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 JAN 10 19T5 
 
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The Mystery Religions and 
 The New Testament 
 
 
 V 
 
 
 r." 
 
 
 NOV 15 191P 
 
 By 
 
 
 HENRY C. SHELDON 
 
 Professor in Boston University 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
Copyright, 1918, by 
 HENRY C. SHELDON 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 7 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A Glance at the Characteristic Features 
 of the Mystery Religions 9 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Some Special Phases in the Content or His- 
 tory of the Mystery Religions 39 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Distinctive Points in Which the Mystery 
 Religions Show Agreement or Contrast 
 with Christianity 57 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Question of Paul's Indebtedness to 
 the Mystery Religions for Characteristic 
 Terms and Ideas 72 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Question of Paul's Indebtedness to 
 the Mystery Religions for His Concep- 
 tions of Baptism and the Eucharist 100 
 
 5 
 
6 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Question op the Indebtedness op the 
 Johannine Writings, and op Other Por- 
 tions op the New Testament, to the Mys- 
 tery Religions 131 
 
 Conclusion 154 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book has been written, not 
 for the small class of experts, but 
 for the large class of those who are 
 likely to appreciate a compact exposi- 
 tion of a prominent theme in New 
 Testament criticism. We respect, how- 
 ever, the function of the experts, and 
 venture to cherish the hope that of 
 those among them who may chance 
 to look into this little treatise a fair 
 proportion may be able to approve 
 its tenor. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 A GLANCE AT THE CHARACTER- 
 ISTIC FEATURES OF THE MYS- 
 TERY RELIGIONS 
 
 The general conception underlying 
 the term "Mystery," as used in this 
 connection, has been very well ex- 
 pressed in the following sentences: 
 "The word Mystery was the name 
 of a religious society, founded not on 
 citizenship or kindred, but on the 
 choice of its members, for the practice 
 of rites by which, it was believed, 
 their happiness might be promoted 
 both in this world and in the next. 
 The Greek word [ivotYipiov does not, 
 of its own force, imply anything, in 
 our sense of the word 'mysterious/ 
 that is to say, obscure or difficult to 
 comprehend. That which it connotes 
 
 9 
 
10 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 is, rather, something which can only 
 be known on being imparted by some 
 one already in possession of it, not 
 by mere reason and research which 
 are common to all." 1 Thus the Mys- 
 tery stood for a knowledge and a 
 benefit that were accessible only by 
 way of initiation. The one who had 
 been initiated was considered under 
 very imperative bonds of secrecy. His 
 obligation, however, to maintain si- 
 lence concerned less the general sig- 
 nificance of the Mystery than its 
 ceremonial details. 
 
 In a full account of the Mystery 
 Religions notice would need to be 
 taken of the cult of Ishtar and Tam- 
 muz. But as our survey pertains 
 only to such religious types as had an 
 opportunity to impinge upon early 
 Christianity on the theater of the 
 Grseco-Roman world, a specific dealing 
 with the Babylonian cult is hardly 
 
 1 S. Cheetham, The Mysteries Pagan and Christian, pp. 40, 41. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 11 
 
 in place, though a reference to it as 
 an influential antecedent may be quite 
 pertinent. Of direct concern are 
 the Graeco-Thracian Mysteries, hav- 
 ing their principal seat at Eleusis, 
 and associated in particular with De- 
 meter, Persephone, and Dionysos; those 
 of Cybele and Attis in Phrygia; of 
 Aphrodite and Adonis in Syria; of 
 Isis, Osiris, and Serapis originating in 
 Egypt; and of Mithra, primarily con- 
 nected with Persia and spreading 
 thence in the Roman empire. In 
 addition to these it is appropriate to 
 take note of certain types of religious 
 thought and endeavor which were in 
 close affinity with the standpoint of 
 the Mystery Religions. Here, with- 
 out doubt, are to be included Orphism 
 and the scheme represented in the 
 Hermetic writings. Some consider that 
 it is appropriate to bring into con- 
 sideration the teaching of Posidonius, 
 who figured at Rhodes in the first 
 
12 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 half of the century preceding the 
 birth of Christianity, and who, along 
 with a certain degree of adherence 
 to the Stoic philosophy, combined much 
 of an eclectic temper. It is claimed 
 also that an incipient Gnosticism, in- 
 debted not a little for spirit and 
 content to the Mystery Religions, 
 was already in the field when Chris- 
 tianity began its mission. Note is 
 taken of the fact that the knowl- 
 edge (yv&Gtg), which was the boast 
 of the Gnostic sects, was referred 
 rather to mystical relationships and 
 transcendent communications than to 
 the labored procedures of scholarship 
 and science. 
 
 In connection with the Mystery 
 Religions as a class, it is important 
 to recognize the serious limitations 
 which are imposed upon our knowl- 
 edge. "The study of the antique 
 Mysteries," says De Jong, "is ex- 
 tremely difficult, since we have at 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 13 
 
 our disposal only fragmentary and 
 often very scanty material." 2 "Per- 
 haps no loss/' remarks Cumont, 
 "caused by the general wreck of 
 ancient literature has been more dis- 
 astrous than that of the liturgic books 
 of paganism. A few mystic formulas 
 quoted incidentally by pagan or Chris- 
 tian authors and a few fragments of 
 hymns in honor of the gods are prac- 
 tically all that escaped destruction. . . . 
 The treatises on mythology that have 
 been preserved deal almost entirely 
 with the ancient Hellenic fables made 
 famous by the classic writers, to the 
 neglect of the Oriental religions. There 
 is no period of the Roman empire 
 concerning which we are so little 
 informed as the third century, pre- 
 cisely the one during which the Ori- 
 ental religions reached the apogee of 
 their power." 3 No one of these re- 
 
 2 Das Antike Mysterienwesen, p. 4. 
 
 3 The Oriental Religions 'n Roman Paganism, pp. 11-14. 
 
14 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 ligions has bequeathed a complete 
 liturgy or ritual. An enthusiastic de- 
 scription of certain scenes pertaining 
 to the initiation into the Mysteries 
 of Isis, as contained in the Meta- 
 morphoses of Apuleius, a writer of 
 the second century, is perhaps as note- 
 worthy as anything which has been 
 furnished on this subject. Albrecht 
 Dieterich, it is true, has claimed that 
 in the content of a Paris papyrus we 
 have a substantially complete liturgy 
 of Mithraism. 4 But Cumont and 
 others have challenged the legitimacy 
 of the identification. It would seem, 
 therefore, that the specified document 
 offers a very insecure foundation to 
 build upon. 
 
 This fragmentary character of the 
 sources of information evidently en- 
 forces the need of caution against 
 indulging in over-broad and ill-founded 
 inductions. It is possible for a re- 
 
 * Eilie Mithrasliturgie, 1903. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 15 
 
 viewer to be tempted to gather up 
 the scattered hints derivable from the 
 several Mystery Religions and then 
 to apply them collectively to one 
 or another of these religions, thus 
 assigning to it a larger and more 
 definite content than is warrantable. 
 A suspicion that recent scholarship 
 has not wholly escaped this tempta- 
 tion easily intrudes itself. "There is 
 undoubtedly/ ' writes Maurice Jones, 
 "a tendency among the students of 
 these cults to erect a building out 
 of material that is wholly inadequate 
 for the purpose, and to counterbalance 
 their lack of genuine matter by in- 
 serting their own hypotheses." 5 
 
 On the question of the period and 
 province of the Mysteries it is to 
 be noted that those of Eleusis were 
 started at an early point m the his- 
 tory of Greece. The cult of Demeter,. 
 
 6 The New Testament in the Twentieth Century, p. 138. 
 
16 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 which was central to them, is sup- 
 posed to have been current in Attica 
 as early as the eleventh century before 
 Christ; 6 and, while a considerable 
 period may have elapsed before the 
 scheme at Eleusis was relatively ma- 
 tured, it had doubtless been a factor 
 in Greek religion for centuries prior 
 to the culmination of Attic civiliza- 
 tion. In respect of their sphere these 
 Mysteries were limited by the require- 
 ment that their celebration should 
 take place at Eleusis and by the 
 exclusion of the possibility of initiation 
 elsewhere. On this score they were 
 placed at a disadvantage as compared 
 with various rivals in the Grseco- 
 Roman world. For, whatever local 
 associations they may have had, the 
 Mysteries generally were free to gather 
 groups of devotees in any quarter. 
 At a comparatively early date they 
 began to invade the West. "First, 
 
 Foucart, Les Mystdres d'Eleusis, p. 249. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 17 
 
 there was a slow infiltration of despised 
 exotic religions, then toward the end 
 of the first century the Orontes, the 
 Nile, and the Halys, to use the words 
 of Juvenal, flowed into the Tiber to 
 the great indignation of the Romans. 
 Finally a hundred years later an in- 
 flux of Egyptian, Semitic, and Persian 
 beliefs and customs took place that 
 threatened to submerge all that Greek 
 and Roman genius had laboriously 
 built up." 7 The Cult of Cybele was 
 represented in Rome as early as B. C. 
 204. Under the empire it obtained 
 considerable patronage in the West. 
 In the Greek states it received only 
 a scanty welcome. The cult of Isis 
 and of the related Egyptian divinities 
 had begun to take root in Greece and 
 southern Italy in the third century 
 before Christ. At Rome it was dis- 
 countenanced by the early emperors, 
 
 7 Cumont. The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, p. 23. 
 
18 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 distinct attempts to drive it out being 
 made by Augustus and Tiberius. But 
 their successors did not follow their 
 example. Otho was openly favorable 
 to the Egyptian priests and rites, as 
 was also Domitian. From the end of 
 the first century the cult of Isis won 
 an ever-increasing company of adher- 
 ents till the culmination of its influence 
 in the early part of the third century. 8 
 Mithraism secured but few converts 
 in the Hellenic domain. It was repre- 
 sented at Rome as early as B. C. 67, 
 but gained no appreciable foothold 
 till the closing decades of the next 
 century. In the second and third 
 Christian centuries it was given a 
 wide extension in the region stretch- 
 ing from the Caspian Sea to Italy and 
 the Eastern part of Gaul. Being to 
 a peculiar degree the religion of sol- 
 diers, it was carried wherever the 
 
 8 Lafaye, Histoire du Cultes des Divinitfes d'Alexandrie, pp. 
 24-63. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 19 
 
 Roman legions were sent, and was 
 furthermore propagated by slaves from 
 the East and by Syrian merchants. 
 The Emperor Commodus (A. D. 180- 
 192) became an adherent, and various 
 of his successors regarded it with 
 favor. The climax of its progress was 
 probably reached toward the end of 
 the third century. Julian the Apostate 
 beyond the middle of the next cen- 
 tury exerted himself to the utmost 
 to restore its fortunes, but his 
 short-lived reaction (361-363) availed 
 little to check the movement toward 
 irretrievable downfall. The Orphic 
 brotherhoods were an appreciable fac- 
 tor in the Greek domain, including 
 Southern Italy, from the sixth cen- 
 tury before Christ. The Hermetic 
 literature in its extant form was not 
 earlier than the second century of 
 our era. It is supposed, however, 
 that it incorporated ways of thinking 
 that had been operative at an earlier 
 
20 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 date. 9 How widely it became current 
 is not clearly determined. Reitzen- 
 stein's conclusion that it represented 
 a typical form of the piety of the 
 second and third centuries has been 
 challenged by Cumont and others. 10 
 From the tenor of its content it is 
 natural to conclude that its patronage 
 was limited, for the most part, to the 
 more speculative minds whose ad- 
 herence to the classic faiths had be- 
 come little else than nominal. After 
 its contact with Christianity Gnos- 
 ticism became, especially in the sec- 
 
 9 Professor E. D. Burton, after noting diverse views as to the 
 date of the Hermetic writings, adds this statement: "To affirm 
 that they influenced New Testament usage would be hazardous, 
 but they perhaps throw some light on the direction in wnich 
 thought was moving in New Testament times" (American Journal 
 of Theology, October, 1916, p. 566). J. M. Creed reviews the 
 data presented by Reitzenstein and draws this conclusion: "The 
 bulk of the Hermetic writings were probably written in the third 
 century or not earlier than the end of the second century" (Journal 
 of Theological Studies, July, 1914). G. R. S. Mead concludes 
 that some of these documents "are at least contemporaneous 
 with the earliest writings of Christianity" (Thrice-Greatest 
 Hermes, III, 323). 
 
 10 Cumont, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, pp. 233, 
 234; Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, pp. 
 76, 77; Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions, pp. Ill, 112. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 21 
 
 ond century, a widely disseminated 
 phenomenon. In the pre-Christian 
 stage it existed more extensively in 
 the unorganized form of congenial 
 materials than in the character of 
 specific sects, though there were some 
 parties to whom that designation might 
 properly be applied. 
 
 In respect of the source s from which 
 the several Mystery Religions drew 
 their materials opinion is not unan- 
 imous. Two things, however, may be 
 regarded as established. In the first 
 place, it cannot be doubted that the 
 Babylonian story of Ishtar and Tam- 
 muz wrought in some degree for the 
 production of kindred representations 
 in Syria and Asia Minor, and it is 
 possible that through these channels 
 it may have touched religious thought 
 in Greece. In the second place, it 
 cannot fairly be questioned that the 
 cults which reached to wide limits 
 
22 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 in the Roman empire, like those of 
 Isis and Mithra, ultimately incorpo- 
 rated materials from various sources, 
 so that they became in a rather 
 emphatic sense syncretistic. There is 
 good reason also for concluding that 
 Orphism was open in the course of 
 its development to the introduction 
 of new elements, standing in this 
 respect somewhat in contrast with the 
 relatively fixed character of the Eleu- 
 sinian Mysteries. On the relation of 
 both to Egyptian antecedents con- 
 trasted views have been expressed. 
 Foucart has argued very earnestly 
 for the distinct and large indebtedness 
 of the Eleusinian rites to those of 
 Isis; indeed, he makes the former no 
 more than a Hellenic version of the 
 latter. 11 Farnell, on the other hand, 
 rejects the idea of radical influence 
 from the Egyptian quarter. 12 Foucart 
 
 11 Les Mysteres d'Eleusis. 
 
 12 The Higher Aspects of the Greek Religion. Compare De 
 Jong, pp. 53, 54. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 23 
 
 has also drawn the conclusion that 
 Orphism borrowed, especially through 
 the medium of Pythagoras, quite 
 largely from Egyptian sources. On 
 the other side Maass asserts the con- 
 viction that the Orphic religion "is in 
 essence national-Hellenic." 13 For our 
 purpose it is not necessary to pro- 
 nounce on the disputed points. We 
 see no reason why an intermediate 
 view may not be eligible. 
 
 Viewed in their general cast, the 
 Mysteries appear rather as the affair 
 of voluntary brotherhoods than as 
 state institutions. Their status was 
 very much like that of the early 
 Christian societies. There were some, 
 however, that claimed a definite po- 
 litical relation. From the seventh 
 century before Christ the Eleusinian 
 Mysteries were under the direct pat- 
 ronage of Athens, and the Samothra- 
 
 13 Orpheus, Untersuchung zu Griechischen, Romischen, Altchrist- 
 lichen Jenseitsdichtung und Religion- 
 
U THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 cian also were accorded state recog- 
 nition. The Ptolemies in Egypt were 
 active patrons of the cult of Serapis, 
 but their jurisdiction covered only a 
 fraction of the area over which this 
 form of Egyptian religion gathered its 
 groups of worshipers. 
 
 'It is the common verdict of those 
 who have written upon the subject 
 of the Mysteries that they offered to 
 their votaries no considerable body 
 of either moral or metaphysical in- 
 struction. A modicum of moral im- 
 pression may have been ministered by 
 them; but of moral indoctrination 
 nothing worthy of note. 14 The state- 
 ment of Aristotle respecting the trans- 
 actions at Eleusis, "they give only 
 impressions/ ' may be regarded as an 
 
 14 At Eleusis the homicide was rejected as also the professor 
 of unhallowed rites. "Otherwise there seem to have been no 
 definite moral demands upon the candidates. They were not 
 redeemed from any sinful ways. No pattern of conduct was held 
 up before them; nor was the nature of the future life made clear" 
 (J. Estlin Carpenter, Phases of Early Christianity, p. 217). 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 25 
 
 authentic description of the Mysteries 
 generally. It is indeed granted that 
 Orphism developed an appreciable body 
 of teaching, and that in the mysti- 
 cal Hermetic literature the doctrinal 
 element, though not strictly uniform 
 or self-consistent, was by no means 
 wanting. There is no hesitation, how- 
 ever, in the verdict that the liturgical, 
 the scenic, and the spectacular, rather 
 than the formally didactic, were in 
 general characteristic of the Mysteries^ 
 They included rites of ablution; they 
 emphasized the main features in the 
 mythological stories of the divinities 
 with whom communion was sought; 
 they led on the subjects of initiation 
 into scenes which were designed to 
 stimulate the imagination and to 
 awaken a vivid sense both of the 
 terrors and joys which lie beyond the 
 earthly pilgrimage. How effectively 
 they could enkindle the fancy of an 
 impressible person is intimated by the 
 
26 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 description which Apuleius has given 
 of initiation into the mysteries of 
 Isis. These are his words: "I have 
 transcended the boundaries of death, 
 I have trodden the threshold of 
 Proserpine, and having traversed all 
 the elements I am returned to the 
 earth. In the middle of the night I 
 have seen the sun scintillating with a 
 pure light; I have approached the 
 gods below and the gods above, and 
 have worshiped face to face." 15 Some 
 allowance may be made for the stylistic 
 ambition of the rhetorician; but it 
 is entirely probable that the Mysteries, 
 at least in the later period of their 
 history, by the employment of various 
 dramatic expedients, such as the com- 
 bination of deep shadows and brilliant 
 lights, were often able to exercise a 
 kind of hypnotic influence over those 
 who sought in them pledges and safe- 
 guards of future well-being. That the 
 
 15 Metamorphoses, xi, 23. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 27 
 
 scenic representations were in general 
 well adapted to their end there is 
 every reason to believe. This is not 
 saying, however, that they harbored 
 nothing which a normally educated 
 sense of propriety would reprobate. 
 The contrary must be admitted if 
 the interpretation which a prominent 
 expositor has put upon the nuptials 
 of Zeus and Demeter, as figured at 
 Eleusis, is authorized. 16 
 
 A naturalistic basis of the mysteries 
 is quite unmistakable. The divinities 
 whom they commemorated were pri- 
 marily vegetation gods, or, more 
 broadly speaking, gods linked with 
 the needs and fortunes of vegetable 
 and animal life. Such distinctively 
 was the earliest in the list, the Baby- 
 lonian Tammuz, "the young god of 
 vegetation who dies in the heat of 
 the summer solstice and descends to 
 
 18 Foucart, Les MystSres d'Eleusis, pp. 475-497. 
 
28 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 the world below, leaving the earth 
 barren until he returns." 17 In Mithra- 
 ism this point of view may not have 
 been relatively prominent; but in the 
 Mystery cults generally the divinities 
 were closely connected with the re- 
 quirements of cereal growths and ani- 
 mal procreation. The following state- 
 ment respecting Adonis, Attis, and 
 Osiris may be given a wider applica- 
 tion: "All three apparently embodied 
 the powers of fertility in general and 
 of vegetation in particular. All three 
 were believed to have died and risen 
 again from the dead; and the divine 
 death and resurrection of all three 
 were dramatically represented at an- 
 nual festivals, which their worshipers 
 celebrated with alternate transports of 
 sorrow and joy, of weeping and ex- 
 ultation. The natural phenomena thus 
 sympathetically conceived and myth- 
 ically represented were the great 
 
 17 Farnell, Greece and Babylon, p. 105. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 29 
 
 changes of the seasons, especially the 
 most striking and impressive of all, 
 the decay and revival of vegetation; 
 and the intention of the sacred dramas 
 was to revive and strengthen by sym- 
 pathetic magic the failing energies of 
 nature, in order that the trees should 
 bear fruit, that the corn should ripen, 
 that men and animals should repro- 
 duce their kind." 18 No doubt the 
 gods who were the chief figures in 
 the Mysteries came to stand for other 
 functions than those named in the 
 citation. A great variety of powers 
 and offices was assigned to Osiris and 
 Dionysos, and to a nearly equal extent 
 others were given a multiple role by 
 the faith and enthusiasm of their 
 devotees. However, the significant 
 fact remains that in the Mystery 
 Religions, as a class, a naturalistic 
 basis was prominent. 
 
 13 Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Studies in the History of Oriental 
 Religions, p. 383. 
 
30 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 The naturalistic phase was coupled 
 with magic, as indeed is emphatically 
 indicated in Frazer's statement of the 
 design of the rites in which tribute 
 was paid to Adonis, Attis, and Osiris. 
 In so far as the Mysteries were related 
 to the Babylonian and Egyptian re- 
 ligions they naturally shared in the 
 element of magic, for that element 
 abounded in those religions. It seems 
 also to be the judgment of scholars 
 that the Mysteries wrought for the 
 increased dominion of magic in the 
 Grseco-Roman world. As late as the 
 reign of Augustus, Cumont tells us, 
 professional magicians were despised, 
 but with the advance of the Oriental 
 cults they rose in esteem. 19 How 
 strongly the current set in that direc- 
 tion is indicated by the ultimate grav- 
 itation of Neo-Platonism into theurgy. 
 There are also direct evidences that 
 the Mysteries in their scheme of rites 
 
 19 The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, pp. 186, 187. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 31 
 
 built on the basis of magic. "It was 
 necessary/ ' we are informed, "at 
 Eleusis that the formulas divulged to 
 the initiated should be pronounced 
 with the right intonation, otherwise 
 they would lose their effectiveness." 20 
 This is a plain hint that the formulas 
 were construed after the analogy of 
 magic. Gasquet probably renders a 
 true description when he says: "The 
 sacraments of the Mysteries always 
 suppose a magical intervention. It 
 is words, rites, formulas that have 
 the faculty of acting directly upon 
 the gods and of constraining their 
 will. It imports little whether the 
 man making use of them understands 
 either their sense or their reason." 21 
 
 The age in which the Mysteries 
 had their widest diffusion in the Ro- 
 man empire was a period much given 
 
 20 Foucart, Les Myst£res d'Eleusis, p. 150. 
 
 21 Essai sur le Culte et les Mysteres de Mithra, pp. 80, 81. 
 
32 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 to astrology and sidereal mysticism 
 in general. In the mystical scheme 
 of Possidonius large account was made 
 of the stars and of their interconnec- 
 tion with the fortunes of souls. In 
 his thinking Chaldsean elements were 
 blended with Stoic, and his influence 
 helped to give currency to a complex 
 sidereal scheme as an important and 
 conditioning factor in religion. "Wide 
 extension was awarded to the doc- 
 trine that the soul in descending from 
 heaven takes on the attributes of 
 the planets through which she jour- 
 neys, until finally she enters into 
 embodied existence. After death she 
 has, by a reverse movement, to make 
 the heavenward journey, in order, 
 after having laid aside at the several 
 stations the limitations of earthly ex- 
 istence, to return to her original home 
 in the realm of light." 22 Not all of 
 
 22 Wendland, Die Hellenistisch-Romische Kultur in ihren Bezie- 
 hungen zu Judentum und Christentum, p. 166. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 33 
 
 the Mystery Religions may have taken 
 specific account of such a pronounced 
 sidereal framework. It was, however, 
 congenially related to their natural- 
 istic and magical trend, and it is 
 quite certain that in Mithraism, which 
 encountered Chaldsean influences dur- 
 ing its movement to the West, it was 
 prominently represented. The follow- 
 ing sketch of the Mithraic scheme for 
 the ascent of the soul will serve to 
 illustrate: "The heavens were divided 
 into seven spheres, each of which 
 was conjoined with a planet. A sort 
 of ladder composed of eight super- 
 posed gates, the first seven of which 
 were constructed of different metals, 
 was the symbolic suggestion, in the 
 temples, of the road to be followed to 
 •reach the supreme region of the fixed 
 stars. To pass from one story to the 
 next the wayfarer had each time to 
 enter a gate guarded by an angel of 
 Ormuzd. The initiates alone, to whom 
 
34 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 the appropriate formulas had been 
 taught, knew how to appease the 
 inexorable guardians. As the soul 
 traversed these different zones, it rid 
 itself, as one would of garments, of 
 the passions and faculties it had re- 
 ceived in its descent to the earth. 
 It abandoned to the moon its vital 
 and nutritive energy, to Mercury its 
 desires, to Venus its wicked appetites, 
 to the sun its intellectual capacities, 
 to Mars its love of war, to Jupiter 
 its ambitious dreams, to Saturn its 
 inclinations. It was naked, stripped 
 of every vice and every sensibility, 
 when it penetrated the eighth heaven 
 to enjoy there, as an essence supreme, 
 and in the eternal light that bathed 
 the gods, beatitude without end." 23 
 In the Hermetic literature a kindred 
 representation occurs. 24 
 
 Under proper limitations reference 
 
 28 Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, pp. 144, 145. 
 24 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 231. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 35 
 
 may be made to a pantheistic tendency 
 in the Mystery Religions. The lim- 
 itations are that this tendency did 
 not come to noteworthy expression in 
 all of them; and in any case was 
 conspicuous rather in the later than 
 the earlier stages. Of Orphism it is 
 noticed that, while it did not discard 
 mythological terminology, it revealed 
 a certain affiliation with pantheism in 
 its tendency to conceive of the gods 
 as vague cosmic powers. 25 In the 
 Hermetic writings, as in the Gnostic 
 systems, pantheistic and dualistic 
 strains were combined. 26 According 
 to the plain representation of the for- 
 mer, God not only contains all things, 
 but is veritably all things. 27 In their 
 later stages the Egyptian cults showed 
 
 * Rohde, Psyche, II, 114, 115. 
 
 26 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 46. G. R. S. Mead, while 
 noticing the double aspect, argues that it is not appropriate to 
 take much account of the dualistic phase. Thrice-Greatest 
 Hermes, II, 30, 31, 115, 116, 160, 218. 
 
 17 Menard, Hermds Trism6giste, Traduction Complete, pp. 
 lxxiv, lxxviii. See also Mead, II, 16, 17, 104-106, 212, 276, 309, 377. 
 
36 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 a close affinity with a pantheistic 
 standpoint. They were developed in 
 this direction, if we may trust Cu- 
 mont, by Chaldsean and Syrian in- 
 fluences. He writes: "Isis became a 
 pantheistic power that was everything 
 in one, una quae est omnia. The 
 authority of Serapis was no less ex- 
 alted, and his field no less extensive. 
 He also was regarded as a universal 
 god of whom men liked to say that 
 he was 'unique.' In him all energies 
 were centered, although the functions 
 of Zeus, of Pluto, or of Helios were 
 especially ascribed to him. . . . This 
 theological system, which did not gain 
 the upper hand in the Occident until 
 the second century of our era, was 
 not brought in Dy Egypt. It did not 
 have the exclusive predominance there 
 that it had under the empire, and 
 even in Plutarch's time it was only 
 one creed among many. The deciding 
 influence in this matter was exercised 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 37 
 
 by the Syrian Baals and the Chaldaean 
 astrology." 28 The result was an ap- 
 proach to monotheism, a cosmic power 
 being acknowledged, which, indeed, 
 might be manifested in different forms 
 and addressed under different names, 
 but which it was thought appropriate 
 to describe as one and universal. 
 
 In the relative prevalence of the 
 pantheistic viewpoint a favorable basis 
 of syncretism, or comity, between the 
 Mystery Religions was obviously pro- 
 vided. Those who had any motive 
 to compound the different divinities 
 were able to plead that there was no 
 real difference between them, since 
 they were to be interpreted as only 
 varying designations of the power 
 which is one in essence though di- 
 versified in manifestation. Oriental 
 and Egyptian gods were freely iden- 
 tified with the Greek, as Mithra with 
 
 28 The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, pp. 89, 90. 
 
38 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 Helios, Isis with Demeter, Osiris with 
 Dionysos. With this theoretical syn- 
 cretism a practical comity was con- 
 joined to some extent. There were 
 priests who functioned in the temples 
 of more than one of the mystic cults. 29 
 On the part of Mithraism a special 
 motive may have operated in favor 
 of this composite role. Unlike the 
 other Mysteries the Mithraic seem not 
 to have admitted women. " Among 
 the hundreds of inscriptions that have 
 come down to us not one mentions 
 either a priestess, a woman initiate, 
 or even a donatress." 30 We are left 
 then to infer that the predilection for 
 mystic rites which may have been 
 felt by the women connected with the 
 initiates of Mithraism had to be sat- 
 isfied outside of the proper Mithraic 
 domain. 
 
 29 Boisaier, La Religion Romaine, I, 430; Cumont, The Mys- 
 teries of Mithra, p. 177. 
 
 3 ° Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, p. 173. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 39 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SOME SPECIAL PHASES IN THE 
 CONTENT OR HISTORY OF 
 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 In connection with some of these 
 religions very little will need to be 
 added to what was said in the pre- 
 ceding chapter. Respecting the Eleu- 
 sinian Mysteries it may properly be 
 noticed that, while in the time of 
 Herodotus initiation was limited to 
 the Greeks, at a later period those of 
 other nationalities who understood the 
 Greek language and had the status 
 of Roman citizens were eligible to 
 admission when presenting themselves 
 at Eleusis at the time of the annual 
 celebration in September and October. 
 Initiation was understood to establish 
 a close bond with the divinities who 
 
40 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 were specially commemorated, but it 
 was not regarded as shutting one up 
 to an exclusive scheme of worship. 
 Among the divinities recognized, the 
 benignant Earth Mother, Demeter, was 
 central. The Maiden or Daughter, 
 Kore (or Persephone), was prominent 
 as an accessory to the role of Demeter. 
 The statue of Iacchus was conspicuous 
 in the solemn procession from Athens 
 to Eleusis. According to one interpre- 
 tation he represented a special form of 
 Dionysos; according to another he was 
 a divinity of subordinate rank. 1 Di- 
 onysos had a place in the Eleusinian 
 rites, but not so much in his original 
 Thracian character, as a patron of 
 ecstasy, as in that of a fosterer of the 
 arts and of agriculture. Of the two 
 classes of initiates, the mystes and 
 the epopts, it is conjectured that the 
 
 1 The former is represented by Legge, The Forerunners and 
 Rivals of Christianity, I, 40, and by W. S. Fox, in The Mythology 
 of All Nations, I. 220; the latter is advocated by Foucart, Les 
 Mysteres d'Eleusip. p. 113. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 41 
 
 latter were introduced by rites in 
 which Dionysos was relatively prom- 
 inent. 2 They represented an ad- 
 vanced grade of initiation, which was 
 not esteemed necessary to salvation, 
 and by a large proportion was not 
 taken. 
 
 Orphism in the course of its develop- 
 ment made connection, on the one 
 hand, with the cult of Dionysos, and 
 on the other with Greek philosophy. 
 It was drawn to the former by a high 
 appreciation of prophetical inspiration, 
 and is presumed to have qualified to 
 some extent the orgiastic feature at- 
 tached to that cult in certain quarters. 
 In respect of philosophy it affiliated 
 especially with the Pythagorean teach- 
 ing. Among the Mystery Religions it 
 was relatively distinguished by its 
 moral earnestness, though sharing in 
 the common fault of an ultra cere- 
 
 2 Foucart, pp. 452-454. 
 
42 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 monialism. 3 ^While not given to the 
 more extreme forms of ascetic practice, 
 it adopted the ascetic point of view 
 in that it radically disparaged the 
 sense life as being incompatible with 
 the true life of the spirit. In connec- 
 tion with this phase of its teaching 
 >/it held a peculiar doctrine of original 
 sin. For this a basis was found in 
 the story of Dionysos-Zagreus. As the 
 mythical narrative runs, Zagreus, the 
 offspring of Zeus and Persephone, was 
 attacked by the Titans at the instiga- 
 tion of the jealous Hera. They tore 
 his body in pieces which they pro- 
 ceeded to devour. However, his heart 
 remained intact, and this being brought 
 to Zeus, he swallowed it or caused 
 it to be swallowed by Semele. In 
 the issue Zagreus was reborn under 
 the name of Dionysos, and his mur- 
 derers, the Titans, were cast into 
 
 3 This view of the relative prominence of the moral factor in 
 Orphism, though often expressed, is challenged by F. Legge, Fore- 
 runners and Rivals of Christianity, I, 145-147. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 43 
 
 Tartarus. Since men, in respect of 
 their bodies, were formed from the 
 ashes of the Titans, they share in the 
 guilt of their unholy predecessors, and 
 need the virtue of purifying rites in 
 order to be set free from the evil 
 inheritance. 4 In harmony with the 
 temper of their system the Orphists 
 took a solemn view of future awards. ^ 
 They pictured grievous punishments 
 for the wicked, though not representing 
 them as endless. With Pythagoras 
 they held that a single term of earthly 
 life is not likely to accomplish the 
 needed purification, and that accord- 
 ingly a more or less prolonged series 
 of reembodiments is to be expected. 
 That the soul is intrinsically immortal ^ 
 they regarded as quite certain. 
 
 As has been indicated, the Phrygian 
 cult of Cybele and Attis was charac- 
 
 4 S. Reinach, Cultes, Mythes, et Religions, II, 59; Rohde, Psyche, 
 II, 116ff.; Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of the 
 Greek Religion, pp. 481-497. 
 
44 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 terized by a very pronounced reference 
 to the interests of vegetable and animal 
 life. "In the attributes, functions, and 
 form of the goddess, we can discern 
 nothing celestial, solar, or lunar; she 
 was and remained to the end a mother- 
 goddess of the earth, a personal source 
 of the life of fruits, beasts, and man." 5 
 Attis, associated with her as lover, hus- 
 band, or son, figured by his death and 
 resurrection the yearly decay and re- 
 vival of vegetation. According to one 
 version of his mythological history he 
 was slain by a boar; according to 
 another he died from self -mutilation. 
 The great festival of Cybele and Attis 
 occurred in early spring, beginning on 
 the twenty-second of March and con- 
 tinuing for several days. The celebra- 
 tion was so conducted as to work up 
 a great excitement in the participants. 
 "In the midst of their orgies, and after 
 wild dances, some of the worshipers 
 
 6 Farnell, Greece and Babylon, p. 109. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 45 
 
 voluntarily wounded themselves, and 
 becoming intoxicated with the view of 
 the blood, with which they besprinkled 
 their altars, they believed they were 
 uniting themselves with their divinity. 
 Or else, arriving at a paroxysm of 
 frenzy, they sacrificed their virility to 
 the gods. These men became priests 
 of Cybele and were called Galli." 6 
 Crude and abhorrent as these features 
 may appear, they did not precipitate 
 an early downfall of the strange re- 
 ligion. The worship of Cybele and 
 Attis survived the establishment of 
 Christianity by Constantine. 7 
 
 The effective appeal which the Egyp- 
 tian cult of Isis, Osiris, and Serapis 
 was able to make to the peoples in- 
 cluded in the Roman empire was due 
 primarily, in no small degree, to the 
 potent relation which these divinities 
 
 8 Cumont, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, p. 50. 
 7 Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, p. 250. 
 
46 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 were represented to hold at once to 
 the realm of life and to that of death. 
 This double relation was figured my- 
 thologically in the account of Osiris 
 which became imbedded in Egyptian 
 traditions. As the story goes, Osiris, 
 the offspring of an intrigue between 
 the earth-god Seb and the sky-goddess 
 Nut, fulfilled a beneficent vocation 
 in promoting the cultivation of the 
 soil and the advance of civilization. 
 But he was at length exposed to the 
 malicious plotting of his brother Set, 
 who caused him to be inclosed in a 
 chest and to be cast into the Nile. 
 The chest was discovered by Isis, 
 both sister and spouse of Osiris. It 
 was not, however, so securely hidden 
 by her, but that it passed under the 
 hand of Set, who cut the inclosed 
 body into fourteen pieces and scat- 
 tered them widely. The faithful Isis 
 spared no pains to gather the pieces. 
 The body of the god was thus recom- 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 47 
 
 posed and he became installed as king 
 of the dead. As a favorite divinity he 
 had other roles assigned to him, among 
 them that of a sun-god. His most 
 vital association, however, was with 
 the contrasted realms of life and death. 
 In him was symbolized the ever-waning 
 and continually reviving life of the 
 earth. A kindred significance belonged 
 to Isis in her association with him. 
 On the score of her reputed sympathy 
 and compassion she won a wide appre- 
 ciation. In some instances she was 
 idealized and universalized as a prin- 
 ciple of divine wisdom. Plutarch in- 
 terpreted her as standing for "that 
 property of nature which is feminine 
 or receptive of all production." 8 On 
 the whole, she probably received in 
 the general range of the Roman empire 
 more warmth of devotion than any 
 other Egyptian divinity. As for 
 
 8 Of iBieand Osiris, $53. 
 
48 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 Serapis, he was essentially the product 
 of a governmental scheme. The first 
 of the Ptolemies (B. C. 323-285) 
 instituted or forwarded his worship as 
 one in which Greeks and Egyptians 
 might unite. Not a few scholars have 
 interpreted the name "Serapis" as 
 simply a shortened form of "Osiris- 
 Apis." Whether this is a true render- 
 ing or not, "Serapis" was quite com- 
 monly regarded as the equivalent of 
 "Osiris." It was in this character 
 that he was accepted by his Egyptian 
 worshipers. 
 
 Like Vishnu and some others of 
 the Hindu deities, the Persian god 
 Mithra was one who made great ad- 
 vances in respect of relative position 
 in the course of history. His recog- 
 nition began, indeed, at a very ancient 
 date, a place having been accorded 
 him in the Vedic system where he 
 appears under the name of Mitra. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 49 
 
 As originally rated in the Zoroastrian 
 system, he stood with the genii, twenty- 
 eight in number, who were created by 
 Ahura Mazda and were closely asso- 
 ciated with the pure elements. In 
 virtue of the fact that he was accounted 
 the genius of the celestial light Mithra 
 had from the start a certain kinship 
 with his creator, but plainly was a 
 being of subordinate rank. Formally 
 the aspect of subordination may not 
 have been canceled at any period, but 
 practically it came in the end to be 
 set aside. While Mithra continued to 
 be assigned the office of mediator, to 
 a large extent religious dependence was 
 directed rather to him than to the 
 higher and remoter deity. On the 
 one hand, he attracted devotion by 
 his friendly character. Men were 
 solicited to look to him as a kindly 
 and responsive benefactor. In this 
 respect he bears comparison with 
 Apollo and the Dioscuri of the Greeks. 
 
50 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 On the other hand, he commanded 
 allegiance as the embodiment of war- 
 rior might and virtue. He was reputed 
 to be the guardian of the oath and a 
 despiser of falsehood, and so was 
 qualified to appeal to those who put 
 a stanch moral ideal to the front. 
 As compared with the gods of other 
 Mysteries, he was more of a sky god, 
 less a god of the underworld or realm 
 of the dead. This, however, is not 
 to be understood as denying that he 
 figured as a succorer of the dead. 
 Like the other divinities he was es- 
 teemed a source of procreation and 
 fruitfulness and an agent of resurrec- 
 tion. It is seen, then, that Mithraism 
 possessed features favorable to propa- 
 gandism. With these were combined 
 some that were not so favorable. The 
 very scanty regard which it paid to 
 women was in particular a serious 
 limitation. Then, too, some of its 
 rites could hardly have been agreeable 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 51 
 
 to the more cultured among either 
 Greeks or Romans. This holds espe- 
 cially of the ceremony known as the 
 taurobolium, in which the devotee, 
 seeking purification, stood under a 
 latticed platform and was drenched 
 with the blood of a bull slain above. 
 The like ceremony, it is true, is credited 
 to the cult of Cybele; indeed, in its 
 Mithraic use it is thought to have been 
 borrowed from that source; 9 but in 
 either connection it must have been 
 the reverse of a recommendation to 
 many people. As respects the extent 
 to which Mithraism gained a footing 
 in the Grseco-Roman world there seems 
 to be a tendency among scholarly 
 investigators to question the warrant 
 for the strong statements which have 
 sometimes been made. Against Re- 
 nan's representation that at one time 
 this religion bade fair to dispute the 
 
 9 Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, pp. 86, 87, 179-182; Legge, 
 Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, II, 258, 259. 
 
52 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 ascendency of Christianity in the Ro- 
 man empire, attention is called to 
 the fact that the evidence fails to 
 prove that Mithraism ever prevailed 
 widely outside the cantonments of the 
 Roman legions. Furthermore, as is 
 indicated by the map which Cumont 
 has prepared, we have the fact that 
 it failed to strike root in most of the 
 territory which could boast a high 
 stage of culture. " Almost the entire 
 domain of Hellenism/ ' says Harnack, 
 "was closed to it, and consequently 
 Hellenism itself. Greece, Macedonia, 
 Thrace, Bithynia, Asia (proconsular), 
 the central provinces of Asia Minor 
 (apart from Cappadocia), Syria, Pales- 
 tine, and Egypt — none of these ever 
 had any craving for the cult of Mithra. 
 And these were the civilized countries 
 by preeminence. They were closed 
 to Mithra, and as he thus failed to 
 get into touch at all, or at an early 
 stage at any rate, with Hellenism, his 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 53 
 
 cult was condemned to the position of 
 a barbarous conventicle. Now these 
 were the very regions in which Chris- 
 tianity found an immediate and open 
 welcome, the result being that the 
 latter religion came at once into vital 
 contact with Hellenism." 10 The his- 
 torian adds that even in the West, 
 where Mithraism had a relatively wide 
 expansion, there is inadequate ground 
 to conclude that it became "any real 
 rival of Christianity." 
 
 The more significant features in the 
 teaching of the Hermetic writings have 
 already been indicated. Reference was 
 made to their inclusion of both panthe- 
 istic and dualistic strains and to their 
 tribute to the current sidereal mysti- 
 cism. The character of the collection, 
 made up as it was of about a score 
 of independent parts, composed at 
 
 10 The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three 
 Centuries, II, 318-321. 
 
54 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 different periods, naturally precluded 
 strict uniformity in doctrine. 11 It has 
 been noticed that Cumont assigns to 
 this literature a less extensive role 
 than that favored by some others. 
 He says: "This recondite literature, 
 often contradictory, was apparently 
 developed between B. C. 50 and A. D. 
 150. It has considerable importance 
 in relation to the diffusion throughout 
 the Roman empire of certain doctrines 
 of sidereal religion molded to suit 
 Egyptian ideas. But it had only a 
 secondary influence. It was not at 
 Alexandria that this form of paganism 
 was either produced or chiefly de- 
 veloped, but among the neighboring 
 Semitic peoples." 12 One of the pecu- 
 liar doctrines in this literature is thus 
 stated: "The Master of eternity is 
 the first God, the world is the second, 
 
 11 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 190. 
 
 12 Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, 
 pp. 76, 77. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 55 
 
 and man is the third/' 13 Another 
 peculiar representation is that at first 
 all the animals were hermaphrodite, 
 as well as man, and that the division 
 into sexes occurred at the same time 
 for the human and the animal species. 14 
 A third peculiar notion concerns the 
 mediatorial function of genii, or spirits 
 of a non-human order. "The intel- 
 ligible world/ 7 it is said, "is attached 
 to God, the sensible world to the 
 intelligible world, and through these 
 two worlds the sun conducts the efflu- 
 ence of God that is creative energy. 
 Around him are the eight spheres 
 which are bound to him — the sphere 
 of the fixed stars, the six spheres of 
 the planets, and that which surrounds 
 the earth. To these spheres the genii 
 are bound, and to the genii men; 
 
 13 This occurs in the section entitled "Asklepios," which Lafaye 
 contends must be located in the Neo-Platonic period, Histoire du 
 Culte des Divinites d'Alexandrie, p. 85. 
 
 14 Corpus Hermeticum, I, 18. (Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, 
 vol. ii, p. 12.) 
 
56 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 and thus are all beings bound to God, 
 who is the universal Father." 15 Among 
 the higher elements in these writings 
 are the worthy stress which is placed 
 upon the goodness of God, the em- 
 phatic valuation of a true knowledge of 
 God, and the clear enunciation of the 
 doctrine of the souTs immortality. 
 
 16 Kingford and Maitland, The Hermetic Works, The Virgin of 
 the World, p. 106. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 57 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 DISTINCTIVE POINTS IN WHICH 
 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 SHOW AGREEMENT OR CON- 
 TRAST WITH CHRISTIANITY 
 
 By Christianity in this connection 
 is meant the Christian religion in 
 its New Testament stage. It is per- 
 fectly conceivable that in the course 
 of its development post-apostolic, and 
 still more post-Constantinian, Chris- 
 tianity may have taken on charac- 
 teristics akin to those of the Mystery 
 Religions. The question of intrinsic or 
 original resemblances or contrasts is 
 obviously very different from the ques- 
 tion of ultimate likeness or unlikeness. 
 
 Another discrimination is appropri- 
 ately kept in mind. Agreement, even 
 up to a conspicuous degree, is no 
 
58 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 decisive proof of borrowing. In view 
 of their kindred aims and objects, all 
 religions are bound to exhibit resem- 
 bling features; and where the religions 
 are attached to similar planes of cul- 
 ture the resemblances cannot well es- 
 cape being appreciable. Were one 
 disposed to go in quest of points of 
 likeness between Christianity and the 
 classic religions of Greece and Rome, 
 he could undoubtedly fashion a rather 
 full catalogue. But no judicial mind 
 would take his list as a demonstration 
 that Christianity was originated by a 
 process of selection from the pre- 
 existing classic systems of faith and 
 practice. The Mystery Religions in 
 some parts of their content may seem 
 to excel the classic systems in respect 
 of affinity with Christian points of 
 view, and so to be more probable 
 sources of shaping influence. But 
 this relative closeness of approach 
 along certain lines is remote from being 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 59 
 
 a positive proof of effective working 
 in the domain of primitive Christian- 
 ity. So far as theory goes, it would 
 involve no breach of logic to assume 
 that New Testament Christianity, in 
 rounding out its system in harmony 
 with its fundamental postulates, was 
 under compulsion to incorporate some 
 features which were more or less char- 
 acteristic of the Mystery Religions, 
 and would have done so if those re- 
 ligions had been absolutely out of 
 sight. Of course, too, in so far as 
 these ethnic cults were themselves in 
 process of development, the way lies 
 open to the assumption that they may 
 have been in some respects affected by 
 Christian influence, which, if we may 
 judge by the outcome, was decidedly 
 the most potent leaven at work in 
 the Grseco-Roman world. It is not 
 enough, then, to take note of the 
 fact that a given Mystery was in 
 existence at a certain pre-Christian 
 
60 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 date. We need to know also whether 
 the specific features which serve as 
 a ground of comparison with Chris- 
 tianity were certainly pre-Christian. 
 
 One further discrimination is natu- 
 rally suggested. The supposition that 
 the Mystery Religions incorporated a 
 certain body of truth akin to the 
 content of Christianity is not nec- 
 essarily regarded as a disparagement 
 to the latter. What Clement of Alex- 
 andria said of Greek philosophy, 
 namely, that it had the office of a 
 schoolmaster to bring the Hellenic 
 mind to Christ, might conceivably be 
 said of the Mystery Religions. The 
 primacy of Christianity is not denied 
 by any agencies that prepare the 
 ground for its own ultimate dominion. 
 
 As a matter of fact it is not im- 
 probable that the points of kinship 
 between Christianity and the Mys- 
 teries served to facilitate the accep- 
 tance of the former by one and an- 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 61 
 
 other initiate, while yet the important 
 points of contrast earned for the Mys- 
 teries the emphatic reprobation of the 
 apostolic writers. / 
 
 In an important outward respect the 
 Mystery Religions undoubtedly resem- 
 bled early Christianity. Making room 
 for exceptions, we can say that as a 
 class they were relatively detached 
 from national associations and national 
 control. Like the Christians, their 
 votaries were gathered into voluntary 
 brotherhoods wherein the chief bonds 
 were a common faith and the use of 
 common rites. Governmental patron- 
 age might further their advance, but 
 independently of it they could thrive 
 in any quarter where they were able 
 to appeal successfully to individual 
 men in quest of religious satisfaction. 
 
 It is also quite certain that the 
 Mystery Religions were akin to Chris- 
 tianity in the earnest attempt which 
 they made to minister to the hopes 
 
62 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 of men in relation to the future life. 
 In them the point of view of ancient 
 Babylon and classic Greece was tran- 
 scended, and a worthful immortality, 
 as opposed to a vacant and pithless 
 existence, was held in prospect. They 
 fostered a vital impression of the 
 greatness of eternal interests, and what- 
 ever artificialities may have entered 
 into their scheme for safeguarding 
 those interests, they undertook an 
 office similar to that of Christianity 
 in assuming to lead men into a way 
 of security as respects the attainment 
 of a priceless good. 
 
 Some of the sacred rites commonly 
 in vogue in the Mysteries welre anal- 
 ogous to the cardinal rites of the 
 Christian Church. Confident judg- 
 ment here is properly regarded as 
 materially abridged by our very scanty 
 information respecting the ceremonies 
 which the Mysteries placed under the 
 ban of secrecy. It is quite generally 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 63 
 
 believed, however, that they included 
 transactions somewhat resembling the 
 Christian rites of baptism and the 
 eucharist. 
 
 In emphasizing heart-allegiance to a 
 divine person, with whom redemptive 
 offices were associated, the Mystery 
 Religions were in line with a leading 
 feature of Christianity. On this point, 
 doubtless, they were not radically dis- 
 tinguished from other non-Christian 
 faiths. Somewhat of the same ele- 
 ment may be found in religions gen- 
 erally. But relatively they were dis- 
 tinguished by the great stress which 
 they placed upon the close personal 
 relation of the initiates with the 
 saviour-gods in whose name the mystic 
 rites were administered. 
 
 Mention might further be made of 
 eschatological particulars in which the 
 Mystery Religions stood close to Chris- 
 tian beliefs. Mithraism especially 
 could be cited as presenting something 
 
64 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 like equivalents for Christian repre- 
 sentations respecting ascension, resur- 
 rection of the dead, visitation of the 
 world by fire, judgment and sentencing 
 of men, according to their deserts, to 
 heaven or to hell. It would be rash, 
 however to infer from the correspond- 
 ence any direct borrowing of Mithraic 
 materials by Christianity. It is very 
 doubtful whether Mithraism had come 
 into any real contact with the Chris- 
 tian domain when the New Testament 
 was written. 1 
 
 On the side of contrasts we have 
 in the first place the fact that Chris- 
 tianity presented itself to the world 
 as an open system, not a fenced-off 
 mystery. It made no attempt to 
 store up its treasures behind locked 
 and bolted doors. Free access to its 
 whole message was offered to every 
 
 1 Cumont, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, pp. xix, 
 xx; Kennedy, St. Paul, and the Mystery Religions, pp. 114, 115; 
 Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, II, 318-321. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 65 
 
 man. In so far as seclusion was 
 sought for any of its rites it was at 
 the dictate of a prudent desire to 
 avoid profanation at the hands of a 
 scornful and hostile multitude. It had 
 nothing which was accounted as nec- 
 essarily debarred to the sight of the 
 public. Somewhat of a counter cur- 
 rent was indeed started after a period. 
 In some measure the point of view 
 embodied in the secret cult of the 
 Mysteries was entertained by the 
 Alexandrian fathers in the third cen- 
 tury, and it gained distinct recog- 
 nition in the Disciplina Arcana in the 
 fourth century. 2 But this was a de- 
 velopment which was foreign to the 
 Christianity of the first century. If 
 we may judge from the implicit con- 
 tradiction of it contained in the 
 writings of Justin Martyr, it had not 
 made appreciable headway at the mid- 
 dle of the second century. 
 
 2 Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen, pp. 126ff. 
 
66 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 In a second respect the Christian- 
 ity of the New Testament age was 
 widely distinguished from the Mystery 
 Religions. As has been demonstrated 
 a naturalistic basis was very prominent 
 in them. The divinities in whom they 
 were centered were primarily nature 
 powers, the potencies of vegetable and 
 animal life, and the experiences of 
 death and resurrection celebrated in 
 connection with them were symbolic 
 of alternate decay and revival in the 
 sphere of natural life. Herein they 
 were at a great remove from Chris- 
 tianity, which set the divine power 
 distinctly above the world, and as- 
 serted for its characteristic function 
 the governance and direction of the 
 spiritual and ethical. In this one 
 feature alone it stood apart from them 
 by an incalculable interval. 
 
 The extent to which the Mystery 
 Religions appropriated astrology and 
 sidereal mysticism in general may be 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 67 
 
 accounted a special expression of their 
 naturalistic bent. All this was foreign 
 to primitive Christianity. The New 
 Testament, it is true, gives expression 
 to the thought of a plurality of heavens; 
 but the reference is purely incidental 
 and subserves rather a rhetorical than 
 a dogmatic purpose. No countenance 
 whatever is given to the artificial 
 scheme of the descent and ascent of 
 souls, through diverse spheres, which 
 came to be installed in the leading 
 Mystery Religions. 
 
 The dominance of magic in this 
 class of religions presents a further 
 ground of contrast with original Chris- 
 tianity. Those, indeed, who allege 
 that the apostolic writers conceived of 
 the Christian rites, such as baptism 
 and the eucharist, as working ex opere 
 operato (or by the simple virtue of 
 the ritual transaction) charge upon 
 New Testament Christianity a species 
 of magic. It may be that in the 
 
68 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 technical definition magic stands for 
 expedients counted strangely effica- 
 cious to force the divine will. But 
 expedients which are considered to have 
 the sanction of the divine will, in so 
 far as an arbitrary efficacy is pred- 
 icated of them, or they are assigned 
 results quite outside their plane, may 
 be said without abuse of language 
 to have a magical aspect. The New 
 Testament, then, if the given allega- 
 tion is correct, cannot well be excused 
 from admitting an element of magic. 
 Our conviction, which we shall en- 
 deavor to sustain in subsequent pages, 
 is that the allegation respecting the 
 apostolic understanding of the Chris- 
 tian rites is essentially unfounded, 3 
 and that consequently New Testa- 
 ment Christianity is very decidedly 
 contrasted with the Mystery Religions 
 as respects giving countenance to 
 magic. That a relative contrast is 
 
 » See Chapters V and VI. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 69 
 
 to be affirmed, no reputable scholar, 
 it is believed, would care to dispute. 
 We notice, on the part of a New 
 Testament critic who attributes to the 
 apostolic writers the ex opere operato 
 view of the sacraments, this judgment 
 on the Mystery Religion as a whole: 
 "It was weak intellectually and eth- 
 ically; it had not cut itself off from 
 mythology, and its ethic was lower 
 than that of Seneca or of the philos- 
 ophers in general." 4 No such state- 
 ment, most assuredly, can be made 
 respecting the New Testament. The 
 cogency with which it sets the ethical 
 point of view on high puts it in un- 
 mistakable contrast with the Mystery 
 Religions. Even if one should suppose 
 that it contains a magical element, he 
 must grant that it does not permit 
 that element to overshadow the moral 
 after the mode and the measure of the 
 ethnic systems. 
 
 <Kir8opp Lake, The Stewardship of Faith, p. 86. 
 
70 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 Once more the Mystery Religions 
 appear in contrast with original Chris- 
 tianity in their syncretistic bent, or 
 readiness to make exchanges among 
 themselves, and to acknowledge the 
 essential identity of one with another. 
 A consciousness of a very different 
 order ruled in the Christian domain. 
 There the idea of striking hands with 
 any contemporary cult was radically 
 discountenanced. . The votaries of 
 Christianity were firmly convinced that 
 their religion was grounded in actual 
 historic revelation, and had its essen- 
 tial content given in that revelation, 
 so that it could not be made over 
 for the accommodation of any party, 
 without a most culpable recreancy to 
 the truth. Doubtless the partisans 
 of the Mysteries had a certain faith 
 in the reality of the divinities whom 
 they celebrated, and were far from 
 admitting formally that their careers, 
 as figured in the customary rites, 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 71 
 
 were purely mythological. But the 
 available evidences for this faith were 
 dim and scanty. A basis of assurance, 
 like that contained in the living Chris- 
 tian tradition, was not attainable. In 
 fact, a readiness to compound one cult 
 with another was a half confession 
 that all alike belonged to the sphere 
 of symbolism, and were to be rated 
 in their concrete representations as 
 rather mythological than historical. 
 Locally and temporarily these cults 
 may have derived advantage from the 
 policy of comity and accommodation, 
 but they were not fitted to stand out 
 against a religion which carried the 
 assurance of historic foundations. 
 
72 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE QUESTION OF PAUL'S IN- 
 DEBTEDNESS TO THE MYS- 
 TERY RELIGIONS FOR CHAR- 
 ACTERISTIC TERMS AND 
 IDEAS 
 
 The propriety of distinguishing be- 
 tween the two forms of indebtedness 
 is quite obvious. Scholars who deny 
 that the apostle derived anything sub- 
 stantial, in the way of ideas, from the 
 Mystery Religions are free to admit 
 that he may have appropriated certain 
 terms which came from that quarter. 
 Thus Schweitzer remarks: "Paulinism 
 and Hellenism have in common their 
 religious terminology, but in respect 
 of ideas, nothing. The apostle did 
 no£' Hellenise Christianity. His con- 
 ceptions are equally distinct from those 
 of Greek philosophy and from those 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 73 
 
 of Mystery Religions. The affinities 
 which have been alleged cannot stand 
 an examination which takes account 
 of their real essence and of the different 
 way in which the ideas are condi- 
 tioned in the two cases." 1 Much to 
 the same effect are the words of 
 Clemen. Referring to certain Pauline 
 terms which admit of comparison with 
 the language of the Mysteries, he says, 
 "It is a mere question of forms of 
 expression; in themselves they prove 
 absolutely nothing as to an influence 
 of the Mystery Religions on the Paul- 
 ine theology." 2 The like point is 
 urged by Ramsay in the broad state- 
 ment: "The influence of Greek thought 
 on Paul, though real, is all surely 
 external. Hellenism never touches the 
 life and essence of Paulinism which is 
 fundamentally and absolutely Hebrew; 
 but it does strongly affect the expres- 
 
 1 Paul and His Interpreters, p. 238. 
 
 2 Der Einfluss der Mysterienreligionen auf das alteste Christen- 
 tum, pp. 29, 30. 
 
74 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 sion of Paul's teaching." 3 The cita- 
 tion speaks of "Hellenism," but Ram- 
 say makes it plain that he would 
 not have put a less emphatic limitation 
 on Paul's borrowing had the reference 
 been specifically to the Mystery Re- 
 ligions. Of course it is theoretically 
 possible that within limits Paul may 
 have borrowed ideas as well as taken 
 up forms of expression from the con- 
 temporary cults. What needs to be 
 kept in mind is that the latter is no 
 adequate proof of the former. 
 
 In respect of terms, it is less easy 
 than might be imagined at first thought 
 to determine the measure in which 
 Paul's phraseology was under specific 
 obligation to the Mysteries. Some of 
 his characteristic terms may have been 
 at hand in the current religio-philo- 
 ' sophical dialect of the Greek-speaking 
 world, so that there was no need of 
 recourse to the Mystery cults to gain 
 
 » The Teachings of Paul in Terms of the Present Day, pp. 161, 162. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 75 
 
 a suggestion of their employment. 
 Others of them can be regarded as 
 having an Hebraic foundation, as be- 
 ing suggested by forms of expression 
 in the Hebrew Bible, such as the 
 alert mind of the apostle could render, 
 with or without assistance from the 
 Septuagint version, into the Greek 
 equivalents which his thought de- 
 manded. A fair application of these 
 considerations, it is believed, will appre- 
 ciably reduce the list of Pauline words 
 which can confidently be referred to 
 the Mystery Religions as their in- 
 dubitable source. Among the words 
 which come into discussion are the 
 following: ^ivaryiptov, re^ecog, nvev^ta as 
 distinguished both from ^v%yi and 
 vovq, nvevfianxog, ^v%ix6g, yv&oig, dyvco- 
 cia, <J>G)Tfc£ elv, &6%a, eix&v, [iera{iop- 
 cpovodat, aco^ecrOat, crayr^pta, and xvpiog 
 as a distinctive title of Christ. 
 
 The term (xvar^ptov occurs upward 
 of a dozen times in the Pauline Epis- 
 
76 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 ties. 4 The thoroughly predominant 
 sense in which it is used is that of 
 plan, purpose, or prospective event 
 which is hidden from ordinary research 
 and needs to be made known by 
 revelation or authoritative instruction. 
 What at first sight might be taken 
 as an exception occurs in Ephesians 
 v. 32, where the term is applied to 
 marriage. To bring this into line 
 with the apostle's customary use we 
 should need to think of the marriage 
 union of man and woman as in a 
 hidden way expressive or symbolical 
 of the great truth of the union of 
 Christ and the church. In the Septua- 
 gint, where the term occurs nearly 
 as many times as in the Pauline 
 Epistles, it has in like manner refer- 
 ence to plans and counsels which are, 
 in fact, hidden, though not necessarily 
 occult in nature. No reason is, there- 
 
 * Rom. xi. 25; 1 Cor. ii. 7, iv. 1, xiv. 2, rv. 51; Eph. i. 9, iii. 3, 4, 
 9, v. 32. vi. 19; Col. i. 26, 27, iv. 3; 1 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 77 
 
 fore, apparent why the apostle should 
 be regarded as beholden to the Mystery 
 Religions so far as his general use 
 of the term fivarrjpiov is concerned. 
 That use had been naturalized before 
 his day in Jewish circles. 
 
 With a somewhat better show of 
 reason it may be urged that Paul's 
 use of the word fivat^piov in connec- 
 tion with reXeioq (1 Cor. ii. 1-10), 
 argues for his indebtedness to the 
 Mysteries, since reXstog was a tech- 
 nical term for designating the standing 
 of an initiate. This basis, however, 
 is too fragile to support a positive 
 conclusion. To whatever extent reXetog 
 may have been installed in the dia- 
 lect of the Mysteries prior to Paul's 
 day, there is good reason to believe 
 that it was used outside of them in 
 much the same sense in which it was 
 used by him, namely, to designate 
 maturity or relative perfection, as 
 opposed to an initial stage of develop- 
 
78 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 ment. It occurs in that sense with 
 Philo, 5 an older contemporary of Paul, 
 and the same use is very closely 
 approached in the Septuagint. 6 If the 
 apostle needed to borrow from ante- 
 cedent usage he could easily do so 
 without recourse to the Mystery Re- 
 ligions. The most that can rightly 
 be claimed for that source is contained 
 in these words of a writer whose pains- 
 taking review of the subject renders 
 excellent service: "In view of the 
 earlier associations of the communities 
 which Paul addresses, we cannot cer- 
 tainly rule out the suggestion that 
 the Mystery-atmosphere is to some 
 extent present, although plainly no 
 conclusion can be drawn from this 
 term as to Paul's personal attitude 
 toward the Mystery conceptions." 7 
 
 6 Opera, Graece et Latine, Erlangen, vol. i, pp. 302, 324; English 
 translation by Yonge, Allegories of the Sacred Laws, Book iii, 
 5§xxxiii, xlvii, xlviii. 
 
 1 Chron. xrv. 8. 
 
 7 Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions, pp. 134, 135. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 79 
 
 A basis for Paul's psychological 
 terms is largely supplied by the Old 
 Testament. His adpf, ^vxv, and 
 nvsvfia correspond in a general way 
 to the Hebrew basar, nephesh, and 
 ruach. In either case the third term 
 has a double connotation. It may 
 denote either the divine Spirit which 
 replenishes man with a higher life, 
 or it may signify the finite human 
 spirit. In the latter sense it is not 
 very clearly and uniformly distin- 
 guished from the second factor, either 
 in the Pauline or the Old Testament 
 writings. We may say that spirit is 
 the preferred term where there is a 
 wish to emphasize the life of man in 
 its Godward relations, whereas soul 
 is employed when the reference is 
 simply to the center of man's personal 
 life; but in some instances the soul 
 seems to be taken as equivalent to 
 man's supersensuous being without 
 restriction as to its relations. Peculi- 
 
80 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 arities of the Pauline terminology are 
 the use of the term <7dp£ in opposition 
 to moral good and the sharp antithesis 
 which is made between the adjective 
 terms tyv%vx&$ and nvevfj,anx6g, the 
 one being applied to man as pre- 
 dominantly a subject of the earthly 
 sense life, and the other describing 
 him as he is under the rule of the 
 spiritual and divine. With the latter 
 term vovg is associated so far as oppo- 
 sition to the flesh is concerned (Rom. 
 vii. 23, 25); but it is in a measure 
 distinguished from the nvev^ia since 
 it is the seat especially of the reflective 
 intelligence, and gives place to the 
 other term when the reference is to 
 ecstatic fellowship with God (1 Cor. 
 xiv. 14, 15). In these peculiarities the 
 apostle represents an appreciable de- 
 velopment beyond the Old Testament. 
 That contains, it is true, a strong con- 
 trast between flesh and spirit, but it 
 is the contrast between the feebleness 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 81 
 
 and transitoriness of man's physical 
 frame and the everlasting might of 
 the divine Spirit, not the ethical con- 
 trast which is set forth in the Pauline 
 Epistles. On what antecedents did 
 Paul base his special usage? Not 
 unequivocally on Hellenic antecedents, 
 for these do not present an exact 
 counterpart. In Orphism, in the Pla- 
 tonic philosophy, and in some other 
 Hellenic domains, we doubtless find 
 the sense life and the life of the spirit 
 strongly opposed. But here matter is 
 made intrinsically unfriendly to spirit, 
 so that the embodied life is necessarily 
 regarded as at a disadvantage in com- 
 parison with the disembodied. This is 
 remote from Paul's standpoint. With 
 him the body is a subject for sanctifica- 
 tion and glorification, and holds a per- 
 manent place in the ideal for man. 
 Consequently, it is made perfectly plain 
 that he uses flesh (crdp£) in a pregnant 
 sense, denoting by it rather the unre- 
 
82 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 newed man, who is so easily led cap- 
 tive by fleshly impulses, than the 
 material substance as such. His usage 
 is neithei Hebrew nor Hellenic. It 
 may be indebted for suggestions to 
 both, but prudent scholarship will 
 hesitate to deny its individualistic 
 character and will be slow to force 
 it to wear a foreign badge. Paul's 
 opposition between crdp£ and nvev^a 
 is more Pauline than anything else. 
 It does not conform to any Hellenic 
 pattern whether inside or outside the 
 Mysteries. How is it with the other 
 phase of his terminology which lacks 
 a distinct Old Testament basis, the 
 antithesis between ^v^ixoc, and 
 nvevfianxog? The latter term was 
 very likely well naturalized in the 
 Mysteries, being accounted especially 
 appropriate to one who had reached 
 the goal of ecstatic union with the 
 divinity. On the other hand, there 
 seems to be a serious lack of evidence 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 83 
 
 that in the terminology of the Mysteries 
 the formal antithesis between ^v%ix6$ 
 and nvevfiattxog, in the Pauline sense, 
 was current. Its appearance in Gnos- 
 ticism proves nothing to the contrary, 
 for the Pauline writings were one of 
 the sources of Gnosticism as known 
 to us. We conclude, then, that in 
 respect of psychological terms Paul is 
 not shown to have been, in any 
 notable degree, a borrower from the 
 Mystery Religions. He derived sug- 
 gestions from both the Hebrew and 
 the Hellenic domains. He was not a 
 servile copyist of any set of ante- 
 cedents. The evidence of his indebted- 
 ness specifically to the Mysteries is 
 tenuous and conjectural. 8 
 
 8 We add judgments of H. W. Robinson and E. D. Burton. 
 The former says: "Paul, in spite of the use of some Greek terms 
 ('inner man,' 'mind,' 'conscience'), remains psychologically what 
 he calls himself, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; the advances he makes 
 on the conceptions of the Old Testament are a natural Jewish 
 development, whilst their originality can be shown as compared 
 with Palestinian Judaism, as well as with the Hellenistic thought 
 of Alexandria. His modifications of Jewish thought are primarily 
 due to his personal experience, and such Hellenistic influences as 
 were inevitable in his period were unconsciously imbibed by Paul 
 
84 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 The stress placed upon revelation 
 as a source of the higher and more 
 efficacious knowledge, in both the Paul- 
 ine writings and the Mystery Religions, 
 involves a certain kinship in their 
 use of such terms as yvdaig and its 
 opposite dyvoala. The similar point 
 of view would of necessity involve a 
 similar use of terms. Moreover, it is 
 to be observed that as a student of 
 the literature of the Old Testament, 
 Paul was definitely introduced to the 
 representation of a knowledge or wis- 
 dom which comes by the gift of the 
 divine Spirit. 9 Once more, it is not 
 
 and subordinated or assimilated to his Jewish psychology" (The 
 Christian Doctrine of Man, p. 104). Burton notices that the 
 psychological usage of the Hermetic writings is rather broadly 
 contrasted with that of Paul. He also contends that the sig- 
 nificance which the apostle attached to the <n£/>£ is not to be de- 
 rived from any known Hellenic antecedents. "The flesh that 
 makes for evil," he says, "is not the body or matter as such, but 
 an inherited impulse to evil. . . . The whole evidence of the Synopti- 
 cal Gospels tends to confirm the impression gained from the study 
 of Paul, that his usage is not as a whole a reflection of common 
 usage in his day, but to an important extent the result either of 
 exceptional influences or his own thinking" (American Journal 
 of Theology, October, 1916, pp. 550, 586, 589). 
 
 9 Hosea, ii. 20, v. 4; Isa. xi. 2; Prov. ii. 5; 1 Kings, x. 24; Job, 
 xxxii. 8; Psa. cxix. 144. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 85 
 
 to be overlooked that in PauPs teach- 
 ing there is a special phase, in that it 
 sets forth knowledge as profoundly 
 conditioned ethically, as indeed being 
 of no worth at all apart from love. 
 These facts may well modify a dog- 
 matic impulse to translate the similar- 
 ities into certain evidence of borrow- 
 ing from the ethnic systems. The 
 possibility that the apostle was influ- 
 enced in this part of his vocabulary 
 by the atmosphere of the Mysteries 
 may be admitted, but the warrant for 
 a confident assumption is not apparent. 
 As for the Hermetic literature, which 
 is alleged to present in particular 
 parallels to the Pauline use of the 
 terms in question, the date of its 
 composition and collection leaves room 
 for the supposition that through the 
 channel of Gnosticism it may have 
 appropriated at one point or another 
 a tinge of Pauline phraseology. 
 The most important of the remain- 
 
86 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 ing terms which come into considera- 
 tion is xvpiog. Little occasion exists 
 for a specific dealing with <j>G)<rt£W, 
 ho%a, slxcdv, (i£ra(iop<povcdcu, G&^eadai, 
 and ccdTYipia. Plain suggestions of all 
 of them except (j.era[iop$ovG6ou are 
 contained in the Old Testament, and 
 besides they are so far congenial to 
 religious discourse generally that the 
 apostle might reasonably be expected 
 to employ them or closely resembling 
 terms. For the use of (ie?anop<povad(u 
 the occasion was not quite so obvious, 
 though it is perfectly conceivable that 
 the apostolic thinker, having in mind 
 the reaching of a supernatural goal 
 through supernatural means, might 
 naturally have had recourse to the 
 term. An acquaintance with the Mys- 
 teries could doubtless have introduced 
 him to it, though not fully in his 
 sense. "In the Mystery Religions the 
 chief stress is laid upon a quasi-mag- 
 ical transmutation of essence. The 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 87 
 
 nature of Paul's conception of the 
 nvevpa sets in the foreground the 
 moral significance of the process." 10 
 
 In connection with xvpiog (Lord) the 
 claim is made that its application to 
 Jesus could not have been initiated 
 on the basis of Old Testament prece- 
 dent or Old Testament training, since 
 in that sphere the monotheistic point 
 of view stood in the way of admitting 
 the ascription of lordship to any other 
 than Jehovah; that the title was cur- 
 rent in the Mysteries as the designa- 
 tion of the divinity who was acknowl- 
 edged as the head of the mystic 
 community; that consequently it was 
 taken from this quarter and installed 
 in its Christian use by the election of 
 Paul or by his acquiescence in the 
 choice of his Gentile converts. 11 The 
 claim seems plausible. There are some 
 considerations, however, which may 
 
 10 Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions, p. 183. 
 
 11 See in particular Bousset, Geschichte des Christusglaubens 
 von den Angfangen des Chris tentums bis Irenaeus. 
 
88 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 serve to qualify the occasion to stress 
 the dominating influence of the Mys- 
 teries in the matter. Even in the 
 Old Testament a suggestion is given of 
 one who stands as Lord (xvpcog in the 
 Septuagint) alongside of the Lord 
 Jehovah (Psa. ex. 1); and the text 
 bearing this suggestion was given a 
 certain prominence through its cita- 
 tion by Jesus in his encounter with the 
 Pharisees (Matt. xxii. 45; Luke xx. 44). 
 Furthermore the antecedent thought 
 of the Messiah in at least a portion 
 of the Jewish domain, as affirming of 
 him a distinctly superhuman rank, 12 
 was adapted to supplement the sugges- 
 tion furnished by the psalmist's words, 
 and to point to the Messiah as a fit 
 subject for the name of xvptog. An 
 appreciable Jewish basis was thus 
 supplied for applying this name to the 
 transcendent person whom the prim- 
 
 12 Book of Enoch, chapters xxxvii-lxxi; Fourth Book of Ezra, 
 vii, xiii, xiv. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 89 
 
 itive Christian faith acknowledged as 
 the Messiah. In harmony with the 
 supposition that this Judaic ground 
 was influential is the fact of the early 
 currency among the Christians of the 
 Aramaic phrase maranatha, "the Lord 
 cometh." 13 It is not to be overlooked 
 also that in the Graeco-Roman world of 
 Paul's day the title xvpiog had other 
 associations than those given it in 
 connection with the Mysteries. By 
 the time the apostle began to pen his 
 epistles, the custom, which was pro- 
 nounced from the age of Domitian, was 
 in all probability under way, the cus- 
 tom namely of dignifying the em- 
 peror with the title of xvpiog. Is it 
 to be supposed that this use of the 
 title would have recommended it to 
 Paul or to any other contemporary 
 Christian? Our conviction is that it 
 must have acted as the very opposite 
 
 13 Compare E. F. Scott, The Beginnings of the Church, pp. 
 95-108; J. H. Ropes, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on 
 the Epistle of St. James, p. 34. 
 
90 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 of a recommendation. No less is it 
 our conviction that the employment 
 of the title in the Mysteries must have 
 served as the reverse of a motive 
 for its adoption. Some of Paul's 
 converts may have heard it in that 
 connection; but what we know of the 
 apostle's attitude toward contemporary 
 Gentilism leads us to suppose that he 
 advised those who took Christ as their 
 Master to clear their minds completely 
 of all the fancies and fables of their 
 old faith. They were instructed to rate 
 these as a bygone and to account 
 themselves new creatures in Christ 
 Jesus. If the apostle took over from 
 them a title which had functioned in 
 their old paganism, it was not in any 
 degree because it had so functioned. 
 It was, rather, because he, and with 
 him contemporary Christians, had a 
 conception of Christ which that title 
 matched better than any other in the 
 available vocabulary. It at once gave 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 91 
 
 expression to the transcendent dignity 
 and authority which they wished to 
 ascribe to Christ, and was in harmony 
 with their intention to conserve a cer- 
 tain preeminence to the Father. Ante- 
 cedent Gentile usage did not give them 
 the motive for adopting the title; 
 rather their ruling conception of Christ 
 constrained them to adopt the title 
 in spite of its association with crude 
 imperial gods or fabled divinities. 
 
 In point of theory we freely admit 
 the probability that Paul's religious 
 vocabulary was influenced by his Hel- 
 lenic environment, and more specific- 
 ally by the Mystery Religions in so 
 far as they were a conspicuous factor 
 in that environment. But other ante- 
 cedents were influential with the apos- 
 tle, and there are abundant reasons 
 for caution against attributing too 
 great a role to the special factor. A 
 very exaggerated impression may be 
 formed, as to the degree in which the 
 
92 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 Mystery Religions impinged upon the 
 mind of Paul, by scouring the Graeco- 
 Roman world and gathering up, 
 through a period of several centuries, 
 all the phrases having a semblance 
 of Pauline usage. Such a compacting 
 process easily lends itself to an over- 
 grown impression. It is our convic- 
 tion that the Mystery Religions did 
 not bulk so large in the apostle's con- 
 templation as some scholars have im- 
 agined. Indeed, there is room for 
 the suspicion that in respect of theii 
 relative prevalence and influence in 
 the antique world generally recent 
 judgment has been inclined to an 
 overestimate; certainly the limited ex- 
 tent to which they figure in patristic 
 literature does not testify to a very vital 
 conception of their importance. We 
 do not say that the patristic measure 
 was the true one, but simply raise 
 the question whether somewhat of a 
 tendency to an overdrawn estimate 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 93 
 
 may not have gained currency in 
 recent scholarship. Doubtless the fu- 
 sion of Greek and Oriental constituents, 
 following the conquests of Alexander, 
 marked an important era in the his- 
 tory of religion. But it is quite possi- 
 ble to take too little account of the 
 compromising features which limited 
 the acceptability of any specific product 
 of the fusion in the sphere both of 
 Hellenic culture and of Jewish re- 
 ligious training. 
 
 It has been indicated that the 
 measure of Paul's indebtedness to the 
 Mystery Religions for his terms is by 
 no means a certain index of his obli- 
 gations for characteristic ideas. He 
 might very well have been too rich 
 in ideas to need to borrow at all, 
 while yet he was measurably dependent 
 for the terms in which he might give 
 the ideas appropriate and effective 
 expression. 
 
94 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 Two things invite to skepticism in 
 relation to the supposition that Paul 
 owed any appreciable debt to the 
 Mystery Religions as respects his 
 fundamental ideas. In the first place, 
 the sphere of Christian truth stood 
 for him as the sphere of light and 
 reality over against the darkness, fool- 
 ishness, and vanity of Gentile re- 
 ligion. Emphatic declarations in his 
 epistles make it evident that he never 
 could have dreamed of going into 
 the latter domain for any part of 
 his theological furnishing. 14 The sup- 
 position of conscious recourse to that 
 province is simply preposterous. 
 
 In the second place, whatever re- 
 semblances can be traced between 
 Paul's characteristic ideas and various 
 phases in the scheme of the Mysteries, 
 they differ in fact so widely that 
 ample proof is given that he did not 
 
 " Rom. 1. 21ff., iii. 1, 2; 1 Cor. i. 21, iii. 19; Gal. iv. 8, 9; Eph. 
 v. 8; 1 These, iv. 5. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 95 
 
 either consciously or unconsciously take 
 over into his own system any ruling 
 conceptions from the latter. Much of 
 what was said in the preceding chap- 
 ter on similarities and contrasts is 
 pertinent here. The similarities of 
 Pauline representations to those of 
 the Mystery cults are explicable apart 
 from any supposition of borrowing, 
 and they are accompanied by very 
 pronounced contrasts. The given cults, 
 it is admitted, made much of a future 
 and immortal life. But how could 
 Paul, as a believer in the Jesus who 
 taught the doctrine of a vital immor- 
 tality and who rose from the dead, 
 fail to magnify this theme? Jesus gave 
 the incomparable credential of im- 
 mortality in his warmly colored and 
 penetrating exposition of the Father- 
 hood of God and his ideal illustration 
 of the filial relation to him. Life and 
 immortality were brought to light in 
 him by the very type of religious 
 
96 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 consciousness which he manifested and 
 with which he inspired his followers.' 
 Paul was true to a dominant note in 
 his Master's teaching when he spoke 
 of the inward attestation of sonship 
 toward God, and argued, "If children, 
 then heirs, heirs of God, and joint 
 heirs with Jesus Christ. " With this 
 point of view, intrinsic to the Gospel, 
 in his possession, what need had he 
 to kindle the torch of his faith at 
 the lesser flame of the Mysteries? 
 Their dramatic expedients for working 
 up the hope of a blessed hereafter 
 were paltry and inefficacious compared 
 with the grounds of confidence laid 
 for him in the vital message and 
 triumphant experiences of Him on 
 whom he believed. 
 
 A second point of resemblance is 
 admitted. The Mystery Religions gave 
 considerable scope to the idea of an 
 intimate relation between the initiate 
 and the divinity in whose name the 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 97 
 
 mystic rites were celebrated. But 
 what need had Paul to draw on them 
 for a lively conception of the privilege 
 of personal communion with his Lord? 
 His individual experiences were in- 
 finitely more potent than any sug- 
 gestions which could come from that 
 quarter. As often as he thought of 
 the way in which he had been met 
 on the Damascus road he was over- 
 whelmed with a sense of the un- 
 merited grace which had been visited 
 upon himself. That transforming rev- 
 elation constituted the initial event 
 in a chain of experiences which mag- 
 nified the love of God in Christ and 
 brought his soul into complete cap- 
 tivity. He felt that living or dying 
 he was the Lord's and could entertain 
 no other purpose but the fulfillment 
 of his perfect will. Out of this type 
 of personal realization he sketched the 
 believer's relation to Christ. The no- 
 tion that he needed to go to the 
 
98 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 Mysteries for any part of the ideal 
 is nothing less than grotesque. 
 
 Over against these points of 
 similarity, and any others that might 
 be mentioned, fundamental contrasts 
 come into the account. Reference 
 has been made to the naturalistic 
 basis in the Mystery Religions and 
 to the overplus of magic which they 
 harbored. On the score of these fea- 
 tures it is impossible to bring them 
 into line with the Pauline theory of 
 redemption. What ground of com- 
 parison is there between the Mystery 
 scheme, with its gods who personify 
 in their death and return to life the 
 vicissitudes of vegetable and animal 
 life, and the divine economy for re- 
 covering sinners which Paul pictures 
 as the harmonious combination of 
 righteousness and grace? Nothing 
 comparable to Paul's argument in the 
 third chapter of the epistle to the 
 Romans is to be found in the Mys- 
 
 ■, 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 99 
 
 teries. Nothing on the plane of the 
 moral fellowship which he postulated 
 between the believer and the Crucified 
 One is discoverable in their melo- 
 dramatic expedients. The cross as he 
 understood it, with its profound moral 
 significance both for God and for man, 
 has no counterpart there. Anyone 
 who can discover in their bizarre and 
 variegated mythology an equivalent 
 for the Pauline doctrine of redemp- 
 tion must be gifted with peculiar 
 eyesight. Paul manifestly discov- 
 ered nothing of the sort. His declara- 
 tion that the message of redemption 
 preached by himself was foolishness to 
 the Gentiles (1 Cor. i. 23) is a de- 
 cisive evidence that he was not aware 
 that Greek, or Grseco-Oriental, theory 
 had in any wise prepared the way 
 for the Christian doctrine of salva- 
 tion through Christ. 15 
 
 14 Compare Burton S. Easton, The Pauline Theology and Hel- 
 lenism in The American Journal of Theology, July, 1917, pp. 
 373-376. 
 
100 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE QUESTION OF PAUL'S IN- 
 DEBTEDNESS TO THE MYS- 
 TERY RELIGIONS FOR HIS 
 CONCEPTIONS OF BAPTISM 
 AND THE EUCHARIST 
 
 A writer on New Testament 
 themes has expressed the opinion that 
 the high sacramental theory of bap- 
 tism and the eucharist, the theory 
 that these rites work ex opere operato 
 (or in the simple virtue of their ritual 
 performances), 1 was held by Paul, and 
 was central in the Primitive Chris- 
 tianity to which the Roman empire 
 began to be converted. 2 
 
 1 Roman Catholic usage, which gave currency to the phrase 
 ex opere operato, clearly assigns it this sense. For the main evi- 
 dences, the author's Sacerdotalism in the Nineteenth Century, 
 pp. 222-224, may be consulted. 
 
 » K. Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 213-215, 385-390. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 101 
 
 In dissenting from this opinion we 
 may claim at the outset that it is 
 not enforced by any compelling ver- 
 dict of scholarship. The writer who 
 penned it thinks, indeed, that such 
 a verdict will soon be installed, but 
 he admits "that many critics of the 
 highest standing among Protestant 
 theologians would deny the sound- 
 ness of the views enunciated, and 
 maintain that primitive Christianity 
 was not centrally sacramental." He 
 might have added that these critics 
 by no means wear a common badge 
 as respects affiliation with conserva- 
 tism or radicalism, but belong to di- 
 verse schools. We choose to believe 
 that their judgment will not so readily 
 give way as the writer supposes before 
 the discovery that high sacramental 
 views were current, to some extent, 
 in contemporary Gentilism. Proof that 
 such views were present in the field 
 where primitive Christianity wrought 
 
102 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 obviously falls very far short of a 
 demonstration that they were appro- 
 priated and given a central place in 
 primitive Christianity. 
 
 In respect of baptism, it is to be 
 noticed, in the first place, that neither 
 Paul nor any other New Testament 
 writer has expressed the conviction 
 that it works regeneration or any 
 other spiritual benefit in purely passive 
 subjects. The pronounced token of 
 high sacramentalism, which emerged 
 subsequently in the theory of bap- 
 tism as applied to infant subjects, 
 nowhere appears in the apostolic 
 literature, that literature making no 
 reference at least of a direct and 
 unequivocal character, to infant bap- 
 tism. No appeal can be made to 
 this topic for convicting Paul of hold- 
 ing the magical or ex opere operato 
 theory of the sacrament. Possibly it 
 may be thought that in his reference 
 to baptism for the dead (1 Cor. xv. 29) 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 103 
 
 the apostle has evinced a belief in 
 the efficacy of the rite for purely passive 
 subjects. But that is no warrantable 
 conclusion. If Paul, for argumentative 
 effect, assumed the standpoint of the 
 objectors whom he wished to con- 
 vince — a thing most probable, as will 
 be seen shortly — then he is not placed 
 on record as believing that baptism 
 for the dead has any efficacy whatever. 
 In any case it is not in evidence that 
 he believed that the dead can be 
 benefited unconditionally by baptism 
 performed upon the living in their 
 behalf. Nothing, therefore, in the 
 extant records justifies the assumption 
 that he considered the rite efficacious 
 for purely passive subjects. 
 
 Coming to more positive grounds of 
 inference, we are permitted to affirm 
 that the ascription of the high sacra- 
 mental conception of baptism to Paul 
 is incongruous with declarations in 
 which he positively disparages the 
 
104 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 ceremonial point of view. Nothing 
 less than this disparagement is in- 
 volved in the style of his references 
 to circumcision. He depreciates this 
 rite, not on the ground that it has 
 been superseded by a more efficacious 
 rite, but on the ground that it be- 
 longs to an external range and bears 
 no comparison in respect of religious 
 value with interior or spiritual states 
 or transactions. This is plainly the 
 import of such sentences as the fol- 
 lowing: "He is not a Jew which is 
 one outwardly; neither is that cir- 
 cumcision, which is outward in the 
 flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one 
 inwardly; and circumcision is that of 
 the heart, in the spirit, not in the 
 letter; whose praise is not of men, 
 but of God." "Circumcision is noth- 
 ing, and uncircumcision is nothing; 
 but the keeping of the command- 
 ments of God." "In Christ Jesus 
 neither circumcision availeth anything, 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 105 
 
 nor uncircumcision, but faith working 
 through love. . . . Neither is circum- 
 cision anything, nor uncircumcision, 
 but a new creature." 3 The common 
 characteristic of these passages is the 
 antipathy which they reveal to rating 
 the external and ceremonial on any- 
 thing like a parity with the interior 
 and spiritual. If the apostle who 
 penned them conceived of baptism as 
 profoundly efficacious in its own virtue 
 as a ritual transaction, he must have 
 been an adept in self-contradiction. 
 And these passages do not stand alone, 
 but are in line with an ample series 
 of instructions which powerfully stress 
 the incomparable and unqualified ne- 
 cessity of those interior dispositions 
 which came to manifestation in Christ. 
 It is certainly not the voice of the 
 ceremonialist that we hear in words 
 like these: "If any man hath not the 
 spirit of Christ, he is none of his. . . . 
 
 s Rom. ii. 28, 29; 1 Cor. vii. 19; Gal. v. 6, vi. 15. 
 
100 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 As many as are led by the Spirit of 
 God, these are the sons of God." 4 
 "If I bestow all my goods to feed 
 the poor, and if I give my body to 
 be burned, but have not love, it 
 profiteth me nothing." "I have been 
 crucified with Christ; yet I live; and 
 yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in 
 me; and that life which I now live in 
 the flesh I live in faith, the faith which 
 is in the Son of God, who loved me, 
 and gave himself up for me." 5 Quite 
 in harmony with this supreme stress 
 on an interior life realized through 
 heart appropriation of the gospel mes- 
 sage is the apostle's characterization 
 of his vocation. "Christ sent me," 
 he says, "not to baptize, but to 
 preach the gospel" (1 Cor. i. 17). 
 Had he attached to baptism the virtue 
 which is ascribed to it in the high 
 sacramental theory, he would nat- 
 
 * Rom. viii. 9, 14; 1 Cor. xiii. 3. 
 6 Gal. ii. 20. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 107 
 
 urally have had very little inclination 
 to mention what must have seemed 
 a strange and injurious limitation of 
 his calling. 
 
 The standpoint of Paul, as involving 
 a limited efficacy of baptism, is indi- 
 cated very distinctly by the over- 
 whelming emphasis which he places 
 upon faith as the condition of justi- 
 fication. It is a foremost thesis with 
 him that justification is attained by 
 faith. 6 "The gospel," he declares, "is 
 the power of God unto salvation to 
 every one that belie veth. . . . For 
 therein is revealed a righteousness of 
 God by faith unto faith : as it is written, 
 But the righteous shall live by faith." 
 "With the heart man belie veth unto 
 righteousness." The Spirit is received 
 by "the hearing of faith," and it is 
 by the instrumentality of faith that 
 Christ is made to dwell in the heart. 7 
 
 • Rom. iii. 21, 22, 28, iv. 3, 5, v. 1, ix. 30, 32; Gal. iii. 11, 24; 
 Eph. ii. 8. 
 
 7 Rom. i. 16, 17, x. 10; Gal. iii. 2; Eph. iii. 17. 
 
108 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 Now, for one who makes so much of 
 the primacy and necessity of faith in 
 the appropriation of salvation, what 
 in plain logic can be the office of bap- 
 tism? Is it conceivable that it can 
 be regarded as having any virtue 
 whatever independently of antecedent 
 and accompanying faith? Can it pos- 
 sibly be accounted anything more than 
 a fitting accessory to faith as giving 
 to it open manifestation and attesting 
 the wish and the will of its subject 
 to be numbered with Christian be- 
 lievers? These questions, we are con- 
 fident, must be answered in the 
 negative. Either Paul was glaringly 
 illogical, or he must have rated bap- 
 tism as distinctly secondary to such 
 a spiritual condition as faith, and 
 must have regarded it as totally desti- 
 tute of saving efficacy in the absence 
 of that indispensable condition. That 
 it is not necessary to choose the 
 former alternative will appear from a 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 109 
 
 glance at the few references to baptism 
 which occur in the Pauline Epistles. 
 
 It is noticeable that in the great 
 dogmatic epistle to the Romans the 
 subject of baptism is broached in but 
 a single instance, and that in this 
 instance the motive for its introduc- 
 tion is homiletical rather than dog- 
 matic. The passage reads, " Shall we 
 continue in sin that grace may abound? 
 God forbid! We who died to sin, 
 how shall we any longer live therein? 
 Or are ye ignorant that all ye who 
 were baptized into Christ Jesus were 
 baptized into his death? We were 
 buried therefore with him through 
 baptism into death. . . . Even so reckon 
 ye also yourselves to be dead unto 
 sin, but alive unto God in Christ 
 Jesus' ' (Rom. vi. 1-4, 11). The mo- 
 tive underlying the passage, as we 
 have said, is plainly homiletical. Paul 
 wishes to give his readers a vivid 
 impression of the inconsistency into 
 
110 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 which they would fall if they should 
 make light of sin after undergoing 
 the rite in which purification from sin, 
 or death to sin, was figured. Not 
 what baptism in its own virtue effected, 
 but what it was understood to repre- 
 sent or symbolize, was the pertinent 
 point of view. At least, it is perfectly 
 gratuitous to attach any larger sense 
 to the passage. The Epistle to the 
 Romans affords no proper ground for 
 charging that the apostle ran into 
 radical self-contradiction by assuming 
 an outward ceremony intrinsically effi- 
 cacious or working ex opere operato. 
 
 It has been observed by one or 
 another reviewer that Paul's repre- 
 sentation of burial with Christ in 
 baptism has a certain analogy to the 
 assumption in the Mystery Religions 
 that the initiate, in the performance 
 of the ritual, in some sort repeats the 
 experience of the god who is being 
 commemorated. The analogy is not 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 111 
 
 to be denied. But that Paul derived 
 from his knowledge of the Mysteries 
 an incentive to the symbolism in 
 question strikes us as problematical. 
 A mind so alert as that of the apostle, 
 and so dominated with the thought 
 and feeling of mystical union with 
 Christ, might easily have gravitated, 
 without exterior impulsion, into the 
 employment of the given baptismal 
 figure. In any event, there is the 
 scantiest sort of occasion to imagine 
 chat he took over a notion of cere- 
 monial efficacy that is glaringly con- 
 tradictory to his explicit teachings. 
 
 If the context of the statement 
 relative to baptism in the Epistle to 
 the Romans negatives the demand for 
 a high sacramental theory, the same 
 is true of the text in Galatians. We 
 read here: "Ye are all sons of God, 
 through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as 
 many of you as were baptized into 
 Christ did put on Christ" (iii. 26, 27). 
 
112 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 The first of these sentences makes 
 faith the condition of sonship, and 
 thus assigns to it the primacy which 
 it has customarily in the apostle's 
 discourse. Is it to be supposed that 
 this function of faith is ignored in 
 the following sentence, and that bap- 
 tism, as a mere sacramental per- 
 formance, is counted efficacious for the 
 putting on of Christ? Let any one, 
 who can, believe the apostle guilty 
 of such a foolish collocation of con- 
 tradictory statements. The gist of 
 his discourse is clear enough. He 
 makes the legal dispensation and the 
 dispensation of grace in Christ anti- 
 thetic, the one being associated with 
 servitude and the other with freedom. 
 He reminds the Galatians that they 
 are no longer in the estate of servitude, 
 but through faith in Christ have be- 
 come sons of God. To clinch this 
 point of view he reminds them of 
 their public act in receiving baptism, 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 113 
 
 as being an acknowledgment that 
 they belonged to the Christ who stood 
 for the dispensation of grace and 
 freedom, and so could not consistently 
 locate themselves under the old legal 
 dispensation. The point of emphasis 
 is not what baptism in its own virtue 
 accomplishes, but the relation of union 
 with Christ which baptism, where the 
 requisite spiritual conditions are ful- 
 filled, attests. 
 
 Such general references to baptism 
 as are contained in 1 Cor. vi. 11, 
 Col. ii. 12, and Eph. v. 26 leave room 
 for the limitations upon the efficacy 
 of baptism which are logically implied 
 in the fundamental teachings of Paul. 
 Relative to the Ephesian text Kennedy 
 remarks: 'The notion of a baptism of 
 the txxXYiGia is plainly metaphorical. 
 The most notable feature in the pas- 
 sage is the phrase sv popart, which no 
 doubt must be interpreted, as in 
 Romans x. 8, 17, of the proclamation 
 
114 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 of the gospel. This accords with the 
 place given to faith in the other pas- 
 sages on baptism which we have 
 examined." 8 
 
 The peculiar remark on baptism 
 for the dead, 1 Cor. xv. 29, remains 
 to be considered. Here the comments 
 of Meyer cover so well the essential 
 points that we cannot do better than 
 to reproduce his principal statements. 
 "That a baptism of such a kind effected 
 anything," he says, "was assuredly a 
 thought foreign to the apostle. He 
 wished to point out the subjective 
 absurdity of the procedure in the case 
 assumed. . . . The custom propagated 
 and maintained itself afterward only 
 among heretical sects, in particular 
 among the Cerinthians and among 
 the Marcionites. . . . The usual objec- 
 tion, that Paul could not have em- 
 ployed for his purpose at all, or at 
 
 8 St. Paul and the Mystery Religions, p. 252. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 115 
 
 least not without adding some censure, 
 such an abuse founded on the belief 
 in a magical power of baptism, is not 
 conclusive, for Paul may be arguing 
 ex concesso, and hence may allow the 
 relation of the matter to evangelical 
 faith to remain undetermined in the 
 meantime, seeing that it does not 
 belong to the proper subject of his 
 present discourse. The abuse must 
 afterward have been condemned by 
 apostolic teachers (hence it maintained 
 itself only among heretics), and no 
 doubt Paul too aided in the work of 
 its removal." 9 Of course no direct 
 proof exists that Paul disapproved of 
 baptism for the dead. But the indirect 
 evidence has no little cogency. The 
 absence of any trace of the custom 
 in Catholic Christendom in post- 
 apostolic times speaks decidedly for 
 the conclusion that it could not have 
 
 9 Critical and Exegetical Handbook on the Epistles to the 
 Corinthians, pp. 364, 365. 
 
116 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 enjoyed the sanction of the apostle who 
 surpassed all others in the extent of 
 his field of labor. If we conjoin with 
 this consideration the anti-ceremonial 
 trend of a great part of Paul's teaching, 
 the reasonable inference is that the 
 Corinthian text is to be construed as 
 rather shrewdly employed to confound 
 opponents than as representative of 
 the apostle's own belief. 10 
 
 In arguing against the indictment 
 of the apostle as a propagator of 
 the high sacramental theory of bap- 
 tism, it is not our intention to claim 
 that it had precisely the same sig- 
 nificance for him which it has for the 
 great body of Protestant believers un- 
 der the usual conditions in modern 
 
 10 Compare Clemen, Primitive Christianity and its Non-Jewish 
 Sources, p. 219. The above exposition proceeds on the supposition 
 that proxy baptism is referred to in 1 Cor. xv. 29. It is perhaps 
 incumbent on us to notice that this interpretation is not universally 
 accepted. Robertson and Plummer, for instance, suggest that 
 persons who were persuaded to accept baptism out of affection 
 for friends who had died as Christians might reasonably be desig- 
 nated as "those who receive baptism in behalf of the dead" (Inter- 
 national Critical Commentary). 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 117 
 
 times. In the apostolic era baptism 
 marked a great crisis in the life of 
 the convert. It often, if not, indeed, 
 customarily, followed closely upon the 
 exercise of faith in Christ. It thus 
 had a vital importance as a completing 
 act in the appropriation of Christian- 
 ity. It stamped the convert as an 
 initiate into a new world, and doubt- 
 less was frequently attended by an 
 increment of the new life. Under such 
 conditions it was naturally given a 
 somewhat closer association with the 
 positive beginning of the Christian 
 life than obtains in case of subjects 
 who have grown up in Christian com- 
 munities. That Paul's estimate of 
 baptism was in some degree affected 
 by the special conditions it is not at 
 all necessary to deny. What is to be 
 denied is that he estimated baptism 
 after the mode of a pronounced sacra- 
 mentalism, attaching to it an inde- 
 pendent virtue, or regarding it as 
 
118 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 working the renewal of its subjects 
 ex opere operato, 
 
 Paul refers directly to the eucharist 
 in only two passages — 1 Cor. x. 16-21, 
 xi. 20-34. An indirect reference has 
 been supposed by some to be con- 
 tained in 1 Cor. x. 3, 4. In the first 
 mentioned passage he styles the cup 
 which is blessed a communion of the 
 blood of Christ, and the bread which 
 is broken a communion of the body 
 of Christ, and reprobates the notion 
 that it is permissible for Christians 
 who share in this order of communion 
 to enter into communion with pagan 
 altars and divinities by knowingly 
 eating of things which have been offered 
 to idols. In the second of the pas- 
 sages mentioned he rebukes certain 
 disorders which had invaded the sa- 
 cred feast as observed by the Cor- 
 inthians, repeats the words ascribed 
 to Jesus in connection with the Last 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 119 
 
 Supper, emphasizes the memorial char- 
 acter of the eucharistic rite as showing 
 forth the Lord's death till he comes, 
 and warns against sacrilege by declar- 
 ing, " whosoever shall eat the bread 
 or drink the cup unworthily shall be 
 guilty of the body and blood of the 
 Lord." In the remaining passage ref- 
 erence is made to the experience of 
 Israel in the wilderness, where as par- 
 takers of the manna they all did eat 
 the same spiritual meat, and as re- 
 freshed by the water gushing from the 
 rock they drank of the same spiritual 
 drink, the rock which followed them 
 being Christ. In these three passages 
 is contained all the evidence which 
 can be adduced from the writings of 
 Paul in an attempt to convict him 
 of borrowing from the Mystery Re- 
 ligions the conception of a real eating 
 of the body and a real drinking of 
 the blood of Christ. 
 Against the supposition of such bor- 
 
120 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 rowing it can be urged, in the first 
 place, that there are legitimate grounds 
 of doubt as to the presence in the 
 contemporary Mysteries of that which 
 is supposed to have been borrowed. 
 Accounts of sacramental meals as 
 parts of the mystic program are con- 
 fessedly very scanty. 11 According to 
 Farnell there is no sign that the 
 initiated at Eleusis believed that they 
 were partaking through food of the 
 divine substance of their divinity, and 
 though this conception appears else- 
 where sporadically in ancient ritual, 
 "it is by no means so frequent that 
 we could assume it in any given case 
 without evidence." 12 "The alleged 
 instances," says Moffatt, "of wor- 
 shipers in the cults sharing in the 
 life of the deity by partaking of him 
 in a meal are distant, late, and du- 
 
 "Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, pp. 102ff.; Reitzenstein, Die 
 Hellenistieche Mysterienreligionen. 
 » The Cults of the Greek States, III, 196. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 121 
 
 bious." 13 Carl Clemen remarks that 
 we hear of sacred meals in the most 
 varied Mysteries, but have no in- 
 formation about the partaking in them 
 of the divinity. 14 Percy Gardner re- 
 pudiates the supposition that Paul 
 can properly be placed on a level with 
 those who have held to the notion of 
 a real eating of the divinity, and adds, 
 "In fact, in his time we cannot trace 
 in any of the more respectable forms 
 of heathen religion a survival of the 
 practice of eating the deity. 15 It 
 would seem, then, that a main premise 
 is wanting for the establishment of 
 the conclusion that Paul took over 
 from the Mystery Religions a thor- 
 oughly realistic view and applied it 
 to the eucharistic feast. Distinct proof 
 fails to appear that this view was at 
 hand, at least in such form and 
 
 u The Expositor, July, 1913. 
 
 14 Der EinfluBS der Myeterienreligionen auf das alttste Christen- 
 tum, p. 55. 
 
 16 The Religious Experience of St. Paul, p. 121. 
 
122 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 connection as would have been 
 likely to exercise any attraction upon 
 the mind of the apostle. That he 
 should have been favorably impressed 
 by a Dionysiac orgy — supposing such 
 a rite to have been in vogue in his 
 neighborhood — is not conceivable. 16 
 
 In the second place, as was illus- 
 trated at some length in connection 
 with the topic of baptism, the pre- 
 dominant emphasis which Paul placed 
 upon the spiritual conditions of re- 
 ligious benefits and attainments makes 
 it incredible that he could have held 
 the alleged realistic view of the euchar- 
 ist. He who spoke of Christ as dwell- 
 ing in the heart by faith, who declared 
 that any eating which is not of faith 
 
 18 In the cult of Osiris some sort of recognition may have been 
 given to a partaking of the god (A. Moret, Kings and Gods of 
 Egypt, pp. 97, 98). But it is difficult to conceive that instructed 
 Egyptians could have understood in a literal sense the vague 
 reference to this function in their highly symbolical ritual. Aa 
 for those within the pale of Christian teaching, it is not credible 
 that they would be inclined to award any favorable attention to 
 a reference of this kind in a cult which they could but regard as 
 based in extravagant allegory, magic, and mythology. , 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 123 
 
 works condemnation, who affirmed that 
 the kingdom of God is not eating and 
 drinking, but righteousness and peace 
 and joy in the Holy Ghost, who made 
 bold to say that flesh and blood 
 cannot inherit the kingdom of God — 
 is it to be supposed that this man 
 thought that Christ could be savingly 
 appropriated by the mere physical 
 act of eating and drinking physical 
 elements? Well may any sober-minded 
 person hesitate to charge the apostle 
 with such superficiality and self-con- 
 tradiction. 
 
 In the third place, it is to be no- 
 ticed that no one of the three 
 passages mentioned contains a com- 
 pelling ground for imputing to Paul 
 the crass realistic view of the euchar- 
 ist. There is very slight occasion to 
 take the words of 1 Cor. x. 3, 4 in a 
 realistic sense, scarcely more occasion 
 to do so than to conclude that those 
 who are spoken of by the psalmist as 
 
124 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 being shepherded and made to lie 
 down in green pastures must be con- 
 strued as literal sheep which divided 
 their time between cropping grass and 
 reclining on the ground. As a Jew, or 
 simply as a member of the human 
 race, Paul was not necessarily an utter 
 stranger to metaphorical and para- 
 bolic speech. It is quite gratuitous, 
 if not worse, to suppose that he meant 
 to identify Christ with the manna 
 or the rock. The manna and the 
 water gushing from the rock were 
 spiritual meat and drink to the Israel- 
 ites — to those who were sufficiently 
 responsive to their import — as attest- 
 ing the grace and compassion of God 
 whereof Christ may be conceived as 
 the medium or channel. That they 
 were unconditionally spiritual meat 
 and drink is not said; rather the con- 
 trary is intimated by the sequel, for 
 most of the participants fell under the 
 displeasure of God and were over- 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 125 
 
 thrown in the wilderness. There is 
 no disclosure here of a sacrament 
 which works ex opere operato. 
 
 The point of emphasis in 1 Cor. x. 
 16-21 lies in the communion (xotvayvla) 
 on the one hand with the body and 
 blood of Christ, and on the other 
 with the demons (or gods) who pre- 
 side over the sacrificial feasts of the 
 heathen. A suggestion that a moral 
 element or matter of personal attitude 
 enters into the specified communion 
 is indicated by the apostle's dealing 
 with it in its heathen connections. He 
 does not assume that the mere eating 
 of meat offered to heathen gods or 
 demons involves communion with 
 them. Christians may eat without 
 scruple whatever is sold in the sham- 
 bles, asking no question about its 
 antecedents. Communion with de- 
 mons ensues only where the meat 
 is distinctly recognized as affiliated 
 with the demons by previous con- 
 
126 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 seeration. Eating in that case is 
 derelict as making one, on the score 
 of his consent, a table companion of 
 demons. As R6ville remarks: "The 
 apostle here appeals to the religious 
 idea which inspired the sacred meals 
 of the Greeks, communion with the 
 gods by the absorption of a common 
 food, belonging to the gods by the 
 fact of consecration. The xoivovia 
 rtiv Saifioviav does not mean the ab- 
 sorption of the flesh of the demons 
 any more than the xotvcdvla tov dvci- 
 aaryjpiov means the absorption of the 
 altar. ... In the one and the other 
 alternative there is involved the sol- 
 idarity attested by the religious meal, 
 on the one hand with the demons, 
 on the other with the body and 
 blood of Christ." 17 Paul views the 
 solidarity or communion with the de- 
 mons, which is realized in the religious 
 meal, as ethically conditioned in the 
 
 17 Cited by Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions, p. 273. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 127 
 
 case of professing Christians. It is 
 quite in order to suppose that he 
 regarded communion with the body 
 or the blood of Christ — in other words, 
 with the Christ whose body was broken 
 and whose blood was shed 18 — as also 
 ethically conditioned. In fact, he ex- 
 plicitly indicates further on in the 
 epistle that this was his point of view, 
 in that he speaks of those who, in 
 their careless lack of consideration for 
 what the consecrated elements stand, 
 eat and drink judgment unto them- 
 selves. What we have, then, in the 
 passage on "communion" is the thought 
 of an ethically conditioned fellowship 
 or solidarity with the crucified Saviour 
 through the medium of a sacred feast. 
 No literal eating of the Christ, no 
 
 18 The propriety of this rendering is suggested by a phase of the 
 passage. If by communion with the altar is to be understood 
 communion with the God who is represented by the altar, then by 
 communion with the body and blood of Christ we may under- 
 stand communion with the suffering and dying Christ. That in 
 both instances the sacred person was regarded as the real object 
 of communion cannot well be doubted. 
 
128 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 sacrament working ex opere operato, 
 needs to be supposed. 
 
 So readily does the remaining pas- 
 sage (1 Cor. xi. 20-34) lend itself to 
 a symbolical interpretation, that it 
 verily j- has the appearance of a tour 
 de force to read into it any crass 
 realism. What is eaten in the euchar- 
 istic feast is spoken of, not as the 
 body of Christ, but as bread. A 
 memorial function is ascribed to the 
 eating: it proclaims the Lord's death 
 till he comes. Furthermore, as noted 
 above, the benefit of partaking of the 
 elements is conditioned on the appro- 
 priate religious attitude. It is said, 
 to be sure, that the one who eats 
 and drinks unworthily makes himself 
 guilty of the body and blood of the 
 Lord. But these words are entirely 
 pertinent in connection with the sym- 
 bolical interpretation. He who treats 
 despitefully the symbol pours contempt 
 on the things symbolized, just as one 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 129 
 
 who tramples on his country's flag 
 vents despite upon his country. 
 
 Paul's conception of the eucharist 
 was doubtless not of that type which 
 is likely to be taken by a prosaic 
 mind, but, rather, such as is congenial 
 to an intense poetic soul. He had a 
 most vivid impression of the reality 
 of Christ and of his intimate presence 
 in every Christian function normally 
 fulfilled. He would have been in 
 pronounced contradiction with him- 
 self had he not thought of the Master 
 as being effectively present with ear- 
 nest and faith-inspired disciples in the 
 solemn commemoration of his passion. 
 Herein he shows a certain kinship with 
 a view of the eucharist which had 
 much currency among the Greek Fa- 
 thers, the view namely that Christ 
 in his spiritual nature, or as the Logos, 
 comes into a relation with the con- 
 secrated elements analogous to that 
 assumed to the body appropriated in 
 
130 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 his incarnation, thereby imparting to 
 them a special efficacy. 19 The Pauline 
 view of the effective spiritual presence 
 of Christ in the eucharist has, we say, 
 a degree of kinship with the given 
 patristic conception. But the kinship 
 is still at a notable remove from 
 identity. What Paul emphasized was 
 not a special relation of Christ to the 
 consecrated elements, but the ethically 
 conditioned presence of Christ to the 
 believing recipient of those elements. 
 
 19 Gieseler, Dogmengeschichte, p. 411; Schweitzer, Paxil and His 
 Interpreters, pp. 200, 201. Compare A. Lagarde, The Latin 
 Church in the Middle Ages, p. 51. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 131 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE QUESTION OF THE IN- 
 DEBTEDNESS OF THE JOHAN- 
 NINE WRITINGS, AND OF 
 OTHER PORTIONS OF THE 
 NEW TESTAMENT, TO THE 
 MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 By the Johannine writings in this 
 connection we denote the fourth Gospel 
 and the epistles (especially the first) 
 bearing the name of John. On the 
 authorship of the Apocalypse no pro- 
 nouncement is designed. A separate 
 treatment is appropriate to it on 
 account of its special character. 
 
 Among preliminary considerations 
 the Jewish lineage of the author of 
 the fourth Gospel and the Johannine 
 Epistles is worthy of note. The fact 
 that he was of Jewish birth and train- 
 ing is commonly admitted. Good 
 
132 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 evidence appears in the language of 
 the Gospel. The construction betrays 
 the Hebrew antecedents of the writer. 
 The sentences are for the most part 
 coordinated, not subordinated. Of gen- 
 uine Greek period-building scarcely a 
 trace is to be found. 1 The tenor of 
 the contents bears witness to like 
 antecedents. While the evangelist 
 thinks of contemporary Jews as irre- 
 concilable opponents of the Christian 
 faith, he takes a high view of the 
 historic vocation of Judaism. Christ 
 is represented as claiming that salva- 
 tion is from the Jews, and as coming 
 to his own proper possession in his 
 advent to the Jews. Much care is 
 exhibited to join events in the life 
 of Christ with Old Testament texts. 
 In fine, the evidence is decisive for the 
 Jewish lineage of the evangelist. More- 
 over, there are fairly substantial rea- 
 sons for supposing him to have been 
 
 1 Wetzel, Die Echtheit des Evangeliuma Johannis, p. 36. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 133 
 
 a Palestinian resident. His accurate 
 knowledge of Palestinian localities is 
 best explained on this ground. 1 It is 
 much more likely that he came to 
 that knowledge as a resident, favored 
 with repeated opportunities for ob- 
 servation, than as one who had simply 
 made a fugitive tour through the land. 
 Now antecedents of this kind have 
 something more than an indifferent 
 bearing on our theme. We are en- 
 titled to suppose in the author of the 
 Johannine writings as substantial bar- 
 riers to an appreciative attitude toward 
 the Mystery Religions as Jewish de- 
 scent and training could furnish. 2 
 
 A second preliminary consideration, 
 having distinct pertinency, is the rela- 
 tion of the Johannine writings to the 
 Pauline. Admittedly the latter were 
 influential antecedents of the former. 
 However much they may differ in 
 
 2 "I imagine," says Moffatt, "that the author of the fourth Gospel 
 would not have failed to sympathize with Philo's passionate 
 aversion to all Mystery Religions" (The Expositor, July, 1913). 
 
134 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 respect of form, their close affinity in 
 vital doctrinal points is beyond dis- 
 pute. Even the doctrine of the Logos, 
 as Professor Bacon rightly claims, 3 is 
 already present in all but name, in 
 the Pauline Epistles. In so far, then, 
 as the points in the writings of Paul, 
 which have been supposed to align 
 his teachings with the Mystery Re- 
 ligions, are substantially reproduced in 
 the Johannine writings, sufficient his- 
 torical antecedents are assigned them. 
 There is no need to discover in them 
 the influential working of the pagan 
 cults, which undoubtedly their author 
 regarded quite as unfavorably as did 
 his apostolic predecessor. Now, the 
 points of alignment which are capable 
 of being specified between the Johan- 
 nine writings and the Mystery Re- 
 ligions are not appreciably different 
 from those which are alleged to per- 
 tain to the Pauline writings. It is 
 
 3 The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate, pp. 5, 6. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 135 
 
 indeed our conviction that not a single 
 specific point can be mentioned as 
 belonging to the former which is not 
 discoverable in the latter. With this 
 conclusion it is doubtless possible to 
 combine the view that the atmosphere 
 of the Johannine writings is more 
 pervasively tinged with the Mysteries 
 than is that of the Pauline. But a 
 verdict to this effect has not been 
 brought in by a unanimous jury. 
 A dissenting voice may be heard in 
 these words of Ramsay: "We cannot 
 regard John's Gospel as specially com- 
 prehensible to the Gentiles, though 
 it was written in Asia for Asiatic 
 Hellenes. It is deeply Palestinian in 
 its cast of thought and expression; 
 and the religious atmosphere in which 
 it moves is non-Hellenic to a greater 
 degree than the writings of Paul/' 4 
 The distinguished student of Pauline 
 lore may possibly be challenged in 
 
 4 The Teaching of Paul in Terms of the Present Day, p. 50. 
 
136 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 respect of this statement. Firm 
 ground, however, remains for the con- 
 tention that a substantially full com- 
 plement of the ideas supposedly affil- 
 iating with the Mysteries, which can 
 be discovered in the Johannine writ- 
 ings, is discoverable in the Pauline 
 Epistles. The Johannine writer could 
 have taken them from that quarter 
 if he needed to borrow them at all. 
 Of course, if Paul took them from 
 the Mystery Religions, ultimate obli- 
 gation to that source, on the part 
 of the Johannine writer, is not dis- 
 proved. But it has been our attempt 
 in previous chapters to show that 
 Paul's obligations were inconsiderable. 
 The point of the present paragraph 
 is therefore made with entire consis- 
 tency. 
 
 In their doctrine of Christ's person 
 and saving office the Johannine writings 
 may not locate the emphasis just 
 where it was placed by Paul; but 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 137 
 
 sufficient antecedents for all the ele- 
 ments of the doctrine were furnished 
 by the Pauline teaching. That teach- 
 ing was an incomparably more fertile 
 source of suggestion than the Mystery 
 Religions could possibly have been. 
 It is an historical illusion which per- 
 mits one to suppose that a writer of 
 Jewish lineage and training could have 
 felt the least motive to draw from 
 them. The attitude of the Evangelist 
 was not and could not have been any- 
 thing like that of the twentieth-cen- 
 tury student who enforces himself to 
 sympathize with all the varied mani- 
 festations of religion. Had he been 
 interested to look into any one of 
 the contemporary Mysteries, he would 
 have seen in it nothing better than a 
 heap of fantastic mythological fancies. 
 His verdict would have been quite 
 as scornful at least as was that which 
 the broad-minded Alexandrian Clem- 
 ent in his day passed upon the Mystery 
 
138 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 cults. 5 For the essential trend of 
 New Testament Christology and so- 
 teriology an adequate source can be 
 found entirely apart from recourse to 
 cults so obnoxious to the minds of 
 New Testament writers. The powerful 
 impression made by the teaching, life, 
 death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
 combined with the ideal pictures in 
 the Prophets and the higher view of 
 the Messiah in later Judaism, are 
 reasonably regarded as sufficient his- 
 torical factors, when impinging upon 
 such deep and impressionable souls as 
 those of the apostle Paul and the 
 fourth evangelist, to bring forth the 
 Christological and soteriological con- 
 tent. The conception of the Logos, as 
 developed in Greek philosophy, was 
 indeed fitted to serve as an auxiliary 
 in respect of formulating Christological 
 belief; but the belief itself was not 
 
 5 Address to the Greeks, chap. ii. Compare Minucius Felix, 
 Octavius, chap. xxi. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 139 
 
 dependent upon the contributions of 
 philosophy. 
 
 The Johannine writings are relatively 
 distinguished by their valuation of 
 knowledge. This feature has been 
 supposed to be a token of contact 
 with the Mystery Religions. In par- 
 ticular the rating of the vision of God 
 as the culmination of enhghtenment 
 and the supreme means of trans- 
 formation into the divine likeness has 
 been emphasized as a mark of inter- 
 connection. But closely examined, the 
 point of view in the Johannine writings 
 is found to be materially different from 
 that of the Mysteries. In the former 
 knowledge is conceived as ethically 
 conditioned in the most thorough 
 sense; in the latter the ethical con- 
 dition is radically obscured, not to 
 say obliterated, by the scope which 
 is given to magic. In the former the 
 vision of God comes from intimate 
 spiritual fellowship with him. Every 
 
140 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 one who hopes for it purifies himself 
 even as he is pure. In the latter it 
 is pictured as the result of an ecstatic 
 uplift which serves as a means of 
 momentary divine disclosure. The in- 
 ference seems to be well grounded that 
 the evangelist was too well instructed 
 to take any lesson on this subject 
 from the Mystery Religions. He agrees 
 doubtless with their underlying sup- 
 position that divine revelation is the 
 authentic source of knowledge. There 
 is no need, however, to imagine that 
 he falls in with the supposition be- 
 cause it was harbored by them. As 
 a Hebrew he was legitimately heir to 
 it, and it was an outstanding assump- 
 tion with his predecessor, the apostle 
 Paul. Possibly the evangelist dis- 
 coursed on knowledge somewhat more 
 fully than he would otherwise have 
 done, owing to the occasion to present 
 an offset to the Gnosticism which had 
 begun to invade the Christian domain. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 141 
 
 Assuredly, no more effective expedient 
 against Gnostic propagandises could 
 have been devised than the Johannine 
 procedure, in which knowledge is at 
 once honored and set in right relations. 
 A representation analogous to the 
 Johannine antithesis between the seen 
 and temporal on the one hand and 
 the unseen and eternal on the other 
 undoubtedly had place in the Hellenic 
 domain. In that domain, however, 
 by far the most prominent and influ- 
 ential setting forth of the antithesis 
 occurred within the limits of the Pla- 
 tonic philosophy. If the fourth Evan- 
 gelist must be accounted a debtor for 
 this feature in his teaching, there is 
 still very slight occasion to regard 
 him as a debtor specifically to the 
 Mystery Religions. That he was not 
 a headlong borrower from any source, 
 the Platonic included, is evinced by 
 the fact that in the antithesis which 
 he depicts no place is given to a meta- 
 
142 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 physical dualism. He never paints 
 the temporal visible world as intrin- 
 sically evil. The Christ whom he 
 acknowledges truly came in the flesh, 
 and he excoriates the rejecter of this 
 historic fact as partaking of the spirit 
 of antichrist. 
 
 The evidence for the assumption 
 that the Johannine theology affiliates 
 with the Mystery Religions, as incor- 
 porating high sacramental conceptions, 
 strikes us as quite inadequate. As 
 respects baptism only a single phrase 
 can be cited in its behalf, namely, the 
 declaration on being born of water 
 and the Spirit (iii. 5). And here the 
 conjunction of water with the Spirit 
 seems to be exegetically designed. It 
 serves to explain to Nicodemus the 
 character of the new birth as being 
 a cleansing. In the following verse the 
 agent of the spiritual birth is explicitly 
 declared to be the Spirit; and further 
 on a complete basis is given for the 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 143 
 
 inference that the working of this 
 agent is not tied to a baptismal occa- 
 sion, his coming and going being like 
 the unaccountable movements of the 
 wind. Thus the passage on the new 
 birth, taken as a whole, distinctly 
 accentuates the primacy of the Spirit's 
 agency. Professor Gardner keeps 
 within the limits of a very decided 
 probability when he says: "The idea 
 that baptism by itself could regenerate 
 would be to the writer as monstrous 
 as the notion of Nicodemus that a 
 man must enter again into his mother's 
 womb. Here as in all parts of the 
 Gospel, it is the Spirit that profiteth. ,,6 
 The connection does not properly 
 require any reference to the sayings 
 of Christ addressed to the woman 
 of Samaria (John iv. 13, 14). In the 
 whole texture of those sayings there 
 
 8 The Ephesian Gospel, p. 201. We have not thought it worth 
 while to take special notice of the fact that the mention of water 
 in John hi. 5 has been judged by some critics to have been no 
 part of the original text (Wendt, The Gospel According to St. 
 John, p. 120). 
 
144 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 is no suggestion whatever of a bap- 
 tismal washing. The stress is plainly 
 on the inward appropriation of grace 
 or truth which shall be in the recipient 
 as "a well of water springing up unto 
 eternal life." Scarcely more in de- 
 mand is a reference to the declaration 
 that out of the pierced side of Christ 
 came both blood and water (xix. 34). 
 The evangelist who records not so 
 much as a single specific injunction 
 of baptism, who represents Christ as 
 denying the worth of any fleshly per- 
 formance, as assigning life-giving virtue 
 to his words, and as repeatedly affirm- 
 ing that in believing on him eternal 
 life is to be found, in all likelihood did 
 not construe the water which he 
 associated with the blood as symbolical 
 of any external rite. As in the Pauline 
 teaching the objective and the sub- 
 jective phase of Christ's saving office 
 — the virtue of atonement and the 
 virtue of a transforming life potency 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 145 
 
 — are most intimately conjoined, so we 
 may believe that the Evangelist recog- 
 nized the two phases as symbolized 
 by the outpoured blood and water. 
 By the one was expressed to his mind 
 the efficacy of Christ as a propitiation, 
 by the other the power of his spiritual 
 presence to renovate and refresh the 
 inner life. 
 
 The basis for the realistic view of 
 the eucharist supposed to be con- 
 tained in the sixth chapter of the 
 Gospel is purely verbal rather than 
 substantial. The chapter itself indi- 
 cates clearly enough that the literal 
 verbal sense must be transcended. 
 In the earlier portion the same results 
 are attributed to faith which later 
 are ascribed to eating the flesh and 
 drinking the blood of Christ. Further- 
 more, the eating and drinking are 
 spoken of as unconditionally efficacious, 
 nothing being said about eating or 
 drinking unworthily. This plainly sug- 
 
146 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 gests that they do not stand for mere 
 bodily acts, but are to be construed 
 as spiritual functions, or as figurative 
 expressions for the believing appro- 
 priation of Christ in all the wealth 
 of his saving truth. Finally, this 
 interpretation is formally enforced in 
 the unequivocal proposition, "It is 
 the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh 
 profiteth nothing: the words that I 
 have spoken unto you, are spirit and 
 are life." The necessary induction 
 could not be more suitably stated 
 than in these words of Moffatt: "It 
 is consonant with the characteristic 
 mysticism of the writer's faith to say, 
 that the bread and wine of the Lord's 
 Supper must have been for him sym- 
 bols, at best, of the presence and 
 benefits of Christ." 7 Symbolism of 
 this kind was not foreign to Jewish 
 literary custom. In the semi-canonical 
 book of Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom is repre- 
 
 7 The Expositor, July, 1913. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 147 
 
 sented as saying: "They that eat me 
 shall yet be hungry; and they that 
 drink me shall yet be thirsty" (xxiv. 
 21). "Metaphors from eating and 
 drinking/ ' says Inge, "are common in 
 Talmudic literature, and Philo speaks 
 of the Logos as the food of the soul. 
 There was, therefore, nothing strange 
 or unintelligible in the imagery of the 
 [Johannine] discourse. To eat the 
 Messiah would be readily understood 
 to mean to receive spiritual nourish- 
 ment from him, to live by his life." 8 
 
 It may be conceded, or rather, 
 affirmed, that the fourth evangelist 
 was not indifferent to the sacraments; 
 that he, indeed, set a distinct value 
 upon them as suitable means of link- 
 ing together in the apprehension of men 
 the invisible and the visible. What is 
 to be denied is the discovery of any 
 warrantable ground for the conclusion 
 
 8 Essays on Some Biblical Questions of the Day by Members 
 of the University of Cambridge, p. 285. 
 
148 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 that he imputed to the sacraments 
 independent efficacy, the virtue of 
 rites which work ex opere operato. 
 
 The similarity of the phraseology of 
 the Johannine writings to that of the 
 Hermetic literature is strongly em- 
 phasized by Reitzenstein, while at the 
 same time he admits a notable con- 
 trast in spirit and thought. 9 Among 
 the terms common to the two classes 
 of writings "light" and "life" are 
 conspicuous. 10 It is noticeable, how- 
 ever, that the Johannine writer has a 
 pronounced fondness for broad cate- 
 gories and sharp antitheses, an in- 
 clination to develop his whole subject- 
 matter about a few comprehensive and 
 contrasted terms, such as light and 
 darkness, life and death, love and 
 hatred, sin and righteousness, the 
 world and the Christian brotherhood. 
 Now, in carrying out this bent it is 
 
 9 Poimandres, pp. 244, 245. 
 
 i° Ibid., Greek text, I, 9, 12, 17, 21, 32, XIV, 9, 18, 19, pp. 330-347. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 149 
 
 quite conceivable that he should have 
 fallen into his peculiar phraseology 
 without recourse to exterior models. 
 His acquaintance with the Hermetic 
 literature remains problematical, and 
 the uncertain date of that literature 
 makes a still further ground for in- 
 decision. 
 
 In any well-rounded dealing with 
 the subject full account must be made 
 of the respects in which the Johannine 
 writings are strongly contrasted with 
 the Mystery Religions. It will not 
 be necessary, however, to state them 
 here in detail, since they are identical 
 with the points of contrast already 
 specified between the Mystery Re- 
 ligions and New Testament Christian- 
 ity as a whole. 11 In their advocacy of 
 an open system, in their aloofness from 
 astrology, sidereal mysticism, and nat- 
 uralism in general, in their insistence 
 on the ethical as opposed to the 
 
 "See Chapter III. 
 
150 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 magical, in their avoidance of a pan- 
 theistic strain, and in their emphasis 
 on a historical basis, the Johannine 
 writings are in a different sphere from 
 that of the Mystery Religions. 12 
 
 The author of the book of Rev- 
 elation may be credited with using the 
 license common to apocalyptists to 
 range widely for the symbols appro- 
 priate to a thoroughly picturesque 
 style of writing. It would cause no 
 surprise to find that he had gone 
 into the field of ethnic beliefs and 
 mythologies for the groundwork of 
 some of his representations. Perhaps 
 in what he says about the number of 
 the "beast," and in his picture of the 
 woman pursued by the dragon, we 
 have tokens that he derived sugges- 
 tions from that quarter. Facts of 
 this order, however, give him no 
 special association with the Mystery 
 
 12 The points of contrast are well put by E. F. Scott, American 
 Journal of Theology, July, 1916. 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 151 
 
 Religions, but only with the general 
 store of ethnic mythology. From this 
 store, too, he took only things inci- 
 dental to his scene-painting. 
 
 In the Old Testament, the Jewish 
 Alexandrian theology, and the Pauline 
 writings entirely adequate antecedents 
 were supplied to the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews. There is exceedingly slight 
 occasion to connect it with the Mystery 
 Religions. The notion of a plurality 
 of heavens appears, indeed (iv. 14, 
 vii. 26) ; but a mere general expression 
 of this notion was something in which 
 any Jewish writer of the day might 
 have indulged, and is no proof of 
 belief in the elaborate cosmological 
 scheme of the Mystery cults. The 
 apparent reference to conversion as an 
 enlightenment (x. 32) may have a 
 certain affinity with the viewpoint of 
 these cults, and the supposition that 
 the choice of the expression was in- 
 
152 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 fluenced from that quarter invites 
 tolerance; but, on the other hand, no 
 one can be assured that the writer 
 was so destitute of capacity for analog- 
 ical thinking that he did not of his 
 own motion elect the expression. The 
 characterization of Christ as "medi- 
 ator" and "shepherd" may correspond 
 to the employment of titles in one or 
 another of the Mysteries. It is to 
 be concluded, however, that too abun- 
 dant sources of suggestion for these 
 titles were furnished to the writer 
 in his Pauline, Alexandrian, and Old 
 Testament antecedents, to make the 
 supposition of borrowing from a pagan 
 source at all imperative. As for the 
 special phrase, "great shepherd," it is 
 parallel to the expression "great high 
 priest," which is twice used in the 
 epistle, and suits the earnest endeavor 
 of the author to picture the pre- 
 eminence of Christ. Some other points 
 have been alleged to give evidence of 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 153 
 
 borrowing from the Mysteries; but it 
 is not worth while to mention them. 
 They concern matters that were mere 
 commonplaces in the current Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
154 THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 It would not be venturesome to 
 predict that the radical assumption as 
 to the influence of the Mystery Re- 
 ligions on the form and content of 
 primitive Christianity must recede from 
 the field. Like the Pan-Babylonian 
 theory of some years ago it represents 
 an extreme. Taken in the concrete 
 — the only way in which they could 
 be taken prior to scholarly induction 
 — the Mystery Religions, as they ex- 
 isted in the first century, were in no 
 wise adapted to appeal to Christian 
 leaders. Their opportunity to react 
 upon Christian thought and feeling, 
 especially in the direction of cere- 
 monial magic, came later, when great 
 masses which had been leavened by 
 them poured into the church. Even 
 then the entire adverse result was not 
 
AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 155 
 
 due to them. Much of it is to be 
 attributed to the natural tendency of 
 any system, which seeks control over 
 men, to gravitate into mechanism and 
 pretense when not safeguarded by 
 most potent and wholesome influences. 
 
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