intensity in it, until it was
reinforced by two alien influences.

First, we have the ancient worship of the Sun, implicit, if not
explicit, in a great part of the oldest Greek rituals, and then
idealized by Plato in the _Republic_, where the Sun is the author of all
light and life in the material world, as the Idea of Good is in the
ideal world. This worship came gradually into contact with the
traditional and definite Sun-worship of Persia. The final combination
took place curiously late. It was the Roman conquests of Cilicia,
Cappadocia, Commagene, and Armenia that gave the decisive moment.[139:2]
To men who had wearied of the myths of the poets, who could draw no more
inspiration from their Apollo and Hyperion, but still had the habits and
the craving left by their old Gods, a fresh breath of reality came with
the entrance of +Helios aniketos Mithras+, 'Mithras, the Unconquered
Sun'. But long before the triumph of Mithraism as the military religion
of the Roman frontier, Greek literature is permeated with a kind of
intense language about the Sun, which seems derived from Plato.[139:3]
In later times, in the fourth century A. D. for instance, it has
absorbed some more full-blooded and less critical element as well.

Secondly, all the seven planets. These had a curious history. The
planets were of course divine and living bodies, so much Plato gave us.
Then come arguments and questions scattered through the Stoic and
eclectic literature. Is it the planet itself that is divine, or is the
planet under the guidance of a divine spirit? The latter seems to win
the day. Anthropomorphism has stolen back upon us: we can use the old
language and speak simply of the planet Mercury as +Hermou aster+. It is
the star of Hermes, and Hermes is the spirit who guides it.[140:1] Even
Plato in his old age had much to say about the souls of the seven
planets. Further, each planet has its sphere. The Earth is in the
centre, then comes the sphere of the Moon, then that of the Sun, and so
on through a range of seven spheres. If all things are full of gods, as
the wise ancients have said, what about those parts of the sphere in
which the shining planet for the moment is not? Are they without god?
Obviously not. The whole sphere is filled with innumerable spirits
everywhere. It is all Hermes, all Aphrodite. (We are more familiar with
the Latin names, Mercury and Venus.) But one part only is visible. The
voice of one school, as usual, is rais