Early European History

by Hutton Webster

77. THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY

DECLINE OF PAGANISM

Several centuries before the rise of Christianity many Greek thinkers began to feel a growing dissatisfaction with the crude faith that had come down to them from prehistoric times. They found it more and more difficult to believe in the Olympian deities, who were fashioned like themselves and had all the faults of mortal men. [10] An adulterous Zeus, a bloodthirsty Ares, and a scolding Hera, as Homer represents them, were hardly divinities that a cultured Greek could love and worship. For educated Romans, also, the rites and ceremonies of the ancient religion came gradually to lose their meaning. The worship of the Roman gods had never appealed to the emotions. Now it tended to pass into the mere mechanical repetition of prayers and sacrifices. Even the worship of the Caesars, [11] which did much to hold the empire together, failed to satisfy the spiritual wants of mankind. It made no appeal to the moral nature; it brought no message, either of fear or hope, about a future world and a life beyond the grave.

STOICISM

During these centuries a system of Greek philosophy, called Stoicism, gained many adherents among the Romans. Any one who will read the Stoic writings, such as those of the noble emperor, Marcus Aurelius, [12] will see how nearly Christian was the Stoic faith. It urged men to forgive injuries—to "bear and forbear." It preached the brotherhood of man. It expressed a humble and unfaltering reliance on a divine Providence. To many persons of refinement Stoicism became a real religion. But since Stoic philosophy could reach and influence only the educated classes, it could not become a religion for all sorts and conditions of men.

THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

Many Greeks found a partial satisfaction of their religious longings in secret rites called mysteries. Of these the most important grew up at Eleusis, [13] a little Attic town thirteen miles from Athens. They were connected with the worship of Demeter, goddess of vegetation and of the life of nature. The celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries came in September and lasted nine days. When the candidates for admission to the secret rites were worked up to a state of religious excitement, they entered a brilliantly lighted hall and witnessed a passion play dealing with the legend of Demeter. They seem to have had no direct moral instruction but saw, instead, living pictures and pantomimes which represented the life beyond the grave and held out to them the promise of a blessed lot in another world. As an Athenian orator said, "Those who have shared this initiation possess sweeter hopes about death and about the whole of life." [14]

INFLUENCE OF THE MYSTERIES

The Eleusinian mysteries, though unknown in the Homeric Age, were already popular before the epoch of the Persian wars. They became a Panhellenic festival open to all Greeks, women as well as men, slaves as well as freemen. The privilege of membership was later extended to Romans. During the first centuries of our era the influence of the mysteries increased, as faith in the Olympian religion declined. They formed one of the last strongholds of paganism and endured till the triumph of Christianity in the Roman world.

ORIENTAL RELIGIONS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

The Asiatic conquests of Alexander, followed in later centuries by the extension of Roman rule over the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, brought the classical peoples into contact with new religions which had arisen in the Orient. Slaves, soldiers, traders, and travelers carried the eastern faiths to the West, where they speedily won many followers. Even before the downfall of the republic the deities of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Persia had found a home at Rome. Under the empire many men and women were attracted to their worship.

MITHRA

Perhaps the most remarkable of the Asiatic religions was Mithraism. Mithra first appears as a Persian sun god, the leader of Ahuramazda's hosts in the ceaseless struggle against the forces of darkness and evil. [15] As a god of light Mithra was also a god of truth and purity. His worship, spreading over the length and breadth of the Roman Empire, became the noblest of all pagan faiths. Men saw in Mithra a Lord and Giver of Life, who protected the weak and miserable, cleansed the sinner, conquered death, and procured for his faithful followers the crown of immortality.

[Illustration: A MITHRAIC MONUMENT A bas relief discovered in 1838 A.D. in a cave near Heidelberg, Germany. The central group represents Mithra slaying the bull. The smaller reliefs show scenes from the life of Mithra, including his birth from the rock and his ascent to Ahuramazda.]

THE WORSHIP OF MITHRA

The Mithraic worship took the form of a mystery with seven grades, or degrees, through which candidates passed by ordeals of initiation. The rites included a kind of baptism with holy water, a sacrificial meal of bread and wine, and daily litanies to the sun. Mithra was represented as a youthful hero miraculously born from a rock at the dawn of day; for this reason his worship was always conducted underground in natural or artificial caves, or in cellars. At the back of one of these subterranean temples would be often a picture of Mithra slaying a bull, and an inscription: "To the Unconquerable Sun, to Mithra." [16]

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS

The new Oriental religions all appealed to the emotions. They helped to satisfy the spiritual wants of men and women, by dwelling on the need of purification from sin and by holding forth the prospect of a happier life beyond the tomb. It is not strange, therefore, that they penetrated every province of the Roman Empire and flourished as late as the fourth century of our era. Christianity had no more dangerous antagonists than the followers of Mithra and other eastern divinities.