Amazon.com description: Product Description: An excerpt from the PREFACE:

THE story of Eros and Psyche reflects the religious life of classic antiquity more strongly than any other book, poem, or epic, not excepting the works of Hesiod and Homer. The Theogony of Hesiod tells of the origin of the gods and invests them with definite shape; Homer introduces them as actors in his grand epics; but the popular tale of Eros and Psyche reflects the sentiment with which the gods were regarded, and describes the attitude of man toward the problems of life, especially that problem of problems — the mystery of death and the fate of the soul in the unknown beyond.

The orthodox Greek religion consisted in the performance of certain rites, which were administered by the priests in the name of the state for the public benefit. Neither faith nor morality was required; the sole thing of importance was to accord to the gods their due, according to established tradition, and thus to fulfil the duties men owe to the invisible powers, upon whose beneficence their welfare depends. But the performance of sacrifices and other ceremonies left the heart empty ; they were conducted in a perfunctory way by persons duly selected according to descent or station in life and were kept up simply from fear that some deity might be offended by the neglect. The people, however, demanded the satisfaction of the religious cravings of the heart, and this resulted in the origination of a new religious movement based on the new thoughts imported from Thrace, Egypt, Chaldsea, Phoenicia, and Syria, and finding at last definite expression in the mysteries and secret teachings of Orpheus, Dionysos, and other deities.