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
addition of a short bibliography and notes intended for scholars desirous
of verifying assertions made in the text.[1] 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-Platonism, is the leading fact in the moral history of the pagan
empire. May this small volume on a great subject 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 {xvi} deliberately 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 apparently 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 nevertheless important and has been the
subject of celebrated lectures as well as of learned monographs and widely
distributed manuals.[2] 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 ritualistic ceremonies of the pagan
mysteries. In spite of the prestige that surrounded Eleusis, the word
"mysteries" 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 derives its
inspiration from generally accepted beliefs {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 proportions, and its
aspect changes completely. Here Christianity spread only after it had
outgrown the embryonic state and really became established. Moreover like
Christianity the Oriental mysteries at Rome remained for a long time
chiefly the religion of a foreign minority. Did any exchange take place
between these 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
besides other polytheistic practices perpetuated themselves in the
adoration of local saints. On the other hand as soon as Christianity became
a moral power in {xviii} 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 taurobolium 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 unsolved. 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. Preconceived 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. Resemblance does not necessarily presuppose
imitation, and frequently a similarity of ideas and practices must be
explained by common origin, exclusive of any borrowing. {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 mystical hierarchy was that of "soldier" (_miles_).
Thenceforward 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 soldiers' 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
commander-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 a 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}
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 empire, 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 existence 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 devotion dominated or displaced all national
feeling. We know the oaths taken by those subjects to their deified
kings.[7] 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 dedicated to them not only their actions and words, but their
very thoughts. Their duty was a complete abandonment 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 {xxi} morality viewed
from the religious standpoint. It confounded loyalty with piety.
As we see, the researches into the doctrines or practices common to
Christianity and the Oriental mysteries lead almost always beyond the
limits of the Roman empire into the Hellenistic Orient. The religious
conceptions which imposed themselves on Latin Europe under the Cæsars[8]
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 barbarian theology. It is rarely possible to formulate
satisfactory 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 anchorage. But at any
rate we perceive with sufficient distinctness 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
beginning of our era, and monotheism had made concessions 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 dispersion in which
the gospel was accepted immediately, 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 history 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 completely disintegrated the
ancient national faith of the Romans, while at the same time the Cæsars had
gradually 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 instead of in this world, as the Greek philosophy had done.
No longer did man act in view of tangible {xxiii} realities, 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 purification 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 demanded of their adherents
submission to their sacred authority.
All these features that we are but sketching here, gave the Oriental
religions a resemblance to Christianity, 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} 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 polytheism. 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 continued effort of
Roman society, contented for many centuries with a rather insipid idolatry,
toward more elevated and more profound forms of worship. Possibly 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. {xxv}