points of view which were easy to combine with those of the Orient, perhaps because they had
been borrowed from the East at a much earlier time. With Plotinus and Porphyry the development
of pagan philosophy ends.
The thought of these men, however, though deeply religious, was not capable, without much
transformation, of inspiring a victorious popular religion. Their philosophy was difficult, and
could not be generally understood; their way of salvation was too intellectual for the masses. Their
conservatism led them to uphold the traditional religion of Greece, which, however, they had to
interpret allegorically in order to soften its immoral elements and to reconcile it with their
philosophical monotheism. The Greek religion had fallen into decay, being unable to compete
with Eastern rituals and theologies. The oracles had become silent, and the priesthood had never
formed a powerful distinct caste. The attempt to revive Greek religion had therefore an archaistic
character which gave it a certain feebleness and pedantry, especially noticeable in the Emperor
Julian. Already in the third century, it could have been foreseen that some Asiatic religion would
conquer the Roman world, though at that time there were still several competitors which all
seemed to have a chance of victory.
Christianity combined elements of strength from various sources. From the Jews it accepted a
Sacred Book and the doctrine that all religions but one are false and evil; but it avoided the racial
exclusiveness of the Jews and the inconveniences of the Mosaic law. Later Judaism had already
learnt to believe in the life after death, but the Christians gave a new definiteness to heaven and
hell, and to the ways of reaching the orte and escaping the other. Easter combined the Jewish
Passover with pagan celebrations of the resurrected God. Persian dualism was absorbed, but with
a firmer assurance of the ultimate omnipotence of the good principle, and with the addition that
the pagan gods were followers of Satan. At first the Christians were not the equals of their
adversaries in philosophy or in ritual, but gradually these deficiencies were made good. At first,
philosophy was more advanced among the semi-Christian Gnostics than among the orthodox; but
from the time of Origen onwards, the Christians developed an adequate philosophy by
modification of Neoplatonism. Ritual among the early Christians is a somewhat obscure subject,