Forerunners and rivals of Christianity, vol. 1 (of 2)
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FORERUNNERS AND RIVALS OF CHRISTIANITY
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iiiFORERUNNERS AND RIVALS OF CHRISTIANITY
BEING
STUDIES IN RELIGIOUS HISTORY
FROM 330 B.C. TO 330 A.D.
BY
F. LEGGE, F.S.A.
(Honorary) Foreign Secretary Society of Biblical Archaeology,
Member of Council Royal Asiatic Society,
Member of Committee Egypt Exploration Fund, &c.
“The ghosts of words and dusty dreams”
“Old memories, faiths infirm and dead”
Swinburne, Félise.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
Cambridge:
at the University Press
1915
ivCambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
PREFACE
v
The following pages are a modest attempt to bring before
the public certain documents of great importance for
the understanding of the growth and development of the
Christian religion. They are not new, almost all of them
having been translated at one time or another into English,
French, German, or Italian: but they are all practically
unknown save to scholars, are all fragmentary, and with
hardly an exception, are difficult to understand without a
running commentary. In these circumstances, I have ventured
to follow, not for the first time, the advice given by Sir Gaston
Maspero to his pupils in one of his luminous lectures at the
Collège de France. “If” said in effect that great master of
archaeology, “you find yourselves in the presence of scattered
and diverse examples of any monument you cannot understand—funerary
cones, amulets of unusual form, hypocephali, or
anything else—make a collection of them. Search museums,
journals of Egyptology, proceedings of learned societies, until
you think they have no more novelties of the kind to offer you.
Then put those you have collected side by side and study them.
The features they have in common will then readily appear and
in a little time you will find that you will perceive not only the
use of the objects in question, but also the history of their
development, their connexion with each other, and their
relative dates.” This has been the end aimed at in this book;
and although, like most aims in this world, it has not been
perfectly achieved, it may, I think, be said with confidence
vithat these documents explain and supplement one another in
a remarkable degree, and that in the majority of cases sense
can now be read into what at first sight seemed to be nonsense.
As more fragments of the same kind come to light, also, one
has fair reason to hope that those points which are still obscure
may be made clear.
The system of references adopted perhaps calls for some
explanation. As I have no right to expect my readers to take
what I say for gospel, I should have preferred to give my
authority for every statement made by me in the text. But
there are often many authorities supporting the same statement,
and some discrimination between them was necessary unless
these two volumes were to be swollen to an intolerable length.
The same consideration for brevity, too, has often led me to
quote at second or third hand rather than at first. References
to well-known passages in the more widely read classical writers
and Christian Fathers are not needed by scholarly readers,
while to others they are difficult to check or verify. I have
therefore deliberately and of choice preferred the less recondite
sources to the more recondite, and have never hesitated to
refer the reader to encyclopaedias, popular lectures, and the
works avowedly addressed to the general public of writers
like Renan and Mahaffy, rather than to the sources from which
they have themselves drawn their information. In so doing,
however, I have never consciously failed to check the statement
quoted with the original source, and to see, so far as in me lay,
that it correctly represents its purport. A fairly long experience
has convinced me that to many readers the “Apoll. Rhod.
ac Nigid. Schuster, p. 41” and the “Clemens de div. serv.
Su 20” dear to certain German professors and their English
admirers mean very little, and to the greater public nothing
at all. For the translations which appear in the text or notes
I have gleaned from all sources, but, except where expressly
viimentioned, I must personally accept all responsibility for them,
and in cases in which any doubt seemed possible I have generally
added the words of the original document.
Finally, I have not attempted to impress my own opinion
on my readers, but merely to give them the material on which
they can form their own; and where I have found myself in
doubt as to what the facts of the case really were, I have never
scrupled to say so. This is not a counsel of perfection, but
the one which on the whole seemed to me best. If by doing
so I have succeeded in sending to the documents themselves
a few readers hitherto ignorant of them, I shall think I have
not wasted my time.
F. LEGGE.
6 Gray’s Inn Square,
July 1914.
P.S. The outbreak of the war has caused the publication
of this book to be postponed. I regret the delay the less that
it has enabled me to make use of several works and studies
which have appeared during the last twelve months.
F. L.
ERRATA
viii
Transcriber’s Note:
The following author’s corrections have already been applied to the e-books for
this Volume and for Volume 2.
Vol. I.
p. 121, l. 5, for Xerxes read Darius.
p. 141, n. 4, for Prof. C. R. B. Weidmann read Prof. Carl Robert.
Vol. II.
p. 18, n. 2, for cc. III, xxxi. Justin Martyr read cc. III, xxxi; Justin
Martyr.
p. 36, n. 1, for Isidore Loeb, La Cabbale juive, p. 587. F. Herman Krüger,
La Grande Encyclopédie, s.v. Gnosticisme read Isidore Loeb, La
Grande Encyclopédie, s.v. La Cabbale juive; ibid. F. Herman Krüger,
s.v. Gnosticisme.
p. 37, n. 1, for Thou the King, the Aeon of Aeons read Thou King, Aeon
of Aeons.
p. 38, n. 3, for Introduction (pp. xx-xxiii) read Introduction (pp. lxi-lxiii).
p. 69, n. 3, for השטבה read חשטפה.
p. 72, l. 4, for boundless read thoughtless.
p. 102, l. 22, for Ecclesiasticis read Ecclesiasticus.
p. 129, n. 3, for Canons read Canon.
p. 146, l. 17, for its read Its.
p. 146, n. 2, for the Five Words, translated in the text read the five
words translated in the text.
p. 166, n. 2, for 18 Eons read 18 Aeons.
p. 174, l. 1, for die read dies.
p. 183, l. 10, for Books read Texts.
p. 200, l. 10, for Pistis Sophia read Texts of the Saviour.
p. 338, n. 2, for Journal des Savants read Journal des Savans.
CONTENTS — TABLE OF DATES — BOOKS AND ARTICLES REFERRED TO IN TEXT OR NOTES
Importance of study of Christian origins—Cause of popular misconceptions
on the subject—Change of standpoint with progress of science of
religions—Definition of science and religion—Apparent dilemma of orthodox—Christianity
seems to follow evolutionary law like other faiths—Rivals
of infant Christianity—Judaism, classical Paganism, and philosophy
ruled out—Real competitors, Oriental religions, Gnosticism, and
Manichaeism—Certain features common to surviving documents of all
these faiths—Possibility of common origin—Question insoluble till origin
and dates of Zoroastrianism ascertained . . . Pages xlix-lxiii
The extent of the Persian Empire and its government—Alexander’s
aim, the marriage of Europe and Asia, attained after his death—Greek
becomes common language—Importance of this for History of Religions—Ideas
of antiquity about gods—Monotheism of philosophers, and of
Hebrew Prophets—Aristotle’s dictum that religion follows form of temporal
government—Alexander, perfect type of monarch—Adoption of monarchical
government by his Successors—Identification of Greek with
barbarian gods—Worship of Syrian and other foreign gods in Athens—Increase
of foreign worships after Alexander—Deification of Alexander
and his Successors leads to Euhemerism—Change of religious views
among Greeks—Age of innovation in religion—The missions of Asoka—Religious
associations in Greece, their composition and influence—Low
character of their priests and members—Alexander of Abonoteichos—Impulse
given by associations to proselytism—Summary . . . 1-27
Alexander’s Egypt and the policy of the Ptolemies—The Egyptian
priesthoods and their disastrous rule—Popularity of worship of Osiris—Legend
of Osiris according to Plutarch—Its composite character, totemistic
and historical elements—The Dying God of the Eastern Mediterranean—The
Eleusinian Mysteries—Resemblance of Eleusis legend to
Osirian—Ptolemy’s new religion—The Alexandrian triad, Serapis, Isis,
and Horus—Refusal of Egyptians to accept Ptolemy’s religion—Its
success in the West culminates under the Antonines—Causes of its
triumph—Its monarchical principle, or monotheistic pantheism—The
Fatherhood of God—Hope for future life—The Mysteries of the Alexandrian
Religion described—Degrees of initiation—Popular and external
Ceremonies: Daily Services in Temples, Opening, and Closing—Other
Ceremonies: The Herculaneum Frescoes—Adoration of the Sacred Water—The
Finding of Osiris—The Ship of Isis—Modern character of these
Festivals—The Isiac Priesthood—Recluses of Serapeum—Decline of
Alexandrian Religion with rise of Christianity—Superiority of Christianity—Last
days of Alexandrian Religion—Destruction of Serapeum at
Alexandria in 391 A.D.—Borrowings of Christianity from Alexandrian
Religion—Ritual, Worship of Virgin, and Monachism—Likeness of
sacramental usages—And, more doubtfully, of doctrines—Transition
probably effected through Gnostic heresies . . . 28-89
Religion and Magic—Knowledge chief necessity in magic—Origin of
myths, cosmogonies, and apocalypses—Spells and charms—Examples from
Magic Papyri, Sumerian invocation of Persephone, etc.—Letter of Nephotes
to Psammeticus with process of lecanomancy—Egyptian magicians deal
with devils—Polyglot spell of Alleius Craeonius invokes Jehovah with
heathen gods—Spread of magic in late Pagan and early Christian centuries—Magic
ceremonies not all imposture—Hypnotism employed in magic—Influence
of these ideas on evolution of Gnostic sects—Leads to development
of ritual in worship, especially in Egypt—Effect of Gnostic ideas
if not checked—Their early appearance in Greece—The rise of astrology—Its
origin in Babylonia—Introduces new ideas in religion—Astrological
tablets in Assurbanipal’s library—Construction of calendar—System of
correspondences—Planetary influence—Change in astrology when united
to Greek mathematics—Religion and Magic alike adopt astral theories—Increased
importance of Sun worship—Impulse given by astral theories to
Gnosticism—Entry into it of predestinarian ideas . . . 90-120
The Orphic poems and the Pythagoreans—The Orphic Theology and
Legend of Dionysos—Orphics first to connect this with man’s fate in next
world—Asceticism of Orphic ideal—Initiation a substitute for asceticism—Gold
Plates of Italian Orphics and their likeness to Egyptian funerary
literature—Orphic propaganda at first confined to Rhapsodists—Orphics
seize upon worships of foreign gods—Demosthenes’ oration against
Aeschines and its explanation—Orphics probably form thiasi and other
religious associations—The Orpheotelestae, wandering charlatans—The
Orphic Hymns—Hymns to Persephone and Dionysos and their explanation—Influence
of Orphics upon later religions—Orphism leads to
spread of syncretism, magic, and external conformity—Summary of
Orphism and its influence upon Gnosticism . . . 121-148
Contrast between religious ideas of Greeks and Jews—Fate of Jews
under Alexander’s Successors and Maccabaean Wars—Josephus’ account
of the Essenes—Its accuracy shown by Philo and others—Improbable
views as to their origin—Essenes essentially Gnostics—Their secret teaching—The
Enochian Apocalypses described—The Messianic delusions of the
Jews in Roman times—Books of Enoch, etc.—Essene method of interpreting
Scripture, isopsephism, and Cabala—Later history of Essenes—Survival
of their exegetical methods among Gnostics . . . 149-171
Adherence of Jews to Mosaic Law—Inconvenience of this to rich, and
necessity for compromise between Judaism and Hellenism—System of
Philo Judaeus and formation of secret sects among Jews—Simon Magus
in the New Testament—Position of Samaritans temp. Christ intermediate
between Jews and heathen—Account of Simon in Clementines untrustworthy—Hippolytus’
quotations from the Great Announcement—Simon’s
First Cause and Six Roots—His system of correspondences or paradigms—His
xiibisexual Deity—Parallels between systems of Simon and of Orphics—Simon’s
account of creation of man—Simon’s views on origin of evil and
redemption not clear—Contradiction among Fathers as to Simon’s doctrines—Simon’s
redemption through union of sexes and Platonic affinity—Simon’s
view of end of world—Later history of Simon’s sect; their
indifference in external matters and changes—Fathers’ ascription of all
subsequent heresy to borrowing from Simon examined and partly confirmed . . . 172-202
xiii
N.B. The dates which follow are only approximate, no attempt
having here been made to harmonize the system of chronology lately
adopted by the professors of the Berlin school with those formerly in use.
For the dates of the reigns of the Egyptian and Asiatic Successors of
Alexander, I have mainly relied upon the excellent work of M. Bouché-Leclercq
as given in his French version of Droysen’s Hellenismus, his
Histoire des Lagides and (especially) his Histoire des Séleucides, the second
volume of which, containing the chronological tables, maps, and indexes,
has appeared at the close of this year (1914). The dates of the Parthian
and Bactrian kings are given with all reserve and are in effect conjectures
based on the slipshod statements of compilers like Justin, Quintus Curtius,
and Trogus Pompeius. For the Parthian dates I have followed, though
without any confidence in its accuracy, the chronology of Prof. Eduard
Meyer, and for the Bactrian, those given in Mr. H. C. Rawlinson’s Bactria.
The dates in Vol. II, which deals with the centuries after Christ, are
for the most part fairly well ascertained, and those given in Prof. Bury’s
edition of Gibbon have been used wherever possible. For matters not
mentioned in Gibbon, such as the lives of the obscurer Christian Fathers
and leaders of sects, recourse has generally been had to Smith and Wace’s
Dictionary of Christian Biography and other books of the kind. The only
serious discrepancy here noticeable arises from the habit still prevalent
among certain Continental writers of beginning the Christian Era four
years earlier than others, so as to increase all subsequent dates by 4. Thus
M. Cumont, in his Mystères de Mithra and elsewhere, invariably gives the
date of the Carnuntum inscription proclaiming Mithras the Protector of
the Roman Empire, as 307 A.D., although he asserts that the Iovii et
Herculi religiosissimi Augusti responsible for the inscription are Diocletian
and Galerius. Diocletian, however, resigned the purple, and retired into
private life in the year 305 A.D., by the reckoning of Prof. Bury and others,
and it is plain therefore that M. Cumont puts the date too far forward
according to our ideas. To bring it into line, I have therefore ventured to
alter the date of the inscription quoted by him to 304 A.D., which would
moreover coincide with the persecution of the Christians, which he thinks
may have owed some of its severity to the rivalry of the Mithraic faith.
The same procedure has been followed in one or two other cases.
xiv336. Accession of Alexander.
340 to 260. Zeno of Citium (founder of Stoic school) flourished.
340 to 288. Pyrrho of Elis flourished.
334 to 322. Aristotle and first Peripatetic School flourished.
331. Foundation of Alexandria.
Alexander transports many Jews to Alexandria and gives them
equal rights with Macedonians.
330. Death of Darius.
326. Alexander conquers Punjab.
324. Alexander at Susa celebrates marriage of Europe and Asia.
323. Death of Alexander and first division of Empire.
Ptolemy, son of Lagos, made satrap of Egypt.
321. Second division of Alexander’s Empire at Triparadisus.
320. Ptolemy captures Jerusalem and transports many Jews to Alexandria.
Circa 316. Euhemerus of Messene flourished.
312. Ptolemy and Seleucus defeat Demetrius Poliorcetes at Gaza.
Ptolemy seizes Syria, but evacuates it when defeated by Demetrius
near Myontes.
Many Jews voluntarily emigrate to Egypt.
312. Seleucus conquers Media and Persia, and enters Babylon in triumph.
Beginning of Seleucid Era.
310. Antigonus Monopthalmos by treaty abandons Eastern Provinces to
Seleucus.
307. Demetrius Poliorcetes at Athens.
Demetrius of Phalerum leaves Athens for Alexandria.
Probable foundation of Museum.
306 to 270. Epicurus flourished.
306. Ptolemy I Soter proclaims himself King of Egypt.
302. Coalition against Antigonus. Ptolemy invades Syria, and Lysimachus
Asia Minor.
301. Battle of Ipsus, and further division of Empire between Seleucus,
Lysimachus, and Cassander.
300 to 220. Cleanthus of Assos (Stoic philosopher) flourished.
298. Cession of Valley of Indus by Seleucus to Chandragupta.
297. Destruction of Samaria by Demetrius Poliorcetes.
294. Seleucus transports many Jews from Babylon to Antioch and other
Syrian cities.
293. Many Jewish colonies founded in Cyrene and Libya.
292. Seleucus gives his wife Stratonice and the Eastern Provinces to his
son Antiochus.
288. Coalition against Demetrius Poliorcetes.
Accession of Bindusara (Amitrochates) to Chandragupta’s Indian
Kingdom.
283. Accession of Ptolemy II Philadelphus.
xv283. Demetrius Poliorcetes dies a prisoner in the hands of Seleucus.
282. Seleucus conquers Asia Minor from Lysimachus.
281. Lysimachus defeated and slain at Corupedion.
Accession of Antiochus I Soter on assassination of Seleucus.
280.? Establishment of Greek worship of Serapis, Isis, and Horus at
Alexandria.
280 to 207. Chrysippus of Soli (Stoic philosopher) flourished.
280. Pyrrhus invades Italy.
Invasion of Thrace by Celtic tribes.
278. Pyrrhus’ campaign in Italy.
277. Settlement of Celtic tribes (Galatae) in Asia.
276. Translation of Pentateuch into Greek by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus.
274. First Syrian War. Ptolemy Philadelphus against Antiochus Soter
and Magas of Cyrene.
273. Ptolemy Philadelphus sends embassy to Rome to conclude alliance.
265. Accession of Asoka, grandson of Chandragupta.
264. Asoka’s missions to Greek Kings.
First Punic War.
261. Accession of Antiochus II Theos.
258. Second Syrian War. Ptolemy Philadelphus against Antiochus Theos.
252. Diodotus revolts against Antiochus Theos and founds Kingdom of
Bactria.
250. Association of Greek Sarapiasts at Athens.
249. Arsaces revolts against Antiochus Theos and founds Arsacid Kingdom
of Parthia.
248. Accession of Tiridates on death of his brother, Arsaces of Parthia.
247. Accession of Seleucus II Callinicus on death of his father, Antiochus
Theos.
246. Accession of Ptolemy III Euergetes.
Third Syrian War. Ptolemy Euergetes against Seleucus Callinicus.
245.? Accession of Diodotus II on death of his father, Diodotus of
Bactria.
244. Ptolemy Euergetes overruns Upper Asia as far as Susa.
241. War between Seleucus Callinicus and his brother Antiochus Hierax.
Accession of Attalus as dynast of Pergamum.
238. Ptolemy Euergetes and his wife Berenice II deified. Decree of
Canopus.
Attalus defeats Galatae and proclaims himself King of Pergamum.
230. Euthydemus of Magnesia seizes throne of Bactria on death of
Diodotus II.
229. Rome first intervenes in affairs of Greece on behalf of Acarnanians.
226. Accession of Seleucus III Soter on death of his father, Seleucus
Callinicus.
xvi225. Attalus of Pergamum, “Friend of Rome,” defeats Seleucus Soter
and seizes Syrian Asia Minor.
222. Accession of Antiochus III the Great, on assassination of his father,
Seleucus Soter.
221. Accession of Ptolemy IV Philopator on death of his father, Ptolemy
Euergetes.
219. Antiochus the Great reconquers Asia Minor.
Antiochus the Great captures Jerusalem from Ptolemy Philopator.
217. Antiochus the Great transports 2,000 Jewish families from Babylon
to Phrygia and Lydia.
Ptolemy Philopator defeats Antiochus the Great at Raphia and
recaptures Jerusalem and Samaria.
Second Punic War.
216. Worship of Greek Sarapis and Isis established in Boeotia.
211. Accession of Artabanus I to throne of Parthia on death of his father
Tiridates.
210. Artabanus of Parthia attacked by Antiochus the Great, who besieges
his capital, but finally makes alliance with him.
First Macedonian War. Romans and Aetolians against Philip.
205. Accession of Ptolemy V Epiphanes.
Antiochus the Great seizes Palestine.
204. Statue of Great Mother brought from Pessinus to Rome.
Scopas reconquers Palestine for Ptolemy Epiphanes and Jews
revolt to latter.
200. Second Macedonian War.
198. Antiochus the Great defeats Scopas at Panion and reoccupies
Jerusalem and Samaria.
197. Accession of Eumenes II on death of his father, Attalus of Pergamum.
Philip defeated by Romans at Cynoscephalae.
196. Coronation of Ptolemy Epiphanes at Memphis. Rosetta Stone
set up.
191. Ptolemy Epiphanes sends embassy to Rome to offer alliance.
190. Romans defeat Antiochus the Great at Magnesia.
Accession of Demetrius on death of Euthydemus of Bactria.
Accession of Priapatius on death of Artabanus of Parthia.
187. Accession of Seleucus IV Philopator on death of his father, Antiochus
the Great.
182. Accession of Ptolemy VI Eupator.
181. Accession of Ptolemy VII Philometor.
180. Serapeum at Delos in existence.
175. Demetrius of Bactria annexes Cabul and Punjab.
Accession of Antiochus IV Epiphanes on death of his brother,
Seleucus Philopator.
xvii175. Eucratides rebels against Demetrius of Bactria and seizes throne.
173. Antiochus Epiphanes seizes Judaea and Coele-Syria.
172. Third Macedonian War.
171. Antiochus Epiphanes invades Egypt and defeats Ptolemy Philometor
at Pelusium.
170. Antiochus Epiphanes plunders Temple of Jerusalem.
Ptolemy Philometor and Ptolemy Euergetes II made joint kings by
Romans.
Accession of Mithridates I to throne of Parthia.
168. Antiochus Epiphanes’ second invasion of Egypt stopped by Romans.
Circle of Popilius Laena.
166. Antiochus Epiphanes again pillages Temple and persecutes Jewish
religion.
Samaritans make peace with Antiochus Epiphanes and accept
Hellenization.
Revolt of Maccabees against Syria.
164. Accession of Antiochus V Eupator on death of his father, Antiochus
Epiphanes.
162. Judas Maccabaeus besieged in Jerusalem by Lysias for Antiochus
Eupator. Peace made on Philip’s attempt to seize regency.
Romans send embassy to Antiochus Eupator which compels him to
burn his ships and kill his elephants.
Demetrius escapes from Rome and invades Syria.
161. Romans recognize Demetrius as King of Syria with title of Demetrius
I Soter.
Judas Maccabaeus sends embassy to Rome, is attacked by Demetrius
Soter, and slain. Judaea, under his brother Jonathan, submits
to Syria.
Timarchos, Satrap of Media, and Ptolemy, dynast of Commagene,
proclaim themselves Kings, and are recognized by Romans.
160. Ptolemy Philometor expelled from Egypt by Euergetes II, but
restored by Romans.
Ptolemy, son of Glaucias, a recluse in Serapeum of Memphis.
159. Accession of Attalus II Philadelphus on death of his brother,
Eumenes of Pergamum.
154. Ptolemy Euergetes II made King of Cyrene.
Foundation of Jewish Temple or Oneion at Leontopolis in Egypt.
152. Alexander Bala, pretender to throne of Syria, recognized by Romans
as son of Antiochus Epiphanes.
151. Coalition of Egyptian and Asiatic Kings with Romans against
Demetrius Soter of Syria.
150. Demetrius Soter defeated and slain by coalition of Egyptian and
Asiatic kings. Alexander Bala succeeds to throne of Syria, and
marries Cleopatra Thea, daughter of Ptolemy Philometor.
xviii149. Third Punic War.
145. Ptolemy Philometor invades Syria and defeats Alexander Bala at
Oenoparas. Ptolemy killed in battle and Alexander by Nabathaeans.
Accession of Ptolemy IX (Euergetes II) Physcon as sole king of
Egypt.
Accession of Demetrius II Nicator to throne of Syria. Civil war
between Demetrius and Diodotus (Trypho) as regent for infant
Antiochus VI Epiphanes Dionysos.
144. Ptolemy Physcon expels philosophers from Museum.
142. Simon Maccabaeus succeeds as High Priest Jonathan slain by Trypho.
Simon Maccabaeus proclaims independence of Judaea.
141. Simon Maccabaeus sends embassy to Romans who receive Jews as
“Friends of Rome.”
140. Mithridates I of Parthia seizes part of Bactria, Media, Susiana, and
Persia.
139. Demetrius Nicator invades Parthia and is taken prisoner by
Mithridates.
Beginning of Era of Arsacides.
Antiochus VI Epiphanes Dionysos murdered by Trypho, who is
made King by army.
138. Accession of Attalus III Philometor on death of his father, Attalus II
of Pergamum.
Accession of Phraates II to throne of Parthia.
137. Antiochus VII Sidetes, brother of Demetrius Nicator, takes throne
of Syria.
135. Antiochus Sidetes defeats Trypho, who commits suicide, at Apamea.
John and Judas Maccabaeus, sons of Simon, defeat, at Modein, army
of Antiochus Sidetes.
Simon Maccabaeus assassinated by his son-in-law Ptolemy.
John Hyrcanus succeeds his father Simon as High Priest.
Hierocles, last Greek King of Bactria, after invasion of Sacae,
transfers his capital to Sialkôt.
Attalus of Pergamum bequeaths his kingdom to Romans.
134. Siege of Jerusalem by Antiochus Sidetes. Jews made tributaries to
Syria.
130. Antiochus Sidetes invades Parthia and reconquers Babylonia and
Media.
Menander (the Milinda of Buddhists) King of Cabul and Punjab.
129. John Hyrcanus sends embassy to Rome for help against Syria.
Medes rebel against Antiochus Sidetes, who is defeated by Phraates II
of Parthia and commits suicide.
Restoration of Demetrius Nicator to throne of Syria. Phraates II
of Parthia slain in battle against Scythians.
xix129. Accession of Artabanus II of Parthia.
126. Demetrius Nicator defeated and slain by pretender, Alexander
Zabina.
125. Destruction of Samaria by John Hyrcanus.
124. Accession of Mithridates II the Great on death of Artabanus II
in battle against Tocharians.
122. Accession of Antiochus VIII Grypus, son of Demetrius Nicator,
who with the help of Egypt defeats and slays Alexander
Zabina.
120. Accession of Mithridates Eupator as King of Pontus.
117. Accession of Cleopatra III and Ptolemy X Lathyrus.
Civil war in Syria between Antiochus Grypus and Antiochus IX
Cyzicenus, son of Antiochus Sidetes. Division of Syria between
them.
113. Antiochus Cyzicenus invades Judaea, and is ordered by Romans to
withdraw.
106. Accession of Ptolemy XI Alexander.
Aristobulus succeeds his father, John Hyrcanus, as High Priest, and
proclaims himself King.
105. Municipality of Puteoli builds Serapeum.
Aristobulus of Judaea annexes Iturea.
Alexander Jannaeus succeeds, as King, his brother Aristobulus.
98. Alexander Jannaeus, trying to annex Ptolemais and Gaza, is
defeated by Ptolemy Lathyrus, then King of Cyprus.
Alexander Jannaeus makes league with Cleopatra III, who compels
Ptolemy to withdraw.
96. Alexander Jannaeus captures Gaza and massacres inhabitants.
Accession of Seleucus VI Epiphanes Nicator on assassination of his
father, Antiochus Grypus.
95. Antiochus X Pius, son of Antiochus Cyzicenus, defeats and slays
Seleucus Epiphanes near Mopsuestia.
94. Division of Syria. Antiochus Pius reigns in Upper Syria, Philip I
and Demetrius III Eucaerus, sons of Antiochus Grypus, in
Coele-Syria.
93. Antiochus Pius slain in battle against the Parthians in Commagene.
Ariobarzanes, King of Cappadocia, expelled by Mithridates Eupator
of Pontus, but reinstated by Romans under Sulla.
89. Alexander Jannaeus crucifies 800 Pharisees at Bethome and restores
peace in Judaea.
88. Demetrius Eucaerus invades Judaea and defeats Alexander Jannaeus
at Sichem, but is taken prisoner by Parthians and dies in
captivity.
Interregnum in Parthia.
First Mithridatic War.
xx87. Antiochus XII Dionysos, son of Antiochus Grypus, crowned King
of Syria at Damascus.
84. Sulla makes peace with Mithridates.
Antiochus Dionysos defeated and slain at Motho by Aretas the
Philhellene, King of Nabathaeans.
83. Tigranes, King of Armenia, becomes King of Syria.
82. Sulla dictator.
81. Accession of Ptolemy XII Alexander II.
Accession of Ptolemy XIII Auletes.
Circa 80. College of Pastophori of Greek Isis at Rome founded.
79. Death of Alexander Jannaeus, and accession of his widow, Salome
Alexandra.
78. Death of Sulla.
77. Tigranes builds Tigranocerta, and transports thither many peoples of
different race.
76. The Arsacid Sinatroces, captive among the Scyths, released by them
to become King of Parthia.
75. Second Mithridatic War.
74. Nicomedes of Bithynia bequeaths his kingdom to Mithridates
Eupator of Pontus.
Third Mithridatic War.
72. Mithridates, defeated by Lucullus, takes refuge with his son-in-law
Tigranes.
70. Accession of Phraates III of Parthia.
69. Tigranes invades Palestine, but is bought off by Salome Alexandra.
Tigranes defeated and Tigranocerta taken by Lucullus.
Antiochus XIII Asiaticus, son of Antiochus Pius, made King of
Syria.
Death of Salome Alexandra, and accession of her son Aristobulus
as King, with John Hyrcanus II as High Priest.
67. Pompey suppresses the Cilician pirates. Reported introduction of
Mysteries of Mithras into Italy.
66. Phraates III of Parthia, Friend of Rome, invades Armenia.
Tigranes submits to Pompey, and is allowed to retain Great Armenia.
Civil war in Palestine between Aristobulus and John Hyrcanus II.
65. Siege of Jerusalem by Nabathaeans and Pharisees, raised by command
of Pompey’s lieutenant Scaurus.
64. Ariarathes, King of Cappadocia, receives from Romans Lesser
Armenia, Gordyene, and Sophene.
Osrhoene and Edessa made into separate kingdom under Arab
prince Ariamne.
Syria becomes Roman province.
63. Death of Mithridates Eupator.
Death of Antiochus Asiaticus.
xxi61. Pompey captures Jerusalem, and puts an end to Maccabaean
Kingdom. Aristobulus sent captive to Rome.
Samaria and all forcibly Judaized communities regain their
autonomy.
58. Ptolemy Auletes, expelled from Egypt, flies to Rome.
Statues of Isis at Rome thrown down by order of Consul, A. Gabinius.
57. Alexander, son of Aristobulus of Judaea, rebels, and is defeated by
Gabinius, Proconsul of Syria.
56. Aristobulus escapes from Rome and heads new revolt in Judaea.
55. Accession of Orodes I to throne of Parthia.
Fresh revolt of Jews under Alexander suppressed by Gabinius,
who makes Antipater the Idumean ruler of Judaea.
Ptolemy Auletes restored to throne of Egypt by Gabinius.
53. Crassus and Roman army defeated by Parthians at Carrhae.
52. Fresh revolt of Jews suppressed by Cassius.
51. Accession of Cleopatra VI and Ptolemy XIV.
50. Temple of Isis at Rome destroyed by Consul, L. Aemilius Paulus.
48. Julius Caesar and Cleopatra besieged in Alexandria by Egyptian
rebels. Death of Ptolemy XIV.
Temples of Isis near Capitol thrown down at bidding of augurs.
47. Cleopatra made queen jointly with Ptolemy XV.
Antipater and Jewish troops take part in raising of siege of
Alexandria.
Julius Caesar repeals Jewish tribute and liability to military service,
and gives Jews religious liberty and self-government.
John Hyrcanus II made hereditary ethnarch of Judaea.
46. Herod, son of Antipater, enters Roman army and is made military
governor of Coele-Syria.
45. Death of Ptolemy XV. Cleopatra makes her son Caesarion coregent
with her as Ptolemy XVI.
Hermaeus last Greek ruler in India.
44. Assassination of Julius Caesar.
Fresh revolt of Jews on Caesar’s death suppressed by Cassius, who
makes Herod Procurator of Coele-Syria.
43. Triumvirs Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus decree temple to Isis and
Serapis.
42. Battle of Philippi and division of Roman world between Mark
Antony and Octavian.
41. Death of Antipater of Judaea. Mark Antony makes Herod and
his brother Phasael joint tetrarchs under John Hyrcanus II.
40. Pacorus, prince of Parthia, invades Palestine, and takes John
Hyrcanus II and Phasael away captive.
39. Parthians driven out of Palestine by P. Ventidius Bassus.
Herod proclaimed King of Judaea by Romans.
xxii38. Caius Sossius, Legate of Syria, captures Jerusalem, and puts Herod
on throne.
31. Battle of Actium. Herod deserts Mark Antony.
30. Herod makes submission to Octavian, and receives increase of
territory.
Death of Cleopatra and Caesarion. Egypt becomes Roman province.
Octavian becomes Emperor with title of Augustus.
28. Augustus orders all temples of Alexandrian gods outside Pomoerium.
21. M. Vipsanius Agrippa, the consul, forbids celebration of Egyptian
rites within 1 mile of Rome.
20. Phraates IV of Parthia sends Augustus his four sons as hostages,
and returns Roman standards captured with Crassus.
Herod rebuilds Temple of Jerusalem.
4. Death of Herod. Fresh revolt of Jews suppressed by Varus.
Augustus divides Herod’s Kingdom between the tetrarchs Archelaus,
Antipas, and Philip.
A.D.
2. Accession of Phraates V or Phraataces on murder of his father,
Phraates IV of Parthia.
5. Accession of Orodes II of Parthia.
6. Archelaus deposed and banished. Judaea becomes a Roman
province.
8. Accession of Vonones I of Parthia.
14. Accession of Tiberius.
16. Vonones expelled from Parthia by Artabanus, King of Media.
Artabanus makes war on Rome, and is in turn expelled.
19. Expulsion of Jewish colony from Rome.
Tiberius destroys Temple of Isis and throws statues into the Tiber.
24. Death of Philip, Jewish tetrarch.
26. Pontius Pilate appointed Procurator of Judaea.
36.? John the Baptist put to death by Antipas.
Interregnum in Parthia. Struggle between pretenders, Tiridates II,
Cumianus, and Bardanes I.
37. Accession of Caligula.
Antipas defeated by Aretas, King of Nabathaeans.
Agrippa receives Philip’s tetrarchy with title of King.
39. Antipas deposed and banished. His tetrarchy added to Agrippa’s
kingdom.
41. Judaea added to Agrippa’s kingdom.
Accession of Claudius.
44. Death of Agrippa. Cuspius Fadus made Procurator of Judaea.
47. Tiberius Alexander (nephew of Philo) succeeds Cuspius as Procurator.
xxiii47. Gotarzes, son of Artabanus of Media, having been expelled from
Parthia by his brother Bardanes, retakes crown on Bardanes’
death.
48. Revolt of Jews. Tiberius Alexander replaced by Cumanus.
Circa 50. Clement of Rome born: died about 95 A.D.
51. Accession of Vonones II to throne of Parthia followed immediately
by that of Vologeses I.
War between Rome and Parthia.
Temple of Isis at Rome rebuilt.
52. Ummidius Quadratus, Legate of Syria, deposes Cumanus, and
appoints Felix Procurator of Judaea.
54. Accession of Nero.
55. Nero makes worship of Greek Isis religio licita.
60. Porcius Festus succeeds Felix as Procurator of Judaea.
62. Death of Porcius. Albinus succeeds him.
Persecution of Christians by Ananus, the High Priest.
Martyrdom of James the Just.
63. Vologeses I of Parthia, defeated by Corbulo, signs treaty of peace.
64. Gessius Florus succeeds Albinus as Procurator of Judaea.
66. Tiridates invested King of Armenia by Nero.
Revolt of the Jews. Roman garrison of Jerusalem massacred
after surrender. Cestius Gallus, Legate of Syria, attacks
Jerusalem, but is beaten off.
67. First Jewish War. Vespasian replaces Cestius as Legate.
68. Accession of Galba.
69. Accession of Otho.
Otho appears in public in dress of priest of Isis.
Domitian escapes from Capitol in similar dress.
Accession of Vitellius.
Vespasian consults oracle, and works miraculous cures, in Temple of
Isis at Alexandria.
70. Accession of Vespasian.
Siege and sack of Jerusalem by Titus. Burning of Herod’s Temple.
70-107. St Ignatius flourished.
72. Vespasian deposes Antiochus IV of Commagene, last of Seleucides.
77. Accession of Vologeses II of Parthia. Many pretenders, some of
whom reign concurrently with him till his death.
79. Accession of Titus.
80. Domitian rebuilds Temple of Isis which had been burned.
Statius mentions Mithraic Tauroctony in his Thebaid.
81. Accession of Domitian.
Circa 83. Earliest Mithraic Inscription known.
96. Accession of Nerva.
98. Accession of Trajan.
xxivCirca 100. Marcion born; died about 165.
Menander, Simon Magus’s successor, flourished.
102. Earliest dated Mithraic Inscription by T. Claudius Livianus,
Praetorian Prefect.
113-117. War between Rome and Parthia.
116. Revolt of Jews throughout East suppressed by Lucius Quietus.
117. Accession of Hadrian.
117-138. Basilides the Egyptian flourished.
Circa 120. Hadrian places in his lararium images of Greek Serapis and Isis.
120-160. Tatian flourished.
121. Justin Martyr born: martyred about 151.
Circa 125. Saturninus of Antioch flourished.
130. Hadrian rebuilds Jerusalem and names it Aelia Capitolina.
Circa 130. Apelles the Marcionite born: died about 180.
132. Revolt of Jews, under the Messiah Bar Cochba, and War of Extermination.
138. Accession of Antoninus Pius.
138-160. Valentinus the Gnostic flourished.
Circa 140. Cerdo the Syrian flourished.
147. Irenaeus of Lyons born: died about 202.
Vologeses III restores Parthian Kingdom, and collects books of
Avesta.
150. Tertullian born: died about 220 A.D.
Circa 150. Marcus the magician flourished.
Hermas Pastor appears.
155. Clement of Alexandria born: died about 211.
Bardesanes or Ibn Daisan born: died about 223.
162. War between Rome and Parthia. Parthian Kings substitute
Aramaic for Greek on their coins.
164. Destruction of Parthian capital, Seleucia on the Tigris, by Avidius
Cassius.
170. Heracleon the Valentinian born: died about 210.
Circa 170. Lucian the Marcionite flourished.
Ptolemy the Valentinian flourished.
170-183. Theophilus of Antioch flourished.
179. Pantaenus founds Christian school at Alexandria.
180. Accession of Commodus.
185. Origen of Alexandria born: died about 253.
191. Accession of Vologeses IV to throne of Parthia.
193. Accession of Pertinax. Murder of Pertinax, and sale of Empire by
Praetorians to Didius Julianus.
Accession of Septimius Severus.
195. War between Rome and Parthia.
Circa 200. Axionicus the Valentinian flourished.
xxv209. Accession of Artabanus IV of Parthia.
211. Accession of Caracalla and Geta.
216. Birth of Manes: died 275.
War between Rome and Parthia.
217. Accession of Macrinus.
219. Accession of Heliogabalus.
221. Alexander Severus proclaimed Caesar.
222. Accession of Alexander Severus.
War between Rome and Parthia.
Circa 222. Hippolytus of Porta Romana flourished.
226. Ardeshîr, son of Sassan, conquers Artabanus IV of Parthia, and
founds Sassanid dynasty of Persia.
230. War between Rome and Persia.
235. Accession of Maximin.
Persecution of Christians.
238. Accession and death of the two Gordians.
Maximus and Balbinus proclaimed Emperors with Gordian III as
Caesar, but are murdered by Praetorians.
Accession of Gordian III.
Manes begins to teach.
241. Accession of Sapor (Shapûr) I of Persia on death of his father Ardeshîr.
242. War between Rome and Persia.
244. Accession of Philip the Arabian.
246. M. Julius Philippus proclaimed Augustus jointly with his father,
Philip the Arabian.
249. Accession of Decius.
Persecution of Christians.
251. Accession of Gallus.
253. Accession of Valerian.
Gallienus proclaimed Augustus jointly with his father Valerian.
254. First appearance of Franks, who attack Rhine and invade Spain and
Africa.
260. War between Rome and Persia.
Valerian taken prisoner by Sapor, and dies in captivity.
260-268. Reign of Gallienus and the Thirty Tyrants.
Right of Church to hold property recognized.
268. Accession of Claudius.
270. Accession of Aurelian.
St Anthony introduces monachism into Church.
272. Accession of Hormisdas (Ormuz) I of Persia.
273. Aurelian captures Palmyra, and puts an end to Zenobia’s Kingdom.
Aurelian decides case of Paul of Samosata, and affirms primacy of
Roman Church.
273. Accession of Varanes (Bahram) I of Persia.
xxvi275. Manes put to death by Varanes I.
Accession of Tacitus.
276. Accession of Varanes II of Persia.
Accession of Probus.
282. Accession of Carus.
283. Carinus proclaimed Augustus jointly with his father Carus.
284. Numerian proclaimed Augustus jointly with his brother Carinus on
death of Carus.
Accession of Diocletian.
286. Maximian proclaimed Augustus jointly with Diocletian.
287. Edict of Diocletian against Manichaeans. Teachers to be burned:
Hearers’ goods to be confiscated.
292. Constantius Chlorus and Galerius proclaimed Caesars under the
two Augusti.
293. Accession of Varanes III of Persia followed by that of Narses.
296. War between Rome and Persia.
Circa 300. Alexander of Lycopolis flourished.
302. Accession of Hormisdas II of Persia.
303. Persecution of Christians. Era of Martyrs.
304. Mithras declared at Carnuntum Protector of Roman Empire.
305. Abdication of Diocletian and Maximian.
Constantius Chlorus and Galerius become Augusti.
Maximin and Severus proclaimed Caesars.
306. Death of Constantius Chlorus. Constantine proclaimed Augustus by
army, but allowed title of Caesar only by Galerius.
Severus proclaimed Augustus in place of Constantius Chlorus.
Maximian and Maxentius, his son, rebel.
307. Severus, besieged in Ravenna by Maximian, surrenders and commits
suicide.
Maximian gives his daughter Fausta to Constantine, and proclaims
him Augustus jointly with himself.
War of Augusti, Maximian, Maxentius, and Constantine, against
Galerius, who proclaims Licinius and Maximin Augusti jointly
with himself.
308. Maximian plots against Constantine, who puts him to death.
Ephrem Syrus born: died 373.
310. Accession of Sapor II of Persia.
311. Death of Galerius; Licinius and Maximin divide Eastern provinces
between them.
312. War between Constantine and Maxentius, who is defeated at Turin,
Verona, and Saxa Rubra, and slain.
Edict of Toleration by Constantine and Licinius.
313. Maximin declares war against Licinius, but is defeated at Heraclea
and slain.
xxvii314. War between Constantine and Licinius, who is defeated and makes
peace.
315. Pachomius groups monks together in monasteries and institutes
common life.
316?. Death of Diocletian.
320. Epiphanius of Constantia born: died about 400 A.D.
323. War between Constantine and Licinius, who is defeated and put to
death.
Constantine becomes sole Emperor.
Constantine issues renewed edict of toleration.
324?. Constantine directs enquiry into Manichaean doctrines by Musonianus
(Strategius), Praetorian Prefect of the East.
325. Constantine summons Council of Nicaea.
327. Foundation of Constantinople and transfer of capital of Empire
thither.
337. Baptism and death of Constantine.
xxviii
N.B.—The works of the better-known classical writers (e.g. Livy)
and of Fathers of the Church (e.g. St Augustine) have been omitted from
the following list. Authors included in the first category are quoted either
from the collection Müller-Didot or from Teubner’s series; those in the
second, from Migne’s Patrologia. The place of publication, when not
specially mentioned, is London, and the edition quoted is, subject to the
same reservation, the last published. In the body of the book, the full
title, date, and other particulars of the work referred to are given the first
time of mention only, abbreviations being used in subsequent references.
Abano, Peter de. Heptameron, seu Elementa Magica. Paris, 1567.
ABEL, Eugenius. Orphica. Lipsiae, 1885.
Asu Raihân, called Al Bîrûnî. Chronology of Ancient Nations. Translated
from the Arabic by Dr C. Edward Sachau. 1879. See also
Al-Bîrûnî, infra.
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. Comptes-Rendus des
Séances. 4e Série. Paris, 1873, etc. In progress.
The Academy. 1869, etc. In progress.
Ägyptische Sprache, Zeitschrift für. See Zeitschrift, infra.
Al-Bîrûnî. Alberuni’s India. An English Edition with Notes and
Indices by Dr Edward C. Sachau. 2 vols. 1910.
ALLINE, M. See Xenia.
Amélineau, E.Essai sur le Gnosticisme Égyptien. Paris, 1887.
(Annales du Musée Guimet, t. XIV.)
—— Les Actes Coptes du martyre de St Polycarpe. 1888. See Proceedings
of Society of Biblical Archaeology, vol. X.
—— Notice sur le Papyrus Gnostique Bruce. Paris, 1891. (Notices et
Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque Nationale et autres Bibliothèques,
t. XXIX, 1ère ptie.)
Amelung, W.Le Sarapis de Bryaxis. 1903. See Revue Archéologique,
4o série, t. II, ptie ii.
Anon. Cerinthus and the Gnostics. 1886. See the London Quarterly
Review for October, 1886.
Ante-Nicene Christian Library. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James
Donaldson. 24 vols. and 1 additional volume. Edinburgh, 1868 to
1897.
xxixAntiquaires de France, see Société Nationale des A. de F.
Archaeologia: Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity. See Society of
Antiquaries of London.
Archelaus, Bishop of Caschar. Acta (wrongly attributed to). See
Hegemonius.
Archiv für wissenschaftliche Erforschung des alten Testaments. Halle,
1869-1872.
Asiatic Society. See Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain, etc.
Association pour l’encouragement des Études grecques. See Revue des
Études grecques.
Avezou, Ch., et Picard, Ch.Bas-relief Mithriaque. 1911. See Revue de
l’Histoire des Religions, t. LXIV.
Aurelius Augustinus.Augustini librum de Haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum.
See Oehler, Corpus Haereseologicum, vol. I.
Badham, F. B. The Word Monogenes. See The Academy, 5 Sept., 1896.
Barrett, Francis. The Magus or Celestial Intelligencer, being a Complete
System of Occult Philosophy, 1801.
Baur, Ferdinand Christian.Das Manichäische Religionssystem.
Tübingen, 1831.
Beausobre, Isaac de.Histoire critique de Manichée et du Manichéisme.
Amsterdam, 1734-9. 2 vols.
Benn, Alfred William. The Philosophy of Greece. 1898.
Berger, Philippe, Membre de l’Institut. Études des Documents nouveaux
fournis sur les Ophites par les Philosophoumena. Nancy, 1873.
—— Les Stèles Puniques de la Bibliothèque Nationale. See Gazette
Archéologique, 11e année (1876).
Bernard, J. H., Bishop of Ossory. The Odes of Solomon. Translated
from the Syriac Text. Cambridge, 1912. (Cambridge Texts and
Studies, vol. III.)
Biblical Archaeology. See Society of Biblical Archaeology.
Bissing, Freiherr F. W. von. Cult of Isis in Pompeian Paintings.
Oxford, 1908. See Transactions of 3rd International Congress of
Religions.
Böhmer, Heinrich.Les Jésuites. Traduit de l’Allemand par Gabriel
Monod. Paris, 1910.
Bouché-Leclercq, Auguste.Histoire de la Divination. Paris, 1879-1882.
4 vols.
—— L’Astrologie grecque. Paris, 1899.
—— La Politique religieuse de Ptolémée Soter et le culte de Serapis.
See Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, t. XLVI, 1902.
—— Les Reclus du Serapéum de Memphis. Paris, 1903. See Perrot,
Mélanges.
—— Histoire des Lagides. Paris, 1903-1907. 4 vols.
—— L’Intolérance Religieux et Politique. Paris, 1912. (Bibliothèque
de Philosophie Scientifique.)
xxxBouriant, U.L’Évangile de St Pierre (Fragments Grecs du livre
d’Énoch). See Mémoires de la Mission Archéologique Française
du Caire, t. IX, fasc. 1 (1892).
Bousset, Wilhelm.Hauptprobleme des Gnosis. Göttingen, 1907. (Forschungen
zur Religion und Litteratur des Alten und Neuen Testaments.
Herausg. von Dr Bousset und Dr Hermann Gunkel.)
Brandt, A. J. H. Wilhelm.Die Mandäische Religion, ihre Entwickelung
und geschichtliche Bedeutung. Leipzig, 1889.
Breasted, James Henry, Ph.D. Ancient Records. Chicago, 1906.
4 vols.
—— The History of Egypt. New York, 1909.
Bréhier, Émile.La Cosmologie Stoicienne à la Fin du Paganisme.
See Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, t. LXIV, 1911.
Brooke, Alan England. Fragments of Heracleon. Cambridge, 1891.
(Cambridge Texts and Studies, vol. I.)
Brunet de Presle, Charles Marin Wladimir.Le Serapéum de
Memphis. Paris, 1865. (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions.
Mémoires présentés par divers savants. Série I, t. 2.)
—— Les Papyrus grecs du Musée du Louvre. Paris, 1865. (Notices et
Extraits des MSS. de la Bibliothèque Nationale et des autres Bibliothèques,
publiés par l’Institut de France, t. XVIII, Pt. 2.)
Budge, Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis, Litt.D., etc. The Papyrus
of Nesi-Amsu. See Archaeologia, vol. LXII, Pt. 2 (1890).
—— The Book of the Dead. 1898. 3 vols.
—— The History of Egypt. 1902. 8 vols.
—— The Gods of the Egyptians. 1904. 2 vols.
—— Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum. 1910.
—— Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection. 1911. 2 vols.
Budge, E. A. T. Wallis, King, L. W., and Thompson, R. Campbell.
The Sculptures and Inscriptions of Darius the Great at Behistun.
1907.
Bunsen, Christian Carl Josias (Baron). Hippolytus and his Age.
1852. 4 vols.
Burrows, Ronald. Discoveries in Crete. 1907.
Callisthenes, Pseudo-. The History of Alexander the Great. Translated
from the Syriac by E. A. Wallis Budge. Cambridge, 1887.
Carnoy, A. Armaiti-Ârmatay. Louvain, 1912. See Le Muséon, n.s.
t. XIII (1912).
Casartelli, Louis Charles, Bishop of Salford. La Philosophie Religieuse
de Mazdéisme. Paris, 1884.
Chabas, Jean Marie François.Le Papyrus Magique Harris. Traduction
et commentaire d’un MS. Égyptien. Chalon-sur-Saône,
1860.
Chanot, E. de.Statues Iconiques de Chypre. Paris, 1878. See Gazette
Archéologique, 1878.
xxxiCharles, R. H., D.D., etc. Apocalyptical Literature. See Hastings,
Dictionary of the Bible, s.h.v.
—— Apocalyptical Literature, 1899. See Cheyne’s Encyclopaedia
Biblica, s.h.v.
—— The Book of Enoch. Translated from the Ethiopic. Oxford, 1893.
—— The Apocalypse of Baruch. Translated from the Syriac. 1896.
—— The Assumption of Moses. Translated from the Latin. 1897.
—— A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in
Judaism, and in Christianity. 1899. (The Jowett Lectures.)
—— The Ascension of Isaiah. Translated from the Ethiopic. 1900.
—— The Book of Jubilees. Translated from the Ethiopic. 1902.
—— The Testaments of the XII Patriarchs. Translated from the
Greek. 1908.
—— The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. Edited
by R. H. Charles. Oxford, 1913. 2 vols.
Chavannes, Edourard, et Pelliot, Paul. Un Traité Manichéen retrouvé
en Chine. Paris, 1913. (Extrait du Journal Asiatique, 1911-1913.
Pagination of Journal given in Extrait and used in notes infra.)
Cheyne, Thomas Kelly, D.D., etc. Prophecies of Isaiah. A new
translation. 1889. 2 vols.
—— Jewish Religious Life after the Exile. New York, 1898. (American
Lectures on the History of Religions.)
Cheyne, T. K., and Black, J. Sutherland. See Encyclopaedia Biblica.
Clement of Alexandria. Clemens Alexandrinus. Edidit Otto Stählin,
Leipzig, 1905. (Die Griechischen Schriftsteller der ersten Drei
Jahrhunderte. Kirchenväter-Commission der Kgl. Preuss. Akad. der
Wissenschaften.)
[Conington, John, Prof.] Origen’s Philosophoumena. 1851. See
Quarterly Review for 1851.
Contemporary Review, The. 1886, etc. In progress.
Conybeare, Frederick Cornwallis. The Holy Spirit as a Dove,
1892. See The Academy, 3 Dec., 1902 (Paper read at meeting of
Society of Historical Theology).
—— The Apology of Apollonius. 1894.
Cook, Arthur Bernard. The Bee in Greek Mythology. 1895. See
Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. XV. 1895.
Cook, Stanley A. David. 1899. See Cheyne’s Encyclopaedia Biblica,
s.h.v.
Cordier, Henri, Memb. de l’Institut, etc. Les Fouilles en Asie Centrale.
Paris, 1910. See Journal des Savans, 1910.
Cory, Isaac Preston. Ancient Fragments of the Phoenician, Chaldaean,
Egyptian, Tyrian, Carthaginian, Indian, and Persian writers. First
edition. 1832.
Courdaveaux, V. Tertullien. See Revue de l’Histoire des Religions,
t. XXIII (1891).
xxxiiCourdaveaux, V. Clément d’Alexandrie. Paris, 1892. See Revue de
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INTRODUCTION
xlix
The worships, beliefs, and religious practices of the age
which saw the birth and infancy of Christianity must
always be the most interesting of all subjects to the student
of history, nor are there many more deserving the attention of
the general reader. The opponent, quite as much as the
adherent of Christianity, must admit that the early struggles
of the faith which is professed by nearly a third of the human
race, which for fifteen centuries wielded unchallenged sway
over the whole of Europe, and which has grown with the
growth of European colonization until it now has a firm
settlement in every quarter of the inhabited world, must ever
possess surpassing interest for humanity. Yet the popular ideas
on the subject are not only vague but erroneous. A general
notion that, shortly before the coming of Christ, the Pagans
had tired of their old gods, and, lost to all sense of decency,
had given themselves up to an unbridled immorality founded
on atheistic ideas, is probably about as far as the man who has
given no special study to the subject would venture to go.
Such a view, founded perhaps on somewhat misty recollections
of the Roman satirists and a little secondhand knowledge of
the denunciations of the early Christian writers, is almost
the reverse of the truth. There has probably been no time
in the history of mankind when all classes were more given
up to thoughts of religion, or when they strained more fervently
after high ethical ideals, than in the six centuries which
have been taken for the subject of this book[1].
lThe cause of this misconception is, however, clear enough.
Half a century ago, the general public was without guide or
leader in such matters, nor had they any materials on which
to form opinions of their own. The classical education which
was all that the majority of men then got, carefully left all
such matters as the origins of Christianity on one side. The
treatises of the Fathers of the Church, for the most part written
in late and inelegant Greek, were held to be too corrupting to
the style of scholars reared on the texts of the purest period
to be attempted by any but professional theologians, by whom
indeed they were often very imperfectly understood. Nor
was much to be gathered from the profane historians of the
early Christian centuries, who maintained such an obstinate
silence with regard to Christianity as to give rise to the
theory that they must have conspired to ignore the new
religion of the lower classes as something too barbarous
for ears polite[2]. Moreover, the ruling maxim of education,
especially of English education until the end of the XIXth
century, was that it was better to know one thing thoroughly
than to acquire a smattering of a great many, and that
a scholar was better served by an intimate knowledge of
second aorists than by any wide extent of reading; while
the comparative method of study was still confined to
sciences of analysis like anatomy and philology[3]. Above all,
what has been called the catastrophic view of the Christian
religion was still in fashion. Although our spiritual pastors
and masters were never tired of reminding us that God’s ways
were not as our ways, they invariably talked and wrote on the
assumption that they were, and thought an Omnipotent
Creator with eternity before Him must needs behave like a
schoolboy in control of gunpowder for the first time. Hence
“the remarkable victory” which, in the words of Gibbon,
the Christian faith obtained over “the established religions
liof the earth” was in the view of the orthodox chiefly due
to the miraculous powers placed at the disposal of the primitive
Church, and it was considered impious to look further for the
cause of the despotic rule which in a comparatively brief space
of time it succeeded in establishing over the minds of men.
From this state of things, the foundation of what is known
as the science of religions did much to deliver us. When
non-Christian faiths, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism,
and Mohammedanism, came to be systematically
studied without preconceived hostility or desire to jeer at
their absurdities, it was seen that the same atmosphere of
miracle and legend had gathered round their infancy as round
that of the Christian Church. Outside the regular or canonical
scriptures—if the phrase may be used—of all of these faiths,
there had evidently grown up a vast literature of uncertain
date and authorship in which the same stories were repeated
and the same episodes introduced as in the Christian Apocryphal
Gospels, Acts, and Lives of the Saints. It began to
dawn upon us that, as the human mind under the same conditions
generally works in the same way, it was possible that
all religions, whether true or false, might have gone through
the same or similar stages of development[4].
That this view of the case was in itself a great step in
advance, everyone will readily admit who can remember the
horror with which any proposal to equate or even compare
Christianity with any other religion was once received. It
was much helped, however, by another novel hypothesis which
about that time had got over its period of obloquy and was
rapidly coming to the front, namely, the theory of evolution.
When Darwin in his Origin of Species enunciated the truth
that as more animals and plants than the earth can support
come into existence every year, it is only those varieties
which are best fitted to their environment which survive the
liiconsequent struggle for existence, he practically gave us a
new standpoint from which to contemplate Nature. Herbert
Spencer, quickly grasping this principle and carrying its application
much further than Darwin had ventured to do, showed
that it governed the development not only of animal forms
but of the intellectual and moral faculties of man, of political
and social institutions, and even of what he called “ecclesiastical
institutions,” which included religions themselves.
With the general acceptance of this view, it followed that the
success in point of popularity of any creed at any period of
the world’s history was not due to any sudden or capricious
exercise of the Divine will, but to the normal working of a
universal and irresistible law.
But, at this point, we must stop a little to define what is meant
by the science of religions. Science, in this sense, has so far
departed from its strict and etymological signification of knowledge,
as to connote exact knowledge based upon ascertained
fact, while a science is generally held to mean an organized
system in which the largest possible number of related facts
are gathered together with reference to one common subject
of study. At first sight, it appears that nothing can be more
rigidly excluded by this definition than religion, which has
been defined as “the effective desire to be in right relation
to the power manifesting itself in the universe[5].” This,
which in some quarters would be called the religion “of the
heart,” can never form the subject of study based upon exact
knowledge, because the relations between any human being
and the power manifesting itself in the universe can be known
only, so far as we can see, to that being and to that power.
But in the science under consideration, there is no question
of religion generally, but of religions, which is a very different
thing. By a religion, we generally mean the assembly of
beliefs, traditions, and forms of worship which go to make
up a faith or cult, and this, as it must, according to the experience
of all history, have come into being through the agency
of some man or men, should go through the same evolutionary
liiiprocess as all other human institutions. Hence there is at first
sight a considerable probability that all religions whatever will
be found on examination to follow the same law of development
by the survival of those best fitted to their environment that
we have seen operative in the case of animal forms.
Here, however, the Christian—or for that matter, the
adherent of any faith which claims to have been founded by
a special revelation—finds himself in the presence of a dilemma.
His own faith, whether it be Christianity or another, is in his
eyes true, as being not the work of man, but of God, and all
others are false. How therefore are they to be compared?
Is the Jew, who believes the Law to have been delivered to
his people “among the thunders of Sinai,” the Parsi who is
taught the special inspiration of Zoroaster by the “Omniscient
Lord” Ahura Mazda, or the Mohammedan who thinks that
Mohammed received the Koran from Allah himself, to be
told that his faith has developed according to the same laws
as that of the Christian, who is convinced that his has no other
source than the teaching of the Divine Founder of Christianity?
To this it may be said that the dilemma is more apparent
than real, and is due to a like confusion of thought with
that which seized upon many when the evolutionary theory
was first promulgated. No argument was then more common
than that the Divine creation of the animals, including man,
was authoritatively revealed once for all in the first chapter
of Genesis, and that the bare formulation of the idea that man’s
bodily form had developed by a long process of evolution and
selection from those of the lower animals was therefore a
blasphemy that could only be uttered by atheistic men of
science[6]. There is no occasion to go here into the tissue of
sophistries and misconceptions with which Mr Gladstone, when
confronted with this argument in controversy with M. Albert
Réville, one of the founders of the science of religions, and with
M. Réville’s champion Prof. Huxley, tried to prove that the
livassertion of the doctrine of evolution was to be found in the
Book of Genesis. It is sufficient to say that Darwin never
affirmed that natural selection or the survival of the fittest
was the cause of the variation of animal forms, but simply that
it was the mode in which that variation, however caused,
operated[7]. In like manner, it may be said that the science
of religions by no means attempts to discuss the causes which
lead to the institution of any particular religion, but deals
merely with the laws underlying its development when once
instituted. The Christian religion, like those of Moses, Zoroaster,
and Mohammed, however Divine its origin, was, like
them, propagated by men who founded the Church, handed
on the traditions, and gave form to the ceremonies. Is there,
therefore, any reason why the same law of development should
not apply to this as well as to its rivals?
That the answer to this must be in the negative is at last
beginning to be generally admitted. Prof. Tiele, writing in
1897, was obliged to confess that “the new science of religions
was in many quarters regarded with suspicion[8],” but Dr Jevons,
when lecturing at Hartford in 1908, was able to say that “the
time has happily gone by when the mere idea of comparing
Christianity with any other religion would have been rejected
with horror as treasonous and treacherous[9].” Yet it may be
doubted whether the clouds have rolled completely away, and
it is fairly certain that the many learned and able Catholic
priests who have done so much to elucidate the origins and
tendencies of ancient religions other than their own have
until lately avoided the discussion of their relations with the
earliest forms of Christianity. This is the more to be regretted,
because they are in many cases peculiarly fitted for the investigation,
and their acquaintance with the extra-Canonical
Christian writers before Constantine, hitherto much neglected
by Protestant theologians, would make their conclusions upon
it especially valuable. Yet it is along these lines that future
lvinquiry will probably advance; and if, as most of us believe,
the Christian religion has outdistanced and survived all its
early competitors because it was better fitted than they to
its environment, it is of great importance even from the point
of view of the most rigid orthodoxy, that we should have a clear
conception of what that environment was. Fortunately the
gaps in our knowledge have been in great measure filled by the
work of Continental scholars outside the pale of the Catholic
Church, who have been indefatigable of late years in discovering
documents, editing texts, and publishing monuments
which throw great light on the history of the religions which
at the outset competed with Christianity for the favour of
the Graeco-Roman world. A summary of these labours is
one of the objects aimed at in the following pages.
If, now, we attempt to examine what these competitors
were, we find at the outset that a good number of those which
we once thought formidable may be eliminated from the list.
Judaism, for instance, although the matrix in which Christianity
was formed, was never at any time in effective rivalry
with it. The words of the Gospel as to the Pharisees compassing
sea and land to make one proselyte have misled the
unwary into supposing that the number of Jewish proselytes
was at one time or another large[10]; but it must be remembered
that it was the Sadducees and not the Pharisees who were the
dominant party in the Jewish State, and that these last formed
but a very small part of the total population of Judaea[11]. The
Sadducees from their Hellenizing tendencies were much more
likely to go over to the faith of the Gentiles than to make any
great effort for their conversion, and both they and the Essenes,
who formed in Josephus’ day the third party among the Jews,
lviwere too much set on procuring, by different means, the temporal
supremacy of Israel, to care much about admitting any proselyte
to share in it[12]. Although a few undistinguished persons of
Gentile blood may have become converts to Judaism between
the birth of Christ and the fall of the Temple, their number
can never have been at any time important; and after 69 A.D.,
the furious hostility that arose between Jew and Gentile made
any further conversions to the Jewish faith practically impossible.
Never, so far as we know, did Judaism aim at becoming,
and certainly never had the slightest chance of appearing
as, a world-religion.
Not less hopeless, in this respect, was the case of the Graeco-Roman
pantheon. The late Mr Long’s picture of “Diana or
Christ,” representing a young woman called upon by a sympathetic
Roman magistrate to choose between sacrificing to
the statue of the many-breasted Artemis of Ephesus and
condemnation to death as a Christian, attained great popularity
in its day, and shows with fair clearness the view of
the relations between Paganism and early Christianity supposed
at the end of the last century to have been current in the
first. Yet hardly anything could give a falser idea of the
religious history of the period. The officials of the Roman
Empire in time of persecution sought to force the Christians
to sacrifice, not to any of the heathen gods, but to the Genius
of the Emperor and the Fortune of the City of Rome; and
at all times the Christians’ refusal was looked upon not as a
religious but as a political offence[13]. For the rest, the worship
of the Olympian gods had, when Christianity came to the
surface, almost entirely died out, and both Greek and Latin
writers bear witness to the contempt with which it was regarded
by both races at the beginning of our era. Cicero,
while admitting that the world is governed by the providence
of the gods, rejects all the myths attached to them as impious,
and declares that the “Deity who is diffused in every part
of Nature” appears as the earth under the name of Ceres,
lviias the sea under that of Neptune, and so on[14]. Plutarch,
too, is plainly a monotheist, who worships “the one eternal,
passionless Spirit far removed from the world of chance and
change and earthly soilure” of Greek philosophy[15]; and, while
lamenting the decay of faith which has led to the cessation of
oracles, thinks that all the manifestations of the Divine providence
are the work of no great deity, but of a crowd of inferior
powers or demons who are hardly in a greater superiority of
position to man than the fairies of our childhood[16]. Whatever
rivalry the Christian Church had to face in its infancy, it had
none to fear from the deities of Olympus.
It has been said, however, and to a certain extent accepted,
that the first efforts of Christianity were sorely hindered by
the followers of the great Greek philosophers. In this there is
a certain amount of truth, for the Neo-Platonic school did
indeed enter into an alliance with the few remaining worshippers
of the Pagan gods which forced them into an attitude
of opposition to Christianity. But this was at a date some
time after the compact with Constantine, and consequently
later than that within the scope of this book. Nor is it likely
that at an earlier date philosophy and Christianity appealed
to the same class of minds, and that they thus entered into
serious competition with each other. As the late Dr Hatch
has said, “the earliest forms of Christianity were not only
outside the sphere of Greek philosophy, but they also appealed
on the one hand, mainly to the classes which philosophy did
not reach, and on the other hand, to a standard which philosophy
did not recognize[17].” Faith, not reason, was the quality that
the Apostles and their immediate successors sought in their
hearers, and Celsus was probably not far wrong when he said
lviiithat the rule of admission into the infant Church was “Let
no educated man enter, no wise man, no prudent man, for
such things we deem evil; but whoever is ignorant, whoever
is unintelligent, whoever is simple, let him come and be welcome[18].”
To this state of mind the password of the early
Christian communities, Maran atha, is a sufficient key. The
confident expectation of the nearness of the Parusia or Second
Advent for the primitive Christian overwhelmed all other considerations.
“The Lord is at hand and His reward” was
the one fact that he wished to keep before him. What need
to trouble about the Highest Good or the hundred other questions
that vexed the souls of the philosophers?
The religions competing with Christianity which are left
after this elimination may be classed in three categories. First
come the Oriental religions native to countries lying to the
south and east of the Mediterranean and therefore mainly
outside the sphere of Hellenic culture until after the conquests
of Alexander. These religions, born or nurtured in Asia Minor,
Persia, and Egypt, so soon as Alexander had carried out his
project of the marriage of Europe and Asia, poured westward
in a flood which a Roman satirist compared to the Orontes
emptying itself into the Tiber, and gained, according to a
well-known law in the history of religions, a far greater influence
over the minds of men than they had exercised in their
native home. The second category comprises the many strange
sects which the first Fathers of the Church grouped together
under the generic name of Gnostics. The faith which these
professed was not, as it is sought to show later, one founded
on religion at all but rather on magic, and had long been present
in germ as a sort of heresy or alternative belief underlying
the worship of the gods of Olympus. Finally, there arose
the ambitious religion of Manes, which aimed at sweeping
into one vast synthesis or eclectic church the three religions
of Zoroaster, Buddha, and Christ, which at the time of its
institution divided between them the allegiance of the civilized
world.
Each of these categories shall be dealt with in turn; but
lixbefore doing so, it may be well to say something upon the
state of our knowledge concerning them. Until lately, it was
a commonplace of religious history that the Catholic Church
had destroyed as far as possible all traces of the religions
that she had supplanted, which was picturesquely expressed
in the phrase that in her victory she had burned the enemy’s
camp. That this was her conscious policy may be gathered
from the advice given by a Pope of the VIIth century, to “break
the idols and consecrate the temples” of the heathen[19]; but
of late many relics of the ancient faiths which had before
escaped us have been disinterred by the care of scholars.
During the last century, the lost heresiology of Hippolytus
and considerable fragments of works by Gnostic authors were
brought to light in circumstances to be described in their place[20],
while the present decade has not only added to our stock of
Gnostic fragments, but has revealed to us on the western
frontier of China a hoard of Manichaean documents rich beyond
our hopes[21]. These are not only valuable by reason of the
information they afford, but give us ground for the belief
that, as the interest in such matters becomes more widely
spread, many more documents throwing light upon the subject
will appear.
One word may be said in conclusion as to the relations
of these rival religions between themselves. Whoever studies
the documents here described cannot fail to be struck by the
fact that certain ideas, phrases, and even words, seem common
to them all. At the time that these documents were written
this similarity excited no remark from the orthodox, as it
was at once disposed of by the theory that these religions
were one and all the invention of the Devil, and therefore
naturally bore traces of their common origin. This explanation,
however convenient, does not satisfy the demands of
lxmodern criticism, and it is therefore necessary to look further.
One way of accounting for the phenomenon is to suppose that
many if not all of the analogies noticed are due to the mistakes
of scribes and translators, who, when dealing with expressions
unfamiliar to them, were naturally inclined to repeat the same
phrases over and over again. This, as all know who have
had to do with ancient manuscripts, is accountable for much,
and it is extremely likely that a monk of the Vth or VIth century
transcribing an account of the opinions of, for instance,
the Ophites who flourished in Phrygia before the birth of Christ
at the same time with those of the Manichaeans found in Rome
three centuries later, would not hesitate to express views
essentially different by the same phrases and even the same
words. Add to this the jumble that persons untrained in
philology naturally make between names in a foreign language
and those of similar sound in their own tongue, coupled with
the fixed idea of finding in the traditions of the heathen a
confirmation of the historical truth of the Hebrew Scriptures,
and you have some explanation of the cause which makes
many proper names recur unexpectedly in otherwise unrelated
documents. Thus the Armenian bishop, Moses of Chorene, in
narrating the story which he says he obtained from Berossus,
the Chaldaean historian who wrote at the beginning of our
era, says that “Before the building of the Tower of Babel and
the multiplication of tongues among the human race, after
the navigation of Xisuthros [i.e. Hasis-adra, the Babylonian
Noah] in Armenia, Zervan, Titan, and Japhet were princes of
the land. These persons,” he adds, “seem to be Shem, Ham,
and Japhet[22].” Zervan is the name given by a late sect of
Zoroastrians to the “Boundless Time” whom they placed at
the origin of all things, while Titan belongs to the Hellenic
mythology, and Japhet may either be Saturn’s brother Iapetus,
or the patriarch of the Book of Genesis. It is to be conjectured
that Berossus did not use these three names in the apposition
quoted or probably at all, and we can only guess vainly at
the real names which are concealed under those which Moses
of Chorene here gives.
lxiBut when all allowance is made for mistakes like these,
there remains a fund of ideas common to all or many of the
religions hereafter treated of, which cannot be explained away
by any theory of verbal inaccuracy[23]. As an instance of this,
let us take the notion of an archetypal or heavenly man created
ages before the appearance upon earth of terrestrial man, who was
nevertheless made in the image and after the likeness of his predecessor.
This idea, as will be shown later, is met with among
the Phrygian Ophites, where “a Man and a Son of Man”
were said to be the origin of all subsequent things, as in the
Avestic literature of Persia where Gayômort, the son, according
to one story, of the Supreme God Ahura Mazda by his daughter
Spenta-armaiti, is made at once the pattern and the source
of the whole human race. The borrowings of Zoroastrianism
from Babylonia were not few, and we might conceive this to
be the survival of some old Babylonian tradition, such as
that which modern critics believe to have been the origin of
the Creation and Flood stories of Genesis; and this theory
is strengthened by the predominant part which this “First
Man” plays in Manichaeism, itself a Babylonian faith, where
the Turkestan MSS. show him as a sort of intermediary between
the gods of light and this earth. But how shall we account
for the fact that in one of the earliest documents of the Pistis
Sophia, the collection of Gnostic writings hereafter described[24],
a great angel named Jeû, who is spoken of many times as the
“overseer of the light” and the arranger of the Cosmos, is
also alluded to as the “First Man,” in a way which shows
that the writer did not doubt that the allusion would be comprehended
by his readers without further explanation[25]? The
lxiiPistis Sophia, although doubtless written in Greek in the first
instance, comes to us in a Coptic dress, and the documents
therein contained show more affinities with the Egyptian than
with the Persian religion. How therefore can we account for the
same idea appearing at almost the same time in countries
between the peoples of which there was always bitter hostility,
and which were separated moreover by the Arabian Desert
and the whole breadth of Asia Minor?
It seems to the present writer that no solution of this and
of the numerous other difficulties of which this is but one
example can be profitably suggested, until we know more than
we do at present about the origin and dates of Zoroastrianism.
Although this religion is still with us in the beliefs of the modern
Parsis, there is none about the origin of which we know less,
or concerning the antiquity of which there is greater discrepancy
between ancient and modern writers. Thus, while
Plutarch, quoting as is generally supposed Theopompos of
Chios who flourished in the IVth century B.C., declares that
Zoroaster himself wrote 5000 years before the Trojan War[26],
modern writers of authority, like Prof. Williams-Jackson and
Mdlle Menant, are inclined to bring down the date of the
eponymous prophet or reformer of the Persian religion to
700 B.C.[27] The discrepancy is too great to be bridged over
by any compromise, and the question has been further complicated
by the discovery a few years ago of inscriptions which
show that Mithras, the Persian god whose worship formed
the most dangerous rival to that of the Christian Church
immediately before its alliance with Constantine, was one of
the most exalted deities of the presumably Aryan Hittites or
Mitannians at a date not later than 1272 B.C.[28] Signs are
lxiiinot wanting that discovery in the near future may take this
line of advance, and if it should turn out that the religion which
Zoroaster reformed was established in Northern Mesopotamia
before the Homeric age, we may have to reconstruct all our
ideas of the origin of the Greek religion. There seems no
use therefore in dilating upon hypotheses which the course
of research may in a very few years prove to be entirely
erroneous[29].
In the meantime, the thing of immediate importance seems
to be to get the documentary evidence already at our disposal
as far as possible before the public, and this is attempted in
the pages which follow. The different religions are there
arranged in the chronological order of their greatest activity
in the West with the belief that this course will prove most
convenient to the reader.
CHAPTER I THE CONQUESTS OF ALEXANDER
1
A glance at the map of Asia at the coming of Alexander will
convince us that all but a corner of the world known to the
ancients was then ruled by a single power. The Persian Empire,
sprawling like a huge octopus over the centre of the continent,
dominated it from its four capitals at the head of the Persian
Gulf, and stretched without a break from the Caspian Sea to
the Indian Ocean. In its eastern provinces were comprised
what is now Russian Turkestan from Krasnovodsk to Kashgar,
with the Khanates and the Pamirs, all Afghanistan, Seistan,
Baluchistan, the North-West Province, and part of the Punjab.
On the western side of the Great Central Desert came the countries
which we now call Persia and Turkey in Asia containing
in themselves a territory half the size of the Continent of Europe,
together with the rich province to the south of the Caucasus
which has lately passed into the grip of Russia. From here one
long tentacle had stretched across the Sinaitic Peninsula and had
seized Egypt; and, although another had shrunk back hurt from
its attack on Greece, it yet held positions on the Bosphorus and
the Hellespont which formed a standing menace that the raid
might be repeated. Apart from the Greek States which, as has
been well said, the Great King found easier to control through
their own venal orators than to conquer by his soldiers, there
remained outside his sway only the trading republic of Carthage
and the Italian cities just rising into prominence. Travellers’
tales, more than usually improbable and untrustworthy, were,
indeed, told of great countries swarming with men and fabulous
monsters lying beyond the African and Indian deserts on the
2southern, and the great ranges of mountains on the eastern,
frontier of the Empire[30]; but these gave as little concern to
its rulers as did the fringe of barbarian tribes, Cimmerians,
Hyperboreans, Gauls, and Scyths, who filled up the space
between the civilized world and the imaginary ring of waters
which was called the Outer Ocean.
That this vast dominion should be loosely compacted was
of the nature of things. The twenty or more provinces into
which it was divided enjoyed a large measure of self-government,
and had preserved, for the most part, their native laws and
customs unaltered. Each of these divisions was ruled by a
satrap who, like a Chinese viceroy, was allowed to maintain
armies and even fleets of his own. But a check, imperfect no
doubt but still existent, was exercised over his proceedings by
the presence of a Royal Secretary in each satrapy, whose business
it was to supervise the accounts, and to send up regular
reports to the capital of the doings, of his coadjutor[31], while the
troops were under the command of a general appointed directly
by the Crown. From time to time, also, a Royal Commissioner
called the King’s Eye visited the province with a strong guard
to hear complaints and to see that all was in order[32]. The satrap,
too, only held his post during his master’s pleasure, and was
liable at any moment to be removed to another province, degraded,
or put to death, on the strength of a simple letter bearing
the Royal Seal; and the tribute which each satrapy had to pay
to the Great King being settled at a fixed and known amount,
there was less chance than under some similar systems of devolution
that the satrap might squeeze out of his subjects a sum
3far greater than that which he transmitted to the Treasury[33].
Above all, the Persians were of Aryan stock, and early showed
signs of the talent for governing older races which seems to have
stuck to the Aryans throughout their history. They made
excellent roads, and established swift running posts that did
much to make communication easy between the most important
parts of their empire; while, as the satraps’ standing armies
were composed either of native Persians or hired mercenaries,
the subject populations had an opportunity, rare enough in the
ancient world, of peacefully developing their internal resources
without constant fear of disturbance by foreign enemies, or
forced participation in wars of aggression[34]. It was only when
the word went forth from Babylon or Susa, Ecbatana or Persepolis,
for the calling-out of the Ban of the whole Empire that the
other than Persian subject of Artaxerxes or Darius had to join
the levy of his satrapy, and, on orders given to him through an
interpreter, to assist the Great King in crushing some rebellious
satrap or repelling foreign invasion. At other times, he must
have known him only as a kind of divinity, having power to
throw down and to set up, to whom he might cry, not always in
vain, against the oppression of his own immediate ruler. Those
writers are no doubt justified who say that the government
of the Persian Empire was to the humbler classes of Asiatics
a great improvement upon any that had preceded it[35], and that
the rule of the Great King never awoke the fierce resentment
in its subjects aroused by the tyranny of the Semitic Assyrians,
or of the Chaldeans who were, in great part, of Mongoloid blood [36].
4It was doubtless the memory of this golden age, glorified as
remembrances generally are by the lapse of centuries, that
brought about the reaction to the Persian form of government
and culture which we shall have to discuss later in the countries
bled white by the Roman proconsuls.
Throughout this vast realm, Alexander’s coming brought
about a change such as the civilized world has never seen before
or since. Among the world-conquerors who have been hailed
as heroes in after times, Alexander—surely the greatest individual
known to history—stands distinguished by the loftiness
of his aims and the swiftness with which they were attained.
It is wonderful that a boy of twenty with an army that cannot
have exceeded 50,000 men all told should succeed in overcoming
practically the whole of Asia in less time than it took the British
Empire with the third of a million to break down the armed resistance
of a few thousand Boers. More wonderful is it that he
should a little later contrive to transport a force of about 100,000,
comprising infantry, cavalry and artillery, over the three
thousand miles that separate Macedonia from Karachi, at the
same time preserving such perfect communication with his base
that he seems never to have remained for long without letters
from Europe, while the stream of recruits that reached him from
the same source must have been continuous and unchecked[37].
Such a feat which, with all the aid which steam and electricity
can give us, would still tax to the utmost the powers of our
greatest modern generals, becomes almost miraculous when we
think that the greater part of his line of communications must
have lain through recently subjugated lands, and that his own
5advance led him into countries unmapped and known only to
him by the half fabulous tales of his enemies[38]. But the most
astonishing thing about these exploits is that they were all
performed with the conscious aim of making Asia Greek[39], and
in this respect, as in all others, they were both original and
successful. Everywhere that Alexander passed, he left behind
him cities peopled by a mixture of his own veterans, of those
camp followers which, then as now, have always stuck to a
European army on the march, and of natives of the country
either found on the spot or drawn from some other part of Asia;
and the permanence of these foundations still bears witness
to the foreseeing eye of their founder. Alexandria in Egypt,
Candahar, Secunderabad, all preserve to this day the memory
of his royal name, and the continued importance of Khojend,
Samarcand, Herat, Merv, and Cabul out of the many other
Alexandrias that he established on his conquering way show
that his statesmanlike perception of the chief markets of the
East was as sure as his strategical insight[40]. Nor did he neglect
other means of carrying out the great design that he had at
heart. In the great feast at Susa, which he celebrated on his
return from India, the “marriage of Europe and Asia,” which
had always formed his guiding idea, took visible shape. He
had already wedded—it is said for love—the beautiful Roxana,
a princess from Bactria in the Eastern (or Upper) Provinces
6of his new Empire[41], and now he took as a second consort Statira,
the daughter of Darius, who, as the scion of the last native king
of Persia, may be taken as the representative of its western
centre. Nearly a hundred of his superior officers and some ten
thousand of his humbler followers hastened to follow his example
and to receive Asiatic brides with the rich dowries assigned them
by the Conqueror[42]. Moreover the thirty thousand youthful
recruits from his new conquests, whom he had ordered five years
before to be trained in the Macedonian discipline and the Greek
language, now arrived[43], and Alexander set to work with his
usual energy to diffuse through his European army strong drafts
of his Asiatic subjects in order to cement still further the alliance
between the two Continents. Had he lived, it would have been
a mixed army of Asiatics and Europeans that he would have
led the following year to the conquest of the western world[44].
Destiny, however, is, as men would have said in those days,
stronger than the immortal gods, and Alexander’s early death
put an instant stop to all ideas of further conquest. It is idle,
until we know the causes of things, to speculate on what might
have been; but it seems probable that if Nearchus’ expedition
had sailed, the Conqueror’s warlike plans would once again have
proved to have been perfectly laid, that he would have crushed
Carthage as easily as Thebes and Tyre, and that the Italian
States would have received the same master as the Bactrians and
Indians[45]. Yet so far as our immediate purpose is concerned,
Alexander’s work was done once for all, and the policy typified
7as the marriage of Europe and Asia was perhaps as well served
by his death as by his life. During Persian times, the Court of
the Great King had always proved a magnet drawing to itself
with irresistible force the ever-restless Greeks, and the road to
Susa was trodden in turn by politicians like Alcibiades, leaders
of mercenaries like Xenophon, and Greek philosophers, artists,
and courtezans innumerable. The traffic in mercenaries alone
must have been enormous when we find Greek troops forming
the stiffening of those huge armies of Darius which Alexander
overthrew at the Granicus, Issus, and Arbela[46]; while as for
the other sex, Themistocles, when turning his back on his own
country, could find no better or safer mode of approaching the
Persian Court than in a closed litter supposed to be conveying
a Greek woman to the harem of the Great King[47]. But when the
century-long wars for the succession to Alexander broke out
upon his death, there straightway appeared five courts where
before there had been but one, and these were now ruled over by
Greek and not by Persian kings. Mercenaries of all kinds were
in urgent demand in every one of them, while the setting free
of the millions in bullion and specie found by Alexander in the
Persian capitals caused an outbreak of luxury like that which
followed in Germany the payment of the French milliards.
Soon every Greek who had strength, beauty, or talents to sell
was on foot to seek his or her fortune in Asia, and with them
went everywhere the petty Greek trader, as enterprising and
as fearless in pursuit of gain as those countrymen of his whose
booths Lord Kitchener saw set up on the field of Omdurman
before the rout of the Mahdists was complete, and whose
locandas still greet one in the smallest villages on the Nile.
The stream of fortune-hunters, now in full flood, quickly overflowed
from the ancient capitals to the numerous Antigonias,
Antiochias, Lysimachias, Nicomedias, and Seleucias which the
new kings everywhere founded in imitation of their dead master,
and even the most distant provinces began to receive their
8quota of Greek citizens and Greek culture. As has happened
more than once in history, Asia woke suddenly from her sleep,
and acquired a veneer of foreign manners in hardly longer time
than it has taken Japan in our own days to adopt European
armaments, teaching and dress. When the Parthians overcame
Crassus, the Roman captives found the barbarian victors
amusing themselves with the plays of Euripides[48]; while the
Bactrian and Indian provinces, which the rise of the Parthian
power cut off from the western part of Alexander’s Empire,
conceived such a taste for Greek art that the statues of Buddha
with which their capitals were afterwards decorated were carved
according to Greek instead of Hindu canons[49]. The so-called
Indo-Greek kings of these parts, the Euthydemi, Diodoti, and
Eucratidae, of whom we know hardly more than the names,
no more thought of using other than Greek designs and inscriptions
for their coins than did the rulers of Pergamum or
Antioch[50]. The generation that had seen Alexander face to
face was hardly in its grave before the marriage of Europe and
Asia had become a very real and pregnant fact.
The importance of this for the history of religions can
hardly be exaggerated. Greek was spoken everywhere throughout
Asia, and for the first time in the world’s history the
inhabitants of the civilized part of the earth had a common
tongue in which they could communicate their ideas to each
other. No doubt the language spoken by the offspring of
9Greek colonists and their native spouses was not the tongue
of Sophocles or of Demosthenes any more than it was “the
strong-winged music of Homer”; but it was a better medium
for the transmission of metaphysical theories than the founder
of any world-religion has ever had at his disposal before or
since. The missionaries whom modern nations send into the
distant parts of the earth for the propagation of the Christian
faith find one of their worst difficulties in the impossibility of
rendering its doctrines into the languages of peoples at another
stage of culture from themselves; but no such barrier between
teacher and taught existed in the empire created by Alexander’s
genius. The result of this possibility of intercommunication of
ideas was at once apparent. Anxious to show that they too
had a pedigree, the older nations of the world seized the
opportunity to inform their new masters of their own history
and traditions; and, as all history was in those days sacred
history, they thus introduced to the Greeks their gods and
their beliefs as to the divine governance of the world. The
sacred books of the Chaldeans, of the Egyptians, of the
Jews, and no doubt of many other peoples whose records
are now lost to us, were translated into Greek; and thus the
science of the history of religions was born. Writers like
Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch are still our chief guides for the
religions of the earliest populated parts of the ancient world;
but how could these compilers have handed down to us the
traditions they have preserved save for writers like Berossus,
Manetho, and Philo of Byblus, who themselves wrote in Greek?
Plutarch tells us that when he spent a year in Rome during the
reign of Trajan, he did not find it necessary to learn Latin, his
native tongue being apparently understood by everybody. One
may wonder how much of the sayings and doings of the Founder
of Christianity would have come down to us, had they not been
first recorded in the κοινή or lingua franca of the whole East[51].
There were, however, other ways in which Alexander’s conquests
prepared the way for a religion which could make appeal
10to men of every nation and language. Nothing is more difficult
for those brought up in a monotheistic faith, with its inbred
contempt for the worshippers of many gods, than to realize how
the ancients regarded the Divine. The peoples of classical antiquity
seem to have everywhere believed in the gods of their
neighbours as absolutely as they did in their own, for they
imagined that their deities had, like men, only a limited sphere
of action, or, to put it scientifically, were subject to the same
conditions of space as their worshippers. Thus, the Syrians
thought that Yahweh of Israel was a mountain god, who could
not help his people when fighting in the plains[52], and the Philistines
believed that the ark in which he lived would bring
prosperity or disaster to the place in which it happened to be
for the time being[53]. This is almost an exact parallel to the
tale of the prince of Bactria, whose daughter was freed from
demoniacal possession by an image of the Egyptian god Khonsu
sent into Asia ad hoc, whereupon he decided that it would be
wise to keep so powerful a god in his own country, and did so
until frightened by a dream into sending the statue back[54].
But such ideas, however natural they may be to isolated or
backward peoples, soon lost their hold upon the acute and
logical Greeks, when they came into contact with civilized
nations having pantheons differing widely from their own.
The philosophers, indeed, by dint of hard reasoning on the
subject, had formed before the time of Alexander a conception
of the Supreme Being which does not differ materially from
that of the educated Christian of the present day. “Loyal,”
says Pater, “to the ancient beliefs, the ancient usages, of the
religions of many gods which he had found all around him,
Socrates pierces through it to one unmistakable Person, of
perfect intelligence, power, and goodness who takes note of
him[55]”; and the same thing might be said with even greater
certainty of the deductions of Aristotle[56], whose declared
11monotheism caused him to be adopted in the Middle Ages as one
of the Doctors of the Church. But there is no reason to believe
that such lofty conceptions ever influenced in the slightest the
beliefs of the common people, who alone count for anything in
the evolution of the organized body of beliefs and practices
which we call a religion. Socrates so successfully concealed
his opinions in this respect from everybody but Plato, that
the clear and practical mind of Xenophon seems to have never
seen in him anything but a polytheist[57]: and that Aristotle’s
monotheistic teachings were not intended for the common herd
may be judged from the correspondence, whether actual or
imaginary, between him and Alexander himself, in which the
hero reproaches his former tutor for having published doctrines
which should only be taught by word of mouth, and
learns in reply that his metaphysical theories would be unintelligible
save to those whom he had himself instructed in
philosophy[58].
It is evident, therefore, that the great mass of Alexander’s
subjects, whether Asiatics, Egyptians or Greeks, would require
something more than the sublime theorizing of the philosophers
before their religious ideas could be turned in the direction of
monotheism. Nine hundred years before, Amenhotep IV of
Egypt had indeed been led by his adoration of the material
sun to put forward a religious reform which had as its principal
feature the proclaiming abroad that there was only one God,
in whose sight all mankind was equal; but the sole effect of
this premature attempt to elevate the religion of his people
was the loss of the external possessions of Egypt, and the posthumous
branding of his own memory as that of a criminal.
Possibly, too, the Hebrew Psalmists and Prophets had formed
a like conception of the Deity when they asserted that among
the gods there was none like unto Yahweh[59]; but that this
12idea seldom penetrated to their hearers is plain from their
incessant denunciation of these last for “whoring after” other
gods. The mere announcement of the unity of God had therefore
in itself an insufficient attraction for the masses, and for
the doctrine to be popular they had to be led to it by other
ways than those of argument or authority. Now Aristotle
noted with his usual shrewdness of observation that the form
of religion in a state generally follows with fair closeness that
of its temporal government[60], so that men will be more inclined
to believe in what the Greeks called “monarchy,” or the active
rule of One First Cause, if they live under a despot or absolute
king than if they are members of a democracy. But when
did the world either before or after his time see such a beneficent
and godlike despot as Alexander? The robber-kings
of Assyria had been accustomed to sweep across Western Asia
leaving behind them, as they boasted in their inscriptions, a
trail of vassal rulers impaled or flayed alive, of burnt cities,
and of plundered peoples. The Persians, as has been said,
had more idea of the rights of their inferiors, and did not regard
their subject territories as mere fields for exploitation;
but the life of sensual luxury into which their kings sooner
or later subsided had its natural outcome in harem intrigues
and assassinations which deprived the central power of a great
part of its otherwise effective control over its satraps. But
Alexander was in this, as in all other respects, the perfect type
of the benevolent master who thinks more of his servants’
welfare than of his own personal gratification. Neither his
mother Olympias, domineering and masterful as she was, nor
his first mistress Barsine the widow of Memnon, nor his wife
Roxana of whom he is said to have been enamoured, nor the
Persian princess Statira to whom he gave his hand out of policy,
could boast that they ever influenced by one hairsbreadth the
direction of his sovereign will. As for his justice, the swift
13punishment that he measured out on his return from India to
those of his officers whom he found guilty of oppression and
malversation showed that under his far-seeing eye there would
be none of those abuses of delegated power from which the
satrapial system had suffered under his predecessors[61]. Modern
historians have sometimes called him cruel; but in political
matters severity is often the truest mercy, and the blood that
he shed at Thebes and in Bactria probably saved a hundred
times the number of lives which unchecked rebellion would
have made it necessary to sacrifice; while the accidental and
unpremeditated death of Clitus may well be pardoned to one
who found not only his dignity as man but his royal authority
wantonly outraged by a friend whom he had distinguished by
exceptional marks of kindness. In every other respect his
record is stainless. Although opposed at every step of his
short career by orators and demagogues who saw in him the
only obstacle to their unrestrained plunder of the fatherland,
no legend has survived to his dishonour. On the contrary,
all that we hear of him shows us for the first time in the world’s
history a conqueror who was at the same time a just and wise
ruler, merciful to his fallen foe, scorning even in war to take
mean advantage[62], and chivalrous to the weak to a degree that
his age could neither understand nor imitate[63]. And with all
this, he united in his own person those superficial advantages
which have always been quick to win for their possessor the
devotion of the mob. To a talent for generalship which neither
Hannibal, Caesar, nor any modern general has equalled, he
joined a personal bravery which often reached the level of
recklessness and was always to be found in the forefront of
the hottest battle. Whether we see him charging at the head
of the Companion cavalry in the three great battles with Darius,
pursuing with a handful of his guard the routed Persian army
after Arbela, or first over the wall at Mooltan, Alexander is
14always performing these feats of hardihood which in a leader
strike more than anything the imagination of his soldiers. Add
to this a generosity which made him willing to strip himself of
his possessions to enrich his friends, a personal delight in that
pomp and pageantry which forms the most direct road to the
hearts of the proletariat, and a form, face and figure so distinguished
that their one defect was for centuries after imitated
by all who wished to be thought models of manly beauty[64], and
we can no longer wonder that his contemporaries looked upon
him as more than human. This wise and provident ruler of
the world that he had conquered was at the same time a youth
beautiful as Apollo, chivalrous as Bayard, clean as Galahad.
Is it surprising that his name alone of all the conquerors of
the East has endured through all changes of creed and culture,
that the fierce chiefs of the Central Asian tableland still boast
of him as their progenitor, and that the whole Mahommedan
world still hold him the king of the believing Genii? No
Caesar, Attila, or Genghiz Khan has ever thus impressed the
imagination of future ages[65].
Thus Alexander’s coming gave an enormous impulse to that
monarchical principle of government which from his time onward
was to reign supreme for nearly two thousand years.
Philosophers and sophists hastened to declare that democracy—as
was indeed the fact—had proved itself incapable of
governing, and that in the rule of one man was to be found the
natural order of things and the only security for a well-ordered
State[66]. Every one of the Diadochi or Successors of Alexander
15hurried in turn to assume the diadem, and Rome had no sooner
contrived to crush her rival republic of Carthage than she too
fell under the sway, first of dictators whose power was admittedly
despotic, and then of emperors whose constitutional
limitations were about the same as those of Alexander. That
this was certain in time to react upon the universal conception
of the Divine, followed directly from the law underlying religious
phenomena which had been enunciated by Aristotle:
but, before this could make way among the Greeks, thus
suddenly promoted to the position of the ruling race, it was
necessary that their own gods should be assimilated to those
of their eastern fellow-subjects, or in other words, should be
shown to be the same divinities under different names. Now,
a movement with this object, even before Alexander’s coming,
had been set on foot in Greece itself, and was in fact the natural
outcome of the ideas as to the origin and governance of the
universe brought there by the philosophers of Ionia[67]. It was
all very well for the masses—then as now, much given to
pragmatism or the reduction of every abstract idea to its most
material and practical expression—to believe that the power
of every god was limited to an area of so many square feet
surrounding his image or sanctuary; but how could such a
notion be held by philosophers who had sought out the causes
of things, by travellers who had visited neighbouring countries
in pursuit of knowledge, or by soldiers who had fought there,
and had found it necessary to pay reverence to gods other
than their own? It is said that in naturalistic religions like
those of Greece, there is always a tendency to consider as identical
divinities with the same or like characteristics—to consider
for instance all gods with solar attributes as but different forms
of the sun-god—and the Greeks of the fourth century B.C.
had thus taken many foreign gods into their pantheon. It
was, as Socrates found out to his cost, an offence to bring the
worship of new gods into the city; but the difficulty was got
16over by the theory that the foreign divinity was only another
form of some god already worshipped by the citizens[68], and
by keeping his cult as private as possible. Later, when the
popularity of the new deity seemed to be assured, an oracle of
Delphi was generally secured authorizing the adoption of his
worship under the name of his nearest Greek analogue, and in
this way many foreign worships were brought into Athens
itself[69]. Bendis, the moon-goddess of Thrace, had there from
early times a temple or Bendideion[70], and the Syrian Adonis
was publicly wailed for in the city when Alcibiades was setting
out for Sicily[71]. This, too, was the more natural because the
Greeks always acknowledged that their older divinities originally
came to them from foreign parts. The myths in which
the traditions of their origins were preserved gave Crete or
Asia Minor as the birthplace of Zeus, an island in the Aegean
as that of Apollo and Artemis, and the whole scene of the earthly
trials of Demeter and Persephone was laid partly in Eleusis and
partly in Asia[72]. As for Africa, Herodotus boldly asserts that
the “names” of almost all the gods worshipped by the Greeks
came from Egypt[73], and, although this is certainly not literally
true, it gave him an excuse for identifying all the Egyptian
deities of whom he had any knowledge with the Greek divinities
whom he thought they resembled. But when Alexander’s
conquests had made the different subject nations really
acquainted with each other’s religion, the process of theocrasia
or the fusion of one god with another received an impulse that
carried it beyond all bounds[74]. The divinities of Asia Minor
were naturally the first to be taken into the Greek pantheon,
especially by the Athenians, always mindful of their Ionian
17kinship; and the many-breasted goddess of Ephesus, Cybele
of Pessinus with her consort Atys or Attis, and the Sidonian
Astarte, were all worshipped in Greece after identification
with different Greek deities in the manner that had served to
naturalize the “Thracian” or Thessalian Dionysos, and the
(probably) Egyptian Hermes[75]. As we shall see later, the
Phrygian Sabazius and the Cretan Zagreus had already preceded
them in secret, and Persian, Jewish, and perhaps Indian
gods were to follow. From Greece, the passion for theocrasia
spread both eastward and westward. The Greek kings of
Upper India found it necessary to identify on their monuments
the gods of their native subjects with the divinities of Homer[76],
and those of the Central Provinces and of Asia Minor did the
same with such effect that it is almost impossible for us to
distinguish their many Artemises, Aphrodites, and different
forms of Zeus from the gods worshipped under similar names
in ancient Greece[77]. As for the West, the Romans, even before
they became the masters of the world, took over the Greek
pantheon en bloc by the simple process of calling their own
Italian deities by Greek names; and if we still speak of Zeus
as Jupiter, Athena as Minerva, Ares as Mars, and Hermes as
Mercury, it is by reason of the syncretism brought into fashion
by Alexander’s conquests.
Neither must we forget that the deification of Alexander
during his lifetime brought an entirely new conception of the
Divine into the European world. The divinization of the king
was indeed no new thing in Egypt, where the Pharaoh from
18the earliest times was looked upon after his enthronement as
the living form of the sun-god Horus; but to the religious ideas
of the Greeks it was evidently a surprising shock. The distinguishing
attribute of a Greek god was his deathlessness or
incorruptibility; and although heroes like Theseus and Heracles
were fabled to have become immortal and therefore fit subjects
for worship, this was only because they were in the natural way
the progeny of the gods themselves, and as such were taken
into heaven by their fathers after death and the purging away
of their mortal nature[78]. Alexander, on the other hand, demanded
from the Greeks as from his other subjects divine
honours during his life, and these were accorded to him with
servile readiness by the governments of Athens and other
Greek city-states, the Spartans not excepted[79]. What he meant
exactly by this demand it would be hard to say, because his
supposed sonship to Amen on which it was ostensibly based, was,
as Sir Gaston Maspero has shown, merely the form by which,
on a change of dynasty, the priests of Amen were accustomed
to legitimize the accession to the throne of a king who could
show no right thereto but force[80]. It is evident, too, that
Alexander did not himself take his deification very seriously,
since he allowed its propriety to be discussed before him at a
wine-party[81]; and his apologists, Arrian and Plutarch, are possibly
well-founded when they declare that it was a mere political
device to secure the grudging obedience of his Macedonian
countrymen[82]. But his successors in this matter went far
beyond him. Ptolemy and Arsinoe, without any pretence of
divine descent, were proclaimed “Saviour-gods” for their Greek
as well as for their Egyptian subjects quite apart from any
19identification of themselves with Horus or any other native deity.
Antigonus, when claiming to be the strategos or generalissimo of
the whole Empire, was hailed as a god, which drew from the
rough old king a repartee more pointed than decent[83]. So, too,
was his son, Demetrius the City Taker, although at the time of
his deification he had not even an independent kingdom of his
own, but was merely ruling Greece as the viceroy of his father.
And the barriers between the Divine and the human being thus
broken down, men’s minds soon became so familiar with the
idea that they not only thought men might become gods, but
declared that the gods were only deified men. The Athenians
in the hymns that they sang to Demetrius declared that he was
the only true god, and that the others were either asleep or too
far off to be taken into account, or were not really gods at all[84].
But it is not with impunity that the religious ideas of a people
can be thus suddenly and violently affronted. Within a few
years from Alexander’s death, Cassander’s friend and envoy
Euhemerus put forward, with the aid of a literary fraud something
like that of Psalmanazar, the theory that all the gods
worshipped by the Greeks had once been kings or at least distinguished
men and women upon earth[85]—a doctrine that was
received with as much enthusiasm in the Rome of the Republic
as it once evoked in our own days among the followers of Herbert
Spencer[86]. Later, the Epicurean philosophy, with its happy
gods neither interfering with nor caring about the doings of
mankind, came to the assistance of this rather crude atheism.
Although the Stoic philosophers in their turn tried to introduce
a more lofty idea of the Deity, it was probably not until late
Roman times that they ever obtained anything like a grip
on the people. Whether for good or ill, it is certain that the
Greeks after Alexander’s death never returned to the simple
20faith in their national gods which had sufficed for their forefathers.
This is a point that it is important to remember, because
without it, it is hard to understand the passion for innovation
in religious matters which seems for the next three centuries
to possess unchecked sway over mankind. It appeared as if
Alexander, who indeed had made all things new, had set free
the gods of the ancient world to wander from one end of his
Empire to the other, and the desire to proselytize appears for
the first time in the world’s history. Buddhism must have been
prevalent in India for nearly a century before Alexander; but
when it became the religion of the state in the reign of Asoka,
grandson of that Chandragupta or Sandracottus who had talked
with Alexander face to face, the Indian king boasted that he
had sent out missionaries for the propagation of his new faith
to the courts of Antiochus of Syria, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonus
of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene and Alexander of Epirus[87].
Whether the Indian missionaries ever reached the kings to
whom they were sent may be doubted, and it is certain that
these last did not pay the attention to them that Asoka claims;
but it is quite possible that to the impulse given by such missions
may be attributed some of the practices of the Jewish
sect of the Essenes, and perhaps the monastic seclusion affected
by certain worshippers of the Alexandrian god Serapis[88]. But
if Buddhism could thus find its way westward from so distant
a country as India, how much more must this have been the
case with the other Oriental religions with which the Greeks
had already some slight acquaintance, and which, as we shall
see in the sequel, poured into Europe in such a flood that
Juvenal compared it to the Orontes emptying itself into the
Tiber. That the Greeks, ever eager for some new thing, were
quick to avail themselves of the new ideas thus thrust upon
them was only to be expected. But this rage for novelty was
21too violent to be content to follow the slow process of assimilation
or theocrasia which was prevalent before Alexander.
Religious associations for the worship of foreign gods were
formed in which we may, if we like, see the first germs of the
Christian Church[89]. In these each member had to pay a subscription
towards the expenses of the cult, and the office-bearers
instead of being appointed by the State were either
taken from the members in rotation or chosen by lot.
That these confraternities, as we should now call them,
were at first composed of natives of countries other than Greece
is shown by their clustering in the port of the Piraeus as the
quarter where foreigners naturally congregated[90]; and their
male members for the most part consisted of slaves, freedmen,
and stranger merchants, who thus found a meeting-place in
what was to them a foreign country. Their worship too was
secret or rather was confined to members of the confraternity
only, while its correctness of form was preserved by means of
written books or rituals, thereby presenting many points of
resemblance to that of the later Gnostics. But the superstitious,
and especially the women who were always in Greece
much addicted to theoxenia or the reception of strange gods,
were early attracted by them, and they soon spread to every
great city in the Empire. Thus we see for the first time in
history bodies of men and women banded together, irrespective
of nationality and social rank, for the purpose of religious
observances, and religion becoming recognized as the affair of
the individual rather than of the state, while each member of
the association was directly interested in its extension. In
this way, the Greeks became worshippers not only of their own
sufficiently numerous deities but of those of well nigh the whole
East as well. Their inscriptions show that Persian, Phrygian,
and Lydian gods were worshipped by these associations,
together with a whole crowd of Semitic deities among whom,
22if M. Cumont is right, there may even have been included the
God of Israel[91].
The influence that these confraternities exercised in
familiarizing the minds of the Greek citizens with the religious
practices and tenets of foreign countries must have
been very great. Every such association had a temple of its
own, in which it offered sacrifices to its own particular god.
But, after providing for this, the greater part of the subscriptions
went in providing a periodical banquet at which its
members could meet for social intercourse, and to which they
were no doubt sometimes allowed to bring guests. But at
these gatherings, as apparently at all others of the confraternity,
all were equal, and there were no distinctions of rank.
Moreover, in addition to the foreign members for whom the
institution was originally designed, they must early have begun
to admit Greeks; and these were generally, though not always,
persons who were in the first instance led to them by a leaning
to foreign superstitions, and particularly to that orgiastic ritual
with which the worship of the Asiatic gods was generally
associated in Greek minds. It is noteworthy that among the
Greek names inscribed upon the stelae containing the lists of
members that have come down to us, those of women are far
more numerous than those of men. Yet they seldom seem
to have been of the highest class in their own community,
and it is difficult to conceive of a Greek matron leaving her
gynaeceum to take part with slaves and freedmen in nocturnal
feasts or orgies. Among those whom we know otherwise as
belonging to these confraternities are Phryne the celebrated
courtezan, Tryphera and Aristion, who followed the same
manner of life[92], and Glaucothea the mother of Æschines and
a perfume-seller, a trade then considered as disreputable as in
the reign of Louis XIV[93]. On the other hand, it seems to follow
from what Plutarch says, that King Philip of Macedon first saw
23and loved Olympias, mother of Alexander, at a meeting of one
of these confraternities[94], and it is possible that outside Greece
proper they lost something of their disreputable associations.
It must not be supposed, however, that these associations
concerned themselves entirely with what we now call religion.
The state, in cities like Athens, regarded them with great jealousy,
and did its best to prevent them from forming a hierarchy
by stipulating that their officers should only hold office for a
year. This naturally prevented any continuity of policy such
as a corporation like the priesthood of Amen could pursue, and
set their chiefs upon making hay while the sun shone. Ignorant
and degraded as most of their members were, and generally
engaged in the pursuit of gain, it is not astonishing that they
should thus have lent themselves to the worst and most dangerous
because most profitable superstitions. The priests and
especially the priestesses of the confraternities were always
ready to lend themselves to the practices of divination and
magic, to the sale of love-philtres and poisons[95], the interpretations
of dreams and miraculous cures. To these charlatans
came everyone who wanted his or her fortune told, or who
wished to get rid of a rival, or to obtain the favour of a disdainful
lover, or was simply tormented with idle fears or by
some bodily disease incurable by regular means.
“The set of charlatans and market-men who hang about and
wait round the altars of the Great Mother and Serapis; and who
manufacture oracles either out of their own heads or by haphazard
out of certain books for the benefit of house-slaves and silly women”
is the contemptuous way in which Plutarch describes these
impostors[96]. Yet even in this way much was doubtless done
to spread the knowledge of foreign religions; for many
must have resorted to the foreign temples for magic or
divination who would never have thought of joining the
association by which they were maintained, and in magic it is
24always the least known gods and those worshipped by the races
of lowest culture who are thought to be the most powerful.
Moreover, many of these associations in time purified themselves
by a sort of process of elimination from these undesirable
accessories, and, so soon as they succeeded in attracting the
adhesion of a sufficient number of respectable people, managed
to get the god they were formed to worship enrolled among the
native deities of the state or city. It was in this way that
foreign gods like Serapis and Mithras, from being the divinities
of a handful of foreign slaves, merchants or hostages, came, as
we shall see, to occupy the highest places in the national
worship of the Roman Empire. Thus Lucian tells us the story
of the impostor Alexander of Abonoteichos, who with the help
of a tame serpent with a cardboard mask gave himself out as
the priest of an incarnation of Asklepios the Greek god of
healing, and founded an association for its worship in Nicomedia
in Bithynia. Later, he persuaded one Rutilianus, a man of
consular rank who seems to have had influence at the Court
of Marcus Aurelius, to join him in the propagation of his new
cult and even to marry his daughter[97]. But the worship that
he thus set up must have afterwards been recognized by the city
of Nicomedia, for we find the representation of its god Glycon
upon a Nicomedian coin of the time of the Emperor Gordian,
the husband of Tranquillina[98].
It was apparently in these associations that the new spirit
now manifest in the religion of the ancient world began to take
organized shape. Among the Persians and Egyptians the
priests were officers of state living on the property of their
several corporations, and therefore with a natural leaning,
except in the rare cases where their privileges or property
were threatened by the Crown, against all innovations and
interference with the established order of things. Among
the Greeks, both in Hellas itself and in her colonies oversea,
the priests with a very few exceptions were chosen from the
25native-born citizens at large either for their personal beauty,
or for the wealth which enabled them to give in honour of the
gods magnificent pageants and other festivals[99]. In no case
did they regard themselves as having any teaching or pastoral
mission, and were in no way interested in increasing the number
of the worshippers of the god to whose service they were elected
for a short term. Hence, their chief preoccupation was to
keep strictly to precedent in the celebration of the public acts
of worship entrusted to them, and they would have looked with
horror on any alteration of the traditional rites. But in the
associations founded for the worship of foreign gods, affairs
were conducted on utterly different lines. There seems to have
been a healthy spirit of emulation among the successive holders
of the priestly office, for the vote of thanks inscribed on marble
and displayed in the temple for the admiration of the confraternity
was the distinction most sought after by them, and the
deprivation of it was the most serious penalty exacted for dereliction
of duty[100]. In order to obtain these rewards, it is plain
that the officers had to carry out to the full the Apostolic
injunction to be all things to all men, and there is actually a
case on record where a priestess is praised because during her
term of office she has offended nobody. This complaisance
seems to have extended itself from the officials to the deities
worshipped, who seem often to have been quite willing to
fulfil a double office, and to appear as Aphrodite or Astarte
to the Syrian and as Cybele to the Phrygian members of the
association[101]. By these means, they made it possible for
several nationalities to belong to the same association.
There was probably, however, a more intellectual side to
this spirit of accommodation. All, or nearly all, of these
associations celebrated mysteries or sacred dramas based on the
same lines as the Eleusinian and setting forth, it would seem,
the passion, death, and resurrection of some god. These
plays, when we consider the relatively slender number of the
26initiates and the limited means at their disposal, must generally
have been acted with maimed and abbreviated rites in
which a good deal was left to the imagination of the beholder.
But this very fact must have set the always curious and inquisitive
Greeks upon enquiry into the nature and origin of the
scenes thus indicated rather than acted, and this in its turn
must have led to many discussions and explanations of the gods
there portrayed. For such conversations, too, there must have
been far greater opportunities in the case of those thiasi,
orgeones, or erani (as these associations were called), where
members were few and in the habit of meeting each other daily
than with the Eleusinian rites which were celebrated only once
or twice a year and then in the presence of a huge crowd
dispersed immediately after to the different parts of the Hellenic
world. It is hardly putting it too strongly to say that anything
like propagandism must have been confined to the smaller
societies.
To sum up, then, Alexander united the whole civilized
world for the first time under a single head and gave to it a
common language and culture. By the natural gifts of his
extraordinary personality, he at the same time set before it a
perfect model of kingship and thus ensured the persistence of
the monarchical principle for two millenia. This, his conscious
work, had a direct effect on the evolution of monotheism,
while in other respects his conquests proved the turning point
in the history of religions. By breaking down the barriers
which racial and lingual divisions had hitherto set up between
different nations of the earth, these conquests led to a great
fusion of the religions hitherto professed by them, and thus
opened the door to the world-religions which were afterwards
to share between them his vast Empire. Before his coming
we see the ancient world divided into separate communities
each with its own pantheon and forms of worship and neither
knowing nor caring greatly about those of its neighbours. But
immediately after, all this is changed. The interchange of
ideas between East and West has thrown the different religions
of the world as it were into a melting-pot, in which the germs
of a different grouping of the human race are dimly visible. The
27spirit of proselytism is abroad, and man now wants to impress
his own ideas of the Divine upon his fellows. Above all, we
see the beginning of those great associations of mankind for
religious purposes which are henceforth to be the principal
factors in the world’s history, and whose evolution has continued
unchecked down to the present day. All those that
followed Alexander were in this respect nothing more than his
conscious or unconscious imitators. The great princes and
generals who after his death parted his Empire among them,
and the Romans who gradually ate up the fragments left to
these princes’ effete descendants, could but carry on the work
set on foot by the Great Conqueror. As Mr Hogarth has said,
very little that he did was ever undone, and for good or
ill, he has taken his place among the immortals[102]. Thus, from
the scientific point of view, there is none among the forerunners
of Christianity who did more to prepare and make ready its
way than Alexander.
CHAPTER II THE ALEXANDRIAN DIVINITIES
28
When Alexander’s marshals began immediately after his
death to divide his Empire among them, and Ptolemy the son
of Lagos claimed and received for his share the province of
Egypt, his more ambitious fellows must have smiled at his
moderation. Egypt was an acquisition that had never been
properly assimilated by the Persians, and although subjugated
by Cambyses very early in their history, had more than once
broken out into successful rebellion. Its inhabitants, then as
now, were a race separated from the rest of the world by
peculiarities of climate, devotedly attached to their own traditional
institutions, and bitterly and obstinately hostile to the
foreigner. Moreover, the enormous resources of the country
were undeveloped, the importance of its new capital of
Alexandria as the natural entrepôt of trade between East and
West[103] had not then been made manifest, and the agricultural
wealth which was afterwards to make Egypt the granary of
Europe had been ruined by civil commotions and foreign
invasions. Although Alexander was hailed by the Egyptians
as a deliverer, and, like other conquerors before and after
him, found little difficulty in coming to terms with the
colleges of greedy and unpatriotic priests who were ready
to welcome any foreign master so long as their own position
was assured[104], he seems to have felt less interest in the unwarlike
and servile fellahin than in the free warriors of Bactria and India
who had fought so gallantly against him. Hence, he paid little
29attention to their government, and Cleomenes, the ruler he had
set over Egypt, thus found himself free to practise extortion
on a scale which would certainly have brought down upon him
the condign vengeance of his master had it taken place further
east[105]. Or perhaps the Great Conqueror, among whose gifts
the habit of attending to everything in its turn must certainly
be reckoned, thought it well to let all things grow together till
the harvest, in the consciousness that the campaign in Arabia,
on which he was bent when struck down by the fatal fever,
would bring him close to the confines of Egypt and therefore
in a position to investigate on the spot the complaints against
Cleomenes which had already come to his ears. Be this as it
may, one of Ptolemy’s first acts on reaching his satrapy was to
seize Cleomenes and to put him to death, a proceeding which
had, we learn, the full approval of his new subjects. This was
but the earliest of a long list of benefits which his rule was to
confer upon them, and which under his successors were to raise
Egypt to a greater height of prosperity than she had ever enjoyed
under her native Pharaohs.
It soon became evident also, that in choosing Egypt for his
portion Ptolemy knew very well what he was about. While
its western frontier was the Libyan desert and its southern
was guarded by the cataracts, its northern coast was so badly off
for harbours as to make it difficult to attack by sea, and it
was practically unassailable from the east save at the Pelusiac
or Port Said mouth of the Nile, and then only by an enemy
marching through Syria[106]. Ptolemy, therefore, had ample time
to consolidate his power by annexing Cyrene, making friends
in his turn with the Egyptian priesthoods, and spending the
money raised by Cleomenes’ exactions in the enlistment of
an army of mercenaries[107]. He also waylaid the body of Alexander
on its way to the tombs of the Macedonian kings at Aegae,
and installed it in a splendid sepulchre called the Sema at
30Alexandria, thereby securing to himself, in the opinion of the
time, a talisman of great power[108]. It was not long before the
wisdom of these preparations was put to the proof; for, two
years after Alexander’s death, Perdiccas, the Regent of the
Empire, had the new satrap tried in his absence for treason,
and led a great army out of Asia Minor by way of Damascus
to attack him. He found Ptolemy waiting for him in force at
Pelusium, and after some of the royal troops had gone over to
the enemy, and those under Perdiccas in person had suffered
a severe repulse near Bubastis, Perdiccas was deposed and
murdered[109]. The new settlement of the Empire which followed
at Triparadeisos confirmed Ptolemy in the possession of Egypt,
and left him in comparative peace to organize a kingdom which
only ended three centuries later with Cleopatra[110].
Of the able and statesmanlike measures which Ptolemy took
towards this end, only one need concern us here. The plan may
have been Alexander’s own, for no one was more likely to know
Alexander’s later mind than Ptolemy, who had been his master’s
companion from his youth, had shared his exile when banished
by Philip, and had distinguished himself in India as one of his
most trusted lieutenants. It is not impossible that among
Alexander’s plans for the government of his Empire, a religion
common to both Greek and barbarian may have been included;
for it is difficult otherwise to explain the active part that he
took in the different religious observances of all his subjects,
while the constant inquisitiveness concerning them which he
showed can hardly have been merely archaeological[111]. At all
events, soon after Ptolemy found himself secure in the possession
of Egypt, he set himself to work to found a religion that
should unite both his Greek and his Egyptian subjects in the
bonds of a common faith. At first sight, no two things can
seem more dissimilar than the religions of the two nations;
but there was one point where they drew very near to each
other, and it was to this that Ptolemy addressed himself.
31Now religion in Egypt had always been very much in the
hands of a professional priesthood who here, as elsewhere in
Africa, formed organized corporations greedy for political sway,
and sometimes proved more powerful than the king himself[112].
So far as the monuments show, the first of these corporations
in point of time was that of the worshippers of the sun-god Ra,
the chief seat of whose worship was Annu, On, or Heliopolis
in the Delta. Its members were apparently the religious
advisers of the Vth or Pyramid-building Dynasty, and to them
must be attributed the earliest or Heliopolitan recension of
the Book of the Dead engraved on the walls of the chambers in
the Saqqarah Pyramids. This corporation seems to have
flourished unchecked until the Hyksos conquest, but was succeeded,
when the invaders were cast out, by that of the priests
of Amen of Thebes who, after crushing the “heresy” or religious
revolt of King Amenhotep IV, gradually became the supreme
power in the state, and established the theocracy or rule of the
priest-kings, under which Egypt went rapidly down the hill.
The decadence was stayed for a time by an uprising of the
Libyan mercenaries, who placed their leader Sheshonq or
Shishak, Solomon’s suzerain, upon the throne, and thus founded
the XXIInd Dynasty. The deposed corporation of Amen thereupon
transferred themselves to Ethiopia or Nubia, where they
established a theocracy on the model of that at Thebes, and
whence they returned later with an army of Sudanese to again
enslave their native country. But Piankhi and his Ethiopians
found themselves unable to rule Egypt from Napata, and when
they finally retired behind the Cataracts, there was a brief but
brilliant revival of old Egyptian ideas under the Saite or Philhellene
kings of the Delta, who called in Greek and Carian
mercenaries to the support of their throne. It was in their
time that Herodotus visited the country, and Egypt began
32again to play its part in the stirring events then fast coming
upon Western Asia. It seems probable also that under them,
the religious corporations, among whom the priests of Ptah of
Memphis, one of the oldest of the gods of Egypt, for the first
time take a prominent place, regained the influence which they
had never wholly lost. Then came the Persian invasion, and
although Egypt made more than one successful attempt to shake
off the yoke of the foreigners, it was at last riveted firmly on her
neck. After the flight of Nectanebo, the last king of the XXXth
Dynasty, she was never again ruled by a prince of Egyptian
blood[113].
During this long period—which is often quoted, not without
reason, as the classic instance of the evils attending the Priest
in Power—the mass of the Egyptian people had clung firmly
to the worship of one god whose vogue goes back to very early
times. While the rich and powerful were raising temples to
Ra and Amen and showering wealth upon their priesthoods, the
poorer classes remained faithful to Osiris and the gods of his
cycle with such effect that most of the other divinities found
it necessary to include him in their own cults. In the very earliest
recension of the Book of the Dead, we find Osiris invoked together
with Ra in a way that gives no hint that one has any
superiority over the other[114]; in the great recension of the XVIIIth
Dynasty, Osiris and Ra, already made into the “king of the
gods” by his union with Amen, are said to have “joined souls”
and become one[115]; and in the Saitic period, Osiris became united
with Ptah and a very ancient divinity called Seker, in a triune
deity called Ptah-Seker-Osiris to whom everyone looked for
happiness after death[116]. So, when the bull Apis came to be
33adored, he was said to be the “life of Osiris,” meaning probably
his earthly incarnation[117], and there is fairly good evidence that
Osiris had long before absorbed into himself the personality
of several older deities, such as Khent-Amentit “Lord of
Amenti,” and Apuat “the opener of the ways[118].” It is plain,
therefore, that the practice of theocrasia which we have seen
rife among the Greeks was known to the Egyptians from the
very earliest times[119]. Yet, all this was effected without there
ever having been a special priesthood or college of priests of
Osiris such as undoubtedly existed in the case of Ra, Amen,
and probably Ptah. It seems really a case of the survival of
the fittest, or, in other words, of the choice by the Egyptian
people of the worship of the god best suited to their wants, in
spite of the well-meant attempts of their rulers to draw their
attention to other deities.
The reason for this obstinacy of choice is perhaps to be found
in the legend or myth of Osiris, which was at once more consistent
and more direct in its appeal to human sympathies than
those handed down concerning the other gods of Egypt. We are
told that Osiris was the first-born of Nut the sky-goddess by
Geb the earth-god, that he appeared upon earth as a man among
men, and became king of Egypt, which he ruled wisely and well,
teaching the Egyptians the art of agriculture, giving them just
laws, and instructing them in the proper worship of the gods.
Later, he travelled over the whole earth, civilizing and subduing
the nations not by force of arms but by persuasion and especially
by the art of music which he took with him. On his return,
he was entrapped and murdered by his jealous brother Set or
Typhon who, with the aid of seventy-two conspirators and an
Ethiopian queen called Aso, shut him up in a coffin and threw
him into the Nile, by which his body was carried out to sea.
34We further learn that his sister-wife Isis, who had reigned in
his stead during his absence, mourned greatly for his loss and
wandered far and wide seeking and lamenting him, until she
heard from some children that the coffin containing his remains
had been carried away by the Tanitic mouth of the Nile. Following
this, she found that it had been washed ashore at Byblus
in Phoenicia and had been overgrown by a magnificent tamarisk,
which the king of the country had had cut down and made into
the roof-tree or pillar supporting his house. Then Isis disguised
herself as a servant and became the nurse of the king’s son,
whom she would have made immortal but for the timidity of
his mother, who cried out when she saw the child surrounded
by the flames which were to burn away his mortality. On this,
the goddess revealed herself, took away the pillar containing the
coffin, and attempted to revive the corpse that it contained
by her embrace. Afterwards, she gave birth to her son Horus,
whom she destined from his cradle to be the avenger of his father.
Meanwhile, the murderer Set had seized the throne of Egypt,
and while hunting by moonlight came across the corpse of
Osiris, which he tore into fourteen pieces, and scattered them
throughout the land. Consequently Isis, who was at the time
visiting Horus at nurse in her city of Buto, had to begin again
her wanderings, sailing over the swamps in a boat of papyrus,
and burying the fragments of the body of Osiris wherever she
found them. One part, however, she could not find, this having
been thrown into the Nile and devoured by fishes; and henceforth
Osiris became king of the Underworld, where he rules
for ever over the dead, welcoming those who successfully win
through the ordeal of the judgment that all must undergo,
and providing for them a happy life like that which the rich
live on earth, in which agriculture plays a prominent part.
Then Horus grew up to man’s estate, and having provided
himself with horse, fought three desperate battles with Set,
many of whose followers came over to him. But, although
he defeated his foe, he did not put an end to his existence, and
Set still lives, haunting the deserts and wild places, and even,
according to one variant of the story, ruling for a time over the
south of Egypt (or perhaps only a part of it), while the sway of
35Horus over the north remained unchallenged. As for the other
gods of the cycle, Nephthys, the twin sister and reflection of Isis,
was the wife of Set, but preferred to throw in her lot with Osiris,
by whom she had a son, Anubis the jackal, the messenger of Osiris,
who possessed many of the attributes of the Greek Hermes. So,
too, Thoth, the ibis, was the judge who pronounced, or perhaps
merely recorded, the final partition or arrangement between
Horus and Set, and most of the other members of the Egyptian
Pantheon were brought into the cycle one way or the other.
This is the legend of Osiris, as we find it in the tract de Iside
et Osiride, which is generally attributed to Plutarch and was
certainly written in the first century A.D. It has not been met
with earlier in a connected form; but its main incidents are
sufficiently corroborated by the monuments of the time to convince
us that it fairly represents the popular belief of the
Egyptians during the Ptolemaic period[120]. Plutarch, or the
writer who assumed his name, gives us more than one explanation
of it coupled with analogies drawn from other mythologies,
which exhibit considerable archaeological knowledge and show
us how far the comparative study of religions had proceeded
even in his time. When he fails, it is generally from lack of
acquaintance with the earlier forms of the religions of Egypt,
which had evidently become in those days as much a mystery
to the priests as to their flocks, and which the labours of modern
Egyptologists have but recently begun to recover for us. Looked
at by their light, and stripped of its many transparent inconsistencies
and anachronisms, it seems plain that the story is
not simple but compound, and represents an attempt to fuse
together the religious ideas either of different peoples or of the
same people at different stages of culture[121]. In the first place,
36we see in it the animal gods of Egypt—Horus the falcon, Set
the unknown animal or scha sacred to him, Anubis the jackal,
and Thoth the ibis—whom we now know to have been the totems
or rallying-signs of the different tribes who invaded Egypt,
probably from other parts of Africa, in predynastic times.
The Sches-Hor or Followers of Horus are so often alluded to
in early dynastic texts that there can be no doubt that the
tribe who had the falcon for their banner were originally the
royal or leading tribe of these invaders. The memory of this
fact was preserved in the custom, going back to the beginning
of the Ist Dynasty, which assigned to the ruler of Egypt on
his coronation a special name differing from that by which he
was usually known, and borne in a rectangle representing the
façade or front of a palace surmounted by a hawk[122]. Recent
excavations at Abydos in Upper Egypt have shown that this
custom was only once broken in the long course of Egyptian
history, when a king of the IInd or IIIrd Dynasty, whose
name is read Perabsen, cast out the falcon from above the
srekh or rectangle containing his “hawk” or Horus name,
and crowned it instead with the animal representing Set.
This breach of conventional usage—whether significant of a
political or a religious revolution or of some predominating
foreign influence cannot be exactly determined—was healed by
his immediate successor Khasekhmui, who bore both the falcon
and the Set-animal above his srekh with an inscription proclaiming
himself “He who has caused the two gods to be at
peace”; after which the rulers of Egypt returned to the hawk-crowned
srekh, which was never again abandoned down to the
last-known example under the Roman emperors. We may
assume then that the fundamental stratum of the Osiris legend
was a tradition more or less historical which preserved the
memory of a struggle for supremacy occurring in the earliest
historical times between the tribes represented by Horus and
Set respectively. As the horse was a late comer into Egypt, and
seems to have been introduced there by the Bedouins of the
Sinaitic peninsula, where Perabsen’s predecessors left their
37inscriptions, we may even read into it the statement that,
while the Horus or falcon tribe were helped in the war by
Bedouin cavalry, the followers of Set sought aid from the
Nubian or “Ethiopian” tribes above the Cataracts[123].
To this foundation, however, there must have been added
a myth conceived by a race in possession of a much higher
degree of culture and greater imaginative powers than any
with which the predynastic or protodynastic Egyptians can
be credited. The earliest gods of Egypt of whom we have any
record were, as we have seen, either animals or inanimate objects,
a fact which is sufficiently explained by their totemic origin[124].
But spread throughout the basin of the Mediterranean, we find
from the earliest times the worship of a god who was from his
birth never anything but a man and a man who suffered a
veritable death and passion before his resurrection and deification.
Thus, in Crete we have the legend of the infant Zagreus,
son of Zeus and Persephone, who was treacherously seized by
the earth-born Titans, torn in pieces, and devoured, but was
afterwards reborn as Dionysos to reign over gods and men[125]. So,
too, in Cyprus, Syria, and Phoenicia, we hear of Adonis, the
lover of Aphrodite, done to death by the boar’s tusk, but returning
yearly from the shades to spend part of the year with his
mistress. In Asia Minor, again, was told the story of Atys,
lover of Cybele, mother of the gods, who fatally mutilated
himself in a fit of madness, but after death was resuscitated,
and thereafter reigned with Cybele over all Nature. All these
three legends bear too close a resemblance to that of Osiris for
the four to have grown up independently, and although the
point is not free from doubt, it is improbable that Egypt was
38the source from which the others were derived[126]. No direct
connection in ancient times can be traced between Egypt and
the inland country of Phrygia, which seems to be the birthplace
of the majority of these legends; while it is of great importance
to remember that Isis, Osiris’ queen and sister, is represented
in the early Egyptian myths as merely a magician or witch
cunning in spells[127], whereas in the Phrygian and Syrian legends
the consort of the dying god is the “mother of all living” or
in other words Nature herself. It seems therefore probable
that the legend of Osiris, like so many other things in Egypt,
was African as to its body, but Asiatic or European as to its
head.
It was therefore natural that in this legend of Osiris, Ptolemy
should find the desired point of contact between the religions
of the Egyptians and the Greeks. The religious institution
which commanded the most respect among the Greeks of his
time was undoubtedly the Mysteries of Eleusis[128], which were
yearly celebrated with a circumstance that drew upon them the
attention of the whole Hellenic world. Messengers went forth
every year from Eleusis to all countries where Athenians could
be found, to proclaim the Sacred Truce that was to ensure
peace during the celebration of the Mysteries. Then on the
appointed day in September, enormous numbers of Greeks from
all parts of the world gathered together in Athens for a festival
that lasted for nearly two weeks. First came the assembly of
the worshippers and the proclamation of the hierophant that
none but those unpolluted by crime and of intelligible speech
(i.e. not barbarians) might take part in the Mysteries. Then
39followed the solemn procession when the sacred objects, upon
which none but the initiated might look, were brought from
Eleusis under strong guard and lodged in the Eleusinion at the
foot of the Acropolis, their arrival being formally notified to
the priestess of Athena, the tutelary deity of the city. Next
was made the proclamation of “To the sea, the initiates!”
when all who were to take part in the ceremonies descended
to the harbour of Phalerum[129] to wash themselves and the
animals intended for sacrifice in the salt water, in the belief
that, as Euripides said, “Sea-waves wash away all sin.” After
a time spent in sacrificing and austerities very proper for
bringing the worshippers into a receptive state of mind, there
was formed the long procession which paced the Sacred Way,
twelve miles long, from Athens to Eleusis, beguiling the road
with hymns and choruses addressed to Iacchos, the infant
Dionysos[130], who was supposed to lead the procession from his
Athenian temple, the Iaccheion, with a pause at the bridge
over the Cephisus, where the crowd exchanged coarse jokes and
sarcasms in a manner peculiarly Attic. Then came the arrival
by night of the procession at the Telesterion or Hall of Initiations
at Eleusis, the sky above which was made light by the glare of
the torches[131]. There, after more sacrifices, a sacred banquet,
in which it is not impossible that the mystic cyceon or consecrated
drink was partaken of, and sacrifices in the temples of
Demeter, of Hades, and of Persephone with which the Hall was
surrounded, the initiates were shown a sacred drama, like the
mystery-plays of the Middle Ages, acted by the priests of the
cult, whose office, contrary to the custom of Greek cults generally,
was confined to two families in which it was hereditary and
highly paid. This drama, the details of which were kept strictly
secret and can only be gathered from hints appearing in writers
40of a comparatively late date, seems to have set forth the Rape
of Persephone, daughter of Demeter the earth-goddess, who
was known and worshipped throughout Greece and her colonies
as the teacher of agriculture and giver of laws to mortals. The
initiates saw “with their own eyes” the capture of Persephone,
when playing with her companions in the sunny fields of Eleusis[132],
by Hades or Pluto the king of the dead, who takes her to his
own gloomy abode beneath the earth, and the wanderings of
Demeter in search of her lost child. Then they were shown
how Demeter came to the house of Celeus, king of Eleusis, how
she became nurse to the king’s child Demophoon, and was
detected by his mother attempting to burn away his mortal
part in the way which the Egyptian legend attributed to Isis[133].
The next act, probably reserved for epopts or initiates of the
second year only, exhibited the union of Zeus with Demeter[134],
and the birth from the latter of a mysterious child in whom
some see the Iacchos who conducted the procession from Athens
to Eleusis, but who was certainly Dionysos in one or other of
his forms[135]. We know also that the initiates took part in
41wanderings in dark passages and over obstacles and difficulties,
which were supposed to give them an idea of the sufferings of
the uninitiated dead in the next world, and that they were then
restored to upper air in a blaze of brilliant light, were shown the
mysterious objects brought with such care from Eleusis to Athens
and back again, were given a glimpse of the beatitudes awaiting
the dead who had been initiated in their lifetime, and were at the
same time instructed in certain mysterious phrases or formulas
which it seems fair to conclude they were to treasure as passwords
through the realms of Hades[136]. It seems probable from
this that the initiates were supposed to accompany Hermes the
Psychopomp or “leader of souls” as the messenger of Zeus
to the underworld, there to accomplish the deliverance of
Persephone and to witness her restoration to the heavenly
regions where she was again united to her sorrowing mother.
Finally, there appeared Triptolemus, Celeus’ son and Demeter’s
pupil, setting out in his car drawn by serpents to spread the
knowledge of agriculture throughout the world, “an ear of corn
reaped in silence” being, as we learn from a Christian writer,
the “mighty and wonderful and most perfect mystery”
exhibited to the highest degree of initiates[137].
It will be noticed that we have spoken hitherto of initiates;
for none might enter the Telesterion unless they had previously
been initiated, and two young Acarnanians who unwittingly
did so were formally tried for sacrilege and put to death[138]. This
initiation, or entry into the ranks of those privileged to behold
these wonderful sights, began at the Little Mysteries, which
were celebrated six or seven months before the Great or
Eleusinian Mysteries properly so called, at Agra on the left bank
of the Ilissus. These mysteries of Agra were under the control
of the same sacred families as the Mysteries of Eleusis, for which
42they formed a necessary preparation. They were kept, if
possible, even more strictly secret than the Great Mysteries,
and the only direct evidence that has come down to us as to
their nature tells us that they also took the form of a sacred
drama, and that the scenes there enacted were taken from the
legend of Dionysos[139]. This Dionysos, however, was not in the
first instance the Theban god of wine born from Semele and
celebrated by the poets, but his Cretan namesake Dionysos
Zagreus or “the hunter,” who was said to have been begotten
by Zeus in the form of a serpent upon his own daughter Persephone,
and while still a child was, as has been mentioned above,
torn in pieces by the earth-born Titans from jealousy at hearing
that the child was to be made the ruler of the world. It was
also said that the scattered members of the baby-god were
collected by Demeter, put together and revivified, a myth which
late researches seem to show was alluded to in the Anthesteria,
a festival celebrated in the Dionysion at Athens in the same
Anthesterion or “flower month” as the Little Mysteries.
There is much reason to think that the Anthesteria showed
forth in a manner unintelligible to the beholders unless otherwise
acquainted with the details of the legend, the putting-together
of the different members—said to be fourteen in
number—of the infant Dionysos, his subsequent resurrection,
and his marriage with a priestess called “the Queen” who doubtless
represented Demeter or Persephone. The inference seems
unavoidable that it was some part of this legend that was acted
in a manner impossible to misunderstand or mistake before the
eyes of those admitted to the Little Mysteries[140].
43We see then that between the legend of Osiris as told by
Plutarch and the legend of Eleusis as set forth in the Mysteries
there were resemblances so close as to make it almost impossible
that one should not be derived from the other, unless we are
prepared to consider them as having a common origin. As
Osiris was torn into fourteen pieces, so was Dionysos, the
difference in the agents of this “diaspasm,” as it was called,
being due to the exigencies of Egyptian traditional history.
The wanderings of Isis, again, find an exact parallel in those
of Demeter, the object of the search differing slightly in the two
cases, while the mysterious birth of Horus, the successor of
Osiris, corresponds point for point with that of Dionysos in his
second form of Iacchos. That both stories may have had their
source in the folk-lore explaining the phenomena of the annual
decay and rebirth of vegetation, Dr Frazer has shown with
great attention to detail in The Golden Bough and elsewhere[141] to
be possible; but this was too philosophical an idea for the
sixth century B.C., when the Mysteries of Eleusis were founded
or reduced to order[142]. Herodotus, a century later, no doubt
expressed the views of the learned of his day when he asserted
that the worship of Dionysos was brought into Greece from
Egypt[143], and among modern scholars M. Foucart, who has done
more than anyone to collate the few relics that remain to us
of the Eleusinian worship, fully supports him in this. It
44is therefore plain that the resemblances between the Dionysiae
and the Egyptian worship were many and salient. Hence
Ptolemy found his way clear when he invited Timotheos the
Eumolpid, a member of one of the sacred families in which the
Eleusinian priesthood was, as has been said, hereditary, and
associated with him the Egyptian priest Manetho in the task
of founding a religion which should be common to Egyptians
and Greeks alike[144].
In framing this new religion, the first care of the king and
his advisers was evidently to avoid shocking the religious and
artistic feelings of the Greeks. Ptolemy Soter’s position seems
to have been much like that of a modern Governor-General
of India; for, while he was not only tolerant but careful of the
religious susceptibilities of the native Egyptians, his own Court
remained in everything predominantly or exclusively Greek.
In Alexandria, the site of which under the native Pharaohs
had been the small fishing village of Rhacotis, he had practically
virgin soil, in which it is doubtful whether any Egyptian
temple existed, and it was consequently, as Alexander intended
it should be, in all respects a Greek city. Greek was the language
there spoken, and it was to the care taken by Alexandrian
scholars to preserve the language and literature of Hellas in
its native purity, that we are indebted for most of what we know
of the classic tongue at its best. Its large garrison consisted
almost entirely of Greek soldiers drilled and armed in the Macedonian
fashion, and to the great University or Museum, which
Ptolemy’s munificence founded for the sustentation of scholars,
there flocked learned men from every part of the Hellenic
world[145]. Here, indeed, was the first instance of the endowment
45of research; and the experiment had important results for most
of the modern sciences, not excluding that transmutation of
metals which made such wild work among some of the best
brains of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but which Sir
William Ramsay has lately shown to be more capable of accomplishment
than could have been expected from an alchemist’s
dream. At the Museum, Eratosthenes, “the Inspector of the
Earth,” first set on foot the serious study of geography,
Hipparchus laid the sure foundations of the modern science
of astronomy, and Hero invented the first steam engine. The
investigation of those secondary laws by which their insight
perceived nature to be governed was indeed the constant
occupation of King Ptolemy’s “stuffed capons,” as Timon of
Phlya contemptuously called them[146]. But these philosophers
would have been the first to receive with scorn the proposition
that anyone should be asked to worship the “brutish gods”
of Egypt under those animal forms in which they had long been
known to the more simple minded Egyptians. Osiris, the
“bull of Amenti,” as he is called in the early texts, was
worshipped under the actual form of the bull Apis at Memphis
and as a ram or goat at Mendes. Isis was often portrayed with
the cow’s head which commemorated one of the incidents of
her myth as set forth by Plutarch. Horus, who was in fact
an older god than either of them, was, as the totem of the royal
tribe of the first invaders, worshipped at Edfu and elsewhere
as a hawk, and although the Egyptian priests kept up as long
as possible the distinction between this “Horus the elder”
and Horus the son of Isis, it is certain that their Greek worshippers
saw no difference between the two. While Timotheos
was doubtless willing to recognize the Eleusinian deities, of
whose worship his family were the traditional guardians, in the
Egyptian triad of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, he must have been
sure that he could not ask his art-loving countrymen to do
them homage in the guise of beasts or birds.
46The difficulty was got over in a way that was characteristic
enough. The theocrasia or fusion of one god with another
which we have seen playing such a prominent part in the
religion of both Egyptians and Greeks, was of the very essence
of the religion of Eleusis. At no time from the earliest mention
of the Eleusinian worship onwards, is it possible to draw any
sharp dividing line between Demeter and her daughter Persephone,
or as Mr Louis Dyer rather flamboyantly puts it, Demeter
and Persephone were at Eleusis “regarded as one, being so
filled with mutual love that all barriers between them melted
away[147].” “Excepting,” he says again, “in her days of thoughtless
youth, Demeter’s Persephone is Demeter’s self twice told,”
and the same dogma seems to have been prematurely revealed
by Xenophanes of Colophon, who was exiled for his declaration
that all the gods of his fellow-countrymen were but varying
forms of the one deity. This identity of the goddesses of Eleusis
must have been constantly present to the mind of the Greeks,
who hardly ever spoke of Demeter and Persephone save as
“the Goddesses Twain” or as the Mother-and-Daughter. But
this was only the first step in what was called without circumlocution
the “mystic theocrasia[148],” which went so far as to include
in the persons of the Eleusinian deities nearly all the gods
of the Hellenic pantheon. In the original Cretan legend, the
infant Dionysos is the son of Zeus, whom he is destined to succeed
upon his throne, as Zeus had succeeded in the Homeric myths
his father Kronos, and this last, his father Ouranos. But the
Zeus of Eleusis was by no means the Zeus of Olympos whom
Homer hails as “father of gods and men,” but who had to yield
the empire of the seas to his brother Poseidon and that of the
netherworld to his brother Hades. Originally known at Eleusis
47as “the God” only, as Demeter with or without her daughter
was called “the Goddess,” the Eleusinian god was also invoked
as Zeus Chthonios or the infernal Zeus, called by euphemism
Zeus Eubuleus (Zeus of Good Counsel), Pluto (Bringer of Riches)
and other similar names[149]. But by whatever name he was called,
he was always the king of the dead, and was thus again brought
near to Dionysos, whom Heraclitus of Ephesus, two centuries
before Alexander, had declared to be the same god as Hades,
lord of the netherworld[150]. In this double capacity, Dionysos
was therefore the brother, father, and spouse of his consort
Demeter, of whom he was also the child. He might therefore
be considered one of the first instances known in the history
of religions as a god who was, according to the way in which
he was regarded, either father or son[151]. Nor did the theocrasia
stop here. The Asiatic forms of Dionysos, whether we call
them Atys, Adonis or by any other name, were often represented
as of both sexes, a doctrine which is also denoted by
Dionysos’ Orphic epithet of Mise, and led to his being portrayed
in effeminate shape[152]. Hence, Dionysos and Demeter or Persephone
might be regarded as the God under both the male and
female aspect. Moreover, Zeus was said to have ordered the
corpse of Dionysos to be buried at Delphi, where secret ceremonies
were celebrated in connection with it by five priests
called Hosioi; and this seems to have led to the idea common
48to the classic poets Pindar, Aeschylus, and Euripides, that
Dionysos and Apollo were different forms of the same god, a
theory which is expressly confirmed by Plutarch[153]. But Apollo
“the Far-Darter” was always to the Greeks a sun-god, and
Horus from the first had the same character among the Egyptians,
the emblem of the sun-disk being often added to the Horus-hawk
of their protocol by the Pharaohs of the New Empire.
Thus the identification of the gods of the Osiris cycle with their
Greek analogues was complete. It was agreed that Osiris was
to be represented as the Greek Hades, Isis as Demeter, and the
child Horus as Apollo. Herodotus and probably other Greek
writers had long before made the same identifications[154].
This settled, the question of the material forms under which
the triad was to be worshipped by Ptolemy’s new subjects
became easy. A convenient dream, so runs the story told in
Roman times, revealed to the king the existence of a statue of
Hades or Pluto at Sinope in Pontus that was exactly fitted to
his purpose[155]. It is said to have been of colossal size, the work
of Bryaxis, the fellow-worker of Scopas, and to have been
composed of a mixture of the most precious metals with fragments
of gems, the whole being coloured with a dark varnish.
This statue was given up by—or according to another version
was stolen from—the city of Sinope, and was installed with great
pomp in the magnificent temple or Serapeum built for it at
Alexandria, which for centuries formed one of the wonders of
49the Hellenistic world. It doubtless formed the model for all
the later representations of the new god called henceforth
Serapis (in Egyptian, Asar-hapi or Osiris in his manifestation as
Apis), which resemble each other in all important particulars.
They show a bearded man of mature age, whose features have
much of the majesty and dignity of the Phidian Zeus. On his
head he wears the modius, a crown of basket-work on which
are sometimes represented olive trees and which is said to be
a reproduction of the calathos or consecrated basket carried
in the sacred procession to Eleusis, and doubtless possessed
for the initiated some mystical or symbolical meaning[156]. He
is generally represented with an eagle at his feet, and by the side
of him appears a triple monster which may perhaps represent
the classical Cerberus with a serpent twisted round its body
and equipped with the heads of a lion, a dog, and a wolf. It
seems, therefore, that in choosing this statue the founders of
the Alexandrian religion had quite turned their backs on the
lighter and more joyous aspects of the mystic Dionysos, and
intended to regard him as the god of the dead merely[157]. The
same was not the case with his consort Isis, who is generally
represented as a young matron of stately appearance having
sometimes the crescent moon on her head, and sometimes a
crown of lotus flowers interspersed with ears of corn. She is
dressed in a fringed tunic reaching to her feet, having over her
shoulders a mantle tied by its ends between the breasts in a
peculiar knot. In one hand she bears the sistrum or rattle used
in her worship, and in the other a horn of abundance or other
emblem, while the head is frequently covered by a long veil.
Both the attitude and the dress are always of the strictest
modesty, and the features wear an expression of gentle
50benevolence, in which it is possible to see a trace of melancholy.
The Alexandrian Horus is seldom represented otherwise than
in child form, the type being taken from the Egyptian Horus
known as Har-pa-khrat (Horus the Child) of which the Alexandrians
made Harpocrates. In this form he was represented
with his finger in his mouth in accordance with the usual
Egyptian ideogram for childhood, and this gave rise to the
story among the Greeks that he was the god of silence. Sometimes
he is shown with wings like the classical Eros, frequently
seated on the lotus or with the lotus flower on his head, and very
often with the hawk which formed his proper emblem[158]. He
was seldom represented in a group containing Serapis, although
bas-reliefs and statues showing Serapis and Isis together are
common; but groups representing Isis suckling Horus have
been found in some numbers. Generally it may be said that the
modius on the head is the distinguishing mark of the figure of
Serapis, the peculiar breast-knot that of Isis, while Horus can
seldom be recognized with certainty save by the gesture of the
forefinger in the mouth or, as the Greek artists preferred to represent
it, on the lips. From this time forward, the Alexandrian
Greeks could worship the chief deities of their native fellow-citizens
under forms which they felt to be worthy of the Divine.
Thus, the worship of the great Egyptian triad under their
Greek forms was inaugurated, as was our own English Reformation
in the sixteenth century, as a measure of statecraft, by
a king who hardly cared to conceal that in doing so he had only
his own interest to serve. Yet it may be said at once, that so
far as its political purpose was concerned, the Alexandrian
religion was from the outset foredoomed to failure. The
Egyptians of Philhellenic times were of all the nations of the
earth at once the most superstitious and the most fanatically
attached to their traditional modes of worship. Although
until the rise of the theocracy, the importation of foreign gods
was not unknown, under the Ethiopians, the Persians, and
Alexander, the Egyptians had not scrupled to sacrifice their
nationality to their religion, and to accept a foreign governor
51so long as the worship of their native gods under types that
had been observed by them for more than four millennia remained
untouched. How then could they be expected to recognize
their native deities in forms beautified and dignified by Greek
art indeed, but so foreign to all their traditional ideas that
nothing distinctly Egyptian about them remained?
To this question there could be but one answer, and it is
not extraordinary that the native Egyptians proved as recalcitrant
to their new king’s endeavour to unite them in a common
worship with their Greek masters as the Jews did under the
somewhat similar attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes. The
Egyptian priests allowed Ptolemy to set up at Memphis, which
had become since the ruin of Thebes the religious capital of the
country, a Serapeum, doubtless modelled on that of Alexandria,
by the side of the native temple established for the delectation
of the living Apis and for the solemn burial of his predecessors:
but they took care that it should be separated from the Egyptian
Serapeum by a long avenue of sphinxes, and that no Greek
prayers should ever be allowed to defile the purity of the native
Egyptian sanctuary[159]. Moreover, Egypt, resembling in this
perhaps all countries with strongly marked geographical
characteristics, has exhibited through all ages a wonderful
power of conquering her conquerors, or, in other words, of forcing
her foreign rulers to accept the ideas that they found there,
instead of adopting at their instance innovations on customs
consecrated by centuries of usage. Hence the Ptolemies, as
time went on, found it necessary to pay ever more and more
attention to the native Egyptian religion, and Ptolemy V
Epiphanes was crowned at Memphis, as is recorded on the
Rosetta Stone, with all the religious ceremonies that made him
in the eyes of the Egyptians the living Horus, son of the sun-god,
the beloved of Ptah and the rest, as fully as any of the
ancient Pharaohs[160]. All the Ptolemies, too, seem to have spent
52very considerable sums on the restoration and keeping-up of
the temples in Egypt dedicated to such thoroughly native gods
as Amon of Thebes and Horus of Edfu, besides those at Philae
and elsewhere raised not to the Alexandrian but to the Egyptian
Osiris and his cycle. What truth there is in the statement
of Macrobius that Ptolemy Soter compelled by “tyranny”
the Egyptians to take Serapis into their temples, it is impossible
to say; but as his image in Greek form has never been found
in any of them, it is plain that the priests must have found some
way of evading the royal order, if it were really given[161].
Ptolemy, however, was building better than he knew, and
the hybrid cult which the provident old soldier had fashioned
as an instrument of government turned out to be the first, and
not the least successful, of the world-religions for which Alexander’s
conquests left clear the way. During the wars of the
Diadochi, all the powers who at any time found themselves
Ptolemy’s pawns in the mighty war game then played on a
board stretching from India to Thrace, thought to curry favour
with their rich ally by giving countenance to his new religion.
An association of Sarapiasts or worshippers of Serapis held
their meetings in the Piraeus not long after the institution of
the Alexandrian cult[162]; and before the death of Ptolemy Soter,
a Serapeum was built in Athens over against the Acropolis
itself[163]. Cyprus, Rhodes, Antioch, Smyrna, and Halicarnassus
were not long in following suit, and before the end of the century
several of the islands of the Ægean together with Boeotia, which
was said by some to be the native country of Dionysos, had
adopted the new worship. In the second century B.C., the
temples of the Alexandrian gods were to be found in Delos,
Tenedos, Thessaly, Macedonia and the Thracian Bosphorus
in Europe, and in Ephesus, Cyzicus and Termessus among
53other places in Asia Minor[164]. But their greatest triumph was
awaiting them further west. Invited by Hiero II into Sicily,
they were not long in working their way up the coast, and a
hundred years before our era a temple to Serapis was in existence
at Puteoli[165]. It was evidently no new foundation and had
probably been built some fifty years earlier, at which date
perhaps the first Isium at Pompeii was also in existence[166].
Somewhere about 80 B.C., the Alexandrian worship was introduced
into Rome itself, and thereafter no action of the
authorities was able to expel it[167]. Its temples were more than
once thrown down by order of the consuls; but they were always
rebuilt, and in 43 B.C., the aedile Marcus Volusius, who had been
proscribed by the triumvirs, found the linen robe and the dog’s
head mask of a priest of Isis the most efficient disguise in which
to escape Sulla’s bravos[168]. Under the Empire, the temple of
Isis in the Campus Martius became one of the fashionable
resorts of the Roman youth; and, although Tiberius seized
the occasion of a real or pretended scandal in connection with
it to exile a large number of the faithful to Sardinia, his successors
were themselves initiated into the faith; while under
Nero the worship of the Alexandrian gods was formally recognized
by the state[169]. From that time, it followed the Roman
arms into every quarter of the ancient world, and its monuments
have been found in Morocco, Spain, France, Great Britain,
Germany, and the Danube provinces. Ridicule was as powerless
to stop its march as persecution, and the satire of Juvenal
and Martial had no more effect on it than the banter of the
New Comedy, which was quick to observe that even in
54Menander’s day the gilded youth of Athens swore “by Isis” or
“by Horus[170].” Under the Antonines, it probably reached its
apogee, when the Emperor Commodus appeared in the processions
of the cult among the bearers of the sacred images,
and few Romans seem to have been aware that the Alexandrian
gods were not Roman from the beginning. Like Ptolemy’s
master, Ptolemy’s gods might have boasted that they commanded
the allegiance of the whole civilized world[171].
The causes of this astonishing success must be looked for
within the religion itself. No name has come down to us of
any prophet or priest of the Alexandrian religion possessing
a commanding personality like St Paul, Mohammed, Luther,
or Calvin; and we must therefore conclude that it was its own
intrinsic merits which thus commended it to so many widely-differing
peoples[172]. Foremost among these was, it would seem,
its extraordinary timeliness. Alexander’s conquests had broken
down the barriers that speech and race had set up between
neighbouring peoples, and had at the same time united many
hundreds of jealous and discordant states under a single head.
In the many royal courts which had been set up as a result
of the partition of Alexander’s Empire, philosophers of every
school were chanting the political advantages of an enlightened
monarchy over the greedy scramble for place and power inseparable
from democracy, and the doctrine was bound sooner
or later to be applied to religion[173]. We have seen how far both
Egyptians and Greeks had before then carried the practice of
theocrasia, but the founders of the Alexandrian religion were
not slow in pushing it to its only legitimate conclusion. Serapis,
unlike the Greek Zeus, from the first declined to brook any
partition of his empire over nature. “Wouldst thou know
55what god I am,” said his oracle at the Alexandrian Serapeum
to Nicocreon, the Cypriote king. “I myself will tell thee.
The heavenly cosmos is my head; the sea my belly. My
feet are the earth; my ears are in the aether. My far-beaming
eye is the radiant light of the sun[174].” In other words, Serapis
is himself the universe, which is probably the meaning to be
attached to the name given to Osiris in the Book of the Dead
which Egyptologists translate “Lord of Totality.” But
Aeschylus had already said the same thing about Zeus[175], and
as the gods of the Greeks were never anything else than the
powers of nature, Serapis thus comprised in his single person
the whole Greek pantheon. Hence “Serapis alone is Zeus”
came to be a sort of watchword in the Alexandrian religion to
be endlessly repeated on statues, gems, and all the other material
relics of the cult[176]. A little later and we find Serapis drawing
to himself the worship of all the Mediterranean gods who had
a common origin with Osiris and Dionysos. Adonis, as appears
from the beautiful idyll of Theocritus, in the reign of Ptolemy
Soter’s successor was worshipped as another form of Osiris in
the royal palace itself[177]. Atys, Cybele’s lover, was also identified
with him[178]; and, as the Stoic philosophy, which taught that all
the gods were but different forms of the one Divine energy,
56came into fashion, Serapis was equated with the numerous
sun-gods whose worship poured in from the Semitic east.
“The eternal sun” came to be one of his most-used epithets,
and he is often invoked as the equivalent of the Greek Helios
and of the Persian sun-god Mithras[179]. Nor did his consort
long remain behind him. “I, the parent of the works of
nature” is the style in which Isis announces herself to her
votary Lucius in Apuleius’ romance,
“queen of all the elements, earliest offspring of the ages, highest of
godheads, sovereign of the Manes, first of the heavenly ones, one-formed
type of gods and goddesses. The luminous heights of heaven,
the health-giving breezes of the sea, the sad silences of the lower
world, I govern by my nod. I am she whose godhead, single in
essence, but of many forms, with varied rites and under many
names, the whole earth reveres. Hence the Phrygians, first born
of men, call me Pessinuntica, Mother of the Gods; here the first
inhabitants of Attica, Cecropian Minerva, there the wave-rocked
Cypriotes, Paphian Venus; the arrow-bearing Cretans, Diana
Dictynna; the three-tongued Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine; the
Eleusinians, the ancient goddess Ceres;—others Juno, others Bellona,
these Hecate, those Rhamnusia; and they who are lighted by
the first rays of the sun-god on his rising, the Ethiopians, the Africans,
and the Egyptians skilled in the ancient teaching, worshipping
me with ceremonies peculiarly my own, call me by my true name,
Queen Isis[180].”
As we shall see later (p. 64, infra) her spouse Osiris claimed
also to be the highest of godheads; and the final unity of the
Divine essence to which the μυστικὴ θεοκρασία was logically
bound to lead could hardly be stated in clearer language[181].
57Thus, we see that what has been called a monotheistic
pantheism instead of an incoherent mass of local worships was
one of the advantages of the Alexandrian cult. But in the
religion of the crowd, feeling plays a more important part than
reason, and the idea which it first gave mankind of what would
be now called the “fatherhood of God” was probably by far
its most alluring feature. It has frequently been said that the
Greeks although they feared, did not love their gods, and so
far as the Homeric deities are concerned, it is difficult to see why
they should. Apollo openly expresses his contempt for “pitiful
mortals, who like unto leaves now live in glowing life, consuming
the fruit of the earth, and now again pine unto death[182],”
Hera does not hide her scorn for “the creatures of a day,” and
the help that Athena gives the Greeks in their war against Troy
is expressly said to be due to no kindlier feeling than rage
at the slight which Paris had put upon her beauty[183]. As for
the Egyptian religion, if it ever exhibited the lofty conceptions
and sublime ideas with which the earlier Egyptologists were
inclined to credit it, it had long before Ptolemy’s time lost all
trace of them, and had degenerated into “a systematized
sorcery” in which the gods were compelled to grant merely
material benefits directly they were demanded with the proper
ritual[184]. But when we turn from the Greek and Egyptian
creeds to the new faith which was compounded from the two,
we are at once struck by the complete change which seems to
have come over the worshippers’ conception of the Divine.
Isis, from the wily magician of Pharaonic Egypt, has now become
“the haven of peace and the altar of pity[185].”
“O thou holy and eternal protectress of the race of men”
are the terms with which Lucius addresses her,
“thou who ever givest good gifts to comfort-needing mortals, thou
dost bestow upon the lot of the wretched the sweet affection of a
58mother. There is no day nor night nor smallest moment which is
not occupied with thy good deeds. Thou dost protect mankind by
sea and land, and scattering the storms of life dost stretch forth to
them thy saving hand, with which thou dost even spin anew the
hopelessly twisted web of the Fates, and dost temper the blasts of
fortune and restrain the hostile courses of the stars[186].”
So Ælius Aristides in his encomium of Serapis written after
having been saved from shipwreck, as he considered, by the
direct intervention of the god, tells us that Serapis is the god
who “purifies the soul with wisdom, and preserves the body
by giving it health[187],” that he alone
“is adored by kings as by private persons, by the wise as by the
foolish, by the great as by the small, and by those on whom he has
bestowed happiness as well as those who possess him alone as a
refuge from their trouble[188],”
that he is “the protector and saviour of all men[189],” “the most
loving of the gods towards men[190],” “greatly turned towards
mercy[191],” and “the light common to all men[192].” We hardly
want his elaborate demonstration that Serapis alone of all the
gods is ready to assist him who invokes him when in need, to
convince us that the reign of the warlike gods and goddesses
of Homer—always, as Renan says, brandishing a spear from
the top of an acropolis—is over, and that instead of them man
has at last found
... “Gods, the friends of man
Merciful gods, compassionate”
who would certainly “answer him again,” as a father would
his children.
The providence and beneficence of the Alexandrian gods
towards man, moreover, extended beyond the grave. In Homer,
we find a conception of the next world which for dreariness and
59hopelessness is only paralleled by the Jewish ideas concerning
Sheol. “Nay, speak not comfortably to me of death, great
Odysseus,” says the shade of Achilles to the hero who has
called him up from Hades. “Rather would I live upon the soil
as the hireling of another, even with a landless man who had
no great livelihood, than bear sway among all the dead who
are no more[193].” But the Eleusinian Mysteries were hailed as
giving deliverance from these horrors, and as robbing death of
much of its terrors for those who had been initiated. “Blessed
is he,” says Pindar in a passage in which commentators agree
to see a direct allusion to the Mysteries, “who has seen the
things that are under the earth. He has seen the end of life; he
has seen also the God-sent beginning[194].” “Thrice blessed,” says
Sophocles, “are they among mortals, who after having beheld
these mysteries, go to the house of Hades: for it is theirs alone
there to live, but to the others there will arrive all ills[195].” The
Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which may be about a century
earlier than Pindar, is as emphatic as he as to the saving grace of
initiation. “Happy,” it says, “is the man on earth who has
seen these things. But he who has not been initiated in these
holy rites, who has not shared in them, never has the same lot,
when he has utterly faded away in the dark gloom[196].” Those
who believe with M. Foucart in the Egyptian origin of the
Eleusinian rites will doubtless see in this a direct borrowing
from the Egyptian views regarding the beatitude awaiting the
justified or “triumphant” dead who in life had been worshippers
of Osiris. How much or how little of the Osirian
faith as to the state of these worshippers in the next world
passed into the Alexandrian religion cannot now be said; but
it is certain that the protection of Isis and Serapis was held to
be as powerful in the life beyond the tomb as in this.
60“When the term of thy life is spent,”
says the apparition of the goddess to Apuleius’ Lucius,
“and thou at length descendest to the lower regions, there also,
even in the subterranean hemisphere, thou, dwelling in Elysian
fields, will often adore me who art propitious to thee, and whom
thou shalt see shining among the shades of Acheron and reigning
over the secret places of Styx[197].”
So, too, Aristides says of Serapis, that he is “the Saviour and
leader of souls, leading souls to the light and receiving them
again[198],” that “he raises the dead, he shows forth the longed-for
light of the sun to those who see, whose holy tombs contain
endless numbers of sacred books[199],” and that “we can never
escape from his sway, but he will save us, and even after death
we shall be the objects of his providence[200].” We may imagine,
if we please, although there is really no proof of any connection
between the two, that in its assertion of the fatherhood of God
as in earthly matters, the Alexandrian religion owed something
to the Stoic philosophy; but it is fairly certain that in the
glimpses it afforded of the next world, its inspiration must
have been drawn either from Eleusis or from Egypt.
What we know, too, of the actual worship of the Alexandrian
triad shows that it was designed to attract the devotion of the
multitude with a skill that argues the existence behind it of
many centuries of priestcraft. It is still a moot point whether
Herodotus was well-founded when he asserted the existence of
“mysteries” in the Egyptian religion[201]; and it is quite clear
that the scenes in the earthly life of Osiris and the gods of his
cycle which in the case of their Greek counterparts were carefully
concealed from all but initiates, were in Egypt openly
61portrayed on the walls of the temples[202]. But Timotheos and
Manetho must have been too well aware of the prestige attaching
throughout the Hellenic world to the secret worships of such
centres of religion as Eleusis and Samothrace to forgo its
advantage for their new religion; and the Alexandrian gods too
had a system of initiation which seems to have been modelled
upon that of the “Goddesses Twain.” Thanks to Apuleius we
can, up to a certain point, follow the Alexandrian course of
initiation step by step. Those whom Isis singled out as fitted
for her service[203]—which we may without uncharitableness interpret
as meaning those whom the priests thought likely to be
of use to the religion—were assigned a “mystagogue” who no
doubt gave them such instructions as he thought fit in the
meaning of the rites which he saw performed in the temple,
and the incidents in the life of the gods to which they were
attached. When after a course of such instruction, which was
of varying length, the mystagogue was convinced of the soundness
of the aspirant’s vocation, the formal initiation began.
In strict accordance with a ritual which Apuleius assures us
was written down in Egyptian characters and carefully preserved
in the secret places of the sanctuary (opertis adyti), the
aspirant underwent a solemn lustration with water or baptism
at the hands of the priest, and was ordered to abstain from all
food which had had life, from wine and from the company of
the other sex for a space of ten days[204]. This period was doubtless
spent as far as possible within the temple precincts, much
importance being attached to the prolonged contemplation of
the statue of the goddess, which was, as we have seen, fashioned
in a manner worthy of Greek art, and was further adorned with
62rich robes and jewels after the manner of the Catholic images
of the Virgin. At the expiration of the ten days’ retreat, the
candidate was clothed in a linen garment and was exhibited to
the general body or congregation of the faithful who presented
him with gifts. The secret ceremonies were then performed
before him, the nature of which are only revealed to us in the
guarded words of Apuleius’ hero:
“I approached the bounds of death, and, borne through all the
elements, returned again to the threshold of Proserpine which I
had already trod. I saw at midnight the sun shining with pure
light, I came before the Gods of the Upper and Lower World, and
I worshipped them from anigh[205].”
Collating these hints—which Apuleius tells us are all that it
is lawful for him to give—with what we know of the origin of
the Alexandrian religion and with the scraps of information that
have come down to us regarding other ceremonies of a like nature,
we may gather from this that the candidate underwent a mock
death, being probably made to enact in his own person the
passion of Osiris and his shutting-up in a coffin[206], that he was
shown the happy lot of the initiated and the correspondingly
miserable fate of the uninitiated in the life after death, that he
was subjected to certain “trials,” or proofs of his courage and
sincerity, by fire, water, earth, and air, and that he was finally
shown in a brilliant light the glorious company of the gods
represented either by their images, or by priests arrayed with
their best-known attributes. Nothing seems to have been
omitted that could impress the imagination of the neophyte,
and when the night of initiation was at length over, he was
again displayed before the congregation of worshippers clothed
in what was known as the Olympian garment (stola Olympiaca)
consisting of a dress of byssus or linen embroidered with flowers,
over which was cast a rich mantle decorated with figures of
fabulous animals, and bearing in his right hand a flaming torch,
63while on his head was a crown of palm-leaves with leaves projecting,
as he says, “like rays of light.” In this costume he
was placed in a wooden pulpit before the statue of the goddess
in the public portion of the temple, and was thus exhibited for the
adoration of the crowd, when the ceremony of opening took
place[207]. As the last stage of the secret rite seems to have been the
successive imposition upon the initiate of twelve robes, doubtless
typifying the twelve signs of the Zodiac, we hardly want the
rayed crown, and the explicit words of Apuleius to inform us that
in this costume he was intended to represent the material sun
(exornatus instar Solis et in vicem simulacri constitutus)[208]. The
sun-god, however, was in the later phases of the Egyptian
religion not Osiris but either Ra or Horus[209], and this last-named
god was in the Alexandrian triad equated with the Greek Apollo.
It therefore seems likely that the initiate represented here the
child of Isis begotten, as has been said, by Osiris after his
death and passion, and this corresponds with the statement
put into the mouth of Isis and preserved by Proclus: “I am
that which has been, is, and will be. My garment none has
lifted. The fruit which I bore has become the sun[210].” It is
significant that the later and especially the Christian writers
speak of Osiris and not Horus as the son of Isis; but the
distinction between father and son in the Egyptian triads was
never sharply defined, and there are many signs that Horus,
the son of Isis, was looked upon as Osiris re-born[211].
The initiation strictly so-called was concluded with a banquet
64provided by the initiate in which he celebrated what he was
henceforth to regard as his natal day, as his formal entry into
the religion was considered by him as a re-birth. Nor was this
all. Twelve months after his initiation into the first degree
or Mysteries of Isis, Apuleius’ hero is summoned to undergo a
further initiation, this time into the mysteries “of the Great
God and highest progenitor of the Gods, the unconquered Osiris
(magni dei deumque summi parentis, invicti Osiris),” of which
we are only told that a further preparation of ten days was
necessary and that the aspirant was in addition “enlightened
by the nocturnal orgies of the princely god Serapis (insuper
etiam Serapis principalis dei nocturnis orgiis illustratus)[212].”
Very shortly after this a third initiation was prescribed to Lucius
and was backed up by a dream in which Osiris “the God of the
great Gods, or rather the Highest of the Greater Gods and the
Greatest of the Highest and the Ruler of the Greatest (deus deum
magnorum potior et majorum summus et summorum maximus et
maximorum regnator Osiris)” appears to him; but we learn
nothing of the nature of this fresh initiation, save that it was
preceded like the two others by a ten-days’ fast[213]. No other
text or monument that has yet come to light gives any hint
as to the revelations made in these two last degrees or initiations;
but it seems likely from the words above quoted that they were
concerned with the true nature of Osiris[214], and that he must have
been finally proclaimed to the initiate as the one and only Source
of Being. The apparent inconsistency between this and Isis’
own statement given above that she is herself the “highest
of godheads ... first of the heavenly ones, one-formed type of
65gods and goddesses” can perhaps be got over by supposing that
the Supreme Being was supposed to be at once the father and
mother of the inferior gods, an idea of which there are many
traces in the Egyptian myths of later Pharaonic times[215]. Some
connection between Osiris in his Egyptian form and the Greek
wine-god Bacchus may be implied by the dream which heralded
the second initiation showing “one clothed in consecrated linen
robes, and bearing thyrsi, ivy and certain things which I may
not mention[216]”; but M. Baillet has found a bronze statue of
the Ptolemaic period in which Osiris is represented with grapes
and a vine-shoot[217], and it is therefore unlikely that any identification
of the kind formed part of the secrets reserved for
initiates[218].
This, therefore, seems to be all that can be usefully said
about the secret part of the worship of the Alexandrian gods.
But the founders of the cult must have always borne in mind
that while in every religion there are a few devotees who are
prepared to go all lengths in theology or enquiry into the nature
of their gods, the majority are attracted to it more from a vague
desire to enter into amicable relations with the spiritual world
than from any other feeling. Even with the Mysteries of
Eleusis, it is fairly certain that only a very small proportion
of those who attended the ceremonies really grasped the full
meaning of what they saw and heard. “Many are the thyrsus-bearers,”
quotes Plato in this connection, “but few are the
mystes[219]”; and it is plain that, as the Telesterion at Eleusis
could at the outside accommodate three thousand persons, the
greater part of the huge crowd in the Iacchos procession must
have come only to look on[220]. But even this more or less
66careless multitude did much to spread the fame of the Eleusinian
religion, while it was doubtless from their ranks in the first
instance that the true initiates were drawn. With this in view,
the Alexandrian priests laid themselves out to cater for the
half-convinced crowd as well as for their real devotees, and did
so with a success which put the Eleusinian Mysteries entirely
in the shade. In this, they were much helped by the practice
of the native Egyptian temples in Pharaonic times which has
been clearly set forth by M. Moret. Every day in every temple
in Egypt there seems to have been a solemn Service of Opening
when the statue of the god was taken from its resting-place,
purified with incense, dressed, and anointed before the doors
were opened, and the public, or perhaps only the king as representing
mankind in general, were admitted to adore the god[221].
This practice was copied with great fidelity in the worship
of the Alexandrian gods, and “the morning opening of the
temple” (templi matutinas apertiones) became an elaborate
ceremony in which the white curtains which hid the statue of
Isis from the gaze of the worshippers were drawn back (velis
candentibus reductis), and it was displayed blazing with actual
robes, gems, and ornaments, like a Madonna in Southern Europe
at the present day[222]. We also learn from Apuleius that prayers
to the goddess were offered at the same time, while one of the
priests made the circuit of the different altars within the temple,
pouring before each of them a libation of Nile water, and “the
beginning of the First Hour” was solemnly proclaimed, with
chants and shouts which have been compared to the muezzin
of the Mahommedans, but which more probably resembled
the choral singing of a morning hymn by the assembled congregation[223].
We know also from a casual allusion in one of
Martial’s Epigrams, that the eighth hour was also celebrated by
67a chant of the priests, and it seems likely that this announced
the closing of the temple to the profane, and was attended by
similar solemnities to those of the opening[224]. But it is abundantly
plain that between these hours the temple remained open for
what may be called private worship, and that this took the form
of meditation or silent adoration before the statue of Isis.
Apuleius’ Lucius repeatedly speaks of the pleasure that he
derived even before his initiation from the prolonged contemplation
of the goddess’s image[225], and the Roman poets
are full of allusions to the devout who passed much of their time
seated before her statue on benches, the place of which is clearly
marked out in Isiac temples like that of Pompeii[226]. That such
“meditations” were thought to have in them a saving grace
is apparent from a passage in Ovid, where he tells us that he
had seen one who had offended “the divinity of the linen-clad
Isis” sitting before her altar[227], and it also seems to have been
part of the necessary preparation for those who sought initiation.
When we consider that the Eleusinian festivals were
celebrated at the most but twice a year, and then only in one
part of Greece, we see how greatly the daily services and
frequentation of the temples in nearly every large town in the
West must have operated in drawing to the Alexandrian
worship the devotion of the citizens.
In addition to these, however, there were far more elaborate
ceremonies of which we obtain a passing glimpse. At Herculaneum,
were found early in last century two mural frescoes
portraying scenes in the worship of Isis, and of an Isis who,
from the style of the paintings and the place where they were
found, can be no other than the Alexandrian goddess. One of
these, now in the Museum at Naples, shows a temple surrounded
by trees, the porch of which is approached by a staircase and
68is guarded by two sphinxes[228]. Before the door and at the head
of the stairs stands a priest with the shaven crown of the Alexandrian
priesthood, holding with both hands an urn breast-high,
while behind him are two others, one of whom (probably a
woman) is completely clothed, wears long hair, and shakes
a sistrum, while the other is naked to the waist and has his
head shaved like the central figure. At the foot of the
staircase is another priest bearing a sistrum in his left hand
and a sort of pointed baton or hiltless sword in his right[229],
with which he seems to be commanding a body of persons of
both sexes, who from the shaven crowns of the men are evidently
a congregation or college of initiates, and are ranged in two
rows upon the steps. In the foreground are three altars, the
middle one with a fire burning on it, which an attendant is
fanning, while on the right of this is a flute-player seated on
the ground, having in front of him a priest with a wand like
that before described in either hand, and on the left a man and
a woman shaking sistra. The scene evidently represents a
religious service of some kind, and this may possibly be, as
M. Lafaye suggests, the Adoration of the Sacred Water or water
of the Nile, which as Plutarch and Apuleius both hint, was
considered the emblem of Osiris[230]. If so, we may further suppose
that the initiates are here singing antiphonally, or in two choirs,
the hymn to Serapis, a particular air on the flute being, as we
shall see, sacred to that god. The other fresco shows a temple
porch like its fellow, although the steps leading up to it are fewer
in number and the two sphinxes on either side of the opening
are here replaced by two Doric pillars ornamented with garlands.
The central figure is a bearded man of black complexion,
69crowned with the lotus and a chaplet of leaves. One hand rests
on his hip, and the other is raised in the air, which attitude,
perhaps from its likeness to that of the statue known as the
Dancing Faun, has given rise to the idea that it is a sacred
dance which is here represented[231]. Behind this figure are two
women, one of whom plays a tympanum or tambourine, two
children, and a priest or initiate with shaven crown, sistrum
in hand, and naked to the waist. In the foreground is the altar
seen in the other fresco, with a flame rising from it, and standing
to the right of it a priest with a sistrum and another musical
instrument in his hands, a flute-player, a child, a kneeling man,
a woman clothed in a long garment and bearing, besides the
sistrum, a palm-branch, and other worshippers. On the left
is a priest with a sistrum, a child bearing in one hand a basket
and in the other a small urn, while a woman crowned with
leaves, with a sistrum and a dish filled with fruits, kneels at
the head of the steps. From the black complexion of the
principal figure, M. Lafaye considers that he may represent
Osiris himself and that he is here shown at the moment of
resurrection, a scene which he considers, not without reason,
may have formed the concluding act in one of the sacred dramas
or mystery-plays undoubtedly associated with the worship of
the god. If so, it is unlikely that it formed part of the initiation
into the Mysteries, the particulars of which were carefully
concealed from the profane and would hardly have been painted
on the walls of temples or dwelling-houses. It seems more
probable that the scene in question, whatever be its meaning,
was acted in pantomime in, or rather before, the temple at a
particular period of the year, that the uninitiated were allowed
to be present at it as well as at the Adoration of the Sacred
Water, and that these two therefore were familiar and attractive
objects to the populace throughout the Roman world.
That the Passion—as it was distinctly called—and Resurrection
of Osiris were yearly and openly celebrated by the
worshippers of the Alexandrian gods with alternate demonstrations
of grief and joy, the classical poets have put beyond
70doubt. The celebration took place in the month of November
and began with a ten-day fast on the part of all the faithful
which was often spent in the temples. Then followed the
representation of the passion of and the seeking for Osiris, and
its result, which a Christian writer of the IIIrd century A.D.[232]
thus sums up:
“You behold the swallow[233] and the cymbal of Isis, and the tomb of
your Serapis or Osiris empty, with his limbs scattered about.... Isis
bewails, laments and seeks after her lost son[234], with her Cynocephalus[235]
and her bald-headed priests; and the wretched worshippers of Isis
beat their breasts, and imitate the grief of the most unhappy mother.
By and by, when the little boy is found, Isis rejoices, and the priests
exult. Cynocephalus the discoverer boasts, and they do not cease
year by year either to lose what they find, or to find what they lose.”
“These,” he says, “were formerly Egyptian rites, and now
are Roman ones”; and it is plain that all the incidents of
which he speaks were perfectly familiar to the Roman people.
Juvenal[236] speaks of the bald-headed multitude uttering lamentations
and running to and fro, and of their exultant cries when
Osiris is found; and the banquets in the temples and great
festivals and public games which celebrated the “Finding of
Osiris” when the Alexandrian worship was recognized by the
state must have made the recurrence of this chief festival of
the Alexandrian religion familiar to every one[237].
How many lesser festivals than these formed part of its
public ceremonial we do not know, but they were probably
numerous enough. The Roman calendars tell us of a festival
of Isis Pharia, probably in her capacity of tutelary goddess of
71Alexandria, and of another of Serapis, both in the month of
April, while Plutarch speaks of the Birth of Horus celebrated,
as was natural with a sun-god, after the vernal equinox, when
nature awakens and the sun begins to show forth his power.
But there was another spring festival which took place on the
5th of March[238] to mark the reopening of navigation and commerce
after the departure of winter, in which the faithful went in
procession to the sea (or probably in its absence to the nearest
water), and there set afloat a new ship filled with offerings
which was known as the vessel of Isis. Apuleius has left us
a description of this festival at once so lively and so imbued with
the spirit of the devout Isiacist, that it may be pardonable to
quote from it at some length. The procession, which in the case
he is describing sets forth at dawn from the gates of Cenchreae
the eastern port of Corinth, is heralded by a carnival in which
burlesque representations of magistrates, gladiators, hunters,
and fishermen jostle with caricatures of ancient Greek heroes
and demigods like Bellerophon and Ganymede. After this had
dispersed, “the procession proper of the Saviour Goddess,”
he says, set itself in motion, and may be described in his own
words[239]:
“Women shining in white garments displayed their joy by divers
gestures, and crowned with spring blossoms strewed from their laps
flowers upon the road over which marched the holy throng. Others,
with glittering mirrors held behind them, showed to the advancing
Goddess their ready service. Others, who bore ivory combs, by the
motion of their arms and the twining of their fingers represented the
combing of her royal hair, while yet others sprinkled the ways with
drops of sweet-smelling balsam and other unguents. A great crowd
also of both sexes followed with lamps, torches, candles and other
kinds of lights making propitious with light the source of the heavenly
stars. Thereafter came gentle harmonies, and reeds and flutes
sounded with sweetest modulations. A graceful choir of chosen
youths followed, shining in snowy dresses of ceremony and singing
a beautiful hymn which by grace of the Muses a skilful poet had set
to music, although its theme recalled the prayers of our forefathers.
72Then came flute-players consecrated to the great Serapis, who on
the slanted reed held under the right ear, repeated the air usual in
the temple of the God, in order that everyone might be warned to
make room for the passage of the holy things. Then pressed on
the multitude of those who had been initiated into the divine
mysteries, both men and women of every rank and age, shining in
the pure whiteness of their linen robes, the women with hair moist
with perfume and covered with a transparent veil, the men with
closely shaven hair and glistening heads. Earthly stars of the great
religion were these, who made a shrill tinkling with brazen silver
or even gold sistra. Then came the priests of the holy things, those
distinguished men who, tightly swathed in white linen from the
breast-girdle to the feet, displayed to view the noble emblems of
the most mighty God. The first held forth a lamp shining with
clear light, not exactly resembling those which give light to nocturnal
banquets, but in the form of a golden boat and emitting a broader
flame through its central opening. The second, clothed in the same
way as the first, carried in his two hands the little altars, i.e. the
auxilia to which the helping foresight of the high Goddess has given
a peculiar name. The third bore a palm-tree with tiny golden
leaves, and likewise the caduceus of Mercury. The fourth exhibited
the emblem of Equity, a left hand represented with outstretched
palm, which from its inborn disinclination to work, and as being
endowed with neither skill nor expertness, seems better suited to
typify Equity than the right. He also bore a golden vase in the
rounded shape of a female breast, from which he poured libations
of milk. The fifth carried a winnowing-fan composed of golden wires,
and yet another an amphora.
“Without interval, the Gods who have deigned to walk with
the feet of men go forward. Here—dread sight!—is he who is the
messenger between the supernal and the infernal deities. Upright,
of a complexion black in some parts, golden in others, Anubis raises
on high his dog’s head, bearing in his left hand the caduceus, and
shaking in his right the budding palm-branch[240]. Close upon his
footsteps, follows a cow, held on high in an erect posture—the cow,
fertile image of the Goddess who brings forth all things—which one
of the blessed ministry with pantomimic steps bears seated on his
shoulders. The chest containing the mysteries was carried by
73another, thus wholly concealing the hidden things of the sublime
religion[241]. Yet another bore within his happy bosom the revered
likeness of the Supreme Divinity, resembling neither a domestic
animal, nor bird, nor wild beast, nor even man himself; but yet
to be revered in the highest degree alike for its skilful invention,
and for its very novelty, and also as that unspeakable evidence of
the religion which should be veiled in complete silence. As to its
outward form, it was fashioned in glittering gold—an urn hollowed
out with perfected art with a round base and carved externally with
the marvellous images of the Egyptians. Its mouth was not much
raised and jutted forth in an extended spout with a wide stream;
while on the opposite side was attached the handle bent far out
with a wide sweep, on which sate an asp in wreathed folds uplifting
the swollen stripes of his scaly neck.”
This description will leave little doubt on the mind of the
reader as to the supreme importance in the religion of the urn
which is being held up for the adoration of the faithful in the
fresco from Herculaneum before described; and this is borne
out by a bas-relief in the Vatican in which a similar urn to that
described by Apuleius is represented as being carried in procession[242].
“They say,” says Hippolytus speaking of the worshippers
of Isis, “that Osiris is water,” and Celsus, according
to Origen, confirms him in this[243]. According to this last, Isis
represented the earth, and the doctrine may therefore be an
allegory representing the fertilization of the land by the Nile.
It is more likely, however, that it is to be attributed to one of
the older cosmogonies current in Egypt, wherein water, personified
by the god Nu, is the origin of everything[244]. The main
74point to note for our present purpose is that an urn or vase
containing liquid, was, in the public ceremonies of the Alexandrian
religion, the recognized symbol of the Supreme Being.
Apuleius next describes the procession as having reached
the seashore where the images of the gods were arranged in
order[245]:
“Then the Chief Priest, pouring forth with chaste mouth the most
solemn prayers, consecrated and dedicated to the goddess, after having
thoroughly purified it with a lighted torch, an egg, and some sulphur,
a ship made with the highest art and painted all over with the
wonderful pictures of the Egyptians. The shining sail of this blessed
bark had the words of a prayer woven in it; and these words reiterated
the petition that the navigation then commencing might
be prosperous. And now the mast was stepped, a round piece of
pine, lofty and smooth, and conspicuous from the handsome appearance
of its truck, and the poop with its twisted goose-neck shone
covered with gold-leaf, while the whole hulk was gay with polished
citron wood. Then all the people, both the religious and the profane,
heaped emulously together winnowing-fans laden with spices
and such like offerings, and poured upon them crumbled cakes
made with milk, until the ship, filled with magnificent gifts offered
in fulfilment of vows, was loosed from its moorings and put to sea
with a gentle breeze that seemed to spring up on purpose. After
her course became indistinct to us by reason of the distance that
she was from our eyes, the bearers of the holy things again took up
each his own load, and joyfully returned to the fane in the same
solemn procession as before. But when we arrived at the temple,
the Chief Priest and the bearers of the divine effigies, and those who
have been already initiated into the ever to be revered secrets,
entering into the chamber of the Goddess put away the breathing
images with due ceremony. Then one of them, whom men call the
Scribe, standing before the doors and having called together as if
for a discourse the company of the Pastophori[246]—which is the name
of this sacrosanct college—forthwith recited from a lofty pulpit
prayers written in a book for the Great Prince, the Senate, the
Equestrian Order, and the whole Roman people, their sailors and
75ships, and all who are under the sway of our native land, and then
closed the address according to the Greek rite thus: ‘Let the people
depart[247].’ Which announcement was followed by a shout of the
people showing that it was favourably received by all. Then the
multitude, rejoicing exceedingly and bearing olive-branches, laurel-twigs,
and chaplets, after having kissed the feet of a statue of the
goddess fashioned in silver which stood on steps [within the porch?],
departed to their own homes.”
What most strikes one in this account by an eye-witness,
which must have been written about the year 170 A.D., is the
entirely modern tone of it all. In the scene that passes under
Lucius’ eyes, there is hardly anything that might not be seen
at an Italian festa at the present day. The joyous crowd,
respectful rather than devout, and not above introducing a
comic or rather a burlesque element into the day’s rejoicing,
the images and sacred vessels carried solemnly along, the crowd
of tonsured priests, and the chants and hymns sung in chorus,
the return to the temple, with its prayers for Church and State,
and its dismissal of the people—all these are paralleled every
day in countries where the Catholic Church is still dominant.
Not less modern, too, is the way in which Lucius alludes to the
faith of which all these things illustrate the power. For him,
there is no other god than Isis—“thou who art all[248],” as one of
her votaries calls her on his tombstone, in whom “single in
essence, though with many names[249],” all other gods are contained.
Hence, he can think of no other religion than her worship. It
is always with him “the holy” or “the sublime religion,” and
the goddess is she whom the whole earth adores. It is she in
whom one can trust not only for happiness beyond the tomb,
but for present help in all the troubles of this life, and to devote
oneself to her service, to thoroughly learn, to understand her
nature, is the proudest lot which can befall man while upon
earth. Hence all her initiates were “earthly stars,” her priests
were all happy or blessed in that they were allowed to be near
76and even to carry and handle the divine images, and the religion
was a real bond which united people of all ranks and ages. We
feel that we have here got a very long way from the time when
the power of each god was supposed to be limited to the small
space surrounding his sanctuary.
That this change had been brought about by the work of
the Isiac priesthood, there can be little doubt. Between the
foundation of the Alexandrian religion by Ptolemy and the
date at which Apuleius wrote, a space of five centuries elapsed,
and this must have seen many changes in the constitution
of what may be called the Isiac Church. The Greeks always
set their faces against anything like a priestly caste set apart
from the rest of the community, and the priests of the Hellenic
gods were for the most part elected, like modern mayors of
towns, for a short term only, after which they fell back into the
ranks of the laity with as little difficulty as do municipal officers
at the present day. The Eleusinian Mysteries were indeed
committed to certain families in whom their priesthood was
hereditary; but no professional barriers existed between these
families and the rest of the citizens; and we find Callias, the
“torch-bearer” and one of the highest officials at the Mysteries,
not only fighting in the ranks at Marathon, but distinguishing
himself by his “cruelty and injustice” in retaining an unfair
share of the plunder for himself[250]. The Eumolpidae and
Lycomidae of Eleusis, also, were probably maintained not by
any contribution from the state, but by the revenues of the
temple lands and by the fee of a few obols levied from each
initiate. But the Alexandrian Church in Egypt must from the
first have been endowed and probably established as well.
To judge from the analogous case of the dynastic cult or
worship of the sovereign, which Ptolemy Soter set up, the
“sublime religion” was in its native Egypt maintained by a
tax on the revenues of those wakf or temple lands held in mortmain
with which the native gods of Egypt were so richly provided
from the earliest times. When the Alexandrian religion
became a missionary faith and established itself in Athens and
other parts of the Hellenic world, it no doubt depended in the
77first instance on the voluntary contributions of the associations
of Sarapiasts or Isiaci founded for its maintenance. But we
may be sure that politic princes like the first three Ptolemies,
who were besides the richest and most opulent of all the
Successors of Alexander, did not let these outposts of their
empire languish for lack of funds, and we may guess that
the subscriptions of their members were supplemented in
case of need by large donations from the King of Egypt or
from those who wished to stand well with him. When the
faith passed into Western Europe and into territories directly
under Roman sway, it had already attained such fame that a
large entrance-fee could be demanded from the initiates, and
Apuleius tells us more than once that the amount of this was in
every case fixed by a special revelation of the goddess, and was
no doubt only limited by the length of the aspirant’s purse and
the strength of his vocation[251]. Like other Greek priests of the
time, also, the ministers of the Alexandrian religion found a way
of adding to their income by the practice of divination or foretelling
the future, and the oracle of Serapis at Alexandria soon
became as celebrated in the Hellenistic world as that of Delphi.
There were probably more ways than one of consulting this;
but the one which seems to have been specially its own, and
which afterwards spread from Egypt into all the temples of the
faith in other countries, was by the practice of incubatio which
meant sleeping either personally or by deputy in the precinct
of the god until the consultant had a dream in which the god’s
answer was declared. Such a practice seems to date from the
dream sent to Ptolemy Soter at the foundation of the religion,
and doubtless formed a great source of revenue to its priesthood[252].
The highest personages in the Roman Empire deigned to resort
to it, and Vespasian was vouchsafed a divine vision in the
temple of Serapis when he consulted the god about “the affairs
78of the Empire[253].” Not unconnected with this were the miraculous
cures with which Serapis, originally perhaps by confusion
with Asklepios the Greek god of healing[254], was credited. The
sick man was given a room in the temple precincts, where he
doubtless lived the regular and orderly life of a modern hospital,
and before long dreamed of a remedy for the malady on which
his thoughts were concentrated. As the mind sometimes
influences the body, and a belief in the healing power of the
medicine is often of more importance than its nature, he very
often recovered, and was no doubt expected to be generous
in his offerings to the god who had intervened in his cure. Nor
were worse means of raising money unknown to the Alexandrian
priests, unless they have been greatly belied. They are said
to have acted as panders and procurers for the rich, and it was
the seduction of a noble Roman lady by a lover who assumed the
garb of the god Anubis which led to their expulsion from the
Pomoerium under Tiberius[255]. Astrology, too, which depended
entirely on mathematical calculations and tables, was peculiarly
an Alexandrian art, and the same Manetho who had been one
of the persons consulted at the founding of the Alexandrian
religion was said to have taught its principles to the Greeks.
Whether this be so or not, it is certain that in Ovid’s time the
Alexandrian priests used to beg in the streets of Rome after
the fashion of the Buddhist monks from whom they may have
indirectly borrowed the practice, and that it was thought
“unlucky” to reject their importunities[256].
It is plain, however, that, by the time Apuleius wrote, the
79necessity for any such shifts had passed away. The Alexandrian
religion had then become a state religion, and was served by a
fully organized and powerful priesthood. As there were not
less than seven temples of Isis in Rome itself, the number of
the Roman faithful must have been very considerable, and on
their offerings and the gifts of the state, a large staff of priests
was maintained. We hear not only of a high priest in each
temple to whom all the lesser ministers of the cult were
apparently subject[257], but of hierophants, scribes, stolists or wardrobe-keepers,
singing-men and singing-women, and a host of
subordinate functionaries down to the neocoros or temple-sweeper
and the cliduchos or guardian of the keys. Women as
well as men were eligible for some of these offices, and the inscriptions
tell us of a female oneirocrites or interpreter of dreams
and of several canephorae or carriers of the sacred basket, besides
many priestesses whose functions are not defined[258]. The high
priest and the more important officers lived in the temple and
probably devoted their whole time to its service[259]; but the
lesser offices seem to have been capable of being held concurrently
with lay occupations, like that of the churchwardens
at the present day. But one and all were devoted to the faith
and its propagation, and formed in the words of Apuleius “a
sacred soldiery” for its extension and defence. It is probable
that they were all drawn in the first instance from the ranks of
the initiates only.
These were what may be called the secular clergy of the
Alexandrian Church; but there was in addition a body of
devotees attached to it whose mode of life singularly reminds
us of that afterwards adopted by the Christian monks. A
lucky chance has revealed to us some fragments of papyrus
found on the site of the Serapeum at Memphis, which contain
among other things the petitions of a Macedonian named
Ptolemy the son of Glaucias to King Ptolemy VI Philometor
80about the year 166 B.C.[260] From these it is evident that there
were at that time a body of recluses lodged in the Serapeum
who were vowed to a seclusion so complete that they might not
stir forth from their cells under any pretence, and when the
king visited Memphis he had to speak with his namesake and
petitioner through the window of the latter’s chamber. These
recluses were in some way devoted to the service of the god,
and their stay in the temple was to all appearance voluntary,
although in Ptolemy’s case, it had at the time he wrote lasted
already fifteen years. He does not seem to have been driven to
this by poverty, as he speaks of a considerable property left him
by his father; and as the object of his petitions is to champion
the rights of two priestesses of Serapis who had been wrongfully
deprived of their dues of bread and oil by the officials of the
temple, he seems to have been in some sort given to the performance
of “good works.” How he otherwise occupied his
time, and whether his title or description of κάτοχος implied
any connection with the oracle of Serapis is still a disputed
point. Yet the correspondence in which his name appears
shows clearly the existence within the Serapeum of a large
population of both men and women living at the expense of the
temple revenues, some of whom took part in the ritual of the
services there celebrated, while others were fixed by their own
vows in the strictest seclusion. Whichever way the controversy
alluded to above is decided, it seems plain that there is here a
parallel between the practice of the Catholic Church with its
division of the clergy into regular and secular and the Alexandrian
81religion, which until the discovery of the papyri some fifty years
ago was entirely unsuspected.
It has been said above that the Alexandrian religion reached
its apogee in the time of the Antonines. How it came to decline
in power cannot be traced with great exactness, but it seems
probable that it only lost its hold on the common people from
the greater attractions presented by other religions competing
with it for the popular favour. Other cults began to press in
from the East, including the worship of Mithras, which in the
time of Diocletian finally supplanted it in the favour of the state,
and acquired perhaps a stronger hold on the army from reasons
to be examined in detail when we come to deal with the Mithraic
religion. But the rise of Christianity is in itself sufficient to
account for its decline in popularity among the lower classes of
the Empire. To them the Catholic Church, purged and
strengthened by a sporadic and intermittent persecution,
offered advantages that the Alexandrian religion could never
give. In this last, the possession of wealth must always have
assured its possessor a disproportionate rank in the religion,
and without the expenditure of a large sum of money, it was
impossible, as we have seen, to arrive at its most cherished
secrets. Nor do we find in any of the few documents of the
faith that have come down to us any parallel to that wide and
all-embracing spirit of charity which in its early days made the
Christian Church a kind of mutual benefit society for all who were
willing to enter into her fold. To the poorest as to the wealthiest,
the Catholic Church, too, always held out the promises of a
faith to be understood by all and free from the mystery
with which the cardinal doctrines of the Alexandrians were
shrouded from all but the highest initiates. Its promises of
happiness beyond the grave also were extended to even the
most degraded, and the fulfilment of them was taught to be
dependent on conduct within the reach of even the pauper or
the repentant criminal rather than on the long, difficult and
expensive course of instruction which its rival demanded. Nor
were more material inducements neglected. The highest offices
within the Church were open to the lowest of its members, and
it was quite possible for a slave or a freedman to ascend the chair
82of Peter, there to negotiate on equal terms with emperors and
proconsuls. Unlike the religions of the ancient world which
were first converted by Alexander’s conquests from national
into universal cults, the Christian religion was from its foundation
organized on the democratic lines laid down in the text: “He
that is greatest among you shall be your servant[261].” Moreover,
the predictions of the Christian missionaries as to the immediate
coming of the Second Advent began to spread among the masses
outside the Church, and found a soil ready to receive them in
the minds of superstitious men trampled on by the rich, harried
by the tax-gatherers, and torn this way and that by constant
insurrections and civil wars stirred up, not by the Roman
mob (kept quiet as it was with State doles) but by its too
ambitious masters. Quite apart from the spiritual comfort that
it brought to many, and from the greater unity and simplicity
of its doctrines, we can hardly wonder that the proletariat
everywhere turned eagerly to the new faith.
The effect of this upon the Alexandrian religion must have
been fatal. Unfortunately the destruction of pagan literature
has been so great that we know hardly anything about its decline
from the mouths of its adherents[262]. What we are able to perceive
is that the persons who adhered to the Alexandrian faith after
the time of the Antonines generally practised many other
religions as well. Alexander Severus had in his palace a
lararium or private chapel in which, like most of the later
Roman emperors, he placed statues of the gods whose worship
he particularly affected. We find there Serapis and Isis, indeed,
but surrounded with a great crowd of other divinities together
with the images of philosophers like Socrates and Apollonius of
Tyana, and—if the Augustan History is to be believed—that
83of the Founder of Christianity Himself[263]. So, too, the funeral
inscription of Ulpius Egnatius Faventinus, an augur of high rank
who flourished in the reign of Valens and Valentinian, records
that the dead nobleman was a priest of Isis, but a hierophant
of Hecate, a hieroceryx of Mithras, and a “chief Herdsman”
of Bacchus as well. So, again, Fabia Aeonia Paullina, wife of
Vettius Praetextatus, a Prefect and Consul Designate of about
the same period, describes herself on her tombstone as consecrated
at Eleusis to Dionysos, Demeter, and Persephone, and a
hierophantis of Hecate, but merely a worshipper of Isis[264]. We
see here a great change from the exclusive fervour of Apuleius’
Lucius, who thinks it only just that Isis should require him to
devote his whole life to her service.
But a violent end was soon to be put even to the public
exercise of the Alexandrian religion. The conversion of Constantine
had left it unharmed, and we find Julian writing to the
Alexandrians during his brief reign as if the supremacy of their
religion in Egypt’s capital at any rate was assured[265]. But under
Theodosius, an order was obtained from the Emperor for the
demolition of the “heathen” temples at Alexandria, and
Theophilus, “the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue[266],” who
was bishop of the city at the time, was not the man to allow the
decree to remain a dead letter. According to the ecclesiastical
historians[267], he began operations on the temple of Dionysos,
which he converted into a Christian church. In the course of
doing so, he professed to have discovered certain emblems of
virility which seem to have been used in the Mysteries to
illustrate the legend of the Diaspasm or tearing in pieces of the
god, and these he had paraded through the city as evidence of
what the heathens, according to him, worshipped in secret.
The same emblems were also used in the worship of Isis, where
84they probably were shown to initiates as explaining the loss of
the generative power by Osiris after his death and passion[268].
Hence their profanation was in the highest degree offensive to
the last adherents of the Alexandrian religion, who, few in
number but formidable from their position and influence, threw
themselves into the world-famed Serapeum and determined to
resist the decree by force of arms. The Christian mob of
Alexandria, hounded on by the bishop and his monks, assaulted
the temple which the philosopher Olympius and his followers
had converted into a temporary fortress, and many attacks
were repulsed with loss of life to the besiegers. At length, a
truce having been negotiated until the Emperor could be communicated
with, a fresh decree was obtained in which the
defenders of the temple were promised a pardon for their
share in the riot, if the Serapeum were quietly given up to the
authorities. This offer was accepted, and Theophilus had the
pleasure of seeing Bryaxis’ colossal statue of Serapis demolished
under his own eyes without the event being followed by the
predicted earthquake and other catastrophes which we are told
the Christians as well as the heathens confidently expected.
The magnificent Serapeum with all its wealth of statues and
works of art was destroyed, and a church dedicated to the
Emperor Arcadius was afterwards erected on its site.
Thus in the year 391, the chief seat and place of origin of the
Alexandrian religion was laid waste, and the religion itself
perished after a successful reign of seven centuries. Ecclesiastical
writers say that this was followed by the conversion of
several of the “Hellenists” or adherents of the worship of
Serapis and Isis to Christianity[269], and there seems every likelihood
that the story is founded on fact. Is this the reason why
we find so many of the external usages of Isis-worship preserved
in or revived by the Catholic Church? Macaulay, in speaking
of the contest between Catholicism and Protestantism at the
Reformation compares it to the fight between Hamlet and
Laertes where the combatants change weapons. The comparative
study of religions shows that the phenomenon is more
widespread than he thought, and that when one religion finally
85supplants another, it generally takes over from its predecessor
such of its usages as seem harmless or praiseworthy. The
traditional policy of the Catholic Church in this respect was
declared by Saint Gregory the Great, when he told the apostle
to the Saxon heathens that such of their religious and traditional
observances as could by any means be harmonized with
orthodox Christianity were not to be interfered with[270], and this
was probably the policy pursued with regard to the converts
from the worship of Serapis. Gibbon[271] has painted for us in
a celebrated passage the astonishment which “a Tertullian or
a Lactantius” would have felt could he have been raised from
the dead to witness the festival of some popular saint or martyr
in a Christian church at the end of the fifth century. The incense,
the flowers, the lights, and the adoration of the relics of the saint
would all, we are told, have moved his indignation as the appanage
of heathenism. Yet none of these things would have been
found in a temple like that of Delphi, where probably no more
than one worshipper or sacred embassy penetrated at a time,
and where nothing like congregational worship was known.
It was, however, the mode of worship to which the Hellenistic
world had become daily accustomed during the seven centuries
that the Alexandrian religion had endured, and it is not to be
wondered at that the converts brought it with them into their
new faith. The worship of the Virgin as the Theotokos or
Mother of God which was introduced into the Catholic Church
about the time of the destruction of the Serapeum, enabled the
devotees of Isis to continue unchecked their worship of the
mother goddess by merely changing the name of the object of
their adoration, and Prof. Drexler gives a long list of the statues
of Isis which thereafter were used, sometimes with unaltered
attributes, as those of the Virgin Mary[272]. The general use of
images, the suspension in the churches of ex voto representations
of different parts of the human body in gratitude for miraculous
86cures of maladies[273], and the ceremonial burning of candles,
may also be traced to the same source; while the institution
of monachism which had taken a great hold on Christian Egypt,
is now generally attributed to St Pachomius, who had actually
been in his youth a recluse of Serapis[274]. Prof. Bury, who thinks
the action of the earlier faith upon the later in this respect
undeniable, would also attribute the tonsure of the Catholic
priesthood to a reminiscence of the shaven crowns of the
initiates of Isis, to which we may perhaps add the covering of
women’s heads in churches[275].
These instances are for the most part fairly well known,
and some have been made use of in controversy between Protestants
and Catholics; but it is probable that there were also
many resemblances between the external usages of the two
faiths which would, when they flourished side by side, strike
even the superficial observer, but the traces of which are now
well nigh lost[276]. “Those who worship Serapis are Christians,
and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are vowed to
Serapis,” wrote the Emperor Hadrian[277] from Alexandria on his
visit there in A.D. 124, and this would possibly explain the
respectful and almost mournful tone in which, as Renan noted,
the Christian Sibyl announces to Serapis and Isis the end of their
reign[278]. It is not impossible that the resemblance which thus
deceived the Emperor was connected with the celebration of
87the Eucharist among certain sects of Christians[279]. The Adoration
of the Sacred Water as the emblem of Osiris, which we
have seen represented on the Herculaneum fresco, has many
points in common with the exhibition of the Sacrament of the
Mass to the people, and it is possible that the words of consecration
were not altogether different in the two cases. “Thou
art wine, yet thou art not wine, but the members of Osiris,” says
a magic papyrus in the British Museum in the midst of an address
to “Asklepios of Memphis,” the god Esculapius being one of
the gods with whom Serapis in his day of power was most often
confounded[280]. So, too, M. Revillout has published an amatorium
or love-charm in which the magician says, “May this wine become
the blood of Osiris[281].” It is true he sees in it a blasphemous
adaptation of the Christian rite; but this is very unlikely.
It has been shown elsewhere[282] that many—perhaps all—of the
words used in the ceremonial magic of the period are taken from
the rituals of religions dying or extinct, and the papyrus, which
dates somewhere about the IVth century A.D., may possibly
88have here preserved for us a fragment of the ritual in use in the
Alexandrian temples. “Give him, O Osiris, the cooling water”
is the epitaph often written by the worshippers of Isis on the
tombs of the dead[283], and it may seem that we have here a hint
of mystic communion with the deity brought about by the
drinking of his emblem.
The resemblances between the Alexandrian and the Christian
religion thus sketched, refer, however, merely to matters which
are either external or superficial, or which, like the worship of
the Virgin, the use of images and relics, and the institution of
monachism, could be abandoned, as was the case at the German
Reformation, without necessarily drawing with them the
repudiation of the cardinal tenets of Christianity. That the
Christian Church owed at her inception any of her more fundamental
doctrines to the Alexandrian religion is not only without
proof, but is in the highest degree unlikely. The Apostles and
missionaries of the Apostolic Age, living as they did in daily
expectation of the return of their Risen Lord, had no need to
go to an alien faith for the assertion of His divinity, of the truth
of His resurrection, or of His power of salvation; nor do the
Fathers of the Ante-Nicene Church speak of Serapis and Isis
as entitled to any peculiar reverence or as differing in any
respect from the other gods of the heathen. Whether the
tenets of the Alexandrian religion may not have had some
influence on the discussions which raged round the definition
of the Divine nature and attributes at the earlier Ecumenical
and other Councils of the Church is another matter. The conception
of the Supreme Being as a triune god was a very old
one in Egypt, and reappeared, as we have seen, unchanged in
the worship of Serapis, Isis, and Horus. “Thus from one god
I became three gods,” says Osiris in his description of his self-creation
in a papyrus dated twelve years after the death of
Alexander[284]; and the dividing-line between the three persons
of the Alexandrian triad is so often overstepped that it is plain
that their more cultured worshippers at one time considered
89them as but varying forms of one godhead[285]. Hence, the
Trinitarian formulas set out in the Creeds of Nicaea and of
St Athanasius would be less of a novelty to those familiar with
the Alexandrian religion than to those brought up in the uncompromising
monotheism of the Jews. Too little is known
of the steps by which the full assertion of the doctrine of the
Trinity was reached for any discussion of the matter to be here
profitable[286]. The deepest influence that the Alexandrian religion
exercised upon the Church was probably not direct, but through
those scattered and heretical sects which, although finally
condemned and anathematized by her, yet ever acted as feeders
by whom she obtained converts from among the heathen. To
these we may now turn our attention.
CHAPTER III THE ORIGIN OF GNOSTICISM
90
The worship of the Alexandrian gods was in every sense a
religion. Not only did it form a common bond between men
and women of different rank and origin, but it had its roots
in the idea of propitiating the spiritual world. In the belief
of its votaries, the blessings of health, of riches, of long life,
and of happiness in this world and the next, were the gifts of
Serapis and Isis, which they might extend to or withhold from
mortals as seemed to them good[287]. But now we approach
beliefs and practices, for the most part formed into organized
cults, which were founded on the opposite idea. Those treated
of in this and the seven succeeding chapters all have as their
common root the notion that it is possible instead of propitiating
to compel the spiritual powers. If these beings, greater and
stronger than man as they were thought to be, were once
invoked by their real names and with the proper ceremonies,
it was said that the benefits demanded of them would follow
as a matter of course without regard to the state of mind of
the applicant and without the volition of the invisible ones
themselves entering into play. This idea appears so early in
the history of religions that it is thought by some to be the very
source and origin of them all. A number of able writers, of
91whom Lord Avebury[288] was one of the earliest, and Dr Frazer[289]
is one of the latest examples, contend that there was a time in
the history of mankind when man trusted entirely to his supposed
powers of compulsion in his dealings with the invisible
world, and that the attempt to propitiate it only developed
out of this at a later period. It may be so, and the supporters
of this theory are certainly not wrong when they go on to say
that the same idea probably inspired those earliest attempts
at the conquest of Nature which formed the first gropings of
man towards natural science[290]. Up till now, however, they
have failed to produce any instance of a people in a low state
of culture who practise magic—as this attempted compulsion
of the spiritual world is generally called—to the exclusion of
every form of religion; and until they do so, their thesis cannot
be considered as established. On the contrary, all researches
into the matter lead to the conclusion that magic generally
begins to show itself some time after the religious beliefs of a
people have taken an organized shape, and most prominently
when they have passed their period of greatest activity[291]. This
is particularly noticeable in the case of Ancient Egypt, which
affords, as M. George Foucart has lately shown with much skill[292],
a far more lively and complete picture of the evolution of
religious ideas than can be found in the beliefs of savages. Here
92we see beliefs and practices, once religious in every sense of the
term, gradually becoming stereotyped and petrified until all
memory of their origin and reason is lost, and the religion itself
lapses into the systematized sorcery before referred to.
This phenomenon appears with great regularity in history;
and it is an observation very easily verified that the practice
of magic generally spreads in places and times where the popular
religion has become outworn[293]. As, moreover, enquiry shows
us that words taken from the rituals of dead faiths play the
chief part in all ceremonial magic[294], we might be led to conclude
that magic was but an unhealthy growth from, or the actual
corruption of, religion. But if this were the case, we should
find magicians despoiling for their charms and spells the rituals
of cults formerly practised in their own countries only; whereas
it is more often from foreign faiths and languages that they
borrow. The tendency of all peoples to look upon earlier and
more primitive races than themselves as the depositaries of
magical secrets is one of the best known phenomena[295]. Thus,
in modern India, it is the aboriginal Bhils and Gonds who are
resorted to as sorcerers by the Aryans who have supplanted
them[296], while the Malays seem to draw their magic almost
93entirely from the beliefs of their Arab conquerors[297]. So, too,
in Egypt we find that the magicians of the XIXth Dynasty
made use in their spells of foreign words which seem to be
taken from Central African languages[298], and those of early
Christian times use Hebrew phrases with which they must
for the first time have become acquainted not very long before[299].
At the same time there are many proofs that magic is something
more than a by-product of religion. No people, however
backward, who do not practise magic in some or other of its
forms, have yet been discovered; while at the same time it
has always persisted among those nations who consider themselves
the most highly civilized. Thus, we find the Mincopies
who inhabit the Andaman Islands and are thought by some to
be the lowest of mankind, threatening with their arrows the
spirit that is supposed to cause tempests, and lighting fires
on the graves of their dead chiefs to drive him away[300]. At
the other end of the scale we have the story of the Scottish
Covenanter,
“John Scrimgeour, minister of Kinghorn, who, having a beloved
child sick to death of the crewels, was free to expostulate with his
Maker with such impatience of displeasure, and complaining so
bitterly, that at length it was said unto him, that he was heard for
that time, but that he was requested to use no such boldness in time
coming”:
and a similar story is told of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the
94Jesuits[301]. It seems then that magic is so inextricably intertwined
with religion that the history of one of them cannot be effectually
separated from that of the other, and neither of them can be
assigned any priority in time. This does not mean, however,
that they are connected in origin, and it is probable that the
late Sir Alfred Lyall was right when he said that magic and
religion are in their essence antagonistic and correspond to two
opposing tendencies of the human mind[302]. The same tendencies
lead one man to ask for what he wants while another will prefer
to take it by force, and it is even possible that the same alternative
of choice is sometimes manifested in the lower animals[303].
Now it is evident that in the practice of cults where the idea of
the compulsion of the invisible powers is prominent, the essential
factor will be the knowledge of the proper means to be adopted
to attain the end sought. But this does not at once strike the
observer, because at first sight these appear to be the same as
those used in the cults which rest on the idea of propitiation.
Prayers and sacrifices indeed appear in magical quite as often
as in the case of propitiatory rites, but the reason of them is
entirely different. Prayer in a religion—could any such be
found—entirely free from all admixture of magic or compulsion,
would be based on the attempt to move the pity of the divinity
invoked for the miserable and abased state of the suppliant, or
by some other means. A striking example of this can be found
in the Assyrian prayers from the palace of Assur-bani-pal,
which might be, as the rubric informs us, made to any god[304].
Says the suppliant:
95“O my god my sins are many, my transgressions are great.
I sought for help, and none took my hand.
I wept, and none stood by my side;
I cried aloud, and there was none that heard me.
I am in trouble and hiding, and dare not look up.
To my god, the merciful one, I turn myself, I utter my prayer.
The feet of my goddess I kiss and water with tears....
O Lord, cast not away thy servant....”
The same spirit may be noticed in the early religions of the
Greeks, although here the worshipper uses, as his means of
propitiation, flattery rather than entreaty, as when the Achilles
of the Iliad tries to move Zeus by an enumeration of his different
titles, addressing him as “Father Zeus, that rulest from Ida,
most glorious, most great[305],” and Athena is appealed to by
Nestor in the Odyssey as “Daughter of Zeus, driver of the spoil,
the maiden of Triton[306]” and so on. As, however, magical ideas
come to the front, we find these prayers giving way to others
containing neither appeals for mercy nor flattery, but merely
long strings of names and attributes, all designed to show an
acquaintance with the antecedents and supposed natural
disposition of the divinity addressed, and inspired by the fear
that the one name which might exert a compelling effect upon
his answer might accidentally have been omitted[307]. So, too,
the sacrifices, which in early times were chosen on the sole
principle of giving to the god what was best and costliest, came
later to be regulated by the supposed knowledge of what was
especially appropriate to him for reasons based on sympathetic
magic or the association of ideas. Thus, swine were sacrificed
to Demeter, he-goats to Dionysos, cattle and horses to Poseidon,
and rams to Heracles[308], instead of the animals, chosen only for
their youth and beauty and with or without gilded horns, that
96we read about in the Iliad and Odyssey[309]. Clearly such distinctions
necessitate a much closer knowledge of the divine
nature than where the answer to prayer or sacrifice depends
merely on the benevolence of the deity.
It is also evident that such ideas will give rise to curiosity
with regard to the nature and history of the gods, to their
relations with one another, and to the extent and division of
their rule over Nature, which would hardly affect those who
think that all events depend simply upon the nod of the super-human
powers[310]. Hence it is evident that one of the first consequences
of a large admixture of magic in a religion will be a
great increase of myths and legends in which the actions of the
gods will be recounted with more or less authority, and some
observed natural phenomenon will be pointed to as evidence of
the truth of the stories narrated[311]. Moreover, the means by
which the consequence of any voluntary or involuntary transgression
of the supposed commands of the gods can be averted
will be eagerly sought after, and these, whether they take the
form of purifications, lustrations, or other expiatory rites, will
all be strictly magical in character, and will generally consist
in the more or less detailed representation of some episode in
their history, on the well-known principle of magic that any
desired effect can be produced by imitating it[312]. In all these
cases it is knowledge and not conduct which is required, and thus
it is that gnosticism or a belief in the importance of acquaintance
with the divine world, its motives, and the influences to which
it is subject, enters into religion. Then it comes about that man
begins to trouble himself about the origin of the universe and
its end, the cause of his own appearance upon the earth, and the
position that he occupies in the scale of being. Hence theogonies
or tales relating how the gods came into existence, and
97their kinship to one another, cosmogonies or accounts of the
creation of the world, and apocalypses or stories professing to
reveal the lot of man after death and the fate to which our
universe is destined, take shape to an extent unknown to religions
which remain merely or chiefly propitiatory.
There is, however, another and a less sublime kind of knowledge
which is everywhere associated with the appearance of
gnosticism. This is the knowledge of ceremonies and formulas,
of acts to be done and of words to be said, which are thought
to exercise a compelling effect on the supra-sensible world,
and which we may class together under the generic name of
ceremonial magic. Our acquaintance with these at the period
under discussion has lately been much enlarged by the decipherment
and publication of the so-called Magic Papyri found
for the most part in Egypt and now scattered throughout the
principal museums of Europe[313]. These turn out on investigation
to be the manuals or handbooks of professional sorcerers or
magicians, and to range in date from the IIIrd century before
to the IVth or Vth after Christ. They contain, for the most part
without any order or coherence, details of the different ceremonies
used for the personal aggrandizement of the user, for
gaining the love of women and (conversely) for putting hate
between a man and his wife; for healing disease and casting
out devils; for causing dreams, discovering thieves, and gaining
knowledge of the thoughts of men and of things past and to
come; and for obtaining, by other than direct means, success
in athletic competitions. In others, we find directions for
evoking gods or spirits who may thus be bound to the service
of the magician, for raising the dead for necromantic purposes,
and for the destruction of enemies, mingled with technical
recipes for making ink and for the compounding of drugs. A
feature common to nearly all these charms is their illustration
by certain roughly-drawn pictures and formulas which seem at
first to be mere strings of letters without sense.
A few specimens of these charms may help to make this
98description clearer. In a papyrus now in the British Museum
which is said from the writing to date from the IVth century A.D.[314],
we find the following charms for obtaining an oracular response
in a dream:
“Take of the inner leaves of the laurel and of virgin earth and
wormwood seeds flour and of the herb cynocephalium (and I have
heard from a certain man of Heracleopolis [now Ahnas el-Medineh]
that he takes of the leaves of an olive-tree newly sprouted)....
It is carried by a virgin boy ground up with the materials aforesaid
and the white of an ibis’ egg is mixed with the whole
compound. There must also be an image of Hermes clad in the
chlamys, and the moon must be rising in the sign of Aries or
Leo or Sagittarius. Now let Hermes hold the herald’s wand, and
do thou write the spell on hieratic paper. And take a goose’s
windpipe, as I also learned from the Heracleopolite, and insert
it into the figure so as to be able to blow into it. When you
wish for an oracular answer, write the spell and the matter in
hand, and having cut a hair from your head, wrap it up in the
paper and tie it with a Phoenician knot, and put it at the feet
of the caduceus, or, as some say, place it upon it. Let the figure
be in a shrine of limewood, and when you wish for an oracular
answer place the shrine with the god at your head, and make
invocation, offering frankincense on an altar and some earth
from a place where there is growing corn, and one lump of sal
ammoniac. Let this be placed at your head and lie down to sleep
after first saying this, but giving no answer to anyone who may
address you:
“Hermes, lord of the world, inner circle of the moon
Round and square, originator of the words of the tongue
Persuading to justice, wearer of the chlamys, with winged sandals
Rolling an ethereal course under the lower parts of the earth
Guide of spirits, greatest eye of the sun
Author of all manner of speech, rejoicing with lights
Those mortals whose life being finished are under the lower parts of the earth.
99Thou art called the foreknower of destinies, and the divine vision
Sending oracles both by day and by night.
Thou dost heal all the ills of mortals with thy medicines.
Come hither, blessed one, greatest son of perfect memory
Appear propitious in thy own shape, and send a propitious form
That by the excellence of thy divining art I, a hallowed man, may receive what I need.
O Lord grant my prayer, appear and grant me a true oracle!
“Make the adjuration at the risings of the sun and moon.”
(The inscription to be written on the paper wrappings of the figure.)
“Huesemigadôn, Orthô Baubô, noê odêre soire soire
Kanthara, Ereschchigal, sankistê, dodekakistê” etc.
In this charm we have nearly all the typical elements of
the magic of the period. The windpipe of a goose or other
long-necked animal was, we learn from Hippolytus, inserted
into the hollow head of the metal statue of the god, in order
that the priest might use it as a speaking tube, and thus cause
the statue to give forth oracular responses in a hollow voice[315].
Hence its use would be thought particularly appropriate when
an oracle was sought, although in circumstances where it would
be ineffective for purposes of deceit. The fragment of a hymn
in hexameter verse to a god whom it addresses as Hermes is
doubtless of great antiquity and taken from the ritual of some
half-Greek, half-Oriental worship such as we may imagine to
have been paid to the Cabiri, in which a god identified by
the Greeks with their own Hermes was particularly honoured.
The words of the spell to be written on the paper are by no means
the mere gibberish they seem, although they have been so
corrupted that it is almost impossible to recognise even the
language in which they are written. The word Huesemigadôn
is, however, an epithet or name of Pluto the ruler of Hades,
100and occurs in that connection, as has been shown elsewhere,
in many of these magic spells[316]. The Orthô Baubô which follows
it is generally found in the same context and seems to cover
the name of that Baubo who plays a prominent part in the
Mysteries of Eleusis and appears to have been confused in later
times with Persephone, the spouse of Pluto[317]. Ereshchigal
[Eres-ki-gal], again, is a word borrowed from the first or
Sumerian inhabitants of Babylonia, and means in Sumerian
“the Lady of the great (i.e. the nether) world,” being a title
frequently used for Allat the goddess of hell, who appears in
the very old story of the Descent of Ishtar and is the Babylonian
counterpart of Persephone[318]. Why she should have
been called dodekakistê or the 12th cannot now be said; but it
is possible that we have here a relic of the curious Babylonian
habit of giving numbers as well as names to the gods, or rather
of identifying certain numbers with certain divinities[319]. On
the whole, therefore, it may be judged that the words of the spell
once formed part of the ritual of a Sumerian worship long since
forgotten and that they travelled across Western Asia and were
translated as far as might be into Greek, when that language
became the common tongue of the civilized world after Alexander’s
conquests.
This may be taken for a spell having its origin in, or at any
rate depending for its efficacy upon, the relics of some Western
101Asiatic faith. The following taken from another papyrus now
in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris shows acquaintance
with the Egyptian religion—probably through the Alexandrian
or Isiacist form of it described in Chapter II—and is perhaps
a more salient example of the compulsive element common to
all magic, but particularly associated with the Egyptian magicians.
It is given in the shape of a letter purporting to be
addressed by a certain Nephotes to the Pharaoh Psamtik whom
the Greeks called Psammetichos, and who managed, as has been
said above, to drive out the Ethiopians and to rule Egypt by the
help of Greek mercenaries. There is no reason to suppose that
this attribution is anything more than a charlatanic attempt to
assign to it a respectable origin; but it is probable from certain
indications that it was really taken from an earlier hieratic
or demotic MS. of pre-Christian times. It has been published
by Dr Karl Wessely of Vienna[320] and is written in Greek characters
of apparently the IIIrd century A.D.
“Nephotes to Psammetichos king of Egypt, the ever living,
greeting. Since the great god [Serapis?] has restored to thee an
eternal kingdom, and Nature has made thee an excellent adept, and
I am also willing to show forth to thee the love of art which is mine—I
have sent to thee this ceremony, a holy rite made perfect with all
ease of working, which having tested, you will be amazed at the
unexpected nature of this arrangement. You will see with your
own eyes in the bowl in what day or night you will and in what
place you will. You will see the god in the water, receiving the word
from the god in what verses you will. [It will reach also?] the
world-ruler and if you ask a question of him he will speak even of
all the other things you seek. [A description of the ointment to be
used doubtless once followed, but has been omitted in the Paris MS.[321]]
102Having thus anointed yourself and having put together before the
rising of the sun in this form (?) what things you will, when the
third day of the moon has come, go with the mystagogue upon the
roof of the house, and spread upon the earth a clean linen cloth,
and having crowned yourself with black ivy at the 5th hour after
noon, lie down naked on the linen cloth, and order him [the mystagogue]
to bind your eyes with a bandage of black linen; and having
laid yourself down like a corpse [or, on your back?], close your eyes,
making the sign of consecration towards the sun with these words:—
“O mighty Typhon of the sceptre on high, sceptred ruler, God of
Gods. King Aberamenthôu[322], hill shaker, bringer of thunder,
hurricane, who lightens by night, hot-natured one, rock shaker,
destroyer of wells, dasher of waves, who disturbs the deep with
movement. Io erbêt autauimêni. I am he who with thee has
uprooted the whole inhabited world and seeks out the great Osiris
who brought thee chains. I am he who with thee fights on the side
of the gods (some say against the gods). I am he who has shut up
the twin sides of heaven, and has lulled to sleep the invisible dragon,
and who has established the sea [and?] the red springs of rivers.
Until thou shall no longer be lord of this dominion, I am thy soldier,
I was conquered [and hurled] headlong by the gods. I was thrown
down by [their] wrath in vain [or, because of the void]. Awake!
I come as a suppliant, I come as thy friend, and thou wilt not cast
me out, O earth-caster. King of the gods. aemonaebarôtherreethôrabeaneïmea[323].
Be strong, I entreat! Grant me this grace that,
when I shall command one of the gods themselves to come to my
incantations, I may see them coming quickly! Naïne basanaptatou
eaptou mênô phaesmê paptoumênôph aesimê trauapti peuchrê, trauara
ptoumêph, mouraianchouchaphapta moursaaramei. Iaô aththarauimênoker
boroptoumêth attaui mêni charchara ptoumai lalapsa trauei
103trauei mamôphortoula[324] aeêio iou oêôa eai aeêiôi iaô aêi ai iaô[325]. On
your repeating this three times, there will be this sign of the alliance[326].
But you having the soul of a magician will be prepared. Do not
alarm yourself, for a sea-hawk hovering downwards will strike with
his wings upon your body[327]. And do thou having stood upon thy
feet clothe thyself in white garments, and in an earthen censer
scatter drops of frankincense speaking thus: ‘I exist in thy sacred
form. I am strong in thy sacred name. I have lighted upon the
flowing-forth of thy good things, O Lord, God of Gods, king
demon. Atthouin thouthoui tauanti laôaptatô’. Having done this,
you may descend like a god, and will command the [order?][328] of
Nature through this complete arrangement of autoptic [i.e. clairvoyant]
lecanomancy. It is also a way of compelling the dead to
become visible. For when you wish to enquire concerning [any]
events, you must take a brazen jar or dish or pan, whichever you
will, and fill it with water, which if you are invoking the celestial
gods must be living [Qy. running or sparkling?]; but, if the terrestrial
divinities, from the sea; and if Osiris or Sarapis, from the
river [Nile?]; and, if the dead, from a well. Take the vessel upon
your knees, pour upon it oil made from unripe olives, then bending
over the vessel repeat the following invocation and invoke what god
you will and an answer will be given to you and he will speak to you
concerning all things. But if and when he shall have spoken, dismiss
104him with the dismissal which you will wonder at, using the same
speech.
“Speech to be said over the vessel. Amoun auantau laimoutau
riptou mantaui imantau lantou laptoumi anchômach araptoumi.
Hither, such and such a god! Be visible to me this very day and do
not appal my eyes. Hither to me such and such a god! giving ear
to my race [?]. For this is what anchôr anchôr achachach ptoumi
chancho charachôch chaptoumê chôraharachôch aptoumi mêchôchaptou
charach ptou chanchô charachô ptenachôcheu, a name written in a
hundred letters, wishes and commands. And do not thou, most
mighty king, forget the magicians among us; because this is the
earliest name of Typhon, at which tremble the earth, the abyss,
Hades, heaven, the sun, the moon, the place of the stars and the
whole phenomenal universe. When this name is spoken, it carries
along with its force gods and demons. It is the hundred-lettered
name, the same name as last written. And when thou hast uttered
it, the god or the dead person who hears it will appear to thee and will
answer concerning the things you ask. And when you have learned
all things, dismiss the god only with the strong name, the one of the
hundred letters, saying ‘Begone, Lord, for thus wills and commands
the great god!’ Say the name and he will depart. Let this treatise,
O mighty king, be kept to thyself alone, being guarded from being
heard by any other. And this is the phylactery which you should
wear. It should be arranged on a silver plate. Write the same
name with a brazen pen and wear it attached with a strip of ass’s
skin[329].”
The purpose of the charm just given is, as will be seen,
to produce apparitions in a bowl containing liquid after the
fashion still common in the near East[330]. It amply bears out
the remark of Iamblichus that the Egyptian magicians, differing
therein from the Chaldaean, were accustomed in their spells
to threaten the gods[331], and many other instances of this can
105be found in other passages of the magic papyri. But it should
be noticed that in this case the magician is dealing with a power
thought to be hostile alike to man and to the beneficent gods.
Typhon, who is, as Plutarch tells us, the Greek equivalent of
the Egyptian Set, was looked upon in Hellenistic times as essentially
a power of darkness and evil, who fights against the gods
friendly to man with the idea of reducing their ordered world
to chaos. Yet the magician avows himself on his side, and
even speaks of his name as being able to compel the heavenly
gods, to whom he must therefore be superior. Iamblichus tries
to explain this, and to refine away the obvious meaning of such
spells, but their existence certainly justifies the accusation of
trafficking with devils brought by the early Christian Fathers
against the practisers of magic.
Another charm may be quoted for the purpose of showing
the acquaintance, superficial though it was, with the religions
of all nations in the Hellenistic world and the indifference with
regard to them which the practice of magic necessitated. It
appears in the papyrus in the British Museum last quoted from
and is directed to be spoken over “the lamp” which plays so
great a part in all magical processes[332]. Of its real or supposed
author, Alleius Craeonius, nothing is known:
“A spell of Allêius Craeonius spoken over the lamp. Ôchmarmachô,
the nouraï chrêmillon sleeping with eyes open, nia, Iaô equal-numbered[333]soumpsênis siasias, Iaô who shakes the whole inhabited world,
come hither unto me and give answer concerning the work [i.e. the
106matter in hand] kototh phouphnoun nouebouê in the place prepared
for thy reception [?]. Take an inscription[334] with on the obverse
Sarapis seated holding the royal sceptre of Egypt and upon the
sceptre an ibis. On the reverse of the stone, carve the name and
shut it up and keep it for use. Take the ring in your left hand,
and a branch of olive and laurel in your right, shaking it over the
lamp[335], at the same time uttering the spell seven times. And, having
put it (the ring) upon the Idaean finger[336] of your left hand, facing
and turning inwards [Qy. away from the door of the chamber?]
and having fastened the stone to your left ear, lie down to sleep
returning no answer to any who may speak to you:
“‘I invoke thee who created the earth and the rocks [lit. the
bones] and all flesh and spirit and established the sea, and shakes
the heavens and did divide the light from the darkness, the great
ordering mind, who disposes all, the everlasting eye, Demon of
Demons, God of Gods, the Lord of Spirits, the unwandering Æon.
Iao ouêi [Jehovah?] hearken unto my voice. I invoke thee the
ruler of the gods, high-thundering Zeus, O king Zeus Adonai, O Lord
Jehovah [?]. I am he who invokes thee in the Syrian tongue as the
great god Zaalaêr iphphou[337] and do thou not disregard the sound in
Hebrew ablanathanalba[338]abrasilôa. For I am silthachôouch lailam
blasalôth Iaô ieô nebuth sabiothar bôth arbath iaô Iaôth Sabaoth patourê
zagourê Baruch adonai elôai iabraam[339]barbarauô nausiph, lofty-minded,
everliving, having the diadem of the whole ordered world,
siepê saktietê of life (twice) sphê nousi (twice) sietho (twice). Chthethônirinch
ôêaêêol aôê Iaô asial Sarapêolsô ethmourêsini sem lau lou
lurinch.’
107“This spell loosens chains, blinds, brings dreams, causes favours,
and may be used for any purposes you wish.”
In this spell, we have Zeus and Yahweh associated with
Serapis in the apparent belief that all three were the same god.
Although the magician parades his learning by using the name
of one of the Syrian Baals, and it is possible that some of the
unintelligible words of the invocation may be much corrupted
Egyptian, he is evidently well acquainted with Hebrew, and
one of the phrases used seems to be taken from some Hebrew
ritual. It is hardly likely that he would have done this unless
he were himself of Jewish blood; and we have therefore the
fact that a Jewish magician was content to address his national
god as Zeus and to make use of a “graven image” of him under
the figure of the Graeco-Egyptian Serapis in direct contravention
of the most stringent clauses in the Law of Moses. A more
striking instance of the way in which magicians of the time
borrowed from all religions could hardly be imagined.
The uncertain date of the charms under discussion prevent
any very cogent argument as to their authorship being drawn
from them; but there are other grounds for supposing that the
use of magic was never so wide-spread as in the last three
centuries before and the first three centuries after the birth of
Christ, and that this was mainly due to the influx of Orientals
into the West. One of the indirect effects of Alexander’s conquests
was, by substituting Greek kings for the native rulers who
had till then governed the countries lying round the Nile and
the Euphrates, to break up the priestly colleges there established,
and thus to set free a great quantity of the lower class of priests
and temple-servants who seem to have wandered through the
Hellenistic world, selling their knowledge of curious arts, and
seeking from the credulity of their fellows the toilless livelihood
that they had till then enjoyed at the expense of the state.
The names given to the most famous of these charlatans in the
early Roman Empire—Petosiris, Nechepso, Astrampsuchos[340],
108and Ostanes[341]—are in themselves sufficient to show their origin;
and “Chaldaicus” passed into the common language of the time
as the recognized expression for the professional exponent of
curious arts. Even in the time of Sulla there seems to have
been no lack of persons who, if not magicians, were at all events
professional diviners capable of interpreting the Dictator’s
dreams[342], and the writers of the Augustan age allude frequently
to magic, such as that taught by the papyri just quoted, as
being generally the pursuit of foreigners. The Thessalian
magicians are as celebrated in the Roman times which Apuleius
describes as in those of Theocritus. The Canidia or Gratidia
of Horace had also a Thessalian who assisted her in her incantations[343].
But these, like the Chaldaean and Egyptian sorcerers
just mentioned, were at the head of their profession,
and in many cases made large sums out of the sale of their
services. The taste for magic of the poorer classes, slaves, and
freedmen, was catered for by the crowd of itinerant magicians,
among whom the Jews (and Jewesses) seem to have been the
most numerous, who used to hang about the Circus Maximus[344].
Renan is doubtless perfectly right when he says that never
were the Mathematici, the Chaldaei, and the Goetae of all kinds
so abundant as in the Rome of Nero[345]. Their prevalence in the
great cities of the eastern provinces of the Empire may be judged
from the frequency of their mention in the New Testament[346].
It would, of course, be very easy to consider all such practices
as the result of deliberate and conscious imposture. This is
109the course taken by Hippolytus in the Philosophumena, in which
the heresiologist bishop gives a description of the tricks of the
conjurors of the IIIrd century accompanied by rationalistic
explanations which sometimes make a greater demand on the
credulity of the readers than the wonders narrated[347]. These
tricks he accuses the leaders of the Gnostics of his time of learning
and imitating, and the accusation is therefore plainly dictated
by the theological habit of attempting by any means to discredit
the morals of those who dissent from the writer’s own religious
opinions[348]. But a study of the magic papyri themselves by no
means supports this theory of conscious imposture. The spells
therein given were evidently written for the use of a professional
magician, and seem to have been in constant employment. Many
of them bear after them the note written in the hand of the scribe
that he has tested them and found them efficacious. The pains,
too, which the author takes to give variations of the process recommended
in them—as for example in the quotations from a
“man of Heracleopolis” in the first of the spells given above—all
show that he had a more or less honest belief in the efficacy
of the spells he is transcribing. The recording in the same
papyri of what would be now called “trade secrets” such as
recipes for the manufacture of ink all point the same way, and
go to confirm the view that the magicians who made use of them,
although willing to sell their supposed powers over the supernatural
world for money, yet believed that they really possessed
them.
This is the more likely to be true because many of the
phenomena which these spells are intended to produce are what
would now be called hypnotic. The gods and demons invoked
are supposed to appear sometimes in dreams, but more generally
to a virgin boy gazing fixedly either at a lamp or at the shining
110surface of a liquid. This is, of course, the form of “crystal-gazing”
or divination by the ink-pool still used throughout
the East, a graphic description of which is given in Lane’s
Modern Egyptians[349]. In this case as in the charms for the healing
of disease—especially of epilepsy and other nervous maladies—given
in the same papyri, the active agent seems to be the
power of suggestion, consciously or unconsciously exercised
by the operator or magician. A full but popular explanation
of these phenomena from the standpoint of modern science
will be found in the lectures on “Hypnotisme et Spiritisme”
delivered at Geneva by Dr Émile Yung in 1890[350], while the subject
has been treated more learnedly and at greater length by a great
number of writers, among whom may be specially mentioned
M. Pierre Janet[351], the successor and continuator of the researches
of the celebrated Charcot at the Salpêtrière.
The influence that such practices exercised upon the
development of the post-Christian sects or schools generally
classed together under the name of Gnostic is not very clearly
defined. It may, indeed, be said that the great diffusion of
the magical rites that took place during the centuries immediately
preceding, as in those immediately following, the birth
of Christ, predisposed men’s minds to the search for a cosmogony
or theory of the universe which should account for its evolution
as part of an orderly and well-devised system rather than as the
capricious and, as it were, incoherent creation of the gods.
That some such force was at work may be gathered from the
fact that magical beliefs and practices seem to have crept into
the religion of the whole civilized world at this period. But
that the schools calling themselves Gnostic owed their development
directly or exclusively to them is an idea that must be
repudiated. Hippolytus, as has been said, does, indeed, make
some such charge, but only in general terms and without any
evidence in its support. When later he goes through the sects
seriatim, he only reiterates it in the cases of Simon Magus, of
111his successor Menander, and of Carpocrates of Antioch; and
it is probable from the context that in all these cases he is only
referring to what seemed to him the superstitious attention
paid by the “heretics” in question to the externals of worship,
such as the use of pictures and statues, lights and incense, which
seem in many cases to have been borrowed directly from
paganism.
This attention to the details of ritual, however, did in itself
contain the germ of a danger to the survival of any organized
cult in which it was present in excess, which was to receive
full illustration in the later forms of Egyptian Gnosticism
properly so-called. As will be shown in its place, the seed of
Gnosticism fell in Egypt upon soil encumbered with the débris
of many older faiths which had long since passed into the stage
of decay. Nor could the earnestness or the philosophic insight
of the great Gnostics of Hadrian’s time, who started their propaganda
from Alexandria, contend for long with the inherited
preconceptions of a degraded and stubborn peasantry who had
learned for millennia to regard all religion as sorcery. Here
Gnosticism degenerated quickly into magic of the least enlightened
and basest kind, and thus lost all right to be considered
in any sense a religion[352]. The case was different in other parts of
the Roman Empire, where a better intellectual equipment and
the practical syncretism or fusion of worships offered more
favourable ground for the development of new faiths not
appealing to the members of one nationality only.
That this idea of Gnosticism or of the importance of knowledge—were
it only the knowledge of charms and spells—in
dealing with the spiritual and invisible world was bound to
play a prominent part in the evolution of the world-religions
which Alexander’s conquests had rendered possible is therefore
evident. Some writers have gone further and have declared
that Christianity itself may be “only an episode—though a
very important episode—in the history of Gnosticism[353].” But
112to say this, as will presently be shown, is to go too far, and
Christianity, although she obtained many converts from those
Gnostic sects with which the Church of the Apostolic and
sub-Apostolic ages found itself in competition[354], yet proved in
the long run to be the most bitter enemy of Gnosticism. From
the first, the Catholic Church seems to have recognized that the
ideas which lay at the root of Gnosticism—to which word I
have ventured here to give a meaning more extended than that
which it connotes in heresiological writers—were opposed to
religion altogether; and if allowed to triumph would have had
their end in the development of a science, which, if not absolutely
atheistic, would at least reduce the necessary action of the
spiritual world upon this to the vanishing point[355]. It would
indeed be quite possible to argue that such ideas must always
appear when a people of inferior culture, but of vigorous intellect,
come into frequent contact for the first time with a material
civilization higher than their own. It is sufficient for the
present purpose to have shown that they were widely spread
during the centuries which immediately preceded the appearance
of Christianity, and that they count for something in the
evolution of the many heretical sects who came to trouble most
seriously the peace of the Catholic Church in the early centuries
of our era. The same causes, however, must have been at
work some time before, and it is impossible to explain some of
the features of Gnosticism in its more extended sense without
going back to an early period of Greek history. For it was in
Greece that the Orphic teaching first appeared, and it is to this
that most of the post-Christian Gnostic heresies or sects attributed,
not untruly, their own origin.
Connected in practice with, yet entirely different in origin
113from, this magic was the astrology or star-lore which after the
conquest of the Euphrates valley by the Persians began to
make its way westwards. It would seem that its birthplace
was the plains of Chaldaea, where the clear air brings the starry
expanse of the sky nearer, as it were, to the observer than in
the denser and more cloudy atmosphere of Europe, while the
absence of rising ground not only enables him to take in the
whole heaven at a glance, but gives him a more lively idea of the
importance of the heavenly bodies. There the careful and
patient observation of the Sumerian priests at a period which
was certainly earlier than Sargon of Akkad (i.e. 2750 B.C.)
established the fact that certain groups of stars appeared and
disappeared at regular intervals, that others moved more swiftly
than their fellows, and that the places of both with reference to
the apparent path of the sun varied in a way which corresponded
with the recurrence of the seasons. Primitive man,
however, does not distinguish between post hoc and propter hoc,
or rather he assumes unhesitatingly that, if any natural phenomenon
occurs with anything like regularity after another, the
first is the cause of the second. Hence the swifter stars soon
came to be clothed in the minds of the early astronomers with
attributes varying with the phenomena of which they were
supposed to be the cause. Thus, the planet or “wandering”
star which we call Jupiter came to be known as the “god of
good winds,” the Hyades and Pleiades were looked upon as
the bringers of rain, and the stars whose appearance ushered
in the cold and darkness of winter were considered as hostile
to man[356]. As time progressed, however, these observations
accumulated—largely, one would think, because of the imperishable
material on which they were recorded—and it then
began to be perceived that the movement of the heavenly bodies
were not due to their individual caprice or will, but were dictated
by an inexorable and unchangeable law. In the drawing of
this conclusion, the patient and logical mind of the Mongoloid
inhabitants of Sumer, ever mindful at once of the past and the
future of the race, no doubt played its full part.
114The effect of this change in the mental attitude of man
towards the universe was to introduce an entirely new conception
into religion. At first the Babylonians, pushing, as
man generally does, the application of their last discovery
further than the facts would warrant, declared that all events
happened in a regular and prearranged order; and that man
could therefore predict the happening of any event directly
he knew its place in the series. Thus in the “astrological”
tablets preserved in the palace of Assur-banipal at Nineveh,
some of which certainly go back to the reign of Sargon of
Akkad[357], we read:
“In the month of Nisan 2nd day, Venus appeared at sunrise.
There will be distress in the land.... An eclipse happening on
the 15th day, the king of Dilmun is slain, and someone seizes his
throne.... An eclipse happening on the 15th day of the month
Ab the king dies, and rains descend from heaven, and floods fill
the canals.... An eclipse happening on the 20th day, the king
of the Hittites in person seizes the throne.... For the 5th month
an eclipse on the 14th day portends rains and the flooding of canals.
The crops will be good, and king will send peace to king. An eclipse
on the 15th day portends destructive war. The land will be filled
with corpses. An eclipse on the 16th day indicates that pregnant
women will be happily delivered of their offspring. An eclipse
on the 20th day portends that lions will cause terror and that reptiles
will appear; an eclipse on the 21st day that destruction will overtake
the riches of the sea[358].”
115These events are evidently predicted from a knowledge of
what happened immediately after the occurrence of former
eclipses and other celestial phenomena, and it is perhaps characteristic
of the lot of man that most of them are unfavourable
and that the disasters greatly outnumber the good things. But
it is plain that as time went on, the observers of the stars would
begin to perceive that even such unusual celestial phenomena
as eclipses occurred at intervals which, although long compared
with the lifetime of a man, could yet be estimated, and that the
element of chance or caprice could therefore be in great measure
eliminated from their calculation. Then came about the construction
of the calendar, and the formation of tables extending
over a long series of years, by which the recurrence of eclipses
and the like could be predicted a long time in advance. All this
tended to the formation of different ideas of the laws which, it
was now seen, governed man’s life, and the shape which these
now took were equally erroneous, although at first sight more
rational than those held by the first observers.
This new idea was in effect that system of “correspondences”
which occupied a prominent place in nearly all religious systems
from the time of Assyria’s apogee to the triumph of Christianity,
and which through the mediaeval Cabala may be said to retain
to the present day some shadow of its former power over the
minds of the superstitious. This was the notion that the earth
in effect is only a copy of the heavens, and that the events which
happen here below are nothing but a copy of those which are
taking place above[359]. If any great catastrophe such as the
fall of an empire like that of Assyria or the sudden death of a
man distinguished above his fellows like Alexander occurs, it
is because of some conjunction or meeting of hostile stars;
116and if some great and unexpected benefit such as universal
peace or an abundant harvest smiles upon mankind, it is because
those stars most generally favourable to him have recovered
temporary sway. The result was a sort of mapping-out of the
heavens into regions corresponding to those of the earth, and
the assigning of a terrestrial “sphere of influence” to each[360].
But as the predictions made from these alone would have been
too speedily and too evidently falsified in most cases by the
march of events, it became necessary to attribute a predominant
influence to the planets, whose swifter and more irregular movements
introduced new factors into the situation. These planets
were decided to be seven in number, Uranus and Neptune
not having yet been discovered, and the Sun and Moon being
included in the list because they were thought like the others
to move round the earth. Hence all terrestrial things were
assumed to be divided into seven categories corresponding to
the seven planets, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, the Sun,
Jupiter, and Saturn, and to be in an especial way under the
influence of the heavenly bodies of which they were the earthly
representatives.
Into the details of the so-called science of astrology thus
founded, it is not our purpose to enter. To do so would occupy
a greater space than is at our disposal, and would involve
besides the discussion of a great many documents only just
beginning to come to light, and the exact meaning of which is
still uncertain[361]. But it may be mentioned here that astrology
entirely changed its character when it came into contact with
the dawning science of mathematics, which is perhaps the most
enduring monument which bears witness to the fertility and
inventiveness of the Greek mind. So soon as the observations
of the Babylonians were placed at their disposal, the Greek
117mathematicians set to work in real earnest to discover the laws
of the universe and established the science of astronomy pretty
much on the basis on which it stands at the present day. The
discovery of the Metonic cycle, of the trigonometrical method
of measuring the celestial sphere, and of the precession of the
equinoxes all followed in succession, and the prediction of
eclipses, conjunctions of stars, and other celestial phenomena
which had before been more or less a matter of guesswork, now
became a matter of calculation presenting no mystery to anyone
versed in mathematics. The heavens were mapped out, the
stars catalogued, and tables were produced which enabled the
place of any particular star to be found at a given moment
without the actual inspection of the heavens[362].
The result of this improved state of things was not long in
reacting both upon religion, and its congener, magic. On the
first of these, the effect was much the same as that produced
by the discoveries of Copernicus in the XVIth century and those
of Darwin in the XIXth. We do not know enough of the history
of thought at the time to be aware if the Greek additions to the
ascertained laws of Nature aroused the same resentment in
priestly minds as did those of the Prussian and the English
philosophers; but it is evident that if they did so, the quarrel
was speedily made up. Every religion in the Graeco-Roman
world which sought the popular favour after the discoveries
of Hipparchus, took note of the seven planetary spheres which
the geocentric theory of the universe supposed to surround
the earth, and even those known before his time, like Zoroastrianism
and Judaism, hastened to adopt the same view of
the universe, and to modify the details of their teaching to accord
with it. The seven stoles of Isis are as significant in this respect
as the seven-stepped ladder or the seven altars in the mysteries
of Mithras, while the seven Amshaspands of the Avesta and the
attention paid to the seven days of the week by the Jews go to
show how even the most firmly held national traditions had to
bow before it. As for magic, the sevenfold division of things
118which implied that each planet had its own special metal,
precious stone, animal, and plant, placed at the disposal of the
magicians an entirely new mode of compulsion which lent itself
to endless combinations; while, for the same reason, special
conjurations were supposed, as we have seen, only to exercise
their full influence under certain positions of the stars. Perhaps
the climax of this state of things is reached in one of the Gnostic
documents described later, where the salvation of Christian souls
in the next world is said to be determined by the entry of one of
the beneficent planets into one or other of the signs of the
Zodiac[363].
One of the most important results of this impulse was the
sudden importance thus given to the worship of the material sun,
which henceforth forms the centre of adoration in all non-Christian
religions. As we have seen, in the worship of Isis,
the newly-made initiate was made to personify the daystar
in the public, as no doubt he had done in the secret, ceremonies
of the cult. All the post-Alexandrian legends of the gods were
turned the same way, and Serapis, Mithras, Attis were all
identified with the sun, whom philosophers like Pliny and
Macrobius declared to be the one supreme god concealed behind
the innumerable lesser deities of the Graeco-Roman pantheon[364].
Even the Christians could not long hold out against the flood,
and the marks of the compromise to which the Catholic Church
came in the matter may perhaps be seen in the coincidence
of the Lord’s Day with Sunday and the Church’s adoption of
the 25th day of December, the birthday of the Unconquered
Sun-God, as the anniversary of the birth of Christ[365]. It is
certainly by no accident that the emperors whose reigns immediately
preceded the establishment of Christianity all turned
towards the worship of the sun-god who was looked upon as
119the peculiar divinity of the family to which Constantine belonged[366].
To Gnosticism, whether we use the word in the sense in
which it has been used in this chapter, or in its more restricted
connotation as the generic name of the earlier heresies which
afflicted the nascent Church, the development of astrology came
as a source of new life. Henceforth to the knowledge of the
history of the personal dispositions and of the designs of the
gods, had to be added that of the laws governing the movements
of the stars. Moreover, the new theory introduced into Gnosticism
an element which had hitherto been foreign to it, which
was the idea of destiny or of predetermined fate[367]. If all things,
as the astrologers said, happened in a certain regular order of
which the movements of the stars were at once the cause and the
symbol, it follows that their course is determined beforehand,
and may possibly be capable of being ascertained by man.
Hence came in all the ideas as to the predestination of certain
souls to happiness and of others to misery both in this world and
the next, which play such an important part in the religions of
the centuries under consideration, and the influence of which
is by no means extinct at the present day. It is true that, as
M. Cumont has recently pointed out, man is never rigidly true
to his beliefs, and has generally invented some compromise by
which either the favour of the gods or his own conduct is
supposed to free him from the worst effects of a predetermined
fate. Such compromises appear furtively here and there in
Christian Gnosticism, but without sufficient prominence to take
away the effect of the general notion that man’s fate in the
next world is determined before his birth in this.
The general effect of these considerations is, it is thought,
that the Gnosticism which came to trouble the peace of the
Christian Church during its infancy and adolescence had its
120roots, first in the decay of the earlier faith, which showed itself
in the popular taste for cosmogonical and other myths, until
then wholly or partly absent from the ideas of the more civilized
nations of the Persian Empire. On the top of this, came the
great spread of ceremonial magic which seems to have followed
the first introduction of something like upright and just government
by the Aryan conquerors of the East; and then the idea
of a universe ruled not by the unchecked will of capricious
gods, but by the regular and ordered movement of the stars.
The predestinarian view of the fate of the individual which
naturally follows from this last conception, as has just been said,
was subject to exceptions and compromises, but yet appears
as a kind of background or framework to all the religions
(orthodox Christianity excepted) which came into prominence
during the six centuries to which our survey is limited. But
before dealing with those hitherto unnoticed, it is necessary
that we should glance at those pre-Christian forms of Gnosticism,
the earliest of which was perhaps that which appeared
simultaneously in most parts of the Greek world at the beginning
of the Vth century before Christ and is generally known
as Orphism.
CHAPTER IV PRE-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE ORPHICI — HYMN TO PERSEPHONE [439] . — [HYMN] OF MISE—PERFUME: STORAX [443] .
121
All scholars seem now agreed that the legendary Orpheus
never really existed[368], and that the many verses and poems
attributed to him were the work of various hands, one of the
earliest of their authors being Onomacritos of Athens, who fled
with the Pisistratids to the court of Darius at Susa in the first
decade of the Vth century B.C.[369] Yet there is little doubt that
the peculiar myths alluded to in these poems were known at
an early date in Crete, whence they probably found their way
into Athens with Epimenides, the Cretan wizard or wise man
who was sent for to purify the city from the guilt incurred by
the murder of Cylon[370]. This event evidently marks a turning
on the part of the Greeks towards purifications and other
magical rites unknown in Homer’s time[371]; but the tendency,
122to whomever due in the first instance, undoubtedly received a
great impulse from the break-up of the Pythagorean school in
Italy about 500 B.C.[372] This event, which in its effects may be
compared to the dispersion of the priestly corporations of
Babylon and Egypt which followed Alexander’s conquests,
sent wandering a great number of speculative philosophers
trained in the formation of associations for political and other
purposes, and they probably joined forces with a previously
existing Orphic sect, nearly all the early Orphic poems being
ascribed, with more or less likelihood, to Pythagoreans[373]. There
are certain features in these poems which, if we met with them
after the reform of the Zoroastrian religion by the Sassanian
kings, we should certainly attribute to Persian influence; but
this can hardly be done so long as we remain ignorant of what
the Persian religion was in the time of the Achaemenides. The
most probable account of the matter is that the religious
teaching attributed to Orpheus was of Asiatic and particularly
of Phrygian provenance, that it had long been current in Crete
and the other islands of the Mediterranean, that a part of it
came into Greece through Thrace in the time of the Pisistratids,
and that it was finally put into an organized and consistent
shape by those Pythagorean philosophers who made their way
back to Greece after the overthrow of their political power in
Magna Graecia[374]. It found in Pindar a warm adherent, and was
well known to and spoken of with reverence by the three great
123tragic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides[375]. Its greatest
influence, however, was probably exerted through the Eleusinian
and other mysteries which it captured and transformed. It
continued to dominate them from before the time of Herodotus
down to the prohibition of these secret rites by the Christian
emperors, and Orpheus was thus said by everyone to be their
founder[376].
The whole of this teaching centred round the legend of
Dionysos who is described by Herodotus as the youngest—that
is to say the last-adopted—of the great gods of Greece[377]. This
Orphic Dionysos was the Cretan form of the god worshipped
all round the Mediterranean, who was always represented in
human form, and as suffering a violent death and then rising
again from the dead. But to this nucleus, the Orphic poets
added at different times and by degrees a great quantity of
other myths which together formed a complete body of doctrine
setting forth the origin of the world, and of man, and his life
after death. First, they said, existed Chronos or Time “who
grows not old,” from whom sprang Aether and the formless
Chaos. From these was formed a silver egg which, bursting
in due time, disclosed Eros, or Phanes the first born, a shining
god, with wings upon his shoulders, at once male and female, and
having within himself the seeds of all creatures. Phanes creates
the Sun and Moon and also Night, and from Night begets
Uranos and Gaea (Heaven and Earth). These two give birth
to the Titans, among whom is Kronos, who emasculates his
father Uranos and succeeds to his throne. He is in turn
deposed by Zeus, who swallows Phanes, and thus becomes the
father of gods and men[378].
124This part of the Orphic story comes to us almost entirely
from Neo-Platonic sources, and possesses several variants. It
is so manifestly an attempt to reconcile the popular theology
of Greece found in Homer and Hesiod with different Oriental
ideas of the origin of the world that we might consider it to have
been concocted in post-Christian times, were it not that Aristophanes
had evidently heard about Chaos and the mundane egg,
and its production of Eros and Night, which confused genealogy
he burlesques in The Birds[379]. It is probable also, as Alfred
Maury pointed out, that this legend was first taken by the
Orphics from the philosophers of Ionia, and especially from that
Pherecydes of Syros who is said to have been Pythagoras’
master[380]. Attempts have been made to derive it from Indian,
Egyptian, Chaldaean, and even Jewish sources; but its resemblances
to parallel beliefs among some or all of these nations
are too few and sparse for any useful conclusion to be drawn from
them. One of its most marked features is its succession of
divine rulers of the universe, which the Orphics made use of to
exalt their own god Dionysos to the highest rank. The story
they told of this Dionysos was that he was originally the Phanes
whom Zeus swallowed, but that at his second birth he became
the offspring of Zeus by Persephone, the daughter whom Zeus
had himself begotten on one of the earth-goddesses who is sometimes
called Rhea, sometimes Cybele, and sometimes Demeter.
Persephone, described by the Orphics as the “especial” or
“single” daughter of Zeus[381], was seduced by her father in
125the form of a serpent, and in due course brought to light
Dionysos, sometimes called Zagreus or “the Hunter.” This
god, who had the horns of a bull[382], became the darling of his
father, who destined him for his successor and allowed him,
while yet a child, to sit on his throne and to wield the thunder-bolts[383].
But the Titans, the monstrous sons of Earth, either
spurred on by jealousy at the child being given the sovereignty
of the world, or incited thereto by Hera, laid a plot for his
destruction. Beguiling him with childish toys such as a top,
a hoop, and a mirror, they stole upon him unawares with
blackened faces, and, in spite of his struggles and his transformation
into many shapes, tore him limb from limb, cooked his
several members in a cauldron, and ate them. The heart,
however, was saved from them by Pallas Athene, who bore it
to Zeus, who swallowed it, and it thus passed into the Theban
Dionysos, son of Zeus and Semele, who was in turn Zagreus
re-born. Zeus also blasted the Titans with his lightning,
while he ordered Apollo to collect the uneaten members of
the little god and to bury them at Delphi. A variant or perhaps
a continuation of the story makes Demeter, having, as the earth
goddess, received the members of the little god, put them together
and revivify them, and join herself in marriage with the
resuscitated corpse, whence the infant Iacchos is born[384].
126In this part of the story, also, the desire of the authors to
fit it in with the existing mythology is manifest. At Eleusis
from very early times there had been worshipped with mysterious
rites a divine couple who were known only as “the God”
and “the Goddess[385].” This pair were, as we may guess from an
allusion in Hesiod, otherwise called Zeus Chthonios or the
infernal Zeus, god of the underworld, and Demeter[386], the ancient
earth-goddess, who was worshipped with her lover under the
various names of Ma, Cybele, Astarte, Rhea and Isis throughout
Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia and Egypt. As the lover of the
earth-goddess in all these cases suffered death and resurrection,
the Orphics had to work these episodes into the history of
their Dionysos Zagreus. But they carried the idea further than
any of their predecessors by connecting this death and re-birth
with the origin of man and his survival after death[387]. Man,
127they said, was made out of the ashes of the Titans, and was
therefore born to sorrow, his soul being buried in his body as in
a charnel-house[388]. But he also had within him a spark of the
life of Zagreus, the infant ruler of the universe[389], and this enables
him to purify himself from the guilt of the earthborn Titans,
and so to leave the circle of existence and cease from wickedness.
For that the soul of man after leaving his body went, unless
purified, to inhabit the bodies of other men and even animals,
passing from one to the other as in a wheel or endless chain,
was a dogma which the Orphics had taken over from the
Pythagoreans[390]. How now was this purification to be obtained?
The answer that the earlier Orphics gave to this question
must have astonished the pleasure-loving and artistic Greeks.
The true Orphic, they were told, must make his whole earthly
128life a preparation for the next. He must partake at least once
of a mystic sacrifice, in which a living animal was, in memory
of the fate of Zagreus, torn in pieces and eaten raw; but thereafter
he must never again eat any food that has had life nor
even eggs, and he must observe perfect chastity[391], and wear
only linen garments even at his burial, nor must he go near a
sepulchre.
“We aim at a holy life, whence I am become a mystes of Idaean
[i.e. Cretan] Zeus,” says the Orphic in a surviving fragment of
Euripides’ Cretenses, “and having completed the life of night-wandering
Zagreus and the raw flesh-devouring feasts, I uplifted
the torches of the mountain mother, and having been purified by
expiatory offerings, I was hailed as Bacchus by the Curetes....
But now clothed in white garments, I fly the generation of mortals,
and to a corpse I draw not nigh, and I shun the eating of things which
have had life[392].”
The meaning of this is fairly plain and is in everything a
great deal more magical than religious. By a well-known rule
common to nearly all people in a low state of culture, the victim
sacrificed to a god becomes a god himself[393]; and, as the eating
of the victim makes him part of the eater, it has the same effect
on the votary as the swallowing of Phanes by Zeus had upon
this last, the Dionysiac soul in the participant of the sacrifice
is thereby strengthened, and he becomes so far identified with
the god as to bear his name. Henceforth, however, he must
have no further dealings with Titanic matter, and in particular
must shun the corpse which represents the Titanic part of man
without the Dionysiac, and must do nothing which can start
129another being on “the ceaseless round of changing existences[394].”
If he were successful in observing these austerities to the end,
he might hope that, when his soul was released from its prison
house, it would be reunited to Dionysos, and rest for ever free
from the stains of matter. This was in effect the formal teaching
of Pythagoras with regard to the transmigration of souls, and
depended on the view that the soul, or incorporeal part of man,
had once formed part of the soul of the universe diffused throughout
Nature. “I have heard,” says Cicero, “that Pythagoras
and the Pythagoreans ... never doubted but that we possess
minds plucked from the universal divine mind”; a phrase
that he explains in discussing the nature of the gods by saying
that Pythagoras “thought there was a mind spread through
and pervading the whole nature of things whence our minds
are plucked[395].” A similar doctrine of transmigration appears
clearly in Pindar[396], who was one of the first to give voice to the
Orphic teaching, which his lays did much to diffuse. The
addition that the Orphic poets made to the doctrine was doubtless
the attribution to Dionysos and the Eleusinian goddess
of the task of presiding over and arranging these rebirths.
Yet the austerities prescribed by the Orphic life, however
fitted to a philosophic school, could hardly be practised by
people engaged in the business of the world. It was impossible, as
the Pythagoreans had probably found, for people to devote themselves
entirely to the welfare of their souls, and yet to live among
their fellows. Hence some other means by which man could be
assured a happy lot after death had to be devised, and there seems
130no doubt that the post-Pythagorean Orphics taught that this
was to be found in participation in the mysteries or secret
rites already in existence in Greece before the commencement
of their teaching. Whether the Eleusinian Mysteries were in
their inception anything more than the worship of the Chthonian
or infernal deities, as the gods presiding over agriculture and
vegetation considered as a symbol of generation and death,
is still undecided[397]; but there can be no doubt that under
Orphic influence they underwent a complete change. Dionysos,
identified with Hades or Zeus Chthonios, begins, after the
break-up of the Pythagorean school, to take part in them by
the side of Demeter and Persephone, and the story of his
mysterious birth from the goddess, and his identification as
Zagreus with Iacchos, the child-god leading the procession,
seems from this period onwards to have been told in them[398].
But the mode in which the Mysteries were regarded by the
Greeks in general materially altered after the introduction of
the Orphic teaching, and this also can hardly be attributed to
anything else than the direct influence of its professors. We
are told on all sides that no religious teaching formed part of
the Mysteries of Eleusis, and that on the contrary the initiates
were simply shown certain scenes and objects, and heard certain
mysterious words on which they were left to put their own
131interpretation[399]. But the Orphics discovered in them a sacramental
or purifying grace which was thought to have a kind of
magical effect on the lot alike in this life and after death of
those who took part in them. It was enough to have seen these
mysteries, as the poets aver[400], for man’s place in the next world
to be changed for the better, and thus it is the knowledge thus
obtained, and not conduct or favour, which is thought to influence
his destiny. The doctrine thus baldly stated moved
to indignation Diogenes the Cynic, who pointed out that
Patecion the brigand, who had been initiated, had earned for
himself by this one act happiness after death, while Epaminondas,
best of patriots, by the fact that he had not been
initiated, was condemned to be plunged in mud and to undergo
other tortures[401].
The very important part in Orphic practice played by this
belief in the magical power of initiation has lately been put
beyond doubt by the discovery of certain inscriptions in the
tombs of worshippers of the Orphic deities at places so far apart
as Petelia in Magna Graecia, Calabria, Eleutherna in Crete, Naples,
and Rome. On palaeographic grounds their dates are said to
range over at least three centuries, the earliest having apparently
been made in the IVth or IIIrd century B.C., and the latest in the
Ist or IInd century of our era. They are all engraved on thin
gold plates, are in Greek hexameter verse, and in the opinion
of scholars are all taken from the same ritual, and therefore
afford evidence of the permanence and fixity as well as of the
wide spread of the Orphic teaching[402]. They contain instructions
132to the dead as to the things to be done and avoided by him or
her in the next world and also the formulas to be repeated to
the powers there met with, which will have the effect of magically
procuring for the deceased an exalted rank among its inhabitants.
One of the earliest in date, found at Petelia and now in the
British Museum, runs thus:
“Thou shalt find to the left of the House of Hades a well-spring
And by the side thereof standing a white cypress.
To the well-spring approach not near;
But thou shalt find another by the Lake of Memory.
Cold water flowing forth, and there are guardians before it.
Say: I am a child of Earth and of Starry Heaven[403]
But my race is of Heaven (above). This you know yourselves.
And lo! I am parched with thirst and I perish, Give me quickly
The cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory[404].
And of themselves they will give me to drink from the Holy Well-Spring.”
Another set of plates from tombs at Eleutherna, now in the
National Museum at Athens, is to this effect:
“I am parched with thirst and I perish.—Nay, drink of Me
The well-spring flowing for ever on the right where the cypress is
Who art thou?...
Whence art thou? I am the son of Earth and of Starry Heaven.”
The magical and gnostical purport of this is plain. As in
the Egyptian Book of the Dead, to which these plates bear a
great resemblance, their aim was to give the deceased person
in whose tomb the inscription was buried[405], the knowledge of
the infernal or subterranean regions which was to make his
entry into them safe and profitable. That his soul or immaterial
133part was a part of Dionysos, the descendant of Uranos and Gê[406],
and more directly the offspring of Demeter the earth-goddess
by Zeus, the god of the sky, had already been shown to the dead
on his initiation. But it was necessary that he should prove
to the gods of death and generation that he knew this, when they
would have no alternative but to admit him to all the privileges
attached to his high descent and the rank he had attained in
the scale of being by initiation. This is made plainer still by
the statements put into the mouth of the dead by the gold
plates from Naples, now in the Naples Museum, which read
thus:
“Out of the Pure I come, Pure Queen of those Below,
And Eukles and Eubouleus[407] and other Gods and Demons;
For I also avow that I am of blessed race.
And I have paid the penalty for deeds unrighteous
Whether it is that Fate laid me low, or the Gods Immortal,
Or [that Zeus has struck me?] with star-flung thunderbolt
I have flown out of the sorrowful weary Wheel;
I have passed with eager feet to the Circle desired;
I have sunk beneath the bosom of Despoena[408], Queen of the Underworld
I have passed with eager feet to [or from] the Circle desired;
And now I come a suppliant to Holy Persephone
That of her grace she receive me to the seats of the Hallowed.”
Then comes Persephone’s answer
“Happy and Blessed One, Thou shalt be God instead of Mortal,”
134while a prose formula “A kid I have fallen into milk” which
seems to have been a password among the Orphics is written
in the midst of the verses and appears upon this and several
of the other plates[409].
In the Naples plate, we have the teaching, more or less dimly
indicated in the quotations from the Orphic poems which occur
in classical and patristic writers, brought to a focus. The dead
has during his earthly life taken part in the mystic rites which
have told him whence life comes and whither it is tending. He
now has the right to demand from the deities who preside over
the death and rebirth of mortals that he be relieved from the
endless round of incarnations; and he backs up this request
by proof of the knowledge he possesses of their nature and his
own origin, at the same time uttering passwords which he has
received on his initiation. The effect of this, although out of
reverence represented as an act of grace on the part of the
divinities addressed, is in fact magical or automatic. The
powers addressed perforce grant the request of the dead and he
becomes like them a god[410], freed from the necessity for any
further deaths and rebirths. The same idea is traceable
throughout the whole of the Egyptian Book of the Dead from
which it may have been directly derived[411], and also in other
135religions with which it would seem the Orphic teaching can
have had no connection[412]. But the point to remember at
present is that it appears henceforward in all the cults or sects
to which we have given the generic name of Gnostic[413].
How this idea was propagated in Greece and her colonies
is a question over which still hangs a great deal of obscurity.
There exist a great number of quotations from poems attributed
to Orpheus, which were clearly the composition of the Orphic
school, and all these are, like the gold plates, in hexameter verse.
These, as Damascius implies, were recited by professional
declaimers called Rhapsodists[414] at the different games and
festivals held in honour of the gods, as were once the so-called
Homeric Hymns and the poems of Pindar, which they perhaps
succeeded and displaced. In this way they doubtless became
familiar to many thousands who would otherwise never have
heard of the Orphic teaching, and our conviction on this point
is strengthened when we see how very numerous the festivals
in which the Chthonian gods were celebrated really were.
Besides Eleusis, we hear of the worship of Dionysos, Demeter
and Persephone as infernal deities in Achaea, in the Argolid,
in Arcadia, in Messenia, in Sparta, and in other parts of the
Peloponnesus[415]. It also spread through Boeotia, where the
national cult of Dionysos no doubt ensured it a good reception,
and thence early passed into the islands of the Aegean. Crete
had, as we have seen, practised it even before it came to
Athens; and Demeter and Persephone were not only worshipped
in Sicily, but were taken to be the tutelary gods of the island.
The Ionian colonists also took the worship of the Eleusinian
triad with them into Asia and they were adored in parts of
136Asia Minor as far distant from Greece as Cyzicus[416]. At all, or
nearly all, these places, mysteries were celebrated having more
or less likeness to those of Eleusis, and were followed by games
and festivals like the Eleusinia, at which the songs of the
Rhapsodists would be heard[417]. The frequent Dionysia, or
festivals of Dionysos, scattered all over the Greek-speaking
world, but especially in its Northern or Balkan provinces, no
doubt offered an even better opportunity for making known
these poems.
The Orphic poets, also, by no means confined their songs to
the worship of the deities adored at Eleusis. The Thracians,
including in that name the inhabitants of Macedonia and
Thessaly, always had extraordinary ideas about the future life,
and Herodotus describes how they used to gather weeping round
the new-born child, bewailing his entry into this miserable
world, while they rejoiced over the death of any of their fellows,
declaring that he had thus obtained a happy deliverance from his
troubles[418]. These, however, were the very doctrines of the
Orphics, who declared that the body was the grave of the soul,
and that the life of the world to come was the only one worth
living. Hence the mythical Orpheus was said to have been a
Thracian, and the worship of Bacchus or the Theban Dionysos
as the god of wine to have come into Attica from Thrace by way
of Boeotia, a theory which derives some colour from the orgiastic
dances and ravings of the Maenads and Bacchanals, who seem
therein to have reproduced the rites of the savage Thracians[419].
When the Phrygian divinities—Cybele the Mother of the Gods,
and her consort Attis—were brought into Greece, the Orphics
seized hold of their legends also, and so transformed them that
it is now impossible for us to tell how much of them is Asiatic,
137and how much is the result of Orphic interpolation[420]. The same
thing may be said of the worship of the Syrian Adonis, whose
mystic death turned him into the spouse of Persephone, and
enabled the Orphics to identify him with Eubuleus or the infernal
Zeus or Dionysos, and of that of the Thracian moon-goddess
Bendis, early worshipped in Athens, whom an Orphic verse
preserved by Proclus declares to be Persephone herself[421].
The foreign god, however, in whose worship the Orphic
doctrine is most plainly visible was Sabazius, who also seems
originally to have come from Phrygia. He is described in an
early Greek inscription as “Lord of all[422]” and said later to be
the son of Cybele. The Greeks, however, quickly identified
him with Dionysos Zagreus[423], and an orgiastic worship of him
penetrated into Athens some time before Alexander’s conquests.
This seems to have been well known to Aristophanes, who
declaims in the Lysistrata against the “wantonness” of the
Athenian women, who gave themselves up to the pursuit of
this god and the Syrian Adonis[424]. But the associations formed
for the worship of these divinities seem to have been recruited
almost entirely from among the courtezans of the Piraeus and the
trades dependent on them, and more than one of its priestesses
were put to death for “impiety” or interference with the religion
of the State. The low estimation in which it was generally
held may be judged from the invective of Demosthenes against
138his rival Aeschines, whose mother Glaucothea was a priestess
of Sabazius, and who had himself in his youth assisted her in
her duties[425]:
“When you became a man, you knew by heart the books of your
mother and helped her to make up others; and you nightly gave
the initiated the nebride (fawn-skin) and baptized them and purified
them, wiping off the clay and bran, and raising them after the
purifications, teaching them to say ‘I have shunned evil. I have
found good.’... By day you led fine thiasi (confraternities)
through the streets crowned with leaves of fennel and poplar,
you heading the procession and squeezing the broad-jawed serpents,
waving them above your head while you shouted Evoe Saboï and
danced Hyes Attis, Attis Hyes; and the old women hailed you
as leader of the dance, and chief, and chest-bearer, and sieve-bearer,
and with such like titles; while you received from them as your
pay sops and twisted loaves and cakes. Who would not think himself
lucky with such a life!”
The whole of this tirade may be explained by reference to
the Orphic teaching about Dionysos Zagreus. The fawn-skin
or nebride was worn, as appears on thousands of vases, in the
Dionysiac rites as in those relating to the burial of Osiris. The
clay and bran are thought to refer to the disguise which the
Titans assumed when stealing upon the infant god, and the
speech about shunning evil apparently denotes the putting away
of the Titanic nature and the resolution in future to cultivate
the Dionysiac soul. The serpents are explained by a custom
peculiar to the Sabazian rites of putting a live serpent into the
bosom of the initiate’s garment and taking it out at the foot
in memory of the shape in which Zeus begot Dionysos on his
daughter Persephone. The mystic cry of “Evoe” is a well
known feature of the orgiastic worship of Dionysos; while
“Saboï” seems to cover some name or epithet of Sabazius[426],
and the phrase “Hyes Attis” shows the connection with Attis,
139whose identity with Dionysos forms the subject of more than
one Orphic Hymn[427]. In all this also it may be noticed that there
is no pretence of considering conduct as influencing the destiny
of the initiate or even of conciliating the divinity invoked. The
whole of the rites described are entirely magical, and owe all
their efficacy to the knowledge of the right means to be used
to compel the spiritual world to perform the votaries’ will.
It is obvious that people with such ideas will be in no great hurry
to extend the advantage of their discoveries to others less lucky
than themselves and will on the contrary do much to keep them
a secret confined to a few[428].
Did the Orphics, however, at any time form themselves into
a church or brotherhood pledged to mutual support and the
propagation of the faith? Some writers of authority have
thought so[429]; but there seems to be no evidence available to
140warrant the supposition. Although the worshippers of Cybele,
Attis, Adonis, Dionysos, the Eleusinian deities, and Sabazius,
were by no means averse from announcing the nature of their
faith on their tombstones, we nowhere find any funeral inscriptions
declaring the dead to have belonged to any body of
worshippers calling themselves Orphici. A more likely theory
is that the Orphics were banded together in the small independent
associations known as Thiasi, Erani, or Orgeones[430], like
those which we have seen founded at Athens and elsewhere for
the worship of foreign gods. It would seem probable enough;
but as yet all documentary evidence is entirely lacking. Records,
generally in the shape of stelas or tablets containing the lists
of members and the regulations of the associations, have been
found in some numbers for the thiasi of nearly all the gods
honoured by the Orphic poets who were not the gods of the
Greek States; but among them no association calling itself
Orphic has yet been discovered. What we do know is, that in
the days of Plato, there was a class of strolling charlatans
called Orpheotelestae who were accustomed to haunt the doors
of the rich with a heap of books said to have been written by
Orpheus, out of which they offered, in exchange for money,
to perform ceremonies of purification and initiation which they
affirmed would purge from the recipient all trace of personal
or inherited guilt and assure him a happy lot in the next world[431].
They also told fortunes, offered to dispose of enemies, and
sometimes gathered together in some numbers so as to make a
more vivid and imposing representation of the pains of the
uninitiated in Hades, and thus induce the superstitious to pay
the price of their charms[432]. They had a certain amount of
success, and Theophrastus in his Characters exhibits his Deisidaemon
or Superstitious Man as going to them with his wife
and family to be purified once a month[433]. Such vagabonds
could hardly have made a living had there been any organized
141body ready to render like services in a regular way, and the fact
of their existence and the contempt with which they are spoken
of by the writers of the period go some way to show that no
more regular Orphic brotherhood or sect was ever known in
Greece.
There have nevertheless come down to us upwards of eighty
hymns attributed to Orpheus which all bear a certain likeness
to each other and were evidently intended by the compiler for
use in some religious or magical ceremony[434]. They are, like all
the fragments of Orphic poems that we have, in hexameter
verse, and most of them conclude with an invocation to the
divinity to whom they are addressed to be present or to aid in
the accomplishment of some “work,” while this invocation
often alludes to “mysteries” and “initiates.” More than one
text of these hymns exist, and the differences between them are
so small that it is plain that their contents must for a long time
have been known and settled. Much variety of opinion exists
among the learned as to their date, the theory of their first
modern commentator being that they were the actual hymns
used in the Eleusinian Mysteries[435], while Petersen thought that
they were composed in the Ist or IInd century of our era,
although he admitted that some eight or nine of them were
probably older[436]. One of the latest and best opinions seems to be
that of Prof. Albrecht Dieterich, who thinks that the collection
dates from the period between 200 B.C. and the birth of Christ,
and that it was probably made on the sea-coast of Asia Minor and
that of Egypt near Alexandria[437]. That the hymns were brought
142together for some religious or magical use associated with the
Orphic teaching, is evident from the Preface, which purports
to be an address to Musaeus, the legendary son of Orpheus,
although it is really an invocation to all the gods worshipped
by the Orphics, including several who are not specially addressed
in the hymns which follow. Of the 87 or 88 hymns common to
most of the codices, all but nine bear after their titles a specification
of the particular perfume—frankincense, myrrh, spices
and the like—to be burnt while they are sung or recited. Most
of the texts bear also an endorsement in another hand reading
“Comrade! use [it] with good fortune!” and this has induced
Prof. Dieterich and others to conclude that the collection was
made for the liturgic use of some confraternity or thiasus
professing Orphic doctrines[438]. The following Hymn to Persephone
will perhaps give a fair notion of the lines upon which
these hymns are framed:
“Persephone, daughter of great Zeus, come, thou beloved one,
Only-begotten[440] goddess, accept the offerings well pleasing to thee.
Much-honoured consort of Pluto, dear giver of life,
Praxidice, decked with love-locks, chaste offspring of Deo.
Giver of birth to the Eumenides, queen of those below the earth,
Virgin whom Zeus begot in unspeakable nuptials[441]
Mother of the loud-shouting, many-formed Eubuleus[442].
143Playfellow of the Hours, light-bringer of glorious form,
Dread ruler of all, virgin teeming with fruit
Brilliant-rayed, horned-one, the sole desire of mortals.
Vernal one, who rejoicest in the breath of the meadows
Who dost bring to light the sacred shape of green fruit buds.
Who in autumn time wast wedded in a ravished bed:
Who art alone the life and death of much-enduring mortals.
Persephone! For thou dost ever nourish and slay all things.
Hear, blessed goddess, and send up fruits from the earth
Granting us in abundance peace and gentle-handed health
And a life of happiness, such as leads old age untroubled
To thy realm, O queen, and to dread Pluto.”
By the side of this we may perhaps put the Hymn to Dionysos
in the same collection. It is probably later than the other in
date, the syncretism which equates Persephone with Aphrodite,
Cybele, and Isis pointing to a post-Alexandrian origin.
“I invoke the law-giving, rod-bearing, Dionysos
The never-to-be-forgotten seed, Eubuleus of many names
Who art[444] sacred and sacrosanct Mise, ineffable queen!
Male and female, of double nature, the redeemer [or curse-loosing][445] Iacchos
Whether thou art delighting in the sweet-smelling temple of Eleusis
Or art solemnizing mysteries with the Mother in Phrygia,
Or art rejoicing in Cyprus with the fair-crowned Cytherea,
Or dost exult in the pure wheat-bearing plains
With thy mother divine, black-robed, august Isis
And thy busy nurses[446] near the Egyptian stream,
Be gracious and come thou benevolent to accomplish our tasks.”
144Whatever date be assigned to these hymns, it is at least
admitted by all commentators that they were composed for the
use of persons professing Orphic doctrines, and we shall be on
safe grounds if we assume that they represent the later state
of the Orphic teaching. Collating them with the fragments
of Orphic verses preserved in the quotations of writers during
the late Pagan and early Christian centuries, we are able to
reconstitute the whole Orphic creed, as it was known shortly
before the triumph of Christianity. We see from this that the
Orphics attributed the actual beginning of the universe to their
god Dionysos, who first appeared from the egg formed from
Night or Chaos. In that manifestation, he was bisexual[447], and
thus mother, as well as father, of all the gods and goddesses of
the popular pantheon, the swallowing of his heart by Zeus
making him one with the Homeric “father of gods and men.”
His second birth was due to the ineffable, or mystic, union of
Zeus and Demeter, and he was in infancy torn in pieces and
eaten by the Titans as narrated above. From the ashes of
these last, men were born, while Dionysos himself became
Hades, the King of the Dead, over whom he rules with his
consort Persephone, the daughter, as Dionysos is the son, of
Zeus and Demeter, and perhaps known to the initiate as
only the female form of her consort[448]. This pair preside over
the life and death of mortals, the soul or Dionysiac spark
within each man or woman having to pass repeatedly through
the bodies of other human beings and animals until finally
purified, when it will be united with Dionysos and thus become
god[449]. But the process can be made easier and shorter by the
saving grace of the Mysteries, which by the knowledge they
confer on the initiate of the constitution and ramification of
145the divine nature, of the geography, so to speak, of the next
world, and of the magical words and formulas to be there repeated,
give him a vast advantage over his less favoured fellows[450].
The third incarnation of Dionysos, god of wine, begotten by
the father of gods and men on Semele, daughter of Cadmus,
after the heart of the infant Zagreus had been sewn in his thigh,
must be looked upon as a concession to the popular belief in
a different mythology. To those initiated, whether in the
Eleusinian or in other mysteries, the last incarnation of Dionysos
was that brought about by the union of Zeus in serpent shape[451]
with Persephone, and he must have been the child whose mystic
birth was acted in the Mysteries of Eleusis where he was identified
with Iacchos, the leader of the procession.
The effect of this creed, the real symbol of the greatest
movement which ever took place within the religion of the pre-Christian
Greeks, upon the religions that followed its appearance,
remains to be considered. In the first place, Orphism went
a great way towards weaning the minds of men from the idea
of separate gods for different nations, and towards teaching them
that all their national and local deities were but different forms
of one great Power, who was himself the source of all being.
There can be little doubt that the Orphics thus regarded their
god Dionysos, whom they made one with his father Zeus,
and hailed as being in himself female as well as male, and the
common type of all goddesses as well as of all gods. By their
readiness to identify him alike with the chthonian god of Eleusis,
and with all the foreign gods—Adonis, Attis, Sabazius, and
Osiris—with whom they were brought in contact, they showed
how far they were willing to go in the path of syncretism; and,
but for the rise of Christianity and other religions, there can be
little doubt but that the whole of the Graeco-Roman deities
146would eventually have merged in Dionysos[452]. Yet although
in this, as well as in their sanguine idea of the perfectibility of
man’s nature, the Orphics may seem to have done somewhat
towards elevating and purifying religion, it seems plain that
their influence was on the whole hostile to it, and had they ever
aimed at and attained supreme power, would have ended in
the negation of all religion whatever. Whether the Orphics
originally demanded from their followers any moral as well as
material purification cannot now be said; but the proceedings
of the Orpheotelestae show us how very early in their teaching
all such ideas were dropped, and the magical theory of the
efficacy of the Mysteries as a means of salvation came to outweigh
everything else in the eyes of their votaries. The compulsion
of the gods, however, is an idea that, once rooted in the
mind of man, is sure to bring forth most unwholesome fruit;
and Orphism seems to have brought with it from the beginning
all the worst practices of magic. The Orpheotelestae did not
scruple, as has been said, to undertake to rid their initiates of
an inconvenient adversary[453]; and although this may not at the
outset have implied anything worse than idle curses, it was at
any rate murder in intention, and in Greece, as everywhere
else, early led to the calling-in of the aid of poison. Magical
rites, too, generally bring with them a more or less pronounced
worship of devils or evil beings as such, and there are many
signs that the Orphics by no means confined their invocations
to powers supposed to be friendly to man. Among the Orphic
Hymns may be found an invocation to the Titans, who were
the legendary enemies of Zeus Dionysos and all the celestial
gods, and it is probable that this instance is not a solitary one[454].
The worship of gods given up to evil generally results in the
depravation of the morals of their votaries, and the purposes
for which they are invoked are seldom sublime. Most of this
147evil sorcery seems to have centred round the cult of Hecate,
herself a mystery goddess revered at Eleusis and especially dear
to the Orphics[455]. Down to the very end of paganism, and
indeed, onward through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
Hecate remained the mistress of magicians and the patron saint
of sorcerers[456].
One other consequence of the Orphic teaching deserves to be
noted. The syncretistic tendency, which led the true Orphic
to regard Zeus, Apollo, Hades, and all the gods and goddesses
of the popular pantheon as so many varying forms of his own
Dionysos, must have always rendered him indifferent as to
what deity received his public devotions. Secure in the sacramental
grace bestowed upon him by the mere participation in
the Mysteries, and fortified by the knowledge of the formulas
which were by themselves sufficient to ensure him a happy lot
in the next world, it is plain that he must always have held
himself at liberty to adore any god or goddess worshipped by
those among whom he found himself, and that he must have
been ready to conform outwardly to any religion which seemed
to offer him any personal advantage. Knowledge, not faith,
was to him the one thing needful to the soul, and he would be
as little likely to think of enduring persecution for opinion’s
sake as to approve of inflicting it. The secret rites and the
secret formulas comprised the whole of his religion.
To sum up, then, the practical result of their speculations,
the Orphics taught that the universe had passed through several
stages of evolution since it was formed from chaos by its First
God or Divine Workman. Each of these stages was described
as the reign of a fresh ruler or supreme divinity, who was the
“son” of the foregoing or, as it would seem, a new incarnation
of him. Man came into being through the mystic death and
dispersion throughout the universe of one of the last of these
incarnations, and therefore contains within himself a spark
148of the Divine nature which is capable of purification from the
contamination of soulless matter. This is effected in the
ordinary way by a succession of deaths and rebirths in the
course of which man’s soul would pass into that of other animals
and human beings. But the process was thought to be
shortened by participation in certain mysteries or secret rites
handed down by tradition, wherein the hidden constitution and
purpose of Nature were disclosed to the initiate, and he was
equipped with mysterious names and formulas thought to
possess magical power. These, by their mere utterance, gave
him the right to demand his release from the painful circle of
rebirths which was the common lot of mankind, and in effect
turned him into a being superior to man. The possession of
this wonder-working knowledge or gnosis was not however
granted indiscriminately to all, but remained a secret confined
to a favoured few, who were pledged under sufficiently severe
sanctions not to disclose it. That all religions professed by
mankind were equal and indifferent in the eyes of the Orphic
seems to follow logically from this, as does the position that he
might himself profess any of them that seemed to him expedient.
We shall find all these features present in the many sects of
post-Christian Gnostics.
CHAPTER V PRE-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE ESSENES
149
It comes as rather a wrench to leave the graceful, if vain,
speculations of the Greeks, with their joyous and free life and
their passionate worship of beauty, which saw in every shifting
aspect of nature the revelation of some Being more perfect and
glorious than man, for the gloomy and misanthropic monotheism
of the Palestinian Jews. Nor is the change made more pleasant
when we consider the contrast between the ideas of the two
nations as to the perfectibility of man’s nature and his lot
after death. While the Greeks under Orphic influence had
come to look upon their gods as usually well-disposed to mankind[457]
and even willing to share their power and place with, at
any rate, a few highly-gifted or fortunate men, the fanatics
among the Jews who returned from the Babylonian Captivity
seem to have seen in their national Deity a jealous and uncompromising
tyrant, possessed with a hatred for humanity in
general, and only extending a modified favouritism to one small
nation not distinguished by any specially attractive qualities[458].
150To this nation, Yahweh had, according to their own traditions,
promised exclusive temporal advantages; but in spite of this
promise they had become in turn the slaves or tributaries of
the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Assyrians, Chaldaeans, and
Persians, and had been more than once forcibly removed by
their masters from the land that they looked upon as their
God-given inheritance. Moreover, the grace, such as it was, of
the Deity they worshipped was held by them to extend to this
life only, after which they thought they would either perish
like the beasts or would lead at the best a shadowy and colourless
existence in Sheol or Hades, like that which called forth
the complaints of the Achilles of the Odyssey[459]. Hence the
soil of Judaea at the coming of Alexander might have seemed
to anyone to be as unlikely a field for the propagation of ideas
resembling those of the Orphics as could well be imagined. But
the Jews, with all their pragmatism and narrowness of ideal,
have always shown a power of assimilating the ideas of others
and of adapting themselves to the usages of the peoples among
whom they are cast by a sort of protective mimicry like that
to which the preservation of certain insect types is said to be
due. This quality had already stood them in good stead during
their different periods of captivity in Egypt and Chaldaea,
where before Alexander’s conquests they had contrived to get
a good deal of the financial management of their captors’ affairs
into their own hands, and where they doubtless acted as spies
and guides to the armies of the Great Conqueror[460]. For these
services Alexander after his fashion royally rewarded them;
but the real crisis of the nation’s fate approached when Alexander’s
work was done, and when the different nationalities
which he had forced, as it were, into the melting-pot, became
tired of acting as pieces in the war game played by his generals
and successors, and began to look favourably upon the security
offered by the Roman government. In this new order of the
world, Palestine, which had hitherto owed its autonomous
151existence to the fact that it formed a useful buffer state or
neutral ground separating the two great powers Egypt and
Syria and was not vehemently desired by any other nation,
saw the reason for her quasi-independence vanishing. Ptolemy
Soter, with his usual prescience, had early seen the advantage
of getting this borderland into his own custody, and had
captured Jerusalem, it is said, one Sabbath morning, when the
superstition of the inhabitants deterred them from defending it
effectually[461]. The story, as thus told, probably owes something
to the necessity for flattering the national vanity; but it is
evident that the politic Lagides knew how to reconcile the
Jews to the easy yoke of their suzerainty, and under the early
Ptolemies the Jews remained generally faithful to Egypt.
When Egypt’s sway became enfeebled after the reign of
Ptolemy IV Philopator, Antiochus the Great seized upon
Palestine, probably with the connivance of a part of its inhabitants[462];
and although it remained fairly contented with
its new masters until Antiochus’ death, in the reign of his
successor, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Jews found themselves
confronted with a very disagreeable dilemma. For Antiochus
Epiphanes, after his successful attack upon Egypt had been
frustrated by the Romans, saw plainly enough that only an
empire united and homogeneous in faith and culture could
resist for long the new power rising in the West[463], and resolved
to force on the complete Hellenization of the Jews at all hazards.
How he failed is told in the Books of the Maccabees, although
his failure brought little good to his rebellious subjects, who
soon passed with the rest of his empire into the hands of the
victorious Romans.
To this end, the splitting-up of the chosen people into warring
sects materially contributed. Josephus, writing somewhere
about the year 70 A.D., tells us that there existed in his day
three “philosophic” sects among the Jews[464]. The first two of
these were the Pharisees and Sadducees familiar to everybody
152through their mention in the New Testament, and the third
was the “Essenes.” These Essenes—a name which by
some has been thought to mean “the Pure[465]”—he describes
as a small sect numbering not more than 4000 in all, and
scattered throughout the villages of Palestine. They lived
entirely by manual labour, such as agriculture, and were extraordinarily
hospitable to other members of the same sect, so
that an Essene never found it necessary to take anything with
him on a journey, but could always obtain what he wanted from
his fellow-sectaries, even though personally unknown to them.
As to their doctrines, he tells us that though “Jews by birth”
they abjured marriage[466], and only recruited their ranks by
adoption. They practised, on the same authority, the fullest
community of goods, and forbade conversation on worldly
matters before the rising of the sun, at which they repeated
certain traditional prayers, “as if they made supplication for
his rising.” Their meals were always eaten in common and in
a sacramental manner, purification in cold water and the
donning of white garments being a necessary preliminary[467].
Sobriety and restraint in speech were, he says, among their
most marked characteristics, and they avoided the taking of
judicial oaths, averring that “he who cannot be believed without
swearing by God is already condemned.” Initiation into
the sect was both long and difficult. The novice on his first
reception was presented with a hatchet, a girdle and a white
garment, but was not allowed to associate with the rest of the
order, it being held that they would be defiled if he did so.
In spite of this, he was forced to observe the austerities of the
order for a year before being allowed “the waters of purification,”
and for two years further before being admitted to full
153association with the other members and the common meal[468].
After this probation, he was sworn on
“the most tremendous oaths to be just towards all men and faithful
to the order, not discovering any of their doctrines to others, no,
not though he should be compelled to do so at the risk of his life.”
Moreover, he had to swear
“to communicate their doctrines to no one in any other manner
than that in which he had received them himself; to abstain from
robbery[469] and that he would equally preserve the books belonging to
the sect and the names of the angels.”
Their doctrine concerning the future life was:
“That bodies are corruptible and that the matter of which they are
made is not permanent; but that souls are immortal, and continue
for ever; and that they come out of the most subtle air, and are
united to their bodies as in prisons, into which they are drawn by
a certain natural enticement[470]; but that when they are set free from
the bonds of the flesh, they then, as released from a long bondage,
rejoice and mount upward[471].”
154Finally, Josephus tells us that the Essenes take great pains
in “studying the writings of the ancients and choose out of
them what is most for the advantage of their soul and body,”
that they were much given to the practice of medicine, and had
those among them “who undertake to foretell things to come
by reading the holy books and using several sorts of purifications,
and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of
the prophets,”—a statement which is explained by another
passage[472] wherein he tells us that they believed “fate forms all
things and nothing befalls men but according to it.” From
yet another passage[473] we learn that they were excluded from the
Temple worship and offered their sacrifices for themselves
instead of through the regular Jewish priesthood[474].
That Josephus’ account of the Essenes is fairly accurate
and well informed appears from the fact that Philo of Alexandria,
writing some fifty years earlier than he, also asserts that they
numbered “in his opinion about 4000,” and explains their
abstention from the Temple worship as being due to their
objection to sacrificing living animals[475]. Philo further tells us
that there were among them no makers of warlike weapons, that
they refrained from trade and had no slaves; but that their
principal study was that of the Jewish Law and the “enquiry
into the being of God and the creation of the universe.”
155According to him, on the seventh or holy day when no work
was done, they were accustomed to meet together, when one
“takes up the holy volume and reads it, and another of the men
of the greatest experience [among them] comes forward and
explains what is not very intelligible, for a great many precepts are
delivered in enigmatical modes of expression and allegorically.”
He at the same time confirms Josephus’ statement as to their
having all goods in common.
Pliny in his Natural History also speaks of the Essenes;
but adds little to our knowledge, except the remark that it
was the irksomeness of this present life which in his opinion
gave rise to the sect[476]. Of the Christian heresiologists, Hippolytus
in his Philosophumena merely repeats the statements
of Josephus with the doubtfully accurate addition that the
Essenes believed in a final conflagration of the world[477] and the
eternal punishment of the damned; while Epiphanius in his
Panarion shows plainly that he had no first-hand knowledge of
the Essenes and did not understand the traditional accounts of
the sect which must have been extinct a long time before he
wrote[478]. Porphyry in his treatise on Abstinence avowedly quotes
from Josephus only[479].
We see, then, that all we really know about the Essenes is
contained in the accounts of Josephus and Philo; but on this
slender foundation there has been raised a vast superstructure
of conjecture which the unprejudiced reader will probably
consider too heavy for its base. The Essenes have been claimed
by different writers as merely a strict order of Pharisees, as
156Zoroastrians, and as Buddhists. It has been argued that
St John Baptist was an Essene and even that Jesus Himself
belonged to the sect[480]. A more probable theory is that the
Essenes derived some of their tenets from the Orphics, whose
views were particularly prevalent at Alexandria in the time of
the early Ptolemies, as well as in Asia Minor under the Seleucids.
From the death of Alexander the Great until that of Antiochus
Epiphanes, Palestine was, as we have seen, successively under
the sway of these two rival dynasties, and it was the rapid
progress of the Jews towards Hellenization in culture, religion,
and morals that brought about the Maccabaean uprising, in
connection, with which we first hear of the Essenes[481]. Hence
this is the time when, if ever, we should expect the Orphic
teaching to affect the Jews, and it is difficult to see whence the
Essenes derived their views of the pre-existence of the soul—if
that be indeed the construction to be placed upon the scanty
and obscure words of Josephus—except from Orphism[482]. Save
for this, however, there is no very cogent reason for attributing
to this Jewish sect an Orphic origin. The use of white garments
is in a hot climate too general a practice to be really characteristic,
while the abstinence from the procreation of children
and from food that has had life, although common to the
Essenes and the Orphics[483], may easily have come to the Jews
157from more quarters than one. To the Essene refusal to take
oaths and to engage in trade there is no parallel whatever in
the Orphic teaching[484].
But, although there is thus little sign of a direct connection
of the Essenes with the Orphics, there can hardly be any doubt
that the Jewish sect were Gnostics in the larger sense in which
the word is used above. The one distinguishing fact which
stands out from Josephus’ account of them is that they had
secret doctrines of a kind differing from the beliefs of the rest
of the Jews. This is shown by the great pains taken by them
in the choice of neophytes, the “tremendous oaths” by which
they, who forbade swearing in general, enforced secrecy upon
them, and the prohibition to confide their teaching to any save
by a long and tedious process of initiation. The only hints we
have as to the nature of these doctrines are contained in Philo’s
statement that they were given to the enquiry into the being
of God and the creation of the universe, and in that of Josephus
that the initiate into these secrets was sworn “to preserve
the books of the sect and the names of the angels.” Dr Kohler
and other Jewish writers see in Philo’s statement a reference to
the speculations of the later Jewish Cabala upon what is there
called “the Mystery of the Chariot” and “the Mystery of the
Creation[485]”; or in other words how the universe came forth
from God and how it is governed. Although the proof of this
is slender, it seems probable from the tendency of the whole of
the Apocryphal literature of the time which dealt principally
with the same subjects. It is evident that the Essene interpretation
of the Old Testament, then recently made familiar to the
Jews by the Alexandrian translation into Greek known as the
Septuagint, must have been different in some respects from that
of the other Jews, and that it must have been in some way
likely to shock those who held by the traditional interpretation,
as otherwise there would have been no necessity for the Essenes
158to bind their neophytes to so strict a secrecy. From Philo’s
language on this point it would seem that they interpreted both
the Law and the Prophets in some non-natural manner, and it
is likely enough that this took the shape of the juggling with
the numerical values of the letters of which we find at least one
instance in the Revelation of St John, and to which we shall
have to return later[486].
What now can be said in explanation of Josephus’ statement
that the Essenes were sworn to secrecy as to the “names of
the angels”? The personal name of no angel appears in the
Old Testament except in the Book of Daniel, now generally admitted
to have been written in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes,
and there is on the face of it no reason why any Jew should
wish to keep those there given—Gabriel and Michael—secret.
But the knowledge of the name of an inhabitant of the spirit
world was at the time of which we are speaking held throughout
the East to give a magician full power over the being named,
and this belief was universal in the magic of all the nations
among whom the Jews had found themselves since the Captivity[487].
There is thus every likelihood that the Essenes used “the names
of the angels” for magical purposes, and this is borne out by
the tradition that it was as exorcists of demons and healers of
disease that they were afterwards celebrated[488]. The manner in
which these names were used may be judged from the tradition
among the Jews that each tribe or order of demons was governed
by an angel, and that his subjects were bound to obey upon
being addressed by his name[489].
159It was partly, and perhaps mainly, from this sect of the
Essenes that there came, according to the general opinion of
scholars, the apocryphal or secret literature which, from the
name of its principal book, may be described under the generic
name of Enochian[490]. In the Book of Enoch in its various forms
was set forth a vast system of teaching on matters which the
Canonical books of the Old Testament hardly touch. Here we
have a complete cosmogony in which the mundane egg[491] of the
Orphics plays its part; and the duties of the innumerable orders
of angels and their connection with the heavenly bodies, the
rebellion of Satan and his host against God, the fall of the
Watchers, or angels set over the earth, through the beauty of
mortal women, and the arrangement of the different heavens
and hells all find a place in it[492]. But it also deals at great
length with that Messianic hope which had for two centuries
been dangled by the Prophets before Israel, and which, thanks
to the materialistic sense in which it was interpreted by the
vast majority of Jews, was to lead directly to their extermination
as a nation[493]. The Book of Enoch and its many successors
and imitators are full of predictions of the coming of a Messiah,
who should lead the chosen race to the conquest of the world,
and, what was to them probably an even more alluring prospect,
to the overthrow and enslavement of all the other peoples in it[494].
160In the earlier parts of the Ethiopic version—which is in itself,
as Dr Charles has pointed out, but “a fragmentary survival
of an entire literature that once circulated under the name of
Enoch[495]”—it is described how
“the Holy and Great One will come forth from His dwelling, the
God of the world, and going from thence He will tread on Mount
Sinai and appear with His hosts, and in the strength of His might
appear from heaven[496].”
The judgment and destruction of all but the elect is next
described, and the hurling down of the sinning angels into “the
abyss of fire,” while the elect—that is, the Jews, or perhaps
only the Essenes—are to live among millennial blessings of a
material kind and in the enjoyment of universal peace[497]. This
seems to represent fairly the earlier Essene teaching upon this
point, and there is reason to suppose that it was written before
the Maccabaean struggles, after which the decadence of the
Syrian Empire under Antiochus Epiphanes—hard pressed as
he was by the Romans on one side and the Parthians on the
other—allowed the Jews to obtain a temporary independence,
and to set up a kingdom of their own for the first and last time
in their history[498]. But the wine of military success and political
independence proved too strong for the heads of the race which
had hitherto been the tributaries and subjects of the Persian, the
Greek, the Egyptian, and the Syrian Empires in turn, and, like
their kinsmen the Arabs of Mohammed’s time and the Mahdists
in our own, nothing less would now satisfy the fanatical among
them than universal domination. In the later parts of the same
work, the aspirations of the writers become more bloodthirsty
and less spiritual, and we hear of a time “When the congregation
161of the righteous will appear[499],” a phrase which seems to cover the
coming-forth of some sect or society till then kept in seclusion.
“Then,” it goes on to say, “will the kings and the mighty
perish and be given into the hand of the righteous and holy[500].”
In another part of the same book, we hear of angels being sent to
“the Parthians and Medes, to stir up the kings and provoke in them
a spirit of unrest, and rouse them from their thrones, that they may
break forth from their resting-places as lions and as hungry wolves
among the flocks[501].”
These are to make one final assault upon Jerusalem, and
“to tread under foot the land of His elect ones and the land of His
elect ones will be before them a threshing floor and a path. But
the city of My righteous [i.e. Jerusalem] will be a hindrance to their
horses, and they will begin to fight among themselves, and their
right hand will be strong against themselves, and a man will not
know his brother, nor a son his father or his mother, till the number
of corpses through their slaughter is beyond count, and their punishment
be no idle one. And in those days Sheol will open his jaws,
and they will be swallowed up therein, and their destruction will
be at an end. Sheol will devour the sinners in the presence of the
elect[502].”
This, according to the author who has made the most exhaustive
study of the Enochian literature yet attempted, must have
been written after the spirit which had inspired the Maccabaean
revolt had died away under the tyranny and luxury of the later
162Jewish kings[503]. It seems very difficult, in the face of the many
interpolations that the documents have undergone at the hands
of Jewish and even Christian writers, to decide how much of
these prophecies can be attributed directly to the sect of the
Essenes; but there can be little doubt that they accurately
represent the hope of supremacy over the nations which they
shared with the Pharisees and the other fanatics among the
Jewish nation. Only thus can we explain the community of
goods and the very un-Jewish contempt for money-making
which formed the most singular features of Essene practice[504].
To those who expected to be immediately put in possession of
the whole earth all desire for worldly advancement must have
been a matter of indifference. A similar conviction led to the
maintenance of the same practice in the Christian Church so
long as she continued to believe in the nearness of the Parusia
or Second Coming of her Founder[505].
From this dream of universal dominion, nothing seemed
able to arouse the poorer Jews. In vain did the Sadducees,
who comprised those of the nation who had become rich either
by trading with the Gentile or by dependence on the luxurious
Jewish Court, try to persuade the people that they had better
make the best of the Hellenist culture thrust upon them than
try to arrest its progress by fighting against powers that would
crush them like glass when once sufficiently provoked[506]. In
vain did the Syrian Empire, warned by the mistakes of Antiochus
163Epiphanes in Hellenizing the Jews against their will, accord
them the largest possible religious liberty and even acknowledge
their right to self-government in exchange for tribute[507]. When
the Romans, whom, according to their own account, they had
called in to protect them against their Syrian overlords, destroyed
once for all their chance of remaining an independent state, they
not only gave the Jews the fullest liberty to practise their own
religion, but set over them first a vassal king and then tetrarchs
of Semitic blood, who might be supposed to moderate the too
pronouncedly Western ideas of the Roman governor of Syria[508].
But these concessions were no more effective in inducing the
Jews to settle down quietly as the peaceful tributaries of a great
empire than had been the severities of Antiochus. They seized
every opportunity to revolt, every time with the accompaniment
of horrible atrocities committed upon those unfortunate
Gentiles who for a moment fell into their power, until, some
sixty years after the Destruction of the Temple by Titus,
Hadrian had to wage against them the awful war of extermination
which extinguished their nationality for ever. At the
Fair of the Terebinth, when every able-bodied Jew left alive
in Palestine was sold into slavery, the nation must have realized
at last the vanity of its dream[509].
During this time, that is to say, between the years 168 B.C.
and 135 A.D., the flood of Apocalyptic literature never ceased to
pour forth. All of it was what is called pseudepigraphical, that
is to say, the books of which it was composed were falsely
attributed to Enoch, the sons of Jacob, Moses, Job, Ezra,
Baruch, and other personages of the Old Testament. Not all
of these have come down to us, but a considerable number of
books have survived. The pre-Christian ones that we have,
164included, beside the Ethiopian Book of Enoch quoted above, the
Testaments of the XII Patriarchs, the Psalms of Solomon, and
part of the Sibylline Oracles. Later probably than the beginning
of our era, appeared the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, which
Dr Charles thinks was written in Egypt, the Wisdom literature,
certainly having the same place of origin, the Book of Jubilees
or little Genesis, the Assumption of Moses, the rest of the
Sibyllines, the Apocalypse of Baruch, the later books of Maccabees,
and the Fourth Book of Esdras[510]. One and all of these
deal with the glories before the Jewish nation, when by supernatural
help it will be able to turn the tables on its would-be
civilizers, and one and all breathe the most virulent hatred
against every body who is not a Jew[511]. They show no consensus
of opinion as to the future lot of the Gentiles; for, while some
teach that the victories of the Messiah will end in their complete
165annihilation, others declare that they will be preserved to
become, as Isaiah had prophesied, the servants and hand-maidens
of the Jews, to build up the walls of Jerusalem, and
to be the herdsmen, ploughmen, and vinedressers of Israel[512].
Others again, held that the Gentiles would be hurled into
Gehenna with the sinning angels[513]—even those who were dead
being raised again for that purpose—and would there be
tormented for ever in the presence of the Jews, who were to
find one of their chief pleasures in the sight of their sufferings[514].
“And I saw all the sheep that had been left, and all the beasts of
the earth, and all the birds of the heaven,”
says the pseudo-Enoch in a vision wherein he describes under
this figure the nations which had not been destroyed by the
celestial hosts of the Messiah,
“falling down and doing homage to those sheep [i.e. the Jews] and
making petition to and obeying them in every thing[515].”
For the world was made for the Jews and the perversity of the
Gentiles was divinely ordained for the express purpose that their
“punishment” might be great[516].
“All this I have spoken before thee, O Lord,” says the Apocryphal
Ezra, “because thou madest the world for our sakes. As for the
other people which also came of Adam, thou hast said that they are
nothing, but are like unto spittle, and hast likened the abundance
of them unto a drop that falleth from a vessel[517]. And now O Lord
behold, these heathen, which have ever been reputed as nothing,
have begun to be lords over us, and to devour us.... If the world
now be made for our sakes, why do we not enter into possession
of our world? How long shall this endure?” And then comes
Yahweh’s answer: “Behold I will call together all the kings of the
earth to reverence me, which are from the rising of the Sun, from the
South, from the East, and Libanus: to turn themselves one against
166another, and repay that they have done to thee. Like as they do
yet this day unto my chosen, so will I do also, and recompense in
their bosom[518].” “After the signs have come of which thou wast
told before,” says the Apocalypse of Baruch, “when the nations
become turbulent, and the time of My Messiah is come, He shall
both summon all the nations, and some of them He shall spare and
some of them He shall slay. These things therefore shall come upon
the nations which are to be spared by Him. Every nation which
knows not Israel, and has not trodden down the seed of Jacob,
shall indeed be spared. And this because some out of every nation
shall be subjected to thy people. But all those who have ruled
over you, or have known you, shall be given up to the sword[519].”
So in the Book of Jubilees we are told that God
“sanctified [Israel] and gathered it from amongst all the children of
men; for there are many nations and many peoples, and all are His
and over all hath He placed spirits in authority to lead them astray
from Him. But over Israel He did not appoint any angel or spirit[520].”
As for the delight in the sufferings of the damned Gentiles it
is poetically expressed in the Assumption of Moses:
“For the Heavenly One will arise from His royal throne
And He will go forth from His holy habitation
And His wrath will burn on account of His sons
*****
And the horns of the Sun will be broken and he shall be turned into darkness;
And the moon shall not give her light, and be turned wholly into blood
And the circle of the stars shall be disturbed
*****
For the Most High will arise, the Eternal God alone,
And He will appear to punish the Gentiles
And He will destroy all their idols
Then thou, O Israel, shalt be happy
And thou shalt mount upon the neck of the eagle[521]
And the days of thy mourning will be ended
167And thou shalt look from on high and shalt see thy enemies in Gehenna,
And thou shalt recognize them and rejoice
And thou shalt give thanks and confess thy Creator[522].”
And in what has been called the Apocalypse of Salathiel, we
hear that the righteous Jews will “have joy in seven ways”:
“First of all they shall see with great joy the glory of him who
receives them up, for they shall rest in seven orders. The first
order because they have striven with great labour to overcome
‘the innate evil thought[523]’ which was fashioned together with
them, that it might not lead them astray from life into death. The
second order, because they see the round in which the souls of the
ungodly wander and the punishment that awaits them...[524]”
A comparison of the dates of these documents lends little
support to the view that this hatred of the Gentiles was wrung
from the Jews by oppression; and there seems grounds for
supposing that it had been present to their minds ever since
their return from the Captivity[525]. Tacitus was certainly justified
when he speaks of the nation as animated by bitter enmity
against the rest of the human race[526].
How far the Essenes were responsible for the whole of this
later literature, it is now impossible to say. Nearly every one
of the books above quoted have been claimed as of Essene
origin by some scholar or another[527], and those who, like
168Dr Charles, are inclined to reduce Essene influence upon them
to a minimum, admit that considerable interpolations have
been made in most of the documents by Essene hands. Moreover,
all those books which do not purport to be by Enoch
himself either mention his name with peculiar reverence, or give
the same account of celestial physics and other matters as the
Ethiopic Book of Enoch, or quote it directly[528]. There seems,
therefore, little doubt that all this literature came forth from
the same school, and that it was directly or indirectly the result
of Essene teaching.
A point more difficult to determine is how the Essenes
managed to reconcile their secret doctrines with the reverence
for the Mosaic Law and its promulgator which they undoubtedly
professed[529]. There is no direct evidence with regard to this
save Philo’s remark quoted above as to their allegorical interpretation
of Scripture. This, too, may have had its origin in
Orphic practice, for we know that the Orphics were accustomed
to carry allegory so far as to both materialize their gods, as
when they spoke of Bacchus as Wine, and to deify abstractions,
as when they made hymns to Health, Peace and other abstract
conceptions as if they were actual persons[530]. But besides this,
the Essenes probably practised a mode of interpretation peculiar
to themselves, which they kept secret or confined to members
of the sect. Something of the kind was not unknown among the
Greeks, for some of the Orphic gold plates found in Magna
169Graecia are intended to be read acrostically[531], and the Graeco-Egyptian
magic papyri contain many instances of a similar
use of the Homeric poems by which they could be converted
into an oracle or fortune-telling book[532]. By such means any
document can of course be made to mean anything, and the
Essenes seem to have added to this the practice of isopsephism
or regarding words as equivalent in sense which had the same
numerical value. The most familiar instance of this is in the
Revelation of St John where “the number of the Beast” is said
to be “the number of a man; and his number is six hundred
threescore and six”; or, in other words, Nero Caesar, whose
name written in Hebrew letters is equivalent to the number
given[533]. In like manner we read in the Book of Enoch, in the story
of the sinning angels:
“This is the number of Kesbeêl, who showed the head of the oath
to the holy ones when he dwelt high above in glory, and its name is
Bêqâ. And this angel requested Michael to show him the hidden
name, that they might mention it in the oath, so that those who
revealed all that was hidden to the children of men might quake
before that name and oath. And this is the power of that oath,
for it is powerful and strong, and he placed this oath Akae in the
hand of Michael[534].”
170From the context, it would appear that the words Akâe and
Bêqâ both cover the Tetragrammaton or four-lettered name
of JHVH, by means of which omnific word it is said the
heavens and earth were created[535]. The mysterious name of
Taxo given in the Assumption of Moses as that of the protagonist
against Antiochus is doubtless to be interpreted in
some such fashion[536].
Of the history of the Essenes as an organized sect, we know
hardly anything. If we accept Josephus’ account of their
numbers as relating to his own time[537], it would seem that they
were flourishing at the date of the Destruction of the Temple
under Titus. This event would probably affect them little
directly, because, as we have seen, they took no part in the
Temple worship; and, scattered as they were through the
villages of Palestine, they may easily have escaped the punishment
meted out by the Romans to those towns which were the
strongholds of the rebellion. But it is extremely improbable
that they can have survived the War of Extermination under
Hadrian, when the partizans of the false Messiah kept up a
futile resistance in the country as well as in the towns, and
Hadrian’s general, Severus, had in consequence to lay the land
desolate[538]. Moreover, it is not improbable that the sect may
have taken an active part in the Revolt, which they may easily
have looked upon as the fulfilment of their Messianic hopes,
and may thus have perished under the stern measures of
repression which the fanaticism and barbarities of the rebels
forced upon the conquerors. At any rate, we hear little more
of the Essenes after this date. But the fantastic method of
interpreting Scriptures which they practised and probably
introduced, lingered long, and, after being used by the earliest
171Christian writers[539], was revived, as has been said, by the Cabalists
of the Middle Ages, and has even survived into our own time.
It was especially high in favour with those numerous bodies of
heretics who in the first three centuries of our era asserted that
knowledge was the one thing needful for salvation and were
thus called, both by themselves and by their opponents the
Fathers of the Church, by the generic and distinctive name of
Gnostics[540].
CHAPTER VI PRE-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: SIMON MAGUS
172
We see, then, that the Essenes, in spite of the quietism and
love of peace that they professed, became in the long run either
the instigators of political revolt or, at best, the tools of those
who thought to make use of the fanaticism excited by their
teaching in order to throw off the yoke of the Gentiles. But
these fanatics were almost exclusively the Jews of Judaea,
whose adherence to their own institutions caused them to leave
Babylon, where they were fairly well off, to be cooped up in a
land which in no time can have yielded an easy subsistence to
a large number of souls[541]. That people so circumstanced, confronted
with a power vastly superior to their own, and resolutely
bent on compelling its subjects to enter into its own system of
orderly government, should have looked to rebellion and supernatural
help as their sole means of escape, was only to be
expected. But there were besides a great number of Jews
dispersed among the heathen, who had succeeded in acquiring
vast wealth together with the power which wealth brings with
it; and these were by no means inclined to upset the settled
order of things which the rise of the Roman Empire had brought
into the East. To the humble fisherman, vinedresser or husbandman
of Judaea, daily vexed and harassed by the Roman
tax-gatherer and Roman police measures, the Roman peace,
the freedom from foreign conquest, and the higher standard of
173comfort that came in with the legions, must have appeared far
less desirable than they did to the rich trader of Alexandria,
Caesarea, or Damascus, whose aptness in taking advantage of
the foibles of his rulers had enabled him to imitate their luxury
and in some cases to share their power[542]. Yet, with the tenacity
peculiar to their nation, even these rich Jews outside Palestine,
while adopting gladly enough the material benefits of the
Graeco-Roman civilization, clung firmly to the one exclusively
national possession which remained to them, the Law of Moses
with all its observances. They were, however, quite sharp
enough to see that the rules laid down for the conduct of a
loosely-compacted mass of nomad tribes suddenly flung among
hostile neighbours were unfitted to a more settled civilization;
and the thinkers among them were put to much pains to discover
some means by which they could claim their share of Hellenistic
culture without ceasing to be Jews[543]. At first this generally
took the form of pseudonymous writings bearing the name of
some author respected by the Greeks, and designed to prove
that all the Hellenistic arts, sciences, and doctrines were derived
from the Hebrew patriarchs. Thus, verses were ascribed to
Orpheus and the Sibyl, and historical works to Hecataeus of
Abdera and a certain Aristaeus, having for their object the
praise of the Jewish nation, which were certainly not written
by the authors whose names were appended to them. So
Artapanus’ book “On the Jews” claimed that the Egyptians
were indebted to the Hebrews for all they knew, including even
the worship of their gods, and that this went back to the days
of Abraham, who availed himself of his stay in Egypt to teach
astrology to the Pharaoh of his time[544].
History, however, was at all times much less to the taste of
the Jews than metaphysics, and the many teachers of philosophy
174scattered through the Hellenistic world found in them eager
scholars, who were willing to listen respectfully to any doctrine,
so long as it could be shown to be not inconsistent with their
national religion and traditions. The most sincere attempt
thus to combine Hellenic and Jewish teaching that has come
down to us is that of Philo of Alexandria, who wrote probably
shortly after the Birth of Christ. In his system[545], God is undefinable
and has no qualities that can be perceived by man. As
He is absolutely perfect, He cannot come into contact with
matter, and all His dealings with it must therefore be conducted
through intermediate beings. These intermediate beings are
the powers or attributes of God, inconsistently, as Zeller points
out, figured by Philo “as at once independent hypostases and
immanent determinations of the Divine existence[546].” All the
Divine Powers are summed up in the Logos or Word of God,
who is not only their chief but their source, and the great
intermediary between God and the universe. He is neither
unbegotten nor begotten after the manner of finite things, but
is the vicegerent and ambassador of God, who constantly makes
intercession for the world. As for man, his soul is itself nothing
but one of those powers of God which in another state of
existence are called angels or daemons, and it is his material
body which is the source of all evil, and the prison of the soul.
Man can only free himself from this by resisting the allurements
of the senses, which God puts it into his heart to do. By such
resistance, he can exceptionally and occasionally acquire such
virtue that, even in this life, he may attain to the Divine Vision,
when he will be “lifted above and out of himself,” and the Spirit
of God will henceforth dwell in him and “stir him like the
strings of a musical instrument.” In the ordinary way, however,
175his emancipation will only take place when his soul returns to
its original incorporeal condition, a reward which is bestowed on
those who have kept themselves free from attachment to this
sensuous body[547].
That people holding tenets so far removed from anything in
the Law and the Prophets should form themselves into small
sects or societies[548] and take other means for their propagation is
only natural, and no doubt many such sects of which we have
lost all trace existed in secret among the Hellenizing Jews at
the beginning of the Christian era[549]. Such a sect were probably
the Sethiani described by Hippolytus, whose “entire system,”
according to the author of the Philosophumena, was derived
from “the ancient theologians Musaeus, Linus, and Orpheus,
who elucidates especially the ceremonies of initiation as well
as the Mysteries themselves[550].” So far as Hippolytus explains
their system, which he appears to have very imperfectly understood,
it set forth three principles, which he calls “Light,
Darkness, and an intermediate one which is Spirit”; but all
the passages quoted from the “Paraphrase of Seth,” which he
declares to be the work of the sect in question, refer for their
authority to the Old Testament, which it is evident the Sethiani
received as a real revelation[551]. But the one of these half-Jewish
176half-Gentile sects of which we have the most detailed account
is that which passed under the name of Simon Magus, whom
the Fathers of the Church were unanimous in describing as the
parent and origin of all later Gnosticism[552].
This Simon, the New Testament describes as a man who
had formerly “used sorcery, and bewitched the people of
Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: to whom
all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying ‘This man
is the great power of God[553]’.” The author of the Acts then
goes on to say that Simon “believed” and was baptized by
Philip, and that when Peter and John came from Jerusalem to
Samaria, “he offered them money saying: Give me also this
power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the
Holy Ghost.” It is from this offer, which seems to betray a
desire to set up a Church of his own, that his name, curiously
enough, has since been associated in ecclesiastical law with the
offence of buying and selling benefices or cures of souls[554]. Of
Simon’s future career, however, the Acts of the Apostles tell
us nothing save that he left Peter with the request for the
Apostle’s prayers on his behalf. It is evident, from the text
quoted above, that both Simon’s sorceries and his acclamation
by the people as “the great power of God” took place before
his conversion to Christianity, whether this was real or feigned.
Hence, Simon must have been at the time already the leader of
a school or sect, and as the events narrated are in the same
book set out before the Conversion of St Paul and his preaching
to the Gentiles, this sect must have been a pre-Christian one[555].
177That this sect was also one of those which sought to reconcile
Judaism with Hellenism seems antecedently probable. Samaria
had been stripped of a great part of its former inhabitants by
Alexander the Great and Ptolemy Soter, who had colonized it
by “Macedonian” settlers, probably of Syrian blood[556]. These
colonists had accepted without difficulty the religious reforms
of Antiochus Epiphanes, and had offered that king, according
to Josephus, to dedicate their temple on Mt Gerizim to Zeus
Hellenios[557]. Later, on the death of Antiochus, John Hyrcanus,
the ethnarch or high-priest of the Jews, on the same authority,
“revolted from the Macedonians,” invaded Samaria, besieged
its chief city and, when he gained possession of it, entirely demolished
it[558]. Gabinius, when proconsul of Syria, rebuilt this
and other cities which had been destroyed by the Jews, and
Herod the Great about 25 B.C. restored and beautified it while
renaming it Sebaste in honour of Augustus[559]. These events had
intensified the hatred already existing between the Jews and the
Samaritans, and this was not diminished by the possession by
the latter of the Mt Gerizim temple which was in some sort the
rival of that of Jerusalem[560]. To judge from its later developments,
the religion of the Samaritans at the beginning of the
Christian era retained little of Judaism besides a reverence for
the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses[561], and its other elements
were apparently Greek. We should therefore expect to find
in Simon’s teaching before his meeting with the Apostles, a
leaning towards a mixed religion in which Greek elements
played the chief part, although the sanction attached to it
might be Jewish.
178Such an expectation is abundantly justified by the evidence
of post-Apostolic writers. The documents known as the Clementine
Homilies and Recognitions are now generally admitted
to be a kind of religious novel or romance composed for edification,
and no consensus of opinion exists as to their date, which
has been taken by many learned critics as ranging from the
Ist to the IVth century A.D.[562]. They set forth with much detail
how Simon, after his first meeting with St Peter in Samaria,
everywhere opposed the chief of the Apostles, and followed
him about on many of his journeys, disputing with him at
great length, until finally put to flight by the superior dialectic
of Peter[563]. The Apocryphal Acts of Peter and Paul, which seem
to be either wholly or in part earlier than 275 A.D., further
narrate that Simon attempted to convert to his heresy the
Emperor Nero, by flying over the Campus Martius at Rome in
a car drawn by demons; but was vanquished by St Peter, who
by a solemn adjuration caused him to fall violently to the earth
and thus to perish miserably[564]. This story became later the
universal tradition of the Catholic Church. All the patristic
writers agree that Simon Magus was accompanied in his
missionary journeys by a woman of immoral life whom he
called the Ennoia or Thought of God, and declared to be a
reincarnation of Helen of Troy[565], while one of the Clementine
documents makes her, together with Simon, to have been
179among the followers of John the Baptist[566]. There is no external
corroboration of either story; and such accusations of immorality
were too frequently bandied about between the early
Christians and their adversaries for any particular weight to
be laid upon them[567]. Nor need the latest German theory, that
Simon Magus is in the Clementine literature but a pseudonym
for St Paul as the supposed opponent of St Peter, be discussed
here[568].
The first writer who gives us any authoritative account
of Simon’s pre-Christian teaching is Hippolytus, who in his
Philosophumena quotes freely from a book which he attributes
to Simon and calls the Great Announcement[569]. Whether this
be really Simon’s work or no, its quotation in the Philosophumena
at least proves that a sect bearing his name existed
in the sub-Apostolic age, and that they held the doctrines set
forth in Hippolytus’ quotations from this document, which can
hardly have been due to anyone else in the first instance than
Simon himself[570]. In the Great Announcement the First Cause of
180all things is declared to be fire, on the strength of the statement
in Deuteronomy that “God is a burning and consuming fire[571].”
This Infinite or Boundless Power, as he calls it, Simon held to
be not simple but two-fold, having two natures, a hidden and a
manifold one, so intermingled that “the hidden one is concealed
in the manifest, and the manifest comes into being from the
hidden one,” by which, as we shall see later, he meant male and
female. The manifest, again, can be perceived by the senses
like things with an actual existence, while the hidden nature
can only be apprehended by the mind, or in other words imagined.
In all this he seems at first sight to be echoing, as Hippolytus
points out[572], the notions of Plato upon the Intelligible (τὸ
νοητόν) and the Sensible (τὸ αἰσθητόν), those of Aristotle on
Power or Potentiality (δύναμις) and Actual Existence (ἐνέργεια),
and, as Hippolytus does not say, those of Philo upon the First
Cause and the Logos[573]. The Cosmos or ordered universe came
into being, Simon goes on to say, from the unbegotten or self-existent
fire, by means of six “Roots” called respectively
Mind (Νοῦς) and Thought (Ἔννοια)[574], Voice (Φωνή) and Name
(Ὄνομα), Reason (Λογισμός) and Desire (Ἐνθύμησις). Although
it is not here formally stated, it is noteworthy that this is a
system of couples or pairs, the name of one of each of the above
pairs being masculine and the other feminine[575]. In these six,
181Simon imagined that the Boundless Power existed potentially,
but not actually, that is to say, that each of them represented
one particular aspect or quality under which the Supreme Being
might be considered, but had no existence apart from Him,
while it required the addition together of all the six to make
up His entire being. A similar conception seems to underlie
the Zoroastrian idea of the six Amshaspands, from which it is
likely enough that Simon copied this part of his system[576]. It is
here that we meet for the first time in Gnosticism with the idea
of emanation or the flowing-forth of the Divine nature, which
differs entirely from that of creation, whether e nihilo or from
pre-existing matter, inasmuch as the emanation still remains
connected with the parent source and never forms an entity
distinct from it[577].
We see, then, that in Simon’s system, the primal world was
a hebdomad or consisted of seven Powers, being the three pairs
of Roots enumerated above together with a seventh, their
source, in whom they were all summed up[578]. But after this,
and apparently created by it, is a second or intermediate world,
as to which the Great Announcement thus expresses itself:
182“Unto you therefore I say what I say, and write what I write.
The writing is this. There are two stocks of all the Aeons put
together, having neither beginning nor end, springing from one Root,
the which is Power-Silence, invisible, incomprehensible (ἀκατάληπτος)[579],
Of which two stocks, one appears above, which is a great Power, the
Mind of the universes, which pervades all things, and is male: the
other [appears] below, a great Thought, is female, and gives birth to
all things. Thus, these, corresponding to one another[580], form a pair
(συζυγία), and show forth the Middle Space (διάστημα), an incomprehensible
air having neither beginning nor end. In this is the
Father who sustains (βαστάζων) all things and nourishes all those
things which have a beginning and end[581]. This is he who standeth,
hath stood, and shall stand[582], being both a male and female power
after the likeness of the pre-existing Boundless Power[583], which has
neither beginning nor end, but exists in Oneness (Μονότης). For
the Thought which came forth from the power in Oneness became
two[584]. And each of them was one. For he, when he contained her
within himself, was alone, nor was he the first, although he existed
before, but having appeared from himself, a second came into being.
But he was not called Father before [Thought] had named him
Father. Just as, then, he drawing forth himself from himself
183manifested to himself his own Thought, so the same Thought when
she appeared did not create him, but, beholding him, concealed the
Father, that is to say, Power, within herself, and [thus] there exists
a male-and-female (i.e. hermaphrodite) Power-and-Thought. For
Power does not in any way differ from Thought, they being one.
Without the things which are above is found Power; without those
which are below, Thought. Thus, there is that, also, which appeared
from them, the which being one is found to be two, a male-and-female
containing the female within itself. This one is Mind in Thought;
for they, being one when undivided (ἀχώριστος) from one another,
are [yet] found to be Two[585].”
This statement seems at first to be merely an explanation
and recitation of what has been previously said as to the emanation
of the “Roots” from the Boundless Power, and by no
means justifies the words of the Great Announcement in which
it is magniloquently proclaimed to be “the Book of the Showing-forth
of Voice and Name from the Thought of the Great
Boundless Power. Wherefore it will be sealed up and hidden
and veiled and will rest in the habitation wherein the root of the
worlds is established (Θεμελιόω)[586].” But when we examine the
words just quoted by the light of the other systems said to be
derived from Simon’s, we see that they really indicate the belief
of the author in a succession of worlds, wherein every later or
lower one is a reflection, as in a glass, of that which was above
it[587]. These lower worlds, like the primal one, should each
contain three pairs of “Roots,” emanating from one source
like rays from a lamp or other source of light. It also seems that
this source is, alike in the primal world and its successors, in
itself potentially both male and female, that is to say, the
female nature, which alone has the power of conception or
producing new beings, was originally concealed within the other
as a thought is concealed within the mind, and only becomes
184comprehensible when utterance is given to it. Hence each of
these Powers or, as Simon here calls them for the first time,
aeons, like the Supreme Being, has a double aspect. Seen from
below, that is to say, as it appears to the aeon which succeeds
it, it is female, that is to say, a source of being. To that which
is above it, or earlier in emanation, it is male, that is to say, it
is the cause of conception, and also the sustainer and director
at once of the conceiver and of that which she conceives[588].
Why now did Simon, or whoever wrote under his name, use
such obscure and at first sight unintelligible terms for his
speculations on the nature of the Supreme Being and the origin
of the world? Simply, it would seem, that he might reconcile
two things which like certain chemicals found themselves in
presence of each other without any affinity for combination.
These were the Mosaic Law which, since the Captivity, both
Jew and Samaritan held themselves bound to treat as divinely
inspired[589], and the Greek “theological” ideas which then pervaded
the whole civilized world and were at the time accepted
by all educated men who thought about such subjects in much
the same way as are in these days the conclusions of physical
science[590]. This forced him and others who attempted to found
a religion acceptable to both Jew and Greek, to use language
which could be interpreted in their own sense by either. His
Supreme Being is One, as Israel declared that her God was One,
but, by a not immodest metaphor, he contains within himself
185the power of becoming both male and female, as Adonis, or Attis,
or Dionysos, or, to take the mythological person he most
resembles, the Orphic Phanes, was both male and female[591].
Simon also goes out of his way to affirm that his first syzygy or
pair, Mind and Thought, are in the second world called Heaven
and Earth, and thus forms a pretty close parallel to the Orphic
couple Uranos and Ge[592]. But he is careful to mix with this
explanations which shall also accord with the account of
creation given in the Book of Genesis. He who standeth, hath
stood, and will stand, i.e. the Eternal Being who is not liable
to fall or corruption, and is the “Father” of the “Middle
Space” is no less the “I am that I am” of Exodus than the
Father of gods and men of Homer. So, too, his companion
from the beginning, called Silence, because she has no independent
existence until he gives utterance to his thought,
resembles the Nux or Night of Orpheus from whom Phanes
begot Heaven and Earth; but she is also, as Simon expressly
says, the Spirit of God which moved over the face of the waters
in the Mosaic account of the Creation[593]. If, again, Simon makes
his first pair of “Roots” in the second world Heaven and
Earth, his second pair, Voice and Name, he declares to be
equivalent to the Sun and Moon, and his third, Reason and
Desire, to Air and Water[594]. This, he expressly says, is because
the Book of Genesis says that three clear days elapsed before
the Sun and Moon came into being, and these three “days”
are an allusion to the Boundless Power and the first pair Mind
and Thought[595]. To a much greater extent than Philo, therefore,
Simon uses the religious traditions of both Greeks and Hebrews
to give sanction to his own speculations.
The use of the word aeon, which our English Testament
translates “age” (saeculum) as the generic name of the six
Roots or Powers reflected in the second universe, seems also
to have peculiar signification in this connection. Among the
186Greeks, Hesiod sang of a golden age, succeeded by others of
silver, of brass, of one unnamed metal, and finally one of iron;
and the Orphics, working after their manner on older materials,
assigned the first of these ages to their god Phanes, and the
others to Night, Uranos, Kronos, and Zeus in succession,
asserting that the last age would be that of Dionysos[596]. The
use of the word by Simon seems to show that he conceived his
emanations or “Roots” as succeeding one another and perhaps
depending from one another like the links of a chain. But
as he had already personified these emanations, we have the
curious result that he considered them both as persons—or, to
be more accurate, aspects of the Deity—and spaces of time.
Nor was this all. The great spread given to the Chaldaean
star-worship throughout the East by the events described in
Chapter III above, had caused the stars to be accepted by every
nation in the Hellenist world as the most convenient types of
divinity[597]. The planets, including in that phrase the Sun and
Moon, were all known by the names of the most important
gods in the various pantheons of all the nations of antiquity,
and were thought in some not very clearly defined way to be
identified with the divinities whose names they bore[598]. Even
before the time of Alexander, the Platonic cosmogony had made
of the stars and planets habitations where the souls of men
were supposed to rest on their way to mortal bodies[599]; and
Philo, while admitting that the stars were the rulers of earthly
187things, could do no more than remind his readers that they
were not independent rulers, but only viceroys of Yahweh[600].
Hence Simon, when he called three of his aeons by the names of
Earth, Sun, and Moon, made them places or worlds as well as
persons and periods of time. It was an extraordinary complication
of ideas from which none of the Gnostics who followed him
succeeded in entirely freeing themselves[601].
To return, however, to Simon’s system of emanations.
Have we any right to consider that the Heaven and Earth, Sun
and Moon, and Water and Air, with which he peopled his second
universe, were those which are perceptible by our senses, or did
he regard them as existing above our ken and as merely the
patterns which were in their turn reflected into our universe?
Hippolytus unfortunately breaks off his quotations from the
Great Announcement at this point, and his own report of Simon’s
doctrines is neither lucid nor implicitly to be trusted. Irenaeus,
however, writing half a century before Hippolytus, declares
that it was the female aeon Thought, whom we have seen is
equivalent in the second or intermediate world to Ge or Earth,
“who, comprehending the wish of the Father, descended to
the lower regions, and there produced angels and the lower
authorities (αί κάτω ἐξουσίαι) who made the universe (κόσμος)[602].”
If we believe, as seems most probable, that Simon carried his
theory of the lower world being a reflection of the upper throughout
all existing things, it follows that the second world, containing
as we have seen Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon, and
188Air and Water together with “the Father” in whom the six
were contained, was the pattern or paradigmatic world which
was reflected in the lower universe to which we belong. In this
case it is probable that the six “Roots” again changed their
generic name, and after having been called powers (δυνάμεις)
in the primal world, and aeons in the second, were now designated
angels and authorities. If this conjecture is right, we
have here a parallel to the chain of being fabled by the Orphics
which, beginning with the gods, descended through demi-gods,
heroes, and demons down to men. An accurate knowledge of the
different ranks of this supramundane hierarchy was, as has been
said, of great importance for magical purposes such as exorcism,
and its description occupied a great part of the Enochian
literature[603].
Simon, however, had still to account for the creation of man
and the part which he played in the scheme of the universe.
His reverence for Moses prevented him from directly contradicting
the statement in Genesis that Yahweh “formed man out
of the dust of the ground,” and this he echoes in the words of
the Septuagint, which speaks of God moulding (ἔπλασε) man
by “taking dust (χοῦς) from the Earth (Γῆ).” The part here
played by the Yahweh of Genesis he transfers to “the Father”
of his second or intermediate world[604]; and as Genesis says that
God made man in his own image, he is also compelled to
say that man was originally made in the likeness of the Father.
But “the Father” of Simon’s intermediate world was, as we
have seen, an hermaphrodite, or rather a male containing a
female power within himself[605]. Hence man was originally both
male and female, or in the words of the Great Announcement189“not simple, but double according to image and resemblance[606].”
But this was clearly not the man of this world as we know him,
but the Heavenly or Archetypal Man who remained in the world
above ours, and was, as Philo held, a man-woman[607]. How did
Simon account for the separation of the sexes, and its influence
upon subsequent humanity?
The answer to this question involves Simon’s ideas as to
the cause of evil in this world and the means by which man can
escape from it. Man was, as we have seen, formed out of dust,
but to make him, in the words of Genesis, “a living soul,” it
was necessary that he should be animated by the breath
(πνεῦμα) of the Divinity. So efficiently was this done that
everyone, as Simon said, has within him potentially but not
in act, “that which is blessed and incorruptible,” that is to
say, “He who standeth, hath stood and will stand,” or in
other words the “Father” of the intermediate world. “He
it is,” he goes on to say, “who stood above in the Unbegotten
Power, who stands below, coming into being by reflection (ἐν
εἰκόνι) in the rush of the waters, and will stand above by the
side of the blessed and Unbegotten Power if he should receive
reflection or image (ἐὰν ἐξεικονισθῇ)[608].” For “there are three
who stand, and unless there are three aeons that stand, the
unbegotten one, who according to them [Qy. the Hebrews?]
was borne over the face of the water, is not in her proper place
in the universe (οὐ κοσμεῖται)[609]. The which unbegotten one is
fashioned by resemblance as perfect and heavenly, but becomes,
in regard to Thought alone, inferior to the Unbegotten Power.”
This Unbegotten Power, he goes on to say in words that remind
one of several different myths[610], is the “One power cloven in twain
190above and below, who gives birth to itself, increases itself, seeks
itself, finds itself, being its own mother, its own father, its own
sister, its own spouse (σύζυγος), its own daughter, its own son, a
mother-father [and is] one, being the root of all the universes[611].”
It was the Thought of this Power who was charged with bringing
the Divine Spark to this world; but apparently, while she was
brooding over the face of the waters, she was seized by the
angels and authorities whom she had produced, “through
motives of jealousy, because they were unwilling to be looked
upon as the progeny of any other being[612].” These words are
put into the mouth of Simon by Irenaeus, who goes on to say
that Thought was thus prevented from returning to the Father
and was shut up in a human body. At this point, the account
of Irenaeus agrees with that of the Philosophumena which
narrates that (according to Simon) the world-making angels
caused Thought (Ennoia) to enter one body after another,
including that of Helen of Troy (causa teterrima belli), until she
finally entered into the body of Simon’s companion Helena
whom he found in a brothel at Tyre[613]. Hippolytus says,
however, that Simon made up this part of the story out of
shame as regards his disciples[614] in order to explain his companying
with Helena, and it may be noticed that he nowhere quotes
the Great Announcement in its support[615]. Epiphanius, who seems
191to have used the same documents as Irenaeus, gives a different
reason for the conduct of the world-making angels from that of
Irenaeus, and makes out that they were seduced by the beauty of
“Epinoia,” as he calls Ennoia or Thought, the female aeon who
had come down, and detained her below out of sensual desire[616].
Both Irenaeus and Epiphanius are agreed that Simon in some
way “redeemed” Helena, although they do not say in what
way, and Hippolytus declares that Simon having purified
Helena, in like manner brought salvation to men by his own
discernment[617]. Why Simon should thus have power of salvation
he does not explain directly, but he, Irenaeus, and Epiphanius
alike tell us, by what seems to be a wilful or unconscious
misinterpretation of the account in the New Testament[618], that
Simon gave himself out as the Supreme God, who, seeing that
the angels mismanaged this world from their desire for rule,
came here to put it right and descended through the different
worlds, changing his shape in each to accord with that of the
rulers therein, until he appeared here as man, “although he was
not a man[619].” Hippolytus further says, as does Irenaeus, that
192Simon was alleged “to suffer in Judaea in the likeness of Jesus,
although in appearance only, and to have appeared to the Jews
as Son, to the Samaritans as Father, and to the other nations as
the Holy Spirit[620].” His death he accounts for by the story,
found nowhere else in post-Christian literature, that at some
place, the name of which has slipped out of the text of the
Philosophumena, Simon
“taught sitting under a plane-tree. Moreover, exposure being at
hand through long delay, he said that if he were buried alive he would
rise again the third day. And a grave having been dug by his orders
by his disciples, he directed that he should be buried. His disciples
did what he commanded, but he remained there to this day. For he
was not Christ[621].”
In all this account, Hippolytus gives an entirely different
account from that of the Clementines, with the manifest purpose
of holding Simon up to obloquy as one of the “false Christs”
predicted in the New Testament. It is obvious also that, so
far from giving us Simon’s pre-Christian teaching, he is here
193handing down a garbled account of some tradition of the
heresiarch’s disciples after his death.
That the stories told by the Fathers, except when they are
quoting immediately from the Great Announcement, are not a
trustworthy account of Simon’s doctrines is evident from their
manifest inconsistency. If Simon’s disciples believed, as Hippolytus
says, in the lawfulness of promiscuous intercourse, why
should he feel called upon to justify to them by an artifice his
connection with Helena? If, too, Simon, or the Supreme
Being in his likeness, came down from the highest heaven to
earth for the sake of redeeming his spouse Epinoia there held
captive, why did he not return with her when recovered, and
for what purpose did he simulate death in Judaea? Nor is
there any plausible reason assigned for the angels’ detention
of Epinoia on earth by Hippolytus, which he attributes, like
Irenaeus before him, to jealousy and the desire for rule, any
more than by Epiphanius, who will have it to be caused
by their concupiscence—a story probably derived from the
account of the Watchers in the Book of Enoch. Hippolytus
makes Epinoia come to earth to establish, instead of taking
away, the rule of the angels, who were by his account her own
progeny; and if the angels were, as Epiphanius says, inflamed
with love for her, the last thing they would be likely to do
would be to transform her out of her first and heavenly shape,
and finally place her in a brothel—as they are said to have
done with Helena, Simon’s mistress.
The key to Simon’s theory on the connexion between the
salvation of mankind and its division into sexes is probably
to be found in a paragraph in the Philosophumena in which
Hippolytus seems to quote directly from the Great Announcement:
“And because,” he says, “the beginning of the generation of
things which are begotten[622] is from fire, he [Simon] devises (κατανόει)
a certain similar figure. Generation of all such things exists, [and]
the beginning of the desire of generation comes from fire. So, for
example, to desire changeable generation is called being inflamed
194with love. But the fire, which is one, undergoes two changes. In
the man,” he says, “the blood which is hot and yellow as typifying
fire is changed into seed; but in the woman, the self-same blood is
changed into milk[623]. And the [result of the?] change of the masculine
blood is begetting; but the [result of the?] change of the feminine,
the nourishment of that which is begotten[624]. This,” he says, “is the
flaming sword turning both ways to guard the way to the Tree of
Life. For the blood turns into seed and milk, and that power
becomes [at once] mother and father of the things which are born,
and the increase of those which are nursed, having no need of any
external help and being sufficient unto itself. The Tree of Life,” he
says, “is guarded by the flaming sword turning both ways, as we have
said, [and] the seventh power which contains all things, and which
is stored up in the six powers, [comes forth?] from the sword. For,
if the flaming sword did not turn both ways, that beautiful tree would
be corrupted and destroyed. But if the Word which is stored up
potentially in them (the six powers), being the lord of the proper
place, is turned into seed and milk, within it is born the Word of
souls, beginning from the smallest spark, which will be magnified
and will increase and will become a boundless power, unchangeable
in the unchanging aeon, and it is born no more until [it reaches?]
the boundless aeon[625].”
195The meaning of this very complicated and confused imagery—which
we may be sure Hippolytus has purposely made as
obscure and ridiculous as possible—seems to be this. In the
two superior or heavenly worlds which we have called the primal
and the second, the “roots” are male and female after the
model of the Supreme Being. But this only means that the
female is the external manifestation of the male, within whom
she has at one time been contained. No thought of sex, as
we understand it, enters into their relations, and no progeny
follows from their conjugation, the lower world coming into
life after the pattern of the upper by an impulse which, although
due in the first instance to the male, is translated into action
by the female member of the first syzygy. But with our
universe and the appearance of man, a change in the system
takes place. Although our world, constituted after the heavenly
model, contains the three pairs, Heaven and Earth, Sun and
Moon, Air and Water, and is animated by the breath of life
brought from above by Epinoia or Ennoia, man is formed
from previously-existing matter and is therefore largely made
up of an element hostile or repugnant to God. Lest the Divine
spark within him should free itself from matter and return to
the world above, each human soul has been divided, as Plato
tells us in the Symposium[626], and the two parts placed in different
bodies so that the male is imperfect without the female and the
female without the male, and the soul can make no effort to
raise itself in the world of being until it meets and is conjoined
with its affinity. This is probably in Simon’s view the device
196of the angels, who have brought it about, according to Hippolytus,
in order that Epinoia, the mother of life, may remain
longer in the world and therefore prolong their rule[627]. But they
are defeated by the Divine arrangement, which compels the
two parts of the soul, after having once entered upon the round
of mutable generation (ἡ μεταβλητὴ γένεσις), to change into one
body after another according to the Orphic theory of transmigration
until each meets with its twin. Thus did the soul
of Helen of Troy pass from one body into another until in
the shape of Helena of Tyre it met with its own affinity in the
body of Simon. Then it became again bisexual after the image
of the boundless power to which it would again rise. Thus
must it be with all mankind until all the souls are thus disentangled
from matter[628]. According to Hippolytus, this event
is to coincide with the deliverance (λύσις) of the world, which
seems to mean that it is to be freed from the rule of the angels.
Irenaeus and Epiphanius twist this into the assertion that it
is to be dissolved, while one of the later Gnostic documents
says that it is to be “caught up,” that is to say, reabsorbed
by the world of which it is the image. But Hippolytus expressly
197includes this last doctrine among those invented by “those
who imitated the error” of Simon Magus, or in other words by
his successors[629], and it need not therefore be here discussed.
Whence Simon derived the doctrine of which we get glimpses
in the Great Announcement will probably remain in doubt until
we recover more fragments of that document. It appears
likely, however, that he drew from a number of sources. Even
in his day and after the wholesale depopulation of Samaria by
the Syrians, Egyptians, and Jews, there must have remained
many of the inhabitants who were lineal descendants of that
mixed Semitic and Persian stock who “feared the Lord and
served brazen images.” Hence his speculations may well have
been influenced by the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism and
Mazdeism, and some have thought that they can see in them
traces of the primitive fire worship of the Magi[630]. Yet he
need not have gone so far, for, as we have seen, his idea of fire
as the origin of all things might well be taken from a too literal
interpretation of a passage in the Samaritan Pentateuch. So
with regard to the six “roots,” although they may have been
mere copies of the Persian Amshaspands, they may also have
come from a Pythagorean or Orphic source, since Athamas the
Pythagorean is said to have taught that “there are four roots—fire,
water, air, earth; for from these is the genesis of what is
produced,” and a verse of Empedocles is preserved which
makes the same assertion[631]. The likeness of Simon’s system
to Egyptian and Alexandrian teaching is even closer. In
ancient Egypt there was, as M. Maspero thinks, a well-defined
system of correspondences including three worlds, each of which
was a likeness or reflection of the preceding. At Hermopolis,
too, there was worshipped an ogdoad or family of four pairs of
gods and goddesses who on the same authority were merely
attributes of one higher deity[632]. So in the tract de Iside et
Osiride[633], we are told that genesis or coming into being is the
image or reflection in matter of that which really exists, and
198that Horus, who seems here to represent the perceptible world,
is the εἰκών or image of the νοητὸς κόσμος or ideal world, and
is the child of this last world and matter. After all, there is
little more in this than an extension of Plato’s theory of ideas
which are the paradigms or patterns of perceptible things: but
as Simon, according to the Clementines[634], had studied in Alexandria
he may well have acquired such a notion either from
Plato’s writings direct, or, as is more likely, from the Alexandrian
religion of Serapis and Isis as set forth in the tract in question.
Of the history of the Simonian sect, we know very little
more than has been said. The Fathers accuse the Simonians
of leading immoral lives, of teaching the advisability of promiscuous
intercourse, and of being addicted to magic[635]. Irenaeus
declares that they worshipped an image of Simon in the likeness
of Jupiter, and another of Helena in the shape of Athena[636], to
which Hippolytus adds that they were exceedingly angry if
any one ventured to call these statues either Simon or Helena
and instantly cast him forth of the sect as being ignorant of
their mysteries[637]. Eusebius—a very late witness—adds to this
that they worshipped these images with “prostrations and
incense and sacrifices and libations[638],” which taken with the
other statements seems to show that the Simonians, or perhaps
only the pre-Christian followers of Simon, really took part in
the worship of the Greek gods Zeus and Athena, possibly by
way of complaisance with the Greek and Roman rulers of
Samaria, and that the likening of their statues to Simon and
Helena was only the patristic gloss on the fact. Epiphanius goes
further and attributes to them “mysteries of iniquity” and
secret and obscene rites, including the filthy parody of the
Eucharist depicted by the late J. K. Huysmans in his novel
of Là-Bas[639]. But this also was an accusation common to the
adherents and opponents of Christianity at the time he wrote.
199He also says that their sacrifices were offered to “the Father
of the Universes” (τῶν ὅλων) through the rulers and authorities[640],
and that they thought that the God of the Jews was one of the
angels in this lower universe who created man and divided the
nations among them by lot[641], an idea of which there is a trace
in the Book of Daniel[642]. But it is plain that Epiphanius, in his
desire to prove that Simon is the parent of all subsequent
heresy, is here mixing together the opinions of different Gnostic
sects with a result inconsistent even in his own eyes. That the
later Simonians had secret rites after the manner of those
described by Lucian in the case of Alexander of Abonoteichos[643]
is likely enough, but rests on no real proof[644].
Of the extent and persistence of the religion set on foot by
Simon we have some few indications, although these, too, hardly
agree with one another. Irenaeus declares that he was succeeded
in the leadership of the sect by Menander[645], another Samaritan,
and this is confirmed by Epiphanius, Philaster, and all the
lesser writers on heresy down to and including Eusebius[646].
Although there seems nothing new in the doctrine which they
assign to Menander, it is very probable that, after Simon’s
death, the tenets of the sect underwent a good deal of modification.
According to Theodoret, the Simonians spread chiefly in
Syria, Phrygia, and Rome[647]. Justin Martyr, writing in the reign
of Antoninus Pius, speaks of their school as still existing apparently
in Rome[648]. Origen, in the following reign, says indeed
200in his tract against Celsus that there were no Simonians to be
found anywhere throughout the world[649]; but he was probably
mistaken in this, as Eusebius in the reign of Constantine speaks
of them as still numerous, although forced to hide themselves[650].
After this, and so soon as the Church, now triumphant, began
in her turn to persecute, they no doubt either became converted
to Christianity or joined other sects.
In these matters, as in many others concerning the Gnostics,
the Fathers of the Church were badly informed. The Gnostic
indifference to outward forms of religion made it very easy for
any body of Gnostics to conceal themselves in time of persecution[651],
and thus to resist in the most practical way any attempt
to estimate their true strength, or the relations of the different
sects to one another. Gnosticism was, as the Church was to find
out later, a hydra, the heads of which when cut off renewed
themselves with amazing rapidity. Moreover, the very essence
of Gnosticism was secrecy for all but the initiated, and if we may
judge from the words of the Great Announcement quoted above,
the Simonians took abundant care when they committed any of
their doctrines to writing that the result should be unintelligible
without a good deal of previous instruction. But if the fragments
quoted are, as seems fairly certain, the work either of Simon
Magus himself or of some prominent and early member of his
school, the Fathers were abundantly justified in regarding him
as the source of all subsequent Gnosticism. The syncretic
religion which they unfold seems to have been admirably
adapted to catch those “barbarian” enquirers, of whom there
were evidently many in the first years of our era, who were
trying by might and main to reconcile the traditions of Judaism
with the Greek learning and culture for the first time brought
within their reach. The system of terribly forced interpretation
of the Jewish scriptures employed by the Simonians was
201probably their own invention, and would certainly never have
passed muster in a community possessed of a modicum of
literary sense[652]; yet it enabled them, as has been said, to turn
their backs upon the plain meaning of the books of the Old
Testament. By their doctrine of emanation, whether derived
from Persian sources or not, they contrived, perhaps for the
first time, to bridge the huge gulf fixed by the philosophy and
physics of the time between their Supreme Being and the gross
matter which was thought to exist independently of and in
opposition to him; while their scheme of redemption, like that
of the Orphics from whom they apparently borrowed, went far,
as they boasted, to rob death of its terrors.
These features we find reproduced in the teachings of nearly
every later sect and school into which we shall have to enquire,
and although our information as to their doctrines is not exact
enough to enable us to determine the extent of the obligations
of all of them to the teaching of Simon, the chances are that in
every case there was a more or less conscious borrowing. Nor
did the influence of the Samaritan magus cease with the suppression
of the many heresies which the Fathers declared to
be inspired by him. His speculations as to the succession
of heavens and of orders of heavenly beings passed into the
teaching of the Church[653] and obtained too firm a footing there
to be dislodged until the German Reformation. The memory
of them extended even beyond its pale, and while, in the VIIth
century of our era, they came to inspire such cosmology as is
taught in the Koran, the system of Sephiroth or successive
202emanations of the Deity, which underlies the farrago of mystical
nonsense called in the Middle Ages the Cabala of the Jews, is
directly derived from them. It may even be said that the
influence of Simon’s doctrines is not even now extinct in Europe,
for in the writings of Swedenborg, which still find exponents,
many of his ideas seem to be revived.
That Simon’s system as described in the Great Announcement
was the result either of deep philosophic speculation or
of original thought can hardly be said. Its one novel feature
was the rather clumsy fusion of the Orphic cosmogony with
the Mosaic account of creation, which reads like a parody on
Philo’s well-thought-out doctrine. Philo was born, apparently,
about 25 B.C., and was therefore in all probability a few years
older than Simon, so that such a parody is not altogether
impossible. One of the main differences between the two
systems is that to the asceticism of Philo and the Essenes Simon
opposed, not perhaps a recommendation to licence, but a
theory making the union of the sexes part of the scheme for
the redemption of mankind. By so doing, he probably made
a much stronger appeal to Samaritans and Jews alike than did
the strict celibacy demanded by Orphics, Essenes, and the other
pre-Christian Gnostics. It is probable also that he included in
his propaganda some sort of thaumaturgy or wonder-working
of the kind employed, according to Lucian, by Alexander of
Abonoteichos and, according to Irenaeus, by the Jewish impostor
Marcus. Although the stories about this in the Clementines
are manifestly fiction, we cannot absolutely reject the
universal testimony of the Fathers that Simon and his followers
made use of incantations and magical arts, and these are
probably the “sorceries” with which the writer of the Acts
declares he bewitched the Samaritans. Charlatanism, or more
or less conscious imposture of this kind, was rife, as will be
presently shown, among the lower classes of Palestine in his
day, and would agree well with the bombastic language of the
extracts from the Great Announcement which Hippolytus has
preserved for us.
End of Vol. I.
Footnotes
1. For the pre-Christian centuries, the rise of ethical religions like that
of the Greek Isis (see Chap. IIinfra) and of Mithras (see Chap. XII) is
perhaps sufficient proof of this. For the post-Christian, see Tertullian’s
remarks as to the interest excited among the heathens by problems like the
origin of evil (de Praescript. c. VII.). As to their striving after morality, see
Eugène de Faye, “Formation d’une Doctrine de Dieu au IIme Siècle,”Rev.
Hist. Rel. t. LXIII. (Jan.-Fev. 1911) pp. 1, 2, for authorities. See, too,
Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 1890, pp. 291, 292 and Harnack as there quoted.
2. W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, pp. 263, 264.
3. Tiele, in his Gifford Lectures delivered in 1895, remarks on the ridicule
with which the learned Hellenists of his youth received the efforts of those
whom they called the comparativi. See Elements of the Science of Religion,
1897, vol. I. p. 7.
4. No better proof can be given of the change in public opinion in such
matters than the comparison of Gibbon’s words with regard to “the
miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive Church” (Decline and Fall,
Bury’s edition, vol. II. p. 2) and the way the subject is treated in the article
“Wonders” in Cheyne’s Encyclopedia Biblica, 1903.
5. The definition is that of Ira W. Howerth, International Journal of
Ethics, 1903, p. 205.
6. See Tiele, op. cit. vol. I. pp. 5 sqq. The controversies raging round
Darwin’s theory when first put forward are well summarized by F. W.
Hutton in his Darwinism and Lamarckism, 1899, passim. Cf. Delage and
Goldsmith, Les Thèoriesé de l’Évolution, Paris, 1909, pp. 28, 29.
9. F. B. Jevons, Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion, 1908,
p. 18.
10. Like the late Dean Stanley, who in his Lectures on the History of the
Jewish Church, talked about the synagogue of the Jewish settlement in
Rome under the first Emperors “fascinating the proud Roman nobles by
the glimpse it gave of a better world” (vol. III. p. 410).
11. According to Josephus (Antiq.XVIII. i. 3, 4) they did not amount
to more than 6000 men distributed throughout the whole of Palestine.
Morrison thinks that “the Pharisaic party had no attraction for the great
bulk of the population,” The Jews under Roman Rule 1890, p. 307.
13. See Neander, General Hist. of the Christian Religion and Church,
Eng. ed. 1853, vol. I. p. 126.
14. De Natura Deorum, c. XXVIII. The statement is put into the mouth of
Balbus whose arguments Cicero declares to have in his opinion “the
greater probability.” See also Athenagoras, Legatio, c. XXII. and
Minucius Felix, c. XIX. With such interpretations or mythoplasms,
Philo of Alexandria was familiar. Cf. F. C. Conybeare, Apology of Apollonius,
1894, p. 9.
15. Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, 1904, p. 419.
18. Origen, contra Celsus, t. III. c. 44. Cf. Hatch, where last quoted.
19. Cf. Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, 1899,
p. 38, n. 4. See also the edict of Constantine quoted in the concluding
chapter, infra. The steps which led up to the policy are well summarized
by Walter Johnson, Byways of British Archaeology, 1912, p. 25.
22. Langlois, Collection des Historiens de l’Arménie, Paris, 1868, t. I. p. 388.
23. The late Dr Salmon’s theory that writers like Hippolytus may have
been taken in by a forger who made one document do duty for many
different sects is given in Chap. VII infra, but the arguments in its favour
are not conclusive.
25. Sir Gaston Maspero, “Sur l’Ennéade,”R.H.R. Jan.-Fev. 1892, p. 8,
says that the Egyptians regarded Osiris as the First Man, and Jéquier
repeats the statement in his Livre de ce qu’il y a dans l’Hadès, Paris, 1894,
pp. 9-10. Yet there seems no evidence that the Egyptians ever knew him
under that name.
27. See (Mdlle) D. Menant, “Parsis et Parsisme,”Conférences au Musée
Guimet, 1904, and Prof. Williams-Jackson as there quoted. The same date
is accepted with some hesitation by Prof. Hope Moulton in his Early
Zoroastrianism (Hibbert Lectures), 1913, pp. 17 sqq.
28. See H. G. Jacobi, “The Antiquity of Vedic Culture,” Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society, 1909, pp. 720 sqq., where the texts relied upon are
given and discussed. The correspondence which followed upon this paper
(see J.R.A.S. 1909, 1910) is full of interest. Fossey, “Les Fouilles
Allemandes à Boghaz-Keui,”Journal des Savans, July, 1909, p. 316,
would make the date of the inscription about 1900 B.C.
29. After this was in print, there came to hand Mr Stephen Langdon’s
translation of the Sumerian tablet from Nippur found by him at
Philadelphia, which narrates in a new and modified form the earliest
Babylonian legend of the Creation. From this it appears that the
goddess Nin-harsag, either on her own account or as the agent of the
god En-ki or Ea, “created two creatures with heads, feet, and face as a
model for mankind.” See Mr Langdon’s Preliminary Note in the Proceedings
of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1914, p. 196, n. 23. A full
transliteration and translation is promised later in the P.S.B.A. If
Mr Langdon’s reading of the tablet is accepted, this may well prove to
be the origin of all the “First Man” legends mentioned on p. lxi, supra.
30. Such as the Arimaspi or one-eyed inhabitants of Russia, about whom
Herodotus (Bk III. c. 116) quotes the legend that they stole gold from its
griffin guardians, and those myrmeces or great ants whom Megasthenes
(Strabo, Bk XV. c. 1, § 44) and other writers describe as digging for gold
on the Thibetan frontier—a story of which more than one rationalistic
explanation has been suggested.
31. Rawlinson’s Herodotus (1862 edition), II. p. 462 for authorities.
32. Maspero, Histoire ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient, Paris, 1904, p. 706.
Rawlinson, op. cit. p. 463, thinks this practice lapsed early, but Xenophon
seems clear that it was in force in his time (Cyropaedia, Bk VIII. c. 6).
33. He was probably allowed a reasonable sum for the maintenance of
his court and government; but if he exceeded this, was liable to severe
punishment. This appears from the execution by Alexander, on his
return from India, of the satraps who had been guilty of extortion. He
seems to have purposely preserved the Persian laws and customs on this
point unaltered.
34. This is the opinion of Rawlinson, op. cit. pp. 460 sqq.
35. Rawlinson, op. cit. p. 464; Winwood Reade, Martyrdom of Man,
1910, p. 56; Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, 1884, pp. 250, 251;
Maspero, op. cit. p. 721.
36. Oppert, Le Peuple et la Langue des Mèdes, Paris, pp. 17 sqq.; Maspero,
op. cit. p. 559, n. 11.
37. Sir Thomas Holdich, in his excellent book The Gates of India (p. 104),
says that when he defeated the Aspasians or Yusufzai in the Kuner Valley
he sent the pick of their cattle back to Macedonia to improve the native
breed. Arrian, Anabasis, Bk IV. c. 25, however, in quoting the story from
Ptolemy, says only that Alexander “wished to send them” to till the soil.
It seems impossible that they could have survived the journey before the
days of steamships. Still more incredible is the story in Plutarch, Life of
Alexander, c. L. that when Alexander was at Prophthasia (probably Farrah
in Seistan), he received some grapes grown on the coast of Greece. But
such stories, although coloured by age, may serve to show how perfect his
communications were always thought to have been.
38. Holdich, op. cit.passim, says that he must have had information
from Persian sources, and that his route must have been laid beforehand.
Sir Thomas’ opinion, as that of a soldier as well as a student, is entitled to
much respect. Yet the instances of Genghiz Khan and other Oriental
invaders are perhaps against any such necessity.
39. Freeman, Historical Essays, 1873, second series, pp. 192, 193.
40. Khojend was probably Alexandria eschata or the furthest (East).
Samarcand, of which the ancient name was Maracanda, is said by Baber
to be a foundation of Alexander’s. Herat was Alexandria Ariana, and Merv
probably Alexandria Margiana, while Cabul seems to have been Ortospana.
Among the other Alexandrias which have retained their old importance
are Alexandria Arachosiana or Candahar, Alexandria Caucasiana or Begram,
and Alexandria Sogdiana or Hyderabad. See J. W. McCrindle, Invasion
of India by Alexander the Great, 1896, pp. 36 sqq., and Droysen, Histoire de
l’Hellénisme, (French edition), Paris, 1883, I. pp. 408 sqq.
42. See last note. The second marriage is dramatically described by
Droysen, op. cit.I. pp. 638, 639. Cf. Arrian, Anabasis, Bk VII. c. 4;
Plutarch, Alexander, c. LXX.
43. Arrian, op. cit. Bk VII. c. 6; Plutarch, Alexander, c. LXXI. Cf. Droysen,
op. cit.I. p. 646.
44. Droysen, op. cit.I. p. 660. It was probably the fear of this mixture
that caused the quarrel between him and his Macedonians at Opis. See
Arrian, op. cit. Bk VII. c. 8; Plutarch, Alexander, c. LXXI.
45. Droysen, op. cit.II. p. 34. Mahaffy, Alexander’s Empire, 1887, p. 38,
thinks that the Romans could never have withstood Alexander’s cavalry
and siege artillery, although he notes that Livy patriotically decided otherwise.
46. Droysen, op. cit.I., pp. 186, 240, 333. There were 30,000 Greek
mercenaries fighting on the side of Darius at Issus, and 4000 of these
remained faithful till his death. Ibid.I. p. 368.
48. Plutarch, Crassus, c. XXXIII. The play acted was the Bacchae, and
a Greek tragic actor, one Jason of Tralles, had been imported for the
principal part. In the essay De Alex. fortitudine, I. c. 5, Plutarch says
that no sooner had Alexander subdued Asia than Homer became a favourite
reading-book, and Persian, Susianan, and Gedrosian boys learned to chant
the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides.
50. Sylvain Lévi, “Bouddhisme et les Grecs,”Revue de l’Histoire des
Religions, 1891, p. 2; Percy Gardner, Catalogue of Bactrian and Indian
Coins in British Museum. Arts other than the plastic also received
attention. Amitrochates, son of the famous Chandragupta or Sandracottus,
wrote to Antiochus (Soter?) to buy him some sweet wine,
dried figs, and a sophist. He received the other commodities, but was
told that it was not lawful to sell sophists in Greece. See Athenaeus,
Deipnosophistae, Bk XIV. c. 67 quoting Hegesander.
51. Droysen, op. cit.III. p. 66. Cf. the Omnis Oriens loquitur of St Jerome
Prol. ad Epist. ad Galatas; and Deissmann, New Light on the New Testament
(English edition), 1907, p. 30.
59. So F. H. Woods, The Hope of Israel, Edinburgh, 1896, p. 205, where
he speaks of the religion of the Prophets and Psalmists, as “giving, on
the whole, by far the most perfect and, as compared with other ancient
literature, practically a unique example of monotheism.” Yet as Winwood
Reade points out, Solomon must have thought there were other gods than
Yahweh, because he worshipped other gods; op. cit.supra, p. 201.
60. Aristotle, Politica, Bk I. c. 2, § 7. Cf. Max Müller, Religions of India
(Hibbert Lectures), 1880, p. 292.
64. The wry neck or, in Mr Hogarth’s words, “the famous inclination
of his beautiful head towards the left shoulder” was imitated by dandies
as late as the time of Severus. For authorities see Hogarth, Philip and
Alexander of Macedon, 1897, p. 278, n. 2.
65. Droysen, op. cit.I. p. 218 and p. 479, n. 1. Major P. H. Sykes lately
found an inscription in Khorassan to Sulayman Shah who reigned from
1667-1694 A.D. containing the words “His audience-chamber is the Sun;
his Army the Stars; his authority is like Alexander’s,” Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society, 1910, pp. 1152, 1153.
66. Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. des Lagides, Paris, t. I. p. 130, n. 2, points out
that there was hardly a philosopher during the next three centuries who
did not write a treatise Περὶ τῆς βασιλείας.
67. A parallel movement seems to have taken place in Babylonia, where
all the gods were at one period identified with Marduk or Merodach. See
Pinches, “Religious Ideas of the Babylonians,” Transactions of the Victoria
Institute, 1893, p. 10.
68. Maury, Histoire des Religions de la Grèce Antique, Paris, 1857, III. p. 73.
69. Demosthenes, v. Midias, p. 53; Herodotus, Bk VII. c. 189. Such
gods were called by the peculiar epithet of πυθόχρηστοι. See inscription
from Smyrna quoted by Rayet, Revue Archéologique, 1877, pp. 115-128.
75. See Maury, Rel. de la Grèce, t. III. cc. 15, 16. Aristophanes, Horae
fragment 1 of Didot, and Aves, l. 874, is practically the earliest witness
for their introduction into Athens. Cf. the Scholiast upon the last
passage quoted, for their identification with Greek deities. M. Paul
Foucart, Les Associations Religieuses chez les Grecs, Paris, 1873, pp. 57 and
85, shows the great rush of foreign gods into Attica after the Persian War
and the mode in which their worship was propagated.
76. Percy Gardner, Catalogue of Coins, etc., passim. Goblet d’Alviella,
Ce que l’Inde doit à la Grèce, Paris, 1897, p. 73, notes that these coins reproduce
“the usual type of the classical divinities Hercules, Dionysos, Poseidon,
Helios, Pallas, Artemis, Niké.”
78. Callisthenes appears to have used this argument against the deification
of Alexander during his lifetime, Arrian, Anabasis, Bk IV. c. 11. Cf.
Budge, Pseudo Callisthenes’ History of Alexander the Great, Cambridge,
1889, Bk III. c. 19, p. 135; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. XVI.
80. Maspero, “Comment Alexandre devenait Dieu.”Annuaire de l’École
des Hautes Études, Paris, 1897; id.Ét. Égyptol. t. VI. pp. 286 sqq.
81. Mr Hogarth, Philip and Alexander, pp. 197 sqq., rightly points out that
he never instituted any cult of himself, as did Demetrius Poliorcetes.
82. Plutarch, Alexander, c. XXVIII.; Arrian, Anabasis, Bk VII. c. 29.
83. Plutarch, de Is. et Os. c. XXIV.; id. Apophthegmata Antigon. 7. Cf.
Droysen, op. cit.II. p. 295. Mr Tarn in his Antigonos Gonatas, Oxford, 1913,
p. 251, would transfer the story to his grandson, but his reasoning is not
convincing.
86. Euhemerus’ work was one of the first Greek books to be translated
into Latin. See Cicero, De Nat. Deor. c. 42.
87. Droysen, op. cit.III. p. 341, n. 3. Rhys Davids, Buddhist India,
1903, p. 298, thinks it possible that the missions although duly recorded
on stone were never sent.
89. Foucart, Les Associations Religieuses, etc., pp. 66-84. Cf. Maury,
Rel. de la Grèce, II. p. 427. The composition of hymns was peculiarly the
care of these associations; Foucart, op. cit. p. 114.
91. Franz Cumont, “Hypsistos,” Revue de l’Instruction publique en Belgique,
1897, pp. 5-6; id.Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme
Romain, Paris, 1906, p. 155 and note.
102. Hogarth, Philip and Alexander, pp. 277, 282. Cf. Bouché-Leclercq
in Droysen, op. cit.I. p. vii.
103. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire des Lagides, Paris, 1903, etc. t. I. p. 121. Dr
Mahaffy, Empire of the Ptolemies, 1895, p. 11, thinks differently, but the
importance of the city to the present day is against him.
104. Bouché-Leclercq, op. cit. t. I. p. 104. Cf. Mahaffy, E.P. p. 4.
105. Droysen, Hist. de l’Hellénisme, t. II. p. 96; Bouché-Leclercq, op. cit.
t. I. pp. 13, 14; Mahaffy, E.P. p. 25.
106. As Demetrius the City-Taker, found to his cost. Cf. Mahaffy, E.P.
p. 57.
107. Droysen, op. cit.I. p. 14; Bouché-Leclercq, op. cit.I. p. 15.
111. Droysen, op. cit.I. pp. 346, 699, 670. Cf. D. G. Hogarth, Philip and
Alexander, p. 144.
112. As when they seized the throne of Egypt at the close of the XXth
Dynasty. So in Nubia in the time of the Ptolemies, the king was a mere
puppet in the hands of the priests, who used to send him word when they
thought that he had reigned long enough. For the story of Ergamenes
(Ark-amen), who put an end to their rule, see Diodorus Siculus, III. 6. 3,
or Budge, History of Egypt, 1899, vol. VIII. pp. 166 sqq.
113. See Breasted, History of Egypt, New York, 1909, passim; cf. Budge,
op. cit.
114. Wiedemann, The Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of the Immortality of the
Soul, 1895, p. viii; Maspero, Ét. Égyptol.I. pp. 123, 167; ibid.II. p. 196, n. 1.
115. Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, 1904, I. pp. 148, 149; Erman, Handbook
of Egyptian Religion, 1906, p. 81.
116. Erman, op. cit. p. 188. The fusion of Osiris with Ptah and Seker
was a good deal older than the Saites. Cf. Wiedemann, Religion of
the Ancient Egyptians, 1897, pp. 134, 135; Budge, Osiris and the Egyptian
Resurrection, New York, 1911, I. p. 45.
118. Budge, G.E.II. pp. 118, 156, 264. So Naville, Journal of Egyptian
Archaeology, 1914, pp. 7, 8. M. Maspero thinks Apuat was originally god
of Siut and only a temple-companion of Osiris at Abydos, Rev. Critique,
1904, pt. 2, pp. 194, 195.
119. Steindorff, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, New York, 1905,
p. 53; Erman, H.E.R. pp. 56, 57; Naville, The Old Egyptian Faith,
1906, pp. 146, 147.
120. Amélineau, Essai sur le Gnosticisme Égyptien, Paris, 1887, p. 144;
Budge, “Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu,” in Archaeologia, 1890, pt 2, p. 404;
Maspero, The Dawn of Civilization, 1894, pp. 172-174; Erman, H.E.R.
p. 32; Budge, G.E.II. p. 150. Manifest allusions to the legend are to
be found in the Pyramid Texts. Cf. Maspero, Les Inscriptions des
Pyramides de Saqqarah, Paris, 1894, pp. 105 sqq.
121. This idea is treated at length in “The Legend of Osiris” in the Proceedings
of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1911, pp. 139-154. See also
“The Greek Worship of Serapis and Isis,” P.S.B.A. 1914, pp. 79 sqq.
122. See “The Titles of the Thinite Kings” in P.S.B.A. 1908, pp. 86-94,
121-128, 163-177.
123. In Plutarch’s time the Ethiopians had a queen called Candace as in
Acts viii. 27. Cf. Strabo, Bk XVII. c. 1, § 54. One wonders whether
Plutarch in speaking of Aso did not confuse this title with an epithet
of Thueris, the hippopotamus-goddess and wife of Set, who is called in
a late magical text “Thueris, the great of sorcery, cat of Ethiopia.”
See Griffith and Thompson, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis,
Oxford, 1900, p. 91.
124. This is most clearly shown by M. Victor Loret in L’Égypte au Temps du
Totémisme, Paris, 1906, passim. Cf. the same author’s articles in Rev.
Égyptol. 1902 and 1904.
126. See “The Greek Worship of Serapis and Isis,” P.S.B.A. 1914, pp. 94-98,
for this culture god of the Eastern Mediterranean. The original home
of the myth was, possibly, Babylonia. Cf. “Legend of Osiris” in P.S.B.A.
1911, quoted above.
127. See the story of Ra and Isis, Budge, G.E. pp. 360 sqq.
128. By far the best and most consistent account of the Eleusinian Mysteries
is that given by M. Paul Foucart in his three memoirs, Recherches sur
l’origine et la nature des Mystères d’Éleusis, Les Grands Mystères d’Éleusis,
and Le Culte de Dionysos en Attique. All these appeared in the Mémoires
of the Académie des Inscriptions, tt. XXXV. (1895), XXXVII. (1900), and
XXXVIII. (1904) respectively.
130. Iacchos was identified with Dionysos at least as early as the time of
Sophocles. Cf. Antigone, ll. 1130 sqq., and Dyer, The Gods in Greece, 1891,
p. 133. Very likely, as M. Foucart suggests, he was originally the
personification of the cry repeated by the procession of the initiated. See
Grds. Myst. p. 122.
131. It had an opening in the roof for this purpose. Foucart, Grds. Myst.
p. 137.
132. So Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus, c. II. The scene of the
Rape is laid in many different places. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter
calls it “the Mysian plain,” meaning probably Mysia in Asia Minor. A
scholiast on Hesiod puts it in Sicily, Bacchylides in Crete, Orpheus in
“the parts about Ocean,” Phanodemus in Attica, Demades in “woodland
glades.” See Abel, Orphica, Fragm. 212, p. 239. Cf. Maury, Religions de
la Grèce Antique, t. I. p. 479.
134. Foucart, Myst. d’Él. p. 49; id.Grds. Myst. pp. 68, 69.
135. M. Foucart, Culte de Dion. pp. 55-60, will not allow that Iacchos was
ever identified with Dionysos and believes him to have been only the genius
that led the procession. Dyer, on the other hand (op. cit. p. 128),
makes Iacchos the young or second Dionysos born of Semele. But Aristophanes,
Frogs, l. 321, and Strabo, Bk X. c. 10 (p. 402 Didot), both give
him a higher position in the Mysteries than M. Foucart would assign to him,
and the older opinion that he was the child whose birth was there shown
seems to hold good. Cf. Maury, Rel. de G. A. t. II. p. 341, and Arrian,
Anabasis, Bk II. c. 16, § 3 (p. 50, Didot). So Stephani, Compte Rendu de
la Commission Imperiale Archéologique, 1859 (St Petersburg), p. 37, where
monumental evidence is given in its support. Cf. Daremberg and Saglio,
Dict. des Antiquités, s.v. Eleusinia (by F. Lenormant); Clem. Alex. Protrept.
c. II.; Libanius, ὑπὲρ Ἀριστοφάνους, vol. I. pp. 447, 448 (Reiske).
137. Hippolytus, Philosophumena, Bk V. c. 1, p. 171, Cruice. The whole
drama is described by Foucart, Myst. d’Él. pp. 43-74 q.v.
138. Livy, XXXI. 14. Cf. Foucart, Grds. Myst. p. 94. They betrayed
themselves by asking questions which showed they had not been initiated.
Hence the ἱερά or sacred objects could hardly have been statues, as some
have thought.
139. Foucart, Culte de Dion. p. 68; Stephen of Byzantium in Hesychius,
Etymologium Magnum, s.v. Ἄγραι. Cf. Maury, Rel. de la Grèce Ant.II.
p. 324. All that Stephen says is that here was acted a pantomime (μίμημα)
of the things that happened to Dionysos.
140. All these ceremonies of the Anthesteria are reconstructed and described
by M. Foucart, Culte de Dion. pp. 107-163. That the tearing in
pieces of Dionysos and the consequent origin of man was taught in the
Little Mysteries seems to follow from Pindar’s words (Threnoi Frag. X.
7, p. 102, Cod. Bö.) that those who have been initiated have seen “the
God-given beginning of life.” Transmigration seems to have been also
taught in them (see Plutarch, Consolatory Letter, § X.). There were therefore
three degrees of initiation at Eleusis: (1) The Little Mysteries showing
the history of Dionysos, (2) The Great Mysteries with the Rape of
Persephone and the Wanderings of Demeter, and (3) The Epopsy
(open to initiates of the second year only), showing the marriage of Zeus
and Demeter and the birth of the new Dionysos.
141. Frazer, The Golden Bough (third edition), Part IV, c. 5; Part V, vol. i,
pp. 12, 263.
142. The end of the Athenian monarchy and flight of the Pisistratids took
place about 500 B.C. (see Chapter IV, infra). The Eleusinia were probably
reformed not long before.
143. Herodotus, Bk II. c. 49; Diod. Sic. Bk I. c. 96, § 4 sqq. It may, on
the other hand, have been introduced from Asia Minor or the Mediterranean
Islands, where it was certainly prevalent at a very early date. See articles
in P.S.B.A. for 1911 and 1914 above quoted.
144. Plutarch, de Is. et Os. c. XXVIII; Tacitus, Hist.IV. cap. 83, 84.
Plutarch calls Timotheos the “exegete,” i.e. the interpreter or dragoman;
so that his being a Eumolpid would seem to rest on the testimony of
Tacitus only; but there were “exegetes” attached to the Eumolpids at
Eleusis, see Foucart, Grds. Myst. pp. 79 sqq. Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. des
Lagides, I. p. 118, thinks the names Timotheos and Manetho only cover
the fact that the new religion was compounded from the Eleusinian and the
Osirian cult.
145. Bouché-Leclercq (Hist. des Lagides, I. p. 129, n. 2) thinks the tradition
that the Museum was founded by Ptolemy II Philadelphus erroneous. The
date of Demetrius of Phalerum’s leaving Athens to take charge of it
marks it as the foundation of Ptolemy Soter. Cf. Mahaffy, Empire of
Ptolemies, pp. 91, 92.
147. Dyer, Gods in Greece, pp. 178, 179, and pp. 73, 74. An inscription
making the identification has been found at Smyrna. See O. Rayet
in the Rev. Archéologique for 1877, pp. 175-178, where its date is
put at the middle of the third century B.C., and the vases of Gerhard
there quoted. Cf. Maury, Rel. de la Grèce, II. p. 362; F. Lenormant in
Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict. des Antiquités, s.v. Eleusinia, p. 549, and
authorities there quoted.
148. Damascius, Vit. Isidor, § 106. For definition of term, see ibid.
§§ 3, 5.
149. Foucart, Myst. d’Él. p. 34. He suggests that the real names were
“ineffable,” i.e. only revealed to initiates. Xenocrates, whose date may
be put at 396-314 B.C., seems to have known of a supernal and infernal
Zeus (Clem. Alex. Strom. Bk V. c. 11), and a fragment attributed to
Euripides identifies Zeus with Hades (id.loc. cit.).
150. Plutarch, de Is. et Os. c. XXVIII.; Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. II.
151. This was noticed by Clement of Alexandria, who (Strom. Bk V. c. 14)
says that Homer and Orpheus both “show forth” the Christian doctrine
in this respect. The verse he quotes from Orpheus makes Dionysos both
the father and son of Zeus. Cf. Abel’s Orphica, Frag. 237.
152. As in the Orphic verse: “Zeus is a male, Zeus is an immortal virgin,”
Abel, Orphica, Fr. 46. Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, p. 140, points out that
Xenocrates and the Stoics both made the same assertion. Cf. authorities
quoted by him and Euripides, Bacchae, ll. 330-350. A statue from
Smyrna showing a markedly effeminate type of Dionysos is to be seen at
the Ashmolean Museum.
153. Macrobius, Saturnalia, lib. I. c. 18, for authorities; also Pindar,
Threnoi, X. 8, p. 116 (Bergk); Plutarch, On the E at Delphi, c. IX.
154. Lafaye, Culte des Divinités d’Alexandrie, Paris, 1884, pp. 6-12, and
authorities there quoted. Cf. Foucart, Culte de Dion. pp. 66, 67.
155. So Plutarch and Tacitus where before quoted. The conflicting traditions
on the subject have been reconciled by Krall, Tacitus und der
Orient, Th. I. Bd iv. 83, 84. Cf. Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. de la Divination,
t. III. p. 378, n. 1; id.Hist. de Lagides, t. I. p. 118; Lafaye, Culte, etc.
pp. 16, 17. There is little doubt that the statue of Bryaxis represented
Asklepios as Bouché-Leclercq (Rev. Hist. Rel. 1902, pp. 26, 27) surmises.
Isidore Lévy sums up the whole question in the Revue last quoted, 1911,
pp. 146, 147, and 1913, pp. 308 sqq. So Ad. Reinach, Rev. cit. pt 2, p. 69.
The statue is described by Rufinus Aquilensis, Hist. Eccl. Bk II. c. 23.
Cf. Dionysius, Periegetes, ll. 254, 256 (Didot, Geogr. Gr. mi. t. II. p. 116);
Amelung, Rev. Archéol., 1903, pt 2, pp. 187-204.
156. Probably it had some reference to his character as god of vegetation,
as shown by his epithet of “Frugifer.” The explanation of Macrobius,
Saturnalia, I. c. 20, which refers it to the sun, is absurd. Perhaps it may
be connected with his epithet of πολυδέγμων “receiver of many.” So
Æl. Aristides speaks of him as the receiver of souls. See p. 60infra.
157. See last note. The eagle was adopted as a kind of family crest by
the Ptolemies and appears on all their coins. See examples in Mahaffy,
Emp. of the Ptolemies, passim. What is probably a reproduction of
Bryaxis’ statue is now at Naples and is described by Lafaye, op. cit. p. 274.
158. See Lafaye, pp. 259, 260. Except in amulets, representations of
Harpocrates are not very common. Cf. P.S.B.A. 1914, p. 92.
159. Maury in Revue des Deux Mondes, Sept. 1855, p. 1073; Mariette,
Le Sérapeum de Memphis, ed. Maspero, Paris, 1882, I. pp. 114, 115, 124.
160. Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. des Lagides, I. pp. 232, 233. Cf. Mahaffy,
Empire of Ptolemies, pp. 204 sqq. The Egyptianizing tendencies of the
later Ptolemies shown by the decrees of the priests on the Rosetta and
Canopus Stones were first pointed out by Revillout in the Revue Archéologique,
1877, pp. 331 sqq. A new decree of the same kind under Epiphanes
has been published by M. Daressy, Recueil de Travaux etc., 1911, pp. 1 sqq.
162. Foucart, Les Associations Religieuses, p. 207, Inscr. 24; C.I.G. No. 120.
The tablet is now in the British Museum.
163. Lafaye, Culte, etc. p. 35; Pausanias, Bk I. c. 18, 4.
164. Lafaye, op. cit. pp. 35-388; id.Dictionnaire des Antiquités of Daremberg
and Saglio, s.v. Isis; Drexler in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie,
s.v. Isis, esp. p. 379.
168. Lafaye, op. cit. pp. 44-47. For the story of Marcus Volusius see
Appian, de Bello Civili, Bk IV. c. 6, § 47.
169. Tibullus, Elegiacs, I. iii. 23; ibid.I. vii. 27; Ovid, Am.II. xiii. 7;
id.op. cit.II. xiv. The story of the expulsion is told by Josephus, Antiquities,
XVIII. c. 3. Cf. Lafaye, op. cit. chap. IIIpassim.
170. Comicor. Graecor. Fragmenta of Didot, pp. 517 and 629, and Lafaye,
op. cit. p. 31.
171. Lafaye, op. et loc. cit. and especially p. 62.
172. So Parisotti, Ricerche sul culto de Iside e Serapide, Roma, 1888,
p. 52 sqq.; and Dill, Nero to Marcus, pp. 564, 565: “The history of
the Isiac cult at Rome from Sulla to Nero is really the history of a great
popular religious movement....”
173. See Chapter I, supra, pp. 12, 14. Cf. Droysen, op. cit.II. p. 471.
174. Macrobius, Saturn. Bk I. c. 20. Bouché-Leclercq (R.H.R. 1902,
t. XLVI. p. 19, n. 1) says these lines are a forgery of late date. Krall,
Tacitus, etc. Th. I, Bk iv., is of the contrary opinion. Nicocreon of
Cyprus was certainly a contemporary of Ptolemy Soter, and helped him
against Perdiccas.
175. Clem. Alex. Strom. Bk V. c. 14. So Ælius Aristides, in Serapidem,
p. 91 (Dindorf), says that Serapis “is present in all things and fills the
universe.”
176. Lafaye, Culte, etc., pp. 306, 307, 324, 325, for examples. Cf. Inscription
from Kios in Bithynia given by Robiou in Mélanges Graux, Paris,
1884, pp. 601, 602; Parisotti, op. cit. p. 55.
177. Theocritus, Idyll, XV.; Damascius, Vit. Isidor. 106; Socrates, Hist.
Eccl. Bk III. c. 23. In Le Culte d’Adonis-Thammuz, Paris, 1901 (pp. 51-54,
69, 109), M. Ch. Vellay has shown the fusion in early Christian times
of the legends of Adonis, Atys and Osiris.
178. Frazer, Golden Bough, Part IV, p. 357 and n. 1; cf. Stephen of Byzantium,
s.v. Ἀμαθοῦς; Döllinger, Jud. und Heid.I. p. 145; Decharme
in Daremberg and Saglio, s.v. Cybele for authorities.
179. Julian, ad Reg. Sol. Orat. IV. cc. 135, 136; Eusebius, Praep. Ev.
Bk III. c. 15; Kenyon, Greek Papyri in British Museum, 1893, p. 65;
Wessely, Griechische Zauberpapyri von Paris, etc., Wien, 1888, pp. 61 sqq.;
Leemans, Papyri Graeci Mus. Ant. Pub. Lugduni-Batavi, Leyden, 1885,
II. pp. 26, 27; Parthey, Zwei griech. Zauberpapyri, Berlin, 1866, p. 127.
181. So Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, Oxford, 1895, I. p. 92,
says that “the essential idea” of the mysteries was that all the gods
there worshipped were but different forms of the one. In the “Greek
Worship of Serapis and Isis,” I have endeavoured to show how this idea
was elaborated in the cult of the Alexandrian divinities.
182. Homer, Iliad, XXI. 462 (translation by Lang, Leaf and Myers).
183. Cf. Penelope’s speech on the jealousy of the gods, Odyssey, XXIII. 208.
184. Sayce, Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia (Gifford Lectures),
Edin. 1902, p. 201; Naville, The Old Egyptian Faith, pp. 308, 309;
Maspero, Ét. Égyptol. I. p. 163 and II. p. 277.
195. Sophocles, Triptolemus (Plutarch, de Audiendis Poetis, 21 F), Frag.
348 of Didot.
196. Homeric Hymn to Demeter, ll. 480 sqq. So an inscription on the
statue of a hierophant quoted by M. Foucart, Myst. d’El. p. 55, says that
death to the initiated is not an evil but a good.
201. Maspero says (“Les Hypogées Royaux de Thebes,”Ét. Égyptol.II.
p. 178) that “if ever there were in Pharaonic Egypt mysteries and initiates,
as there were in Greece and Greek Egypt,” it was in the time of decay
evidenced by the rare books preserved in the tombs of the kings of the
XXth and later Dynasties. Later, ibid. p. 180, he says that they must
have been confined to a very small class. Cf. ibid. p. 278.
202. E.g. the mystic marriage of Zeus or Dionysos with Demeter, which
according to Hippolytus, Philosophumena, Bk V. c. 1, § 8, p. 171, Cruice,
and Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. c. II., formed the crowning scene of
the Eleusinian Mysteries. At Dendera, the corresponding union of Osiris
and Isis, from which, according to M. Foucart, the Eleusinian legend was
derived, was depicted in the most realistic way on the temple walls.
See Mariette, Dendérah, Paris, 1875, t. IV. pl. 65 sqq., or Budge, G.E.
pp. 132-137.
203. Apuleius, Met. Bk XI. c. 21, queis tamen tuto possint magna religionis
committi silentia, numen deae soleat elicere.
206. Perhaps this is the meaning of the formula said by Clement of Alexandria,
Protrept. c. II., to be repeated by the initiates at Eleusis: “I have
fasted ... I have drunk of the cyceon ... I have entered into the chest
(παστός).”
209. Ra was always the material sun; while Horus was probably in
ancient times the god of the sky: Maspero, Ét. Égyptol. t. II. p. 229. With
the Middle Empire the emblem of Ra began to be added to that of Horus
as the “crest” of the Pharaoh’s cognizance, showing that the king was
himself regarded as the representative of a composite divinity, Horus-Ra.
Cf. “Titles of Thinite Kings,” P.S.B.A. 1908, p. 89.
210. Proclus, in Timaeum Platonia, I. 30 D. (Schneidewin).
211. Minucius Felix, Octavius, c. XXI.; Arnobius, adv. Gentes, Bk I. c. 36;
Athenagoras, Presbeia, c. XXII. Cf. also Griffith and Thompson, Stories of
High Priests of Memphis, pp. 107, 121; Maspero, Ét. Égyptol.II. p. 246,
and especially p. 361; P.S.B.A. 1914, pp. 92, 93.
214. Ælius Aristides (in Serapid. p. 88) refuses to discuss this; but
Athenagoras (see note 5 p. 63, supra) says that when the members of the
body of Osiris were found, they were presented to Isis with the remark that
they were the fruits of the vine Dionysus and that Semele was the vine
itself. But see p. 65, infra. Plutarch, de Is. et Os. c. LXXIX. says that
“the priests of these days,” meaning, as is evident from the context, the
priests of the Alexandrian divinities, “try to conceal” the fact that Osiris
rules over the dead. The old religion of Egypt never did; but perhaps
this, too, was part of the secret teaching of the Alexandrian Mysteries.
215. Maspero, Ét. Égyptol.II. pp. 254-255, 361, 446; P.S.B.A. 1914, p. 92.
217. “Osiris-Bacchus” in Ägypt. Zeitschr. 1878, p. 106.
218. Unless we suppose that the statue was one of those used in the
mysteries, see note 3 p. 64, supra. Plutarch, however, in his address to
Klea makes no secret of the identification. See de Is. et Os. c. XXXV.
219. Plato, Phaedr. in Abel’s Orphica, Fragm. 228. Olympiodorus says
that the verse comes from Orpheus.
220. Dyer, Gods in Greece, p. 209. He thinks the crowd sometimes
numbered 30,000, relying upon the story in Herodotus, Bk VIII. c. 65,
of the Spartan who before the battle of Marathon heard the Iacchos-song
sung “as if by 30,000 persons.” Cf. Foucart, Les Gds. Myst. p. 136.
221. Moret, Le Culte Divin Journalier en Égypte, Paris, 1902, p. 9.
222. Apuleius, Met. c. 20. Lafaye, Culte, etc. p. 136, gives the “trousseau”
of a statue of Isis found in Spain including earrings, necklaces, etc.
223. See the scene in the Herculaneum fresco described on p. 68, infra.
224. Martial, Bk X. Epig. 48. Apuleius, Met. c. 17, describes the ceremonies
which included a solemn dismissal of the people, and the kissing
by them of the feet of a silver statue of the goddess.
228. The Baron von Bissing thinks this is a copy of the Serapeum of
Alexandria. See Transactions of the Third International Congress of
Religions, Oxford, 1908, I. pp. 225 sqq.
229. Is this the bacchos or short rod carried by the faithful in the Iacchos-procession
at Eleusis? See Scholiast in Knights of Aristophanes, l. 408
(p. 48 of Didot).
230. Hippolytus puts it quite plainly: “Now Osiris is water.” See
Philosophumena, Bk V. c. 7, p. 149, Cruice. Cf. Lafaye, Culte, etc. p. 115.
So Origen, c. Cels. Bk V. c. 38, says that the fables of Osiris and Isis lead
men to worship cold water and the moon.
231. von Bissing in the paper quoted in note 1 p. 68, supra, suggests that
this is the dance of the god Bes.
233. The swallow refers to the story that Isis changed herself into a
swallow who flitted round the pillar containing the coffin of Osiris. Plutarch,
de Is. et Os. c. XVI.
234. Evidently a confusion between Horus and Osiris which would have
been impossible had not the Isiacists looked upon Horus as Osiris re-born.
Cf. Lactantius, Institutes, Bk I. c. 21, where the same confusion occurs;
P.S.B.A. 1914, p. 93.
240. Is this the “golden bough” of initiation? Cf. Baillet, “Osiris-Bacchus,”
cited p. 65, supra.
241. Probably the pudendum of Osiris. See Hippolytus, Philosophumena,
Bk V. c. 7, p. 149, Cruice; Socrates, Hist. Eccl. Bk V. c. 16; Clem. Alex.
Protrept. c. II., says the Corybantes did the same thing with that of
Bacchus.
242. Lafaye in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict. des Antiq.s.v. Isis.
243. See note 3 p. 68, supra. Cf. Leemans, Papyri Gr. pp. 26, 27.
244. Maspero, Ét. Égyptol.II. p. 345, says this Nu was “neither the
primordial water, nor the sky, but a very ancient god, common to all
humanity,” whom he compares to the Thian of the Chinese, the Dyaus
of the pre-Vedic, and the Uranos-Oceanos of the pre-Hellenic peoples.
“At the beginning,” he continues, “he is himself the Celestial Ocean.”
252. See p. 48, supra. Oracles given in dreams were, however, an old
institution in Egypt. See the dream of Thothmes IV concerning the
Sphinx, Breasted, History of Egypt, p. 325, and Ancient Records, Chicago
1906, vol. II. No. 815.
254. Asklepios or Esculapius was one of the gods absorbed by Serapis.
It is most probable that the great statue by Bryaxis in the Alexandrian
Serapeum was originally an Asklepios. See Bouché-Leclercq, Rev. de
l’Hist. des Rel. 1902, pp. 26, 27, 28. There seems also to have been a chapel
to him in the Greek Serapeum at Memphis. See Brunet de Presle,
“Le Sérapéum de Memphis,” Paris, 1865, pp. 261-263. Cf. Forshall,
Greek Papyri in the British Museum, 1839, p. 33, and note 1 p. 80,
infra.
260. These fragments are scattered among the different European
museums. Some are in the Vatican Library and were published by
Mgr. Angelo Mai in 1833 (Brunet de Presle, “Les Papyri Grecs du Louvre,”
Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscript.XVIII. pt 2 (1865), p. 16), others in the
Leyden Museum (Leemans, Papyri Graeci, I. pp. 6 sqq.), others in the
Louvre (Brunet de Presle, op. cit. p. 22), and the largest number in the
British Museum (Kenyon, Greek Papyri, p. 1). The whole story, so far as
it has been ascertained, is told by Brunet de Presle, op. cit. pp. 261-263,
and by Sir Frederic Kenyon, op. cit. pp. 1-5, and the questions arising out
of it are admirably summed up by M. Bouché-Leclercq in his article, “Les
Reclus du Sérapéum de Memphis” in Mélanges Perrot, Paris, 1903, p. 17.
261. Matth. xxiii. 11. Cf. the Pope’s title of “Servant of the Servants of
God” (Servus servorum Dei).
262. Julian in his letters (Ep. 52) speaks of Alexandria even in his time
as being given up to the worship of Serapis. It is probable that in this,
as in other matters, the philosophic Emperor believed what he wished to
believe. Yet his contemporary, Ammianus Marcellinus, Hist. Bk XXII.
c. 16, § 20, speaks of the elements of the sacred rites being still preserved
there in secret books, by which he seems to be referring to the worship
of the Alexandrian divinities.
263. See Renan, Hibbert Lectures, 1884, p. 197, for authorities.
264. Orelli, Inscript. Latin. select. pp. 406-412. All these have now been
transferred to the Corp. Inscr. Latin.q.v.
272. Drexler in Roscher’s Lexikon, s.v. Isis. Cf. Maury, Rel. de la Grèce,
t. II. p. 222.
273. Amm. Marcell. op. cit. Bk XXII. c. 13. According to Deubner,
De incubatione, Leipzig, 1900, c. IV. Cyril of Alexandria had to establish the
worship of two medical saints in the Egyptian hamlet of Menuthis near
Canopus to induce the people to forget the miraculous cures formerly
wrought there in the sanctuary of Isis.
274. Bury in Gibbon, op. cit. vol. IV. Appendix 3, p. 527.
275. Cf. Apuleius’ description of the veiling of the women’s heads in the
Isis procession, p. 72, supra.
276. A writer in Maspero’s Recueil de Travaux for 1912, p. 75, mentions
that the Isiac sistrum or rattle is still used by the Christians of Abyssinia.
277. Vopiscus, Saturninus (Hist. August. Scriptor.VI. t. II. pp. 718-730).
The authenticity of the letter has been defended by Lightfoot, Apostolic
Fathers, 1891, I. p. 481. The date is fairly well fixed by the death of
Antinous in 122 A.D., and Hadrian’s visit to Syria a few years later.
Ramsay (Church in Roman Empire, 1903, p. 336) makes it 134 A.D.
279. In the Catholic Church at this period the Eucharist was celebrated,
if we may judge from the First Apology of Justin Martyr (c. LVI), in a very
simple manner, but apparently in the presence of all the faithful. In that
part of the Apostolical Constitutions (Bk VIII. c. 66), which is probably
later in date than Justin, the catechumens, heterodox, and unbelievers
are directed to be excluded before consecration (see Hatch, Hibbert
Lectures, p. 301). It does not follow that the ceremonial was as simple
with the Gnostics. Marcus is said by Irenaeus (Bk I. c. 6, pp. 116, 117,
Harvey) to have made the mixture of wine and water in the cup to appear
purple and to overflow into a larger vessel; while similar prodigies attend
the celebration in the Pistis Sophia and the Bruce Papyrus, for which see
Chap. X, infra. As such thaumaturgy was intended to astonish the onlookers,
it is probable that the elements were displayed before the whole
congregation. That the later form of the ritual of the Christian sacraments
was taken from the Gnostics, see Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 295-305,
and 307-309, and de Faye, Introduction à l’Ét. du Gnosticisme, Paris,
1903, pp. 106, 107.
280. Kenyon, Greek Papyri, p. 105. Sir Frederick Kenyon questions the
theocrasia of Serapis and Esculapius, but see Bouché-Leclercq, Rev. Hist.
Rel. 1902, p. 30.
285. See “The Greek Worship of Serapis and Isis,” P.S.B.A. 1914,
pp. 93, 94.
286. That the Trinitarian doctrine of the Creed of Nicaea evolved gradually
will now, I suppose, be admitted by all. Mr Conybeare, Apology of Apollonius,
1894, p. 14, probably goes too far when he says that “the doctrine
of the Trinity in Unity” is not met with till the end of the third century.
So Guignebert, L’Évolution des Dogmes, Paris, 1910, pp. 293, 294, tells
us how in his opinion the dogma followed “at some distance” the assertion
of the Divinity of Christ. Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, Eng. ed.
1904, II. pp. 257, 258, seems to attribute the first formulation of the dogma
to Tertullian who, according to him, owed something to the Gnostics.
It is at any rate plain that neither Hermas, nor the Apologists, nor Irenaeus,
nor Clement of Alexandria, nor Origen were in accord with later orthodoxy
on the point. Monsignor Duchesne, Early History of the Christian Church,
Eng. ed. 1909, p. 20, puts the matter very frankly when he suggests that
the average Christian troubled himself very little about it. “This is the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity,” he says after defining it, “not certainly
as it was formulated later in opposition to transient heresies, but as it
appeared to the general conscience of the early Christians.... The generality
of Christians in the first century even in apostolic days stood here almost
exactly at the same point as present-day Christians. Theologians knew,
or at any rate said, far more about it.”
287. Thus an Orphic verse, preserved by a commentator on Plato, says that
Dionysos “releases whom he wills from travail and suffering.” See Abel’s
Orphica, Fr. 208, p. 237. Servius in his commentary on Virgil’s First Georgic,
after declaring that Dionysos or “Liber Pater” is identical with the Osiris
torn in pieces by Typhon, says that he is called Liber because he liberates.
Cf. fragment and page quoted.
288. Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, 5th ed., pp. 332, 333, and 349.
289. The Golden Bough, 3rd ed. pt I. vol. I. p. 226, n. 2. Cf. Hubert
and Mauss, Esquisse d’une Théorie générale de la Magie, Paris, 1904, p. 8.
Goblet d’Alviella, reviewing Dr Frazer’s 2nd edition, Rev. Hist. Rel.
t. XLVIII. (July-Aug. 1903), pp. 70, 79 rebuts his theory. Mr E. S.
Hartland, at the British Association’s Meeting in 1906, propounded the
view that both magic and religion were based on the conception of a
transmissible personality or mana. Cf. id.Ritual and Belief, 1914,
pp. 49 sqq.
291. Thus the German Reformation, which (whatever be its merits) was
certainly accompanied by a general questioning of ideas till then considered
the very basis of all religion, was followed by the terrible outbreak known
as the Witch Mania of the XVIth century. See Mackay, Extraordinary
Popular Delusions, 1869, pp. 101-191. Other authorities are quoted in
“Witchcraft in Scotland,” Scottish Review, 1891, pp. 257-288.
292. Histoire des Religions et Méthode Comparative, Paris, 1912, pp. 21-61.
293. See note 4 on p. 91, supra. Cf. also the great increase of magical
practices which followed the attempted overthrow of religion by the
philosophers after Alexander.
294. Some instances, such as “hocus-pocus” (hoc est corpus meum), are
given in P.S.B.A.XX. (1898), p. 149. An excellent example is found in a
spell to cause invisibility in a magic papyrus at Berlin where the magician
is directed to say among other words anok peusire penta set tako “I am that
Osiris whom Set murdered”—evidently a phrase from some Egyptian
ritual extinct centuries before the papyrus was written. See Parthey,
Zwei griechische Zauberpapyri, 1866, p. 127, l. 252. Cf. Erman, “Die
Ägyptischer Beschwörungen” in Ägyptische Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 109, n. 1.
295. Tylor, Primitive Culture, 1871, I. pp. 102-104. Cf. Crookes, Popular
Religion and Folklore of Northern India, 1896, II. p. 283; Hubert and
Mauss, op. cit. pp. 26, 27; A. Réville, Religion des Peuples non-civilisés, 1883,
II. p. 173.
296. Crookes, op. cit.II. p. 261, says that witchcraft in Northern India is at
present almost specialized among the Dravidian, or aboriginal people—of
which fact Mr Rudyard Kipling makes great use in his charming story
“Letting in the Jungle.”
298. Chabas, Le Papyrus Magique Harris, 1860, pp. 151, 162 sq. Erman,
Life in Ancient Egypt, Eng. ed. p. 355, while admitting that the Egyptians
thought the words in question belonged to a foreign tongue, says that they
were “pure inventions.” He is certainly wrong, for some of them can be
identified.
299. Leemans, Papyri Graeci Mus. Antiq. Lugduni-Batavi; Wessely,
Griechische Zauberpapyrus von Paris und London, and Neue Griechische
Zauberpapyri, Wien, 1893, passim. Cf. Kenyon, Greek Papyri in the
British Museum, p. 62. So in mediaeval magic, the words in the spells
unintelligible to the magician are generally Greek. See Reginald Scot,
Discovery of Witchcraft (1651), p. 168.
300. Réville, Rel. des Peuples non-civilisés, II. p. 164.
301. Scott in the Heart of Midlothian quotes the first story, I think, from
Peter Walker, but I have not been able to find the passage. For Ignatius
Loyola, see Böhmer, Les Jésuites, French ed. 1910, p. 10. Cf. Alphandéry,
R.H.R. 1911, p. 110.
303. E.g. well-fed dogs who worry sheep, and cats who steal fish and other
delicacies rather than have them given to them. The actions of the
animals show in both cases that they know that what they are doing is
displeasing to their owners.
304. Sayce, Gifford Lectures, pp. 420 sqq. For these penitential psalms
generally, see Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston,
1898, chap. XVIII.
305. Il.III. ll. 280 sqq. (Lang, Leaf, and Myers trans. p. 57).
306. Odyss.III. ll. 373 sqq. (Butcher and Lang trans. p. 43).
307. According to Maspero, Ét. Égyptol.I. p. 163, this was always the case
in Egypt, at least in historic times. “Prayer,” he says, “was a formula of
which the terms had an imperative value, and the exact enunciation of which
obliged the god to concede what was asked of him.”
308. Maury, Religions de la Grèce Antique, II. pp. 97 sqq.
309. Il.X. l. 292; Odyss.XI. l. 30, and where before quoted.
310. Perhaps it is to this last view that we should attribute the well-known
indifference of the Semitic peoples to mythology and science.
311. E.g. the Rainbow in Genesis ix. 12-16. Erman, in his History of
Egyptian Religion, p. 31, points out that Egyptian mythology is found
only in magical books.
312. Frazer, Golden Bough, 3rd ed. pt I. vol. I. p. 52.
313. The principal collections of these are indicated in note 3 on p. 93,
supra. Cf. “The Names of Demons in the Magic Papyri,” P.S.B.A. 1901.
314. Kenyon, Gk. Pap. in Brit. Mus. p. 77. This is the date of the MS.
The spells themselves are probably much older.
315. Philosophumena, Bk IV. c. 28. Hippolytus is probably wrong in
thinking this a conscious imposture. The magician, like his clients, does
not connect cause and effect in such cases. Sir Alfred Lyall told Lord
Avebury that he had often seen Indian sorcerers openly mixing croton
oil with the ink in which their charms were written so as to produce
a purgative effect when the ink was washed off and swallowed. See
Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, p. 24.
316. P.S.B.A.XXII. (1900), pp. 121 sqq. An explanation of the name is
attempted by Giraud, Ophitae, Paris, 1884, p. 91, n. 5.
317. Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des Antiq.s.v. Baubo. The name Ortho
perhaps suggests that of the very ancient goddess later called Artemis
Orthia, whose original name seems to have been Orthia only. Cf. M. S.
Thompson’s paper “The Asiatic or Winged Artemis” in J.H.S. vol. XXIX.
(1909), pp. 286 sqq., esp. p. 307.
318. P.S.B.A.XXII. (1900), p. 121, and see Griffith and Thompson, Demotic
Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden, p. 61 and note.
319. Probably, however, it refers to the number of letters in the name in
some more or less fantastic spelling or cryptogram. When Hippolytus
speaks of the Demiurge Ialdabaoth as “a fiery God, a fourth number”
(Philosophumena, Bk V. c. 7, p. 153, Cruice), there can be little doubt that
he is referring to the Tetragrammaton or four-lettered name of Jehovah.
Cf. the “hundred-lettered” name of Typhon, p. 104, infra.
320. Griechische Zauberpapyri von Paris und London, pp. 24-26.
321. The use of ointment for magical purposes is well known, and it was
the incautious use of an ointment of this kind which changed Lucius, the
hero of Apuleius’ romance, into an ass. The use of ointments which had
the property of translating the user to the Witches’ Sabbath frequently
occurs in the witch-trials of the Renaissance, and it has been suggested
that drugs producing hallucinations were thus applied. The word κοινή
often found in these spells seems to point to some ointment or preparation
used in all the magic ceremonies described.
322. Aber-amenti: “Lord (lit. Bull) or Conqueror of Amenti,” the Egyptian
Hades. The name is of frequent occurrence in all these spells. Jesus,
in one of the later documents of the Pistis Sophia, is called Aberamenthô,
in circumstances that would make the title peculiarly appropriate.
323. A palindrome containing the same word or sentence written both
forwards and backwards. The phrase here given (aemonaebarôth) is
probably Hebrew, which the scribe may have known was written the
reverse way to most European languages. It is noteworthy that a mistake
in transcription is made when the phrase is written backwards.
324. This sentence was probably once Egyptian from the frequent recurrence
of p and t as the initial letters of words. They are the masculine and
feminine forms of the definite article in Coptic.
325. These “boneless strings of vowels,” as C. W. King calls them in his
Gnostics and their Remains, 1887, p. 320, are thought by him to cover
the name of Jehovah. Another theory is that they are a musical
notation giving the tone in which the spell is to be pronounced.
326. Σύστασις. The text gives the most usual meaning of the word: but
it may here mean something like the “materialization” spoken of by
spiritualists.
327. The word used (πλάσμα) properly means image. But no image or
idol has been mentioned. It is curious that in the Mithraic mysteries, we
hear of the initiates, apparently during the reception of a candidate,
“striking [him?] with birds’ wings.” Cf. the text attributed (doubtfully)
to St Augustine in Cumont, Textes et Monuments relatifs aux Mystères
de Mithra, Bruxelles, 1896, t. II. p. 8.
328. Some word like οἰκονομία seems to have been omitted by the scribe.
329. Because the ass was considered a Typhonic animal.
330. The form of hypnotism known as crystal-gazing. A full description
is given in Lane’s Modern Egyptians, 1896, pp. 276 sqq. Cf. “Divination
in the XVIIth Century,” National Review, 1899, pp. 93-104, for its practice
in England.
331. See the letter of Porphyry to Anebo quoting Chaeremon. That this
practice was peculiar to the Egyptian magicians is stated by Iamblichus,
de Mysteriis, Bk IV. c. 7. A good instance is given by Maspero, “Sur deux
Tabellae Devotionis” in Ét. Égyptol. 1893, t. II. p. 297, where a magician
threatens, if his prayer be not granted, to go down into the secret places
of Osiris and destroy his shroud.
332. Kenyon, Greek Papyri in the British Museum, pp. 79-81.
333. Or isopsephic, i.e. composed of letters having an equal numerical
value. One of the many forms of juggling with words and letters current
in the early Christian centuries. The “number of the beast” in Revelation
xiii. 18, where, as is now generally admitted, 666 covers the name of Nero
Caesar which has that numerical value in Hebrew, is the most familiar
instance. Other instances can be found in the Epistle of Barnabas, c. 9,
Hilgenfeld, N.T. extra Canonem receptum, Lips. 1884, and Hippolytus,
Philosophumena, Bk VI. c. 48, p. 318, Cruice.
334. The context shows that a scarab set in a ring is indicated.
335. A rude drawing representing the magician in this attitude often
appears in the margin of papyri such as that quoted in the text. See Wessely,
Griech. Zauberp. p. 118.
336. Doubtless the index, because the Idaean Dactyli were said to be the
first of men.
337. This seems to be a corruption of some name like Baal-zephon. The
confusion of ζ for β in these papyri is very common.
338. A Hebrew name meaning “Thou art our father.” It was thought
especially valuable because it could be read either way.
339. Of these words, Iaoth Sabaoth is “Jehovah of hosts”; patoure zagoure,
“who openeth and shutteth” (cf. Revelation i. 8); Baruch adonai eloai
iabraam, “Blessed be the Lord God of Abraham.” All are fairly good
Hebrew not very much corrupted.
340. Astrampsuchos appears, oddly enough, as the name of one of the
celestial guardians of a heaven in one of the documents of the Bodleian
Bruce Papyrus which is described in Chap. X, infra. See Amélineau, Le Papyrus Gnostique Bruce, Paris, p. 109, who transcribes it Etrempsuchos,
while Schmidt (Koptisch-gnostische Schriften, Leipzig, 1905, Bd. I. p. 345)
writes Strempsuchos. Hippolytus gives the name as that of one of the
Powers worshipped by the Peratae, v. Philosophumena, Bk V. c. 14,
p. 196, Cruice.
341. M. Maspero contends that this name is a corruption of an epithet of
Thoth. See Ét. Égyptol.V. p. 259.
342. See Plutarch, Sulla, passim, especially cc. IX.XXVIII. and XXXVII.
from which last it appears that he consulted “the Chaldaeans.”
345. Renan, L’Antéchrist, Paris, 1873, p. 28, n. 4, for authorities.
346. Acts xiii. 8; ibid. xix. 13-19. Cf. Renan, op. cit. p. 421.
347. Book IV. c. 4, passim, especially the device for making sheep cut off
their own heads by rubbing their necks against a sword, or for producing
an earthquake by burning upon coals the dung of an ichneumon mixed
with magnetic ore (pp. 99, 111, Cruice). Tertullian, de Praescript. c. 43,
accuses the Gnostics of frequenting magicians and astrologers.
348. Philosophumena, Bk IV. c. 15, pp. 112, 113, Cruice.
352. This is treated more fully in Chap. X, infra.
353. Cf. “Cerinthus and the Gnostics” in the London Quarterly, Oct. 1886,
p. 132.
354. Thus Epiphanius had been a Nicolaitan, St Ambrose of Milan a
Valentinian, and St Augustine a Manichaean before joining the Catholic
Church.
355. So Hippolytus objects not only to the astrology of his time, but to
the arithmetical calculations on which it was professedly based. The
estimates attributed to Archimedes of the relative distances of the
earth from the sun, moon and planets are marked out by him for special
condemnation. Cf. Philosophumena, Bk IV. c. 1, pp. 67-76, Cruice.
356. P. Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, Strassburg, 1890, pp. 140
sqq. and especially p. 295.
357. See the tablets made for this king and published by Sir Henry Rawlinson
in the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. III. Many of these
are translated by Sayce in “The Astronomy and Astrology of the Babylonians,”
Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch. vol. III. (1874), pp. 145-339. I have taken the
lowest date for Sargon, on the authority of Mr King, Chronicles of Early
Babylonian Kings, 1907, I. p. 17, although the well-known text of Nabonidus
would make him a thousand years earlier. The origin of Babylonian
astronomy is discussed by Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria,
chap. XXIII. The immense antiquity attributed to the Babylonian
observations by the classical authorities quoted in Sayce’s paper may be
considerably reduced if we substitute lunar for solar years; yet there seems
little doubt that the star worship which arose from them went back to the
“oldest period of Babylonia.” Cf. Sayce, Gifford Lectures, 1902, p. 480.
359. Among modern German archaeologists Winckler and Jeremias have
pushed the effect of this “astral theory” of the universe beyond all limits.
Their position is at once exposed and refuted by Rogers in The Religion of
Babylonia and Assyria, 1908, pp. 212 to end. Yet such a view of the
universe as is given in the text was undoubtedly held by many during the
six centuries here treated of, and can be seen as it were underlying most of
the religions of the time. That it had its origin in Babylonia seems most
probable. See Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and
Romans, 1912, pp. 1-26, and authorities there quoted.
360. Cumont (work last quoted), p. 18. The idea appears plainly enough
in astrological works like Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos. It was not confined to
Babylonia, for the Egyptians thought the earthly Nile corresponded to a
heavenly one.
361. Cumont’s Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum of which
10 volumes have been published will be of great use in this respect. See also
Kroll’s Vettii Valentis Anthologiarum Libri, 1908.
362. Cumont, Astrology and Rel. pp. 12, 13. Cf. Theon of Alexandria’s
Commentary on the IIIrd book of the Almagest (Abbé Halma’s ed.), 1813,
t. I. p. 1.
363. In the Pistis Sophia (for which see Chapter X, infra) the soul of a
sinless man who has not found the mysteries has to wait until the planets
Jupiter and Venus come into a certain aspect with the sun, “Saturn and
Mars being behind them.” It is then reincarnated and wins for itself life
eternal, pp. 387, 389 (Copt.).
364. Pliny, N.H. Bk II. c. 4. Macrobius, Saturnalia, Bk I. cc. 18-23.
365. Goblet d’Alviella in Rev. Hist. Rel.LXV. (May-June, 1912), p. 381.
366. Aurelian and Diocletian each instituted a worship of the sun-god,
the deity of the second Flavian family.
367. Cumont, Astrology and Rel. pp. 28, 29. He is probably right when
he points out that irregular phenomena like comets and shooting stars
gave a loophole for the opponents of a rigid predestinarianism of which
they were not slow to avail themselves.
368. Lobeck in his Aglaophamus, Königsberg, 1829, vol. I. pp. 233-1104,
makes this clear. It was also the opinion of Aristotle according to Cicero
(de Nat. Deor. Bk I. c. 38). Other authorities are collected by Purser in
his article “Orphica” in Smith’s Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1890,
vol. II. who quotes with approval Preller’s remark that Orpheus was “eine
litterarische Collectivperson.” See also Paul Monceaux in Daremberg and
Saglio’s Dict. des Antiq.s.v. Orphica.
369. Herodotus, Bk VII. c. 6. Tatian, adv. Graecos, c. XLI.; Clem. Alex.
Strom. Bk I. c. 21; Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hypotyp.III. p. 115 B. Cf. Purser,
art. cit.
370. K. O. Müller, Hist. of the Literature of Ancient Greece, Eng. ed. vol. I.
pp. 308, 309; and authorities quoted by O. Kern, de Orphei, Epimenidis
Pherecydis Theogoniis, Berlin, 1888, p. 6.
371. The first mention of such rites is said to have been made by Arctinus
of Miletus in his Æthiopis, where he describes Ulysses as purifying Achilles
for the murder of Thersites. See Grote’s History of Greece, 4th ed. vol. I.
pp. 23, 24.
374. The search for its original home seems hopeless at present. It might
easily be connected with Babylonian beliefs, and the Orphic Dionysos has
too many features in common with Tammuz, the lover of Ishtar, for the
resemblance to be entirely accidental. But other elements in the story, such
as the mundane egg, are found in the Vedas, and may point to an Indian
origin. The discovery a few years ago at Boghaz Keui in Cilicia of inscriptions
showing that the Vedic gods were worshipped in Asia Minor at least
as early as 1270 B.C., makes it very difficult to say whether the Vedic gods
may not have reached India from Asia Minor or vice versa. In this case,
it is possible that Onomacritos may have learned some of the legends at
the Court of the Great King at Susa.
375. Pindar, Isthm.VI. i. 3; Aeschyl. Sisyphus Drapetes, fr. 242 of Didot;
Sophocles, Antigone, ll. 1121 sqq.; Euripides, Rhesus, ll. 942 sqq. Cf.
Döllinger, Jud. und Heid. Eng. ed. vol. I. p. 259.
376. Demosthenes, adv. Aristog.I. p. 773. Cf. Maury, Rel. de la Grèce, II.
p. 320; Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des Antiq.s.v. Orphica and Eleusinia,
for other authorities.
378. This is the “Theogony of the Rhapsodists,” which seems to have been
the most popular of all the Orphic theogonies. The different texts in which
it is preserved have been collected by Abel, Orphica, Lips. 1885, pp. 48-140.
It is well summarized by Purser in Smith’s Dict. of Antiq. where before
quoted. Cf. Daremberg and Saglio, s.v. Orpheus.
381. Μουνογένεια. See Orphic Hymn on p. 142, infra. Persephone has
also Zeus for her father in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, l. 396. The
epithet cannot imply that she was his only daughter, as he had other
daughters among the Homeric gods, such as Athena and Aphrodite, but
rather that she was “unique,” or one of a kind. The mistaking of the word
Μονογενής for μονογέννητος by Christian and Jewish writers has led to
much confusion; and Renan (L’Église Chrétienne, Paris, 1879, p. 200, n. 2)
notes that George the Syncellus calls Bar Coziba, the Jewish Messiah,
Μονογενής. See the story of the begettal of Persephone which Maury,
op. cit.III. pp. 321, 322, quotes from Clement of Alexandria and Arnobius.
Both authors derive from it the name of Brimo given to Demeter in the
Mysteries. Cf. Chap. VIII, infra.
382. Orphic Hymn XXX in Abel’s Orphica, where he is called “First-begotten,
of a double nature, thrice-born, Bacchic king, Hunter, Ineffable One,
Hidden One, two horned, and of double form.” Cf. his epithet “bull-faced”
in Orphic Hymn XLV. So Clement of Alexandria quotes a verse from some
unnamed poet that “the bull has begotten a serpent, the serpent a bull,”
Protrept. c. II.
383. As in the statue at Megalopolis in Arcadia described by Pausanias,
Bk VIII. c. 31, where Polycleitos portrayed the young god with a cup and
a thyrsos, besides wearing cothurni, but with the eagle and the name of
Zeus Φιλίος. Ael. Aristides, in Dionysum, says that Dionysos is Zeus
himself, a doctrine which Justin Martyr, Cohort. c. XV, attributes to Orpheus.
384. The story with full references to authorities is given by Maury, Rel. de
la Grèce Antique, t. III. pp. 342 sqq.; Purser in Smith’s Dict. of Greek and
Roman Antiquities, 1890, s.v. Orphica; Cecil Smith, “Orphic Myths on Attic
Vases,” J.H.S. 1890, pp. 343-351; Dyer, The Gods in Greece, 1891, p. 128;
Paul Monceaux in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict. des Antiq.s.v. Orphica.
The eating of a god or other being in order to obtain possession of the
victim’s qualities is a common idea among primitive peoples, as is set forth
at length in Frazer, Golden Bough, 3rd ed. pt V, vol. II. ch. 10. It was
familiar to the Egyptians, as is seen in the Pyramid Texts of the VIth
Dynasty, where the glorified King Unas is represented as chasing, catching,
cooking, and eating the gods in the next world in order to assimilate their
powers. See Maspero, Les Pyramides de Saqqarah, pp. 67 sqq. So in a
magic papyrus now at Leyden, the magician threatens the god Set whom
he is invoking, that if he is not obedient, he will speak to “the Great God”
(Serapis?) who will tear Set “limb from limb and give his powers to a
mangy dog sitting on a dung-hill to eat.” See Leemans, Papyri Graeci,
vol. II. pp. 18, 19.
386. Foucart, where last quoted; Hesiod, Works and Days, l. 465 (p. 39,
Didot).
387. Such ideas may, however, have been current in the religions of the
Eastern Mediterranean long before Orphic times. Dr Budge in his book
Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection, I. p. 28, reiterates what he has
before stated elsewhere, i.e. that Osiris was to his worshippers “the god-man,
the first of those who rose from the dead,” and that his death and resurrection
were therefore supposed to be in some way beneficial to mankind.
This is very likely, but I know of no Egyptian text that in any way connects
the creation of man with the death of Osiris. On the contrary, a text which
Dr Budge has himself published makes men and women to come into being
from the tears which came forth from the eye of the god Khepera, here
probably to be identified with Nu, the primaeval Ocean or Deep. See
Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, vol. I. p. 299. The Zoroastrian religion,
in the late form in which we have it in the Bundahish (see West, S.B.E.
Oxford, 1880, Pahlavi Texts, pt I.), does indeed make man spring from the
death of Gayomort, the First or Primaeval Man, slain by Ahriman. If we
choose to suppose that this conception went back to the times of Zoroaster
himself, that is to say, about 700 B.C., Onomacritos might easily have
found this part of the story at the Court of Susa. Cf. Bousset, Hauptprobleme
der Gnosis, Göttingen, 1907, pp. 215-223. It is significant that,
according to Pausanias, Bk VIII. c. 37, it was Onomacritos who first made
the Titans evil powers, or as he says “contributing to the sufferings of
Dionysos.”
388. Clement of Alexandria, Strom. Bk III. c. 3, quotes this expression from
“Philolaos the Pythagorean.” Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, Bk IV. p. 157 C
(Teubner) from “Euxitheus the Pythagoric.” It evidently went back to
the earliest Orphic teaching reduced to writing.
389. See Lobeck, Aglaophamus, I. p. 566, for authorities.
390. κύκλου τ’ ἀλλῦσαι καὶ ἀναψῦξαι κακότητος. The line is attributed
to Orpheus by Simplicius in his Commentary on Aristotle, de Caelo, II.
p. 168 (ed. Karsten). According to Proclus, in Plat. Tim.V. 380 A, B, it
was part of a prayer which Orphics used when being initiated in the mysteries
of “Demeter and Cora.” The Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration
and its adoption by the Orphics are well set out by Luebbert in his
Commentatio de Pindaro dogmatis de migratione animarum cultore, Bonn,
1887, q.v.
391. All these prohibitions persisted, and we meet with them in nearly all
the religions hereafter described including the Manichaean. The filiation
may well be direct, as such sects as the Valentinians grew up in an atmosphere
of Orphic teaching. If, however, it should appear that the Orphic
notions on this subject were derived from some Western Asiatic source, it
is plain that the Ophites and Manichaeans may have drawn theirs from the
same fount and independently.
392. Euripides, Cretenses, p. 733 (Didot). The fragment is found in
Porphyry, de Abstinentia, Bk IV. c. 19. Cf. Euripides, Hippolytus, l. 952.
393. See Frazer and Maspero as quoted in note 3 p. 125, supra.
394. That this was the regular Orphic phrase is plain from the verse quoted
above, note 3 p. 127. Cf. the gold plates of Naples, p. 133, infra.
395. Cf. Luebbert, op. cit. p. v. The confusion in Cicero between animus
and anima, or mind and soul, is curious. Cf. Olympiodorus, Comment. ad
Plat. Phaed. as given in Fr. 225 of Abel’s Orphica (p. 245).
396. Orpheus is mentioned in the IVth Pythian ode as the “father of songs,”
and in fragments of the Threnoi as “the golden-sworded son of Oiagreus,”
p. 116 (Bergk). In the VIth Isthmian ode, Dionysos is made the temple-companion
or assessor (πάρεδρος) of Demeter. The delights of the blessed
dead are set forth in fragments of the Threnoi (see Fragment X. 1, 2, 3, 4 of
Teubner, pp. 95, 96, Cod. Boeckh); their reincarnation as heroes in a fragment
from the same poem: ibid. Frag. X. 4, p. 98, Cod. Bö.
397. The earlier idea espoused by Creuzer and others (see Guigniaut,
Religions de l’Antiquité, vol. III.passim, and especially pp. 1207, 1208) that
the Chthonian gods were worshipped as the symbols of generation and death
seems a good deal nearer the truth than the “Corn-spirit” theory set on
foot by the Golden Bough that they were the gods of agriculture and vegetation.
Of course both explanations can be read into what we know of the
Mysteries. Why these last should have been kept secret even before the
rise of Orphism is hard to see. M. Paul Foucart’s view that they came
originally from a foreign country (according to him from Egypt) offers one
explanation of this; but see n. 2 p. 139, infra.
398. So F. Lenormant in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict. des Ant.s.v.
Eleusinia. See, too, his article on Dionysos Zagreus in the Gazette Archéologique,
1879. So Purser in Smith’s Dict. of Antiq. as last quoted (cf.
article “Eleusinia”). Aeschylus, Sisyphus Drapetes, frag. 242, p. 238, Didot,
and Alcmaeonis, in Etymologicum Magnum, s.h.v. both know of Zagreus,
and Sophocles, Antigone, ll. 1140-1154 identifies Dionysos and Iacchos.
399. Synesius (Ptol. Episcop.), Dion (Migne, Script. Gr. t. 66, pp. 1153-1156),
says so plainly. Cf. Galen, de Usu Partium (Kuhn’s Medici Graeci, Claudius
Galenus, vol. IV. pp. 702, 703), and Plutarch, de Defect. Orac. p. 422 (Moralia,
vol. I. p. 514, Didot).
400. Sophocles, Triptolemus (Frag. 348, Didot). Homeric Hymn to Demeter,
ll. 480 sqq. (p. 565, Didot). See also Chap. II, supra.
401. Plutarch, de audiend.Poet.IV. 76 (Reisk); Diogenes Laertius, Vit.
Phil. c. VI.
402. They have been many times described, especially by Kaibel and
Comparetti (for references see Monceaux in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict.
des Antiq.s.v. Orphica). The translations in the text are by Prof. Gilbert
Murray and are taken from his Appendix to Miss Jane Harrison’s Prolegomena
to Study of Greek Religion, 1903, q.v.
403. The same phrase is used in the Orphic Hymn XIII. with regard to
Kronos, Abel, Orphica, p. 66.
404. This idea reappears in one of the documents of the Pistis Sophia.
See Chap. X, infra.
405. So Aelius Aristides (in Serapidem, p. 98) speaks of the light of the sun
being restored by Serapis “to those whose tombs contain holy books.”
406. As Foucart, Culte de Dionysos, p. 34, n. 3, has pointed out, this cannot
refer to the Titanic part of man, which he was enjoined by the Orphics to
mortify as far as possible. There is something to be said for M. Foucart’s
view that the dead is here shown as another Osiris, son of the earth-god
Geb and the sky-goddess Nut. It is curious that this last is always portrayed
on Egyptian monuments with a star-spangled body, while I know
of no Greek representation of Uranos which connects him with the stars.
407. “Of good counsel.” A name of Dionysos, as appears from the Orphic
Hymns given later in this chapter.
408. A name of Demeter, Persephone, and some other Chthonian goddesses.
See Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae, l. 286. It probably means merely
“mistress.”
409. It has been suggested that this is a figure for the initiated dead
receiving all that they wish. It should be noted, however, that in the
Zoroastrian religion the flood of molten metal which is to burn the wicked
is to feel to the faithful like warm milk. So N. Söderblom, La Vie Future
d’après la Mazdéisme, Paris, 1901, p. 266, quoting the Dinkard and the
Bundahish. The phrase is discussed by M. Salomon Reinach in Revue
Archéol. 1901, II. pp. 202-213, and Cultes, Mythes et Religions, Paris,
1909, t. II. pp. 123-134. M. Alline, in Xenia, Athens, 1912, connects it
with the supposed Orphic idea that blessed souls inhabit the Milky Way.
410. Perhaps not directly. There is some reason for thinking that the soul
of the true Orphic was supposed to pass through the intermediate stages of
hero and demon: see Hild, Étude sur les Démons, Paris, 1881, p. 144, where
the subject is excellently treated. Cf. Pindar, Threnoi, Frag. X. 4, p. 98,
Cod. Bö. The deification of the dead was also a Pythagorean doctrine,
as appears in the Aurea Carmina, ll. 70, 71, ed. Gaisford.
411. This is the suggestion of Foucart, Myst. d’Él. p. 72. That the
Egyptian dead was supposed to become one with Osiris himself is an idea
that appears as early as the Pyramid Texts, cf. Maspero, Les Pyramides de
Saqqarah, passim, where the dead kings are each in turn hailed as “this
Osiris.”
412. Buddhism, for instance, which can hardly have reached the West
before the death of Onomacritos.
413. As in the Pistis Sophia, where Jesus says to his disciples, “Know ye
not that ye are all gods ...”, p. 247 (Copt.).
414. For Damascius, Quaest. de primis principiis, see Abel’s Orphica, Frag.
48. Cf. as to Rhapsodists, Maury, Rel. de la Grèce, I. pp. 240, 345, 346.
417. Such as the Mysteries of Samothrace, held in honour, according to one
account, of Pluto, Demeter, and Persephone, together with Hermes. See
Maury, op. cit.II. pp. 306 sqq. for authorities. It was at these mysteries
that Philip of Macedon was said to have first seen and loved Olympias
(Plutarch, Alexander, c. 2).
419. See Maury, Rel. de la Grèce, II. p. 203, for authorities.
420. As in the Orphic Hymn to Mise given on p. 143, infra, where the
Eleusinian Dionysos, called also Eubuleus and Iacchos, is identified with
Cybele, the Cyprian Aphrodite, and the Egyptian Isis. See, too, the Hymn
“of the Great Mysteries” given in the Philosophumena of Hippolytus,
where Dionysos is equated with Adonis, Osiris, the god of Samothrace,
Attis, and others. See n. 1 p. 139, and Chap. VIII, infra.
421. See last note; Proclus, in Plat. Polit. p. 353 (Abel’s Orphica, Frag.
184).
422. πανκοίρανος. C.I.G. t. II. No. 3791 (Bö.). Cf. the Aeschylean description
of Zagreus as the “Highest of All” (πανυπέρτατε πάντων) quoted by
Gaisford in his notes to Etymologicum Magnum (see Cycli Fragmenta of
Didot, s.v. Epigoni vel Alemaeonis).
423. Cf. the Σαβάζιε ... ὂς Βάκχον Διόνυσον of Hymn XLVIII. Abel’s Orphica.
424. Lysistrata, ll. 386-390. Cf. Foucart, Les Ass. Rel. pp. 61-64, who
quotes nearly all the available authorities in his notes. See also Monceaux
in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict. des Antiq.s.v. Sabazios.
425. Demosthenes, de Corona, pp. 259 sqq. Cf. Foucart, Les Ass. Rel. p. 67,
n. 1.
426. In the Orphic Hymn to Hippa (Hymn XLIX. Abel’s Orphica, p. 84),
the mysteries of the “pure Sabos?” (ἁγνοῦ Σάβου) are alluded to in terms
which make it possible that the name was one of the epithets of the Iacchos
of Eleusis.
427. In a hymn preserved for us by Hippolytus (Philosophumena, Bk V.
c. 1, p. 176, Cruice) the “multiform Attis,” who has just been declared “in
a hymn of the Great Mysteries” to be the god who is called Adonis, Osiris,
Adam (by the Samothracians), Corybas and Pappas, is thus addressed:
“I will sing Attis, son of Rhea, not with the sound of trumpets, nor with
the Idaean flutes in harmony with the songs of the Curetes. But I will
mingle with my lay Phoebus’ music of lutes. Evoe Evan, since thou art
Pan, since thou art Bacchus, since thou art the shepherd of white stars.”
In the address to Musaeus with which the collection of Orphic Hymns
begins, the Mother of the Gods, Attis, Men, Aphrodite Urania, and Adonis
are invoked together. See Abel’s Orphica, p. 58. In Roman times Attis
and Sabazius seem to be identified, while Adonis is often confounded with
them. See Maury, Rel. de la Grèce, III. p. 102 and n. 4.
428. This is, perhaps, the only satisfactory reason that can be assigned for
the secrecy with which the Mysteries of Eleusis, of the Great Mother, and
the rest were surrounded. The notion put forward by the Fathers that
the mystic rites were kept secret because of their obscenity has little weight
when we consider the Phallophoria and the Terms, or street statues of
Hermes, which were publicly exhibited. The existence of secret rites
among primitive folk like the black races of Africa and the native Australians
can be explained in the same way.
429. Purser, ubi cit.supra, speaks of it as “an ascetic religious brotherhood,”
as did K. O. Müller, Introduction to a Scientific System of Mythology (Eng.
ed.), p. 318, and Litt. of Ant. Greece, I. p. 307. Döllinger, Jud. und Heid.I.
p. 161, says truly that there is no evidence that at any time there existed
a regularly formed association of Orphici in Greece. So Monceaux in
Daremberg and Saglio, s.v. Orpheus.
430. This was the opinion of Guigniaut, Religions de l’Antiquité, Paris, 1825,
t. III. p. 1203.
431. Plato, Republic, Bk II. c. 7, is the classical passage. Cf. Döllinger,
op. cit.I. pp. 165-167, and references there given.
434. There are 88 in the text published by Abel (Orphica, pp. 55-102).
This includes the Hymn to Ares generally classed among the Homeric
Hymns.
435. The celebrated Thomas Taylor the Platonist. Pausanias, Bk IX.
cc. 27 and 30, says that the Hymns of Orpheus were short and few, and that
the Lycomidae knew and sung them in the Mysteries.
437. Dieterich, de Hymnis Orphicis, Marp. Catt. 1891. Otto Kern in the
Festschrift presented to Prof. Carl Robert, 1910, points out that
there is no trace of the worship of the Emperor in the Hymns, and that
these must therefore all be anterior to the Christian era; also that the
Egyptian deities are so seldom named in them, that the collection cannot
have been made in Egypt. He thinks it comes from Asia Minor.
438. The collection may have been used as an oracle or divining-book like
any other poems written in hexameters. See a curious instance of this in
Kenyon, Greek Papyri in British Museum, pp. 83 sqq.
439. This is numbered XXIX. in Abel’s text. This, and the hymns of
Hecate, Pluto, the Curetes, Dionysos Bassareus, the Ever-living Deliverer
(Bacchus), Aphrodite, Nemesis, Nomos, and the doubtful one to Ares are
the only hymns out of the original collection which have not the note
appended as to the perfume to be burnt.
440. Μουνογένεια, “Unique,” see n. 3 p. 124, supra.
441. So Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. c. II. speaks of “the mysteries of
Demeter, and Zeus’ wanton embraces of his mother and the wrath of
Demeter ... also the entreaties of Zeus, and the drink of gall, the plucking-out
of the hearts of sacrifices and deeds we dare not name.” Arnobius, adv.
Gentes, Bk V. cc. 20, 21, tells substantially the same story.
442. See n. 2 p. 133, supra. In these hymns it is used always as an epithet
either of Bacchus or Hades with whom the mystic Bacchus was identified.
443. No. XLII. in Abel’s Orphica. Persephone was called Mise Kore at
Pergamum (C. Radet, Revue des Études anciennes, January-March, 1911,
p. 77), which shows how closely she had become identified with her consort.
Otherwise the word is only known, I believe, as a name of Dionysos.
446. Doubtless the bees, who throughout Asia Minor were said to be
the attendants of the Great Goddess. The priestesses of the Ephesian
Artemis were called Μέλισσαι or Bees, and there were Μέλισσαι at Eleusis.
See Foucart, Grds. Myst. pp. 66, 67. Cf. Aristophanes, Frogs, l. 1274. So
were those of Cybele: cf. Lactantius, Div. Inst. Bk I. c. 22. Cf. also, A. B.
Cook, “The Bee in Greek Mythology” in J.H.S.XV. (1895), pp. 17 sqq.
447. διφυῆ. See Orphic Hymn VI. in Abel’s Orphica.
448. As in the Orphic Hymn to Mise quoted above. Cf. Dyer, op. cit.
pp. 178, 179.
449. That this may have been thought to be the result of the mystic union
of the initiate with Dionysos seems possible from the statement of Plutarch,
that this last was born as a man, but by his merit was translated from this
earthly and suffering body, Life of Pelopidas, c. XVI. Cf. Budge, Pseudo-Callisthenes’
Life of Alexander the Great, p. 135.
450. A sort of echo of this is perhaps to be found in the idea prevalent in
the primitive Church that martyrs for the faith passed direct to a state of
blessedness without waiting like the rest of the faithful for the Last Judgment.
Cf. Revelation vi. 9-11; Neander, Ch. Hist.I. p. 463.
451. Zeus Chthonios or the Zeus below the earth. The serpent was always
to the Orphic poets a symbol or pictorial representation of earth.
452. This seems to be the upshot of the remarks in Pseudo-Callisthenes
(Budge, op. cit.supra), pp. 8, 12, 40-48, 127, 135. The same idea is
specially marked in the writings of Proclus and other Neo-Platonists and
by them attributed to Orpheus. Cf. Abel’s Orphica, s.v. Teletai, passim.
455. See Maury, La Magie et L’Astrologie dans l’Antiquité et en Moyen Âge,
Paris, 1860, pp. 54, 55, for authorities. The Orphic Hymns above quoted
begin with an invocation to Hecate.
457. So Euripides makes Iphigenia (I. in Taur. l. 400) say, “I think not
that any one of the gods is bad.” Cf. J. A. Hild, Ét. sur les Démons, pp. 53,
136. In sharp contrast to the Jewish idea exemplified in Deuteronomy of
a god whose “name is Jealous” is Plato’s description of the Creator in
the Timæus (40 C.), “He is not jealous, for he is good, and in him that is
good no jealousy exists.”
458. It should be noted that what is said here of the Jews applies not to
the Hebrew race in general, but only to those members of it who settled
in Palestine after the return from the Captivity. Winwood Reade puts the
matter with no less truth than point when he says (Martyrdom of Man,
p. 203): “The people who did return were chiefly the fanatics, the clergy,
and the paupers. The harvest ... was worthy of the seed.”
459. R. H. Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life
(Jowett Lectures), 1899, pp. 33-50, and authorities there quoted.
460. J. P. Mahaffy, Empire of the Ptolemies, pp. 85, 86.
465. Or “the Pious.” See Morrison, op. cit. p. 327; A. Jülicher in Encyc.
Bibl.s.v. Essenes, col. 1397, n. 1.
466. There was, says Josephus, loc. cit. § 13, another order of Essenes which
married and had children. The reason given for the celibacy of the first
order is not the Orphic one, ibid. § 2.
467. Cf. the Agapae or love-feasts of the Greek thiasi and the Christian
Church. There is no authority, however, for supposing that the meal was
regarded by the Essenes as a sacrifice.
468. The girdle has been thought to be identical with the kosti or sacred
thread of the Parsis. The use of the hatchet or pick was to bury the ejecta,
perhaps for sanitary reasons. The Essenes were said to be further divided
into four classes (Josephus, loc. cit. § 10), but Josephus does not say what
these classes were, and it is doubtful whether there is any foundation for
the statement.
469. Ibid. § 7. From the context, it would seem that “robbery” here
means the attempt to obtain possession of the secrets of the order by
stealth. In an earlier part of the same section the neophyte is said to be
sworn to “keep his hands clear from theft, and his soul from unlawful
gains.”
470. I.e. by sexual desire. The same idea is met with in the doctrines of
Simon Magus, see Chap. VI, infra, and in many other sects. Cf. Cumont,
Recherches sur le Manichéisme, Bruxelles, 1908, pt I. Appx 1, “La Séduction
des Archontes” for particulars.
471. Dr Kohler, apparently a Rabbi of New York, gives other particulars
of the Essenic initiation, including a song describing Heaven and Hell.
This he takes from the Testament of Job described by him in the Festschrift
called Kohut’s Semitic Studies, Berlin, 1897, pp. 265 sqq. Among other
things, he thinks the initiate was told that Satan was the cosmocrator, or
ruler of the world, and that the sacred girdle was an amulet which would
enable him both to defy Satan’s snares, and to see the wonders of the world
of angels. But I do not see that he brings forward any proof that either
this book or what he calls the whole Job literature is attributable to the
Essenes.
474. Their supposed sun-worship seems to resolve itself into the usual
Jewish prayer at dawn, see Cheyne, Jewish Religious Life after Exile, New
York, 1898, note on p. 251, and Jülicher, Encyc. Bibl.s.v. Essenes.
475. Philo Judaeus, Quod Omnis Probus Liber, c. XII.; id.Apologia in
Eusebius, Praep. Evang. Bk VIII. c. 13. The authenticity of both works
has been attacked (for the controversy v. Morrison, op. cit. p. 347, n. 2)
with some success. While therefore there can be no doubt that they are
from the pen of some of Philo’s school, it is not impossible that they may
be later than Josephus and have copied his statements.
476. Pliny, Hist. Nat. Bk V. c. 15: In diem ex aequo convenarum turba
renascitur large frequentantibus, quos vita fessos ad mores eorum fortunae
fluctus agitat.
477. Hippolytus, Philosophumena, Bk IX. c. 27, pp. 465, 466, of Cruice.
Later, he attributes the same doctrine to the Pharisees. His desire to show
that in both cases it was derived by the Jews from the Pythagoreans or
the Stoics is manifest.
478. Epiphanius, Panar. Bk I. t. I. Haer. X. c. 1 (pp. 75, 76 of Oehler,
vol. II. pt 1). Epiphanius makes them a Samaritan sect.
480. Jülicher in Encyc. Bibl.ubi cit. and Ritschl and Lucius there quoted;
J. B. Lightfoot, Epistles to Colossians and to Philemon, 1876, pp. 82-93,
348-419, and Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums, Leipzig,
1884, p. 156; Arthur Lillie, Buddhism in Christendom, 1887, passim; id.Buddha and Buddhism, Edinburgh, 1900, pp. 159 sqq. Buddhism is however
posterior in time to Orphism, as Buddha did not die till B.C. 483 (see Fleet in
J.R.A.S. 1909, p. 22), which was some years after the break-up of the
Pythagorean school.
482. There is no evidence of a belief in the pre-existence of the soul in
Persian religion until the rise of the worship of Mithras in the Ist century B.C.
See Chap. XII, infra. Marshall (Hastings’ Dict. of Bible, s.v. Pre-existence)
would find proof of the doctrine among the Jews in the Book of Wisdom
and Philo. Both are much later than Orphism.
483. But see note 2 p. 152, supra. Jewish priests after the Exile were forbidden
to wear wool or to touch corpses, prohibitions which have an Orphic
twang. See Ezekiel xliv. 17, 23.
484. So far from despising wealth, many of the Orphic Hymns pray for
riches. Cf. Hymns X.XIII.XIV.XIX.XL. etc. in Abel’s Orphica.
485. K. Kohler, Testament of Job, in Kohut’s Semitic Studies, Berlin, 1897,
pp. 281, 282; Isidore Loeb in La Grande Encyclopédie, Paris, s.v. La Cabbale
Juive, p. 587.
486. Rev. xiii. 18. A. Hausrath, History of New Testament Times (Eng.
ed.), 1878, vol. I. pp. 113-117, gives all the different processes of what is
called the “Practical” Cabala with illustrations. Cf. Ad. Franck, La
Kabbale, Paris, 1843, p. 167, n. 2.
487. J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 3rd ed. pt II. vol. I. pp. 318-334,
gives references to, I think, all the authorities for this belief, which even
at the present day is universal among primitive people.
488. Morrison, op. cit. p. 338, for authorities. Exorcism for the healing of
disease followed naturally from their demonology, which taught that
diseases were caused by demons. See Hausrath, Hist. of N. T. Times
(Eng. ed.), I. p. 127.
489. Hausrath, op. cit.I. pp. 124, 125; Clementine Homilies, Bk V. c. 5.
490. F. C. Porter in Hastings’ Dict. of Bible, s.v. Apocrypha, and Wellhausen
as there quoted. A list of the books comprised in the expression
used in the text with conjectural dates and authorship is given by R. H.
Charles in the same work, s.v. Apocalyptical Literature. Cf. article
under same heading (also by Charles) in Encyclopaedia Biblica. Prof.
Charles is less inclined than earlier writers (e.g. Lightfoot and Kohler,
opp. cit.) to credit the Essenes with the composition of the whole of this
literature; but he admits that part of the Book of Enoch, chap. cviii.
1-15, is by Essene hands. The other parts attributed to the Essenes by
Sieffert, Tideman, and Cheyne are indicated by him in The Book of Enoch,
Oxford, 1893, pp. 13, 14, 21.
491. The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (Morfill and Charles trans.), Oxford,
1896, p. 32.
498. David had the Philistines for suzerain, as Solomon had Egypt, cf.
Stanley A. Cook, in Encyc. Bibl.s.v. David, and Maspero, Hist. anc. des
Peuples de l’Orient, 1904, pp. 391, 422. Their successors, too, up to the
Captivity seem to have always been tributaries to Assyria, Chaldaea,
or Egypt. After that event, they were of course vassals to the Persian and
Macedonian Empires.
500. Op. cit. chap. xxxviii. 5. Cf. xlvi. 4, “And this Son of Man whom
thou hast seen will arouse the kings and the mighty ones from their
thrones, and will loosen the reins of the strong and grind to powder the
teeth of the sinners.”
501. Op. cit. chap. lvi. 5. This verse, which Dr Charles considers an
interpolation, was evidently written in 40 B.C., when a Parthian army
under Pacorus invaded Palestine and put a puppet of their own on the
throne of Jerusalem, and before 39 B.C., when Publius Ventidius Bassus
drove the Parthians back to their own country. Cf. Morrison, Jews, etc.,
pp. 58-61, and authorities there quoted.
503. Charles, op. cit. p. 108. He there puts the date of the Similitudes, as
this portion of the Book of Enoch is called, about a quarter of a century
before the Parthian invasion. In that case, the prediction in the text
would be about the only instance of fulfilled political prophecy known.
But the discrepancy is doubtless to be explained by the theory of interpolation
after the event.
504. As in the admittedly Essene portion of the Book of Enoch (Charles,
op. cit. chap. cviii. 8): “Who loved God and loved neither gold nor silver,
nor any of the goods of the world.”
505. Compare with this the desire to rid themselves of this world’s goods
which seized upon the inhabitants of Western Europe in 1000 A.D., when
it was believed that the Second Advent was at hand, and donations to the
Church beginning “in view of the approaching end of the world” were
common.
506. Schürer, Hist. of Jewish People (Eng. ed.), II. pp. 157, 158.
507. Josephus, Antiq. Bk XIII. cap. 2, 3, where the tributes and taxes are
set forth. Morrison, op. cit. p. 360, notes that the Jews showed no hostility
to the tribute payable to the Greek kings, and that it was the Roman
system of taxation which most embittered their feelings against the Gentiles.
509. Renan, in L’Église Chrétienne, chap. XI, tells the story with as
much grace as truth. His account is largely taken from the investigations
of Hartwig Derenbourg, himself of Jewish blood. Cf. Morrison, op. cit.
pp. 198-206.
510. They are arranged in the text as near as possible in the order of their
probable dates. As to these and on the question of authorship, see Charles,
Crit. Hist. pp. 172-226. The Sibylline Oracles can now be consulted in
the scholarly edition of Rzach (Sibyllina Oracula, 1891), and in Dr Charles’
Apocrypha of the O.T. (see below). The Greek text of the Psalms of
Solomon with a French translation and critical introduction has been
published by Dr J. Viteau and M. François Martin (Les Psaumes de Salomon,
Paris, 1911). (The Odes of Solomon recently recovered for us by Dr Rendel
Harris are most probably Christian hymns.) The Latin text of the 4th
Book of Esdras is given by Bensly and James in Cambridge Texts and
Studies, vol. III. No. 2, and an English translation of part of it appears in
the Apocrypha of the A. V. (see Speaker’s Commentary for a good text and
commentary by Lupton). The Wisdom Literature, i.e. the Wisdom of
Solomon and Ecclesiasticus, also appears in the Apocrypha of the A.V.,
as do the Books of Maccabees. English versions of all the other books with
critical notes and introductions have been published by Prof. Charles as
follows: Book of Enoch, Oxford, 1893; Book of the Secrets of Enoch, Oxford,
1896; Apocalypse of Baruch, 1896; Assumption of Moses, 1897; Book of
Jubilees, 1902; and Testament of the XII Patriarchs, 1908. All the
above appear in English dress in Dr Charles’ Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
of the O.T., Oxford, 1913.
511. See note 2 p. 149, supra. The essentially Jewish tendency towards
hyperbole and exaggeration in language must, however, be allowed for.
As someone has said, “Jacob I have loved, and Esau I have hated,” in the
mouth of a Jew means little more than that on the whole the speaker
prefers Jacob to Esau. See also note 1 p. 163, supra.
512. Isaiah xiv. 2; lx. 10; lxi. 5. All these passages are now said to
be post-Exilic by Charles, Crit. Hist. p. 115.
513. Charles, Apocalypse of Baruch, chap. xxx. 4, 5; chap. xxxvi. 11;
4 Esdras vii. 87.
514. Charles, Book of Enoch, chap. xlviii. 9; lxii. 9-12.
525. The earliest document quoted is the part of the Book of Enoch which
Prof. Charles considers was written between 166-161 B.C.; the latest, the
Fourth Book of Esdras, which he puts at 90 A.D. Yet he shows that the
hatred of the Gentiles and the hope that they would be eternally destroyed
or made slaves to Israel were present many centuries earlier and are to be
found in the writings attributed to Ezekiel, Haggai, Joel, and Zachariah,
as well as in Isaiah. Cf. Crit. Hist. p. 160.
527. Thus Jellinek, Ueber das Buch der Jubilaen und das Noah-Buch,
Leipzig, 1855, passim, says that the Book of Jubilees is of Essene origin,
and Schmidt and Merx, Archiv für wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten
Testaments, I.II. (1868) pp. 111-152, make the same claim for the Assumption
of Moses and so on. For the Book of Enoch itself see above.
528. For the quotations from Enoch in the Testament of the XII Patriarchs
see Charles, Introduction to that book, p. lix; for those in the Book of
Jubilees see B. of J. pp. 13, 36, 37, 53, 62-64, 102, 134, 146, 150, 212,
213; in the Apocalypse of Baruch, see A. of B. p. 101 and notes; in the
Assumption of Moses, see A. of M. x. 4, 9.
529. Josephus, ubi cit. in note 4 p. 151, supra, says (§ 8) that they honoured
the name of Moses next after that of God Himself; and that any who
blasphemed him was punished capitally.
530. Cf. Abel’s Orphica, Fr. 160, 161, 162, 202, 203, 204. From the Orphics
the practice passed into the Mysteries and the writings of the post-Christian
Gnostics. See Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 1888, pp. 69, 74-75.
531. Like the Gold Plate of Caecilia Secundina, Chapter IV, p. 133, supra.
So the Sibylline Oracles contain the acrostic ΙΧΘΥΣ which covers the
name and titles of Jesus, Renan, L’Église Chrétienne, p. 535 and note.
The Greeks must have caught the taste for such devices, for an acrostic
is found in a treatise on astronomy by Eudoxos of Cnidos copied in the
second cent. B.C. Many other instances are given by Brunet de Presle, Les
Papyrus Grecs du Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1865, pp. 43, 44. He says with
some reason that the practice was borrowed by the Greeks from the Jews.
532. Kenyon, Gk. Pap. in B. M., Papyrus CXXI, pp. 83 sqq.
533. Hausrath, op. cit. pp. 114-116, where many other instances are given.
The explanation of “Nero(n) Caesar” as the Number of the Beast is in
fact as old as Irenaeus, who remarks that the variant 616 given in some
texts is due to the omission of the final n in Latin. It does not seem to be
seriously disputed by any modern theologian. Isopsephism however was
not the invention of the Essenes, but of the Babylonians, among whom it
was in use, to judge from Berossos, in the time of Alexander. See Alexander
Polyhistor in Cory, Ancient Fragments, 2nd ed. p. 25.
534. Charles, Book of Enoch, chap. lxix. 13-15. Cf. id., The Apoc. etc. of the
O.T., II. p. 234, where he has made some verbal alterations in the reading.
536. Charles, A. of M. chap. ix. 1, and the note beginning on p. 35, op. cit.
Hausrath, op. cit.sup. pp. 116, 117, thinks the name is arrived at by the
process called Atbash.
537. If the authenticity of the Fragment quoted above from Philo could
be established, it would seem probable that Josephus simply copied the
figure from this last, and that 4000 was the number of the Essenes about
20 A.D.
539. Hausrath, op. cit. pp. 116, 117, for examples. By the method called
Temura he gets Romah hagedôlah for Armageddon in the Canonical Apocalypse.
So Justin Martyr, Cohort. c. XXIV. says that Moses is unintelligible
without mystic insight, and that the name of Christ contains a hidden
meaning (2nd Apol. c. VI.).
540. Thus Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. Bk I. c. XII. § 11, p. 146, Harvey, makes
Marcus the heresiarch show that Alpha and Omega, the name given to
Jesus in Revelation, means the Dove which descended upon Him at
His baptism, because it has the same numerical value (περιστερά) of 801.
541. The fanaticism of the Palestinian Jews in time affected their co-religionists
elsewhere, as when the Jews in Asia Minor rebelled and committed
atrocities in the reign of Trajan. See Morrison, Jews under
Roman Rule, p. 191, and Renan, Les Évangiles, Paris, 1877, p. 503.
Probably such outbreaks were condemned by those of the nation who had
anything to lose, as was certainly the case during the Revolt under Hadrian.
542. Morrison, op. cit. p. 375; Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought, 1887,
pp. 468-482; Greek World under Roman Sway, 1890, p. 47.
543. Schürer, History of the Jewish People, Eng. ed. II. pp. 157, 158. One
of the best proofs of this tendency is the fashion among all classes of
Jews at this period of giving their children Greek names. See Mahaffy,
Greek Life and Thought, p. 480. Even among the Apostles we have
Andrew and Philip.
544. Schürer, op. cit.II. pp. 206, 306, 309; Morrison, op. cit. p. 395.
545. Schürer, op. cit.II. pp. 369-380, following, as he tells us, Zeller, gives
an excellent and coherent account of Philo’s system, which see. As Schürer
points out (op. cit.II. p. 368), Philo “hellenized” so thoroughly that
practically the only Judaic elements in his system are the assertion of
monotheism, a contempt for image-worship, and the claim that the Jews
possessed through the Mosaic revelation the highest religious knowledge.
546. Schürer, op. cit.II. p. 372. For a definition of hypostasis in this
connection and its original equivalence to οὐσία and substantia (as in the
Quicunque vult), see Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 1888, p. 275.
547. Were those who did not attain to this height in Philo’s opinion
annihilated or re-incarnated? His view that for the wicked this life is the
real hell (De congr. erud. grat. § XI.) would suit either theory; but in de
Cherub. § I. it is plain that he contemplates the eternal punishment of the
damned.
548. Secret, not from the jealous motive of the Gnostics, but because if their
opinions had become generally known they would have been cast out of the
synagogue.
549. So Renan, Les Évangiles, p. 452. It is quite possible that the sect of
the Essenes may have included many divisions.
550. Hippolytus, Philosophumena, Bk V. c. 3, p. 218, Cruice.
551. M. de Faye is probably right in saying (Étude Critique des Documents
du Gnosticisme Chrétien, Paris, 1913, pp. 352, 353) that the Sethiani were
never a very important sect. Stähelin’s theory (Die Gnostischen Quellen
Hippolyts, Leipzig, 1890) that Hippolytus was deceived by a forger who
drew all his “heresies” from one document (see Chapter VII, infra) is too
fantastic to be correct, but it has done good service in calling attention to
the family likeness between most of the systems which he sketches. Cf.
E. de Faye, Intro. à l’Ét. du Gnost., Paris, 1903, p. 68. We are not likely
to reach any more definite conclusion unless some lucky discovery reveals
to us the sources of Hippolytus’ compilation.
552. Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 16, p. 191, Harvey; Hippolytus, Philosophumena,
Bk VI. c. 20, p. 267, Cruice; Augustine, de Haeres. lib. cc. I., II., III.;
Praedestinatus, de Haer. Bk I. c. 1; Pseudo-Tertullian, adv. omn. Haer.
c. I. etc.
554. From the story in Acts, it appears that what Simon tried to buy was
the power of ordination. The offence in modern ecclesiastical jurisprudence
seems to be the obtaining the priestly office by purchase rather than by
merit or gift.
560. “Neither at Jerusalem, nor on this mountain [Gerizim] shall men
worship the Father,” John iv. 21.
561. Cowley in Encyc. Bibl.s.v. Samaritans, col. 4260. According to
Renan, Les Évangiles, p. 451, the Samaritans at the beginning of our era
were divided into a great number of sects, all more or less attached to
Simon. The authorities he quotes are, however, too late to establish this
satisfactorily.
562. The question was discussed and resolved, as far as it could be in the then
state of our information, by Salmon in Smith’s Dictionary of Christian
Biography, s.v. Clementines. Mgr. Duchesne, Early History of the Christian
Church, Eng. ed. 1909, p. 96, n. 2, sums up in favour of their ultimate
derivation from the Preaching of Peter composed at the end of the IInd or
beginning of IIIrd cent. He thinks the Clementines orthodox save for a
slight Arian tendency.
563. So Theodoret; but this was a common form in the patristic accounts
of such disputes. It is repeated in the dispute of Archelaus with Manes,
mentioned in Chapter XIII, infra, which see.
564. See Tischendorf’s edition, passim. The age of the book may be
guessed by its containing the Quo Vadis story quoted by Origen.
565. Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 16, p. 191, Harvey; Hippolytus, Bk VI. c. 1, § 19,
p. 264, Cruice; Epiphanius, Panar. Bk I.; Haer.XXI. c. 2 (p. 125 of
Oehler’s vol. II. pt. 1).
567. Marcion and Marcus, both leaders of Gnostic sects, were both accused
by the Catholics of seduction, while the Pagans naturally put the worst
construction on the intimacy existing between confessors and martyrs and
their converts, as is evidenced by the story of Paul and Thekla.
568. This seems to have been first set on foot by Baur and the Tübingen
school, and has lately been revived by Schmiedel in the Encyc. Bibl.s.v.
Simon Magus. Even if we were to admit that it was well founded with
regard to the Clementines, it would not get rid of the testimony of the Acts
and of Justin Martyr that Simon Magus had an actual historical existence.
569. Ἀπόφασις μεγάλη. “Declaration” would perhaps be a better translation
of the word; but that given in the text is the one used by most
writers on the subject.
570. Simon’s authorship of the book has been defended by Renan (Les
Apôtres, Paris, 1866, p. 267 and note) and attacked by many other writers.
Salmon, op. cit., Schmiedel, op. cit., and Stock in the Encyclopaedia Britannica
(last edition), s.v. Simon Magus, aver that there were two Simons, one
the personage of the Acts, and the other, a Gnostic leader of the IInd cent.
to whom or to whose followers the Great Announcement is to be attributed.
This theory, although attractive, would prove too much; for Justin Martyr,
himself a Samaritan, has no doubt that Simon the heresiarch is the Simon
of the Acts, and if he is wrong in this, a matter which may well have been
within his own personal knowledge, Hippolytus is our best and earliest
authority for Simon’s doctrines.
572. Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk VI. c. 1, § 9, p. 247, Cruice.
573. As when he says that the Logos is not God, but his reflection. See
Philo, de Somn.I. 41 (p. 656 of Mangey). “Just as those who cannot gaze
upon the sun may yet gaze upon a reflection of it.” Cf. Hatch, H. L. p. 248.
574. Irenaeus and Epiphanius (where before quoted) both call this second
partner in the first pair of “Roots” Ἔννοια. Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk VI.
c. 1, § 13, p. 251, Cruice, has Ἐπίνοια. Does this mean “after-thought”
or “second thought” as showing her posteriority to Nous? At any rate
it is some indication that he is copying from a different source than that
of his predecessors. King (Gnostics and their Remains, 2nd ed. p. 61) would
translate Ἐνθύμησις by “thought,” while he calls Ἔννοια “Intelligence.”
The Abbé Cruice translates Ἐνθύμησις “Conceptio.” It seems here to mean
Desire not in a fleshly but a mental sense.
575. The names of Ὄνομα and Φωνή are placed in the reverse order to the
others, inasmuch as in this pair the feminine comes first. This is curious
because in the same section they are compared to the Sun and Moon, the
sex of which is transposed in several mythologies.
576. The names of the Amshaspands of Zoroaster are, Vohu Mano, or Good
Mind, and Asha Vahishta, or Truth; Khshathra Vairya, or Right Law,
and Spenta Armaiti, or Wisdom; Haurvetat, or Good Health, and Ameretat
or Immortality. The likeness between this and Simon’s system has been
noticed by, among others, Harvey the editor of Irenaeus, in his Introduction
to that author, pp. lxv sqq. For the resemblance between post-exilic
Judaism and Zoroastrianism, see Cheyne, Jewish Religious Life, pp. 157,
210, 251, 257 sqq. But see p. 197, infra.
577. Emanation is well defined by Mallet (Culte de Neit à Saïs, Paris, 1888,
pp. 212, 213) as “a perpetual flowing-forth, which does not imply any
effort, and which consequently neither exhausts nor even diminishes the
productive principle.” Emanations, however, he goes on to say, become
weaker and less perfect the further they get from their first source. The
first mention I can find of the word is in Plutarch (de Is. et Os. c. XLIX.)
who says that the visible Cosmos is “the flowing forth (ἀπορροή) and
displayed image of Osiris.”
578. Curiously enough, the author of the Clementine Homilies adopts this
notion for orthodoxy, when he makes St Peter (XVII. c. 9) declare that God
possesses six “extensions” having the nature of six infinites and that He
with them makes up the “mystery of the hebdomad.”
579. I.e. “which cannot be grasped,” “intangible,” as in the Athanasian
Creed.
580. ἀντιστοιχέω “set over against each other.” It seems to be a term
used in logic.
581. This is not the Supreme Father, but the Logos or his representative in
the world succeeding his. It is with this being that Simon according to
the author of the Clementines (Hom.II. c. 24) identified himself.
582. Ὁ ἑστώς, στάς, στησόμενος. This seems to be the expression which
the author of the Canonical Apocalypse is trying to reach in his fearful
solecism ἀπὸ ὁ ὦν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὀ ἐρχόμενος. See Revelation i. 4.
584. The difficulty in deducing both male and female divinities from a
male or sexless Supreme being has led to some strange mythology. The
Egyptians cut the knot in an effective if coarse way. “Thus from one
god I became three gods,” says the Egyptian deity “the Lord of the
Universe,” in his account of the Creation. See Budge, “Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu,”
and Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, pp. xiii, xiv
and 14, 15. Was the author of the Apophasis acquainted with this story?
The Clementines make Simon’s associates Egyptians or rather Alexandrians.
See Clem. Hom. Bk IV. c. 6.
585. Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk VI. c. 1, § 18, pp. 261, 262, Cruice.
587. Amélineau, Gnosticisme Égyptien, p. 39, makes this perfectly clear.
Cf. Ad. Franck, “Le Gnosticisme Égyptien” in Journal des Savans, Avril,
1888, pp. 212, 213. Hatch (H.L. p. 205) points out that it is the doctrine
of “Philo and the Platonists.”
588. As will be seen later, the post-Christian Gnostics of the IInd cent.
generally attributed the existence of evil to the escape of one of the syzygies
from the control of her spouse and her consequent fall into matter. See
Chapter VIII, infra.
589. The excessive reverence of the Samaritans for the Pentateuch is well
brought out by Cowley in the Encyc. Bibl.s.v. Samaritans. He says it was
the only part of the Jewish books which they took over and held sacred
(col. 4260). Simon in the Great Announcement thought it necessary to
“explain” each of the Five Books separately. See Hippolytus, op. cit.
Bk VI. c. 1, §§ 15, 16, pp. 253-258, Cruice.
590. Throughout all the philosophical and religious literature of the time,
it seems to have been sufficient to quote “Orpheus and the other theologists”
to command a hearing. See Clement of Alexandria, passim, for
examples.
597. “The visible and generated Gods.” So Alcmaeon of Crotona and
Xenocrates both call stars and planets gods. See Clem. Alex. Protrept.
c. VI.; Plato, Timaeus, c. XV. The prophets of the Jews, indeed, blamed
their co-religionists for “worshipping the sun towards the east” as Ezekiel
saw them doing in the Temple, or for “serving all the host of heaven” as
Jeremiah says the inhabitants of Jerusalem did; but their reproaches
make it plain that the bulk of the nation were in this respect like their
Gentile neighbours.
598. So Clem. Alex. Strom. Bk VI. c. 13, says the worship of the sun, moon,
and stars was instituted, so that the nations might not become utterly
godless.
599. See Bouché-Leclercq, L’Astrologie grecque, Paris, 1899, p. 21, for
references.
601. Except perhaps Marcion. But we have so little literature remaining
which can with any certainty be attributed to the Marcionites that we
cannot speak with any certainty as to his phraseology. In his treatise
against the Valentinians (c. XX.) Tertullian gibes at that sect for “thinking
the different heavens intelligent, and for making angels of them.”
602. Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 16, § 2, p. 192, Harvey. Theodoret, Haer. Fab.
Bk I. c. 5, echoes the statement, and Hippolytus, Bk VI. c. 1, § 19, p. 263,
Cruice, gives what is probably the original Greek of Irenaeus. Hatch,
H. L. pp. 185, 186, points out that Philo held not only that the angels
were God’s instruments in making the worlds, but the patterns after which
they were made. Cf. Philo, de Monarch. Bk II. c. 6.
603. These “orders” of supernatural beings passed into orthodox Christianity.
Cf. the εἴτε θρόνοι, εἴτε κυριότητες, εἴτε ἀρχαί, εἴτε ἐξουσίαι of
Coloss. i. 16, whence the “Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Princedoms,
Powers” of Milton. The functions of all these different orders are set out
by Dionysius the Areopagite so-called, and present a certain likeness to
Simon’s ideas as given in the text. See Lupton in Dict. Christian Biog.s.v. Dionysius.
604. That is Zeus, “Father of Gods and Men”; not the Juppiter
Optimus Maximus of later philosophy.
605. Possibly an allusion to the “rib” story of Genesis.
606. οὐχ ἁπλοῦν, ἀλλὰ διπλοῦν κατ’ εἰκόνα καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν. Hippolytus,
Bk VI. c. 1, § 14, p. 253, Cruice.
607. So Philo, Legg. Allegor.III. p. 1089, Mangey; Quis rer. divin.
p. 503 id. Cf. Döllinger, Jud. und Heid. Eng. ed. II. p. 430.
608. Hippolytus, Bk VI. c. 1, § 17, p. 259, Cruice.
610. So Iacchos is at once the father, son, and spouse of Persephone.
Horus is by his identification with Osiris in like manner the son, spouse
and brother of Isis. The seeking and finding seems to be an allusion to
this last pair. Cf. P.S.B.A. 1914, p. 93.
611. Hippolytus, Bk VI. c. 1, § 17, p. 259, Cruice. For the μήτηρ, πατήρ
of the text it is necessary to read μητροπάτωρ unless we are to believe
that the author is here repeating without rhyme or reason the statement
already made in the same sentence that the power he is describing
is its own mother and its own father. The expression μητροπάτωρ is
found in an address to Zeus attributed to Orpheus and quoted by Clement
of Alexandria, Strom. Bk V. c. 14. Cf. Frgs. 238, 239 of Abel’s Orphica. He
remarks concerning it that, by this μητροπάτωρ, Orpheus meant not only
birth from the Μὴ ὤν, but also “gave occasion to those who bring in the
emanations and perhaps imagine a spouse of God,”—which gives some
colour to the surmise that Clement may have been acquainted with Simon’s
writings.
612. Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 16, § 2, p. 192, Harvey. A similar motive was
assigned by the Orphics for the murder of the infant Dionysos by the Titans.
613. Hippolytus, Bk I. c. 16, § 19, pp. 263, 264, Cruice.
616. Epiphanius, op. cit. Bk I., Haer.XXI. c. 11 (p. 125 of vol. II. pt I. of
Oehler). Probably this idea is a mere echo of the story in Genesis vi. 2,
of the “sons of God” being captivated by the “daughters of men,” which
is much insisted on in the Enochian literature. Cf. Cumont, Recherches
sur le Manichéisme; La Séduction des Archontes or Chapter XIII, infra for
later elaborations of the legend.
617. Τὴν δὲ Ἑλένην λυτρωσάμενος, οὕτως τοῖς ἀνθρώποις σωτηρίαν παρέσχε
διὰ τῆς ἰδίας ἐπιγνώσεως. See note 3 p. 190, supra. The ἐπίγνωσις of the
text seems to indicate that Simon discovered the way of salvation not by
any revelation from a higher power, but by his own intelligence and
examination. Cf. what he says (Hippolytus, Phil. Bk VI. c. 16, p. 256,
Cruice) about the knowledge of Gentile writings being sufficient for the
ἐπίγνωσις τῶν ὅλων.
618. Acts viii. 9, 10, only says that Simon bewitched the people of Samaria,
giving himself out to be some great one (λέγων εἶναί τινα ἑαυτὸν μέγαν);
and that it was the people who said of him: “This man is the so-called
great power of God” (Οὗτός ἐστιν ἡ δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ ἡ καλουμένη μεγάλη).
He was therefore only in the same position as Paul and Barnabas
in Phrygia when they were hailed by the populace as Zeus and Hermes
respectively. Cf. Acts xiv. 12.
619. Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 16, § 2, p. 193, Harvey; Epiphanius as in n. 1
supra. This episode of the Saviour changing his form so as not to be
recognized by the powers of the heavens through which he passes on his
way to earth, is a favourite one in the post-Christian Apocryphal literature.
Cf. R. H. Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah, p. 62. In the Pistis Sophia (for
which see Chapter X, infra), Jesus in like manner changes His appearance in
each heaven on His descent to earth. When He returns in His proper shape
the spirits in every “place” into which He enters fling themselves on their
faces and cry: “How did the Lord of the Universe change himself, so that
we knew him not?”: see p. 21 Copt. et al. The “Docetic” theory which
made the earthly body of Jesus a phantasm or illusion appears again in
the heresy of the Valentinians and elsewhere. See Chapter IX, infra.
621. Ibid. § 20, p. 267, Cruice. The story here told is in direct contradiction
to the received tradition of the Church, that Simon met his
death when attempting to fly heavenward before the Emperor Nero. That
given in the text seems to be taken from the doings of some Indian Yogi,
and the idea of Simon teaching “sitting under a plane tree” is distinctly
Buddhistic. It is mentioned by no other writer than Hippolytus; but
Justin Martyr (First Apolog. c. 26) says that he persuaded his followers that
he would never die, and that some in Justin’s day still believed this. A
sort of echo of it appears in the Acts of Peter and Paul, where it is said that
the body of Simon after being dashed to pieces was kept by the Emperor
Nero for three days “to see whether he would rise again.”
623. Clement of Alexandria (Paedagogus, Bk I. c. 6) says practically the
same thing.
624. Καὶ γίνεται ἡ τοῦ ἄρρενος τροπή, γένεσις· ἡ δὲ τῆς θηλείας τροπή, τροφὴ
τοῦ γεννωμένῳ. Note the curious jingle between τροπή and τροφή, γένεσις
and γεννωμένῳ.
625. Hippolytus, Bk VI. c. 1, § 17, pp. 259, 260, Cruice. That this
refers to the conjunction of man with his twin-soul or affinity is certain
from Hippolytus’ former quotation from the Apophasis, that man was
made by God οὐχ ἁπλοῦν, ἀλλὰ διπλοῦν κατ’ εἰκόνα καὶ καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν “not
single, but two-fold according to copy and resemblance”: and that he
will “perish with the world” unless he be made into the likeness of the
Spirit who was borne upon the face of the waters, and who was, like that
of which it was the reflection, androgyne (Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk VI. c. 1,
p. 253, Cruice). “But if he be made into this likeness,” Hippolytus
continues, “and is born from an indivisible point as it is written in the
Apophasis, that which is small will become great. And that which is
great will exist in the boundless and incorruptible aeon, which will not be
born again.” Besides the idea of the indivisible point, which we shall meet
with again in the Bruce Papyrus (for which see Chapter X, infra), it seems
evident that Simon was here teaching that those who find their twin-souls
will rise in the scale of being and thus escape the cycle of changing existences
dreaded by the Orphics (see Chapter IV, supra). An explanation of
the metaphor of the flaming sword is suggested later. See note 3 on p. 67
of vol. II, infra.
626. Plato, Symposium, cc. 17, 18. Diotima later on in the same Dialogue
says that it is an old story that those who are in love are seeking their
lost half. In one of the documents of the Pistis Sophia, it is said that
“the servants of the Sphere of Destiny” after making the soul of man,
divide it into two parts, and give one part to a man and another to a woman
who are then bound to come together (no matter how far apart they may
be) and to unite, when a new soul is the result (Pistis Sophia, p. 346,
Copt.).
627. So in the Pistis Sophia (p. 37, Copt.), Jesus says that the angels bound
in the stars were, until His coming, in the habit of turning about and devouring
their own matter, from which the souls of men and other animals were
made, in order that their rule might endure the longer.
628. Probably this is the meaning of the well-known saying of Jesus,
generally quoted as coming from the Gospel according to the Egyptians,
in answer to Salome’s enquiry as to the time of the coming of His
kingdom: Ὅταν τὸ τῆς αἰσχύνης ἔνδυμα πατήσητε, καὶ ὅταν γένται τά
δύο ἔν, καὶ τὸ ἔξω ὡς τὸ ἔσω; καὶ τό ἄρρεν μετὰ τῆς θηλείας, οὔτε ἄρρεν
οὔτε θῆλυ. “When ye tread under foot the garment of shame,
and when the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the
male with the female, neither male nor female.” See Hilgenfeld, N.T.
extra Canon. recept., Lipsiae, 1884, vol. IV. p. 44. “The outside as
the inside” may refer to the body and the rib which was in the Genesis
story taken out of it. So the Pistis Sophia (p. 378, Copt.) speaks of
“the Light of Lights, the places of Truth and Goodness, the place of
the Holy of Holies, the place of the Holy of all Holies, the place in which
there is neither male nor female, nor shape, but Light everlasting, unspeakable.”
Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk V. c. 7, p. 146, Cruice, carrying this a step
further, speaks of heaven as a place “where there is neither male nor
female, but a new creature, a new man who is androgyne (ἀρρηνόθηλυς).”
629. Hippolytus, Bk VI. c. 1, § 19, p. 266, Cruice; Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 16,
§ 2, p. 194, Harvey; Epiphanius, Haer.XXI. c. 2, p. 124, Oehler.
641. Epiph. Haer.XXIV. c. 1, p. 145, Oehler. It is here attributed to
Basilides, but Epiphanius has before said that this last borrowed his ideas
from “Simon and Satornilus.”
644. Epiphanius says that Simon taught none could be saved unless he
learned [Simon’s] system of initiation (μυσταγωγία). See Epiph. Haer.XXI. c. 4, p. 127, Oehler.
646. Epiph. Haer.XXII. p. 133, Oehler; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. Bk III. c. 26.
Cf. Justin Martyr, First Apol. c. 26. Schmiedel, s.v. Simon Magus in
Encyc. Bibl., says the exact contrary—a curious slip.
651. Tertullian, Scorpiace, c. 1. Eusebius, H. E. Bk II. c. 1, says, speaking
of his own times, that those who follow Simon’s most scoundrelly
(μιαρωτύτην) heresy were baptized into the Church, and kept their own
doctrines in secret till detected and expelled. Cf. Origen, c. Cels. Bk VI.
c. 11.
652. It was of course quite different from the Cabalistic methods, ridiculous
as those were, of the Essenes and other Jews, from the acrostics of the
Orphics, and from the allegories of Philo. With a touching belief in the
verbal inspiration of the Pentateuch, Simon and his followers claimed that
every word of it must be true and a revelation even when transferred into
another context. Thus they claimed to teach obstetrics from geographical
phrases. The only modern parallel is to be found among the Puritans of
our own Civil War, who, as Sir Walter Scott wrote, were accustomed to
pervert the language of Scripture by adapting it to modern events, and
kept a Bible lying on the Table of the House for reference as to the better
conduct of its business.
653. See J. Turmel, “L’Angélologie depuis le faux Denys l’Aréopagite,”Rev. d’Hist. et Litt. Rel. Paris, t. IV. No. 3 (1898), pp. 219 sqq.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are linked for ease of
reference.
