s, Orpheus, the
Chaldean oracles, Homer, and especially the esoteric doctrines of the
mysteries--and subordinated its theories to their teachings. As there must
be no contradiction between all the disparate traditions of different
countries and different periods, because all have emanated from one
divinity, philosophy, the _ancilla theologiae_, attempted to reconcile them
by the aid of allegory. And thus, by means of compromises between old
Oriental ideas and Greco-Latin thought, an _ensemble_ of beliefs slowly
took form, the truth of which seemed to have been established by common
consent. So when the atrophied parts of the Roman religion had been
removed, foreign elements had combined to give it a new vigor and in it
themselves became modified. This hidden work of internal decomposition and
reconstruction had unconsciously produced a religion very different from
the one Augustus had attempted to restore.

However, we would be tempted to believe that there had been no change in
the Roman faith, were we to read certain authors that fought idolatry in
those days. Saint Augustine, for instance, in his _City of God_, pleasantly
pokes fun at the multitude of Italian gods that presided over the paltriest
acts of life.[3] But the useless, ridiculous deities of the old pontifical
litanies no longer existed outside of the books of antiquaries. As a matter
of fact, the Christian polemicist's authority in this instance was Varro.
The defenders of the {203} church sought weapons against idolatry even in
Xenophanes, the first philosopher to oppose Greek polytheism. It has
frequently been shown that apologists find it difficult to follow the
progress of the doctrines which they oppose, and often their blows fall
upon dead men. Moreover, it is a fault common to all scholars, to all
imbued with book learning, that they are better acquainted with the
opinions of ancient authors than with the sentiments of their
contemporaries, and that they prefer to live in the past rather than in the
world surrounding them. It was easier to reproduce the objections of the
Epicureans and the skeptics against abolished beliefs, than to study the
defects of an active organism with a view to criticizing it. In those times
the merely formal culture of the schools caused many of the best minds to
lose their sense of reality.

The Christian polemics therefore frequently give us an inadequate idea of
paganism in its decline. When they complacently insisted u