DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0470
Chap. XV.]
Tfie Successors of Alexander.
447
deities of Asia and Egypt, Atys and Mithras and An-
ubis, and the respectable burghers frequently found to
their horror that their trusted slaves, nay, their wives
and daughters, were constant attendants at the secret
rites which characterised the meetings of the erani. We
are told that those rites were disgraced with debauchery
and the vilest excesses; it may probably have been so,
but we must remember that similar tales were told of
the sacred meetings of the early Christians. Certainly
much charlatanry and imposture hid under the mask of
the foreign religions. Their priests boldly claimed a
knowledge of the future. Under the influence of a
frantic religious excitement, into which they worked
themselves in the nominal worship of their deity, they
uttered broken sentences in reply to the questions of
their [votaries, sentences which these latter accepted as
the oracles of supernatural knowledge. And they pro-
fessed to cure the diseases of those who applied to them
by throwing them into a similar state of frenzy.
Those elements in the recognized Greek religions
which lent themselves to such a transformation became
more and more transfigured into the likeness of the
Asiatic enthusiasms. The mysteries of Eleusis lost
their sobriety; mysterious cults like that of Tropho-
nius attracted increasing crowds, and the temples of
Asclepius were filled with votaries hoping for the
personal appearance and inspiration of the healing
deity.
We need say little or nothing of the history of philo-
sophy during the Hellenistic period, because this is a
subject which has not been neglected like most of the
phases of later Greek life. Mr. Grote remarks that, at
the point where he closes his work, philosophy alone
of all the productions of Greek activity has life in it
and a career before it. All historians of philosophy
Tfie Successors of Alexander.
447
deities of Asia and Egypt, Atys and Mithras and An-
ubis, and the respectable burghers frequently found to
their horror that their trusted slaves, nay, their wives
and daughters, were constant attendants at the secret
rites which characterised the meetings of the erani. We
are told that those rites were disgraced with debauchery
and the vilest excesses; it may probably have been so,
but we must remember that similar tales were told of
the sacred meetings of the early Christians. Certainly
much charlatanry and imposture hid under the mask of
the foreign religions. Their priests boldly claimed a
knowledge of the future. Under the influence of a
frantic religious excitement, into which they worked
themselves in the nominal worship of their deity, they
uttered broken sentences in reply to the questions of
their [votaries, sentences which these latter accepted as
the oracles of supernatural knowledge. And they pro-
fessed to cure the diseases of those who applied to them
by throwing them into a similar state of frenzy.
Those elements in the recognized Greek religions
which lent themselves to such a transformation became
more and more transfigured into the likeness of the
Asiatic enthusiasms. The mysteries of Eleusis lost
their sobriety; mysterious cults like that of Tropho-
nius attracted increasing crowds, and the temples of
Asclepius were filled with votaries hoping for the
personal appearance and inspiration of the healing
deity.
We need say little or nothing of the history of philo-
sophy during the Hellenistic period, because this is a
subject which has not been neglected like most of the
phases of later Greek life. Mr. Grote remarks that, at
the point where he closes his work, philosophy alone
of all the productions of Greek activity has life in it
and a career before it. All historians of philosophy