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

WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD. 39
mitian and Commodus, were also those that favored
foreign creeds most openly.
But his selfish support merely sanctioned a power
already established. The propaganda of the Oriental
religions was originally democratic and sometimes even
revolutionary like the Isis worship. Step by step they
advanced, always reaching higher social classes and ap
pealing to popular conscience rather than to the zeal of
functionaries.
As a matter of fact all these religions, except that of
Mithra, seem at first sight to be far less austere than
the Roman creed. We shall have occasion to note that
they contained coarse and immodest fables and atro
cious or vile rites. The Egyptian gods were expelled
from Rome by Augustus and Tiberius on the charge
of being immoral, but they were called immoral prin
cipally because they opposed a certain conception of
the social order. They gave little attention to the public
interest but attached considerable importance to the
inner life and consequently to the value of the indi- I
vidual. Two new things, in particular, were brought to j ,/
Italy by the Oriental priests: mysterious methods of
purification, by which they clajmed to wash away the
impurities of the soul, and the assurance that a blessed
immortality would be the reward of piety. *3
These religions pretended to restore lost purity 2 * to v
the soul either through the performance of ritual cere
monies or through mortifications and penance. They
had a series of ablutions and lustrations supposed to
restore original innocence to the mystic. He had to wash
himself in the sacred water according to certain pre
scribed forms. This was really a magic rite, because
bodily purity acted sympathetically upon the soul, or