used to designate the god of Israel.[28] A
number of pagan thiasi had arisen who, though not exactly submitting to the
practice of the synagogue, yet worshiped none but the Most High, the
Supreme God, the Eternal God, God the Creator, to whom every mortal owed
service. These must have been the attributes ascribed to Cybele's companion
by the author of the inscription, because the verse continues: ([Greek: kai
sunechonti to pan]) "To thee, who containest and maintainest all
things."[29] Must we then believe that Hebraic monotheism had some
influence upon the mysteries of the Great Mother? This is not at all
improbable. We know that numerous Jewish colonies were established in
Phrygia by the Seleucides, and that {63} these expatriated Jews agreed to
certain compromises in order to conciliate their hereditary faith with that
of the pagans in whose midst they lived. It is also possible that the
clergy of Pessinus suffered the ascendancy of the Biblical theology. Under
the empire Attis and Cybele became the "almighty gods" (_omnipotentes_)
_par excellence_, and it is easy to see in this new conception a leaning
upon Semitic or Christian doctrines, more probably upon Semitic ones.[30]

We shall now take up the difficult question of the influence of Judaism
upon the mysteries during the Alexandrian period and at the beginning of
the empire. Many scholars have endeavored to define the influence exercised
by the pagan beliefs on those of the Jews; it has been shown how the
Israelitic monotheism became Hellenized at Alexandria and how the Jewish
propaganda attracted proselytes who revered the one God, without, however,
observing all the prescriptions of the Mosaic law. But no successful
researches have been made to ascertain how far paganism was modified
through an infiltration of Biblical ideas. Such a modification must
necessarily have taken place to some extent. A great number of Jewish
colonies were scattered everywhere on the Mediterranean, and these were
long animated with such an ardent spirit of proselytism that they were
bound to impose some of their conceptions on the pagans that surrounded
them. The magical texts which are almost the only original literary
documents of paganism we possess, clearly reveal this mixture of Israelitic
theology with that of other peoples. In them we frequently find names like
Iao (Yahveh), Sabaoth, or the names of angels side by side with those of
Egyptian or Greek divinities. Especially in