idolatry
was transformed and what form it assumed in its last struggle against
Christianity, whose victory was furthered by Asiatic mysteries, although
they opposed its doctrine.

* * * * *

But before broaching this subject a preliminary question must be answered.
Is the study which we have just outlined possible? What items will be of
assistance to us in this undertaking? From what sources are we to derive
our knowledge of the Oriental religions in the Roman empire?

It must be admitted that the sources are inadequate and have not as yet
been sufficiently investigated.

Perhaps no loss caused by the general wreck of ancient literature has been
more disastrous than that of the liturgic books of paganism. A few mystic
formulas quoted incidentally by pagan or Christian authors and a few
fragments of hymns in honor of the gods[14] are practically all that
escaped destruction. In order to obtain an idea of what those lost rituals
may have been one must turn to their imitations contained in the chorus of
tragedies, and to the parodies comic authors sometimes made; or look up in
books of magic the plagiarisms that writers of incantations may have
committed.[15] But all this gives us only a dim reflection of the religious
ceremonies. Shut out from the sanctuary like profane outsiders, we hear
only the indistinct echo of the sacred songs and not even in imagination
can we attend the celebration of the mysteries.

We do not know how the ancients prayed, we cannot penetrate into the
intimacy of their religious life, {12} and certain depths of the soul of
antiquity we must leave unsounded. If a fortunate windfall could give us
possession of some sacred book of the later paganism its revelations would
surprise the world. We could witness the performance of those mysterious
dramas whose symbolic acts commemorated the passion of the gods; in company
with the believers we could sympathize with their sufferings, lament their
death and share in the joy of their return to life. In those vast
collections of archaic rites that hazily perpetuated the memory of
abolished creeds we would find traditional formulas couched in obsolete
language that was scarcely understood, naive prayers conceived by the faith
of the earliest ages, sanctified by the devotion of past centuries, and
almost ennobled by the joys and sufferings of past generations. We would
also read those hymns in which philosophic thought found e