some new thing, were quick to avail themselves of the new ideas thus thrust upon them was only to be expected. But this rage for novelty was too violent to be content to follow the slow process of assimilation or _theocrasia_ which was prevalent before Alexander. Religious associations for the worship of foreign gods were formed in which we may, if we like, see the first germs of the Christian Church[89]. In these each member had to pay a subscription towards the expenses of the cult, and the office-bearers instead of being appointed by the State were either taken from the members in rotation or chosen by lot. That these confraternities, as we should now call them, were at first composed of natives of countries other than Greece is shown by their clustering in the port of the Piraeus as the quarter where foreigners naturally congregated[90]; and their male members for the most part consisted of slaves, freedmen, and stranger merchants, who thus found a meeting-place in what was to them a foreign country. Their worship too was secret or rather was confined to members of the confraternity only, while its correctness of form was preserved by means of written books or rituals, thereby presenting many points of resemblance to that of the later Gnostics. But the superstitious, and especially the women who were always in Greece much addicted to _theoxenia_ or the reception of strange gods, were early attracted by them, and they soon spread to every great city in the Empire. Thus we see for the first time in history bodies of men and women banded together, irrespective of nationality and social rank, for the purpose of religious observances, and religion becoming recognized as the affair of the individual rather than of the state, while each member of the association was directly interested in its extension. In this way, the Greeks became worshippers not only of their own sufficiently numerous deities but of those of well nigh the whole East as well. Their inscriptions show that Persian, Phrygian, and Lydian gods were worshipped by these associations, together with a whole crowd of Semitic deities among whom, if M. Cumont is right, there may even have been included the God of Israel[91].