The Religious Experience of the Roman People | Page 6

attention by this very characteristic. At one time,
however far back, it must have accurately expressed the needs and the

aspirations of the Roman people in their struggle for existence. It is
obviously, as described by the writers I have quoted, a very mature
growth, a highly developed system; and the story, if we could recover it,
of the way in which it came to be thus formalised, should be one of the
deepest interest for students of the history of religion. Another story,
too, that of the gradual discovery of the inadequacy of this system, and
of the engrafting upon it, or substitution for it, of foreign rites and
beliefs, is assuredly not less instructive; and here, fortunately, our
records make the task of telling it an easier one.
Now these two stories, taken together, sum up what we may call the
religious experience of the Roman people; and as it is upon these that I
wish to concentrate your attention during this and the following course,
I have called these lectures by that name. My plan is not to provide an
exhaustive account of the details of the Roman worship or of the nature
of the Roman gods: that can be found in the works of carefully trained
specialists, of whom I shall have something to say presently. More in
accordance with the intentions of the Founder of these lectures, I think,
will be an attempt to follow out, with such detailed comment as may be
necessary, the religious experience of the Romans, as an important part
of their history. And this happens to coincide with my own inclination
and training; for I have been all my academic life occupied in learning
and teaching Roman history, and the fascination which the study of the
Roman religion has long had for me is simply due to this fact.
Whatever may be the case with other religions, it is impossible to think
of that of the Romans as detached from their history as a whole; it is an
integral part of the life and growth of the people. An adequate
knowledge of Roman history, with all its difficulties and doubts, is the
only scientific basis for the study of Roman religion, just as an
adequate knowledge of Jewish history is the only scientific basis for a
study of Jewish religion. The same rule must hold good in a greater or
less degree with all other forms of religion of the higher type, and even
when we are dealing with the religious ideas of savage peoples it is
well to bear it steadfastly in mind. I may be excused for suggesting that
in works on comparative religion and morals this principle is not
always sufficiently realised, and that the panorama of religious or
quasi-religious practice from all parts of the world, and found among

peoples of very different stages of development, with which we are
now so familiar, needs constant testing by increased knowledge of
those peoples in all their relations of life. At any rate, in dealing with
Roman evidence the investigator of religious history should also be a
student of Roman history generally, for the facts of Roman life, public
and private, are all closely concatenated together, and spring with an
organic growth from the same root. The branches tend to separate, but
the tree is of regular growth, compact in all its parts, and you cannot
safely concentrate your attention on one of these parts to the
comparative neglect of the rest. Conversely, too, the great story of the
rise and decay of the Roman dominion cannot be properly understood
without following out the religious history of this people--their
religious experience, as I prefer to call it. To take an example of this, let
me remind you of two leading facts in Roman history: first, the strength
and tenacity of the family as a group under the absolute government of
the paterfamilias; secondly, the strength and tenacity of the idea of the
State as represented by the imperium of its magistrates. How different
in these respects are the Romans from the Celts, the Scandinavians,
even from the Greeks! But these two facts are in great measure the
result of the religious ideas of the people, and, on the other hand, they
themselves react with astonishing force on the fortunes of that religion.
I do not indeed wish to be understood as maintaining that the religion
of the Roman was the most important element in his mental or civic
development: far from it. I should be the first to concede that the
religious element in the Roman mind was not that part of it which has
left the deepest impress on history, or contributed much, except in
externals, to our modern ideas of the Divine and of worship. It is not,