THE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS AND COMMUNITIES OF THE FIRST CENTURY.
In the domain of religion it is quite true that the state cults and
national institutions throughout the Empire were almost without
exception in a parlous state, and it is to be noticed that Apollonius
devoted much time and labour to reviving and purifying them. Indeed,
their strength had long left the general state-institutions of religion,
where all was now perfunctory; but so far from there being no religious
life in the land, in proportion as the official cultus and ancestral
institutions afforded no real satisfaction to their religious needs, the
more earnestly did the people devote themselves to private cults, and
eagerly baptised themselves in all that flood of religious enthusiasm
which flowed in with ever increasing volume from the East. Indubitably
in all this fermentation there were many excesses, according to our
present notions of religious decorum, and also grievous abuses; but at
the same time in it many found due satisfaction for their religious
emotions, and, if we except those cults which were distinctly vicious,
we have to a large extent before us in popular circles the spectacle of
what, in their last analysis, are similar phenomena to those enthusiasms
which in our own day may be frequently witnessed among such sects as the
Shakers or Ranters, and at the general revival meetings of the
uninstructed.
It is not, however, to be thought that the private cults and the doings
of the religious associations were all of this nature or confined to
this class; far from it. There were religious brotherhoods, communities,
and clubs--_thiasi_, _erani_, and _orge[=o]nes_--of all sorts and
conditions. There were also mutual benefit societies, burial clubs, and
dining companies, the prototypes of our present-day Masonic bodies,
Oddfellows, and the rest. These religious associations were not only
private in the sense that they were not maintained by the State, but
also for the most part they were private in the sense that what they did
was kept secret, and this is perhaps the main reason why we have so
defective a record of them.
Among them are to be numbered not only the lower forms of mystery-cultus
of various kinds, but also the greater ones, such as the Phrygian,
Bacchic, Isiac, and Mithriac Mysteries, which were spread everywhere
throughout the Empire. The famous Eleusinia were, however, still under
the ægis of the State, but though so famous were, as a state-cultus, far
more perfunctory.
It is, moreover, not to be thought that the great types of
mystery-cultus above mentioned were uniform even among themselves. There
were not only various degrees and grades within them, but also in all
probability many forms of each line of tradition, good, bad, and
indifferent. For instance, we know that it was considered _de rigueur_
for every respectable citizen of Athens to be initiated into the
Eleusinia, and therefore the tests could not have been very stringent;
whereas in the most recent work on the subject, De Apuleio Isiacorum
Mysteriorum Teste (Leyden; 1900), Dr. K. H. E. De Jong shows that in one
form of the Isiac Mysteries the candidate was invited to initiation by
means of dream; that is to say, he had to be psychically impressionable
before his acceptance.
Here, then, we have a vast intermediate ground for religious exercise
between the most popular and undisciplined forms of private cults and
the highest forms, which could only be approached through the discipline
and training of the philosophic life. The higher side of these
mystery-institutions aroused the enthusiasm of all that was best in
antiquity, and unstinted praise was given to one or another form of them
by the greatest thinkers and writers of Greece and Rome; so that we
cannot but think that here the instructed found that satisfaction for
their religious needs which was necessary not only for those who could
not rise into the keen air of pure reason, but also for those who had
climbed so high upon the heights of reason that they could catch a
glimpse of the other side. The official cults were notoriously unable to
give them this satisfaction, and were only tolerated by the instructed
as an aid for the people and a means of preserving the traditional life
of the city or state.
By common consent the most virtuous livers of Greece were the members of
the Pythagorean schools, both men and women. After the death of their
founder the Pythagoreans seem to have gradually blended with the Orphic
communities, and the "Orphic life" was the recognised term for a life of
purity and self-denial. We also know that the Orphics, and therefore the
Pythagoreans, were actively engaged in the reformation, or even the
entire reforming, of the Baccho-Eleusinian rites; they seem to have
brought back the pure side of the Bacchic cult with their reinstitution
or reimportation of the Iacchic mysteries, and it is very evident that
such stern livers and deep thinkers could not have been contented with a
low form of cult. Their influence also spread far and wide in general
Bacchic circles, so that we find Euripides putting the following words
into the mouth of a chorus of Bacchic initiates: "Clad in white robes I
speed me from the genesis of mortal men, and never more approach the
vase of death, for I have done with eating food that ever housed a
soul."[1] Such words could well be put into the mouth of a Br[=a]hman or
Buddhist ascetic, eager to escape from the bonds of Sa[.m]s[=a]ra and
such men cannot therefore justly be classed together indiscriminately
with ribald revellers--the general mind-picture of a Bacchic company.
But, some one may say, Euripides and the Pythagoreans and Orphics are no
evidence for the first century; whatever good there may have been in
such schools and communities, it had ceased long before. On the
contrary, the evidence is all against this objection. Philo, writing
about 25 A.D., tells us that in his day numerous groups of men, who in
all respects led this life of religion, who abandoned their property,
retired from the world and devoted themselves entirely to the search for
wisdom and the cultivation of virtue, were scattered far and wide
throughout the world. In his treatise, On the Contemplative Life, he
writes: "This natural class of men is to be found in many parts of the
inhabited world, both the Grecian and non-Grecian world, sharing in the
perfect good. In Egypt there are crowds of them in every province, or
nome as they call it, and especially round Alexandria." This is a most
important statement, for if there were so many devoted to the religious
life at this time, it follows that the age was not one of unmixed
depravity.
It is not, however, to be thought that these communities were all of an
exactly similar nature, or of one and the same origin, least of all that
they were all Therapeut or Essene. We have only to remember the various
lines of descent of the doctrines held by the innumerable schools
classed together as Gnostic, as sketched in my recent work, Fragments of
a Faith Forgotten, and to turn to the beautiful treatises of the
Hermetic schools, to persuade us that in the first century the striving
after the religious and philosophic life was wide-spread and various.
We are not, however, among those who believe that the origin of the
Therapeut communities of Philo and of the Essenes of Philo and Josephus
is to be traced to Orphic and Pythagorean influence. The question of
precise origin is as yet beyond the power of historical research, and
we are not of those who would exaggerate one element of the mass into a
universal source. But when we remember the existence of all these so
widely scattered communities in the first century, when we study the
imperfect but important record of the very numerous schools and
brotherhoods of a like nature which came into intimate contact with
Christianity in its origins, we cannot but feel that there was the
leaven of a strong religious life working in many parts of the Empire.
Our great difficulty is that these communities, brotherhoods, and
associations kept themselves apart, and with rare exceptions left no
records of their intimate practices and beliefs, or if they left any it
has been destroyed or lost. For the most part then we have to rely upon
general indications of a very superficial character. But this imperfect
record is no justification for us to deny or ignore their existence and
the intensity of their endeavours; and a history which purports to paint
a picture of the times is utterly insufficient so long as it omits this
most vital subject from its canvas.
Among such surroundings as these Apollonius moved; but how little does
his biographer seem to have been aware of the fact! Philostratus has a
rhetorician's appreciation of a philosophical court life, but no
feeling for the life of religion. It is only indirectly that the Life of
Apollonius, as it is now depicted, can throw any light on these most
interesting communities, but even an occasional side-light is precious
where all is in such obscurity. Were it but possible to enter into the
living memory of Apollonius, and see with his eyes the things he saw
when he lived nineteen hundred years ago, what an enormously interesting
page of the world's history could be recovered! He not only traversed
all the countries where the new faith was taking root, but he lived for
years in most of them, and was intimately acquainted with numbers of
mystic communities in Egypt, Arabia, and Syria. Surely he must have
visited some of the earliest Christian communities as well, must even
have conversed with some of the "disciples of the Lord"! And yet no word
is breathed of this, not one single scrap of information on these points
do we glean from what is recorded of him. Surely he must have met with
Paul, if not elsewhere, then at Rome, in 66, when he had to leave
because of the edict of banishment against the philosophers, the very
year according to some when Paul was beheaded!