Charles Kerényi began his research before 1927. In that year he achieved brilliant renown, thanks to a suggestive and wonderfully comprehensive book on the Greco-oriental novel that is replete with ideas. He wrote it from the illuminating standpoint of the history of religions. Following the author of the classical Psyche, and with innumerable contributions of his own, he once again gave proof of that delicate sense of the religious subconscious which could have subsisted, more or less somnolent, in the composite spirit of the Mediterraneans of yesterday and today. We are eternally indebted to the curious, folkloric inquiries which have transported us to their time, introducing us to an ancient religiosity, secret, and perhaps unconscious. The Hellenistic or Greco-Roman novels, forerunners of some of our most modern literature, drew substance at will from eternal, human belief. In stoically scrutinizing their content—one might even say balderdash—we tend therefore to forgive them much because of the richness of their soil, infused as it was with popular legends which carry with them a highly tonic and savory mixture of old rites, discarded superstitions, half-extinguished cults. Where, for example, can one seek a better statement on the notion of the pure and the impure, which still preoccupies us so much today? Or on the sensitivity of those who, in quest of virtue, went off whenever necessary and with great ado to meet the assembled gods?