contemporary Seneca, who observed the religious rites of Rome only on patriotic grounds: A wise man will observe [these rites] as being commended by the laws, but not as being pleasing to the gods. . . . All that ignoble rabble of gods which the superstition of ages has heaped up, we shall adore in such a way as to remember that their worship belongs rather to custom than to reality.5 Then suddenly into this violent and wretched world came Jesus, teaching new, dimly understood truths. Not surprisingly,