The philosophic romance of Euhemerus, published early in the third century B. C., had instantaneous success and enormous influence.[160:1] It was one of the first Greek books translated into Latin, and became long afterwards a favourite weapon of the Christian fathers in their polemics against polytheism. 'Euhemerism' was, on the face of it, a very brilliant theory; and it had, as we have noticed, a special appeal for the Romans. Yet, if such a conception might please the leisure of a statesman, it could hardly satisfy the serious thought of a philosopher or a religious man. If man's soul really holds a fragment of God and is itself a divine being, its godhead cannot depend on the possession of great riches and armies and organized subordinates. If 'the helping of man by man is God', the help in question cannot be material help. The religion which ends in deifying only kings and millionaires may be vulgarly popular but is self-condemned. As a matter of fact the whole tendency of Greek philosophy after Plato, with some illustrious exceptions, especially among the Romanizing Stoics, was away from the outer world towards the world of the soul. We find in the religious writings of this period that the real Saviour of men is not he who protects them against earthquake and famine, but he who in some sense saves their souls. He reveals to them the _Gnôsis Theou_, the Knowledge of God. The 'knowledge' in question is not a mere intellectual knowledge. It is a complete union, a merging of beings. And, as we have always to keep reminding our cold modern intelligence, he who has 'known' God is himself thereby deified. He is the Image of God, the Son of God, in a sense he _is_ God.[161:1] The stratum of ideas described in the first of the studies will explain the ease with which transition took place. The worshipper of Bacchos became Bacchos simply enough, because in reality the God Bacchos was originally only the projection of the human Bacchoi. And in the Hellenistic age the notion of these secondary mediating gods was made easier by the analogy of the human interpreters. Of course, we have abundant instances of actual preachers and miracle-workers who on their own authority posed, and were accepted, as gods. The adventure of Paul and Barnabas at Lystra[161:2] shows how easily such things could happen. But as a rule, I suspect, the most zealous priest or preacher preferred to have his God in the background. He preaches, he heals the sick and casts out devils, not in his own name but in the name of One who sent him. This actual present priest who initiates you or me is himself already an Image of God; but above him there are greater and wiser priests, above them others, and above all there is the one eternal Divine Mediator, who being in perfection both man and God can alone fully reveal God to man, and lead man's soul up the heavenly path, beyond Change and Fate and the Houses of the Seven Rulers, to its ultimate peace. I have seen somewhere a