Might be alluded to in that first note, but it seems like this, too, is directed towards the advent of Christianity in that age, which was evidently regarded by polytheists as (ironically, given today's theological views) atheism: a rejection of the gods.

Also nice to see here the recurrent emphasis on the immutability of the gods. There's some resonance with the first lines of Dante's Paradiso here, in which the divine light is seen to permeate different areas to different degrees—just so, some areas of the world may accept the gods more, some less, and some reject them outright. A spectrum, as it were.