Prometheus Revisited A Second Look at the Religious Function in Human Affairs, and a Proposa... Book

One of Turcan's themes is how the Eastern cults provided a bridge from impersonal, remote classical religion to the personal salvation religion of Christianity.

"An uncrossable frontier had formerly separated the immortal and happy Olympian gods from humankind, which was obviously mortal and unhappy. But Dionysus, Attis and Osiris themselves had undergone mutilation, suffering and death; and they had triumphed over it." [pg. 22]

"In space as well as time, the cosmic and sovereign gods of the Hellenized East in some way gave their worshippers an unrestricted prospect, while remaining close to their all-too-human preoccupations. These gods were simultaneously personal, personally attentive to the fears or aspirations of individuals, and universal, responsible for the immense terrestrial and supraterrestrial world, which inexpressibly surpassed them. More intimately and constantly present than the gods of the classical pantheon in the heart of their worshippers, but endowed at the same time with a boundless power that was without either geographical or potential frontiers, each was all things to all men in the great Everything over which they had sovereign domination." [pg. 26]

Increasingly during the imperial Roman era "the vast majority of Roman citizens did not live in Rome, were not ethnically or physically linked with Rome, took no part in the affairs of the city.... Rome was the great political and legal fatherland, cosmopolitan and generous, but it was no longer a 'city' properly speaking: it was an idea. The imperial regime released the ordinary citizens from their political obligations. They decided nothing, no longer voted (since Tiberius) for the election of magistrates, no longer deliberated on the affairs of the URBS. This void was favourable to the formation of marginal groups. Where the individual no longer plays an active, direct and personal part in the running of the city, he inevitably loses interest and seeks responsibilities elsewhere, in other solidarities, other 'fraternities'. Religious micro-societies and 'mystery' sects assure him of a kind of reintegration and existence, when traditional frameworks and institutional authorities are in decline or failing in their mission.

"Even those with official, administrative responsibility, in the emperor's service (civil servants, officers, soldiers transferred to distant postings, the borders of the Sahara, Scotland or the banks of the Rhine), needed transportable gods, mobile or mobilizable, cosmic and omnipotent, who could journey beyond the indigenous and localized horizon of the classical religions. They needed cults in which they knew one another and met together to share the same ideal, the same sense of the world and life, the same bread. There is no strong grouping without the solidarity of the sacred and the secret, which preserves the singularity of the brotherhood, its moral cohesion and its loyalty." [pg. 17]