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

WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
WHEN, during the fourth century, the weakened
asunder like an overburdened scale
empire split
whose beam is broken, this political divorce perpetu
ated a moral separation that had existed for a long
time. The opposition between the Greco-Oriental and
the Latin worlds manifests itself especially in religion
and in the attitude taken by the central power toward it.
Occidental paganism was almost exclusively Latin
under the empire. After the annexation of Spain, Gaul
and Brittany, the old Iberian, Celtic and other religions
were unable to keep up the unequal struggle against
the more advanced religion of the conquerors. The
marvelous rapidity with which the literature of the
civilizing Romans was accepted by the subject peoples
has frequently been pointed out. Its influence was felt
in the temples as well as in the forum ;
it transformed
the prayers to the gods as well as the conversation be
tween men. Besides, it was part of the political pro
gram of the Caesars to make the adoption of the Roman
divinities general, and the government imposed the
rules of its sacerdotal law as well as the principles of
its public and civil law upon its new subjects. The
municipal laws prescribed the election of pontiffs and
augurs in common with the judicial duumvirs. In
Gaul druidism, with its oral traditions embodied in