crimes
and to punish triumphant vice, or that Jupiter would
hurl his thunderbolt to crush the perjurer. At the
time of the proscriptions and the civil wars under Nero
or Commodus it was more than plain that power and
possessions were for the strongest, the ablest or even
the luckiest, and not for the wisest or the most pious.
The idea of reward or punishment beyond the grave
found little credit. The notions of future life were
hazy, uncertain, doubtful and contradictory. Every-
body knows Juvenal's famous lines: "That there are
manes, a subterranean kingdom, a ferryman with a
long pole, and black frogs in the whirlpools of the
Styx; that so many thousand men could cross the
waves in a single boat, to-day even children refuse to
believe."20
After the fall of the republic indifference spread, the
temples were abandoned and threatened to tumble into
ruins, the clergy found it difficult to recruit members,
the festivities, once so popular, fell into desuetude, and
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Varro, at the beginning of his Antiquities, expressed
his fear lest “the gods might perish, not from the blows
of foreign enemies, but from very neglect on the part
of the citizens."21 It is well known that Augustus,
prompted by political rather than by religious reasons,
attempted to revive the dying religion. His religious
reforms stood in close relation to his moral legislation
and the establishment of the imperial dignity. Their
tendency was to bring the people back to the pious
practice of ancient virtues but also to chain them to
the new political order. The alliance of throne and
altar in Europe dates from that time.
This attempted reform failed entirely. Making re-
ligion an auxiliary to moral policing is not a means of
establishing its empire over souls. Formal reverence
for the official gods is not incompatible with absolute
and practical skepticism. The restoration attempted
by Augustus is nevertheless very characteristic be-
cause it is so consistent with the Roman spirit which
by temperament and tradition demanded that religion
should support morality and the state.
The Asiatic religions fulfilled the requirements. The
change of régime, although unwelcome, brought about
a change of religion. The increasing tendency of
Cæsarism toward absolute monarchy made it lean more
and more upon the Oriental clergy. True to the tra-.
ditions of the Achemenides and the Pharaohs, those
priests preached doctrines tending to elevate the sov-
ereign above humanity, and they supplied the em-
perors with dogmatic justification for their despotism.22
It is a noteworthy fact that the rulers who most
loudly proclaimed their autocratic pretentions, like Do-
ULU
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
39
mitian and Commodus, were also those that favored
foreign creeds most openly.
But his selfish support merely sanctioned a-power
already established. The propaganda of the Oriental
religions was originally democratic and sometimes even
revolutionary like the Isis worship. Step by step they
advanced, always reaching higher social classes and ap-
pealing to popular conscience rather than to the zeal of
functionaries.
As a matter of fact all these religions, except that of
Mithra, seem at first sight to be far less austere than
the Roman creed. We shall have occasion to note that
they contained coarse and immodest fables and atro-
cious or vile rites. The Egyptian gods were expelled
from Rome by Augustus and Tiberius on the charge
of being immoral, but they were called immoral prin-
cipally because they opposed a certain conception of
the social order. They gave little attention to the public
interest but attached considerable importance to the
inner life and consequently to the value of the indi-
vidual. Two new things, in particular, were brought to
Italy by the Oriental priests: mysterious methods of
purification, by which they claimed to wash away the
impurities of the soul, and the assurance that a blessed
immortality would be the reward of piety.23
These religions pretended to restore lost purity24 to
the soul either through the performance of ritual cere-
monies or through mortifications and penance. They
had a series of ablutions and lustrations supposed to
restore original innocence to the mystic. He had to wash
himself in the sacred water according to certain pre-
scribed forms. This was really a magic rite, because
bodily purity acted sympathetically upon the soul, or
40
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
else it was a real spiritual disinfection with the water
driving out the evil spirits that had caused pollution.
The votary, again, might drink or besprinkle himself
with the blood of a slaughtered victim or of the priests
themselves, in which case the prevailing idea was that
the liquid circulating in the veins was a vivifying prin-
ciple capable of imparting a new existence.25 These
and similar rites26 used in the mysteries were supposed
to regenerate the initated person and to restore him to
an immaculate and incorruptible life.27
Purgation of the soul was not effected solely by
liturgic acts but also by self-denial and suffering.28
The meaning of the term expiatio changed. Expiation,
or atonement, was no longer accomplished by the exact
performance of certain ceremonies pleasing to the gods
and required by a sacred code like a penalty for dam-
ages, but by privation and personal suffering. Ab-
stinence, which prevented the introduction of deadly
elements into the system, and chastity, which preserved
man from pollution and debility, became means of
getting rid of the domination of the evil powers and of
regaining heavenly favor.29 Macerations, laborious
pilgrimages, public confessions, sometimes flagellations
and mutilations, in fact all forms of penance and morti-
fications uplifted the fallen man and brought him
nearer to the gods. In Phrygia a sinner would write
his sin and the punishment he suffered upon a stela for
every one to see and would return thanks to heaven
that his prayer of repentance had been heard.30 The
Syrian, who had offended his goddess by eating her
sacred fish, dressed in sordid rags, covered himself with
a sack and sat in the public highway humbly to pro-
claim his misdeed in order to obtain forgiveness.31
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
41
“Three times, in the depths of winter," says Juvenal,
"the devotee of Isis will dive into the chilly waters of
the Tiber, and shivering with cold, will drag herself
around the temple upon her bleeding knees; if the
goddess commands, she will go to the outskirts of
Egypt to take water from the Nile and empty it within
the sanctuary."32 This shows the introduction into
Europe of Oriental asceticism.
But there were impious acts and impure passions
that contaminated and defiled the soul. Since this
infection could be destroyed only by expiations pre-
scribed by the gods, the extent of the sin and the
character of the necessary penance had to be esti-
mated. It was the priest's prerogative to judge the
misdeeds and to impose the penalties. This circum-
stance gave the clergy a very different character from
the one it had at Rome. The priest was no longer
simply the guardian of sacred traditions, the inter-
mediary between man or the state and the gods, but
also a spiritual guide. He taught his flock the long
series of obligations and restrictions for shielding their
weakness from the attacks of evil spirits. He knew
how to quiet remorse and scruples, and to restore the
sinner to spiritual calm. Being versed in sacred knowl-
edge, he had the power of reconciling the gods. Fre-
quent sacred repasts maintained a spirit of fellowship
among the mystics of Cybele, Mithra or the Baals,33
and a daily service unceasingly revived the faith of
the Isis worshipers. In consequence, the clergy were
entirely absorbed in their holy office and lived only for
and by their temples. Unlike the sacerdotal colleges
of Rome in which the secular and religious functions
were not yet clearly differentiated,34 they were not an
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
administrative commission ruling the sacred affairs of
the state under the supervision of the senate; they
formed what might almost be called a caste of recluses
distinguished from ordinary men by their insignia, garb,
habits and food, and constituting an independent body
with a hierarchy, formulary and even councils of their
own.35 They did not return to every-day duties as
private citizens or to the direction of public affairs as
magistrates as the ancient pontiffs had done after the
solemn festival service.
We can readily understand that these beliefs and in-
stitutions were bound to establish the Oriental religions
and their priests on a strong basis. Their influence
must have been especially powerful at the time of the
Cæsars. The laxity of morals at the beginning of our
era has been exaggerated but it was real. Many un-
healthy symptoms told of a profound moral anarchy
weighing on a weakened and irresolute society. The
farther we go toward the end of the empire the more
its energy seems to fail and the character of men to
weaken. The number of strong healthy minds in-
capable of a lasting aberration and without need of
'guidance or comfort was growing ever smaller. We
note the spread of that feeling of exhaustion and debil-
ity which follows the aberrations of passion, and the
same weakness that led to crime impelled men to seek
absolution in the formal practices of asceticism. They
applied to the Oriental priests for spiritual remedies. .
People flattered themselves that by performing the
rites they would attain a condition of felicity after
death. All barbarian mysteries pretended to reveal to
their adherents the secret of blessed immortality. Par-
ticipation in the occult ceremonies of the sect was a
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
TI
chief means of salvation.36 The vague and dishearten-
ing beliefs of ancient paganism in regard to life after
death were transformed into the firm hope of a well-
defined form of happiness.37
This faith in a personal survival of the soul and even
of the body was based upon a strong instinct of human
nature, the instinct of self-preservation. Social and
moral conditions in the empire during its decline gave
it greater strength than it had ever possessed before.38
The third century saw so much suffering, anguish and
violence, so much unnecessary ruin and so many un-
punished crimes, that the Roman world took refuge in
the expectation of a better existence in which all the
iniquity of this world would be retrieved. No earthly
hope brightened life. The tyranny of a corrupt bu-
reaucracy choked all disposition for political progress.
Science stagnated and revealed no more unknown
truths. Growing poverty discouraged the spirit of
enterprise. The idea gained ground that humanity
was afflicted with incurable decay, that nature was
approaching her doom and that the end of world was
near.39 We must remember all these causes of dis-
couragement and despondency to understand the power
of the idea, expressed so frequently, that the spirit
animating man was forced by bitter necessity to im-
prison itself in matter and that it was delivered from
its carnal captivity by death. In the heavy atmosphere
of a period of oppression and impotence the dejected
soul longed with incredible ardor to fly to the radiant
abode of heaven.
To recapitulate, the Oriental religions acted upon
the senses, the intellect and the conscience at the same
time, and therefore gained a hold on the entire man.
44
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Compared with the ancient creeds, they appear to have
offered greater beauty of ritual, greater truth of doc-
trine and a far superior morality. The imposing cere-
monial of their festivities and the alternating pomp and
sensuality, gloom and exaltation of their services ap-
pealed especially to the simple and the humble, while
the progressive revelation of ancient wisdom, inherited
from the old and distant Orient, captivated the cul-
tured mind. The emotions excited by these religions
and the consolations offered strongly attracted the wo-
men, who were the most fervent and generous fol-
lowers and most passionate propagandists40 of the re-
ligions of Isis and Cybele. Mithra was worshiped .
almost exclusively by men, whom he subjected to a
rigid moral discipline. Thus souls were gained by the
promise of spiritual purification and the prospect of
eternal happiness.
The worship of the Roman gods was a civic duty, the
worship of the foreign gods the expression of a per-
sonal belief. The latter were the objects of the
thoughts, feelings and intimate aspirations of the in-
dividual, not merely of the traditional and, one might
say, functional adoration of the citizen. The ancient
municipal devotions were connected with a number of
earthly interests that helped to support each other.
They were one of various forms of family spirit and.
patriotism and guaranteed the prosperity of the com-
munity. The Oriental mysteries, directing the will
toward an ideal goal and exalting the inner spirit, were
less mindful of economic utility, but they could produce
that vibration of the moral being that caused emotions,
stronger than any rational faculty, to gush forth from
the depths of the soul. Through a sudden illumination
ILIT111
WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
45
they furnished the intuition of a spiritual life whose
intensity made all material happiness appear insipid
and contemptible. This stirring appeal of supernatural
life made the propaganda irresistible. The same ardent
enthusiasm guaranteed at the same time the uncon-
tested domination of neo-Platonism among the philos-
ophers. Antiquity expired and a new era was born.
ASIA MINOR.
THE first Oriental religion adopted by the Romans
I was that of the goddess of Phrygia, whom the
people of Pessinus and Mount Ida worshiped, and who
received the name of Magna Mater deum Idea in the
Occident. Its history in Italy covers six centuries, and
we can trace each phase of the transformation that
changed it in the course of time from a collection of
very primitive nature beliefs into a system of spiritual-
ized mysteries used by some as a weapon against Chris-
tianity. We shall now endeavor to outline the succes-
sive phases of that slow metamorphosis.
This religion is the only one whose success in the
Latin world was caused originally by a mere chance
circumstance. In 205 B. C., when Hannibal, van-
quished but still threatening, made his last stand in
the mountains of Bruttium, repeated torrents of stones
frightened the Roman people. When the book's were
officially consulted in regard to this prodigy they pron-
ised that the enemy would be driven from Italy if the
Great Mother of Ida could be brought to Rome. No-
body but the Sibyls themselves had the power of avert-
ing the evils prophesied by them. They had come to
Italy from Asia Minor, and in this critical situation
their sacred poem recommended the practice of their
native religion as a remedy. In token of his friend-
n
ASIA MINOR.
T
ship, King Attalus presented the ambassadors of the
senate with the black aerolite, supposed to be the abode
of the goddess, that this ruler had shortly before trans-
ferred from Pessinus to Pergamum. According to the
mandate of the oracle the stone was received at Ostia
by the best citizen of the land, an honor accorded to
Scipio Nasica-and carried by the most esteemed ma-
trons to the Palatine, where, hailed by the cheers of
the multitude and surrounded by fumes of incense, it
was solemnly installed (Nones of April, 204). This
triumphal entry was later glorified by marvelous leg-
ends, and the poets told of edifying miracles that had
occurred during Cybele’s voyage. In the same year
Scipio transferred the seat of war to Africa, and Han-
nibal, compelled to meet him there, was beaten at
Zama. The prediction of the Sybils had come true
and Rome was rid of the long Punic terror. The for-
eign goddess was honored in recognition of the ser-
vice she had rendered. A temple was erected to her
on the summit of the Palatine, and every year a cele-
bration enhanced by scenic plays, the ludi Megalenses,
commemorated the date of dedication of the sanctuary
and the arrival of the goddess (April 4th-10th).
What was this Asiatic religion that had suddenly
been transferred into the heart of Rome by an extra-
ordinary circumstance? Even then it could look back
upon a long period of development. It combined be-
liefs of various origin. It contained primitive usages
of the religion of Anatolia, some of which have sur-
vived to this day in spite of Christianity and Islam.
Like the Kizil-Bash peasants of to-day, the ancient in-
habitants of the peninsula met on the summits of moun-
tains covered with woods no ax had desecrated, and
.
48
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
celebrated their festal days. They believed that Cybele
resided on the high summits of Ida and Berecyntus,
and the perennial pines, in conjunction with the pro-
lific and early maturing almond tree, were the sacred
trees of Attis. Besides trees, the country people wor-
shiped stones, rocks or meteors that had fallen from
the sky like the one taken from Pessinus to Pergamum
and thence to Rome. They also venerated certain ani-
mals, especially the most powerful of them all, the lion,
who may at one time have been the totem of savage
tribes.2 In mythology as well as in art the lion re-
mained the riding or driving animal of the Great
Mother. Their conception of the divinity was indis-
tinct and impersonal. A goddess of the earth, called
Mâ or Cybele, was revered as the fecund mother of
all things, the "mistress of the wild beasts”3 that in-
habit the woods. A god Attis, or Papas, was regarded
as her husband, but the first place in this divine house-
hold belonged to the woman, a reminiscence of the
period of matriarchy.4
When the Phrygians at a very early period came
from Thrace and inserted themselves like a wedge in
the old Anatolian races, they adopted the vague deities
of their new country by identifying them with their
own, after the habit of pagan nations. Thus Attis be-
came one with the Dionysus-Sabazius of the con-
querors, or at least assumed some of his characteristics.
This Thracian Dionysus was a god of vegetation. Fou-
cart has thus admirably pictured his savage nature:
"Wooded summits, deep oak and pine forests, ivy-clad
caverns were at all times his favorite haunts. Mortals
who were anxious to know the powerful divinity ruling
these solitudes had to observe the life of his kingdom,
ASIA MINOR.
and to guess the god's nature from the phenomena
through which he manifested his power. Seeing the
creeks descend in noisy foaming cascades, or hearing
the roaring of steers in the uplands and the strange
sounds of the wind-beaten forests, the Thracians
thought they heard the voice and the calls of the lord
of that empire, and imagined a god who was fond
of extravagant leaps and of wild roaming over the
wooded mountains. This conception inspired their re-
ligion, for the surest way for mortals to ingratiate
themselves with a divinity was to imitate him, and as
far as possible to make their lives resemble his. For
this reason the Thracians endeavored to attain the
divine delirium that transported their Dionysus, and
hoped to realize their purpose by following their in-
visible yet ever-present lord in his chase over the
mountains."'5
In the Phrygian religion we find the same beliefs
and rites, scarcely modified at all, with the one differ-
ence that Attis, the god of vegetation, was united to the
goddess of the earth instead of living "in sullen lone-
liness.” When the tempest was beating the forests
of the Berecyntus or Ida, it was Cybele traveling about
in her car drawn by roaring lions mourning her lover's
death. A crowd of worshipers followed her through
woods and thickets, mingling their shouts with the
shrill sound of futes, with the dull beat of tambourines,
with the rattling of castanets and the dissonance of
brass cymbals. Intoxicated with shouting and with
uproar of the instruments, excited by their impetuous
advance, breathless and panting, they surrendered to
the raptures of a sacred enthusiasm. Catullus has left
us a dramatic description of this divine ecstasy.6
50
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
The religion of Phrygia was perhaps even more vio-
lent than that of Thrace. The climate of the Anatolian
uplands is one of extremes. Its winters are rough,
long and cold, the spring rains suddenly develop a
vigorous vegetation that is scorched by the hot sum-
mer sun. The abrupt contrasts of a nature genero:1s
and sterile, radiant and bleak in turn, caused excesses
of sadness and joy that were unknown in temperate
and smiling regions, where the ground was never bur-
ied under snow nor scorched by the sun. The Phryg-
ians mourned the long agony and death of the vege-
tation, but when the verdure reappeared in March they
surrendered to the excitement of a tumultuous joy.
In Asia savage rites that had been unknown in Thrace
or practiced in milder form expressed the vehemence
of those opposing feelings. In the midst of their or-
gies, and after wild dances, some of the worshipers
voluntarily wounded themselves and, becoming intoxi.
cated with the view of the blood, with which they be-
sprinkled their altars, they believed they were uniting
themselves with their divinity. Or else, arriving at a
paroxysm of frenzy, they sacrificed their virility to the
gods as certain Russian dissenters still do to-day. These
men became priests of Cybele and were called Galli.
Violent ecstasis was always an endemic disease in
Phrygia. As late as the Antonines, montanist proph-
ets that arose in that country attempted to introduce it
into Christianity.
All these excessive and degrading demonstrations
of an extreme worship must not cause us to slight the
power of the feeling that inspired it. The sacred
ecstasy, the voluntary mutilations and the eagerly
sought sufferings manifested an ardent longing for
ASIA MINOR.
deliverance from subjection to carnal instincts, and a
fervent desire to free the soul from the bonds of mat-
ter. The ascetic tendencies went so far as to create
a kind of begging monachism—the métragyrtes. They
also harmonized with some of the ideas of renunciation
taught by Greek philosophy, and at an early period
Hellenic theologians took an interest in this devotion
that attracted and repelled them at the same time. Ti-
motheus the Eumolpid, who was one of the founders
of the Alexandrian religion of Serapis, derived the in-
spiration for his essays on religious reform, among
other sources, from the ancient Phrygian myths. Those
thinkers undoubtedly succeeded in making the priests
of Pessinus themselves admit many speculations quite
foreign to the old Anatolian nature worship. The
votaries of Cybele began at a very remote period to
practise “mysteries”, in which the initiates were made
acquainted, by degrees, with a wisdom that was always
considered divine, but underwent peculiar variations
in the course of time.
Such is the religion which the rough Romans of the ·
Punic wars accepted and adopted. Hidden under theo-
logical and cosmological doctrines it contained an an-
cient stock of very primitive and coarse religious ideas,
such as the worship of trees, stones and animals. Be-
sides this superstitious fetichism it involved ceremonies
that were both sensual and ribald, including all the
wild and mystic rites of the bacchanalia which the
public authorities were to prohibit a few years later.
When the senate became better acquainted with the
divinity imposed upon it by the Sibyls, it must have
been quite embarrassed by the present of King Attalus.
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
TTY
The enthusiastic transports and the somber fanaticism
of the Phrygian worship contrasted violently with the
calm dignity and respectable reserve of the official re-
ligion, and excited the minds of the people to a dan-
gerous degree. The emasculated Galli were the objects
of contempt and disgust and what in their own eyes
was a meritorious act was made a crime punishable
by law, at least under the empire. The authorities
hesitated between the respect due to the powerful
goddess that had delivered Rome from the Cartha-
ginians and the reverence for the mos maioruin. They
solved the difficulty by completely isolating the new
religion in order to prevent its contagion. All citizens
were forbidden to join the priesthood of the foreign
goddess or to participate in her sacred orgies. The
barbarous rites according to which the Great Mother
was to be worshiped were performed by Phrygian
priests and priestesses. The holidays celebrated in her
honor by the entire nation, the Megalensia, contained
no Oriental feature and were organized in conformity
with Roman traditions.
A characteristic anecdote told by Diodorusº shows
what the public feeling was towards this Asiatic wor-
ship at the end of the republic. In Pompey's time a
high priest from Pessinus came to Rome, presented
himself at the forum in his sacerdotal garb, a golden
diadem and a long embroidered robe—and pretending
that the statue of his goddess had been profaned de-
manded public expiation. But a tribune forbade him
to wear the royal crown, and the populace rose against
him in a mob and compelled him to seek refuge in
his house. Although apologies were made later, this
story shows how little the people of that period felt
TI
ASIA MINOR.
53
the veneration that attached to Cybele and her clergy
after a century had passed.
Kept closely under control, the Phrygian worship
led an obscure existence until the establishment of the
empire. That closed the first period of its history at
Rome. It attracted attention only on certain holidays,
when its priests marched the streets in procession,
dressed in motley costumes, loaded with heavy jewelry,
and beating tambourines. On those days the senate
granted them the right to go from house to house to
collect funds for their temples. The remainder of the
year they confined themselves to the sacred enclosure
of the Palatine, celebrating foreign ceremonies in a for-
eign language. They aroused so little notice during
this period that almost nothing is known of their prac-
tices or of their creed. It has even been maintained
that Attis was not worshiped together with his com-
panion, the Great Mother, during the times of the re-
public, but this is undoubtedly wrong, because the two
persons of this divine couple must have been as in-
separable in the ritual as they were in the myths.10
But the Phrygian religion kept alive in spite of police
surveillance, in spite of precautions and prejudices; a
breach had been made in the cracked wall of the old
Roman principles, through which the entire Orient
finally gained ingress.
Directly after the fall of the republic a second divin-
ity from Asia Minor, closely related to the Great
Mother, became established in the capital. During the
wars against Mithridates the Roman soldiers learned
to revere Mâ, the great goddess of the two Comanas,
who was worshiped by a whole people of hierodules in
the ravines of the Taurus and along the banks of the
54
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
-
Iris. Like Cybele she was an ancient Anatolian divin-
ity and personified fertile nature. Her worship, how-
ever, had not felt the influence of Thrace, but rather
that of the Semites and the Persians, "I like the entire
religion of Cappadocia. It is certain that she was iden-
tical with the Anâhita of the Mazdeans, who was of
much the same nature.
The rites of her cult were even more sanguinary
and savage than those of Pessinus, and she had as-
sumed or preserved a warlike character that gave her
a resemblance to the Italian Bellona. The dictator
Sulla, to whom this invincible goddess of combats had
appeared in a dream, was prompted by his superstition
to introduce her worship into Rome. The terrible cere-
monies connected with it produced a deep impression.
Clad in black robes, her “fanatics," as they were called,
would turn round and round to the sound of drums
and trumpets, with their long, loose hair streaming,
and when vertigo seized them and a state of anesthesia
was attained, they would strike their arms and bodies
great blows with swords and axes. The view of the
running blood excited them, and they besprinkled the
statue of the goddess and her votaries with it, or even
drank it. Finally a prophetic delirium would over-
come them, and they foretold the future.
This ferocious worship aroused curiosity at first, but
it never gained great consideration. It appears that
the Cappadocian Bellona joined the number of divin-
ities that were subordinated to the Magna Mater and,
as the texts put it, became her follower (pedisequa).12
The brief popularity enjoyed by this exotic Mâ at the
beginning of our era shows, nevertheless, the growing
II
1
ASIA MINOR,
55
influence of the Orient, and of the religions of Asia
Minor in particular.
After the establishment of the empire the apprehen-am
sive distrust in which the worship of Cybele and Attis
had been held gave way to marked favor and the orig-
inal restrictions were withdrawn. Thereafter Roman
citizens were chosen for archigalli, and the holidays of
the Phrygian deities were solemnly and officially cele-
brated in Italy with even more pomp than had been
displayed at Pessinus.
According to Johannes Lydus, the Emperor Claudius
was the author of this change. Doubts have been ex-
pressed as to the correctness of the statement made by
this second-rate compiler, and it has been claimed that
the transformation in question took place under the
Antonines. This is erroneous. The testimony of in-
scriptions corroborates that of the Byzantine writer.13
In spite of his love of archaism, it was Claudius who
permitted this innovation to be made, and we believe
that we can divine the motives of his action.
Under his predecessor, Caligula, the worship of Isis
had been authorized after a long resistance. Its stir-
ring festivities and imposing processions gained con-
siderable popularity. This competition must have been
disastrous to the priests of the Magna Mater, who were
secluded in their temple on the Palatine, and Caligula's
successor could not but grant to the Phrygian goddess,
so long established in the city, the favor accorded the
Egyptian divinity who had been admitted into Rome
but very recently. In this way Claudius prevented too
great an ascendency in Italy of this second stranger
and supplied a distributary to the current of popular
superstition. Isis must have been held under great
1
56
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
suspicion by a ruler who clung to old national institu-
tions.14
The Emperor Claudius introduced a new cycle of
holidays that were celebrated from March 15th to
March 27th, the beginning of spring at the time of the
revival of vegetation, personified in Attis. The various
acts of this grand mystic drama are tolerably well
known. The prelude was a procession of cannophori
or reed-bearers on the fifteenth; undoubtedly they com-
memorated Cybele's discovery of Attis, who, according
to the legends, had been exposed while a child on the
banks of the Sangarius, the largest river of Phrygia,
or else this ceremony may have been the transforma-
tion of an ancient phallephory intended to guarantee
the fertility of the fields.15 The ceremonies proper
began with the equinox. A pine was felled and trans-
ferred to the temple of the Palatine by a brotherhood
that owed to this function its name of "tree-bearers”
(dendrophori). Wrapped like a corpse in woolen
bands and garlands of violets, this pine represented
Attis dead. This god was originally only the spirit of
the plants, and the honors given to the "March-tree”16
in front of the imperial palace perpetuated a very an-
cient agrarian rite of the Phrygian peasants. The next
day was a day of sadness and abstinence on which the
believers fasted and mourned the defunct god. The
twenty-fourth bore the significant name of Sanguis in
the calendars. We know that it was the celebration
of the funeral of Attis, whose manes were appeased
by means of libations of blood, as was done for any
mortal. Mingling their piercing cries with the shrill
sound of flutes, the Galli flagellated themselves and
cut their flesh, and neophytes performed the supreme
ASIA MINOR.
57
sacrifice with the aid of a sharp stone, being insensible
to pain in their frenzy.17 Then followed a mysterious
vigil during which the mystic was supposed to be united
as a new Attis with the great goddess. 18 On March
25th there was a sudden transition from the shouts of
despair to a delirious jubilation, the Hilaria. With
springtime Attis awoke from his sleep of death, and
the joy created by his resurrection burst out in wild
merry-making, wanton masquerades, and luxurious
banquets. After twenty-four hours of an indispensable
rest (requietio), the festivities wound up, on the twenty-
seventh, with a long and gorgeous procession through
the streets of Rome and surrounding country districts.
Under a constant rain of flowers the silver statue of
Cybele was taken to the river Almo and bathed and
purified according to an ancient rite (lavatio).
The worship of the Mother of the Gods had pene-
trated into the Hellenic countries long before it was
received at Rome, but in Greece it assumed a peculiar
form and lost most of its barbarous character. The
Greek mind felt an unconquerable aversion to the du-
bious nature of Attis. The Magna Mater, who is
thoroughly different from her Hellenized sister, pene-
trated into all Latin provinces and imposed herself
upon them with the Roman religion. This was the
case in Spain, Brittany, the Danubian countries, Africa
and especially in Gaul.19 As late as the fourth century
the car of the goddess drawn by steers was led in great
state through the fields and vineyards of Autun in order
to stimulate their fertility:20 In the provinces the den-
drophori, who carried the sacred pine in the spring
festivities, formed associations recognized by the state.
These associations had charge of the work of our mod-
58
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
ern fire departments, besides their religious mission.
In case of necessity these woodcutters and carpenters,
who knew how to fell the divine tree of Attis, were
also able to cut down the timbers of burning buildings.
All over the empire religion and the brotherhoods con-
nected with it were under the high supervision of the
quindecimvirs of the capital, who gave the priests their
insignia. The sacerdotal hierarchy and the rights
granted to the priesthood and believers were minutely
defined in a series of senate decrees. These Phrygian
divinities who had achieved full naturalization and had
been placed on the official list of gods, were adopted
by the populations of the Occident as Roman gods
together with the rest. This propagation was clearly
different from that of any other Oriental religion, for
here the action of the government aided the tendencies
that attracted the devout masses to these Asiatic divin-
ities.
This popular zeal was the result of various causes.
Ancient authors describe the impression produced upon
the masses by those magnificent processions in which
Cybele passed along on her car, preceded by musicians
playing captivating melodies, by priests wearing gor-
geous costumes covered with amulets, and by the long
line of votaries and members of the fraternities, all
barefoot and wearing their insignia. All this, however,
created only a fleeting and exterior impression upon
the neophyte, but as soon as he entered the temple a
deeper sensation took hold of him. He heard the
pathetic story of the goddess seeking the body of her
lover cut down in the prime of his life like the grass
of the fields. He saw the bloody funeral services in
which the cruel death of the young man was mourned,
ASIA MINOR. -
.
59
and heard the joyful hymns of triumph, and the gay
songs that greeted his return to life. By a skilfully
arranged gradation of feelings the onlookers were up-
lifted to a state of rapturous ecstasy. Feminine devo-
tion in particular found encouragement and enjoyment
in these ceremonies, and the Great Mother, the fecund
and generous goddess, was always especially worshiped
by the women.
Moreover, people founded great hopes on the pious
practice of this religion. Like the Thracians, the Phryg-
ians began very early to believe in the immortality of
the soul. Just as Attis died and came to life again
every year, these believers were to be born to new life
after their death. One of the sacred hymns said:
"Take courage, oh mystics, because the god is saved ;
and for you also will come salvation from your trials.”21
Even the funeral ceremonies were affected by the
strength of that belief. In some cities, especially at
Amphipolis in Macedonia, graves have been found
adorned with earthenware statuettes representing the
shepherd Attis ;22 and even in Germany the grave-
stones are frequently decorated with the figure of a
young man in Oriental costume, leaning dejectedly upon
a knotted stick (pedum), who represented the same
Attis. We are ignorant of the conception of immor-
tality held by the Oriental disciples of the Phrygian
priests. Maybe, like the votaries of Sabazius, they
believed that the blessed ones were permitted to par-
ticipate with Hermes Psychopompos in a great ce-
lestial feast, for which they were prepared by the
sacred repasts of the mysteries.23
60
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Another agent in favor of this imported religion was,
as we have stated above, the fact of its official recog-
nition. This placed it in a privileged position among
Oriental religions, at least at the beginning of the
imperial régime. It enjoyed a toleration that was
neither precarious nor limited; it was not subjected
to arbitrary police measures nor to coercion on the
part of magistrates; its fraternities were not continu-
ally threatened with dissolution, nor its priests with
expulsion. It was publicly authorized and endowed,
its holidays were marked in the calendars of the pon-
tiffs, its associations of dendrophori were organs of
municipal life in Italy and in the provinces, and had
a corporate entity.
V Therefore it is not surprising that other foreign re-
ligions, after being transferred to Rome, sought to
avert the dangers of an illicit existence by an alliance
with the Great Mother. The religion of the latter fre-
quently consented to agreements and compromises,
from which it gained in reality as much as it gave up.
In exchange for material advantages it acquired com-
plete moral authority over the gods that accepted its
protection. Thus Cybele and Attis absorbed a majority
of the divinities from Asia Minor that had crossed the
Ionian Sea. Their clergy undoubtedly intended to es-
tablish a religion complex enough to enable the emi-
grants from every part of the vast peninsula, slaves,
merchants, soldiers, functionaries, scholars, in short,
people of all classes of society, to find their national
and favorite devotions in it. As a matter of fact no
other Anatolian god could maintain his independence
side by side with the deities of Pessinus.24
We do not know the internal development of the
ASIA MINOR.
61
.
Phrygian mysteries sufficiently to give details of the
addition of each individual part. But we can prove that
in the course of time certain religions were added to the
one that had been practised in the temple of the Pala-
tine ever since the republic.
In the inscriptions of the fourth century, Attis bears
the cognomen of menotyraniius. At that time this name
was undoubtedly understood to mean “lord of the
months,” because Attis represented the sun who en-
tered a new sign of the zodiac every month.25 But
that was not the original meaning of the term. "Mèn
tyrannus” appears with quite a different meaning in
many inscriptions found in Asia Minor. Tyrannos,*
“lord,” is a word taken by the Greeks from the Lydian,
and the honorable title of "tyrant” was given to Men,
an old barbarian divinity worshiped by all Phrygia and
surrounding regions.26 The Anatolian tribes from
Caria to the remotest mountains of Pontus worshiped
a lunar god under that name who was supposed to rule
not only the heavens but also the underworld, because
the moon was frequently brought into connection with
the somber kingdom of the dead. The growth of
plants and the increase of cattle and poultry were
ascribed to his celestial influence, and the villagers
invoked his protection for their farms and their dis-
trict. They also placed their rural burial grounds under
the safeguard of this king of shadows. No god enjoyed
greater popularity in the country districts.
This powerful divinity penetrated into Greece at an
early period. Among the mixed populations of the
Ægean seaports, in the Piræus, at Rhodes, Delos and
Thasos, religious associations for his worship were
* Túpavvos.
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
founded. In Attica the presence of the cult can be
traced back to the fourth century, and its monuments
rival those of Cybele in number and variety. In the
Latin Occident, however, no trace of it can be found,
because it had been absorbed by the worship of Magna
Mater. In Asia itself, Attis and Mèn were sometimes
considered identical, and this involved the Roman world
in a complete confusion of those two persons, who in
reality were very different. A marble statue discov-
ered at Ostia represents Attis holding the lunar cres-
cent, which was the characteristic emblem of Men.
His assimilation to the "tyrant” of the infernal regions
transformed the shepherd of Ida into a master of the
underworld, an office that he combined with his former
one as author of resurrection.
A second title that was given to him reveals another
influence. A certain Roman inscription is dedicated
to Attis the Supreme.27* This epithet is very signifi-
cant. In Asia Minor "Hypsistos" was the appellation
used to designate the god of Israel.28 A number of
pagan thiasi had arisen who, though not exactly sub-
mitting to the practice of the synagogue, yet worshiped
none but the Most High, the Supreme God, the Eternal
God, God the Creator, to whom every mortal owed
service. These must have been the attributes ascribed
to Cybele's companion by the author of the inscription,
because the verse continues :f “To thee, who containest
and maintainest all things.”29 Must we then believe
that Hebraic monotheism had some influence upon the
mysteries of the Great Mother? This is not at all
improbable. We know that numerous Jewish colonies
were established in Phrygia by the Seleucides, and that
*"ATTEL ÜYlOTW.
ή και συνέχoντι το πάν.
.
ASIA MINOR.
63
these expatriated Jews agreed to certain compromises
in order to conciliate their hereditary faith with that of
the pagans in whose midst they lived. It is also pos-
sible that the clergy of Pessinus suffered the ascendancy
of the Biblical theology. Under the empire Attis and
Cybele became the “almighty gods” (omnipotentes)
par excellence, and it is easy to see in this new con-
ception a leaning upon Semitic or Christian doctrines,
more probably upon Semitic ones.30
We shall now take up the difficult question of the
influence of Judaism upon the mysteries during the
Alexandrian period and at the beginning of the empire.
Many scholars have endeavored to define the influence
exercised by the pagan beliefs on those of the Jews; it
has been shown how the Israelitic monotheism became
Hellenized at Alexandria and how the Jewish propa-
ganda attracted proselytes who revered the one God,
without, however, observing all the prescriptions of the
Mosaic law. But no successful researches have been
made to ascertain how far paganism was modified
through an infiltration of Biblical ideas. Such a modi-
fication must necessarily have taken place to some ex-
tent. A great number of Jewish colonies were scat-
tered everywhere on the Mediterranean, and these were
long animated with such an ardent spirit of proselytism
that they were bound to impose some of their concep-
tions on the pagans that surrounded them. The magical
texts which are almost the only original literary docu-
ments of paganism we possess, clearly reveal this mix-
ture of Israelitic theology with that of other peoples.
In them we frequently find names like Iao (Yahveh),
Sabaoth, or the names of angels side by side with those
of Egyptian or Greek divinities. Especially in Asia
64
4
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Minor, where the Israelites formed a considerable and
influential element of the population, an intermingling
of the old native traditions and the religion of the
strangers from the other side of the Taurus must have
occurred.
This mixture certainly took place in the mysteries
of Sabazius, the Phrygian Jupiter or Dionysus.31 They
were very similar to those of Attis, with whom he was
frequently confounded. By means of an audacious
etymology that dates back to the Hellenistic period,
this old Thraco-Phrygian divinity has been identified
with “Yahyeh Zebaoth," the Biblical “Lord of Hosts.”
The corresponding expression* in the Septuagint has
been regarded as the equivalent of the kurios Sabaziost
of the barbarians. The latter was worshiped as the
supreme, almighty and holy Lord. In the light of a
new interpretation the purifications practised in the
mysteries were believed to wipe out the hereditary im-
purity of a guilty ancestor who had aroused the wrath
of heaven against his posterity, much as the original
sin with which Adam's disobedience had stained the
human race was to be wiped out. The custom ob-
served by the votaries of Sabazius of dedicating votive
hands which made the liturgic sign of benediction with
the first three fingers extended (the benedictio latina
of the church) was probably taken from the ritual of
the Semitic temples through the agency of the Jews.
The initiates believed, again like the Jews, that after
death their good angel (angelus bonus) would lead
them to the banquet of the eternally happy, and the
everlasting joys of these banquets were anticipated on
earth by the liturgic repasts. This celestial feast can
* kúpos Eaßauo.
ή κύριος Σαβάζιος.
I
L
1
ASIA MINOR.
be seen in a fresco painting on the grave of a priest
of Sabazius called Vincentius, who was buried in the
Christian catacomb of Prætextatus, a strange fact for
which no satisfactory explanation has as yet been fur-
nished. Undoubtedly he belonged to a Jewish-pagan
sect that admitted neophytes of every race to its mystic
ceremonies. In fact, the church itself formed a kind
of secret society sprung from the synagogue but dis-
tinct from it, in which Gentiles and the Children of
Israel joined in a common adoration.
If it is a fact, then, that Judaism influenced the wor-
ship of Sabazius, it is very probable that it influenced
the cult of Cybele also, although in this case the in-
fluence cannot be discerned with the same degree of
certainty. The religion of the Great Mother did not
receive rejuvenating germs from Palestine only, but it
was greatly changed after the gods of more distant
Persia came and joined it. In the ancient religion of
the Achemenides, Mithra, the genius of light, was
coupled with Anâhita, the goddess of the fertilizing
waters. In Asia Minor the latter was assimilated with
the fecund Great Mother, worshiped all over the pen-
insula,32 and when at the end of the first century of
our era the mysteries of Mithra spread over the Latin
provinces, its votaries built their sacred crypts in the
shadow of the temples of the Magna Mater.
Everywhere in the empire the two religions lived
in intimate communion. By ingratiating themselves
with the Phrygian priests, the priests of Mithra ob-
tained the support of an official institution and shared
in the protection granted by the state. Moreover, men
alone could participate in the secret ceremonies of the
Persian liturgy, at least in the Occident. Other mys-
1
CS
1
66
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
teries, to which women could be admitted, had therefore
to be added in order to complete them, and so the mys-
teries of Cybele received the wives and daughters of
the Mithraists.
This union had even more important consequences
for the old religion of Pessinus than the partial in-
fusion of Judaic beliefs had had. Its theology gained
a deeper meaning and an elevation hitherto unknown,
after it had adopted some of the conceptions of Maz-
daism.
The introduction of the taurobolium in the ritual of
the Magna Mater, where it appeared after the middle
of the first century, was probably connected with this
transformation. We know the nature of this sacrifice,
of which Prudentius gives a stirring description based
on personal recollection of the proceeding. On an
open platform a steer was killed, and the blood dropped
down upon the mystic, who was standing in an ex-
cavation below. "Through the thousand crevices in
the wood," says the poet, "the bloody dew runs down
into the pit. The neophyte receives the falling drops
on his head, clothes and body. He leans backward to
have his cheeks, his ears, his lips and his nostrils
wetted; he pours the liquid over his eyes, and does not
even spare his palate, for he moistens his tongue with
blood and drinks it eagerly."33 After submitting to
this repulsive sprinkling he offered himself to the ven-
eration of the crowd. They believed that he was
purified of his faults, and had become the equal of the
deity through his red baptism.
Although the origin of this sacrifice that took place
in the mysteries of Cybele at Rome is as yet shrouded
in obscurity, recent discoveries enable us to trace back
ASIA MINOR.
67
very closely the various phases of its development. In
accordance with a custom prevalent in the entire Orient
at the beginning of history, the Anatolian lords were
fond of pursuing and lassoing wild buffalos, which
they afterwards sacrificed to the gods. Beasts caught
during a hunt were immolated, and frequently also
prisoners of war. Gradually the savagery of this prim-
itive rite was modified until finally nothing but a circus
play was left. During the Alexandrian period people
were satisfied with organizing a corrida in the arena,
in the course of which the victim intended for im-
molation was seized. This is the proper meaning of
the terms taurobolium and criobolium,* which had long
been enigmas,34 and which denoted the act of catching
a steer or a ram by means of a hurled weapon, prob-
ably the thong of a lasso. Without doubt even this
act was finally reduced to a mere sham under the
Roman empire, but the weapon with which the animal
was slain always remained a hunting weapon, a sacred
boar spear.35
The ideas on which the immolation was based were
originally just as barbarous as the sacrifice itself. It
is a matter of general belief among savage peoples that
one acquires the qualities of an enemy slain in battle
or of a beast killed in the chase by drinking or washing
in the blood, or by eating some of the viscera of the
body. The blood especially has often been considered
as the seat of vital energy. By moistening his body
with the blood of the slaughtered steer, the neophyte
believed that he was transfusing the strength of the
formidable beast into his own limbs.
This naive and purely material conception was soon
* Tavpoßolcov, kploßbcov,
68
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
modified and refined. The Thracians brought into
Phrygia, and the Persian magi into Cappadocia, the
fast spreading belief in the immortality of mankind.
Under their influence, especially under that of Mazda-
ism, which made the mythical steer the author of crea-
tion and of resurrection, the old savage practice as-
sumed a more spiritual and more elevated meaning.
By complying with it, people no longer thought they
were acquiring the buffalo's strength; the blood, as
the principle of life, was no longer supposed to renew
physical energy, but to cause a temporary or even an
eternal rebirth of the soul. The descent into the pit
was regarded as burial, a melancholy dirge accom-
panied the burial of the old man who had died. When
he emerged purified of all his crimes by the sprinkling
of blood and raised to a new life, he was regarded as
the equal of a god, and the crowd worshiped him from
a respectful distance.36
The vogue obtained in the Roman empire by the
practice of this repugnant rite can only be explained
by the extraordinary power ascribed to it. He who sub-
mitted to it was in aeternum renatus,37 according to
the inscriptions.
We could also outline the transformation of other
Phrygian ceremonies, of which the spirit and some-
times the letter slowly changed under the influence of
more advanced moral ideas. This is true of the sacred
feasts attended by the initiates. One of the few litur-
gic formulas antiquity has left us refers to these Phryg-
ian banquets. One hymn says: "I have eaten from the
tambourine, I have drunk from the cymbal, I have be-
come a mystic of Attis.” The banquet, which is found
in several Oriental religions, was sometimes simply the
ASIA MINOR.
69
external sign indicating that the votaries of the same
divinity formed one large family. Admitted to the
sacred table, the neophyte was received as the guest of
the community and became a brother among brothers.
The religious bond of the thiasus or sodalicium took
the place of the natural relationship of the family, the
gens or the clan, just as the foreign religion replaced
the worship of the domestic hearth.
Sometimes other effects were expected of the food
eaten in common. When the flesh of some animal sup-
posed to be of a divine nature was eaten, the votary
believed that he became identified with the god and that
he shared in his substance and qualities. In the be-
ginning the Phrygian priests probably attributed the
first of these two meanings to their barbarous com-
munions.38 Towards the end of the empire, moral
ideas were particularly connected with the assimilation
of sacred liquor and meats taken from the tambourine
and cymbal of Attis. They became the staff of the
spiritual life and were to sustain the votary in his
trials; at that period he considered the gods as espe-
cially “the guardians of his soul and thoughts.'39
As we see, every modification of the conception of
the world and of man in the society of the empire had
its reflection in the doctrine of the mysteries. Even
the conception of the old deities of Pessinus was con-
stantly changing. When astrology and the Semitic
religions caused the establishment of a solar heno-
theism as the leading religion at Rome, Attis was con-
sidered as the sun, "the shepherd of the twinkling
stars.” He was identified with Adonis, Bacchus, Pan,
Osiris and Mithra ; he was made a “polymorphous”40
being in which all celestial powers manifested them-
70
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
selves in turn; a pantheos who wore the crown of rays
and the lunar crescent at the same time, and whose
various emblems expressed an infinite multiplicity of
functions.
When neo-Platonism was triumphing, the Phrygian
fable became the traditional mould into which subtle
exegetists boldly poured their philosophic speculations
on the creative and stimulating forces that were the
principles of all material forms, and on the deliverance
of the divine soul that was submerged in the corrup-
tion of this earthly world. In his hazy oration on the
Mother of the Gods, Julian lost all notion of reality on
account of his excessive use of allegory and was swept
away by an extravagant symbolism.41
Any religion as susceptible to outside influences as
this one was bound to yield to the ascendancy of Chris-
tianity. From the explicit testimony of ecclesiastical
writers we know that attempts were made to oppose
the Phrygian mysteries to those of the church. It was
maintained that the sanguinary purification imparted
by the taurobolium was more efficacious than baptism.
The food that was taken during the mystic feasts was
likened to the bread and wine of the communion; the
Mother of the Gods was undoubtedly placed above the
Mother of God, whose son also had risen again. A
Christian author, writing at Rome about the year 375,
furnishes some remarkable information on this sub-
ject. As we have seen, a mournful ceremony was cele-
brated on March 24th, the dies sanguinis in the course
of which the galli shed their blood and sometimes
mutilated themselves in commemoration of the wound
that had caused Attis's death, ascribing an expiatory
and atoning power to the blood thus shed. The pagans
ASIA MINOR,
71
claimed that the church had copied their most sacred
rites by placing her Holy Week at the vernal equinox
in commemoration of the sacrifice of the cross on which
the divine Lamb, according to the church, had re-
deemed the human race. Indignant at these blas-
phemous pretensions, St. Augustine tells of having
known a priest of Cybele who kept saying: Et ipse
Pileatus christianus est— and even the god with the
Phrygian cap [i. e., Attis]) is a Christian."42
But all efforts to maintain a barbarian religion
stricken with moral decadence were in vain. On the
very spot on which the last taurobolia took place at
the end of the fourth century, in the Phrygianum,
stands to-day the basilica of the Vatican.
* * *
There is no Oriental religion whose progressive evo-
lution we could follow at Rome so closely as the cult
of Cybele and Attis, none that shows so plainly one of
the reasons that caused their common decay and dis-
appearance. They all dated back to a remote period
of barbarism, and from that savage past they inherited
a number of myths the odium of which could be masked
but not eradicated by philosophical symbolism, and
practices whose fundamental coarseness had survived
froni a period of rude nature worship, and could never
be completely disguised by means of mystic interpre-
tations. Never was the lack of harmony greater be-
tween the moralizing tendencies of theologians and the
cruel shamelessness of tradition. A god held up as
the august lord of the universe was the pitiful and ab-
ject hero of an obscene love affair; the taurobolium,
performed to satisfy man's most exalted aspirations
for spiritual purification and immortality, looked like a
72
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
shower bath of blood and recalled cannibalistic orgies.
The men of letters and senators attending those mys-
teries saw them performed by painted eunuchs, ill re-
puted for their infamous morals, who went through
dizzy dances similar to those of the dancing dervishes
and the Aissaouas. We can imagine the repugnance
these ceremonies caused in everybody whose judgment
had not been destroyed by a fanatical devotion. Of
no other pagan superstition do the Christian polemi-
cists speak with such profound contempt, and there is
undoubtedly a reason for their attitude. But they were
in a more fortunate position than their pagan antag-
onists; their doctrine was not burdened with barbarous
traditions dating back to times of savagery; and all the
ignominies that stained the old Phrygian religion must
not prejudice us against it nor cause us to slight the
ually and to mould it into a form that would fulfil the
new demands of morality and enable it to follow the
laborious march of Roman society on the road of re-
ligious progress.
EGYPT.
W E know more about the religion of the early
W Egyptians than about any other ancient religion.
Its development can be traced back three or four thou-
sand years; we can read its sacred texts, mythical
narratives, hymns, rituals, and the Book of the Dead
in the original, and we can ascertain its various ideas
as to the nature of the divine powers and of future
life. A great number of monuments have preserved
for our inspection the pictures of divinities and rep-
resentations of liturgic scenes, while numerous inscrip-
tions and papyri enlighten us in regard to the sacer-
dotal organization of the principal temples. It would
seem that the enormous quantity of documents of all
kinds that have been deciphered in the course of nearly
an entire century should have dispelled every uncer-
tainty about the creed of ancient Egypt, and should
have furnished exact information with regard to the
sources and original character of the worship which
the Greeks and the Romans borrowed from the subjects
of the Ptolemies.
And yet, this is not the case. While of the four
great Oriental religions which were transplanted into
the Occident, the religion of Isis and Serapis is the one
whose relation to the ancient belief of the mother
country we can establish with greatest accuracy, we
74
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
know very little of its first form and of its nature be-
fore the imperial period, when it was held in high
esteem.
One fact, however, appears to be certain. The Egyp-
tian worship that spread over the Greco-Roman world
came from the Serapeum founded at Alexandria by
Ptolemy Soter, somewhat in the manner of Judaism
that emanated from the temple of Jerusalem. But the
earliest history of that famous sanctuary is surrounded
by such a thick growth of pious legends, that the most
sagacious investigators have lost their way in it. Was
Serapis of native origin, or was he imported from
Sinope or Seleucia, or even from Babylon? Each of
these opinions has found supporters very recently. Is
his name derived from that of the Egyptian god Osiris-
Apis, or from that of the Chaldean deity Sar-Apsi?
Granimatici certant."
Whichever solution we may adopt, one fact remains,
naniely, that Serapis and Osiris were either immediately
identified or else were identical from the beginning.
The divinity whose worship was started at Alexandria
by Ptolemy was the god that ruled the dead and shared
his immortality with them. He was fundamentally an
Egyptian god, and the most popular of the deities of
the Nile. Herodotus says that Isis and Osiris were
revered by every inhabitant of the country, and their
traditional holidays involved secret ceremonies whose
sacred meaning the Greek writer dared not reveal.2
Recognizing their Osiris in Serapis, the Egyptians
readily accepted the new cult. There was a tradition
that a new dynasty should introduce a new god or give
a sort of preeminence to the god of its own district.
From time immemorial politics had changed the gov-
D
ᎬGYPT.
75
ernment of heaven when changing that of earth. Under
the Ptolemies the Serapis of Alexandria naturally be-
came one of the principal divinities of the country,
just as the Ammon of Thebes had been the chief of
the celestial hierarchy under the Pharaohs of that city,
or as, under the sovereigns from Sais, the local Neith
had the primacy. At the time of the Antonines there
were forty-two Serapeums in Egypt.3
But the purpose of the Ptolemies was not to add one
more Egyptian god to the countless number already
worshiped by their subjects. They wanted this god
to unite in one common worship the two races inhab-
iting the kingdom, and thus to further a complete fu-
sion. The Greeks were obliged to worship him side
by side with the natives. It was a clever political idea
to institute a Hellenized Egyptian religion at Alexan-
dria. A tradition mentioned by Plutarch4 has it that
Manetho, a priest from Heliopolis, a man of advanced
ideas, together with Timotheus, a Eumolpid from Eleu-
sis, thought out the character that would best suit the
newcomer. The result was that the composite religion
founded by the Lagides became a combination of the
old creed of the Pharaohs and the Greek mysteries. :
First of all, the liturgic language was no longer the
native idiom but Greek. This was a radical change.
The philosopher Demetrius of Phalerum, who had
been cured of blindness by Serapis, composed poems
in honor of the god that were still sung under the
Cæsars several centuries later. 5. We can easily imagine
that the poets, who lived on the bounty of the Ptole-
mies, vied with each other in their efforts to celebrate
their benefactors' god, and the old rituals that were
translated from the Egyptian were also enriched with
76
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
edifying bits of original inspiration. A hymn to Isis,
found on a marble monument in the island of Andros,
gives us some idea of these sacred compositions, al-
though it is of more recent date.
In the second place, the artists replaced the old hie-
ratic idols by more attractive images and gave theni
the beauty of the immortals. It is not known who
created the figure of Isis draped in a linen gown with
a fringed cloak fastened over the breast, whose sweet
meditative, graciously maternal face is a combination
of the ideals imagined for Hera and Aphrodite. But
we know the sculptor of the first statue of Serapis
that stood in the great sanctuary of Alexandria until
the end of paganism. This statue, the prototype of
all the copies that have been preserved, is a colossal
work of art made of precious materials by a famous
Athenian sculptor named Bryaxis, a contemporary of
Scopas. It was one of the last divine creations of Hel-
lenic genius. The majestic head, with its somber and
yet benevolent expression, with its abundance of hair,
and with a crown in the shape of a bushel, bespoke
the double character of a god ruling at the same time
both the fertile earth and the dismal realm of the dead.7
As we see, the Ptolemies had given their new religion
a literary and artistic shape that was capable of attract-
• ing the most refined and cultured minds. But the
adaptation to the Hellenic feeling and thinking was
not exclusively external. Osiris, the god whose wor-
ship was thus renewed, was more adapted than any
other to lend his authority to the formation of a syn-
cretic faith. At a very early period, in fact before the
time of Herodotus, Osiris had been identified with
Dionysus, and Isis with Demeter. M. Foucart has en-
EGYPT.
deavored to prove in an ingenious essay that this as-
similation was not arbitrary, that Osiris and Isis came
into Crete and Attica during the prehistoric period,
and that they were mistaken for Dionysus and Demeter8
by the people of those regions. Without going back
to those remote ages, we shall merely say with him
that the mysteries of Dionysus were connected with
those of Osiris by far-reaching affinities, not simply by
superficial and fortuitous resemblances. Each com-
memorated the history of a god governing both vege-
tation and the underworld at the same time, who was
put to death and torn to pieces by an enemy, and
whose scattered limbs were collected by a goddess,
after which he was miraculously revived. The Greeks
must have been very willing to adopt a worship in
which they found their own divinities and their own
myths again with something more poignant and more
magnificent added. It is a very remarkable fact that
of all the many deities worshiped by the Egyptian dis-
tricts those of the inımediate neighborhood, or if you
like, the cycle of Osiris, his wife Isis, their son Harpoc- -
rates and their faithful servant Anubis, were the only
ones that were adopted by the Hellenic populations.
All other heavenly or infernal spirits worshiped by the
Egyptians remained strangers to Greece.9
In the Greco-Latin literature we notice two oppos-
ing attitudes toward the Egyptian religion. It was
regarded as the highest and the lowest of religions at
the same time, and as a matter of fact there was an
abyss between the always ardent popular beliefs and the
enlightened faith of the official priests. The Greeks
and Romans gazed with admiration upon the splendor
of the temples and ceremonial, upon the fabulous an-
78
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
tiquity of the sacred traditions and upon the erudition
of a clergy possessed of a wisdom that had been re-
vealed by divinity. In becoming the disciples of that
clergy, they imagined they were drinking from the
pure fountain whence their own myths had sprung.
They were overawed by the pretensions of a clergy
that prided itself on a past in which it kept on living,
and they strongly felt the attraction of a marvelous
country where everything was mysterious, from the
Nile that had created it to the hieroglyphs engraved
upon the walls of its gigantic edifices.10 At the same
time they were shocked by the coarseness of its fetich-
ism and by the absurdity of its superstitions. Above
all they felt an unconquerable repulsion at the worship
of animals and plants, which had always been the most
striking feature of the vulgar Egyptian religion and
which, like all other archaic devotions, seems to have
been practised with renewed fervor after the accession
of the Saite dynasty. The comic writers and the
satirists never tired of scoffing at the adorers of the
cat, the crocodile, the leek and the onion. Juvenal
says ironically: "O holy people, whose very kitchen-
gardens produce gods."[[ In a general way, this
strange people, entirely separated from the remainder
of the world, were regarded with about the same kind
of feeling that Europeans entertained toward the Chi-
nese for a long time.
A purely Egyptian worship would not have been ac-
ceptable to the Greco-Latin world. The main merit
of the mixed creation of the political genius of the
Ptolemies consisted in the rejection or modification
of everything repugnant or monstrous like the phallo-
phories of Abydos, and in the retention of none but
EGYPT.
stirring or attractive elements. It was the most civ-
ilized of all barbarian religions; it retained enough of
the exotic element to arouse the curiosity of the Greeks,
but not enough to offend their delicate sense of pro-
portion, and its success was remarkable.
It was adopted wherever the authority or the prestige
of the Lagides was felt, and wherever the relations of
Alexandria, the great commercial metropolis, extended.
The Lagides induced the rulers and the nations with
whom they concluded alliances to accept it. King
Nicocreon introduced it into Cyprus after having con-
sulted the oracle of the Serapeum,12 and Agathocles
introduced it into Sicily, at the time of his marriage
with the daughter-in-law of Ptolemy I (298).13 At
Antioch, Seleucus Callinicus built a sanctuary for the
statue of Isis sent to him from Memphis by Ptolemy
Euergetes.14 In token of his friendship Ptolemy Soter
introduced his god Serapis into Athens, where the
latter had a temple at the foot of the Acropolis's ever
after, and Arsinoë, his mnother or wife, founded an-
other at Halicarnassus, about the year 307.16 In this
manner the political activity of the Egyptian dynasty
was directed toward having the divinities, whose glory
was in a certain measure connected with that of their
house, recognized everywhere. Through Apuleius we
know that under the empire the priests of Isis men-
tioned the ruling sovereign first of all in their prayers.17
And this was simply an imitation of the grateful de-
votion which their predecessors had felt toward the
Ptolemies.
Protected by the Egyptian squadrons, sailors and
merchants propagated the worship of Isis, the goddess
of navigators, simultaneously on the coasts of Syria,
80
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Asia Minor and Greece, in the islands of the Archi-
pelago, 18 and as far as the Hellespont and Thrace.19
At Delos, where the inscriptions enable us to study
this worship somewhat in detail, it was not merely
practised by strangers, but the very sacerdotal func-
tions were performed by members of the Athenian
aristocracy. A number of funereal bas-reliefs, in which
the deified dead wears the calathos of Serapis on his
head, prove the popularity of the belief in future life
propagated by these mysteries. According to the
Egyptian faith he was identified with the god of the
dead.20
Even after the splendor of the court of Alexandria
had faded and vanished; even after the wars against
Mithridates and the growth of piracy had ruined the
traffic of the Ægean Sea, the Alexandrian worship
was too deeply rooted in the soil of Greece to perish,
although it became endangered in certain seaports
like Delos. Of all the gods of the Orient, Isis and
Serapis were the only ones that retained a place among
the great divinities of the Hellenic world until the end
of paganism.21
* * *
It was this syncretic religion that came to Rome
after having enjoyed popularity in the eastern Medi-
terranean. Sicily and the south of Italy were more than
half Hellenized, and the Ptolemies had diplomatic re-
lations with these countries, just as the merchants of
Alexandria had commercial relations with them. For
this reason the worship of Isis spread as rapidly in
those regions as on the coasts of Tonia or in the Cyc-
lades.22 It was introduced into Syracuse and Catana
during the earliest years of the third century by Agath-
EGYPT.
81
ocles. The Serapeum of Pozzuoli, at that time the
busiest seaport of Campania, was mentioned in a city
ordinance of the year 105 B. C.23 About the same
time an Iseum was founded at Pompeii, where the
decorative frescos attest to this day the power of ex-
pansion possessed by the Alexandrian culture.
After its adoption by the southern part of the Italian
peninsula, this religion was bound to penetrate rapidly
to Rome. Ever since the second century before our
era, it could not help but find adepts in the chequered
multitude of slaves and freedmen. Under the An-
tonines the college of the pastophori recalled that it
had been founded in the time of Sulla.24 In vain did
the authorities try to check the invasion of the Alex-
andrian gods. Five different times, in 59, 58, 53, and
48 B. C., the senate ordered their altars and statues
torn down,25 but these violent measures did not stop
the diffusion of the new beliefs. The Egyptian mys-
teries were the first example at Rome of an essentially
popular religious movement that was triumphant over
the continued resistance of the public authorities and
the official clergy.
Why was this Egyptian worship the only one of all
Oriental religions to suffer repeated persecutions?
There were two motives, one religious and one polit-
ical.
In the first place, this cult was said to exercise a
corrupting influence perversive of piety. Its morals
were loose, and the mystery surrounding it excited the
worst suspicions. Moreover, it appealed violently to
the emotions and senses. All these factors offended
the grave decency that a Roman was wont to main-
82
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
tain in the presence of the gods. The innovators had
every defender of the mos maiorum for an adversary.
In the second place, this religion had been founded,
supported and propagated by the Ptolemies; it came
from a country that was almost hostile to Italy during
the last period of the republic ;26 it issued from Alex-
andria, whose superiority Rome felt and feared. Its
secret societies, made up chiefly of people of the lower
classes, might easily become clubs of agitators and
haunts of spies. All these motives for suspicion and
hatred were undoubtedly more potent in exciting per-
secution than the purely theological reasons, and per-
secution was stopped or renewed according to the
vicissitudes of general politics.
As we have stated, the chapels consecrated to Isis
were demolished in the year 48 B. C. After Cæsar's
death, the triumvirs decided in 43 B. C. to erect a
temple in her honor out of the public funds, undoubt-
edly to gain the favor of the masses. This action would
have implied official recognition, but the project appears
never to have been executed. If Antony had suc-
ceeded at Actium, Isis and Serapis would have entered
Rome in triumph, but they were vanquished with Cle-
opatra; and when Augustus had become the master
of the empire, he professed a deep aversion for the
gods of his former enemies. Moreover, he could not
have suffered the intrusion of the Egyptian clergy into
the Roman sacerdotal class, whose guardian, restorer
and chief he was. In 28 B. C. an ordinance was issued
forbidding the erecting of altars to the Alexandrian
divinities inside the sacred enclosure of the pomerium,
and seven years later Agrippa extended this prohibitive
regulation to a radius of a thousand paces around the
EGYPT.
city. Tiberius acted on the same principle and in 19
A. D. instituted the bloodiest persecution against the
priests of Isis that they ever suffered, in consequence
of a scandalous affair in which a matron, a noble and
some priests of Isis were implicated.
All these police measures, however, were strangely
ineffectual. The Egyptian worship was excluded from
Rome and her immediate neighborhood in theory if
not in fact, but the rest of the world remained open to
its propaganda.27
With the beginning of the empire it slowly invaded
the center and the north of Italy and spread into the
provinces. Merchants, sailors, slaves, artisans, Egyp-
tian men of letters, even the discharged soldiers of the
three legions cantoned in the valley of the Nile con-
tributed to its diffusion. It entered Africa by way of
Carthage, and the Danubian countries through the
great emporium of Aquileia. The new province of
Gaul was invaded through the valley of the Rhone.
At that period many Oriental emigrants went to seek
their fortunes in these new countries. Intimate rela-
tions existed between the cities of Arles and Alexan-
dria, and we know that a colony of Egyptian Greeks,
established at Nimes by Augustus, took the gods of
their native country thither.28 At the beginning of our
era there set in that great movement of conversion
that soon established the worship of Isis and Serapis
from the outskirts of the Sahara to the vallum of
Britain, and from the mountains of Asturias to the
mouths of the Danube.
The resistance still offered by the central power could
not last much longer. It was impossible to dam in this
overflowing stream whose thundering waves struck the
0
84
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
shaking walls of the pomerium from every side. The
prestige of Alexandria seemed invincible. At that pe-
riod the city was more beautiful, more learned, and
better policed than Rome. She was the model capital,
a standard to which the Latins strove to rise. They
translated the works of the scholars of Alexandria,
imitated her authors, invited her artists and copied her
institutions. It is plain that they had also to undergo
the ascendancy of her religion. As a matter of fact,
her fervent believers maintained her sanctuaries, despite
the law, on the very Capitol. Under Cæsar, Alexan-
drian astronomers had reformed the calendar of the
pontiffs, and Alexandrian priests soon marked the dates
of Isis holidays upon it.
The decisive step was taken soon after the death
of Tiberius. Caligula erected the great temple of Isis
Campensis on the Campus Martius probably in the
year 38.29 In order to spare the sacerdotal suscepti-
bilities, he founded it outside of the sacred enclosure
of the city of Servius. Later Domitian made one of
Rome's most splendid monuments of that temple. From
that time Isis and Serapis enjoyed the favor of every
imperial dynasty, the Flavians as well as the Antonines
and the Severi. About the year 215 Caracalla built
an Isis temple, even more magnificent than that of
Domitian, on the Quirinal, in the heart of the city, and
perhaps another one on the Coelian. As the apologist
Minucius Felix states, the Egyptian gods had become
entirely Roman.30
The climax of their power seems to have been
reached at the beginning of the third century; later on
the popular vogue and official support went to other
divinities, like the Syrian Baals and the Persian Mith-
EGYPT.
85
ras. The progress of Christianity also deprived them
of their power, which was, however, still considerable
until the end of the ancient world. The Isis processions
that marched the streets of Rome were described by
an eye witness as late as the year 394,31 but in 391
the patriarch Theophilus had consigned the Serapeum
of Alexandria to the flames, having himself struck the
first blow with an ax against the colossal statue of the
god that had so long been the object of a superstitious
veneration. Thus the prelate destroyed the "very head
of idolatry,” as Rufinus put it.32
As a matter of fact, idolatry received its death blow.
The worship of the gods of the Ptolemies died out com-
pletely between the reigns of Theodosius and Justinian,33
and in accordance with the sad prophecy of Hermes
Trismegistus34 Egypt, Egypt herself, lost her divinities
and became a land of the dead. Of her religions nothing
the only thing that reminded the barbarians who came
to inhabit the country of its former piety, were words
engraved on stone.
* * *
This rapid sketch of the history of Isis and Serapis
shows that these divinities were worshiped in the Latin
world for more than five centuries. The task of point-
ing out the transformations of the cult during that
long period, and the local differences there may have
been in the various provinces, is reserved for future
researches. These will undoubtedly find that the Alex-
andrian worship did not become Latinized under the
empire, but that its Oriental character became more and
more pronounced. When Domitian restored the Iseum
of the Campus Martius and that of Beneventum, he
86
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
S
transferred from the valley of the Nile sphinxes, cyno-
cephali and obelisks of black or pink granite bearing
borders of hieroglyphics of Amasis, Nectanebos or even
Rameses II. On other obelisks that were erected in
the propyleums even the inscriptions of the emperors
were written in hieroglyphics.35 Half a century later
that true dilettante, Hadrian, caused the luxuries of
Canopus to be reproduced, along with the sale of
Tempe, in his immense villa at Tibur, to enable him
to celebrate his voluptuous feasts under the friendly
eyes of Serapis. He extolled the merits of the deified
Antinous in inscriptions couched in the ancient lan-
guage of the Pharaohs, and set the fashion of statues
hewn out of black basalt in the Egyptian style.36 The
amateurs of that period affected to prefer the hieratic
rigidity of the barbarian idols to the elegant freedom
of Alexandrian art. Those esthetic manifestations
probably corresponded to religious prejudices, and the
Latin worship always endeavored to imitate the art of
temples in the Nile valley more closely than did the
Greek. This evolution was in conformity with all the
tendencies of the imperial period.
By what secret virtue did the Egyptian religion ex-
ercise this irresistible influence over the Roman world?
What new elements did those priests, who made pros-
elytes in every province, give the Roman world? Did
the success of their preaching mean progress or retro-
gression from the standard of the ancient Roman
faith? These are complex and delicate questions that
would require minute analysis and cautious treatment
with a constant and exact observation of shades. I am
compelled to limit myself to a rapid sketch, which, I
EGYPT.
87
T:
fear, will appear rather dry and arbitrary, like every
generalization.
The particular doctrines of the mysteries of Isis and
Serapis in regard to the nature and power of the gods
were not, or were but incidentally, the reasons for the
triumph of these mysteries. It has been said that the
Egyptian theology always remained in a "Auid state,”:37
or better in a state of chaos. It consisted of an amal-
gamation of disparate legends, of an aggregate of par-
ticular cults, as Egypt herself was an aggregate of a
number of districts. This religion never formulated
a coherent system of generally accepted dogmas. It
permitted the coexistence of conflicting conceptions
and traditions, and all the subtlety of its clergy never
accomplished, or rather never began, the task of fusing
those irreconcilable elements into one harmonious syn-
thesis.38 For the Egyptians there was no principle of
contradiction. All the heterogeneous beliefs that ever
obtained in the various districts during the different
periods of a very long history, were maintained con-
currently and formed an inextricable confusion in the
sacred books.
About the same state of affairs prevailed in the Occi-
dental worship of the Alexandrian divinities. In the
Occident, just as in Egypt, there were "prophets" in
the first rank of the clergy, who learnedly discussed
religion, but never taught a theological system that
found universal acceptance. The sacred scribe Chere-
mon, who became Nero's tutor, recognized the stoical
theories in the sacerdotal traditions of his country.39
When the eclectic Plutarch speaks of the character of
the Egyptian gods, he finds it agrees surprisingly with
his own philosophy,40 and when the neo-Platonist Iam-
88
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
blichus examines them, their character seems to agree
with his doctrines. The hazy ideas of the Oriental
priests enabled every one to see in them the phantoms
he was pursuing. The individual imagination was given
ample scope, and the dilettantic men of letters rejoiced
in molding these malleable doctrines at will. They
were not outlined sharply enough, nor were they formu-
lated with sufficient precision to appeal to the multi-
tude. The gods were everything and nothing; they
got lost in a sfumato. A disconcerting anarchy and
confusion prevailed among them. By means of a sci-
entific mixture of Greek, Egyptian and Semitic ele-
ments “Hermetism”41 endeavored to create a theolog-
ical system that would be acceptable to all minds, but
it seems never to have imposed itself generally on the
Alexandrian mysteries which were older than itself,
and furthermore it could not escape the contradictions
of Egyptian thought. The religion of Isis did not gain
a hold on the soul by its dogmatism.
It must be admitted, however, that, owing to its ex-
treme flexibility, this religion was easily adapted to
the various centers to which it was transferred, and that
it enjoyed the valuable advantage of being always in
perfect harmony with the prevailing philosophy. More-
over, the syncretic tendencies of Egypt responded ad-
mirably to those that began to obtain at Rome. At a
very early period henotheistic theories had been favor-
ably received in sacerdotal circles, and while crediting
the god of their own temple with supremacy, the priests
admitted that he might have a number of different
personalities, under which he was worshiped simul-
taneously. In this way the unity of the supreme being
was affirmed for the thinkers, and polytheism with its
EGYPT.
89
intangible traditions maintained for the masses. In
the saine manner Isis and Osiris had absorbed several
local divinities under the Pharaohs, and had assumed
a complex character that was capable of indefinite ex-
tension. The same process continued under the Ptole-
mies when the religion of Egypt came into contact
Demeter, Aphrodite, Hera, Semele, Io, Tyche, and
others. She was considered the queen of heaven and
hell, of earth and sea. She was "the past, the present
and the future,”42 “nature the mother of things, the
mistress of the elements, born at the beginning of
the centuries."43 She had numberless names, an in-
finity of different aspects and an inexhaustible treasure
of virtues. In short, she became a pantheistic power
that was everything in one, una quae est omnia.44
The authority of Serapis was no less exalted, and
his field no less extensive. He also was regarded as a
universal god of whom men liked to say that he was
"unique."* In him all energies were centered, although
the functions of Zeus, of Pluto or of Helios were espe-
cially ascribed to him. For many centuries Osiris had
been worshiped at Abydos both as author of fecundity
and lord of the underworld,45 and this double char-
acter early caused him to be identified with the sun,
which fertilizes the earth during its diurnal course and
travels through the subterranean realms at night. Thus
the conception of this nature divinity, that had already
with the solar pantheism that was the last form of
Roman paganism. This theological system, which did
not gain the upper hand in the Occident until the sec-
* Els Zeus Edpamus.
90
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
IX
ond century of our era, was not brought in by Egypt.
It did not have the exclusive predominance there that
it had held under the empire, and even in Plutarch's
time it was only one creed among many.46 The de-
ciding influence in this matter was exercised by the
Syrian Baals and the Chaldean astrology.
The theology of the Egyptian mysteries, then, fol-
lowed rather than led the general influx of ideas. The
same may be said of their ethics. It did not force itself
upon the world by lofty moral precepts, nor by a sub-
lime ideal of holiness. Many have admired the edi-
fying list in the Book of the Dead, that rightfully or
otherwise sets forth the virtues which the deceased
claims to have practised in order to obtain a favorable
judgment from Osiris. If one considers the period in
which it appears, this ethics is undoubtedly very ele-
vated, but it seems rudimentary and even childish if
one compares it with the principles formulated by the
Roman jurists, to say nothing of the minute psycho-
logical analyses of the Stoic casuists. In this range
of ideas also, the maintenance of the most striking con-
trasts characterizes Egyptian mentality, which was
- never shocked by the cruelties and obscenities that
sullied the mythology and the ritual. Like Epicurus
at Athens, some of the sacred texts actually invited the
believers to enjoy life before the sadness of death.47
Isis was not a very austere goddess at the time she
* entered Italy. Identified with Venus, as Harpocrates
was with Eros, she was honored especially by the
women with whom love was a profession. In Alex-
andria, the city of pleasure, she had lost all severity,
and at Rome this good goddess remained very indul-
gent to human weaknesses. Juvenal harshly refers to
EGYPT.
her as a procuress,48 and her temples had a more than
doubtful reputation, for they were frequented by young
men in quest of gallant adventures. Apuleius himself
chose a lewd tale in which to display his fervor as an
initiate.
But we have said that Egypt was full of contradic-
tions, and when a more exacting morality demanded
that the gods should make man virtuous, the Alexan-
drian mysteries offered to satisfy that demand.
At all times the Egyptian ritual attributed consider-
able importance to purity, or, to use a more adequate
term, to cleanliness. Before every ceremony the offi-
ciating priest had to submit to ablutions, sometimes
to fumigations or anointing, and to abstain from cer-
tain foods and from incontinence for a certain time.
Originally no moral idea was connected with this puri-
fication. It was considered a means of exorcising
malevolent demons or of putting the priest into a state
in which the sacrifice performed by him could have
the expected effect. It was similar to the diet, shower-
baths and massage prescribed by physicians for phys-
ical health. The internal status of the officiating person
was a matter of as much indifference to the celestial
spirits as the actual worth of the deceased was to
Osiris, the judge of the underworld. All that was
necessary to have him open the fields of Aalu to the
soul was to pronounce the liturgic formulas, and if
the soul declared its innocence in the prescribed terms
its word was readily accepted.
But in the Egyptian religion, as in all the religions
of antiquity,49 the original conception was gradually
transformed and a new idea slowly took its place.
The sacramental acts of purification were now ex-
92
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
LI
pected to wipe out moral stains, and people became
convinced that they made man better. The devout
female votaries of Isis, whom Juvenal50 pictures as
breaking the ice to bathe in the Tiber, and crawling
around the temple on their bleeding knees, hoped to
atone for their sins and to make up for their shortcom-
ings by means of these sufferings.
When a new ideal grew up in the popular conscience
during the second century, when the magicians them-
selves became pious and serious people, free from
passions and appetites, and were honored because of
the dignity of their lives more than for their white
linen robes, 51 then the virtues of which the Egyptian
priests enjoined the practice also became less external.
Purity of the heart rather than cleanliness of the
body was demanded. Renunciation of sensual pleas-
ures was the indispensable condition for the knowl-
edge of divinity, which was the supreme good.52 No
longer did Isis favor illicit love. In the novel by
Xenophon of Ephesus (about 280 A. D.) she protects
the heroine's chastity against all pitfalls and assures
its triumph. According to the ancient belief man's
entire existence was a preparation for the formidable
judgment held by Serapis after death, but to have him
decide in favor of the mystic, it was not enough to
know the rites of the sect; the individual life had to
be free from crime; and the master of the infernal
regions assigned everybody a place according to his
deserts.53 The doctrine of future retribution was bet
ginning to develop.
However, in this regard, as in their conception of
the divinity, the Egyptian mysteries followed the gen-
eral progress of ideas more than they directed it. Phil

EGYPT.
93
losophy transformed them, but found in them little
inspiration.
How could a religion, of which neither the theology
nor the ethics was really new, stir up at the same time
so much hostility and fervor among the Romans?.
To many minds of to-day theology and ethics con-
stitute religion, but during the classical period it was
different, and the priests of Isis and Serapis conquered
souls mainly by other means. They seduced them by ~
the powerful attraction of the ritual and retained them
by the marvelous promises of their doctrine of immor- .
tality.
To the Egyptians ritual had a value far superior to
that we ascribe to it to-day. It had an operative
strength of its own that was independent of the in-
tentions of the officiating priest. The efficacy of prayer
depended not on the inner disposition of the believer,
but on the correctness of the words, gestures and in-
tonation. Religion was not clearly differentiated from
magic. If a divinity was invoked according to the
correct forms, especially if one knew how to pronounce
its real name, it was compelled to act in conformity
to the will of its priest. The sacred words were an
incantation that compelled the superior powers to obey
the officiating person, no matter what purpose he had
in view. With the knowledge of the liturgy men ac-
quired an immense power over the world of spirits.
Porphyry was surprised and indignant because the
Egyptians sometimes dared to threaten the gods in
their orations.54 In the consecrations the priest's sum-
mons compelled the gods to come and animate their
III
94
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
statues, and thus his voice created divinities,55 as orig-
inally the almighty voice of Thoth had created the
world.56
The ritual that conferred such superhuman power57
developed in Egypt into a state of perfection, complete-
ness and splendor unknown in the Occident. It pos-
sessed a unity, a precision and a permanency that stood
uncertainty of the dogmas and the arbitrariness of the
interpretations. The sacred books of the Greco-Roman
period are a faithful reproduction of the texts that
were engraved upon the walls of the pyramids at the
had passed. Even under the Cæsars the ancient cere-
monies dating back to the first ages of Egypt, were
scrupulously performed because the smallest word and
the least gesture had their importance.
This ritual and the attitude toward it found their way
for the most part into the Latin temples of Isis and
Serapis. This fact has long been ignored, but there
can be no doubt about it. A first proof is that the
clergy of those temples were organized just like those
of Egypt during the period of the Ptolemies. 58 There
was a hierarchy presided over by a high priest, which
consisted of prophetes skilled in the sacred science,
stolistes, or ornatrices,59 whose office it was to dress
sacred temple plates in the processions, and so on,
just as in Egypt. As in their native country, the priests
were distinguished from common mortals by a ton-
sure, by a linen tunic, and by their habits as well as
by their garb. They devoted themselves entirely to
their ininistry and had no other profession. This sacer-
EGYPT.
95
dotal body always remained Egyptian in character, if
not in nationality, because the liturgy it had to perform
remained so. In a similar manner the priests of the
Baals were Syrians,6o because they were the only ones
that knew how to honor the gods of Syria.
In the first place a daily service had to be held just
as in the Nile valley. The Egyptian gods enjoyed a
precarious immortality, for they were liable to destruc-
tion and dependent on necessities. According to a very
primitive conception that always remained alive, they
had to be fed, clothed and refreshed every day or else
perish. From this fact arose the necessity of a liturgy
that was practically the same in every district. It was
practised for thousands of years and opposed its un-
altering form to the multiplicity of legends and local
This daily liturgy was translated into Greek, per-
haps later into Latin also; it was adapted to the new
requirements by the founders of the Serapeum, and
faithfully observed in the Roman temples of the Alex-
opening (apertio) 62 of the sanctuary. At dawn the
statue of the divinity was uncovered and shown to
the community in the naos, that had been closed and
sealed during the night.63 Then, again as in Egypt,
the priest lit the sacred fire and offered libations of
water supposed to be from the deified Nile,64 while
he chanted the usual hymns to the sound of flutes.
Finally, "erect upon the threshold”—I translate liter-
ally from Porphyry—"he awakens the god by calling
to him in the Egyptian language."65 As we see, the
god was revived by the sacrifice and, as under the
Pharaohs, awoke from his slumber at the calling of
1
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
his name. As a matter of fact the name was indis-
solubly connected with the personality; he who could
pronounce the exact name of an individual or of a
divinity was obeyed as a master by his slave.66 This
fact made it necessary to maintain the original form
of that mysterious word. There was no other motive
for the introduction of a number of barbarian appel-
latives into the magical incantations.
It is also probable that the toilet of the statue was
made every day, that its body and head were dressed,67
as in the Egyptian ritual. We have seen that the
ornatrices or stolistes were especially entrusted with
these duties. The idol was covered with sumptuous
raiment and ornamented with jewels and gems. An
inscription furnishes us with an inventory of the jewels
worn by an Isis of ancient Cadiz ;68 her ornaments
were more brilliant than those of a Spanish madonna.
During the entire forenoon, from the moment that
a noisy acclamation had greeted the rising of the sun,
the images of the gods were exposed to the silent ado-
ration of the initiates.69 Egypt is the country whence
contemplative devotion penetrated into Europe. Then,
in the afternoon, a second service was held to close
the sanctuary.70
The daily liturgy must have been very absorbing.
This innovation in the Roman paganism was full of
consequences. No longer were sacrifices offered to
the god on certain occasions only, but twice a day
elaborate services were held. As with the Egyptians,
whom Herodotus had termed the most religious of all
peoples,71 devotion assumed a tendency to fill out the
whole existence and to dominate private and public
interests. The constant repetition of the same prayers
EGYPT.
97
TYY
kept up and renewed faith, and, we might say, people
lived continually under the eyes of the gods.
Besides the daily rites of the Abydos liturgy the
holidays marking the beginning of the different sea-
sons were celebrated at the same date every year.72
It was the same in Italy. The calendars have pre-
served the names of several of them, and of one, the
Navigiuuin Isidis, the rhetorician Apuleius73 has left
us a brilliant description on which, to speak with the
ancients, he emptied all his color tubes. On March
5th, when navigation reopened after the winter months,
a gorgeous procession74 marched to the coast, and a
ship consecrated to Isis, the protectress of sailors, was
launched. A burlesque group of masked persons
opened the procession, then came the women in white
gowns strewing flowers, the stolistes waving the gar-
ments of the goddess and the dadophori with lighted
torches. After these came the lly:innodes, whose songs
mingled in turn with the sharp sound of the cross-
flutes and the ringing of the brass timbrels; then the
throngs of the initiates, and finally the priests, with
shaven heads and clad in linen robes of a dazzling
white, bearing the images of animal-faced gods and
strange symbols, as for instance a golden urn con-
taining the sacred water of the Nile. The procession
stopped in front of altars75 erected along the road,
and on these altars the sacred objects were uncovered
for the veneration of the faithful. The strange and
sumptuous magnificence of these celebrations made a
deep impression on the common people who loved
public entertainments.
But of all the celebrations connected with the wor-
ship of Isis the most stirring and the most suggestive
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
was the commemoration of the “Finding of Osiris”
(Inventio, Eupeols). Its antecedents date back to re-
mote antiquity. Since the time of the twelfth dynasty,
and probably much earlier, there had been held at
Abydos and elsewhere a sacred performance similar
to the mysteries of our Middle Ages, in which the
events of Osiris's passion and resurrection were re-
produced. We are in possession of the ritual of those
performances.76 Issuing from the temple, the god
fell under Set's blows; around his body funeral lamen-
tations were simulated, and he was buried according to
the rites; then Set was vanquished by Horus, and
Osiris, restored to life, reentered his temple triumphant
over death.
The same myth was represented in almost the same
manner at Rome at the beginning of each November.77
While the priests and the believers moaned and la-
mented, Isis in great distress sought the divine body
of Osiris, whose limbs had been scattered by Typhon.
Then, after the corpse had been found, rehabilitated
and revived, there was a long outburst of joy, an
exuberant jubilation that rang through the temples
and the streets so loudly that it annoyed the passers-by.
This mingled despair and enthusiasm acted as
strongly upon the feelings of the believers as did the
spring-holiday ceremony in the Phrygian religion, and
it acted through the same means. Moreover, there
was an esoteric meaning attached to it that none but
the pious elect understood. Besides the public cere-
monies there was a secret worship to which one was
admitted only after a gradual initiation. The hero of
Apuleius had to submit to the ordeal three times in
order to obtain the whole revelation. In Egypt the
1
EGYPT.
99
clergy communicated certain rites and interpretations
only upon a promise not to reveal them. In fact this
was the case in the worship of Isis at Abydos and
elsewhere.78 When the Ptolemies regulated the Greek
ritual of their new religion, it assumed the form of
the mysteries spread over the Hellenic world and be-
came very like those of Eleusis. The hand of the
Eumolpid Timotheus is noticeable in this connection.79
But while the ceremonial of the initiations and even
the production of the liturgic drama were thus adapted
to the religious habits of the Greeks, the doctrinal
contents of the Alexandrian mysteries remained purely
Egyptian. The old belief that immortality could be
secured by means of an identification of the deceased
with Osiris or Serapis never died out.
Perhaps in no other people did the epigram of Fustel
de Coulanges find so complete a verification as in the
Egyptians: "Death was the first mystery; it started
man on the road to the other mysteries.”80 Nowhere
else was life so completely dominated by preoccupation
with life after death ; nowhere else was such minute
and complicated care taken to secure and perpetuate
another existence for the deceased. The funeral litera-
ture, of which we have found a very great number of
documents, had acquired a development equaled by
no other, and the architecture of no other nation can
exhibit tombs comparable with the pyramids or the
rock-built sepulchers of Thebes.
This constant endeavor to secure an after-existence
for one's self and relatives manifested itself in various
ways, but it finally assumed a concrete form in the
worship of Osiris. The fate of Osiris, the god who
died and returned to life, became the prototype of the
100
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
fate of every human being that observed the funeral
rites. “As truly as Osiris lives,” says an Egyptian
text, “he also shall live; as truly as Osiris is not dead,
shall he not die; as truly as Osiris is not annihilated,
shall he not be annihilated.”81
If, then, the deceased had piously served Osiris-
Serapis, he was assimilated to that god, and shared
his immortality in the underworld, where the judge
of the dead held forth. He lived not as a tenuous
shade or as a subtle spirit, but in full possession of his
body as well as of his soul. That was the Egyptian
doctrine, and that certainly was also the doctrine of the
Greco-Latin mysteries.82
- Through the initiation the mystic was born again,
but to a superhuman life, and became the equal of
the immortals.83 In his ecstasy he imagined that he
was crossing the threshold of death and contemplating
the gods of heaven and hell face to face.84 If he had
accurately followed the prescriptions imposed upon
him by Isis and Serapis through their priests, those
gods prolonged his life after his decease beyond the
duration assigned to it by destiny, and he participated
eternally in their beatitude and offered them his hom-
age in their realm.85 The "unspeakable pleasure” he
felt when contemplating the sacred images in the tem-
ple86 became perpetual rapture when he was in the
divine presence instead of in the presence of the im-
age, and drawn close to divinity his thirsting soul
enjoyed the delights of that ineffable beauty.87
When the Alexandrian mysteries spread over Italy
under the republic, no religion had ever brought to
mankind so formal a promise of blest immortality as
these, and this, more than anything else, lent them an
1
EGYPT.
101
irresistible power of attraction. Instead of the vague
and contradictory opinions of the philosophers in re-
gard to the destiny of the soul, Serapis offered cer-
tainty founded on divine revelation corroborated by
the faith of the countless generations that had adhered
to it. What the votaries of Orpheus had confusedly
discovered through the veil of the legends, and taught
to Magna Grecia,88 namely, that this earthly life was
a trial, a preparation for a higher and purer life, that
the happiness of an after-life could be secured by
means of rites and observances revealed by the gods
themselves, all this was now preached with a firmness
and precision hitherto unknown. These eschatolog-
ical doctrines in particular, helped Egypt to conquer
the Latin world and especially the miserable masses,
on whom the weight of all the iniquities of Roman
society rested heavily.
* * *
The power and popularity of that belief in future
life has left traces even in the French language, and in
concluding this study, from which I have been com-
pelled to exclude every picturesque detail, I would like
to point out how a French word of to-day dimly per-
petuates the memory of the old Egyptian ideas.
During the cold nights of their long winters the
Scandinavians dreamed of a Walhalla where the de-
ceased warriors sat in well-closed brilliantly illuminated
halls, warming themselves and drinking the strong
liquor served by the Valkyries; but under the burning
sky of Egypt, near the arid sand where thirst kills
the traveler, people wished that their dead might find
a limpid spring in their future wanderings to assuage
the heat that devoured them, and that they might be
102
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
refreshed by the breezes of the north wind.89 Even
at Rome the adherents of the Alexandrian gods fre-
quently inscribed the following wish on their tombs:
"May Osiris give you fresh water."90 Soon this water
became, in a figurative sense, the fountain of life pour-
ing out immortality to thirsting souls. The metaphor
obtained such popularity that in Latin refrigeriuin be-
came synonymous with comfort and happiness. The
term retained this meaning in the liturgy of the
church,91 and for that reason people continue to pray
for spiritual rafraîchissement of the dead although the
Christian paradise has very little resemblance to the
fields of Aalu.
VU
SYRIA.
THE religions of Syria never had the same solidar-
1 ity in the Occident as those from Egypt or Asia
Minor. From the coasts of Phænicia and the valleys
of Lebanon, from the borders of the Euphrates and
the oases of the desert, they came at various periods,
like the successive waves of the incoming tide, and
existed side by side in the Roman world without unit-
ing, in spite of their similarities. The isolation in
which they remained and the persistent adherence of
their believers to their particular rites were a con-
sequence and reflection of the disunited condition of
Syria herself, where the different tribes and districts
remained more distinct than anywhere else, even after
they had been brought together under the domination
of Rome. They doggedly preserved their local gods
and Semitic dialects.
It would be impossible to outline each one of these
religions in detail at this time and to reconstruct their
· history, because our meager information would not
permit it, but we can indicate, in a general way, how
they penetrated into the Occidental countries at vari-
ous periods, and we can try to define their common
characteristics by showing what new elements the
Syrian paganism brought to the Romans.
The first Semitic divinity to enter Italy was Atar-
104
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
11
gatis, frequently mistaken for the Phænician Astarte,
who had a famous temple at Bambyce or Hierapolis,
not far from the Euphrates, and was worshiped with
her husband, Hadad, in a considerable part of Syria
besides. The Greeks considered her as the principal
Syrian goddess,* and in the Latin countries she was
commonly known as dea Syria, a name corrupted into
Iasura by popular use.
We all remember the unedifying descriptions of her
itinerant priests that Lucian and Apuleius! have left.
Led by an old eunuch of dubiouş habits, a crowd of
painted young men marched along the highways with
an ass that bore an elaborately adorned image of the
goddess. Whenever they passed through a village or
by some rich villa, they went through their sacred
exercises. To the shrill accompaniment of their Syrian
flutes they turned round and round, and with their
heads thrown back fluttered about and gave vent to
hoarse clamors until vertigo seized them and insensi-
bility was complete. Then they flagellated themselves
wildly, struck themselves with swords and shed their
blood in front of a rustic crowd which pressed closely
about them, and finally they took up a profitable col-
lection from the wondering spectators. They received
jars of milk and wine, cheeses, flour, bronze coins of
small denominations and even some silver pieces, all
of which disappeared in the folds of their capacious
robes. If opportunity presented they knew how to in-
crease their profits by means of clever thefts or by
making commonplace predictions for a moderate con-
sideration.
This picturesque description, based on a novel by
* Eupla bed.
SYRIA.
105
Lucius of Patras, is undoubtedly extreme. It is diffi-
cult to believe that the sacerdotal corps of the goddess
of Hierapolis should have consisted only of charla-
tans and thieves. But how can the presence in the
Occident of that begging and low nomadic clergy be
explained ?
It is certain that the first worshipers of the Syrian
goddess in the Latin world were slaves. During the
wars against Antiochus the Great a number of pris-
oners were sent to Italy to be sold at public auction,
as was the custom, and the first appearance in Italy
of the Chaldaeiz has been connected with that event.
The Chaldaei were Oriental fortune-tellers who as-
serted that their predictions were based on the Chal-
dean astrology. They found credulous clients among
the farm laborers, and Cato gravely exhorts the good
landlord to oust them from his estate.3
Beginning with the second century before Christ,
merchants began to import Syrian slaves. At that
time Delos was the great trade center in this human
commodity, and in that island especially Atargatis was
worshiped by citizens of Athens and Rome.4 Trade
spread her worship in the Occident.5 We know that
the great slave revolution that devastated Sicily in 134
B. C. was started by a slave from Apamea, a votary
of the Syrian goddess. Simulating divine madness,
he called his companions to arms, pretending to act in
accordance with orders from heaven. This detail,
which we know by chance, shows how considerable a
proportion of Semites there was in the gangs working
the fields, and how much authority Atargatis enjoyed
in the rural centers. Being too poor to build temples
for their national goddess, those agricultural laborers
106
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
waited with their devotions until a band of itinerant
galli passed through the distant hamlet where the lot
of the auction had sent them. The existence of those
wandering priests depended, therefore, on the number
of fellow-countrymen they met in the rural districts,
who supported them by sacrificing a part of their poor
savings.
Towards the end of the republic those diviners
appear to have enjoyed rather serious consideration
at Rome. It was a pythoness from Syria that advised
Marius on the sacrifices he was to perform.?
Under the empire the importation of slaves in-
creased. Depopulated Italy needed more and more
foreign hands, and Syria furnished a large quota of
the forced immigration of cultivators. But those
Syrians, quick and intelligent as they were strong
and industrious, performed many other functions.
They filled the countless domestic positions in the
palaces of the aristocracy and were especially appre-
ciated as litter-bearers.8 The imperial and municipal
administrations, as well as the big contractors to whom
customs and the mines were farmed out, hired or
bought them in large numbers, and even in the re-
motest border provinces the Syrus was found serving
princes, cities or private individuals. The worship
of the Syrian goddess profited considerably by the
economic current that continually brought new wor-
shipers. We find her mentioned in the first century
of our era in a Roman inscription referring in precise
terms to the slave market, and we know that Nero
took a devout fancy to the stranger that did not, how-
ever, last very long.9 In the popular Trastevere quarter
she had a temple until the end of paganism.10
SYRIA.
107
During the imperial period, however, the slaves
were no longer the only missionaries that came from
Syria, and Atargatis was no longer the only divinity
from that country to be worshiped in the Occident.
The propagation of the Semitic worship progressed
for the most part in a different manner under the
empire.
At the beginning of our era the Syrian merchants,
Syri negotiatores, undertook a veritable colonization
of the Latin provinces. During the second century
before Christ the traders of that nation had established
settlements along the coast of Asia Minor, on the
Piraeus, and in the Archipelago. At Delos, a small
island but a large commercial center, they maintained
several associations that worshiped their national gods,
in particular Hadad and Atargatis. But the wars that
shook the Orient at the end of the republic, and above
all the growth of piracy, ruined maritime commerce
and stopped emigration. This began again with re-
newed vigor when the establishment of the empire
guaranteed the safety of the seas and when the Levan-
tine traffic attained a development previously unknown.
We can trace the history of the Syrian establishments
in the Latin provinces from the first to the seventh
century, and recently we have begun to appreciate
their economic, social and religious importance at its
· true value.
The Syrians' love of lucre was proverbial. Active,
compliant and able, frequently little scrupulous, they
knew how to conclude first small deals, then larger
ones, everywhere. Using the special talents of their
race to advantage, they succeeded in establishing them-
selves on all coasts of the Mediterranean, even in
108
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Spain.2 At Malaga an inscription mentions a cor-
poration formed by them. The Italian ports where
business was especially active, Pozzuoli, Ostia, later
Naples, attracted them in great numbers. But they
did not confine themselves to the seashore; they pene-
trated far into the interior of the countries, wherever
they hoped to find profitable trade. They followed the
commercial highways and traveled up the big rivers.
G
by way of the Rhone they reached Lyons. In Gaul
they were especially numerous. In this new country
that had just been opened to commerce fortunes could
be made rapidly. A rescript discovered on the range
of the Lebanon is addressed to sailors from Arles,
who had charge of the transportation of grain, and in
the department of Ain a bilingual epitaph has been
found mentioning a merchant of the third century,
of Canatha in Syria, who owned two factories in the
Rhone basin, where he handled goods from Aqui-
tania.13 Thus the Syrians spread over the entire prov-
ince as far as Treves, where they had a strong colony.
Not even the barbarian invasions of the fifth century
stopped their immigration. Saint Jerome describes
them traversing the entire Roman world amidst the
troubles of the invasion, prompted by the lust of gain
to defy all dangers. In the barbarian society the part
played by this civilized and city-bred element was even
more considerable. Under the Merovingians in about
591 they had sufficient influence at Paris to have one
of their number elected bishop and to gain possession
of all ecclesiastical offices. Gregory of Tours tells
how King Gontrand, on entering the city of Orleans
SYRIA.
109
in 585, was received by a crowd praising him in the
language of the Latins, the Jews and the Syrians."14
The merchant colonies existed until the Saracen cor-
sairs destroyed the commerce of the Mediterranean.
Those establishments exercised a strong influence
upon the economic and material life of the Latin prov-
inces, especially in Gaul. As bankers the Syrians
concentrated a large share of the money business in
their hands and monopolized the importing of the val-
uable Levantine commodities as well as of the articles
of luxury; they sold wines, spices, glassware, silks
and purple fabrics, also objects wrought by goldsmiths,
to be used as patterns by the native artisans. Their
moral and religious influence was not less considerable:
for instance, it has been shown that they furthered
the development of monastic life during the Christian
period, and that the devotion to the crucifix'5 that
grew up in opposition to the monophysites, was intro-
duced into the Occident by them. During the first
five centuries Christians felt an unconquerable repug-
nance to the representation of the Saviour of the
world nailed to an instrument of punishment more
infamous than the guillotine of to-day. The Syrians
were the first to substitute reality in all its pathetic
horror for a vague symbolism.
In pagan times the religious ascendency of that
immigrant population was no less remarkable. The
merchants always took an interest in the affairs of
heaven as well as in those of earth. At all times Syria
was a land of ardent devotion, and in the first century
its children were as fervid in propagating their bar-
barian gods in the Occident as after their conversion
they were enthusiastic in spreading Christianity as far
110
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
as Turkestan and China. As soon as the merchants
had established their places of business in the islands
of the Archipelago during the Alexandrian period,
and in the Latin period under the empire, they founded
chapels in which they practised their exotic rites.
It was easy for the divinities of the Phænician
coast to cross the seas. Among them were Adonis,
whom the women of Byblos mourned; Balmarcodes,
"the Lord of the dances,” who came from Beirut;
Marna, the master of rain, worshiped at Gaza; and
Maiuma, 16 whose nautical holiday was celebrated every
spring on the coast near Ostia as well as in the
Orient.
Besides these half Hellenized religions, others of
a more purely Semitic nature came from the interior
of the country, because the merchants frequently were
natives of the cities of the Hinterland, as for instance
Apamea or Epiphanea in Coele-Syria, or even of vil-
lages in that flat country. As Rome incorporated the
small kingdoms beyond the Lebanon and the Orontes
that had preserved a precarious independence, the cur-
rent of emigration increased. In 71 Commagene,
which lies between the Taurus and the Euphrates,
was annexed by Vespasian, a little later the dynasties
of Chalcis and Emesa were also deprived of their
power. Nero, it appears, took possession of Damas-
cus; half a century later Trajan established the new
province of Arabia in the south (106 A. D.), and the
oasis of Palmyra, a great mercantile center, lost its
autonomy at the same time. In this manner Rome
extended her direct authority as far as the desert,
over countries that were only superficially Hellenized,
and where the native devotions had preserved all their
SYRIA.
111
1
TTT
savage fervor. From that time constant communi-
cation was established between Italy and those regions
which had heretofore been almost inaccessible. As
roads were built commerce developed, and together
with the interests of trade the needs of administration
created an incessant exchange of men, of products
and of beliefs between those out-of-the-way countries
and the Latin provinces.
These annexations, therefore, were followed by a
renewed influx of Syrian divinities into the Occident.
At Pozzuoli, the last port of call of the Levantine
vessels, there was a temple to the Baal of Damascus
(Jupiter Damascenus) in which leading citizens offi-
ciated, and there were altars on which two golden
camels") were offered to Dusares, a divinity who had
come from the interior of Arabia. They kept company
with a divinity of more ancient repute, the Hadad of
Baabek - Heliopolis (Jupiter Heliopolitanus), whose
immense temple, considered one of the world's won-
ders,18 had been restored by Antoninus Pius, and may
still be seen facing Lebanon in majestic elegance.
Heliopolis and Beirut had been the most ancient col-
onies founded by Augustus in Syria. The god of
Heliopolis participated in the privileged position
granted to the inhabitants of those two cities, who
worshiped in a common devotion,19 and he was nat-
uralized as a Roman with greater ease than the others.
The conquest of all Syria as far as Euphrates and
the subjection of even a part of Mesopotamia aided
the diffusion of the Semitic religions in still another
manner. From these regions, which were partly in-
habited by fighting races, the Cæsars drew recruits
for the imperial army. They levied a great number of
112
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
legionaries, but especially auxiliary troops, who were
transferred to the frontiers. Troopers and foot-soldiers
from those provinces furnished important contingents
to the garrisons of Europe and Africa. For instance,
a cohort of one thousand archers from Emesa was
established in Pannonia, another of archers from Da- .
mascus in upper Germany; Mauretania received ir-
regulars from Palmyra, and bodies of troops levied
in Ituraea, on the outskirts of the Arabian desert,
were encamped in Dacia, Germany, Egypt and Cappa-
docia at the same time. Commagene alone furnished
no less than six cohorts of five hundred men each
that were sent to the Danube and into Numidia.20
The number of inscriptions consecrated by soldiers
proves both the ardor of their faith and the diversity
of their beliefs. Like the sailors of to-day who are
transferred to strange climes and exposed to incessant
danger, they were constantly inclined to invoke the
protection of heaven, and remained attached to the
gods who seemed to remind them in their exile of the
distant home country. Therefore it is not surprising
that the Syrians who served in the army should have
practised the religion of their Baals in the neighbor-
hood of their camps. In the north of England, near
the wall of Hadrian, an inscription in verse in honor
of the goddess of Hierapolis has been found; its author
was a prefect, probably of a cohort of Hamites sta-
tioned at this distant post.21
Not all the soldiers, however, went to swell the
ranks of believers worshiping divinities that had long
been adopted by the Latin world, as did that officer.
They also brought along new ones that had come from
a still greater distance than their predecessors, in fact
SYRIA.
113
from the outskirts of the barbarian world, because
from those regions in particular trained men could
be obtained. There were, for instance, Baltis, an "Our
Lady" from Osroene beyond the Euphrates ;22 Aziz,
the “strong god" of Edessa, who was identified with
the star Lucifer ;23 Malakbel, the “Lord's messenger,"
patron of the soldiers from Palmyra, who appeared
with several companions at Rome, in Numidia and in
Dacia.24 The most celebrated of those gods then was
the Jupiter of Doliche, a small city of Commagene,
that owed its fame to him. Because of the troops
coming from that region, this obscure Baal, whose
name is mentioned by no author, found worshipers in
every Roman province as far as Africa, Germany and
Brittany. The number of known inscriptions conse-
crated to him exceeds a hundred, and it is still grow-
ing. Being originally nothing but a god of lightning,
represented as brandishing an ax, this local genius
of the tempest was elevated to the rank of tutelary
divinity of the imperial armies.25
The diffusion of the Semitic religions in Italy that
commenced imperceptibly under the republic became.
more marked after the first century of our era. Their
expansion and multiplication were rapid, and they
attained the apogee of their power during the third
century. Their influence became almost predominant
when the accession of the Severi lent them the support
of a court that was half Syrian. Functionaries of all
kinds, senators and officers, vied with each other in
devotion to the patron gods of their sovereigns, gods
which the sovereigns patronized in turn. Intelligent
and ambitious princesses like Julia Domna, Julia
Maesa, Julia Mammea, whose ascendency was very
114
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
considerable, became propagators of their national re-
ligion. We all know the audacious pronunciamento
of the year 218 that placed upon the throne the four-
teen-year-old emperor Heliogabalus, a worshiper of the
Baal of Emesa. His intention was to give supremacy
over all other gods to his barbarian divinity, who had
heretofore been almost unknown. The ancient authors
narrate with indignation how this crowned priest at-
tempted to elevate his black stone, the coarse idol
brought from Emesa, to the rank of supreme divinity
of the empire by subordinating the whole ancient pan-
theon to it; they never tire of giving revolting details
about the dissoluteness of the debaucheries for which
the festivities of the new Sol invictus Elagabal fur-
nished a pretext.26 However, the question arises
whether the Roman historians, being very hostile to
that foreigner who haughtily favored the customs of
his own country, did not misrepresent or partly mis-
understand the facts. Heliogabalus's attempt to have
his god recognized as supreme, and to establish a kind
of monotheism in heaven as there was monarchy on
earth, was undoubtedly too violent, awkward and pre-
mature, but it was in keeping with the aspirations of
the time, and it must be remembered that the imperial
policy could find the support of powerful Syrian col-
onies not only at Rome but all over the empire.
Half a century later Aurelian27 was inspired by the
same idea when he created a new worship, that of the
"Invincible Sun.” Worshiped in a splendid temple,
by pontiffs equal in rank to those of ancient Rome,
having magnificent plays held in his honor every fourth
year, sol invictus was also elevated to the supreme
rank in the divine hierarchy, and became the special
SYRIA.
115
protector of the eniperors and the empire. The country
where Aurelian found the pattern he sought to repro-
duce, was again Syria. Into the new sanctuary he
transferred the images of Bel and Helios, taken from
Palmyra, after it had fallen before his arms.
. * * *
The sovereigns, then, twice attempted to replace the
Capitoline Jupiter by a Semitic god and to make a
Semitic religion the principal and official religion of
the Romans. They proclaimed the fall of the old
Latin idolatry and the accession of a new paganism
taken from Syria. What was the superiority attributed
to the creeds of that country? Why did even an Il-
lyrian general like Aurelian look for the most perfect
type of pagan religion in that country? That is the
problem to be solved, but it must remain unsolved
unless an exact account is given of the fate of the
Syrian beliefs under the empire.
That question has not as yet been very completely
elucidated. Besides the superficial opuscule of Lucian
on the dea Syria, we find scarcely any reliable infor-
mation in the Greek or Latin writers. The work by
Philo of Byblos is a euhemeristic interpretation of an
alleged Phænician cosmogony, and a composition of
little merit. Neither have we the original texts of the
Semitic liturgies, as we have for Egypt. Whatever
we have learned we owe especially to the inscriptions,
and while these furnish highly valuable indications as
to the date and area of expansion of these religions,
they tell us hardly anything about their doctrines.
Light on this subject may be expected from the ex-
cavations that are being made in the great sanctuaries
of Syria, and also from a more exact interpretation
7
III
116
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
of the sculptured monuments that we now possess in
great numbers, especially those of Jupiter Dolichenus.
Some characteristics of the Semitic paganism, how-
ever, are known at present, and it must be admitted
that it would appear at a disadvantage if judged by
those noticeable features that first attract our atten-
tion. It had retained a stock of very primitive ideas and
some aboriginal nature worship that had lasted through
many centuries and was to persist, in part, under
Christianity and Islam until the present day.28 Such
were the worship of high elevations on which a rustic
enclosure sometimes marked the limits of the conse-
crated territory; the worship of the waters that flow
to the sea, the streams that arise in the mountains, the
springs that gush out of the soil, the ponds, the lakes
and the wells, into all of which offerings were thrown
with the idea either of venerating in them the thirst-
quenching liquid or else the fecund nature of the
earth; the worship of the trees that shaded the altars
and that nobody dared to fell or mutilate; the worship
of stones, especially of the rough stones called bethels
that were regarded, as their name (beth-El) indicates,
as the residence of the god, or rather, as the matter
in which the god was embodied.29 Aphrodite Astarte
was worshiped in the shape of a conical stone at
Paphos, and a black aerolite covered with projections
and depressions to which a symbolic meaning was
attributed represented Elagabal, and was transferred
from Emesa to Rome, as we have said.
The animals, as well as inanimate things, received
their share of homage. Remnants of the old Semitic
zoolatry perpetuated themselves until the end of pagan-
ism and even later. Frequently the gods were repre-
SYRIA.
117
sented standing erect on animals. Thus the Dolichean
Baal stood on a steer, and his spouse on a lion. Around
certain temples there were sacred parks, in which sav-
age beasts roamed at liberty,30 a reminder of the time
when they were considered divine. Two animals espe-
cially were the objects of universal veneration, the
pigeon and the fish. Vagrant multitudes of pigeons
received the traveler landing at Ascalon,31 and they
played about the enclosures of all the temples of As-
tarte32 in flocks resembling white whirlwinds. The
pigeon belonged, properly speaking, to the goddess
of love, whose symbol it has remained above all to the
people worshiping that goddess.
"Quid referam ut volitet crebras intacta per urbes
Alba Palaestino sancta columba Syro ?"33
The fish was sacred to Atargatis, who undoubtedly
had been represented in that shape at first, as Dagon
always was.34 The fish were kept in ponds in the
proximity of the temples.35 A superstitious fear pre-
vented people from touching them, because the goddess
punished the sacrilegious by covering their bodies
with ulcers and tumors.36 At certain mystic repasts,
however, the priests and initiates consumed the for-
bidden food in the belief that they were absorbing the
flesh of the divinity herself. That worship and its
practices, which were spread over Syria, probably sug-
gested the ichthus symbolism in the Christian period.37
However, over this lower and primordial stratum
that still cropped out here and there, other less rudi-
mentary beliefs had formed. Besides inanimate objects
and animals, the Syrian paganism worshiped personal
divinities especially. The character of the gods that
were originally adored by the Semitic tribes has been
118
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
A1914
uuuu
ingeniously reconstructed.38 Each tribe had its Baal
and Baalat who protected it and whon only its mem-
bers were permitted to worship. The name of Ba'al,
"master," summarizes the conception people had of
him. In the first place he was regarded as the sov-
ereign of his votaries, and his position in regard to
them was that of an Oriental potentate towards his
subjects; they were his servants, or rather his slaves.39
The Baal was at the same time the “master” or pro-
prietor of the country in which he resided and which
he made fertile by causing springs to gush from its
soil. Or his domain was the firmament and he was
the dominus caeli, whence he made the waters fall to
the roar of tempests. He was always united with a
celestial or earthly "queen” and, in the third place,
he was the “lord” or husband of the “lady” associated
with him. The one represented the male, the other
the female principle; they were the authors of all
fecundity, and as a consequence the worship of the
divine couple often assumed a sensual and voluptuous
character.
As a matter of fact, immorality was nowhere so
flagrant as in the temples of Astarte, whose female
servants honored the goddess with untiring ardor. In
no country was sacred prostitution so developed as in
Syria, and in the Occident it was to be found prac-
tically only where the Phænicians had imported it, as
on Mount Eryx. Those aberrations, that were kept
up until the end of paganism,40 probably have their
explanation in the primitive constitution of the Semitic
tribe, and the religious custom must have been orig-
inally one of the forms of exogamy, which compelled
the woman to unite herself first with a stranger.41
SYRIA.
119
As a second blemish, the Semitic religions practised
human immolations longer than any other religion,
sacrificing children and grown men in order to please
sanguinary gods. In spite of Hadrian's prohibition of
those murderous offerings,42 they were maintained in
certain clandestine rites and in the lowest practices of
magic, up to the fall of the idols, and even later. They
corresponded to the ideas of a period during which the
life of a captive or slave had no greater value than
that of an animal.
These sacred practices and many others, on which
Lucian complacently enlarges in his opuscule on the
goddess of Hierapolis, daily revived the habits of a
barbarous past in the temples of Syria. Of all the
conceptions that had successively dominated the coun-
try, none had completely disappeared. As in Egypt,
beliefs of very different date and origin coexisted,
without any attempt to make them agree, or without
success when the task was undertaken. In these be-
liefs zoolatry, litholatry and all the other nature wor-
ships outlived the savagery that had created them.
More than anywhere else the gods had remained the
chieftains of clans43 because the tribal organizations
of Syria were longer lived and more developed than
those of any other region. Under the empire many
districts were still subjected to the tribal régime and
commanded by “ethnarchs" or "phylarchs."44 Re-
ligion, which sacrificed the lives of the men and the
honor of the women to the divinity, had in many re-
gards remained on the moral level of unsocial and
sanguinary tribes. Its obscene and atrocious rites
called forth exasperated indignation on the part of
120
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
the Roman conscience when Heliogabalus attempted
to introduce them into Italy with his Baal of Emesa.
How, then, can one explain the fact that in spite of
all, the Syrian gods imposed themselves upon the
Occident and made even the Cæsars accept them? The
reason is that the Semitic paganism can no more be
judged by certain revolting practices, that perpetuated
in the heart of civilization the barbarity and puerilities
of an uncultivated society, than the religion of the
Nile can be so judged. As in the case of Egypt we
must distinguish between the sacerdotal religion and
the infinitely varied popular religion that was em-
bodied in local customs. Syria possessed a number of
great sanctuaries in which an educated clergy medi-
tated and expatiated upon the nature of the divine
beings and on the meaning of traditions inherited from
remote ancestors. As their own interests demanded,
that clergy constantly amended the sacred traditions
and modified their spirit when the letter was im-
mutable, in order to make them agree with the new
aspirations of a more advanced period. They had
their mysteries and their initiates to whom they re-
vealed a wisdom that was above the vulgar beliefs of
the masses.45
Frequently we can draw diametrically opposite con-
clusions from the same principle. In that manner the
old idea of tabu, that seems to have transformed the
temples of Astarte into houses of debauchery, also
became the source of a severe code of morals. The
Semitic tribes were haunted with the fear of the tabu.
A multitude of things were either impure or sacred
because, in the original confusion, those two notions
SYRIA.
121
had not been clearly differentiated. Man's ability to
use the products of nature to satisfy his needs, was
thus limited by a number of prohibitions, restrictions
and conditions. He who touched a forbidden object
was soiled and corrupted, his fellows did not associate
with him and he could no longer participate in the
sacrifices. In order to wipe out the blemish, he had
recourse to ablutions and other ceremonies known to
the priests. Purity, that had originally been consid-
ered simply physical, soon became ritualistic and finally
spiritual. .Life was surrounded by a network of cir-
cumstances subject to certain conditions, every vio-
lation of which meant a fall and demanded penance.
The anxiety to remain constantly in a state of holiness
or regain that state when it had been lost, filled one's
entire existence. It was not peculiar to the Semitic
tribes, but they ascribed a prime importance to it. 46
And the gods, who necessarily possessed this quality
in an eminent degree, were holy beings (äycol) 47 par
excellence.
In this way principles of conduct and dogmas of
faith have frequently been derived from instinctive
and absurd old beliefs. All theological doctrines that
were accepted in Syria modified the prevailing ancient
conception of the Baals. But in our present state of
knowledge it is very difficult indeed to determine the
shares that the various influences contributed, from
the conquests of Alexander to the Roman domination,
to make the Syrian paganism what it became under
the Cæsars. The civilization of the Seleucid empire
is little known, and we cannot determine what caused
the alliance of Greek thought with the Semitic tra-
ditions.48 The religions of the neighboring nations
A
122
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
also had an undeniable influence. Phoenicia and Leba-
non remained moral tributaries of Egypt long after
they had liberated themselves from the suzerainty of
the Pharaohs. The theogony of Philo of Byblos took
gods and myths from that country, and at Heliopolis
Hadad was honored "according to Egyptian rather
than Syrian rite.”49 The rigorous monotheism of the
Jews, who were dispersed over the entire country,
must also have acted as an active ferment of trans-
formation.50 But it was Babylon that retained the
intellectual supremacy, even after its political ruin. The
powerful sacerdotal caste ruling it did not fall with the
independence of the country, and it survived the con-
quests of Alexander as it had previously lived through
the Persian domination. The researches of Assyriol-
ogists have shown that its ancient worship persisted
under the Seleucides, and at the time of Strabo the
“Chaldeans” still discussed cosmology and first prin-
ciples in the rival schools of Borsippa and Orchoë.51
The ascendancy of that erudite clergy affected all sur-
rounding regions; it was felt by Persia in the east,
Cappadocia in the north, but more than anywhere else
by the Syrians, who were connected with the Oriental
Semites by bonds of language and blood. Even after
the Parthians had wrested the valley of the Euphrates
from the Seleucides, relations with the great temples
of that region remained uninterrupted. The plains of
Mesopotamia, inhabited by races of like origin, ex-
tended on both sides of an artificial border line; great
commercial roads followed the course of the two rivers
flowing into the Persian Gulf or cut across the desert,
and the pilgrims came to Babylon, as Lucian tells us,
to perform their devotions to the Lady of Bambyce.52
SYRIA.
123
Ever since the Captivity, constant spiritual relations
had existed between Judaism and the great religious
metropolis. At the birth of Christianity they mani-
fested themselves in the rise of gnostic sects in which
the Semitic mythology formed strange combinations
with Jewish and Greek ideas and furnished the foun-
dation for extravagant superstructures.53 Finally, dur-
ing the decline of the empire, it was Babylon again
from which emanated Manicheism, the last form of
idolatry received in the Latin world. We can imagine
how powerful the religious influence of that country
on the Syrian paganism must have been.
That influence manifested itself in various ways.
First, it introduced new gods. In this way Bel passed
from the Babylonian pantheon into that of Palmyra
and was honored throughout northern Syria.54 It also
caused ancient divinities to be arranged in new groups.
To the primitive couple of the Baal and the Baalat a
third member was added in order to form one of those
triads dears to Chaldean theology. This took place at
Hierapolis as well as at Heliopolis, and the three gods
of the latter city, Hadad, Atargatis and Simios, became
Jupiter, Venus and Mercury in Latin inscriptions.55
Finally, and most important, astrolatry wrought rad-
ical changes in the characters of the celestial powers,
and, as a further consequence, in the entire Roman
paganism. In the first place it gave them a second
personality in addition to their own nature. The side-
real myths superimposed themselves upon the agrarian
myths, and gradually obliterated them. Astrology,
born on the banks of the Euphrates, imposed itself in
Egypt upon the haughty and unapproachable clergy
of the most conservative of all nations.56 Syria re-
124
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
ceived it without reserve and surrendered uncondi-
tionally ;59 numismatics and archeology as well as
literature prove this. King Antiochus of Commagene,
for instance, who died 34 B. C., built himself a monu-
mental tomb on a spur of the Taurus, in which he
placed his horoscope, designed on a large bas-relief,
beside the images of his ancestral divinities.58
The importance which the introduction of the Syr-
ian religions into the Occident has for us consists
therefore in the fact that indirectly they brought cer-
tain theological doctrines of the Chaldeans with them,
just as Isis and Serapis carried beliefs of old Egypt
from Alexandria to the Occident. The Roman empire
received successively the religious tribute of the two
great nations that had formerly ruled the Oriental
world. It is characteristic that the god Bel whom
Aurelian brought from Asia to set up as the protector
of his states, was in reality a Babylonian who had
emigrated to Palmyra,59 a cosmopolitan center ap-
parently predestined by virtue of its location to be-
come the intermediary between the civilizations of the
Euphrates and the Mediterranean.
The influence exercised by the speculations of the
Chaldeans upon Greco-Roman thought can be asserted
positively, but cannot as yet be strictly defined. It
was at once philosophic and religious, literary and
popular. The entire neo-Platonist school used the
names of those venerable masters, but it cannot be
determined how much it really owes to them. A
selection of poems that has often been quoted since
the third century, under the title of “Chaldaic Oracles"*
combines the ancient Hellenic theories with a fantastic
* Mória Xaldaiká.
SYRIA.
125
mysticism that was certainly imported from the Orient.
It is to Babylonia what the literature of Hermes Tris-
megistus is to Egypt, and it is equally difficult to deter-
mine the nature of the ingredients that the author put
into his sacred compositions. But at an earlier date
the Syrian religions had spread far and wide in the
Occident ideas conceived on the distant banks of the
Euphrates. I shall try to indicate briefly what their
share in the pagan syncretism was.
We have seen that the gods from Alexandria gained
souls especially by the promise of blessed immortality.
Those from Syria must also have satisfied doubts tor-
menting all the minds of that time. As a matter of
fact the old Semitic ideas on man's fate in after-life
were little comforting. We know how sad, dull and
hopeless their conception of life after death was. The
dead descended into a subterranean realm where they
led a miserable existence, a weak reflection of the
one they had lost; since they were subject to wants
and suffering, they had to be supported by funeral
offerings placed on their sepulchers by their descen-
dants. Those ancient beliefs and customs were found
also in primitive Greece and Italy.
This rudimentary eschatology, however, gave way
to quite a different conception, one that was closely
related to the Chaldean astrology, and which spread
over the Occident towards the end of the republic.
According to this doctrine the soul returned to heaven
after death, to live there among the divine stars. While
it remained on earth it was subject to all the bitter
necessities of a destiny determined by the revolutions
of the stars; but when it ascended into the upper re-
gions, it escaped that fate and even the limits of time;
126
OR
THE THE RELIGIONS.
ORIENTAL it shared equally in the immortality of the sidereal
gods that surrounded it.60 In the opinion of some,
the soul was attracted by the rays of the sun, and
after passing through the moon, where it was purified,
it lost itself in the shining star of day.61 Another
more purely astrological theory, that was undoubtedly
a development of the former, taught that the soul
descended to earth from the heights of heaven by
passing through the spheres of the seven planets. Dur-
ing its passage it acquired the dispositions and quali-
ties proper to each planet. After death it returned to
its original abode by the same route. To get from
one sphere to another, it had to pass a door guarded
by a commandant*.62 Only the souls of initiates knew
the password that made those incorruptible guardians
yield, and under the conduct of a psychopompus63 they
ascended safely from zone to zone. As the soul rose
it divested itself of the passions and qualities it had
acquired on its descent to the earth as though they were
garments, and, free from sensuality, it penetrated
into the eighth heaven to enjoy everlasting happiness
as a subtle essence.
Perhaps this doctrine, undoubtedly of Babylonian
origin, was not generally accepted by the Syrian re-
ligions, as it was by the mysteries of Mithra, but
these religions, impregnated with astrology, certainly
propagated the belief that the souls of those worshipers
that had led pious lives were elevated to the heights
of heaven, where an apotheosis made them the equals
of the luminous gods.64 Under the empire this doc-
trine slowly supplanted all others; the Elysian fields,
which the votaries of Isis and Serapis still located in
* ápxwv.
1
SYRIA.
127
the depths of the earth, were transferred into the ether
bathing the fixed stars,65 and the underworld was
thereafter reserved for the wicked who had not been
allowed to pass through the celestial gates.
The sublime regions occupied by the purified souls
were also the abode of the supreme god.66 When it
transformed the ideas on the destiny of man, astrology
also modified those relating to the nature of the divin-
ity. In this matter the Syrian religions were especially
original; for even if the Alexandrian mysteries offered
man just as comforting prospects of immortality as.
the eschatology of their rivals, they were backward in
building up a commensurate theology. To the Semitic
races belongs the honor of having reformed the ancient
fetichism most thoroughly. Their base and narrow
conceptions of early times to which we can trace their
existence, broaden and rise until they form a kind of
monotheism.
As we have seen, the Syrian tribes worshiped a god
of lightning, 67 like all primitive races. That god
opened the reservoirs of the firmament to let the rain
fall and split the giant trees of the woods with the
double ax that always remained his emblem.68 When
the progress of astronomy removed the constellations
to incommensurable distances, the “Baal of the Heav-
ens” (Ba'al šamîn) had to grow in majesty. Un-
doubtedly at the time of the Achemenides, he was
connected with the Ahura-Mazda of the Persians, the
ancient god of the vault of heaven, who had become
the highest physical and moral power, and this con-
nection helped to transform the old genius of thunder. 69
People continued to worship the material heaven in
him; under the Romans he was still simply called
U
128
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Caelus, as well as “Celestial Jupiter" (Jupiter Cae-
lestis, Zeùs Oúpávios),70 but it was a heaven studied
by a sacred science that venerated its harmonious
mechanism. The Seleucides represented him on their
coins with a crescent over his forehead and carrying
a sun with seven rays, to symbolize the fact that he
presided over the course of the stars ;71 or else he was
shown with the two Dioscuri at his side, heroes who
enjoyed life and suffered death in turn, according to
the Greek myth, and who had become the symbols
of the two celestial hemispheres. Religious uranog-
raphy placed the residence of the supreme divinity
in the most elevated region of the world, fixing its
abode in the zone most distant from the earth, above
the planets and the fixed stars. This fact was intended
to be expressed by the term Most-High* applied to
the Syrian Baals as well as to Jehovah.72 According
to this cosmic religion, the Most High resided in the
immense orb that contained the spheres of all the stars
and embraced the entire universe which was subject
to his domination. The Latins translated the name of
this “Hypsistos" by Jupiter summus exsuperantissi-
mus73 to indicate his preeminence over all divine beings.
As a matter of fact, his power was infinite. The
primary postulate of the Chaldean astrology was that
all phenomena and events of this world were neces-
sarily determined by sidereal influence. The changes
of nature, as well as the dispositions of men, were
controlled according to fate, by the divine energies
that resided in the heavens. In other words, the gods
were almighty; they were the masters of destiny that
governed the universe absolutely. The notion of their
*"TYLOTOS.
TU
SYRIA.
129
omnipotence resulted from the development of the
ancient autocracy with which the Baals were credited.
As we have stated, they were conceived after the
image of an Asiatic monarch, and the religious ter-
minology was evidently intended to display the humil-
ity of their priests toward them. In Syria we find
nothing analogous to what existed in Egypt, where
the priest thought he could compel the gods to act,
and even dared to threaten them.74 The distance sepa-
rating the human and the divine always was much
greater with the Semitic tribes, and all that astrology
did was to emphasize the distance more strongly by
giving it a doctrinal foundation and a scientific appear-
ance. In the Latin world the Asiatic religions propa-
gated the conception of the absolute and illimitable
sovereignty of God over the earth. Apuleius calls
the Syrian goddess oinnipotens et omniparens, "mis-
tress and mother of all things.”75
The observation of the starry skies, moreover, had
led the Chaldeans to the notion of a divine eternity.
The constancy of the sidereal revolutions inspired the
conclusion as to their perpetuity. The stars follow
their ever uncompleted courses unceasingly; as soon
as the end of their journey is reached, they resume
without stopping the road already covered, and the
cycles of years in which their movements take place
extend from the indefinite past into the indefinite fu-
ture.76 Thus a clergy of astronomers necessarily con-
ceived Baal, “Lord of the heavens," as the "Master
of eternity” or “He whose name is praised through all
eternity"77—titles which constantly recur in Semitic
inscriptions. The divine stars did not die, like Osiris
or Attis; whenever they seemed to weaken, they were
. 130
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
born to a new life and always remained invincible
(invicti).
Together with the mysteries of the Syrian Baals,
this theological notion penetrated into Occidental pag-
anism.78 Whenever an inscription to a deus aeternus
is found in the Latin provinces it refers to a Syrian
sidereal god, and it is a remarkable fact that this
epithet did not enter the ritual before the second cen-
tury, at the time the worship of the god Heaven
(Caelus) 79 was propagated. That the philosophers
had long before placed the first cause beyond the
limits of time was of no consequence, for their theories
had not penetrated into the popular consciousness nor
modified the traditional formulary of the liturgies. To
the people the divinities were beings more beautiful,
more vigorous, and more powerful than man, but born
like him, and exempt only from old age and death, the
immortals of old Homer. The Syrian priests diffused
the idea of a god without beginning and without end
through the Roman world, and thus contributed, along
lines parallel with the Jewish proselytism, to lend the
authority of dogma to what had previously been only
a metaphysical theory.
The Baals were universal as well as eternal, and
their power became limitless in regard to space as it
had been in regard to time. These two principles were
correlative. The title of "mar' olam” which the Baals
bore occasionally may be translated by "Lord of the
universe," or by “Lord of eternity," and efforts cer-
tainly have been made to claim the twofold quality
for them.80 Peopled with divine constellations and
traversed by planets assimilated to the inhabitants of
Olympus, the heavens determined the destinies of the
SYRIA.
131
entire human race by their movements, and the whole
earth was subject to the changes produced by their
revolutions.81 Consequently the old Ba'al šamîn was
necessarily transformed into a universal power. Of
course, even under the Cæsars there existed in Syria
traces of a period when the local god was the fetich
of a clan and could be worshiped by the members of
that clan only, a period when strangers were admitted
to his altars only after a ceremony of initiation, as
brothers, or at least as guests and clients.82 But from
the period when our knowledge of the history of the
great divinities of Heliopolis or Hierapolis begins,
these divinities were regarded as common to all Syr-
ians, and crowds of pilgrims came from distant coun-
tries to obtain grace in the holy cities. As protectors
of the entire human race the Baals gained proselytes
in the Occident, and their temples witnessed gatherings
of devotees of every race and nationality. In this
respect the Baals were distinctly different from Je-
hovah.
The essence of paganism implies that the nature of
a divinity broadens as the number of its votaries in-
creases. Everybody credits it with some new quality,
and its character becomes more complex. As it gains
in power it also has a tendency to dominate its com-
panion gods and to concentrate their functions in itself.
To escape this threatening absorption, these gods must
be of a very sharply defined personality and of a very
original character. The vague Semitic deities, how-
ever, were devoid of a well-defined individuality. We
fail to find among them a well organized society of
immortals, like that of the Greek Olympus where each
divinity had its own features and its own particular
7
132
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
life full of adventures and experiences, and each fol-
lowed its special calling to the exclusion of all the
others. One was a physician, another a poet, a third
a shepherd, hunter or blacksmith. The Greek inscrip-
tions found in Syria are, in this regard, eloquently
concise.83 Usually they have the name of Zeus ac-
companied by some simple epithet: kurios* (Lord),
aniketost (invincible), megistost (greatest). · All these
Baals seem to have been brothers. They were per-
sonalities of indeterminate outline and interchangeable
powers and were readily confused.
At the time the Romans came into contact with
Syria, it had already passed through a period of syn-
cretism similar to the one we can study with greater
precision in the Latin world. The ancient exclusive-
ness and the national particularism had been overcome.
The Baals of the great sanctuaries had enriched them-
selves with the virtues84 of their neighbors; then, al-
ways following the same process, they had taken cer-
tain features from foreign divinities brought over by
the Greek conquerors. In that manner their characters
had become indefinable, they performed incompatible
functions and possessed irreconcilable attributes. An
inscription found in Britain85 assimilates the Syrian
goddess to Peace, Virtue, Ceres, Cybele, and even to
the sign of the Virgin.
In conformity with the law governing the develop-
ment of paganism, the Semitic gods tended to become
pantheistic because they comprehended all nature and
were identified with it. The various deities were noth-
ing but different aspects under which the supreme and
infinite being manifested itself. Although Syria re-
* Kúplos. † ávlkntos. I ułylotos.
SYRIA.
133
mained deeply and even coarsely idolatrous in prac-
tice, in theory it approached monotheism or, better
perhaps, henotheism. By an absurd but curious ety-
mology the name Hadad has been explained as “one,
one" ('ad 'ad).86
Everywhere the narrow and divided polytheism
showed a confused tendency to elevate itself into a
superior synthesis, but in Syria astrology lent the
firmness of intelligent conviction to notions that were
vague elsewhere. The Chaldean cosmology, which
deified all elements but ascribed a predominant in-
fluence to the stars, ruled the entire Syrian syncretism.
It considered the world as a great organism which
was kept intact by an intimate solidarity, and whose
parts continually influenced each other.
The ancient Semites believed therefore that the
divinity could be regarded as embodied in the waters,
in the fire of the lightning, in stones or plants. But
the most powerful gods were the constellations and
the planets that governed the course of time and of
all things.
The sun was supreme because it led the starry
choir, because it was the king and guide of all the
other luminaries and therefore the master of the whole
world.87 The astronomical doctrines of the “Chal-
deans" taught that this incandescent globe alternately
attracted and repelled the other sidereal bodies, and
from this principle the Oriental theologians had con-
cluded that it must determine the entire life of the
universe, inasmuch as it regulated the movements of
the heavens. As the "intelligent light” it was espe-
cially the creator of human reason, and just as it re-
pelled and attracted the planets in turn, it was believed
134
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
to send out souls, at the time of birth, into the bodies
they animated, and to cause them to return to its bosom
after death by means of a series of emissions and ab-
sorptions.
Later on, when the seat of the Most-High was placed
beyond the limits of the universe, the radiant star that
gives us light became the visible image of the supreme
power, the source of all life and all intelligence, the
intermediary between an inaccessible god and man-
kind, and the one object of special homage from the
multitude.88
Solar pantheism, which grew up among the Syrians
of the Hellenistic period as a result of the influence
of Chaldean astrolatry, imposed itself upon the whole
Roman world under the empire. Our very rapid sketch
of the constitution of that theological system shows
incidentally the last form assumed by the pagan idea
of God. In this matter Syria was Rome's teacher and
predecessor. The last formula reached by the religion
of the pagan Semites and in consequence by that of the
Romans, was a divinity unique, almighty, eternal, uni
versal and ineffable, that revealed itself throughout
nature, but whose most splendid and most energetic
manifestation was the sun. To arrive at the Christian
monotheism89 only one final tie had to be broken,
that is to say, this supreme being residing in a distant
heaven had to be removed beyond the world. So we
see once more in this instance, how the propagation
of the Oriental cults levelled the roads for Christian-
ity and heralded its triumph. Although astrology
was always fought by the church, it had nevertheless
prepared the minds for the dogmas the church was to
proclaim.
.
PERSIA.
THE dominant historical fact in western Asia in
1 ancient times was the opposition between the
Greco-Roman and Persian civilizations, which was it-
self only an episode in the great struggle that was
constantly in progress between the Orient and the
Occident in those countries. In the first enthusiasm
of their conquests, the Persians extended their do-
minion as far as the cities of Ionia and the islands
of the Ægean Sea, but their power of expansion was
broken at the foot of the Acropolis. One hundred and
fifty years later, Alexander destroyed the empire of
the Achemenides and carried Hellenic culture to the
banks of the Indus. After two and a half centuries
the Parthians under the Arsacid dynasty advanced to
the borders of Syria, and Mithradates Eupator, an
alleged descendant of Darius, penetrated to the heart
of Greece at the head of his Persian nobility from
Pontus.
After the flood came the ebb. The reconstructed Ro-
man enpire of Augustus soon reduced Armenia, Cap-
padocia and even the kingdom of the Parthians to a
kind of vassalage. But after the middle of the third
century the Sassanid dynasty restored the power of
Persia and revived its ancient pretensions. From
that time until the triumph of Islam it was one long
136
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
duel between the two rival states, in which now one
was victorious and now the other, while neither was
ever decisively beaten. An ambassador of king Narses
to Galerius called these two states "the two eyes of the
human race."
The "invincible" star of the Persians might wane
and vanish, but only to reappear in greater glory. The
political and military strength displayed by this nation
through the centuries was the result of its high intel-
lectual and moral qualities. Its original culture was
always hostile to such an assimilation as that expe-
rienced in different degrees by the Aryans of Phrygia,
the Semites of Syria and the Hanites of Egypt. Hel-
lenism and Iranism—if I may use that term- were
two equally noble adversaries but differently educated,
and they always remained separated by instinctive
racial hostility as much as by hereditary opposition
of interests.
Nevertheless, when two civilizations are in contact
for more than a thousand years, numerous exchanges
are bound to occur. The influence exercised by Hel-
lenism as far as the uplands of Central Asia has fre-
quently been pointed out,2 but the prestige retained by
Persia throughout the ages and the extent of area
influenced by its energy has not perhaps been shown
with as much accuracy. For even if Mazdaism was
the highest expression of Persian genius and its in-
fluence in consequence mainly religious, yet it was
not exclusively so.
After the fall of the Achemenides the memory of
their empire long haunted Alexander's successors. Not
only did the dynasties which claimed to be descended
from Darius, and which ruled over Pontus, Cappa-
PERSIA.
137
docia and Commagene, cultivate political traditions
that brought them nearer to their supposed ancestors,
but those traditions were partly adopted even by the
Seleucides and the Ptolemies, the legitimate heirs of
the ancient inasters of Asia. People were fond of re-
calling the ideals of past grandeur and sought to
realize them in the present. In that manner several
institutions were transmitted to the Roman emperors
through the agency of the Asiatic monarchies. The
institution of the airici Augusti, for instance, the ap-
pointed friends and intimate counselors of the rulers,
adopted in Italy the forms in use at the court of
the Diadochi, who had themselves imitated the an-
cient organization of the palace of the Great Kings.3
The custom of carrying the sacred fire before the
Cæsars as an emblem of the perpetuity of their power,
dated back to Darius and with other Persian traditions
passed on to the dynasties that divided the empire of
Alexander. There is a striking similarity not only
between the observance of the Cæsars and the practice
of the Oriental monarchs, but also between the beliefs
that they held. The continuity of the political and
religious tradition cannot be doubted. As the court
ceremonial and the internal history of the Hellenistic
kingdoms become better known we shall be able to
outline with greater precision the manner in which the
divided and diminished heritage of the Achemenides,
after generations of rulers, was finally left to those
Occidental sovereigns who called themselves the sacro-
sanct lords of the world as Artaxerxes had done.5
It may not be generally known that the habit of wel-
coming friends with a kiss was a ceremony in the
1
138
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Oriental formulary before it became a familiar custom
in Europe. 6
It is very difficult to trace the hidden paths by which
pure ideas travel from one people to another. But
certain it is that at the beginning of our era certain
Mazdean conceptions had already spread outside of
Asia. The extent of the influence of Parseeism upon
the beliefs of Israel under the Achemenides cannot
be determined, but its existence is undeniable.? Some
of its doctrines, as for instance those relating to angels
and demons, the end of the world and the final resur-
rection, were propagated everywhere in the basin of
the Mediterranean as a consequence of the diffusion
of Jewish colonies.
On the other hand, ever since the conquests of Cyrus
and Darius, the active attention of the Greeks had
been drawn toward the doctrines and religious prac-
tices of the new masters of the Orient,8 A number
of legends representing Pythagoras, Democritus and
other philosophers as disciples of the magi prove the
prestige of that powerful sacerdotal class. The Mace-
donian conquest, which placed the Greeks in direct
relations with numerous votaries of Mazdaism, gave
a new impetus to works treating that religion, and the
great scientific movement inaugurated by Aristotle
caused many scholars to look into the doctrines taught
by the Persian subjects of the Seleucides. We know
from a reliable source that the works catalogued under
the name of Zoroaster in the library of Alexandria
contained two million lines. This immense body of
sacred literature was bound to attract the attention of
scholars and to call forth the reflections of philos-
ophers. The dim and dubious science that reached
139
even the lower classes under the name of "magic"
was to a considerable extent of Persian origin, as its
name indicates, and along with physician's recipes
and thaumaturgic processes it imparted some theo-
logical doctrines in a confused fashion.9
This explains why certain institutions and beliefs
of the Persians had found imitators and adepts in the
Greco-Oriental world long before the Romans had
gained a foothold in Asia. Their influence was in-
direct, secret, frequently indiscernible, but it was cer-
tain. The most active agencies in the diffusion of
Mazdaisin as of Judaism seem to have been colonies
of believers who had emigrated far from the mother
country. There was a Persian dispersion similar to
that of the Israelites. Communities of magi were
established not only in eastern Asia Minor, but in
Galatia, Phrygia, Lydia and even in Egypt. Every-
where they remained attached to their customs and
beliefs with persistent tenacity.10
When Rome extended her conquests into Asia Minor
and Mesopotamia, the influence of Persia became much
more direct. Superficial contact with the Mazdean
populations began with the wars against Mithradates,
but it did not become frequent and lasting until the
first century of our era. During that century the
empire gradually extended its limits to the upper Eu-
phrates, and thereby absorbed all the uplands of Ana-
tolia and Commagene south of the Taurus. The native
dynasties which had fostered the secular isolation of
those distant countries in spite of the state of vassalage
to which they had been reduced disappeared one after
erto almost inaccessible regions an immense network
140
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
of roads that were as important to Rome as the rail-
ways of Turkestan or of Siberia are to modern Russia.
At the same time Roman legions camped on the banks
of the Euphrates and in the mountains of Armenia.
Thus all the little Mazdean centers scattered in Cap-
padocia and Pontus were forced into constant relation
with the Latin world, and on the other hand the dis-
appearance of the buffer states made the Roman and
Parthian empires neighboring powers in Trajan's time
(98-117 A. D.).
From these conquests and annexations in Asia Minor
and Syria dates the sudden propagation of the Persian
mysteries of Mithra in the Occident. For even though
a congregation of their votaries seems to have existed
at Rome under Pompey as early as 67 B. C., the real
diffusion of the mysteries began with the Flavians,
toward the end of the first century of our era. They
became more and more prominent under the An-
tonines and the Severi, and remained the most im-
portant cult of paganism until the end of the fourth
century. Through them as a medium the original
doctrines of Mazdaism were widely propagated in
every Latin province, and in order to appreciate the
influence of Persia upon the Roman creeds, we must
now give them our careful attention.
of Persia did not manifest itself solely in the religious
sphere. After the accession of the Sassanid dynasty
(228 A. D.) the country once more became conscious
of its originality, again resumed the cultivation of
national traditions, reorganized the hierarchy of its
which had been wanting under the Parthians. It felt
PERSIA.
141
and showed its superiority over the neighboring em-
pire that was then torn by factions, thrown upon the
mercy of manifestoes, and ruined economically and
morally. The studies now being made in the history
of that period show more and more that debilitated
Rome had become the imitator of Persia.
In the opinion of contemporaries the court of Dio-
cletian, prostrating itself before a master who was
regarded as the equal of God, with its complicated
hierarchy and crowd of eunuchs that disgraced it, was
an imitation of the court of the Sassanides. Galerius
declared in unmistakable terms that Persian absolutism
must be introduced in his empire, it and the ancient
Cæsarism founded on the will of the people seemed
about to be transformed into a sort of caliphate.
Recent discoveries also throw light upon a powerful
artistic school that developed in the Parthian empire
and later in that of the Sassanides and which grew up
independently of the Greek centers of production.
Even if it took certain models from the Hellenic
sculpture or architecture, it combined them with Ori-
ental motives into a decoration of exuberant richness.
Its field of influence extended far beyond Mesopotamia
into the south of Syria where it has left monuments of
unequalled splendor. The radiance of that brilliant
center undoubtedly illuminated Byzantium, the bar-
barians of the north, and even China. 12
The Persian Orient, then, exerted a dominant in-
fluence on the political institutions and artistic tastes
of the Romans as well as on their ideas and beliefs.
The propagation of the religion of Mithra, which al-
ways proudly proclaimed its Persian origin, was ac-
companied by a number of parallel influences of the
142
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
people from which it had issued. Never, not even
during the Mohammedan invasions, had Europe a
narrower escape from becoming Asiatic than when
Diocletian officially recognized Mithra as the protector
of the reconstructed empire.13 The time when that
god seemed to be establishing his authority over the
entire civilized world was one of the critical phases
in the moral history of antiquity. An irresistible in-
vasion of Semitic and Mazdean conceptions nearly
succeeded in permanently overwhelming the Occiden-
tal spirit. Even after Mithra had been vanquished
and expelled from Christianized Rome, Persia did not
disarm. The work of conversion in which Mithraism
had failed was taken up by Manicheism, the heir to
its cardinal doctrines, and until the Middle Ages Per-
sian dualism continued to cause bloody struggles in
the ancient Roman provinces.
* * *
Just as we cannot understand the character of the
mysteries of Isis and Serapis . without studying the
circumstances accompanying their creation by the Ptol-
emies, so we cannot appreciate the causes of the
power attained by the mysteries of Mithra, unless
we go far back to their origin.
Here the subject is unfortunately more obscure.
The ancient authors tell us almost nothing about the
origin of Mithra. One point on which they all agree
is that he was a Persian god, but this we should know
from the Avesta even if they had not mentioned it.
But how did he get to Italy from the Persian uplands?
Two scant lines of Plutarch are the most explicit
document we have on the subject. He narrates in-
cidentally that the pirates from Asia Minor vanquished
PERSIA.
143
by Pompey in 67 performed strange sacrifices on Olym-
pus, a volcano of Lycia, and practiced occult rites,
among others those of Mithra which, he says, “exist
to the present day and were first taught by them."'14
Lactantius Placidus, a commentator on Statius and a
mediocre authority, also tells us that the cult passed
from the Persians to the Phrygians and from the
Phrygians to the Romans.15
These two authors agree then in fixing in Asia Minor
the origin of this Persian religion that later spread
over the Occident, and in fact various indications direct
us to that country. The frequency of the name Mithra-
dates, for instance, in the dynasties of Pontus, Cappa-
docia, Armenia and Commagene, connected with the
Achemenides by fictitious genealogies, shows the de-
votion of those kings to Mithra.
As we see, the Mithraism that was revealed to the
Romans at the time of Pompey had established itself
in the Anatolian monarchies during the preceding pe-
riod, which was an epoch of intense moral and religious
unrest. Unfortunately we have no monuments of that
period of its history. The absence of direct testimony
on the development of Mazdean sects during the last
three centuries before our era prevents us from gaining
exact knowledge of the Parseeism of Asia Minor.
None of the temples dedicated to Mithra in that
religion have been examined.16 The inscriptions men-
tioning his name are as yet few and insignificant, so
that it is only by indirect means that we can arrive
at conclusions about this primitive cult. The only
way to explain its distinguishing features in the Occi-
dent is to study the environment in which it originated.
During the domination of the Achemenides eastern
144
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Asia Minor was colonized by the Persians. The up-
lands of Anatolia resembled those of Persia in climate
and soil, and were especially adapted to the raising of
horses.17 In Cappadocia and even in Pontus the aris-
tocracy who owned the soil belonged to the conquering
nation. Under the various governments which fol-
lowed after the death of Alexander, those landlords
remained the real masters of the country, chieftains of
clans governing the canton where they had their do-
mains, and, on the outskirts of Armenia at least, they
retained the hereditary title of satraps through all
political vicissitudes until the time of Justinian, thus
recalling their Persian origin.18 This military and
feudal aristocracy furnished Mithradates Eupator a
considerable number of the officers who helped him in
his long defiance of Rome, and later it defended the
threatened independence of Armenia against the enter-
prises of the Cæsars. These warriors worshiped
Mithra as the protecting genius of their arms, and
this is the reason why Mithra always, even in the
Latin world, remained the “invincible” god, the tute-
lary deity of armies, held in special honor by warriors.
Besides the Persian nobility a Persian clergy had
also become established in the peninsula. It officiated
in famous temples, at Zela in Pontus and Hierocæsarea
in Lydia. Magi, called magousaioi or pyrethes (fire-
lighters) were scattered over the Levant. Like the
Jews, they retained their national customs and tra-
ditional rites with such scrupulous loyalty that Barde-
sanes of Edessa cited them as an example in his at-
tempt to refute the doctrines of astrology and to show
that a nation can retain the same customs in different
climates.19 We know their religion sufficiently to be
PERSIA.
145
certain that the Syrian author had good grounds for
attributing that conservative spirit to them. The sacri-
fices of the pyrethes which Strabo observed in Cappa-
docia recall all the peculiarities of the Avestan liturgy.
The same prayers were recited before the altar of the
fire while the priest held the sacred fasces (bareçman);
the same offerings were made of milk, oil and honey;
and the same precautions were taken to prevent the
priest's breath from polluting the divine flame. Their
gods were practically those of orthodox Mazdaism.
They worshiped Ahura Mazda, who had to them re-
mained a divinity of the sky as Zeus and Jupiter had
been originally. Below him they venerated deified
abstractions (such as Vohumano, "good mind," and
Ameretat, "immortality”) from which the religion of
Zoroaster made its Amshaspends, the archangels sur-
rounding the Most High.20 Finally they sacrificed to
the spirits of nature, the Yazatas: for instance, Anahita
or Anaites the goddess of the waters—that made fertile
the fields; Atar, the personification of fire; and espe-
cially Mithra, the pure genius of light.
Thus the basis of the religion of the magi of Asia
Minor was Mazdaism, somewhat changed from that
of the Avesta, and in certain respects holding closer to
the primitive nature worship of the Aryans, but never-
theless a clearly characterized and distinctive Mazda-
ism, which was to remain the most solid foundation
for the greatness of the mysteries of Mithra in the
Occident.
Recent discoveries21 of bilingual inscriptions have
succeeded in establishing the fact that the language
used, or at least written, by the Persian colonies of
Asia Minor was not their ancient Aryan idiom, but
146
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Aramaic, which was a Semitic dialect. Under the
Achemenides this was the diplomatic and commercial
language of all countries west of the Tigris. In Cappa-
docia and Armenia it remained the literary and prob-
ably also the liturgical language until it was slowly
supplanted by Greek during the Hellenistic period.
The very name magousaioi* given to the magi in those
countries is an exact transcription of a Semitic plural.22
This phenomenon, surprising at first sight, is explained
by the history of the magousaioi who emigrated to
Asia Minor. They did not come there directly from
Persepolis or Susa, but from Mesopotamia. Their
religion had been deeply influenced by the speculations
of the powerful clergy officiating in the temples of
Babylon. The learned theology of the Chaldeans im-
posed itself on the primitive Mazdaism, which was a
collection of traditions and rites rather than a body
of doctrines. The divinities of the two religions be-
came identified, their legends connected, and the Sem-
itic astrology, the result of long continued scientific
observations, superimposed itself on the naturalistic
myths of the Persians. Ahura Mazda was assimilated
to Bel, Anahita to Ishtar, and Mithra to Shamash, the
solar god. For that reason Mithra was commonly
called Sol invictus in the Roman mysteries, and an
abstruse and a complicated astronomic symbolism was
always part of the teachings revealed to candidates for
initiation and manifested itself also in the artistic em-
bellishments of the temple.
In connection with a cult from Commagene we can
observe rather closely how the fusion of Parseeism
with Semitic and Anatolian creeds took place, because
* μαγουσαίοι
PERSIA.
147
in those regions the form of religious transformations
was at all times syncretic. On a mountain top in the
vicinity of a town named Doliche, a deity was wor-
shiped who after a number of transformations became
a Jupiter Protector of the Roman armies. Originally
this god, who was believed to have discovered the use
of iron, seems to have been brought to Commagene
by a tribe of blacksmiths, the Chalybes, who had come
from the north.23 He was represented standing on
a steer and holding in his hand a two-edged ax, an
ancient symbol venerated in Crete during the Myce-
nean age and found also at Labranda in Caria and all
over Asia Minor.24 The ax symbolized the god's mas-
tery over the lightning which splits asunder the trees
of the forest amidst the din of storms. Once estab-
lished on Syrian soil, this genius of thunder became
identified with some local Baal and his cult took up
all the Semitic features. After the conquests of Cyrus
and the founding of the Persian domination, this “Lord
of the heavens” was readily confounded with Ahura
Mazda, who was likewise "the full circle of heaven,"
according to a definition of Herodotus,25 and whom
the Persians also worshiped on mountain tops. When a
half Persian, half Hellenic dynasty succeeded Alex-
ander in Commagene, this Baal became a Zeus Oro-
masdes* (Ahura Mazda) residing in the sublime ethe-
real regions. A Greek inscription speaks of the celes-
tial thrones "on which this supreme divinity receives
the souls of its worshipers.”26 In the Latin countries
"Jupiter Caelus” remained at the head of the Mazdean
pantheon, 27 and in all the provinces the temples of
* Zejs pouáơông.
148
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
"Jupiter Dolichenus” were erected beside those of
Mithra, and the two remained in the closest relations.28
The same series of transformations took place else-
where with a number of other gods.29 The Mithra
worship was thus formed, in the main, by a combina-
tion of Persian beliefs with Semitic theology, inciden-
tally including certain elements from the native cults of
Asia Minor. The Greeks later translated the names of
the Persian divinities into their language and imposed
certain forms of their mysteries on the Mazdean cult.30
Hellenic art lent to the Yazatas that idealized form
in which it liked to represent the immortals, and phi-
losophy, especially that of the Stoics, endeavored to
discover its own physical and metaphysical theories
in the traditions of the magi. But in spite of all these
accomodations, adaptations and interpretations, Mithra-
ism always remained in substance a Mazdaism blended
with Chaldeanism, that is to say, essentially a bar-
barian religion. It certainly was far less Hellenized
than the Alexandrian cult of Isis and Serapis, or even
that of the Great Mother of Pessinus. For that reason
it always seenied unacceptable to the Greek world,
from which it continued to be almost completely ex-
cluded. Even language furnishes a curious proof of
that fact. Greek contains a number of theophorous*
(god-bearing) names formed from those of Egyptian
or Phrygian gods, like Serapion, Metrodoros, Metro-
philos—Isidore is in use at the present day-but all
known derivations of Mithra are of barbarian forma-
tion. The Greeks never admitted the god of their
hereditary enemies, and the great centers of Hellenic
* Beodópos.
PERSIA.
149
civilization escaped his influence and he theirs.31 Mith-
raism passed directly from Asia into the Latin world.
There it spread with lightning rapidity from the
time it was first introduced. When the progressive
march of the Romans toward the Euphrates enabled
them to investigate the sacred trust transmitted by
Persia to the magi of Asia Minor, and when they
became acquainted with the Mazdean beliefs which
had matured in the seclusion of the Anatolian moun-
tains, they adopted them with enthusiasm. The Per-
sian cult was spread by the soldiers along the entire
length of the frontiers towards the end of the first
century and left numerous traces around the camps
of the Danube and the Rhine, near the stations along
the wall of Britain, and in the vicinity of the army
posts scattered along the borders of the Sahara or in
the valleys of the Asturias. At the same time the
Asiatic merchants introduced it in the ports of the
Mediterranean, along the great waterways and roads,
and in all commercial cities. It also possessed mis-
sionaries in the Oriental slaves who were to be found
everywhere, engaging in every pursuit, employed in
the public service as well as in domestic work, in the
cultivation of land as well as in financial and mining
enterprises, and above all in the imperial service, where
they filled the offices.
Soon this foreign god gained the favor of high
functionaries and of the sovereign himself. At the
end of the second century Commodus was initiated
into the mysteries, a conversion that had a tremendous
effect. A hundred years later Mithra's power was
such that at one time he seemed about to eclipse both
Oriental and Occidental rivals and to dominate the
150
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
entire Roman world. In the year 307 Diocletian,
Galerius and Licinius met in a solemn interview at
Carnuntum on the Danube and dedicated a sanctuary
there to Mithra, “the protector of their empire” (fau-
tori imperii sui).32
In previous works on the mysteries of Mithra we
have endeavored to assign causes for the enthusiasm
that attracted humble plebeians and great inen of the
world to the altars of this barbarian god. We shall
not •repeat here what any one who has the curiosity
may read either in a large or a small book according
to his preferences,33 but we must consider the problem
from a different point of view. Of all Oriental re-
ligions the Persian cult was the last to reach the
Romans. We shall inquire what new principle it con-
tained ; to what inherent qualities it owed its superior-
ity; and through what characteristics it remained dis-
tinct in the conflux of creeds of all kinds that were
struggling for supremacy in the world at that time.
The originality and value of the Persian religion lay
not in its doctrines regarding the nature of the celestial
gods. Without doubt Parseeism is of all pagan religions
the one that comes closest to monotheism, for it elevates
Ahura Mazda high above all other celestial spirits.
But the doctrines of Mithraism are not those of Zoro-
aster. What it received from Persia was chiefly its
mythology and ritual; its theology, which was thor-
oughly saturated with Chaldean erudition, probably
did not differ noticeably from the Syrian. At the
head of the divine hierarchy it placed as first cause an
abstraction, deified Time, the Zeryan Akarana of the
Avesta. This divinity regulated the revolutions of the
stars and in consequence was the absolute master of
PERSIA.
151
all things. Ahura Mazda, whose throne was in the
heavens, had become the equivalent of Ba'al -Samin,
and even before the magi the Semites had introduced
into the Occident the worship of the sun, the source of
all energy and light. Babylonian astrology and astrol-
atry inspired the theories of the mithreums as well as
of the Semitic temples, a fact that explains the intimate
connection of the two cults. This half religious, half
scientific system which was not peculiarly Persian nor
original to Mithraism was not the reason for the
adoption of that worship by the Roman world.
Neither did the Persian mysteries win the masses
by their liturgy. Undoubtedly their secret ceremonies
performed in mountain caves, or at any rate in the
darkness of the underground crypts, were calculated
to inspire awe. Participation in the liturgical ineals
gave rise to moral comfort and stimulation. By sub-
mitting to a sort of baptism the votaries hoped to ex-
piate their sins and regain an untroubled conscience.
But the sacred feasts and purifying ablutions connected
with the same spiritual hopes are found in other Ori-
.ental cults, and the magnificent suggestive ritual of
the Egyptian clergy certainly was more impressive
than that of the magi. The mythic drama performed
in the grottoes of the Persian god and culminating in
the immolation of a steer who was considered as the
creator and rejuvenator of the earth, must have seemed
less important and affecting than the suffering and
joy of Isis seeking and reviving the mutilated body
of her husband, or than the moaning and jubilation
of Cybele mourning over and reviving her lover Attis.
But Persia introduced dualism as a fundamental
principle in religion. It was this that distinguished
(
152
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Mithraism from other sects and inspired its dogmatic
theology and ethics, giving them a rigor and firmness
unknown to Roman paganism. It considered the uni-
verse from an entirely new point of view and at the
same time provided a new goal in life.
Of course, if we understand by dualism the an-
tithesis of mind and matter, of reason and intuition,
it appeared at a considerably earlier period in Greek
philosophy,34 where it was one of the leading ideas
of neo-Pythagoreanism and of Philo's system. But
A the distinguishing feature of the doctrine of the magi
is the fact that it deified the evil principle, set it up
as a rival to the supreme deity, and taught that both
had to be worshiped. This system offered an ap-
parently simple solution to the problem of evil, the
stumbling block of theologies, and it attracted the cul-
tured minds as well as the masses, to whom it afforded
jan explanation of their sufferings. Just as the mys-
teries of Mithra began to spread Plutarch wrote of
them favorably and was inclined himself to adopt
them.35 From that time dates the appearance in litera-
ture of the anti-gods,*36 under the command of the
powers of darkness37 and arrayed against the celestial
spirits, messengers or “angels”38 of divinity. They were
Ahriman's devas struggling with the Yazatas of Or-
muzd.
A curious passage in Porphyry39 shows that the ear-
liest neo-Platonists had already admitted Persian de-
monology into their system. Below the incorporeal
and indivisible supreme being, below the stars and the
planets, there were countless spirits.40 Some of them,
the gods of cities and nations, received special names :
* ávrloeol.
PERSIA.
153
the others comprised a nameless multitude. They
were divided into two groups. The first were the
benevolent spirits that gave fecundity to plants and
animals, serenity to nature, and knowledge to men.
They acted as intermediaries between gods and men,
bearing up to heaven the homage and prayers of the
faithful, and down from heaven portents and warn-
ings. The others were wicked spirits inhabiting re-
gions close to the earth and there was no evil that they
did not exert every effort to cause.41 At the same time
both violent and cunning, impetuous and crafty, they
were the authors of all the calamities that befell the
world, such as pestilence, famine, tempests and earth-
quakes. They kindled evil passions and illicit desires
in the hearts of men and provoked war and sedition.
They were clever deceivers rejoicing in lies and im-
postures. They encouraged the phantasmagoria and
mystification of the sorcerers42 and gloated over the
bloody sacrifices which magicians offered to them all,
but especially to their chief.
Doctrines very similar to these were certainly taught
in the mysteries of Mithra ; homage was paid to Ahri-
man (Arimanius) lord of the somber underworld, and
master of the infernal spirits.43 This cult has con-
tinued in the Orient to the present day among the
Yezidis, or devil worshipers.
In his treatise against the magi, Theodore of Mop-
suestia 44 speaks of Ahriman as Satan.* At first sight
there really is a surprising resemblance between the two.
Both are heads of a numerous army of demons; both
are spirits of error and falsehood, princes of darkness,
* Eatavās.
154
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
CD
tempters and corrupters. An almost identical picture
of the pair could be drawn, and in fact they are prac-
tically the same figure under different names. It is
generally admitted that Judaism took the notion of
an adversary of God45 from the Mazdeans along with
portions of their dualism. It was therefore natural
that Jewish doctrine, of which Christianity is heir,
should have been closely allied to the mysteries of
Mithra. A considerable part of the more or less ortho-
dox beliefs and visions that gave the Middle Ages their
nightmare of hell and the devil thus came from Persia
by two channels: on the one hand Judeo-Christian
literature, both canonical and apocryphal; and on the
other, the remnants of the Mithra cult and the various
sects of Manicheism that continued to preach the old
Persian doctrines on the antagonism between the two
world principles.
But a theoretical adherence of the mind to dogmas
that satisfy it, does not suffice to convert it to a new
religion. There must be motives of conduct and a
basis for hope besides grounds for belief. The Per-
sian dualism was not only a powerful metaphysical
et conception; it was also the foundation of a very effi-
w cacious system of ethics, and this was the chief agent
in the success of the mysteries of Mithra during the
second and third centuries in the Roman world then
animated by unrealized aspirations for more perfect
justice and holiness.
A sentence of the Emperor Julian,46 unfortunately
too brief, tells us that Mithra subjected his worshipers
to "commandments"* and rewarded faithful observ-
ance both in this world and in the next. The impor-
* évtolal.
PERSIA.
155
tance attached by the Persians to their peculiar ethics
and the rigor with which they observed its precepts,
are perhaps the most striking features of their national
character as manifested in history. They were a race
of conquerors subject to a severe discipline, like the
Romans, and like them they realized the necessity of
discipline in the administration of a vast empire. Cer-
tain affinities between the two imperial nations con-
nected them directly without the mediation of the
Greek world. Mazdaism brought long awaited satis- w
faction to the old-time Roman desire for a practical
religion that would subject the individual to a rule of
conduct and contribute to the welfare of the state.47
Mithra infused a new vigor into the paganism of the
Occident by introducing the imperative ethics of Per-V
sia.
Unhappily the text of the Mithraic decalogue has
not been preserved and its principal commandments
can be restored only by implication.
Mithra, the ancient spirit of light, became the god
of truth and justice in the religion of Zoroaster and
retained that character in the Occident. He was the
Mazdean Apollo, but while Hellenism, with a finer
appreciation of beauty, developed the esthetic qualities
in Apollo, the Persians, caring more for matters of
conscience, emphasized the moral character in Mithra.48
The Greeks, themselves little scrupulous in that re-
spect, were struck by the abhorrence in which their
Oriental neighbors held a lie. The Persians conceived
of Ahriman as the embodiment of deceit. Mithra
was always the god invoked as the guarantor of faith
and protector of the inviolability of contracts. Ab-
solute fidelity to his oath had to be a cardinal virtue
156
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
in the religion of a soldier, whose first act upon en-
listment was to pledge obedience and devotion to the
sovereign. This religion exalted loyalty and fidelity
and undoubtedly tried to inspire a feeling similar to
our modern idea of honor.
In addition to respect for authority it preached fra-
ternity. All the initiates considered themselves as
sons of the same father owing to one another a broth-
er's affection. It is a question whether they extended
the love of neighbor to that universal charity taught
by philosophy and Christianity. Emperor Julian, a
devoted mystic, liked to set up such an ideal, and it
is probable that the Mithraists of later paganism rose to
this conception of duty,49 but they were not its authors.
They seemed to have attached more importance to the
virile qualities than to compassion and gentleness.
The fraternal spirit of initiates calling themselves sol-
diers was doubtless more akin to the spirit of com-
radeship in a regiment that has esprit de corps, than
to the love of one's neighbor that inspires works of
mercy towards all.
All primitive people imagine nature filled with un-
clean and wicked spirits that corrupt and torture
those who disturb their repose; but dualism endowed
this universal belief with marvelous power as well as
with a dogmatic basis. Mazdaism is governed through-
out by ideas of purity and impurity. “No religion on
earth has ever been so completely dominated by an
ideal of purification.”50 This kind of perfection was
the goal of the aspiration and effort of believers. They
were obliged to guard with infinite precaution against
defiling the divine elements, for instance water or fire,
or their own persons, and to wipe out all pollution by
PERSIA.
157
repeated lustrations. But, as in the Syrian cults of
the imperial period, these Mithraic rites did remain
simply formal, mechanical and of the flesh, inspired
by the old idea of tabu. Mithraic baptism wiped out
moral faults; the purity aimed at had become spiritual.
This perfect purity distinguishes the mysteries of
Mithra from those of all other Oriental gods. Serapis
is the brother and husband of Isis, Attis the lover of
Cybele, every Syrian Baal is coupled with a spouse;
but Mithra lives alone. Mithra is chaste, Mithra is
holy (sanctus),51 and for the worship of fecundity he
substitutes a new reverence for continence.
However, although resistance to sensuality is laud-
able and although the ideal of perfection of this Maz-
dean sect inclined towards the asceticism to which the
Manichean conception of virtue led, yet good does not
consist exclusively in abnegation and self-control, but
also in action. It is not sufficient for a religion to
classify moral values, but in order to be effective it
must furnish motives for putting them into practice.
Dualism was peculiarly favorable for the development
of individual effort and human energy; here its in-
fluence was strongest. It taught that the world is the
scene of a perpetual struggle between two powers that
share the mastery; the goal to be reached is the dis-
appearance of evil and the uncontested dominion, the
exclusive reign, of the good. Animals and plants, as
well as man, are drawn up in two rival camps per-
petually hostile, and all nature participates in the eter-
nal combat of the two opposing principles. The de-
mons created by the infernal spirit emerge constantly
from the abyss and roam about the earth; they pene-
trate everywhere carrying corruption, distress, sick-
158
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
ness and death. The celestial spirits and the sup-
porters of piety are compelled constantly to baffle their
ever renewed enterprises. The strife continues in the
heart and conscience of man, the epitome of the uni-
verse, between the divine law of duty and the sugges-
tions of the evil spirits. Life is a merciless war know-
ing no truce. The task of the true Mazdean consisted
in constantly fighting the evil in order to bring about
the gradual triumph of Ormuzd in the world. The
believer was the assistant of the gods in their work of
purification and improvement.
The worshipers of Mithra did not lose themselves
in a contemplative mysticism like other sects. Their
inorality particularly encouraged action, and during a
period of laxness, anarchy and confusion, they found
stimulation, comfort and support in its precepts. Re-
sistance to the promptings of degrading instincts as-
sumed the glamor and prestige of warlike exploits in
their eyes and instilled an active principle of progress
into their character. By supplying a new conception
of the world, dualism also gave a new meaning to life.
This same dualism determined the eschatological be- .
liefs of the Mithraists. The antagonism between
heaven and hell was extended into the life hereafter.52
Mithra, the "invincible" god who assisted the faithful
in their struggle against the malignity of the demons,
was not only their strong companion in their human
trials, but as an antagonist of the infernal powers he
insured the welfare of his followers in the future life
as well as on earth. When the genius of corruption
seizes the corpse after death, the spirits of darkness
and the celestial messengers struggle for the possession
of the soul that has left its corporeal prison. It stands
PERSIA.
159
trial before Mithra, and if its merits outweigh its
shortcomings in the divine balance it is defended from
Ahriman's agents that seek to drag it into the infernal
abyss. Finally it is led into the ethereal regions where
Jupiter-Ormuzd reigns in eternal light. The believers
in Mithra did not agree with the votaries of Serapis
who held that the souls of the just reside in the depths
of the earth.53 To them that somber kingdom was
the domain of wrong-doers. The souls of the just,
live in the boundless light that extends above the
stars, and by divesting themselves of all sensuality
and all lust in passing through the planetary spheres54
they become as pure as the gods whose company they
enter.
However, when the world came to an end the body
also was to share in that happiness because it was be-
lieved as in Egypt that the whole person would enjoy
eternal life. After time had run its course Mithra
would raise all men from the dead, pouring out a
marvelous beverage of immortality for the good, but
all evil doers would be annihilated by fire together
with Ahriman himself.
* * *
Of all the Oriental cults none was so severe as v
Mithraism, none attained an equal moral elevation,
none could have had so strong a hold on mind and
heart. In many respects it gave its definite religious
formula to the pagan world and the influence of its
ideas remained long after the religion itself had come
to a violent end. Persian dualism introduced certainv
principles into Europe that have never ceased to exert
an influence. Its whole history proves the thesis with
which we began, the power of resistance and of in-
160
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
fluence possessed by Persian culture and religion.
These possessed an originality so independent that
after having resisted in the Orient the power of ab-
sorption of Hellenism, and after having checked the
Christian propaganda, they even withstood the de-
structive power of Islam. Firdusi (940-1020) glories
in the ancient national traditions and the mythical
heroes of Mazdaism, and while the idolatry of Egypt,
Syria and Asia Minor has long since died out or
degenerated, there are votaries of Zoroaster at the
present day who piously perform the sacred cere-
monies of the Avesta and practise genuine fire worship.
Another witness to the vitality of Mithraic Mazda-
ism is the fact that it escaped becoming a kind of state
religion of the Roman empire during the third cen-
tury. An oft-quoted sentence of Renan's says:55 "If
Christianity had been checked in its growth by some
deadly disease, the world would have become Mith-
raic." In hazarding that statement he undoubtedly
conjured up a picture of what would have been the
condition of this poor world in that case. He must
have imagined, one of his followers would have us
believe, 56 that the morals of the human race would
have been but little changed, a little more virile per-
haps, a little less charitable, but only a shade differ-
ent. The erudite theology taught by the mysteries
would obviously have shown a laudable respect for
science, but as its dogmas were based upon a false
physics it would apparently have insured the per-
sistence of an infinity of errors. Astronomy would
not be lacking, but astrology would have been unassail-
able, while the heavens would still be revolving around
the earth to accord with its doctrines. The greatest
PERSIA.
.
ze
danger, it appears to me, would have been that the
Cæsars would have established a theocratic absolutism
supported by the Oriental ideas of the divinity of
kings. The union of throne and altar would have been
inseparable, and Europe would never have known the
invigorating struggle between church and state. But
on the other hand the discipline of Mithraism, so pro-
ductive of individual energy, and the democratic or-
ganization of its societies in which senators and slaves
rubbed elbows, contain a germ of liberty.
We might dwell at some length on these contrasting
possibilities, but it is hard to find a mental pastime
less profitable than the attempt to remake history and
to conjecture on what might have been had events
proved otherwise. If the torrent of actions and re-
actions that carries us along were turned out of its
course what imagination could describe the unknown
regions through which it would flow?
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
W HEN we consider the absolute authority that
W astrology exercised under the Roman empire,
we find it hard to escape a feeling of surprise. It is
difficult to think that people could ever consider astrol-
ogy as the most valuable of all arts and the queen
of sciences, and it is not easy for us to imagine the
moral conditions that made such a phenomenon pos-
sible, because our state of mind to-day is very different.
Little by little the conviction has gained ground that
all that can be known about the future, at least the
future of man and of human society, is conjecture,
The progress of knowledge has taught man to ac-
quiesce in his ignorance.
In former ages it was different: forebodings and
predictions found universal credence. The ancient
forms of divination, however, had fallen somewhat
into disrepute at the beginning of our era, like the
rest of the Greco-Roman religion. It was no longer
thought that the eagerness or reluctance with which
the sacred hens ate their paste, or the direction of the
flight of the birds indicated coming success or disaster.
Abandoned, the Hellenic oracles were silent. Then
appeared astrology, surrounded with all the prestige
of an exact science, and based upon the experience of
many centuries. It promised to ascertain the occur-
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
163
rences of any one's life with as much precision as the
date of an eclipse. The world was drawn towards it
by an irresistible attraction. Astrology did away with,
and gradually relegated to oblivion, all the ancient
methods that had been devised to solve the enigmas of
the future. Haruspicy and the augural art were aban-
doned, and not even the ancient fame of the oracles
could save them from falling into irretrievable desue-
tude. This great chimera changed religion as well as
divination, its spirit penetrated everything. And truly,
if, as some scholars still hold, the main feature of
science is the ability to predict, 2 no branch of learning
could compare with this one, nor escape its influence.
The success of aštusology was connected with that of
the Oriental religions, which lent it their support, as
it in turn helped them. We have seen how it forced
itself upon Semitic paganism, how it transformed Per-
sian Mazdaism and even subdued the arrogance of the
Egyptian sacerdotal caste.3 Certain mystical treatises
ascribed to the old Pharaoh Nechepso and his con-
fidant, the priest Petosiris, nebulous and abstruse works
that became, one might say, the Bible of the new belief
in the power of the stars, were translated into Greek,
undoubtedly in Alexandria, about the year 150 before
our era.4 About the same time the Chaldean genethlial-
ogy began to spread in Italy, with regard to which
Berošus, a priest of the god Baal, who came to Baby-
lon from the island of Cos, had previously succeeded
in arousing the curiosity of the Greeks. In 139 a
prætor expelled the “Chaldaei" from Rome, together
with the Jews. But all the adherents of the Syrian
goddess, of whom there was quite a number in the
Occident, were patrons and defenders of these Oriental
164
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS,
prophets, and police measures were no more successful
in stopping the diffusion of their doctrines, than in the
case of the Asiatic mysteries. In the time of Pompey,
the senator Nigidius Figulus, who was an ardent oc-
cultist, expounded the barbarian uranography in Latin.
But the scholar whose authority contributed most to
the final acceptance of sidereal divination was a Syrian
philosopher of encyclopedic knowledge, Posidonius of
Apamea, the teacher of Cicero. The works of that
erudite and religious writer influenced the develop-
ment of the entire Roman theology more than anything
else.
were triumphing, astrology manifested its power every-
where. During that period everybody bowed to it.
The Cæsars became its fervent devotees, frequently
at the expense of the ancient cults. Tiberius neglected
the gods because he believed only in fatalism, and Otho,
blindly confiding in the Oriental seer, marched against
Vitellius in spite of the baneful presages that affrighted
his official clergy? The most earnest scholars, Ptolemy
under the Antonines for instance, expounded the prin-
ciples of that pseudo-science, and the very best minds
received them. In fact, scarcely anybody made a dis-
tinction between astronomy and its illegitimate sister.
Literature took up this new and difficult subject, and,
as early as the time of Augustus or Tiberius, Manilius,
inspired by the sidereal fatalism, endeavored to make
poetry of that dry "mathematics," as Lucretius, his
forerunner, had done with the Epicurean atomism.
Even art looked there for inspiration and depicted the
stellar deities. At Rome and in the provinces archi-
tects erected sumptuous septizonia in the likeness of
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
165
.
the seven spheres in which the planets that rule our
destinies move. This Asiatic divination was first aristo-
cratic9_because the obtaining of an exact horoscope
was a complicated matter, and consultations were ex-
pensive—but it promptly became popular, especially
in the urban centers where Oriental slaves gathered in
large numbers. The learned genethlialogers of the ob-
servatories had unlicensed colleagues, who told for-
tunes at street-crossings or in barnyards. Even com-
mon epitaphs, which Rossi styles "the scum of inscrip-
tions,” have retained traces of that belief. The cus-
tom arose of stating in epitaphs the exact length of a
life to the very hour, for the moment of birth deter-
mined that of death: .
Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet.10
Soon neither important nor small matters were
undertaken without consulting the astrologer. His
previsions were sought not only in regard to great
public events like the conduct of a war, the founding
of a city, or the accession of a ruler, not only in case
of a marriage, a journey, or a change of domicile; but
the most trifling acts of every-day life were gravely
submitted to his sagacity. People would no longer
take a bath, go to the barber, change their clothes or
manicure their fingernails, without first awaiting the
propitious moment. The collections of "initiatives"*
that have come to us contain questions that make us
smile: Will a son who is about to be born have a big
nose? Will a girl just coming into this world have
gallant adventures ?12 And certain precepts sound al-
most like burlesques: he who gets his hair cut while
* karapxal.
166
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
A
the moon is in her increase will become bald-evidently
by analogy.13
The entire existence of states and individuals, down
to the slightest incidents, was thought to depend on
the stars. The absolute control they were supposed
to exercise over everybody's daily condition, even mod-
ified the language in every-day use and left traces in
almost all idioms derived from the Latin. If we
speak of a martial, or a jovial character, or a lunatic,
we are unconsciously admitting the existence, in these
heavenly bodies (Mars, Jupiter, Luna) of their an-
cient qualities.
It must be acknowledged, however, that the Grecian
spirit tried to combat the folly that was taking hold
of the world, and from the time of its propagation
astrology found opponents among the philosophers.
The most subtle of these adversaries was the proba-
bilist Carneades, in the second century before our era.
The topical arguments which he advanced, were taken
up, reproduced, and developed in a thousand ways by
later polemicists. For instance, Were all the men that
perish together in a battle, born at the same moment,
because they had the same fate? Or, on the other
hand, do we not observe that twins, born at the same
time, have the most unlike characters and the most
different fortunes ?
But dialectics are an accomplishment in which the
Greeks ever excelled, and the defenders of astrology
found a reply to every objection. They endeavored
especially to establish firmly the truths of observation,
upon which rested the entire learned structure of their
art: the influence of the stars over the phenomena of
nature and the characters of individuals. Can it be
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
167
denied, they said, that the sun causes vegetation to
appear and to perish, and that it puts animals en rut
or plunges them into lethargic sleep? Does not the
movement of the tide depend on the course of the
moon? Is not the rising of certain constellations ac-
companied every year by storms? And are not the
physical and moral qualities of the different races mani-
festly determined by the climate in which they live?
The action of the sky on the earth is undeniable, and,
the sidereal influences once admitted, all previsions
based on them are legitimate. As soon as the first
principle is admitted, all corollaries are logically de-
rived from it.
This way of reasoning was universally considered
irrefutable. Before the advent of Christianity, which
especially opposed it because of its idolatrous character,
astrology had scarcely any adversaries except those
who denied the possibility of science altogether, namely,
the neo-Academicians, who held that man could not
attain certainty, and such radical sceptics as Sextus
Empiricus. Upheld by the Stoics, however, who with
very few exceptions were in favor of astrology, it can
be maintained that it emerged triumphant from the
first assaults directed against it. The only result of
the objections raised to it was to modify some of its
theories. Later, the general weakening of the spirit of
criticism assured astrology an almost uncontested do-
mination. Its adversaries did not renew their polemics;
they limited themselves to the repetition of arguments
that had been opposed, if not refuted, a hundred times,
and consequently seemed worn out. At the court of
the Severi any one who should have denied the in-
fluence of the planets upon the events of this world
168
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
would have been considered more preposterous than
he who would admit it to-day.
But, you will say, if the theorists did not succeed in
proving the doctrinal falsity of astrology, experience
should have shown its worthlessness. Errors must.
have occurred frequently and must have been fol-
lowed by cruel disillusionment. Having lost a child
at the age of four for whoin a brilliant future had been
predicted, the parents stigmatized in the epitaph the
“lying mathematician whose great renown deſuded
them."14 Nobody thought of denying the possibility of
such errors. Manuscripts have been preserved, wherein
the makers of horoscopes themselves candidly and
learnedly explain how they were mistaken in such and
such a case, because they had not taken into account
some one of the data of the problem.15 Manilius, in
spite of his unlimited confidence in the power of rea-
son, hesitated at the complexity of an immense task
that seemed to exceed the capacity of human intelli-
gence, 16 and in the second century, Vettius Valens bit-
terly denounced the contemptible bunglers who claimed
to be prophets, without having had the long training
necessary, and who thereby cast odium and ridicule
upon astrology, in the name of which they pretended
to operate.17 It must be remembered that astrology, like
medicine, was not only a science,* but also an art.
This comparison, which sounds irreverent to-day, was
a flattering one in the eyes of the ancients. 18 To ob-
serve the sky was as delicate a task as to observe the
human body; to cast the horoscope of a newly born
child, just as perilous as to make a diagnosis, and to
interpret the cosmic symptoms just as hard as to inter-
* Tlothun.
ή τέχνη
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
169
pret those of our organism. In both instances the
elements were complex and the chances of error in-
finite. All the examples of patients dying in spite of
the physician, or on account of him, will never keep
a person who is tortured by physical pain from appeal-
ing to him for help; and similarly those whose souls
were troubled with ambition or fear turned to the
astrologer for some remedy for the moral fever tor-
menting them. The calculator, who claimed to deter-
mine the moment of death, and the medical practi-
tioner who claimed to avert it received the anxious
patronage of people worried by this formidable issue.
Furthermore, just as marvelous cures were reported,
striking predictions were called to mind or, if need
were, invented. The diviner had, as a rule, only a
restricted number of possibilities to deal with, and the
calculus of probabilities shows that he must have suc-
ceeded sometimes. Mathematics, which he invoked,
was in his favor after all, and chance frequently cor-
rected mischance. Moreover, did not the man who
had a well-frequented consulting-office, possess a thou-
sand means, if he was clever, of placing all the chances
on his side, in the hazardous profession he followed,
and of reading in the stars anything he thought ex-
pedient? He observed the earth rather than the sky,
and took care not to fall into a well.
*
*
*
However, what helped most to make astrology in-
vulnerable to the blows of reason and of common
sense, was the fact that in reality, the apparent rigor
of its calculus and its theorems notwithstanding, it
was not a science but a faith. We mean not only that
170
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
it implied belief in postulates that could not be proved
--the same thing might be said of almost all of our
poor human knowledge, and even our systems of phys-
ics and cosmology in the last analysis are based upon
hypotheses—but that astrology was born and reared
in the temples of Chaldea and Egypt.19 Even in the
Occident it never forgot its sacerdotal origin and
never more than half freed itself from religion, whose
offspring it was. Here lies the connection between
astrology and the Oriental religions, and I wish to
draw the reader's special attention to this point.
The Greek works and treatises on astrology that
have come down to us reveal this essential feature
only very imperfectly. The Byzantines stripped this
pseudo-science, always regarded suspiciously by the
church, of everything that savored of paganism. Their
process of purification can, in some instances, be traced
from manuscript to manuscript.20 If they retained the
name of some god or hero of mythology, the only
way they dared to write it was by cryptography. They
have especially preserved purely didactic treatises, the
most perfect type of which is Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos
which has been constantly quoted and commented
upon; and they have reproduced almost exclusively
expurgated texts, in which the principles of various
doctrines are drily summarized. During the classic
age works of a different character were commonly
read. Many “Chaldeans" interspersed their cosino-
logical calculations and theories with moral consid-
erations and mystical speculations. In the first part
of a work that he names “Vision,"* Critodemus, in
prophetic language, represents the truths he reveals
*"Opaois.
ULI
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
171
as a secure harbor of refuge from the storms of this
world, and he promises his readers to raise them to
the rank of immortals.21 Vettius Valens, a contempo-
rary of Marcus Aurelius, implored them in solemn
terms, not to divulge to the ignorant and impious the
arcana he was about to acquaint them with.22 The
astrologers liked to assume the appearance of incor-
ruptible and holy priests and to consider their calling
a sacerdotal one.23 In fact, the two ministries sometimes
combined: A dignitary of the Mithraic clergy called
himself studiosus astrologiae24 in his epitaph, and a
member of a prominent family of Phrygian prelates
celebrated in verse the science of divination which
enabled him to issue a number of infallible predictions.25
The sacred character of astrology revealed itself in
some passages that escaped the orthodox censure and
in the tone some of its followers assumed, but we must
go further and show that astrology was religious in
its principles as well as in its conclusions, the debt
it owed to mathematics and observation notwithstand-
ing.
The fundamental dogma of astrology, as conceived
by the Greeks, was that of universal solidarity. The
world is a vast organism, all the parts of which are
connected through an unceasing exchange of molecules
of effluvia. The stars, inexhaustible generators of en-
ergy, constantly act upon the earth and man—upon
man, the epitome of all nature, a “inicrocosm” whose
every element corresponds to some part of the starry
sky. This was, in a few words, the theory formulated by
the Stoic disciples of the Chaldeans ;26 but if we divest
it of all the philosophic garments with which it has
been adorned, what do we find? The idea of sym-
172
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
pathy, a belief as old as human society! The savage
peoples also established mysterious relations between
all bodies and all the beings that inhabit the earth
and the heavens, and which to them were animated
with a life of their own endowed with latent power,
but we shall speak of this later on, when taking up
the subject of magic. Even before the propagation
of the Oriental religions, popular superstition in Italy
and Greece attributed a number of odd actions to the
sun, the moon, and the constellations as well.27
The Chaldaei, however, claimed a predominant
power for the stars. In fact, they were regarded as
gods par excellence by the religion of the ancient Chal-
deans in its beginnings. The sidereal religion of Baby-
lon concentrated deity, one might say, in the luminous
moving bodies at the expense of other natural objects,
such as stones, plants, animals, which the primitive
Semitic faith considered equally divine. The stars
always retained this character, even at Rome. They
were not, as to us, infinitely distant bodies moving in
space according to the inflexible laws of mechanics,
and whose chemical composition may be determined.
To the Latins as to the Orientals, they were propitious
or baleful deities, whose ever-changing relations de-
termined the events of this world.
The sky, whose unfathomable depth had not yet
been perceived, was peopled with heroes and mon-
sters of contrary passions, and the struggle above had
an immediate echo upon earth. By what principle
have such a quality and so great an influence been
attributed to the stars? Is it for reasons derived from
their apparent motion and known through observation
or experience? Sometimes. Saturn made people apa-
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
173
thetic and irresolute, because it moved most slowly
of all the planets.28 But in most instances purely mytho-
logical reasons inspired the precepts of astrology. The
seven planets were associated with certain deities,
Mars, Venus, or Mercury, whose character and his-
tory are known to all. It is sufficient simply to pro-
nounce their names to call to mind certain personal-
ities that may be expected to act according to their
natures, in every instance. It was natural for Venus
to favor lovers, and for Mercury to assure the success
of business transactions and dishonest deals. The same
applies to the constellations, with which a number of
legends are connected: "catasterism” or translation
into the stars, became the natural conclusion of a
great many tales. The heroes of mythology, or even
those of human society,' continued to live in the sky
in the form of brilliant stars. There Perseus again
met Andromeda, and the Centaur Chiron, who is none
other than Sagittarius, was on terms of good fellow-
ship with the Dioscuri.
These constellations, then, assumed to a certain ex-
tent the good and the bad qualities of the mythical or
historical beings that had been transferred upon them.
For instance, the serpent, which shines near the north-
ern pole, was the author of medical cures, because it
was the animal sacred to Æsculapius.29
The religious foundation of the rules of astrology,
however, can not always be recognized. Sometimes
it is entirely forgotten, and in such cases the rules
assume the appearance of axioms, or of laws based
upon long observation of celestial phenomena. Here
we have a simple aspect of science. The process of
174
UU
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
assimilation with the gods and catasterism were known
in the Orient long before they were practiced in Greece.
The traditional outlines that we reproduce on our
celestial maps are the fossil remains of a luxuriant
mythological vegetation, and besides our classic sphere
the ancients knew another, the "barbarian” sphere,
peopled with a world of fantastic persons and animals.
These sidereal monsters, to whom powerful qualities
were ascribed, were likewise the remnants of a multi-
tude of forgotten beliefs. Zoolatry was abandoned
in the temples, but people continued to regard as divine
the lion, the bull, the bear, and the fishes, which the
Oriental imagination had seen in the starry vault. Old
totems of the Semitic tribes or of the Egyptian divi-
sions lived again, transformed into constellations. Het-
erogeneous elements, taken from all the religions of
the Orient, were combined in the uranography of the
ancients, and in the power ascribed to the phantoms
that it evoked, vibrates in the indistinct echo of an-
cient devotions that are often completely unknown
to us.30
Astrology, then, was religious in its origin and in
its principles. It was religious also in its close rela-
tion to the Oriental religions, especially those of the
Syrian Baals and of Mithra ; finally, it was religious
in the effects that it produced. I do not mean the
effects expected from a constellation in any particular
instance: as for example the power to evoke the gods
that were subject to their domination.31 But I have in
mind the general influence those doctrines exercised
upon Roman paganism.
When the Olympian gods were incorporated among
the stars, when Saturn and Jupiter became planets and
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
175
the celestial virgin a sign of the zodiac, they assumed
a character very different from the one they had orig-
inally possessed. It has been shown32 how, in Syria,
the idea of an infinite repetition of cycles of years
according to which the celestial revolutions took place,
led to the conception of divine eternity, how the theory
of a fatal domination of the stars over the earth
brought about that of the omnipotence of the “lord of
the heavens," and how the introduction of a universal
religion was the necessary result of the belief that the
stars exerted an influence upon the peoples of every
climate. The logic of all these consequences of the
principles of astrology was plain to the Latin as well
as to the Semitic races, and caused a rapid transforma-
tion of the ancient idolatry. As in Syria, the sun,
which the astrologers called the leader of the planetary
choir, "who is established as king and leader of the
whole world,"33 necessarily became the highest power
of the Roman pantheon.
Astrology also modified theology, by introducing
into this pantheon a great number of new gods, some
of whom were singularly abstract. Thereafter man
worshiped the constellations of the firmament, particu-
tarly the twelve signs of the zodiac, every one of which
had its mythologic legend; the sky (Caelus) itself, be-
cause it was considered the first cause, and was some-
times confused with the supreme being; the four ele-
ments, the antithesis and perpetual transmutations of
which produced all tangible phenomena, and which
were often symbolized by a group of animals ready to
devour each other ;34 finally, time and its subdivisions.35
The calendars were religious before they were secu-
lar; their purpose was not, primarily, to record fleeting
176
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
time, but to observe the recurrence of propitious or
inauspicious dates separated by periodic intervals. It
is a matter of experience that the return of certain
moments is associated with the appearance of certain
phenomena; they have, therefore, a special efficacy,
and are endowed with a sacred character. By deter-
mining periods with mathematical exactness, astrology
continued to see in them "a divine power,"36 to use
Zeno's term. Time, that regulates the course of the
stars and the transubstantiation of the elements, was
conceived of as the master of the gods and the primor-
dial principle, and was likened to destiny. Each part
of its infinite duration brought with it some propitious
or evil movement of the sky that was anxiously ob-
served, and transformed the ever modified universe.
The centuries, the years and the seasons, placed into
relation with the four winds and the four cardinal
points, the tweleve months connected with the zodiac,
the day and the night, the twelve hours, all were per-
sonified and deified, as the authors of every change
in the universe. The allegorical figures contrived for
these abstractions by astrological paganism did not
even perish with it.37 The symbolism it had dissemi-
nated outlived it, and until the Middle Ages these
pictures of fallen gods were reproduced indefinitely in
sculpture, mosaics, and in Christian miniatures.38
Thus astrology entered into all religious ideas, and
the doctrines of the destiny of the world and of man
harmonized with its teachings. According to Berosus,
who is the interpreter of ancient Chaldean theories,
the existence of the universe consisted of a series of
"big years," each having its summer and its winter.
Their summer took place when all the planets were in
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
177
conjunction at the same point of Cancer, and brought
with it a general conflagration. On the other hand,
their winter came when all the planets were joined
in Capricorn, and its result was a universal flood.
Each of these cosmic cycles, the duration of which
was fixed at 432,000 years according to the most prob-
able estimate, was an exact reproduction of those that
had preceded it. In fact, when the stars resumed
exactly the same position, they were forced to act
in identically the same manner as before. This Baby-
lonian theory, an anticipation of that of the "eternal
return of things," which Nietzsche boasts of having
discovered, enjoyed lasting popularity during antiquity,
and in various forms came down to the Renaissance.39
The belief that the world would be destroyed by fire,
a theory also spread abroad by the Stoics, found a
new support in these cosmic speculations.
Astrology, however, revealed the future not only
of the universe, but also of man. According to a
Chaldeo-Persian doctrine, accepted by the pagan mys-
tics and previously pointed out by us,40 a bitter ne-
cessity compelled the souls that dwell in great num-
bers on the celestial heights, to descend upon this
earth and to animate certain bodies that are to hold
them in captivity. In descending to the earth they
travel through the spheres of the planets and receive
some quality from each of these wandering stars, ac-
cording to its positions. Contrariwise, when death
releases them from their carnal prison, they return
to their first habitation, providing they have led a pious
life, and if as they pass through the doors of the super-
posed heavens they divest themselves of the passions
and inclinations acquired during their first journey,
178
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
to ascend finally, as pure essence to the radiant abode
of the gods. There they live forever among the eternal
stars, freed from the tyranny of destiny and even from
the limitations of time.
This alliance of the theorems of astronomy with
their old beliefs supplied the Chaldeans with answers
to all the questions that men asked concerning the
relation of heaven and earth, the nature of God, the
existence of the world, and their own destiny. Astrol-
ogy was really the first scientific theology. Hellenistic
logic arranged the Oriental doctrines properly, com-
bined them with the Stoic philosophy and built them
up into a system of indiputable grandeur, an ideal
reconstruction of the universe, the powerful assurance
of which inspired Manilius to sublime language when
he was not exhausted by his efforts to master an ill-
adapted theme.41 The vague and irrational notion of
“sympathy” is transformed into a deep sense of the
relationship between the human soul, an igneous sub-
stance, and the divine stars, and this feeling is strength-
ened by thought.42 The contemplation of the sky has
become a communion. During the splendor of night
the mind of man became intoxicated with the light
streaming from above; born on the wings of enthu-
siasm, he ascended into the sacred choir of the stars
and took part in their harmonious movements. "He
participates in their immortality, and, before his ap-
pointed hour, converses with the gods."43 In spite of
the subtle precision the Greeks always maintained in
their speculations, the feeling that permeated astrol-
ogy down to the end of paganism never belied its
Oriental and religious origin.
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
179
The most essential principle of astrology was that
of fatalism. As the poet says:44
"Fata regunt orbem, certa stant omnia lege."
The Chaldeans were the first to conceive the idea of
an inflexible necessity ruling the universe, instead of
gods acting in the world according to their passions,
like men in society. They noticed that an immutable
law regulated the movements of the celestial bodies,
and, in the first enthusiasm of their discovery they
extended its effects to all moral and social phenomena.
The postulates of astrology imply an absolute deter-
minism. Tyche, or deified fortune, became the irre-
sistible mistress of mortals and immortals alike, and
was even worshiped exclusively by some under the
empire. Our deliberate will never plays more than a
very limited part in our happiness and success, but,
among the pronunciamentos and in the anarchy of the
third century, blind chance seemed to play with the
life of every one according to its fancy, and it can
easily be understood that the ephemeral rulers of that
period, like the masses, saw in chance the sovereign
disposer of their fates.45
The power of this fatalist conception during an-
tiquity may be measured by its long persistence, at
least in the Orient, where it originated. Starting from
Babylonia,46 it spread over the entire Hellenic world, as
early as the Alexandrian period, and towards the end
of paganism a considerable part of the efforts of the
Christian apologists was directed against it.47 But it
was destined to outlast all attacks, and to impose itself
even on Islam.48 In Latin Europe, in spite of the ana-
themas of the church, the belief remained confusedly
180
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
alive all through the Middle Ages that on this earth
everything happens somewhat
"Per ovra delle rote magne,
Che drizzan ciascun seme ad alcun fine
Secondo che le stella son campagne.”40
The weapons used by the ecclesiastic writers in con-
tending against this sidereal fatalism were taken from
the arsenal of the old Greek dialectics. In general,
they were those that all defenders of free will had used
for centuries: determinism destroys responsibility; re-
wards and punishments are absurd if man acts under
a necessity that compels him, if he is born a hero or
a criminal. We shall not dwell on these metaphysical
discussions, 50 but there is one argument that is more
closely connected with our subject, and therefore should
be mentioned. If we live under an immutable fate,
no supplication can change its decisions; religion is
unavailing, it is useless to ask the oracles to reveal the
secrets of a future which nothing can change, and pray-
ers, to use one of Seneca's expressions, are nothing
but “the solace of diseased minds."51
And, doubtless, some adepts of astrology, like the
Emperor Tiberius, 52 neglected the practice of religion,
things. Following the example set by the Stoics, they
made absolute submission to an almighty fate and joy-
satisfied to worship the superior power that ruled the
universe, without demanding anything in return. They
considered themselves at the mercy of even the most
capricious fate, and were like the intelligent slave who
guesses the desires of his master to satisfy them, and
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
181
un
1
knows how to make the hardest servitude tolerable.53
The masses, however, never reached that height of
resignation. They looked at astrology far more from
a religious than from a logical standpoint. 54 The planets
and constellations were not only cosmic forces, whose
favorable or inauspicious action grew weaker or
stronger according to the turnings of a course estab-
lished for eternity; they were deities who saw and
heard, who were glad or sad, who had a voice and
sex, who were prolific or sterile, gentle or savage, ob-
sequious or arrogant.55 Their anger could therefore be
soothed and their favor obtained through rites and
offerings; even the adverse stars were not unrelenting
and could be persuaded through sacrifices and suppli-
cations. The narrow and pedantic Firmicus Maternus
strongly asserts the omnipotence of fate, but at the
same time he invokes the gods and asks for their aid
against the influence of the stars. As late as the fourth
century the pagans of Rome who were about to marry,
or to make a purchase, or to solicit a public office,
went to the diviner for his prognostics, at the same
time praying to Fate for prosperity in their under-
taking.56 Thus a fundamental antinomy manifested it-
self all through the development of astrology, which
pretended to be an exact science, but always remained
a sacerdotal theology.
Of course, the more the idea of fatalism imposed
itself and spread, the more the weight of this hopeless
theory oppressed the consciousness. Man felt himself
dominated and crushed by blind forces that dragged
him on as irresistibly as they kept the celestial spheres
in motion. His soul tried to escape the oppression of
this cosmic mechanism, and to leave the slavery of
182
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Ananke. But he no longer had confidence in the cere-
monies of his old religion. The new powers that had
taken possession of heaven had to be propitiated by
new means. The Oriental religions themselves' offered
a remedy against the evils they had created, and taught
powerful and mysterious processes for conjuring fate.57
And side by side with astrology we see magic, a more
pernicious aberration, gaining grohfid.58
If, from the reading of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, we
pass on to read a magic papyrus, our first impression
is that we have stepped from one end of the intellec-
tual world to the other. Here we find no trace of the
systematic order or severe method that distinguish the
work of the scholar of Alexandria. Of course, the
doctrines of astrology are just as chimerical as those
of magic, but they are deduced with an amount of
logic, entirely wanting in works of sorcery, that com-
pels reasoning intellects to accept them. Recipes bor-
rowed from medicine and popular superstition, primi-
tive practices rejected or abandoned by the sacerdotal
rituals, beliefs repudiated by a progressive moral re-
ligion, plagiarisms and forgeries of literary or liturgic
texts, incantations in which the gods of all barbarous
nations are invoked in unintelligible gibberish, odd and
disconcerting ceremonies—all these form a chaos in
which the imagination loses itself, a potpourri in which
an arbitrary syncretism seems to have attempted to
create an inextricable confusion.
However, if we observe more closely how magic
operates, we find that it starts out from the same
principles and acts along the same line of reasoning
III
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
183
as astrology. Born during the same period in the
primitive civilizations of the Orient, both were based
on a number of common ideas.59 Magic, like astrology,
proceeded from the principle of universal sympathy,
yet it did not consider the relation existing between
the stars traversing the heavens, and physical or moral
phenomena, but the relation between whatever bodies
there are. It started out from the preconceived idea
that an obscure but constant relation exists between
certain things, certain words, certain persons. This
connection was established without hesitation between
dead material things and living beings, because the
primitive races ascribed a soul and existence simi-
lar to those of man, to everything surrounding them.
The distinction between the three kingdoms of nature
was unknown to them; they were "animists." The
life of a person might, therefore, be linked to that of
a thing, a tree, or an animal, in such a manner that one
died if the other did, and that any damage suffered by
Sometimes the relation was founded on clearly intelli-
gible grounds, like a resemblance between the thing and
the being, as where, to kill an enemy, one pierced a
waxen figure supposed to represent him. Or a contact,
even merely passing by, was believed to have created
indestructible affinities, for instance where the garments
of an absent person were operated upon. Often, also,
these imaginary relations were founded on reasons that
the stars, they may have been derived from old beliefs
the memory of which is lost. :
Like astrology, then, magic was a science in some
respects. First, like the predictions of its sister, it
184
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
was partly based on observation — observation fre-
quently rudimentary, superficial, hasty, and erroneous,
but nevertheless important. It was an experimental
discipline. Among the great number of facts noted
by the curiosity of the magicians, there were many
that received scientific indorsement later on. The at-
traction of the magnet for iron was utilized by the
thaumaturgi before it was interpreted by the natural
philosophers. In the vast compilations that circulated
under the venerable names of Zoroaster or Hostanes,
many fertile remarks were scattered among puerile
ideas and absurd teachings, just as in the Greek trea-
tises on alchemy that have come down to us. The idea
that knowledge of the power of certain agents enables
one to stimulate the hidden forces of the universe into
action and to obtain extraordinary results, inspires the
researches of physics to-day, just as it inspired the
claims of magic. And if astrology was a perverted
astronomy, magic was physics gone astray.
Moreover, and again like astrology, magic was a
science, because it started from the fundamental con-
ception that order and law exist in nature, and that
the same cause always produces the same effect. An
occult ceremony, performed with the same care as an
experiment in the chemical laboratory, will always have
the expected result. To know the mysterious affinities
that connect all things is sufficient to set the mechanism
of the universe into motion. But the error of the
magicians consisted in establishing a connection be-
tween phenomena that do not depend on each other
at all. The act of exposing to the light for an instant a
sensitive plate in a camera, then immersing it, according
to given recipes, in appropriate liquids, and of making
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
185
the picture of a relative or friend appear thereon, is a
magical operation, but based on real actions and reac-
tions, instead of on arbitrarily assumed sympathies and
antipathies. Magic, therefore, was a science groping
in the dark, and later became "a bastard sister of sci-
ence," as Frazer puts it.
But, like astrology, magic was religious in origin,
and always remained a bastard sister of religion. Both
grew up together in the temples of the barbarian
Orient. Their practices were, at first, part of the
dubious knowledge of fetichists who claimed to have
control over the spirits that peopled nature and ani-
mated everything, and who claimed that they com-
municated with these spirits by means of rites known
to themselves alone. Magic has been cleverly defined
as 'the strategy of animism.”60 But, just as the grow-
ing power ascribed by the Chaldeans to the sidereal
deities transformed the original astrology, so primitive
sorcery assumed a different character when the world
of the gods, conceived after the image of man, separated
itself more and more from the realm of physical forces
and became a realm of its own. This gave the mystic
element which always entered the ceremonies, a new
precision and development. By means of his charms,
talismans, and exorcisms, the magician now communi-
cated with the celestial or infernal “demons” and com-
pelled them to obey him. But these spirits no longer
opposed him with the blind resistance of matter ani-
mated by an uncertain kind of life; they were active
and subtle beings having intelligence and will-power.
Sometimes they took revenge for the slavery the magi-
cian attempted to impose on them and punished the
audacious operator, who feared them, although in-
186
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
voking their aid. Thus the incantation often assumed
the shape of a prayer addressed to a power stronger
than man, and magic became a religion. Its rites de-
veloped side by side with the canonical liturgies, and
frequently encroached on them. The only barrier be-
tween them was the vague and constantly shifting
borderline that limits the neighboring domains of re-
ligion and superstition.
*
*
*
This half scientific, half religious magic, with its
books and its professional adepts, is of Oriental origin.
The old Grecian and Italian sorcery appears to have
been rather mild. Conjurations to avert hail-storms,
or formulas to draw rain, evil charms to render fields
barren or to kill cattle, love philters and rejuvenating
salves, old women's remedies, talismans against the
evil eye,—all are based on popular superstition and
kept in existence by folk-lore and charlatanism. Even
the witches of Thessaly, whom people credited with the
power of making the moon descend from the sky, were
botanists more than anything else, acquainted with the
marvelous virtues of medicinal plants. The terror
that the necromancers inspired was due, to a con-
siderable extent, to the use they made of the old belief
in ghosts. They exploited the superstitious belief in
ghost-power and slipped metal tablets covered with
execrations into graves, to bring misfortune or death
to some enemy. But neither in Greece nor in Italy is
there any trace of a coherent system of doctrines, of
an occult and learned discipline, nor of any sacerdotal
instruction.
Originally the adepts in this dubious art were de-
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
187
spised. As late as the period of Augustus they were
generally equivocal beggar-women who plied their mis-
erable trade in the lowest quarters of the slums. But
with the invasion of the Oriental religions the magician
began to receive more consideration, and his condition
improved.62 He was honored, and feared even more.
During the second century scarcely anybody would
have doubted his power to call up divine apparitions,
converse with the superior spirits and even translate
liimself bodily into the heavens.63
Here the victorious progress of the Oriental re-
ligions shows itself. The Egyptian ritual64 originally
was nothing but a collection of magical practices,
properly speaking. The religious community imposed
its will upon the gods by means of prayers or even
threats. The gods were compelled to obey the offi-
ciating priest, if the liturgy was correctly performed,
and if the incantations and the magic words were pro-
nounced with the right intonation. The well-informed
priest had an almost unlimited power over all super-
natural beings on land, in the water, in the air, in
heaven and in hell. Nowhere was the gulf between
things human and things divine smaller, nowhere was
the increasing differentiation that separated magic from
religion less advanced. Until the end of paganism
they remained so closely associated that it is sometimes
difficult to distinguish the texts of one from those of
the other.
The Chaldeans65 also were past masters of sorcery,
well versed in the knowledge of presages and experts
in conjuring the evils which the presages foretold.
In Mesopotamia, where they were confidential advisers
of the kings, the magicians belonged to the official
188
IS
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
clergy; they invoked the aid of the state gods in their
incantations, and their sacred science was as highly
esteemed as haruspicy in Etruria. The immense pres-
tige that continued to surround it, assured its persist-
ence after the fall of Nineveh and Babylon. Its tra-
dition was still alive under the Cæsars, and a number
of enchanters rightly or wrongly claimed to possess
the ancient wisdom of Chaldea.66
And the thaumaturgus, who was supposed to be the
heir of the archaic priests, assumed a wholly sacerdotal
appearance at Rome. Being an inspired sage who
received confidential communications from heavenly
spirits, he gave to his life and to his appearance a
dignity almost equal to that of the philosopher. The
common people soon confused the two,67 and the Orien-
talizing philosophy of the last period of paganism
actually accepted and justified all the superstitions of
magic. Neo-Platonism, which concerned itself to a
large extent with demonology, leaned more and more
towards theurgy, and was finally completely absorbed
by it.
But the ancients expressly distinguished, “magic,”
which was always under suspicion and disapproved
of, from the legitimate and honorable art for which
the name "theurgy"68 was invented. The term “magi-
cian,"* which applied to all performers of miracles,
properly means the priests of Mazdaism, and a well
attested tradition makes the Persians69 the authors of
the real magic, that called "black magic" by the Middle
Ages. If they did not invent it-because it is as old
as humanity--they were at least the first to place it
upon a doctrinal foundation and to assign to it a place
* uayos.
1
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
189
in a clearly formulated theological system. The Maz-
dean dualism gave a new power to this pernicious
knowledge by conferring upon it the character that
will distinguish it henceforth.
Under what influences did the Persian magic come
into existence? When and how did it spread? These
are questions that are not well elucidated yet. The
intimate fusion of the religious doctrines of the Iranian
conquerors with those of the native clergy, which took
place at Babylon, occurred in this era of belief,70 and
the magicians that were established in Mesopotamia
combined their secret traditions with the rites and
formulas codified by the Chaldean sorcerers. The uni-
versal curiosity of the Greeks soon took note of this
marvelous science. Naturalist philosophers like Democ-
ritus,71 the great traveler, seem to have helped them-
selves more than once from the treasure of observa-
tions collected by the Oriental priests. Without a
doubt they drew from these incongruous compilations,
in which truth was mingled with the absurd and reality
with the fantastical, the knowledge of some properties
of plants and minerals, or of some experiments of
physics. However, the limpid Hellenic genius always
turned away from the misty speculations of magic,
giving them but slight consideration. But towards the
end of the Alexandrine period the books ascribed to
the half-mythical masters of the Persian science, Zoro-
aster, Hostanes and Hystaspes, were translated into
Greek, and until the end of paganism those names en-
joyed a prodigious authority. At the same time the
Jews, who were acquainted with the arcana of the
Irano-Chaldean doctrines and proceedings, made some
of the recipes known wherever the dispersion brought
190
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
them.72 Later, a more immediate influence was exer-
cised upon the Roman world by the Persian colonies
of Asia Minor,73 who retained an obstinate faith. in
their ancient national beliefs.
The particular importance attributed to magic by
the Mazdeans is a necessary consequence of their dual-
ist system, which has been treated by us before.74 Or-
muzd, residing in the heavens of light, is opposed by
his irreconcilable adversary, Ahriman, ruler of the
underworld. The one stands for light, truth, and
goodness, the other for darkness, falsehood, and per-
versity. The one commands the kind spirits which
protect the pious believer, the other is master over
demons whose malice causes all the evils that afflict
humanity. These opposite principles fight for the do-
mination of the earth, and each creates favorable or
noxious animals and plants. Everything on earth is
either heavenly or infernal. Ahriman and his demons,
who surround man to tempt.or hurt him,75 are evil gods
and entirely different from those of which Ormuzd's
host consists. The magician sacrifices to them, either
to avert evils they threaten, or to direct their ire against
enemies of true belief, and the impure spirits rejoice
in bloody immolations and delight in the fumes of
flesh burning on the altars.76 Terrible acts and words
attended all immolations. Plutarch77 mentions an ex-
ample of the dark sacrifices of the Mazdeans. "In a
mortar," he says, "they pound a certain herb called
wild garlic, at the same time invoking Hades (Ahri-
man), and the powers of darkness, then stirring this
herb in the blood of a slaughtered wolf, they take it
away and drop it on a spot never reached by the rays
of the sun." A necromantic performance indeed.
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
191
We can imagine the new strength which such a
conception of the universe must have given to magic.
It was no longer an incongruous collection of popular
superstitions and scientific observations. It became a
reversed religion: its nocturnal rites were the dreadful
liturgy of the infernal powers. There was no miracle
the experienced magician might not expect to perform
with the aid of the demons, providing he know how
to master them; he would invent any atrocity in his
desire to gain the favor of the evil divinities whom
crime gratified and suffering pleased. Hence the num-
ber of impious practices performed in the dark, prac-
tices the horror of which is equaled only by their ab-
surdity: preparing beverages that disturbed the senses
and impaired the intellect; mixing subtle poisons ex-
tracted from demoniac plants and corpses already in
a state of putridity;78 immolating children in order to.
read the future in their quivering entrails or to con-
jure up ghosts. All the satanic refinement that a per-
verted imagination in a state of insanity could con-
ceive79 pleased the malicious evil spirits; the more
odious the monstrosity, the more assured was its effi-
cacy. These abominable practices were sternly sup-
pressed by the Roman government. Whereas, in the case
of an astrologer who had committed an open transgres-
sion, the law was satisfied with expelling him from
Rome-whither he generally soon returned, -the magi-
cian was put in the same class with murderers and poi-
soners, and was subjected to the very severest punish-
ment. He was nailed to the cross or thrown to the
wild beasts. Not only the practice of the profession,
but even the simple fact of possessing works of sor-
cery made any one subject to prosecution.80
192
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
However, there are ways of reaching an agreement
with the police, and in this case custom was stronger
than law. The intermittent rigor of imperial edicts
had no more power to destroy an inveterate super-
stition than the Christian polemics had to cure it. It
was a recognition of its strength when state and church
united to fight it. Neither reached the root of the
evil, for they did not deny the reality of the power
wielded by the sorcerers. As long as it was admitted
that malicious spirits constantly interfered in human
affairs, and that there were secret means enabling the
operator to dominate those spirits or to share in their
power, magic was indestructible. It appealed to too
many human passions to remain unheard. If, on the
one hand, the desire of penetrating the mysteries of
the future, the fear of unknown misfortunes, and
hope, always reviving, led the anxious masses to seek
a chimerical certainty in astrology, on the other hand,
in the case of magic, the blinding charm of the mar-
velous, the entreaties of love and ambition, the bitter
desire for revenge, the fascination of crime, and the
intoxication of bloodshed, -all the instincts that are
not avowable and that are satisfied in the dark, took
turns in practising their seductions. During the entire
life of the Roman empire its existence continued, and
the very mystery that it was compelled to hide in in-
creased its prestige and almost gave it the authority
of a revelation.
A curious occurrence that took place towards the
end of the fifth century at Beirut, in Syria, shows
how deeply even the strongest intellects of that period
believed in the most atrocious practices of magic. One
night some students of the famous law-school of that
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
193
city attempted to kill a slave in the circus, to aid the
master in obtaining the favor of a woman who scorned
him. Being reported, they had to deliver up their hid-
den volumes, of which those of Zoroaster and of
Hostanes were found, together with those written by
the astrologer Manetho. The whole city was agitated,
and searches proved that many young men preferred
the study of the illicit science to that of Roman law.
By order of the bishop a solemn auto-da-fé was made
of all this literature, in the presence of the city officials
and the clergy, and the most revolting passages were
read in public, “in order to acquaint everybody with
the conceited and vain promises of the demons," as
the pious writer of the story says. 81
Thus the ancient traditions of magic continuéd to
live in the Christian Orient after the fall of paganism.
They even outlived the domination of the church. The
rigorous principles of its monotheism notwithstanding,
Islam became infected with those Persian superstitions.
In the Occident the evil art resisted persecution and
anathemas with the same obstinacy as in the Orient.
It remained alive in Rome all through the fifth cen-
tury,82 and when scientific astrology in Europe went
down with science itself, the old Mazdean dualism
continued to manifest itself, during the entire Middle
Ages in the ceremonies of the black mass and the
worshiping of Satan, until the dawn of the modern
era.
Twin sisters, born of the superstitions of the learned
Orient, magic and astrology always remained the hy-
brid daughters of sacerdotal culture. Their existence
194
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
was governed by two contrary principles, reason and
faith, and they never ceased to fluctuate between these
two poles of thought. Both were inspired by a belief
in universal sympathy, according to which occult and
powerful relations exist þetween human beings and
dead objects, all possessing a mysterious life. The
doctrine of sidereal influences, combined with a knowl-
edge of the immutability of the celestial revolutions,
caused astrology to formulate the first theory of ab-
solute fatalism, whose decrees might be known be-
forehand. But, besides this rigorous determinism, it
retained its childhood faith in the divine stars, whose
favor could be secured and malignity avoided through
worship. In astrology the experimental method was
reduced to the completing of prognostics based on the
supposed character of the stellar gods.
Magic also remained half empirical and half re-
ligious. Like our physics, it was based on observation,
it proclaimed the constancy of the laws of nature, and
sought to conquer the latent energies of the material
world in order to bring them under the dominion of
man's will. But at the same time it recognized, in the
powers that it claimed to conquer, spirits or demons
whose protection might be obtained, whose ill-will
might be appeased, or whose savage hostility might
be unchained by means of immolations and incanta-
tions.
All their aberrations notwithstanding, astrology and
magic were not entirely fruitless. Their counterfeit
learning has been a genuine help to the progress of
human knowledge. Because they awakened chimerical
hopes and fallacious ambitions in the minds of their
adepts, researches were undertaken which undoubtedly
CD
LU
ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
195
would never have been started or persisted in for the
sake of a disinterested love of truth. The observa-
tions, collected with untiring patience by the Oriental
priests, caused the first physical and astronomical dis-
coveries, and, as in the time of the scholastics, the
occult sciences led to the exact ones. But when these
understood the vanity of the astounding illusions on
which astrology and magic had subsisted, they broke
up the foundation of the arts to which they owed their
birth.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN
PAGANISM.
ABOUT the time of the Severi the religion of Europe
A must have presented an aspect of surprising vari-
ety. Although dethroned, the old native Italian, Celtic
and Iberian divinities were still alive. Though eclipsed
by foreign rivals, they lived on in the devotion of the
lower classes and in the traditions of the rural districts.
For a long time the Roman gods had been established
in every town and had received the homage of an
official clergy according to pontifical rites. Beside
them, however, were installed the representatives of
all the Asiatic pantheons, and these received the most
fervent adoration from the masses. New powers had
arrived from Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, and the daz-
zling Oriental sun outshone the stars of Italy's tem-
perate sky. All forms of paganism were simultane-
ously received and retained while the exclusive mono-
theism of the Jews kept its adherents, and Christianity
strengthened its churches and fortified its orthodoxy,
at the same time giving birth to the baffling vagaries
of gnosticism. A hundred different currents carried
away hesitating and undecided minds, a hundred con-
trasting sermons made appeals to the conscience of the
people.
Let us suppose that in modern Europe the faithful
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN PAGANISM. 197
had deserted the Christian churches to worship Allah
or Brahma, to follow the precepts of Confucius or
Buddha, or to adopt the maxims of the Shinto; let
us imagine a great confusion of all the races of the
world in which Arabian mullahs, Chinese scholars,
Japanese bonzes, Tibetan lamas and Hindu pundits
would be preaching fatalism and predestination, an-
cestor-worship and devotion to a deified sovereign,
pessimism and deliverance through annihilation - a
confusion in which all those priests would erect tem-
their disparate rites therein. Such a dream, which
the future may perhaps realize, would offer a pretty
accurate picture of the religious chaos in which the
ancient world was struggling before the reign of Con-
stantine.
The Oriental religions that successively gained pop-
ularity exercised a decisive influence on the transfor-
mation of Latin paganism. Asia Minor was the first
to have its gods accepted by Italy. Since the end of
the Punic wars the black stone symbolizing the Great
Mother of Pessinus had been established on the Pala-
tine, but only since the reign of Claudius could the
Phrygian cult freely develop in all its splendor and
excesses. It introduced a sensual, highly-colored and
fanatical worship into the grave and somber religion
of the Romans. Officially recognized; it attracted and
took under its protection other foreign divinities from
Anatolia and assimilated them to Cybele and Attis,
who thereafter bore the symbols of several deities to-
gether. Cappadocian, Jewish, Persian and even Chris-
tian influences modified the old rites of Pessinus and
filled them with ideas of spiritual purification and eter-
198
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
1
nal redemption by the bloody baptism of the tauro-
bolium. But the priests did not succeed in eliminating
the basis of coarse naturism which ancient barbaric
tradition had imposed upon them.
Beginning with the second century before our era,
the mysteries of Isis and Serapis spread over Italy
with the Alexandrian culture whose religious expres-
sion they were, and in spite of all persecution estab-
lished themselves at Rome where Caligula gave them
the freedom of the city. They did not bring with them
a very advanced theological system, because Egypt
never produced anything but a chaotic aggregate of
disparate doctrines, nor a very elevated ethics, because
the level of its morality—that of the Alexandrian
Greeks—rose but slowly from a low stage. But they
made Italy, and later the other Latin provinces, fa-
miliar with an ancient ritual of incomparable charm
that aroused widely different feelings with its splendid
processions and liturgic dramas. They also gave their
votaries positive assurance of a blissful immortality
after death, when they would be united with Serapis
and, participating body and soul in his divinity, would
live in eternal contemplation of the gods.
At a somewhat later period arrived the numerous
and varied Baals of Syria. The great economic move-
ment starting at the beginning of our era which pro-
duced the colonization of the Latin world by Syrian
slaves and merchants, not only modified the material
civilization of Europe, but also its conceptions and
beliefs. The Semitic cults entered into successful com-
petition with those of Asia Minor and Egypt. They
may not have had so stirring a liturgy, nor have been
so thoroughly absorbed in preoccupation with a future
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN PAGANISM.
UT
life, although they taught an original eschatology, but
they did have an infinitely higher idea of divinity.
The Chaldean astrology, of which the Syrian priests
were enthusiastic disciples, had furnished them with
the elements of a scientific theology. It had led them
to the notion of a God residing far from the earth above
the zone of the stars, a God almighty, universal and
eternal. Everything on earth was determined by the
revolutions of the heavens according to infinite cycles
of years. It had taught them at the same time the
worship of the sun, the radiant source of earthly life
and human intelligence.
The learned doctrines of the Babylonians had also
imposed themselves upon the Persian mysteries of
Mithra which considered time identified with heaven
as the supreme cause, and deified the stars; but they
had superimposed themselves upon the ancient Maz-
dean creed without destroying it. Thus the essential
principles of the religion of Iran, the secular and often
successful rival of Greece, penetrated into the Occident
under cover of Chaldean wisdom. The Mithra wor-
ship, the last and highest manifestation of ancient
paganism, had Persian dualism for its fundamental
dogma. The world is the scene and the stake of a
contest between good and evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman,
gods and demons, and from this primary conception of
the universe flowed a strong and pure system of ethics.
Life is a combat; soldiers under the command of
Mithra, invincible heroes of the faith, must ceaselessly
oppose the undertakings of the infernal powers which
sow corruption broadcast. This imperative ethics was
productive of energy and formed the characteristic
2
200
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
feature distinguishing Mithraism from all other Ori-
ental cults.
Thus every one of the Levantine countries—and that
is what we meant to show in this brief recapitulation-
had enriched Roman paganism with new beliefs that
were frequently destined to outlive it. What was the
result of this confusion of heterogeneous doctrines
whose multiplicity was extreme and whose values
were very different? How did the barbaric ideas re-
fine themselves and combine with each other when
thrown into the fiery crucible of imperial syncretism?
In other words, what shape was assumed by ancient
idolatry, so impregnated with exotic theories during
the fourth century, when it was finally dethroned ?
It is this point that we should like to indicate briefly
as the conclusion to these studies.
However, can we speak of one pagan religion? Did
not the blending of the races result in multiplying the
variety of disagreements ? Had not the confused col-
lision of creeds produced a division into fragments, a
communication of churches? Had not a complacent
syncretism engendered a multiplication of sects? The
“Hellenes," as Themistius told the Emperor Valens,
had three hundred ways of conceiving and honoring
deity, who takes pleasure in such diversity of homage.?
In paganism a cult does not die violently, but after
long decay. A new doctrine does not necessarily dis-
place an older one. They may co-exist for a long
time as contrary possibilities suggested by the intel-
lect or faith, and all opinions, all practices, seem re-
spectable to paganism. It never has any radical or
revolutionary transformations. Undoubtedly, the pa-
gan beliefs of the fourth century or earlier did not
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN PAGANISM.
have the consistency of a metaphysical system nor the
rigor of canons formulated by a council. There is
always a considerable difference between the faith of
the masses and that of cultured minds, and this differ-
ence was bound to be great in an aristocratic empire
whose social classes were sharply separated. The de-
votion of the masses was as unchanging as the depths
of the sea; it was not stirred up nor heated by the
upper currents. The peasants practised their pious
rites over anointed stones, sacred springs and blos-
soming trees, as in the past, and continued celebrating
their rustic holidays during seed-time and harvest.
They adhered with invincible tenacity to their tradi-
tional usages. Degraded and lowered to the rank of
superstitions, these were destined to persist for cen-
turies under the Christian orthodoxy without exposing
it to serious peril, and while they were no longer
marked in the liturgic calendars they were still men-
tioned occasionally in the collections of folk-lore.
At the other extreme of society the philosophers de-
lighted in veiling religion with the frail and brilliant
tissue of their speculations. Like the emperor Julian
they improvised bold and incongruous interpretations
of the myth of the Great Mother, and these inter-
pretations were received and relished by a restricted
circle of scholars. But during the fourth century these
vagaries of the individual imagination were nothing
but arbitrary applications of uncontested principles.
During that century there was much less intellectual
anarchy than when Lucian had exposed the sects "for
sale at public auction"; a comparative harmony arose
among the pagans after they joined the opposition.
One single school, that of nea-Platonism, ruled all
202
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
U
minds. This school not only respected positive re-
ligion, as ancient stoicism had done, but venerated it,
because it saw there the expression of an old revela-
tion handed down by past generations. It considered
the sacred books divinely inspired—the books of Her-
mes Trismegistus, Orpheus, the Chaldean oracles, Ho-
mer, and especially the esoteric doctrines of the mys-
teries—and subordinated its theories to their teach-
ings. As there must be no contradiction between all
the disparate traditions of different countries and dif-
ferent periods, because all have emanated from one
divinity, philosophy, the ancilla theologiae, attempted
to reconcile them by the aid of allegory. And thus,
by means of compromises between old Oriental ideas
and Greco-Latin thought, an ensemble of beliefs slowly
took form, the truth of which seemed to have been
established by common consent. So when the atro-
phied parts of the Roman religion had been removed,
foreign elements had combined to give it a new vigor
and in it themselves became modified. This hidden
work of internal decomposition and reconstruction had
unconsciously produced a religion very different from
the one Augustus had attempted to restore.
However, we would be tempted to believe that there
had been no change in the Roman faith, were we to
read certain authors that fought idolatry in those days.
Saint Augustine, for instance, in his City of God,
pleasantly pokes fun at the multitude of Italian gods
that presided over the paltriest acts of life. But the
useless, ridiculous deities of the old pontifical litanies
no longer existed outside of the books of antiquaries.
As a matter of fact, the Christian polemicist's author-
ity in this instance was Varro. The defenders of the
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN PAGANISM
church sought weapons against idolatry even in Xe-
nophanes, the first philosopher to oppose Greek poly-
theism. It has frequently been shown that apologists
find it difficult to follow the progress of the doctrines
which they oppose, and often their blows fall upon
dead men. Moreover, it is a fault common to all
scholars, to all imbued with book learning, that they
are better acquainted with the opinions of ancient
authors than with the sentiments of their contempo-
raries, and that they prefer to live in the past rather
than in the world surrounding them. It was easier to
reproduce the objections of the Epicureans and the
skeptics against abolished beliefs, than to study the
defects of an active organism with a view to criticizing
it. In those times the merely formal culture of the
schools caused many of the best minds to lose their
sense of reality.
The Christian polemics therefore frequently give us
an inadequate idea of paganism in its decline. When
they complacently insisted upon the immorality of the
sacred legends they ignored the fact that the gods and
heroes of mythology had no longer any but a purely
literary existence. The writers of that period, like
those of the Renaissance, regarded the fictions of
mythology as details necessary to poetical composi-
tion. They were ornaments of style, rhetorical devices,
but not the expression of a sincere faith. Those old
myths had fallen to the lowest degree of disrepute
in the theater. The actors of mimes ridiculing Jupiter's
gallant adventures did not believe in their reality any
more than the author of Faust believed in the compact
with Mephistopheles.
So we must not be deceived by the oratorical effects
204
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
of a rhetorician like Arnobius or by the Ciceronian
periods of a Lactantius. In order to ascertain the
real status of the beliefs we must refer to Christian
authors who were men of letters less than they were
men of action, who lived the life of the people and
breathed the air of the streets, and who spoke from
experience rather than from the treatises of myth- ..
mongers. They were high functionaries like Pruden-
tius ;5 like the man to whom the name “Ambrosiaster's
has been given since the time of Erasmus; like the
converted pagan Firmicus Maternus, who had writ-
ten a treatise on astrology before opposing “The Error
of the Profane Religions"; like certain priests brought
into contact with the last adherents of idolatry through
their pastoral duties, as for instance the author of the
homilies ascribed to St. Maximus of Turin ;8 finally like
the writers of anonymous pamphlets, works prepared
for the particular occasion and breathing the ardor
of all the passions of the movement. If this inquiry
is based on the obscure indications in regard to their
religious convictions left by members of the Roman
aristocracy who remained true to the faith of their
ancestors, like Macrobius or Symmachus; if it is par-
ticularly guided by the exceptionally numerous in-
scriptions that seem to be the public expression of the
last will of expiring paganism, we shall be able to gain
a sufficiently precise idea of the condition of the
Roman religion at the time of its extinction.
One fact becomes immediately clear from an ex-
amination of those documents. The old national re-
ligion of Rome was dead.10 The great dignitaries
still adorned themselves with the titles of augur and
quindecimvir, or of consul and tribune, but those ar-
Y
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN PAGANISM. 205
chaic prelacies were as devoid of all real influence
upon religion as the republican magistracies were
powerless in the state. Their fall had been made
complete on the day when Aurelian established. the
pontiffs of the Invincible Sun, the protector of his
empire, beside and above the ancient high priests.
The only cults still alive were those of the Orient,
and against them were directed the efforts of the
Christian polemics, who grew more and more bitter
in speaking of them. The barbarian gods had taken
the place of the defunct immortals in the devotion of
the pagans. They alone still had empire over the soul.
With all the other "profane religions," Firmicus
Maternus fought those of the four Oriental nations.
He connected them with the four elements. The
Egyptians were the worshipers of water, the water
of the Nile fertilizing their country; the Phrygians of
the earth, which was to them the Great Mother of
everything; the Syrians and Carthaginians of the air,
which they adored under the name of celestial Juno ;11
the Persians of fire, to which they attributed pre-
eminence over the other three principles. This system
certainly was borrowed from the pagan theologians.
In the common peril threatening them, those cults,
formerly rivals, had become reconciled and regarded
themselves as divisions and, so to speak, congregations,
of the same church. Each one of them was especially
consecrated to one of the elements which in combina-
tion form the universe. Their union constituted the
pantheistic religion of the deified world.
All the O.riental religions assumed the form of mys-
teries.12 Their dignitaries were at the same time pon-
tiffs of the Invincible Sun, fathers of Mithra, cele-
206
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
brants of the taurobolium of the Great Mother, proph-
ets of Isis; in short, they had all titles imaginable.
In their initiation they received the revelation of an
esoteric doctrine strengthened by their fervor.13 What
was the theology they learned ? Here also a certain
dogmatic homogeneity has established itself.
All writers agree with Firmicus that the pagans
worshiped the elementa.14 Under this term were in-
cluded not only the four simple substances which by
their opposition and blending caused all phenomena
of the visible world, 15 but also the stars and in general
the elements of all celestial and earthly bodies. 16
We therefore may in a certain sense speak of the
return of paganism to nature worship; but must this
transformation be regarded as a retrogression toward
a barbarous past, as a relapse to the level of primitive
animism? If so, we should be deceived by appearances.
Religions do not fall back into infancy as they grow
old. The pagans of the fourth century no longer
naively considered their gods as capricious genii, as
the disordered powers of a confused natural philos-
ophy; they conceived them as cosmic energies whose
providential action was regulated in a harmonious sys-
tem. Faith was no longer instinctive and impulsive,
for erudition and reflection had reconstructed the en-
tire theology. In a certain sense it might be said that
theology had passed from the fictitious to the meta-
physical state, according to the formula of Comte. It
was intimately connected with the knowledge of the
day, which was cherished by its last votaries with love
and pride, as faithful heirs of the ancient wisdom of
the Orient and Greece.17 In many instances it was
nothing but a religious form of the cosmology of the
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN PAGANISM.
period. This constituted both its strength and its
weakness. The rigorous principles of astrology deter-
mined its conception of heaven and earth.
The universe was an organism animated by a God,
unique, eternal and almighty. Sometimes this God
was identified with the destiny that ruled all things,
with infinite time that regulated all visible phenomena,
and he was worshiped in each subdivision of that
endless duration, especially in the months and the
seasons.18 Sometimes, however, he was compared with
a king; he was thought of as a sovereign governing
an empire, and the various gods then were the princes
and dignitaries interceding with the rulers on behalf
of his subjects whom they led in some manner into
his presence. This heavenly court had its messengers
or "angels” conveying to men the will of the master
and reporting again the vows and petitions of his
subjects. It was an aristocratic monarchy in heaven
as on earth.19 A more philosophic conception made
the divinity an infinite power impregnating all nature
with its overflowing forces. “There is only one God,
sole and supreme," wrote Maximus of Madaura about
390, "without beginning or parentage, whose energies,
diffused through the world, we invoke under various
names, because we are ignorant of his real name. By
successively addressing our supplications to his differ-
ent members we intend to honor him in his entirety.
Through the mediation of the subordinate gods the
common father both of themselves and of all men is
honored in a thousand different ways by mortals who
are thus in accord in spite of their discord."20
However, this ineffable God, who comprehensively
embraces everything, manifests himself especially in
208
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
the resplendent brightness of the ethereal sky.21 He
reveals his power in water and in fire, in the earth,
the sea and the blowing of the winds; but his purest,
most radiant and most active epiphany is in the stars
whose revolutions determine every event and all our
the motive power of the celestial spheres, the inexhaus-
tible seat of light and life, the creator of all intelligence
on earth. Certain philosophers like the senator Prae-
textatus, one of the dramatis personae of Macrobius,
confounded all the ancient divinities of paganism with
the sun in a thorough-going syncretism.22
Just as a superficial observation might lead to the
belief that the theology of the last pagans had reverted
to its origin, so at first sight the transformation of the
ritual might appear like a return to savagery. With
the adoption of the Oriental mysteries barbarous, cruel
and obscene practices were undoubtedly spread, as for
instance the masquerading in the guise of animals in
the Mithraic initiations, the bloody dances of the galli
of the Great Mother and the mutilations of the Syrian
priests. Nature worship was originally as "amoral”
as nature itself. But an ethereal spiritualism ideally
transfigured the coarseness of those primitive customs.
Just as the doctrine had become completely impreg-
nated with philosophy and erudition, so the liturgy
had become saturated with ethical ideas.
warm blood, had become a means of obtaining a
new and eternal life; the ritualistic ablutions were
no longer external and material acts, but were sup-
posed to cleanse the soul of its impurities and to re-
store its original innocence; the sacred repasts im-
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN PAGANISM. 209
parted an intimate virtue to the soul and furnished
sustenance to the spiritual life. While efforts were
made to maintain the continuity of tradition, its con-
tent had slowly been transformed. The most shocking
and licentious fables were metamorphosed into edify-
ing narratives by convenient and subtle interpretations
which were a joy to the learned mythographers. Pa-
ganism had become a school of morality, the priest a
doctor and director of the conscience.23
The purity and holiness imparted by the practice of
sacred ceremonies were the indispensable condition for
obtaining eternal life.24 The mysteries promised a
blessed immortality to their initiates, and claimed to
reveal to them infallible means of effecting their sal-
vation. According to a generally accepted symbol,
the spirit animating man was a spark, detached from
the fires shining in the ether; it partook of their divin-
ity and so, it was believed, had descended to the earth
to undergo a trial. It could literally be said that
"Man is a fallen god who still remembers heaven.”
After having left their corporeal prisons, the pious
souls reascended towards the celestial regions of the
divine stars, to live forever in endless brightness be-
yond the starry spheres.25
But at the other extremity of the world, facing this
luminous realm, extended the somber kingdom of evil
spirits. They were irreconcilable adversaries of the
gods and men of good will, and constantly left the
infernal regions to roam about the earth and scatter
evil. With the aid of the celestial spirits, the faithful
had to struggle forever against their designs and seek
to avert their anger by means of bloody sacrifices.
210
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Y
But, with the help of occult and terrible processes, the
magician could subject them to his power and compel
them to serve his purposes. This demonology, the
monstrous offspring of Persian dualism, favored the
rise of every superstition.26
However, the reign of the evil powers was not to
last forever. According to common opinion the uni-
verse would be destroyed by fire27 after the times had
been fulfilled. All the wicked would perish, but the
just would be revived and establish the reign of uni-
versal happiness in the regenerated world.28
The foregoing is a rapid sketch of the theology of
paganism after three centuries of Oriental influence.
From coarse fetichism and savage superstitions the
learned priests of the Asiatic cults had gradually pro-
duced a complete system of metaphysics and escha-
tology, as the Brahmins built up the spiritualistic mo-
nism of the Vedanta beside the monstrous idolatry of
Hinduism, or, to confine our comparisons to the Latin
world, as the jurists drew from the traditional cus-
toms of primitive tribes the abstract principles of a
legal system that governs the most cultivated societies.
This religion was no longer like that of ancient Rome,
a niere collection of propitiatory and expiatory rites
performed by the citizen for the good of the state; it
now pretended to offer to all men a world-conception
which gave rise to a rule of conduct and placed the
end of existence in the future life. It was more unlike
the worship that Augustus had attempted to restore
than the Christianity that fought it. The two opposed
creeds moved in the same intellectual and moral
sphere, 29 and one could actually pass from one to the
other without shock or interruption. Sometimes when
THE TRANSFORMATION OF ROMAN PAGANISM.
reading the long works of the last Latin writers, like
Ammianus Marcellinus or Boëthius, or the panegyrics
of the official orators,30 scholars could well ask whether
their authors were pagan or Christian. In the time
of Symmachus and Praetextatus, the members of the
Roman aristocracy who had remained faithful to the
gods of their ancestors did not have a mentality or
morality very different from that of adherents of the
new faith who sat with them in the senate. The re-
ligious and mystical spirit of the Orient had slowly
overcome the whole social organism and had prepared
all nations to unite in the bosom of a universal church.
NOTES.
PREFACE.
1. We are indebted for more than one useful suggestion to
our colleagues Messrs. Charles Michel and Joseph Bidez, who
were kind enough to read the proofs of the French edition.
2. An outline of the present state of the subject will be found
in a recent volume by Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, 1906,
pp. 1606 ff., whose views are sharply opposed to the negative
conclusions formulated, with certain reservations, by Harnack,
Ausbreitung des Christentums, II, pp. 274 ff. Among the latest
studies intended for the general reader that have appeared on
this subject, may be mentioned in Germany those of Geffcken
(Aus der Werdezeit des Christentums, Leipsic, 1904, PP. 114 ff.),
and in England those of Cheyne (Bible Problems, 1904), who
expresses his opinion in these terms: "The Christian religion
is a synthesis, and only those who have dim eyes can assert
that the intellectual empires of Babylonia and Persia have
fallen.”—Very useful is the new book of Clemen, Religionis-
geschichtliche Erklärung des Neuen Testaments, Giessen, 1909.
3. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 342, n. 4; see the new texts com-
mented on by Usener, Rhein. Museum, LX, 1905, pp. 466 ff.;
489 ff., and my paper "Natalis Invicti,” C. R. Acad. des inscr.,
1911.
4. See page 70. Compare also Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 341.
The imitation of the church is plain in the pagan reform at-
tempted by the emperor Julian.
5. See Harnack, Militia Christi, 1905.
6. I have collected a number of texts on the religious "mili-
tias” in Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 317, n. 1. Others could cer-
tainly be discovered: Apuleius, Metam., XI, 14: E cohorte re-
214
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
ligionis unus (in connection with a mystic of Isis) ;-Vettius
Valens (V, 2, p. 220, 27, Kroll ed.): EtpatlūTAL Tñs ciuapuévns ;
(VII, 3, p. 271, 28) Eyotpateveodal tois Kalpois yevvalws. See
Minucius Felix, 36, $7: Quod patimur non est poena, militia
est.-We might also mention the commonplace term militia
Veneris, which was popular with the Augustan poets (Proper-
tius, IV, 1, 137; see I, 6, 30; Horace, Od., III, 26, and espe-
cially the parallel developed by Ovid, Amor., I, 9, I ff., and
Ars amat., III, 233 ff).-Socrates, in Plato's Apologia (p. 28 E),
incidentally likens the philosophic mission imposed on him by
the divinity to the campaigns he waged under the orders of
the archons, but the comparison of God with a "strategus"
was developed especially by the Stoics; see Capelle, "Schrift
von der Welt,” Neue Jahrb. für das klass. Altert., XV, 1905,
p. 558, n. 6, and Seneca, Epist., 107, 9: Optimum est Deun sine
murruuratione comitari, malus miles est qui imperatorem ge-
inents sequitur.-See now also Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Mys-
terienreligion, 1910, p. 66.
7. See Rev. des études grecques, XIV, 1901, PP. 43 ff.
8. This has been clearly shown by Wendland in connection
with the idea of the ownpia, Zeitschrift für neutest. Wiss., V,
1904, pp. 355 ff. More recently he has thrown light on the
general influence of Hellenistic civilization on Christianity (Die
hellenistisch-römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zuin Juden-
tum und Christentum, Tübingen, 1908). A first attempt to
determine the character of Hellenistic mysteries is to be found
in Reitzenstein's Hellenistische Mysterienreligion, 1910.
I. ROME AND THE ORIENT.
1. Renan, L’Antéchrist, p. 130.
2. M. Krumbacher (Byzant. Zeitschr., XVI, 1907, p. 710)
notes, in connection with the idea that I am defending here:
"In ähnlicher Weise war dieser Gedanke (der Ueberflügelung
des Abendlandes durch die auf allen Kulturgebieten vor-
dringende Regsamkeit der Orientalen) kurz vorher in meiner
Skizze der byzantinischen Literatur (Kultur der Gegenwart,
I, 8 (1907), pp. 246-253) auseinandergelegt worden; es ist ein
erfreulicher und bei dem Wirrsal widerstreitender Doctrinen
tröstlicher Beweis für den Fortschritt der Erkenntniss, dass
NOTES-ROME AND THE ORIENT.
215
zwei von ganz verschiedenen Richtungen ausgehende Diener
der Wissenschaft sich in so wichtigen allgemeinen Fragen so
nahe kommen.”
3. Cf. Kornemann, "Aegyptische Einflüsse im römischen
Kaiserreich" (Neue Jahrb. für das klass. Altertuin, II, 1898,
p. 118 ff.) and Otto Hirschfeld, Die kaiserl. Verwaltungsbe-
amteni, 2d. ed., p. 469.
4. See Cicero's statement regarding the ancient Roman do-
minion (De off., II, 8): "Illud patrocinium orbis terrae verius
quam imperium poterat nominari.”
5. O. Hirschfeld, op. cit., pp. 53, 91, 93, etc.; cf. Mitteis,
Reichsrecht und Volksrecht, p. 9, n. 2, etc. Thus liave various
institutions been transmitted from the ancient Persians to the
Romans; see Ch. VI, 11. 5.
6. Rostovtzew, "Der Ursprung des Kolonats" (Beiträge zur
alten Gesch., I, 1901, p. 295) ; Haussoullier, Histoire de Milet
et du Didymeion, 1902, p. 106.
7. Mitteis, Reichsrecht und Volksrecht in den östlichen Pro-
vinzen, 1891, pp. 8 ff.
8. Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, II, 1905, p. 366: "Seit
Diocletian übernimmt der östliche Reichsteil, die partes Ori-
entis, auf allen Gebieten die Führung. Dieser späte Sieg des
Hellenismus über die Lateiner ist vielleicht nirgends auffäl-
liger als auf dem Gebiet der juristischen Schriftstellerei.”
9. De Vogüe and Duthoit, L'Architecture civile et religieuse
de la Syrie centrale, Paris, 1866-1877.
10. This result is especially due to the researches of M.
Strzygowski, but we cannot enter here into the controversies
aroused by his publications: Orient oder Roin, 1911; Hellas
in des Orients Umarnung, Munich, 1902, and especially Klein-
asien, ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte, Leipsic, 1903; (cf.
the reports of Ch. Diehl, Journal des Savants, 1904, pp. 236 ff.
= Etudes byzantines, 1905, pp. 336 ff.; Gabriel Millet, Revue
archéolog., 1905, I, pp. 93 ff.; Marcel Laurent, Revue de l'Instr.
publ., en Belgique, 1905, PP. 145 ff.); Mschatta, 1904, [cf. infra,
Ch. VI, n. 12).-M. Bréhier, "Orient ou Byzance?” (Rev. ar-
chéol., 1907, II, pp. 396 ff.), gives a substantial summary of
the question. In his last volume, Amida (1910), M. Strzy-
216
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
gowski tries to find the source of medieval art in Mesopotamia.
For this controversy see Diehl's Manuel d'art byzantin, 1910.
II. See also Pliny, Epist. Traian., 40: "Architecti tibi [in
Bithynia] deesse non possunt....cum ex Graecia etiam ad nos
[at Rome] venire soliti sint.”—Among the names of architects
mentioned in Latin inscriptions there are a great many reveal-
ing Greek or Oriental origin (see Ruggiero, Dizion. epigr.,
S. v. "Architectus"), in spite of the consideration which their
eminently useful profession always enjoyed at Rome.
12. The question of the artistic and industrial influences
exercised by the Orient over Gaul during the Roman period,
has been broached frequently-among others by Courajod (Le-
çons du Louvre, I, 1899, pp. 115, 327 ff.)—but it has never been
seriously studied in its entirety. Michaëlis has recently de-
voted a suggestive article to this subject in connection with a
statue from the museum of Metz executed in the style of the
school of Pergamum (Jahrb. der Gesellsch. für lothring. Ge-
schichte, XVII, 1905, pp. 203 ff.). By the influence of Mar-
seilles in Gaul, and the ancient connection of that city with
the towns of Hellenic Asia, he explains the great difference
between the works of sculpture discovered along the upper
Rhine, which had been civilized by the Italian legions, and
those unearthed on the other side of the Vosges. This is a
very important discovery. rich in results. We believe, how-
ever, that Michaëlis ascribes too much importance to the
early Marseilles traders traveling along the old "tin road”
towards Brittany and the "amber road” towards Germany.
The Asiatic merchants and artisans did not set out from one
point only. There were inany emigrants all over the valley
of the Rhone. Lyons was a half-Hellenized city, and the
relations of Arles with Syria, of Nîmes with Egypt, etc., are
well known. We shall speak of them in connection with the
religions of those countries.
13. Even in the bosom of the church the Latin Occident of
the fourth century was still subordinate to the Greek Orient,
which imposed its doctrinal problems upon it (Harnack, Mis-
sion und Ausbreitung, II, p. 283, n. 1).
14. The sacred formulas have been collected by Alb. Diete-
rich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, pp. 212 ff. He adds Aoin ool "Ooipis
NOTES-ROME AND THE ORIENT.
217
TÒ yuxpov úswp, Archiv für Religionswiss., VIII, 1905, p. 504, n.
I. [Cf. infra, ch. IV, n. 90.] Among the hymns of greatest
importance for the Oriental cults we must cite those in honor
of Isis, discovered in the island of Andros (Kaibel, Epigr.,
4028) and elsewhere (see ch. IV, n. 6). Fragments of hymns
in honor of Attis have been preserved by Hippolytus (Philo-
soph., V, 9. pp. 168 ff.) The so-called orphic hymns (Abel,
Orphica, 1883), which date back to a rather remote period, do
not seem to contain many Oriental elements (see Maas, Or-
pheus, 1895, pp. 173 ff.), but this does not apply to the gnostic
hymns of which we possess very instructive fragments.--Cf.
Mon. myst. de Mithra, I, p. 313, n. I.
15. Regarding the imitations of the stage, see Adami, De
poetis scen. Graecis hymnorum sacrorum imitatoribus, 1901.
Wünsch has shown the liturgic character of a prayer to As-
klepios, inserted by Herondas into his mimiambi (Archiv für
Religionswiss., VII, 1904, pp. 95 ff.) Dieterich believes he
has found an extensive extract from the Mithraic liturgy in a
magic papyrus of Paris (see infra, ch. VI, Bibliography). But
all these discoveries amount to very little if we think of the
enormous number of liturgic texts that have been lost, and
even in the case of ancient Greece we know little regarding
this sacred literature. See Ausfeld, De Graecorum precatio-
nibus, Leipsic, 1903; Ziegler, De precationun apud Graecos
formis quaestiones selectae, Breslau, 1905; H. Schmidt, Ve-
teres philosophi quomodo iudicaverint de precibus, Giessen,
1907.
16. For instance, the hymn "which the magi sung" about
the steeds of the supreme god; its contents are given by Dion
Chrysostom, Orat., XXXVI, 39 (see Mon, myst. Mithra, I. p.
298; II, p. 60).
17. I have in inind the hymns of Cleanthes (Von Arnim,
Stoic. fragm., I, Nos. 527, 537), also Demetrius's act of re-
nunciation in Seneca, De Provid., V, 5, which bears a sur-
prising resemblance to one of the most famous Christian pray-
ers, the Suscipe of Saint Ignatius which concludes the book
of Spiritual Exercises (Delehaye, Les légendes hagiogra-
phiques, 1905, p. 170, n. 1).-In this connection we ought to
mention the prayer translated in the Asclepius, the Greek text
218
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
of which has recently been found on a papyrus (Reitzenstein,
Archiv für Religionswiss., VII, 1904, p. 395). On pagan pray-
ers introduced into the Christian liturgy see Reitzenstein and
Wendland, Nachrichten Gęs. Wiss., Göttingen, 1910, pp. 325 ff.
18. This point has been studied more in detail in our Monu-
arents relatifs aux mystères de Mithra, from which we have
taken parts of the following observations (I, pp. 21 ff.).
19. Lucian's authorship of the treatise IIepi rñs Lupins DeoŨ
has been questioned but wrongly; see Maurice Croiset, Essai
sur Lucien, 1882, pp. 63, 204. I am glad to be able to cite the
high authority of Nöldeke in favor of its authenticity. Nöl-
deke writes me on this subject : "Ich habe jeden Zweifel daran
schon lange aufgegeben. ... Ich habe lange den Plan gehabt,
cinen Commentar zu diesem immerhin recht lehrreichen Stück
zu schreiben and viel Material dazu gesammelt. Aus der An-
nahme der Echtheit dieser Schrift ergiebt sich mir, dass auch
das Περί αστρονομίας echt ist.
20. Cf. Frisch, De compositione libri Plutarchei qui inscri-
bitur, IIepi ''Ioidos, Leipsic, 1906, and the observations of Neu-
stadt, Berl. Philol. Wochenschr., 1907, p. 1117.-One of Plu-
tarch's sources is the 'Iovdačká by Apion. --See also Scott Mon-
crieft, J.ourn. of Hell. Studies, XIX, 1909, p. 81.
21. See ch. VII, pp. 202-203.
22. Cf. Mon myst. Mithra, I, p. 75, p. 219.–For Egypt see
Georges Foucart, "L'art et la religion dans l'ancienne Egypte,"
Revue des idées, Nov. 15, 1908,
23. The narrative and symbolic sculpture of the Oriental
cults was a preparation for that of the Middle Ages, and many
remarks in Mâle's beautiful book L'Art die XIII° siècle en
France, can be applied to the art of dying paganism.
II. WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Boissier, La religion romaine d'Auguste aux
Antonins, especially Bk. II, ch. II.-Jean Réville, La religion
à Rome sous les Sévères, Paris, 1886.-Wissowa, Religion and
Cultus der Römer, Munich, 1902, pp. 71 ff., 289 ff.-Samuel
Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, London,
1905.-Bigg, The Church's Task Under the Roman Empire,
NOTES-WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD. 219
Oxford, 1905.-Cf. also Gruppe, Griech. Mythologie und Reli-
gionsgeschichte, 1906, pp. 1519 ff.-Wendland, Die hellenistisch-
römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zum Judentum und zum
Christentum, Tübingen, 1907, pp. 54 f.—The monographs will
be cited in connection with the different cults which they treat.
I. Mélanges Fredericq, Brussels, 1904, pp. 63 ff. (Pourquoi
le latin fut la seule langue liturgique de l'Occident); cf. the
observations of Lejay, Rev. d'hist. et litt. relig., XI, 1906, p.
370.
2. Holl, Volkssprache in Kleinasier (Hermes, 1908, pp,
250 ff.).
3. The volume of Hahn, Rom und Romanismus im grie-
chisch-römischen Osten bis auf die Zeit Hadrians (Leipsic,
1906) discusses a period for the most part prior to the onc
that interests us. On the period following we have nothing
but a provisional sketch by the same author, Ronianismus und
Hellenismus bis auf die Zeit Justinians (Philologus, Suppl. X),
1907.
4. Cf. Tacitus, Annales, XIV, 44: “Nationes in familiis habe-
mus quibus diversi ritus, externa sacra aut nulla sunt.”
5. S. Reinach, Epona (Extr. Rev. archéol.). 1895.
6. The theory of the degeneration of races has been set
forth in particular by Stewart Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen
des XIX. Jahrhunderts, 3d. ed., Munich, 1901, pp. 296 ff.—The
idea of selection by retrogression, of the Ausrottung der Bes-
ten, has been defended, as is well known, by Seeck in his
Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, which outlines
the religious consequencé (II, p. 344). His system is developed
in the third volume which appeared in 1909.
7. Apuleius, Metam., XI, 14 ff. See Preface. Manilius said
of the divine stars (IV, 910; cf. II, 125);
"Ipse vocat nostros animos ad sidera mundus."
8. Hepding, Attis, pp. 178 ff., 187.
9. The intimate connection between the juridical and re-
ligious ideas of the Romans has left numerous traces even in
their language. One of the most curious is the double mean-
ing of the term suppliciun, which stands at the same time for
a supplication addressed to the gods and a punishment de-
220
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
manded by custom, and later by law. In regard to the devel-
opment of this twofold meaning, see the recent note by Richard
Heinze, Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie, XV, pp. 90 ff.
Sematology is often synonymous with the study of customs.
10. Réville, op. cit., p. 144.
II. On ecstasy in the mysteries in general, cf. Rohde, Psyche,
2d ed., pp. 315-319; in the Oriental religions cf. De Jong,
De Apuleio Isiacorum mysteriorum teste, 1900, p. 100; De
Jong, Das antike Mysterienwesen, Leyden, 1909. Mon, myst.
Mithra, I, p. 323.
12. Firmicus Maternus mentioned this in De errore prof.
relig., c. 8.
13. For Babylonia, cf. Strab., XVI, 1, $ 6, and infra, ch. V,
n. 51; for Egypt, id., XVII, 21, § 46. From the very interesting
account Otto has written of the science of the Egyptian priests
during the Hellenistic period (Priester und Tempel, II, pp.
211 ff.; 234), it appears that it remained quite worthy of
consideration although progress had ceased.
14. Strabo, loc. cit. : 'Avatıdéao' dè Tŷ 'Epuñ trãoav TÌv tolavtñv
ooplav; Pliny, Hist. nat., VI, 26, § 121: "(Belus) inventor fuit
sideralis scientiae”; cf. Solinus, 56, §3; Achilles, Isag., I
(Maass, Comm. in Arat., p. 27): Bń w rhv eŰpeol ávalévres,
Let us remember that Hammurabi's code was represented as
the work of Marduk.-In a general way, the gods are the
authors of all inventions useful to humanity; cf. Reitzenstein,
Poimandres, 1904, p. 123; Deissmann, Licht von Osten, 91 ff.
Likewise in the Occident: CIL, VII, 759 = Bücheler, Carm.
epigr., 24: “(Dea Syria) ex quis muneribus nosse contigit
deos,” etc., cf. Plut., Crass., 17. — “Religion im Sinne des
Orients ist die Erklärung alles dessen was ist, also eine Welt-
auffassung" (Winckler, Himmelsbild der Babylonier, 1903, p. 9).
15. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 312. — Manicheism likewise
brought a complete cosmological system from Babylonia.
Saint Augustine criticizes the book of that sect for containing
long dissertations and absurd stories about matters that have
nothing at all to do with salvation; see my Recherches sur le
manichéisme, 1908, p. 53.
16. Cf. Porphyry, Epist. Aneb., 11; Jambl., De myst., II, II.
NOTES-WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD,
17. This upright character of the Roman religion has been
thoroughly expounded by G. Boissier (op. cit., I, 30 ff, 373 ff).
See also the remarks by Bailey, Religion of Ancient Rome,
London, 1907, pp. 103 ff.
18. Varro in Augustine De civ. Dei, IV, 27; VI, 5; cf. Varro,
Antiq. rerum divin., ed. Aghad, pp. 145 ff. The same distinc-
tion between the religion of the poets, of the legislators and
of the philosophers has been made by Plutarch, Amatorius,
18, p. 763 C. The author of this division is Posidonius of
Apamea. See Diels, Doxographi Graeci, p. 295, 10, and Wend.
land, Archiv für Gesch. der Philos., I, pp. 200 ff.
19. Luterbacher, Der Prodigienglaube der Römer, Burgdorf,
1904.
20. Juvenal, II, 149; cf. Diodorus, I, 93, $3. Cf. Plutarch
also in speaking of future punishment (Non posse suaviter vivi,
C. 26, P. 1104 C-E: Quo modo poetas aud., C. 2, P. 17 C-E; Con-
sol. ad Apollon., c. 10, p. 106 F), “nous laisse entendre que
pour la plupart de ses contemporains ce sont là des contes de
nourrice qui ne peuvent effrayer que des enfants" (Decharme,
Traditions religieuses chez les Grecs, 1904, p. 442).
21. Aug., Civ. Dei, VI, 2; Varro, Antiqu., ed. Aghad, 141;
"Se timere ne (dii) pereant non incursu hostili sed civium
neglegentia."
22. I have developed this point in my Mon, myst. Mithra, I,
Pp. 279 ff.
23. In Greece the Oriental cults expanded much less than in
any other religion, because the Hellenic mysteries, especially
those of Eleusis, taught similar doctrines and satisfied the re-
ligious needs.
24. The development of the "ritual of purification” has been
broadly expounded in its entirety, by Farnell in The Evolution
of Religion, 1905, pp. 88 ff.
25. We shall mention this subject again when speaking of
the taurobolium in ch. III, pp. 67 ff.
26. We cannot dwell here upon the various forms assumed
by that purifying rite of the Oriental mysteries. Often these
forms remained quite primitive, and the idea that inspired
them is still clear, as where Juvenal (VI, 521 f.) pictures the
222
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
worshiper of the Magna Mater divesting himself of his beauti-
ful garments and giving them to the archigallus to wipe out
all the misdeeds of the year (ut totum semel expiet annum).
The idea of a mechanical transfer of the pollution by relin-
quishing the clothes is frequent among savages; see Farnell,
op. cit., p. 117; also Frazer, Golden Bough, I’, p. 60.
27. Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, pp. 157 ff.; Hepding,
Attis, pp. 194 ff.-Cf. Frazer, Golden Bough, III pp. 424 ff
28. Cf. Augustine Civit. Dei, X, 28: "Confiteris tamen (sc.
Porphyrius) etiam spiritalem animam sine theurgicis artibus
et sine teletis quibus frustra discendis elaborasti, posse con-
tinentiae virtute purgari,” cf. ibid., X, 23 and infra, ch. VIII,
11. 24.
29. Here we can only touch upon a subject of very great
interest. Porphyry's treatise De abstinentia offers a' fuller
treatment than is often possible in this kind of studies.-See
Farnell, op. cit., pp. 154 ff.
30. On éconolóynois in the religions of Asia Minor, cf. Ram-
say, Cities, I, p. 134, p. 152, and Chapot, La province romaine
d'Asie, 1904, pp. 509 ff. See also Crusius, "Paroemiographica,”
Sitzungsb. Bayr. Akad., 1910, p. 111.
31. Menander in Porphyry De abstin., II, 15; cf. Plutarch,
De Superstit., 7, p. 168 D.; Tertullian, De Paenit., c. 9.-Re-
garding the sacred fishes of Atargatis, see infra, ch. V.-In
Apuleius (Met. VIII, 28) the gallus of the goddess loudly
accuses himself of his crime and punishes himself by flagel-
lation. See Gruppe, Griech. Myth., D. 1545; Farnell, Evol. of
Religion, p. 55.—As a matter of fact, the confession of sin is
an old religious tradition dating back to the Babylonians; cf.
Lagrange, Religions sémit., p. 225 ff. Schrank, Babylonische
Sühnriten, 1909, p. 46.
32. Juvenal, VI, 523 ff., 537 ff.; cf. Seneca, Vit. beat.,
XXVI, 8.
33. On liturgic feasts in the religion of Cybele: infra, ch.
II; in the mysteries of Mithra: Mon. myst. Mithra, I. p. 320;
in the Syrian cults: ch. V, n. 37. See in general, Hepding,
Attis, pp. 185 ff.
34. We know according to Herbert Spencer that the pro-
NOTES-ASIA MINOR.
223
TUID
gressive differentiation of the ecclestiastic and lay functions is
one of the characteristics of religious evolution. In this re-
gard Rome was far behind the Orient.
35. An essential result of the researches of Otto (op. cit.)
is the proof of the opposition existing in Egypt since the
Ptolemies between the hierarchic organization of the Egyptian
clergy and the almost anarchical autonomy of the Greek
priests. See our remarks on the clergy of Isis and the Galli.
On the Mithraic hierarchy see our Mysteries of Mithra, Chi-
cago, 1903, p. 165.
36. The development of the conceptions of "salvation" and
"saviour" after the Hellenistic period has been studied by
Wendland, Ewrp (Zeitschrift für neutestam. Wissensch., V,
1904, pp. 335 ff.). See also Lietzmann, Der Weltheiland, Bonn,
1909. W. Otto, "Augustus Ewrue," Hermes, XLV, 1910, pp.
448 ff.
37. Later on we shall expound the two principal doctrines,
that of the Egyptian religions (identification with Osiris, god
of the dead), and that of the Syrian and Persian religions
(ascension into heaven).
38. At that time man's fate after death was the one great
interest. An interesting example of the power of this idea is
furnished by Arnobius. He became converted to Christianity
because, according to his peculiar psychology, he feared that
his soul night die, and believed that Christ alone could protect
him against final annihilation (cf. Bardenhewer, Gesch, der
altkirchlichen Literatur, II, 1903, p. 470.
39. Lucretius had expressed this conviction (II, 1170 ff.).
It spread to the end of the empire as disasters multiplied;
cf. Rev. de philologie, 1897, p. 152.
40. Boissier, Rel. rom., 1, . 359; Friedländer, Sittengesch.,
I', pp. 500 ff.
III. ASIA MINOR. .
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Jean Réville, La religion à Rome sous les
Sévères, pp. 62 ff.-Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon der Mythol.,
S. V. “Meter," II, 2932.-Wissowa, Religion und Cultus der
Römer, pp. 263 ff., where the earlier bibliography will be found,
224
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
D. 271.-Showerman, "The Great Mother of the Gods" (Bulle-
tin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 43), Madison, 1901.-
Hepding, Attis, seine Mythen und sein Kult, Giessen, 1903.-
Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, London,
1905, pp. 547 ff.-Gruppe, Griech. Mythologie, 1906, pp. 1521 ff.
Eisele, “Die phrygischen Kulte," Neue Jahrb. für das klass.
Altertum, XXIII, 1909, pp. 620 ff.
For a number of years Henri Graillot has been collecting the
monuments of the religion of Cybele with a view to publishing -
them in their entirety.-Numerous remarks on the Phrygian
religion will be found in the works and articles of Ramsay,
especially in Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 1895, and
Studies in the Eastern Roman Provinces, 1906.
I. Arrien, fr. 30 (FGH, III, p. 592). Cf. our Studia Pon-
tica, 1905, pp. 172 ff., and Statius, Achill., II, 345: "Phrygas
lucos....vetitasque solo, procumbere pinus”; Virg., Aen., IX,
85.
2. Lion; cf. S. Reinach, Mythes, cultes, I, p. 293. The lion,
represented in Asia Minor at a very remote period as de-
vouring a bull or other animals, might possibly represent the
sacred animal of Lydia or Phrygia vanquishing the protecting
totem of the tribes of Cappadocia or the neighboring countries
(I am using the term totem in its broadest meaning). This
at least is the interpretation given to similar groups in Egypt.
Cf. Foucart, La méthode comparat. et l'histoire des religions,
1909, p. 49, p. 70.
3. IIótvia Anpôv. On this title, cf. Radet, Revue des études
anciennes, X, 1908, pp. 110 ff. The most ancient type of the
goddess, a winged figure leading lions, is known from monu-
ments dating back to the period of the Mermnadi (687-546
B. C.),
4. Cf. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, I, p. 7, P. 94.
5. Foucart, Le culte de Dionysos en Attique (Extract from
the Mém. Acad. Inscr., XXXVII), 1904, pp. 22 ff.-The Thra-
cians also seem to have spread, in Asia Minor, the cult of the
"riding god" which existed until the beginning of the Roman
period; cf. Remy, Le Musée belge, XI, 1907, PP. 136 ff.
6. Catullus, LXIII.
NOTES_ASIA MINOR.
225
7. The development of these mysteries has been well ex-
pounded by Hepding, pp. 177 ff. (see Gruppe, Gr. Myth., p.
1544).—Ramsay has recently commented upon inscriptions of
Phrygian mystics, united by the knowledge of certain secret
signs (Tékuwp); cf. Studies in the Eastern Roman Provinces,
1906, pp. 346 ff.
8. Dig., XLVIII, 8, 4, 2: "Nemo liberum servumve invitum
sinentemve castrare debet.” Cf. Mommsen, Strafrecht, p. 637.
9. Diodorus, XXXVI, 6; cf. Plutarch, Marius, 17.
10. Cf. Hepding, op. cit., p. 142.
II. Cf. chap. VI.
12. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 291.
13. Hepding, op. cit., pp. 145 ff. Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, Real-
enc., s. v. “Dendrophori," V, col. 216 and Suppl., col, 225,
S. V. “Attis.”
14. Cf. Tacitus, Annales, XI, 15.
15. This opinion has recently been defended by Showerman,
Classical Journal, II, 1906, p. 29.
16. Frazer, The Golden Bough, II”, PP. 130 ff.
17. Hepding, pp. 160 ff. Cf. the texts of Ambrosiaster cited
in Rev. hist. et litt. relig., VIII, 1903, p. 423, n. 1,
18. Hepding, p. 193. Cf. Gruppe, p. 1541.
19. On this diffusion, cf. Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v.
"Meter," col. 918.
20. Gregory of Tours, De glor. confess., c. 76. Cf. Passio
S: Symphoriani in Ruinart, Acta sinc., ed. of 1859, p. 125. The
carpentum mentioned in these texts is found in Africa; cf.
CIL, VIII, 8457, and Graillot, Rev. archéol., 1904, I, p. 353 ;
Hepding, op. cit., p. 173, n. 7.
21. θαρρείτε μύσται του θεού σεσωσμένου | έσται γάρ υμίν εκ πόνων
owonpla; cf. Hepding, op. cit., p. 167.--Attis has become a god
through his death (see Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 93), and
in the same way were his votaries to become the equals of the
divinity through death. The Phrygian epitaphs frequently
have the character of dedications, and it appears that the
graves were grouped about the temple, see Ramsay, Studies,
pp. 65 ff., 271 ff., passim.
226
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
published the Mother vereen Suec., XIV -Maybe the
22. Perdrizet, Bull. corr, hell., XIX, 1905, p. 534 ff.
23. We know of those beliefs of the Sabaziasts from the
frescoes in the catacombs of Praetextatus; the Mercurius
nuntius, who leads the dead, is found beside Attis under the
Greek name of Hermes (see Hepding, p. 263).-Maybe the
inscription CIL, VI, 509 = Inscr. graec., XIV, 1018, should
be completed : 'Peln ['Epuñ] te yevéolw; cf. CIL, VI, 499. Her-
mes appears beside the Mother of the gods on a bas-relief by
Ouchak published by Michon, Rev. des études anciennes, 1906,
P. 185, pl. II. See also Mendel, “Musée de Brousse," Bull.
corr, hell., 1909, p. 255.—The Thracian Hermes is mentioned
in Herodotus, see Maury, Rel. de la Grèce, III, p. 136.
24. Besides Bellona-Ma, subordinate to Cybele and Sabazius,
who was as much Jewish as Phrygian, there was only one
god of Asia Minor, the Zeus Bronton (the Thunderer) of
Phrygia, prominently mentioned in Roman epigraphy. See
Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., $. V. and Suppl. I, col. 258.
25. Cf. CIL, VI, 499: “Attidi menotyranno invicto.” “In-
victus" is the characteristic epithet of the solar divinities.
26. P. Perdrizet, "Mèn” (Bull. corr. hell., XX), 1896; Drex-
ler in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v., II, col. 2687.
27. CIL, VI, 50 = Inscr. graec., XIV, 1018.
28. Schürer, Sitzungsb. Akad. Berlin, XIII, 1897, p. 200 f.
and our Hypsistos (Suppl. Revule instr. publ. en Belgique),
1897.
29. The term is taken from the terminology of the mys-
teries: the inscription cited dates back to 370 A. D. In 364, in
connection with Eleusis, Agorius Praetextatus spoke of ouvé-
xorta to åv páTTELOV yévos aylátata Muothpla (Zozimus, IV, 3,
2). Earlier the “Chaldean oracles" applied to the intelligible god
the term untpa ouvéxovoa tà mávra (Kroll, De orac. Chaldeicis,
p. 19).
30. Henri Graillot, Les dieux Tout-puissants, Cybèle et Attis
(Revue archéol., 1904, I), pp.. 331 ff.—Graillot is rather in-
clined to admit a Christian influence, but onnipotentes was
used as a liturgic epithet in 288 A. D., and at about the same
date Arnobius (VII, 32) made use of the periphrasis oinni-
potentia lumina to designate the Phrygian gods, and he cer-
NOTES-ASIA MINOR.
227
LUO
tainly was understood by all. This proves that the use of that
periphrasis was general, and that it must have dated back to
a much earlier period. As a matter of fact a dedication has
been found at Delos, reading Alì tớ Távrwv kpatoūvti kaì Mnopi
upyáhni tījl TávTWV kparovon (Bull. corr, hellén., 1882, p. 502, No.
25), that reminds the reader of the Tavtokpátwp of the Septu-
gint; and Graillot (loc. cit., p. 328, n. 7) justly observes, in this
connection, that on certain bas-reliefs Cybele was united with
the Theos Hypsistos, that is to say, the god of Israel; see
Perdrizet, Bull. corr, hell., XXIII, 1899, p. 598. On the in-
fluence of Judaism on the cult of Men cf. Sam. Wide, Archiv
für Religionsw., 1909, p. 227.-On the omnipotence of the
Syrian gods, see ch. V, pp. 128 ff.
31. We are here giving the substance of a short essay on
"Les mystères de Sabazius et le judaïsme," published in the
Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., Febr. 9, 1906, pp. 63 ff. Cf. "A
propos de Sabazius," Musée belge, XIV, 1910, pp. 56 ff.
32. Cf. Monuments myst. de Mithra, I, p. 333 f. The very
early assimilation of Cybele and Anahita justifies to a certain
extent the unwarranted practice of calling Cybele the Persian
Artemis. See Radet, Revue des études anciennes, X, 1908, p.
157. The pagan theologians often considered Attis as the
primeval man whose death brought about the creation, and so
they likened him to the Mazdean Gayomart, see Bousset,
Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 1907, pp. 184 ff.
33. Prudentius, Peristeph., X, 1011 f.
34. Their meaning has been revealed through an inscription
at Pergamum published by Schröder, Athen. Mitt., 1904, pp.
152 ff.; cf. Revue archéologique, 1905, I, pp. 29 ff.—The ideas
on the development of that ceremony, which we are summar-
izing here, have been expounded by us more fully in the
Revue archéologique, 1888, II, pp. 132ff.; Mon, myst. de Mithra,
I, pp. 334 ff.; Revue d'histoire et de litt. relig., VI, 1901, p. 97.-
Although the conclusions of the last article have been con-
tested by Hepding (op. cit., 70 f.), it cannot be doubted that
the taurobolium was already practised in Asia Minor, in the
cult of the Ma-Bellona. "Moore (American Journal of Arche-
ology, 1905, p. 71) justly refers to the text of Steph. Byz., in
this connection: MisTaopa kaAello đề cai Pía Mã Kai Taũook airm
228
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Oveto papà Audous. The relation between the cult of Ma and
that of Mithra is shown in the epithet of 'Avelkytos, given to
the goddess as well as to the god; see Athen. Mitt., XXIX,
1904, p. 169, and Keil, und von Premerstein, “Reise in Lydien,"
Denkschr. Akad. Wien, 1908, p. 28 (inscription of the Hyr-
kanis plain).
35. Prudentius, Peristeph., 1027: Pectus sacrato dividunt ve-
nabulo." The harpé shown on the taurobolic altars, is perhaps
in reality a boar-spear having a kind of hilt (1910ra; cf. Grat-
tius, Cyneg., 110) to prevent the blade from entering too far.
36. Hepding, pp. 196 ff.; cf. supra, n. 21.
37. CIL, VI, 510, = Dessau, Inscr, sel., 4152. Cf. Gruppe,
Griech. Myth., p. 1541, n. 7.
38. Hepding, pp. 186 ff.
39. CIL, VI, 499: “Dii animae mentisque custodes.” Cf. 512:
“Diis magnis et tutatoribus suis,” and CIL, XII, 1277, where
Bel is called mentis magister.
40. Hippolytus, Refut. haeres., V, 9.
41. Julien, Or., V; cf. Paul Allard, Julien l'Apostat, II, PP.
246 ff.; Mau, Die Religionsphilosophie Kaiser Julians, 1908, pp.
90 ff. Proclus also devoted a philosophic commentary to the
Cybele myth (Marinus, Vita Procli, 34).
42. Regarding all this see Revue d'histoire et de littérat.
relig., VIII, 1903, pp. 423, ff.–Frazer (Osiris, Attis, Adonis,
1907, pp. 256 ff.) has recently defended the position that the
commemoration of the death of Christ was placed by a great
many churches upon March 25th to replace the celebration of
Attis's death on the same date, just as Christmas has been
substituted for the Natalis Invicti. The text of Ambrosiaster
cited in our article (Pseudo Augustin, Quaest, veter. Test,
LXXXIV, 3, p. 145, 13, Souter ed.) shows that this was as-
serted even in antiquity.
IV. EGYPT
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lafaye, Histoire du culte des divinités d'Ale-
xandrie hors de l'Egypte, Paris, 1884, and article "Isis" in
Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionn. des antiquités, III, 1899,
NOTES-EGYPT.
229
where may be found (P. 586) an index of the earlier works.-
Drexler, art. "Isis” in Roscher, Lexikon der Mythol., II, p.
373-548.-Réville, op. cit., pp. 54 ff.-Wissowa, op. cit., pp.
292 ff.–Dill, op. cit., pp. 560 ff.—Gruppe, Griechische Mytho-
logie und Religionsgesch., pp. 1563-1581 (published after the
revision of this chapter).--The study of the Roman cult of
the Alexandrian gods is inseparable from that of the Egyptian
religion. It would be impossible to furnish a bibliography of
the latter here. We shall only refer the reader to the general
and Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient, 1895 (passim).
-Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, London,
1897 [cf. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, "Religion of
Egypt,” V, pp. 177-197].—Erman, Die ägyptische Religion,
Berlin, 1910.-Naville, La religion des anciens Egyptiens (six
lectures delivered at the Collège de France), 1906.-W. Otto,
Priester und Tempel im hellenistischen Aegypten, 2 vols., 1905,
1908.—The publication of a Bulletin critique des religions de
l’Egypte by Jean Capart, begun in the Rev. de l'hist. des reli-
gions (LI, 1905, pp. 192 ff.; LIII, 1906, pp. 307 ff.; 1909, pp.
162 ff.).
1. Cf. on this controversy Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire des
Lagides, I, p. 102; S. Reinach, Cultes, Mythes et Religions, II,
pp. 347 f.; Lehmann, Beiträge zur alten Geschichte, IV, 1904,
pp. 396 ff.; Wilcken, Archiv f. Papyrusforschung, III, 1904,
pp. 249 ff.; Otto, Priester und Tempel, I, 1905, pp. II ff.;
Gruppe, loc. cit., pp. 1578 ff.; Petersen, Die Serapislegende,
1910, pp. 47 ff.; Schmidt, Kultübertragungen, 1910, PP. 47 ff.
2. Herodotus, II, 42, 171.-Cf. 11. 4.
3. Ælius Aristides, VIII, 56 (I, p. 96, ed. Dindorf). Cf.
Plut., De Iside et Osiride, ed. Parthey, p. 216.
4. Plut., De Is. et Osir., 28; cf. Otto, Priester und Tempel,
II, PP. 215 ff. - This Timotheus is undoubtedly the same
one that wrote about the Phrygian mysteries; see infra, n.
form ascribed to it by Plutarch and Apuleius immediately
after its creation, is still unsettled; see Otto, Priester und
Tempel, II, p. 222. We do not appear to have any direct
proof of the existence of "mysteries" of Isis and Serapis
230
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
prior to the Empire, but all probabilities are in favor of a
more ancient origin, and the mysteries were undoubtedly
connected with the ancient Egyptian esoterism.-See infra,
n. 78.
5. Diogenes Laertius, V, 5, $76: "Odev kaì Toùc malāvas molñoal
ToùS MÉXpe vūvą douévous. The pé xPL vūv Diogenes took undoubtedly
from his source, Didymus. See Artemidorus, Onirocr., II, 44 (p.
143, 25 Hercher). This information is explicitly confirmed
by an inscription which mentions of iepà tážis tūV Talavlotāv
(Inscr. Graec., XIV, 1034).
6. Kaibel, Epigr. 1028 = Abel, Orphica, p. 295, etc.-See
supra, ch. I, n. 14.-According to recent opinion, M. de Wila-
mowitz was good enough to write me, the date of the Andros
hıymn cannot have been later than the period of Cicero, and it
is very probably contemporary with Sulla.--See silpra, ch. I,
11. 14.-On other similar texts, see Gruppe, Griech. Mythol.,
p. 1563.
7. Amelung, Le Sérapis de Bryaxis (Revue archéol, 1903,
II), D. 178.
8. P. Foucart, Le culte de Dionysos en Attique (Mém. Acad.
des Inscr., XXXVII), 1904. On the Isis cult in ancient
Greece, we can now refer to Gruppe, Griech. Myth., pp. 1565
ff.; Ruhl, De Sarapide et Iside in Graecia cultis (Diss. Berlin)
1906, has made careful use of the epigraphic texts dating
back to the time before the Roman period.
9. The only exception is the Zeus Ammon, who was only
half Egyptian and owed his very early adoption to the Greek
colonies of Cyrene; see Gruppe, Griech. Myth., p. 1558. The
addition of other goddesses, like Nephtis or Bubastis to Isis
is exceptional.
10. Concerning the impression which Egypt made on trav-
elers, see Friedländer, Sittengesch., II', 144 ff.; Otto, Priester
und Tempel, II, p. 210.
II. Juvenal, XV, 10, and the notes of Friedländer on these
passages.—The Athenian comic writers frequently made fun
of the Egyptian zoolatry (Lafaye, op. cit., p. 32). Philo of
Alexandria considered the Egyptians as the most idolatrous
heathens and he attacked their animal worship, in particular
NOTES-EGYPT.
231
(De Decal., 16, II, p. 193 M., and passim). The pagan writers
were no less scandalized (Cicero, Nat. deor., III, 15, etc.) ex-
cept where they preferred to apply their ingenuity to justify
it. See Dill, loc. cit., p. 571.—The features of this cult in
ancient Egypt have been recently studied by George Foucart,
Revue des idées, Nov. 15, 1908, and La méthode coinparative
et l'histoire des religions, 1909, pp. 43 ff.
12. Macrobius, Sat., I, 20, $ 16.
13. Holm, Gesch. Siziliens, I, p. 81.
14. Libanius, Or., XI, 114 (I, p. 473 Förster). Cf. Drexler
in Roscher, op. cit., col. 378.
15. Pausan., I, 18, 4: Eapámidos 8v napà II roleualou Dedy cion-
gáyovto. Ruhl (op. cit., p. 4) attaches no historic value to this
text, but, as he points out himself, we have proof that an
official Isis cult existed at Athens under Ptolemy Soter, and
that Serapis was worshiped in that city at the beginning of
the third century.
16. Dittenberger, Or. gr. inscr. sel., No. 16.
17. Apul., Metam., XI, 17.
18. Thus it is found to be the case from the first half of
the third century at Thera, a naval station of the Ptolemies
(Hiller von Gärtringen, Thera, III, pp. 85 ff.; cf. Ruhl, op. cit.,
P. 59), and also at Rhodes (Rev. archéol., 1905, I, p. 341).
Cult of Serapis at Delos, cf. Comptes rendus Acad. inscr., 1910,
pp. 294 ff.
19. A number of proofs of its diffusion have been collected
by Drexler, loc. cit., p. 379. See Lafaye, “Isis" (cf. supra),
P. 577; and Ruhl, De Sarapide et Iside in Graecia cultis, 1906.
20. This interpretation has already been proposed by Ra-
vaisson (Gasette archéologique, I, pp. 55 ff.), and I believe it
to be correct, see Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1906, p. 75, n. I.
21. The power of the Egyptian cult in the Oriental half of
the empire has been clearly shown by von Domaszewski (Röm.
Mitt., XVII, 1902, pp. 333 ff.), but perhaps with some exag-
geration. All will endorse the restrictions formulated by Har-
nack, Ausbreitung des Christentums, II, p. 274.
22. The very early spread of Orphic doctrines in Magna
Graecia, evidenced by the tablets of Sybaris and Petilia (Diels,
232
• THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Vorsokratiker, II”, p. 480) must have prepared the way for it.
These tablets possess many points in common with the eschato-
logical beliefs of Egypt, but, as their latest commentator justly
remarks (Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Re-
ligion, p. 624), these new ideas are fairly overwhelmed in the
old mythology. The mysteries of Isis and Serapis seemed to
offer a revelation that had been a presentiment for a long
time, and the affirmation of a truth foreshadowed by early
symbols.
23. CIL, X, 1781, I, 15-6.
24. Apul., Meta111., XI, 30.
25. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 292-3; cf. Seeck, Hermes, XLIII,
1908, p. 642.
26. Manicheism was later persecuted on a similar pretext,
see Collat. Mos. et Rom. leg., 15, 3, § 4: “De Persica adver-
saria nobis gente progressa."
27. A full list of the inscriptions and monuments discovered
in the various cities is given by Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon,
S. V. "Isis," II, col. 409 ff.
28. Hirschfeld, CIL, XII, p. 382, and Wiener Studien, V,
1883, pp. 319-322.
29. Cf. Wissowa, op. cit., pp. 294 ff. :
30. Minuc. Fel., Octav. 22, 2: "Haec Ægyptia quondam nunc
et sacra Romana sunt.”
31. Carmen contra paganos (Anthol. lat., ed. Riese, I, 20 ff.)
V. 91, 95 ff.; cf. Ps. Aug., Quaest. Vet. Test., CXIV, II (p. 308,
10 Souter), and Rev. hist. litt. relig., VIII, 1903, p. 422, n. I.
32. Rufin, II, 24: "Caput ipsum idolatriae.” A miniature
from an Alexandrian chronicle shows the patriarch Theophilus,
crowned with a halo, stamping the Serapeum under foot, see
Bauer and Strzygowski, Eine alexandrinische Weltchronik
(Denkschr. Akad. Wien, LI), 1905, to the year 391, PP: 70 ff.,
122, and pl. VI.
33. Cf. Drexler in Roscher, s. v. "Isis," II, p. 425; Harnack,
Ausbreitung des Christentums, II, pp. 147 ff.Some curious
details showing the persistence of the Isis cult among the pro-
fessors and students of Alexandria during the last years of the
NOTES-EGYPT.
233
fifth century are given in the life of Severus of Antioch by
Zachariah the Scholastic (Patrol. orient., I, ed. Kugener), pp.
17 ff., 27 ff.
34. Ps.-Apul., 34. Compare with a similar prophecy in the
Sibylline oracles, V, 184 f. (p. 127, Geffcken ed.).
35. Iseum of Beneventum; cf. Notizie debgli scavi di ant.,
1904, pp. 107 ff. Iseum of the Campus Martius: see Lanciani,
Bollet. communale di Roma, 1883, pp. 33 ff.; Marucchi, ibid.,
1890, pp. 307 f.—The signa Memphitica (made of Memphian
marble), are mentioned in an inscription (Dessau, Inscr. sel.,
4367-8).—The term used in connection with Caracalla : "Sacra
Isidis Romam deportavit," which Spartianus (Carac., 9; cf.
Aur. Vict., Cæs., 21, 4) no longer understood, also seems to
refer to a transfer of sacred Egyptian monuments. At Delos
a statue of a singer taken from some grave of the Sais period
had been placed in the temple. Everything Egyptian was
looked upon as sacred. (Ruhl, op. cit., p. 53).
36. Gregorovius, Gesch. des Kaisers Hadrian, pp. 222 ff.; cf.
Drexler, loc. cit., p. 410.
37. The term is Wiedemann's.
38. Naville, op. cit., pp. 89 ff.
39. On the lepoypaulateús Cheremon, see Otto, Priester und
Tempel II, p. 216; Schwartz in Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., III,
col. 2025 ff.
40. Doctrines of Plutarch: cf. Decharme, Traditions reli-
gieuses chez les Grecs, pp. 486 ff. and supra, ch. I, n. 20.
41. I did not mention Hermetism, made prominent by the
researches of Reitzenstein, because I believe its influence in
the Occident to have been purely literary. To my knowledge
there is no trace in the Latin world of an Hermetic sect with
a clergy and following. The Heliognostae or Deinvictiaci who,
in Gaul, attempted to assimilate the native Mercury with the
Egyptian Thoth, (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 49, 11. 2; cf. 359),
were Christian gnostics. I believe that Reitzenstein misunder-
stood the facts when he stated (Wundererzählungen, 1906, p.
128): "Die hermetische Literatur ist im zweiten und dritten
Jahrhundert für alle religiös-interessierten der allgemeine
Ausdruck der Frömmigkeit geworden.” I believe that Her-
234
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
metism, which is used as a label for doctrines of very dif-
ferent origin, was influenced by "the universal spirit of de-
votion," and was not its creator. It was the result of a long
continued effort to reconcile the Egyptian traditions first with
Chaldean astrology, then with Greek philosophy, and it be-
came transformed simultaneously with the philosophy. But
this subject would demand extended development. It is ad-
mitted by Otto, the second volume of whose book has been
published since the writing of these lines, that not even dur-
ing the Hellenistic period was there enough theological activ-
ity of the Egyptian clergy to influence the religion of the
times. (Priester und Tempel, II, pp. 218-220).
42. Plut., De Isid., 9.
43. Apul., Metam., XI, 5.
44. CIL, X, 3800 = Dessau, Inscr. sel., 4362.
45. See the opening pages of this chapter.
46. Plut,. De Iside et Osir., 52; cf. Hermes Trismegistus,
"Opoi 'Aokhnalov, C. 16; and Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 197.
47. Cf. Naville, op. cit., pp. 170 ff.
48. Juv., VI, 489: "Isiacae sacraria lenae”; cf. Friedländer,
Sittengeschichte, I, p. 502.
49. In a recent book Farnell has brilliantly outlined the his-
tory of the ritual of purification and that of the conception of
purity throughout antiquity (Evolution of Religion, London,
1905, pp. 88-192), but unfortunately he has not taken Egypt
into account where the primitive forms have been maintained
with perhaps the fewest alterations.
50. Juv., VI, 522 ff.
51. Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, I, p. 510.-On this trans-
formation of the Isis cult, cf. Réville, op. cit., p. 56.
52. Plut., De Iside, c. 2; cf. Apul., Met., XI, 6, end.
53. Ælius Arist., In Sarap., 25 (II, p. 359, Keil ed.); see
Diodorus, I, 93, and Apuleius, XI, 6, end.—On future rewards
and punishments in Hermetism, see Ps.-Apul., Asclepius, c.
28; Lydus, De mensib., IV, 32 and 149, Wünsch ed.
54. Porph., Epist. ad Aneb., 29. The answer of the Ps.-
Iamblichus (de Myst., VI, 5-7) is characteristic. He main-
1
NOTES-EGYPT.
235
tained that these threats were addressed to demons; how-
ever, he was well aware that the Egyptians did not distinguish
clearly between incantations and prayers (VI, 7, 5).
55. Cf. G. Hock, Griechische Weihegebräuche, 1905, pp. 65 ff.
Ps.-Apul., Asclep., 23: "Homo fictor est deorum qui in templis
sunt et non solum inluminatur, verum etiam inluminat”; c. 37:
“Proavi invenerunt artem qua efficerent deos." Cf. George
Foucart, loc. cit. [n. 61): "La statuaire égyptienne a, avant
tout autre, le caractère de créer des êtres vivants."
56. Maspero, Sur la toute-puissance de la parole (Recueil de
travaux, XXIV), 1902, pp. 163-175; cf. my Récherches sur le
manichéisme, p. 24, n. 2.—The parallelism between the divine
and the sacerdotal influence is established in Ps.-Apul., As-
clepius, 23.
57. Iamblichus, Myst., VI, 6; cf. G. Foucart, La méthode
comparative et l'histoire des religions, 1909, p. 131, 141, 149 ff.
and infra, 11. 66. The Egyptians prided themselves on having
been the first "to know the sacred names and to use the sacred
speech” (Luc., De Dea Syr., I).
58. This has been proven by Otto, Priester und Tempel, I,
pp. 114 ff. Cf. supra, chap. II, n. 35. Certain busts have re-
cently inspired Mr. Dennison to give his attention to the
tonsure of the votaries of Isis (American Journ. of Archeol-
ogy, V, 1905, p. 341). The Pompeian frescoes representing
priests and ceremonies of the Isis cult are particularly impor-
tant for our knowledge of the liturgy (Guimet, C. R. Acad. des
Inscr., 1896, pls. VII-IX. Cf. von Bissing, Transact. congr.
relig. Oxford, 1908, I, pp. 225 ff.).
59. CIL, XII, 3061: "Ornatrix fani.”
60. Cf. Kan, De Iove Dolicheno, 1901, P. 33.
61. Cf. Moret, Le rituel du culte divin journalier en Egypte,
Paris, 1902. Just as the ritual of consecration brought the
statue to life (supra, n. 55), the repeated sacrifices sustained
life and made it longa durare per teinpora (Ps.-Apul., Asclep.,
38). The epithet of deltwos, given to several divinities (CIG,
4598; Griech. Urkunden of Berlin, I, No. 124), expresses it
exactly. All this is in conformity with the old ideas prevailing
in the valley of the Nile (see George Foucart, Revue des
236
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
idées, Nov. 15, 1908).—When compared with the Egyptian
ceremonial, the brief data scattered through the Greek and
Latin authors become wonderfully clear and coherent.
62. Apul., XI, 22: "Rituque sollemni apertionis celebrato
ministerio." Cf. XI, 20: "Matutinas apertiones templi."
63. Jusephus, Ant. Jud., XVIII, 3, 5, § 174.
64. Servius ad Verg., Aen., IV, 512: "In templo Isidis aqua
sparsa de Nilo esse dicebatur"; cf. II, 116. When, by pour-
ing water taken from the river, reality took the place of this
fiction, the act was much more effective; see Juv. VII, 527.
65. This passage, together with a chapter from Apuleius
(XI, 20), is the principal text we mave in connection with the
ritual of those Isis matins. (De Abstin., IV, 9):
"Ως που έτι και νύν εν τη ανοίξει του αγίου Σαράπιδος η θεραπεία διά
πυρός και ύδατος γίνεται, λείβοντος του υμνωδού το ύδωρ και το πυρ φαί-
νοντος, όπηνίκα εστως επί του ουδού τη πατρίω των Αιγυπτίων φωνή εγεί-
ρει τον θεόν.
Arnobius (VII, 32) alludes to the same belief of the votaries
of Isis : “Quid sibi volunt excitationes illae quas canitis ma-
tutini conlatis ad tibiam vocibus? Obdormiscunt enim superi
remeare ut ad vigilias debeant? Quid dormitiones illae quibus
ut bene valeant auspicabili salutatione mandatis ?"
66. On the power of "barbarian names" see my Mon. myst.
Mithra, I, p. 313, n. 4; Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, pp. III ff.
Cf. Charles Michel, Note sur un passage de Jamblique (Mé-
langes, Louis Havet), 1909, p. 279.-On the persistence of the
same idea among the Christians, cf. Harnack, Ausbreitung des
Christ., I, pp. 124 ff.; Heitmüller, Im Namen Jesu, Göttingen,
1903 (rich material).
67. Apul., Met., XI, 9.
68. CIL, II, 3386 = Dessau, Inscr. sel., 442; cf. 4423.
69. Apul., XI, 24; cf. Lafaye, pp. 118 ff. Porphyry (De
Abstin., IV, 6) dwells at length on this contemplative char-
acter of the Egyptian devotion: The priests åmédog av olov Tòv
βίον τη των θεών θεωρία και θεάσει.
70. In the Pharaonic ritual the closing ceremony seems to
have taken place during the morning, but in the Occident the
sacred images were exposed for contemplation, and the an-
NOTES-EGYPT.
237
cient Egyptian service must, therefore, have been divided into
two ceremonies.
71. Herodotus, II, 37.
72. Cf. Maspero, Rev. critique, 1905, II, p. 361 ff.
73. Apul., Metam., XI, 7 ff.—This festival seems to have
persisted at Catana in the worship of Saint Agatha ; cf. Ana-
lecta Bollandiana, XXV, 1906, p. 509.
74. Similar masquerades are found in a number of pagan
cults (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 315), and from very early
times they were seen in Egypt; see von Bissing, loc. cit., n. 58,
p. 228.
75. The pausarii are mentioned in the inscriptions; cf. Des-
sau, Inscr. sel., 4353, 4445.
76. Schäfer, Die Mysterien des Osiris in Abydos unter Se-
sostris III, Leipsic, 1904; cf. Capart, Rev. hist. relig., LI, 1905,
p. 229, and Wiedemann, Mélanges Nicole, pp. 574 ff. Junker,
"Die Stundenwachen in den Osirismysterien" (Denkschrift
Akad. Wien, LIV) 1910.
77. In the Abydos mysteries, the god Thoth set out in a boat
to seek the body of Osiris. Elsewhere it was Isis who sailed
out in quest of it. We do not know whether this scene was
played at Rome; but it certainly was played at Gallipoli where
make-believe fishermen handled the nets in a make-believe
Nile; cf. P. Foucart, Rech. sur les myst. d'Eleusis (Mém.
Acad. Inscr., XXXV), p. 37.
78. Cheremon in Porphyry, Epist. ad Aneb., 31:
Και τα κρυπτά της "Ισιδος επαινεί και το εν 'Αβύδο απόρρητον δείξει.
Cf. Iamblichus, De myster., VI, 5-7.–On the "mysteries" of
Isis in Egypt, cf. Foucart, loc. cit., p. 19 f.; De Jong, De
Apuleio Isiacorum mysteriorum teste, Leyden, 1900, pp. 79 f.,
and Das antike Mysterienwesen, Leyden, 1909.
79. Cf. supra.—De Jong, op. cit., pp. 40 ff.; Gruppe, Griech.
Mythol., p. 1574.
80. La Cité antique, I, ch. II, end.
81. Cf. Erman, op. cit., PP. 96-97.
82. Sufficient proof is contained in the bas-reliefs cited above
(n. 20), where apotheosized death assumes the shape of Sera-
238
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
pis. Compare Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 2098: Eủyuxu metà toở
'Ogelpidos. This material conception of immortality could be
easily reconciled with the old Italian ideas, which had per-
sisted in a dormant state in the minds of the people, see Fried-
länder, Sittengeschichte, III, p. 758.
83. Reitzenstein, Archiv für Religionswiss., VII, 1904, 406 ff.
These are perhaps the most striking pages written on the
meaning of the ceremony; it is an åtaðavatio uós. Cf. also
Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wundererzählungen, p. 116.
84. Apul., Metam., 23.—De Jong, the latest commentator on
this passage, seems inclined to take it as a mere ecstatic vision,
but the vision was certainly caused by a dramatic scene in
the course of which hell and heaven were shown in the dark.
- The Egyptians represented them even on the stage; see
Suetonius, Calig., 8: “Parabatur et in mortem spectaculum quo
argumenta inferorum per Aegyptios et Aethiopas explicaren-
tur."
85. Apul., Met., XI, 6 end.
86. Ibid., c. 24: "Inexplicabili voluptate <aspectu> divini
simulacri perfruebar.”
87. Plut., De Isid., 78, p. 383 A :
'125 åv & Emptnuévals (rais yuxais) ár' avtoū (TOŨ 'Ooipidos) kaì Dewjév-
αις απλήστως και ποθούσαις το μη φατόν μηδε ρητών ανθρώπους κάλλος.
· 88. Cf., supra, n. 22.
89. We find similar wishes on the Egyptian monuments,
frequently at least since the Middle Empire. "Donnez-moi
de l'eau courante à boire.... Mettez-moi la face au vent du
nord sur le bord de l'eau et que sa fraîcheur calme mon coeur"
(Maspero, Etudes égyptiennes, I, 1881, p. 189). “Oh, si j'avais
de l'eau courante à boire et si mon visage était tourné vers le
vent du nord” (Naville, op. cit., p. 174). On a funerary stele
in the Brussels museum (Capart, Guide, 1905, p. 71) is in-
scribed, “Que les dieux accordent de boire l'eau des sources,
de respirer les doux vents du nord.”—The very material
origin of this wish appears in the funeral texts, where the
soul is shown crossing the desert, threatened with hunger
and thirst, and obtaining refreshment by the aid of the gods
(Maspero, Etudes de mythol. et d'archéol, égypt., 1883, I, pp.
NOTES-EGYPT.
239
366 ff.).-On a tablet at Petilia (see supra, n. 22), the soul
of the deceased is required to drink the fresh water (yuxpov
cowp) flowing from the lake of Memory in order to reign with
the heroes. There is nothing to prevent our admitting with
Foucart (“Myst. d'Eleusis," Mém. Acad. des Inscr., XXXV, 2,
p. 67), that the Egyptian ideas may have permeated the Orphic
worship of southern Italy after the fourth or third century,
since they are found expressed a hundred years earlier at
Carpentras (infra, n. 90).
90. Aoin ool ó "OOLPIS TÒ Yuxpòv üswp, at Rome: Kaibel, Inscr. gr.
XIV, 1488, 1705, 1782, 1842; cf. 658 and CIL, VI, 3, 20616.-Loi
SÈ 'Ooeipidos áyvòv üdwp Elois xapioalto, Rev. archéol., 1887, p. 199,
cf. 201.—YUxí dywon Yuxpòv üdwp metados, CIG, 6267=Kaibel, 1890.
It is particularly interesting to note that almost the same wish
appears on the Aramaic stele of Carpentras (C. I. Sem., II,
141), which dates back to the fourth or fifth century B. C.:
"Blessed be thou, take water from in front of Osiris.”-A
passage in the book of Enoch manifestly inspired by Egyp-
tian conceptions, mentions the "spring of water," the "spring
of life,” in the realm of the dead (Enoch, xxii. 2, 9. Cf. Mar-
tin, Le livre d'Hénoch, 1906, p. 58, n. 1, and Bousset, Relig.
des Judentilins, 1903, p 271). From Judaism the expression
has passed into Christianity. Cf. Rev. vii. 17; xxi. 6.
91. The Egyptian origin of the Christian expression has
frequently been pointed out and cannot be doubted; see La-
faye, op. cit., p. 96, n. I; Rohde, Psyche, II, p. 391; Kraus,
Realencycl. der christl. Alt., S. v. "Refrigerium”; and espe-
cially Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 95 ff. Cf. Perdrizet, Rev. des
études anc., 1905, p. 32; Audollent, Mélanges Louis Havet,
1909, p. 575.-The refrigerii sedes, which the Catholic Church
9:P:5757hbe reiniger sene
petitions for the deceased in the anniversary masses, appears
in the oldest Latin liturgies, and the Greeks, who do not be-
lieve in purgatory, have always expressed themselves along
the same lines. For instance, Nubian inscriptions which are
in perfect agreement with the euchology of Constantinople hope
the soul will rest év TÓTW xloepő, év TómW åvayuçews (G. Le-
febvre, Inscr. gr. chrét. d'Eg., No. 636, 664 ff., and introd., p.
Xxx; cf. Dumont, Mélanges, Homolle ed., pp. 585 ff.). The
detail is not without significance because it furnishes a valu-
240
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS
able indication as to the Egyptian origin of prayer for the
dead; this is unknown to Graeco-Roman paganism which
prayed to the deified dead but never for the dead as such.
The Church took this custom from the Synagogue, but the
Jews themselves seem to have taken it from the Egyptians
during the Hellenistic period, undoubtedly in the course of
the second century (S. Reinach, Cultes, mythes, I, p. 325),
just as they were indebted to the Egyptians for the idea of
the "spring of life” (supra, n. 90). The formula in the Chris-
tian inscriptions cited,
ανάπαυσον την ψυχήν εν κόλποις 'Αβραάμ και Ισαάκ και Ιακώβ,
appears to indicate a transposition of the doctrine of identi-
fication with Osiris. In this way we can explain the persist-
ence in the Christian formulary of expressions, like requies
aeterna, corresponding to the most primitive pagan concep-
tions of the life of the dead, who were not to be disturbed in
their graves.--A name for the grave, which appears frequently
in Latin epitaphs, viz., domus aeterna (or aeternalis) is un-
doubtedly also of Egyptian importation. In Egypt, "la tombe
est la maison du inort, sa maison d'étérnité, comme disent les
textes" (Capart, Guide du musée de Bruxelles, 1905, p. 32).
The Greeks were struck by this expression which appears in
innumerable instances. Diodorus of Sicily (I, 51, § 2) was
aware that the Egyptians
τους τών τετελευτηκότων τάφους αϊδίους οίκους προσαγορεύουσιν, ώς εν
"Ausov diatehoúvtUV TÒV đTelpov alõva (cf. I, 93, § 1, εis Tijv aibvlov
Oiknouv).-
It is probable that this appellation of the tomb passed from
Egypt into Palestine and Syria. It appears already in Ec-
clesiastes, xii. 7 (beth 'olam = "house of eternity'), and it is
found in Syrian epigraphy (for instance in inscriptions of the
third century (Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1906, p. 123), also
in the epigraphy of Palmyra. (Chabot, Journal asiatique, 1900,
p. 266, No. 47).—Possibly the hope for consolation, Eůyúxel,
ουδείς αθάνατος, frequently found engraved upon tombs even in
Latin countries was also derived from the Egyptian religion,
but this is more doubtful. Evyúxel is found in the epitaphs of
initiates in the Alexandrian mysteries. Kaibel, Inscr. gr.,
XIV, 1488, 1782 (Evyuxɛī kupla kai doin cold "OOLPIS TÒ Yuxpèv ödwp),
2098 (cf. supra, n. 90). Possibly the twofold meaning of
NOTES-SYRIA.
241
EÜyvxos which stands both for animosus and frigidus (see
Dieterich, Nekyia, loc. cit.) has been played upon. But on the
other hand, the idea contained in the forniula "Be cheerful,
nobody is immortal," also inspired the "Song of the Harpist,"
a canonical hymn that was sung in Egypt on the day of the
funeral. It invited the listener to "make his heart glad" be-
fore the sadness of inevitable death (Maspero, Etudes égyp-
tiennes, I, 1881, pp. 171 ff. ; cf. Naville, op. cit., p. 171).
V. SYRIA.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Syrian religions have been studied with
especial attention to their relation with Judaism: Baudissin,
Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, 2 vols., Leipsic,
1876. The same author has published veritable monographs
on certain divinities (Astarte, Baal, Sonne, etc.) in the Real-
encyclopädie für prot. Theol., of Herzog-Hauck, 3d ed.-Bäth-
gen, Beiträge zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, Berlin, 1888.
-W, Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 2d ed.,
London, 1894.-Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions sémitiques,
2d ed., Paris, 1905. The results of the excavations in Pales-
tine, which are important in regard to the funeral customs and
the oldest idolatry, have been summarized by Father Hugues
Vincent, Canaan d'après l'exploration récente, 1907.—On the
propagation of the Syrian religions in the Occident, see Ré-
ville, op. cit., pp. 70 et passim; Wissowa, Religion der Römer,
PP. 299 ff.; Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., pp. 1582 f.-Important ob-
servations will be found in Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d'ar-
chéologie orientale, 8 vols., 1888, and in Dussaud, Notes de
mythologie syrienne, Paris, 1903. We have published a series
of articles on particular divinities in the Realencyclopädie of
Pauly-Wissowa (Baal, Balsamem, Dea Syria, Dolichenus, Gad,
etc.). Other monographs are cited below.
I. Lucian, Lucius, 53 ff.; Apul., Metam., VIII, 24 ff. The
description by these authors has recently been confirmed by
the discovery of an inscription at Kefr-Hauar in Syria: a
slave of the Syrian goddess "sent by her mistress (Kupla),"
boasts of having brought back "seventy sacks” from each of
her trips (Fossey, Bull. corr, hell., XXI, 1897, p. 60; on the
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
meaning of rýpa, “sack," see Deissmann, Licht von Osten,
1908, p. 73).
2. Cf. Riess in Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. Astrologie, col. 1816.
3. Cato, De agric., V, 4.
4. On dedication of Romans to Atargatis, see Bull. corr.
hell., VI, 1882, p. 497, No. 15; p. 498, No. 17.
5. Since the year 187 we find the Syrian musicians (sam-
bucistriae) mentioned also at Rome. Their number grew
steadily (Livy, XXXIX, 6; see Friedländer, Sittengesch., III,
p. 346.
6. Florus, II, 7 (III, 9); cf. Diodorus Sic., fr. 34, 2, 5.
7. Plut., Vit. Marii, 17.
8. Juvenal, VI, 351; Martial, IV, 53, 10; IX, 2, II, IX, 22, 9
9. CIL, VI, 399; cf. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 201.–Suetonius,
Nero, 56.
10. A temple of the Syrian gods at Rome, located at the
foot of the Janiculum, has been excavated very recently. Cf.
Gauckler, Bolletino communale di Roma, 1907, pp. 5 ff. (Cf.
Hülsen, Mitt. Inst. Rom, XXII, 1907, pp. 225 ff.); Comptes
Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1907, pp. 135 ff.; 1908, pp. 510 ff.; 1909,
dieux orientaux au Janicule, Rome, 1909 (Extr. des “Mél.
Ecole franç. de Rome," XXIX). In it have been found dedi-
cations to Hadad of the Lebanon, to the Hadad åkpopeltys,
and to Maleciabrudus (in regard to the latter see Clermont-
Ganneau, Rec. d'archéol. or., VIII, 1907, p. 52). Cf. my article
"Syria Dea" in Daremberg-Saglio-Pottier, Diction. des anti-
quités gr. et rom., 1911.
11. I have said a few words on this colonization in my Mon.
rel. aux myst. de Mithra, I, p. 262. Courajod has considered
it in regard to artistic influences, Leçons du Louvre, I, 1899,
Pp. 115, 327 ff. For the Merovingian period see Bréhier, “Les
colonies d'orientaux en Occident au coinmencement du moyen
âge (Byzant. Zeitschr., XII), 1903, pp. 1 ff.
12. Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 2540.
13. Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1899, p. 353 = Waltzing,
Corporations professionelles, II, No. 1961 = CIL, III S.,
NOTES-SYRIA.
243
14165º.-Inscription of Thaim of Canatha: Kaibel, Inscr. gr.,
XIV, 2532.
14. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Fr., VIII, 1.-On the diffusion
of the Syrians in Gaul, see Bréhier, loc. cit., p. 16 ff
15. Cf. Bréhier, Les origines du crucifix dans l'art religieux,
Paris, 1904.
16. Adonis: Wissowa, p. 300, n. 1.-Balmarcodès : Pauly-
Wissowa, Realenc., s. v.; Jalabert, Mél. fac. orient. Beyrouth,
I, p. 182.-Marnas: The existence at Ostia of a "Marneum"
can be deduced from the dedication CIG, 5892 (cf. Drexler in
Roscher, Lexikon, s. V., col. 2382).-On Maleciabrudus, cf.
supra, n. 10.--The Maiuma festival was probably introduced
with the cult of the god of Gaza, Lydus, De Mensib., IV, 80
(p. 133, Wünsch ed.) = Suidas s. v. Macovuās and Drexler,
loc. cit., col. 2287. Cf. Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. d'archéol.
orient., IV, p. 339.
17. Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. "Damascenus, Dusares."
18. Malalas, XI, p. 280, 12 (Bonn).—The temple has re-
cently been excavated by a German mission; cf. Puchstein,
Führer in Baalbek, Berlin, 1905.- On the Hadad at Rome, cf.
19. CIL, X, 1634: "Cultores Iovis Heliopolitani Berytenses
qui Puteolis consistunt"; cf. Wissowa, loc. cit., p. 504, 11. 3;
Ch. Dubois, Pouzzoles antique, Paris, 1906, p. 156.
20. A list of the known military societies has been made by
Cichorius in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., s. v. "Ala" and
"Cohors.”
21. CIL, VII, 759 = Buecheler, Carmina epigr., 24. Two
inscriptions dedicated to the Syrian Hercules (Melkarth) and
to Astarte have been discovered at Corbridge, near New-
castle (Inscr. gr., XIV, 2553). It is possible that Tyrian
archers were cantoned there.
23. Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Aziz"; cf. Wissowa, op.
cit., p. 303, n. 7.
24. On the etymology of Malakbel, see Dussaud, Notes, 24 ff.
On the religion in the Occident see Edu. Meyer in Roscher,
Lexikon, s. v.
244
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
25. Kan, De Iovis Dolicheni cultu, Groningen, 1901; cf.
Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., s. v. “Dolichenus."
26. Réville, Relig. sous les Sévèrès, pp. 237 ff. ; Wissowa, op.
cit., p. 305; cf. Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. "Elagabal.”—In a recent
article (Die politische Bedeutung der Religion von Emesa
(Archiv für Religionsw., XI], 1908, pp. 223 ff.) M. von Do-
maszewski justly lays stress on the religious value of the
solar monotheism that arose in the temples of Syria, but he
attributes too important a part in its formation to the clergy
of Emesa (see infra, 1. 88). The preponderant influence
seems to have been exercised by Palmyra (see infra, n. 59).
27. Cf. infra, n. 59.
28. Cf. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, Chicago,
1902; Jaussen, Coutumnes des Arabes du pays de Moab, Paris,
1908, pp. 297 ff.
29. Cf. Robertson Smith, passim; Lagrange, pp. 158-216;
Vincent, op. cit., pp. 102-123; 144 f.--The power of this Semitic
litholatry equaled its persistence. Philo of Byblus defined the
bethels as 1801 čuyuxol (2, $20, FHG, III, p. 563): Hip-
polytus also tells us (V, 1, p. 145, Cruice), that in the Syrian
mysteries ('Acouplwy teletal) it was taught that the stones
were animated (oi aifou eloiv čupuxou š xovol. yàp Tò aventikÓV),
and the same doctrine perpetuated itself in Manicheism. (Titus
of Bostra, II, 60, p. 60, 25, de Lagarde ed. :
Ούκ αισχύνεται δε και τους λίθους εψυχώσθαι λέγων και τα πάντα
čuyuxa εionyouuevos).
During the last years of paganism the neo-Platonists de-
veloped a superstitious worship of the bethels; see Conybeare,
Transactions of the Congress of Hist. of Rel., Oxford, 1908,
P. 177.
30. Luc., De dea Syria, c. 41. Cf. the inscription of Narnaka
with the note of Clermont-Ganneau, Etudes d'arch. orient., II,
p. 163.—For bull worship in Syria cf. Ronzevalle, Mélanges
fac. orient. Beyrouth, I, 1906, pp. 225, 238; Vincent, op. cit., p.
169.
31. Philo Alex., De provid., II, c. 107 (II, 646 M.); cf.
Lucian, De dea Syria, 54.
32. For instance on Mount Eryx in Sicily (Ael., Nat. Anim.,
NOTES-SYRIA.
245
T
IV, 2).—Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Dea Syria," col.
2242.
33. Tibullus, I, 7, 17.
34. Lucian, De dea Syria, 14; 54. Cf. Diodorus, II, 4, 2;
Ovid, Met., IV, 46; V, 331.
35. Pauly-Wissowa, loc. cit., col. 2241; W. Robertson Smith,
p. 175.
36. The ancient authors frequently alluded to this super-
stition of the Syrians (the texts have been collected by Sel-
den, De dis Syris, II, C. 3, pp. 268 ff., ed. of 1672). W.
Robertson Smith (loc. cit., p. 449), is right in connecting it
with certain ideas of savages. Like many primitive beliefs,
this one has continued to the present day. It has been pointed
out to me that at Sam-Keuſ, a little west of Doliché, there is
a pond fed by a spring and well stocked with fish, which one
is forbidden to take. Near the mosque of Edessa is a large
pond where catching fish is prohibited. They are considered
sacred, and the people believe that any one who would eat
them would die instantly. (Sachau, Reise in Syrien, 1883,
PP. 196 ff. Cf. Lord Warkworth, Diary in Asiatic Turkcy,
London, 1898, p. 242). The same is the case at the mosque of
Tripoli and elsewhere (Lammens, Au pays des Nosaïris [Revue
de l'Orient chrétien), 1908, p. 2). Even in Asia Minor this
superstition is found. At Tavshanli, north of Aezani on the
upper Rhyndacus, there is to-day a square cistern filled with
sacred fish which no one is allowed to take on the authority
of Munro). Travelers in Turkey have frequently observed
that the people do not eat fish, even when there is a scarcity
of food (Sachau, loc. cit., p. 196) and the general belief that
their flesh is unhealthful and can cause sickness is not en-
tirely unfounded. Here is what Ramsay has to say on the
subject (Impressions of Turkey, London, 1897, p. 288): "Fish
are rarely found and when found are usually bad: the natives
have a prejudice against fish, and my own experience has
been unfavorable.... In the clear sparkling mountain stream
that flows through the Taurus by Bozanti-Khan, a small
kind of fish is caught; I had a most violent attack of sickness
in 1891 after eating some of them, and so had all who par-
took." Captain Wilson, who spent a number of years in
1S
246
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Asia Minor, asserts (Handbook of Asia-Minor, p. 19), that
"the natives do not eat fish to any extent." The "totemic"
prohibition in this instance really seems to have a hygienic
origin. People abstained from all kinds of fish because some
species were dangerous, that is to say, inhabited by evil spirits,
and the tumors sent by the Syrian goddess were merely the
edemas caused by the poisoning.
37. On the 'Ixoús symbolism I will merely refer to Usener,
Sintflutsagen, 1899, pp. 223 ff. Cf. S. Reinach, Cultes, mythes,
III, 1908, pp. 43 ff. An exhaustive book on this subject has
recently appeared: Dölger, IXOTE, das Fischsyinbol in früh-
christlicher Zeit, I, Rome, 1910.
On sacred repasts where fish was eaten see Mnaseas,
fragment 32 (Fragm. histor. graec., III, 115); cf. Ditten-
berger, Sylloge, 584: 'Eày dé TIS Tūv izouwv átrobávn, kaprouoow
avonuepòv ÉTÈ ToŨ Bwuow, and Diog. Laert., VIII, 34. There
were also sacred repasts in the Occident in the various Syrian
cults: Cenatorium et tricliniun in the temples of Jupiter Doli-
chenus (CIL, III, 4789; VI, 30931; XI, 696, cf. Mon. myst.
Mithra, II, p. 501); promulsidaria et mantelium offered to
the Venus Caelestis (CIL, X, 1590); construction of a temple
to Malachbel with a culina (CIL, III, 7954). Mention is made
of a DELTT VOKpírns, deínvous kpɛivas Torà pet' Evopooúvns, in the
temple of the Janiculum (Gauckler, C. R. Acad. Inscr., 1907,
P. 142; Bolletino communale, 1907, pp. 15 ff.). Cf. Lagrange,
Religions sémitiques, II, p. 609, and Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc.,
S. V. “Gad.”
38. W. Robertson Smith, pp. 292 ff.
39. An inscription discovered at Kefr-Hauar (Fossey, Bull.
corr, hell., 1897, p. 60) is very characteristic in this respect.
A "slave" of the Syrian goddess in that inscription offers his
homage to his "mistress” (kupla).
40. Notably at Aphaca where they were not suppressed until
the time of Constantine (Eusebius, Vit. Const., III, 55; cf.
Sozom., II, 5).
41. Much has been written about the sacred prostitutions in
paganism, and it is well known that Voltaire ridiculed the
scholars who were credulous enough to believe in the tales
of Herodotus. But this practice has been proven by irre-
NOTES-SYRIA.
247
futable testimony. Strabo, for instance, whose great-uncle
was arch-priest of Comana, mentions it in connection with
that city, (XII, 3, 36, p. 559 C), and he manifests no surprise.
The history of religion teaches many stranger facts; this one,
however, is disconcerting. The attempt has been made to see
in it a relic of the primitive promiscuity or polyandry, or a
persistence of "sexual hospitality," ("No custom is more
widely spread than the providing for a guest a female com-
panion, who is usually a wife or daughter of the host," says
Wake, Serpent Worship, 1888, p. 158); or the substitution
of union with a man for union with the god (Gruppe, Griech.
Mythol., p. 915). But these hypotheses do not explain the
peculiarities of the religious custon as it is described by more
reliable authors. They insist upon the fact that the girls
were dedicated to the temple service while virgins, and that
after having had strangers for lovers, they married in their
own country. Thus Strabo (XI, 14, § 16, p. 532 C.) narrates
in connection with the temple of Anaitis in Acilisena, that
θυγατέρας οι επιφανέστατοι του έθνους άνιερούσι παρθένους, αίς νόμος έστι
καταπορνευθείσαις πολύν χρόνον παρά τη θεώ μετά ταύτα δίδοσθαι προς
yáuov, oúk átažLOŪVTOG Tſ tolautņ OUVOLKETV oưdevós. Herodotus (I,
93), who relates about the same thing of the Lydian women,
adds that they acquired a dowry in that manner; an inscription
at Tralles (Bull. corr. hell., VII, 1885, p. 276) actually mnen-
tions a descendant of a sacred prostitute (εκ προγόνων παλλακί-
δων) who had temporarily filled the same office (παλλακεύσασα
Karà xpnoudy All). Even at Thebes in Egypt there existed a
similar custom with striking local peculiarities in the time of
Strabo (XVII, I, § 46), and traces of it seem to have been
found in Greece among the Locrians (Vurtheim, De Aiacis
origine, Leyden, 1907). Every Algerian traveler knows how
the girls of the Ouled-Naïl earn their dowry in the ksours and
the cities, before they go back to their tribes to marry, and
Doutté (Notes sur l'Islam maghrébien, les Marabouts, Extr.
Rev. hist. des relig., XL-XLI, Paris, 1900), has connected these
usages with the old Semitic prostitution, but his thesis has
been attacked and the historical circumstances of the arrival
of the Ouled-Nail in Algeria in the eleventh century render
it very doubtful (Note by Basset). It seems certain (I do
not know whether this explanation has ever been offered)
248
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
that this strange practice is a modified utilitarian form of an
ancient exogamy. Besides it had certain favorable results,
since it protected the girl against the brutality of her kindred
until she was of marriageable age, and this fact must have
insured its persistence; but the idea that inspired it at first
was different. “La première union sexuelle impliquant une
effusion de sang, a été interdite, lorsque ce sang était celui
d'une fille du clan versé par le fait d'un homme du clan”
(Salomon Reinach, Mythes, cultes, I, 1905, p. 79. Cf. Lang,
The Secret of the Toten, London, 1905.) Thence rose the
obligation on virgins to yield to a stranger first. Only then
were they permitted to marry a man of their own race.
Furthermore, various means were resorted to in order to save
the husband from the defilement which might result from that
act (see for inst., Reinach, Mythes, cultes, I, P. 118).-The
opinion expressed in this note was attacked, almost imme-
diately after its publication, by Frazer (Adonis, Attis, Osiris,
1907, pp. 50 ff.) who preferred to see in the sacred prostitu-
tions a relic of primitive communism. But at least one of
the arguments which he uses against our views is incorrect.
Not the women, but the men, received presents in Acilisena
(Strabo, loc. cit.) and the communistic theory does not seem
to account for the details of the custom prevailing in the
temple of Thebes. There the horror of blood clearly appears.
On the discovery of a skull (having served at a rite of con-
secration) in the temple of the Janiculum, see the article cited
above, “Dea Syria,” in Dict. des antiquités.
42. Porphyry, De Abstin., II, 56; Tertull., Apol., 9. Cf. La-
grange, op. cit., p. 445.
43. Even in the regions · where the cities developed, the
Baal and the Baalat always remained the divinities to coūXol,
the protectors of the city which they were supposed to have
founded.
44. Le Bas-Waddington, 2196.-Suidas, s. v. øvlápxms (II,
2, col. 1568, Bernhardy). Cf. Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung,
I, p. 405, 409.
45. Hippolytus, Adv. Haeres., V, II, $7: 'Acouplwv teletal;
§ 18: ’Agoupiwv uvotúpia (pp. 145, 148, ed. by Cruice). Cf. Ori-
gen, Contra Celsum, I, 12. Pognon (Inscrip. sémitiques,
NOTES-SYRIA.
249
1907, No. 48) has recently published a Syrian epitaph that is
unfortunately mutilated, but which seems to be that of an
adept of the pagan mysteries; see Nöldeke, Zeitschrift für
Assyr., XXI, 1907, p. 155.
46. On the Semitic notion of purity, W. Robertson Smith
has written admirably and convincingly (pp. 446 ff. and pas-
sim). The question has been taken up from a different point
of view by Lagrange, pp. 141 ff.—The development of the
notion of purity in the ancient religions has been recently
expounded by Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, 1905, PP.
88 ff., especially pp. 124 ff. Cf. also supra, p. 91 f. An exam-
ple of the prohibitions and purifications is found in the Occi-
dent in an inscription, unfortunately mutilated, discovered at
Rome and dedicated to Beellefarus (CIL, VI, 30934, 31168; cf.
Lafaye, Rev. hist. relig., XVII, 1888, pp. 218 ff.; Dessau, Inscr.
sel., 4343). If I have understood the text correctly it com-
mands those who have eaten pork to purify themselves by
means of honey.-On penances in the Syrian religions see
ch. II, nQ 3I.
47. M. Clermont-Ganneau (Etudes d'archéologie orientale,
II, 1896, p. 104) states that the epithet ärlos is extremely rare
in pagan Hellenism, and almost always betrays a Semitic in-
fluence. In such cases it corresponds to VIP, which to the
Semites is the epithet par excellence of the divinity. Thus
Eslimon is 77; cf. Lidzbarski, Ephemer. für semit. Epigraph.,
II, p. 155; Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d'archéol. orient., III,
p. 330; V, p. 322.-In Greek Le Bas-Waddington, 2720, has:
Ol károxou dylov oúpavlov Alós. Dittenberger, Orientis inscript.,
620, Zeùs öylos Beeh Bwowpos. Some time ago I copied at a
dealer's, a dedication engraved upon a lamp: Deo sylw 'Apel-
oéw, in Latin: J. Dolichenus sanctus, CIL, VI, 413, X, 7949.
-J. Heliopolitanus sanctissimus, CIL, VIII, 2627.-"Caelestis
sancta," VIII, 8433, etc.—The African Saturn (= Baal) is
often called sanctus.-Hera sancta beside Jupiter Dolichenus,
VI, 413.--Malakbel is translated by Sol sanctissimus, in the
bilingual inscription of the Capitol, VI, 710 = Dessau, 4337.
Cf. deus sanctus aeternus, V, 1058, 3761, and Comptes Rendus
Acad. Inscr., 1906, p. 69.-See in general Delehaye, Analecta
Bollandiana, 1909, pp. 157 ff,
250
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
48. As curious examples of Greco-Syrian syncretism we
may mention the bas-relief of Ed-Douwaïr in the Louvre,
which has been analyzed in detail by Dussaud (Notes, pp.
89 ff.), and especially that of Homs in the Brussels museum
(ibid., 104 ff.).
49. Macrobius, I, 23, § II: "Ritu Assyrio magis quam
Aegyptio colitur"; cf. Lucian, De dea Syria, 5.--"Hermetic”
theories penetrated even to the Sabians of Osrhoene (Reitzen-
stein, Poimandres, 166 ff.), although their influence seems to
have been merely superficial (Bousset, Göttingische gelehrt.
Anzeigeii, 1905, 704 ff.-The existence of károxou at Baetocécé
and elsewhere appears to be due to Egyptian influence (Jala-
bert, Mélanges de la fac, orient. de Beyrouth, II, 1907, pp. 308
ff:). The meaning of károxos which has been interpreted in
different ways, is established, I think, by the passages collected
by Kroll, Cat. codd. astrol. graec., V, pars 2, p. 146; cf. Otto,
Priester und Tempel, I, p. 119; Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. des
Lagides, IV, p. 335. It refers to the poor, the sick and even
the “illumined" living within the temple enclosures and un-
doubtedly supported by the clergy, as were the refugees of the
Christian period who availed themselves of the right of sanc-
tuary in the churches (cf. Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1907,
p. 454).
50. Cf. infra, n. 59.
51. Strabo, XVI, 1, 6. Cf. Pliny, H. N., VI, 6: "Durat adhuc
ibi Iovis Beli templum."..Cf. my Mon. nyst. Mithra, I, pp.
35 ff.; Chapot, Mém. soc. antiq. de France, 1902, pp. 239 ff.;
Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., p. 1608, n. 1.
52. Lucian, De dea Syria, c. 10.
53. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I, pp. 233 ff. and passim.
54. On the worship of Bel in Syria cf. Comptes Rendus
Acad. Inscr., 1907, pp. 447 ff.-Cf. infra, n. 59.
55. On the Heliopolitan triad and the addition of Mercury to
the original couple see Perdrizet, Rev. études anc., III, 1901,
p. 258; Dussaud, Notes, p. 24; Jalabert, Mélanges fac. orient.
de Bayrouth, I, 1906, pp. 175 ff.-Triad of Hierapolis : Lucian,
De dea Syria, c. 33. According to Dussaud, the three divin-
ities came from Babylon together, Notes, p. 115.-The exist-
ence of a Phænician triad (Baal, Astarte, Eshmoun or Mel-
NOTES-SYRIA.
251
karth), and of a Palmyrian triad has been conjectured but
without sufficient reason (ibid., 170, 172 ff.); the existence of
Carthaginian triads is more probable (cf. Polybius, VII, 9,
II, and von Baudissin, Iolaos [Philothesia für Paul Kleinert),
1907, pp. 5 ff.-See in general Usener, Dreiheit (Extr. Rhein.
Museum, LVIII), 1903, p. 32. The triads continued in the
theology of the “Chaldaic Oracles" (Kroll, De orac. Chald.,
13 ff.) and a threefold division of the world and the soul was
taught in the "Assyrian mysteries" (Archiv für Religionswiss.,
IX, 1906, p. 331, n. I).
56. Boll, Sphaera, p. 372.-The introduction of astrology into
Egypt seems to date back no further than the time of the
Ptolemies.
57. The Seleucides, like the Roman emperors later, believed
in Chaldean astrology (Appian., Syr., 28; Diodorus, II, 31, 2;
cf. Riess in Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. “Astrologie,” col.
1814), and the kings of Commagene, as well as of a great
number of Syrian cities, had the signs of the zodiac as em-
blems on their coins. It is even certain that this pseudo-
science penetrated into those regions long before the Hellen-
istic period. Traces of it are found in the Old Testament
(Schiaparelli; translation by Lüdke, Die Astron. im Alten
Testament, 1904, p. 46). It modified the entire Semitic pagan-
ism. The only cult which we know in any detail, that of the
Sabians, assigned the highest importance to it; but in the
myths and doctrines of the others its influence is no less ap-
parent (Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., s. v. "Dea Syria," IV,
col. 2241, and s. v. “Gad”; cf. Baudissin, Realencycl. für prot.
Theol., s. V., "Sonne," pp. 510-520). To what extent, for
instance, the clergy of Emesa had been subjected to its ascend-
ency is shown by the novel of Heliodorus, written by a priest
of that city (Rohde, Griech. Roman, p. 464 (436]), and by
the horoscope that put Julia Domna Apon the throne (Vita
Severi, 3, 8; cf. A. von Domaszewski, Archiv für Religionsw.,
XI, 1908, p. 223). The irresistible influence extended even to
the Arabian paganism (Nöldeke in Hastings, Encyclop. of
Religion, s. v. "Arabs," I, p. 661; compare, Orac. Sibyll., XIII,
64 ff., on Bostra). The sidereal character which has been at-
tributed to the Syrian gods, was borrowed, but none the less
real. From very early times the Semites worshiped the sun,
252
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
the moon, and the stars (see Deut. iv. 19; Job xxxi. 25),
especially the planet Venus, but this cult was of secondary
importance only (see W. Robertson Smith, op. cit., p. 135, n.
I), although it grew in proportion as the Babylonian influence
became stronger. The polemics of the Fathers of the Syrian
Church show how considerable its prestige was in the Chris-
tian era (cf. Ephrem, Opera Syriaca, Rome, 1740, II, pp.
447 ff.; the “Assyrian" Tatian, c. 9 ff., etc.).
58. Humann and Puchstein, Reise in Klein-Asien und Nord-
Syrien, 1890, pl. XL; Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 188, fig. 8;
Bouché-Leclercq, Astrol. gr., p. 439.
59. Cf. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 306-7.-On the temple of Bel
at Palmyra, cf. Sobernheim, Palinyrenische Inschriften (Mitt.
der vorderasiat. Gesellsch., X), 1905, pp. 319 ff.; Lidzbarski,
Ephemeris, I, pp. 255 ff., II, p. 280.--Priests of Bel: Clermont-
Ganneau; Recueil d'arch. orient., VII, p. 12, 24, 364. Cf. supra,
11. 54. The power of Palmyra under Zenobia, who ruled from
the Tigris to the Nile, must have had as a corollary the
establishment of an official worship that was necessarily syn-
cretic. Hence its special importance for the history of pagan-
ism. Although the Babylonian astrology was a powerful fac-
tor in this worship, Judaism seems to have had just as great
an influence in its formation. There was at Palmyra a large
Jewish colony, which the writers of the Talmud considered
only tolerably orthodox (Chaps, Gli Ebrei di Palmira (Rivista
Israelitica, I], Florence, 1904, pp. 171 ff., 238 f. Cf. "Palmyra"
in the Jewish Encycl.; Jewish insc. of Palmyra; Euting, Sitzb.
Berl. Acad., 1885, p. 669; Landauer, ibid., 1884, PP. 933 ff.).
This colony seems to have made compromises with the idol-
aters. On the other hand we see Zenobia herself rebuilding
a synagogue in Egypt (Revue archéologique, XXX, 1875, p.
III; Zeitschrift für Numismatik, V, p. 229; Dittenberger,
Orientis inscript., 729). This influence of Judaism seems to
explain the development at Palmyra of the cult of Zeùs ÖYLOTOS
Kai étýkoos, "he whose name is blessed in eternity." The name
of Hypsistos has been applied everywhere to Jehovah and to
the pagan Zeus (supra, p. 62, 128) at the same time. The text
of Zosimus (I, 61), according to which Aurelian brought from
Palmyra to Rome the statues of “Ηλίου τε και Βήλου (this has
been wrongly changed to read του και Βήλου), proves that the
NOTES-SYRIA.
253
astrological religion of the great desert city recognized a
supreme god residing in the highest heavens, and a solar god,
his visible image and agent, according to the Semitic theology
of the last period of paganism (supra, p. 134).
60. I have spoken of this solar eschatology in the memorial
cited infra, n. 88.
61. This opinion is that of Posidonius (see Wendland, Philos
Schrift über die Vorsehung, Berlin, 1892, p. 68, n. 1; 70, n. 2).
It is shared by the ancient astrologers.
62. This old pagan and gnostic idea has continued to the
present day in Syria among the Hosaïris; cf. Dussaud, His-
toire et religion des Nosaïris, 1900, p. 125.
63. The belief that pious souls are guided to heaven by a
psychopompus, is found not only in the mysteries of Mithra
(Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 310), but also in the Syrian cults
where that rôle was often assigned to the solar god, see Isid.
Lévy, Cultes syriens dans le Talmud (Revue des études juives,
XLIII), 1901, p. 5, and Dussaud, Notes, p. 27; cf. the Le Bas-
Waddington inscription, 2442:
"BaocheŬ SÉOTOTA ( the sun), call kai didov nãouv yuiv úyiny
καθαράν, πρήξις αγαθώς και βίου τέλος έσθλόν." -
The same idea is found in inscriptions in the Occident; as
for instance in the peculiar epitaph of a sailor who died at
Marseilles (Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 2462 = Epigr., 650):
"'Ev dé [Tɛ] TedveloToL Óunyupi[és] ye tréhovoru
δοιαι : των ετέρη μεν επιχθονίη πεφόρηται,
ή δ' ετέρη τείρεσσι συν αιθερίοισι χορεύει,
ής στρατιής είς είμι, λαχών θεόν ηγεμονήα."
It is the same term that Julian used (Césars, p. 336 C) in
speaking of Mithra, the guide of souls: vyeuova Deóv. Cf. also
infra, n. 66 and ch. VIII, n. 24.
64. The Babylonian origin of the doctrine that the souls re-
turned to heaven by crossing the seven planetary spheres, has
been maintained by Anz (Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des
Gnosticismus, 1897 ; cf. Mon. meyst. Mithra, I. pp. 38 ff., p. 309;
Bousset, Die Hinnmelsreise der Seele [Archiv für Religionsw.,
IV], 1901, pp. 160 ff.) and "Gnosis” in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-
encyclopädie, col. 1520. It has since been denied by Reitzen-
stein (Poimandres, p. 79; cf. Kroll, Berl. philol. Wocherisch.,
254
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
1906, p. 486). But although it may have been given its pre-
cise shape and been transformed by the Greeks and even by
the Egyptians, I persist in believing that it is of Chaldean
and religious origin. I heartily agree with the conclusions
recently formulated by Bousset, (Göttingische gelehrte An-
scigen, 1905, pp. 707 ff.). We can go farther: Whatever roots
it may have had in the speculations of ancient Greece (Aris-
toph., Pax, 832, Plato, Tim., 42B, cf. Haussoullier, Rev. de philol.,
1909, pp. I ff.), whatever traces of it may be found in other
nations (Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, pp. 182 ff.; Nekyia, p. 24,
note; Rohde, Psyche, II, p. 131, 11.3), the idea itself of the soul
rising to the divine stars after death certainly developed under
the influence of the sidereal worship of the Semites to a point
where it dominated all other eschatological theories. The
belief in the eternity of souls is the corollary to the belief in
the eternity of the celestial gods (p. 129). We cannot give
the history of this conception here, and we shall limit ourselves
to brief observations. The first account of this system ever
given at Rome is found in “Scipio's Dream" (c. 3); it prob-
ably dates back to Posidonius of Apamea (cf. Wendland, Die
hellenistisch-rönische Kultur, p. 85, 166, n. 3, 168, n. 1), and
is completely impregnated with mysticism and astrolatry. The
same idea is found a little later in the astrologer Manilius (I,
758; IV, 404, etc.). The shape which it assumed in Josephus
(Bell. Judaic., V, 1, 5, $ 47) is also much more religious than
philosophical and is strikingly similar to a dogma of Islam
(happiness in store for those dying in battle; a Syrian (ibid.,
$ 54] risks his life that his soul may go to heaven). This
recalls the inscription of Antiochus of Commagene (Michel,
Recueil, No. 735, 1. 40):
Σώμα προς ουρανίους Διός 'Ωρομάσδου θρόνους θεοφιλή ψυχήν προπέμ-
ψαν εις τον άπειρον αιώνα κοιμήσεται.
It must be said that this sidereal immortality was not orig-
inally common to all men; it was reserved "omnibus qui patriam
conservaverint adiuverint, auxerint" (Sonn. Scip. c. 3, c. 8; cf.
Manil., I, 758; Lucan, Phars., IX, I ff.; Wendland, op. cit.,
P. 85 n. 2), and this also is in conformity with the oldest
Oriental traditions. The rites first used to assure immortality
to kings and to make them the equals of the gods were ex-
tended little by little as a kind of privilege, to the important
NOTES-SYRIA.
255
persons of the state, and only very much later were they
applied to all who died.
Regarding the diffusion of this belief from the beginning
of the first century of our era, see Diels, Elementum, 1899, p.
73, cf. 78; Badstübner, Beiträge zur Erklärung Senecas, Ham-
burg, pp. 2 ff.—It is expressed in many inscriptions (Fried-
länder, Sitteng., III, pp. 749 ff.; Rohde, Psyche, p. 673, cf. 610;
epitaph of Vezir-Keupru, Studia Pontica, No.85; CIL. III (Sa-
lone), 6384; supra, n. 63, etc.) It gained access into Judaism
and paganism simultaneously (cf. Bousset, Die Religion des
Judentums im neutest. Zeitalter, 1903, p. 271, and, for Philo of
Alexandria, Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, V, p. 397 and p. 297).
-During the third century it was expounded by Cornelius
Labeo, the source of Arnobius and Servius (Nieggetiet, De
Cornelio Labeone [Diss. Munster), 1908, pp. 77-86). It was
generally accepted towards the end of the empire; see infra,
n. '25.-I hope soon to have the opportunity of setting forth
the development of this sidereal eschatology with greater pre-
cision in my lectures on “Astrology and Religion in Antiquity"
which will appear in 1912 (chap. VI).
65. According to the doctrine of the Egyptian mysteries the
Elysian Fields were in the under-world (Apul., Metam., XI,
6).-According to the astrological theory, the Elysian Fields
were in the sphere of the fixed stars (Macrobius, Comm.
somn. Scip., I, II, § 8; cf. infra, chap. VIII, n. 25). Others
placed them in the moon (Servius, Ad Aen., VI, 887; cf.
Norden, Vergils Buch VI, p. 23; Rohde, Psyche, pp. 609 ff.).
Iamblichus placed them between the moon and the sun (Lydus,
De inens., IV, 149, p. 167, 23, Wünsch).
66. The relation between the two ideas is apparent in the
alleged account of the Pythagorean doctrine which Diogenes
Laertius took from Alexander Polyhistor, and which is in
reality an apocryphal composition of the first century of our
era. It was said that Hermes guided the pure souls, after
their separation from the body, els tòp "TYLOTOV (Diog. Laert.,
VIII, § 31; cf. Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, V, p. 106, n. 2).
On the meaning of Hypsistos, cf. supra, p. 128. It appears
very plainly in the passage of Isaiah, xiv, 13, as rendered by
the Septuagint :
256
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS
Εις τον ουρανόν αναβήσομαι, επάνω των αστέρων θήσω τον θρόνον μου...
έσομαι όμοιος το Υψίστω.
67. Originally he was the thunder-god, in Greek Kepavvós.
Under this name he appeared for instance on the bas-relief
preserved in the museum of Brussels (Dussaud, Notes, P. 105).
Later, by a familiar process, the influence of a particular god
becomes the attribute of a greater divinity, and we speak of
a Zeus Kepaúvios (cf. Usener, Keraunos, Rhein. Museum, N. F.,
LX, 1901).—This Zeus Keraunios appears in many inscriptions
of Syria (CIG, 4501, 4520; Le Bas-Waddington, 2195, 2557 a,
2631, 2739; cf. Roscher, Lexikon Myth., s. v. "Keraunos").
He is the god to whom Seleucus sacrificed when founding
Seleucia (Malalas, p. 199), and a dedication to the same god
has been found recently in the temple of the Syrian divinities
at Rome (supra, n. 10).-An equivalent of the Zeus Kerau-
nios is the Zeus Karaißátns-_"he who descends in the light-
ning"--worshiped at Cyrrhus (Wroth, Greek Coins in the
British Museum: "Galatia, Syria," p. 52 and LII; Roscher,
Lexikon, s. v.)
68. For instance the double ax was carried by Jupiter Doli-
chenus (cf. supra, p. 147). On its significance, cf. Usener,
loc. cit., p. 20.
69. Cf. Lidzbarski, Balsamem, Ephem. semit. Epigr., I, p.
251.–Ba'al Samaïn is mentioned as early as the ninth century
B. C. in the inscription of Ben Hadad (Pognon, Inscr. sémit.,
1907, pp. 165 ff.; cf. Dussaud, Rev. archéol., 1908, I, p. 235).
In Aramaic papyri preserved at Berlin, the Jews of Elephan-
tine call Jehovah "the god of heaven" in an address to a
Persian governor, and the same name was used in the alleged
edicts of Cyrus and his successors, which were inserted in
the book of Esdras (i. I; vi. 9, etc.)-If there were the
slightest doubt as to the identity of the god of thunder with
Baalsamin, it would be dispelled by the inscription of Et-
Tayibé, where this Semitic name is translated into Greek as
Zeùs méYLOTOS Kepaúvios; cf. Lidzbarski, Handbuch, p. 477, and
Lagrange, op. cit., p. 508.
70. On the worship of Baalsamin, confused with Ahura-
Mazda and transformed into Caelus, see Mon. myst. Mithra,
p. 87.–The texts attesting the existence of a real cult of
NOTES-SYRIA.
257
heaven among the Semites are very numerous. Besides the
ones I have gathered (loc. cit., n. 5); see Conybeare, Philo
about the Contemplative Life, p. 33, n. 16; Kayser, Das Buch
der Erkenntniss der Wahrheit, 1893, p. 337, and infra, n. 75.
Zeus Oủpávios : Le Bas-Waddington, 2720 a (Baal of Bétocécé);
Renan, Mission de Phénicie, p. 103.-Cf. Archiv für Religions-
wissenschaft, IX, 1906, p. 333.
71. Coins of Antiochus VIII Grypus (125-96 B. C.); Babe-
lon, Rois de Syrie, d'Arménie, 1890, D. CLIV, PP. 178 ff.
72. All these qualities ascribed to the Baals by astrological
paganism (Ú4 LOTOS, avtokpátwp, etc.), are also the attributes
which, according to the doctrine of Alexandrian Judaism,
characterized Jehovah (see supra, n. 66). If he was originally
a god of thunder, as has been maintained, the evolution of
the Jewish theology was parallel to that of the pagan con-
ceptions (see supra, n. 69).
73. On this subject cf. Jupiter summus exsuperantissimus
(Archiv f. Religionsw., IX), 1906, pp. 326 ff.
74. Ps. Iamblichus, De mysteriis, YI, 7 (cf. Porph., Epist.
Aneb., C. 29), notes this difference between the two religions.
75. Apul., Met., VIII, 25. Cf. CIL, III, 1090; XII, 1227
(= Dessau, 2998, 4333); Macrobius, Comin. somn. Scipionis,
I, 14, $ 2: “Nihil aliud esse deum nisi caelum ipsum et cae-
lestia ipsa quae cernimus, ideo ut summi omnipotentiam dei
ostenderet posse vix intellegi.”_"HAcos Tavtokpátws: Macrob.,
I, 23, 21.
76. Diodorus, II, 30: Saldaiol TÌV TOŨ KÓquov dvor áidióv daoiv
elval K.7.; cf. Cicero, Nat. deor., II, 20, $ 52 ff.; Pliny, H. N.,
II, 8, § 30. The notion of eternity was correlative with that of
eluapuévn; cf. Ps.-Apul., Asclep., 40; Apul., De deo Socratis,
C. 2: "(The planets) quae in deflexo cursu....meatus aeter-
nos divinis vicibus efficiunt.”—This subject will be more fully
treated in my lectures on "Astrology and Religion" (chaps.
IV-V).
77. At Palmyra: De Vogüé, Inscr. sem., pp. 53 ff., etc.-On
the first title, see infra, n. 80.
78. Note especially CIL, VI, 406 = 30758, where Jupiter
Dolichenus is called Aeternus conservator totius poli. The
258
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
relation to heaven here remained apparent. See Somn. Scip.,
III, 4; IV, 3.
79. Cf. Rev. archéol., 1888, I, pp. 184 ff.; Pauly-Wissowa,
S. V. "Aeternus," and Festschrift für Otto Benndorf, 1898,
p. 291.—The idea of the eternity of the gods also appeared
very early in Egypt, but it does not seem that the mysteries
of Isis--in which the death of Osiris was commemorated-
made it prominent, and it certainly was spread in the Occident
only by the sidereal cults.
80. The question has been raised whether the epithet Xpy879
means “lord of the world” or “lord of eternity" (cf. Lidz-
barski, Ephemeris, I, 258; II, 297; Lagrange, p. 508), but in
our opinion the controversy is to no purpose, since in the
spirit of the Syrian priests the two ideas are inseparable and
one expression in itself embraces both, the world being con-
ceived as eternal (supra, n. 76). See for Egypt, Horapoll.,
Hieroglyph., I (serpent as symbol of the alóv and kóo uos).
At Palmyra, too, the title “lord of all” is found, sa 87 (Lidz-
barski, loc. cit.); cf. Julian, Or., IV, p. 203, 5 (Hertlein): '0
Baoileùs Tūv lwy "Hlcos, and infra, n. 81; n. 87. Already at
Babylon the title “lord of the universe" was given to Shamash
and Hadad; see Jastrow, Religion Babyloniens, I, p. 254, n. 10.
Nöldeke has been good enough to write me as follows on this
subject: “Daran kan kein Zweifel sein, dass Dy zunächst
(lange Zeit) Ewigkeit heisst, und dass die Bedeutung 'Welt
secundär ist. Ich halte es daher für so gut wie gewiss dass
das palmyrenische xosy 870, wenn es ein alter Name ist, den
'ewigen' Herrn bedeutet, wie ohne Zweifeld Swy S8, Gen., xxi.
33. Das biblische Hebräisch kennt die Bedeutung 'Welt noch
nicht, abgesehen wohl von der späten Stelle, Eccl. iii. 11. Und,
so viel ich sehe, ist im Palmyrenischen sonst sosy immer
'Ewigkeit,' z. B. in der häufigen Redensart 895ys non 79725.
Aber das daneben vorkommende palmyr. 50 x führt aller-
dings darauf, dass die palmyrenische Inschrift auch in xpsy xnn
den 'Herrn der Welt' sah. Ja der syrische Uebersetzer sieht
auch in jenem hebräischen DS18 Seden Gott der Welt.' Das
Syrische hat nämlich einen formalen Unterschied festgestellt
zwischen ‘älăm, dem Status absolutus, 'Ewigkeit,' und 'ālmū
[ālemā] dem Status emphaticus 'Welt.'--Sollte übrigens die
· NOTES-SYRIA,
259
Bedeutung Welt diesem Worte erst durch Einfluss griechischer
Speculation zu Teil geworden sein? In der Zingirli-Inschrift
bedeuted sya noch bloss ‘in seiner Zeit.'”
81. Cf. CIL, III, 1090 = Dessau, Inscr., 2998: “Divinarum
humanarumque rerum rectori.” Compare ibid., 2999 and Cag-
net, Année épigr., 1905, No. 235: "I. O. M., id est universitatis
principi.” Cf. the article of the Archiv cited, n. 73. The As-
clepius says (c. 39), using an astrological term: “Caelestes dii
catholicorum dominantur, terreni incolunt singula."
82. Cf. W. Robertson Smith, 75 ff., passim. In the Syrian
religions as in that of Mithra, the initiates regarded each
other as members of the same family, and the phrase "dear
brethren" as used by our preachers, was already in use among
the votaries of Jupiter Dolichenus (fratres carissimos, CIL,
VI, 406 = 30758).
83. Renan mentioned this fact in his Apotres, p. 297 = Jour-
nal Asiatique, 1859, p. 259. Cf. Jalabert, Mél. faculté orient.
Beyrout, I, 1906, p. 146.
84. This is the term (virtutes) used by the pagans. See the
inscription Numini et virtutibus dei aeterni as reconstructed
in Revue de Philologie, 1902, p. 9; Archiv für Religionsw., loc.
cit., p. 335, n. I and infra, ch. VIII, 11. 20.
85. CIL, VII, 759 = Bücheler, Carm. epig., 24.-Cf. Lucian,
De dea Syria, 32.
86. Macrobius, Sat., I, 23, $ 17: "Nominis (Adad) interpre-
tatio significat unus unus." .
87. Cicero, Somniun Scip., C. 4: "Sol dux et princeps et
moderator luminum reliquoruin, mens mundi et temperatio."
Pliny, H. N., II, 6, § 12: "Sol... .siderum ipsorum caelique
rector. Hunc esse mundi totius animam ac planius mentem,
hunc principale naturae regimen ac numen credere decet," etc.
Julian of Laodicea, Cat. codd. astr., I, p. 136, 1. I:
"Ήλιος βασιλεύς και ηγεμών του σύμπαντος κόσμου καθεστώς, πάντων
καθηγούμενος και πάντων ων γενεσιάρχης.
88. We are here recapitulating some conclusions of a study
on La théologie solaire du paganisme romain published in Mé-
moires des savants étrangers présentés à l'Acad. des Inscr.,
XII, 2d part, pp. 447 ff., Paris, 1910.
redovnc.
260
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
89. The hymns of Synesius (II, 10 ff., IV, 120 ff., etc.) con-
tain peculiar examples of the combination of the old astro-
logical ideas with Christian theology.
VI. PERSIA.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: We shall not attempt here to give a bibliog-
raphy of the works devoted to Mazdaism. We shall merely
refer the reader to that of Lehmann in Chantepie de la Saus-
saye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, II, p. 150. We should
mention, in the first place, Darmesteter, Le Zend Avesta, 1892 ff.,
with introductions and commentary.-In my Textes et monu-
ments relatifs aux mystères de Mithra (2 vols., 1894-1900),
I, pp. xx ff., I have furnished a list of the earlier works on
this subject; the conclusions of the book have been published
separately without the notes, under the title: Les Mystères de
Mithra, (2d ed., Paris and Brussels, 1902; English translation,
Chicago, 1903). See also the article “Mithra” in the Diction-
naire des antiquités of Daremberg and Saglio, 1904.-General
outlines of certain phases of this religion have been since
given by Grill, Die persische Mysterienreligion und das Chris-
tentum, 1903; Roeses, Veber Mithrasdienst, Stralsund, 1905;
G. Wolff, Ueber Mithrasdienst und Mithreen, Frankfort, 1909;
Reinach, La morale du mithraïsme in Cultes, mythes, II, 1906,
PP. 220 ff.; Dill, op. cit., pp. 594-626; cf. also Bigg, op. cit.
[p. 321], 1905, p. 46 ff.; Harnack, Ausbreitung des Christent.,
II, p. 270. Among the learned researches which we cannot
enumerate here, the most important is that of Albrecht Die-
terich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, 1903. He has endeavored with
some ingenuity to show that a mystical passage inserted in
a magic papyrus preserved at Paris is in reality a fragment
of a Mithraic liturgy, but here I share the skepticism of
Reitzenstein (Neue Jahrb. f. das class. Altertuin, 1904, p.
192) and I have given my reasons in Rev. de l'Instr. publ.
en Belg., XLVII, 1904, pp. I ff. Dieterich answered briefly
in Archiv f. Religionswis., VIII, 1905, p. 502, but without
convincing me. The author of the passage in question may
have been more or less accurate in giving his god the ex-
ternal appearance of Mithra, but he certainly did not know
the eschatology of the Persian mysteries. We know, for
NOTES-PERSIA.
261
instance, through positive testimony that they taught the dogma
of the passage of the soul through the seven planetary spheres,
and that Mithra acted as a guide to his votaries in their ascen-
sion to the realm of the blessed. Neither the former nor the
latter doctrine, however, is found in the fantastic uranog-
raphy of the magician. The name of Mithra, as elsewhere
that of the magi Zoroaster and Hostanes, helped to circulate
an Egyptian forgery., cf. Wendland, Die hellenistisch-römische
Kultur, 1907, p. 168, n. 1. See on this controversy Wünsch's
notes in the 2d ed. of the Mithrasliturgie, 1910, pp. 225 ff.-A
considerable number of new monuments have been published
of late years (the mithreum of Saalburg by Jacobi, etc.). The
most important ones are those of the temple of Sidon pre-
served in the collection of Clercq (De Ridder, Marbres de la
collection de C., 1906, pp. 52 ff.) and those of Stockstadt pub-
lished by Drexel (Der obergerm. Limes; XXXIII, Heidelberg,
1910). In the following notes I shall only mention the works
or texts which could not be utilized in my earlier researches.
1. Cf. Petr. Patricius, Excerpta de leg., 12 (II, p. 393, de
Boor ed.).
2. Cf. Chapot, Les destinées de l'hellénisme au delà l’Eu-
phrate (Mém. soc. antiq. de France), 1902, PP. 207 ff.
3. Humbert in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire, s. V.
“Amici,” I, p. 228 (cf. 160). Cf. Friedländer, Sittengesch., I,
Pp. 202 ff. .
4. Cf. L'Eternité des empereurs romains (Rev. d'hist. et de
litt. relig., I), 1896, p. 442.
5. Friedländer (loc. cit., p. 204) has pointed out several
instances where Augustus borrowed from his distant prede-
cessors the custom of keeping a journal of the palace, of edu-
cating the children of noble families at court, etc. Certain
public institutions were undoubtedly modeled on them; for
instance, the organization of the mails (Otto Hirschfeld, Ver-
waltungsbeamten, p. 190, n. 2; Rostovtzev, Klio, VI, p. 249
(on angariae); cf. Preisigke, Die Ptolemäische Staatspost
(Klio, VII, p. 241), that of the secret police (Friedländer, I,
P. 427).-On the Mazdean Hvareno who became Túxn Bao..
déws, then Fortuna Augusti, cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 284
ff.-Even Mommsen (Röm. Gesch., V, p. 343), although pre-
262
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
disposed to look for the continuity of the Roman tradition,
adds, after setting forth the rules that obtained at the court
of the Parthians: "Alle Ordnungen die mit wenigen Ab-
minderungen bei den römischen Caesaren wiederkehren und
vielleicht zum Teil von diesen der älteren Grossherrschaft
entlehnt sind.”—Cf. also infra, ch. VIII, n. 19.
6. Friedländer, loc. cit., p. 204; cf. p. 160.
7. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutestam. Zeit-
alter, 1903 (2d ed. 1906), pp. 453 ff., passim.
8. Cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 21 ff.
9. Cf. infra, ch. VII, PP. 188 ff.
10. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 9 ff., pp. 231 ff.
11. Lactantius, De mort., persec., 21, 2; cf. Seeck, Gesch. des
Untergangs der antiken Welt, II, pp. 7 ff.
12. Cf. Strzygowski, Mschatta (Jahrb. preuss. Kunstsanim-
lungen, XXV), Berlin, 1904, pp. 324 ff., 371 ff.–From a com-
munication made to the Congress of Orientalists at Copen-
hagen (1908) by Father Lammens, it would appear that the
façade of Mschatta is the work of an Omaiyad kalif of Damas-
cus, and Strzygowski's conclusions would, therefore, have to
be modified considerably; but the influence of Sassanid art in
Syria is nevertheless certain; see Dussaud, Les Arabes en
Syrie avant l'Islaın, 1907, pp. 33, 51 ff.
13. Cf. infra, n. 32.
14. Plutarch, V. Pompei, 24:
Ξενάς δε θυσίας έθυον αυτοί τας εν Ολύμπω και τελετάς τινας απορρήτους
ετέλουν, ών ή του Μίθρου και μέχρι δεύρο διασώζεται καταδειχθείσα πρώτον
'n'ékeivwv.
15. Lactantius Placidus ad Stat., Theb. IV, 717: "Quae sacra
primum Persae habuerunt, a Persis Phryges, a Phrygibus Ro-
mani."
16. In the Studia Pontica, p. 368, I have described a grotto
located near Trapezus and formerly dedicated to Mithra, but
now transformed into a church. We know of no other
Mithreum. A bilingual dedication to Mithra, in Greek and
Aramaic, is engraved upon a rock in a wild pass near Farasha
(Rhodandos) in Cappadocia. Recently it has been republished
NOTES-PERSIA.
263
with excellent notes by Henri Grégoire (Comptes Rendus
Acad. des Inscr., 1908, pp. 434 ff.), but the commentator has
mentioned no trace of a temple. The text says that a strategus
from Ariaramneia εμάγευσε Μίθρα. Perhaps these words must
be translated according to a frequent meaning of the aorist,
by "became a magus of Mithra" or "began to serve Mithra as
a magus.” This would lead to the conclusion that the inscrip-
tion was made on the occasion of an initiation. The magus
dignity was originally hereditary in the sacred caste; strangers
could acquire it after the cult had assumed the form of mys-
teries. If the interpretation offered by us is correct the Cap-
padocian inscription would furnish interesting evidence of that
transformation in the Orient. Moreover, we know that Tiri-
dates of Armenia initiated Nero; see Mon. myst. Mithra, I,
p. 239.
17. Strabo, XI, 14, § 9. On the studs of Cappadocia, cf.
Grégoire, Saints jumeaux et dieux cavaliers, 1905, pp. 56 ff.
18. Cf. C. R. Acad. des 112scr., 1905, pp. 99 ff. (note on the
bilingual inscription of Aghatcha-Kalé); cf. Daremberg-
Saglio-Pottier, Dict. Antiqu., s. V., "Satrapa."
19. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 10, 11. 1. The argument un-
doubtedly dates back to Carneades, see Boll, Studien über
Claudius Ptolemnäus, 1894, pp. 181 ff.
20. Louis H. Gray (Archiv für Religionswiss., VII, 1904,
p. 345) has shown how these six Amshaspands passed from
being divinities of the material world to the rank of moral
abstractions. From an important text of Plutarch it appears
that they already had this quality in Cappadocia; cf. M011.
myst. Mithra, II, p. 33, and Philo, Quod onin. prob. lib., II (II,
456 M).-On Persian gods worshiped in Cappadocia, see M011.
niyst. Mithra, I, p. 132.
21. See supra, n. 16 and 18.-According to Grégoire, the
bilingual inscription of Farasha dates back to the first cen-
tury, before or after Christ (loc. cit., p. 445).
22. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 9, n. 5.
23. Comparison of the type of Jupiter Dolichenus with the
bas-reliefs of Boghaz-Keui led Kan (De Iovis Dolicheni cultu,
Groningen, 1901, pp. 3 ff.) to see an Anatolian god in him.
VW
264
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS
The comparison of the formula ubi ferrum nascitur with the
• expression όπου ο σίδηρος τίκτεται, used in connection with the
Chalybians, leads to the same conclusion, see Revue de philo-
logie, XXVI, 1902, p. 281.--Still, the representations of Jupiter
Dolichnus also possess a remarkable resemblance to those of
the Babylonian god Ramman; cf. Jeremias in Roscher, Lexikon
der Myth., s. v. "Ramman," IV, col. 50 ff.
24. Rev. archéol. 1905, I, p. 189. Cf. supra, p. 373, n. 68. :
25. Herod., I, 131.—On the assimilation of Baalsamin to
Ahura-Mazda, cf. supra, p. 127, and infra, n. 29. At Rome,
Jupiter Dolichenus was conservator totius poli et numen prae-
stantissimum (CIL, VI, 406 = 30758).
26. Inscription of King Antiochus of Commagene (Michel,
Recueil, No. 735), 1. 43:
Προς ουρανίους Διός Ωρομάσδου θρόνους θεοφιλή ψυχήν προπέμψαν;
cf. 1. 33: Oupaviwv åyxlota Opóvwv.
27. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 87.
28. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 333.-An inscription discovered
in a mithreum at Dorstadt (Sacidava in Dacia, CIL, III, 7728,
cf. 7729), furnishes, if I rightly understand, another proof of
the relation existing between the Semitic cults and that of the
Persian gods. It speaks of a "de ſorum?] sacerdos creatus a
Pal[myr)enis, do[mo] Macedonia, et adven(tor] huius templi.”
This rather obscure text becomes clear when compared with
Apul., Metam., XI, 26. After the hero had been initiated into
the mysteries of Isis in Greece, he was received at Rome in
the great temple of the Campus Martius, "fani quidem advena,
religionis autem indigena.” It appears also that this Mace-
donian, who was made a priest of their national gods (Bel,
Malakbel, etc.) by a colony of Palmyrenians, was received in
Dacia by the mystics of Mithra as a member of their religion.
29. At Venasa in Cappadocia, for instance, the people, even
during the Christian period, celebrated a panegyric on a moun-
tain, where the celestial Zeus, representing Baalsamin and
Ahura-Mazda, was formerly worshiped (Ramsay, Church in
the Roman Empire, 1894, pp. 142, 457). The identification of
Bel with Ahura-Mazda in Cappadocia results from the Ara-
maic inscription of Jarpuz (Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil, III,
NOTES--PERSIA.
265
P. 59; Lidzbarski, Ephemeris für semit. Epigraphik, I, pp.
59 ff.). The Zeus Stratios worshiped upon a high summit
near Amasia was in reality Ahura-Mazda, who in turn prob-
ably supplanted some local god (Studia Pontica, pp. 173 ff.).—
Similarly the equation Anahita = Ishtar = Ma or Cybele for
the great female divinity is accepted everywhere (Mon. myst.
Mithra, I, p. 333), and Ma takes the epithet åvlkntos like
Mithra (Athen. Mitt., XVIII, 1893, p. 415, and XXIX, 1904,
p. Ι69). A temple of this goddess was called ιερόν 'Αστάρτης
in a decree of Anisa (Michel, Recueil, No. 536, 1. 32).
30. The Mithra "mysteries” are not of Hellenic origin (Mon.
myst. Mithra, I, p. 239), but their resemblance to those of
Greece, which Gruppe insists upon (Griech. Mythologie, pp.
1596 ff.) was such that the two were bound to become con-
fused in the Alexandrian period.
3r. Harnack (Ausbreitung des Christentuins, II, p. 271)
sees in this exclusion of the Hellenic world a prime cause of
the weakness of the Mithra worship in its struggle against
Christianity. The mysteries of Mithra met the Greek culture
with the culture of Persia, superior in some respects. But
if it was capable of attracting the Roman mind by its moral
qualities, it was too. Asiatic, on the whole, to be accepted
without repugnance by the Occidentals. The same was true
of Manicheism.
32. CIL, III, 4413; cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 281.
33. Cf. the bibliography at the head of the notes for this
chapter.
34. As Plato grew older he believed that he could not ex-
plain the evils of this world without admitting the existence
of an "evil soul of the world” (Zeller, Philos. der Griechen,
II“, p. 973, p. 981, n. I). But this late conception, opposed
as it is to his entire system, is probably due to the influence
of Oriental dualism. It is found in the Epinomis (Zeller,
ibid., p. 1042, n. 4), where the influence of "Chaldean” theories
is undeniable; cf. Bidez, Revue de Philologie, XXIX, 1905, P.
319.
35. Plutarch, De I side, 46 ff.; cf. Zeller, Philos. der Griechen,
V, p. 188; Eisele, Zur Demonologie des Plutarch (Archiv für
Gesch. der Philos., XVII), 1903, p. 283 f.-Cf. infra, n. 40.
266
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
36. Arnobius, who was indebted to Cornelius Labeo for some
exact information on the doctrines of the magi, says (IV, 12,
D. 150, 12, Reifferscheid): “Magi suis in accitionibus memorant
antitheos saepius obrepere pro accitis, esse autem hos quosdam
materiis ex crassioribus spiritus qui deos se fingant, nesciosque
mendaciis et simulationibus ludant.” Lactantius, the pupil of
Arnobius, used the same word in speaking of Satan that a
Mazdean would have used in referring to Ahriman (Inst. divin.,
II, 9, 13, P. 144, 13, Brandt): “Nox quam pravc illi antitheo
dicimus attributam”; he is the aemulus Dei.--Heliodorus who
has made use in his Aethiopica of data taken from the Maz-
dean beliefs (see Monuments relatifs aux mystères de Mithra,
volume I, p. 336, n. 2) uses the Greek word in the same
sense, (IV, 7, p. 105, 27, Bekker.ed.): 'Avriðɛós tis ŠOIKEV &UTTO-
DÍSELV TÌU Tpãęcv.-—The Ps. Iamblichus, De inyster., III, 31, $ 15,
likewise speaks of daimoves rovnpoùs ous dì kai kałowolv åvTiokovs.
Finally the magical papyri also knew of the existence of these
deceiving spirits (Wessely, Denksch. Akad. Wien, XLII, p.
42, v. 702: Iléu Wov poc tòv áhnolvov 'ASKANTLÒV dixa Tivos ávridéov
πλανοδαίμονος).
37. In a passage to which we shall return in note 39, Por-
phyry (De Abstin., II, 42), speaks of the demons in almost the
same terms as Arnobius: Tò yàp yeūdos TOÚTOLS olkelov. Boúhovral
γαρ είναι θεοί και η προεστώσα αυτών δύναμις δοικείν θεός είναι ο μέγιστος
(cf. c. 41: Toúrovę Kai Tòv a poeotāta avīūv); likewise Ps.-Iambli-
chus, De myst., III, 30, 6: Tòv uéyav nyejuova Tūv daquóvov. In the
De philos. ex orac, haulr. (pp. 147 ff. Wolff), an early work
in which he followed other sources than those in De Absti-
9!entia, Porphyry made Serapis (= Pluto) the chief of the
malevolent demons. There was bound to be a connection
between the Egyptian god of the underworld and the Ahri-
man of the Persians at an early date.-A veiled allusion to
this chief of demons may be contained in Lucan, VI, 742 ff.,
and Plutarch who, in De Iside, 46, called Ahriman Hades
(supra, p. 190; cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, II, p. 131, No. 3), says
elsewhere (De Latenten Uo., 6, p. II30): Tòn đề Tặc cua riac Kíptop
joipas, eite deòs eite daiļav totiv, "Acdnu óvouášovoiv. Cf. Decharnie,
Traditions religieuses chez les Grecs, 1904, p. 431, n. I.
38. The dedication Diis angelis recently found at Vimina-
12
NOTES-PERSIA.
267
cium (Jahresh. Instituts in Wien, 1905, Beiblatt, p. 6), in a
country where the Mithra worship had spread considerably
seems to me to refer to this. See Minuc. Felix, Octav., 26:
“Magorum et eloquio et negotio primus Hostanes angelos, id
est ministros et nuntios Dei, eius venerationi novit assistere."
St. Cypr., "Quod idola dii n. s.," c. 6 (p. 24, 2, Hartel) : "Os-
tanes et formam Dei veri negat conspici posse et angelos veros
sedi eius dicit adsistere.” Cf. Tertullian, Apol., XXIII: “Magi
habentes invitatorum angelorum et daemonum adsistentem
sibi potestatem;" Arnobius, II, 35 (p. 76, 15, Reifferscheid);
Aug., Civ. Dei, X, 9, and the texts collected by Wolff, Por-
phyrii de philos. ex orac, haurienda, 1856, pp. 223 ff.; Kroll,
De orac. Chaldaicis, 1894, pp. 53; Roscher, Die Hebdomaden-
lehre der griech. Philosophen, Leipsic, 1906, p. 145; Abt, Apu-
leius und die Zauberei, Giessen, 1909, p. 256.
· 39. Porphyry, De Abstin., II, 37-43, expounds a theory about
the demons, which, he says, he took from "certain Platonists"
(IIlarwylkoi rives, Numenius and Cronius?). That these
authors, whoever they were, helped themselves freely to the
doctrines of the magi, seems to appear immediately from the
whole of Porphyry's exposition (one could almost give an
endless commentary on it with the help of the Mazdean
books) and in particular from the mention that is made of a
power commanding the spirits of evil (see supra, n. 37). This
conclusion is confirmed by a comparison with the passage of
Arnobius cited above (n. 36), who attributes similar theories
to the "magi," and with a chapter of the Ps.-Iamblichus (De
91.:steriis, III, 31) which develops analogous beliefs as being
those of "Chaldean prophets.”—Porphyry also cites a "Chal-
dean” theologian in connection with the influence of the
demons, De regressu animae (Aug., Civ. Dei, X, 9).
I conjecture that the source of all this demonology is the
book attributed to Hostanes which we find mentioned in the
second century of our era by Minucius Felix, St. Cyprian
(supra, n. 38), etc.; cf. Wolff, op. cit., p. 138; Mon, myst.
Mithra, I, p. 33. As a matter of fact it would be false logic
to try to explain the evolution of demonology, which is above
everything else religious, by the development of the philosophic
theories of the Greeks (see for instance the communications
of Messrs. Stock and Glover: Transactions of the Congress of
268
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
History of Rel., Oxford, 1908, II, pp. 164 ff.). The influence
of the popular Hellenic or foreign ideas has always been pre-
ponderant here; and the Epinomis, which contains one of the
oldest accounts of the theory of demons, as proved supra, n.
34, was influenced by the Semitic notions about genii, the an-
cestors of the djinns and the wélys of Islam.
If, as we believe, the text of Porphyry really sets forth the
theology of the magi, slightly modified by Platonic ideas based
on popular beliefs of the Greeks and perhaps of the barbarians,
we shall be able to draw interesting conclusions in regard to
the mysteries of Mithra. For instance, one of the principles
developed is that the gods must not be honored by the sacri-
fice of animated beings (éuyuxa), and that immolation of vic-
tims should be reserved for the demons. The same idea is
found in Cornelius Labeo, (Aug., Civ. Dei, VIII, 13; see
Arnobius, VII, 24), and possibly it was the practice of the
Mithra cult. Porphyry (II, 36) speaks in this connection of
rites and mysteries, but without divulging them, and it is
known that in the course of its history Mazdaism passed from
the bloody to the bloodless sacrifice (Mon. myst. Mithra, I,
p. 6).
40. Cf. Plutarch, De defectu orac., 10, p. 415 A:
Εμοί δε δοκούσι πλείονας λύσαι απορίας οι το τών δαιμόνων γένος εν μέσω
θέντες θεών και ανθρώπων και τρόπον τινά την κοινωνίαν ημών συνάγον εις
ταυτό και συναπτον εξεύροντες· είτε μάγων των περί Ζωροάστρην ο λόγος
OvTÓS Éoti, eite Opę klos...
41. Cf. Minucius Felix, 26, $IT: "Hostanes daemonas pro-
didit terrenos vagos humanitatis inimicos." The pagan idea,
that the air was peopled with evil spirits against whom man
had to strugle perpetually, persisted among the Christians;
cf. Ephes., ii. 2, vi. 12, see also Prudentius, Hamartigenia,
514 ff.
42. Cf. Minucius Felix, loc. cit.: “Magi non solum sciunt
daemonas, sed quidquid miraculi ludunt, per daemonas fa-
ciunt," etc. Cf. Aug., Civ. Dei, X, 9 and infra, ch. VII, n. 76.
43. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 139 ff.
44. Theod. Mopsuest. ap. Photius, Bibl. 81. Cf. Mon. myst.
Mithra, I, p. 8.
NOTES-PERSIA.
269
45. Cf. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums in neutest.
Zeitalter, 1903, pp. 483 ff.
46. Julian, Caesares, p. 336 C. The term évtolal is the one
also used in the Greek Church for the commandments of the
Lord.
47. Cf. supra, p. 36.
48. The remark is from Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta, II, p.
441.
49. Cf. Reinach, op. cit., [260], pp. 230 ff.
50. Farnell, Evolution of Religion, p. 127.
51. Mithra is sanctus (Mon. myst. Mithra, II, p. 533), like
the Syrian gods; cf. supra, ch. V, n. 47.
52. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 309 ff. The eschatology of
orthodox Mazdaism has been expounded recently by Söder-
blom, La vie future d'après le maždéisme, Paris, 1901.
53. Cf. supra, ch. IV, p. 100, ch. V, p. 126.
54. We have explained this theory above, p. 125. It was
foreign to the religion of Zoroaster and was introduced into
the mysteries of Mithra with the Chaldean astrology. More-
over, ancient mythological ideas were always mixed with this
learned theology. For instance, it was an old Oriental belief
that souls, being regarded as material, wore clothing (Mon.
inyst. Mithra, I, p. 15, 17. 5; Bousset, Archiv für Religionswiss.,
IV, 1901, D. 233, n. 2; Rev. hist. des relig., 1899, p. 243, and
especially Böklen, Die Verwandtschaft der jüdisch-christlichen
und der parsischen Eschatologie, Göttingen, 1902, pp. 61 ff.
Thence arose the notion prevalent to the end of paganism,
that the soul in passing through the planetary spheres, took
on the qualities of the stars "like successive tunics.” Por-
phyry, De abstin., I, 31: 'ATOUTéov ápa tous mollows huiv xitāvas
K. T. 1.; Macrobius, Somnium Sc., I, II, § 12: "In singulis
sphaeris aetherea obvolutione vestitur"; 1, 12, $ 13: "Luminosi
corporis amicitur accessu”; Proclus, In Tim., I, 113, 8, Diehl
ed. : IIepißálleodai Xltūvas; Procl., Opera, Cousin ed., p. 222:
"Exuendum autem nobis et tunicas quas descendentes induti
sumus”; Kroll, De orac. Chaldaïcis, p. 51, n. 2: Vuxn éooauévn
voūv; Julian, Or., II, p. 123, 22, (Hertlein). Cf. Wendland,
Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur, p. 168 1. 1. Compare what
270
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Hippolytus, Pliilos., V, I, says of Isis (Ishtar?) in connection
with the Naasenians. She is értáo rolos, because nature also
is covered with seven ethereal garments, the seven heavens of
the planets; see Ps.-Apul., Asclepius, 34 (p. 75, 2 Thomas):
"Mundum sensibilem et, quae in eo sunt, omnia a superiore
illo mundo quasi ex vestimento esse contecta." I have insisted
upon the persistence of this idea, because it may help us to
grasp the significance attributed to a detail of the Mithra ritual
in connection with which Porphyry relates nothing but con-
tradictory interpretations. The persons initiated into the seven
degrees were obliged to put on different costumes. The seven
degrees of initiation successively conferred upon the mystic
were symbols of the seven planetary spheres, through which
the soul ascended after death (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 316),
the garments assumed by the initiates were probably con-
sidered as emblems of those "tunics" which the soul put on
when descending into the lower realins and discarded on re-
turning to heaven.
55. Renan, Marc-Aurèle, p. 579.
56. Anatole France, Le mannequin d'osier, p. 318. Cf. Rei-
VII. ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bouché-Leclercq's book L'astrologie grecque
(Paris, 1899) makes it unnecessary to refer to the earlier
works of Saumaise (De annis clirzactericis, 1648), of Seiffarth
(Beiträge zur Lit. des alten Aegypten, II, 1883), etc. Most of
the facts cited by us are taken from that monumental treatisc,
unless otherwise stated.—A large number of new texts lias
been published in the Catalogus codicum astrologoruin Grae-
coruni (9 vols. ready, Brussels, 1898).-Franz Boll, Sphaera
barbarian constellations (see Rev. archéol., 1903, I, p. 437).-
De la Ville de Mirmont has furnished notes on L'astrologie
en Gaule au Ve siècle (Rev. des Etudes anciennes, 1902, pp.
115 ff.; 1903, pp. 255 ff.; 1906, p. 128). Also in book form,
Bordeaux, 1904. The principal results of the latest researches
have been outlined to perfection by Boll, Die Erforschung der
NOTES-ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
271
antiken Astrologie (Neue Jahrb. für das klass. Altert., XI),
1908, pp. 104. ff. For the bibliography of magic, cf. infra, notes,
58 ff.
I. Stephan. Byzant. (Cat. codd. astr., II, p. 235), I, 12:
’EFOXWTátn kai maons ÉTLOTņuns déorolva. Theophil. Edess., ibid.,
V, I, p. 184: "Otl Taowv Tillwrépa Texvūv. Vettius Valens, VI,
proem. (ibid., V, 2, p. 34, 7 = p. 241, 19, Kroll ed.): Tis yap
ουκ αν κρίναι ταύτην την θεωρίαν πασών πρoύχειν και μακαριωτάτην τυγ-
χάνειν.
2. Cf. Louis Havet, Revue bleue, Nov., 1905, p. 644.
3. Cf. supra, p. 146, p. 123.
4. Kroll, Aus der Gesch, der Astrol. (Neue Jahrb. für das
klass. Altertum, VII), 1901, pp. 598 ff. Cf. Boll, Cat. codd.
astr., VII, p. 130.
5. The argumentation of Posidonius, placed at the begin-
ning of the Tetrabiblos, inspired the defense of astrology, and
it has been drawn upon considerably by authors of widely
different spirit and tendencies, see Boll, Studien über Claudius
Ptolemäus, 1894, pp. 133 ff.
6. Suetonius, Tib., 69.
7. Suetonius, Othon, 8; cf. Bouché-Leclercq, p. 556, 11. 4.
8. On these edifices, cf. Maass, Tagesgötter, 1902. The form
"Septizonia” is preferable to "Septizodia"; cf. Schürer, Sieben-
tägige Woche (Extr. Zeitschr. neutestam. Wissensch., VI),
1904, pp. 31, 63.
: 9. Friedländer, Sittengesch., I, p. 364. It appears that astrol-
ogy never obtained a hold on the lower classes of the rural
population. It has a very insignificant place in the folklore
and healing arts of the peasantry.
10. Manilius, IV, 16.-For instance CIL, VI, 13782, the epi-
taph of a Syrian freedman: "L. Caecilius L. 1(ibertus) Syrus,
natus mense Maio hora noctis VI, die Mercuri, vixit ann. VI
dies XXXIII, mortuus est IIII Kal. Iulias hora X, elatus est
h(ora) III frequentia maxima." Cf. Bucheler, Carm. epigr.,
1536: “Voluit hoc astrum meum."
II. Chapter IIepi delTvou: Cat. codd. astr., IV, p. 94. The
precept: "Ungues Mercurio, barbam Iove, Cypride crinem,"
272
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
ridiculed by Ausonius, VII, 29, p. 108, Piper) is well known.
There are many chapters IIepi óvúxwv, IIepi luarlwr, etc.
12. Cat. codd. astr., V, I (Rom.) P. II, cod. 2, f. 34:
Περί του εί έχει μέγαν ρίνα και γεννηθείς. Πότερον πόρνη γένηται η
γεννηθείσα.
13. Varro, De re rustica, I, 37, 2; cf. Pliny, Hist. nat., XVI,
75, § 194. Olympiod, Comm. in Alcibiad Plat., p. 18 (ed.
Creuzer, 1821): Tous lepatikās šārtas šotu ideiv un å Tokelpouévous
αυξούσης της σελήνης. This applies to popular superstition rather
than to astrology.
14. CIL, VI, 27140 = Bücheler, Carmina epigraph., 1163:
“Decepit utrosque | Maxima mnendacis fama mathematici.”
15. Palchos in the Cat. codd. astr., I, pp. 106-107.
16. Manilius, IV, 386 ff., 866 ff. passim.
17. Vettius Valens, V, 12 (Cat. codd. astr., V, 2, p. 32 = p.
239, 8, Kroll ed.); cf. V, 9 (Cat., V, 2, p. 31, 20 = p. 222, II
Kroll ed.).
18. Cf. Steph. Byz., Cat. codd. astr., II, p. 186. He calls
both στοχασμός έντεχνος. The expression is taken up again by
Manuel Comnenus (Cat., V, 1, p. 123, 4), and by the Arab
Abou-Mashar [Apomasar] (Cat., V, 2, P. 153).
19. The sacerdotal origin of astrology was well known to the
ancients; see Manilius, I, 40 ff.
20. Thus in the chapter on the fixed stars which passed
down to Theophilus of Edessa and a Byzantine of the ninth
century, from a pagan author who wrote at Rome in 379; cf.
Cat. codd. astrol., V, 1, pp. 212, 218.-The same observation
has been made in the manuscripts of the Cyranides, cf. F. de
Mély and Ruelle, Lapidaires grecs, II, p. xi. n. 3.--See also
Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 31 ff.; Boll, Die Erforsch. der an-
tiken Astrologie, pp. 110 ff.
21. In Vettius Valens, III, 12 (p. 150, 12 Kroll ed.) and IX,
prooem. (p. 329, 20); cf. VI, prooem. (p. 241, 16); Riess,
Petosiridis et Necheps. fragm., fr. 1.
22. Vettius Valens, IV, 11 (Cat, codd, astr., V, 2, p. 86 =
D. 172, 31 ff., Kroll ed.), cf. V, 12, (Cat., ibid., p. 32 = p. 238,
18 ff.), VII prooem. (Cat., p. 41 = p. 263, 1. 4; Kroll ed. and
the note).
.
NOTES-ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
273
23. Firmicus Maternus, II, 30, VIII, prooem. and 5. Cf.
Theophilus of Edessa, Cat., V, 1, p. 238, 25; Julian of Laod.,
Cat., IV, p. 104, 4.
24. CIL, V, 5893.—Chaeremon, an Egyptian priest, was also
an astrologer.
25. Souter, Classical Review, 1897, p. 136; Ramsay, Cities
and Bishoprics of Phrygia, II, p. 566, 790.
26. On the Stoic theory of sympathy see Bouché-Leclercq,
pp. 28 ff., passim. A brilliant account will be found in Proclus,
In reinp. Plat., II, 258 f., Kroll ed. Cf. also Clem. Alex.,.
Strom., VI, 16, p. 143 (p. 504, 21, Stähelin ed.)–Philo at-
tributed it to the Chaldeans (De migrat. Abrahami, 32, II, p.
303, 5, Wendland):
Χαλδαίοι των άλλων ανθρώπων εκπεπονηκέναι και διαφερόντως δοκούσιν
αστρονομίας και γενεθλιαλογικήν, τα επίγεια τους μετεώρους και τα ουράνια
τοις επί γής άρμοζόμενοι και ώσπερ δια μουσικής λόγων την έμμελεστάτην
συμφωνίας του παντός επιδεικνύμενοι τη των μερών προς άλληλα κοινωνία
και συμπαθεία, τόποις μεν διεζευγμένων, συγγενεία δε ου διωκισμένων.
27. Riess in Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Aberglaube,"
I, col. 38 f.
29. Cat., V, I, p. 210, where a number of other examples
will be found.
30. See Boll, Sphaera (passim), and his note on the lists of
animals assigned to the planets, in Roscher, Lexikon Myth.,
s. v. "Planeten," III, col. 2534; cf. Die Erforsch, der Astrologie,
P. 110, n. 3.
31. Cat., V, I, pp. 210 ff.
32. Cf. supra, ch. V. pp. 128 ff.
33. Cf. supra, ch. V, n. 87.
34. On worship of the sky, of the signs of the zodiac, and
of the elements, cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 85 ff., 98 ff., 108 ff.
35. The magico-religious notion of sanctity, of mana, ap-
peared in the idea and notation of time. This has been shown
by Hubert in his profound analysis of La représentation d16
temps dans la religion et la magie (Progr. éc. des Hautes-
Etudes), 1905 = Mélanges hist. des rel., Paris, 1909, p. 190.
36. On the worship of Time see Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 20,
274
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
74 ff.; of the seasons: ibid., pp. 92 ff. There is no doubt that
the veneration of time and its subdivisions (seasons, months,
days, etc.) spread through the influence of astrology. Zeno
had deified thein; see Cicero, Nat. D., II, 63 (= von Arnim,
fr. 165): "Astris hod idem (i. e. vim divinam) tribuit, tum
annis, mensibus, annorumque mutationibus.” In conformity
with the materialism of the Stoics these subdivisions of time
were conceived by him as bodies (von Arnim, loc. cit., II, fr.
665; cf. Zeller, Ph. Gl., IV, p. 316, p. 221). The later texts
have been collected by Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v.
“Mên," II, col. 2689. See also Ambrosiaster, Comm. in epist.
Galat., IV, 10 (Migne, col. 381 B). Egypt had worshiped the
hours, the months, and the propitious and adverse years as
gods long before the Occident; see Wiedemann, loc. cit. (infra,
n. 64) pp. 7 ff.
37. They adorn many astronomical manuscripts, particularly
the Vaticanus gr. 1291, the archetype of which dates back to
the third century of our era; cf. Boll, Sitsiuugsb. Akad. Mün-
chen, 1899, pp. 125 ff., 136 ff.
38. Piper, Mythologie der christl. Kunst, 1851, II, pp. 313 f.
Cf. M011. mnyst. Mithra, I, p. 220.
39. Bidez, Bérose et la grande année in the Mélanges Paul
Frederica, Brussels, 1904, pp. 9 ff.
40. Cf. supra, pp. 126, 158 f.
41. When Goethe had made the ascent of the Brocken, in
1784, during splendid weather, he expressed his admiration
by writing the following verses from memory, (II, 115):
“Quis caelum possit, nisi caeli munere, nosse | Et reperire deum,
nisi qui pars ipse deorum est ?"; cf. Brief an Frau von Stein,
No. 518, (Schöll) 1885, quoted by Ellis in Noctes Manilianae,
p. viii.
42. This idea in the verse of Manilius (n. 41, cf. IV, 910),
and which may be found earlier in Somnium Scipionis (III,
4; see Macrobius, Comment. I, 14, § 16; "Animi societatem
cum caelo et sideribus habere communem”; Pseudo-Apul.,
Asclepius, c. 6, c. 9. Firmicus Maternus, Astrol., I, 5, $ 10).
dates back to Posidonius who made the contemplation of the
sky one of the sources of the belief in God (Capelle, Jahrb.
NOTES-ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
275
für das klass. Altertum, VIII, 1905, p. 534, n. 4), and it is
even older than that, for Hipparchus had already admitted a
"cognationem cum homine siderum, animasque, nostras par-
tem esse caeli” (Pliny, Hist. nat., II, 26, § 95).
43. Vettius Valens, IX, 8 (Cat. codd. astr., V, 2, p. 123=
p. 346, 20, Kroll ed.), VI, prooem. (Cat., ibid. p. 34, p. 35, 14
= p. 242, 16, 29, Kroll ed.); cf. the passages of Philo collected
by Cohn, De opificio mundi, c. 23, p. 24, and Capelle, loc. cit.
44. Manilius, IV, 14.
45. Cf. my article on L'éternité des empereurs (Rev. hist.
litt. relig., I), 1898, pp. 445 ff.
46. Reitzenstein, to whom belongs the credit of having
shown the strength of this astrological fatalism (see infra,
11. 57), believes that it developed in Egypt, but surely he is
wrong. In this connection see the observations of Bousset, Göt-
ting. gel. Anseigen, 1905, p. 704.
47. The most important work is unfortunately lost: it was
the IIepi eluapuévns by Diodorus of Tarsus. Photiis has left us
a summary (cod. 223). We possess a treatise on the same
subject by Gregory of Nyssa (P. G., XLV, p. 145). They
were supported by the Platonist Hierocles (Photius, cod. 214,
P. 172 b.).—Many attacks on astrology are found in St. Eph-
raim, Opera syriaca, II, pp. 437 ff.; St. Basil (Hexaem., VI,
5), St. Gregory of Nazianzen, St. Methodus (Symp., P. G.,
XVII, p. 1173); later in St. John Chrysostom, Procopus of
Gaza, etc. A curious extract from Julian of Halicarnassus
has been published by Usener, Rheinisches Mus., LV, 1900, p.
321.-We have spoken briefly of the Latin polemics in the
Revue d'hist. et de litt. relig., VIII, 1903, pp. 423 f. A work
entitled De Fato (Bardenhewer, Gesch. altchr. Lit., I, p.315)
has been attributed to Minucius Felix; Nicetas of Remesiana
(about 400) wrote a book Adversus genethlialogian (Gen-
nadius, Vir. inl., c. 22), but the principal adversary of the
mathematici was St. Augustine (Civ. Dei, c. I ff.; Epist., 246,
ad Lampadium, etc.). See also Wendland, Die hellenistisch-
römische Kultur, p. 172, 11. 2.
48. The influence of the astrological ideas was felt by the
Arabian paganism before Mohammed; see supra, ch. VIII, n.
57.
276
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
49. Dante, Purg., XXX, 109 ff.-In the Convivio, II, ch. XIV,
Dante expressly professes the doctrine of the influence of the
stars over human affairs.—The church succeeded in extir-
pating the learned astrology of the Latin world almost com-
pletely at the beginning of the Middle Ages. We do not
know of one astrological treatise, or of one manuscript of the
Carlovingian period, but the ancient faith in the power of the
stars continued in secret and gained new strength when Europe
came in contact with Arabian science.
50. Bouché-Leclercq devotes a chapter to them (pp. 609 ff.).
51. Seneca, Quaest. Nat., II, 35: “Expiationes et procura-
tiones nihil aliud esse quam aegrae mentis solatia. Fata in-
revocabiliter ius suum peragunt nec ulla commoventur prece."
Cf. Schmidt, Veteres philosophi quoinodo indicaverint de pre-
cibus, Giessen, 1907, p. 34.— Vettius Valens, V, 9, (Catal. codd.
astr., V, 2 p. 30, II = p. 220, 28, Kroll ed.), professes that
'Αδυνατόν τινα ευχαίς ή θυσίαις επινικήσαι την εξ αρχής καταβολής
K. 7.1., but he seems to contradict himself, IX, 8 (P. 347, I ff.).
52. Suetonius, Tib., 69: “Circa deos ac religiones neglegen-.
tior, quippe addictus mathematicae, plenusque persuasionis
cuncta fato agi.” Cf. Manilius, IV.
53. Vettius Valens, IX, 11 (Cat. codd. astr., V, 2, p. 51, 8 ff.
= p. 355, 15, Kroll ed.), cf. VI, prooem. (Cat., p. 33= D. 240,
Kroll).
54. "Si tribuunt fata genesis, cur deos oratis ?" reads a verse
of Commodianus (I, 16, 5). The antinomy between the belief
in fatalism and this practice did not prevent the two from
existing side by side, cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 120, 311;
Revue d'hist. et de litt. relig., VIII, 1903, p. 431.—The peri-
patetic Alexander of Aphrodisias who fought fatalism in his
IIepi eiuapuévns, at the beginning of the third century, and who
violently attacked the charlatanism and cupidity of the astrol-
ogers in another book (De anima mantissa, p. 180, 14, Bruns),
formulated the contradiction in the popular beliefs of his
time (ibid., p. 182, 18):
Ποτέ μεν άνθρωποι το της ειμαρμένης ύμνούσιν ως αναγκαίον, ποτέ δε ου
πάντη την συνέχειας αυτής πιστεύουσι σώζειν" και γαρ οι δια των λόγων
υπέρ αυτής ώς ούσης αναγκαίας διατεινόμενοι σφόδρα και πάντα ανατιθέντες
αυτή, εν ταις κατά τον βίον πράξεσιν ουκ έοίκασιν αυτή πεπιστευκέναι:
NOTES-ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
277
Τύχην γούν πολλάκις επιβοώνται, άλλην ομολογούντες είναι ταύτην αιτίαν της
ειμαρμένης αλλά και τους θεούς ου διαλείπουσιν ευχόμενοι, ώς δυναμένου τινός
υπ' αυτών διά τας ευχάς γενέσθαι και παρά την ειμαρμένην"...και μαντείαις
ουκ οκνούσι χρήσθαι, ώς ένδν αυτοίς, εί πρoμάθοιεν, φυλάξασθαι τι τών ειμαρ-
μένων.....άπιθανώταται γούν εισιν αυτών αι προς την τρίτων συμφωνίαν
Elprothoyiui. Cf. also De Fato, c. 2 (p. 165, 26 ff. Bruns).
55. Manilius, II, 466: “Quin etiam propriis inter se legibus
astra | Conveniunt, ut certa gerant commercia rerum, / Inque
vicem praestant visus atque auribus haerent, | Aut odium,
foedusque gerunt," etc. — Signs Blétrovta and å koúovra: cf.
Bouché-Leclercq, pp. 159 ff.- The planets rejoice (xalpelv) in
their mansions, etc.—Signs Dwvhevta, etc. : cf. Cat., I, pp.
164 ff.; Bouché-Leclercq, pp. 77 ff. The terminology of the
driest didactic texts is saturated with mythology.
56. Saint Leo, In Nativ., VII, 3 (Migne, P. L., LIV, col.
218); Firmicus, I, 6, 7; Ambrosiaster, in the Revue d'hist, et
litt. relig., VIII, 1903, p. 16.
57. Cf. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 77 ff., cf. p. 103, where
a text of Zosimus attributes this theory to Zoroaster. Wend-
land, Die hellenistisch-röm. Kultur, 1907, p. 81. This is the
meaning of the verse of the Orac. Chaldaica: Oủ yåp úø eluap-
tny dyćanu TimTOVOL O coūpyou (P. 59 Kroll). According to Ar-
nobius (II, 62, Cornelius Labeo) the magi claimed "deo esse
se gnatos nec fati obnoxios legibus."
58. Bibliography. We have no complete book on Greek and
Roman magic. Maury, La magie et l'astrologie dans l'anti-
quité et au moyen âge, 1864, is a mere sketch. The most com-
plete account is Hubert's art. “Magia" in the Dict. des anti-
quités of Daremberg, Saglio, Pottier. It contains an index
of the sources and the earlier bibliography. More recent
studies are: Fahz, De poet. Roman. doctrina nagica, Giessen,
1903; Audollent, Defixionuin tabulae, Paris, 1904; Wünsch,
Antikes Zaubergerät aus Pergamon, Berlin, 1905 (important
objects found dating back to the third century, A. D.); Abt,
Die Apologie des Apuleius und die Zauberei, Giessen, 1908.-
The superstition that is not magic, but borders upon it, is the
subject of a very important article by Riess, "Aberglaube," in
the Realenc. of Pauly-Wissowa. An essay by Kroll, Antiker
Aberglaube, Hamburg, 1897, deserves mention.-Cf. Ch. Michel
278
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS
in the Revue d'hist. et litt. rel., VII, 1902, p. 184. See also
infra, nn. 64, 65, 72.
59. The question of the principles of magic has recently
been the subject of discussions started by the theories of
Frazer, The Golden Bough, 2d ed., 1900 (cf. Goblet d'Alviella,
Revue de l'univ. de Bruxelles, Oct. 1903). See Andrew Lang,
Magic and Religion, London, 1901; Hubert and Mauss, Es-
quisse d'une théorie générale de la magie (Année sociologique,
VII), 1904, p. 56; cf. Mélanges hist. des relig., Paris, 1909, pp.
xvii ff.; Jevons, Magic, in the Transactions of the Congress for
the History of Religions, Oxford, 1908, I, p.71. Loisy, "Magie
science et religion,” in A propos d'hist. des religions, 1911, p.
166.
60. S. Reinach, Mythes, cultes et relig., II, Intr., p. xv...
61. The infiltration of magic into the liturgy under the
Roman empire is shown especially in connection with the
ritual of consecration of the idols, by Hock, Griechische Weihe-
gebräuche, Würzburg, 1905, p. 66. Cf. also Kroll, Archiv für
Religionsw., VIII, 1905, Beiheft, pp. 27 ff.
62. Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, I, pp. 509 f.
63. Arnobius, II, 62, cf. II, 13; Ps.-Iamblichus, De Myst.,
VIII, 4.
64. Magic in Egypt: Budge, Egyptian Magic, London, 1901;
Wiedemann, Magie und Zauberei im alten Aegypten, Leipsic,
1905 (cf. Maspero, Rev. critique, 1905, II, p. 166]; Otto, Prie-
ster und Tempel, II, p. 224; Griffith, The Demotic Magical
Papyrus of London and Leiden, 1904 (a remarkable collection
dating back to the third century of our era), and the writings
analyzed by Capart, Rev. hist. des relig., 1905 (Bulletin of
1904, p. 17), 1906 (Bull. of 1905, p. 92).
65. Fossey, La magie assyrienne, Paris, 1902. The earlier
bibliography will be found p. 7. See also Hubert in Darem-
berg, Saglio, Pottier, Dict. des antiq., s. v. "Magia," p. 1505, n.
5. Campbell Thomson, Semitic Magic, Its Origin and Devel-
opnient, London, 1908.
Traces of magical conceptions have survived even in the
prayers of the orthodox Mohammedans; see the curious ob-
NOTES-ASTROLOGY AND MAGIC.
279
servations of Goldziher, Studien, Theodor Nöldeke gewidmet,
1906, I, pp. 302 ff. The Assyrio-Chaldean magic may be com-
pared profitably with Hindu magic (Victor Henry, La Magie
dans l'Inde antique, Paris, 1904).
66. There are many indications that the Chaldean magic
spread over the Roman empire, probably as a consequence of
the conquests of Trajan and Verus (Apul., De Magia, c. 38;
Lucian, Philopseudes, c. II; Necyom., c. 6, etc. Cf. Hubert,
loc. cit.) Those most influential in reviving these studies
seem to have been two rather enigmatical personages, Juliani
the Chaldean, and his son Julian the Theurge, who lived under
Marcus Aurelius. The latter was considered the author of the
Λόγια Χαλδαϊκά, which in a measure became the Bible of the
last neo-Platonists.
67. Apul., De Magia, c. 27. The name ollóoopos, philosoplius,
was finally applied to all adepts in the occult sciences.
68. The term seems to have been first used by Julian, called
the Theurge, and thence to have passed to Porphyry (Epist.
Aneb., C. 46; Augustine, Civ. Dei, X, 9-10) and to the neo-
Platonists.
69. Hubert, article cited, pp. 1494, n. I; 1499 f.; 1504. Ever
since magical papyri were discovered in Egypt, there has been
a tendency to exaggerate the influence exercised by that
country on the development of magic. It made magic prom-
inent as we have said, but a study of these same papyri proves
that elements of very different origin had combined with the
native sorcery, which seems to have laid special stress upon the
importance of the "barbarian names," because to the Egyp-
tians the name had a reality quite independent of the object
denoted by it, and possessed an effective force of its own
(supra, pp. 93, 95). But that is, after all, only an incidental
theory, and it is significant that in speaking of the origin of
magic, Pliny (XXX, 7) names the Persians in the first place,
and does not even mention the Egyptians.
70. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 230 ff.---Consequently Zoro-
aster, the undisputed master of the magi, is frequently con-
sidered a disciple of the Chaldeans or as himself coming from
Babylon. The blending of Persian and Chaldean beliefs ap-
pears clearly in Lucian, Necporn., 6 ff.
280
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
71. The majority of the magical formulas attributed to
Democritus are the work of forgers like Bolos of Mendes
(cf. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, I?, pp. 440 f.), but
the authorship of this literature could not have been attrib-
uted to him, had not these tendencies been so favorable.
73. Pliny, H. N., XXX, 1, § 6; Juvenal, VI, 548 ff. In
Pliny's opinion these magicians were especially acquainted
with veneficas artes. The toxicology of Mithridates goes back
to that source (Pliny, XXV, 2, 7). Cf. Horace, Epod., V, 21;
Virgil, Buc. VIII, 95, etc.
74. Cf. supra, PP. 151 ff.
75. Minucius Felix, Octavius, 26; cf. supra, ch. VI, p. 152.
76. In a passage outlining the Persian demonology (see
supra, n. 39), Porphyry tells us (De Abst., II, 41):
Tourous (sc. Toùs daluovas) uáriota kai TÒV TT POEoTŪTA avtõv (C. 42, ♡
TT poeotõoa avrõv dúvauis = Ahriman) śKTIMāolv oi Tà Kakà dià Tāv yon-
TELWV TpaTTÓLEVOL K. T. 2. Cf. Lactantius, Divin. Inst., II, 14
(I, p. 164, 10, Brandt ed.); Clem. of Alexandria, Stromat.,
III, p. 46 C, and supra, n. 37. The idea that the demons sub-
sisted on the offerings and particularly on the smoke of the
sacrifices agrees entirely with the old Persian and Babylonian
ideas. See Yasht V, XXI, 94: What "becomes of the liba-
tions which the wicked bring to you after sunset?" "The
devas receive them," etc.—In the cuneiform tablet of the
deluge (see 160 ff.), the gods "smell the good odor and gather
above the officiating priest like flies.” (Dhorme, Textes reli-
gieux assyro-babyloniens, 1907, p. 115; cf. Maspero, Hist, anc.
des peuples de l'Orient, I, p. 681.).
7. Plut., De Iside, C. 46.
78. The druj Nasu of the Mazdeans; cf. Darmesteter, Zend-
Avesta, II, p. xi and 146 ff.
79. Cf. Lucan, Phars., VI, 520 ff.
80. Mommsen, Strafrecht, pp. 639 ff. There is no doubt that
the legislation of Augustus was directed against magic, cf.
Dion, LII, 34, 3.—Manilius (II, 108) opposes to astrology the
NOTES—THE TRANSFORMATION OF PAGANISM. 281
artes quarum haud permissa facultas. Cf. also Suet., Aug.,
31.
81. Zachariah the Scholastic, Vie de Sévère d'Antioche, Ku-
gener ed. (Patrol. orientalis, II), 1903, PP. 57 ff.
82. Magic at Rome in the fifth century: Wünsch, Sethia-
nische Verfluchungstafeln aus Rom, Leipsic, 1898 (magical
leads dated from 390 to 420); Revue hist. litt. relig., VIII,
1903, p. 435, and Burchardt, Die Zeit Constantin's, 2d ed., 1880,
pp. 236 ff.
VIII. THE TRANSFORMATION OF PAGANISM.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The history of the destruction of paganism is
a subject that has tempted many historians. Beugnot (1835),
Lasaulx (1854), Schulze (Jena, 1887-1892) have tried it with
varying success (see Wissowa, Religion der Römer, pp. 84 ff.).
But hardly any one has been interested in the reconstruction
of the theology of the last pagans, although material is not
lacking. The meritorious studies of Gaston Boissier (La fin
du Paganisme, Paris, 1891) treat especially the literary and
moral aspects of that great transformation. Allard (Julien
l'Apostat, I, 1900, p. 39 ff.) has furnished a summary of the
religious evolution during the fourth century.
I. Socrates, Hist. Eccl., IV, 32.
2. It is a notable fact that astrology scarcely penetrated at
all into the rural districts (supra, ch. VII, n. 9), where the
ancient devotions maintained themselves; see the Vita S.
Eligii, Migne, P. L., XL, col. 1172 f.-In the same way the
cult of the menhirs in Gaul persisted in the Middle Ages;
see d'Arbois de Jubainville, Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr.,
1906, pp. 146 ff.; S. Reinach, Mythes, cultes, III, 1908, pp.
365 ff.
3. Aug., Civ. Dei, IV, 21 et passim. Arnobius and Lactan-
tius had previously developed this theme.
4. On the use made of mythology during the fourth century,
cf. Burckhardt, Zeit Contantins, 2d ed., 1880, pp. 145-147; Bois-
sier, La fin du paganisme, II, pp. 276 ff. and passim,
282
THE ORIENTAL RELIGION.
5. It is well known that the poems of Prudentius (348-410),
especially the Peristephanon, contain numerous attacks on pa-
ganism and the pagans.
6. Cf. La polémique de l'Ambrosiaster contre les païens (Rev.
hist. et litt. relig., VIII, 1903, pp. 418 ff.). On the personal-
ity of the author (probably the converted Jew Isaac), cf.
Souter, A Study of Ambrosiaster, Cambridge, 1905 (Texts
and Studies, VII) and his edition of the Quaestiones (Vienna,
1908), intr. p. xxiv.
7. The identity of Firmicus Maternus, the author of De
errore profanaruni religionum, and that of the writer of the
eight books Matheseos appears to have been definitely estab-
lished.
8. Maximus was Bishop of Turin about 458-405 A. D. We
possess as yet only a very defective edition of the treatises
Contra Paganos and Contra Judaeos (Migne, Patr. lat., LVII,
col. 781 ff.).
9. Particularly the Carnen adversus paganos written after
Eugene's attempt at restoration in 394 A. D. (Riese, An-
thol. lat., I, 20) and the Carinen ad senatorem ad idoloruin
servitutem conversum, attributed to St. Cyprian (Hartel. ed.,
III, p. 302), which is probably contemporaneous with the
former.
10. On this point see the judicious reflections of Paul Allard,
Julien l’Apostat, I, 1900, p. 35.
II. Hera was the goddess of the air after the time of the
Stoics ("Hpa = ánp).
12. Cf. supra, pp. 51, 75, 99, 120, 148. Besides the Oriental
gods the only ones to retain their authority were those of the
Grecian mysteries, Bacchus and Hecate, and even tiiese were
transformed by their neighbors.
13. The wife of Praetextatus, after praising his career and
talents in his epitaph, adds: “Sed ista parva: tu pius mystes
sacris , teletis reperta mentis arcano premis, | divumque nu-
men multiplex doctus colis” (CIL, 1779= Dessau, Inscr. sel.,
1259).
14. Pseudo-August. [Ambrosiaster), Quaest. Vet. et Nov.
Test., (p. 139, 9-11, Souter ed): “Paganos elementis esse sub-
NOTES-THE TRANSFORMATION OF PAGANISM.
iectos nulli dubium est.... Paganos elementa colere omnibus
cognitum est"; cf. 103 (p. 304, 4 Souter ed.): "Solent (pa-
gani) ad elementa confugere dicentes haec se colere quibus
gubernaculis regitur vita humana” (cf. Rev. hist. lit. rel., VIII,
1903, p. 426, n. 3).--Maximus of Turin (Migne, P. L., LVII,
783) : "Dicunt pagani : nos solem, lunam et stellas et universa
elementa colimus et veneramur." Cf. Mon 19yst. Mithra, I,
p. 103, n. 4, D. 108.
15. Firmicus Maternus, Mathes., VII prooem: "(Deus) qui
ad fabricationem omnium elementorum diversitate composita
ex contrariis et repugnantibus cuncta perfecit.”
16. Elementum is the translation of oroixelov, which has
had the same meaning in Greek at least ever since the first
century (see Diels, Eleinentum, 1899, pp. 44 ff., and the Septua-
gint, Sap. Sal., 7, 18; 19, 17. Pfister, “Die otoixeia toỦ Kóquov
in den Briefen des Paulus,” Philologus, LXIX, 1910, p. 410.—In
the fourth century this meaning was generally accepted: Macro-
bius, S011111. Scipionis, I, 12, $ 16: "Caeli dico et siderum, alio-
rumque elementorum"; cf. I, II, § 7 ff. Martianus Capella,
II, 209; Ambrosiaster, loc. cit.; Maximus of Turin, loc. cit.;
Lactantius, II, 13, 2: "Elementa mundi, caelum, solem, ter-
ram, mare."-Cf. Diels, op. cit., pp. 78 ff.
17. Cf. Rev. hist. litt. rel., VIII, 1903, pp. 429 ff.—Until the
end of the fifth century higher education in the Orient re-
mained in the hands of the pagans. The life of Severus of
Antioch, by Zachariah the Scholastic, preserved in a Syrian
translation (supra, ch. VII, n. 81], is particularly instructive
in this regard. The Christians, who were opposed to pagan-
ism and astrology, consequently manifested an aversion to the
profane sciences in general, and in that way they became
responsible to a serious extent for the gradual extinction of
the knowledge of the past (cf. Rev. hist. litt. rel., ibid., p. 431;
Royer, L'enseignement d'Ausone à Alcuin, 1906, p. 130 ff.).
But it must be said in their behalf that before them Greek
philosophy had taught the vanity of every science that did
not have the moral culture of the ego for its purpose, see
Geffcken, Aus der Werdezeit des Christentums, p. 7, P. III.
18. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 294. Cf. supra, pp. 175 f.
284
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
• 19. Ambrosiaster, Comm. in Epist. Pauli, p. 58 B: "Dicentes
per istos posse ire ad Deum sicut per comites pervenire ad
regem" (cf. Rev. his. lit. rel., VIII, 1903, p. 427).—The same
idea was set forth by Maximus of Turin (Adv. pag., col. 791)
and by Lactantius (Inst, div., II, 16, $ 5 ff., p. 168 Brandt);
on the celestial court, see also Arnobius, II, 36; Tertullian,
Apol., 24.—Zeus bore the name of king, but the Hellenic Olym-
pus was in reality a turbulent republic. The conception of a
supreme god, the sovereign of a hierarchical court, seems to
have been of Persian origin, and to have been propagated by
the magi and the mysteries of Mithra. The inscription of
the Nemroud Dagh spealks of Διός 'Ωρομάσδου θρόνους (supχα,
ch. VI, n. 26), and, in fact, a bas-relief shows Zeus-Oramasdes
sitting on a throne, scepter in hand. The Mithra bas-reliefs
likewise represent Jupiter Ormuzd on a throne, with the other
gods standing around him (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 129; II,
p. 188, fig. II); and Hostanes pictured the angels sitting
around the throne of God (supra, ch. VI, n. 38; see Rev. iv).
Moreover, the celestial god was frequently compared, not to
a king in general, but to the Great King, and people spoke of
his satraps; cf. Pseudo-Arist., IIepi kóguou, c. 6, D. 398 a, 10 ff.
= Apul., De mundo, c. 26; Philo, De opif. mundi, c. 23, 27
(p. 24, 17; 32, 24, Cohn); Maximus of Turin, X, 9; and
Capelle, Die Schrift von der Welt (Neue Jahrb. für das klass.
Altert., VIII), 1905, p. 556, n. 6. Particularly important is a
passage of Celsus (Origen, Contra Cels., VIII, 35) where the
relation of this doctrine to the Persian demonology is shown.
But the Mazdean conception must have combined, at an early
date, with the old Semitic idea that Baal was the lord and
master of his votaries (supra, p. 94 ff.). In his Neutesta-
mentliche Zeitgeschichte (2d. ed., 1906, p. 364 ff.), Holtzmann
insists on the fact that the people derived their conception of
the kingdom of God from the pattern of the Persian monarchy.
See also supra, p. III.
A comparison similar to this one, which is also found among
the pagans of the fourth century, is the comparison of heaven
with a city (Nectarius in St. Aug., Epist., 103 [Migne, P. L.,
XXXIII, col. 386]): “Civitatem quam magnus Deus et bene
meritae de eo animae habitant," etc. Compare the City of
God of St. Augustine and the celestial Jerusalem of the Jews
NOTES—THE TRANSFORMATION OF PAGANISM. 285
(Bousset, Religion des Judentums, 1903, p. 272).-Cf. also
Manilius, V, 735 ff.
20. August., Epist. 16 [48] (Migne, Pat. Lat., XXXIII,
col. 82): "Equidem unum esse Deum summum sine initio, sine
prole naturae, seu patrem magnum atque magnificum, quis
tam demens, tam mente captus neget esse certissimum? Huius
nos virtutes per mundanum opus diffusas multis vocabulis in-
vocamus, quoniam nomen eius cuncti proprium videlicet ig-
noramus. Nam Deus omnibus religionibus commune nomen
est. Ita fit ut, dum eius quasi quaedam membra carptim
variis supplicationibus prosequimur, totum colere profecto vi-
deamur.” And at the end: “Dii te servent, per quos et eorum
atque cunctorum mortalium communem patrem, universi mor-
tales, quos terra sustinet, mille modis concordi discordia, vene-
ramur et colimus." Cf. Lactantius Placidus, Comm. in Stat.
Theb., IV, 516.—Another pagan (Epist., 234 [21], Migne, P.
L., XXXIII, col. 1031) speaks "deorum comitatu vallatus,
Dei utique potestatibus emeritus, id est eius unius et universi
et incomprehensibilis et ineffabilis infatigabilisque Creatoris
impletus virtutibus, quos (read quas) ut verum est angelos
dicitis vel quid alterum post Deum vel cum Deo aut a Deo
aut in Deum.”
21. The two ideas are contrasted in the Paneg. ad Constantin.
Aug., 313 A. D., C. 26 (p. 212, Bährens ed.): "Summe rerum
sator, cuius tot nomina sunt quot gentium linguas esse voluisti
(quem enim te ipse dici velis, scire non possumus), sive tute
quaedam vis mensque divina es, quae toto infusa mundo om-
nibus miscearis elementis et sine ullo extrinsecus accedente
vigoris impulsu per te ipsa movearis, sive alique supra omne
caelum potestas es quae hoc opus tuum ex altiore naturae arce
despicias.” Compare with what we have said of Jupiter ex-
superantissimus (p. 190).
22. Macrobius, Sat., I, 17 ff.; cf. Firm. Mat., Err. prof. rel.,
c. 8; Mon. myst. Mithra, I, 338 ff. Some have supposed that
the source of Macrobius's exposition was Iamblichus.
23. Julian had intended to make all the temples centers of
moral instruction (Allard, Julien l'Apostat, II, 186 ff.), and
this great idea of his reign was partially realized after his
death. His homilies were little appreciated by the bantering
286
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
and frivolous Greeks of Antioch or Alexandria, but they ap-
pealed much more to Roman gravity. At Rome the rigorous
mysteries of Mithra had paved the way for reform. St.
Augustine, Epist., 91 [202] (Migne, P. L., XXXIII, col. 315),
C. 408 A. D., relates that moral interpretations of the old myths
were told among the pagans during his time: "Illa omnia quae
antiquitus de vita deorum inoribusque conscripta sunt, longe
aliter sunt intelligenda atque interpretanda sapientibus. Ita
vero in templis populis congregatis recitari huiuscemodi salu-
bres interpretationes heri et nudiustertius audivimus." See
also Civ. Dei, II, 6: “Nec nobis nescio quos susurros paucis-
simorum auribus anhelatos et arcana velut religione traditos
iactent (pagani), quibus vitae probitas sanctitasque discatur."
Compare the epitaph of Praetextatus (CIL, VI, 1779 = Des-
sau, Inscr. sel., 1259): "Paulina veri et castitatis conscia |
dicata templis,” etc.-Firmicus Maternus (Mathes, II, 39) de-
mands of the astrologer the practice of all virtues, “antistes
enim deorum separatus et alienus esse debet a pravis illecebris
voluptatum.... Itaque purus, castus esto, etc.”
24. This is clearly asserted by the verses of the epitaph
cited (v. 22 ff): "Tu me, marite, disciplinarum bono | puram
ac pudicam SORTE MORTIS EXIMENS, in templa ducis ac famulam
divis dicas: | Te teste cunctis imbuor mysteriis." Cf. Aug.,
Epist., 234 (Migne, P. L., XXXIII, col. 1031, letter of a pagan
to the bishop): “Via est in Deum melior, qua vir bonus, piis,
puris iustis, castis, veris dictisque factisque probatus et deo-
rum comitatu vallatus. ...ire festinat; via est, inquam, qua
purgati antiquorum sacrorum piis praeceptis expiationibusque
purissimis et abstemiis observationibus decocti anima et cor-
pore constantes deproperant.”—St. Augustine ( Civ. Dei, VI,
I and VI, 12) opposes the pagans who assert "deos non prop-
ter praesentem vitam coli sed propter aeternam."
25. The variations of this doctrine are set forth in detail
by Macrobius, In Somii. Scip., I, 11, $ 5 ff. According to some,
the soul lived above the sphere of the moon, where the im-
mutable realm of eternity began; according to others, in the
spheres of the fixed stars where they placed the Elysian Fields
(supra, ch. V, n. 65; see Martian, Capella, II, 209). The Milky
Way in particular was assigned to them as their residence
NOTES—THE TRANSFORMATION OF PAGANISM. 287
(Macr., ib., c. 12; cf. Favon. Eulog., Disput. de somn. Scipionis,
D. I, 20 [Holder ed.] : "Bene meritis. ... lactei circuli lucida
ac candens habitatio deberetur"; St. Jerome, Ep., 23, $3
[Migne, P. L., XXII, col. 426), in conformity with an old
Pythagorean doctrine (Gundel, De stellarum appellatione et
relig. Romana, 1907, p. 153 [245], as well as an Egyptian doc-
trine (Maspero, Hist, des peuples de l'Orient, I, p. 181).-AC-
cording to others, finally, the soul was freed from all connec-
tion with the body and lived in the highest region of heaven,
descending first through the gates of Cancer and Capricorn,
at the intersection of the zodiac and the Milky Way, then
through the spheres of the planets. This theory, which was
that of the mysteries (supra, pp. 126, 152) obtained the ap-
probation of Macrobius ("quorum sectae amicior est ratio")
who explains it in detail (I, 12, § 13 ff.). Arnobius, who got
his inspiration from Cornelius Labeo (supra, ch. V, n. 64),
opposed it, as a widespread error (II, 16): “Dum ad corpora
labimur et properamus humana ex mundanis circulis, sequun-
tur causae quibus mali simus et pessimi.” Cf. also, II, 33:
"Vos, cum primum soluti membrorum abieretis e nodis, alas
vobis adfuturas putatis quibus ad caelum pergere atque ad
sidera volare possitis," etc.). It had become so popular that
the comedy by Querolus, written in Gaul during the first
years of the fifth century, alluded to it in a mocking way, in
connection with the planets (V, 38): "Mortales vero addere
animas sive inferis nullus labor sive superis." It was still
taught, at least in part, by the Priscillianists (Aug., De
haeres., 70; Priscillianus, éd. Schepss., p. 153, 15; cf. Herzog-
Hauck, Realencycl., 3d ed., s. v. “Priscillian," p. 63.—We
have mentioned (supra, ch. V, n. 54) the origin of the belief
and of its diffusion under the empire.
26. Cf. supra, p. 152, and pp. 189 ff.; Mon. myst. Mithra, I,
p. 296.
27. This idea was spread by the Stoics (éctrúpwors) and by
astrology (supra, p. 262); also by the Oriental religions, see
Lactantius, Inst., VII, 18, and Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 310.
28. Gruppe (Griech. Mythol., pp. 1488 ff.) has tried to indi-
cate the different elements that entered into this doctrine.
29. Cf. supra, pp. 134 f., p. 160 and passim. The similarity
288
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
of the pagan theology to Christianity was strongly brought
out by Arnobius, II, 13-14.—Likewise in regard to the Orient,
de Wilamowitz has recently pointed out the close affinity unit-
ing the theology of Synesius with that of Proclus (Sitzungsb.
Akad. Berlin, XIV, 1907, pp. 280 ff.) he has also indicated
how philosophy then led to Christianity.
30. M. Pichon (Les derniers écrivains profanes, Paris, 1906)
has recently shown how the eloquence of the panegyrists un-
consciously changed from paganism to monotheism. See also
Maurice, Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscriptions, 1909, p. 165.
-The vague deism of Constantine strove to reconcile the op-
position of heliolatry and Christianity (Burckhardt, Die Zeit
Constantins, pp. 353 ff.) and the emperor's letters addressed
to Arius and the community of Nicomedia (Migne, P. G.,
LXXXV, col. 1343 ff.) are, as shown by Loeschke (Das Syn-
tagma des Gelasius [Rhein. Mus., LXI), 1906, p. 44), "ein
merkwürdiges Produkt theologischen Dilettantismus, aufge-
baut auf im wesentlichen pantheistischer Grundlage mit Hilfe
weniger christlicher Termini und fast noch weniger christ-
licher Gedanken.” I shall cite a passage in which the influence
of the astrological religion is particularly noticeable (col. 1552
D): Ιδού γαρ ο κόσμος μορφή είτουν σχήμα τυγχάνει ών· και οι αστέρες γε
χαρακτήρας προβεβληνται και όλως το πνεύμα του σφαιροειδούς τούτου
κύκλου, είδος των όντων τυγχάνει όν, και ώσπερ μόρφωμα και όμως ο θεός
πανταχού πάρεστι.
INDEX.
1
Ablutions, Ritualistic, 208.
Absolutism, 38, 141, 161.
Abstinence, 40.
Abydos, 89, 98, 99, 237 n. 78;
Isis in, 99; Liturgy of, 97;
Mysteries of, 237 n. 77; Phal-
lophories of, 78.
Achemenides, 127, 135, 143.
Adonis, 110; and Attis, 69.
Æsculapius and Eshmoun, 21;
Serpent sacred to, 173.
Aeterna doinus, 240 n. 91.
Aeternus, Deus, 130.
Africa, Isis in, 83.
Agatha, St., 237 n. 73.
Agathocles, 79, 80.
Agrippa forbids worship of Isis,
82.
Ahriman, 152, 190, 199; and Sa-
tan, 153, 266 n. 36.
Ahura-Mazda, 127, 145; and Bel,
146.
Alexander, 135; of Aphrodisias,
276 n. 54; Polyhistor, 255 n. 66.
Alexandria, 84; Greek influence
in, 75 f.; Isis in, 90, 232 n. 33.
Alexandrian calendar, 84; mys-
teries, 99, 240 n. 91.
Amasis, 86.
Amber road, 216 n. 12.
Ambrosiaster, 204.
Ameretat, 145.
Amici Augusti, 137.
Ammianus Marcellinus, 211.
Ammon, 230 n. 9.
Amshaspends, 145, 263 n. 20.
Anahita, 54, 65, 145; and Ishtar,
146; Cybele and, 227 n. 32.
Ananke, 182.
Anatolia, 47, 139, 143.
Andros, 76.
Angels, 138, 152, 207, 267 n. 38.
Animals, 116; sacred in Egypt,
78, 230f. n. II; sacred in Phry.
gia, 48; sacred in Syria, 115f.
Animism, 183.
Anti-gods, 152.
Antinous, 86.
Antiochus, the Great, 105; of
Commagene, 124, 264 n. 26.
Antonines, 140.
Antoninus Pius, III.
Antony, 82.
Anubis, 77.
Apertio, 95.
Aphaca, 246 n. 40.
Aphrodite and Isis, 89.
Apion, 218 n. 20.
Apollo and Mithra, 155.
Apollodorus of Damascus, 8.
Apuleius, 20, 79, 97, 104, 129.
Aquileia, Isis in, 83.
Aquitania, 108.
Arabia, Astrology in, 275 n. 48.
Aramaic, 146.
Archeology as source, 16.
Architecture, 8, 216 n. 11.
Archon, 126.
Aristotle, 138.
Arius, 288 n. 30.
Arles, 216 n. 12.
Armenia, 144.
Army. See “Soldiers” and “Mi-
litia."
Arnobius, 204, 223 n. 38, 226 n.
30, 236 n. 65, 277 n. 58, 287
n. 25.
Arsacides, 135.
290
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Arsinoë, Serapeum in, 79.
Ba'al samin, 127, 131, 151, 256
Art, Astrology in, 164, 168; Egyp nn, 69, 70; 264 nn. 25, 29.
tian, 86; in Persia, 141; In Baalat, 118, 123, 248 n. 43.
Auence of Oriental, 7; of Ori. Babylon, Astrology of, 151; Con-
ental religions, 33; of pagan fession of sin in, 222 n. 31;
ism, 17, 218 n. 23.
Cosmology of, 220 n. 15; In-
Artaxerxes, 137.
fluence of in Persia, 146; In.
Artemis and Cybele, 227 n. 32. fluence of in Syria, 122; Juda-
Aryans, Nature worship of, 145. ism and, 123. See also “Chal-
Ascalon, 117.
deans."
Asceticism, 401., 51, 157.
Bacchus, 282 1. 12; and Attis, 69.
Asia Minor, 46 ff., 197; Isis in, Balmarcodes, 110.
80; Mazdaism in, 145; Mithra Baltis, 113.
ism in, 143.
Bambyce, Lady of, 122.
A.starte, 120, 243 n. 21; Immoral. Baptism, Mithraic, 157; Tauro-
ity of, 118.
bolium compared to, 70.
Astrology, 207; and magic, 32, Bardesanes of Edessa, 144.
162 ff.; Babylonian, 151; Chal Beirut, 110f., 192.
dean, 199; Christian theology Bel, 32, 115, 123f.; Ahura Mazda
and, 260 11. 89; in Syria, 123, and, 146.
133; Origin of, 170, 272 n. 19; Bellona, 54.
religious, 169.
Beneventum, Iseum of, 233 n. 35.
Atar, 145.
Berosus, 31, 163, 176.
Atargatis, 103ff.; and Venus, 123; Bethels, 116. Se also "Lithol-
Fish sacred to, 117.
atry."
Athens, Serapis in, 79.
Bidez, Joseph, 213 11. 1.
Alonement, 40.
Boethius, 211.
Attalus, 47, 51.
Book of the Dead, go.
Attica, Attis and Cybele in, 62. Borsippa, 122.
Attis, x, 22, 48, 53, 69, 197, 225 Bronton, Zeus, 226 n. 24.
n. 21; and Cybele, 62 f.; Death Brotherhoods, 58. See also "Fra-
of, 59; Hymns to, 217 n. 14; ternity."
in Greece 57; Menotyrannus, Bryaxis, 76.
61.
Bubastis, 230 n. 9.
Augustine, St., 71, 202, 220 11. Byzantium, 141; Astrology in,
15, 275 n. 47.
170.
Augustus, 39, III, 135, 187, 261
Cadiz, Isis of, 96.
n. 5, 280 n. 80; and Diocletian,
3; and the Egyptian religion,
Caelestis, Jupiter, 128.
Caelus, 128, 130, 175; Jupiter, 147.
82; Reforms of, 38.
Aurelian, 114f., 124, 205, 252 n.
See also "Sky" and "Zeus Ou-
ranios."
59.
Calendars, 175; Alexandrian, 84.
Aust, Emil, xii.
Caligula, 55, 84, 198.
Autun, 57.
Campus Martius, Iseum of, 233 11.
Avesta, 142.
Aziz, 113.
Cannopliori, 56.
Baal, x, 22, 84, 114, 118, 123, Cappadocia, 1121.
130, 248 n. 43; and Saturn, 21; | Caracalla, 84.
different from Jehovah, 131; 1 Carbeades, 166.
Mystics of, 41.
Carnuntum, 150.
35.
INDEX.
291
Carpentun of Cybele, 225 n. 20.
Catacombs, 65, 226 n. 23.
Catasterism, 173.
Cato, 105.
Catullus, 49.
Chaeremon, 273 n. 24.
Chaldean astrology, 199; cosmol-
ogy, 133; oracles, 124, 202, 226 n.
29, 251 n. 55.
Chaldeans, 105, 122, 124, 170, 187,
267 n. 39.
Chalybes, 147.
Chastity, 40.
Cheremon, 87.
China, 141.
Chiron, 173.
Christi, Militia, xxff.
Christian liturgy, Pagan prayer
in, 218 n. 17; monotheism, 134;
theology and astrology, 260 n.
Cosmology, Babylonian, 220 n. 15;
89,
Christianity, and heliolatry, 288
Chaldean, 133.
Coulanges, Fustel de, 99.
Crete, 147.
Critodemus, 170.
Crucifix, Devotion to, 109.
Cybele, 22, 47ff, 197; and Ana-
hita, 227 n. 32; and Mithra
cults combined, 65; Mystics of,
41.
Cyprian, St., 282 n. 9.
Dacia, 112, 113.
1)adophori, 97.
Dagon, 117.
Damascenus, Jupiter, III.
Dante, 180, 276 n. 49.
Dea Syria, 14, 104.
Death, Life after, 99, 223, n. 38;
Spirit released by, 43. See also
"Immortality.”
Decalogue, Mithraic, 155.
Deinvictiaci, 233 n. 41.
Delos, Atargatis in, 105, 107; At-
tis in, 61; Isis in, 80.
Demeter and Isis, 76, 89.
Demetrius of Phalerum, 75.
Democritus, 189.
Demonology, 210, 267 n. 39; Per-
sian, 152ff., 284 n. 19.
Demons, 138, 266 n. 37, 280 n.
76.
n. 30; and paganism, xvi ff,
202ff., 288 n. 29; Hellenistic
influence on, 214 1. 8; opposed
to astrology, 167; opposed to
science, 283 n. 17; Resemblance
to, xxiii; Triumph of, xi, 19,
85. See also “Church."
Christmas, xvii.
Church, Fathers of the, xviii, 14;
militant, xix.
Cicero, 164.
Claudius, 55.
Cleanthes, Hymns of, 217 n. 17.
Clothing of souls, 269 n. 54.
Commagene, 112f., 139, 146f.
Commodus, 39, 149.
Common origin of ideas, xviii.
Communions in Phrygia, 69.
Communities of initiates, Rise of,
27.
Community and family, 69.
Comte, 206.
Confession of sin, 40; in Baby-
lonia, 222 n. 31.
Conscience, Influence of Oriental
religions on, 28, 35ff., 43.
Constantine, 246 n. 40, 288 n. 30.
Continence, 157.
Dendrophori, 56f.
Deterioration of races, 25, 219 n. 6.'
Devotio, 27.
Dies sanguinis, 56, 70.
Diffusion, Agents of, 24.
Diis angelis, 266 n. 38.
Diocletian, 142, 150; and Augus.
tus, 3; Court of, 141.
Diodochi, 137.
Diodorus of Sicily, 52, 240 n. 91;
of Tarsus, 275 n. 47.
Diogenes Laertius, 255 n. 66.
Dionysus and Osiris, 76; and Sa.
bazius, 48. See also “Sabazius."
Dioscuri, 128, 173.
Discipline, Persian, 155.
Dispersion of the Jews, 138, 189.
Distinctions abolished, 28.
292
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Doliché, 113, 147.
Dolichenus, Jupiter, 25, 113, 116,
148, 249 n. 47.
Domitian, 38, 84, 85.
Domus aeterna, 240 n. 91. See
also "Heaven" and "Souls."
Druidism, 20.
Dualism, Persian, xxi, 142, 151,
159, 199, 210.
Dusares, III.
| Feasts, 44, 48; Liturgic, 64; Sa-
cred, 59, 68, 151, 208; Fish at
sacred, 246 n. 37.
Fetichism, 51, 127, 131, 210. :
Firdusi, 160.
Fire, Sacred, 137; Universe to be
destroyed by, 177, 210.
Firmicus Maternus, 15, 181, 204,
205, 282 n. 7, 286 11. 23.
Fish, 117, 245 n. 36, 246 n. 37;
Sacred, 40.
Flagellations, 40, 56, 104, 222 n.
31.
Flavians, 140.
Formulas as sources, 11, 216 n. 14.
Foucart, 48, 76.
Fraternity, 156. See “Brother-
hoods."
Frazer, xiii.
Future life, Notions of, 37, 39,
43; retribution in Egypt, 92.
See also “Death" and "Immor-
tality.”
Easter, xviii, 70.
Egypt, 73ff., 112f.; Astrology in,
251 11. 56; Magi in, 139; Magic
in, 279 n. 69.
Egyptian mysteries, Ethics of, 90.
Elagabal, 114, 116.
Elementa, 206.
Elephantine, 256 n. 69.
Elysian Fields, 126. See also
"Souls."
Emesa, 112; Baal of, 114.
Emotion in Oriental religions, 30,
34.
Emperors, Worship of, 22.
End of the world, 138, 209. See also
"Eschatology."
England, Inscription in, 112, 132.
Epicureans, 203.
Epicurus, 90.
Epona, 25.
Erasmus, 204.
Eros, Harpocrates and, 90.
Eryx, Mount, 118.
Eschatology, 199. See also "Im-
mortality."
Eshmoun, Æsculapius and, 21.
Ethics of Egyptian mysteries, 90;
of Mithraism, 199; Persian, 154.
See also “Morality.”
Eugene, 282 n. 9.
Evil principle deified, 152.
Expiatio, 40.
Galatia, Magi in, 139.
Galerius, 136, 141, 150.
Galli, 50, 52, 70, 106, 208, 222
n. 31.
Gallipoli, 237 n. 77.
Gaul, Cybele in, 57; Influence of
Orient in, 9, 216 n. 12; Syrians
in, 108f.
Gayomart, 227 n. 32.
Germany, 112.
Gnosis, 33.
Gnostic hymns, 217 n. 14; sects,
233 n. 41.
Gnosticism, 196.
God, Pagan conceptions of, 207,
284 n. 19.
Goethe on the Brocken, 274 n. 41.
Gontrand, 108.
Good Friday, 71, 228 n. 42.
Great Mother, ix, x, xviii, 30, 46ff.,
148, 197, 201, 205f.
Greece, Cybele in, 57; Isis in, 77,
80, 230 n. 8.
Greek influence in Alexandria,
75f.; philosophy, Dualism in,
1 152; religion, 30, 31, 33.
Faith, Reason and, 169, 194;
Union of science and, 32, 34.
Farnell, xiii.
Fatalism, 179ff., 276 n. 54; of
Tiberius, 164.
Fautori imperii sui, 150.
INDEX.
293
14.
Gregory of Tours, 108.
| Hypsistos, xxi, 62, 128, 227 n.
Gruppe, xiii.
30, 252 n. 59, 255 n. 66. See
also “Most High."
Hystaspes, 189.
Hadad, 107, III, 122, 242 n. 10;
and Jupiter, 123; Etymology
of, 133.
Iamblichus, 87.
Hadrian, 86, 119.
Iao, 63.
Hammurabi and Marduk, 220 n. 1 Iasura, 104.
Ichthus symbolism, 117.
Hannibal, 46.
Idolatry, Death of, 85; in Syria,
Hagioi, 121, 249 n. 47.
133; of Hinduism, 210.
Harpist, Song of the, 241 n. 91. Idols, Consecration of, 278 n. 61,
Harpocrates, 77; and Eros, 90.
Toilet of, 96.
Hauran, 8.
Ignatius, St., 217 n. 17.
Heaven a city, 284 n. 19; a court,
Immorality of Astarte, 118; of
207. See also “Elysian Fields."
legends, 203.
Hecate, 282 n. 12.
Immortality, 39, 42f., 59, 68, 145,
Heliogabalus, 114, 120.
209, 238 n. 82; in Egypt, 99;
Heliognostae, 233 n. 41.
in Persia, 159; Semitic ideas on,
Heliolatry and Christianity, 288 n.
125.
30.
Industry, Influence of Oriental, 9.
Heliopolis, 123.
Initiates, Rise of communities of,
Heliopolitanus, Jupiter, 111, 249 n.
27; Syrian, 120.
47.
Initiation, 100.
Hellenistic influence on Christian-
Intelligence, Influence of Orien-
ity, 214 n. 8.
tal religions on, 28, 31ff., 43.
Ifenotheism in Syria, 133.
Intelligent light (sun), 133.
Hera, 282 n. 11; and Isis, 89; Intentio of Osiris, 98.
sancta, 249 n. 47.
Invicti, 130.
Hermes, 226 n. 23; Psychopompos, Io and Isis, 89.
59.
Ishtar and Anahita, 146.
Hermes Trismegistus, 32, 85 ,202,
| Isis, x, xvii, 22, 55, 73ff., 206;
234 11. 46.
and Io, 89; and Venus, 90;
Hermetism, 88, 234 n. 53, 250 n. Hymns to, 217 n. 14; Influence
49; Influence of, 233 n. 41.
of, 86; Mysteries of, 87, 198;
Herodotus, 90, 147.
Mystics of, xx; Worshipers of,
Hierapolis, 123.
High places, Worship of, 116.
Italy, Syrians in, 106f.
Hilaria, 57.
Ituraea, I12.
Hinduism, 210.
Hipparchus, 275 n. 42.
Homer, 202.
Tehovah, x, 257 n. 72; Baal dif-
Honor, 156.
ferent from, 131.
Horus, 98.
Jerome, 108.
Hostanes, 184, 189, 193, 267 n. | Jewish colonies in Phrygia, 62.
39, 284 n. 19.
Jews, 189. 196; in Asia Minor, 64;
Hynın to Isis, 76, 230 n. 6; as Monotheism of, 122.
sources, 11, 217 n. 14; of Sy Judaism, 252 n. 59; and Babylon,
nesius, 260 n. 89.
123; Influence of, 63; Influence
Hymnodes, 97.
of Parseeism on, 138.
41.
294
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
| Lydus, Johannes, 55.
Lyons, 216 n. 12.
Julia Domna, 113, 251 n. 57;
Maesa, 113; Mammea, 113.
Julian, 70, 154, 156, 201, 213 n.
4, 285 n. 23; the Chaldean, 279
n. 66; the Theurge, 279 n. 66,
11. 67.
Juno, 205.
Jupiter Caelestis, 128; Caelus, 147;
Damascenus, 111; Dolichenus,
25, 113, 116, 148; Hadad and,
123; Heliopolitanus, 111; Pro-
tector, 147. See also “Zeus."
Juvenal, 13, 23, 37, 41, 78, 90, 92.
Kiss of welcome, 137.
Kizil-Bash peasants, 47.
Labeo, Cornelius, 6, 255 n. 64.
Labranda, 147.
Lactantius Placidus, 143, 204.
Lagides, 75, 79; Financial sys-
tem of the, 4.
Lammens, 262 n. 12.
Lang, xiii.
Law in Rome and the Orient, 5.
Lebanon, 122.
Licinius, 150.
Life after death, 99, 223 n. 38.
See also "Immortality.”
Lightning, God of, 127.
Lion, 224 n. 2
Literature as source, 13; Astrol-
ogy in, 164; in Persia, 138; In-
fluence of Roman, 20; Influence
of Oriental, 7.
Litholatry, 116, 119, 244 n. 29.
Liturgic repasts, 04.
Liturgy, 130, 198; Magic in, 278
n. 61; Mithraic, 217 n. 15; of
Abydos, 97; Pagan prayer in
Christian, 218 n. 17; Persian,
151; Roman, 29.
Lucian, 13, 14, 34, 104, 115, 119,
122, 201.
Lucian's De dea Syria, Authen-
ticity of, 218 n. 19.
Lucius of Patras, 105.
Lucretius, 223 n. 39.
Lustrations, 39. -
Lydia, Magi in, 139.
Mâ, 48, 53, 228 11. 34.
McCormack, Thomas J., v.
Macrobius, 204, 208, 287 n. 25.
Magi, 138; Theology of the, 268
n. 39.
Magic, Astrology and, 32, 182ff.;
Bibliography of, 277 n. 58; in
Persia, 139; Religion and, 93;
religious, 185.
Magna Mater, 46f. “See also
“Great Mother."
Magousaioi, 144, 146.
Maiuma, 110.
Malaga, Syrians in, 108.
Malakbel, 113, 249 n. 47.
Maleciabrudus, 242 n. 10.
Manetho, 32, 75, 193.
Manicheism, 123, 142, 220 n. 15,
232 n. 26, 244 n. 29.
Manilius, 168, 178.
Marduk, Hammurabi and, 220 n.
14.
Marius, 106.
Marna, 110.
Mar 'olan, 130.
Mars, 173.
Matter, Spirit imprisoned in, 43.
Mauretania, 112,
Maximus of Madaura, 207.
Maximus of Turin, 204, 282 n. 8,
283 n. 14, 284 n. 19.
Mazdaism, 136; in Asia Minor,
145.
Megalenses, Ludi, 47, 52.
Melkarth, 243 n. 21.
Memory, Lake of, 239 11. 89.
Mèn, 62.
Menotyrannus, Attis, 61.
Merchants, Influence of, on dif.
fusion, 24, 79, 105.
Mercury, 173; Simios and, 123.
Merovingians, 108.
Métragyrtes, 51.
Michel, Charles, xxv, 213 n. 1.
Militia Christi, xxff.
Militia, Sacred, xx, 27.
Militias, Religious, 213 n. 6.
INDEX.
295
Nechepso, 163.
Nectanebos, 86.
Neo-Platonism, ix, xxiv, 34, 45.
70, 124, 152, 188, 201, 244 n.
29, 279 n. 66.
Neo-Pythagoreanism, 152.
Nephtis, 230 n. 9.
Nero, 87, 106; initiated by Tiri-
dates, 263 n. 16.
Nicocreon, 79.
Nietzsche, 177.
Nigidius Figulus, 164.
Nile, 205.
Nimes, 216 n. 12; Isis in, 83.
Nöldeke, 258 n. 80; on authen-
ticity of De dea Syria, 218 n.
19.
Numidia, 113.
Olympus a republic, 284 n. 19;
Sacrifices on, 143.
Onnipotens et onniparens, 129.
Omnipotentes, 63, 226 n. 30.
Orchoë, 122.
Organism, Universe an, 207.
Orient, Law in the, 5 f.; Menace
of, 2ff.; Triumph of, 26.
Ormuzd, 152, 190, 199.
Ornatrices, 94, 96.
Orpheus, 101, 202.
Orphic hymns, 217 n. 14.
Osiris, 237 n. 77; and Attis, 69;
Deceased identified with, 99;
the judge, gof.; Inventio of,
98; Serapis and, 74ff.
Ostia, Syrians in, 108.
Otho and Vitellius, 164.
Minucius Felix, 84.
Mithra, X, 22, 84, 142ff.; and
Apollo, 155; and Attis, 69; and
Cybele cults combined, 65; and
Shamash, 146; Mysteries of, 33,
126, 140, 269 n. 54; Mystics of,
41; Purity of, 157.
Mithradates Eupator, 135, 144;
Toxicology of, 280 n. 73.
Mithraisni, Advantages of, 159;
Ethics of, 199; rot Zoroastrian-
ism, 150.
Mithreum near Trapezus, 262 n.
16.
Mohammedans, Magic of the, 278
n. 65.
Monotheism, 288 n. 30; Christian,
134; in Syria, 133; Parseeism
closest to, 150.
Morality, in the Oriental mys-
teries, xxii, 44; in Egyptian re-
ligion, 81; in Roman religion,
35; Laxity of, 42; of paganism,
209; unrewarded, 37. See also
"Ethics."
Mosaic Law, xxi.
Most-High, 134, 145. See also
"Hypsistos.”
Mutilations, 40.
Mysteries, Alexandrian, 88, 99,
240 n. 91; Charm of, 29; Egyp-
tian, 237 n. 77; Egyptian, Theol-
ogy of, 90; Hellenic, 214 n. 8,
221 n. 23; in Syria, 120; of all
the Oriental religions, 205; of
Isis, 87, 142, 258 n. 79, of
Mithra, 33, 126, 140, 142, 199,
269 n. 54, 286 n. 23; Oriental,
xxii, 44; Phrygian, 51.
Mystic rites, 39f., 51.
Mythology, Roman, 35.
Nama Sebesio, 16.
Names, Barbarian, 279 n. 69;
Theophorous, 148.
Naples, Syrians in, 108.
Narses, 136.
Natalis Invicti, xvii, 228 n. 42.
Nature worship, 206.
Navigiun Isidis, 97.
Pagan theology and Christianity,
288 n. 29.
Paganism, Chaotic condition of,
vii; Education in, 283 n. 17;
Essence of, 131; Latin, 197;
Morality of, 209; Semitic, 116;
Syrian, 121.
Palmyra, 112f., 115, 123f., 252 n.
59.
Pan and Attis, 69.
Pannonia, 112; Syrians in, 108.
Pantheism, 33; Solar, 134.
296
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Psychological crisis, 27.
Ptolemy, 164, 170, 182.
Ptolemy Euergetes, 79.
Ptolemy Soter, 74, 79.
Purification, 64; in Mazdaism, 156.
Purity, 209; Conception of, 234
n. 49, 249 n. 46; in Egyptian
ritual, 91; in Syria, 121; of
Mithra, 157.
Pyrethes, 144.
Pythoness, 106.
Querolus, 287 11. 25.
Pantheos, 70.
Papas. See “Attis."
Paphos, Conical stone at, 116.
Parseeism closest to monotheism,
150; Influence of, on Judaism,
138.
Pastophori, 94.
Penance, 40f.; in Syria, 249 n. 46.
Pergamum, 47ff.
Perseus and Andromeda, 173.
Persia, 135ff.; Magic of, 189.
Pessinus, 47ff.; 148, 197.
Petilia, 239 n. 89.
Petosiris the priest, 163.
Phallophories of Abydos, 78.
Philo of Alexandria, 230 n. 11.
Philo of Biblos, 115, 122.
Philosophers, 201.
Philosophy, 33.
Phoenicia, 122.
Phrygia, 46ff.; Magi in, 139;
Penance in, 40.
Pigeon, 117.
Pilgrimages, 46.
Pine, Sacred, 568.
Piraeus, Attis in, 61.
Plagiarism, II.
Plants, Sacred, in Egypt, 78.
Plato, 265 n. 34.
Platonists, 14.
Pliny, 279 n. 69.
Plutarch, 14, 75, 87, 90, 142, 152,
190.
Pluto chief of demons 266 n. 37.
Polemicists as source, 15.
Pompeii, Frescoes of, 235 n. 58;
Iseum at, 81.
Pompey, 143.
Porphyry, 93, 95, 152.
Posidonius of Apamea, 164.
Pozzuoli, III; Serapeum of, 81;
Syrians in, 108.
Praetextatus, 208, 211; Catacombs
of, 65, 226 n. 23; Epitaph of,
286 n. 23; Wife of, 282 n. 13.
Priesthood, 41; in Egypt, 94; Ori-
ental 32.
Proclus, 228 n. 41.
Prophetes, 94.
Prudentius, 66, 204, 282 n. 5.
Rameses II, 86.
Ramsay, 225 11. 7.
Rationalism of Greece, 31.
Reason and faith, 169, 194..
Refrigerinin, 102.
Reinach, xiii.
Religion, and inagic, 93; Roman,
28.
Religions, Invasion of the bar-
barian, 10, 19, 22; Parliament
of, xiii.
Renan, X, I, 160.
Repasts. See "Feasts."
Responsibility, Collective, 36.
Resurrection, 138.
Reward and punishment, 37, 92,
154.
Rhodes, Attis in, 61.
Rites, Mystic, 39f., 51.
Ritual, Egyptian, 93; Pharaonic,
236 n. 70.
Ritualistic ablutions, 208.
Roman liturgy, 29; mythology, 35;
religion, 28.
Rome, Isis in, 83; Private law of,
5.
Rufinus, 85.
Sabaoth, 63.
Sabaziasts, xxi, 226 n. 23.
Sabazius, 22, 59, 64f. Dionysus
and, 48. See also “Dionysus.”
Sabbatists, xxi.
Sabians, 250 n. 49.
Sacerdotal character of Oriental
civilizations, 31.
I
INDEX.
297
Sacrifice, Human, 119....
Sagittarius, 173.
Salvation, xxiii, 33, 40, 43.
Sanctuary, Right of, 250 n. 49.
Sanctus, (Mithra), 157.
Sassanides, 135, 140; Court of
the, 141.
Satan, Ahriman and, 153, 266 n.
36.
Saturn, 172; Baal and, 21.
Saviour, 223 n. 36.
Scaevola, 6, 35.
Science, 43; and faith, 32, 34;
and the priesthood, 32; Cliris-
tians opposed to, 283 n. 17;
Magic a, 183f.
Sciences, Astrology queen of, 162.
Scipio Nasica, 47.
Scopas, 76.
Seleucides, 62, 121, 128, 138.
Seleucus, 256 n. 67; Callinicus,
79.
Semele and Isis, 89.
Semitic paganism, 116; religions,
Diffusion of the, luiff.
Seneca, 217 n. 17.
Senses, Influence of Oriental re-
ligions on, 28ff., 43.
Septisonia, 164.
Serapis, X, 22, 73ff., 126; chief
of demons, 266 n. 37.
Serpent sacred to 'Asculapius, 173.
Set, 98.
Severi, 140, 167, 196.
Severus of Antioch, 233 n. 33.
Sextus Empiricus, 167.
Shamash and Mithra, 146.
Showerman, xiv, 225 n. 15.
Sibylline oracles, 233 n. 34.
Sibyls, 46.
Sicily, Slave revolution in, 105.
Siderial immortality, 254 n. 64,
worship, 133, 251 n. 57, 254 n.
64. See also “Stars.”
Signia Memphitica, 233 n. 35.
Simios and Mercury, 123.
Sky, 208. See “Caelus."
Slave revolution in Sicily, 105.
Sol invictus, 114, 146, 205; sanc-
tissinius, 249 n. 47.
Soldiers of fate, XX; Faith of
Syrian, 112; Persian cult spread
by, 149.
, Souls, Abode of, in the stars, 125,
159, 269 n. 54, 287 n. 25;
Abode of, in the earth, 159;
Clothing of, 269 n. 54. .
Sources, II ff.
Spear, Sacred, 67.
Species, Variation of, 25.
Spencer, Herbert, 222 n. 34.
Spirit imprisoned in matter, 43.
Spring of water, 239 11. 90.
Stars, 129; Deified, 199; Soul in
the, 125, 159, 269 n. 54, 287
n. 25.
Steer the author of creation, 68.
Stoics, 14, 148, 167, 171, 177, 180,
214 n. 6; Philosophy of, xx.
Stolistes, 94, 96, 97.
Stones, Worship of, 116. See
also “Litholatry.”
Strabo, 32, 122, 145, 247 n. 41.
Strategus, God a, 214 n. 6.
Sulla, 54, 81.
Sun, Supreme, 133. See also "Sol
invictus."
Superstition, 36, 277 n. 58.
Supplicium, The term, 219 n. 6.
Symmachus, xxiv, 204, 211.
Sympathy, 171, 194.
Synesius, Hymns of, 260 n. 89.
Syria, Isis in, 79. . -
Syrian goddess, 14, 104.
Syrians in Italy, 106f.
Tabu, 120, 157.
Taurobolium, xviii, 66, 198, 206,
208; compared to baptism, 70.
Tetrabiblos, 170, 182, 271 n. 5.
Thasos, Attis in, 61.
Thaumaturgus, 188.
Thebes, Sepulchers of, 99.
Themistius, 200.
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 153.
Theology, 33; and astrology, 175,
260 n. 89; of the Egyptian mys-
teries, 90; of the magi, 268 n.
39.
298
THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Theophilus, 85; Miniature of, 232 Venus, 173; Atargatis and, 123;
n. 32.
Isis and, go.
Theophorous names, 148.
Viminacium, 267 n. 38.
Thessaly, Witches of, 186.
Vincentius, Grave of, 65.
Thoth, 32, 94, 237 n. 77.
Vitellius, Otho and, 164.
Thunder-god, 256 n. 67.
Vogüé, de, 8.
Tiberius, 39, 180; Fatalism of, Vohumano, 145.
164; persecutes priests of Isis,
83.
Water, Spring of, 239 n. 90;
Time, 35; Deified, 150, 273 n. 36. Worship of, 116.
Timotheus the Eumolpid, 51, 75, Wissowa, xiii.
99, 229 n. 4.
Tin road, 216 11. 12.
Xenophanes, 203.
Tiridates, Nero initiated by, 263
n. 16.
Yahveh Zebaoth, 64. See also
Toilet of the idol, 96.
"Jehovah."
Tonsure, 235 n. 58.
Yazatas, 145 ,148, 152.
Totem, 48.
Trapezus, Mithreum near, 262 n. Zachariah the Scholastic, 283 n.
16.
17, 233 11. 33, 281 n. 81.
Trees, Sacred, 48, 56, 78, 116. Zeno, 176.
Triads, 250 n. 50.
Zenobia, 252 n. 59.
Trinity, Egyptian, 77; Syrian, 123.
Zervan Akarana, 150.
Tyche, 179; and Isis, 89.
Zeus Ammon, 230 n. 9; Bronton,
Tylor, xiii.
226 n. 24; Keraunios, 256 n.
Tyrannos, 61.
67; Oromasdes, 147; Ouranios,
128; Stratios, 265 n. 29. See
also "Jupiter.”
Universal church, 211.
Zoolatry, 119. See also “Animals.”
Universe, 207.
Zoroaster, 138, 145, 184, 189, 193,
269 n. 54, 277 n. 57, 279 n.
Valens, 200, Vettius, 168, 171.
70; Votaries of, 160.
Varro, 38, 202.
Zoroastrianism, Mithraism not, 150.
Vedanta, 210.
Zosimus, 277 n. 57.
MAY 13 1915
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