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Updated: June 8, 2025
Sacrifices are heard of, which are not merely social reunions with the deity, but are intended to expiate some guilt or to remove some pollution. The sense of sin has arisen, which the Homeric world knows not, and gives a new colour to man's converse with the deity. Another new feature is the rise into prominence of cults in which man feels himself taken possession of and inspired by his god.
The tie of blood, which was felt always, was a far stronger thing than the tie of a common worship for which the tribe had to go to another part of the country, and to come in contact with a multitude of other cults.
It tended to unify the whole mass, and the imperial authorities adopted the position, with some reservations, that, provided a man accepted the cult of Caesar and Rome, he could in addition be a member of any other religion which pleased his fancy or soothed his soul. There was one exception to the ease with which the Oriental cults accepted the situation.
We have but to bear in mind the one aspiration of commencing religious thought, to wit, the attainment of a wish, to see that whatever action arose therefrom must be directed to that purpose. Hence, when we analyze the rude ceremonies of savage cults, the motive is extremely apparent. They, like their prayers, all point to the securing of some material advantage. They are designed
All these cults are far more akin to Gnosticism than mysticism, though they are saved, yet not wholly, from the lawlessness of Gnosticism by a pretty constant return to the outstanding conclusions of science and philosophy. Spinoza's Quest
Where the fourth Evangelist had preached the gospel of Love, and Paul had announced redemption by an inner and spiritual identification with Christ, "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive"; and whereas some at any rate of the Pagan cults had taught a glorious salvation by the new birth of a divine being within each man: "Be of good cheer, O initiates in the mystery of the liberated god; For to you too out of all your labors and sorrows shall come Liberation" the Nicene creed had nothing to propound except some extremely futile speculations about the relation to each other of the Father and the Son, and the relation of BOTH to the Holy Ghost, and of all THREE to the Virgin Mary speculations which only served for the renewal of shameful strife and animosities riots and bloodshed and murder within the Church, and the mockery of the heathen without.
Finally, with the union of all the clans or tribes under one supreme head, there is developed the custom of propitiating the spirits of national, rulers. This third form of the cult becomes the obligatory religion of the country; but it does not replace either of the preceding cults: the three continue to exist together.
It was the religion of a conquering race, formed in part by a coalition of tribes and a combination of cults. These were probably local gods with universal functions gradually differentiated. Another side of social life was embodied in the conception of Tezcatlipoca, who represented law and justice, but naturally became also a god of war.
But a priesthood, as a rule, was a political office like any other magistracy, and there was no exclusive tradition in the case of the chief cults of any Greek state to keep the point of view of the priests different from that of the people generally.
It had become the typical title for the God of one of the Graeco-Oriental cults which offered private salvation to individuals.
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