cantor began the lamentation and the people responded in a refrain which constantly repeated itself, as follows: The Cantor sang: "On account of the palace which lies waste," and the people responded: "We sit here lonely and weep.' In the same style they continued: Cantor: "On account of the temple which lies waste," People: "We sit here lonely and weep." Cantor: "On account of our majesty which is gone," People: "We sit here lonely and weep." Cantor: "On account of its walls which were destroyed," People: "We sit here lonely and weep." Cantor: "On account of our majesty which is gone." People: "We sit here lonely and weep." Cantor: "On account of the great men who are laid low," People: "We sit here lonely and weep." Cantor: "On account of the precious stones which have been burned," People: "We sit here lonely and weep.' Cantor: "On account of the priests which have sinned," People: "We sit here lonely and weep." The responsary changes into an invocation where the cantor begins, "May the kingdom of Zion reappear," and the people answer, "Comfort those who mourn over Jerusalem.” The psalm which is repeated here every Friday is the 79th, which, according to Wellhausen, was written by a Hebrew poet in the second century B. C. when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Syrians (196 B. C.). We quote from it verses 1-8: "Heathens, O God, have pressed into Thine inheritance, They have given the dead bodies of Thy Servants As food to the birds of the air, The flesh of Thy pious ones to the wild beasts of the field; They have poured out their blood like water, Round about Jerusalem, and there is none to bury them. We are become a scoff to our neighbors, The derision and scorn of those round about us. "How long, O JHVH? wilt Thou be angry for ever? Shall Thy jealousy burn like fire? Pour Thine anger over heathen, who do not acknowledge Thee! Over kingdoms that do not invoke Thy Name! For they have consumed Jacob, And made desolate his dwelling. Remember not against us the sins of our forefathers, For deep is our misery." Whereas the Jews at Jerusalem pray thus at the wailing place, an ancient Hebrew poet of the Babylonian Exile gave expression to his love of the Holy City in Psalm cxxxvii, 5-6 as follows: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. "If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.* BY FRANZ CUMONT. W THEN, during the fourth century, the weakened empire split asunder like an overburdened scale whose beam is broken, this political divorce only perpetuated a moral separation that had existed for a long time. The opposition between the Greco-Oriental and the Latin worlds manifests itself especially in religion and in the attitude taken by the central power toward it. Occidental paganism was almost exclusively Latin under the empire. After the annexation of Spain, Gaul and Brittany the old Iberian, Celtic and other religions were unable to keep up the unequal struggle against the more advanced religion of the conquerors. The marvelous rapidity with which the literature of the civilizing Romans was accepted by the subject peoples has frequently been pointed out. Its influence was felt in the temples as well as in the forum; it transformed the prayers to the gods as well as the conversation between men. Besides, it was part of the political program of the Cæsars to make the adoption of the Roman divinities general, and the government imposed the rules of its sacerdotal law as well as the principles of its public and civil law upon its new subjects. The municipal laws prescribed the election of pontiffs and augurs in common with the judicial duumvirs. In Gaul druidism, with its oral traditions embodied in long poems, perished and disappeared less on account of the police measures directed against it than in consequence of its voluntary relinquishment by the Celts, as soon as they came under the ascendency of Latin culture. In Spain it is difficult to find any traces of the aboriginal religions. Even in Africa, where the Punic religion was far more developed, it maintained itself only by assuming an entirely Roman appearance. Baal became Saturn and Eshmoun Esculapius. It is doubtful if there was one temple in all the provinces of Italy and Gaul where, * Translated by A. M. Thielen. at the time of the disappearance of idolatry, the ceremonies were celebrated according to native rites and in the local idiom. To this exclusive predominance of Latin is due the fact that it remained the only liturgic language of the Occidental Church, which here as in many other cases perpetuated a pre-existing condition and maintained a unity previously established. By imposing her speech upon the inhabitants of Ireland and Germany, Christian Rome simply continued the work of assimilation in the barbarian provinces subject to her influence that she had begun while pagan.1 2 In the Orient, however, the churches that are separate from the Greek orthodoxy use, even to-day, a variety of dialects calling to mind the great diversity of races formerly subject to Rome. In those times twenty varieties of speech translated the religious thought of the peoples joined under the domination of the Cæsars. At the beginning of our era Hellenism had not yet conquered the uplands of Anatolia, nor central Syria, nor the divisions of Egypt. Annexation to the empire might retard and in certain regions weaken the power of expansion of Greek civilization, but it could not substitute Latin culture for it except around the camps of the legions guarding the frontier and in a very few colonies. It especially benefitted the individuality of each region. The native religions retained all their prestige and independence. In their ancient sanctuaries that took rank with the richest and most famous of the world, a powerful clergy continued to practise ancestral devotions according to barbarian rites, and frequently in a barbarian tongue. The traditional liturgy, everywhere performed with scrupulous respect, remained Egyptian or Semitic, Phrygian or Persian, according to the locality. Neither pontifical law nor augural science ever obtained credit outside of the Latin world. It is a characteristic fact that the worship of the deified emperors, the only official worship required of every one by the government as a proof of loyalty, should have originated of its own accord in Asia, received its inspiration from the purest monarchic traditions, and revived in form and spirit the veneration accorded to the Diadochi by their subjects. Not only were the gods of Egypt and Asia never supplanted like those of Gaul or Spain, but they soon crossed the seas and gained worshipers in every Latin province. Isis and Serapis, Cybele and Attis, the Syrian Baals, Sabazius and Mithra were honored by 1Cf. Lejay, Rev. d'hist. et litt. relig., XI, 1906, p. 370. 'Holl, Volkssprache in Kleinasien, 1908, pp. 250 ff. Hahn, Rom und Romanismus im griechisch-römischen Osten bis auf die Zeit Hadrians. Leipsic, 1906. brotherhoods of believers as far as the remotest limits of Germany. The Oriental reaction that we perceive from the beginning of our era, in studying the history of art, literature, and philosophy, manifested itself with incomparably greater power in the religious sphere. First, there was a slow infiltration of despised exotic religions, then, toward the end of the first century, the Orontes, the Nile and the Halys, to use the words of Juvenal, flowed into the Tiber, to the great indignation of the old Romans. Finally, a hundred years later, an influx of Egyptian, Semitic and Persian beliefs and conceptions took place that threatened to submerge all that the Greek and Roman genius had laboriously built up. What called forth and permitted this spiritual commotion, of which the triumph of Christianity was the outcome? Why was the influence of the Orient strongest in the religious field? These questions claim our attention. Like all great phenomena of history, this particular one was determined by a number of influences that concurred in producing it. In the mass of half-known particulars that brought it about, certain factors or leading causes, of which every one has in turn been considered the most important, may be distinguished. If we yielded to the tendency of many excellent minds of to-day and regarded history as the resultant of economic and social forces, it would be easy to show their influence in that great religious movement. The industrial and commercial preponderance of the Orient was manifest, for there were situated the principal centers of production and export. The ever increasing traffic with the Levant induced merchants to establish themselves in Italy, in Gaul, in the Danubian countries, in Africa and in Spain; in some cities they formed real colonies. The Syrian emigrants were especially numerous. Compliant, quick and diligent, they went wherever they expected profit, and their colonies, scattered as far as the north of Gaul, were centers for the religious propaganda of paganism just as the Jewish communities of the Diaspora were for Christian preaching. Italy not only bought her grain from Egypt, she imported men also; she ordered slaves from Phrygia, Cappadocia, Syria and Alexandria to cultivate her depopulated fields and perform the domestic duties in her palaces. Who can tell what influence chambermaids from Antioch or Memphis gained over the minds of their mistresses? At the same time the necessities of war removed officers and men from the Euphrates to the Rhine or to the outskirts of the Sahara, and everywhere they remained faithful to the gods of their faraway country. The requirements of the government transferred functionaries and their clerks, the latter frequently of |