The
gods were spiritual beings, but the religion was not a spiritual life,
nor did it have much connection with morality. It was mainly based on
the enjoyment of earthly pleasures. If the ceremonious duties were
done, the demands of Roman religion were satisfied. It was a hard and
narrow faith, but it seemed to tend towards bringing earthly guilt and
punishment into relation with its divinities, and it contained the idea
of substitution, as is clearly seen in the stories of Curtius, Decius
Mus, and others. [Footnote: "When the gods of the community were angry,
and nobody could be laid hold of as definitely guilty, they might be
appeased by one who voluntarily gave himself up."--MOMMSEN, Book I.,
chapter 12. ]
As time passed on the rites and ceremonies increased in number and
intricacy, and it became necessary to have special orders to attend to
their observance, for the fathers of the families were not able to give
their attention to the matter sufficiently. Thus the colleges of
priests naturally grew up to care for the national religion, the most
ancient of them bearing reference to Mars the killing god. They were
the augurs and the pontifices, and as the religion grew more and more
formal and the priests less and less earnest, the observances fell into
dull and insipid performances, in which no one was interested, and in
time public service became not only tedious, but costly, penny
collections made from house to house being among the least onerous
expedients resorted to for the support of the new grafts on the tree of
devotion.
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