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 PAGANISM

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PAGANISM

sured the perpetuity of all the aberrations of pagan mysticism, but of the erroneous physical science on which its dogma rested." We have here an indica- tion why religions, into which the astral element entered largely, were intrinsically doomed. The di- vine stars that ruled life were themselves subject to absolute law. Hence relentless Fatalism or final Scepticism for those sufficiently educated to see the logical results of their mechanical interpretation of the universe; hence the discrediting of myth, the aban- donment of cult, as mendacious and useless; hence the silencing of oracle, ecstasy, and prayer; but, for the vulgar, a riot of superstition, the door new opened to magic which shoukl coerce the stars, the cult of hell, and honour for its ministers — things all descending into the Satanism and witchcraft of not unrecent days. Even the supreme and solar cult reached, not Mono- theism, but a splendid Pantheism. A sublime phil- osophy, a gorgeous ritual, the support of the earthly Monocracy which mirrored that of heaven, a liturgy of incomparable solemnity and passionate mysticism, a symbolism so pure and high as to cause endless con- fusion in the troubled mind of the dying Roman Em- pire between Sun-worship and the adorers of the Sun of Righteousness — all this failed to counteract the aboriginal lie which left God still linked essentially to creation. (See F. Cumont, "Les rehgions orientales dans le paganisme romain", 2nd ed., Paris, 1909, es- pecially cc. V, vii-viii; "Le mysticisms astral", Brus- sels, 1909, invaluable for references and bibliography; "Textes et Monuments . . . relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra", 1, 1899, II, 1896; " Th^ol. solaire du paganLsme rom.", Paris, 1909.) We do not hint that these ele- ments which have been assigned as the origin of an upward revolution have always, or only, been a cause of degeneration: it is important to note, however, that they have been at times a germ of death as truly as of life.

II. Social Aspect. — Christianity first and alone of religions has preached, as one of its central doc- trines, the value of the individual soul. What natural religion already, but ineffectually implied, Christian- ity asserted, reinforced, and transmuted. The same human nature is responsible at once for the admirable kindnesses of the pagan, and for the deplorable cruelties of Christian men, or groups, or epochs; the pagan religions did little, if anything, to preserve or develop the former, Christianity waged ceaseless battle against the latter. As for woman, the promiscuity which is the surest sign of her degradation never ex- isted as a general or stable characteristic of primitive folk. In China and Japan, Buddhism and Confucian- ism depressed, not succoured her; in ancient Egypt, her position was far higher than in late; it was high too among the Teutons. Even in historic Greece as in Rome, divorce was difficult and disgraceful, and mar- riage was hedged about with an elaborate legislation anil the sanctions of religion. The glimpses we have of ancient matriarchates speak much for the older, honourable position of women; their peculiar festivals (as in Greece, of the Thesmophoria and Arrephoria; in Rome, of the Bona Dea) and certain worships, as of the local K6pai or of Isis, kept their sex within the sphere of religion. As long, however, as their intrinsic value before God was not realized, the brute strength of the male inevitably asserted itself against their weakness; even Plato and Aristotle regarded them more as living instruments than as human souls; in high tragedy (an Alcestis, an Antigone) or history (a Cloelia, a Camilla), there is no figure which can at all compare, for religious and moral influence, with a Sara, a Rachel, an Estlier, or a Deborah. It is love for mother, rather than for wife, that Paganism acknowl- edges (see J. Donald.son, "Woman in anc. Greece and Rome, etc. . . . among the early Christians", London, ■ 1907; C. S. Devas, "Studiesof Family Life", London, 1886; Daremberg and Saglio, "Gynaceum", etc.).

Essentially connected with the fate of women is that of children. Their charm, pathos, possibilities had touched the pagan (Homer, Euripides, Vergil, Horace, Statins), even the claim of their innocence to respect (Juvenal). Yet too often they were con- sidered merely as toys or the destined support of their parents, or as the hope of the State. With Christian- ity, each becomes a soul, infinitely precious for God's sake and its own. Each has its heavenly guardian, and for each death is better than loss of innocence. Education, in the fullest sense, was created by Chris- tianity. The elaborate schemes of Aristotle and Plato are subordinated to state interest. Though based upon "sacred" books, education in ancient times, when organized, found these highly mythologi- cal, as in Greece or Rome, or rationalized, as in Confu- cian spheres of influence. Both Greeks and Romans attached great importance to a complete education, supported it with state patronage (the Ptolemies), state initiative and direction (the Antonines), and conceived for it high ideals (the "turning of the soul's eye towards the Hght", Plato, "Republic", 515 b); yet, failing to appreciate the value of the individual soul, they made education in fact merely utilitarian, the formation of a citizen being barely more complete than under the narrow and rigid systems of Sparta and Crete. The restriction, in classical Greece, of ed- ucation among women to the Hetairai is a fact signifi- cant of false ideal and disastrous in results (J. B. Mahaffy, "Old Gk. Educ", London, 1881; S. S. Laurie, "Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Educ", London, 1900; L. Grasberger, "Erziehung u. Unter- richt im klass. Alterum", Wiirzburg, 1864-81; G. Boissier, "L'instruct. publiquc dans I'cmpire romain." in "Rev. de Deux Mondes", March, 1884; J. P. Rossignol, "De I'educ. des hommes et des femmes chez les anciens", Paris, 1888).

Error in education was conditioned, we saw, by er- ror of political ideal. No doubt, all the older polities were sanctioned directly by religion. The local god and the local ruler were, for the Semites, each a nielek (king), a baal (proprietor), and their attributes and qualification almost fused. Or, the ruling dynasty descended remotely, or immediately, from a god or hero, making the king divine; so the Mikado, the Ionian and Doric overlords. Especially the Orient went this way, most notably Egypt. The Chinese emperor alone might pray to the Sublime Ruler whose son he was. Rome deifies herself and her governors, and the emperor-cult dominates army and province, and welds together aristocracy and the masses (J. G. Frazer, "Early Hist, of the Kingship", London, 1905; Maspero, "Comment Alex, devint Dieu en Egyptc"; Cumont, "Textes et Monuments de Mithra", I, p. ii, c. iii; J.Toutain, "Cultespaiens dans I'emp. rom.", I, Pa- ris, 1907). It is hard to judge of the practical effects; obviously autocracy profited, the development of obe- dience, loyalty, courage in the governed (Rome; Japan) being undoubted. Yet the system reposed upon a lie. The scandals of the court, the familiari- ties of the camp, the inevitable accidents of human life, dulled the halo of the god-king. Far more stable were the organizations resulting from the subtle polities devised by Greek experiment and speculation, and embodied in Roman law. Aristotle's political philosophy, almost designed — as Plato's frankly was — for the city state, was carried on through the Stoic vision of the City of Zeus, of world- empire, into the concrete majesty of Rome, which was itself to ,oass, when confronted in Christianity with that individual conscience it would not recognize, into the Civilas Dei of an Augustine. Aristotle and Plato survived in Aquinas, the Stoic \'ision in Dante; Gregory VII re- produced, in his age and manner, the effective work of an Augustus. And of it all the .soiil was that King- dom, Hebrew-horn, which, siiiritualizcd by Christ and preached by Paul, has been a far mightier force for civ-