From the first century of our era, Rome was in close contact with the Orient, as long before she had been in contact with Greece. And just as the Greek spirit had profoundly influenced the moral ideal of Rome, so now was the spirit of the Orient to effect even greater changes in her ancestral standard of character. As philosophy mediated between Rome and Greece, so did religion mediate between Rome and the Orient. It was through the religions or cults of Egypt, Persia, and Judea that the ethical forces of the ancient cultures of the East were brought to bear on Roman life and thought and conduct. In the present connection we shall speak only of the influences which went forth from Egypt and Persia, and point out in what way they gave an added impulse to that ethical movement going on in the Roman world which finally culminated in the triumph of the creed and moral ideal of Judea. [Sidenote: The contribution of Egypt; the worship of Isis] And first we note the relation to this ethical evolution of the worship of Isis and Serapis, the chief imported and modified cults of the ancient civilization of the Valley of the Nile. In this worship religion and morality were joined in a way practically unknown to the priestly colleges of Rome. “The Egyptian,” says Lecky, “... bowed low before the divine presence. He veiled his eyes, he humbled his reason, he represented the introduction of a new element into the moral life of Europe, the spirit of religious reverence and awe.”[617] Forming an important part of the body of ideas which constituted the basis of this religious feeling, was the doctrine of a life after death. This was a doctrine which was common to all the Oriental religions with which we have here to do,--the Isiac, the Mithraic, and the Christian,--but a doctrine which, aside from the initiates of the Orphic, the Eleusinian, and like Mysteries, was practically new to the classical world. It was this doctrine which helped greatly to secure for these religions or cults such wide acceptance in the Roman world,--for the Roman world, old, worn, and weary, was yearning for assurance of another and better life,--and which largely explains the moral influence they exerted upon the nations of the West.[618] For more than five hundred years the worship of Isis particularly found ardent devotees in the West. The general effect of the cult upon its followers was to cause the active, heroic qualities in the old Roman ideal of character to be overshadowed by the passive contemplative virtues, and to impart a religious, ritual character to the moral code. Expiatory and purification rites formed a large part of the duties of the worshiper of the Egyptian goddess.[619] [Sidenote: The contribution of Persia: Mithraism]