shadow of the Roman Empire, and close to the origi that great religion which made Greek its expression and vehicle throughout the civilised world. Thus another ep in our subject opens before us, and we must pause be entering upon this fresh and no less arduous task.

CHAPTER VIII

ASCETIC RELIGION IN THE FIRST CENTURY

It will be a proper introduction to the great spiritual regeneration which took place in the next century, as well as an antidote to the worldly, immoral, and superficial Hellenism of Herod, if we consider that development of mystic asceticism which invaded the whole Hellenist-Roman world in the first century before Christ, and showed itself prominently not only in numerous writings but in distinct societies, and in the ordinances of a higher spiritual life. I allude chiefly to the Pythagoreans and their rivals the Essenes.

The habit of turning from the worn-out artificialised systems of latter days to the fresher, vaguer, more poetical guesses of older thinkers had long since been adopted by Hellenistic philosophers. The Stoics and Epicureans turned away from Plato and Aristotle, and went back to the enigmas of Heracleitus and the assumptions of Democritus for their physics. They seemed to have no more ability to frame a new system than modern architects have to design a new style. No field seems to remain for the originality of either profession, save to borrow from some model more

obsolete than the rest, or to combine the ideas of various older schools in some novel way. In the century we have been studying, the Stoic, Epicurean, and Academic systems had become as threadbare as were the older rational systems of Plato and Aristotle in the third century B.C. Positive scepticism had been administered plentifully as a cure for both dogmatism and doubt, and, as usual, had proved at first attractive, then tedious, at last disgusting, like some new and piquant food, wherewith one might try to supplant that plain vulgar bread of ordinary life, which lasts through fashions and tastes, and remains the support of man in preference to anything seasoned or sweetened by artifice.

Nothing, therefore, remained but to return to some other ancient system, either of religion or of philosophy, which had satisfied the men of other days and other lands, and see whether sustenance could there be found for the spiritual hunger of mankind. Oriental religions, as we know, came much into fashion, and among the Greeks those orgiastic worships were sought out which savoured most of mystery and of inspiration. The worship of the Phrygian Cybele, with her cymbals and her shawms, her orgies and revivals, replaced the sober offering and quiet prayer to Hera or Athene.

Recent researches into the inscriptions at Delos and at Samothrace, the great homes of Hellenic religion in the Ægean, have put this growth of oriental influences beyond all doubt. I will not set down as certain the theory of M. Foucart, that every private religious association among the Greeks, all those opye@ves and Oíaooi of Dionysiasts, and other -asts which recur so frequently in the inscriptions, were under the protection of a Deity really imported from the East, even though frequently disguised under a Hellenic

VIII

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RELIGIOUS MYSTICISM

181

name.1 But from the days when Corinth was destroyed and Delos rose to be a great commercial, as well as religious centre, the number of dedications by Eastern princes, such as those of Pontus, Cappadocia, and even the Parthian Arsaces, as well as allusions to strange oriental gods in offerings and vows, increases so rapidly that we feel ourselves hardly in a Hellenic place of worship. The same change is said to be noticeable in the votive offerings and dedications recovered in Samothrace.2

It was the same spirit in the more cultivated minds of the day which led them back to the theological, mystical, suprasensible doctrine of Pythagoras, with its vague conceptions of harmony as a law of the universe, its worship of order, its spirituality in conceiving the Godhead, its asceticism as the highest of earthly conditions. The original teaching of the sage of Samos was indeed almost completely lost; there survived but scanty and vague traditions,3 which served as sparks to rekindle the flame of this higher light. And, perhaps, such faintness of tradition was even favourable to the preachers of the revived truth, for they were enabled not only to supply from Plato and the Stoics many conceptions undeveloped or unrecognised by the real Pythagoras, -they were also able to produce them under the guise of ancient lore, recovered from oblivion in the fragments of Archytas, Ocellus, and other venerable names.

There was a whole library of such literature, beginning with the first century B.C., from which fragments of some ninety authors are still extant. They preach the unity and pure spirituality of the Highest, who contains within Himself

1 Cf. Foucart, Associations réligieuses chez les Grecs, p. 109, a book of great learning and judgment.

2 Cf. S. Reinach in BCH vii. 348; and Foucart, ibid. p. 467. 3 ζώπυρα ἄττα πάνυ ἀμυδρὰ καὶ δυσθήρατα, is the expression of Iamblichus usually quoted (cf. Zeller, Phil. der Griechen, iii. 2, 112).

the seeds of the universe, of which the world and the stars are the lesser gods, with a life of their own derived from His substance. The laws of numbers are the principles upon which all the order and beauty of existence are based. Whether the absolute spirituality of God could be reconciled with His diffusion through every element of the universe as its living principle did not trouble them. They taught both doctrines, perhaps, in turn, helping man to form some inadequate notion of His perfections. For this was their main object to supply the wearied age not with a system more logical and consecutive than those that went before, but rather with nobler emotions, with deeper comfort, with higher aspirations. They maintained the eternity of the world, and consequently of the human species, whose souls were but a lower grade of intelligence, above which the demons or genii, inhabiting the air, formed the link uniting them to the astral gods. To these demons was entrusted the detail of the government of our world.

But far more interesting to us than their physics is their practical philosophy. In direct contrast to the elaborate reasoning, the minute controversy, the subtle distinctions of the other schools, these Pythagoreans and their kindred sects believed first of all in purity and soberness of life, as the proper training for that deeper insight which is the appanage of goodness. It was by doing the will of God that they would learn to know His doctrine. And this knowledge was not a logically reasoned-out conclusion, but a moral insight, a higher intuition, which told them not only the right way, but even attained to a prophetic foresight of future events. Exceptional holiness produced exceptional wisdom, and the demons who governed the world were willing to reveal hidden things to such admirable obedience.