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

220 THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
manded by custom, and later by law. In regard to the devel
opment of this twofold meaning, see the recent note by Richard
Heinze, Archiv fiir lateinische Lexicographic, XV, pp. 90 ff.
Sematology is often synonymous with the study of customs.
10. Reville, op. cit., p. 144.
11. On ecstasy in the mysteries in general, cf. Rohde, Psyche,
2d ed., pp. 315-319; in the Oriental religions cf. De Jong,
De Apuleio Isiacorum mysteriorum teste, 1900, p. 100; De
Jong, Das antike Mysterienwesen, Leyden, 1909. Mon, myst.
Mithra, I, p. 323.
12. Firmicus Maternus mentioned this in De errore prof,
relig., c. 8.
13. For Babylonia, cf. Strab., XVI, I, 6, and infra, ch. V,
n. 51 ; for Egypt, id., XVII, 21, 46. From the very interesting
account Otto has written of the science of the Egyptian priests
during the Hellenistic period (Priester mid Tempel, II, pp.
21 iff.; 234), it appears that it remained quite worthy of
consideration although progress had ceased.
14. Strabo, loc. cit. : Avandeaai 6e rti
TZp/nf] Trdaav rr/v roiavTfjv
<ro$iav; Pliny, Hist, nat., VI, 26, 121: "(Belus) inventor fuit
sideralis scientiae" ; cf. Solinus, 56, 3 ; Achilles, I sag., I
(Maass, Comm. in Aral., p. : 27) BiJXw ryv evpeeiv dvaOevres.
Let us remember that Hammurabi s code was represented as
the work of Marduk. In a general way, the gods
are the
authors of all inventions useful to humanity; cf. Reitzenstein,
Poimandrcs, 1904, p. 123 ; Deissmann, Licht von Osten, 91 ff.
Likewise in the Occident: CIL, VII, 759 = Bucheler, Carm.
epigr., 24: "(Dea Syria) ex quis muneribus nosse contigit
deos," etc., cf. Plut., Crass., 17. "Religion im Sinne des
Orients ist die Erklarung alles dessen was ist, also eine Welt-
auffassung" ( Winckler, Himmelsbild der Babylonier, 1903, p. 9).
15. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 312. Manicheism likewise
brought a complete cosmological system from Babylonia.
Saint Augustine criticizes the book of that sect for containing
long dissertations and absurd stories about matters that have
nothing at all to do with salvation ; see my Recherches sur le
manicheisme, 1908, p. 53.
16. Cf. Porphyry, Epist. Aneb., n; Jambl., De myst., II, n.