The pagan Oriental cults. The pagan Oriental cults whose penetration of the European provinces is so marked a feature in the religious life of the principate were the cults of the peoples of western Asia and Egypt which had become Hellenized and adapted for world expansion after Alexander’s conquest of the Persian empire. From this time onward they spread throughout the Greek culture world but it was not until the establishment of the world empire of Rome with its facilities for, and stimulus to, intercourse between all peoples within the Roman frontiers that they were able to obtain a foothold in western Europe. Their penetration of Italy began with the official reception of the cult of the Great Mother of Pessinus at Rome in 205 B. C., but the Roman world as a whole held aloof from them until the close of the republic. However, during the first two centuries of the principate they gradually made their way over the western parts of the empire.
The expansion of the Oriental cults followed the lines of the much frequented trade routes along which they were carried by travelers, merchants and colonies of oriental traders. The army cantonments were also centers for their diffusion, not only through the agency of troops recruited in the East but also through detachments which had seen service there in the course of the numerous wars on the eastern frontiers. Likewise the oriental slaves were active propagandists of their native faiths.
The explanation of the ready reception of these cults among all classes of society is that they guaranteed their adherents a satisfaction which the official religions were unable to offer. The state and municipal cults were mainly political in character, and with the disappearance of independent political life they lost their hold upon men who began to seek a refuge from the miseries of the present world in the world of the spirit and the promise of a future life. This want the Oriental cults were able to meet with the doctrines of a personal religion far different from the formal worship of the Graeco-Roman deities.
Certain characteristics of doctrine and ritual were common to the majority of the Oriental cults. They had an elaborate ritual which appealed both to the senses and to the emotions of the worshippers. By witnessing certain symbolic ceremonies the believer was roused [pg 306]to a state of spiritual ecstasy in which he felt himself in communion with the deity, while by the performance of sacramental rites he felt himself cleansed from the defilements of his earthly life and fitted for a purer spiritual existence. A professional priesthood had charge of the worship, ministered to the needs of individuals, and conducted missionary work. To an age of declining intellectual vigor, when men gave over the attempt to solve by scientific methods the riddle of the universe, they spoke with the authority of revelation, giving a comforting theological interpretation of life. And they appealed to the conscience by imposing a rigid rule of conduct, the observance of which would fit the believer for a happier existence in a future life.
The most important of these oriental divinities were the Great Mother of Pessinus, otherwise known as Cybele, worshipped in company with the male deity Attis; the Egyptian pair Isis and Serapis; Atayatis or the Syrian goddess, the chief female divinity of North Syria; a number of Syrian gods (Ba’als) named from the site of their Syrian shrines; and finally Mithra, a deity whose cult had long formed a part of the national Iranian religion. Towards all these cults the Roman state displayed wide toleration, only interfering with them when their orgiastic rites came into conflict with Roman conceptions of morality. But in spite of this toleration it required a long time before the conservative prejudices of the upper classes of Roman society were sufficiently undermined to permit of their participation in these foreign rites. For one hundred years after the introduction of the worship of the Magna Mater Romans were prohibited from enrolling themselves in the ranks of her priesthood. A determined but unsuccessful attempt was made by the Senate during the last century of the republic to drive from Rome the cult of Isis, the second of these religions to find a home in Italy, and in 42 B. C. the triumvirs erected a temple to this goddess. Augustus, however, banished her worship beyond the pomerium. But this restriction was not enforced by his successors, and by 69 A. D. the cult of the Egyptian goddess was firmly established in the capital. The various Syrian deities were of less significance in the religious life of the West, although as we have seen Elagabalus set up the worship of one of them, the Sun god of Emesa, as an official cult at Rome.
The Oriental cult which in importance overshadowed all the rest was Mithraism, one of the latest to cross from Asia into Europe. In Zoroastrian theology Mithra appears as the spirit who is the chief [pg 307]agent of the supreme god of light Ormuzd in his struggle against Ahriman, the god of darkness. He is at the same time a beneficent force in the natural world and in the moral world the champion of righteousness against the powers of evil. Under Babylonian and Greek influences Mithra was identified with the Sun-god, and appears in Rome with the title the Unconquered Sun-god Mithra (deus invictus sol Mithra). Towards the close of the first century A. D. Mithraism began to make its influence felt in Rome and the western provinces, and from that time it spread with great rapidity. Mithra, as the god of battles, was a patron deity of the soldiers, who became his zealous missionaries in the frontier camps. His cult was also regarded with particular favor by the emperors, whose authority it supported by the doctrine that the ruler is the chosen of Ormuzd and an embodiment of the divine spirit. It is not surprising then that Aurelian, whose coins bore the legend dominus et deus natus (born god and lord), made the worship of the Unconquered Sun-god the chief cult of the state.
Philosophy. Attention has already been called to the value of Stoicism in supplying its adherents with a highly moral code of conduct. Other philosophical systems, notably Epicureanism, likewise inculcated particular rules of life. But the philosophical doctrines which were best able to hold their own with the new religions were those of Neoplatonism and Neopythagoreanism, which came into vogue in the course of the second century, and exhibited a combination of mysticism and idealism well suited to the spirit of the age.
Astrology and magic. Throughout the principate all classes of society were deeply imbued with a superstitious fatalism which caused them to place implicit belief in the efficacy of astrology and magic. Chaldean and Egyptian astrologers enjoyed a great reputation, and were consulted on all important questions. They were frequently banished from Rome by the emperors who feared that their predictions might give encouragement to their enemies. However, these very emperors kept astrologers in their own service, and the decrees of banishment never remained long in force. The almost universal belief in miracles and oracles caused the appearance of a large number of imposters who throve on the credulity of their clients. One of the most celebrated of these was the Alexander who founded a new oracle of Aesculapius at Abonoteichus in Paphlagonia, the fame of which spread throughout the whole empire and even beyond its bor[pg 308]ders. In his exposé of the methods employed by this false prophet, the satirist Lucian gives a vivid picture of the depraved superstition of his time.
At the close of the principate the pagan world presented a great confusion of religious beliefs and doctrines. However, the various pagan cults were tolerant one of another, for the followers of one god were ready to acknowledge the divinity of the gods worshipped by their neighbors. On the contrary, the adherents of Judaism and Christianity refused to recognize the pagan gods, and hence stood in irreconcilable opposition to the whole pagan world.