64 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE Isis were those of the Great Mother from Phrygia, of Baal from Syria, and of Mithra from Persia. Along with such exalted aims these religions preserved many primitive rites and some notions of a questionable or Relation of even distinctly immoral and superstitious char- Christianity ac ter. But it is somewhat difficult to judge them Oriental fairly, because most of the information which religions ^as come to us concerning them is from the writ- ings of early Christians, who were bitterly opposed to them and regarded them as indecent parodies upon the Christian faith invented by the Devil. And it is evident that in a number of respects they roughly resembled Christianity, which, of course, was one of the many religions that spread from the East over the Roman world and which for a long time had to struggle with the others for supremacy. To its rise we shall presently devote a separate chapter. The spread of these cults meant the break-up of civic religion. Their legends were different from those of classical . . mythology. In place of Greek intellectual free- bility of dom they imposed an authoritative revelation. religion with Civic service was replaced by mystic sacraments, classical Affairs of the present world were liable to be civilization t , . ., . neglected and the attention centered upon things of the spirit or the world to come. The tendency was to re- tire to a desert and live as a hermit rather than go to the frontier as a soldier or rear a large family of children. The early Christians were regarded as unsocial and dangerous by the people of the ancient cities and by the Roman gov- ernment. Gradually, under the increasing pressure of the Oriental religions, philosophy lost much of its former sanity am Philosophy rational investigation of nature ceased. Religious and science mysticism was the main interest of the phi- tend toward J ••••■« • mysticism losophy called Neo-Platonism because it pro- and magic f esse( j to be based upon Plato's doctrines, and of which Plotinus (about 204-269 a.d.), born in Egypt, may be regarded as the founder. The chief problem of this phi. losophy was not the study of nature, nor the conduct; of niatf
