~ 78 ~
written his treatise about A.D. 250, the book he is answering was not of recent origin, but it is not usually dated earlier than A.D. 180. We have thus no certainty that even if the slight and vague evidences just mentioned are to be connected with the week, they represent a time anterior to that at which we know it to have been in general use, when Mithraism, as I have said, with its prepossessions could hardly fail to adopt it. All we can say, then, is that as the week spread, it would find sympathy and support from Mithraism, which in this way may well have done something to swell the volume of popular feeling which propagated the new time-cycle.
As to the other 'mystery religions,' we may presume that they followed the popular current in conforming to week-observance. There is nothing in what we know of their creeds or the mentality of their devotees that would run counter to it. But I am not aware that there is anything positive to connect them with it. And the same, I think, though I would speak with all caution, may be said of that vast and vague body of belief and practice which we call magic. Magic and astrology went no doubt to a great extent hand in hand. For though originally and in logic they were opponents, since magic aims at a control of the destiny, which astrology declares to be beyond our control, in practice it was not so. The mind, which comes under the sense of this overwhelming power, will always
