The above sketch of the characteristics of the Hellenistic age has been quite inadequate. And even a fuller presentation could hardly do justice to the complexity of the life of that time. But perhaps some common misconceptions have been corrected. The pagan world at the time when Paul set sail from Seleucia on his first missionary journey was not altogether without religion. Even the ancient polytheism was by no means altogether dead. It was rather a day of religious unrest. The old faiths had been shaken, but they were making room for the new. The Orontes, to use the figure of Juvenal, was soon to empty into the Tiber. The flow of eastern superstition and eastern mystical religion was soon to spread over the whole world. But what were the eastern religions which in the second century after Christ, if not before, entered upon their triumphal march toward the west?[138] They were of diverse origin and diverse character. But one feature was common to a number of the most important of them. Those eastern religions which became most influential in the later Roman Empire were mystery religions--that is, they had connected with them secret rites which were thought to afford special blessing to the initiates. The mysteries did not indeed constitute the whole of the worship of the eastern gods. Side by side with the mysteries were to be found public cults to which every one was admitted. But the mysteries are of special interest, because it was they which satisfied most fully the longing of the Hellenistic age for redemption, for "salvation," for the attainment of a higher nature. [138] The sketch which follows is indebted especially to Cumont, _Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain_, 2ième éd., 1909 (English translation, _The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism_, 1911). It will be well, therefore, to single out for special mention the chief of the mystery religions--those eastern religions which although they were by no means altogether secret did have mysteries connected with them. The first of these religions to be introduced into Rome was the religion of the Phrygian Cybele, the "Great Mother of the Gods."[139] In 204 B.C., in the dark days of the Carthaginian invasion, the black meteoric stone of Pessinus was brought, by command of an oracle, to Rome. With the sacred stone came the cult. But Rome was not yet ready for the barbaric worship of the Phrygian goddess. For several hundred years the cult of Cybele was kept carefully isolated from the life of the Roman people. The foreign rites were supported by the authority of the state, but they were conducted altogether by a foreign priesthood; no Roman citizen was allowed to participate in them. It was not until the reign of Claudius (41-54 A.D.) that the barrier was finally broken down. [139] For the religion of Cybele and Attis, see Showerman, _The Great Mother of the Gods_, 1901; Hepding, _Attis_, 1903.