n, or even the Egyptian, who
was travelling as a merchant or living as a slave in the western parts
of the Empire, brought with him the worship of his own god; but the
changed conditions of his life were reflected in his religion. As a
political entity his country had disappeared; the institutions which
were originally bound up with the name of his god had vanished, and had
become an ever-fading memory. What these men without {4} countries
asked for was personal salvation, and this they believed that they
could find in their mysterious worship. Each of these religions was
rapidly developing in the first century into a sacramental cult which
offered the blessing of partial protection in this world, and of a
happy immortality after death to all who accepted and were accepted by
its divine lord, and took part in its sacraments or mysteries.

Much is obscure in their history, even though hypothesis be given the
widest range and a friendly hearing. The central problem, which still
requires much further attention than it has as yet received, is how and
when these religions became mystery cults. As we know them in the
Roman Empire all have the same central feature of offering personal
salvation to their adherents through sacraments. But did they have
this characteristic in their original homes, where they were national
religions? The evidence that they did so is not convincing, and
perhaps cannot be, because of the absence of literary sources. For
instance, one of the best known of these religions is the cult of Isis,
for the nature of which in the second and third centuries there is
admirable evidence in the writings of Plutarch and Apuleius. It was
then clearly a sacramental religion offering private salvation. It was
also connected with a myth which was obviously a hindrance rather than
a help to these educated Romans, and this myth can be traced back to
the monuments of ancient {5} Egypt. Are we justified in concluding
that the interpretation in ancient Egypt was the same as in imperial
Rome? It may be so; but it is possible that the sacramental nature,
though not the element of private salvation came in, in Hellenistic or
in Imperial times, to meet the necessity of Egyptians who had lost all
sense of belonging to a living nation or having a national religion,
and of Greeks who with decadent enthusiasm desired imported rites. In
any case, a synthesis was rapidly established between these cults and
the official