If he became a god after his death it was sometimes because he had been one ever since his birth. For men were not all born equal: if each of them possessed the _psyche_ which nourished and animated the body, yet all men did not equally receive the divine effluence (πνεῦμα) which gave reason. This reason, which distinguished man from the beasts, was akin to the fires of the stars; it established between man and heaven a community of nature (συγγένεια) which alone made it possible for him to acquire a knowledge of divinity,[262] the “gnosis” of God and of the world which He animated. This special grace also exempted him who obtained it from the passions and weaknesses to which the inclinations of the flesh exposed him. It made him pious, temperate and chaste: he was holy (_sanctus_).[263] It communicated to him a lucidity and power lacking to the common run of mortals. He penetrated the secrets of nature and commanded the elements; he received revelations and was capable of prophetic divination. Inversely, every exceptional quality was regarded as superhuman; every extraordinary act seemed a miracle. The most enlightened spoke merely of celestial inspiration. “_Nemo magnus vir sine quodam adflatu divino_,” said Cicero.[264] The many saw in these privileged beings earthly incarnations of all the Olympians. From the moment of their appearance on the earth these men were really gods; their soul kept its higher nature in all its purity; it would indubitably return after death to its place of origin. Such are the leading ideas which explain the belief in the immortality of the heroes.