cities of the
world-empire with their mixed populations it had entirely disappeared.
Religion was no longer primarily a concern of society; it was a personal
matter. In the face of the enormous selection of gods which ancient
paganism came gradually to proffer, the individual was free to choose, as
individual or as a member of a communion based upon religious, not
political, sympathy. Under these circumstances the existence of the gods
and their power and will to help their worshippers was the only thing of
interest; all the old tales about them were more than ever myths of no
religious value. On closer inspection Lucian indeed proves to have
exercised a certain selection in his satire. Gods like Asclepius and
Serapis, who were popular in his day, he prefers to say nothing about; and
even with a phenomenon like Christianity he deals cautiously; he sticks to
the old Olympian gods. Thus his derision of these constitutes an indirect
proof that they had gone out of vogue, and his forbearance on other points
is a proof of the power of the current religion over contemporary minds.
As to ascribing any deeper religious conviction to Lucian--were it even of
a purely negative kind--that is, in view of the whole character of his
work, out of the question. To be sure, his polemical pamphlets against
superstition show clearly, like those of Oenomaus, that the religious
reaction did not run its course without criticism from certain sides; but
even here it is significant that the criticism comes from a professional
jester and not from a serious religious thinker.

A few words remain to be said about the two monotheistic religions which
in the days of the Roman Empire came to play a great, one of them indeed a
decisive, part. I have already referred to pagan society's attitude
towards Judaism and Christianity, and pointed out that the adherents of
both were designated and treated as atheists--the Jews only occasionally
and with certain reservations, the Christians nearly always and
unconditionally. The question here is, how far this designation was
justified according to the definition of atheism which is the basis of our
inquiry.

In the preceding pages we have several times referred to the fact that the
real enemy of Polytheism is not the philosophical theology, which
generally tends more or less towards Pantheism, but Monotheism. It is in
keeping with this that the Jews and the Christians in practice are
downright deniers of the p