§ 225. The education of the mysteries was twofold, theoretical and practical. In the theoretical we find a regular gradation of symbols and symbolical acts through which one seemed gradually to attain to the revelation of the secret; the practical contained a regular gradation of ascetic actions alternating with an abandonment to wild orgies. Both raised one from the rank of the novice to that of the initiated. In the higher orders they formed an ethical code of laws, and this form Pedagogics has retained in all such secret culture, _mutatis mutandis_, down to the Illuminati.
--In the Roman empire, its Persian element was the worship of Mithras; its Egyptian, that of Isis; its Grecian, the Pythagorean doctrines. All these three, however, were much mingled with each other. The Roman legions, who really no longer had any native country, bore these artificial religions throughout the whole world. The confusion of excitement led often to Somnambulism, which was not yet understood, and to belief in miracles. Apollonius of Tyana, the messiah of Ethnicism, is the principal figure in this group; and, in comparison with him, Jamblichus appears only as an enthusiast and Alexander of Abonoteichos as an impostor.--
§ 226. What the despair of the declining nations sought for in these mysteries was Individuality, which in its singularity is conscious of the universality of the rational spirit, as its own essence. This individuality existed more immediately in the Germanic race, which nevertheless, on account of its nature, formed first in Christianity its true actualization. It can be here only pointed out that they most thoroughly, in opposition to nature, to men, and to the gods, felt themselves to be independent; as Tacitus says, "_Securi adversus homines, securi adversus Deos_." This individuality, which had only itself for an end, must necessarily be destroyed, and was saved only by Christianity, which overcame and enlightened its dæmonic and defiant spirit. We cannot speak here of a system of Education. Respect for personality, the free acknowledgment of the claims of woman, the loyalty to the leader chosen by themselves, loyalty to their friends (the idea of fellowship),--these features should all be well-noted, because from them arose the feudalism of the middle ages. What Cæsar and Tacitus tell us of the education of the Germans expresses only the emancipation of individuality, which in its immediate crudeness had no other form in which to manifest itself than wars of conquest.