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YSTERY RELIGIONS

NEW TESTAMENT
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The Mystery Religions and The New Testament

By

HENRY

C.

SHELDON

Professor in Boston University

THE ABINGDON PRESS

NEW YORK
CINCINNATI

9,

Copyright, 1918, by

HENRY

C.

SHELDON

AUG 17

I'Bl'a

CU501480

CONTENTS
PAGE

3
J^

Preface

CHAPTER
A Glance
of
i

at the Characteristic Characters Features

the

Mystery

.Religions

CHAPTER

II

Some Special Phases in the Content or History 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 Conceptions of Baptism and the Eucharist
5

100

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
VI

The Question

op the Indebtedness op the Johannine Writings, and op Other Portions op the New Testament, to the Mystery Religions 131
154

Conclusion

PREFACE
This book has been written, not
for

the

small

class

of

experts,

but
are

for the large class of those

likely to appreciate a

who

compact exposition of a prominent theme in New Testament criticism. We respect, however, the function of the experts, and venture to cherish the hope that of
those

among them who may chance

little treatise

to look into this

proportion
its

may be

a fair able to approve

tenor.

CHAPTER

A GLANCE AT THE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

The
general conception underlying

the term "Mystery," as used in this

has been very well expressed in the following sentences: "The word Mystery was the name of a religious society, founded not on citizenship or kindred, but on the
connection,
choice of
of
rites
its

members,
it

for the practice

by which,

was

believed,

their happiness might be promoted both in this world and in the next. The Greek word (ivoryptov does not, of its own force, imply anything, in

that

our sense of the word 'mysterious/ is to say, obscure or difficult to comprehend. That which it connotes

10
is,

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

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

Thus the Mysstood for a knowledge and a benefit that were accessible only by
are to all." 1

common

tery

way of initiation. The one who had been initiated was considered under very imperative bonds of secrecy. His obligation, however, to maintain silence concerned less the general significance
of the Mystery ceremonial details.

than

its

account of the Mystery Religions notice would need to be taken of the cult of Ishtar and Tammuz. But as our survey pertains only to such religious types as had an opportunity to impinge upon early Christianity on the theater of the

In a

full

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

in place,

11

though a reference to it as an influential antecedent may be quite pertinent. Of direct concern are the Graeco-Thracian Mysteries, having
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

and Serapis originating in Egypt; and of Mithra, primarily connected with Persia and spreading thence in the Roman empire. In
Isis, Osiris,

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 consideration the teaching of Posidonius,

who

figured

at

Rhodes

in

the

first

12

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

of

half

the

century

preceding

the

birth of Christianity,

and who, along

with a certain degree of adherence

to the Stoic philosophy, combined
of

much
in-

an

eclectic temper.

It is claimed

also that

an incipient Gnosticism,
spirit

debted not a little for content to the Mystery

and

Religions,

was already
tianity

in the field
its

when

Chrisis

began

mission.

Note

taken of the fact that the knowledge (yv&aig), 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
In
to

science.

connection
the

with
it

the
is

Mystery
important

Religions as a class,

recognize

serious

limitations

which are imposed upon our knowl"The study of the antique edge.
Mysteries/ says tremely difficult,
'

De
since

Jong,

"is

exat

we have

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

our
disposal

13

only

fragmentary

and
"Perof
dis-

often very scanty material." 2

haps no loss," "caused by the

remarks
general

Cumont,
wreck

ancient literature has been

of paganism.

more

astrous than that of the liturgic books

few mystic formulas quoted incidentally by pagan or Christian authors and a few fragments of hymns in honor of the gods are pracescaped 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, precisely the one during which the Oriental religions reached the apogee of their power." 3 No one of these retically all that
.

Das Antike Mysterienwesen, p. 4. The Oriental Religions n Roman Paganism, pp. 11-14.
:

14

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

has

ligions

bequeathed

complete

liturgy or ritual.

An

enthusiastic de-

scription of certain scenes pertaining

to
of

the initiation into the Mysteries Isis, as contained in the Metaof

is

morphoses of Apuleius, a writer

the second century,

perhaps as noteworthy 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 But Cumont and of Mithraism. 4
others have challenged the legitimacy
of the identification.
It

therefore, that the specified

offers

would seem, document

a very insecure foundation to build upon. This fragmentary character of the sources of information evidently enforces the need of caution against
indulging in over-broad and ill-founded
inductions.
*

It

is

possible for a re-

Eine 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

definite content

a larger and more than is warrantable.

suspicion that recent scholarship has not wholly escaped this tempta-

"There is tion easily intrudes itself. 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
matter by
in-

their lack of genuine

serting their

own

hypotheses." 5

On

the question of the period and

of

province

the

Mysteries

it

is

to

be noted that those of Eleusis were started at an early point in the history 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 supposed to have been current in Attica

as early as the eleventh century before

Christ; 6

and,

while

considerable

period

may have

elapsed before the

scheme at Eleusis was relatively matured, it had doubtless been a factor in Greek religion for centuries prior
to the culmination of Attic civiliza-

In respect of their sphere these Mysteries were limited by the requirement 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 Grsecotion.

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 "First, began to invade the West.
8

Foucart, Lea Mystdrea d'Eleusis, p. 24&.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

there

17

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 influx of Egyptian, Semitic,
beliefs

and Persian

and customs took place that

threatened to submerge all that Greek and Roman genius had laboriously
built up." 7

The Cult

of

Cybele was
it

represented in
204.

Rome

as early as B. C.

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.

Under the empire

At Rome it was discountenanced by the early emperors,

7

Cumont. The Oriental Religions

in

Roman

Paganism,

p.

18

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

it

distinct attempts to drive

out being

made by Augustus and

their successors

Tiberius.

But

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
ents
till

of adher-

the culmination of

its

influence

in the early part of the third century. 8 in the Hellenic domain.

Mithraism secured but few converts It was repre-

sented at

Rome

as early as B. C. 67,

but
till

gained

no appreciable foothold
second
it

the closing decades of the next

century.

In the
centuries

Christian

and third was given a

wide extension in the region stretching from the Caspian Sea to Italy and Being to the Eastern part of Gaul. a peculiar degree the religion of soldiers, it was carried wherever the
8 Lafaye, Histoire 24-63.

du Cultes dee

DivinitSs d'Alexandrie,

pp.

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. 180192)
of

became an adherent, and various

successors

his

regarded

it

with

The climax of its progress was probably reached toward the end of the third century. Julian the Apostate beyond the middle of the next century exerted himself to the utmost restore its fortunes, but his to
favor.

short-lived reaction (361-363) availed

little

to check the

irretrievable

movement toward downfall. The Orphic

brotherhoods were an appreciable factor in the Greek domain, including Southern Italy, from the sixth century 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
is

How

widely

it

became current

not clearly determined. Reitzenstein'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 adherence to the classic faiths had become little else than nominal. After
its

contact

with Christianity Gnos-

ticism became, especially in the sec9 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 J. M. Creed reviews the of Theology, October, 1916, p. 566). 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
the

of

these documents "are at

writings
of

least

contemporaneous
(Thrice-Greatest

with
10

earliest

Christianity"

Hermes,

III, 323).

234; Astrology
76,

Cumont, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, pp. 233, and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, pp. 77; Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions, pp. Ill, 112.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

21

ond century, a widely disseminated In the pre-Christian phenomenon. 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 sources from which

drew their materials opinion is not unanimous. Two things, however, may be regarded as established. In the first place, it cannot be doubted that the Babylonian story of Ishtar and Tammuz wrought in some degree for the
the several Mystery Religions

production of kindred representations 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
in

22

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

in the
Isis

Roman

empire, like those of

and Mithra, ultimately incorporated 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 contrasted views have been expressed. Foucart has argued very earnestly
for the distinct
of

and

large indebtedness

the

Eleusinian rites

to

those

of

Isis; indeed, he makes the former no more than a Hellenic version of the 11 Farnell, on the other hand, latter.

rejects

the idea of radical influence

from the Egyptian quarter. 12

11 12

Foucart
Compare De

Les Mysteres d'Eleusis.

The Higher Aspects

of

the Greek Religion.

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
of

in

their

general

cast,

the

Mysteries appear rather as the

affair

voluntary

state institutions.

brotherhoods than as Their status was

that
of

very

much

like

the

early

Christian societies.

There were some,

however, that claimed a definite political relation. From the seventh century before Christ the Eleusinian Mysteries were under the direct patronage of Athens, and the Samothra13

Orpheus, Untersuchung zu Griechischen, Romischen, Altchrist-

lichen Jenseitsdichtung

und

Religion.

24

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

cian also were accorded state recognition.

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
their

written upon the subject

of the Mysteries that they offered to

no considerable body either moral or metaphysical instruction. A modicum of moral impression may have been ministered by them; but of moral indoctrination nothing worthy of note. 14 The statevotaries
of

ment

of Aristotle respecting the trans-

actions

at

Eleusis,

impressions,"
M At
of

may

"they give only be regarded as an

Eleusis the homicide was rejected as also the professor unhallowed rites. "Otherwise there seem to have been no They were not definite moral demands upon the candidates. 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

generally.
It
is

25

authentic description of the Mysteries

indeed granted that

Orphism developed an appreciable body of teaching, and that in the mystical Hermetic literature the doctrinal element, though not strictly uniform or self-consistent, was by no means wanting. There is no hesitation, however, 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

the

description which Apuleius has given

of
initiation

into

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 combination of deep shadows and brilliant

were often able to exercise a kind of hypnotic influence over those who sought in them pledges and safeguards of future well-being. That the
lights,
15

Metamorphoses,

xi,

23.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

well

27

scenic representations were in general

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.
if

The contrary must be admitted

expositor has put
of

the interpretation which a prominent

upon the nuptials

Zeus and Demeter, as figured at

is

Eleusis,

authorized. 16

A
is

naturalistic basis of the mysteries

The divinities whom they commemorated were priquite unmistakable.

marily

vegetation
speaking,

gods,

or,

more
with

broadly

gods

linked

the needs and fortunes of vegetable

and animal life. Such distinctively was the earliest in the list, the Babylonian Tammuz, "the young god of
vegetation
the
I8

who dies in summer solstice and

the heat of

descends to

Foucart, Les Mystdres 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 requirements of cereal growths and ani-

mal procreation. The following statement respecting Adonis, Attis, and

be given a wider applicaembodied the powers of fertility in general and
Osiris

may

tion: "All three apparently

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 annual festivals, which their worshipers celebrated with alternate transports of sorrow and joy, of weeping and exultation. The natural phenomena thus sympathetically conceived and mythically represented were the great
17

Faraell, 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 sympathetic magic the failing energies of
nature, in order that the trees should bear fruit, that the corn should ripen, that men and animals should reproduce their kind." 18 No doubt the in gods who were the chief figures the Mysteries came to stand for other functions than those named in the
citation.

great variety of powers

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
and
offices

devotees.
fact

However,
that
in

the the

significant

remains
as

Mystery

a class, basis was prominent.

Religions,
18

a naturalistic

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 religions 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.
reign of Augustus,

As late as Cumont tells

the
us,

professional magicians were despised,

but with the advance of the Oriental

How they rose in esteem. 19 strongly the current set in that direction is indicated by the ultimate gravcults

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

built

SI

on the basis

of magic.

"It

was
"at

necessary/'

we

are

informed,

Eleusis that the formulas divulged to

initiated should be pronounced with the right intonation, otherwise they would lose their effectiveness. ,,2 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

the the
will.

faculty

of

acting
of

directly

upon
their

gods
It

and

constraining
little

imports
use of

whether the

man making

them understands

either their sense or their reason." 21

The age
had

in

their widest diffusion in the

which the Mysteries Ro-

man
20
21

empire was a period

much

given

Essai sur

Foucart, Les Mystdres d'Eleusis, p. 150. le Culte et les MystSres de Mithra, pp. 80, 81.

32

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

astrology

mysticism in general. In the mystical scheme of Possidonius large account was made
to
sidereal of the stars

and

and

of their interconnec-

tion with the fortunes of souls.

his thinking Chaldaean elements

In 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 doctrine that the soul in descending from heaven takes on the attributes of the planets through which she journeys,
until
finally

she

enters

into

embodied
has,

existence.

After death she

in

by a

reverse

movement, to make
journey,
order,

the
after

heavenward

having laid aside at the several

stations the limitations of earthly existence, to return to her original

home
all

in the realm of light."

22

Not

of

22 Wendland, Die Hellenistisch-Romische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum und Christentum, p. 166.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

the Mystery Religions
specific

33

may have taken account of such a pronounced It was, however, sidereal framework.
congenially related to their naturalistic

and magical trend,

and

it

is

quite certain that in Mithraism, which

encountered Chaldsean influences during its movement to the West, it was prominently represented. The following 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

appropriate

the

formulas
to

taught,

knew how
guardians.

inexorable

had been appease the As the soul

it

traversed these different zones,

itself,

rid of
re-

would of garments, the passions and faculties it had

as one
in

ceived
It

its

descent

to

the

earth.

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
its

Mars

its

love of war,

to

Jupiter

ambitious dreams, to Saturn its 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
inclinations.

representation occurs. 24

Under proper
23

limitations reference
of Mithra, pp. 144, 145.

Cumont, The Mysteries

24

Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 231.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

35

may

be made to a pantheistic tendency

in the itations

Mystery
are

Religions.
this

The

lim-

that

tendency did

not come to noteworthy expression in

them; and in any case was conspicuous rather in the later than Of Orphism it is the earlier stages.
all

of

noticed that, while

it

did not discard

it

mythological terminology,
its

revealed

a certain affiliation with pantheism in tendency to conceive of the gods In the as vague cosmic powers. 25 Hermetic writings, as in the Gnostic
systems,
strains

pantheistic

and

dualistic

were combined. 26
only contains
all things.
27

According
all

to the plain representation of the for-

mer,

God not
is

things,

but

veritably

In their

later stages the

2*
26

Egyptian

cults

showed

Rohde, Psyche, II, 114, 115. 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. 27 Menard, Herm&s Trisme'giste, Traduction Complete, pp.
Reitzenstein,

boiv,

lxxviii.

See also Mead,

II, 16, 17,

104-106, 212, 276, 309, 377.

36

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

close
affinity

with

pantheistic

They were developed in this direction, if we may trust Cumont, by Chaldaean and Syrian instandpoint.
writes: "Isis became a power that was everything in one, una quae est omnia. The authority of Serapis was no less exalted, 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
fluences.

He

pantheistic

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.

influence in this matter

The deciding was exercised

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

37

by the Syrian Baals and the Chaldaean The result was an apastrology." 28
proach to monotheism, a cosmic power 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.
being

In the relative prevalence of the pantheistic viewpoint a favorable basis of syncretism, or comity, between the Mystery Religions was obviously provided. 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 diversified

in

manifestation.

Oriental

and Egyptian gods were

tified
28

freely iden-

with the Greek, as Mithra with

Oriental Religions in

The

Roman

Paganism, pp. 89, 90.

38

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

With
some
this theoretical syn-

Helios, Isis with Demeter, Osiris with

Dionysos.
joined to
priests

cretism a practical comity was conextent.

There were

functioned in the temples of more than one of the mystic cults. 29

who

On
of

the part of Mithraism a special

motive
this

may have
composite

operated in favor
role.

Unlike the
" Among

other Mysteries the Mithraic seem not

to have

admitted women.

the hundreds of inscriptions that have

come down

to us not one mentions

either a priestess,

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 satisfied outside of the proper Mithraic domain.
29

Boissier,

teries of
so

La Religion Romaine, I, 430; Cumont, Mithra, p. 177. Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, p. 173.

The Mys-

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 preRespecting the Eleusinian Mysteries it may properly be noticed that, while in the time of
ceding chapter.

Herodotus

initiation

was limited to
the

the Greeks, at a later period those of

other nationalities

who understood

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.
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 interpretation he represented a special form of Dionysos; according to another he was a divinity of subordinate rank. 1 Dionysos 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

Among

and
of

of agriculture.
initiates,
it is

classes

the

Of the two mystes and

the epopts,

conjectured that the

J 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

p. 113.

is

advocated by Foucart, Les

Myst^res d'Eleusip.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

latter

41

were introduced by rites in which Dionysos was relatively promThey represented an adinent. 2 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 development 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 attached to that cult in certain quarters. In respect of philosophy it affiliated especially with the Pythagorean teaching.

Among

the Mystery Religions

distinguished

it

was

relatively

by

its

moral earnestness, though sharing in the common fault of an ultra cere2

Foucart, pp. 452-454.

42

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

While not given to the
of ascetic practice,

monialism. 3
it

more extreme forms

in
\

adopted the ascetic point of view

that
life

it

radically

disparaged

the

sense

as being incompatible with

of the spirit.

the true
it

life

In connec-

tion with this phase of its teaching

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 instigaThey tore tion of the jealous Hera. his body in pieces which they proceeded to devour. However, his heart remained intact, and this being brought to Zeus, he swallowed it or caused In it to be swallowed by Semele. the issue Zagreus was reborn under
the

name

of Dionysos,

and

his

murinto

derers,
3

the

Titans,

were

cast

This view of the relative prominence of the moral factor in Orphism, though often expressed, is challenged by F. Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, I, 145-147.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

Tartarus.
their

43

Since men,

in

respect of

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 accordingly a more or less prolonged series of reembodiments is to be expected. That the soul is intrinsica ly immortal they regarded as quite certain.

As has been
cult of
4 S.

indicated, the Phrygian Cybele and Attis was charac-

Reinach, Cultes, Mythes, et Religions, II, 59; Rohde, Psyche, Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of the Greek Religion, pp. 481-497.
II,

116ff.;

44

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

by a very pronounced
reference

terized

to the interests of vegetable and animal

"In the attributes, functions, and form of the goddess, we can discern
life.

nothing

celestial,

solar,

or lunar; she

was and remained to the end a mothergoddess of the earth, a personal source of the life of fruits, beasts, and man." 5 Attis, associated with her as lover, husband, or son, figured by his death and
resurrection the yearly decay
vival of vegetation.

and

re-

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 continuing for several days.
tion

was

so conducted as to

The celebrawork 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

voluntarily

45

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

These men became priests Cybele and were called Galli." 6 Crude and abhorrent as these features may appear, they did not precipitate an early downfall of the strange religion. The worship of Cybele and
the gods.
of

Attis

survived

the

establishment

of

Christianity

by Constantine. 7
which the EgypOsiris, and Serapis

The

effective appeal

tian cult of Isis,

was able to make to the peoples included in the Roman empire was due primarily, in no small degree, to the potent relation which these divinities
6 7

Cumont, The Oriental Religions

in

Roman Paganism,

p. 50.

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 mythologically 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

chest

to be inclosed in a

and to be cast into the Nile. 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 scattered them widely. The faithful Isis spared no pains to gather the pieces. The body of the god was thus recom-

The

chest

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

earth.

life

of

the

A kindred significance belonged

score of her reputed

to Isis in her association with him.

On 'the

sympathy

and compassion she won a wide appreciation. In some instances she was idealized and universalized as a prinPlutarch interpreted 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
ciple of divine
8

wisdom.

Of

Isis

and

Osiris, $53.

48

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

was
essentially the product

Serapis, he

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 "OsirisApis." Whether this is a true rendering or not, "Serapis" was quite com-

monly regarded as the equivalent of It was in this character "Osiris." that he was accepted by his Egyptian
worshipers.

Like Vishnu
the

and some others

of

Hindu deities, the Persian god Mithra was one who made great ad-

vances in respect of relative position His recogin the course of history. 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

As

49

originally rated in the Zoroastrian

system, he stood with the genii, twentyeight in number,

ciated

who were

created

by

Ahura Mazda and were

virtue of the fact that he

closely asso-

with the pure elements. In was accounted

start a certain kinship

the genius of the celestial light Mithra

had from the

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

the other hand,

On

he commanded

embodiment of warrior might and virtue. He was reputed to be the guardian of the oath and a despiser of falsehood, and so was
allegiance as the

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 esteemed a source of procreation and fruitfulness and an agent of resurrecIt is seen, then, that Mithraism tion. possessed features favorable to propagandism. With these were combined some that were not so favorable. The very scanty regard which it paid to
qualified to appeal to those

women was
limitation.
rites

in

particular
too,

a serious
of
its

Then,

some

could hardly have been agreeable

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

to

51

the

more cultured among

either

Greeks or Romans.
cially of the

This holds espe-

ceremony known as the which the devotee, seeking purification, stood under a latticed platform and was drenched with the blood of a bull slain above.
taurobolium,
in

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
like

The

many
in the

people.

As

respects the extent

to which Mithraism gained a footing

Graeco-Roman world there seems

a tendency

to

be

among

scholarly

investigators to question the warrant

for the strong statements

which have

Against Renan'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.

sometimes been made.

52

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

empire,
attention
called
fails

ascendency of Christianity in the Ro-

man

is

to

the fact that the evidence

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

most of the 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,
it

failed to strike root in

territory

'

Thrace, Bithynia, Asia (proconsular), the central provinces of Asia Minor

(apart from Cappadocia), Syria, Pales-

and Egypt none of these ever had any craving for the cult of Mithra.
tine,

And

these were the civilized countries

by preeminence.
to Mithra,

They were
all,

closed

and as he

thus failed to
or at

get into touch at

an early

stage at any rate, with Hellenism, his

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

cult

53

was condemned to the position

conventicle.

of

a barbarous

Now

these

were the very regions in which Christianity found an immediate and open welcome, the result being that the latter religion came at once into vital contact with Hellenism." 10 The historian 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
istic

to their inclusion of both panthedualistic strains

and

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
10

independent

parts,

composed at
Three

The Mission and Expansion

of Christianity in the First

Centuries, II, 318-321.

54

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

naturally precluded uniformity in doctrine. 11 It has been noticed that Cumont assigns to
different periods,
strict

this

literature

less

extensive

role

than that favored by some others. He says: "This recondite literature,

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

often

of

sidereal

Egyptian secondary

ideas.

molded to suit But it had only a influence. It was not at

religion

Alexandria that this form of paganism

was

produced or chiefly developed, but among the neighboring

either

Semitic peoples." 12
stated:

One

of the pecu-

liar doctrines in this literature is thus

"The Master
God, the world
p. 190.

of
is

eternity

is

the

first

the second,

u Reitzenstein, Poimandres,
^Astrology and Religion
pp. 76, 77.

Among

the

Greeks and Romans,

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

and
all

55

man

is

the

third." 13
is

Another
first

peculiar representation
as well as

that at

the animals were hermaphrodite,

man, and that the division into sexes occurred at the same time for the human and the animal species. 14

third peculiar notion concerns the

mediatorial function of genii, or spirits

of a
ligible

non-human
world,"
the

order.

"The
"is

intel-

it is said,

attached
to

to

God,

sensible

world

the
efflu-

intelligible

world, and through these

two worlds the sun conducts the

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.

are

To

these spheres the genii

genii

bound,

and to the

men;

13 This occurs in the section entitled "Asklepios," which Lafaye contends must be located in the Neo-Platonic period, Histoire du Culte des DivinitSs d'Alexandrie, p. 85.

14

Corpus Hermeticum,
ii,

I,

18.

(Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes,

vol.

p. 12.)

56

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

all

and thus are

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 souPs 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 CONTRAST WITH CHRISTIANITY
By
is

Christianity in this connection

religion

its

meant the Christian New Testament stage.

in

It is per-

fectly conceivable that in the course

of its
still

development post-apostolic, and

more post-Constantinian, Chrismay have taken on characteristics akin to those of the Mystery
tianity

Religions.
original

The question

of intrinsic or
is

resemblances or contrasts

obviously very different from the question of ultimate likeness or unlikeness.

Another discrimination is appropriately kept in mind. Agreement, even up to a conspicuous degree, is no

58

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

In view

decisive proof of borrowing.

of their kindred
religions are

bling

aims and objects, all bound to exhibit resemfeatures; and where the religions

are attached to similar planes of cul-

ture the resemblances cannot well es-

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

cape

full

catalogue.

But no

judicial

mind

would take
process
practice.

his list as

a demonstration

that Christianity
of

was originated by a
from
the
pre-

selection

existing classic

systems of faith and

Religions in

The Mystery

some
of

parts of their content

may seem

to excel the classic systems in respect

with Christian points of view, and so to be more probable But sources of shaping influence. this relative closeness of approach along certain lines is remote from being
affinity

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

59

a positive proof of effective working in the domain of primitive Christianity. 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
acteristic

of

more or the Mystery

less char-

Religions,

and would have done so if those religions 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

existence

a given Mystery was in at a certain pre-Christian

60

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

date.

We

need to know also whether

as

the specific features which serve

tianity were certainly pre-Christian.

a ground of comparison with Chris-

One

further discrimination

is

natu-

rally suggested. The supposition that the Mystery Religions incorporated a

certain

body
of

of

truth

akin

to

the

content

Christianity

essarily regarded as

is not neca 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 improbable that the points of kinship

between Christianity and

teries served

the

Mys-

to facilitate the accep-

tance of the former by one and an-

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

points of contrast earned for the
teries the

61

other initiate, while yet the important

Mys-

emphatic reprobation of the

apostolic writers.

In an important outward respect the Mystery Religions undoubtedly resembled early Christianity.
for exceptions,

Making room
that as a
i

we can say

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 patronage 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 Christianity 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 transcended, and a worthful immortality, as opposed to a vacant and pithless existence, was held in prospect. They
fostered

vital

impression

of

the

greatness of eternal interests, and what-

ever
into

artificialities

may
for

have entered
safeguarding

their

scheme

those
office

interests,

they

undertook
into a

an

similar to that of Christianity

in

assuming to lead

men

way

of security as respects the attainment of a priceless good.

Some
in

of the sacred rites

commonly

vogue in the Mysteries were analogous to the cardinal rites of the Confident judgChristian Church.
is

ment here

regarded as materially abridged by our very scanty information respecting the ceremonies which the Mysteries placed under the
properly

ban

of secrecy.

It is quite generally

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

transactions

63

believed, however, that they included

Christian
eucharist.

rites

somewhat resembling the of baptism and the

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-

from other non-Christian faiths. Somewhat of the same element may be found in religions generally. But relatively they were distinguished by the great stress which they placed upon the close^persanal
tinguished
relation
of

the

initiates

saviour-gods in whose
rites

with the name the mystic

were administered.

Mention might further be made of eschatological particulars in which the Mystery Religions stood close to Christian beliefs. Mithraism especially
could be cited as presenting something

64

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

equivalents for Christian repre-

like

sentations respecting ascension, resurrection of the dead, visitation of the

world by
of

fire, judgment and sentencing men, according to their deserts, to heaven or to hell. It would be rash, however to infer from the correspondence any direct borrowing of Mithraic

materials
into

by

Christianity.

It is

very

doubtful whether Mithraism had come any real contact with the Chris-

tian

domain when the

written. 1

New

Testament

was

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.
store

It
its

made no attempt

to

up

treasures behind locked

and bolted doors. Free access to its whole message was offered to every
xx;

Cumont, The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, pp. xix, Kennedy, St. Paul, and the Mystery Religions, pp. 114, 115; Hatnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, II, 318-321.
1

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

man.
In
so
far

65

as

seclusion

sought for any of its rites it the dictate of a prudent desire to avoid profanation at the hands of a
scornful

was was at

and

hostile multitude.

It

had

nothing which was accounted as necessarily debarred to the sight of the public. Somewhat of a counter current 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 century, and it gained distinct recognition in the Disciplina Arcana in the fourth century. 2 But this was a development which was foreign to the Christianity of the first century. If we may judge from the implicit contradiction of it contained in the writings of Justin Martyr, it had not made appreciable headway at the middle of the second century.
8

Anrich,

Das antike Mysterienwesen,

pp. 126ff.

66

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

In a second respect the ChristianNew 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
ity of the

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 Christianity,

distinctly

which set the divine power above the world, and asfunction
this

serted for its characteristic

spiritual

the governance and direction of the

and

ethical.

In

one

it stood apart from them by an incalculable interval. The extent to which the Mystery

feature alone

Religions appropriated astrology and

sidereal mysticism in general

may

be

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

naturalistic bent.

67

accounted a special expression of their

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

such as baptism 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
rites,

and the

eucharist, as

68

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

counted
strangely

technical definition magic stands for

expedients

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 predicated of them, or they are assigned

results quite outside their plane,

may

without abuse of language be to have a magical aspect. The New Testament, then, if the given allegation is correct, cannot well be excused from admitting an element of magic.
said

Our
is

conviction,

which we

shall

en-

deavor to sustain in subsequent pages,

that the allegation respecting the
rites

apostolic understanding of the Chris-

tian

is

essentially

unfounded, 3

and that consequently New Testament Christianity is very decidedly contrasted with the Mystery Religions
as

respects

giving

countenance
contrast

to
is

magic.
3

That a
V
and VI.

relative

See Chapters

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

to be affirmed,
it is

69

believed,
notice,

no reputable scholar, would care to dispute.

We

on the part of a
critic

New

Testament

who

attributes to the

apostolic writers the ex opere operato

view of the sacraments, this judgment on the Mystery Religion as a whole:

was weak intellectually and ethically; it had not cut itself off from mythology, and its ethic was lower
"It

than that of Seneca or of the philosophers in general." 4 No such statement, 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 unmistakable 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.
4

Kirsopp Lake, The Stewardship of Faith, p. 86.

70

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

Once more the Mystery Religions

appear in contrast with original Christianity in their syncretistic bent, or

readiness to

make exchanges among

and to acknowledge the
of

themselves,

essential identity of

one with another. a very different order ruled in the Christian domain. There the idea of striking hands with any contemporary cult was radically
consciousness

discountenanced.
their religion
historic
tial

The

votaries

of

Christianity were firmly convinced that

was grounded revelation, and had

in actual
its

essen-

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

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,
the
truth.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

were purely mythological.

71

But the

available evidences for this faith were

dim and
like that

scanty.

basis of assurance,

contained in the living Chris-

was not attainable. In 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
tian tradition,
fact,

rather

Locally

may

mythological than historical. and temporarily these cults 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 INDEBTEDNESS TO THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS FOR CHARACTERISTIC TERMS AND
IDEAS
The
propriety of distinguishing be-

tween the two forms of indebtedness Scholars who deny is quite obvious.
that the apostle derived anything substantial, in the

way

of ideas,

Mystery Religions are free may have appropriated certain terms which came from that quarter. Thus Schweitzer remarks: "Paulinism and Hellenism have in common their
that he
religious

from the to admit

terminology, but in respect

nothing.

of

ideas,

The

apostle

did

not Hellenise Christianity.

His conceptions are equally distinct from those of Greek philosophy and from those

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

of

73

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 conditioned 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 Pauline

theology." 2

The

like

point

is

urged by Ramsay in the broad statement: "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 expres1

Paul and His Interpreters, p. 238.

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 Retheoretically

ligions.

Of course

it

is

possible that within limits Paul may have borrowed ideas as well as taken up forms of expression from the contemporary 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.

his characteristic terms

Some

of

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

3

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 being 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.

fair application of these

it is

considerations,

believed, will appre-

ciably reduce the list of Pauline words which can confidently be referred to the Mystery Religions as their indubitable source. Among the words which come into discussion are the
following: [ivGryjpcov, refaiog, nvevpa as

distinguished
aia,

both
h6%a,

from

$v%n and
dyvoxvoiog

vovg, nvevftartxog, $v%Lx6g, yv&Gcg,

cpLrti^eiv,

eix&v,

[lETa^op-

(povodcu,

g&^egQoli,

Gcdtyjpta,

and

as a distinctive title of Christ.

The term
of a

^cvaryiptov

occurs

upward

dozen times in the Pauline Epis-

76
ties.
4

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

The thoroughly predominant

it is

sense in which
plan,

used

is

that

of

purpose,

or

prospective

event

which is hidden from ordinary research and needs to be made known by

revelation or authoritative instruction.

What

might be taken as an exception occurs in Ephesians v. 32, where the term is applied to
at
first

sight

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 Septuagint, where the term occurs nearly as many times as in the Pauline Epistles, it has in like manner reference to plans and counsels which are, in fact, hidden, though not necessarily occult in nature. No reason is, there*

Rom.
32,

xi.

25; 1 Cor.

ii.

7, iv. 1, xiv. 2,

xv. 51;
iii.

Eph.

i.

9,

iii.

3, 4,

9, v.

vi. 19;

Col.

i.

26, 27, iv. 3; 1

Tim.

16.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

fore,

77

apparent why the apostle should be regarded as beholden to the Mystery Religions so far as his general use of the term fivarrjpLov 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 PauTs use of the word [ivorrjptov in connection with r&eiog (1 Cor. ii. 1-10), argues for his indebtedness to the Mysteries, since rkXeioc, was a technical term for designating the standing of an initiate. This basis, however, is too fragile to support a positive
conclusion. To whatever extent teXstoq may have been installed in the dialect of the

day, there that

it

is

Mysteries prior to PauPs good reason to believe

of

was used outside

much

the same sense in which

them in it was

used by him, namely, to designate maturity or relative perfection, as opposed to an initial stage of develop-

78

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

It occurs in that sense

ment.
Philo, 5

with

an older contemporary of Paul, and the same use is very closely approached in the Septuagint. 6 If the apostle needed to borrow from antecedent usage he could easily do so without recourse to the Mystery Religions. The most that can rightly be claimed for that source is contained jn these words of a writer whose painstaking review of the subject renders

"In view of the communities which Paul addresses, we cannot cerexcellent

service:
earlier associations of the

tainly

rule

out the suggestion that

is

the

Mystery-atmosphere
present,

to

some

extent

although plainly no

conclusion

can be drawn from this

term as to Paul's personal attitude toward the Mystery conceptions." 7

6

translation
o 1 7

Opera, Graece et Latine, Erlangen, vol. i, pp. 302, 324; English by Yonge, Allegories of the Sacred Laws, Book hi,

{xxxiii, xlvii, xlviii.

Chron. xxv. 8. Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions, pp. 134, 135.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

79

basis

for

Paul's

psychological

terms is largely supplied by the Old His <xap, ^xh^ and Testament. nvevfia correspond in a general way
to

the

Hebrew

basar,

In either ruach. It may has a double connotation. denote either the divine Spirit which replenishes man with a higher life, or it may signify the finite human In the latter sense it is not spirit. very clearly and uniformly distinguished 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.

and case the third term

nephesh,

Peculi-

80

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

Pauline terminology are the use of the term cdp in opposition to moral good and the sharp antithesis
arities of the

which is made between the adjective terms ^vftixog and nvevparcxog, the one being applied to man as predominantly 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 opposition 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
xiv. 14, 15).

when

the reference

is

to

ecstatic fellowship with

God

(1

Cor.

In these peculiarities the

apostle represents an appreciable de-

velopment beyond the Old Testament.

That

contains,

it is

true,

a strong con-

and spirit, but it trast between is the contrast between the feebleness
flesh

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

81

and transitoriness of man's physical frame and the everlasting might of the divine Spirit, not the ethical contrast which is set forth in the Pauline
Epistles.

On what
his

antecedents

did

Paul
for

base
these

special

usage?

Not

unequivocally on Hellenic antecedents,

do not present an exact In Orphism, in the Platonic philosophy, and in some other
counterpart.
Hellenic

domains,
life

we

doubtless find
life

the sense

and the

of the spirit
is

strongly opposed.

But here matter

life is

made

intrinsically unfriendly to spirit,

so that the

embodied

necessarily

regarded as at a disadvantage in comparison with the disembodied. This is

With him the body is a subject for sanctification and glorification, and holds a permanent place in the ideal for man.
remote from Paul's standpoint.
Consequently,
it is

made perfectly plain

(crap?) in
it

that he uses flesh

sense, denoting

by

a pregnant rather the unre-

82

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

newed man, who is so easily led captive by fleshly impulses, than the
material substance as such.
is

His usage

neither

may be
both,
hesitate

Hebrew nor Hellenic. It indebted for suggestions to but prudent scholarship will
to

deny

its

individualistic

character and will be slow to force

it

to wear a foreign badge.

Paul's
nvevfia

opposition between adp

is

and

It

more Pauline than anything else. does not conform to any Hellenic

pattern whether inside or outside the

with the other phase of his terminology which lacks a distinct Old Testament basis, the antithesis and between ^v%lx6s 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
Mysteries.
is it

How

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

83

that in the terminology of the Mysteries

the formal antithesis between ^vxixog and nvevpartxog, in the Pauline sense,

appearance in Gnosticism proves nothing to the contrary, for the Pauline writings were one of the sources of Gnosticism as known
current.
Its

was

to

us.

We

conclude,

then,

that in
is

respect of psychological terms Paul

not shown to have been, in any notable degree, a borrower from the Mystery Religions. He derived suggestions from both the Hebrew and the Hellenic domains. He was not a
servile

copyist

of

any

set

of

ante-

cedents.

The evidence

of his indebtedis

ness specifically to the Mysteries

tenuous and conjectural. 8

E. D. Burton. 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
8

We

add judgments

of

H.

W. Robinson and

The former

says: "Paul, in spite of the use of

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

efficacious

and more

knowledge, in both the Paul-

and the Mystery Religions, a certain kinship in their use of such terms as yvoag and its
ine writings

involves

opposite dyvQola.
of

The

similar

point

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 wisdom which comes by the gift of the
divine Spirit. 9
Christian Doctrine of

Once more,
his Jewish
p.

it

is

not

and subordinated or assimilated to

psychology" (The

Man,

104).

Burton notices that the

psychological usage of the Hermetic writings is rather broadly contrasted with that of Paul. He also contends that the significance

which the apostle attached to the

crdpl; is

not to be deflesh

rived from any

known

Hellenic antecedents.

"The

that

he says, "is not the body or matter as such, but an inherited impulse to evil. The whole evidence of the Synoptical 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,
for evil,"
.
. .

makes

xxxii. 8; Psa. cxix. 144.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

ing there
is

85

to be overlooked that in Paul's teach-

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 dogmatic impulse to translate the similarities into certain evidence of borrowing from the ethnic systems. The possibility that the apostle was influenced in this part of his vocabulary

by the atmosphere

of the Mysteries

admitted, but the warrant for a confident assumption is not apparent. As for the Hermetic literature, which
is

may be

alleged

to

present

in

particular

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 remainparallels

86

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

come
into consideraLittle occasion exists

ing terms which

tion
for
ho%a,
is

xvpiog.

a specific
six&v,
GaytYjpla.

dealing with $o?%tv,

(j.e?a[iop<pov6dcu,

a^eadou,
all

and
of

Plain suggestions of
(israfiopfyovadcu

them except

are

contained in the Old Testament, and besides they are so far congenial to religious discourse generally that the apostle might reasonably be expected

employ them or closely resembling terms. For the use of (i6?a(iop<povadou the occasion was not quite so obvious, though it is perfectly conceivable that the apostolic thinker, having in mind
to

the reaching of a supernatural goal

through
term.

supernatural

means,

might

the acquaintance with the Mysteries could doubtless have introduced him to it, though not fully in his "In the Mystery Religions the sense. chief stress is laid upon a quasi-magThe ical transmutation of essence. ical

naturally have had recourse to

An

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

nature
nvev^ia
of
sets

87

Paul's
in

conception
the

of
10

the the

foreground

moral significance of the process." In connection with xvptog (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 current in the Mysteries as the designation of the divinity who was acknowledged 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

claim seems plausible.

considerations,
10
11

however,

There are which

The some

may

Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions, p. 183. See in particular Bousset, Geschichte des Christusglaubens
bis Irenaeus.

von den Angfangen des Christentums

88

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

serve to qualify the occasion to stress

the dominating influence of the Mysteries in the matter. Even in the

Old Testament a suggestion is given of one who stands as Lord (xvptog in the Septuagint) alongside of the Lord Jehovah (Psa. ex. 1); and the text
bearing this suggestion was given a
certain prominence through it
cita-

tion

by Jesus

in his encounter with the

xxii.

Pharisees (Matt.

45;

Luke

xx. 44).

v-

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 suggestion furnished

by the

psalmist's words,
fit

and to point to the Messiah as a

subject
for the

name

of xvpeog.

An

Jewish basis was thus supplied for applying this name to the transcendent person whom the primappreciable
12

Book

of

Enoch, chapters xxxvii-lxxi; Fourth Book of Ezra,

vii, xiii, xiv.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

itive Christian faith

89

acknowledged as In harmony with the the Messiah. supposition that this Judaic ground

was

influential is the fact of the early

currency

among the

Christians of the

Aramaic phrase maranatha, "the Lord

be overlooked also that in the Grseco-Roman world of
It is not to

cometh." 13

Paul's day the

associations

title

xvpiog

had other
it

than those given connection with the Mysteries.

epistles,

in

By

the time the apostle began to pen his the custom, which was pro-

nounced from the age of Domitian, was in all probability under way, the custom namely of dignifying the emwith the title of xvpiog. Is it to be supposed that this use of the
peror
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.
J.

F. Scott,

The Beginnings

of the

Church, pp.

95-108;

H. Ropes,

Critical

and Exegetical Commentary on

the Epistle of St. James, p. 34.

90

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

recommendation.

of a

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
heard

of
it

Paul's
in that
of the

converts

may have

connection; but what

apostle's attitude

we know

toward contemporary

Gentilism leads us to suppose that he advised those who took Christ as their

Master to
old faith.

clear their

of all the fancies

minds completely and fables of their

instructed to rate

They were

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
these
as

him contemporary

Christians,

had a
title

conception of Christ which that

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 certain preeminence to the Father. Antecedent 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 Hellenic environment, and more specifically

by the Mystery

Religions in so

were a conspicuous factor in that environment. But other antecedents were influential with the apostle, and there are abundant reasons
far as they

for

caution

against

attributing

too

great a role to the special factor.

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 GrsecoRoman 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 conviction that the Mystery Religions did

not bulk so large in the apostle's contemplation as some scholars have imagined. Indeed, there is room for
the suspicion that in respect of theii
relative

prevalence

and influence in

the

antique

judgment

world generally recent has been inclined to an

overestimate; certainly the limited extent 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
t

gained currency in recent scholarship. Doubtless the fu-

not

have

sion of

Greek and Oriental constituents,

following the conquests of Alexander,

marked an important era in the history of religion. But it is quite possible 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 religious training.

It

has
of

been

indicated

that

the

measure

PauPs indebtedness to the Mystery Religions for his terms is by no means a certain index of his obligations 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.

04

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
for
ideas.

In the

first place,

the sphere of Christian truth stood

him

as the

sphere of light and

re-

reality over against the darkness, foolishness,

ligion.

and vanity of Gentile Emphatic declarations in

his

epistles

make
have

it

evident that he never

could
the

latter

dreamed of going into domain for any part of

his theological furnishing. 14

The

sup-

position of conscious recourse to that

simply preposterous. In the second place, whatever resemblances can be traced between
province
is

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
i*

Rom.

1. 21ff., iii. 1, 2; 1

Cor.

i.

21,

iii.

19; Gal. iv. 8, 9;

Eph.

v. 8; 1

Thess.

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 chapter 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

made much of a future and immortal life. But how could Paul, as a believer in the Jesus who
admitted,

taught the doctrine of a vital immortality and who rose from the dead, fail to magnify this theme? Jesus gave the incomparable credential of immortality 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

at

to

kindle the torch of his faith

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

the

whom

triumphant experiences of Him on 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 suggestions 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 overwhelmed with a sense of the unmerited grace which had been visited upon himself. That transforming rev-

elation

constituted

the

initial

event

in a chain of experiences
nified the love of

God

in Christ

which magand

brought his soul into complete capHe felt that living or dying tivity. he was the Lord's and could entertain no other purpose but the fulfillment Out of this type of his perfect will. of personal realization he sketched the
believer's relation to Christ.

The nothe

tion

that

he needed

to

go to

98

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

Mysteries for any part of the ideal is nothing less than grotesque.

Over
similarity,

against

these

points

of

and any others that might

the
account.

be mentioned, fundamental contrasts

come
has

into

Reference

been made to the naturalistic basis in the Mystery Religions and to the overplus of magic which they
harbored.
tures
it

On
is

the score of these fea-

impossible to bring

them

into line with the Pauline theory of

redemption. What ground of comparison 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 recovering sinners which Paul pictures

harmonious combination of and grace? Nothing righteousness comparable to Paul's argument in the
as

the

third

chapter of the epistle to the Romans is to be found in the Mys-

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

teries.

99

Nothing on the plane of the moral fellowship which he postulated between the believer and the Crucified

One is discoverable in their melodramatic expedients. The cross as he understood it, with its profound moral significance both for God and for man, Anyone has no counterpart there. who can discover in their bizarre and variegated mythology an equivalent for the Pauline doctrine of redemption must be gifted with peculiar Paul manifestly eyesight. discovered nothing of the sort. His declaration that the message of redemption preached by himself was foolishness to the Gentiles (1 Cor. i. 23) is a decisive evidence that he was not aware that Greek, or Grseco-Oriental, theory had in any wise prepared the way for the Christian doctrine of salvation through Christ. 15
36

lenism in 373-376.

Compare Burton S. Easton, The Pauline Theology and HelThe American Journal of Theology, July, 1917, pp

100

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

CHAPTER V

THE QUESTION OF PAUL'S INDEBTEDNESS TO THE MYSTERY 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 baptism and the eucharist, the theory
that these rites work ex opere operate*
(or in the simple virtue of their ritual

by Paul, and was central in the Primitive Christianity to which the Roman empire began to be converted. 2
1

performances), 1 was held

Roman

ex opere operate, clearly assigns

Catholic usage, which gave currency to the phrase For the main eviit this sense.

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 verdict of scholarship.

The
indeed,

writer

who

penned

it

thinks,

that such

a verdict will soon be installed, but

he admits "that
highest
ness
of

many

critics of

the

standing
the

among Protestant

theologians

would deny the soundviews 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 diverse schools.

give

We

choose to believe

that their judgment will not so readily

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

falls

very far short of a demonstration that they were appropriated and given a central place in
obviously
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

The pronounced token of high sacramentalism, which emerged subsequently in the theory of baptism 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 baptism. No appeal can be made to this topic for convicting Paul of holding the magical or ex opere operato theory of the sacrament. Possibly it may be thought that in his reference
subjects.

to baptism for the dead (1 Cor. xv. 29)

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

the
apostle

103

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-

vincea thing most probable,

be seen shortly

as will

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
inference,

to

more

positive grounds of

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

less

point of view. Nothing than this disparagement is involved in the style of his references

ceremonial

to circumcision.
rite,

He

depreciates this

not on the ground that it has been superseded by a more efficacious rite, but on the ground that it belongs to an external range and bears no comparison in respect of religious value with interior or spiritual states This is plainly the or transactions. import of such sentences as the following: "He is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, 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 nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing;

but

the

ments

keeping of the command"In Christ Jesus of God."

neither circumcision availeth anything,

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

105

nor uncircumcision, but faith working Neither is circumthrough love. 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 anything like a parity with the interior If the apostle who and spiritual. 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 necessity
of

those interior

dispositions

which came to manifestation in Christ.

It
is

certainly not the voice of the

ceremonialist that
like these: "If
spirit of Christ,
3

we hear

in

words
.
.

any man hath not the he is none of his.

.

Rom.

ii.

28, 29; 1 Cor. vii. 19; Gal. v. 6, vi. 15.

106

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

as are led

As many

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 message
is

the apostle's characterization

"Christ sent me," of his vocation. 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.
Gal.

viii. 9,

14; 1 Cor.

xiii. 3.

ii.

20.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

urally

107

have had very

little

inclination

what must have seemed a strange and injurious limitation of

to mention
his calling.

The standpoint of Paul, as involving a limited efficacy of baptism, is indicated very distinctly by the overwhelming emphasis which he places
upon
faith as the condition of justiIt
is

a foremost thesis with him that justification is attained by

fication.
faith. 6

"The
one
is

gospel," he declares, "is

the power of

God unto

salvation to
. . .

every
therein

that

belie veth.

For

revealed a righteousness of
as
it is

God by faith unto faith:

written,

But the righteous shall five 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
Rom.
Eph.
7
ii.

is

made

to dwell in the heart. 7

1, ix.

iii.

21, 22, 28, iv. 3, 5, v.

30, 32; Gal.

iii.

11,

24;

8.
i.

Rom.

16, 17, x. 10;

Gal.

iii.

2;

Eph.

iii.

17.

108

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

for one

Now,

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 possibly be accounted anything more than

a fitting accessory to faith as giving
to
it

open manifestation and attesting

its

the wish and the will of

to

subject

be numbered with Christian believers? These questions, we are confident, must be answered in the Either Paul was glaringly negative. illogical, or he must have rated baptism as distinctly secondary to such
a
spiritual

condition
it

as

faith,

and

must have regarded

as totally desti-

tute of saving efficacy in the absence

of that indispensable condition.
it

That
the

is

not

necessary
will

to

choose

former alternative

appear from a

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

which occur in the Pauline Epistles.
It
is

109

glance at the few references to baptism

,

noticeable that in the great

epistle

dogmatic
a
single

to the
is

Romans
in

the
this

subject of baptism
instance,

broached in but
its

and that

instance the motive for

tion
is

introduc-

homiletical

rather than dogreads, "Shall

matic.

The passage

we
sin,

continue in sin that grace

may abound?
died
to
live therein?

God how
Or

forbid!
shall

We who

we any longer

are ye ignorant that all ye

who

were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through Even so reckon baptism into death. yourselves also to ye be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ
. . .

Jesus" (Rom. vi. 1-4, 11). The motive 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

fall if

they should make light of sin after undergoing

the rite in which purification from
or
sin,

which they would

death to sin, was figured. Not what baptism in its own virtue effected, but what it was understood to represent or symbolize, was the pertinent
point of view.
to the passage.

At

least, it is perfectly

gratuitous to attach any larger sense

The
the

Epistle to the
for

Romans
charging

affords

no proper ground
apostle

that

ran

into

radical self-contradiction

by assuming an outward ceremony intrinsically efficacious or working ex opere operato. It has been observed by one or

another reviewer that Paul's representation 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
is

commemorated.

The analogy

not

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

to be denied.

111

But that Paul derived

from his knowledge of the Mysteries an incentive to the symbolism in

question strikes us as problematical.

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 ohat he took over a notion of ceremonial efficacy that is glaringly contradictory to his explicit teachings.
If

the

context

relative to

of the statement baptism in the Epistle to

the
is

Romans

negatives the

demand

for

a high sacramental theory, the same

true of the text in Galatians. We read here: "Ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as

many

you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ" (iii. 26, 27).
of

112

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

first

The
faith

of

these

sentences
of

the

condition

sonship,

makes and

thus assigns to it the primacy which it has customarily in the apostle's

discourse.
this Is it to

be supposed that
is

function of faith
as

ignored in
per-

the following sentence, and that baptism,

mere

sacramental

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 contradictory
his

statements.
is

The

gist

of

discourse

clear

enough.

He

makes the
thetic,

legal dispensation

and the

dispensation of grace in Christ anti-

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 become sons of God. To clinch this point of view he reminds them of
their public act in receiving baptism,

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

113

an acknowledgment that as being 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 The point of emphasis dispensation. is not what baptism in its own virtue accomplishes, but the relation of union with Christ which baptism, where the
requisite spiritual conditions are fulfilled, attests.

Such general references to baptism

as

are
ii.

contained in
12,

Cor.

vi.

11,

and Eph. v. 26 leave room for the limitations upon the efficacy of baptism which are logically implied in the fundamental teachings of Paul.
Col.

Relative to the Ephesian text

Kennedy

remarks: "The notion of a baptism of the ixx^yjala is plainly metaphorical. The most notable feature in the passage is the phrase h popart, which no doubt must be interpreted, as in Romans x. 8, 17, of the proclamation

114

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

This accords with the

of the gospel.

place given to faith in the other passages

on baptism examined." 8

which

we have

The

peculiar

remark on baptism

for the dead, 1 Cor. xv. 29, remains

to be considered.
of

Here the comments

points that

Meyer cover so well the essential we cannot do better than

of such a kind effected

to reproduce his principal statements.

"That a baptism

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 The custom propagated assumed. and maintained itself afterward only
. . .

among among
tion,

heretical

sects,

in

particular

the

Cerinthians
. . .

and among
usual objecall,

the Marcionites.

The

that Paul could not have emor at

ployed for his purpose at

8 St.

Paul and the Mystery Religions,

p. 252.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

least

115

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 9 its removal." 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 Christendom in postin Catholic 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 PauTs 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 baptism, it is not our intention to claim
that
great
it

had

precisely

the same sigit

nificance for

him which

has for the

body

of Protestant believers un-

der the usual conditions in modern

10

Sources, p. 219.

Compare Clemen, Primitive Christianity and its Non-Jewish The above exposition proceeds on the supposition
is

that proxy baptism

referred to in 1 Cor. xv. 29.

It is

perhaps

incumbent on us to notice that this interpretation is not universally Robertson and Plummer, for instance, suggest that accepted. persons who were persuaded to accept baptism out of affection for friends who had died as Christians might reasonably be designated as "those who receive baptism in behalf of the dead" (International Critical Commentary).

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

times.

117

In the apostolic era baptism

crisis

marked a great
the convert.
exercise

in
if

the

life

of

It often,

not, indeed,

customarily, followed closely

of faith in

upon the

had a
ity.

vital

Christ. It thus importance as a completing

act in the appropriation of Christian-

stamped the convert as an initiate into a new world, and doubtless was frequently attended by an increment of the new life. Under such conditions it was naturally given a somewhat closer association with the
It

positive
life

beginning

of

the

Christian

who have grown up

munities.

than obtains in case of subjects in Christian com-

That PauPs 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 sacramentalism, attaching to it an independent virtue, or regarding it as

118

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

of
its

working the renewal

ex opere operato.

subjects

Paul refers directly to the eucharist

in only
xi.

two passages

Cor. x. 16-21,

20-34.

An

indirect reference has

been supposed by some to be contained 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
altars

and

divinities

communion with pagan by knowingly

eating of things which have been offered

to idols.

In the second of the pasmentioned he rebukes certain disorders which had invaded the sasages

cred feast as observed

inthians,

by the Corascribed

repeats the words

to Jesus in connection with the Last

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

119

Supper, emphasizes the memorial character of the eucharistic rite as showing

forth the Lord's death

till

he comes,

and warns against sacrilege by declaring, " whosoever shall eat the bread
or drink the cup unworthily shall be
guilty of the

Lord."
erence

body and blood of the In the remaining passage ref-

is

made

to the experience of

Israel in the wilderness,

where as parall

takers of the

manna they

did eat

the same spiritual meat, and as re-

by the water gushing from the rock they drank of the same spiritual drink, the rock which followed them
freshed

In these three passages the evidence which can be adduced from the writings of Paul in an attempt to convict him of borrowing from the Mystery Religions the conception of a real eating of the body and a real drinking of the blood of Christ. Against the supposition of such borbeing Christ. is contained
all

120

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

it

rowing
of

can be urged, in the

first

place, that there are legitimate grounds

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 confessedly 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 elsewhere sporadically in ancient ritual, "it is by no means so frequent that we could assume it in any given case "The alleged without evidence." 12 instances/ says Moffatt, "of wor'

sharing in the partaking of him life of the deity by in a meal are distant, late, and dushipers
in

the

cults

u
12

Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, pp.

102fif.;

Reitrenstein, Die

Hellenistische Mysterienreligionen.

The Cults

of the

Greek

States, III, 196.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

bious." 13

121

Carl Clemen remarks that

of sacred meals in the

we hear
varied

most

but have no inthe partaking in them formation about 14 Percy Gardner reof the divinity. the supposition that Paul pudiates 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
Mysteries,
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 thoroughly realistic view and applied it

to the eucharistic feast.
fails

Distinct proof

to appear that this view

hand,
u Der
tum,
16

at

least

in

such

was at form and

The Expositor, July, 1913.

Einfluss der Mysterienreligionen auf das alttste Christenp. 55.

The

Religious Experience of St. Paul, p. 121.

122

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

as

would have been] likely to exercise any attraction upon the mind of the apostle. That he should have been favorably impressed
connection

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 illustrated at some length in connection with the topic of baptism, the predominant emphasis which Paul placed upon the spiritual conditions of religious benefits and attainments makes it incredible Jhat he could have held the alleged realistic view of the eucharHe who spoke of Christ as dwellist. ing in the heart by faith, who declared that any eating which is not of faith

16 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. As 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-contradiction.

In the third place, it is to be nothat no one of the three passages mentioned contains a compelling ground for imputing to Paul the crass realistic view of the eucharist. There is very slight occasion to take the words of 1 Cor. x. 3, 4 in a
ticed
realistic sense, scarcely

more occasion
as

to do so than to conclude that those

who

are spoken of

by the psalmist

124

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

shepherded
in green pastures

and made to lie must be construed as literal sheep which divided their time between cropping grass and reclining on the ground. As a Jew, or
being

down

simply as a member of the human race, Paul was not necessarily an utter stranger to metaphorical and parabolic speech.
if

It is quite gratuitous,

not worse, to suppose that he meant identify Christ with the manna The manna and the or the rock. water gushing from the rock were spiritual meat and drink to the Israelites to those who were sufficiently responsive to their import as attesting the grace and compassion of God whereof Christ may be conceived as That they the medium or channel.
to

were
trary

unconditionally
is

spiritual

meat

is not said; rather the conintimated by the sequel, for most of the participants fell under the displeasure of God and were over-

and drink

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

125

thrown in the wilderness. There is no disclosure here of a sacrament which works ex opere operato.

The
16-21

point of emphasis in
lies

Cor.

x.

in the

communion

(xoivovia)

on the one hand with the body and blood of Christ, and on the other with the demons (or gods) who preside over the sacrificial feasts of the

heathen.

suggestion that a moral

element or matter of personal attitude

enters into the specified
is

communion

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 shambles, asking no question about its antecedents. Communion with demons ensues only where the meat
is

distinctly

recognized

as

affiliated

with the

demons by previous con-

126

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

Eating
in

secration.
derelict as

that

case

is

on the score of his consent, a table companion of demons. As Reville remarks: "The
one,

making

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.

r>v Saifiovicdv

sorption of

The xouvovla does not mean the abthe flesh of the demons

any more than the xocvcdvla tov Svclaatyjplov means the absorption of the altar. ... In the one and the other
involved the solidarity attested by the religious meal, on the one hand with the demons, on the other with the body and Paul views the blood of Christ." 17
alternative there
is

solidarity or

communion with the

is

de-

mons, which
17

realized in the religious

meal, as ethically conditioned in the

Cited by Kennedy, St. Paul and the Mystery Religions, p. 273.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

case
of

127

professing

Christians.

It

is

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 exquite
in

order

to

plicitly

indicates

further
of

on in the

epistle that this

was

his point of view,

in that he speaks

those who, in

their careless lack of consideration for

what the consecrated elements stand, eat and drink judgment unto themselves.

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
18

literal

eating of the

Christ,

no

The propriety of this rendering is suggested by a phase of the 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 understand 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.
passage.

128

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

y

sacrament working ex opere operato needs to be supposed. So readily does the remaining passage
(1

Cor.

xi.

20-34) lend

itself

to
it

symbolical
to

interpretation,

that

verily has the

de force
realism.
istic

appearance of a tour read into it any crass

is

What
is

eaten in the eucharof,

feast
of

body
eating:
till

Christ,

spoken but
is

not as the
bread.

as

memorial function
it

ascribed to the

proclaims the Lord's death

Furthermore, as noted above, the benefit of partaking of the elements is conditioned on the appropriate religious attitude.
It is said,

he comes.

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 symbolical interpretation.

He who

treats

despitefully the symbol pours contempt on the things symbolized, just as one

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT who

129

tramples on his country's flag

vents despite upon his country. PauPs conception of the eucharist

was doubtless not

is

of that type

which

likely to be taken by a prosaic mind, but, rather, such as is congenial He had a to an intense poetic soul.

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 himself had he not thought of the Master as being effectively present with earnest 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 Fathers, the view namely that Christ
in his spiritual nature, or as the Logos,

comes into a relation with the consecrated elements analogous to

that
in

assumed to the body appropriated

130

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

special efficacy. 19

his incarnation, thereby imparting to

them a

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.
is
still

But the kinship

remove from

at

notable

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,
pp.
200,
201.

p. 411; Schweitzer,

Paul and His

Interpreters,

Compare A. Lagarde, The Latin

p. 51.

Church

in the

Middle Ages,

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

131

CHAPTER

VI

THE QUESTION OF THE INDEBTEDNESS OF THE JOHANNINE

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
is

of John.

On

the

authorship of the Apocalypse no pro-

nouncement
treatment account of

designed.

separate
it

is

appropriate

to

on

its special

character.

Among

preliminary

considerations

the Jewish lineage of the author of the fourth Gospel and the Johannine

worthy of note. The fact that he was of Jewish birth and trainEpistles
is

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.
sentences are for the most part coordinated, not subordinated. Of gen-

The

uine Greek period-building scarcely a 1 is to be found. The tenor of the contents bears witness to like antecedents. While the evangelist thinks of contemporary Jews as irretrace
concilable opponents of the Christian
faith,

he takes a high view of the historic vocation of Judaism. Christ

represented as claiming that salvais

is

tion

from the Jews, and as coming

to his

own

proper possession in his

advent to the Jews.

of Christ with

Much

care

is life

exhibited to join events in the

Old Testament texts. In fine, the evidence is decisive for the Jewish lineage of the evangelist. Moreover, there are fairly substantial rea-

sons for supposing

1

him

to have been

Wetzel, Die Echtheit des Evangeliums Johannis, p. 36.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

133

a Palestinian resident. His accurate knowledge of Palestinian localities is It is best explained on this ground. much more likely that he came to that knowledge as a resident, favored with repeated opportunities for observation, 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 entitled to suppose in the author of the Johannine writings, as substantial barriers to an appreciative attitude toward the Mystery Religions as Jewish descent and training could furnish. 2
second preliminary consideration, having distinct pertinency, is the relation 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

beyond

respect of form, their close affinity in

vital doctrinal points is
dis-

pute.

as

Even the doctrine of the Logos, 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 Religions, are substantially reproduced in the Johannine writings, sufficient historical 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 Johannine writings and the Mystery Religions are not appreciably different from those which are alleged to pertain 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.

to
in
this
effect

verdict

But a has not been

jury.

brought

by a unanimous

be heard in these words of Ramsay: "We cannot regard John's Gospel as specially comprehensible to the Gentiles, though it was written in Asia for Asiatic
dissenting voice
Hellenes.
its

may

It is deeply Palestinian in

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
lore
4

distinguished student of Pauline

may

possibly
of

be challenged in
p. 50.

The Teaching

Paul in Terms of the Present Day,

136

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

respect this of statement. Firm ground, however, remains for the contention that a substantially full com-

plement of the ideas supposedly affilwhich can be discovered in the Johannine writiating with the Mysteries,
ings,
is

discoverable

in

the

Pauline

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
Epistles.

the Mystery Religions, ultimate obligation to that

of the

source,

on the part

Johannine writer, is not disproved. But it has been our attempt

in

previous chapters to show that PauTs obligations were inconsiderable.

The
is

point of the present paragraph

therefore

made with

entire consis-

tency.

In their doctrine of Christ's person

and saving office the Johannine writings

may
where

not
it

locate

the

emphasis

just

was placed by Paul; but

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

ments
of the doctrine

137

sufficient antecedents for all the ele-

were furnished

by the Pauline teaching. That teaching was an incomparably more fertile source of suggestion than the Mystery
Religions
It is

could

possibly

an

historical illusion

have been. which per-

mits one to suppose that a writer of Jewish lineage and training could have
the least motive to draw from them. The attitude of the Evangelist was not and could not have been anything like that of the twentieth-century student who enforces himself to sympathize with all the varied manifestations 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 Clement in his day passed upon the Mystery
felt

138

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

For the essential trend of New Testament Christology and soteriology an adequate source can be found entirely apart- from recourse to cults so obnoxious to the minds of New Testament writers. The powerful
impression

cults. 5

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 historical 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
6 Address to the Greeks, chap. Octavius, chap. xxi.
ii.

Compare Minucius

Felix,

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

philosophy.

139

dependent upon the contributions of

The Johannine writings are relativelydistinguished by their valuation of

This feature has been knowledge. supposed to be a token of contact with the Mystery Religions. In particular the rating of the vision of God as the culmination of enlightenment and the supreme means of transformation into the divine likeness has been emphasized as a mark of interconnection. 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 condition is radically obscured, not to say obliterated, by the scope which is given to magic. In the former the
vision of

God comes from

with him.

intimate

spiritual fellowship

Every

140

THE MYSTEB Y 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 supposition that divine revelation

is

the

There is no need, however, to imagine that he falls in with the supposition because it was harbored by them. As a Hebrew he was legitimately heir to it, and it was an outstanding assumption with his predecessor, the apostle
authentic source of knowledge.
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

against

141

Assuredly, no more effective expedient

propagandise! could have been devised than the Johannine procedure, in which knowledge is at
Gnostic

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 influential setting forth of the antithesis

occurred within the limits of the Platonic philosophy.

gelist
If the fourth Evanmust be accounted a debtor for

this feature in his teaching,

still

there

is

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

dualism.

physical
sically

never paints the temporal visible world as intrin-

He

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
affiliates

that the Johannine theology

with the Mystery Religions, as incorporating 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.
serves to explain to
It

Nicodemus the
birth as being

character of the

new

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

inference

143

that the working of this not tied to a baptismal occasion, 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 Professor Gardner keeps agency. within the limits of a very decided probability when he says: "The idea

agent

is

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,
require
of
it is

the Spirit that profiteth." 6

The connection does not properly

any reference to the sayings
addressed
to

Christ

the

woman

of Samaria (John iv. 13, 14). In the whole texture of those sayings there
8 The Ephesian Gospel, p. 201. have not thought it worth while to take special notice of the fact that the mention of water

We

in John hi. 5 has been judged by part of the original text (Wendt,

some critics to have been no The Gospel According to St.

John, p. 120).

144
is

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

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 performance, as assigning life-giving virtue to his words, and as repeatedly affirming 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 subjective 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

inner
life.

of his spiritual

presence to renovate and refresh the

The
the
tained

basis for the realistic view of

supposed to be consixth chapter of the Gospel is purely verbal rather than substantial. The chapter itself indieucharist
in

the

enough that the literal must be transcended. In the earlier portion the same results are attributed to faith which later are ascribed to eating the flesh and
cates clearly

verbal

sense

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
of

the believing approall

priation of Christ in
his

the wealth
this

saving

truth.

Finally,

is formally enforced in unequivocal proposition, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you, are spirit and The necessary induction are life." could not be more suitably stated than in these words of MofTatt: "It is consonant with the characteristic mysticism of the writer's faith to say, that the bread and wine of the Lord's

interpretation

the

Supper must have been for him symat best, of the presence and Symbolism of benefits of Christ." 7 this kind was not foreign to Jewish literary custom. In the semi-canonical book of Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom is reprebols,

The Expositor,

July, 1913.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

sented as saying:
shall

147

'They that eat me yet be hungry; and they that

drink
21).

me
'

shall yet

"Metaphors

be thirsty" (xxiv. from eating and

drinking/
of the

says Inge, "are

common

in

Talmudic literature, and Philo speaks Logos as the food of the soul. There was, therefore, nothing strange or unintelligible in the imagery of the
[Johannine]
to
discourse.

To

eat

the

Messiah would be readily understood

mean
It

to receive spiritual nourishto live

ment from him,

by

his life." 8

may

be
that

conceded,
the

or

rather,

affirmed,

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

the invisible and the visible.

to be denied
is

men What is

the discovery of any

warrantable ground for the conclusion

8

of the University of

Essays on Some Biblical Questions of the Cambridge, p. 285.

Day by Members

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 emphasized by Reitzenstein, while at the same time he admits a notable con-

and thought. 9 Among the terms common to the two classes of writings "light" and "life" are It is noticeable, howconspicuous. 10
trast in spirit

Johannine writer has a pronounced fondness for broad categories and sharp antitheses, an inclination to develop his whole subjectmatter about a few comprehensive and contrasted terms, such as light and
ever, that the

darkness,

life

hatred,

sin

and death, love and and righteousness, the

world and the Christian brotherhood. Now, in carrying out this bent it is
9
i

Poimandrea, pp. 244, 245.

Ibid.,

Greek

text,

I, 9,

12, 17, 21, 32,

XIV,

9, 18, 19,

pp. 330-347.

AND THE NEW TESTAMENT

fallen

149

quite conceivable that he should have

phraseology without recourse to exterior models. His acquaintance with the Hermetic literature remains problematical, and the uncertain date of that literature
into
his

peculiar

makes a
decision.

still

further ground for in-

In any well-rounded dealing with

the subject full account must be
of the respects in

made

which the Johannine

writings are strongly contrasted with

It will not the Mystery Religions. be necessary, however, to state them here in detail, since they are identical with the points of contrast already specified between the Mystery Religions and New Testament Christianity as a whole. 11 In their advocacy of an open system, in their aloofness from

astrology, sidereal mysticism, and naturalism in general, in their insistence

on

the

ethical
III.

as

opposed

to

the

"See Chapter

150

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

and
in their emphasis

magical, in their avoidance of a pantheistic strain,

)

on a

historical

basis,

the Johannine

writings are in a different sphere from

that of the Mystery Religions. 12

The author
elation
license

of

the book of Rev-

may be credited with using common to apocalyptists

the
to

priate

range widely for the symbols approto 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 suggesFacts of tions from that quarter. 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

store of ethnic mythology.
store,

151

Religions, but only with the general

From

this
inci-

too,

he took only things

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 of

the

elaborate

cosmological

scheme

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

from
that
quarter
invites

fluenced

tolerance; but,

on the other hand, no

one can be assured that the writer

was
ical

so destitute of capacity for analog-

thinking that he did not of his

elect the expression.

own motion

The

"mediator" and "shepherd" may correspond to the employment of titles in one or It is to another of the Mysteries. abunhowever, that too be concluded, dant sources of suggestion for these titles were furnished to the writer in his Pauline, Alexandrian, and Old
characterization of Christ as

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,"
epistle,

which is twice used in the and suits the earnest endeavor

author to picture the preeminence of Christ. Some other points have been alleged to give evidence of
of

the

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 Christianity.

154

THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS

CONCLUSION
It would not be venturesome to
predict that the radical assumption as
ligions

Mystery Reon 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 existed in the first century, were in no
to the influence of the

wise adapted to appeal to Christian

leaders.

Their opportunity to react

feeling,

upon Christian thought and

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

due to them.

155

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

influences.

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