celebrate his
voluptuous feasts under the friendly eyes of Serapis. He extolled the
merits of the deified Antinous in inscriptions couched in the ancient
language of the Pharaohs, and set the fashion of statues hewn out of black
basalt in the Egyptian style.[36] The amateurs of that period affected to
prefer the hieratic rigidity of the barbarian idols to the elegant freedom
of Alexandrian art. Those esthetic manifestations probably corresponded to
religious prejudices, and the Latin worship always endeavored to imitate
the art of temples in the Nile valley more closely than did the Greek. This
evolution was in conformity with all the tendencies of the imperial period.

By what secret virtue did the Egyptian religion exercise this irresistible
influence over the Roman world? What new elements did those priests, who
made proselytes in every province, give the Roman world? Did the success of
their preaching mean progress or retrogression from the standard of the
ancient Roman faith? These are complex and delicate questions that would
require minute analysis and cautious treatment with a constant and exact
observation of shades. I am compelled to limit myself to a rapid sketch,
which, I {87} fear, will appear rather dry and arbitrary, like every
generalization.

The particular doctrines of the mysteries of Isis and Serapis in regard to
the nature and power of the gods were not, or were but incidentally, the
reasons for the triumph of these mysteries. It has been said that the
Egyptian theology always remained in a "fluid state,"[37] or better in a
state of chaos. It consisted of an amalgamation of disparate legends, of an
aggregate of particular cults, as Egypt herself was an aggregate of a
number of districts. This religion never formulated a coherent system of
generally accepted dogmas. It permitted the coexistence of conflicting
conceptions and traditions, and all the subtlety of its clergy never
accomplished, or rather never began, the task of fusing those
irreconcilable elements into one harmonious synthesis.[38] For the
Egyptians there was no principle of contradiction. All the heterogeneous
beliefs that ever obtained in the various districts during the different
periods of a very long history, were maintained concurrently and formed an
inextricable confusion in the sacred books.

About the same state of affairs prevailed in the Occidental worship of the
Alexandrian divinities. In the Occident, just as in Egypt, th