And another note by Murray,

To compare this Paganism in detail with its great rival [Christianity] would be, even if I possessed the necessary learning, a laborious and unsatisfactory task. But if a student with very imperfect knowledge may venture a personal opinion on this obscure subject, it seems to me that we often look at such problems from a wrong angle. Harnack somewhere, in discussing the comparative success or failure of various early Christian sects, makes the illuminating remark that the main determining cause in each case was not their comparative reasonableness of doctrine or skill in controversy—for they practically never converted one another—but simply the comparative increase or decrease of the birth-rate in the respective populations.

When put in such terms, it is very difficult not to see the changing of the guard, as it were, as merely a byproduct of the changing era. Yes, there were bloody and cruel fights over religion, but in the main the cause of the triumph of Christianity was peaceful. Times had simply moved on.

I think this is worth meditating on in our quest for truth. Maybe we all, here, are simply chasing the fairy deeper into the woods, seeking after the lost scraps of past ages. There is nothing wrong with that, but we should bear in mind the words of Basho:

Seek not the path of the ancients:
Seek that which the ancients sought.