Chapter XXV: Part I: ; also in A Short History of Freethought, vol. i, ch. iii, v,

vi, and vii. For the social bearing of ancient religion consult Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité Antique; Boissier, La Religion romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins (2 tom. 4e édit. 1892); Burckhardt, Griechische Culturgeschichte, 3 Bde. 1898-1900; Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (five vols. 1896-1908); Maury, Histoire des religions de la Grèce antique, 3 tom. 1857; and Kalthoff's Rise of Christianity. Renan has many suggestive pages on social conditions, particularly in Les Apôtres; but heed must be taken of the frequent contradictions in his generalizations. As to the religious life of the Greek private religious societies, see ch. xvii of Les Apôtres; the treatise of M. Foucart, before cited; Dr. Hatch's Bampton lectures on The Organization of the Early Christian Churches; and his Hibbert lectures on The Influence of Greek Ideas, etc., before cited. For Rome, see Professor W. Warde Fowler's Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero (1909); and Professor Samuel Dill's Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (1908).

§ 2. Jewish Orthodoxy

Schürer's Jewish People in the Time of Christ gives the main clues from Josephus, the Talmud, and the O. T. apocrypha. See further M. Friedländer's Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Christenthums (Wien, 1894) for light as to the relations between the Pharisees and the common people. For a good general view see Reuss, Histoire de la théologie chrétienne au siècle apostolique (2e édit. 1860), liv. i. Nicolas, Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs, 1860, gives a fuller research. Accounts of the surviving "Nestorians" are given in Missionary Researches in Armenia, by E. Smith and H. D. O. Dwight, 1834, and in Dr. A. Grant's The Nestorians, 2nd. ed. 1843.

§ 3. Jewish Sects

A good conspectus and discussion of the data as to the Essenes is given by Dr. Ginsburg in his pamphlet The Essenes, 1864. On the sects, see also Schürer, Div. ii, vol. ii; Bishop Lightfoot, Dissertations on the Apostolic Age; and Oskar Holtzmann, Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, 1895.

§ 4. Gentile Cults

A general view of non-Christian in relation to Christian religion is most readably presented in M. Salomon Reinach's Orpheus: Histoire generale des Religions (6e édit. 1909). The best mythological dictionary is Roscher's great Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, but Preller's Griechische Mythologie and Römische Mythologie and Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (three vols. 1844-49) give most of the data. A general notion of the infiltration of pagan religion into Christianity may be gathered from Les Saints Successeurs des Dieux by P. Saintyves (1907); and Rendel Harris's The Dioscuri in Christian Legend (Oxford, 1903). In regard to the cults of Attis and Adonis, consult Frazer's Adonis, Attis, Osiris (vol. iv of new ed. of Golden Bough) and Foucart Des Associations religieuses chez les Grecs; for the cult of Dionysos, the same and Frazer's Golden Bough; also (with caution) Mr. R. Brown's Great Dionysiak Myth, two vols. 1877-8, and the older Recherches sur le Culte de Bacchus of Rolle (3 tom. 1824), both works of great learning. Lucian's treatise De Dea Syra gives special information on Syrian religion. Sidelights are thrown on the cults in question by the Christian Fathers, in particular Julius Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum (best ed. Halm's); Epiphanius, De Hæresis; Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies (trans. in Ante-Nicene Library, vol. vi). The main clues to the Osiris cult are in The Book of the Dead (Eng. tr. by Budge, 1898) and Plutarch's treatise On Isis and Osiris, which should be read, however, in the light of Tiele's or some other competent History of Egyptian Religion. The main data as to Mithraism are collected in the author's essay in Pagan Christs. The standard research on the subject is Cumont's Textes et Monuments Figurés relatifs aux Mystères de Mithra (1896-9: add. vol. 1913). Valuable light is thrown on the oriental side of Christian mythology by Professor Hermann Gunkel, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verständnis des Neuen Testaments, 1903, trans. in The Monist, Chicago, 1903.

§ 5. Ethics: Popular and Philosophic

The parallels and coincidences between the teachings of Paul and of Seneca are fully set forth by Bishop Lightfoot in the excursus on Paul and Seneca reprinted in his Discussions on the Apostolic Age, where also the significance of the parallels is considered and the literature of the subject described. In the general connection may be consulted Havet's Le Christianisme et ses origines, 4 tom. 1872-84; Martha's Les Moralistes sous l'empire romain, 14e édit. 1881; Lecky's History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne; Professor Dill's Roman Society During the Last Century of the Empire of the West; Baur's Drei Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der alten Philosophie und ihres Verhältniss zum Christenthum (new ed. 1876), where there is a thorough discussion of Seneca's case; Professor M. Baumgarten's Lucius Annæus Seneca und das Christenthum (1895); Uhlhorn's Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism (Eng. tr. from 3rd Ger. ed. 1879); Renan's Marc Aurèle, and ch. xvii. of Les Apôtres; W. Soltau's Das Fortleben des Heidentums in der altchristlichen Kirche, 1906; Professor Max Pohlenz's Vom Zorne Gottes: Eine Studie über den Einfluss der Griechischen Philosophie auf das alte Christentum, 1909; J. A. Farrer's Paganism and Christianity, 1891 (rep. R. P. A.); W. M. Flinders Petrie's Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt, 1898; and Ludwig Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, Eng. tr. by Marian Evans (George Eliot). The Jewish Rabbinical ethic is defended as against Christian attack in an able article on "Rabbinic Judaism and the Epistles of Paul" by C. G. Montefiore in the Jewish Quarterly Review for January, 1901. Some of the other issues are discussed in detail in the author's Short History of Freethought, vol. i, chs. iv, vi, vii.