parted by the practice of sacred ceremonies were
the indispensable condition for obtaining eternal life.[24] The mysteries
promised a blessed immortality to their initiates, and claimed to reveal to
them infallible means of effecting their salvation. According to a
generally accepted symbol, the spirit animating man was a spark, detached
from the fires shining in the ether; it partook of their divinity and so,
it was believed, had descended to the earth to undergo a trial. It could
literally be said that

"Man is a fallen god who still remembers heaven."

After having left their corporeal prisons, the pious souls reascended
towards the celestial regions of the divine stars, to live forever in
endless brightness beyond the starry spheres.[25]

But at the other extremity of the world, facing this luminous realm,
extended the somber kingdom of evil spirits. They were irreconcilable
adversaries of the gods and men of good will, and constantly left the
infernal regions to roam about the earth and scatter evil. With the aid of
the celestial spirits, the faithful had to struggle forever against their
designs and seek to avert their anger by means of bloody sacrifices. {210}
But, with the help of occult and terrible processes, the magician could
subject them to his power and compel them to serve his purposes. This
demonology, the monstrous offspring of Persian dualism, favored the rise of
every superstition.[26]

However, the reign of the evil powers was not to last forever. According to
common opinion the universe would be destroyed by fire[27] after the times
had been fulfilled. All the wicked would perish, but the just would be
revived and establish the reign of universal happiness in the regenerated
world.[28]

The foregoing is a rapid sketch of the theology of paganism after three
centuries of Oriental influence. From coarse fetichism and savage
superstitions the learned priests of the Asiatic cults had gradually
produced a complete system of metaphysics and eschatology, as the Brahmins
built up the spiritualistic monism of the Vedanta beside the monstrous
idolatry of Hinduism, or, to confine our comparisons to the Latin world, as
the jurists drew from the traditional customs of primitive tribes the
abstract principles of a legal system that governs the most cultivated
societies. This religion was no longer like that of ancient Rome, a mere
collection of propitiatory and expiatory rites performed by the citizen for
t