Note 115 — Chapter IV · THE EVOLUTION OF THE CULT
Reading edition
5. The giving to the whole process a relatively democratic character, again after the model of the Jewish system, wherein the people had their main recognition as human beings with rights. Thus Christianity was at once a “secret society” under an autocracy, as were so many Hellenistic religious groups, drawing members as such societies always do in autocratically governed States,115 and a popular movement as contrasted with Mithraism, which always remained a mere secret society, whence its easy ultimate suppression by the Christianized government.