During the NT and subsequent eras the most popular religious forms in the Greco-Roman world were those of the mystery religions. Some of these had been imported from Egypt and the Orient, while others were indigenous to Greece. The traditional cults of the Olympic gods were no longer perceived as able to fulfill the common person's spiritual needs, and so there was a turning to those religions that promised salvation and a blessed afterlife. Immortality could be obtained through initiation into a secret experience that was intended to save the soul after death. Aristotle said that the initiated did not learn anything so much as they felt certain emotions and were put into a certain frame of mind. Cicero could maintain that Athens had given to the world no greater institution than that of the Eleusinian mysteries. They provided a reason to live with joy and to die with better hopes. Moreover, a civilized way of life had been established through the rites, which were properly called…