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

274 THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
74 ff. ; of the seasons : ibid., pp. 92 ff. There is no doubt that
the veneration of time and its subdivisions (seasons, months,
days, etc.) spread through the influence of astrology. Zeno
had deified them; see Cicero, Nat. D., II, 63 (= von Arnim,
fr. : 165) "Astris hod idem (i. e. vim divinam) tribuit, turn
annis, mensibus, annorumque mutationibus." In conformity
with the materialism of the Stoics these subdivisions of time
were conceived by him as bodies (von Arnim, loc. cit.> II, fr.
665; cf. Zeller, Ph. Gr., IV, p. 316, p. 221). The later texts
have been collected by Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v.
"Men," II, col. 2689. See also Ambrosiaster, Comm. in epist.
Galat., IV, 10 (Migne, col. 3816). Egypt had worshiped the
hours, the months, and the propitious and adverse years as
gods long before the Occident; see Wiedemann, loc. cit. (infra,
n. 64) pp. 7 ff.
37. They adorn many astronomical manuscripts, particularly
the Vaticanus gr. 1291, the archetype of which dates back to
the third century of our era; cf. Boll, Sitsungsb. Akad. Mini-
chen, 1899, pp. 125 ff., 136 ff.
38. Piper, Mythologic der christl. Kunst, 1851, II, pp. 313 f.
Cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 220.
39. Bidez, Bcrose ct la grande annce in the Melanges Paul
Frcdcricq, Brussels, 1904, pp. 9 ff.
40. Cf. supra, pp. 126, 158!
41. When Goethe had made the ascent of the Brocken, in
1784, during splendid weather, he expressed
his admiration
by writing the following verses from memory, (II, 115) :
"Quis caelum possit, nisi caeli munere, nosse |
Et reperire deum,
nisi qui pars ipse deorum est?"; cf. Brief an Frau von Stein,
No. 518, (Scholl) 1885, quoted by Ellis in Nodes Manilianae,
p. viii.
42. This idea in the verse of Manilius (n. 41, cf. IV, 910),
and which may be found earlier in Somnium Scifionis (III,
4; see Macrobius, Comment. I, 14, 16; "Animi societatem
cum caelo et sideribus habere communem" ; Pseudo-Apul.,
Asclepius, c. 6, c. 9. Firmicus Maternus, Astral., I, 5, 10).
dates back to Posidonius who made the contemplation of the
sky one of the sources of the belief in God (Capelle, Jahrb.