sgust with it. The decay of the old political cults and
syncretism produced a disposition in favour of monotheism both among the
cultured classes who had been prepared for it by philosophy, and also
gradually among the masses. Religion and individual morality became more
closely connected. There was developed a corresponding attempt at
spiritualising the worship alongside of and within the ceremonial forms,
and at giving it a direction towards the moral elevation of man through
the ideas of moral personality, conscience, and purity. The ideas of
repentance and of expiation and healing of the soul became of special
importance, and consequently such Oriental cults came to the front as
required the former and guaranteed the latter. But what was sought above
all, was to enter into an inner union with the Deity, to be saved by him
and become a partaker in the possession and enjoyment of his life. The
worshipper consequently longed to find a "praesens numen" and the
revelation of him in the cultus, and hoped to put himself in possession
of the Deity by asceticism and mysterious rites. This new piety longed
for health and purity of soul, and elevation above earthly things, and
in connection with these a divine, that is, a painless and eternal life
beyond the grave ("renatus in aeternum taurobolio"). A world beyond was
desired, sought for and viewed with an uncertain eye. By detachment from
earthly things and the healing of its diseases (the passions) the freed,
new born soul should return to its divine nature and existence. It is
not a hope of immortality such as the ancients had dreamed of for their
heroes, where they continue, as it were, their earthly existence in
blessed enjoyment. To the more highly pitched self-consciousness this
life had become a burden, and in the miseries of the present, one hoped
for a future life in which the pain and vulgarity of the unreal life of
earth would be completely laid aside ([Greek: Enkrateia] and [Greek:
anastasis]). If the new moralistic feature stood out still more
emphatically in the piety of the second century, it vanished more and
more behind the religious feature, the longing after life[124] and after
a Redeemer God. No one could any longer be a God who was not also a
saviour.[125]

With all this Polytheism was not suppressed, but only put into a
subordinate place. On the contrary, it was as lively and active as ever.
For the idea of a _numen supremum_ did not exclude belief in the