The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

152 THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
Mithraism from other sects and inspired its dogmatic
theology and ethics, giving them a rigor and firmness
unknown to Roman paganism. It considered the uni
verse from an entirely new point of view and at the
same time provided a new goal in life.
Of course, if we understand by dualism the an
tithesis of mind and matter, of reason and intuition,
it appeared at a considerably earlier period in Greek
philosophy, 34 where it was one of the leading ideas
of neo-Pythagoreanism and of Philo s system. But
the distinguishing feature of the doctrine of the magi
is the fact that it deified the evil principle, set it up
as a rival to the supreme deity, and taught that both
had to be worshiped. This system offered an ap
parently simple solution to the problem of evil, the
stumbling block of theologies,
and it attracted the cul
tured minds as well as the masses, to whom it afforded
an explanation of their sufferings. Just as the mys
teries of Mithra began to spread Plutarch wrote of
them favorably and was inclined himself to adopt
them.35 From that time dates the appearance in litera
ture of the anti-gods,* 36 under the command of the
powers of darkness 3 ? and arrayed against the celestial
spirits, messengers or "angels"
38 of divinity. They were
Ahriman s devas struggling with the Yazatas of Ormuzd.
A curious passage in Porphyry 39 shows that the ear
liest neo-Platonists had already admitted Persian de-
monology into their system. Below the incorporeal
and indivisible supreme being, below the stars and the
planets, there were countless spirits.* Some of them,
the gods of cities and nations, received special names :
* dvriBcoi.