Across the Boundaries of the Schools

Abstract

Although philosophic thought in the two first centuries of the era of the Roman emperors remained confined to the old classic systems, it developed within these limits fairly freely and with a full understanding of the spiritual needs of the time. The philosopher of that time, even if he was by conviction an adherent of one of these schools, did not wish merely to repeat its current doctrines that he found and accepted there, but he studied also other systems and freely selected from them certain elements to frame his own philosophy. Syncretism — the word expresses this union and conciliation of various philosophic and religious schools — was the main external feature of the spiritual life of that time. Internally, this life was marked by an increasing inclination towards religion. It was, however, not a revival of the religion of the Greek Olympic gods, nor of the Roman gods who had been assimilated to them. Religious yearning, stirred by historical upheavals, dissatisfied with the prevailing state cults and influenced by new gods and new forms of worship after the unification of the ancient world with the Roman Empire, abolished the boundaries of national religions and attached itself with inquisitive trust to notable alien cults, especially to those giving man certainty or at least hope of a life after death. Greeks and Romans became adherents of the Persian cult of Mithra and also of the Egyptian Isis, they were initiated into newly flourishing domestic and foreign mysteries, they became interested in Orphic and Sihyline oracles, indulged in spiritism and ascetism.