Part 19

With regard to the centuries during which these oriental religions flourished our evidence, aside from that for the Great Mother, shows clearly that some entered southern Italy in the second century B.C. or even earlier, and that they began at Rome about 100 B.C.; there they lasted to the very close of the fourth century of our era, almost a hundred years after the recognition of Christianity by Constantine. In the provinces of the Roman Empire these cults did not become prominent until about 100 A.D., and they ceased before the close of the third century. When in 307 A.D. Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius restored a shrine of Mithras, “the protector of their empire,” at Carnuntum on the Danube, they were honoring a god whose potency in the European provinces had ended more than a generation before.[287] The reasons for the decay of these cults we shall consider later. But I should like you now to observe that in Rome these religions flourished for a good century longer than they did in the western provinces. The explanation of this fact is to be found in that sharp conflict between paganism and Christianity which went on through the fourth century, when the pagan party rallied its forces of every sort for a final defense against the advance of Christianity. This movement at Rome, which had slight influence elsewhere save perhaps in some of the largest cities, produced a pagan revival which helped to maintain the adopted oriental religions for over a century after they had lost all vitality in the provinces.

The character of these oriental religions offers a marked contrast to that of the Roman. In my last lecture I pointed out that this latter was a formal, practical, bread-and-butter sort of religion, one that was natural to an unimaginative agricultural people; it was a religion in which the worship of the gods consisted primarily in the exact performance of ritual to secure practical blessings of a material kind. I further tried to show that this religion offered no satisfaction to man’s deeper questionings, made slight appeal to religious emotion, and had little moral effect except in the emphasis which it laid on duty; we also saw that the forms of Greek religion, which were imported into Italy, were serviceable chiefly in that they were cults in which all classes of citizens could share, and because they offered certain aesthetic satisfactions; I likewise spoke of the way in which the Greco-Roman religion of the state fell into decay after the end of the third century before our era, so that before Cicero’s day the intellectual class had lost their belief in it. This did not mean, however, that men had lost their religious longing. Far from it. For there is abundant proof that under the stimulus of Greek philosophy and mysticism, questionings as to the nature of man, his relation to divinity, and his immortality became more earnest. To these questions the Greco-Roman religion offered no answer.

The oriental gods, however, were of a very different sort from those of Greece and Rome: they required a spiritual devotion on the part of their devotees and they made strong appeals to the religious emotions. These appeals were increased by the exotic character of these foreign cults, for it seems to be a characteristic of the human mind in time of special need or distress to seek some foreign source of help or relief. Egypt and the East made a far greater appeal to the imagination at the close of the Roman Republic and in the early Empire than they do even today. Furthermore many of these religions could claim the warrant of great age: Isis and Osiris had been mighty in Egypt for two thousand years; the Great Mother of the Gods belonged to a class of Asiatic mother-goddesses of immemorial antiquity; and Mithras came from a period beyond the knowledge of the Roman world. Whenever records failed, pious tradition supplied the need. The devotees formed closed communities, sacred brotherhoods, to which admission was obtained through rites of initiation. Their rituals were essentially mysteries, in which through emotional experiences and revelations the devout gained assurance of divine aid here and hereafter. Furthermore these oriental religions had proselyting priests who recruited the number of devotees by their appeals, and each religion numbered among its followers considerable bodies of men who followed a certain holy life—they were known as sacrati, “the consecrated.” There was, in fact, much in common between these oriental mysteries and the greater mysteries of Greece and the Orphic religion.

These oriental gods, moreover, were adaptable. They were sometimes identified with familiar Greek and Roman divinities, in the same fashion as Greek gods had been given Italian names; but their adaptability went much further. Freed from all local restrictions, the Orientals could take on the characteristics and functions required by their new environment without losing their individualities, and their systems could be easily modified and elevated to meet the needs and demands of successive generations. Unmoral or even immoral when first brought into the Greco-Roman world, a number of them adopted first the current secular morality and eventually became strong moral agencies. Finally they all displayed a pantheistic tendency. We have already seen how philosophy inclined from the first toward pantheism or monotheism; that the general attitude which first belonged to the philosopher became finally common to large numbers of men, for the human mind naturally tends to see resemblances and through them affinities, rather than their opposites. Therefore in religious thought men, acting consciously or unconsciously under the influence of philosophy and of this syncretistic tendency, now looked through the variety of popular polytheism and found unity in the divine; they did not deny the multiplicity of gods, but they rather regarded each of the many gods as a manifestation of the one divine principle in the world. So religion was in agreement with Stoicism and the later mystic philosophies.

The devotees of the oriental gods generally adopted this syncretistic view, so that most, if not all, saw in their god the supreme all-embracing divinity whose divine nature was manifest in countless other gods. This belief is best expressed by Apuleius, who composed his famous Metamorphoses in the middle of the second century of our era. After his hero Lucius had passed through many hardships and adventures, the saving goddess Isis appeared in a vision and thus declared herself: “Lo, I am here, Lucius, moved by thy prayers, I, the parent of the universe, mistress of the elements, the primal offspring of the ages, greatest of divinities, queen of the dead, first among the celestials, the single form of gods and goddesses; I, who by my word rule the bright heights of heaven, the healthful breezes of the sea, the gloomy silent shades below. To my divinity, one in itself, the entire world does reverence under many forms, with varied rites, and manifold names. Hence it is that the primal Phrygians call me at Pessinus the Mother of the Gods, hence the Athenians, who are sprung from the ground on which they dwell, name me Cecropian Minerva, the wave-beat Cyprians Paphian Venus, the archer Cretans Dictynnan Diana, the Sicilians with their triple speech Stygian Proserpina, the people of Eleusis ancient Ceres, others Juno, others Bellona, some Hecate, again Rhamnusia; but the Aethiopians on whom shine the growing rays of the sun at his birth, the Arians, and the Egyptians, mighty in their ancient learning, worship me with the proper rites and call me by my true name Queen Isis.”[288]

This revelation by the goddess not only squares with the pantheism of philosophic thought and with the doctrine of emanations of the divine, such as were believed in by the Neoplatonists, but it is also in harmony with the popular polytheism. At the beginning of the second century of our era the genial Plutarch first stated a philosophy of a universal syncretistic religion: “Not different gods among different peoples—gods of Barbarians, of Greeks, of the South, or of the North; but even as sun and moon, heaven and earth and sea are common to all, yet have different names among different peoples, so there is one Intelligence which rules in the world, one Providence which directs it; the same powers act everywhere. Honors, names, and symbols vary.”[289] This statement represents the attitude of all the more enlightened classes after the beginning of the second century. A pantheism, which made abundant provision for a subordinate polytheism, was the dominant belief. In fact Greco-Roman paganism ended in such a pantheism, in which the sun was the symbol of the supreme and all-embracing divinity.

Although many, if not most, of these eastern religions were probably mysteries, requiring that their devotees should undergo certain initiatory rites before being admitted to full participation in the sacred service, we shall confine ourselves to sure ground and shall consider briefly the mysteries of Isis, of Mithras, and of the Great Mother of the Gods—especially those of Isis, because Apuleius, from whose work I quoted a moment ago, has left us a rather full account of the initiation of his hero Lucius, whose experiences in this part of the Metamorphoses are apparently the author’s own.

Isis and Osiris were ancient gods whose worship had been wide spread in Egypt from very early times; they had been carried by Egyptian traders to some other parts of the Mediterranean world before the conquests of Alexander. But the form of the Isiac religion which ultimately spread over the Greco-Roman world was a conscious mingling of Egyptian and Hellenic elements. The Ptolemies naturally desired to unite the Greeks and Egyptians under their rule, and Ptolemy Soter (306-285 B.C.), the first of the line, according to Plutarch, employed Manetho, a priest at Heliopolis in Egypt, and Timotheus, one of the sacred family of the Eumolpidae in Eleusis, to work out a modified religion of Isis, with whom was now associated a new divinity, Serapis, said to have been originally Hades of Sinope, a Greek colony on the south shore of the Black Sea. Thus Greek elements were grafted on the Egyptian stock, Serapis being identified with Osiris. The ancient forms apparently were largely retained, and the priesthood remained Egyptian; but Greek became the common language for the ritual, while Greek artists made statues of Isis and her consort, and Greek poets sang the goddess’s praise. Thus the spread of this composite religion was rendered easy, especially as its mysteries claimed to give that assurance of salvation for which men longed.

The mysteries were based on the story of Osiris, the brother and husband of Isis. According to the tale Set, or Typhon, killed Osiris, but the body was discovered by Isis. However while Isis was visiting her son Horus, Set again gained possession of the body, tore it in pieces, and scattered its fragments far and wide. But these Isis once more found and buried, and now Osiris lives again and reigns in the lower world, and also in heaven, as the sun; that is, Osiris-Serapis is lord of life and death. The story was early brought into relation with the Egyptian doctrine of immortality. It is another myth of a god who dies and lives again, whose rebirth, like that of Dionysus, Attis, and Adonis, becomes the warrant of man’s future existence. The story was early acted as a kind of passion play at Abydos; this element was kept in the Ptolemaic creation, so that in Rome, at least beginning with the reigns of Caligula and of Claudius, Isis’ hunt for her murdered consort, her mourning for him, and her joy over the discovery of his body and over his revival were experienced again yearly by her priests during the days from October 28 to November 3. The final joy of the participants in this sacred season was indicated by the name, _Hilaria_, given to the last day. The Empire also knew a spring festival of the goddess as ruler of the sea and protectress of sailors.

There were three grades of initiation into the Isiac mysteries. The first was that of Isis, the second of Osiris-Serapis, the third led to the priesthood. In Apuleius’ story his hero Lucius had through over-curious tampering with a magic unguent been changed into the shape of an ass. In this form he suffered various adventures which fill the greater part of the extraordinary work; but at last, through the favor of the goddess, he was restored to his human form, and in a vision was commanded to devote himself to the divine service. Although most eager to be initiated, he was informed that he must wait until the goddess should indicate her willingness to receive him. Finally another vision told him that the happy day had arrived. At dawn the priest met him and conducted him to the temple, where the matin service of opening the shrine was solemnly performed. Then he told Lucius that he must provide certain things before the initiation took place—evidently gifts to the temple and the priests and something in the nature of a fee. After these had been secured, Lucius was taken to a public bath nearby, where after prayer the priest sprinkled him with holy water and duly purified him. Then Lucius was led back to the temple, set at the feet of the goddess, and secretly given many instructions “too sacred for utterance”; openly he was charged to abstain for ten consecutive days from all pleasures of the table, to eat no animal food, and to drink no wine.

After the ten days of preparation had been reverently observed, toward nightfall great numbers of the initiates assembled bringing gifts to the neophyte. When the uninitiate had been excluded from the temple area, a fresh robe was placed about Lucius and he was led into the holiest part of the shrine. What there took place he might not tell; only this much he could say: “I approached the bounds of death. I trod the threshold of Proserpina. I was carried through all the elements and returned again to the upper air. At dead of night I saw the sun all glowing with a brilliant light. The gods of heaven and of hell I approached in very person and worshipped face to face.”[290]

Our imagination may busy itself as much as it will with trying to conceive the means which were employed to produce this effect; it is most probable that a hypnotic condition was induced in the neophyte and that in this state he was made to see the proper visions. But that must remain uncertain. This, however, is clear: the initiate, through a series of emotional experiences, was inspired with the belief that he had seen a divine vision. Like the seer in the Apocalypse, he knew that there was no night in the final abode of those who had been consecrated. By passing through the elements he had acquired a knowledge of holy things, which no uninitiated could possibly gain: he had been given assurance that he was to be ever after under the divine protection—in fact he had attained the certainty of salvation.

But let us follow Apuleius’ hero through his later experiences. The morning after his secret initiation Lucius was clothed in twelve sacred articles of dress and placed on a wooden dais in the middle of the shrine before the statue of the goddess; over him was thrown a linen garment, richly embroidered in various colors with marvellous animals, with Indian dragons and hyperborean gryphons. In his right hand was put a lighted torch, while on his head was placed a garland of palm leaves, which stood out like the rays of the sun. Then the curtains were drawn back and the neophyte was displayed to the assembled people. The meaning of this ceremony also is evident: by initiation Lucius had become one with the god, and therefore this exhibition of him is the epiphany of the initiate as the Sun God. The last is clearly indicated by the garland of palm leaves which represented the rays of the sun. The meaning of the dress is obscure to us, but naturally it was effective in the impression which it made on the wearer and on those who viewed him. After this epiphany certain minor rites followed on the next day, completing the initiation of Lucius into the first degree, that of Isis.

After continuing for some days enjoying the inexpressible bliss afforded him by the sight of the goddess and receiving the blessings which her power bestowed, Lucius set out from Corinth for Rome in obedience to a vision which the goddess had granted him. There, when a year had rolled round, he was divinely warned that he was to advance to the second degree, that of the invincible Osiris; and shortly after this he was ordered in like manner to take the highest degree of initiation; henceforth he was a priest and an official in the sacred association. For the second and third degrees the same days of preparation were required as for the first, and like ceremonies were performed. When the final initiation had been undergone, Lucius was marked by a shaven head, and apparently also by a sign branded on his forehead, as one who had consecrated his life to Isis.[291]

This is a brief summary of the fullest account which we possess of an initiation into any of these oriental mysteries. We see from it not only how the initiate was given the satisfaction of feeling that he had seen divinity face to face—a vision by which he obtained a foretaste of the final knowledge of god and received assurance of his own salvation; but also how his religious life was constantly fed and supported by daily religious services, by matins and vespers in the temple. In these his emotions were stimulated and his consecration renewed by a ritual made impressive through every means which an immemorial history had sanctified and by every suggestion which an elaborate symbolism could give. He realized that he had become a member of a body set apart from the rest of the world. The members of this holy company were called “the consecrated ones,” sacrati. They had been born again indeed through initiation into the Isiac life. The term reborn, renatus, is used frequently of the initiates, the day of whose initiation was often referred to and celebrated as their birthday.

More widely spread and more powerful than the religion of Isis was the religion of Mithras. Into the details of its early history we may not now go, but we must limit ourselves to a few points only. Mithraism had its origin in Persia, yet it was greatly influenced by the ancient theology of the Chaldeans and by Babylonian astrology, as well as later by the more barbarous religions of Asia Minor, whither it was carried by Persian colonists during the last three centuries before the Christian era. The Romans first came into contact with it during Pompey’s campaign against the pirates of Cilicia in 67 B.C., but the soldiers seem not to have been greatly impressed at that time, for it was about a hundred and fifty years later that Mithraism began to be influential in the West. Soldiers, traders, and slaves all aided in its spread. For the most part it followed in the steps of the Syrian gods, with whom it was closely associated. Along the borders of the Roman Empire, at the military stations on the Danube, on the Rhine, and by Hadrian’s Wall in Britain inscriptions and ruined chapels still attest the popularity of the cult; there are few Roman military centers in Europe, outside of Greece, or in the African provinces, which have not given evidence of its existence. In the ports of Italy, Puteoli and Ostia, in Rome, and in all the chief cities of the West, traders and slaves introduced the Persian religion; and the cult attracted many Roman citizens; it found favor with the imperial house, especially from Commodus to Diocletian. In fact during the second and third centuries Christianity found in Mithraism its chief rival.

Mithras himself was an extremely ancient divinity known to the ancestors of both the Iranian and Indian peoples. In early Zoroastrianism he had no place, but later appeared as one of the inferior divinities. Under the manifold influences to which Persian Mazdaism was exposed, the position of Mithras gradually rose in importance. The details of the theology at the time the religion became known to the Romans cannot be determined, but it seems evident that the main features were these: the Mazdaists conceived of the world as a battleground in which the powers of light and of righteousness were ever fighting against the powers of darkness and of evil; at the head of the powers of light was Ahura Mazda, Oromasdes, or, to use the form more familiar to us, Ormuzd; opposed to him was Ahriman, the archfiend and adversary, lord of the world of darkness, who with his demons was thought to strive continually to spread evil in the world; midway was Mithras whose function was to help mankind and to hasten the destruction of wickedness. So far as we can judge from the sculptured monuments, Mithras in the sacred myths was not identified with the sun, yet it is clear that he was regarded by the Roman devotees as the chief divinity of light. This position was the more easily assured him by the fact that he had been originally such a god, so that the Chaldeans had identified him with Shamash, their solar divinity, just as the Greeks in Asia Minor had made him equivalent to their sun god, Helios. Later philosophy too lent its aid in that it took the sun as the supreme symbol of divinity. On Roman dedications Mithras is often called simply “The Invincible Sun,” Sol Invictus.

For all its exotic character Mithraism could offer nothing essentially new in point of theology which would attract devotees, nor could it win them simply by its elaborate and distinctive ritual. The characteristic which distinguished it from the other religions of its time save Christianity was the thoroughgoing dualism to which I have just referred—I mean that dualism which divided the world into two opposing armies, the one the legions of light and righteousness, the other the forces of sin and darkness. The evil principle was deified in the same way as the principle of good. It is quite true that the Greeks and other peoples had conceived of evil powers, like the Titans for example, but nowhere was the opposition between the two made so sharp or the conflict regarded as so constant. In the cosmic struggle the Mithraist believed man shared; for he too, the microcosm, was both good and evil, so that the same battle had to be waged within him as everywhere in the world. This religion, then, was able to supply a strong moral motive for the individual: he was bound to struggle continually against the powers of sin to aid in bringing about the final victory of the powers of righteousness, and he was taught that in this struggle Mithras gave the faithful constant aid.

Mithraism therefore was well suited to stir and energize the individual in a time when the ancient fibre of the Romans was relaxing and when the signs of social and economic decay were evident. In the first three centuries of the Empire, as we have already had occasion to observe more than once, the loss of political power and the weakening of the satisfactions which a vigorous society can give, led men to search for other rewards and assurances than those of this world; in the mystic philosophies and religions they found their strength and hope. No oriental pagan cult had so much to offer as Mithraism. Its compelling system of ethics, the high ideal of moral purity which it inherited from its Persian source, the fraternity which its associations fostered, and the confidence which the promise of Mithras’ aid gave the individual, all combined to extend its sway to the westernmost boundaries of the Roman Empire and to maintain its power until it was forced to yield before the victorious advance of a nobler faith.