asserting that the prayers for the dead of the
Catholic Church took the place of the worship of the dead in the Roman
family;[963] for it is not easy to say how far it is true that the dead
were ever really worshipped at Rome, and the idea of prayer for the
dead, if it can be traced to Roman sources at all, may be rather due to
those tendencies which we discussed under Mysticism, than to anything
inherent in the old Roman attitude to the departed. None the less there
is in the _sacra privata_ of the Parentalia, and especially of the
Caristia which concluded it--a kind of love-feast of all members of the
family, where all quarrels and differences were to be laid
aside,[964]--something that suggests the Christian attitude towards the
dead, and in some dim way too the doctrine of the Communion of Saints.
And we may also notice how closely in regard to externals the great
events of family life,--those critical moments when the aid of the
_numina_ was most needed--the first days of infancy, the eras of puberty
and of marriage, passed on in their sober and orderly ritual into the
baptism, confirmation, and sacramental wedding of the Christian Church.
In such ways the private religion of the Roman family had doubtless a
real continuity in the new era, though the line of connection is
difficult to trace. This, and many other examples of survival, the
worship of local saints which took the place of that of local deities,
the use of holy water and of incense as symbolic elements in worship,
and the general resemblance of the arrangement of festivals in the
Calendars, Roman and Christian, might be interesting matter for a
complete course of lectures, but must be omitted here.

Another point of interest, which might also be widely expanded, is the
influence of the Roman religious _spirit_, as distinct from the outward
form, on Christian thought and literature in the Western half of the
Empire. The subtle transcendentalism of the Greek fathers was foreign to
Latin Christianity; the characteristics of Roman life as reflected in
Roman worship are plainly visible in the Latin fathers. From Minucius
Felix onwards, the Christians who wrote in Latin, so far from being
imaginative and dreamy, are one and all matter-of-fact; historical,
abounding in illustration of life and conduct; ethical rather than
speculative; legal in their cast of thought rather than philosophical;
rhetorical in their manner of expression rather than fervent or
poeti