Early Gentile Christianity and its Hellenistic Background

Early Gentile Christianity and its Hellenistic Background

A R T H U R D A R B Y NOCK
,

WITH A N INTRODUCTION TO THE TORCHBOOK EDITION B Y T H E A U T H O R , 1962, A N D T W O A D D I T I O N A L E S S A Y S , NOTE ON T H E RESURRECTION* A N D 'HELLENISTIC M Y S T E R I E S A N D CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS'

HARPER T O R C H BOOKS
Harper & Row, Publishers New

The Cloister Library

and London

York, Evanston

EARLY AND ITS

GENTILE

CHRISTIANITY BACKGROUND

HELLENISTIC

Introduction to the T o r c h b o o k edition copyright 1 9 6 4 by T h e Estate of Arthur Darby N o c k . Printed in the United States of America.

"Early G e n t i l e Christianity and Its H e l l e n i s t i c B a c k g r o u n d " and " A N o t e on the R e s u r r e c t i o n " both originally appeared in ESSAYS O N T H E T R I N I T Y AND T H E I N C A R N A T I O N , edited by A . E . J. R a w l i n s o n , and published by L o n g m a n s , G r e e n and C o . , Ltd., L o n d o n , in 1 9 2 8 . T h e y are here reprinted by arrangement. "Hellenistic Mnemosyne, Mysteries and Christian Sacraments" was first published in

S. I V , V o l . V, 1 9 5 2 , issued by E . J. Brill, L e i d e n , T h e N e t h e r l a n d s . It is here reprinted by arrangement. First H A R P E R T O R C H B O O K edition published 1 9 6 4 by Harper & R o w , Publishers, Incorporated 4 9 East 33 rd Street N e w York 16, . Y .

CONTENTS
PAGE

INTRODUCTION EDITION BIBLIOGRAPHY I. EARLY

I. II. III. IV. V. VI.

TO

THE

TORCHBOOK xviii AND .

A

GENTILE CHRISTIANITY

ITS H E L L E N I S T I C B A C K G R O U N D
THE BACKGROUND. T H E THEOLOGY OF CHRISTIANITY AS MISSION-RELIGION. THE PRACTICE OF CHRISTIANITY. CHRISTIANITY IN T H E COMMUNITIES. RELATIONS TO PHILOSOPHY. CONCLUSIONS.

II. III.

A N O T E ON T H E R E S U R R E C T I O N

105

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES A N D CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS . . . .109

I. II. III. IV. V. VI. MYSTERIES AND INITIATIONS IN CLASSICAL GREECE. MYSTERIES IN T H E HELLENISTIC PERIOD: T H E METAPHORICAL USE OF MYSTERY TERMINOLOGY. MYSTERION AND T H E METAPHOR OF MYSTERIES IN JUDAISM. BAPTISM AND THE EUCHARIST AS DONA
DA T A.

DEVELOPMENT IN THE SECOND AND THIRD CENTURIES. DEVELOPMENT IN THE FOURTH CENTURY.

INDEX

147

ABBREVIATIONS. A.R.W. C.Q. C.R. J.H.S. J.T.S. = Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft.

= Classical = Classical = Journal = a Journal

Quarterly. Review. of Hellenic of Theological Studies. Studies. Versuche und Vorarbeiten (Giessen,

R.G. V. V. = Religionsgeschichtliche 1903-). Z.N.W.

= Zeitschrift fur neutestantentliche

Wissenschaft. Erklarung des neuen Testa-

Clemen = C . Clemen, Religionsgeschichtliche ments, ed. I I (Giessen, 1924). E.R.E. P.W. = Encyclopaedia = Pauly-Wissowa, wissenschaft.
%

of Religion and Ethics, ed. J. H a s t i n g s . Real-Encyclopadie der classischen AltertumsMysterien-

R e i t z e n s t e i n , Myst. = R . R e i t z e n s t e i n , Die hellenistischen religionen, ed. I I (Leipzig, 1920).

Myst* = ed. I l l (Leipzig, 1 9 2 7 ) . S t r a c k - B i l l e r b e c k = Kommentar xum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, v o n H . L . S t r a c k a n d P . Billerbeck, I (Munchen, 1 9 2 2 - ) .

INTRODUCTION to the Torchbook edition

the University of Oxford there issued in i860 Essays and Reviews, in 1889 Lux Mundi, in 1912 Foundations, each the product of a number of minds and each in its own w a y a landmark in the theological thinking of the Englishspeaking world. In 1924 A. E . J. Rawlinson (later Bishop of Derby), who had contributed to Foundations, . E. Kirk (later Bishop of Oxford) and some of their colleagues decided on a new venture, to be named Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation. One topic which to them seemed to call for treatment was the relation of Christianity in the Apostolic age to its non-Jewish environment. For a generation this subject had been actively canvassed, and it was energetically maintained that the idea of a Resurrection on the third day had its origin in Near Eastern myths of dying and rising gods, and that the description of Jesus as Lord and again the sacramental character of baptism and the Eucharist were likewise importations from the Gentile world. In the second century of our era Justin Martyr had noted pagan analogies to the sacred story and to the rites of the Christians: he explained them b y the theory that the demons had produced a counterfeit in advance. The modern supposition that Christianity had borrowed substantially from paganism is in no sense comparable with the notion that Jesus never existed (which may aptly be compared with the Bacon-Shakespeare theory and its successors). The idea of such borrowing was initiated and developed b y notable scholars who made serious and solid observations and who substantially enlarged our horizon of knowledge.
FROM

Rawlinson and his associates turned first to E d w y n Bevan, whose The House of Seleucus, Jerusalem under the High Priests, Stoics and Sceptics, and Hellenism and Christianity marked him as a natural choice. Bevan declined, and suggested m y name. I was then teaching Classics at the University of Cambridge, and spending all my free time studying various aspects of religious development in the Graeco-Roman world. Gilbert Murray's Four Stages of Greek Religion (later to be expanded to Five Stages of Greek Religion) had come into my hands at school and left on me a permanent impress and impulse. To try to rewrite or even to revise something composed so long ago would be foolish even if it were possible; it would mean putting new wine into old bottles. The shorter essay on mysteries and sacraments (from Mnemosyne 1952) included in this volume does in a measure supplement and correct what was written earlier. (So do my Conversion and St. Paul, and m y chapters in Cambridge Ancient History, vols. X and X I I , all of which were likewise produced in response to external stimuli.) I venture to hope that this reprinting may have its relevance today. Not a few of the theories which more than thirty years ago seemed to call for scrutiny continue to have a wide circulation. Take the Paulus of H. J. Schoeps, published in 1959. It is a brilliant and learned book, doing justice to the Apostle's thought as rooted in Pharisaic tradition and as determined by his personal experience and by eschatology; Schoeps has moreover seized on the fundamental significance of Schweitzer's The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. Y e t even Schoeps maintains that 'Son of God' and all that goes with the belief, e.g. the descent of a heavenly figure (Philippians ii) takes us 'into the neighborhood of pagan ideas of the time'. What were these 'pagan ideas of the time'? Certain historical persons were thought to be sons of deities, but as such they were human, though specially endowed. They could be raised to the level of
1 2 3

Oxford University Press, 1933; paperback edition available. Harper & Brothers, 1938; Harper Torchbook edition, 1963. Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History, translated b y Harold K n i g h t . London: Lutterworth, 1961
2 3

the gods: they had not voluntarily come down from that level and they were not thought to have had a pre-existence on a heavenly plane. In fact, almost all the gods worshipped in antiquity (including the 'dying and rising gods') were thought to have been born in time and place (often here on earth). Gods could take human shape, but they were hardly ever thought to assume 'la condition humaine', with all its liabilities, and the idea of Incarnation was a stumbling block and not a point of attraction to the Greeks. Let us now consider briefly certain topics on which the last thirty years have brought a better understanding. (The selection and emphasis are necessarily personal.) i . Judaism.First, our knowledge of Judaism in the first centuries of our era has been greatly enriched. The documents found at and near Qumran, commonly called the Dead Sea Scrolls, have brought before us the books and the life of a sect, identified beyond doubt with the Essenes as known from Philo and Josephus. This sect had a strict communal organization, and combined a meticulous zeal for the observance of the L a w with a lyrical enthusiasm shown in their psalms. They had a great preoccupation with secret knowledge, above all secret knowledge of God's plans, i.e. eschatology, and their solemn communal meals were probably taken in anticipation of the fulfilment of their Messianic hopes and beliefs. Repentance and baptism were prerequisites for admission into 'the eschatological community of G o d ' . Their picture of the world was characterized by various contraststhe Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Perversity, the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (predestined to be such), and (occasionally, and not precisely in a Pauline sense) flesh and spirit. In spite of the secrecy which all members were solemnly bound to observe as to the teachings of the sect (including the names of the angels), the general character of these teachings was known outside the movement, and the new information about it is pertinent to the study of Paul as well as to that of Jesus.
1

F . M. Cross, Jr., The Ancient Library of Qumram and modern Biblical Studies, 1 7 7 . N e w Y o r k : D o u b l e d a y & Co., 1958; Anchor paperback edition, 1961.

A point of special interest is that among the very numerous Biblical texts belonging to the sect there are some in Greek. This is one more indication that we must not draw too sharp a distinction between the Judaism of the Holy Land and the Judaism of the Dispersion. There was much coming and going between Jerusalem and Alexandria, and the quasi-monastic Therapeutai described b y Philo look as though they were in some sense related to the Qumran sect. Again, knowledge of the Greek language was not uncommon in Palestine, and where there was the language there could be some of the thought. On the other side Philo, with all his knowledge of Greek philosophy and his willingness to read some of its insights into Scripture, was Jewish to the core. It should be remembered that Judaism was at all times a religion of orthopraxy and not a religion of orthodoxy as also that it was in the main a religion of the family, of the congregation, of the race, not of an organized church, and that missionary effort w as rare (proselytes were people who had 'come in'). Even in orthopraxy there was an appreciable range of variation, as has been brought home to us in the most marked way b y the excavations at Dura-Europos on the Euphrates. This had been a Macedonian military colony: it passed for a time under Parthian control, and was finally the seat of a Roman frontier garrison. Towards the end of its existence, in the third century, the meeting place of the local Jews was decorated with a series of notable mural paintings of scenes from the Old Testament. A t various times, earlier and later, such art would have seemed to violate the Second Commandment: at Dura it was clearly regarded as an appropriate w a y to 'magnify God', a work of piety like the mosaic floor of the synagogue at Apamea in Syria, where inscriptions record that this and that section were given by individuals for the wellbeing (soteria) of their kinfolk. Literary and archaeological evidence alike have brought home to us the loyalty to tradition as well as the numerical strength and wide dissemination of the Jews outside Palestine. A t the same time, we have been made increasingly aware of the existence of Jews who did not cleave strictly
r

to the Law. Many of the magic spells and amulets which combine the Sacred Name of God and Old Testament material with pagan elements may with reason be ascribed to men like the seven sons of Sceva mentioned in Acts xix. 14. Jewish deviationism of a more reputable type may well lie behind part of the Hermetic literature (see p. xvi). 2. The Graeco-Roman World.Second, archaeological finds have continuously enlarged our knowledge of the world in which Christianity spread. The synagogue at Dura has been mentioned; we have here also, apart from the predominantly Semitic cults, a Mithraeum (twice rebuilt) and a Christian church. (The remains of both can be seen in the Yale University Art Gallery.) The steadily growing body of inscriptions referring to the local affairs of cities and other communities in the Near East supplies a salutary corrective to the idea that, after the new world situation which succeeded the conquests of Alexander took shape, local loyalties lost much of their meaning. To be sure, a reflective Greek in the time of Paul could not but realize that the great days of his land were past: like the recognized masterpieces of literature and art, they belonged to the lost radiance of a classic epoch. Y e t the inscriptions show men's pride in holding office, their public benefactions, and their care for traditional rituals. The old gods counted, as dedications and priestly records show: people do not keep up appearances indefinitely. The great temples of Western Asia Minor flourished remarkably under Roman rule. As for civic affairs in general, we must not forget that Plutarch's Precepts of Statecraft was written to give counsel to Greeks as to public duty in their own communities. We may think of their affairs as 'parish pump': but people in a parish pump draw their water from the pump, and they meet and talk around it. Again, the inscriptions illustrate notably the spread of the Greek language and the pervasive influence of Greek education, literary and physical. It was the schoolmaster and the teacher of athletics who carried on the process of Hellenization which took its impetus from the founding of cities and veteran settlements b y Alexander and his successors,

notably the Seleucids. The papyri of Egypt show that a surprising range of literature was copied for reading. In the countryside local languages continued to be in use and could revive, but, generally speaking, the progressive dissemination of Greek was remarkable. The effect of this upon the Jews has been noted. Elsewhere also there could be a seepage of ideas to people who did not read literary works, and this is to be borne in mind with reference to what is said later about philosophy in relation to the rise of Gnosticism. Here again the inscriptions help us b y indicating that philosophers were men of consequence in their communities: which is also shown b y the work of Artemidorus on the interpretation of dreams, one of our best aids in trying to put a finger on the pulse of the man in the street. Where inscriptions (or other sources) are concerned, the argument from silence is one to be used with caution, since unexpected finds do turn up. Nevertheless, the fact that Mithraism (a notable new creation on the basis not of Zoroaster's teaching, but of popular Iranian belief outside Persia) is almost absent from Western Asia Minor and is but sparsely represented in Syria and E g y p t should make us reluctant to ascribe to it any influence on the evolution of early Christianity. Let me close this section with some general remarks on the implications of the phrase 'Hellenistic background' in the title of my monograph. Between Alexander and Augustus, between Augustus and Julian, a great deal happened in religion and philosophy as well as in political and economic life. To be sure, when we divide history into periods, we are liable to make too much of new factors and too little of things that remained relatively constant. So, for example, men might give complete intellectual endorsement to what philosophy said about the gods without thereby obliterating the fables and fears which their nurses had taught them or the impress of the traditional profiles of the gods as enshrined in poetry and art. On the other hand, we must be very cautious as to any use of evidence from later centuries to explain phenomena of the time of Paul. The chronological differentiation of data in Martin P. Nilsson's Geschichte der

griechischen Religion, vol. I I , is one of the inestimable contributions of that masterpiece of patient brilliance. 3. The Language of Religion.Third, our lexicographical aids for the study of vocabulary of the New Testament have been notably enriched and a better understanding of its character is now possible. It is clear that the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, commonly called the Septuagint, exercised a great influence on the choice and use of words; it is clear also that certain words (e.g. pierotna) previously neutral acquired a new sense or overtone. Further, the attempt to show that the Christians adopted a technical vocabulary from the piety of Greek or Graeco*Oriental mysteries breaks down completely; in fact they failed to use certain Greek words which were undeniably familiar in the context of religious thought and practice and which would have been appropriate. So again there is a world of difference between the use of euangelion in the New Testament and its occasional use in expressions of loyal devotion to an Emperor; I doubt whether any early Christian knew that the term had been so employed. Just as Hellenistic Judaism supplied the Septuagint, so also it could mediate Greek philosophic ideas: the speech before the Aeropagus in Acts xvii is probably an illustration of this. (It should perhaps be added that there is no need to see an echo, however remote, of Heraclitusor even of Philoin the opening of the Fourth Gospel, and that logos is one of the many Greek words which have a wide range of meaning.) 4. Gnosticism.Fourth, we come to the question of Gnosticism, which may fairly be called the crucial issue today in the study of early Christianity. Traditionally the term has been applied to a wide variety of Christian sects, claiming to possess a special esoteric knowledge; their various deviations were in a large part ascribed to the influence of Greek philosophy. In the last fifty years, however, it has been widely held that there was an independent entity which may be called Gnosticism, this being as Rudolf Bultmann puts it, 'a religious movement of pre-Christian origin which in various forms invaded the West from the East as a rival
1

Published in 1950: a revised and enlarged edition appeared in 1 9 6 1 .

of Christianity. In general it can be defined as a dualistic piety of redemption/ Bultmann credits it with a myth about the destiny of the soul, which is very much like the 'Iranian* idea of Reitzenstein's discussed later in the main essay. Gnosticism would on this view be a concrete phenomenon from which were derived not only specific sects but also substantial elements in early Christianity. But what was its Sitz im Leben, or, if you prefer, its 'place in the sun'? Would you have found a church or conventicle of some type or other of Gnostics in Corinth at the time of Paul's correspondence with his converts there? Alternatively, did this supposed original Gnosticism take shape in a literature analogous to those which passed under the names of Orpheus and Hermes, or in a book, comparable with the Chaldaic Oracles! Evidence for something of the sort might conceivably appear. In the meantime, since originality is not necessarily confined to movements or authors that have disappeared, I must continue to hold that in the environment of early Christianity there were materials which could be built into Gnostic systemsbut no Gnostic system; that there was an appropriate mythopoeic facultybut no specific myth; that there was a 'Gnostic' state of mindbut no crystallized formulation of that state of mind and no community or communities clinging to the formulation. In short, there was a climate of opinion, and Judaism and Hellenism alike (with such foreign ideas as had found some home in either of the two) helped to shape it. (These are categories with which we can operate; the word Oriental' is not, for in this context it has no specificity save b y contrast, i.e. as meaning 'non-Greek'.) Reference has already been made to the varieties of Judaism, and to the esoteric interests of the Essenes. Thanks to Gershom Scholem we know also of a type of Jewish thought, dating back long before the time of the Kabbala, which may fairly be regarded not only as cognate to that of Gnosticism as traditionally conceived, but also as one of its sources. (This is so in spite of the fact that what this kind of Judaism sought was to get, here and now, inside the terrifying splendor of the angelic and heavenly world, whereas the Christian Gnostics sought to get out of

the familiar world of matter and sin and suffering.) Moreover, even a cursory examination of the systems constructed by some of the Gnostic Christians strikes the observer b y the prominence of themes which could have been suggested by the early chapters of Genesis. There you find the original chaos, the first bisexual man (as Genesis i , 26 f. was often understood), the taking from man of the rib from which E v e was created, the jealous God who will not have man eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the serpent who plays a part like that of Prometheus, the Fall, the succeeding shame at nakedness, the curse of pain in bringing forth children, Cain and Abel, the mysterious Seth, the privileged Enoch, the sons of God who mate with the daughters of men, the Flood. All this had a wealth of suggestiveness. A s for Hellenism, from the time of Socrates it was widely held that right thinking and right opinion supplied the key to right living, and the various philosophic schools offered their differing ways of deliverance from the uninformed and mentally footloose life. This deliverance lay in a reasoned conviction as to valuesthe highest good, the extreme eviland as to the scheme of things and the place (and it might be, the purpose) of man within that scheme. Indeed Tertullian says (Praescr. haer. 7), 'Heretics and philosophers ponder on the same topicswhence is evil, and why? and whence is man, and how?Men needed to understand 'their going hence, even as their coming hither', the goal of life, what came after death. Gnosticism gave assured answers to these questions (just as it also satisfied a widespread concern with cosmogony). Not a few of the Gnostic answers show the influence of Platonism as it came to be understood. So it could be held that life in the body implies a descent and an imprisonment of the soul and that evil is inherent in matter. After all, Plato had said that evils must necessarily hover around mortal nature and this earth. Therefore we ought to try to escape from here to there (i.e. to the dwelling of the gods) as quickly as possible (Theaetetus 176 A ) , and Plato was also interpreted as saying that there is an evil World Soul. Many Platonists held that there are imperfect supernatural powers, and that the

Supreme Being is wholly remote from the world of senseexperience. T o be sure, in later Platonism, when the Creator is distinguished from Ultimate Deity, it is by w a y of subordination, and not, as in some Gnostic teaching, of alienation. Nevertheless, one can see why Simone Petrement once called Gnosticism 'un platonisme romantique', for which we might be tempted to substitute 'Platonism run wild*. A fusion of these two components, Judaism and Greek philosophy, is found in some of the tractates associated with the name of Hermes Trismegistus, which denotes the Egyptian god Thoth, scribe of the gods and reputed author of the ancient sacred literature kept in the temples as also of pseudoscientific works in Greek. So is the idea that knowledge (or self-knowledge) delivers man from his inherited plight and raises him to a higher plane of existence, so also a sense of estrangement from the world and a missionary zeal to save humanity from the besotted sleep of ignorance. This is excellent evidence for a climate of opinion, but very far from affording anything like probable indications of a pre-Christian Weltreligion. In any event, all that we know suggests that the figure of Jesusappearing, teaching, dying, and (according to the belief which touched off the Christian movement) rising and the conviction that this Jesus was the Heavenly Lord caused the raw material of Gnosticism to take definite shapes, some closer to the central stream of Christian thinking, some more remote. (The tradition about Simon Magus may well represent a very early attempt to overtrump the claims of the Christians.) The attitudes which Paul criticizes at Corinth, the thinking which he criticizes at Colossae, suggest its rudimentary beginnings. It could not have been difficult for some Gnostic ideas to arise out of reflection on his own teachings. If the L a w was regarded as a second best, and if you could speak of 'the god of this world* (II Cor. iv. 4), might it not be that the God of the L a w and of Creation was a second best? If you accepted the distinction between spiritual and natural persons, was there not reason to speculate on how they happened to be as they were? If Paul had heard unspeakable things in the third heaven,

might not others have an inkling of those secrets? And there was the sophisticated Judaism, brought, say, b y Apollos. Paulinism without Paul presented many difficulties. There's a great text in Galatians, Once you trip on it, entails Twenty-nine distinct damnations, One sure, if another fails. The case for this traditional view of Gnosticism has been greatly strengthened by the discovery in Upper E g y p t of a large collection of Gnostic books in Coptic, which was the new shape of the vernacular language of the land. The collection does indeed include Hermetic treatises as well as other pseudepigraphic texts mentioned b y Porphyry in his account of the intellectual war which his master Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatinism, waged against the Gnostics at Rome in the middle of the third century of our era. (Porphyry, be it remarked, makes it clear that he regarded them as Christian sectaries who could also be thought to have roots in the old philosophy, i.e. as renegade Platonists.) Otherwise all the texts on which information is available either give embroideries on the Genesis story or show acquaintance with our New Testament or do both. The Gospel of Thomas may twist sayings of Jesus known from the Synoptic Gospels, but they afford its principal point of departure. So again the doctrines of Basilides were put forth in the form of Comments on the Gospel. Such facts speak for themselves. Let me add that it seems to me wholly unwarranted to take Gnostic or Manichaen texts which quote the New Testament and to reconstruct from them a hypothetical forerunner of Christianity in general and of Paulinism or the Fourth Gospel in particular. After all, Mani began each of his Epistles b y describing himself as 'Apostle of Jesus Christ'. It is time to close this retrospect, and I do so in deep thankfulness to all those, dead and living, old and young, who have given me generous aid and encouragement over the years and who have so often saved me from error. September 23, 1962
ARTHUR DARBY NOCK

BIBLIOGRAPHY
. Judaism.George Foot Moore, Judaism (1927-1931), describes with no less sympathy and understanding than learning and penetration what he calls 'normative Judaism'; the preface to the third volume tells the reader what he will and what he will not find in this masterpiece. For Qumran, apart from F. M. Cross, as cited earlier, and Millar Burrows, Dead Sea Scrolls (1955) and More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls (1958), let me mention The Scrolls and the New Testament ed. Krister Stendahl (1957). For cultural contacts, cf. Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (1942) and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (1950); Victor Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (. T. 1959). For the Jews at Alexandria cf. W. W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilization (ed. 3, with G. T. Griffith, 1952), ch. vi; . I. Bell, Cults and Creeds in Graeco-Roman Egypt (1953), ch. ii; Tcherikover in Harvard Theological Review, LI (1958), 59-85; Tcherikover and A. Fuks, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum i(1957) For Philo cf. E . R. Goodenough, Introduction to Philo Judaeus (1940); H. A. Wolfson, Philo (1947); Philo, Selections edited b y Hans Lewy (1946; in the series Philosophia Judaica, ed. H. Bergmann). The Loeb edition, with translation etc. b y F. H. Colson, G. H. Whitaker, and R. Marcus (1929), is indispensable, for in Philo it is particularly dangerous to consider a phrase without its context. For Dura, cf. M. Rostovtzeff, Dura-Europos and its Art (1938); C. H. Kraeling, The Synagogue [Excavations at Dura-Europos, Final Report, v m , i, 1956]. For other Jewish art, cf. E. R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period 1 (1953), with m y remarks in Gnomon x x v i i (1955), 558 ff., x x i x (1957), 524 ff., x x x i i (i960), 728 ff. For Judaism in general cf. The Jews ed. L. Finkelstein (1949); The Jewish

Encyclopaedia (1901); L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1909-1938; abridgement, as Legends of the Bible, with introduction by S. Spiegel, 1956). Cf. also section 4 later. 2. The Graeco-Roman World.M. Rostovzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (1926; revised edition b y P. M. Fraser, 1957) and Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (1941; revised edition, 1953) are the two most remarkable works of our time in this field. Tarn's book, mentioned earlier, and Cambridge Ancient History are also indispensable. F. van der Meer-Christine Mohrmann, Atlas of the Early Christian World (translated and edited by Mary F. Hedlund and . H. Rowley; 1958) and Michael Grant, The World of Rome (i960) will both enrich the reader's picture of life as it was lived in this milieu. So will T. Frank, Economic Survey of Ancient Rome (1933-1940) and . . M. Jones, The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (1937) and The Greek City (1940). Martin P. Charlesworth, The Roman Empire (1951), mainly concerned with later times, is a masterpiece of understanding and sympathy. On education, cf. . I. Marrou History of Education in Antiquity (. T. 1956); M. P. Nilsson, Die hellenistische Schule (1955), which should be translated. On philosophy, A . H. Armstrong, Introduction to Ancient Philosophy (ed. 2, 1949); A. J. Festugiere, Epicurus and his Gods (. T. 1956) and Rivilations d'Hermls Trismogiste 1(1944); E. R. Bevan, Stoics and Sceptics (1913); D. R. Dudley, History of Cynicism (1937); my Posidonius in Journal of Roman Studies XLIX (1959), 1 ff. and Sallustius Concerning the Gods and the Universe (1926), ch. i. Useful selections of the source material for philosophy and religion alike, will be found in Bevan, Later Greek Religion (1927) and F. C. Grant Hellenistic Religions (1953). Otherwise, let me mention F. Cumont, Les religions orientates dans le paganisme romain (ed. 4, 1929: this contains much that is not in the second edition, available in English as Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, 1911); A. J. FestugiereP. Fabre, Le monde grico-romain au temps de NotreSeigneur (1935); Festugiere, Personal Religion among the Greeks (1954); Martin P. Nilsson Greek Piety (. T. 1948).

Nilsson's Greek Folk Religion (1940; reprinted in the Torchbook series, 1961) gives the older Greek background, as does, from a different angle, E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (1951). In this connexion I may refer to my Religious Attitudes of the Ancient Greeks, in Proc. Am. Philosophical Soc. LXXXV, 1942, 472 ff. The Oxford Classical Dictionary (1949) will be found a convenient work of reference. 3. Lexicography, etc.Arndt and Gingrich, GreekEnglish Lexicon of the New Testament (1957), a translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer, Griechisch-Deutsches Worterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, is a mine of accurate and well digested information. A number of the major articles in G. Kittels' monumental Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament (1932) have been rendered into English in Bible Key Words, tr. J. R. Coates and . T. Kingdon (1951, 1958). On the character of . T. vocabulary cf. m y article in Journal of Biblical Literature LII (1933), 131 ff.; on euangelion cf. Journal of Theological Studies, N.S. x i (i960), 64 ff. On the Areopagus speech cf. Bertil Gartner, The Areopagus Speech and Natural Revelation (Acta Seminarii Upsaliensis, x x n , 1955), and my remarks in Gnomon x x v (1953), 504 ff. 4. Gnosticism.For the topic in general cf. F. C. Burkitt, The Religion of the Manichees (1925) and Church and Gnosis (1932); R. P. Casey, Journal of Theological Studies x x x v i (1935), 45 ff.; H. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (1958); R. M. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (1959) and Gnosticism: A Source Book (1961); R. McL. Wilson, The Gnostic Problem (1958). For Bultmann's point of view cf. his Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting (. T. 1956) and Theology of the New Testament (. T. 1951-3). For a brilliant criticism of the idea that Gnosticism was an independent entity, cf. S. Petrement in Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale, i960, 385 ff. For Jewish Gnosticism, cf. the pioneer works of Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941) and Jewish Gnosticism (i960), with G. Quispel's review of the latter in Vigiliae Christianae (1961), 117 ff.

For the Hermetica cf. Hermes Trismigiste (1945), by Festug^re and myself, and Festugiere's Rivilation cited earlier. The fullest account of the new Coptic find is given b y J. Doresse, The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics (. T. i960; much enlarged b y the author, as compared with the French original). Cf. also The Jung Codex, ed. F. L. Cross (1955) and W. C. van Unnik, The Newly Discovered Gnostic Writings (. T. i960). For individual texts cf. K . Grobel, The Gospel of Truth (i960; on this document cf. also my remarks in Journal of Theological Studies, N. S. ix, 1958, 314 ff.); A. Guillaumont etc., The Gospel according to Thomas (1959); R. M. Grant and D. N. Freedman, The Secret Sayings of Jesus (i960); B . Gartner, The Theology of the Gospel according to Thomas (. T. 1961). Let me remark that J. Weiss, Urchristentum, as cited in the pages which follow is available in two volumes, with an introduction and bibliography b y F. C. Grant, under the title Earliest Christianity (in the Torchbook series). There is much that is suggestive in Some Hellenistic Elements in Primitive Christianity (1944) by W. L. Knox, and The Root of the Vine (1953), b y Anton Fridrichsen and others. Finally, for the whole complexity of the relations of Christianity, down to the seventh century, to its background and to its environment we have now the monumental Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum (1941), brilliantly edited by Theodor Klauser and supplemented b y the new Jahrbuch fur Antike und Christentum: 'here is God's plenty.'

EARLY

GENTILE CHRISTIANITY A N D ITS HELLENISTIC BACKGROUND

T o determine with accuracy the influence on early Christianity of its Hellenistic background is impossible. Our material does not enable us to define in detail all the stages through which early Christianity developed, and we do not know the Hellenistic background nearly as well as we could wish. W h a t is here attempted is a provisional treatment of this great subject. T h a t such a treatment is possible is due to the labours of many scholars ; the writer's debt to some of them, and in particular to the friends who have criticised earlier drafts of this paper or discussed with him aspects of the question, is not adequately represented b y the references given in the footnotes. W e have to deal on the one hand with assured facts, on the other with more or less probable explanations of or inferences from them. With the latter there must come in an element of subjectivity and room for honest divergence of opinion. F e w critics, whether conservative or radical, can hope to be free from preconceived ideas and from the desire to find in the facts something which they wish to find. The
1

I should here w i s h t o express m y t h a n k s t o Professor F . C. B u r k i t t , Prof. R . P . Casey, D r . A . B . Cook, the R e v . Prof. J. M . Creed, Mr. . T . D e a s , the R e v . W . L . K n o x , D r . R . B . Onians, Prof. H . J. Rose, Mr. F . H . S a n d b a c h , Mr. C T . S e l t m a n , Mr. W . Spens, the R e v . D r . H . F . S t e w a r t , t h e R e v . W . Telfer. T h e reader w h o desires a good general account of the first c e n t u r y of our era w o u l d do w e l l t o t u r n t o W . R . H a l l i d a y , The Pagan Background of Early Christianity (University of L i v e r p o o l Press, 1925), t o ch. iv. of D e i s s m a n n , Licht vom Osten (available in translation), t o C u m o n t ' s brilliant book, Les religions orientates dans le paganisme romain (available in translation), and t o W e n d l a n d ' s admirable Hellenistisch-romische Kultur (1912). E a r l y Gentile Christianity for the purposes of this essay does not in general embrace more t h a n the period t o a b o u t A . D . 80. I should remark t h a t D r . Rawlinson's B a m p t o n Lectures, The New Testament Doctrine of the Christ, and Reitzenstein's third edition of Myst., were not a v a i l a b l e tiU this essay w a s completed. Jahrbuch fur Liturgiewissenschaft, I . (Miinster, 1 9 2 1 - ) , deserves a special mention for its excellent bibliographie raisonnie.
4 1

present essay represents an attempt to preserve a judicial tone in the separating of data and opinions and in its deductions ; how far it has succeeded is for others to say. I
THE BACKGROUND

I. Jews and sympathisers.-The Christian teacher who addressed himself to devout Jews had the w a y to some extent prepared for him. He found in his hearers a strict monotheistic faith, commonly some kind of Messianic expectation, and always a belief in God's law and in the moral requirements of religion. He told them that the cherished expectations of their race had been gratified, though in an unexpected way, that God had not waited for the perfection of Israel before sending the Messiah but had already sent Him, that this Messiah had died, had risen, and would come again in glory, and that in the light of the rising of the Messiah and the expectation of His second coming they were called to a new life. Such instruction would be suitable not merely to Jews in Judaea but also to the numerous Jews of the Dispersion. It would reach also the many Gentiles who, without formally becoming proselytes, felt drawn to Judaism ; we find them called Sebomenoi, ' worshippers/ and the ' worshippers of the Highest G o d (Theos Hypsistos) in the Hellenised East were probably in large part Judaising Gentiles and Hellenising J e w s . ' ' Jewish religious propaganda at this time reached all classes of society ; it m a y be remarked that various passages in the New Testament imply that many Gentiles might come to a synagogue when a
1 1

See F . C u m o n t , P.W. ix. 444 sqq. ; A . B . Cook, Zeus, ii. 876 sqq. L y d i a ( A c t s x v i . 14) is described as - rbv *6. T h e representation of N o a h and t h e ark on coins struck a t A p a m e i a in P h r y g i a in the third c e n t u r y A . D . under Septimius Severus, Philip Senior and Macrinus, b u t p r o b a b l y c o p y i n g some earlier p a i n t i n g w h i c h existed in t h e c i t y (W. M . R a m s a y , Cities and Bishoprics of Asia Minor, i. 669 ; Usener, Sintflutsagen, 48 sqq.; a good specimen struck under Septimius is illustrated in Catal. Hirsch, xiii. (Rhousopolos) 250, no. 4098, pi. x l v i i i ; specimens from P h i l i p are B.M.C. Phrygia, 1 0 1 , no. 182, cf. x x x i x . , and Inventaire Waddington, 5 7 3 1 , and from Macrinus, Jnv. Wadd. 5723), has often been a d d u c e d as evidence of Jewish influence ; b u t it m a y be due t o a combination of Jewish and P h r y g i a n stories (cf. A . J . R e i n a c h , NoeSangariou, Paris, 1 9 1 3 , reprinted from Revue des otudes juives, l x v . and l x v i . ) .

famous preacher was expected. There can be little doubt that the first Gentiles to be converted were almost without exception men and women who had fallen under Jewish influence. T h e y were now offered something which afforded the spiritual satisfaction which they had sought and found in Judaism, and which had the further advantage of not treating them as ' lesser breeds without the l a w / 2. Hellenistic belief.In spreading from this wellprepared ground the Christian movement encountered new tasks. It faced a world which did not know Judaism or which hated and despised it, a world which was unacquainted with the prophets and familiar with cults not pretending to exclusiveness, with mysteries not always requiring a moral standard of their devotees, with an unchangeable and unmoral order of destiny determined, or at least indicated, b y the stars, with magic of various kinds. W e must make some attempt to grasp the salient features of this religious situation, having in view Asia Minor, Syria, and Greece. The culture of the nearer East had two faces, the life of the Greek cities, whether early settlements or later foundations due to Alexander the Great, to his successors, and to their great heir, Rome, and the life of the undeveloped countryside. T h e latter does not concern us much. In the first century city life flourished, and the country is subordinate ; it was, moreover, in the city populations that Christianity first spread. T h e contribution of the nonGreek element in the population t o religion was important : in Asia Minor it meant the Anatolian cult of a mothergoddess (Meter, Leto, Ma, or Artemis) and a son or youthful
2 3

Cf. A c t s x i v . i , x v i i i . 4. O n Jewish converts a t A n t i o c h , cf. Josephus, Bell. Jud. vii. 45. A significant illustration of the diffusion of Jewish ideas is t h e superstitious feeling c o m m o n l y a t t a c h e d t o t h e S a b b a t h in p a g a n circles (cf. F . H . Colson, The Week, 1 1 sqq.). O n the reasons for t h e a t t r a c tion exercised b y Jewish p r o p a g a n d a , cf. H . Gressmann, Zeitschr. f. d. alttest. Wiss., N . F . , I I . (1925). 9 (he notes t h e economic strength of t h e Jews, their freedom from crude m y t h o l o g y , their B o o k , their ethical standards, and their social rest-day). * I t is significant t h a t T a t i a n , while ridiculing m y t h o l o g y , directs his serious a t t a c k s a g a i n s t a s t r o l o g y a n d m a g i c (A. P u e c h , Recherches sur le discours aux Grecs de Tatien, 43). * Christian beginnings i n E g y p t are shrouded in darkness : R o m e for our purposes is on a par w i t h t h e Hellenistic cities of t h e E a s t , since m u c h of its population, a n d in particular t h e circles in w h i c h Christianity first t o o k root there, drew their m e n t a l a n d religious colour from t h e Greek E a s t rather t h a n from I t a l i a n sources.

and subordinate consort (Attis, Tyrimnos, etc.), sometimes of mother, consort, and son, together with beliefs coming from the Persians who had ruled the land; in Syria it meant the local Baal and the local mother-goddess. Y e t it was, though non-Greek, given a Greek dress. The mother-goddess could be called Artemis, the young god Apollo. Baal could be called Zeus, with some local epithet or other. These Hellenistic cities worshipped the Greek gods, Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, Dionysus, Asclepius and the like. T h e y worshipped also the Emperor (either b y himself or in association with the goddess Roma, the divine personification of the imperial city's power). Both types of worship could express sincere belief. B u t they need not. Neither required more than the performance of certain observances; they were without a theology, though susceptible of theological interpretation. Their religious content would, according to the mind of the individual, be of a high order or of a low. Some who sacrificed to Zeus would do it as a mere matter of form or social decency, with no more religious sentiment than is involved in the payment of tithes to a l a y rector. Some, again, in doing sacrifice to him would feel that they were doing homage to the great power that rules the
1 2 3

J. Keil's s t u d y of t h e cults of L y d i a (in Anatolian Studies presented to Sir William Ramsay, 239 sqq.) is particularly helpful. F o r t h e Persian element i n C a p p a d o c i a cf. H . Gregoire, Comptes rendus de VacaeUmie des inscriptions, 1908, 4 3 4 ^ (Greek-Aramaic bilingual in honour of M i t h r a s ) ; R . Reitzenstein, Kyrkohistorisk Arsskrift, 1922, i o 2 ; Myst. 2 1 5 sqq. On t h e s u r v i v a l of small communities of m a g i in A s i a Minor cf. C u m o n t , Les my stores de Mithra*, 1 1 sqq., and in general O . G . v o n Wesendonk, Uber georgisches Heidentum (1924), 7 sqq. F o r Persians in E g y p t , cf. R e i t z e n stein, Gnomon, 1927, 2 7 8 ^ So earlier on coins of Side struck in t h e fourth c e n t u r y B . C . a Semitic i n s c r i p t i o n , ' lord of S i d e / is p u t beside t h e figure of Apollo, w h o is b o t h Greek a n d indigenous (C. T . S e l t m a n , A Hoard from Side, 10 sq.; cf. K e i l , op. cit. p . 262). T h u s in t h e a c c o u n t w h i c h E u s e b i u s g i v e s of the m a r t y r d o m of Procopius, t h e governor F l a v i a n u s does n o t dispute the Christian's s t a t e m e n t t h a t there is one god ; he o n l y asks h i m t o offer incense t o t h e E m p e r o r (F. S a l i s b u r y H . M a t t i n g l y , Journ. Rom. Stud. x i v . 1 1 ) . T h i s p a r t l y accounts for t h e r a r i t y of protests against Emperor-worship, for w h i c h cf. m y Sallustius (Cambridge, 1926), l x x x i x . n. 210, and P a u s a n . V I I I . 2. 5. I n this connexion w e m a y note G . F . Hill's excellent observation (Some Palestinian Cults of the Graeco-Roman Age, off-printed from Proc. Brit. Ac. v , p . 2 ) : ' W e m a y rest assured t h a t t h e people w h o believed in, or worshipped, these deities were h a r d l y more clear t h a n ourselves a b o u t their significance and origin.' O n t h e i m p o r t a n c e of state-cults as traditional, cf. E . H a t c h , Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church,
3 x 8 8

2I

universe, the beginning and end of all, ' father of men,' as Cleanthes sang of him in his hymn. Such would reverence the image of Zeus as a symbol, and as an expression of deity in terms of beauty. This sentiment is well expressed, with reference to the image of Zeus b y Phidias at Olympia, in a passage of Dion of Prusa, who said in the first century of our era,' I think that a man who is altogether burdened in soul and has endured many misfortunes and griefs in his life and does not enjoy sweet sleep, would, if he stood before this image, forget all the grievous and dreadful things it may befall one to suffer in human l i f e . ' A n d again, others, in sacrificing to Zeus, would think that they were making an offering to a deity identical with or residing in the cult-statue before them, that this deity would be angry and visit them with ill weather if he did not receive the usual respect, and that he was distinctly more effective than the Zeus of the next city. Side b y side with the civic cults flourished certain forms of worship which were of wider extension, as, for instance, the cult of Apollo at Delphi with his famous oracle, which seems to have enjoyed renewed prosperity under the Empire; that of Asclepius at Epidaurus, with its healing activities; that of Zeus at Olympia. There flourished also mysteries. A s these will occupy not a little of our attention, it is desirable to define their general characteristics. A mysterion is a secret rite, in which the individual participates of his own free choice, and b y which he is put into a closer relation with the deity honoured ; normally he must undergo ceremonies of initiation (not usually capable of repetition) conferring a new and indelible spiritual condition and commonly giving an assurance of happiness hereafter. Those being initiated, says Aristotle, need not to learn something, but to receive an experience, and to be put into a frame of mind. The experience of the initiate may consist of acts done to him or b y him, or again of the watching of a
1 2

T h i s and other passages are g i v e n b y O v e r b e c k , Die antiken Schriftquellen, 138 sqq. ; t h e p o i n t in question is well m a d e b y T h . Zielinski, La Sibylle, 1 3 sq. T h e ancient apologetic for image-worship is v e r y like t h a t used elsewhere (cf E . R . B e v a n , Edinburgh Review, F e b r u a r y 1926). * T h e reader w h o desires a good general a c c o u n t of these m a y turn t o A . L o i s y , Les myst&res patens et le mystire chratien (1919), and t o R . P e t t a zoni, J misteri (1923)

sacred drama. Thus at Eleusis the initiate (who might, in the fifth century B.C. and later, be a member of any Greek state, might be male or female, slave or free), having been first admitted t o the lesser mysteries at Agrae, received a preliminary purification, witnessed the sacred drama, and performed certain ritual acts. On a second visit he reached the higher grade of epoptes,' one who has seen.' Thereafter he looked t o a brighter future in the next world, being endowed with a ' good h o p e . ' Of these mysteries there were offshoots elsewhere in Greece. Again, at Samothrace in the cult of the Cabiri, deities of whose nature we are ill-informed, mysteries were celebrated involving a preliminary confession of sins. Those who had been initiated were held to become ' more religious and upright and altogether improved.' T h e rhetorician Aristides, in the second century of our era, speaks of these mysteries as second only t o those of Eleusis in honour. Demeter is probably pre-Greek, in spite of her name : the Cabiri were non-Greek, but both had long found their place in the Greek religious world. Later came the mysteries of Phrygian Cybele, of Syrian Adonis, of Egyptian Isis, of Persian Mithras. These rites were, in spite of their differences, fundamentally a k i n ; with various speeds and in various ways they had been spiritualised out of primitive ritual meant to serve practical ends. A t the time which we are studying they share the notes of universality, of conversion, in part of moral basis ; further, they all involve a joining in the sorrows and in the joys of the god. W e know them best from sources of the second century A.D . and later, and it is fairly clear that they rose in importance in the second century, b u t there can be little doubt that much of what
1 2 3 4

Cf. in general L . R . Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iii. 1 2 6 sqq., and P e t t a z o n i , op. cit. T h e q u o t a t i o n from Aristotle is from his lost w o r k On prayer, fr. 45, p. 1483 a. 1 9 , Tobs ^ . Diodorus Siculus, v . 49 ; Aristid. Or. xiii. (vol. i. 308, Dindorf) : cf. O. K e r n , P.W. x . 1433 sq. T h a t is, speaking generally of these cults as disseminated outside their original homes. A d o n i s a t B y b l u s , Isis in E g y p t receive general worship like c i v i c or Panhellenic g o d s in Greece. A s disseminated a m o n g members of other nations t h e y are mission-religions (cf. a n interesting p o i n t in Reitzenstein, Myst. , i o 2 ) . See p p . 7 1 sqq. later.
a 8 9 3 4

is then characteristic of them had taken shape earlier. Mithras seems not to have come westwards except sporadically till the end of the first century A.D . and is therefore to be separated from the others, but we must in general speak with Reitzenstein of ' Hellenistic mystery-religions.' Civic cults, Caesar-worship, Mysteries, these make up the public religion of the Hellenistic world. In the resulting picture there is much which was foreign to the Greeks of the classical age, and, if we turn from public and official religion to the indications which we possess of more individual religious development, of currents of belief growing in small groups or disseminated b y literary propaganda, there is more. What had happened so to change the face of the world ? 3. The transformation of Greek belief.The germs of most of this new development are to be found in the centuries succeeding the conquests of Alexander. The closer contact now made possible between East and West, the extension of men's mental horizon, and the growth of individualism are all lactors of moment. Let us consider each of these in turn. A traveller like Herodotus had been received b y priests in E g y p t , but as a tourist in whom they had little interest, and the priests of whom he speaks were probably underlings. The new contact and the inevitable realisation of the Greek's superiority in worldly matters led to a corresponding desire on the part of the Oriental to emphasise the greater antiquity of his religious traditions. Keen-sighted individuals like Manetho in E g y p t and Berossus in Babylon followed this course : the former wrote in Greek of Egyptian belief and history, the latter of Babylonian astrology. Most of their colleagues in the native priesthoods were no doubt less learned, and cannot be credited with similar activities, though their religious attitude may well have been more enlightened and less seldom speculative than that of the masses of their countryfolk. Nevertheless, the rapid diffusion of the Greek
1 2 3

Cf. now Myst. > 95 sqq. His polemic against E . Meyer's denial of the justness of the t e r m seems t o me c o m p l e t e l y successful. * W . Spiegelberg, Die Glaubwiirdigkeit von Herodots Bericht iiber Agypten im Lichte der agyptischen Denkmaler (Orient und Antike, 3 ; 1926), 18 ; the m o n o g r a p h as a whole is most helpful. T h i s has been well set forth b y T h . Hopfner, Orient und griechische Philosophie (Beih. z. Alien Orient, 4, 1925), 27 sqq.
3

language (probably also of a modicum of Greek culture) in the Egyptian priesthood must have helped to make the Greeks more at home in beliefs partly new to them. They for their part were not unacquainted with Eastern gods and Eastern astrology; they were, moreover, prone to idealise foreigners when they did not despise them. A great impetus was therefore given to the study and further development of Babylonian beliefs in the power of the stars, to the study and philosophic interpretation of Egyptian tradition, and to the worship of Egyptian and other Oriental gods. That worship, while retaining its fundamental character, was subjected to Greek influences which humanised its mythology and caused it to be less other-worldly and to stress mystic redemption in this life and not exclusively happiness hereafter. The product was something neither wholly Oriental nor wholly Greek, but n e w ; in E g y p t the cults of this character emanating from Alexandria asserted themselves over the older worships of the land. From Homeric times the Greeks who thought on such matters had in general assumed two things : ' The first is that the gods are real and care more or less for all men, not simply for the Greeks. The second, that the deities of foreign nations are simply the familiar Greek gods under new n a m e s . ' Foreign gods were therefore in their eyes worthy of worship ; so, for instance, we find in the Delta a bronze statuette of the bull Apis dedicated b y a Greek in the sixth century B . C . This tendency developed rapidly. Thus Timotheus, a religious official at Eleusis at the end of the fourth century B . C . , appears as one of Ptolemy I's advisers in the shaping of the new cult of Sarapis, the god who was to be an Egyptian to the Egyptians and a Greek
1 2 3 4 5

Cf. Reitzenstein, Kyrk.Ars. 1922, p p . 98 sqq. ; W . O t t o , Priester und Tempeln itn hellenistischen Agypten, ii. 235 sqq. Cf. H . Gressmann, Die hellenistische Gestirnreligion (Beihefte zum Alten Orient, v . 1925) ; W . Roscher, Lexikon fur griechische und romische Mythologie, iii. 2525 ; p. 66 later ; on the Greek a t t i t u d e to non-Greeks cf. J. Geffcken, Zwei gnechischen Apologeten, i x . ; on foreign gods in fifthcentury A t h e n s cf. H . Herter,2) dis Atticis Priapi similibus (Bonn, 1926), 6. So W . Weber, Agyptisch-griechischer Gotter (Groningen, 1912), and H . Gressmann, Vortrage der Bibliothek Warburg, 1 9 2 3 - 4 , p . 188 sqq.; on m y t h cf. also p . 6 1 , n. 1. H . J. Rose, The Roman Questions of Plutarch, 53. Cf. thereon V . Ehrenberg, Alexander und Agypten (Beih. x.A. O. vii. 1926), 1 9 .
1 3 4

to the Greeks, and again as writing on the m y t h of Cybele of Pessinus in P h r y g i a . T o all three forms of religion he brought no doubt the same religious attitude. This identification of deities enabled Greeks and Orientals to find a meeting-place in worship. I t further increased the tendency towards monotheism. In the late first or early second century of our era Plutarch writes, ' There are not different gods in different nations, barbarians and Greeks, southerners and northerners. Just as sun and moon and sky and earth and sea are common to all, though named differently b y different peoples, so the one Reason ordering this world, the one Providence governing it, and the subordinate powers set over all have different honours and titles among different peoples according to their customs. Some men, whose lives are sanctified, use faint symbols, others use clearer ones ; these guide the mind towards things divine, but not without danger, since there are those who go completely wrong and slip into superstition, and again there are others who avoid superstition as though it were a marsh and then fall unawares over the precipice of godlessness.' The progress of this tendency m a y be connected with a rising interest in divine power rather than divine personalities ; it is of course the stronger deities who absorb and are not absorbed. T h e full development of this comes later in the second century A.D . and afterwards.
1 2 3 4

T h e legend is, of course, p a r t of t h e c u l t (F. Pfister, Philologische Wochenschrift, 1926, . 282 ff.), t h o u g h it m a y well pass i n t o something p u r e l y literary, as in t h e second a n d fourth h y m n s of Callimachus (R. Reitzenstein, Gottingische gelekrte A nzeigen, 1924,40). Zielinski's interesting suggestion (La Sibylle, p p . 83 sqq.) t h a t T i m o t h e u s reformed t h e cult, and did for L y s i m a c h u s something like w h a t he did for P t o l e m y is u n f o r t u n a t e l y only a conjecture. D o u b t l e s s he Hellenised t h e s t o r y : t h u s t h e s t o r y of t h e council of the gods a t w h i c h t h e other deities are uncertain w h a t t o do w i t h the dangerous bisexed Agdistis, a n d L i b e r undertakes t o deal w i t h him (Arnob. v . 6), seems t o owe something t o P l a t o , Symp. p . 190 c. T i m o t h e u s seems t o h a v e been interested in Iranian belief also (Reitzenstein, Myst. , p . 225). F o r his position as religious adviser, cf. t h a t of P a c h r a t e s in Hadrian's entourage (W. W e b e r , Sitzungsber. Ak. Heidelb., 1 9 1 0 , v i . 6 ) . I t is possible t h a t w e c a n e x e m p l i f y this under A l e x a n d e r . His t e t r a d r a c h m t y p e s m e a n t t o a Greek Heracles a n d Zeus, t o a n Oriental M e l k a r t h a n d B a a l of T a r s u s (C. T . S e l t m a n ap. A . B . C o o k , Zeus, I I . 762). De Iside et Osiride, 67, p . 377 F. Cf. L i e c h t e n h a n , p p . 58 sqq. of t h e work mentioned, p . 147, n. 2 later ; a n d on t h e c o m m o n belief in ancient imageless cult, cf. M . P o h l e n z , G6U. gel. Anz., 1 9 1 3 , 640 sqq. Cf. J.H.S. 1 9 2 5 , 8 5 sqq., a n d , t o illustrate t h e degree t o which syncretism a d v a n c e d , c o n t r a s t t h e O r p h i c H y m n s (perhaps first c e n t u r y A . D . ) a n d t h e Orphic A rgonautica (fourth-fifth). O n t h e p a r t w h i c h later Platonists h a d
z 18 2 8 4

Thus the East gave to the Greeks new gods, identified with the old gods but tenacious of their own characteristics. Isis is identified with Aphrodite and with Demeter, but her cult as it spreads over the world is and remains Egyptian. Another growth of this period and of its blending of cultures is the deification of kings. Divine honours were given to Alexander in his lifetime b y the Greek cities; his official consecration came after his death, as did that of Ptolemy I ; the regular cult of the living ruler is later. Many factors contributed to this evolution, the Greek belief that men could for their services attain the rank of hero or demi-god on death, a sporadic Greek tendency to recognise very eminent men as divine in life, the overpowering impression made b y the personality and achievements of Alexander, the strong impression made b y the other great figures of the age, the Egyptian belief that divinity rests in the kingship, and the rivalries of dynasties finding expression in this sphere. The Greek elements in this are not to be under-estimated. Yet it must be remembered that the one early Hellenistic monarchy which is without apotheosis is the Macedonian, which was removed from Eastern influences, and that, where such influences are lacking, as in Sicily (where the Carthaginians would not contribute anything of the sort), the appearance of royal portraits on coins, itself a claim to deity, is later. This kind of homage must at times have been the genuine expression of grateful reverence, but often
1 2

in this d e v e l o p m e n t , cf. G . B e y e r h a u s , Rheinisches Museum, 1926, p . 32 sqq. Of the s w a l l o w i n g of w e a k e r g o d s b y a stronger an admirable e x a m p l e is afforded b y the history of t h e c u l t of Priapus, w h o t o o k the place of various kindred figures (H. Herter, De dis Atticis Priapi similibus, 8). T h e identification a n d blending of deities is old in the E a s t ; t h e wars and racial m o v e m e n t s of t h e second millennium B . C . produced m u c h fusion of religion. T h u s t h e presence of t h e E g y p t i a n s a t B y b l u s introduced an alien element in S y r i a ; w e find such a representation as H . Gressmann, Altorientalischer Bilder zum a. T. , 1 0 1 , no. 354, of a S e m i t i c d e i t y in a n E g y p t i a n shrine (of t h e Persian period, 5 2 5 - 3 3 2 ) . Cf. E . K o r n e m a n n , Klio, i. 51 sqq. ; E . R , B e v a n , E.R.E. i v . 525 sqq.; L , R . T a y l o r , J.H.S. 1927, 53, a n d m y Notes on Ruler-cult (to appear in J.H.S.). S o G . M a c d o n a l d , Coin Types, 150 sq., a n d U . W i l c k e n , Grundxiige und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde, I . i. 98. T h e Sicilian instance is the more interesting because t h e Sicilians were not unwilling t o accord heroic honours (cf. F . Pfister, Reliquienkult im Altertum, p p . 586 sq.). I n Persia the k i n g w a s n o t deified, b u t his Hvareno or radiance w a s h o n o u r e d ; cf. R . Zahn, Anatolian Studies, 4505, for references and C u m o n t ' s s t u d y , Textes et monuments, i. 279 sqq.
s 1 1

it could be an empty form, and in an age strongly coloured b y scepticism it both encouraged and was encouraged b y the rationalistic hypothesis (commonly associated with the name of Euhemerus but not originated b y him) that all the gods were human beings deified for their achievements. T o pass to the second point, the conquests of Alexander and the political and commercial relations which followed them had made the Eastern Mediterranean, and most of the wide expanses of the old Persian Empire, into what was for all its diversities a single cultural unit. Sophistic and Cynic speculations as to the brotherhood of man gained a new reality and diffusion ; the basis for Stoic speculation was in no small part created b y the facts of the time. The missionary spirit, seen clearly in the Cynics and in Epicurus, was present, and religions became mission-religions, seeking adherents everywhere. The cult of Dionysus had been this in its early march through Greece, but that original impetus was a thing of the p a s t : still earlier were the conquests of Apollo's cult. Orphism was not the force it had been in the sixth century B . C . ; its missionary activities were weakened and, if one m a y say it, subterranean. A t this time no form of belief took the offensive with more energy and effect than the Hellenised but Egyptian cult of Isis and Sarapis, which spread freely in Greece and the Greek islands, as it did later in the West also. Other mysteries gained in importance: those of Samothrace enjoyed the patronage of Lysimachus and of the Ptolemies and acquired international significance. Alexander had destroyed many barriers of race : Rome proved a worthy heir. Thirdly, the growth of individualism had marked effects. The Greek had always been intensely personal; the pages of Herodotus show this with particular clearness. Further, the intellectual movement towards enlightenment in the
1

O n the Stoic ideal of the world as a g r e a t c i t y , cf. H a t c h , Influences, p p . 2 1 1 sq., and W e n d l a n d , Hellenistisch-romische Kultut , 41 sqq.; on t h e history of the idea, J. M e w a l d t , Die Antike, ii. 1 7 7 sqq.; on the notion of the world as a whole, J. K a e r s t , Die antike Idee der Oekumene (1903)^ 10 sqq., w i t h the modification necessitated b y W . W . T a r n ' s paper, J.H.S. 1921, p p . 1 sqq. (which shows t h a t there is n o reason t o suppose t h a t A l e x a n d e r aimed at world-dominion). A striking illustration of this general a t t i t u d e is T a t i a n , 28, p . 29, 1 7 : yap elyou \ KOivtyJtfravrwv rV voMrciav.
1

fifth century had asserted the right of the individual to selfexpression and the purely relative validity of convention, and the Cynic preaching in the fourth century had been a powerful solvent of civic ideals. Now, with the breakup of the old order and the establishment of a new, the old local cults and ties were greatly weakened. Many might live on in unintelligent conservatism, but the souls of the more thinking men were in a w a y untenanted. Religion or philosophy might occupy the vacant habitations, but it must be a religion of the individual soul or a religion of humanity, not a local traditional faith, a philosophy again of conduct rather than an intellectual system. The need for something was real. Life was so uncertain, so liable to sudden and violent changes of fortune. None of these factors was quite new, but all had attained new proportions. In the earlier part of the Hellenistic age the tendency of the more significant circles was towards scepticism. This we see no less in Stoics than in Epicureans. If the latter denied the concern of the gods with humanity, the former saw in the traditional mythology nothing more than allegorical explanations of physical phenomena. ' D o not,' says Zeno, ' build temples to the g o d s ; for a temple which is not of much worth is not holy, and nothing which is constructed b y builders and labourers is of much worth.' ' Y e t / continues Plutarch, after quoting this saying, ' those who approve this remark are initiated in temples, go up to the Acropolis, do reverence to the seats of the gods, and wreathe temples; though these are the works of builders and labourers/ It is in full accordance with the creedless character of ancient civic religion that neither Stoics nor Epicureans abstained from participation in public worship. Of course, while thinking men for the most part turned to philosophy rather than to religion, the conservatively minded retained their beliefs and busied themselves with the founding of temples and processions, perhaps with the
1 2 3

Cf. E . R . B e v a n ' s essay in The Hellenistic Age. O n the earlier history of individualism cf E . Meyer, Kleine Schriften z. Geschichtstheorie, p p . 205 sqq., and in general cf W e n d l a n d , op. ext., p p . 45 sqq. De Stoicorum repugnantiis, 6, p. 1034 B . K . L a t t e , Die Antike, i. 146 sqq. g i v e s a fine analysis of t h e various tendencies of the t i m e .
2 8

greater zeal because of the unbelief around; the belief of the uneducated and unthinking town-dwellers, as also of most of the country folk, remained much as it had ever been. Such in its broad outlines is the picture which we can draw of the religious and speculative outlook of the end of the fourth and the first half of the third centuries B . C . Greek elements are fusing with Oriental, Greek individualism with Oriental faith, but the process has not gone far. Out of this picture another develops. The mystery and missionary religions grow, and, in addition to the cultus in temples open to the public, we become aware of interesting esoteric rites carried on b y small private societies. The cult society as a corporation is an old institution in Greece : now it becomes important as affording suitable soil for the growth of religious ideas. W e learn at some date between 222 and 204 B . C . of private ritual for Dionysus in E g y p t from a rescript of Ptolemy I V to secure its regulation, in 189 of Dionysiac ritual in Etruria and at Rome, under the empire of the Dionysiac mummery of a society called the Iobacchi at Athens. Some such sodality doubtless met or intended to meet at Rome in the first century of our era in the underground basilica near the Porta Maggiore ; their common beliefs seem, from the mural decoration, to have been clearly concerned with the hereafter, though it is difficult to be sure of the extent to which the symbolism employed had kept its meaning. Furthermore there was a growth of mysticism. In the
2 8 4

T h u s P o l y b i u s , iv. 20, praises the p i e t y of the Arcadians. A small illustration is the reorganisation in 92 B . C . of mysteries (akin t o the Eleusinian) a t A n d a n i a in t h e Peloponnese (Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum*, 736). O n t h e rise of the E g y p t i a n cults cf. O . Weinreich, Neue Urkundenzur Satapis-religion, 1 9 1 9 ; A . M . W o o d w a r d , J.H.S. 1926, 249 (imposition of Isis and Sarapis on an earlier c u l t a t C y m e in Aeolis). Cf. C.R. 1924, 105 sqq., for references. T h e later diffusion of p r i v a t e mysteries is well illustrated b y Apuleius, Apol. 55, 8 : A . is there confident t h a t Liberi patris mystae will be present in court a t S a b r a t a in Africa. F o r these decorations see E . S t r o n g and N . C Jolliffe, J.H.S. 1924 (much of the s y m b o l i s m there read i n t o t h e m is not easy t o accept) ; J. Carcopino, Etudes Romaines, I (1927). T h e v i e w here t a k e n agrees w i t h L i e t z m a n n , Vortrage d. Bibliothek Warburg, 1 9 2 2 - 3 , i. 66 sqq. I do not now t h i n k (as when I wrote C.R. 1 9 2 4 , 1 0 6 sqq.) t h a t Orphic is the right label for this c o m m u n i t y , pending evidence for its use, and should prefer t o use the t e r m N e o p y t h a g o r e a n suggested b y C u m o n t , a t least provisionally : a t this t i m e Orphic ideas flourished in N e o p y t h a g o r e a n circles particularly.
2 3 4

second century B . C . , if not earlier, we can date the rise of what is called Hermetic literaturethat is, books on various subjects (first of all astrology) combining ' the religious and scientific traditions of E g y p t at one and the same time with the astrology which came from Babylon and with Greek philosophy,' and professing to give their teaching as that of Thrice-greatest Hermes, the Greek name for the Egyptian god Thoth. Thoth was the god of arts and sciences, and was thought to have written books. Of this first species of Hermetic writing we have several specimens. Philosophic teachings also were put forth as being revelations of this sort; how early we cannot say. W e have many specimens of this kind of writing, in the so-called Corpus Hermeticum and as quoted b y Stobaeus. Some of them seem to contain nothing more than Greek philosophic commonplaces, but a group cleverly distinguished b y Bousset is marked b y Oriental ideas akin to Gnosticism. Of these more will be said later. There is little in these writings which can be called specifically Egyptian, apart from mystical tendencies found in the piety of that country and in Plotinus ; there is much Platonising thought, some Stoic, some Judaic, as well as the Gnostic strain and possible contacts with Christian ideas. T h e Egyptian setting gives to them the halo of Eastern w i s d o m ; it was in the Hellenistic age that the tradition of the pre-Socratics and Plato having learned their wisdom from E g y p t and Babylon arose. Nevertheless, the tone of them as a whole is not in sympathy with popular worship: we m a y speak of Hermetism as a theosophy. Two of them are in a sense mysteries ; but they are mysteries of the word, sacramental acts of baptism and of rebirth described and explained. T h e baptism m a y have been performed in act, after some such exhortation as we read
1 2 3 4 5 6

T h e phrase is translated from F . C u m o n t , Journ. Rom. Stud. x v . 2 7 3 (in a n instructive review of S c o t t ' s Hermetica). Roeder in Roscher's Lexikon, v . 849. References in W . Kroll, Pauly-Wissowa, viii. 797 sq. A n early instance of a literary fiction of this kind is [Plat.] Axioch. p . 371 ; cf. C u m o n t , Cat. codd. astr. gr. viii. 4, 102 sq. Gottingische gelehrte A nzeigen, 1 9 1 4 , p p . 697 sqq. H o w early this strain is remains uncertain. P p . 149 sqq. X V I , in which t h e supposed translation from the E g y p t i a n is emphasised, contains nothing b u t Greek popular philosophy (Reitzenstein, Gott. gel. Anz. 1924, 42). I n general cf. Hopfner's work, quoted p . 59, n. 3 a b o v e .
2 8 4 5

in the t r a c t a t e ; the rebirth is something done b y word alone. In this form we know it from texts of the second century A.D . and later; but our texts postulate earlier originals, and a similar kind of mystical writing seems to lie behind some of Philo's works. There must have been many undercurrents in religion and theosophy which we do not know. N o t the least important were Hellenising tendencies in Judaism, particularly in E g y p t . In one or another of these movements such terms as gnosis (knowledge conceived not as a mere intellectual attainment but as a vehicle of power or regeneration), photismos (inward illumination), pneumatikos (spiritual), hardened into the significance they later h a v e : a theological terminology which Christianity could appropriate was in process of formation. It is above all Reitzenstein who has brought these facts to light and who has emphasised the importance of terminology. T h e words a man uses do in religion also use him. W e must therefore avoid an over-intellectual attitude in exegesis, particularly of St. Paul. One idea carries on to another, and that other follows: the Epistles are not deliberately planned writings with logical sequence. The mystical tendencies are apparent also in other developments, as, for instance, in the writing of apocryphal works ascribed to Orpheus and in the revival of Pythagoreanism which we observe from about 100 B . C . onwards. This Neopythagoreanism was of wide influence, and is of particular interest in its combination of asceticism and interest in wonder-working, for which latter we m a y use the convenient term theurgy. In this union it is the spiritual ancestor of the Platonism of thesecond century A.D . represented b y Apuleius,' of much Neoplatonism, and of the piety of the Egyptian ascetic legends preserved in the Lausiac History and in the A pophtheg1 2 3

I V . and X I I I . Cf. F . Brauninger, Untersuchungen zu den Schriften (Diss. Berlin, 1926), p p . 14 sqq. on I V ; Reitzenstein, Das iranische Erlosungsmysterium, gy, on X I I I . I is r i g h t l y described b y Reitzenstein, Myst.*, 10, as ' a purely internal experience' (cf. ibid. 5 1 , on I V ) . O n Philo, cf. Reitzenstein, Gott. gel. Anz. 1 9 1 8 , 253 ; on Hellenising Judaism, his' Studien zum antiken Synkretismus, 3 1 , and Myst. , 4 1 7 sq. O n this cf. p . 1 5 1 , . 1 later. Brauninger has m a d e the interesting observation t h a t the technical use of the word in the Corpus Hermeticum is confined t o the ' orientalising ' group ; yvaons is something neither w h o l l y Greek nor w h o l l y oriental; it is a p r o d u c t of the c o n t a c t of Greek t h o u g h t a n d oriental belief.
t 2 z 3

mata Patrum. The mystical tendency showed itself also in Platonising modifications of Stoicism and in other forms of thought. In the same period Graeco-Egyptian magic grew. In this Egyptian and Greek elements were combined, and gods of all sorts (Jewish, Babylonian, and so on) were invoked. Men sought thereby to harness great combinations of divine energy to their purposes, good or bad. It matters to us here, because religious and mystical men, Neopythagoreans and Neoplatonists, used it just like the unenlightened, and because in many w a y s it shows the same ways of thinking as we find in loftier forms of contemporary belief. All this esoteric development m a y well seem to denote a ' failure of nerve,' as Gilbert Murray calls it. In a sense Hellenism was declining, as we seem to see in the triumph of the Egyptian element under the later Ptolemies, and in the orientalising tendency of such a monarch as Antiochos I of Commagene. B u t we must not think of this precisely as decadence. Oriental beliefs, not discredited as was so much traditional Greek faith, and semi-oriental mysticism met a spiritual need of the times, a demand for something clear and dogmatic which explained the universe, and for an assured hope of immortality. The East conquered the West because it had something to give. In the widest sense the tide was turning from rationalism to faith in the first century B . C . : even where there was not a definite return to religious observances, there was an antiquarian interest in old cults, which we m a y perhaps compare with the so-called romantic interest in the Middle Ages which preceded the revival of Catholicism in the nineteenth century. Rustic piety and
2 3 4

S o H e r m e t i s m c a m e t o find room for popular belief, cf. J.T.S. xxvi. 1 7 3 sq. T h e d e v e l o p m e n t of Christian Gnosticism is in some w a y s parallel. F o r t h e continued existence of N e o p l a t o n i s m combined w i t h m a g i c in A r a b i c t e x t s , cf. H . R i t t e r , Bibl. Warb. i. 97. T h i s N e o p y t h a g o r e a n m o v e m e n t has affinities w i t h Hermetism (cf. t h e combination of Hermes, P y t h a g o r a s , a n d P l a t o in A r n o b . Adu. nat. I I . 13). A s , for instance, t h e glorification of Axon (Eternity) in a t e x t a t Eleusis d a t e d in 7 4 - 3 B . C . b y Cichorius, Romische Studien, 3 o Dittenberger, Syll.* 1 1 2 5 / E t e r n i t y remaining t h e same a n d unchanged a l w a y s b y divine nature, and t h e universe one and t h e same as it is and w a s and shall be, not h a v i n g beginning, middle or end, w i t h n o portion of change, creator of divine nature, eternal in a l l / Cf. A . Dieterich, Kleine Schriften, p. 5 1 3 , also m y remarks in J.H.S. 1925, 84 sq. Cf. C.R. 1925, 60 sqq. a n d for R o m e , G . Boissier, La religion romaine.
2 lf 3 4 t

old-time morality had a certain appeal, even for those who could not or would not practise them. Though to the educated philosophy rather than religion was still generally the refuge from life's hardness, new currents of religious life were in m o t i o n ; the w a y was being prepared for the piety of the second century of this era, of which Apuleius again affords interesting evidence. 4. What conversion meant to a pagan.In this Hellenistic world there was then a great and confusing array of cults, old civic worship, sometimes now recovering after generations of decay, new Caesar-worship, and also the now rising religions of the individual. In a w a y they were competing for his attachment: at the same time they were ready to blend or be equated, and showed little tendency t o that exclusiveness which was a distinctive feature of Judaism and of Christianity. T h e convert to Christianity had to learn what was t o him surprising, that he could not draw on this new source of divine power, illumination, salvationto speak of it as he sometimes mightand at the same time on those he had known earlier. Further, he had t o learn that adherence to the new creed meant a rigorous standard of life, preached as he had heard it before b y philosophers who had no concern with temples, and now enforced with a binding sanction. Morality had very little connection with the old civic gods at this time of day, except perhaps in the use of their names in oaths in c o u r t : naturally the regular practice of religious observances, even if as little spiritualised as those of the Roman Republic, has an effect on the individual's character, but it might not be a strong one. If y o u had incurred certain pollutions y o u were excluded from the t e m p l e : if y o u were living in sin, that would not always bar you. ' Y o u must not enter within three days of eating goat's flesh, one d a y of eating cheese, forty days of abortion, forty days of bereavement of a relation; from lawful sexual intercourse y o u are purified on the same day b y a
1

T h u s Apol. 5 5 , 4-6 ; he t a u n t s his a d v e r s a r y w i t h t h e fact t h a t he has n e v e r p r a y e d t o a n y god or gone t o a t e m p l e or kissed his h a n d t o a n y rustic shrine, does n o t m a k e t h e r i g h t offerings t o t h e gods of c o u n t r y life, w h o feed h i m a n d clothe h i m , h a s n o shrine or consecrated spot or g r o v e on his estate, n o , n o t e v e n a n anointed stone or a w r e a t h e d b o u g h .

lustral sprinkling and anointing with o i l / ' Y o u must abstain from intercourse with your own husband or wife for one day, from any other for two days : so also you are excluded for two days after bereavement or contact with a woman who has given birth to a c h i l d ; from burial and funeral procession you are pure the same day after a lustral sprinkling and passing through the gate where means of purification are s e t / ' Y o u are to be pure from garlic and pig's flesh and w o m e n : after washing with water poured over your head you m a y go in the same day ; menstruation requires an interval of seven days, contact with a corpse of ten, abortion of forty before washing and entry/ ' Y o u must abstain from women, from pig's flesh, from visiting the barber or the public baths, for three d a y s / In short, certain immoral practices are clearly deprecated, but not more so than mere violations of taboo, and all that is required is a period of isolation and perhaps some kind of religious disinfection to put y o u into a fit state to worship. Out of such beliefs, which are in essence magical, ethical considerations can grow : in a large measure it is from the notion of the avoidance of ritual defilement and of loss of magical force that the idea of chastity develops. T h e Greeks went far with this spiritualisation of the raw material of religion : Delphi in particular, with its great position of divine adviser in religious matters, fostered a real conception of personal holiness and sanctity as the god's requirements. Men are bidden to enter the sanctuary of Zeus Kynthios and Athena K y n t h i a at Delos ' with pure hands and s o u l ' ; later an inscription of Hadrian's time in a temple at Lindos in Rhodes enjoins that worshippers shall come ' firstly and chiefly, pure and clean in hand and
1 2 3

Dittenberger, Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum*, 983 ( L i n d o s : second cent, A . D . ) , 982 (temple of A t h e n a a t P e r g a m o n : after 133 B . C . ) ; 1042 (Men T y r a n n u s a t S u n i u m : second/third cent, A . D . ) ; Comptes rendus de A cadamie des inscriptions, 1 9 1 6 , 2 6 2 sqq. (temple of Aesculapius a t T h u b u r b o M a j u s in Africa). Cf. T h . W a c h t e r , Griechische Reinheitsvorschriften (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, ix. 1 ) ; J . Zingerle in Strena Buliciana, 1 7 1 sqq., a n d in Jahreshefie, x x i i i . Beibl. 24 sqq. (abstinence from washing). * Cf. E . Fehrle, Die kultische Keuschheit, R.G. V. V. v i . ; m y note, A.R.W. x x i i i . 29 sq.; a n d a c o m p l e m e n t a r y p o i n t of v i e w in H . J . R o s e , Class. Phil. x x . 238 sqq. Cf. L . R . F a r n e l l , Higher Aspects of Greek Religion.
8

h e a r t ' ; Porphyry quotes one from Epidaurus : ' Y o u must be pure when you go within the incense-laden temple, and purity lies in thinking holy things/ W e must do full justice to this development within Greek religion. A t the same time, it does not appear that moral considerations played in it as large a part as in the new beliefs which came from the East. A prayer to Isis (dated in the second century B . C . ) on behalf of two maidens who are twins says ' If they are defiled, they will never become pure again ' ; a contemporary inscription at Delos in honour of Isis and Sarapis says that ' they protect good men, who in all respects think holy thoughts ' ; Lucius on his conversion puts aside the sinful pleasures of his youth, and the priest who guides him refers to them in severe terms. It is perhaps safe to infer that Isis and Sarapis did, at their best, exact from their adherents an ethical standard in addition to ritual observances. On the other hand, we have a number of allusions in the Roman poets to temples of Isis as places of ill repute, where amours might commence, and a story in Josephus of her priests in a temple in Rome consenting for gain to assist in an unsavoury intrigue under the cloak of religion. T o some extent we must discount these aspersions, to which any new religion, above all an Oriental religion, was liable. Y e t it must be remarked that the devotion of Delia to Isis, while imposing on her certain periods of abstinence, did not prevent her irregular relations with Tibullus. Where the Egyptian cult in the Graeco-Roman world differed from Greek religious practice was in its authoritative disciplining of the individual's life. Juvenal speaks of penances for sins, and we may compare the Lydian confession-inscriptions to which we shall come shortly. Isis becomes with time more and more the protectress of purity. A solar Theos Hosios kai Dikaios (' the holy and just god ') rises in prominence in and beyond Asia
1 2 3 4 5

References in W a c h t e r ' s b o o k and in C.R. 1924, p. 59. U. W i l c k e n , Urkunden der Ptolemaerzeit, i. no. 78, 1. 27 sq., p. 360. O . Weinreich, Neue Urkunden, 3 1 , 1. 33 sq. I t is i m p o r t a n t t o note t h a t b o t h t e x t s are pre-Christian; there is no question of imitation of or r i v a l r y w i t h Christianity. A p u l . Met. xi. 1 5 . J u v e n a l , v i . 522 ; p p . 73 sq. b e l o w ; F . C u m o n t , Les religions orientates* p p . 1 3 6 sqq.
2 3 4 6 t

Minor; the all-seeing orb becomes the watcher of justice. Mithras in his turn exacts a high moral standard of his adherents: ' Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till dawn.' ' D o y o u keep his commandments,' says Hermes to Julian, ' preparing an anchorage and a safe harbour for yourself, and when y o u have to go hence, y o u will do so with a good hope and have a god as a kindly leader for yourself.' Authority is another of the notes of the new creeds. Here and there we find signs of the giving of such a basis to morality. In the ordinances of a private shrine of the goddess Agdistis, containing also altars of other deities, which was founded at Philadelphia in L y d i a about the beginning of the first century B . C . , we read ' Let men and women, slave and free, as they come into this shrine swear b y all the gods that they will not knowingly devise any evil guile or harmful poison against man or w o m a n ; that they will neither know nor employ baneful spells; that they will neither themselves use nor recommend to others nor be accomplices in love charms, abortives, contraceptives, robbery, murder; that they will steal nothing and will be well disposed towards this shrine, and if any man does or purposes any of these prohibited acts, they will not allow him or keep their peace, but will make the fact m a n i f e s t and will avenge it. No man shall have intercourse with any married woman other than his wife, neither free nor slave, nor with any boy, nor with any virgin, nor advise another to do so, but if he shares another's guilty secret, he shall make public such an one, both the man and the woman, and shall not conceal or be silent. Let not woman or man, who do any of the aforementioned acts, come into this shrine: for in it are enthroned mighty deities, and they take notice of such offences, and will not suffer those who transgress their commands. A married woman who is free
2
3

See F . C u m o n t , Atti delta Pontificia Accademia I I I . Memorie I. (1923), 65 sqq. * Julian, Convivium, p. 336 c. O . Weinreich in Dittenberger, Sylloge*, 985. on the lettering of the inscription. T o t h e god (Weinreich).
8 4

di Archaeologia,

Sene

T h e d a t e g i v e n rests

must be chaste, and know the bed of no man but her husband: if she know another, she is not chaste but impure, infected with incestuous pollution and unworthy to venerate this god whose shrine is here erected, or to be present at the sacrifices, or to see the solemn rites being performed: if she does any of these things after the day when the commands are thus set up she shall incur evil curses from the gods for disregarding these commands : for the god does not wish or desire these sins to happen at all, but rather that obedience should be given. T o those who obey, the gods will be propitious, and will give them all the blessings gods give to men they love : if any transgress, they will hate them and inflict great punishments on them. These commands were set up b y Agdistis the most holy guardian and mistress of this shrine. May she put good intentions in men and women, free and slave alike, that they m a y abide b y what is here inscribed; and m a y all men and women who are confident of their uprightness touch this writing, which gives the commandments of the god at the monthly and at the annual (?) sacrifices, in order that those who abide b y them and those who do not m a y be made manifest. Saviour Zeus, hear our words and give us a good requital, health, deliverance, peace, safety on land and sea.' Here,sins are definite and final barriers between man and god. Though Zeus appears as the author of these commands, their background is in the main not Greek but Lydian. In L y d i a we have a number of inscriptions in the form : ' I did . . . and the goddess punished me with. . . , I erect this stele in commemoration of the manifestation of her power/ The sins recorded relate more to ritual than to ethical standards; we find among them perjury, failure to return money entrusted after an oath to the deity to do so, appropriating three stray swine, making another go mad b y magical means, reviling, the wronging of orphans, felling trees in a holy grove, stealing sacred pigeons, going into the temple in dirty clothes, not observing the ritual continence
1

Earlier described, 1. n , as c o m m a n d s g i v e n b y Zeus. T h i s notion of divine c o m m a n d s is in general Oriental, cf. J M.S. 1925, 96 sq. ; Stoicism encouraged it, cf. E p i c t e t . iii. 24, 1 1 0 .

or abstinence from washing required during service in the temple. T h e founder of the shrine at Philadelphia has spiritualised this. It would be a mistake to l a y too much stress on his idiosyncrasies if they stood b y themselves. In reality they are a striking illustration of a widespread change of moral outlook. T h e Stoics who argued for a purer ethic, the Cynics who in the guise of begging friars preached virtue and contentment, were seeking to do b y philosophy what we here see religion doing. Their standard, and the standard of the oriental religions, was not as high as that which Christianity was impelled to demand, but they made the task of the latter easier. Those who frequented the shrine at Philadelphia might easily become the Christians described b y the younger Pliny, who ' met on a fixed d a y before dawn, and sang an antiphonal hymn to Christ as a god, and bound themselves b y an oath, not indeed to join in any crime, but rather that they would not commit theft, robbery or adultery, would not break faith, would not refuse to return what had been entrusted to them when called upon to do so.' T h e masses of town-dwellers must have been neither on the level of Epictetus nor on that of the writers of the epigrams in the fifth book of the Palatine Anthology, with their religion de la chair, the product of a decadent intellectualism, but rather on the plane of their present-day analogues, with, however, a larger acquiescence in the idea that a young man m a y sow his wild oats before marriage ; the existence of slavery also made for l a x i t y .
1 2 3

Cf. F . Steinleitner, Die Beicht (1913), passim, and in particular p p . 85 sqq. ; W . H . B u c k l e r , Annual of the British School at Athens, x x i . 69 sqq.; J. Zingerle, Jahreshefte, x x i i i . Beibl. p p . 5 sqq.; Reitzenstein, Myst. , 137 sqq. T h e e x t a n t t e x t s were composed in the second and third centuries of our era ; nevertheless, it is likely t h a t t h e y represent a n old local tradition, not w i t h o u t its parallels in Greece (cf. P l u t a r c h , De superstitione, 7, p. 168 D , a n d K . L a t t e , A.R.W. x x . 2 9 3 ^ a n d in E g y p t ; there is excellent B a b y l o n i a n a n a l o g y (Reitzenstein, Das iranische Erlosungsmysterium, 252 sqq. ; Myst. 161 sqq.). * Possibly, as Weinreich thinks, under N e o p y t h a g o r e a n influence. * Cf. in general Deissmann's chapter mentioned p. 53, n. 1, and m y note, C.R. 1924, p p . 58 sq.; on p a g a n standards of sexual morality, J . W . H u n k i n , J.T.S. x x v i i . 282 sqq. (and note Anth. Pal. vii. 222, where Philodemus describes a prostitute a s ' her w h o m the Mother of the gods loved,' a strong phrase e v e n in a n unbeliever). F o r religion de la chair George Moore's s t u d y of Theophile G a u t i e r in Confessions of a Young Man, ch. i, is v e r y illuminating. T h e reference for P l i n y is Ep. ad Traianum, 76, 7 ; t h e
9 3

The change of attitude which the Christian missionary had to effect was immense. He had to touch not merely people of devout character, but also the masses of those who yielded an unintelligent homage to local deities who evoked little religious feeling and no sense of moral obligation, of those again who sought and found in mysteries gratification of the emotions, of those also who believed in divinity as a superhuman form of energy to be coaxed or cajoled into doing man's will. There was indeed what Zielinski calls a psychological preparation for Christianity, but it was sporadic. T h e sense of guilt at Rome after Julius Caesar's death, illustrated b y Horace and Virgil, was doubtless confined in range, and must have vanished under the good rule of Augustus, whose revival at the correct time of the Secular Games was the outward and visible sign of the putting a w a y of the evils which had marred the city. In so far as a sense of sin existed, it was for the most part in the East, or in circles influenced b y Eastern ideas.

II
THE THEOLOGY OF CHRISTIANITY AS A MISSION-RELIGION

I . Jesus and Paul.There is on the face of it a cleavage between the Palestinian Gospel of Jesus, seen in or behind
parallel w i t h the t e x t a t Philadelphia w a s noted before m e b y O . Casel (cf. Jakrb. f. Lit. iv. 285, no. 2 6 1 ) . W . R . H a l l i d a y , op. ext. p p . 302 sq., c o m pares t h e o a t h imposed b y a Christian sect, t h e Elchasaites, on candidates for b a p t i s m : ' I call these seven witnesses t o witness t h a t I will sin no more. I will c o m m i t a d u l t e r y no more, I will not steal, I will not a c t u n j u s t l y , I will not c o v e t , I will not h a t e , I will not despise, nor will I h a v e pleasure in a n y e v i l ' (Hippol. Ref. i x . 15) ; b u t it should b e noted t h a t this is s t r i c t l y a declaration, not a n o a t h , t h e witnesses are h e a v e n , water, t h e h o l y spirits, t h e angels of prayer, oil, salt, e a r t h ; a n d t h e baptism is a special rite for those w h o h a v e fallen into p o s t - b a p t i s m a l sin or been b i t t e n b y m a d dogs, etc. T h e r e is evidence for some such declaration in b a p t i s m proper in t h e Contestatio prefixed t o t h e Clementine Homilies (cf. G. Salmon, Diet. Chr. Biog. ii. 97). H a t c h ' s v i e w of t h e E l c h a s a i t e o a t h (Influence 337) is m o s t questionable. T h e form of t h e c o n t e s t a t i o n is v e r y like t h e O r p h i c o a t h of secrecy b y fire, water, earth, h e a v e n , moon, sun, P h a n e s a n d n i g h t (cf. L o b e c k , A glaophamus, 7 3 7 sqq.; Reitzenstein, Studien, 73 sqq.; B o u s s e t , Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 226 sqq.); cf. rather t h e Essene o a t h (Hippol. Ref. i x . 23). O n t h e o a t h of t h e initiate in t h e mysteries cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. 192 sqq.
z

the Synoptists, and the Greek teaching of St. Paul. Nevertheless, while we can hardly fail to reject any notion of a complete and original revelation of Christianity as it was to be, we must not overstate the gap. Nor must we overconfidently excise as the product of later development sayings of Jesus which imply a corporate existence and increase of His disciples after the close of His ministry, or again sayings which discourage their purely Jewish anticipations of the character of the K i n g d o m . The veil which covers Christian development from the appearances of the risen J e s u s to the commencement of St. Paul's mission activity lifts but slightly ; the account in Acts i.-xii, fragmentary as it is and coloured b y the ideas of a generation which knew its religion as an articulate whole and had forgotten not a few tentative stages, leaves us very much in the dark. A s J. Weiss remarks, in that narrative everything works as on a divine plan, unfolding in clear and consequent stages. Historic evolution in things of the spirit cannot often be so simple except in retrospect. W e cannot form a true picture of these years if we do not do justice to the enthusiasm which marked them. That Jesus was not dead but living, and living in the movement; that He would come again; that to others also the new revelation must be imparted; these are the things that made the life and thought of the little community. That its activities had, in spite of hesitations, extended to non-Jews (perhaps in the casual w a y indicated in Acts x i . 20) is not unlikely; nevertheless, adhesion to Christianity meant entrance into a strict body, so that it is almost certain that
1 2 3 4 5

S u c h a conception certainly arose early, cf. Jude 3, ' t h e faith once delivered t o the saints.' * Cf. E . C . H o s k y n s in Essays Catholic and Critical (1926), 164 sqq., for some useful criticism of recent studies in this direction, a n d S a n d a y ' s remarks, Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, 28 sqq. If y sayings i m p l y a v i e w w h i c h t h o u g h n o t implied in xy is n o t incompatible w i t h t h e m , it is a priori hazardous t o c u t o u t y. I t is here t h a t I respectfully disagree w i t h L o i s y , d e e p l y i n d e b t e d as I feel t o his work. O n t h e w a y in w h i c h Jesus diverged from traditional ideas of t h e k i n g d o m , cf. E . F . S c o t t , First Age of Christianity, p p . 92 sqq. I n t o t h e possibility of two w i d e l y differing schools of Palestinian Christianity, raised b y R . B u l t m a n n , Z.N.W. xxiv. 144 sqq., w e c a n n o t here enter. O n w h i c h cf. m y postscript t o Mr. Narborough's essay. Urchristentum, p p . 3 sqq. O n t h e g r o w t h of t h e idea of t h e c o m m u n i t y as a Church, cf. R . B u l t m a n n , A.R.W. x x i v . 147.
8 4 6

the rites of entrance and table-fellowship would have been in high regard. From such a state of things t o the mission religion of St. Paul is not a far cry. B u t here the converts as a whole have come from wider circles. T o him and to them the idea of the world as a unity, of mankind as a brotherhood, came naturally. St. Paul's interests must be in humanity as a whole, not merely in the scattered members of Judaism. T o him, when converted, the obvious duty would be to preach to all the world, just as other men of Greek culture had sought to disseminate the saving truths which they had learnt. T h e missionary ideal was inevitable to him. H e had been a Pharisee, and the Pharisees were noted for proselytism. T h e Judaising Christians of Jerusalem wished to make converts, but converts who should fulfil the obligations of Judaism. How strong the missionary impulse was in them we do not know. W i t h St. Paul a real offensive began. This is a turning-point in history. ' P a u l / says Wilamowitz, ' has unconsciously completed the legacy of Alexander the Great.' W i t h this missionary purpose, and with the conflict with the more conservative members of the community at
1 2

P . 63 supra a n d C.R. 1924, p . 59. O n t h e possibility of S t . P a u l h a v i n g received liberal ideas in Jewish circles a t Jerusalem, cf. W . L . K n o x , St. Paul and the Church of Jerusalem, p. 94. T h e universalism of such t e x t s as P s . l x v i . 4 m u s t h a v e h a d some influence. O n e consequence of this universalism w a s t h e v i e w t h a t C h r i s t i a n i t y h a d a l w a y s been l a t e n t everywhere, for w h i c h cf. G . P . W e t t e r , A Itchristliche Liturgien, i. 1 6 2 . I t is a Christian appropriation of t h e claims of this or t h a t p a g a n cultus t o be the original religion of w h i c h all others are offshoots, for w h i c h cf. R e i t z e n s t e i n , Myst. , p . 240 sqq. T h i s is n o t t o m a k e S t . P a u l t h e initiator of Christian universalism. S t . M a r k w i t h his stories of t h e Syrophoenician w o m a n (vii. 24-30), S t . L u k e w i t h t h e s t o r y of t h e G a d a r e n e (viii. 26-39), seem t o g i v e quite u n c o n scious t e s t i m o n y of t h e universalism implicit in t h e b e h a v i o u r of Jesus. Mr. N a r b o r o u g h , in his essay, p p . 34 sqq., has d r a w n a t t e n t i o n t o other indications of a mission t o Gentiles intended t o follow t h e d e a t h of Jesus. I n t h e c o m m u n i t y a t Jerusalem t h e g r o u p represented b y S t . S t e p h e n seems t o h a v e m a d e a m o v e in t h e direction of universalism before S t . Paul's conversion, rousing t h e r e b y Jewish a n i m o s i t y p r e v i o u s l y n o t felt b y t h e disciples (cf. W . L . K n o x , St. Paul and the Church of Jerusalem). I suspect t h a t his d e a t h w a s followed b y a hardening of conservatism in t h e Christian c o m m u n i t y , w h i c h pursued its vie inUrieure a n d a w a i t e d t h e Second C o m i n g (so also A . E h r h a r d , Urchristentum und Katholizismus, p . 48). The relations of Jesus a n d of H i s rejection t o O l d T e s t a m e n t p r o p h e c y m u s t h a v e busied t h e earliest Jewish Christians, as E h r h a r d remarks (p. 44). On S t . P a u l ' s historical significance cf. v o n D o b s c h u t z , Der Apostel Paulus, i. 33 sqq.
3 a

Jerusalem in which it involved its holders so soon as it became evident that St. Paul's policy involved the freeing of Gentile converts from the obligations of the law, came the need for a formulation of belief and experience, in fact for a theology which should expound God's plan in history. St. Paul must state w h y Gentile converts are to be free from the law and not treated like Jewish proselytes. T o do this he must find an explanation of the law's place in God's scheme, and he does it in thoroughly Rabbinic fashion. His polemic is long and fierce on this subject, because of the menace in the Judaising view to the universality of the new faith. T h e same purpose is served b y his theory of justification. Those people whom God has chosen H e has justifiedthat is, H e has made them just (on the alternative explanation he has ' acquitted ' them). In St. Paul's belief Jews needed this justification as much as Gentiles and being a Christian meant normally being a perfect Christian. When all were alike justified, no one had a right to make distinctions; this accounts for St. Paul's indignation with St. Peter for refusing to eat with Gentile converts (Gal. ii. 12) , Again, he must explain to his pagan converts in a manner intelligible to them what is the basis, what are the implications, of Christian rites. H e must enunciate and render reasonable moral and other pre-suppositions which would t o Jews seem self-evident. T h e community at Jerusalem had believed that Jesus gave His life as a ransom for many and took a w a y our sins : S t . Paul cannot be content with this unreflective attitude ; he must give a how and a why.
1 2 3

T h e notion of t h e d e i t y ' s choice of those w h o are t o k n o w h i m is familiar in t h e m y s t e r y - r e l i g i o n s ; t h u s a t T i t h o r e a Isis s u m m o n e d b y d r e a m all w h o should enter her t e m p l e (Pausan. x . 3 2 , 1 3 ) . T h e t e r m is found in Corp. Herm. xiii. 9 ; cf. Reitzenstein, Myst.*, 2 5 7 sqq. Still justification is a Jewish idea, a n d t h e divine choice is t h e calling of a n e w I s r a e l ; t h e old h a d claimed t o b e a righteous nation called b y G o d , t h e n e w is so. T h e w o r d n o r m a l l y m e a n s either ' a c q u i t ' or ' punish ' or ' t h i n k fit.' T h e sense ' a c q u i t ' is clear in t h e L X X and M a t t . xii. 3 7 . B u t in 1 C o r . v i . i i * m a k e j u s t ' seems t h e best i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ; ' a c q u i t ' w o u l d be a n a n t i c l i m a x . O n t h e use of t h e word cf. Preuschen-Bauer, Worterb. . N.T. p p . 307 sq. F o r Jewish predestination cf. Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar, I 981 sqq.; I I 726 sq. ; for ' c a l l i n g , ' I I I 22. O n Christian perfection cf. W i n d i s c h , Taufe und Sunde (admirable). So, for instance, on fornication a n d on t h e eating of m e a t s offered t o idols. J. W . H u n k i n , J.T.S., x x v i i . 272 sqq., has shown t h a t Christian requirements were here t a k e n o v e r from Jewish prohibitions. Cf. L o i s y , MysUres, p . 328. I t is i m p o r t a n t t h a t S t . P a u l g i v e s a satisfactory e x p l a n a t i o n of t h e role of Israel in the working out of G o d ' s
1 3

The result of this is that Christianity passed from what was apparently a sect of Judaism into an independent worldreligion. It might have seemed the former even after the conflict with the Jewish authorities provoked b y the activities of the Hellenistic Jews and resulting in the martyrdom of St. Stephen ; the fact that the Essenes are spoken of as a Jewish sect illustrates the possibilities of latitude. B u t the broad stream of later development was along Pauline lines. Such in its main outlines is the view which we m a y take of the place of St. Paul in the development of Christianity. How far his apostolate was prepared for b y pre-existing tendencies in the movement we cannot s a y : the question does not greatly matter for our estimate of his rank in the story of mankind. The universality of Christianity as now taught took it further and further from Judaism, not completely at once but more and more clearly with time. It also meant a change of emphasis in relation to the Founder. The community at Jerusalem, while living in the Spirit of Jesus, lived also in the recollections of His earthly life. When the religion went further, the living transcendental Jesus could not but become more important than t h e ' Jesus of history ' : the Jesus who is the living Lord of the community is more prominent than the great Leader who had died and had been glorified. A sharp distinction is sometimes drawn between the Pauline and the Jerusalem attitude. St. Paul is regarded as contemptuous of knowledge of Jesus ' after the. flesh.' Y e t he quotes sayings uttered b y Jesus on earth and speaks of His humble self-emptying, and in reprobating Corinthian disorders refers to an institution of the Eucharist
1

purpose, while t h e earlier Hellenistic m o v e m e n t represented b y S t . S t e p h e n seems t o h a v e a d o p t e d a n e g a t i v e position. Y e t , as v o n D o b s c h u t z observes (op. ext. i. 25), he does not, like a Philo, allegorise the l aw i n t o somet h i n g fitting his idea of Christianity. L o i s y , w h o m a k e s t h e Pauline transformation something m u c h larger, s a y s w h a t is in his v i e w perfectly t r u e : ' C e s t le mystere qui a s a u v e T E v a n g i l e ' (Mystives p p . 340 sq.). I a m n o t here discussing the visionexperience of S t . P a u l ; Reitzenstein, Myst. , p . 4 1 5 sqq. has reaffirmed its kinship t o Hellenistic religious experience; v o n D o b s c h u t z (op. ext. i. 22 sq.) has g i v e n a R a b b i n i c parallel. T o t r e a t t h e question properly requires psychological knowledge I do n o t possess. (Fr. Smend's a r g u m e n t 0 2 , I 34 sqq., t h a t t h e story in A c t s is particularly t o be connected w i t h t h e Bacchae of Euripides seems t o m e fanciful.)
1 t 3 t

b y Him in the flesh. When he says ' Henceforth we know no man after the flesh : even if we have known Christ after the flesh we do so no longer ' (2 Cor. v. 16) he is laying down a principle for future use. He does not underrate human knowledge of the historic Jesus. The argument of the context is that we have all died in Christ: our fleshly existence is something past. St. Paul introduces one of his characteristic parentheses. W e do not live for ourselves: we do not know anyone after the flesh (no, not even Christ now). Life in Christ is a new creation. The new life is contrasted with all previous life and experience, even earthly experience of Jesus. It is possible, but I think not probable, that he wishes to imply that the Apostles who can claim to have known and touched Jesus have no claim to an apostolate superior to his, and their adherents have no right to unsettle the Corinthian Christians. There is not here an antithesis between a Jesus of history and a Lord of faith. The Jerusalem community in all probability recognised Jesus as Kyrios, and certainly this recognition is pre-Pauline, while St. Paul's account of the Christian story as exemplified in Acts xiii is very much like what we can imagine that St. Peter would have given, and his expectation of the second coming is as vivid as that of the Jewish group can have been ; nor was the expectation among his converts at Thessalonica less strong. Were this antithesis absolute, had we a direct contrast of two opposed types of belief, there might be some plausibility in the view that St. Paul was acquainted with ' saviour deities' whose death was the basis of salvation and whose adherents might b y sacramental fellowship with them attain the surety of happy immortality, and that his picture of Christ was unconsciously coloured and determined thereby. It would indeed be far from clear : there was at this time no
1 2 3

See p . 85. later. I a m g l a d t o find this v i e w of 2 Cor. v . 16 confirmed b y Reitzenstein, Myst. , p p . 374 sqq. * There is no v e r y great p r o b a b i l i t y t h a t the Hellenistic author of this a c c o u n t would m a k e Pauline teaching more Jewish t h a n it was (unless we a c c e p t L o i s y ' s t h e o r y of t h e second-century redactor of A c t s , and this is not easy). T h i s v i e w is p u t w i t h admirable skill and eloquence b y L o i s y , Mystires,-p. 333. L o i s y sees clearly t h e impossibility of supposing a mechanical adoption of p a g a n beliefs or e v e n a deliberate creation of a r i v a l s y s t e m : his s t a t e m e n t of this is m o s t v a l u a b l e (pp. 334 sq.).
3 8

such thing as a ' spirit of p a g a n i s m ' which the Apostle could know. It is perhaps correct to speak of something of the sort in the Julianic reaction three centuries later, when paganism was seeking a theology: before that, we find theological speculation of a unifying type (as for instance Euhemerism, or the allegorical nature-symbolism of the Stoics, or the quasi-monotheism of Plutarch and others, or the Heavenly Man theory of the Naassenes ) but hardly even convergent belief i n ' saviour gods.' A t Tarsus St. Paul m a y have encountered Mithras-worship, but it was not necessarily yet what we know as Mithraism; and anyhow Mithras did not die. Whether he knew Attis, Adonis, and Osiris we cannot s a y ; as will be remarked later, his teaching of salvation is something quite different. It must be added t h a t ' saviour-gods' and mysteries probably did not bulk so large in the life of the first century A.D . as in modern study. Traditional polytheism, a vague but ready veneration of any and all deities, was far more general and far more deserving of the title ' spirit of paganism' than any piety of the mysteries. Given that in St. Paul's surroundings there was no such inevitable suggestion of a transformation, given also that the difference between his teaching and that of the community at Jerusalem was one of emphasis rather than of substance, we must probably in the main reject the hypothesis under consideration.
2 3

This conclusion is confirmed b y an examination of certain linguistic points of contact. T h e term mysterion is used fairly freely, but not of the sacramentsa clear point of distinction between New Testament and later usage, which freely applies mystery-terminology to t h e m ; St. Paul
4

L o i s y , op. cit., p . 323 ; Bousset, Kyrios Christos*, p p . 1 3 4 5 ^ . , seems t o m e t o generalise more t h a n our k n o w l e d g e warrants. Reitzenstein, Studien, p p . 104 sqq. (correcting and supplementing his discussion in Poimandres). H e regards this t e x t as a superficially Christianised earlier writing ; another p o i n t of v i e w is p u t b y R . P . C a s e y , J.T.S. x x v i i . 374 sqq., in a paper w h i c h deserves careful consideration. P p . 94 sq. below, and m y a p p e n d i x t o Mr. Narborough's essay. Cf. E . H a t c h , Influence of Greek Ideas, p p . 2 9 5 q<I-'>O. Casel,/aAr&. iv. 230 sq. A striking illustration is Clement of Alexandria's representation of Christianity as t h e one perfect m y s t e r y (Protr. 1 1 8 sqq.); even here Philo supplies a n earlier a n a l o g y ; he speaks of Judaism as t h e ' Great M y s t e r i e s '
2 3 4 s

applies it chiefly to God's purpose, previously concealed but now revealed, of calling the Gentiles. This use is to be connected with its employment in Daniel, Wisdom, and Sirach to represent the Aramaic raz, * s e c r e t , ' and not in the first instance with the Greek religious use. The term epoptes in 2 Pet. i. 16 ' having become spectators of the greatness of the Christ' perhaps contrasts the Christian vision with pagan visions. T h e phrase & in Col. ii. 18 involves the use of a word which was a technical term in mysteries at Claros (of a solemn entry into the shrine), and was possibly also employed in the neighbourhood of Colossae with a similar connotation. W e find also applied to Christianity metaphors commonly used of pagan rites, as for instance the handing on or of truth, the description of disciples as the offspring of their teacher and of the religious life as a sacred w a r , the references to v i c t o r y and to the sweet savour of goodness.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

(e.g. De Cherubim, 1 2 , 4 9 , 1 . p. i 4 7 , M a n g e y ) . L . Cerf a.ux, Le Musion, xxxvii. (1924), p p . 29 sqq. argues from Epist. ad Arist. 16, from t h e Aristobulian form of a n ' O r p h i c ' * Upbs \6yos (Kern, Orphica, p p . 260 sqq.), from A r t a p a n u s , I I I Mace, a n d t h e tragedian Ezechiel t h a t t w o centuries before Philo Judaism presented itself as a mysterion a t A l e x a n d r i a , and in particular t h a t its theocratic idea w a s so p r o p a g a t e d . Cf. H a t c h - R e d p a t h , Concordance to the Septuagint, s.v. ; PreuschenBauer, p p . 836 sq. A similar use of 4\ occurs in Corp. Herm. i. 16, where, as S c o t t remarks, there is no suggestion t h a t t h e recipient o u g h t t o keep t h e secret (as there is in x v i . 2, where t h e popular love of a secret is p l a y e d upon, as Brauninger remarks, Untersuchungen, p . 38); it is significant t h a t this t r a c t a t e belongs t o t h e ' orientalising' group mentioned p . 66 a b o v e . Reitzenstein, Myst. , 242 sqq., finds more meaning in t h e word as so used. W e find it also in Historia Alexandri Magni, iii. 22 sq., p p . 1 2 1 , 23, 122, 29, ed. W . K r o l l (vol. i). O n ' s e e i n g ' in mysteries cf. C l e m e n , p . 1 5 4 , and M . Dibelius, Die Isisweihe bet Apuleius (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie, 1917), 6, 28. Cf. Dibelius, op. cit. 3 6 ; C l e m e n , p p . 340 sq.; and a b o v e all C h . Picard, ipMse et Claros, p p . 303 sqq. S. E i t r e m in Symbolae Osloenses, i v . 56, interprets this of entering a t a n k of h o l y water. T h e new inscriptional finds p r o b a b l y dispose of earlier interpretations, for w h i c h cf. L i g h t f o o t ad loc. Cf. N o r d e n , Agnostos Theos, 288 sqq. ; Reitzenstein, Gott. gel. Anz. 1924, 38 sq. Dibelius, 5, 3 2 ; Dieterich, p p . 52, 230 ; Clemen, p . 239. T h i s also can come from Judaism, cf. v o n H a r n a c k , Texte und Untersuchungen, xlii. 3 , 1 1 0 . Reitzenstein, Myst. , 71 sqq. ( = , 192 sqq.). Cf. W . L . K n o x , St. Paul, p . 128, for W i s d o m v . 1 7 as t h e source of E p h . v i . 10. A s 1 John v. 4, w h i c h m i g h t suggest t h e acclamation ' Sarapis is v i c t o r i o u s ' (not k n o w n till t h e second c e n t u r y A . D . , cf. Weinreich, Neae Urkunden, p p . 33 sqq., Peterson, E I 2 0 2 , p p . 1 5 7 sqq. ; b u t doubtless in use earlier), not t o mention acclamations in t h e games. Cf. t h e notion of t h e fragrance of deities discussed b y E . L o h m e y e r , Vom gottliche Wohlgeruch (Sitz. Heid. Ak., 1 9 1 9 , i x . ) ; Reitzenstein, Iran
1 z 2 3 4 6 6 2 8 7 8

All these are superficial: it is difficult to resist the impression that the religious content of many of them had disappeared in popular use. Figurative language of this kind was applied to philosophy, to poetry, to rhetoric, to love, not to mention magic, which is in close relationship to the ideas of the mysteries. What had been liturgical has also often become literary : y e t it is only at a period later than that of the New Testament that we find Christianity expressly described as the ' m y s t e r y ' in contrast to others, in the same w a y as Philo calls Judaism the ' mystery.' It is not clear that St. Paul's linguistic practice points to first-hand knowledge of the mysteries, still less to the reading of theological literature about them. The importance of these points of contact is that they remind us that the Christian missionary had to use the language of the time, that this language often had religious connotations which were more or less living, and that a stray hearer might well regard the new teaching as something not different in kind from other religions of the time. Thus Lucian speaks of Christ as introducing a new telete (that is, a new rite or initiation) into the world. W e must now proceed to examine what we know of the language and practice of Gentile Christianity in its relation to the pagan background. W e have to ask what inspiration it drew from this background, what points of contact rendered it intelligible in relation to this background, and
1 2 3 4 5

Erlos. p . 3 ^ ; Myst. , 82 sqq., 393 sqq. I d o not include the metaphor of the sacred marriage ( E p h . v . 32 ; 2 Cor. x i . 2), a form of mysticism which is widespread a n d m a y well be spontaneous, a n d w h i c h in a n y case is used of t h e Church, not of t h e i n d i v i d u a l believer (cf. a n admirable illustration from Methodius in Casel, Jahrb. v i . 144 sq.). T h e reference in E p h . iii. 1 7 t o t h e b r e a d t h , length, height, a n d d e p t h of Christ and His love m a y be explained from parallels in m a g i c t e x t s , where these dimensions are predicated of l i g h t ; cf. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p . 25! ; S. E i t r e m in Symbolae Osloenses, iv. 46 ; E . Peterson, EIS 0 2 , p . 307 ; b u t it m i g h t arise also from meditation on such a t e x t as P s . ciii. F o r philosophy cf. Brehier, I dies de Philon , p . 242, a n d T h e o n of S m y r n a , Math. p. 14, 1. 18 ; for p o e t r y t h e use of in an epigram from T a l m i s in E g y p t published b y E . R o h d e , Philologus, liv. 1 1 sqq. ; for rhetoric, Reitzenstein, Myst , 1 9 3 ; for love, Journ. Eg. Arch. x i . p . 1 3 6 ; for m a g i c J.H.S. 1925, p . 84. Cf. Reitzenstein, Gott. gel. Anz. 1924, 39, a n d his admirable remarks, Myst , 397 sqq., on t h e g r o w t h of sacred metaphorical language. Cf. p . 81, n. 4 a b o v e . So also L o i s y , and Christ-Stahlin, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur*, *35 Peregrin, 1 1 .
1 2 3 2 3 3 4 6

whether, with or without mechanical taking over of alien elements, it was the spiritual heir of Hellenistic beliefs, as it was in so large a measure of Judaism. 2. Jesus K Y R I O S . A term widely applied to Jesus b y Gentile Christians was Kyrios, ' L o r d / Kyrios means ' master ' and connotes ownership and authority. Slavery in this period corresponds to service to-day, slave to servant. Nevertheless, the terminology involves a notion of ownership and authority more concrete than that which is usually associated with the Greek gods, and exactly in accordance with Oriental precedent. Consequently we find, in the Hellenistic age, with the closer contact it caused with Eastern belief, a number of gods coming from Asia Minor, Syria and E g y p t called ' lords/ and their worshippers ' slaves ' : the gods invoked in the magical papyri naturally have this epithet, and so also do some rulers honoured as deities, as, for instance, Demetrius Poliorcetes, some Ptolemies, and some Emperors. This attitude was essentially part of Semitic religion. Kyrios is used freely in the Septuagint; even if the translators meant it in a relative sense, as ' Master of or y,' it is likely that Hellenistic Jews interpreted it in the absolute sense, ' Master/ common around them, and it is doubtful whether any non-Judaic factors contributed to this development.
1 2 3 4

Acffvo^s, ' master,' occurs as a n epithet (Eur. Hippol. 88, &, 0eois yap fcaicoras ica\etv ), p r o b a b l y also in cult-formulae (as Prof. R o s e has remarked t o me, & deairor* ' in Aristoph, Clouds, 264, is a p a r o d y of a cult-formula), and as the title of an underworld g o d a t Larissa in T h e s s a l y and a t A i a n e in M a c e d o n (O. K e r n , P.W. Suppl. iv. 384 : in first c e n t u r y A . D . inscriptions, b u t doubtless going b a c k t o an earlier usage ; cf. the title Despoina of t h e queen of the underworld). T h i s section corrects in points w h a t appears in J.H.S. 1925, p p . 95 sqq. Cf. W . Bousset, Kyrios Christos , p p . 94 sqq., and a Phoenician dedication in C y p r u s ' t o the B a a l of L i b a n o n , his l o r d ' (A. B . Cook, Zeus, i. 5 5 i ) : such l a n g u a g e w a s used of kings (cf. Dittenberger, Sylloge , 22, 4, where D a r i u s calls t h e satrap G a d a t e s his slave), and w a s later encouraged p r o b a b l y b y t h e predominance of absolute monarchies. A don is used of god (e.g. Adonis) and of kings, cf. G . F . Hill, Ch. Quart.Rev. l v i . (1908),p. 126. Cf. Bousset, op. cit. p . 93 ; the term is, of course, applied t o other deities also (as in a n inscription from C o m a n a in C a p p a d o c i a published b y A . Souter in Anatolian Studies, 402 sq. : a Hermes is Kyrios also in N u b i a , cf. Wilcken-Mitteis, Grundziige, I . ii. 1 1 , no. 4). O n the m a g i c use cf. S. E i t r e m , Papyri Osloenses, i. 44. * T h e transition is not difficult, and t h e relative use can l i v e side b y side w i t h the absolute. Isis is in a general w a y *1: she is also
2 2 z 0 3

The veneration of the Aramaic-speaking disciples of Jesus at Jerusalem for their Master, in the light of their belief in His triumph over death, might naturally be expressed b y the Aramaic Mart or Mar an (Mar ana). The Aramaic Maranatha ' Our Lord, come ' was probably coined at Jerusalem rather than at Antioch ; it is indeed doubtful whether Aramaic was spoken at Antioch. Of Man the natural Greek rendering was Kyrios, a term familiar to Jews of the Dispersion. That the Greek designation should come from the Aramaic is infinitely more probable than that a Gentile description of Jesus as Kyrios should be translated back into Aramaic in time for St. Paul to find it existing as a fixed liturgical or quasi-liturgical term. This being so, the use has probably in origin nothing whatsoever to do with the description of heathen deities or the Emperor as Kyrios. How early it was stereotyped in Greek appears from the phrase Kyriakon deipnon, ' Lord's Supper,' in Cor. x i . 20. Kyrios Christos probably comes therefore from the language of the original community at Jerusalem. A t the same time, it fitted well in the Hellenistic world. When
1 2

mistress of B e n e v e n t u m ' (hieroglyphic t e x t in Notizie degli scavi, 1904, p . 1 1 9 ) . S o far as I k n o w , she is not referred t o as w i t h o u t further description ; occurs as a description of a g o d in a L y d i a n t e x t printed b y Steinleitner, Beicht, 59, no 32 (after R a m s a y , Cities, 150, no. 43), b u t the beginning of t h e t e x t is lost a n d . . m a y refer b a c k t o a n earlier n a m e d god, as in Jahresb. xxiii., Beibl. 8, 1. 1 6 , t o 1. 2, Mels . I n general, , occur as predicates. W e m u s t a w a i t t h e completion of v o n Baudissin's posthumous Kyrios before deciding on t h e significance of t h e t e r m in t h e S e p t u a g i n t . J . Svoronos, Journal international d' archiologie numismatique, i. 463 sqq., goes so far as t o regard t h e S e p t u a g i n t as v e r y influential in spreading t h e religious use of the t e r m Kyrios. T h e Jews used freely of G o d (J. Weiss, Urchristentum, p . 333 ; Bousset, p . 292 ). I t is possible t h a t the is sometimes not used in Jewish t e x t s where one m i g h t e x p e c t it for the reason t h a t it w a s a or c u l t n a m e (L. C e r f a u x , op. ext., p p . 63 sqq.). Cf. F . C . B u r k i t t , Christian Beginnings, p p . 49 sqq., for a n i m p o r t a n t s t a t e m e n t of this point as against Bousset's derivation of Kyrios from Hellenistic analogies. Prof. B u r k i t t has shown special reasons for the origin of this usage in A r a m a i c - s p e a k i n g circles. (Cf. also E . Meyer, Ursprung und Anfange, iii. 2 1 8 ; R a w l i n s o n , Doctrine, Appended Note I.). Wellhausen a n d Reitzenstein (Iran. Erl. 119) h a v e urged strongly t h a t the Resurrection belief itself excludes t h e hypothesis t h a t t h e disciples h a d t h o u g h t of Jesus as a mere m a n before t h e Crucifixion. S o J. Weiss, Urchristentum, p . 2j T h i s point also is m a d e b y Weiss. D e i s s m a n n , Licht vom Osten *, p . 304, connects the epithet w i t h t h e use of w i t h reference t o the Emperor. H i s early e x a m p l e , like his e x a m p l e s of Kyrios used absolutely of the Emperor, comes from E g y p t ; i t is n o t clear t o m e t h a t the term w a s c o m m o n l y specialised enough for its d e r i v a t i o n t o b e manifest.
4 1 2 v 8

St. Paul said ' There are many gods and many Kyrioi ; we have one God the Father and one Kyrios, Jesus Christ/ the Corinthians who received his message would not improbably see in his words a counterblast to familiar claims, t o the pagan ' There is one god Sarapis'the Egyptian deities were the object of enthusiastic worship in their own c i t y . Oppositional phraseology of this kind is not uncommon; an example which deserves attention occurs in the end of the Gloria in excelsis : ' Thou only art holy ; Thou only art the Lord ; Thou only, Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the F a t h e r / where thou only, Lord, and most high are all pagan formulae for which Christ is t o be regarded as the sole fit claimant. On the other hand, it m a y be doubted whether there is in the use of Kyrios any conscious contrast or anything that would be felt as such between Jesus and the Emperor. T h e title is far less characteristic of the latter than of Oriental deities. Deissmann's first-century examples all come from E g y p t , where the usage w a s inherited from Ptolemaic times and
1 2

O n els 0OS Zdpavis, cf. O . Weinreich, Neue Urkunden; for t h e E g y p t i a n gods in C o r i n t h cf. A p u l . Met. x i . ; a n d for their appearance on coins, showing t h a t t h e c i t y in its corporate c a p a c i t y respected t h e cultus, w h i c h h a d shrines b o t h o n t h e Acrocorinthus a n d a t t h e p o r t Cenchreae, cf. J.H.S. v i . 66, no. n , p i . D . l x i v . ; 7 4 , no. 3 1 , p i . F . c x i x . W i t h t h e distinction of 0e6s a n d cf. t h a t in P h i l o , discussed b y V o n BaudissinEissfeldt, Kyrios, i. 3. T h e G r e e k forms v a r y (H. L e c l e r c q , Diet. Arch, chrit. i v . 1 5 3 1 ; bWi <ri> ! ayios, e! , <. e l ^">, () () . . . I t is difficult t o resist t h e conjecture t h a t this second p a r t addressed t o Christ w a s originally independent of t h e first p a r t addressed t o G o d t h e F a t h e r . F o r thou only, cf. L u c r . i . 3 1 , tu sola; of H e r m e s is parodied b y M a r t i a l , v . 24, cf. E . N o r d e n , Agnostos Theos, p . 246; on t h e a n t i q u i t y of t h e s t y l e cf. Jahrbuchfiir Liturgiewissenschaft, in. 1 5 7 ; cf. also I Clem. 59, e? 6 0ebs \ irais , Acta Iohannis, 109, <rfr yap , , . Holy, agios, is a n epithet of Isis, Sarapis, S y r i a n deities, a n d A r t e m i s : cf. E . Williger, Rel. Vers. Vorarb. X I X . i. 81 sqq. Kyrios is in c o n t r a s t t o m a n y claims. Hypsistos (given in C o d e x Alexandrinus and in the L a t i n t e x t s , n o t in Const. Apost. or in t h e E g y p t i a n version q u o t e d b y Leclercq, 1 5 3 1 ) h a d been used of J e h o v a h b y Hellenistic Judaisers (p. 54, n. 1, supra, a n d C u m o n t , Musie du Cinquantenaire , p p . 67 sq.), b u t w a s also applied t o Z e u s as t h e g o d of m o u n t a i n t o p s . Cf. in p a r ticular 1 Clem. 59, iv * and Clem. A l . Protr. i. 1 sqq. on Christ c o n t r a s t e d w i t h A m p h i o n , A r i o n , a n d again Orpheus. P . Perdrizet, Terres cuites grecs de la collection Fouquet, i. 84, sees' opposition' in J o h n x v . 1 : ' I a m t h e true vine* (more opposition t o D i o n y s u s scented b y Grill, cf. Clemen, p . 272). A n a m u s i n g e x a m p l e of opposition is a t e r r a c o t t a l a m p noted b y W . W e b e r , Agyptisch-griechische Terrakotten, i. 1 5 , o n w h i c h a w o m a n holds o u t a cross a g a i n s t a (sacred) crocodile.
2 2 5

the Emperor was very markedly the successor of the Ptolemies. On coins, which can be trusted to reflect official language, we find Kyrios first at Alexandria of Trajan, then not till the time of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, and when we find it on them it is not a regular title but occurs always in acclamations of a fixed type, recurring in various cities' Good luck to our Lord (Lords),' ' Long live our Lords'or in dedications ' on behalf of the victory of our L o r d s . ' It has been remarked that the Christian apologists object t o the description of the Emperor as Kyrios ; that is no doubt because their own usage was stereotyped b y then, and they resented what seemed to them misappropriation. In any case, we must remember that the nuance of Kyrios depends on the person or god to whom it is applied ; it can be a mere courtesy title, like ' M a s t e r ' in English. In Christianity, just as in many Hellenistic cults, it implies a belief in the divine overruling of the individual, who receives commands from on high. There is here no question of borrowing. Y e t we must recognise in this something of a praeparatio evangelica. From the Hellenistic attitude to the Christian was an easy transition. 3. Jesus SOTER and His EUANGELION .Another epithet requiring special consideration is Soter, ' Saviour.' Its technical use of Jesus (as distinguished from such a general use as we have in Phil. iii. 20) is met twice in the Lucan writings, and is found also in the Pastoral Epistles and
1 2 3 4

T h e B o e o t i a n inscription (Sylloge ,814,31) calls Nero vavrhs , not s i m p l y Kvpios. T h e numismatic point is due t o B . P i c k , Journal international, i. 451 sqq. ; t h e A l e x a n d r i a n coin is D a t t a r i , Numi Alex. Aug. 8 1 . T h e L a t i n e q u i v a l e n t dominus does not appear as a title on coins till Aurelian (in t h e latter p a r t of t h e third century), nor regularly till t h e sons of Constantine, t h o u g h D o m i t i a n seems t o h a v e required t o b e called dominus a n d deus (Euseb. Chron. ; ann. Abr. 2102). Kyrios is in Christian use c o m m o n in acclamations (such as Phil. ii. 1 1 implies : cf. Peterson, EES 0 2 , p . 133), b u t is from t h e beginning a formal title also. F . J . D o l g e r , 2 , i . 396 (Romische Quartalschrift, Supplement, 1910), contrasts this w i t h their l a c k of polemic against t h e description of t h e E m p e r o r as Beov vl6s, son of G o d . Is this because Kyrios standing b y itself w a s a m u c h more c o m m o n description (not epithet) of Christ t h a n 0ov vios w a s ? S o E . Williger, P.W. xii. 183, 41 ; for Kvpios as a courtesy title in E g y p t cf. F . Preisigke, Worterbuch griechische Urkunden, s.v., 849, 851 sqq. Cf. also m y Hagiographica I V . , in J.T.S. x x v i i i . 4 1 7 . Cf. J.H.S., 1925, p p . 9 5 sqq.
2 3 4

2 Peter; it occurs once in the Fourth Gospel, in which soteria is common. It is familiar in Greek as the epithet of many gods, notably Zeus, Asclepius and the Dioscuri, the Egyptian Isis and Sarapis ; and of many royal personages regarded as divine, as for instance Ptolemy I in his life, Antiochus I of Syria after death, Strato in Bactria, Sauromates I I in the Bosporus; and again of distinguished Romans who played prominent parts in the affairs of the East (as for instance Titus Flamininus and Pompey), of Julius Caesar also and of the Roman Emperors. A s applied to men, it generally asserts their personal divinity and not their identity with recognised Soter-gods. It is a Greek term in its origin ; its application to purely Greek deities is as old as the fifth century, and its Greek sense comes out clearly in such unspecialised uses as the saying of Demosthenes that the Thessalians thought Philip a saviour. A t the same time it proved susceptible of the oriental connotation of Redeemer. A Soter brings soteria, deliverance, and this soteria can be of very different kinds. I t m a y be deliverance from foreign foes and from oppression; so Alexander is called ' deliverer (or protector) of E g y p t ' in an Egyptian text of the third century B . C . (this is the chief meaning of Soter as applied to kings and princes, until the term was conventionalised). It m a y be deliverance from ill-health, as Asclepius is called Soter (so possibly also of the nymph Himera), or from the perils of the sea (as with the Dioscuri), or from darkness (as perhaps with the solar Theos Sozon worshipped in Asia Minor). It m a y denote salvation as
1 2 3 4 5

Clemen, op. cit., 86 sq. A v a l u a b l e discussion of this term is given b y F . Dornseiff, Pauly-Wissowa, I I I . A . 1 2 1 1 sqq. Dolger, 2 , i. 420 : another instance of the second c e n t u r y B . C . in a Delian inscription printed in O . Weinreich, Neue Urkunden, 3 1 , 1. 33, 4ad\o7s aikv ,, ot ' . Here \ is a predicate ; in Dolger's e x a m p l e it is a proper epithet. So of t h e N y m p h on coins of H i m e r a (Head, Historia Numorum*, P- M 5 ) . De corona, 43, . W . Spiegelberg, Sitzungsberichte d. Heid. Ak., 1922, iii. 5. Cf. A n t i o c h u s Epiphanes as TTJS (inscription a t B a b y l o n , D i t t e n berger, Or. gr. inscr. sel. 253.2), Julia D o m n a as (inscription published b y A . v o n Pemerstein, Jahreshefte, x v i . 249 sqq.). T r a j a n as on a coin of Nicopolis in E p i r u s (Imhoof-Blumer, Monnaies grecques, 1 4 1 ) .
2 8 4 6 1

given in the mysteries. In contrast with this transcendental sense, soteria m a y mean deliverance from false opinions or superstition (as the Epicurean Diogenes of Oenoanda uses it) : m a y mean as little as ' to be a good man.' How are we to explain the giving of this title to Jesus ? Soltau, Wendland and others have drawn attention to certain striking similarities in the use of Soter language as applied to the Emperor. A decree passed b y the assembly of the representatives from the Greek cities of the province of Asia in or about 9 B . C . begins thus : ' Since the Providence which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life has set it in most perfect order b y giving to us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue, that he might benefit mankind, sending him as a saviour, Soter, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things, and since he, Caesar, b y his appearance [excelled even our anticipations], surpassing all previous benefactors, Euergetai, and not even leaving to posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done, and since the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning for the world of the good tidings that came b y reason of him.' On a somewhat later decree from Halicarnassus we read : ' Since the eternal and
1 2 3 4 5

Cf. m y Sallustius, x x x v i . n. 1 1 2 , a n d C.R. 1925,639 (adding Kaibel, Ep. gr. 134, 0eoTs atodels * ): of deliverance from perils of w a r (Inscr. gr. ad res rom. pert. i. 7 1 7 ) ; for philosophic soteria also Corp. Herm. vii. 2 ; for soteria in mysteries C Clemen in Neutestamentliche Studien fur G. Heinrici, p. 32. D e m e t e r appears as 2 on a coin of M e t a p o n t u m of t h e latter p a r t of the fourth c e n t u r y B . C . (B.M.C. Italy, 257, no. 144 : a specimen in Collection Jameson, 7 3 , no. 326, is dated ' vers 280 '). T h e classic paper is W e n d l a n d , Z.N.W. v . (1904). I t is instructive t o compare these inscriptions w i t h the similar l a n g u a g e applied t o James I in the preface t o the Authorised V e r s i o n : ' t h e appearance of your Majesty, as of t h e S u n in his strength, i n s t a n t l y dispelled those supposed and surmised mists a n d g a v e u n t o all t h a t were well affected exceeding cause of comfort . . . a n d t h a t also accompanied w i t h peace and tranquillity a t home and abroad.' T h e comparison warns us against reading too m u c h into it. apeTrjs, w h i c h means divine power a n d not merely moral qualities ; cf. J.H.S. 1925, P- 86. T h e words translated h a v e been supplied b y conjecture t o fill a g a p in t h e inscription, which is conveniently published b y W . Dittenberger, Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae, 4 5 8 ; cf now W . H . Buckler, C.R., 1927, 1 1 9 sqq. T h i s suggests Hellenistic kings, b u t w a s used of lesser people, cf. Deissmann, op. cit. p p . 2 1 4 sq. I t is in origin not a religious title, b u t t h e regular t e r m of praise for t h e benefactor of a c i t y (J. Oehler, P.W. v i . 973 sqq.); later it is used of deities (cf. Preuschen-Bauer, Lexikon*, p . 499).
1 2 3 4 6

immortal nature of the universe has blessed us most greatly with excellent benefits, bringing into the happy life of our times Caesar Augustus, father of his country, the goddess Roma, being Zeus Patroos and saviour of the whole race of men, whose forethought has not only fulfilled but surpassed the prayers of a l l : for land and sea are at peace, cities flourish with law, concord and prosperity; all good things are abundant and at their best, and men are filled with good hopes for the future/ The description of the Emperor as Soter, or ' Soter of the inhabited w o r l d ' (as later Nero), the use of the term Euangelion of the news of his goodness (perhaps a fixed term in this connexion, if we m a y judge from this passage and a papyrus letter relating to Julius Verus Maximus, ' since I became aware of the Euangelion concerning the proclamation of an E m p e r o r ' ) , and the account given of the peace and joy brought b y the Emperor, have a striking similarity with Luke ii. 10 sq. ' I announce () to y o u great joy which shall be to all the people, that a Saviour (Soter) is born this d a y ' and with the beginning of the Gloria in excelsis ' Glory to God in the higher! and on earth peace among men of good will/ Further, we hear of the , godlike graciousness and strength, of the Emperors as of C h r i s t ; of their , goodness and
1 2 3

W e n d l a n d , Kultur , 410 no. 9. H o w sincere this feeling a b o u t A u g u s tus was is shown b y the words of t h e pious J e w Philo, Legatio ad Gaium, 23, 1 4 3 - 7 : ' H e w h o surpassed h u m a n nature in all excellences, w h o for the greatness of his imperial power and nobility w a s first called A u g u s t u s . . . . This is the Caesar w h o calmed the storms which had everywhere broken, w h o healed the c o m m o n ills of Greeks and barbarians . . . : this is he w h o did not merely loose b u t broke t h e bonds w i t h w h i c h the world w a s bound and oppressed . . . ; this is he w h o made t h e sea e m p t y of pirate vessels and full of merchant-men; this is he w h o rescued all cities into freedom, w h o b r o u g h t order from disorder. . . .' (It must, however, be remembered t h a t in A l e x a n dria the Jews tended t o be ostentatiously loyal t h o u g h not participating in ruler-cult, while the Greeks were generally against the government.) L i v i a also, the wife of A u g u s t u s , w a s regarded as saviour of the world, cf. H . M a t t i n g l y , B.M.C.R. Empire, I . c x x x v i . T h e description of the j o y of the world (cf. D i t t . Syll.*, 797, of Caligula) is a t y p i c a l feature of accounts of the birth (cf. the Delphic paean t o D i o n y s u s , Bull. corr. Hell, xlviii. 108) or e p i p h a n y (Pfister, P.W. Suppl. iv. 318) of a god. Deissmann, op. ext., p . 3 1 3 . O n cf. G . P . W e t t e r , Charts (1913), and the magic evidence in S. E i t r e m , Papyri Osloenses, i. 45 a n d 88 sqq. F . J. Dolger, Sol Salutis , p p . 206 sqq., followed b y H . L i e t z m a n n , Messe und Herrenmahl, p . 237, regards in t h e D i d a c h e (p. 132 later, \) as equivalent t o Christ.
2 3 1

love of humanity, as of His in Tit. iii. 4 : of their Parousia or presence, and Epiphaneia or self-manifestation : the Emperor like Christ was ' K t i s t e s / ' founder/ Soter, euangelion, peace, these then are common property. It would be possible to infer that the Christian phraseology was either borrowed from, or created in opposition to, the Imperial. Augustus and Jesus both suited popular expectations of a Saviour, of a K i n g who should be born to the joy of the world, and who should bring peace. Such expectations were at home in the East, and had found their w a y into Italy, as the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil shows. Just as a web of mythology had surrounded the figure of the great saviour king Alexander, so Augustus soon after his death acquired a legend. There is in the suggested cause a real strength of religious feeling. Nevertheless, it does not seem clear that the connotations of Soter or euangelion were predominantly enough Imperial to make their meaning even in combination obvious. A t the time at which Christian terminology was being formed Augustus was a memory, not an actual deliverer ; it is not clear that similar language was commonly used of his successors before Nero, and b y his time Christos Soter was
2 3 4 5 6 7

Clemen, p . 89, and D e i s s m a n n , p p . 318 sqq. T h i s term also is found in t h e S e p t u a g i n t ; cf. H a t c h - R e d p a t h , i. 537 ; on its use cf. m y Notes on Ruler-cult, I I I . (to appear in J.H.S.). Pfister, Reliquiencult, p p . 296 sqq. S u c h a n e x p e c t a t i o n could spring u p independently of oriental a n d m y s t i c ideas ; cf. Isocrates, Philip, 1 5 1 (written in 346 B.C.) : ' T h e gods h a v e g i v e n me words, and appointed thee for action, t h i n k i n g t h a t t h o u wouldst best preside over t h e m , a n d t h a t m y word would be least wearisome t o hearers.' O n this see E . N o r d e n , Die Geburt des Kindes, 1924, a n d the considerable literature w h i c h has followed its publication (references in ch. ii. of Year's Work in Classical Studies, 1 9 2 3 - 4 and following years). W e m u s t not forget t h a t t h e expectations m a y be Pollio's rather t h a n Virgil's, a point well developed b y J. S. Phillimore, Pastoral and Allegory (Oxford, 1925), p p . 28 sq. W . Weber, Der Prophet und sein Gott, has collected a number of oriental parallels ; t h e y suggest t h a t there is in this e x p e c t a t i o n a certain psychological i n e v i t a b i l i t y . W . W e b e r , op. cit. p . 1 1 1 ; D e o n n a , Revue de Vhistoire des religions, lxxxiii, l x x x i v . B u t Germanicus in his second edict speaks of Tiberius as ' the saviour r^nd benefactor of the whole h u m a n r a c e ' (Cichorius, Romische Studien, 376). I t follows from t h e same passage t h a t the A l e x a n d r i a n s applied these titles t o G e r m a n i c u s also for his help in a famine. T h e idea of pax Augusta w a s stressed b y all the E m p e r o r s of t h e first c e n t u r y (O. T h . S c h u l z , Die Rechtstitel und Regierungsprogramme auf romischen Kaisermunzen in Stud. Gesch. Kult. Alt. xiii. i v . 64 ; cf. Corp. Herm. x v i i i . 10,
2 3 4 5 6 7

probably fixed. On the face of it, the combined occurrence of Soter and euangelion is striking. Y e t it must be remembered that the latter is not primarily a religious word : it is common from the fourth century B . C . onwards in the senses of ' good t i d i n g s ' or ' sacrifice in honour of good tidings ' ; we find the verb in the Septuagint of Is. lxi. i , and the noun in a neutral sense, and again as ' reward due to the bearer of good tidings ' (a sense known also in secular Greece). W e have scores of examples of the general meaning ; it is reasonable to infer that the four known instances in which it is connected with an Emperor's accession do not make it a technical term ; rather, it was the obvious Greek word both for that and for the news of the birth of Jesus. Soter too was a term of wide use, and its frequent employment in the Septuagint as a predicate of God or of the Messiah seems to supply the most natural antecedent for its Christian use. It is noteworthy that Philo, who uses the term (several times ) of God with some freedom, does so in particular relation to the Exodus of Israel from E g y p t , and with no visible oppositional t o n e ; he speaks of the Exodus also as a type of spiritual , and Josephus repeatedly describes it as , and calls the parting of the waves ' an
1 2

P- 35^ 5 R TOVS rrjs \ , possibly of Diocletian and his colleagues, as B . K e i l argues, op. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 374). O n as a n epithet of Emperors, cf. H . Windisch, Z.N.W. x x i v . 251 sqq. Cf. Stephanus-Dindorf, Thesaurus, iii. 2 1 7 1 sqq. ; H a t c h - R e d p a t h , Concordance, i. 568 ; Strack-Billerbeck, iii. 4 sqq. I must respectfully dissent from Norden's v i e w (quoted b y Deissmann, p . 447) t h a t in the Priene inscription refers t o prophecies which were regarded as a p p l y i n g t o A u g u s t u s . R a t h e r it is t h e good tidings of peace and stable g o v e r n m e n t for which his healthful activities were responsible. E v e n more must I refuse t o connect t h e t e r m w i t h the cult of Evayye\os as Dieterich suggested [Kleine Schriften, p . 195). T h e secular use of is well illustrated b y a S a m i a n inscription, Suppl. epigr. gr. i. 362, mentioning a feast, TO?S ayyos, t h a t is (as t h e first editor, M . Schede, explained) a festival in honour of Demetrius, w i t h special reference t o t h e news of his v i c t o r y a t Salamis in C y p r u s . I n 1 Cor. x v . 2, ^ is used of t h e telling of t h e whole soteriological d r a m a (Christ died, w a s buried, rose, w a s seen). Dibelius, in Handbuch zum neuen Testament I I I . ii. 184, suggests t h a t m a n y of t h e passages in question show Hellenistic influence. This m a y be so, b u t for us t h e y m u s t reckon as already components of Judaism. Moreover, t h e Saviour idea w a s clearly p a r t of Judaism and t h e concept of salvation develops historically in it, cf. E . B a l l a , 0 2 , i. 71 sqq.; Strack-Billerbeck, I. 67 sqq.
1 2 1

epiphany of God.' If we remember the frequency with which the Christian community is thought of as a new Israel, also St. Paul's comparison of their progress with the progress through the desert in Cor. x, we see how easily the epithet might be given to Jesus. Clemen's view that in this stage of Christology a predicate of God would not easily be transferred to Jesus is not weighty. It rests on a critical method which is disputable (p. 76, earlier), and which is even less applicable to the Lucan and Johannine writings than to St. Mark. In a measure, developing Christianity deepened its Jewish element. W e conclude therefore that the application of the title Soter to Jesus is not in origin connected with non-Jewish religious use of the word. A t the same time, converts from the Gentile world must have felt in the term something opposed to other appropriations of it. For them Jesus was Soter as the deliverer from disease and demoniac possession, the deliverer from subjection to inferior divine powers, the deliverer from sin, and the giver of happy immortality; for them He was Soter as, and more than as, Asclepius, Emperors, and mystery-gods ; to them He gave peace, but not merely an earthly peace ; to them He gave also what philosophers looked on as soteria* Further, the title was not a distinct descriptionJesus is commonly, first in Gnostic writings ; it is a predicate, and the expression of the emotion called forth b y achievements or services. When Vespasian's legate Trajan entered Tiberias he was greeted as ' saviour and benefactor.' A n y b o d y might in
1 2 3 5

F o r Philo's use of \, cvepye^sseeDe sobr. n , I. p. 401, M a n g e y ; for in relation t o t h e E x o d u s cf. De migr. Abr. 5, 25, I . p. 440 ; for t h e E x o d u s as De cbriet. 29, 101,1, p. 374, and Joseph. A.J. I I . 15, 4 - I I I . i. 1 (eight t i m e s ) ; and for 4 , ibid. I I . 339. T h i s point I owe t o t h e R e v . W . L . K n o x . T h e return from exile is t h o u g h t of as a second E x o d u s in Isaiah xliii. 1,14. In general, on the E x o d u s as a salvation ' motif,' cf. E . Sellin, Mose ; for a kindred idea cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , 244. Clemen, op. ext., p . 87. H . F u c h s , Augustin und der antike Friedensgedanke, p. 41. T h i s point is well m a d e b y J. K r e b s , Der Logos als Heiland, 77 sqq.; t h e difference of Christian a n d p a g a n s a l v a t i o n is stressed b y E . M e y e r , Ursprung und Anfange des Christentums, iii. 392 sqq. Joseph. B.J. III. 9, 459. Here the title springs from spontaneous emotion ; h o w alight a m e a n i n g it m a y c o n v e y appears from an inscription at E u m e n e i a in P h r y g i a , possibly of A u g u s t a n d a t e , describing a local d i g n i t a r y as cvepyt^v * ^6 ( R a m s a y , Cities, I. 377, N o . 199).
3 2 3 4 6

some circle or other win the title Soter; y e t he continued to receive worship only if he continued to impress mankind as superhuman. H e might be hailed as Soter, or an orator might use a turn of speech implying such an acclamation, and the matter might stay there. This view of Soter becomes clearer if we consider what was implied in soteria b y Jesus. It was atonement for sin, the giving of His life as ' a ransom for many ' (Mark x . 45) ; the notion is expressed in a more defined manner in R o m . iii. 25 (' God made H i m a propitiatory offering in His own blood for the showing forth of His righteousness b y the remission of sins committed earlier; this was of God's remission'), and in a developed form in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The notion of a sin offering is not foreign to Greek or Oriental belief ; the possibility of one individual giving a ransom for his sin or the sin of another is known to us in the Phrygian circles discussed earlier. A general atonement b y a Redeemer is not Hellenistic. Attis, Adonis, Osiris die, are mourned for, and return to life. Y e t it is nowhere said that soteria comes b y their death. Soteria of a sort m a y come from their return to life, or from the assurance that they will do so in due season. Firmicus Maternus, writing in the middle of the fourth century of our era, describes a ritual in which ' on a certain night an image is laid on its back in a litter and bewailed with rhythmic lamentation. When they have had their fill of this, light is brought in and the priest anoints the throats
1 2 3 4 5

Cf. some i n s t r u c t i v e illustrations q u o t e d b y W e n d l a n d , I.e. I am inclined t o regard t h e infrequency of t h e epithet in t h e earliest Christian literature as accidental rather t h a n deliberate. T h e t e r m is n o t specifically Jewish ; cf. M o u l t o n a n d Milligan, Vocabulary, p . 303. Cf. P . Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusaltertumer*, p p . 1 2 7 sqq.; for t h e scapegoat, ibid. p p . 245 sq., and V . G e b h a r d , Die Pharmakoi inlonien und die Sybakchoi in A then (Diss. Miinchen : M . Hueber, 1926). I n B a b y l o n i a n religion t h e v i c t i m is t h o u g h t t o represent t h e sacrificer a n d t o t a k e a w a y his sins ; cf. F . Jeremias in C h a n t e p i e de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte*, i. 5 7 9 ; J. Scheftelowitz, Relg. Vers. u. Vor. x i v . iii. Cf. Steinleitner, Das Beicht, 37 sq., for t h e word , a n d 45, no. 1 7 . (Aurelius Musaeus t a k e s u p o n himself a n d m a k e s a t o n e m e n t for his sister A p h p h i a ' s offence ; t h e priest w h o a c t s t h e p a r t of A n u b i s undertakes the* e x p i a t i o n of a w o m a n ' s sins in J u v e n a l , v i . 535, discussed b y Reitzenstein, Myst. , 144 sq., b u t he is as it were t h e official channel.) Cf. K . H o l l , Urchristentum und Religionsgeschichte (Bertelsmann : Gutersloh, 1925), 12 sq.
2 3 4 3 5

of all who were weeping, and, this done, whispers in a slow murmur: Be of good cheer, ye faithful, for that the god is saved. Saved in truth shall we be from out our toil and pain.' Firmicus does not name the g o d : it was probably one of the three just mentioned. The joy spoken of is a joy in sympathy with divine joy, the deliverance is a deliverance in harmony with the god's deliverance, not a deliverance brought b y his sufferings: it is the spiritualisation of a rite concerned with the death and revival of the life of the fruits of the earth. From this to the self-oblation of Jesus, as it was preached, is a perceptible distance. The key to the Christian doctrine is given to us b y Jewish conceptions alone. In the Last Supper Jesus spoke of a new covenant in His blood: if these words are not genuine there are few recorded sayings in history which can claim to be genuine. A new covenant looks back to the old covenant, to the victim sacrificed and its blood outpoured for the sealing of the L a w (Exod. x x i v . 8). A new covenant, with its new sacrificial victim, exists for a new Israel. Jesus, the victim of the new covenant, makes atonement for His people. (This is not indeed the whole of redemption; the conception of the Second Coming, with the rising of the righteous dead, involves conceptions non-Jewish in origin, but probably for some time at home in Judaea. ) The peculiar nature of this atonement deserves particular attention. It is in Christian theology a constituent which has caused very great philosophical difficulties ; it has survived as an element clearly original but very hard to digest. Before we pass on, one linguistic observation has to be made. Deissmann explains the Pauline
1 2 3 4

De errore profanarum religionum, ch. x x i i . H e p d i n g and L o i s y t h i n k Osiris ; either A t t i s or A d o n i s is possible. O n the rite cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , 400 sq. Cf. p. 120 later. T h e phrase rests on t w o independent traditions, t h e S y n o p t i c and t h e P a u l i n e (cf. H . L i e t z m a n n , Messe und Herrenmahl, 2 1 1 sqq.). * Cf. W . L . K n o x , St. Paul, p. 139. O n its relation t o t h e ' Iranian R e d e e m e r ' belief cf. p . 100 later. Bousset, Kyrios Christos , p. 297, a d m i t s its Jewish nature as readily as conservative critics do. I t is natural t o suppose t h a t the P a u l i n e ' anthrop o l o g y ' is an a d a p t a t i o n of earlier ideas (cf. Bousset, 129 sqq.) ; Christianity did not create new presuppositions in e v e r y field.
z 2 4 2

language of ransom, redemption, and so forth from pagan formulae of manumission in which a slave is spoken of as being ransomed b y a god ; the god nominally paid the price of freedom (in reality supplied b y the slave) to the slave's master. T o some readers or hearers this connotation m a y have been inevitable, but it should be remarked that the use itself is most easily explained from the Septuagint. ' Let them tell who have been ransomed b y the Lord, those whom He ransomed from the hand of an enemy' in Ps. 106 (107) is expressed b y , . The same metaphor is employed in the Phrygian inscription mentioned above. A t this point I m a y stress the importance of the linguistic usage of the Septuagint; for the study of that of the New Testament in general and of St. Paul in particular it can hardly be over-emphasised ; to take a single instance, it is probably from the meaning given to (holy) in the Septuagint that we must explain its Christian sense. 4. On the title Son of God little need be said. It has imprinted itself on the Synoptic tradition. What its origin isthe claims of Jesus for Himself, the deepening reverence of the disciples for Him in the light of their belief in His resurrection and in His continued activity in the Spirit, and their consequent reinterpretation of Messianic prophecies, or the Syrian belief more recently suggested cannot well be discussed here. It is sufficient to note that the attempts
1 2 3 4 5

Licht , 274 sqq. T h e freedman m a y t h e n be regarded as t h e god's slave, a use t o b e distinguished from t h e religious a n d personal use of $ov\os 0oO, mentioned p . 84 earlier. I n A c t s vii. 35 G o d is in respect of t h e E x o d u s ; cf. Isaiah xliii. 1 , 1 4 , and p . 93 . 1 a b o v e . P . 94 n. 4 supra. S o E . Williger, Relg. Vers. u. Vor. X I X . i. 84 sqq., and his general observations, p p . 103 sqq. Reitzenstein, Das manddische Buck des Herrn der Grosse, 23 (using t h e t e x t of Celsus, discussed, p . 97 n. 2. V o n Gall,. 2 T O T (Heidelberg, 1926), p p . 4 1 6 sq., observes t h a t it is clear t h a t Jesus regarded t h e Son of M a n as Son of G o d , cf. Klostermann's note on Mark i. 1 1 in Handbuch. T h e m o s t natural explanation of t h e t e r m remains P s . ii. interpreted as in M a r k ; cf. R a w l i n s o n , New Testament Doctrine, 42 . Jewish conceptions of sonship as predicable of angels a n d of t h e k i n g or people of Israel or the pious a m o n g t h e m (Strack-Billerbeck I I I . 1 5 sqq.) h a v e been g i v e n a new meaning. T h i s meaning is b r o u g h t out b y the parable of t h e wicked h u s b a n d m e n , as explained b y F . C . B u r k i t t , Trans. Third Congr. Hist. Rel., I I . 321 sqq. irais 6cov corresponds originaUy t o ' s e r v a n t of J a h w e ' in Deutero-Isaiah (Bousset, 56 sq.) a n d is rarely used or implied, except in a liturgical formula, vauBos and its derivatives (Harnack, Sitzungsber. preuss. Ak. 1926, 212 sqq.).
2 3 4 6 e t

which have been made to explain it from the larger Hellenistic world fail. The Emperor was called , but in the particular sense of being son of his deified predecessor, as Augustus was of Julius b y adoption, which in antiquity gave status more like that of a son of the body than we can easily imagine. There are, moreover, indications that the term was at the time fairly colourless, and we have seen reason to doubt the whole theory of a Christian terminology opposed to the Imperial. Greek gods had sons, and famous men were often regarded as sons of particular deities (for instance, Plato and Augustus alike as sons of Apollo) ; but ' son of g o d ' was not in itself a common designation. G. P . Wetter has urged that son of god was a current title for a wonder-worker ; the evidence adduced is wholly inadequate. He has reminded us truly that various Gnostic teachers were treated as more or less divine, and given some epithets which Jesus received, messenger, herald, prophet, and that other figures, like Apollonius of Tyana, approximate to the type. The inspired man, , is an important figure in the religious life of the time. Y e t it must be remembered that the Gnostic figures who come closest to Jesus are known to us mainly as represented b y Christian writers in contrast with His claims, and that in any case this terminology is the conse1 2 3

P p . 86 sq. earlier, and s e e t h e excellent discussion b y F . J. Dolger, 5 , i. 388 sqq. T h e P t o l e m a i c and imperial eebs 4 does not find an analogue in Christian t e r m i n o l o g y till later (as Acta Thomae, 47, and the creeds). * See G . P . W e t t e r , Der Sohn Gottes, ch. i. : t h e o n l y t e x t he quotes w h i c h g i v e s t h e t i t l e expressly t o a n y other t h a n Jesus and Simon M a g u s is Cels. ap. Orig. Contra Celsum, V I I . 9, w h i c h he, like other scholars, m i s u n d e r s t a n d s ; t h e picture C . d r a w s of a t y p i c a l S y r i a n prophet is a p a r o d y of t h e portrait of Jesus (Rawlinson, Doctrine, p. 70). Y e t note Justin, Apol. I . 22. I , el \ -ios vlbs (perhaps inspired b y M a r k x v . 39 ; M a t t , x x v i i . 54). T h e p r o p h e c y in L a c t a n t . Inst. div. V I I . 1 7 . 2, se coli iubebit ut dei filium, refers t o a n A n t i c h r i s t . Cf., for instance, W e t t e r , 8, 10, a n d again 1 1 (St. Irenaeus says t h a t Menander claimed &s & 6 4 \, 4 ). A t t h e same time a Simon M a g u s asserts his claims in a w a y which Jesus is in t h e s t o r y of the T e m p t a t i o n m a d e expressly t o reject (Wetter, p p . 87 sqq. ; Bousset, Kyrios Christos, p p . 54 sq. ; S. E i t r e m , Die Versuchung Christi, 1924, has shown how t h e t e m p t a t i o n s resemble t h e claims of c o n t e m p o r a r y magicians). I do not wish t o d e n y t h e independence of t h e Simon t y p e , on which cf. P . Alfaric, Actes Congr. Hist. Rel. (1925), ii. p p . 268 sqq. (In the Gnostic group a t t a c k e d b y P l o t i n u s , Enn. I I . 9. 9, t h e title 7 w a s a p p a r e n t l y applied t o the i n d i v i d u a l believer in possession of yv&ats.)
3

quence of the impression made b y personalities; it does not create belief. The Christian who called Jesus Son of God denoted something precise b y the term. 5. Christological speculation.The existence of the in Syria and in the Hellenistic world perhaps made it easier for converts to grasp the idea of a more than human teacher having lived in the world, and passed from it to take definitely divine rank. I t does not explain the recognition of Jesus as Son of God and as Lord b y the community at Jerusalem. Nor does the evolution sometimes supposed, b y assimilation to Hellenistic saviours, explain what happened. Such assimilation, even if it occurred in a far larger measure than to me seems plausible, postulates something which had enough resemblance to be capable of assimilation; it demands as a starting-point Jesus, regarded b y Himself and b y the disciples as more than human. From that we can explain the cult of Jesus simply; the contrary view, that the cult provoked the whole Kyrios, Soter, Theou Hyios terminology is far more difficult. From the beginning there was this element so hard to digest in a theology, a Jesus who is Man, whose Messiahship is found to be not traditional or immediately of this world. The statement of His nature, as appreciated more and more in Christian experience, requires and exhausts all the available terminology. I t is a long journey before an acceptable interpretation of the position, a proper recognition of its compatibility with the claims of the Father, is reached. F e w statements could be more unhistorical or misleading than a dictum of S a i n t y v e s : ' A u x esprits philosophiques, auxquels antique initiation donnait une nourriture appropriee, on enseigne aujourd'hui a ciel ouvert une metaphysique que les conciles et les
1 2

Cf. W . L . K n o x , St. Paul, p p . 30 sqq.; t h e evidence for the recognition of Jesus as more t h a n h u m a n is t h e stronger because of divergences (I mean, because of t h e clear existence of suitable titles a t Jerusalem which S t . P a u l does not use). A n a n a l o g y which m i g h t be adduced against this view is the development of t h e status of S t . John B a p t i s t a m o n g the Mandaeans (for w h i c h see Reitzenstein, Iran. Erl. p p . 124 sq.) I a m inclined t o hazard t h e conjecture, unacceptable as i t m a y appear, t h a t this v i e w of J o h n arose in opposition and r i v a l r y t o the Christian v i e w of Jesus, and is not prior or independent.
2

th6ologiens ont organisoe de fa?on a ne pas heurter trop violemment les croyances euhemeristes des partisans du nouvel A d o n i s . ' Christian dogma is not the product of deliberate creation; it comes rather from a number and variety of attempts to meet problems, to exclude untenable theories which had been propounded, and in general to avoid error rather than to state and define truth. W e have noted earlier that St. Paul's peculiar position made it imperative for him to think out problems which the disciples at Jerusalem would not have considered or at least would have felt no pressing need to formulate and answer. Among these problems were the Coming and the Passion of Jesus. Of the first he says, in Phil. ii. 5 sqq. : ' Who, being in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as a lucky find, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of man, and being found in shape as a man humbled Himself, being submissive even to the point of death, and that death on a cross. Wherefore God exalted Him, and gave Him a name above every name . . The passage is important; it sounds like a prose hymn, and is among the antecedents of the liturgical Preface. Divine epiphanies in human shape are common enough in the Greek world, though not with such a purpose as this. Horace m a y represent Augustus as being Mercury in human shape, come down to save mankind, but the salvation implied is essentially practical: vengeance for Caesar's death, and the restoration of peace and prosperity. T h e descent of the Primal Man in the Poimandres (the first tractate of the Hermetic Corpus) is a fall which begins the cosmic
1 2 3

Essai sur les grottes (1918), 249. S o W . W . Jaeger, Hermes, 1. (1915) 5 3 7 - 5 3 , supported b y Dibelius ad loc. apiraynbv \\ . . . contrasts a possible a t t i t u d e , t r e a t i n g G o d h e a d as a l u c k y prize t o be e n j o y e d , w i t h t h e a c t u a l a t t i t u d e of Jesus, w h o chose t o w i n it as , as S t . G r e g o r y N a z . says. T h e word . h o w e v e r clearly implies t h a t Jesus possessed G o d h e a d in t h e first instance. (An interesting suggestion on t h e passage in R a w l i n s o n , Doctrine, p p . 134 sqq.) A s for 4u } , cf. Reitzenstein, Myst , 357. .. is predicated of t h e divine P r i m a l M a n in C.H. i. 1 2 . Cf. Dibelius ad loc. in N . T . , s a y s H . A . A . K e n n e d y ap. M o u l t o n - M i l l i g a n , Vocabulary of the N.T. 4 1 7 (where is v a l u a b l e material), ' a l w a y s signifies a form w h i c h t r u l y and fully expresses t h e being w h i c h underlies it.' O n t h e whole passage cf. now C h . Guignebert's discussion, Actes congr., ii. p p . 290 sqq. L i e t z m a n n , Messe und Herrenmdhl, 1 7 8 sq.
2 3 8

process. More akin to what we are considering is a Mandaean m y t h which Reitzenstein traces to unofficial Iranian belief. I t tells of a Primal Man descending from the world of light, now imprisoned in the body, but destined one day to break his chains, to reassemble his scattered members (our souls), and so, led b y a messenger of light, to return to heaven ; we return in him. In the meanwhile the awaking is expected. There is, of course, similar Manichean teaching. Of this m y t h Reitzenstein has found numerous traces on the fringe of Jewish t h o u g h t ; in Pauline eschatology, in the Odes of Solomon, in Gnostic texts, among the Mandaeans, and elsewhere. It is difficult to form a satisfactory judgment at the m o m e n t ; the origin, date, and diffusion of the story are hotly disputed. Provisionally it m a y be remarked that some of the supposed traces of the m y t h in Christian thought are very questionable, and the rest, though they m a y seem to be based ultimately on the myth, do not state it. It is as though its pictorial language and some of its components had survived, but not the m y t h in its entirety. H a d St. Paul known it, approved it, and assimilated it, his account would have been more direct. W e cannot, moreover, till further notice quite ignore the possibility that the elements of the m y t h were all present at his time, but the synthesis was not till later. In any case, there is a contrast between his more superficial contacts
2 3 4

Clemen (op. cit. p. 94) quotes CH. i. 1 5 , w h i c h refers not t o t h e P r i m a l M a n b u t t o all men, i m m o r t a l because of t h e E x i s t e n t M a n , b u t m o r t a l in respect of their bodies; and is therefore irrelevant. T h e author of CH. x . 25 expressly states t h a t no god comes d o w n on earth, possibly in o p p o sition t o Christianity, possibly, as W e t t e r t h i n k s (Der Sohn Gottes, p . 99), in opposition t o popular Hellenistic belief. * See Reitzenstein's article, Die Gottin Psyche (Sitz. Heid. Ak. 1 9 1 7 , 10), a n d his brilliant book, Das iranische Erlosungsmysterium (1921). H . G u n t e r t , Der arische Weltkonig und Heiland (Halle, 1923), argues for t h e great a n t i q u i t y of the basic idea of this. See on the other side G . Wesendonk, UrmenschundSeele. Reitzenstein, Jr. Erl. p. 242, has some good remarks on t h e t a k i n g over of religious ideas. M . Dibelius, Theologische Literaturzeitung, 1923, 4 1 5 , remarks reasona b l y t h a t t h e warning t o arise from sleep in 1 Cor. x v . 34, 1 Thess. v . 4, is natural enough, and does not in a n y w a y presuppose the m y t h (cf. his note on the latter passage in Handbuch). A g a i n , Xpiarbs iv , w h i c h Reitzenstein (op. cit., p . 132) refers t o t h e m y t h , does not i m p l y a world soul which is also Redeemer, and of w h i c h our souls are part. I t means rather the presence of Christ's Spirit in t h e c o m m u n i t y of those H e loves. O n t h e difference between the Christian s t o r y a n d this Iranian belief cf. Reitzenstein, Myst.*, p . 423.
8 4

and the close resemblance to it of the Odes of Solomon or the H y m n of the Soul in the Acts of Thomas or the views of the Symmachiani, and it must further be postulated that if the m y t h influenced him, it probably influenced him through a Judaism it had earlier coloured. St. Paul's conviction that Godhead must be predicated of Jesus has been seen in Phil. ii. 5. A n even stronger statement is found in Col. i. 1 5 - 1 9 and ii. 9, which if not Pauline cannot well be much later. Christ is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation, and God has willed that in Him should dwell the sum total of everything ; in Christ dwells the fullness of Godhead. A Jesus so clearly more than human is naturally thought of as preexistent. T h e idea of a pre-existent Son of Man in 1 Enoch m a y have contributed somewhat to the shaping of this
1 2 3

is applied b y G r e e k philosophers t o t h e visible world (in P h i l o ) as a c o p y of G o d ; b y P h i l o t o reason, mind, a n d w i s d o m as copies of G o d ; on t h e R o s e t t a stone t o a P t o l e m y as l i v i n g i m a g e of G o d (Dibelius ad toe). Jesus as is distinct from m a n , * . * , first-born before t h e creation of t h e world. Dibelius notes t h e express parallelism of Creation a n d R e d e m p t i o n . means p r o b a b l y t h e .same as t h e a d j a c e n t . In general means :
3

(a) t h e t a s k of filling ; ()8) t h a t w h i c h is p u t in t o fillthe stuffing of t h e sausage. H e n c e t h e crew of a ship, t h e g a n g of w o r k m e n w h o do a j o b , t h e complement. (So p r o b a b l y in E p h . i. 23 : t h e C h u r c h is , t h e c o m p l e m e n t of H i m w h o fills all. T h e writer's use of perhaps subconsciously suggested t h e other aspect of , ; so I should e x p l a i n in Col. ii. 10.) (7) t o t a l . A r i s t o p h . Vesp. 6 6 0 ; Herod. I I I . 2 2 ; R o m . ii. 25 4 ( ) ; Philo, De proem, et poen. 1 1 (II. 418, M a n g e y ) ; 8 (. 4 5 ) '^ ; Corp. Herm. V I . 4 & & ayaObv (the universe is a concentration of evil, t h e good a concentration of G o d , G o d a concentration of t h e good. S c o t t ' s deletion of ^ is uncalled for) ; I X . 7 yap evbi (the universe is one continuous mass of life ; so S c o t t , comparing X I I . ii. 1 5 b 6 oxnos . . . 4 ). I n t h e G i z e h a m u l e t Christ is (A. J a c o b y , 2 s i w neues Evangelienfragment,-p. 32, in a liturgical t e x t in Jahrb. /. Lit. I- 133).
2 5

I t does not seem t o m e t h a t c a n b e regarded as a technical t e r m of religion tiU its use b y Christian Gnostics. (In G a l . i v . 4, * > is, as L i e t z m a n n r e m a r k s ad loc, s i m p l y e q u i v a l e n t t o 4 .)

concept. I n any case, there are indications of the concept in the Synoptic Gospels, and, as Dibelius observes, the style of the first passage from Colossians indicates that its writer is reproducing an earlier formulation of belief. I t is not an ad hoc statement or a theological tour de force. Pre-existence involved some sort of descent. This St. Paul had taught the Philippians orally, and of it he now reminded them. B u t it must be remembered that the emphasis is here entirely on the moral consequences. T h e humility of Jesus is the model for the humility to be practised b y the Philippians : ' have in your corporate existence that attitude which y o u have as members of Christ Jesus.' W e are able t o study St. Paul working on a mythology that he has received in his adaptation of Jewish angelology t o interpret the triumph of the Cross (as, for instance, Col. ii. 15). H i s Christology is in obvious contrast. If developed from mythological sources it shows a hardihood of simplification which w e do not find in his angelology. I t remains easier to seek the source of the Pauline language in necessary development of the belief in the Lordship of Jesus. 6. The Spirit.Judaism had before the beginning of our era acquired the idea of a Spirit or Wisdom of God, a functional power operating in the w o r l d ; from what source we cannot here discuss. I n Christianity this assumed a new and personal significance. T o St. Paul the Spirit is the life-breath and continued vitality of a personal Lord in His own followers (Phil. i. 1 9 ; R o m . viii. 9) which has superseded and replaced their former personality: Jesus, lately on earth, is now freed from limitations of place and operates in the Church. W e have in St. Paul the beginnings, but
2 3 4 5
1

Cf. R a w l i n s o n , Doctrine, p . 1 2 2 . I n general see S t r a c k - B i l l e r b e c k , I I .

333

si*!-

* M a r k i x . 1 9 = M a t t . x v i i . 1 7 = L u k e i x . 41 (so W i n d i s c h , Theologisch Tijdschrift, Iii. 1 9 1 8 , 2 1 8 ; h e regards these passages as belonging t o t h e latest s t a g e of t h e S y n o p t i c tradition). T h e interpretation g i v e n is t h a t of Dibelius a n d others. Cf. Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 238 sqq., a n d Reitzenstein, Iran. Erl. 233 sqq. I t is i n s t r u c t i v e t o c o n t r a s t S t . P a u l ' s t r e a t m e n t of this s u b j e c t w i t h Ascensio Iesaeae, 10. Cf. E . d e W . B u r t o n , Galatians, 486 sqq.', Clemen, 1 1 3 sq.; R e i t z e n 8 4 6

stein, Iran. Erlos. 240 sqq. ; Myst.*, 70 sqq., 278 sqq., 308 sqq. O n
t h e later p o p u l a r diffusion of t h i s idea of independent functional powers of deities cf. J.H.S. 1925, 90 sq.; G . B e y e r h a u s , Rhein. us. 1926, 6 sqq.

only the beginnings, of that doctrine of the Holy Spirit which in time reaches the orthodox form. The Spirit is not merely a present guide but also a pledge of the heavenly inheritance to come (2 Cor. i. 21, etc. ), and embodies this divine function. This conception, individual as it is, found many points of contact in contemporary thought. The Stoics taught that a divine reason penetrated the universe and worked within the individual. It must have become commonplace: Virgil's statement of it contributed something to this. This Spirit is spoken of in a w a y which suggests Christian language, though we find pneuma hieron (sacred spirit), not pneuma hagion (holy spirit). In Hermetic writings a similar divine Nous or Mind is present with the just and pious and prevents them from sinning. The general notions that life is in the breath and that man's intellectual part is of the nature of the rarefied upper air or aether have also to be taken into account. How far these Hellenistic ideas contributed to the development, how far merely to the popularisation, of this doctrine of the Spirit we cannot determine. The same is true of the teaching that Jesus is the Logos or Reason and Word of God. Here antecedents are clearer ; Heraclitus, if we accept one interpretation of his first fragment, had
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Cf. . B . S w e t e , The Holy Spirit in the New Testament. T h e relation of t h e in m a n t o this is far from c l e a r ; cf. W . L . K n o x , St. Paul, 140 sqq., and for a Hellenistic v i e w P. Par. I. 489 (in the MithrasHturgie, ed. Dieterich, p. 2, 1. I i ) : . Cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , 356, for parallels. T h e Spirit as A d v o c a t e (Joh. 14, 16, etc.) fulfils a f u n c t i o n ascribed in R a b b i n i c t e x t s t o angels (Strack-Billerbeck, I I . 560 sqq.), in P h i l o once t o the Logos (Vita Mosis, I I . [III.] 14, p . 134, vol. ii. p . 155 M a n g e y ) . T a t i a n , Oratio, 4, p. 5, 2, distinguishes b e t w e e n Christian and Stoic ideas of G o d as Spirit. Cf. m y Sallustius, x x x v . n. 108. S o E . WiUiger, R.G. V. V. X I X . i. 95 sqq. Clemen's reply (114) t h a t ayiov is implied b y V a l . M a x . I V . 7, ext. i,fida hominum pectora quasi quaedam sancto spiritu referta templa sunt, is unconvincing. Valerius M a x i m u s is a non-philosophical writer, and m a y not h a v e chosen his words w i t h care, aytov comes in m a g i c t e x t s , where Jewish influence is possible (Williger, I O I ^ . C.H. i. 22 ; s t a n d s for , here and in 1 Cor. ii. 16 (Reitzenstein, Myst. , 337 sqq.). Usefully discussed b y W . R . I n g e , E.R.E. viii. 133 sqq. ; on t h e possibility of a p u r e l y Jewish origin cf. S a n d a y , Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, 185 sqq, (excellent); Strack-Billerbeck, I I . 302 sqq.
2 3 3 4 5 6 3 7

taught five centuries earlier that the Logos was eternal, and that all happened according to its laws. The Mandaean parallel also is g o o d ; their Redeemer is the Word or the Son of the Word, and with the special reason that a cry and its reply accompany his coming and are identified with him. Y e t the kernel of the doctrine is not the term ; it is the use of the term to modify a monotheistic conception. Philo shows particularly well how a Hellenistic Jew could picture a Logos, a Reason operating in the world and thus explaining God's activity without impairing His transcendence. How far he personally, or the school of thought which Bousset postulates as lying behind him, influenced the New Testament is hard to s a y ; it is always necessary to remember the fact that the great majority of the theological writings of the time have disappeared. A certain judgment is therefore hardly to be hoped for. The doctrine as expressed in the proem of the Fourth Gospel has great importance as being early Christian apologetic. It means that Christianity, in spite of its recent beginnings, is the worship of that which was from the beginning. T o some extent, then, the origin of these terms, of which the Christians now claimed the exclusive application, must be at present uncertain. 7. Mystic Life.The title of Christusmystik has been given to an attitude prominent in the Pauline writings and expressed in such sayings as that believers are in Christ Jesus, crucified with Him, that to live is Christ Jesus. This phraseology is interesting and implies a form of
1 2 z

Reitzenstein, Iran. Erlos. 66 sqq.; Myst. , 14 (cf. 314). R . B u l t m a n n , Eucharisterion H. Gunkel, ii. 3 sqq., and Z.N.W. x x i v . 100 sqq., argues t h a t the b a c k g r o u n d of the prologue and of the Christology of the Gospel is m y t h o l o g y , not philosophy ; he quotes remarkable parallels to t h e fourth Gospel from M a n d a i c t e x t s . O n the possibility of a Messianic Logos-conception cf. G . H . D i x , J.T.S. x x v i . 1 sqq. Cf. H . Leisegang, P.W. xiii. 1061 sqq., and on the other h a n d Clemen, 259 sq. S a n d a y , op. cit. p. 189 sq., remarks well on the absence from John of the characteristic Philonic catchwords, on the i m p r o b a b i l i t y of its author h a v i n g studied P h i l o m i n u t e l y , and on the differences of their t h o u g h t . A convenient s u r v e y is g i v e n b y Bauer in his edition of the fourth Gospel (in Handbuch ), p p . 5 sqq. O n the apologetic importance of the idea cf. S t r a t h m a n n in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart , i. 414 ; E h r h a r d , Urchristentum, 144 sq. ; and p. 77, n. 1, a b o v e . Cf. now R a w l i n s o n , Doctrine, 1 5 5 sqq. O n cf. C . . H . W a l k e r , J.T.S. xxiii. 3 0 6 s q q . ; B u l t m a n n , A.R.W. x x i v . 143 ; Reitzenstein, Myst. , 334, and on the later weakening of the phrase's sense, ibid. 4 1 5 .
2 2 2 3 9

piety which we do not find in the Synoptists (which does not prove that it was foreign to the writers; they were not describing their own spiritual lives). Bousset has well contrasted it with Hellenistic piety, and in particular with the belief that the initiate in certain mysteries was identified with the god and was worshipped accordingly. The attainment of divinity b y mystery or magic is not in general the same thing as identification with a particular Saviour, certainly not a mystical identification throughout life with the existence and the saving acts of a Saviour. In Christianity we find, not (as a rule) the adoration of a newly baptised catechumen, but a permanent spiritual attitude.
1 2

Kyrios Christos*, p p . n o sqq. T h e evidence requires careful handling. I n general, it seems t h a t in a number of mysteries t h e initiate w a s supposed t o die, t o be reborn from the elements, and when reborn t o become divine (cf. S. E i t r e m in Symbolae Osloenses, iv. 39 sqq.). H e did not necessarily become t h e god of t h e m y s t e r y . L u c i u s , w h e n initiated in the rites of Isis, is worshipped as a Sun god (possibly because of the introduction of alien elements in t h e m y s t e r y ; Reitzenstein, Myst. , p. 228). H e has been purged of his mortality, reconstructed as a n i m m o r t a l being, filled w i t h divine power, a n d is worshipful. H e receives worship only a t this point, not afterwards ; it is t h e recognition b y t h e faithful of w h a t has been w r o u g h t in him. I n Mithraism a similar ceremony m a y h a v e existed, if, as I suggest, w e so interpret t h e ritual phrase ostenderunt cryfios, ' T h e y showed t h e cryphii,' initiates in the second grade (on t h e phrase cf. C u m o n t , Textes, i. 316). Of t h e C y b e l e - c u l t w e k n o w t h a t t h e archigallus, after undergoing t h e a n n u a l taurobolium (on w h i c h see p. 1 1 8 later) on behalf of the welfare of t h e E m p i r e , w a s adored as t h o u g h a god ; w e do not k n o w whether ordinary people w h o w e n t through t h e ceremony were treated in this w a y (Loisy, My stores, p. 1 1 9 ) . I t m a y b e remarked t h a t a stranger w h o a t t e n d e d a Pontifical H i g h Mass sung b y or before a Bishop in his o w n diocese m i g h t t h i n k t h a t the B i s h o p w a s treated as a god ; he receives t h e same reverence as t h e H o s t . F o r m a g i c cf. E i t r e m , I.e. 40, also a charm quoted b y H e i m , Incantamenta magica (Fleckeisens Jahrbucher Supplementband x i x . p. 552) : linguam eius (sc. uolturis) si in dextrum subgularem miseris et cum eo ambulaveris, adorabunt te omnes inimici tui. A parallel is the t e m p o r a r y d i v i n i t y of a B r a h m a n sacrificer (J. G . Frazer, Golden Bough , i. 380). Bousset, op. ext., p. 343, quotes as an instance t h e dream of the philosopher D a m a s cius (Life of Isidore, summarised b y Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 242, p . 345a B e k k e r ) . T h e philosopher, after visiting Hierapolis and descending safely into t h e chasm, t h e odours of w h i c h were t h o u g h t t o be fatal t o all s a v e t h e galli or sacred eunuchs of Cybele, dreamed t h a t he h a d become A t t i s , a n d t h a t t h e M o t h e r performed on h i m t h e rites k n o w n as t h e Hilaria, which signified deliverance from H a d e s . " m i g h t indeed be interpreted as a n A t t i s (the high priest bore t h e name) and dream initiations are k n o w n (Reitzenstein, Myst. , 2 1 1 ; a n d Sopatros, viii. n o sqq., W a l z ; C. Chirius F o r t u n a t u s , I. 1 4 , p. 9 1 . 23, H a l m ) , b u t t h e passage seems t o m e a n t h a t D a m a s c i u s d r e a m t t h a t he w a s A t t i s and w e n t through t h a t divine experience w h i c h w a s the p r o t o t y p e of t h e a c t u a l festival (cf. for a parallel C.R. 1925, 1 7 4 ) , a n d t o i m p l y t h a t t h e festival included a d r a m a t i c resurrection.
3 1 3 3

The Christian attitude appears in what St. Paul says of baptism : ' Y e are all sons of God b y faith in Christ Jesus, since all of you who were baptised into Christ put on C h r i s t ' (Gal. iii. 27). This is not really parallel to priestly donning of a divine mask, or to the dressing up of Lucius in twelve robes as the Sun in Apuleius. B y a common metaphor St. Paul says that the Christian is assuming the part of Christ. The new creation is in effect this substitution of a new personality for an old. So the full Christian is , not ; divine Spirit has taken the place of his human soul. Man puts on Christ, or (as we read in Acta Thomae, ch. 157) ' the power of the Wood ' ; he follows Jesus, now glorified, and stands in His place on earth in virtue of that glorification (John xiv. 13). The thought comes out in the liturgy ; fecisti nos dignos filiatione per baptismum $anctum? or again da nobis per huius aquae et uini mysterium eius diuinitatis esse consortes qui humanitatis nostrae fieri dignatus est particeps. Something of the sort may have been believed in Isiac ritual; in any case, it explains itself here out of Christian presuppositions. The Pauline phraseology is the expression of an intense personal faith. T o its author Baptism meant dying with Christ sacramentally ; and the notion of sacramental death is not foreign to paganism ; but to its author Christian life meant dying with Him every day. In Baptism life in Christ started, but it should grow continually. Bousset has indeed seen the influence of Hellenistic piety in this, as also in the Johannine' that every one who sees the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life' (John vi. 40), and ' If He is made manifest we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He i s ' (1 John iii. 2). W i t h these he
1 2 4

Here the idea is used as the basis for a moral inference, the indifference of the higher life t o social distinctions (very akin to a Stoic idea, cf. L i e c h t e n han, p. 1 1 of the work mentioned p. 147, n. 2 later). O n the idea of the adoption of Christians b y God cf. von H a r n a c k , Terminologie der Wiedergeburt, p. 103. Cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , 70 sqq. O n the new m a n of Col. iii cf. ibid. 267 sqq. (useful material, t h o u g h I d o u b t the supposition of a n Iranian source). In the Gregorian l i t u r g y quoted b y W e t t e r , i. 87, cf. W e t t e r , 82 sqq. and T a t i a n , Oratio, 7, p. 7, 9 : '\ & . , \ 2> . Cf . 7 later.
8 2 3 t 4

compares the mystery-deification, which is mentioned b y Apuleius as following on a vision of the deity (but may well have been thought of as preceding that vision ) , and the Hermetic saying ' Thou hast made us, while still in the body, divine b y the sight of thyself / B u t again there is a difference. T h e first Johannine passage does not postulate an immediate transformation : the fruit of vision is in eternal life. The second also looks to the Parousia or Second Coming. T h e closest parallel to the Hermetic text in the New Testament is afforded b y 2 Cor. iii. 18, ' A l l of us, seeing the Lord's glory as in a mirror with unveiled forehead, are transformed into His likeness from glory into glory (that is, from the glory of one condition to the glory of another, cf. 1 Cor. x v . 40 sq.) as b y the Spirit of the Lord.' Reitzenstein has shown how near this is to Hermetic phraseology and thought. In both we have the idea of a transformation which is the substitution of a divine personality for human in the believer. T h e difference lies in the fact that the Christian is playing the part of a historic and near Jesus, not of a vague divine being. Now the desirability of becoming like God is a Platonic notion, which is later commonplace : the term for being transformed () is not clearly a term with unquestioned mystery-connotations. Philo lays emphasis on vision as the activity or the end of the contemplative life. We have remarked on the close affinity of the Fourth
x 2 3 4 5

E i t r e m , op. cit., p . 54. I t is qua d i v i n e t h a t he sees t h e gods of t h e upper a n d of t h e lower world. I n t h e Greek original of t h e p r a y e r closing t h e Asclepius : # [ T I 4v \\ ovras 4[]as ry (Myst. , 286) ; cf. C.H. i. 26 4 ayadbv T4\OS TOTS yvoociv 4 ; xiii. 10 4\* rfj yev&ei (MSS. ; Reitzenstein emends r i g h t l y ) ; a n d Bousset, 164 sqq. C h r i s t i a n i t y in general a v o i d s such l a n g u a g e a s ; etioj-aaev s t a n d s in R o m . viii. 30, where a Hellenistic m y s t i c w o u l d h a v e used some v e r b like 44* (Reitzenstein, Myst 259 sq.) S u c h belief is in E g y p t sometimes associated w i t h d e v o t i o n t o H e r m e s , as, for instance, in a p r a y e r in a m a g i c a l p a p y r u s , ' C o m e t o me, lord Hermes, as babes come into t h e w o m b s of w o m e n ' ; a n d a g a i n in another, ' T h o u a r t I a n d I a m t h o u ; t h y n a m e is mine a n d m y n a m e is thine ; for I a m t h y i m a g e ' (Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p p . 20 sq.). T h i s is, in a sense, personal d e v o t i o n , b u t a t t h e same t i m e Hermes is identified w i t h M i n d . M a t e r i a l in R e i t z e n s t e i n , Myst. , 1 5 8 sq. ; , 262 sqq., 307 sq., 357 sqq.; Studien, 3 3 ; L i e t z m a n n , ad loc.; on also m y Sallustius, xl, a n d P l o t i n . Enn. i. 2, 3. T h e mirror simile occurs also in t h e different sense of t h e L o r d being our mirror (Wetter, Altchristliche Liturgien, i. i n ) . * Bousset, op. cit., p . 1 6 7 .
2 3 3 3 4 2 3

Gospel to Philonic thought earlier; here also it seems to show a development of Hellenising Judaism. In 2 Cor. we m a y perhaps see the influence of popular Hellenistic mysticism; certainly the Pauline terminology seems indebted to a prior u s e ; it m a y be recalled that there are indications in the Hellenistic age of what we should call mental prayer or meditation. A t the same time the attitude in question is one which could probably, and m a y in fact, have arisen spontaneously. 8. The Father.Christian teaching about God the Father is the heir of Judaism as spiritualised b y the Prophets. Jahweh had passed from tribal god to universal God of justice. In the Hellenistic world this idea could not but find a ready welcome. E v e n in Homer Zeus is the god of all mankind, Greeks, Trojans, and Ethiopians alike : such he remained later, and the growth of universalism must have strengthened this conception. The hymn of Cleanthes, praising him as Father, will be familiar to many readers :
1 2

Most glorious of immortals, many-named, Almighty Zeus, creation's primal lord, Whose lawful government is over all, Hail!for we mortals unto thee may speak. We are thine offspring ; we alone of all things That live and move on earth can copy God. Thee therefore I will praise, thy power will sing.

Of the difficulties which were inevitable in the reconciliation of these beliefs in a system something has been said (p. 98) ; for further consideration of them the reader will turn to Dr. K i r k ' s paper in this volume.
S o m e t h i n g of this sort w a s directed t o w a r d s the E g y p t i a n deities. Cf., for instance, A p u l . Met. xi. 25, diuinos tuos uultus numenque sanctissimum intra pectoris mei secreta conditum perpetuo custodiens imaginabor, and F . C u m o n t , Monuments de la Fondation Piot, x x v . (note t h e occurrence of silent m y s t i c prayer before an i m a g e a t R o m e as recorded of Scipio in t h e t e m p l e of Juppiter Capitolinus). Cf. D r . Rawlinson's essay. There are, of course, limitations on t h e Jewish side. I n the Small Talmud treatise on Proselytes, edited and translated b y G . Polster, 0 2 ii. 3, w e read a n address t o be m a d e t o t h e proselyte after b a p t i s m : ' F o r Israel's sake alone w a s the world created. I t is o n l y the Israelites w h o are called children of G o d . I t is o n l y the Israelites w h o m G o d loves.' Y e t t h e proselyte has in effect become a n I s r a e l i t e ; religious u n i t y e v e n here transcends racial (cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , 193 sqq.). I n a n y case, most post-Christian Judaism shows a narrower t e n d e n c y . I q u o t e D r . Cook's rendering, Zeus, ii. 8 5 5 , b y his kind permission.
2 3 3 1

III
THE PRACTICE OF CHRISTIANITY

i . General considerations.The little band of disciples at Jerusalem constituted a religious society. T o such a society some rite of entrance, some rite of communal life were necessary. T h e religion of this society spread in a world which contained many other societies with corresponding rites and many rites not belonging t o societies. Were the Christian rites assimilated to these others ? Were they re-interpreted in their sense ? N o t deliberately, we may s a y ; the psychological probabilities against such a supposition are overwhelming. B u t was there an imperceptible transformation ? Our inquiry is not an easy one. Man's power of addressing the supernatural in language does not admit of an infinite variety of forms, and his capacity of relationship with the supernatural b y acts admits of even fewertouching, washing, breathing on, eating together, sacrificing ; these therefore we find very widely distributed. Further, from the earliest days the rites of the new community must have been central in its life. It is now felt b y many that to suppose that physical acts have direct consequences in the spiritual world savours of magic and is rather disreputable. This attitude finds something kindred in the attacks of the prophets on sacrifice (Amos v. 21, 25 ; Hosea v i . 6 ; Isaiah i. 1 1 sqq. \ Micah v i . ; Jerem. vii. 22) ; they felt the absence of ethical basis in contemporary religion. It does not, however, appear in early Christianity; and it was rare in the world around. Cultus was central
1 2

Cf. the last c h a p t e r of W . R . H a l l i d a y , The Pagan Background. T h e C y n i c Diogenes protested against this a t t i t u d e t o t h e mysteries (Diog. Laert. v i . 39) : so later D e m o n a x and the earlier Hermetic m y s t i cism. Otherwise t h e o n l y striking exception t o w h a t is said is the polemic of some against a n i m a l sacrifice ; there are other sporadic criticisms, like O v i d , Fasti, I I . 4 5 , a nimium faciles qui tristia crimina caedis jfluminea tolli posse putatis aqua (probably a c o m m o n p l a c e of popular philosophy and in origin C y n i c ) . PhUo has some interesting polemic against Jews w h o wished t o spiritualise a w a y t h e observances of t h e law, De migratione Abraham, 89 sqq., discussed b y Reitzenstein, Myst. , 320. H a t c h , Influence, 1 9 sq., has remarked t h a t ancient philosophic ideas of m a t t e r and spirit as v a r y i n g forms of a single substance conditioned their outlook in these respects otherwise t h a n ours is conditioned b y our presuppositions.
2 9

in b o t h ; in nothing is Christianity more like its background. W e do not find as much about it in the N e w Testament as w e could e x p e c t ; b u t h o w dangerous negative conclusions would be appears from the fact that St. Paul's clear exposition of his Eucharistic teaching, which he must have given in all his missions, is on record only because i t was necessary t o remind the Corinthians of it and thereby t o warn them against malpractices. H i s theological explanation of Baptism is given in Romans as something on which he can build an ethical inference. H i s Epistles are concerned with incidental difficulties, not with regular and unquestioned practice. The result is that we are very much in the dark about the practice ; much we can only restore conjecturally from later liturgies, and this is a hazardous undertaking. A t the same time, we are ill-informed also about the practice of the pagan mysteries. F o r Mithraism we are in a position scarcely more favourable than would be some later student of present-day Christianity who only knew some of the Jewish religious literature which lies behind it, the groundplans and structure of some churches stripped or nearly so of their ornaments, some altars, carvings, and stained glass, a few pages from baptismal registers, and some numbers of the Rationalist Press Annual. Moreover, the great expansion of these mysteries seems t o have occurred in the second century of our era. Though their terminology and usage w a s no doubt already for the most part fixed, they also could develop, and they were not unwilling t o absorb alien elements. Much of what w e know of the mysteries relates t o the third and fourth centuries, and at that time some of them were probably assimilated of set purpose t o Christianity in the hope of countering its attractions ; this assimilation is very obvious as part of Julian's reactionary movement in the years 362 and 363 ; but it seems t o have been practised earlier b y Maximums Daia and possibly also b y Galerius. The greatest caution must therefore be exercised in determining what was the precise character of any particular mystery which might be supposed t o have influenced
1
1

A point well m a d e b y O . Casel, Jahrbuch fur Liturgiewissenschafi,

iii. 1

sqq.

Christianity in the first c e n t u r y ; we need in effect t o know its character a t the point of contact, since i t is unsafe t o assume that there would be complete uniformity in any such cult wherever practised (we know that later this was certainly not so with Mithraism, which varied i n details from East to W e s t ) . Further, we require some means of estimating not merely in what cities a particular mystery was observed, but what the local intensity was, whether it was for instance impossible for any man in those parts t o be unaware of its more characteristic features, or a t a n y rate of its existence. T o all these questions there cannot be complete and satisfactory answers. Certain things w e have learnt: t h e general distribution of Mithraism, both chronologically and geographically (the latter is exhibited in Cumont's m a p ) ; and some modes of thought common t o various mysteries of the Empire. B u t the obscurity of much that we should like t o know is undeniable, and i t must not be forgotten that, as Reitzenstein h a s reminded us, rites and their meanings cannot b e analysed like a mineral, and that, a s the same scholar has said, ' A l l our indications of origins have only in a certain degree a claim to general v a l i d i t y / 2. Baptism.The rite of baptism was clearly received b y Gentile Christianity from Jewish Christianity. S t . John Baptist had baptised all his penitents, and the precedent then set received a special sanction from his baptism of Jesus. I t must be remarked that, whatever significance we (or the early Christians) attach to that event, there can be little doubt that it is a historical fact, that it is something which meant very much t o Jesus Himself, and that it w a s treated as in some sense the beginning of the Gospel. This is enough in itself t o account for the genesis of a baptismal ritual for all admitted converts. Johannine baptism had been more than the Jewish baptism of proselytes; i t had been a rite endowed with the objective remission of sin, and probably with the eschatological significance of sealing the
1 2 3

W . R . H a l l i d a y , Folklore, 1924, p . 381 ; cf. C u m o n t , Mystires de Mithra , p p . 1 8 sqq., on t h e various forms w h i c h t h e g o d t o o k i n A s i a Minor.
3

* Litteris, i. 1 5 9 .
L o i s y , My stires, p . 2 7 7 , denies t h e historicity of t h e S y n o p t i c s t o r y ; t o d o s o i s a g r e a t strain o n one's f a c u l t y of belief, a s is also t o a c c e p t B u l t m a n n ' s v i e w of i t s origin, A.R.W. x x i v . 104. Cf. I g n a t . Eph. 1 8 . 2 : ts iycyvriOrj \ 4 .
8

elect who should be members of the Kingdom. T h a t Jesus commanded the use of the rite cannot be proved ; the texts in question are secondary in the Synoptic tradition. For the origin of the custom it is therefore not necessary to look outside Judaea. Nevertheless, since it has been maintained b y many serious students that we must look to Hellenistic mysteries, it is necessary to examine the evidence. Lustral washings are a natural part of public worship. The basis of most worship consists of practical conceptions ; the act which cleanses y o u of material uncleanness will under the right conditions free y o u also from moral or religious pollution. ' I rid myself of m y fleas and of m y sins/ said in modern times the Greek peasant of Tenos when he leapt over a bonfire on St. John Baptist's D a y . A more sophisticated religion reads more into these acts. In E g y p t the king was besprinkled before ceremonial. In the beginning this is lustral; then the water comes to be regarded as positively health-bringing and not merely as a kind of sacred disinfectant. The dead again are besprinkled, to restore the moisture of life to their shrivelled frames; the positive qualities of water rise further when it is thought to be an effluence of Osiris. The washing of the initiates at Eleusis before initiation was no doubt thought to remove their guilt. Tertullian, if we accept a common emendation, ascribes to a washing at games held there the purpose of attaining rebirth and im2 3 4

Cf. Reitzenstein, Iran. Erlos. p . 1 2 4 . I t should not be forgotten t h a t if we assume t h a t t h e y spring from the rite w e do not accuse the writers of a n y i n s i n c e r i t y ; t o their generation it would be inevitable t o suppose such a n institution whether it had in fact happened or not. T h i s admission should not disturb the orthodox. If the c o m m u n i t y was guided b y t h e Spirit, t h e y were doing t h e will of the Founder. W h a t modern s t u d y does shake is t h e conception of Christianity as a piece of clockwork w o u n d u p once and for all and set t o run. J. C . L a w s o n , Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion, p. 37 ; cf Hesiod, Works and Days, 740 : * Idh . . . avivros. Cf. H . B o n n e t , 0 2 , i. 103 sqq. His account of these rites is based on A . M . B l a c k m a n ' s thorough studies, b u t he rejects t h e supposition of regeneration. ( B l a c k m a n holds t h a t the Sun's daily b a t h is t h e protot y p e of t h e K i n g ' s ' b a p t i s m ' : n o w t h e E g y p t i a n s held t h a t t h e S u n is born a n e w e v e r y morning; hence rebirth of the K i n g is implied. T h i s is a t t r a c t i v e , b u t remains a n hypothesis.) F o r t h e b a t h i n g of t h e dead elsewhere cf. Schrader, Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde , i. 3 5 .
2 8 4 1

punity for acts of perjury. It is Tertullian who supplies the motive, and Tertullian adopts Justin Martyr's theory that the Devil ingeniously counterfeited in advance Christian ritual. Moreover the emendation is probably w r o n g : Tertullian is probably speaking of the festival called Pelusia and of Apolline games at Rome or elsewhere, and it is very unlikely that any such esoteric significance was attached to washings in them. A rebirth probably was believed to take place at Eleusis not in this bathing, but in the initiation proper. The bath was only one of the purifications required ; the sacrifice of a pig was another. In the same passage Tertullian says ' People are initiated b y a bath in the rites also of a certain Isis and of Mithras.' On the first point we know from Apuleius that the initiate was bathed, but it appears that this was a preliminary, as at Eleusis, not the main rite; and it is fair to support this with the analogy of the Egyptian lustral washings just mentioned and of the washings which formed part of the periods of ritual purity which Isis exacted of her worshippers in Roman times. Rebirth properly follows a mystic death, and that is mentioned later b y Apuleius. On the second point we know no m o r e ; Tertullian is fairly well informed on Mithraism; it is conjectured that he may have been an adherent of that faith before his conversion, and we need not doubt this statement. There is, however, no reason to suppose that it was anything other than a preliminary, as at Eleusis, and as also in the rites of the Bacchanalia as described b y L i v y . A similar washing of initiates seems to have been performed b y the priestess of the Corybants at E r y t h r a e ; we know no more of it than of that of the followers of the Thracian goddess Cotytto, themselves known as Baptai or ' dippers,' or of that which may have
1 2 3 4 5 6

Cf. m y note in J.T.S. x x v i i i . 289 sq. Cf. H . G . Pringsheim, Archdologische Beitrdge zur Geschichte des eleusinischen Kultus, p p . 20 sqq. Met. xi. 23 ; T i b u l l . i. 3, 25 on repeated washings ; also P l u t a r c h , De superstitione, 3, p. 166 A . x x x i x . 9. 4 ; cf. J . L e i p o l d t , 2 , i. 46 sq. Taf. I I . for a possible representation of the ceremony in D i o n y s i a c worship. J. Poerner, Dissertationes philologicae Halenses, X X I I . ii. 308.. J. H u b a u x , Musie Beige, x x v i i . (1923) 5 sqq., gives the evidence ; his idea t h a t the Basilica, discussed p. 6 5 earlier, belonged to C o t y t t o is h a r d l y possible, cf. C.R. 1924, i o 7 . A n underground b a p t i s m a l t a n k of
2 3 4 5 6 5

happened in the Sanctuary of Men Askaenos near Antioch in Pisidia, or of the annual bathing in the festival Maioumas at Antioch in Syria, which can hardly have been sacramental in nature. In all these cases the washing or baptism is something preliminary, as it is again in a recipe in the great magical papyrus at Paris. ' Leap into the river with your clothes o n ; after dipping yourself in it (), return, change your clothes, and go away without turning back.' The rite is called an initiation, telete ; but the word is of wide sense, and we should do well to recall its frequent use in magic of a ceremony which makes an object, as for instance a gem or a plant, suitable for use in working a charm. In this w a y y o u put yourself in the right condition for procuring an oracle from a daemon. Three other possible baptisms are relegated t o a footnote. In any case, the fundamental problem of a rite lies in its meaning and in the development of its meaning or meanings. Christian baptism meant initially no doubt entrance into the community, partnership in its hopes hereafter,
1 2 3 4 5

t h e fourth c e n t u r y A . D . found near the V i a S a l a r i a in R o m e (R. Paribeni, Notizie degli Scavi, 1923, 380 sqq.) m a y b e connected w i t h C o t y t t o (ibid. p p . 396 sq.) ; I find it hard t o believe. J. P . Kirsch, Jahrb. f. Lit. v . 245. no. 288, regards it as a nymphaeum (in effect not religious). J. A . S c o t t , Classical Journal, x v i . (1920), 53, notes t h a t fiarrreiv can m e a n ' sprinkle ' as well as ' dip.' Cf. C h . P i c a r d , iphise et Claros, p . 307, for a discussion of W . M . R a m s a y ' s hypothesis t o this effect (published Ann. Br. Sch. Athens, xviii. 39 sqq.). F . C u m o n t , Syria, v . 354 sqq. P. Par. 43 (for t h e passage cf. S. E i t r e m , Les Papyrus magiques de Paris, p p . 6 sqq.) ; for t h e use of telete noted cf. S. E i t r e m , Lina Lauckar, in Festschrift A. Kjaer (Oslo, 1924). A L y d i a n inscription ( K e i l - V o n Premerstein, Zweite Reisebericht, in Denkschr. Ak. Wien, L I V . ii.), no. 183, mentions ol . . . \ Myvbs Tlerpaeirov. T h e s e m a y be ' the worshippers of . . . w h o b a t h e t h e m s e l v e s ' (Graillot, Le culte de Cybile, p p . 1 7 7 sq., gives indication of a possible lustral b a p t i s m in t h e rites of Cybele). I t m a y also b e ' those w h o w a s h the images of these deities,' and thus refer t o the common rite of lavatio (Graillot, p p . 136 sqq. ; perhaps in essence a raincharm ; cf. E . Minns, Scythians and Greeks, p. 476, for one of m a n y parallels). O n a b a p t i s m possibly implied b y Corp. Herm. I V . cf. p. 6 6 a b o v e . Reitzenstein, Z.N.W. 1 9 1 2 , 9, interprets a letter of Apollonius t o his father Ptolemaeus as referring t o a b a p t i s m in connexion w i t h S a r a p i s ; b u t this v i e w seems t o m e overthrown b y U . Wilcken's arguments (Urkunden der Ptolemaerzeit,i.^i sqq.), and is practically w i t h d r a w n b y its author (Myst. , 297). I n this w a y it becomes parallel t o Greek initiations (like those a t Eleusis) which are t h e pledge of happiness in t h e n e x t world.
1 2 3 4 3 5

and the remission of sins. When Gentile converts were received, it m a y have taken away their uncleanness (as did the Jewish baptism of proselytes), and rendered possible their table-fellowship with Jewish Christians. It was further baptism in the Name of Jesus. W e are moving in the world of conjecture for everything pre-Pauline, b u t it is clear that baptism meant the beginning of a new life, and it was some time before a final mode of expressing this was reached. Writing to the Christian community at Rome, which had then received no direct influence from him, the Apostle says (Rom. vi. 3 ) , ' D o y o u not know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death ? Therefore we are buried with H i m b y baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised up from the dead b y the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.' It has been inferred from the words Do you not know that this view of baptism was current at Rome already, independently of Pauline teaching. The inference is however insecure, since the phrase need not be more than a trick of style. This suffering in sympathy with a Redeemer has an analogy in the sympathetic character of some mystery rituals, though in them the sympathy is not of the initiate at the moment of initiation, but of the community of the faithful at a seasonal festival. It is not necessarily connected, and St. Paul does not expressly connect it, with a mystic rebirth.
1 2 3 4 5

Belief in t h e m a g i c a l efficacy of a n a m e is not less Jewish t h a n Hellenistic ; cf. M a r k ix. 38 ; L u k e ix. 49. See a b o v e all v o n H a r n a c k , Terminologie der Wiedergeburt, (Texte und Untersuchungen, xlii. 3, 97 sqq.). S o Heitmiiller, Z.N.W. 1 9 1 2 , 335, followed b y Weiss, Dibelius, and Bousset. C e r t a i n l y it is t o b e remembered t h a t t) ayv. states a premiss, from w h i c h t h e conclusion is d i a w n ; this supports Heitmiiller. F o r the trick of s t y l e , if such it be, cf. Corp. Herm. x . 20, Spas ; xiii. 14, ayvoets ; and nonne uides in L u c r e t i u s repeatedly. A possible indication of t h e belief t h a t b a p t i s m w a s regarded as a sort of d e a t h in t h e original c o m m u n i t y is found b y Reitzenstein, Z.N.W. 1 9 1 2 , 1 1 , in M a r k x. 35. He argues t h a t t h e p a r a d o x i c a l conception of d e a t h as a b a p t i s m presupposes t h e k n o w n conception of b a p t i s m as a d e a t h . P p . 47 sq. a b o v e ; t h e o n l y e x a c t s y m p a t h y of an i n d i v i d u a l there is t h a t of those w h o on t h e dies sanguinis m u t i l a t e d themselves like A t t i s . T h i s idea of d e a t h becomes i m p o r t a n t a g a i n in t h e ceremonial of monastic profession, on which cf. Casel, Jahrb. v . 7 sqq.
2 3 4 6

His idea is fairly clear. Baptism brings us into an intimate relation with Christ's death, the basis of the forgiveness of sin. Therefore we die with Him. In the same w a y life in Him is as a ' new creation ' (2 Cor. v . 17 ; Gal. v i . 15). This is not rebirth but resurrection : ' the baptised convert is not thought of as a child, but as one miraculously changed into a new and full-grown e s t a t e . ' From this to the notion of rebirth as a little child was an easy step, and one that can in part be explained, as Harnack suggests, from the fact that the idea of rebirth gave expression t o belief in the Fatherhood of God. Y e t Hellenistic influence is perhaps rightly suspected. A convert knowing the mysteries would hardly see a difference between the t w o views. T h a t St. Paul does not use the idea of rebirth, though thinking of baptism as a death, is a striking illustration of his unfamiliarity with the mysteries. When we come to 1 Pet. ii. 2, ' as newborn babes desire the harmless milk of the w o r d / we are perhaps on Hellenistic ground, though certain Gospel sayings (Matt, xviii. 3 ; xi. 25), and again Isaiah xxviii. 9, would also account for the phrase ; when St. Paul speaks of the Corinthians as children in Christ it is in so far as they are immature and imperfect Christians. In T i t . in. 5, ' H e saved us through a bath of rebirth and renewing b y the Holy Spirit/ and in John iii. 5, ' Unless a man is born of water and the Spirit he cannot
1 2 3 4

F . C . B u r k i t t , Christian Beginnings, p . 109. C o m p a r e (p. 122 below) ; t h a t is a n e w C o v e n a n t superseding t h e old C o v e n a n t . I c a n n o t in -is, w h i c h is something present and a c t u a l , see an allusion t o t h e Iranian m y t h of a re-creation a t the last d a y . R a b b i n i c writers a p p l y t h e term ' n e w c r e a t i o n ' t o men healed of their sins or delivered from their distress w i t h o u t i m p l y i n g moral regeneration (StrackBillerbeck, I I . 421 sqq.). L o i s y has well remarked t h a t t h e metaphor is p a r t i c u l a r l y easily applied t o b a p t i s m b y immersion as it w a s practised. Cf. v o n H a r n a c k , Texte und Untersuchungen, X L I I . iii. 98 sq., and t h e comparison of our i n a b i l i t y t o praise G o d w i t h the inarticulate utterances of n e w l y born b a b e s in Corp. Herm. x v i i i . 1 2 , p p . 359 sq. O n the un-Pauline v i e w cf. R . Perdelwitz, Die Mysterienreligionen und das Problem des I. Petrusbriefes (R.G. V. V. X I . iii.), 37 sqq. ; Reitzenstein, Myst. , 329 sq.; m y Sallustius, l v . I regard unfamiliarity w i t h t h e idea as a more probable e x p l a n a t i o n of its absence from S t . P a u l t h a n deliberate a v o i d a n c e of a p a g a n t h o u g h t . R a b b i n i c a l writers of t h e second and third centuries A . D . speak of proselytes as being like n e w b o r n b a b e s (Strack-Billerbeck, I I . 423). O n cf. R a w l i n s o n , Doctrine, 1448 ; Philo, De vita Moysis, I I . 11 sq. 59-65 (II. p p . 143 sq. M a n g e y ) , uses b o t h and of t h e world's new life after t h e Flood.
2 3 3 4

enter into the Kingdom of G o d / the view later dominant has taken shape. W e must ask where the suggestion of this transformation could arise. A ritual pretence of death, followed b y a ritual pretence of resurrection, is of very wide distribution as a puberty rite of initiation among primitive tribes. It is not surprising to find it in the mysteries which represent the spiritualisation of elementary types of belief. T h e Orphics probably believed in rebirth b y a supposed boiling in milk ; a cauldron of apotheosis is mentipned in the cult of Leucothea, whether the Greek goddess or some Syrian deity Hellenised under the name ; a feigned death is mentioned in Mithraism, and the seven grades of initiation correspond to the soul's passage through the seven spheres to the body, that is, to birth ; a feigned death formed the central act in initiation in the mysteries of Isis ; rebirth in the taurobolium of Cybele will be discussed later; rebirth at Eleusis was probably indicated b y a symbolic act ; kindred practices are found in Graeco-Egyptian magic under the Empire. In this period rebirth is elaborated b y the doctrine of the reconstitution of the new self of the initiate out of the elements. Rebirth as a little child is attested b y Sallustius, who says of the rites of Cybele, ' after this (the dies sanguinis) w e are fed on milk as though being reborn ; that is followed b y rejoicings and garlands and as it were a new ascent to the gods ' ; here the rites seem to be
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

A . B . C o o k , Zeus, i. 676. Ibid. p . 420 ; C u m o n t , Musie du cinquantenaire*, 166, N o . 1 4 1 . B u t B . Haussouillier a n d H . I n g h o l t , Syria, v . 340 sq., prefer t h e older interpretation of iv \4 ' al [!]2 , the phrase in a n e p i t a p h in t h e H a u r a n on w h i c h t h e idea is based, as ' t h e dead m a n w h o after cremation w a s buried in t h e sacred vessel,' perhaps r i g h t l y . R e i t zenstein n o w explains i t (Z.N.W. 1927, 6 i ) of a b a p t i s m a l bassin i n a stream. J.H.S. 1 9 2 5 , 9 9 , where P o r p h y r y , De antro nympharum, v i . is misunderstood ; as Professor C u m o n t k i n d l y pointed out t o me, / refers t o t h e descent of t h e soul i n t o t h e b o d y , footiov t o its return t o its h e a v e n l y abode. A p u l . Met. x i . 2 1 , ipsam traditionem ad instar uoluntariae celebrari mortis. A . K o r t e , A.R.W. x v i i i . (1915), 116 sqq., b y c o n t a c t w i t h a representation of t h e pudendum of D e m e t e r in a cista. S. E i t r e m in Symbolae Osloenses, iv. 39 sqq. Concerning the gods and the universe, c h . i y . p p . 8, 24 sqq., in m y edition. F o r a n illustration of t h e rebirth idea applied t o a stone used in m a g i c cf. J.H.S. 1925, 99 .
2 3 8 4 6 6 7 e

communal celebrations in which all the faithful participated every year rather than the ceremonial of individual initiation. Rebirth then w a s common in ritual, and it was known in myth, as the story of Medea's cauldron shows. T h a t it should find a place in Christianity was almost inevitable; we shall do well t o avoid the supposition that one particular rite, the tauroboliutn, was of paramount importance in detennining its development. T h e recipient of this descended into a trench and w a s there drenched in the blood of a bull slaughtered over him. Originally, no doubt, a ritual performed b y individuals for their own welfare, or perhaps rather b y the chief priest for the community of faithful, it appears later also as performed b y the archigallus or chief servant of Cybele at Rome annually with special intention for the Emperor's welfare; this celebration is probably t o be connected with the official patronage which the cult received from and after Claudius. A n analogous ceremonial was performed with a ram, and called criobolium. W e first hear of this rite in the second century of our era ; our inscriptional records tell then of its use on behalf of the Empire, later also of its private use, and we learn from them that it could be repeated after twenty years. It would be unsafe to conclude that it was till then not introduced into the Graeco-Roman world ; private devotees m a y not have felt it necessary t o record the a c t . Its meaning is almost as obscure as the question of its date. Its name implies some sort of lassoing of a bull, afterwards s l a u g h t e r e d ; the captor then presumably bathed in its blood, and it seems a fair conjecture that his object was to secure for himself the vital force of the bull, which is commonly regarded as a vehicle of divine power, while offering t o the goddess the uires or testicles as a sacrifice
1 2 3

Cf. Reitzenstein, Myst*, 45 sq. S o L o i s y argues, My stores, . 1 1 6 . Cf. t h e c o m m e m o r a t i v e inscriptions i n w h i c h Mithraists record their e l e v a t i o n t o various grades of i n i t i a t i o n ; these also c o m e from t h e m i d d l e or later p a r t of t h e fourth c e n t u r y A . D . (Cumont, Textes et monuments, ii. 94 sq.), t h a t is, from a t i m e w h e n a p a g a n d e v o t e e w a s ' i n o p p o s i t i o n ' a n d self-conscious. S o C u m o n t , Religions orientates, p p . 101 sqq.; for t h e w i d e distribution of such h u n t s , s o m e t h i n g sacral, cf. B . L a u m , Das Eisengeld der Spartaner ( B r a u n s b e r g : 1925). R e i t z e n s t e i n , Myst. ,45, sees i n t h e rite t h e influence of t h e old i d e a t h a t blood poured o v e r a g r a v e g i v e s n e w life t o t h e d e a d .
1 8 9

of substitution. The only statements as to its object which we find are late in the fourth century of our era. One recipient of that time states that he is ' reborn for ever b y the taurobolium.' W h a t we are to make of this is uncertain. Is it the expression in a conflict of religions of the old basic idea of the rite, as always held but not directly expressed earlier ? Does it ' represent rather the enthusiastic hopes of the devotee than any d o g m a ' ? Is it again forcibly contrasted with Christian baptism ? In any case it is not an ordinary initiation, and in the dated cases does not occur during the March celebrations (that is, the commemoration of the myth and the Initium or initiation which followed immediately) ; it is a heilige Handlung, an act of devotion influencing heaven, and applicable, like sacrifice, of the character of which it partakes, to the needs of others. It is possible, but not definitely attested, that a criobolium was performed on behalf of the initiates b y the Archigallus. In view of these considerations, and of the uncertainty whether Christianity in its first fifty years encountered the rite, we can hardly allow it much importance in this connection. Another aspect of the Pauline conception of baptism, that expressed in Gal. iii. 27, ' Y o u are all sons of God b y faith in Christ Jesus, since all of you who were baptised into Christ put on Christ,' has been considered earlier (p. 106). That baptism is also thought of as conferring the Spirit is a natural consequence of those beliefs concerning the Spirit which we have considered earlier (p. 102). The application to baptism of terms strictly appropriate to pagan initiation, photismos illumination, sphragis sealing,
1 2 3 4

Taurobolio criobolioque in aeternum renatus (376 A . D . , H . H e p d i n g , Attis, 89, no. 37). T h e earlier belief limited t h e efficacy of t h e rite t o t w e n t y years, a t y p i c a l period (cf. Moore's paper cited in the n e x t note, and the fourteenth-century G e r m a n s t o r y of the m a n whose dead wife w a s restored t o life for t w e n t y years b y his sacrificing t w e n t y years of his own l i f e ; Fr. Pfister in Volkerkunde, 1927, p . 22). F o r the idea of repetition cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , 1 7 9 . Graillot, Le culte de Cybhle, 543 sq., sees t h e influence of Christianity in this change. S o C . H . Moore, Classical Philology, x i x . 363 sqq., and W . R . H a l l i d a y , Background, p. 308. S o H . Graillot, op. cit., p. 1 7 1 . His t r e a t m e n t of the rite (pp. 1 5 3 sqq.) is full and useful. * Graillot, p. 178 ; t h e a n a l o g y of * b a p t i s m for the d e a d ' is f a l s e ; cf. p . 136 later.
3 2 8

mysterion, telete, and the like, is later and belongs to a time when Christianity moved more widely in the Hellenistic world, and when the proportion of Jews among its guiding spirits was lower and the proportion of Hellenistic converts knowing other mysteries was higher. This means that the new terminology was used when the essential concept of the rite had substantially taken shape. In that concept we have seen a possibility oi; Hellenistic influence; but only as effecting a slight transformation in what was determined b y an internal evolution. 3. EucharistOn the eve of the Crucifixion Jesus took bread, blessed, and said ' This is m y Body,' and took a cup and said ' This is m y Blood of the Testament/ or ' This is the Testament in m y Blood.' That is the common basis of the Synoptic and Pauline stories, which give us two independent versions of the same tradition. Loisy's assumption that Jesus said only, what the Synoptists give also, ' I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine till I drink it new with you in the Kingdom ' and that This is my Body, This is my Blood are added to the original Synoptic tradition from St. Paul can hardly be correct. In the first place, such an interpolation of Mark would be very peculiar ; he and the other Synoptic strain represent a remarkably careful attempt to reproduce a record of the past, rather than an adaptation thereof to present needs and experience. In the second placeand this m a y fairly be thought decisive any one interpolating from St. Paul would have at the same time added the words ' D o this in remembrance of me,' which we find only as a later incorporation in Luke.
1 2 3

H a t c h , Influences, p p . 295 sq. robs & r a | tpwrwQsvras in Hebr. v i . 4, 45, . 32, seem t o be used in a more general sense. B u t it is not clear t h a t t h e use comes from mysteries, as Clemen, p p . 333 sq., thinks ; it m a y come rather from m y s t i c i s m , a n d w a s p r o b a b l y commonplace. Moreover, t h e metaphorical use of ' illumination ' occurs in t h e S e p t u a g i n t (Harnack, op. ext., I 2 7 ) . T h i s has been established b y H . L i e t z m a n n , Messe und Herrenmahl, p . 2 1 8 . (I do not wish t o d e n y t h a t t h e L u c a n account m a y be a third ; cf. . N . B a t e , J.T.S., x x v i i i . 362 sqq.). Feeling as I do in i m p o r t a n t points b o u n d t o a d o p t conclusions other t h a n those expressed in this striking book, I a m t h e more anxious t o express m y deep sense of indebtedness t o its author. L o i s y is supported b y G . P . W e t t e r , Altchristliche Liturgien, i. 1 4 7 . Cf. against t h e idea of a n aetiological i n v e n t i o n of This is my Body, L i e t z m a n n , 252, and in general t h e wise r e m a r k s of F . C . B u r k i t t , Trans. Third Congr. Hist. Rel., I I . p . 327.
2 2 8

That Jesus then said ' D o t h i s ' is an assumption which our evidence does not support. Loisy, Klostermann, and Wetter all hold that the Synoptic account would in itself clearly imply the repetition of the rite. The emphasis on the eve was on what was then done. Jesus, b y His symbolic presentation of the Sacrifice, constrained the disciples to willing acceptance of His death. T h e y now entered the new Covenant. W h a t should be done thereafter was not at the moment the point of interest. Certainly it was conveyed to the early community that they were intended to continue what He had done, and the Pauline form of the tradition represents what must afterwards appear essentially true. St. Paul's words are susceptible of two meanings, ' I received as a tradition coming from the Lord ' and ' I learnt b y personal revelation from the Lord.' Against the latter view it has been urged that a direct revelation would be expressed b y not , and that the former is the natural preposition to use after the compound. A stronger argument is that he elsewhere uses only of instruction from a Christian teacher; when he speaks, as he does, of revelations from Christ, he employs other language. Y e t the phrase means that the tradition has the full authority of the Lord of
1 2 3

I t m a y be a d d e d t h a t L i e t z m a n n in his note on Cor. x i . 25 r i g h t l y regards ' D o t h i s ' as referring t o the whole c u l t - a c t . N . P . Williams, Essays Catholic and Critical, p p . 401 sqq., sees a reference t o future repetition in ' I will drink no more,' and K l o s t e r m a n n on Mark x i v . 2 2 - 2 5 t h i n k s t h a t M a r k m a y h a v e so interpreted the words. T o me it appears impossible t o g i v e t o those words a n y sense other t h a n the anticipation of the h e a v e n l y b a n q u e t in t h e K i n g d o m . If v o n G a l l , 2 T O T , is correct, the idea of the Church on earth as the K i n g d o m of G o d is not earlier t h a n S t . A u g u s t i n e , t h o u g h he finds even in S t . P a u l beginnings thereof (p. 478). * J. Weiss, Korintherbrief, 283 ; Clemen, op. cit., p. 1 7 4 . ' in Thess. iv. ; 2 Thess. iii. 6; cf. G a l . i. 12, yap 4 (his 4) 4, ' , where the special relevance of v. is t o the first member. Of his own special inspirations he says, for instance, G a l . i. 1 6 4 ' 4 4 ' 4 7 (for . cf. 2 Cor. xii. 1) ; Cor. vii. 10 4, (distinguished from 12 4 , ; for t h e style cf. I P e t . iv. I I , 0) ; I Cor. x i v . 37 , 44 bWi . L o i s y ' s suggestion (Mystdres, p . 282 ) t h a t 4 supports the idea of personal revelation is h a r d l y r i g h t ; it is in effective contrast w i t h you w h i c h comes before : 7 ; 44 ; iv . 4 . .
3 8

present spiritual life, the supreme sanction which St. Paul recognises. In any case, the essential meaning of the rite for St. Paul, that it is a liturgical setting forth of Christ's death, is surely not his invention if the Covenant word was spoken, or was independently of him believed to have been spoken. According to Exodus xxiv. 6, half of the blood of the oxen sacrificed was sprinkled on the altar, half on the people as the blood of the covenant which the Lord had made with them concerning the law, and Moses and the elders ate and drank in God's presence ; according to Genesis xvii. 9 sqq., circumcision is a covenant between God and man, and the blood shed therein is also spoken of in Rabbinic sources as ' blood of the Covenant.' Jesus said in effect ' I am the sacrificial victim whose blood is shed for you, the faithful, to seal a new covenant with God, and whose body is broken for you.' The blood on this occasion was to be drunk, not sprinkled on the participants ; it m a y be noted that in solemn oath-taking or treaty-making blood and (or) wine may either be drunk b y or sprinkled on those concerned. The parallels for this make the matter clearer. The broken bread as symbol of a victim cut in pieces is not unnatural; to us bread is simply inanimate matter, but to less sophisticated people it seems to contain life. While bread might be eaten in pledging the marriage union, an oath-victim, in Greek usage at least, might not usually be e a t e n ; this antitypum in a covenant between man and God (as con1 2 3 4

Clemen remarks, p. 1 7 7 , t h a t t h e P a s c h a l meal is never spoken of as a c o v e n a n t ; Casel, Jahrbuch, v i . 140, t h a t it w a s not a m y s t e r y in t h e Hellenistic sense, t h o u g h it is a memorial (ibid. 15573). O n recent a t t e m p t s t o explain t h e L a s t Supper out of t h e P a s c h a l meal cf. G . B . G r a y , Sacrifice in the Old Testament, p p . 383 sqq. S o L i e t z m a n n , p p . 220 sq., t h o u g h he regards t h e connecting of t h e c o m m u n a l meals of t h e Christians w i t h t h e A t o n e m e n t on t h e Cross as a Pauline i n n o v a t i o n (2552). F o r t h e v i t a l i t y of t h e c o v e n a n t idea in Judaism cf. t h e T a l m u d i c s t a t e m e n t ( 0 3 , I I . 7, 32) t h a t a proselyte enters it b y circumcision, b a p t i s m , and sacrifice. Parallel is t h e idea of Christianity as a new law, for w h i c h cf. H a t c h , Influence, p. 162. I t m a y be remarked t h a t t h e idea of C o v e n a n t sacrifice does not appear a m o n g the Old T e s t a m e n t s y m b o l i s m of E u c h a r i s t i c l i t u r g i e s ; y e t it m u s t be remembered t h a t t h a t symbolism is a later product, due t o a generation which would not recall t h e original significance of t h e act. See for some S. E i t r e m , Opferritus und Voropfer der Griechen und Romer (Oslo, 1 9 1 5 ) , p p . 422 sq. Cf. E . Reuterskiold, Die Entstehung der Speisesakramente (Heidelberg, 1912) p p . 1 1 5 sqq.
8 3 4

trasted with one between man and man, in which God's duty is to punish the offender, who is sometimes represented b y the victim) might. What was done was a symbolic representation of the Crucifixion conceived as a Covenant offering. The repetition of what Jesus did was therefore in the first instance a re-enacting of this Covenant offering, bringing its participants into an intimate relationship therewith, assuring their share in the new promise. The Eucharist as we see it in and behind the early liturgies is an action, not an expression of p i e t y ; the performance in mimesis indefinitely often of what happened once and for all, the association of the individual in the community with the Cross conceived as a worsting of daemonic powers and as the prelude of victory, or itself victory. T o call this Covenant offering a or sacrifice was natural; the new high-priestly sacrifice was contrasted with those of the old dispensation. T h e idea that participation in the Covenant victim gives the soul its meat and drink is at first less stressed (it is implied in 1 Cor. x . 3 sq., but its development is Johannine) : we find it again in the Didache ; but it is not originally central. T h e later piety of communion is a genuine development, but a development which causes a shift of emphasis. Till well on in the fourth century there hardly seems to be a moment of consecration: people did not look for one, the centre of interest being in the action as a whole, reproducing visibly the Christian scheme of salvation; the Easter Secret from the Sacramentarium Leonianum, (da nobis haec quaesumus, Domine, frequentare mysteria, quia quotiens hostiae tibi placitae commemoratio celebratur opus nostrae redemptionis exercetur) illustrates this
1 2

I t is G . P . W e t t e r ' s merit t o h a v e emphasised this in Altchristliche Liturgien, i, h o w e v e r m u c h w e m a y disagree w i t h him in some of his conclusions. W i t h the v i e w expressed in A It. Lit. ii. t h a t t h e Sacrifice of the Mass is a conception formed of the combination of this m y s t e r y idea w i t h the oblations m a d e b y t h e Christians of bread, wine, oil, etc., I do n o t agree ; cf. against it O . Casel, Jahrbuch fur Liturgiewissenschaft, iii. 1 7 5 sqq. Hebr. viii. sq.; Didache x i v . 2 (quoted p . 132). I t is possible t h a t Jesus held the high-priestly v i e w of His Messiahship; cf. Mr. Narborough's essay, p . 37. O n the later obscuring of t h e ' m y s t e r y ' aspect of the Mass w h e n c o n t a c t w i t h a n t i q u i t y w a s lost cf. Casel, Jahrbuch, iv. 2 2 1 , no. 88 ; v i . 184 sqq. ; on t h e passage from Mysterienliturgie to Sakramentsmystik, cf. A . L . M a y e r , ibid. v i . 92 sqq.
2

most clearly. Throughout, popular devotion is something quite concrete. T h e Eucharist is the objective memorial in act of Jesus. T h e sacrificial aspect springs from t h i s ; the sacrifice is not a new sacrifice, but the one offering of the New Covenant, as Casel says. The Eucharist regarded as the actualisation of a soteriological drama is in a line with contemporary mysteries, which purported to represent the sufferings and triumph of a god, in which his worshippers sympathised and shared. There are differences (it is not a seasonal rite but a regular rite independent of time of y e a r : the triumph of Christ is a triumph over forces of evil rather than mere death and has a moral value which is all its own ; it is moreover what is believed about a recent historical event, not about something in the mists of the p a s t ) , but there is a fundamental unity of conception. T h e Eucharist is a mystery, as mysteries were then understood, and Christianity, the heir of Judaism, has also an essential spiritual continuity with Hellenistic religion. Nevertheless, on our evidence we must conclude that its parallelism comes from an independent basis; we have in fact here one of the clearest cases of convergent religious development. There is, however, no clear evidence that sacred meals had this significance in the mysteries ; it appertained rather to ritual of a dramatic type, to mumming with actors or images. Ancient religious meals are of three main types. First, there is eating together in fellowship b y a cult society which does no more thereby than give outward expression to its fellowship, or commemorate gratefully a
1 2

T h e a b o v e s t a t e m e n t owes m u c h t o O . Casel, Jahrbuch fur Liturgiewissenschaft, I.e. ; iv. 226 sqq. ; v i . 1 1 3 sqq.; it is t o be supplemented from m y a p p e n d i x t o M r . N a r b o r o u g h ' s essay. T h e transition from t o (sacrifice) is n o t difficult; it w a s n o d o u b t facilitated b y t h e connexion of t h e L a s t S u p p e r w i t h t h e P a s c h a l sacrifice ( E x o d . x i i . 2 7 ) . Cf. a d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e parallel in S. John Chrys. Horn. LXXXII in Matth. 782 D ; also Jahrb. v i . 1 3 3 . T h e description of the C a n o n of the Mass as actio illustrates t h e religious idea w e l l ; cf. Casel, Jahrbuch, i. 34 sqq., a n d Dolger, Sol Salutis , 295 sqq. A t t i s , A d o n i s , Osiris were supposed t o h a v e lived ; our v i e w of t h e m as projected from religious consciousness (or however else w e p u t it) is n o t t h a t of their worshippers. A striking e x a m p l e of t h e p a g a n parallel, w h i c h , however, will h a v e none of history, is Sallustius, ch. iv., ' A l l this did n o t h a p p e n a t a n y one t i m e b u t a l w a y s is so,' copied from Julian, p. 1 7 1 c, quoted in m y edition, p . l i .
2 2 68

dead founder in whose honour they meet, or whose pecuniary benefactions they e n j o y ; in this connection the phrase ' in memory of ' is used as in Cor. x i , though without the same significance ; as Casel remarks, the Christians thought of Christ not as dead but as living. Common meals implied union in a degree which we do not readily imagine, and such meals in honour of the dead are still held in modern Greece and elsewhere. Secondly, there is eating together when a god or goddess is thought to preside. The orator Aristides, writing in the second century of our era, says in his speech ' Concerning S a r a p i s ' (viii. vol. i. p. 93 sq., Dindorf), ' Men have perfect communion in sacrifices with this god alone in a peculiar degree, inviting him to their hearths and causing him to preside over their feasts' : two invitations to dinner ' at the couch of the Lord S a r a p i s ' (one of these adds ' in the Sarapeum ') have been found at Oxyrhynchus. A citizen of Bologna built a dining-room for Juppiter Dolichenus : this implies perhaps the god was supposed to be present at the common meal of a cult society, as Zeus of Panamara m a y also have been at the communal banquet held in the course of his mysteries. Sharing of food in common is implied b y ordinary sacrificial communion with a deity, of which more will be said later. Thirdly, there is the enthusiastic rending of bulls and eating of their flesh raw b y votaries of D i o n y s u s ; here it seems that the bull was believed to be a form in which
1 2 3 4 5

L i e t z m a n n on Cor. x. 20 ; Clemen, p. 1 7 9 ; and for similar phrases used of d r a m a t i c ritual, O . Casel, Jahrb. v i . 138 sqq. O n e a t i n g together cf. Robertson S m i t h , Religion of the Semites, ch. vii. sqq. ; D o u t t e , Magic et Religion dans I'Afrique du Nord, p . 253 (when g e t t i n g material for a love philtre procure it from a house in which y o u h a v e not dined) ; an a m u s i n g English illustration in H . J. Rose, The Roman Questions of Plutarch, 8y ; a cup is shared b y bride and bridegroom in modern Greek marriage rites, Jahrb. f. Lit. v. 209. S u c h a meal of fellowship seems t o h a v e been held b y some Gnostics, cf. Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, p p . 305 sqq. O n meals commemorating the dead cf. S. X a n t h o u d i d e s , Ann. Br. Sch. Athens, xii. 22 ; Schrader, Reallexikon, indog. Alt. i. 18 sqq. T h e y run i n t o t y p e I I . ; the dead m a n m a y be t h o u g h t t o preside, cf. A . T h o m s e n , A.R.W. xii. 484. Pap. Oxy. n o , 523. More parallels in L i e t z m a n n on 1 Cor. x. 20. Dessau, Inscr. lot. set. 4313. H . O p p e r m a n n , R.G. V. V. x i x . 3, 66 sqq. T h e inscriptions t e a c h us nothing in particular a b o u t this meal, w h i c h m a y h a v e been pure jollification (cf. A . B . Cook, Zeus, i. 2 1 ) .
2 8B 2 3 4 5

Dionysus appeared. Here, and in the rending and eating of a bull or pig in Crete (supposedly the Cretan Zeus), there is a belief of eating the god, how consciously held we do not k n o w : the first rite is Thracian, the second pre-Greek. Clear traces of this conception of sacramental communion in Greek ritual are not obtrusively frequent. Moreover, the consecration in the Christian rites differentiates them clearly; the elements are b y prayer transferred to the sphere of numinous action and made the vehicles of the mystery b y a deliberate process, in conscious emphatic remembrance of the saving acts of Jesus; again, the communion aspect of the Eucharist is secondary. It is not from the beginning in a line with what is called theophagy.
1

In the mystery cults there were sacred meals, but our curiosity as to their meaning receives little satisfaction. The password which the initiate at Eleusis had to say was, according to Clement, ' I have fasted, I have drunk the kykeon (a kind of porridge made with milk), I have taken (the sacred object) from the box, I performed the act, I put the thing in the basket and out of the basket into the box.' W h a t the drinking of the kykeon signified we do not k n o w ; possibly it was a reception of the fruits of the earth in honour of the goddess who gave them. There is nothing which necessarily implies a receiving of deity under tangible forms. In the mysteries of Attis and Cybele the initiate said ' I have eaten out of a timbrel, I have drunk out of a
2

Cf. A . B . C o o k , Zeus, i. 651 sqq. ; L . R . Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, iii. 196. O n such e a t i n g cf. E . Reuterskiold, op. cit. H e shows t h a t s u c h e a t i n g is something p r e - d e i s t i c ; t h e b u l l is ' concentrated force* (p. 128). Still, it w a s t a k e n i n t o t h e orgiastic cult of D i o n y s u s . F a t i n g is a n obvious w a y of assimilating t h e m a g i c a l properties of t h a t w h i c h is e a t e n , a n idea illustrated a t l e n g t h b y A . Dieterich, Mithras liturgie, p p . 95 sqq. T h e drinking of blood is sometimes a n oath-ceremony (p. 122), sometimes a n ordeal, sometimes a means of receiving d i v i n e inspiration for prophetic utterance (Pausan. ii. 24. 1, a t A r g o s ; cf. J . G . F r a z e r , Golden Bough , i. 381 sqq.) or m a g i c strength ( / . Eg. Arch. x i . 157) ; cf. J. Scheftelowitz, R.G. V. V. x i v . 3, 58 sqq.; wine is sometimes r i t u a l l y a substitute for it, cf. K . Kircher, R.G.V.V. ix. 2, 84 sqq., a n d Reitzenstein, Myst. , 80 (drinking in m a g i c of wine as blood of Osiris). F o r c o m m u n i o n w i t h a goddess in drink on H i t t i t e m o n u m e n t s cf. A . H . S a y c e , Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch, x x x i i . (1910), 1 7 7 sqq. ; for H i t t i t e c o m m u n i o n in food, ibid, x x v i i i . 95. O n Scythian monuments M . Rostovtzeff, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia, p p . 104 sqq., in other religions A . M . H o c a r t , Kingship (1927), p p . 58 sqq. * Protr. ii. 1 6 , 1 8 , S t a h l i n . Cf. L . R . F a r n e l l , E.R.E. xi. 1 3 .
3 3

cymbal, I have become an initiate of Attis.' What he ate and drank, and what eating and drinking meant we do not k n o w ; the emphasis is on the cult vessels employed for the purpose, these being sacred to Cybele and Attis in particular. It has been urged that bread was probably eaten, and this has been brought into connexion with the abstinence from bread which formed part of the sorrowful period preceding the celebration of the god's resurrection and with the identification of Attis with the cornstalk; it has therefore been inferred that Attis was eaten as the mystic bread. The conclusion is uncertain. The abstinence was from fish and pork, as well as from bread, pomegranates and dates, and even in the ancient authorities who were most interested is not brought into connexion with a communion : Julian, who deals with the subject at length, speaks of fasting as aiming at the ascent of the soul; Sallustius regards it as appropriate to the gloom of the period (he remarks further that bread and all coarse food are opposed to the soul). The identification of Attis with the cornstalk is ascribed b y Hippolytus to the Phrygians; the remark is one of the data of a piece of theologising, and we cannot assume that a cult formula is implied b y . Whatever the truth as to origins m a y be, there is no evidence for sacramental communion in Attis as a belief at the time in question ; had it been so, Julian would presumably have stressed i t . For the cult of the Cabiri we have an inscription from Tomi on the Black Sea, which as restored conjecturally reads, ' The priests of the mystic gods in Samothrace shall on the seventh day of Apatoureon break and distribute the cake and shall pour the drink for the initiates and shall hold a procession.' The restoration is attractive, but conjectural, and once more we do not know what was implied; possibly again it is a typical reception of the fruits of the earth. The eating of fish in certain Thracian mysteries is obscure to u s ; we know it from
1 2

Dieterich, p . 2 1 6 , for t h e formula ; L . R . Farnell, Hibbert Journal, ii. 316 sqq. W e c a n h a r d l y explain Julian's silence as due t o t h e extreme s a n c t i t y of the rite of e a t i n g and drinking, which one m a y infer from Firmicus t o h a v e been well k n o w n . T h e contrast which Firmicus makes, De err ore, 18, between this rite a n d t h e E u c h a r i s t h a r d l y justifies theoryspinning. Dieterich, p. 105.
2

tablets in relief representing the communion, but have no liturgical texts, not even a literary allusion to explain them. For Mithraism we have Justin Martyr's statement, which follows his description of the Christian Eucharist, ' The evil spirits copied this and handed it down to be observed in the mysteries of Mithras ; for you can know or learn that bread and a cup of water are among the rites administered to the initiated, with certain prayers,' and the remark of Tertullian, who adopts this theory, ' Mithras marks his soldiers on the forehead, he celebrates also an oblation of bread.' What this signifies is uncertain : Loisy's connexion of it with the usual representation of Mithras slaying a bull, from which proceeds corn, and his supposition of a communion in Mithras are conjectures which at the moment have no solid support. There is then, as far as we can see, nothing in this which can well have contributed to the genesis of the Christian rite, still less to its central position and soteriological significance. Nor are sporadic survivals of eating the god likely to have contributed to t h i s ; the point of emphasis in the Eucharist is not at first communion. This inquiry then into pagan parallels leaves us with the substance of the rite as a residuum not so to be explained. This view is confirmed b y the fact that St. Paul is clearly not involved in controversy with Jewish Christians on the subject of the Eucharist, ready as they are to accuse him of innovation. The common meals of the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem were no doubt accompanied b y table prayers of the familiar Jewish type. In such eating together, with its preliminary offering to God of food and drink, lies the kernel of their common meal of love. Incorporated in this and only later
1 2 3 4

C u m o n t , P.W. ix. 8 4 7 ; Dolger, 5 , i. 143 sqq., ii. 421 sqq., iii. Taf. X X X I I . 2. Justin, Apol. i. 66 ; Tertull. De praescriptione haereticorum, 40 ; for representations in reliefs cf. C u m o n t , My stores de MithrcP, p p . 163 sqq. MysUres, pp. 189 sqq. ; contra see Clemen, p p . 186 sqq. L o i s y has m e t this point b y arguing t h a t dispute arose purely on practical questions (as, for instance, the position of Gentile converts) and t h a t St. Paul's teaching on the E u c h a r i s t m i g h t pass unnoticed (Mysttres, p p . 338 sq.) Y e t it m a y be remarked t h a t this teaching concerned d e e p l y the historical memory of Jesus, a subject stressed b y t h e m more t h a n b y St. Paul.
8 3 4

separated was the Eucharist. In the Pauline rite the breaking of bread perhaps came first; then the meal proper, then the blessing of the c u p . In the Jewish Christian rite described in the Didache breaking of bread and blessing of cup are described without reference to the Last Supper. It has been urged that in kindred Egyptian liturgies the Institution section is not original, and it is inferred that this type of liturgy goes back to a Jewish-Christian celebration which had no connexion with that Supper as a soteriological act, while the familiar type which has such a connexion is regarded as having been originated b y St. Paul. This conclusion is, with all respect to the admirable work in which it has recently been maintained, quite uncertain. In the first place, it is improbable that St. Paul should have been the first to connect the communal meals of the Christians with the Last Supper. It would be peculiar that in this one point he should seek to emphasise a particular earthly act of the Jesus of history, and to relate t o it the religious pneumatic life of the community. Still, as has been remarked, everything pre-Pauline is a matter of conjecture, and it is possible that St. Paul was the first to see the link, though difficult to imagine how his view could
1 2 3

L i e t z m a n n , p. 228. O n t h e later separation of common meal a n d E u c h a r i s t cf. O . Casel, Jahrbuch, iii. 1 7 5 . P . Batiffol, Etudes d'histoire et de thiologie, p p . 283 sqq., has argued brilliantly against the view t h a t nonEucharistic agapai existed. C o m m o n meals w i t h o u t a Eucharistic close are in f a c t uncertain for the earliest age of Christianity : b u t there is e v e r y reason t o suppose t h a t t h e E u c h a r i s t w a s originally, like the solemn a c t of J e s u s , ' after supper.' A g a i n s t the supposition of a primitive wineless rite cf. Clemen, p p . 1 7 5 sqq. ; I suspect t h a t in A c t s is a technical phrase parallel t o ' s a y i n g Mass.' * I t s evidence is here accepted as representing conditions in a b a c k water, in spite of A r m i t a g e Robinson's persuasive arguments for the v i e w t h a t it represents a later a t t e m p t t o reconstruct a picture of primitive conditions; on t h e whole, t h a t hypothesis presupposes i m a g i n a t i v e a b i l i t y and antiquarian interests which are difficult t o believe. (Cf. also W . L . K n o x , St. Paul, p . 86, n. 17.) H e n n e c k e , Neutest. Apokr.*, p. 560, dates it in t h e first half of the second c e n t u r y ; this is perhaps r i g h t ; A . E h r h a r d , Urchristentum und Katholizismus (Luzern, 1926), p. 107, dates it as 80-90 or 90-100. T h e use in it of the Johannine writings (Sanday, Criticism, p . 246) m u s t affect t h e question. I would add t h a t the use of irals 0eov (p. 132 ; cf. F . C . B u r k i t t , Christian Beginnings, p p . 90 sq.) and yvcoeis (p. 1 3 1 ) points t o an origin or a t least a redaction in Christian circles which, t h o u g h Jewish, t h o u g h t largely in Greek (cf. W . L . K n o x , St. Paul, p . 379 : for a Jewish circle of this kind cf. the prayers discussed b y Bousset, achy. Gott. gel. Gescll., 1 9 1 5 , p p . 435 sqq.) L i e t z m a n n summarises his v i e w s , op. ext., p p . 249 sqq.
3

have prevailed unless he had found in the Christian community which he joined an undisputed tradition concerning the Last Supper to which to refer. In the second place, it should be remarked that there is no need of the repetition of the narrative of the Institution. Loisy and Wetter have in fact argued that it was absent from the Pauline Eucharist. The story is the Church's authority for the rite, but a sanction need not be repeated. Furthermore, the Didache, which we shall consider at length, while giving instructions to presbyters as to the conduct of service in the absence of a prophet, is not a complete book of the words : it may assume a mention of the Institution as something which could not fail to be in the reader's mind. In the Anaphora of Serapion, even if the mention of the Institution is secondary, the bread is a type of the Holy B o d y ( 12), the offering of it a type of Death ( 13), the cup is a type of the Blood ( 14), and the action is ' the living sacrifice, the unbloody offering ' ( 12) . A l l this points to the Last Supper, and is meaningless otherwise ; a Pauline quotation ( ) would be very odd in a rite ignoring the Pauline conception of the Eucharist. The Didache rite does not expressly refer to the Last Supper. Nevertheless, read with that in mind, it does not exclude a reference to i t . Jewish table prayers are varied
1 2 3 4

L o i s y , MysUres, p. 2 8 3 ; W e t t e r , Liturgien, i. i 4 8 . L o i s y further remarks t h a t there is no reason t o suppose t h a t the general course of the Pauline rite differed from the Jewish, t h o u g h he holds t h a t S t . P a u l is responsible for t h e interpretation in question. N o t e the introduction of the Institution narrative in t h e A n a p h o r a of Serapion. ' T h i s bread is the representation () of the H o l y B o d y , because our L o r d Jesus Christ . . .' ( L i e t z m a n n , p . 36). L o i s y has suggested t h a t the I g n a t i a n E u c h a r i s t , clearly as it i n v o l v e d the Pauline idea, h a d also no recitation of the words of institution. T h e localisation of t h e consecration m o m e n t a t their recitation meets us clearly in [Ambrosius] De sacramentis, t h o u g h as L i e t z m a n n has said (op. cit., p p . 195 sq.), in t h e ' L i t u r g y of H i p p o l y t u s ' the Institution narrative is t h e central p o i n t ; perhaps it hangs together w i t h t h e idea t h a t t h e recitation of a story can be equivalent t o a direct constraining prayer : t h a t principle is familiar in m a g i c . (On Christian belief in t h e power of prayers and h y m n s per se, cf. W e t t e r , Liturgien, i. 167 sqq.) N o t e the parallel w i t h Ps. A m b r o s . and the * L i t u r g y of . H i p p o l y t u s ' in t h e use of (remarked b y L i e t z m a n n , p. 120) and thereon Casel, Jahrbuch, ii. 100. Living sacrifice is perhaps in contrast w i t h the dead animals offered b y the heathen (Casel, Jahrbuch, iv. 4 4 ) . W e t t e r , u 147, allows its connexion w i t h the L a s t S u p p e r ; b u t it w i l l be remembered t h a t he does not agree w i t h me as t o w h a t Jesus there said.
14 a 3 l5 4

just enough for the purpose (ch. 9, sq.). ' Concerning the thanksgiving) do it in this fashion. First of the cup : eucharist We give Thee thanks, Our Father, for the holy vine of David Thy son, which Thou hast revealed to us in Thy Son Jesus: glory be to Thee for ever. And of the broken bread : We give Thee thanks, Our Father, for the life and knowledge (gnosis) which Thou hast made manifest to us through Jesus Thy Son : glory be to Thee for ever. As this bread was scattered on the mountains and gathered into one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the world into Thy Kingdom ; for Thine is the glory and power through Jesus Christ for ever.'
2

After follows a direction : ' L e t no one eat or drink of your Eucharist except those who have been baptised in the Name of the Lord. For of this the Lord has said: '' Do not give what is holy to the dogs." ' (Here we have in a Jewish Christian rite the beginning of the finding of symbolical sacramental meanings in the Evangelical tradition.) ' When you have had your fill, offer your (Eucharistic) thanksgiving thus : We thank Thee, holy Father, for Thy holy Name, wherein Thou didst tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which Thou didst make known to us through Jesus Thy Son; glory be to Thee for ever. Thou, almighty Ruler, didst create all things for Thy Name's sake, food and drink hast Thou given to men for their enjoyment, that they may offer thanks. But to us Thou hast given spiritual food and
3

I g i v e t h e alternative renderings in v i e w of the possibility t h a t t h e term has not become quite technical and definite (H. Leclercq, Diet. arch, chrit. iv. 783). I see no reason t o suppose, w i t h Casel, Jahrb. v i . 2 1 7 , t h a t ch. 9, 10 refer o n l y t o the E u c h a r i s t celebrated for the n e w l y b a p t i s e d ; m u s t be t h e normal w e e k l y rite. Compare w i t h these the Jewish formula of t h a n k s g i v i n g : ' Blessed be T h o u , J e j a O u r G o d , K i n g of eternity, W h o hast m a d e t h e fruit of t h e vine.' T h e vine of David is based on P s a l m l x x i x . (lxxx.) 9 sqq.: b u t Jesus is now connected w i t h t h e c u p . C o m p a r e also t h e Jewish blessing of bread, ' Blessed be T h o u , Jeja, O u r God, K i n g of eternity, W h o lettest bread arise from t h e earth.' a n d another Jewish prayer, ' R a i s e a b a s k e t t o collect all our banished members from t h e four ends of the world into our land. Blessed be T h o u , Jeja, W h o dost collect t h e scattered ones of T h y people Isarel.' (Lietzmann, op. cit. p p . 203, 235.) iv reus Kaptiiais (perhaps ' w h i c h T h o u didst m a k e t o tabernacle ' ) ; t h e t h o u g h t is one we h a v e noted earlier, p. 106.
2 t 3

drink and eternal life through Jesus Thy Son (or Servant). Above all we give Thanks to Thee for Thy power: glory be to Thee for ever. Remember, Lord, Thy Church, to rescue it from all evil and to perfect it in Thy love, and bring it together from the four winds, a church sanctified into Thy Kingdom, which Thou hast prepared for it; for Thine is the power and the glory for ever. Let grace come and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If any one is holy, let him come ; if any is not let him repent Maran atha. Amen.'
2

' L e t prophets offer thanks at such length as they wish/ There follow more directions about prophets, and then ch. 1 4 : When you meet on the Lord's Day break bread and offer thanks, having first made confession of your sins, that your sacrifice may be pure: let any man who has a dispute with his fellow not come together with you, until they are reconciled. For this is the sacrifice mentioned by the Lord. * In every place and time offer to Me a pure sacrifice, for I am a great King/ saith the Lord, ' and My Name is held in wonder among the heathen/ The interpretation of this seemingly straightforward description is one of the most difficult problems which face the student of Christian origins. I can here do no more than indicate some possibilities. If we assume that in ch. 9 is the Eucharist, and that the rite described is none other than that mentioned in ch. 1 4 , there remain difficulties, , ' after having your fill/ is an odd phrase for participation in the Sacrament ; again . . . reads like an invitation to communion, warning off those who have not confessed their sins or made their peace with other brethren, and liturgical analogies perhaps suggest that the great prayer , , . . . should come before the people receive
3 4

<> iraiHos , where is a d d e d from the C o p t i c version. means properly S e r v a n t , E b e d - J a h w e h (p. 9 6 5 ) . I t is significant t h a t this liturgical formula occurs b o t h in t h e D i d a c h e and in t h e L i t u r g y of H i p p o l y t u s , w h i c h L i e t z m a n n refers t o a different, P a u l i n e tradition. L i e t z m a n n , p. 237, has recognised a dialogue of celebrant a n d congregation in these last words. So L i e t z m a n n , p p . 232 sqq. Casel, however, well compares satiari in P o s t c o m m u n i o n s in t h e Missal (Jahrb. v i . 2 1 6 ) ; w e find also repleti (in t h e P o s t c o m m u n i o n for t h e second week of A d v e n t ) .
TOUS
2 8 4

the Sacrament; such prayers after the people's communion as are known are brief and confined to thanksgiving; they are not intercessory. It is therefore not surprising that some scholars have regarded the blessing of the cup and broken bread in ch. 9 as belonging to the communal meal, followed b y the Eucharist proper, 6 refers then to the bodily sustenance thus received, not to the ' spiritual meat and drink ' of the long prayer. If this is so, m a y be applicable to the rite, meal and Eucharist as a whole : it is certainly difficult to distinguish between its use in chs. 9 and 14. In fact, the separation of meal and Eucharist was probably a gradual process in the East. Some strictly Eucharistic matter and what relates to the communion proper we do not find in the text. On the strength of other analogies one might expect prayer of a consecration type between ' Glory be to Thee for e v e r ' and 'Remember, Lord, T h y Church . : .' This view is not free from difficulties ; ' D o not give what is holy to the d o g s ' suits the Sacrament better than the content of the common m e a l ; y e t the latter was solemnly blessed, and in fact the Eucharistic prayer is as. it were an elaboration of the simpler prayer used over the bread. On the whole it is perhaps the best explanation yet offered, but it seems at the moment impossible to attain to certainty, and the text seems to me to have suffered from dislocation. The Didache stands b y itself in Christian history, but the comparison of bread and church is in itself strikingly like St. Paul's saying, ' For we the many are one bread, one b o d y ; we all share in one b r e a d ' (1 Cor. x. 17). It is tempting to suggest that the comparison was likely to occur in prayers he himself used. The context also requires
1

S o W . L . K n o x , St. Paul, p p . 378 sqq., and others (cf. Batiffol, op. cit. PP- 295 sq. T h e v i e w p u t forward b y C a g i n and others and summarised b y Leclercq, op. cit. p p . 780 sqq., according t o w h i c h chs. 9 and 10 refer s i m p l y t o a frequent c o m m o n m e a l , distinct from the S u n d a y E u c h a r i s t of ch. 1 4 , seems t o me impossible). I d o not t h i n k it likely t h a t the suppression of properly Eucharistic m a t t e r here p o s t u l a t e d is due t o disciplina arcani on the author's p a r t ; t h a t disciplina belongs in the m a i n t o the fourth c e n t u r y A . D . (Batiffol, tudes, p p . 1 sqq. ; G . Anrich, Pel. Gesch. Gegenw.*, i. 532 sq. ; Casel, Jahrb. iv. 237). I t m a y h a v e influenced a redactor. For redactorial a c t i v i t y in connexion w i t h t h e Didache cf. the presence in a Coptic version and absence from the Greek of a blessing of oil (Jahrbuch, v. 237 ; H e n n e c k e , p . 560). T h e r e is the other possibility of loss in transcription.

consideration. ' The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not communion in the Blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not communion in the B o d y of Christ ? ' Then comes the remark quoted, and after it, ' Look at Israel in the flesh; do not those who eat of the sacrifices participate in the altar ? W h y do I say this ? Is what is offered to an idol of any force ? or is an idol of any force ? No, but the point is that the sacrifices offered b y Gentiles are sacrifices offered to daemonia. I do not wish you to have communion in daemonia. Y o u cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of daemonia : you cannot share in the table of the Lord and in the table of daemonia.* The argument is against participation in meats offered to idols. The Christian must not share both in Christian cult meals and in the others. The argument that Israel after the flesh shares in the altar is Philonic : altar is in Jewish texts sometimes a circumlocution for God. W h a t is meant b y is hard to say. Perhaps the easiest explanation is that St. Paul is transferring his interpretation of the Christian rite to them, to make as effective a contrast as possible. E v e n so he does not contrast with . Lietzmann has maintained a very different view. After setting forth examples of eating at the tables of gods, and of sharing food with them, and the rare instances of eating the god, he remarks, ' A clear idea of the occurrence of the deprecated b y Paul is given b y Porphyry quoted in Eusebius Praep. evang. I V . 2 3 / We
1 2

There is a n a n a l o g y in the Acts of Carpus Papylus and Agathonice, ch. 7 (p. 13 in V o n G e b h a r d t , Ausg. Mdrtyreracten) : & yap oi . . . rrj * , . , ) , another in Constitutiones Apostolorum, viii. 34. 9 (a w a r n i n g a g a i n s t assemblies of unbelievers) : yap oi ' , oi ivayeh . T h e ' c u p of daemonia ' m a y refer t o the p a g a n c u s t o m of drinking after a b a n q u e t cups in honour of Zeus the Saviour and of t h e G o o d D a e m o n described w i t h the genitive ' , cf. D e i s s m a n n , Licht*, p. 2 9 9 . On S t . P a u l ' s v i e w of the gods as cf. R . L i e c h t e n h a n , p p . 14 sqq. of the work q u o t e d p. 147, n. 2 later ; S t r a c k - B i l l e r b e c k I I I . 47 sqq. ( R a b b i n i c a l parallels). In his excursus on 1 Cor. x. 22. T h e passage of P o r p h y r y is a n n o t a t e d b y G . Wolff, Porphyrii de philosophia ex oraculis hanrienda librorum reliquiae (Berlin, 1856), p p . 147 sqq., and Bousset, A.R.W. x v i i i . 154 sqq. O n P o r p h y r y ' s a t t i t u d e w h e n he w r o t e this in y o u t h cf. J. B i d e z , Vie de Porphyre (Gand, 1913), p p . 1 7 sqq.
4 1

must study the quotation in its context. Porphyry there says that Sarapis, whom he identifies with Pluto, is lord of the daemones and gives us acts with a hidden meaning to drive them away. The essence of the method is in the offering of the blood of animals ; b y this we get rid of the daemones and secure the god's presence. Our bodies are filled with daemones which settle on us when we e a t ; hence our fasts drive them away. There is nothing relevant in this, any more than in Porphyry's later statement (De abst. II. 42) that animal sacrifice attracts daemones and should be avoided b y the wise man, who does not desire their company. Lietzmann has elsewhere urged that the epiklesis of the Spirit to come upon the elements and through them enter the communicants is to be connected with an ancient idea of sacrifice and the accompanying meal. ' The strength of the deity dwells in the sacrificed flesh and passes into him who eats i t . ' On this it must be remarked that on the one hand there is evidence suggesting that such ideas lie behind Greek sacrificial meals. Certain preliminary ritual and contact with the altar, which was originally held to be charged with divine power, hallow the victim. On the other hand, what we infer from these indications is our inference, not ancient expressed belief or theory. It is something much less near the surface than the notion that the worshippers and the god eat together in fellowship ; part is reserved for the god, the rest man takes. The Christian teaching is explicit, not implicit.
1 2

esse und Herrenmahl, p. 7 7 . Cf. t h e excellent discussion b y L . R . Farnell, E.R.E. xi. 14 sqq. Thus, for instance, Iamblichus and his followers explain sacrifice as a kind of communion. B u t it is not communion in the life of the gods ; it is communion w i t h it b y means of t h e life of the sacrificed animals, which, so t o s p e a k , ' m a k e c o n t a c t ' (cf. m y Sallustius, l x x x i v sq.). A g a i n , we m a y draw inferences from the f a c t t h a t in t h e cult of t h e S y r i a n A t a r g a t i s t h e priests ate fish offered t o her, t h o u g h others m i g h t never p a r t a k e of a n y fish (Dolger, 2 , ii. 184 sqq. for references); b u t do these inferences correspond t o a c t u a l belief ? O n c o m m u n i o n w i t h a god in an animal cf. M. P . Nilsson, History of Greek Religion, p p . 9 5 sq. A s evidence for divine essence in food offered t o a deity, Mythol. Vatic, i. 1 7 7 has been quoted : templum Iunonis fuit in quo mensam Hercules et Diana ledum habebat, ubi portabantur pueri ut de ipsa mensa ederent et inde acciperent fortitudinem et in lecto Dianae dormirent ut omnibus amabiles fierent et illorum generatio succresceret. T h a t eating from t h e t a b l e of Hercules should m a k e y o u strong is readily explained from t h e principle of s y m p a t h y and does not postulate for its e x p l a n a t i o n a n y t h i n g deeper. Morever, the s t a t e m e n t looks like a scholiastic i m a g i n i n g based on Virgil Eel. i v . 6 3 , not a statem e n t founded on f a c t .
2

W e m a y then with reason refuse to see Hellenistic influence in the Pauline use of . 4. Conclusions on sacramentalism.We have reviewed some of the evidence for the character of Baptism and of the Eucharist. In both we have seen the eminently concrete nature of early Christian ideas in general, and of St. Paul's in particular. T o him both rest on one concept: the individual actually participates in the sacred drama. In Baptism he dies with the Lord and rises with and in Him ; in the Eucharist he assists at the same drama renewed before him. Against this view it is ineffective to argue that St. Paul could not have thought in such a w a y and could not thus have ascribed spiritual consequences t o material acts (his words in themselves suggest most strongly that he did), and useless to quote his thanksgiving to God for the fact that he baptised none of the Corinthians except Crispus, Gains, and the household of Stephen (i Cor. i. 14) ; the explanation is there given ' that no one m a y say that he was baptised in m y name.' H e had good reason to be grateful for the fact that in their wranglings men could not say ' I was baptised b y Paul, which puts me on a higher level of grace than you who were baptised b y his underlings.' Further, as he says (v. 17), his special work was preaching. Unless Baptism was regarded as in itself efficacious it is difficult to understand the Corinthian practice of baptism on behalf of dead persons, mentioned without praise or blame in 1 Cor. x v . 29 in an argument supporting belief in the Resurrection. T h e practice is probably not parallel to pagan ritual intended (like Christian requiems) to secure the welfare of loved ones in the next world ; it would rather seem that one Corinthian went through the rite on behalf of another who had not done so, much as a College
1 2

T h i s seems more probable t h a n t h e inference of J. Weiss, Urchristentum, p. 499, t h a t t h e baptiser required special spiritual gifts, different from those of the preacher. * F o r Orphic ritual on behalf of the dead cf. Orphica, fr. 232, K e r n ( Tpoyoi/ m a y indeed mean, as L a g r a n g e thinks, Revue Biblique, 1920, p. 435, no. 2, ' t o obtain deliverance from the inherited guilt of the crimes of impious ancestors ' ; b u t t h e n e x t reference is u n m i s t a k e able). P l a t o , Rep. 364 ; T h . Zielinski, La Sibylle, p p . 40 sqq. T h e prayer of a dead m a n for help in an epitaph from R o m e , Notizie degli scavi, 1923, P- 358 1 3 t>, s been interpreted as parallel, b u t d o u b t f u l l y . O n t h e antecedents of R e q u i e m Mass cf. Dolger, 2, I I . p p . 555 sqq.
n a

Praelector takes a degree on behalf of a student who is unable to kneel in person before the Vice-Chancellor of the University. So again with the Eucharist, we find a clearly objective view in 1 Cor. xi. T h e Corinthians could not ' eat and drink damnation to themselves ' if the bread and wine were a mere s y m b o l ; they could not be blamed for ' not discerning the Lord's B o d y ' if that B o d y was not there to discern. W e are sometimes in danger of exaggerating the distance from Paul to Cyprian. A t the same time, the peculiar character of Christian sacramentalism needs to be realised. The Christian who receives the sacraments is put into a new and ineradicable spiritual condition, is fed with the meat and drink of eternal life; he secures the benefits of Christ's Passion. Y e t he can throw away these benefits b y not bringing to them or showing after them the right disposition ; that he needs if he is to receive in the words of St. Thomas rem et uirtutem sacramenti, the reality and effective working power of the Sacrament. This teaching is clearly given b y St. Paul in 1 Cor. . 1 sqq. ' I would not have y o u be ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from a spiritual rock which accompanied them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not well pleased with the majority of them, for they were laid low in the desert. These things were types of our experience, that we might not be desirers of evil, as they were.' T o the new Israel under its new Covenant, as to the old Israel under its old Covenant, God's spiritual gifts are no pledge of blessedness. Moreover, participation in the new sacramental life does not automatically make the participants pneumatikoi, men living the life of the Spirit; that title belongs only to those who show the fruits of the Spirit, as many of the Corinthians
1

Cf. L i e t z m a n n ad loc. on the Marcionite continuation of this practice. There is an ancient M a n d a e a n parallel (Reitzenstein, Myst. , 233), a modern in Mormonism (E.R.E. xi. 83). Preiske, Z.N.W. xxiii. 298 sqq., has suggested t h a t w h e n b a p t i s m came t o be regarded as essential, this vicarious b a p t i s m w a s introduced t h a t t h e number of the elect m i g h t speedily be completed. People were anxious t o secure the inclusion of their relations.
3

do not (i Cor. iii. i , etc.). On the other hand, the soteria given b y pagan mysteries seems to have been a gilt-edged investment not liable to depreciation, though here also indications of a more spiritual attitude are not wholly wanting. 5. Church order.Of the Christian ministry in early days we know little; gradually, it seems, individuals claiming special spiritual gifts gave place to a regular order, after existing for a time beside i t . W e read in Acts vi. 6 that the Apostles prayed and then laid hands on those chosen to be deacons, and we hear of this laying on of hands in 1 Tim. iv. 4, 2 Tim. i. 6 (also in the giving of the Holy Ghost to disciples of St. John Baptist in Acts xix. 6). Belief in a transmission of divine power b y physical contact was common at the time, particularly in miracles of healing; at the same time we do not seem to hear of it as a means of conferring priesthoods, which were usually entered upon without ceremony; a few involved the reception of some sort of initiation. Those who were to fill them were commonly selected b y lot, the parallel between which and the choice of Matthias (if we regard the story as historical) is not important, since the Jews also made use of the lot. The practice of open confession of sins mentioned b y James v . 16 (1 John i. 9 may mean ' confess to G o d ' ) is a natural concomitant of such Church discipline as we see exemplified in St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. Its development, inevitable from the moment at which it was discovered that people sinned after baptism, was completed later. Whether it was in any measure encouraged
1 2 3

Cf., for instance, the address of t h e priest t o L u c i u s in A p u l . Met. xi. 15 : teque iam nunc obsequio religionis nostrae dedica et ministerii iugum subi voluntarium ; nam cum coeperis deae seruire, tunc magis senties fructum tuae libertatis. Cf. W e t t e r , Liturgien, i. 162 sqq. For the miracles of healing cf. O . Weinreich, A ntike Heilungswunder (R.G.V.V. viii.). Priests of Asclepius a t Chalcedon, D i o n y s u s at Perg a m o n , the African S a t u r n , also the hierophants at Eleusis, were a d m i t t e d b y initiation (C.Q. 1926, p p . 107 sqq.), also a priestess called of A p o l l o at Pednelissus in Caria (Supplementum epigraphicum graecum, ii. 710). O n the c o n t i n u i t y of the early Christian ministry w i t h the Jewish cf. W . L . K n o x , St. Paul, p p . 86 sq.; on Jewish imposition of hands, ibid. p. 3 7 1 ; Strack-Billerbeck, I I . 647 sqq. E h r h a r d has remarked on the Jewish in A c t s x x i i i . 14, x x i v . 1, x x v . 1 5 . T h e title was in E g y p t a p plied to the older men forming something like a council w i t h i n a larger b o d y (Dittenberger, Or. gr. index set., I. p p . 653 sq.); b u t the Jewish use is here clearly the parent of the Christian.
2 3

by the Phrygian custom of confession-inscriptions earlier mentioned, b y the Samothracian confession b y the initiate of the most evil thing he had done in his life, b y occasional confession in the cult of Isis, or the like, can hardly be determined. W e have briefly reviewed early Christian cultus, and have found that, while it had much in common with what was around, the driving forces in its development came mostly from within. This development was not in vacuo, but in the Hellenistic background; it involved give and take. The evidence as we have reviewed it does not seem to justify the supposition of substantial borrowing b y Christianity: if it did, the development of the new faith would still be the development of something not only individual, but consciously individual. ' In religious history,' says Reitzenstein, ' it is even clearer than elsewhere that nothing can exercise influence which does not find its w a y prepared, and nothing is living which is not essentially n e w . '
1 2

IV
CHRISTIANITY IN THE COMMUNITIES

W E have hitherto considered in the main the official teaching and practice of Gentile Christianity as presented b y St. Paul. W e must now ask how it was received. Three main sources of danger may be noted : Judaising tendencies, which would have stultified the whole development of the new religion and made it a mere variant of Jewish proselytism; survivals of old paganism in spirit and in ethics ; and Christian heresy. The first, of which we hear at Philippi, in Galatia, at Colossae and in the letters to Timothy and Titus, and the third (mentioned, for instance, in 2 Tim. ii. 18) fall outside the scope of this Essay. The second appears clearly at Corinth in St. Paul's First Epistle, and to this we must again turn. New disciples of Greek education might feel that they
Cf. p . 73 a b o v e , also a public confession of guilt mentioned in an inscription of the fourth c e n t u r y B.C. a t E p i d a u r u s (Suppl. epigr. gr. ii. 5 8 ) . O n unction of the sick w h i c h appears in James v. 14 cf. F . Cabrol, Diet, d'arch. chrit. v i . 2 7 7 7 sqq., Leclercq, ibid. v. 1029 sqq.; Strack-Billerbeck, . 759
1

* Z.N.W. 1 9 1 2 , 23.

' had passed out of death into life/ but they could not become perfect Christians in a d a y : the story of their conversion is, as Weiss says, that of ' the gradual penetration of the ideas they brought with them from paganism b y the spirit of Christianity.' T h e first grave warning given to the Corinthians was directed against the spirit which expressed itself in such utterances as ' I am of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, I of Christ.' Partisanship of this sort was very dangerous : there was at the time a tendency to exalt religious teachers or prophets, as men with occult gifts, as having deity in them, ; such were Apollonius of T y a n a and later Alexander of Abonoteichus (Lucian says of Peregrinusch. xi.that the Christians ' thought him a god and used him as law-giver.') Further, a certain competitiveness in matters religious makes itself felt later in the Empire, if not clearly in the first century. St. Paul found also at Corinth the gravest moral laxity. W e have remarked earlier that popular standards, as distinct from those of ascetics and of coterie poets of dissipation, were probably somewhat lower then than they are to-day (p. 74). Corinth at least, a cosmopolitan place, would be no rosebed of virtues. T h e ascetic reaction from such tendencies had in its turn dangers, and the Apostle, in spite of his own ascetic leanings, counselled moderation. B u t the great danger was licence. T o some adherents of Christianity it might seem that they were now saved, God's elect, and could do what they would. Against such an attitude St. Paul protested, as we have seen (p. 137). Some were proud of their spiritual gifts, of their capacity for gnosis. T o them St. Paul says in effect, ' Y e s , your gifts are good, and Christian gnosis is real gnosis, and those who possess it, the pneumatikoi, are superior to the psychikoi, those who have only the ordinary human soul. A t the same time, what matters is not the ability to go into ecstasy but three things, Faith,
1 2

I t is n o t e w o r t h y h o w eagerly S t . P a u l a v o i d s a n y s u c h a t t i t u d e towards himself (Bousset, Kyrios Christos*, 1 1 9 ) ; note Gal. iv. 14 s &yye\ov , ois . T h e Didache bids one honour a teacher as t h e L o r d , b u t for t h e reason t h a t t h e L o r d is in t h e m a n w h o proclaims His Lordship. O n cf. Reitzenstein, Myst.*, 236 sqq. O n t h e earlier history of these terms cf. Reitzenstein, Myst.*, 284 sqq.
1

Hope and L o v e ; of these L o v e is supremely important, while your present gnosis must be imperfect and provisional. The spiritual powers which y o u should seek are those which tend to the edification of others, not glottolalia, ability to speak as a medium (1 Cor. xiii.).' This teaching is fundamental to Christianity, not the less so because a somewhat similar conception of Faith is found in E g y p t in the Hermetic Corpus and in magical texts, and because the combination Faith, Hope and Love seems to have non-Christian antecedents. St. Paul has taken words and formulas which are current, and given to them the sense he needs. Ecstasy, natural as it was, was being over-valued; this involved danger to morality and order, and no little loss of perspective. W e m a y recall a saying of Jesus in L u k e x . 20 : ' Rejoice not because you have dominion over the unclean spirits ; rejoice rather that your names are written in the book of life.' A t Corinth, then, we see a community lapsing into old sins and old habits of thought and rebuked accordingly. It was no doubt an extreme case, and can hardly be regarded as typical of early Church life. A t the same time it is very significant of the dangers which had to be overcome and of the importance of St. Paul's activity in meeting betimes tendencies subversive of Christianity as he understood it. He was more conservative than is sometimes allowed. ' Not Paul's introduction of mysticism into Christianity but his bringing of the moral Gospel of Jesus into the Greek world is the act of his which counts in world-history,' says von Dobschutz.
2 3 4

T h e r e is perhaps a certain irony i n x v . 34 yap 6eov rives , ' F o r all y o u r confidence in y o u r gnosis, some of y o u l a c k necessary gnosis.' B u t is also a fixed t e r m ; cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , p p . 292 sq., 343. O n F a i t h cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , 286 sqq. ; Dolger, 2 , ii. 482 sq. O n F a i t h , H o p e , L o v e , cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , 383 sqq., ChristS t a h l i n , Gesch. griech. Litt. ii. 11410, Clemen, p p . 328 sqq., U b e r w e g Praechter, Philosophie des A Uertums, 1 2 , p . 630. Proclus in t h e fifth c e n t u r y A . D . speaks of love, t r u t h , a n d faith as raising m a n t o G o d , and recommends t h e m t o deovpyoi (wonder-workers) as a means of securing c o n t a c t w i t h G o d (Ad Alcibiadem, p . 5 2 ) ; this triad comes from t h e Oracula Chaldaica, cf. Reitzenstein, op. cit., p p . 386 sq. T h e t e n d e n c y t o triads w a s of course strong. Cf. t h e good observations of K . H o l l , Urchristentum und Religionsgeschichte, p . 4 1 , and of E . F . S c o t t , First Age of Christianity, p p . 1 5 7 sq. Der Apostel Paulus, i. 43.
9 2 9 9 3 4

V RELATIONS TO PHILOSOPHY

i . Hellenistic popular philosophy.We must now ask what relation Gentile Christianity bore to contemporary philosophic teaching, which then took the place of religion in moulding the lives of m a n y . Philosophy was the more fitted to do this for the reason that in the Hellenistic age its main emphasis came to be laid on man, his needs, and his duties. How it thus served the needs of the times has been well stated b y E d w y n B e v a n in Stoics and Sceptics, and again in his essay in The Hellenistic Age. Those were days of sudden and catastrophic reversals of fortune : man required some w a y of escape. Hence comes the importance attached to self-sufficiency, autarkeia. H e who has learnt his lesson aright is beyond the reach of circumstances. Some found satisfaction in a warm belief in the omnipotence of the stars. Together with the fatalism involved in Babylonian astrological theories, which in the Hellenistic age won many adherents, there grew what Cumont has called ' astral mysticism.' This meant an enthusiasm in the contemplation of the stars and a finding in this contemplation of something which could raise man above worldly cares and occupations. ' I know that I am mortal and the creature of a d a y / says Ptolemy, ' but when I track b y m y mind the winding courses of the stars, I no longer tread the earth, but am with Zeus himself, and take m y fill of ambrosia, the food of the gods,' and this attitude was not confined to great astronomers; Seneca, in sketching the happiness to be enjoyed after death b y the righteous, stresses the privilege of contemplating at close quarters the motions of the stars. Astrological ideas could
1 2

F o r philosophy's definite c l a i m t o do this cf. Reitzenstein, Myst*, 288. Anth. Pal. ix. 5 7 7 ; cf. F . C u m o n t , Bulletin de Vacadimie royale de Belgique, 1909, p p . 2 5 6 s q q . ; F . B o l l , Jahresberichtedesphilologischen Vereins zu Berlin, 1 9 2 1 , p p . 2 sqq.; and H . Gressmann's convenient t r a c t , Die hellenistische Gestirnreligion (Beit. z. Alten Orient, v . 1925). For cont e m p l a t i o n after t h i s life cf. m y Sallustius, x c i v , and Seneca, Dial. V I . 2 5 ; W . W . Jaeger, Aristoteles (1923), p p . 143 sqq., has shown t h a t A r i s t o t l e is t o some e x t e n t t h e father of this a t t i t u d e . T h e idea of the flight of the mind t h r o u g h the universe is P l a t o n i c ; cf. R . M . Jones, Class. Phil. xxi. 9 7 sqq. 134.
2 m

produce also an ecstatic self-surrender to the immutable decrees of Fate, accepted as divine law which it is man's privilege to obey. Here astrology and Stoicism were on common ground : two instances of the attitude in question may be quoted from Vettius Valens, a writer of the early part of the second century A . D . , particularly valuable for our purpose as being a thoroughly commonplace man (Anthologia, V I . 1, p. 242, 8 Kroll), ' I was not excited b y the varied courses of horses and the swift rush of the whip, or b y the rhythms of dancers and the idle delight of flutes and the Muse and languorous strains, or b y all that through devices or ribaldry moves hearers, no, nor did I have any part in harmful or beneficial occupations compact of good and evil or in foul and burdensome occupations, but, having chanced upon divine and reverent contemplation of things celestial, I wished to cleanse m y * character of all vice and all pollution, and to leave m y soul i m m o r t a l ' ; and again (V. 9, p. 220, 19), ' Those who busy themselves with foreknowledge of the future and with the truth acquire a soul that is free from slavery, and despise Fortune, do not persist in hope [thought of here as an evil thing], do not fear death, and live without perturbation, having schooled their souls to be brave, and they are not puffed up b y prosperity or depressed b y adversity, but are contented with what they have. A s they are not hankering after the impossible they bear with constancy what is ordained, and being freed from all pleasure or flattery, they are soldiers of Fate.' (This is the metaphor of the militia sacra, which we have seen applied to Christianity.) ' For it is impossible for any man b y prayers or sacrifices to overcome what was fixed from the beginning and alter it to his taste ; what has been assigned to us will happen without our praying for it, what is not fated will not happen for our prayers.' This doctrine was too austere for the many, who sought in mysteries freedom from astral fate, which might to them seem the codification of life's hardness.
1

Others took refuge in one philosophical school or another.

F o r t h e Stoic a t t i t u d e cf. H a t c h , p p . 221 sqq., Liechtenhan, p p . 90 sqq.; for the un-Greek idea t h a t F a t e , Heimarmene, is a c t u a l l y evil cf. p . 150 below.
1

It is noteworthy that a man of the world like Cicero turned to philosophy not only as a field for literary activity, but also as a subject of real importance and helpfulness in difficult t i m e s ; that even before the circumstances of the time caused him to substitute literary activities for political, he had busied himself with Greek political philosophy and transformed the Hellenistic idea of immortality won b y service of mankind into the more Roman idea of immortality won b y service of the s t a t e ; and again that a Horace was so pre-occupied in his later years with questions of conduct and of man's place in the universe as we see in the first book of his Epistles. Virgil is associated with the Augustan revival of Roman religion, and of him we are told that he purposed after finishing the Aeneid to devote the rest of his life to philosophy. Since philosophy consoled man and gave him a kind of soteria, it could evoke something of a religious sentiment. What Cercidas says of Diogenes, what Lucretius says of Epicurus, is in the nature of an apotheosis, and the attitude of Lucretius to Epicureanism is that of a man who has undergone the psychological experience which we call conversion. Of that experience, produced in St. Augustine when a pagan b y the reading of Cicero's Hortensius, a work intended to stimulate men to study philosophy, there are other examples, and of a consequent abandonment of the world ; this occurs markedly in Neopythagoreanism and kindred philosophy, and in Hermetic circles. The conclusion of the Poimandres or first tractate of the Corpus may be quoted, ' A n d now, w h y delay ? Will you not, having received all this teaching, be a guide to all who deserve it, in order that the race of men may through you be saved b y God? . . . A n d I began to preach to men the beauty of piety axidgnosis, saying " O people, earth-born men,
1 2 3 4 5

I n the D r e a m of Scipio, in B o o k V I . of his De re publico, (written in 5 4 - 5 1 B . C . ) , finely characterised b y Reitzenstein, Neue Wege zum Antike, ii. P . 89, . 1 a b o v e . Cf. O. Weinreich, Neue Jahrb. 1926, p. 643. Cf. A . G w y n n , Roman Education, p p . 1 7 5 sq. & , Hvtyes , a n old t y p e of religious address. Cf. Aristoph. Birds 685 &y 5)) &$$ , /^, , ' / \6, in a p a r o d y of an Orphic t h e o g o n y (with * cf. O r p h . Argon. 430 ; cf. also a kindred address t o men in E m p e d o c l . fr. 124 Diels, & SeiKhv yevos & ). W i t h cf. also M i c a h i. 2.
1 3 4 6

that have given yourselves up to sleep and drunkenness in ignorance of God, be sober, cease to be drunken and spellbound b y foolish sleep." A n d they listened, and came with one heart.' The speaker is le type d'un convent, as Meautis s a y s . Hermetism is indeed a ground in which religion and philosophy meet, but the attitude in question had come to be at home in the latter. Now that philosophy in this w a y answered spiritual as well as intellectual needs, it addressed itself to the masses and not merely to the select few. Thus Stoicism taught man to fit himself to the world order of which he was part, ' to live in accordance with nature,' and developed the theory of duties; Epicureanism sought to free him from superstitious fear of the gods and of death; Cynicism emphasised the advantages of cutting oneself adrift from all worldly interests. School rivalries could be severe, but in the sphere of popular philosophy they were least marked ; thus Seneca quotes various good sayings from Epicurus. The spread of philosophic ideas was due partly to oral teaching, given b y a number of lecturers who had often something of the missionary in them, partly to books. The latter might be plain expositions, as the Elements of Ethics b y the Stoic Hierocles: not a few belonged to or were influenced b y a type known as the diatribe. The word itself means ' conversation,' and denotes in this case a species of written causerie in colloquial and pointed style. Its invention is ascribed to Bion the Borysthenite, who flourished in the first half of the third century B . C . W e possess considerable fragments of the works of his imitator Teles. In these men are exhorted to play cheerfully whatever parts Fortune has given to them on the stage of life (a recurrent metaphor), to be contented with the plainest fare and the sharpest poverty, and to bear all things with a good g r a c e ; they are taught also that the supposed evils men fear cannot deprive them of happiness, and that their spiritual need is of healing. The diatribe is Cynic in origin and continues to be coloured by Cynicism,
1 2

Aspects ignoris de la religion grecque (1925), p. 143. T h e Pauline m e t h o d of argument b y question and answer m a y be explained thence, b u t it c a n also be brought i n t o relation w i t h R a b b i n i c practice (von D o b s c h u t z , Der Apostel Paulus, i. 22 sq.).
2

but its use is not limited to C y n i c s : the Stoic Musonius wrote characteristic specimens in the first century of the Empire, and some features of its style occur even in writings of the Hermetic school, to which we shall return. It is natural to seek for traces of the influence of the style of writing here employed and of the ideas stated in it on New Testament writings. Sometimes that influence is fairly clear; the Epistle of St. James perhaps contains a strain of the diatribe, as Geffcken and Dibelius have argued : the description of the evil which the tongue (iii. 3 sqq.) can work seems to be a Hellenistic commonplace. Nevertheless, it is not easy to form conclusions with any confidence. A s Bonhoffer has shown in his valuable Epiktet and das neue Testament, many of the points of contact between the diatribe and St. Paul are to be explained from the fact that both St. Paul and the authors of diatribes used the conversational language of the day. Much material for comparisons, as the planting and sowing of seed, gymnastics, wrestling, the games, triumphs, they have in common : here St. Paul m a y be influenced b y the diatribe, or may, like the diatribe, draw his illustrations from the world around him and from its conversation. Both were trying to do similar tasks, and certain obvious methods were available. 2. Stoicism.In general, we m a y also be sceptical as to any large measure of Stoic influence on the Pauline writings. On the face of it there appears to be much common ground : y e t there is such an absence in St. Paul of what is more characteristically Stoic that we m a y well ask if he had received more of their doctrines than had become commonplace, even though at Tarsus he m a y have had opportunities for hearing Stoic lectures on philosophy.
1 2 3 4

Cf. m y Sallustius, p p . x x v i i sqq. A . Bonhoffer, R.G. V. V. x . 102 sq., points out t h a t the lectures of E p i c t e t u s are for the most p a r t not diatribes in the strict sense of t h e term. Cf. Clemen, p. 363. Here a religious metaphor is perhaps t o b e found ; cf. Reitzenstein, Iran. Erlos. p p . 142 sqq. B u t the t h o u g h t t h a t spiritual development is like the growth of a seed is common in philosophy from A n t i p h o n d o w n wards (Pohlenz, Gott. gel. Anz. 1 9 1 3 , p . 637). Y e t he p r o b a b l y was sent t o Jerusalem soon after becoming a ' son of the L a w ' a t the age of fourteen (von D o b s c h u t z , Der Apostel Paulus. i. 2).
2 8 4

He speaks of , Nature, and its teaching (i Cor. xi. 14), but need not mean more than ' the physical facts indicate what is right' and is an argumentum ad homines : it has a parallel in Epict. I. 16, 10, but need not come from a Stoic source. Syneidesis, which St. Paul uses of conscience, is not a Stoic technical term, although it has often been thought to be Stoic : the idea may come from Stoic sources, but it is not clear that the writer had firsthand acquaintance with Stoic texts. Rom. ii. 15 ' who show the work of the law written in their hearts, as their conscience testifies' may look Stoic, but can more readily be explained from Hebraic ideas like Jerem. xxxi. 33 : ' B u t this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the L o r d ; I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write i t ; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people/ Though in existing Rabbinical texts this is not extended to cover the heathen, in the more liberal schools of Judaism existing in St. Paul's day it m a y have been. A t the same time, the idea in Romans that all races know God is a Hellenistic commonplace (p. 61 earlier). So also with other Stoic tferms which he seems to u s e ; it is not obvious that he uses them in their peculiar sense or with knowledge thereof. Bonhoffer has argued with great force for this v i e w : subsequent criticism should perhaps cause some modification of his conclusions, but in general he has made a clear case against any theory of extensive influence on St. Paul of Stoic writings. A t times St. Paul shows acquaintance with Stoic ideas, but he opposes them or uses them against the system to which they belong. A t most he has used Stoic material to construct his own system, and it is likely that in so far as he has used it it is through intermediary Hellenistic Jewish writings or discussion. It is not probable that he was widely read in
1 2

Strack-Billerbeck, I I I . 8 8 sqq.; for the Stoic parallel cf. M . Pohlenz, Gott. gel. Anz. 1 9 1 3 , p p . 642 sqq. (he g i v e s v a l u a b l e material on the idea of conscience). I n Neue Jahrb. 1926, p p . 2 5 7 sqq., P o h l e n z regards the emphasis which Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, laid on l a w in nature as due t o his being Semitic. Cf. R . Liechtenhan's good book, Die gottliche Vorherbestimmung bei Paulus und in der Posidonianischen Philosophic (Forsch. Pel. Lit. A.N.T., N.F., 18 ; 1922), p p . 5 sqq. For other recent work cf. Clemen, p p . 130 sq.
1

Greek literature. In any case, some Stoic ideas were so widely current that an educated man could not fail to be affected b y them. It has recently been argued that their influence is to be traced in Cor. xiii, and that chapter certainly has points of contact with popular philosophic writing of its time. Y e t it must be remembered that the passage in general is one of the most strikingly original things St. Paul ever wrote. Hellenistic ideas are fairly clear in the speech put in his mouth at Athens (Acts x v i i ) : there is no reason to suppose either that he said exactly what is attributed to him, or that he failed to make his message as presentable to Greek philosophers as he could. In it a number of commonplaces of Greek speculation must be recognised. The argument concerning men's natural belief in God is strongly tinged with Stoicism. Thus Seneca also says that God does not require temples, that H e is always friendly and needs no placation, a host of writers that He needs nothing from us, Stoics and Hermetics that He gives life and health to all, Stoics that man seeks God, Dio of Prusa and Seneca that He is not far away. Stoic, again, is the idea that our existence is in God, and in v. 30 is used in the pagan sense ' change one's m i n d ' rather than the Christian ' repent.' Most of the details are Stoic ; once more much can be paralleled from Philo and other Jewish Greek writers. Stoicism supplied Christianity with useful arguments for polemic, as later Epicureanism afforded valuable collections of material for the criticism of the absurdities of pagan mythology. It is difficult to see any evidence for the view that it transformed the new religion. A t the same time Stoicism may well have given a praeparatio evangelica : R. Bultmann has recently remarked that while the matter common to Stoicism and the New Testament gave points of contact for evangelising, Christianity had what Stoicism had not, the strength and enthusiasm of a living religion and a personal faith in God, a new value for the individual and the power to arouse the human soul to its true life.
1 2 3

Cf. Clemen, p p . 326 sq. C l e m e n , p p . 300 sqq. A n u m b e r of absorbed b y Jewish Greek writers.
2

the

commonplaces h a d

been

Z.N.W., 1 9 1 2 , p. 1 9 1 .

Again, as E d w y n B e v a n says, Stoicism believed t h a t ' the Universe is governed b y a Purpose towards a valuable end, but Christianity gives a positive image of this end b y defining it as l o v e / Moreover, in its later forms Stoicism had become the defender of established religion, and could thus in a measure anticipate the Christian harmonisation of the intellectual and religious instincts. In this respect, as in others, converts found in the new religion all that they had sought elsewhere, and much more also. 3. Neopythagoreanism.The suggestion that Neopythagorean influence is responsible for St. Paul's unfavourable attitude towards marriage is improbable. T h a t attitude is most readily explained as springing from the common expectation of a speedy Second C o m i n g : the Apostle's temperament perhaps counts for something, as does also a tendency to asceticism which was then manifesting itself. Christian and pagan asceticism do in a measure come from the same soil. Certainly self-mortifications are not the peculiar property of any school or s e c t : in the fourth century, as has been observed, Julian was as proud of the lice in his beard as could be any monk in the Thebaid. In Eph. iv. 26 we read ' Let not the sun go down upon your w r a t h / Plutarch records that Pythagoreans, if ever moved b y anger to abusive words, joined hands, embraced and were reconciled before the sun set. This is, however, not a case of influence, rather of the transference of a moralising precept which m a y have become commonplace. 4. Hermetism.A summary account of Hermetic literature has been given earlier in this essay (pp. 65 sqq.). It has some interesting things in common with the New Testament. Apart from the warning to rise from sleep and drunkenness, which they share with Mandaean texts and which Reitzenstein would explain as due to common use of the Iranian Redeemer-myth, we note the mention of
1 2 3 4

Stoics and Sceptics, p . 49. A g a i n , Stoicism appealed t o the d i g n i t y of the i n d i v i d u a l soul, while C h r i s t i a n i t y looked t o God's grace (Pohlenz, G.G.A. 1 9 1 3 , p . 648). Cf. further L i e c h t e n h a n , op. cit. p p . 1 1 4 sqq., for a s t a t e m e n t of differences. R i g h t l y rejected b y C l e m e n , p . 3 2 1 . De amore fratrum, 1 7 , p . 448 B. * B u t see p . 100, 4, a b o v e .
1 3

 , service b y reason and in the spirit, the statements that true wisdom lies in piety and that all turns to good for the elect, the description of the giving of knowledge as illumination, the eagerness to liberate the soul from the body, the emphasis on vision as transforming u s , and the concept of a number of the elect emancipated from the present world-order. These points of contact are perhaps most easily explained as due to a common but free use of terms and conceptions which shaped themselves in lost Hellenistic mystical writing. Another coincidence deserving attention arises from the notion of Fate as evil. According to the first tractate, the Poimandres, man can win escape from the sway of the planetary gods, which is this Fate, b y knowing the t r u t h ; this knowledge means no less than the passage from death into life. This is not unlike Gal. iv. 3' W e were slaves to the Elements,' (regarded as personal daemonic powers, possibly without a physical connotation). ' N o w , having known God or rather having been known b y Him, y o u still go back to the Elements,' (here regarded as having been mediators in making the L a w ) . Y e t the two thoughts are quite different: the one is freedom from servitude to Fate, the other freedom from servitude to the Law. The Hermetic freedom is a freedom when the soul quits the body and passes upwards through the celestial spheres; mystically this is anticipated on earth. The Pauline freedom is an escape here and now from a worship of inferior heavenly powers and from the keeping of their ordinances, to the free worship of God. Very significant of the w a y in which
1 2 3 4

\oyiKai ,.. i. 3 1 ; \arpeia, ibid. xiii. i8;cf. Casel's full s t u d y in Jahrb. f. Lit. iv. 37 sqq. of t h e antecedents of the phrase and its a p t application b y t h e apologists t o t h e E u c h a r i s t ; for all turning t o good cf. R o m . viii. 28 w i t h CH. ix. 4; on vision cf. p p . 106 sq. a b o v e ; for further references cf. Clemen, p p . 39 sqq. Cf. p . 67 a b o v e . CH. i. 1 5 , 1 9 sqq. Cf. 1 John iii. 1 4 . Cf. K . Dieterich, 0 2 , i. 9 sqq., for a full discussion. I n t h e Jewish a n d p l a n e t a r y ideas m e e t ; cf. also F . H . Colson, The Week, p p . 95 sqq.; a n excursus of Dibelius on Col. ii. 2 3 ; L i e t z m a n n on G a l . iv. 3 (Strack-Billerbeck, I I I . 370, cling to t h e old e x p l a n a tion t h a t means the religious ordinances of the world before Christianity came, regarded as an elementary stage in religious instruction. B u t cf. Col. ii. 16-20. F o r the elements as helping t o m a k e the L a w cf. t h e M a n d a e a n belief discussed b y Reitzenstein, Das mandaische Buck des Hetrn der Grosse, p p . 36 sqq.
a 3 4

the terminology is handled is ' knowing, or rather known ' ; for the technical sense of gnosis another is substituted; God's knowledge of us, not our knowledge of Him, transforms our lives. Y e t even here there is a Hermetic parallel, ' God is not ignorant of m a n : H e knows him thoroughly and would be known of him. For it is only knowledge of God that brings salvation to m a n . ' The most striking similarity of Christianity and Hermetism is that, just as the former spoke of the operation of the Holy Ghost within every Christian, the latter taught that a divine Nous or Mind worked in and transformed the individual. The significant difference is, I think, that in Hermetism, as in some Christian Gnosis, man when so transformed has reached a new plane of life in which he is raised above the need for moral endeavour; in Christianity the possession of the Spirit comes to man, but he must still struggle against sin. T h e Christian has Heaven in spe, the Hellenistic mystic in certainty. It is the same difference which we have earlier observed between Hellenistic and Christian sacramentalism.
1 2 3

Corp. Herm. x . 1 5 ; cf. N o r d e n , A gnostos Theos, p p . 287 sq. I t should be noted t h a t this use of gnosis had p r o b a b l y m a d e its w a y into Judaism ( B o u s s e t , N a c h r . Gott. gel. Gesell. 1 9 1 5 , p p . 4 6 6 s q . ; L i e t z m a n n , M e s s e , p . 234). Y e t S t . P a u l knows gnosis as a technical t e r m ; Reitzenstein (Myst. , p . 67) t r u l y remarks t h a t his contrast of \6yos and \oyos would h a v e been incomprehensible t o a purely Greek thinker. Philo seldom uses (Bousset 468) t h o u g h t h e idea involved is familiar t o him (Reitzenstein. ibid. P- 3 8 ) ; this a v o i d a n c e is perhaps due t o t h e fact t h a t Philo is addressing the general public of c u l t i v a t e d Greeks a n d avoids an un-greek technical term. Norden has remarked (A gnostos Theos 89) t h a t Clement avoids in his Protrepticus and Paedagogus. O n t h e word cf. also p. 67, Clemen, p . 310, H a r n a c k , Terminologie der Wiedergeburt, p . 128, and m y Sallustius, x c ; on the use of for those w h o h a v e gnosis (parallel t o 1 Cor. ii. 6) cf. Reitzenstein, Myst. , 190 sqq. ; , 338 sqq. (also 317) ; on its nontechnical use H a r n a c k , p . 1 3 7 . Cf. p . 103 a b o v e . I n fact this moral i m p e r a t i v e is one of t h e fruits of t h e Spirit. M a n when 'justified ^ (p. 7 8 ) m u s t fulfil visibly in t h e earthly sphere w h a t is already an invisible reality in the sphere of divine action (Windisch, Z.N.IV., x x i i i . p . 2 7 1 ) . T h e Hermetist is not called t o such a c t i o n s ; (CH. xiii. 7) refers like rats in 8 t o t h e decisive divine a c t of justification. Afterwards if he performs w h a t t o another is a sin i t is not so for him (xii. 7), and he has no J u d g m e n t t o fear
3 ! 2 1 1 2 3 2 3 -

VI
CONCLUSIONS

I . The development in general.To study all the points of contact which have been observed between early Christian writings and pagan thought would be impossible within the present compass, and the reader who wishes to pursue the matter further has Wetstein's commentary and Clemen's invaluable survey at his disposal. W e cannot linger over interesting details such as the close similarity between the qualifications required of a bishop and of a presbyter in the Pastoral Epistles on the one hand and of a general in Onosander on the other, or (to mention a matter of more moment) Pauline and Hellenistic lists of sins. Glancing backwards, we have seen in the Gentile world to which Christianity came signs of preparation for a new religion of this type ; we noted a deepening of religious consciousness, a sense of sin, a readiness to accept teaching as of authority, signs of a new moral atmosphere, a philosophic standard of ethics capable of being vitalised b y religion. Christianity came on the crest of a wave ; it was-able to use and direct existing tendencies. If it seemed unoriginal in ethics, still it was able to give a new motive for morality, the soul's desire to show its grateful love to the God who had redeemed it, and a new stimulus, in the belief that Christ and His Spirit work in the humblest individual Christian and that he enjoys intimate personal communion with God. T o us it m a y seem to have much in common with other creeds of the time : y e t to those who met it, it opened a new world. It is surely significant that, when Julian wished to galvanise paganism into new life, he imitated that which he opposed. Christianity, in those early years which we know so dimly, had developed. In its passage to becoming a world-religion
1 2

Cf. Clemen, p . 347, for the first p o i n t ; D e i s s m a n n , Licht*, p . 268, for t h e second (without forgetting R a b b i n i c parallels). I h a v e not touched on t h e supposition of Orphic influence, against which in general cf. A . Boulanger, Orphae, p p . 85 sqq.; it is t o be recognised in some later eschatology (ibid. p p . 1 2 7 sqq.). Holl, Urchristentutn, p . 2 4 ; Weiss, Urchristentum, p. 119. The difference from Hermetism, noticed p. 1 5 1 , is i m p o r t a n t in this connection.
2

the new body of believers had clothed their tenets in Greek language, some of it philosophic and religious, and they had realised more of the implications of those tenets. T h e y had continued their original rites, and realised more of the significance of those rites. The stream of belief, which had now received Greek tributaries to swell its original waters, was to widen further. It was to receive Rome's contribution also. T o study that would take us too far ; we should see how the Roman Empire helped to shape the picture of the Catholic Church, how the ciuitas dei on earth learnt from the ciuitas Rom ana, how the Roman conception of authority strengthened the Christian, how the legal mind of the West coloured its view of man's relations with God, and how its practical tendency forced to the front problems different from those which concerned the more speculative East. None of these things were new to Christianity ; all of them received new impulse from without. T o any student primarily concerned with the other religions of the Empire, Christianity stands out as curiously uncompromising, in spite of the attempts of the apologists to represent it as a reasonable Greek philosophy. Against deliberate compromise there stood firmly the intense personal devotion of the many who had found the certainty which they craved, the peace which the Roman Liturgy stresses to this d a y . Pax Domini sit semper uobiscum . . . dona nobis pacem . . . Domine Jesu Christe qui dixisti Apostolis tuis, Pacem meam relinquo uobis. Later, when Christianity became the official religion, it was easier to be a Christian than not to be a Christian; entrance to the Church was not always the result of an enthusiastic rejection of one's religious past. 2 . Why Christianity won.To answer in precise and rational terms the question ' W h y did Christianity win in
J 1 2

Cf. H a l l i d a y , Background, p p . 256 sq.; b u t for t h e a n t i q u i t y of t h e idea of the u n i t y of t h e C h u r c h see also W e t t e r , Liturgien, i. 1 7 5 (already in 1 Cor. x. 32 w e h a v e t h e germ of t h e idea of the Christians as a ' third p e o p l e ' distinct from Jews and Gentiles, as v o n D o b s c h u t z observes, op. cit. i. 45). F o r p a g a n parallelism of G o d and t h e Emperor cf. J.H.S. 1925, 9799O n t h e idea in S t . P a u l cf. v o n D o b s c h u t z , op. cit. i. 39 ; on history d o w n t o S t . A u g u s t i n e cf. H . F u c h s , Augustin und der antike Friedensgedanke (1926).
8

the conflict of religions ? ' is naturally not possible. The course of such an evolution is not usually simple, and here we have to reckon with many cross-currents. It m a y however be of service to state some of the qualities which gave the victorious creed advantages over others. Christianity satisfied both the religious and the philosophic instincts of the time. It offered a cultus in which the individual found his own personal needs and the desire for brotherhood in worship satisfied. This cultus shared with others the merit of giving the realisation of the means of salvation; it was superior in that the Saviour was not merely a figure of unique attraction, but also a recent historical figure invested with deitynot a mythological personage encumbered with legends which to many thinking men were positively offensive and to others were at least in need of d e f e n c e ; it was superior in that the salvation involved was a salvation from forces of moral evil, and in that the cultus itself was simple and free from primitive ritual survivals in need of allegorical explanation. While the increasing use of the Old Testament gave the requisite stamp of antiquity to the claims of Jesus, H e was not limited b y any over-emphasis of His home in Judaea. Mithras was and remained Persian: Jesus was universal. Again, the new faith satisfied the desire of contemporary mystical faith for gnosis, special knowledge, union with deity, illumination and the like, and succeeded in combining with this a personal conception of God often lacking in Hellenistic analogues. A t the same time, Christianity gave a dogmatic philosophy of the universe, and the philosophic tendency of the timewelcomed dogma. Men wanted not to seek truth but to be made at home in the universe. The Christian thinkers, like Clement of Alexandria, found room in their systems for
1 2 3 4

Cf. a remark of the orthodox Macrobius quoted in m y Sallustius, 1 , and the third and fourth chapters of Sallustius. T h e a b o v e remarks on the contrast of Jesus and other Saviours are m u c h indebted t o L o i s y , My stives, p . 3 4 3 . Difficulties arose from t h e Old T e s t a m e n t , cf. H a t c h , Influence, p . 80. C / . p. 7 7 , n. 1, a b o v e . O n t h e a c c e p t a b i l i t y of prophetic allusions a t t h e t i m e cf. a b o v e all H a t c h , Influence, p p . 72 sqq. W e t t e r , Phos, p . 1 6 7 ; ibid. p . 162, he remarks t h a t in the world around t h e content of gnosis was less regarded t h a n the possession of gnosis. T h e phrase comes from E d w y n B e v a n , Stoics and Sceptics, p. 98 (as t h e a i m of Posidonius).
6 3 2 3 4

very much of Platonism, which in the second century of our era was a rising force, and both Christians and pagans found a striking similarity between philosophic and Christian teaching. The resulting religious philosophy had fewer inconsistencies, fewer indigestible traditions to explain, than, for instance, the religious philosophy of Iamblichus. Here was something which might satisfy mystics like those Hermetists who disliked popular worship ; here was their ' spiritual service.' Moreover, there was room in the new faith for a common-sense practical ethics, and it had a sacred Book which, so far as we can estimate, compared and compares favourably with the other religious literature of the time. In these points Christianity could do what other rivals claimed, and could do it better. It had another important merit. It combined belief in God's perfect justice with the conviction that He loved the sinner even in his sin and desired his salvation. The attraction of this to ordinary people must have been very great. A t it Julian directs his bitter sarcasm, making Jesus say ' Whosoever is an adulterer, whosoever is a murderer, whosoever is accursed and wicked, let him be of good cheer and come ; for I will wash him in this water and at once make him clean, and, if he falls into the same sins again, I will allow him to smite his breast and strike his head and become clean.' It freed from fear: fear of Fate, fear of daemones, fear of death. Other causes would contribute to the ascendancy of the
1 2 3 4 5

Cf. H a t c h , p p . 126 sqq. A n interesting t e s t i m o n y t o the esteem in w h i c h P l a t o was held is T a t i a n ' s sneer (Oratio, 3) : . . . , , (sc. ) . Cf. . Dibelius, Neutestamentliche Studien Georg Heinrici dargebracht (1914), PP. 1 7 6 sqq. O n the philosophic difficulties w h i c h it entailed cf. H a t c h , p p . 226 sqq. Convivium, p. 336; so earlier Celsus ap. Orig. C . Cels. iii. 59. Holl's distinction between Christianity and its rivals on this point (Urchristentum, p . 16) has been met b y Reitzenstein, Myst , p. g8 . B u t it remains true t h a t Christianity welcomed the sinner while p a g a n i s m accepted him. Cf. T a t i a n , 29, p. 30. 12 . . . 4v \ \ $ ', 9> 7 ^ . Compare the p r a y e r in a Berlin magical p a p y r u s (as emended b y Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 7 8 ) : , , , , , and C.H. xii. 7 ' also Reitzenstein, Myst. , 300 sqq. I n modern t i m e s it is stated t h a t a main reason for t h e conversion of m a n y Oraons in B e n g a l t o Christianity is the belief t h a t w i t c h e s h a v e no power o v e r Christians (E.R.E. ix. 507).
2 3 4 3 2 5 3

new religion, as for instance its exclusiveness. One mysterycult did not exclude adhesion to another ; at most it would claim to be the authentic and oldest form of worshipping godhead. The Christian refusal to allow other worship would convey a conviction of sure knowledge which was and is psychologically effective. Further, the monarchic episcopate gave Christianity a unity and a purpose which other religions of the time lacked, and once Christianity had made considerable headway, it would gain many adherents as showing itself to be more powerful than other c u l t s ; the Christian God could defeat the other gods. Christian philanthropy and care for the dead must also have won adherents, as we may infer from Julian's countermeasures. Christian brotherhood and Christian assertion of the value of each individual soul had great attraction in an age when a nascent feudalism was tending to tie the poor more and more to their callings, and wfien Roman L a w and those who administered it had one punishment for the honestiores and another for the humiliores. W e may here close our inquiry. It is tentative; for new material m a y at any time be brought to light b y the spade which will unsettle its conclusions; it is tentative also because the volume of modern critical study is so great that an individual student cannot hope to know all that has been previously thought and learned. From this earnest endeavour of many minds much has emerged and more will emerge. Lux crescit, decrescunt tenebrae.
Cf. J.H.S. 1925, 94 sq. ; and on the evidential v a l u e t h e n of miracles of healing m y Sallustius, lxxix ; for t h e Christian's a r g u m e n t from their success cf. ibid, l x x x v i i i .
l 7 7 1

A N O T E ON T H E R E S U R R E C T I O N T H E belief that Jesus did in fact rise from death is the basis of the faith of the Christian community. The Church is from its beginnings not a band of men honouring the memory of a founder who has passed from contact with them (like the followers of Epicurus), but a corporate body which feels itself animated b y the Spirit of One whose rising is the guarantee that He lives and will come again, and which regards the period between that rising and that coming again as a transitory phase of history between the old order and the new. It has often been urged that this belief in the Resurrection of Jesus is due to ideas of divine resurrection current in the contemporary world. W e know several s u c h : the stories of Attis, Adonis, and Osiris. Their myths are the expression of ancient nature-symbolism. The spirit of vegetation dies every year and rises every y e a r ; his dying is kept with mourning and his rising with festivity. Thus the dying of Osiris was celebrated on 1 7 t h Athyr, the finding and reanimation of his body in the night of the 19th. Further, his rising was a type of the resurrection of his worshippers, and on his rising he is t h e ' first of those in the W e s t ' (the other world), just as Christ is ' the firstfruits of those who have fallen on sleep' (1 Cor. x v . 20). For this typical resurrection there now appears to be no clear evidence in the cult of Adonis in Syria, nor again in Babylonia. When Adonis rose we did not know till recently, but a brilliant interpretation of a papyrus has made the third d a y probable. The rising of Attis was celebrated on the fourth day, March 22 being
1 2 3 4

F o r a s u m m a r y of m o d e r n views, cf. C . C l e m e n , Religionsgeschichtliche Erklarung des neuen Testaments*, p . 96 sqq. T h i s note is concerned w i t h some aspects of e a r l y belief in t h e Resurrection, and not w i t h the form in w h i c h the official narratives were later c a s t . T e x t from A b y d o s ( 1 8 8 7 - 1 8 4 9 B.C.), summarised b y F r . N o t s c h e r , Altorientalischer und alttestamentlicher Auferstehungsglauben (Wurzburg, 1926), p . 59. F o r the idea of Christ as t h e first-born of t h e dead, cf. G . B e r t r a m , Festgabe Deissmann, p. I99J. N o t s c h e r , 93, 24. G . G l o t z , Revue des itudes grecques, x x x i i i . (1920), p. 2 1 3 .
2 3 4

the D a y of Blood, on which he was mourned, March 25 the Feast of Joy or Hilaria, on which the faithful rejoiced. (It is possible that the actual coming to life was fixed in the night of the 24th, but the evidence for this is not certain. ) There is, then, a formal resemblance between Christian belief and some of its contemporaries. It must not, however, be allowed to obscure the great difference in content. In the pagan parallels death means defeat, the temporary worsting of life. Man mourns in sympathy with a god who suffers something imposed upon him. In the Christian commemoration the only element of mourning is the thought that men have betrayed and murdered Jesus. His death is itself triumph. The forces of evil have played their trump card and lost. Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando: dux vitae mortuus regnat vivus, as the Easter Sequence says, with an antithesis in which early Christian writing delights. In the pagan stories the rising again is a joyous reversal of defeat; in the Christian story it is the complement of victorious death. It may be said that Attis and Osiris saved b y rising again, Jesus b y dying. It is significant that pathetic realism is almost entirely absent from pictorial representations of the Passion till the Carolingian Renaissance, and that the Christ on the Cross is till even later a crowned figure. Dominus regnat de ligno is the keynote of the thought we are analysing. Again, the pagan stories are cult legends to explain annual festivals in which are re-enacted events which happened long ago. Christianity has in Easter what looks like such a festival. It has, however, been proved that the Easter observance did not arise at once out of belief in the Resurrection, but developed later b y gradual stages out of the Jewish Pascha. The notion implied in the Easter
1 2 3 4

H . H e p d i n g , Attis, p p . 165 sqq. D . Graillot, Le culte de CybHe, p . 130, p u t s the c o m i n g t o life a t d a w n on the 2 5 t h , on slight grounds. Cf. J. K r o l l , Beitrage zum Descensus ad inferos (Ind. lect. B r a u n s b e r g , 1922 ; K o n i g s b e r g ) , p p . 26 sqq. for parallels. L . K o z e l k a , Rdmische Quartalschrift, x x x i . (1924), 125 sqq. K. draws a t t e n t i o n also to t h e f a c t t h a t no p o e t (except Nonnus) t i l l the end of t h e Merovingian age describes the N a i l i n g . E . S c h w a r t z , Zeitschrift fur neutestamentlicke Wissenschaft, vii. 1 sqq., followed b y G . L o e s c h k e , Judisches und heidnisches im christlichen Kult, p p . 8 sq.
2 3 4

THE RESURRECTION

107
1

greeting ' Christ is risen' is a secondary d e v e l o p m e n t ; the idea comes from this festival and from its occurrence in spring ; the festival does not come from the idea. Further, the sacred drama of the Eucharist involves Passion, Death, Resurrection; it is a dramatic re-enacting in mystery of the opus redemptionis. Y e t whereas in the corresponding mystery ritual there was a passage from sorrow to joy, from darkness to light, there is in the Christian rite no element whatever of joyous reversal of a tragic death b y a glorious resurrection. The Sacrifice of the Cross is the climax from which any change would be an anticlimax. In it the whole soteriological work of Jesus is concentrated. This is made very clear b y the Eucharistic prayer of the Hippolytan Church order : ' Who, when He was given over to His voluntary Passion, that He might break the bonds of death and rend the Devil's chains, and tread on Hell, and give light to the just, and fix bounds, and show His Resurrection/ a formula which is repeated in various liturgies. The conquest of death, the harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection, are for its writer implicit in the Crucifixion. It may be remarked in passing that the popularity of the concept of the descent into Hell, thought of as a harrowing, not in the more theological w a y as a means of delivering the saints of Judaism, may well be due to the fact that in it the conquest of death, implicit elsewhere, is explicit and able to seize the popular imagination. These points of divergence do not exhaust the differences between Christian and pagan resurrection. In Christianity everything is made to turn on a dated experience of a historical Person ; it can be seen from 1 Cor. x v . 3 that the statement of the story early assumed the form of a statement in a Creed. There is nothing in the parallel cases which points to any attempt to give such a basis of historical evidence to belief. Nor is there till the fourth century of our era any indication of an attempt to
2 8

F o r material cf. R . Reitzenstein, Weltuntergangsvorstellungen (offprinted from Kyrkohistorisk Arsskrift, 1924), 53. A . Dieterich, Kleine Schriften, p. 429, s t a t e s t h a t t h i s element exists in t h e Mass. I c a n n o t see it. G . P . W e t t e r , Altchristliche Liturgien, i. 26 sqq.; J. K r o l l , op. cit., p p . 7 sqq.
1 8

give a moral basis and moral values to any of the pagan parallels. Belief in the Resurrection was fixed b y the time of St. Paul's conversion; he states it in Cor. x v . 3 as ' that which I received.' He had learnt it within about ten years of the Crucifixion. The evidence at our disposal does not suggest any prototype so close as to lend probability to the supposition either that the Christians deliberately borrowed a story, or that they were unconsciously influenced b y some model. This being so, it is hardly necessary to consider at length the psychological improbability which the first supposition certainly presents. B u t it may be remarked that while in the literary narratives of the Resurrection apologetic motives have been not unreasonably suspected, the fact of the Resurrection was not merely an argument whereby the community at Jerusalem might convince others; it was the presupposition of their own communal life. Their experience, deeply as it had moved them, was not necessarily accompanied b y precise memory of detail; it might be urged that on the third day is a date which suggested itself automatically ; on the third day and after three days recur so often in the Old Testament that they may be regarded as a normal interval between two events in immediate succession, and Rabbinical writers, influenced b y Hosea v i . 2 (' After two days He will revive us, in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight'), held that the Resurrection of the dead would take place on the third day after the end of the world ; again, we find both in Persia and in Judaea the idea that the soul abides in the body for three days after death. Y e t it must be remembered that in the earliest Gospel record this third day rests on an elaborate chronological framework of circumstances which we must regard either as historical or as a complete fabrication. The clearness of our record on this point is in striking contrast with its variations elsewhere. The simple explanation of the tradition which the first Christians bequeathed is that it represents their impression of what had happened.
1 2 3 4

Cf. t h e n t h e t r e a t m e n t of t h e mysteries of A t t i s b y I a m b l i c h u s as reproduced b y Julian in his fifth speech and b y Sallustius, Concerning the gods and the universe, i v . (cf. m y edition, p p . 1 sqq.). * Cf. parallels in W e t s t e i n ' s note on M a t t . xii. 40. Three d a y s i s n a t u r a l l y c o m m o n elsewhere. * S t r a c k - B U l e r b e c k , Kommentar, i. 747. * Bousset, Kyrios Christos , p . 27.
2

Ill

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES A N D CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

Memoriae dilectae GERARDI VAN DER LEEUW

This subject has been so much discussed that the reader will expect from me neither striking novelties nor a complete knowledge of what has been written about it. Nevertheless it m a y be worth while to try to review the situation and to submit some conclusions. We have perhaps reached the point where we can think of these things sine ira et studio, with no desire to explain away the rise of Christianity and with no feeling that the suggestion of Hellenistic elements in it would involve something 'common or unclean'. Dom Odo Casel, whose death was so great a loss to scholarship, used the title Die Vorschule Christi for a chapter in which he discussed the ancient mysteries.
1 2

A first form of these remarks was delivered as one of a series of Haskell Lectures a t Oberlin in 1942 and as a lecture to the University of Chicago in 1944; a second was presented to the Seventh Congress of the History of Religion a t A m s t e r d a m in 1950 (cf. Proceedings, 53 ff. for the t e x t as read) and to the University of Bonn in the same year. Under the circumstances it would be hard to thank all those to w h o m I a m indebted; b u t I wish t o express m y gratitude to m y hosts and to Professors Campbell Bonner, H . J. C a d b u r y , Martin P . Nilsson, Morton Smith and F . R.W'alton and Mr. Zeph Stewart. For the evidence, references will be found in M . P . Nilsson, Gesch. d. griech. Rel., 1, 619ff., 85 ff., 230 ff., 291 ff., 329 ff., 596ff.; A . J. Festugiere-P. Fabre, Le monde grico-romain au temps de Notre-Seigneur, 11 167 ff.; Festugiere, Rev. at. gr. L X I V (1951). 474 ff.; Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and its Hellenistic Background (see p. 1 ff.), Conversion, Ricerche Religiose, vi (1930), 392 ff., Enc. Social Sciences, x i 172 ff., Camb. Anc. Hist, x , x n . T h e notes which follow are intended only b y w a y of supplement or t o document individual statements. Die Liturgie als Mysterienfeier, 1 ff.
2

I
MYSTERIES AND I N I T I A T I O N S IN CLASSICAL GREECE

Like the peoples of Anatolia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, the Greeks had many annual or periodic ceremonies which were conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy and solemnity. Some of these were restricted to special individuals or groups, while to others citizens in general or (as to the Thesmophoria) their wives were admitted. Such ceremonies were in the main agrarian and many, but not all, of them were associated with Demeter and Dionysus. These were heilige Handlungen, solemn actions linked to the annually recurrent cycle of nature, the fertilization of the seedcorn, the renewal of plant and animal and human life; some of them were regarded as the reliving of stories which reflected this cycle. Such renewal of life had always taken place, but it must be ensured. Heilige Handlungen were Handlungen: the emphasis was on the action and was objective and not subjective, collective and not individual. There can be little doubt that the mysteries of Eleusis were once something of this type, a rite concerned with the daily bread and well-being of the then independent community of Eleusis. This was still independent at the time of our earliest record, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, but the mysteries had already assumed a different aspect, and promised prosperity in this life and a better portion in the hereafter to those who had 'seen these things'. The rite retained its relation to the farmer's year, and in the fifth century the Athenians invited the Greeks in general to send first fruits to Eleusis at the time of the mysteries. Y e t these mysteries became primarily initiatory, a thing which changed the status of all who witnessed and which was
1 2

T h e rites of B o n a D e a at R o m e belonged to this t y p e and Cicero calls them mysteria (Wissowa, Pauly-Wissowa, m , 688.66). I t should be noted t h a t in the Near E a s t and in Italy there are very few indications pointing to a n y t h i n g like the solemn rituals of initiation at puberty often found among primitives; such rites de passage as existed were not dramatic. Dittenberger, Syll. (ed. 3), 83. On the Telesterion a t Eleusis cf. L . Deubner, Abh. Berlin, 1945/6, ii; on various phases of development, Nilsson, Cults, Myths, Oracles and Politics in ancient Greece (Acta Inst. Athen. R. Sueciae, Ser. in 8, 1 , 1951), 36 ff., and F . R. W a l t o n , Harv. Theol. Rev. X L V (1952).
2

important to all qualified persons as individuals and not only to the Eleusinians as a group. In early times the rite, like others of the type, was presumably attended year after year b y all local inhabitants who wished to do so. Later what mattered was to have seen the holy things, and to have done so once was sufficient. Initiation was elaborated and came to involve several stages: the fluidity of the Greek language and the vagueness of many statements and allusions in the evidence leave us in doubt on essential points, but the scheme seems to have been as follows. There was first myesis, 'initiation prealable' as P. Roussel called it; this was a purification administered at any time of year. Initiation in the Small Mysteries at Agra(e) was also required before initiation in the Great Mysteries at Eleusis, in Boedromion; last came epopteia, at least a year later, at the same place and time The first stage mentioned may be an old prerequisite but the second is something originally independent and only later incorporated in the scheme. The fourth must be a later accretion; the Homeric Hymn speaks of 'seeing' in a manner which implies that there was only one essential rite and that no higher blessedness was to be had. Presumably epopteia was created when Eleusis drew men from far and near, whether it was to attract them to come again or from a natural human penchant for elaboration. With the growth of Athens and the influx of nonAthenians to Eleusis, initiates who were not performing some special function in the Telesterion must have been in general
1 2 3

Bull. Corr. Hell, L I V (1930), 51 ff. T h i s myesis could be administered either a t Eleusis or a t A t h e n s (B. D . Meritt, Hesperia, x i v , 1945, 77). In Aristoph. Pax 374 a man in imminent danger of death desires myesis; if he means this 'initiation prealable', it must h a v e been credited w i t h some general efficacy. Y e t he probably has in mind the chain of acts culminating in initiation a t Eleusis; for dramatic effect, Aristophanes could ignore the fact t h a t T r y g a e u s , whenever he received 'initiation prealable', would h a v e t o w a i t till Boedromion and go to Eleusis if he was to become an initiate (cf. L . Deubner, Attische Feste, 78 n. 12). First mentioned in Syll. 42, a t e x t to be used in Meritt's revised form, I.e., 61 ff. (cf. Supp. epigr. gr. x , 6). There remain gaps; b u t the t e x t as it stands specifies fees t o be paid for admission t o the Smaller Mysteries and to the Greater Mysteries, b u t none for epopteia. Is it possible t h a t the epoptai mentioned (p. 78) are old initiates attending the mysteries again a t a time before the pressure of those w h o wished to become mystai made this impossible for those w h o had no special qualification? F o r development a t Eleusis, cf. Nilsson 1 621.
2 3

excluded after epopteia from presence at the celebration. The building could not seat more than 3,000 persons; that is conclusive. Old initiates no doubt commonly took part in the procession to Eleusis and m a y have waited inside or outside the precinct while the sacred action was proceeding in the Telesterion; they could not normally witness it again. A new type of ceremony and a new view of the potential implications of public ritual thus came into being and had many repercussions. Eleusis acquired immense prestige; the rise of Athens and of Athenian literature to cultural
1 2

F o r the size of the Telesterion cf. Guide Bleu, Grece (ed. 1935). 192 (The suggestion t h a t others stood in the central space seems to me improbable). In addition t o the priestly participants and the initiates there were the mystagogoi (Plut. Alcib. 34, 6). In spite of Philostr. v . Soph. 11, 1, 12, Himer. Orat. X X I I I 8 and the metaphor in Menander's fragment a b o u t the daimon of the individual (fullest t e x t in J. D e m i a n c z u k , Suppl. com., 60), it is unlikely t h a t there was one mystagogos for each mystes; y e t it is probable t h a t their number was appreciable. O u r first detailed information a b o u t mystagogoi comes from a t e x t (unfortunately mutilated) of a b o u t the first century B . C . published b y J. H . Oliver, Hasp, x (1941), 65 if. Here t h e y are an official b o d y as a t A n d a n i a (Syll. 736, 149; cf. the paragogeis a t the T h e b a n Kabirion, I.G. v u 2428, and the apparently single mystagogos a t Panamara, for whom as primarily guiding the priest cf. Roussel, Bull. Corr. Hell, L I , 1927, 127, n. 5) and a p p a rently responsible for the carrying out of regulations; in particular t h e y were concerned with the deltaria or lists of those approved for initiation. This m a y be part of the late Hellenistic revival and elaboration of ritual known from the t e x t s published b y Meritt, Hesp. x i (1942), 293 . and Roussel, Mel. Bidez, 819 if. I t is of course possible t h a t the responsibilities of the mystagogos ended a t the door of the Telesterion. Oliver's t e x t m a y represent a measure taken after the discovery of t w o unauthorized Acarnanians in the sanctuary in 200 B . C . (Liv. x x x i 14, 7; cf. S. A c c a m e , Riv. Fil. L X I X , 1941, 189 f. on w h a t m a y h a v e been an a t t e m p t b y Philip V to conciliate Athenian opinion). P. R . Arbesmann, Das Fasten bei den Griechen u. Romern (Relg. Vers. Vorarb. X X I 1), 81 f. suggests t h a t initiation was given on more than one night of the mysteries; b u t cf. L u c . Alex. 38 for three distinct d a y s of ritual in Alexander's ceremonial, (read for , with G. Zuntz, CI. Q. X L I V , 1950, 69 f.) which initiated some of the external forms of Eleusis. I do not suggest t h a t we can infer a comparable sequence of actions, b u t certainly the last d a y was marked b y the special ceremony of plemochoai, which (apart from the formula) could be described without impropriety (Athen. 496 A - B ) . In some sanctuaries old initiates were no doubt present repeatedly; so a t Ephesus (Syll. 820; the mystai join with the priestesses in performing the mysteries). W e should not t a k e literally the 'about 30,000 men' of the vision in H d t . v i i i 65, b u t the passage implies t h a t a large proportion of the A t h e n i a n populace took part: cf. Andoc. 1 1 1 1 'when we (the people) came from Eleusis'. L a t e r the epheboi as a b o d y went in full armor t o escort the procession; there was an intention 'that t h e y might become more pious men' (Syll. 885).
2

primacy certainly contributed to this. New rituals arose and ancient rituals were modified or re-interpreted in consequence. Thus the rites on Samothrace, which Galen twice mentions in the same breath as those of Eleusis, were undoubtedly very old. These belonged to the 'Great Gods', mysterious deities who were often but not always identified with the Cabiri. In view of Bengst Hemberg's Die Kabiren, a most thorough and penetrating discussion of one of the darkest corners of Greek religion, we should perhaps think of a Cabiric type of deity rather than of the Cabiri themselves as being worshipped here. A sacred precinct and an independent 'ritual area', both of the seventh century, have been discovered on the island and a covered building, which could serve for special ceremonies, was erected by about 500 B . C . The rites may well have had by then some wider reputation in the North Aegean region, but the fact that Samothrace was a member of the Athenian Empire no doubt helped to interest the Athenians and perhaps others. In Roman times at least, the influence of Eleusis is clear, for we find the two grades of mystes and epoptes. Samothrace devised a special attraction; both grades could be attained at any time of year, and even successively on the same day.
2 3 4 5

A corresponding antiquity may be ascribed to the rites on Lemnos which are expressly described as belonging to the Cabiri. They won the devotion of the Athenian settlers on the island and of men born elsewhere: inscriptions recently published preserve honorific decrees passed in the second half of the fourth century b y 'the isoteleis and the People
N o t e specially the reference in the Delphic paean to Dionysus (Diehl, Lyr. ed. i, n 253), 1. 32. De usu partium, v n 14, x v n 1 (i 418, ii 448 Helmreich). A t Pergamon the epheboi in general received a Cabiric initiation (Dittenberger, Or. gr. inscr. sel. 764). Uppsala, 1950. K . L e h m a n n , Hesp. x i x (1950), 1 ff., x x (1951), 1 ff., x x i (1952), 19 ff. and Am. J. Arch, L V (1951), 195 f. ' L e h m a n n (-Hartleben), Am. J. Arch, X L I V (1940), 345 ff.; the symmystai (356) p r o b a b l y had their fees paid b y mystai (cf. C h . Picard, Ephese et Claros, 304). O n the c o p y i n g of Eleusis cf. Farnell in Hastings, Enc. Rel. Eth. v n 630 f.; N o c k , Am. J. Arch, X L V (1941), 577 ff. (The rite of thronosis there inferred m i g h t h a v e corresponded t o 'initiation prealable' at Eleusis). Antk.
2 3 4 5 1

of the initiated' and perhaps a little later b y 'the assembly of the initiated'. In other words, there was a congregational spirit and non-Lemnian initiates living on the spot could be given the status of associate membership; one of these latter accepted a religious function involving personal expense. Samothrace was to make a greater impress on the world but the Lemnian evidence shows a notable creativeness and Lemnos, it will be remembered, had old and close associations with Athens. The Eleusinian mysteries were performed only at Eleusis and (except b y legal fiction, to gratify some potentate ) only at the canonical times. The Greeks had however other initiations which were not subject to such restrictions. A s always in the development of Greek religion after the Heroic Age, Dionysus counted for much. He had not only numerous civic rites, many of them mysteries of the heilige Handlung type, but also private groups of voluntary worshippers. In spite of early institutionalization, his worship retained or could recapture an element of choice, movement, and individual enthusiasm. Most of our evidence for Dionysiac initiation is later, but the choral songs of the Bacchae of Euripides tell their story. So does the tale in Herodotus I V 79 about the disastrous eagerness of Scyles the Scythian to become an initiate of Dionysus Bakcheios; so, again, the inscription at Cumae which provides that no one who had not become a bakchos could be buried in a particular place. In the classical age these, like the indications of private initiations in the cult of the kindred god Sabazius, are isolated data. After Alexander there is abundant evidence for initiation and in Ptolemaic E g y p t this type of worship assumed dimensions sufficient to cause governmental regulation. In general I am inclined to think that, apart from the devotion of the sick to Asclepius, Dionysus provided the single strongest focus for private spontaneous
1 2 3

S. A c c a m e , Ann. sc. arch. Atene, N.S. i n / v (1941-1943), 89 if. and 76 (cf. 87, of the end of the fifth cent, and 82); J . - L . Robert, R. it. gr. L V I I (1944), Plut. Demetr. 26; Syll. 869 n. 18; W i l a m o w i t z Glaube, n 476. C u m o n t , Rel. orient, (ed. 4), 197, 306 n. 17. Aristoph. Ran. 357 is perhaps significant in spite of the metaphorical character of 356.
2 2 1 2 3

pagan piety using ceremonial forms. Dionysiac initiations did not only, like those of Eleusis and Samothrace, confer a new status on the initiate: they also admitted him to groups of likeminded persons, possessed of the same status and often of a similar hope for the hereafter not exactly to a Church, but to congregations which used the same symbols and spoke the same language. W e know from Apuleius that an initiate could count upon other initiates to recognize an allusion to things which they held sacred. Before we pass on, a word is due to Plato's association of Dionysus with the 'madness that initiates'; this refers to the purifications which the god was thought able to give. For all his insistence on rigid dialectic, Plato had a profound appreciation of the non-rational. He speaks also, and repeatedly, of similar rites of the Corybantes; the w a y in which he does so implies that they were familiar. Eleusinian initiation was received once for all, like the call which the veiled god in the Bacchae of Euripides claims to have received from Dionysus. There were also these other teletai (cf. p. 118, later) which could, like inoculations, be repeated at need, when a man wished to be freed from possession or defilement; the Superstitious Man in Theophrastus went once a month to the Orpheotelestai. Even the humbler rites had the quality implied in Aristotle's statement that those being initiated did not have to learn something but rather to experience something and to be put in a given state of mind. They were ways of changing man's spiritual
2 3 4 5 6

Cf. Festugiere, R. Bibl. 1935 and Nilsson, Bull. soc. roy. lettres de Lund, 1 9 5 1 / 2 . O n the Ptolemaic edict see now F . Sokolowski, / . Jur. Pap. 111 (1949), 137 ff. and Z u n t z , CI. Q. X L I V (1950), 70 ff. C f . N o c k , Am. J. Arch, L (1946), 148. G. P . Carratelli, Dioniso, vm (1940/1), 1 1 9 ff. published a small cylindrical base of white marble from Rhodes, not later t h a n the first cent. B . C . , with the t e x t of Arist. Ran. 454-9. T h i s means t h a t the belief there expressed was taken seriously; and, since there is no name of a dedicator, the inscription is p r o b a b l y due to some gild of initiates of Dionysus or D e m e t e r rather than to an individual. Cf. R o b e r t , R. St. gr. L I X / L X (1946/7), 335 f. *Apol. 55. Phaedr. 265B; cf. I. M . Linforth, U. Cat. Publ. CI. Phil, x m (1946). 121 ff. and F r . Pfister, Wurzb. Jahrbb. 11 (1947). 187 f.; also E . R . D o d d s , The Greeks and the Irrational, 64 ff. 6 6 ff. F r . 15 Rose; Dial. Frag. p. 79 Walzer. There was of course something t o learn: cf. Pindar, Fr. 137 S., Apul. Apol. 55 (studio veri) and Origen's metaphorical use (p. 208 n. 1),.
2 4 4

relation to reality; they were not like ordinary cult-acts in which the individual played his matter-of-fact part as a voluntary agent, b y sacrificing or making vows or joining in a procession. II
M Y S T E R I E S IN T H E H E L L E N I S T I C P E R I O D : THE METAPHORICAL USE OF M Y S T E R Y T E R M I N O L O G Y

The Hellenistic Age, as introduced b y the conquests of Alexander, brought the transplantation rather than the transformation of Greek culture. Such transformation as occurred was largely an extension of developments manifesting themselves in the latter part of the fifth century. The old Greek rites continued: the prestige of Demeter at Eleusis perhaps gained and the popularity of Dionysus certainly did; he might be called the god of Macedonian and Greek expansion into the Near East. Such things flourished on alien and on familiar soil alike; but there were also new growths. In pre-Ptolemaic E g y p t , as in Babylonia, there were no initiates in the Greek sense as it has been described; the terms which appear to correspond are explained as referring to persons who were admitted to participation in secret ceremonies and priestly lore. In the course of time, and probably (though not certainly) before the beginning of the Christian era new initiatory rites where developed for Isis, Mithras, Cybele, Attis etc. Like those of Eleusis and Dionysus, they conveyed the assurance of a higher status, the sense of a closer relationship to the divine, the
1 2 3

Cf. M . Alliot, Bull. Inst.fr. arch, orient, x x x v n (1937/8), 142; a t least four worshippers of 'Isi D i e u - V i v a n t ' are 'renouvele*s de vie'. In general, cf. Wiedemann in Hastings, Enc. v i 275. I wish to withdraw the suggestion (Conversion, 278) t h a t A t h a n a s . v. Anton. 14 refers to an initiation; cf. rather R. Reitzenstein, Sitzungsber. Heidelberg. 1914, viii, 12 and J. Danie!ou, Platonisme et thiologie mystique 193 ff. For important evidence on mystai at R o m e , cf. C u m o n t , C. R. Ac. Inscr. 1945, 397 f. T o j u d g e from A p u l . Met. x i 30 (cf. Plut. 7s. 3, p. 352), initiates in the special sense of Isis sometimes assumed in an honorary capacity the functions of the lower clergy in E g y p t ; hence their shorn h e a d s . O n Mithraism cf. now St. Wikander, Et. sur les my stores de Mithras (Vetenskaps-Societetens i Lund, Arsbok, 1950), 1. In spite of Conversion, 69 Initium Caiani has nothing to do with mysteries; cf. / . Rom. St. x x x v m (1948), 156 f.
2 8

hope (if not the dogmatic assurance) of some sort of blessedness in the hereafter. Like those of Dionysus and unlike those of Eleusis, they could be administered at any place or time. We must not underestimate their emotional depth or overestimate their antiquity and dissemination. Only in the cult of Mithras which, as Nilsson has said (Gesch. II 648; new ed.675),was eineeinmaligeSchopfungeines unbekannten religiosen Genies', was the range of initiates co-extensive with the range of worshippers. We have considered various types of mystery and initiation, all indeed involving some quality of what seemed to be religious experience, some sense of greater intimacy with the unseen world, but divisible into a variety of types. Such distinctions are valid and necessary. Y e t we must not suppose that the ancients differentiated in our analytic w a y or were fully conscious cf the diversity of these phenomena. Julian the Apostate speaks of the annual dramatic rites of Cybele and Attis as mysteria and treats them as parallel to the Eleusinian mysteries. The Eleusinian pattern was so deeply rooted in literature and tradition that those who 'saw' the annual Finding of Osiris may often have treated it as being something of this sort; this attitude is anticipated in Herodotus, and certainly a deep sense of personal participation and spiritual assurance was thus secured. Mysteria (mainly like the neutral word orgia, used of rites as a pluralis tantum) and telete, like other Greek words, had a persistent unity which transcended varieties of meaning; the Greeks did not use dictionaries like ours, still less dictionaries giving a range of equivalents in another language. Mysterion (in the singular) had the additional sense of 'something secret' without any ceremonial associations; this is known chiefly from Biblical Greek and from what derives from it, but is found outside that range also. Telete from of old denoted any solemn rite, including the Panathenaea
< 1 2

169A, 173A; the mystai of 179C m a y well be a special group. Cf. Wilamowitz, Glaube, 11 45 n. 4; N o c k , Harv. St. CI. Phil, L X (1951), 201 ff. K . P r u m m , Z. kath. Theol. L X I (1937), 395 rightly stressed the predominance of the plural when denoting a pagan rite, in contrast to the singular mysterion, as 'secret' in Paul. For an instance of the singular describing a rite cf. Buckler-Calder-Guthrie, on. As. min. ant. i v 281.
2 n a s

which had nothing esoteric about it; it was also used to denote the consecration of a gem or of whatever else (including a procedure) was to be invested with supernatural properties. The fluid nature of the terminology is clear. Isis taught men myeseis in general and Orpheus teletai'* initiation and secret appear side b y side in astrological t e x t s , as in Melito (p. 137, later). The terminology, as also the fact, of mystery and initiation acquired a generic quality and an almost universal appeal. So Alexander of Abonuteichos devised a telete, with Eleusinian attributes, as an added attraction for his new oracle. Under the Empire certain delegates sent by cities to consult the oracle of Apollo at Claros underwent a rite, possibly purificatory, described b y the verb tnyethenai, and entered some special part of the sanctuary (embateuein); the inscriptions set up at their expense speak also of performing or receiving the mysteries. It must have been a question of some optional preliminary to consultation. One of the delegates paid the costs for his young companions to go through the ceremony; but it can hardly have meant much more than the preliminaries to the consultation of Trophonius at Lebadea, save that the latter were compulsory (the consultants there appear as private individuals and not as delegates). So at Panamara in Caria, where there had been seasonal ceremonies earlier, mysteries available at any time were apparently added and there was vigorous propaganda on behalf of the sanctuary. We must not be deceived b y the
2 3 5 6 7

Pind. P. i x 97; C . Zijderveld, Telete (Diss. Utrecht, 1934). On such consecration cf. C Bonner, Studies in magical amulets, 14 ff.; Festugiere, CI. Phil, X L V (1951), 82 f. W . Peek, Isishymnus, 122 f.; R . Harder, Abh. Berlin, 1943, xiv, 21, 41. Aristoph. Ran. 1032. Gnomon, x v (1939), 361 f. W a s Apollo called mystes (Artemidor. I I 70 p. 168 Hercher) because he was t h o u g h t to k n o w hidden things? Picard, Ephese et Claros, 303 ff.; Nilsson 11 456. A Scholiast on Aristophan. Nub. 508 uses the term myesis of those consulting Trophonius; this involved elaborate preparations and repeated examination of the entrails of v i c t i m s t o determine whether this or t h a t man m i g h t approach Trophonius. Y e t V e n e t u s and R a v e n n a s lack the passage and it m a y be B y z a n t i n e . Roussel, Bull. Corr. Hell, L I (1927), 123 ff. (cf. Hanslik-Andree, Pauly-Wissowa, x v m , iii, 450 ff.); note ib. 130 on the deliberate policy of Panamara.
2 3 4 5 6 7

various claims of immemorial antiquity. There was creative innovation; new rites were invented and old rites were modified or at least reinterpreted, e.g., to give them a relation to the now widespread interest in the heavenly bodies. Nevertheless, we are sometimes dealing with innovation in terminology rather than with innovation in practice. Nilsson, who has done justice to the existence of innovation, has also remarked rightly of the cult of Dionysus in later times,' On soup9onne parfois que les mysteres etaient plutot une fa^on de parler qu'une realite, ce qui n'empeche pas que le sentiment mystique en ce qui concerne le dieu fut une realite tres forte . This terminology was capable of wider applications. The conferencier Aristides, who tells in detail and with obvious sincerity of the deities to whom he turned in ill health and of their aid, recounts one vision vouchsafed b y Sarapis; ladders between the parts below and those above earth, the power of the god in either realm, and other things causing wondrous astonishment and perhaps not to be told to all men. 'Such', he says, 'was the content of the telete'* Apart from one possible exception in a papyrus, there is no other indication of any mysteries of Sarapis himself; even Lucius in Apuleius was not offered one. It would be rash to deny
1 1 2 4

Cf. Nilsson, Hommages Bidez-Cumont (Coll. Latomus, 11), 2 1 7 fl. and Gesch. 11 665 (add perhaps t h a t Pausan. V I I I 3 1 , 7 records the presence in the temple of the G r e a t Goddesses a t Megalopolis of a statue of Helios called Soter and Heracles, which implies t h e 'physical' interpretation of Heracles discussed b y Jessen, Pauly-Wissowa, V I I I 73, and b y Gruppe, ib. Supp. i n 1104). F o r the claim of immemorial a n t i q u i t y cf. A p u l . Met. x i 5, 5 aeterna mihi nuncupavit religio, of t h e Ploiaphesia, which must h a v e been a Hellenistic creation. F o r innovations cf. Nilsson, Hess. Bl. f. Volkskunde, X L I (1950), 7 ff. and N o c k , Harv. Theol. Rev. x x v n (1934), 9" * Studi e Materiali di Storia di Religione, (1934), 5'> - his paper in Serta Kazaroviana, 1 (Bull. Inst. Arch. Bulg. x v i , 1950), 17 ff. and Gesch. 11 351 ff. Cf. again the description on coins of a contest a t Side as mystikos and of the c i t y as mystis (B.M.C. Lycia 162 i ; F . Imhoof-Blumer, Kleinas. Munzen, 343, 346); also L . R o b e r t , Rev. phil. 1943, 184 n. 9 on 'mysteries' of Antinous. X L I X 48, p. 424 K e i l (i 500 f. Dindorf). H . C Y o u t i e , Harv. Theol. Rev. X L I (1948), 9 ff. publishes a Karanis p a p y r u s letter (re-edited as P . Mich. 5 1 1 ) of the first half of the third century A . D . T h e writer tells his father t h a t the charge for a a t t h e b a n q u e t of Sarapis which is t o t a k e place in t w o months is 24 drachmae and t h a t for a place is 22; instead of m a k i n g these p a y m e n t s he proposes t o undertake the position of an agoranomos which would free h i m from t h e m and ensure him double portions (cf. E . Seidl, Studia et documenta
2 I C I 3 4

the possibility of the sporadic existence of such mysteries, but in the passage cited the telete was the dream itself; Sarapis showed to Aristides the hidden things of the underworld; he saw them as Lucius did in his Isiac initiation. Elsewhere Aristides speaks of a revelation from Asclepius as 'like some telete and says of another experience 'almost aa though in a telete, good hope being present to me together with fear'. Again, the medical writer Arataeus tells of people who in religious madness slashed themselves and who, if they recovered their sanity, were cheerful and carefree, as having become initiates of the deity. The metaphor was common in less specifically religious contexts; Mnesimachus in a comedy spoke of sleep as being the Small Mysteries of death. Above all, the experi1 1 2 3

historiae et iuris, x v , 1949, 351). After telling his father of his consequent need of wood, he says, 'For a m a n cannot refuse Lord Sarapis'. Y o u t i e argues powerfully t h a t siopetikos here, like in a t e x t published b y Vogliano-Cumont, Am. J. Arch, x x x v n , 1933 215 if, is a religious term and means something like a silent novice who still has t o become a full initiate. C e r t a i n t y is unattainable and a cult could anywhere develop new forms; further, as has been seen, there was a taste for language suggesting mysteries even when there was little actuality to correspond. T h e statement t h a t one cannot refuse Sarapis might be interpreted as i m p l y i n g a dream-command like those of A p u l . Met. x i (to be sure a soldier says he received one t o give a b a n q u e t for Sarapis: Preisigke-Bilabel, Sammelbuch, 8828; cf. the Zoilus story in Conversion, 49 f.), b u t m a y be more general (cf. n. on P . Mich. 5 1 1 , 15 1). In a n y event, the language of the t e x t suggests to me nothing esoteric in the banquet. Y o u t i e 12 . 15 refers t o a thank-offering to Sarapis and Isis b y mystai kai dekatistai (G. Mendel, Bull. Corr. Hell, x x i v , 1900, 366 f.), b u t these mystai could be initiates of Isis. A r t e m i d . n 39 p. 145 Hercher speaks of Sarapis, Isis, A n u b i s , H a r pocrates, their images and their mysteries; these mysteries are spoken of as specially indicating grief, since even if their allegorical sense is different, the m y t h points to this, which strongly suggests t h a t Artemidorus is thinking of the annual Search b y Isis for Osiris. C.I.L. 11 2395, supplemented b y Ann. ipigr. 1897 no. 86, 1898 no. 2 and J. Leite de Vasconcellos, Religioes da Lusitania 111 345, gives a dedication 'to highest Sarapis and the mysteries' (The reading in t h e g a p is uncertain; Vasconcellos gives , which I find hard t o accept. R. Cortez, Panoias, mentioned in Am. J. Arch, L I V , 1950, 399 n. 27 is not accessible to me). T h e t e x t , together with others (cf. Vasconcellos, 468 f.), comes from a sanctuary which was the concern of an individual who seems to h a v e been a little like Artemidorus of T h e r a (Wilamowitz, Glaube, 11 387 ff.). O n e mentions the dedication of an aeternus lacus. I d o u b t whether a n y normal cult can be inferred. L 7, p. 4 2 7 K (i 503D); X L V I I I 28, p. 4 1 0 K (i 472D); cf. X L V I I I 33 p. 402K (i 474D), where A . says t h a t a n y initiate will understand his mingled feelings when Asclepius drew near (initiation being here a generalized or metaphorical type); L 50 p. 438K (i 5 1 7 D ) , where he expresses a n x i e t y as t o whether he should reveal a grace of Asclepius; X L V I I 71 p . 3 9 3 (i 463D) where he says t h a t he does not think it right t o tell lightly just w h a t the god said t o him. i n 6, 1 1 , p. 44 H u d e . i n 579 Meineke; n 442 fr. 11 K o c k .
1 2 8

ence of philosophic discipleship evoked such comparison. Philosophy was thought to transform men: it opened windows in heaven; its disciples were set apart from idiotai, outsiders who lived uninformed lives; the Pythagorean vow of secrecy was a fact familiar to all educated men. When Aristophanes represented entry into the thinking-shop of Socrates under the form of an initiation, he was using intelligible sarcasm. Plato used the imagery of initiation; playfully in the Euthydemus, with most solemn seriousness in the Symposium. After all, the Seventh Letter shows that he was convinced that any deeper understanding of the universe could not be communicated as mere information or technique. The imagery was widely used, appearing even in so seemingly dry a systematizer as Chrysippus. Seneca speaks of the initiatory rites of philosophy (Ep. 90, 28), 'which open not some local shrine, but the vast temple of all the gods, the universe itself, whose true images and true likeness philosophy has brought before the mind's eye'. So Galen (p. 181 n. 2) speaks of a new piece of evidence for the purposefulness of the body's structure as a telete by no means inferior to those of Eleusis and Samothrace, and of the study of such teleology in general as a telete in which all who honor the gods should be initiated; it is superior to those of Eleusis and Samothrace, for they give faint indications, to demonstrate what they would teach, while the indications of nature are clear in all living beings.
1 2

Ill
MYSTERION AND THE METAPHOR OF MYSTERIES IN JUDAISM
3

The metaphor of initiation fitted other things also, but its application to philosophy was to have consequences in Hellenistic Judaism and more later in Christianity. From of old the Jews in Palestine had known the dramatic rites
P. 341C; cf. Gnomon, (1937), 3 ff5/. vet. fragm. 11 42, 1008. So b y w a y of parody in the Lucianic Tragodopodagra; note 30 ff., 1 1 3 ff., the contrast with the galloi. Cf. Harv. St. Class. Phil, L X (1951), 201 ff. and add Plut. Flaminin. 2 (of statesmanship), Cic. 22, 2 (young participants in the drama of the end of the Catilinarians as like initiates
2 3 1 i o

of Tammuz, but they had been taught to regard all such things as meaningless idolatry, and their brethren in Mesopotamia can hardly have taken much interest in the dramatic festivals of the land. Now, the conquests of Alexander and the growth of a great Jewish colony in Alexandria brought some contact with Greek worship, and, what was more important, the use of the Greek language; hence came our Septuagint. In this mystis appears once (Sap. Sal. 8, 4) in the sense of 'one metaphorically initiated in knowledge'; otherwise mysteria and teletai are used of pagan rites as objects of condemnation. Mysterion is here used also as 'secret', whether of a king or commoner or of God, or with the important nuance of 'thing with hidden meaning' (e.g. in Daniel 2, 18 in connection with the king's dream). Again, life in Alexandria caused some Jews to become acquainted with Greek thought at a high level and to discover that there were Gentiles who maintained rigid moral standards and something like monotheism. From this sprang a philosophy of revealed religion and a doctrine of grace known to us in the writings of Philo. He refers to pagan cult-mysteries with abhorrence but finds the philosophic metaphor of initiation congenial. So he speaks with deep feeling of Great and of Small mysteries, of initiation b y Moses, of Jeremiah as hierophant. Except with reference to the priestly consecration of Aaron and his sons, which was a thing done once for all in the past and not a contemporary ceremony, he never, I think, applies the metaphor to ritual.
1 2

in the rites of an aristocratic regime); Joseph. C. Ap. 188 (Jewish state compared, to its a d v a n t a g e , with a telete); Plut. Tranq. 20 p. 4 7 7 D (life as a myesis and telete). W h e n Demetrius of Phaleron spoke of there being much of the hierophant () in P l a t o (D. H a l . Demosth. 5, Pomp. 2, 6; cf. Coniectanea Neotestamentica, x i 170), he was thinking in metaphorical terms; the officiant a t an initiation can hardly h a v e uttered more than brief liturgical phrases. Cf. (Demetr.) Eloc. 101; also Hermog. Id. 1 6 p. 246 R a b e . Cf. ' H i s marvellous mysteries in E t e r n a l B e i n g ' in one of the new D e a d Sea Scrolls (W. H . Brownlee, Bull. Am. Sch. Or. Res. c x x i , 1 9 5 1 , 12; also I. Rabinowitz, J. Bibl. Lit. L X X I , 1952, 22, 27 f., citing also mysteries of evil). O n in D e u t . 23, 18 cf. F . H . Colson, Philo, vn 285 n. (also Hosea 4.14 in L X X ) . Cf. Sacr. Abel 62, Cherub. 49 (cf. 48), V. Mos. 11 149 (where the suggestion was perhaps given b y in E x o d . 29, 22, 26. L e v i t . 8, 22 and E x o d . 29, 29); also Gnomon x n i 156 ff. and H . A . Wolfson, Philo, 1 43 ff.
1 2

Instead he uses it of intimations of divine truth, of precious nuances in the interpreting of revelation. It was a w a y of expressing mystical or prophetic intuitions which came to a man as though from without, so that he seemed to himself to be acted upon rather than acting. Philo found the metaphor readymade, in a context free from any serious taint of idolatry. One more word on Philo before we pass to Christian sacramentalism. His interest in the past was primarily concentrated on the Pentateuch, and not least on the Exodus and the revelation of Sinai. This was the significant story of the nation and for Philo this, like all Scripture, contained the significant story of the individual. The manna and the water from the rock alike stood for the Logos, and manna stood for the food of the soul; Pascha as passover indicated the nation's deliverance from E g y p t and passing through the Red Sea, and also the soul's passing over from passions to virtue. The same events were central in the thought of Palestine; there, as throughout Jewry, every Passover time brought the remembrance and telling forth (one might almost say the reliving) of the national liberation. There, as throughout Jewry, there could at all times be the hope that Israel would someday be ransomed from her present subjection as of old she had been from E g y p t . It was in fact thought that the earlier ransoming prefigured what was to come. Once more there would be miracles; Israel's enemies would be chastised; the Messiah would cause manna to fall from heaven; he would bring forth water to quench his people's thirst. A s the L a w was of old given in the earlier time of crisis, so (at least in later Jewish thought) there would be a Torah of the Messiah, i.e. an authoritative explanation.
1
1

Leg. All. 11 86, m 169; Quis r. div. her. 79, 192; Q. del. pot. 1 1 5 ; F . J. Dolger, Ant. u. Chr. 11 (1930) 66 ff.; p. 208 . 1 later. F o r the concept of the gifts of God to the Jews a t this time cf. L . Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, i n 47 ff., 65 etc.; ib. 1 9, i n 46 on m a n n a as the food of the blessed in the world to come. T h e parallel of bread and word appears already in D e u t . 8, 3. Cf. Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels (J. Bibl. Lit. Monog. Ser. v i , 1951) 157 f . O n ideas a b o u t the Passover cf. W . L . K n o x , St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles, 30 n. 2, 89; Ch. Mohrmann, Ephem. liturg. L X V I (1952) 37 ff. For the a n t i q u i t y of the domestic observance of the Passover, independent of the sacrifice and therefore correct outside Jerusalem, cf. L .
2

Such hopes and expectations were intensified in Palestine by the political events of the first century B.C. and the succeeding decades. These things must be borne in mind if we are to try to understand what John the Baptizer and Jesus did and how their actions were interpretedand in particular how baptism and the Eucharist took their shape and place in a Jewish milieu. IV
BAPTISM AND THE EUCHARIST AS 'DONA DATA'

Ritual ablutions were common in Palestine and to the East of i t , and were well established in Jewish and Gentile practice. Nevertheless, John introduced a novum, a dramatic piece of prophetic symbolism which moreover required action of othersnamely that they should submit to a washing in Jordan (or other running water): this should attest a drastic moral reorientation and bring remission of past sins. It was an emergency measure recommended in view of the impending crisis as it was now proclaimed. The ministry of Jesus was believed to begin with his baptism b y John and the descent of the Spirit upon him at that time. After his death the disciples, who deemed themselves to be Jesus' earthly representatives now and his predestined coadjutors hereafter, continued the practice, which now involved the assumption of a new loyalty to Jesus as the Christ. These
1 2

Ginzberg ap. G . F . Moore, Judaism, i n 1 7 4 . For the general associations involved cf. H . L . S t r a c k - P . Billerbeck, Komm. . N.T. aus Talmud u. Midrasch, 1 85 ff,. 11 481, i v 1 ff.; and for the possibility t h a t something like a pillar of fire and of the cloud was expected in the Messianic A g e cf. F . H . Colson on Philo, Praem. poen. 165 ( v i n 418). Cf. J. T h o m a s , Le mouvement baptiste en Palestine et Syrie. M u c h of his material is later t h a n the emergence of Christianity and the reader will note the criticisms of H . J. Schoeps, Theologie u. Geschichte d.Judenchristentums, 57; b u t a t least wherever daily or repeated baptisms occur, this older background is to be recognized. T h o m a s has now published a brief and good discussion in Reallex. f. Ant. u. Chr. 1 1 1 6 7 ff. O n prophetic symbolism, cf. H . Wheeler Robinson, / . Theol. Stud. X L I I I (1942), 129 ff. B a p t i s m corresponded, again, to the blood smeared on the lintel a t the time of the original Passover and to the mark in Ezekiel 9, 4.Cf. now Carl H . Kraeling, John the Baptist, 95 ff. and in general H . G . Marsh, Origin and Significance of the New Testament Baptism. M. makes a good case for the view t h a t proselyte baptism supplied a model for John. I t certainly existed in his time, b u t he was not necessarily familiar with it and I prefer t h e other explanation. N o t e Marsh 153 ff. on the puzzling relation of baptism t o Spirit in Acts.
1 2

early disciples had also communal meals in which they looked forward to that time when with Jesus they should drink the fruit of the vine new in the Kingdom. Otherwise the historian can say only that his knowledge of Christian practice begins with Paul and that, whatever the controversies in which Paul was involved, there is no record of any which bore on the interpretation of baptism or Eucharist. Certainly Paul's account of the Last Supper was what he had been taught by early disciples, even if they had not drawn the same inferences from what they too held Jesus to have said over bread and cup. (The 'words of institution', as they are commonly called, have a clear formal similarity to Exod. 16, 15 'This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat' and 24, 8 'Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words'. The strangeness of what remains, and in particular the paradoxical character for a Jew of any suggestion of the drinking of blood, guarantee the substantial authenticity of the record. It is much harder to imagine someone else inventing the words than Jesus uttering them. They too constituted 'prophetic symbolism'.) Again, whoever baptized Paul may not have thought that baptism involved a dying with Christ when the waters went over his head; he may not have ascribed anything like so deep a significance to the death of the Cross; he may have regarded baptism as a protection from wrath to come rather than as something effecting an immediate change in spiritual state. But for him, as much as for Paul, baptism involved becoming Christ's man.
1 2

T h i s is so in spite of the fact t h a t undoubtedly for a long time an appreciable number of Christians did not follow the Pauline view of the Eucharist, just as there continued to be wineless celebrations, a thing which from charity Paul m i g h t h a v e tolerated (cf. Nock, St. Paul, 57). For the L a s t Supper we should also perhaps remember the symbolic a c t s commonly associated with an oath or a covenant; on these cf. E . Bikerman, Arch. hist. Droit Oriental, (1950), 133 ff. L a t e r the L a s t Supper was inevitably viewed as the institution of a rite for the future and not as a unique action. T h a t is involved in baptism ' in the name of Christ'; cf. Fascher, P.W. i v A 2508 (in an excellent article on baptism). Cf. on the name 'Christians' E . Peterson, Misc. Mercati (Studi e testi, c x x i , 1946), 355 ff.; E . Bickerman, Harv. Theol. Rev. X L I I (1949), 109 ff.; H. Fuchs, Vig. Christ. i v (1950). 69 n. 5.
2

When considering the early development and interpretation of baptism and the Eucharist we have to put aside certain concepts which are so familiar that we take them for granted and assume that they have always been current; we have also t o recapture one concept which is for us remote. On the one hand we have all grown up with the category of sacraments as things of a specific kind; we are all aware of the centuries of controversy about their meaning and number. There was no such category in the first century of our era and even in the fifth century what we call sacraments were not set sharply apart from other aspects of the Christian revelation. Then, as in the first century, baptism and the Eucharist were part of the whole economy or dispensation of salvation; then, as in the first century, baptism had a public solemnity which it has largely lost;and in neither period was there any antithesis between the word of God and a sacrament or institution or ritual, or again between individual and institutional gifts of grace. On the other hand, we have to make a deliberate effort of historical imagination to realize something positivethe importance of typology, that is to say the regular application of the idea that the Old Testament in general, and not only Messianic prophecies, bore a Christian meaning, that this meaning was primary and not secondary, and that in Christ's
1

Cor. i, 14-7 does not imply a n y depreciation of the importance of baptism, b u t the definition of Paul's special function as h a v i n g the Gospel for the Gentiles (on which cf. R o m . 15, 16 and A . Fridrichsen, The Apostle and his message, Uppsala, 1947), and his awareness of a potential danger t h a t disciples m i g h t develop something like w h a t psychiatrists call a fixation; (for devotees or initiates grouped around an individual cf. P. Roussel, Cultes igyptiens Dolos, 100 and N o c k , Conversion, 294). T h e previous verse suggests Paul's specific association of baptism with the death of Christ. T o s a y nolo episcopari does not imply a n y failure to appreciate the dignity of the functions of a bishop (Acts 10, 48 m a y reflect a practice like Paul's). Later, the idea of Apostolocal Succession seems to h a v e involved a guarantee of v a l i d i t y of doctrine rather t h a n of v a l i d i t y of sacraments (cf. C. H . Turner in Essays on the early history of the Church and the Ministry, ed. . B . Swete, 1918; E . Molland, / . Eccl. Hist. 1, 1950, 12 ft.). T h e statement of Ignat. Smyrn. 8 a b o u t the Bishop and the Eucharist involves w h a t would be in modern theological terms a question of jurisdiction rather than of sacramental v a l i d i t y . In fact, the sacramentalism of Ignatius is only part of his general belief in G o d and in Christ; 'you are full of G o d ' (Magn. 14) expresses a total attitude. T o isolate w h a t we h a v e come t o think of as the sacraments is to misunderstand t h e m and to misunderstand the whole early Christian m o v e m e n t .

actions everything came into focus; the Plan of Salvation had been adumbrated and was now made manifest. Burckhardt spoke of myth in relation to the Greeks as being the 'ideale Grundlage ihres ganzen Daseins'; it retained that character even in late times. For the Christians the Old Testament, as reinterpreted and supplemented, gave an 'ideale Grundlage'. Not only did Christianity arise out of Judaism, but also the idea that the Christians constituted the new Israel and the belief that the promises of the Old Testament were intended for them, were and remained central. A n y prophecy, any event, any phrase in the Jewish record was potentially fraught with contemporary meaning. Except to radicals like Marcion, who rejected Scripture (that is, the Old Testament), typology meant not an exercise of exegetical ingenuity but the statement of essential supernatural verities and the disclosure of hidden contents. The Promises had to be fulfilled; nay, they had been fulfilled and were being fulfilled in ultimis temporibus. To Paul, who had had to make so drastic a readjustment of his beliefs, there was a deeply personal need to find the Old in the New. Baptism and the Lord's Supper were for Paul stark realities; to ask how he classified them would be in a sense wrong, for he had neither the time nor the temper to be analytical and his thought and language show a kaleidoscopic range of variety; moreover, when he speaks of these things, it is to draw a moral inference or to point a warning. Nevertheless, his interpretation of the two phenomena as a pair is set forth in ch. 10 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Paul has been emphasizing the strict obligations which were binding on his converts and himself alike and continues: I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the
1 2

Q u o t e d b y Nilsson, Cults, Myths, etc. 12, in a work which puts the whole matter in a j u s t perspective. Cf. A . Fridrichsen, Rev. hist. phil. tel. x v n (1937), 339 S. Munck, Stud. Nov. Test. Bull 1950; for the broader aspects of t y p o l o g y cf. H . - C . Puech, Proc. v n Congr. Hist. Rel. 39, 45 f., 48.
2

supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Exactly so; baptism and the Lord's Supper (with its New Covenant) were to be thought to correspond to the gifts vouchsafed to the People of God in its Exodusgifts to the community, from outside this world, which radically changed the situation but did not convey and guarantee security from future human frailty and its pitiful consequences. To the Jews the deliverance from E g y p t was the supreme type of Messianic redemption; some of them believed that the Messiah would give his people manna, and the water from the rock was a favorite symbol of God's mercies to Israel. Both manna and rock were explained as God's Wisdom, which is a name applied to Christ in I Cor. I, 24. Further, Jewish tradition always emphasized the human weaknesses which marred what should have been the idyllic phase of the national history. In the same chapter of I Corinthians Paul speaks of participation in the Blood and in the Body of Christ and compares Israel's participation in the altar b y eating what had been offered thereon. His purpose is again moral and homileticalto discourage the giving of scandal by indiscriminate enjoyment of meat which had been offered to pagan deities and was thereafter available for eating. Y e t his language implies another typological interpretation which was to have a long and developing historythe view of Christian institutions as replacing the ceremonial ordinances of the Old Testament. Malachi 1, 1 1 'and in every place incense is offered unto m y name, and a pure offering' was one more prophetic text to be regarded as fulfilled: Christians in general were to be 'a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices that should be acceptable' (I Pet. 2, 5). The cessation of sacrifice in Jerusalem after 70 no doubt encouraged this way of thinking. So also baptism came to be regarded as that which replaced circumcision. There is a suggestion of this in Coloss. 2, 11-3, but circumcision was too controversial ail issue in Paul's time for free development of the idea.
1
1

Cf. Harnack's note on Didache

14, 3.

The Epistle to the Hebrews dwells at length on Jesus as typified b y Melchisedek and on Jesus as making the perfect offering for sin, in contrast with the blood of goats and of bulls as it had been used of old. Here the reference was to the single offering of Calvary and not to the Eucharist; 13, 10 ff. shows this clearly; yet feeling and thought inevitably moved further. The enjoyment of the divine gifts of the old Exodus, as seen in retrospect, and of the new deliverance, as a matter of contemporary experience, required man's obedient cooperation. Moses had to lead the Israelites through the Red Sea and they had to follow; he had to strike the rock and they had to drink; the manna had to be gathered and consumed; where the pillar of fire and of the cloud led, the people had to follow. So now, the Christians had to carry out what they came to believe to be the Lord's command 'Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt. 28, 19); again, they had to utter words of blessing and break the Bread. What is more, they provided the bread and wine which were to be so taken and this providing of the bread and wine soon began to be regarded as an offering to God. A variety of factors within the Christian situation contributed to a further development. The death of Jesus and likewise the Last Supper were linked most closely to the Passover with all its associations. Moreover, the words which Jesus was believed to have uttered over Bread and Cup brought them into an intimate connection with his sacrificial death; the Pauline interpretation of Christian practice was bound to triumph in the long run. Again, for Jew and Gentile alike the natural form of homage to God or the gods was sacrificewhether it was the offering of animal victims or of the fruits of the earth, whether it was material or metaphorical (i.e. prayer and praise). For both the natural ministrant of sacrifice was a priest, and for both sacrifice was a ceremony which commonly led to participation in what had been offered. Finally, there was a progressive separation of Bread and Cup from anything in the nature of a communal meal such as like-minded Jews or Gentiles

took together; this inevitably went with the ascription of a wholly special character to the Eucharist. In some such ways the view that the Eucharist was a re-presentation of the sacrifice of Calvary may be thought to have been approached; it was probably a complicated and largely unconscious process and I see no reason to suppose that it was in any sense indebted to the mysteries. Further, the idea of reception continued to outweigh the idea of action. For convenience of exposition we have for a moment looked into the future; let us now return to Paul. For him the main foreshadowing of the New Dispensation in the Old Testament, outside the prophecies interpreted as referring to Christ, lay in the Promise to Abraham and in Abraham's faith and not in the Mosaic Law; the function of the latter was temporary and the ascription by him of typological significance to sacrifice and circumcision is incidental. When Paul speaks of sacrifice here and now, he is thinking of the bodies of the Christians as kept pure or of their faith or of their charitable gifts. He ascribes to the Eucharist a character of action. 'Do this', but it is action in the special sense of participating and of proclaiming the death of the Lord (I Cor. II, 26), i.e., a method of setting forth within the group the message of salvation; much as in the Passover the message of the earlier salvation was proclaimed). As in all God's dealings with his chosen people, gift called for response; but the main emphasis for Paul lay on the gift, as again on being known rather than on following. To be sure, such supernatural gifts could easily be thought to carry supernatural hazards; Paul literally believed that sickness and death could be explained as resulting from unworthy participation in the Lord's Supper by those who did not discern the Body (I Cor. 1 1 , 29). The manna which melted tasted sour to Gentiles and the manna which Dathan and Abiram kept over-night bred worms and betrayed their guilt; this food had greater danger, for wrong participation
1 2

O n sacrifice in P a u l cf. B e h m in K i t t e l , Theol. Worterb. 111 182 etc. (ib. 187 Jewish analogies, 188 Greek); on later development, C. W . Dugmore, / . Eccl. Hist. 11 (1951) 24 ff.; on 'proclaim', cf. Philipp. 1, 1 7 and Schniewind in Kittel, 1 56 ff., esp. 69 ff. (In Clem. Recogn. 1 39 it is baptism which replaces the sacrifices of the Old L a w ) . Cf. Ginzberg, Legends, 111 45, 48 (which improves on E x o d . 16, 20).
2

led to judgment. The fact that an idea is foreign to us does not mean that it was an alien and intrusive element in early Christianity. These considerations seem to me to give some answer to the old and serious question of how what are now called Christian sacraments acquired their standing in a body which had its origin within a Judaism normally regarded as non-sacramental; they further help us to understand the parallelism which exists between ideas about baptism and ideas about the Eucharist. Both were novanot classifiable institutions made for an enduring state of society. A n d when I say nova, I should wish to emphasize that the word 'new' (kainos more often than neos) is as characteristic of early Christian language as is the word 'joy'. A s in prophecy, the epithet denotes what was thought characteristic of the results of a drastic divine intervention in history. new creation' as used of Christians (II Cor. 5, 17; Gal. 6, 15) was meant literally; we may recall the formulation quoted from Schweitzer b y Bethune-Baker, "Jesus 'instituted' no sacraments but 'created' t h e m " . And yet the new was rooted in the old, the Church in Israel, redemption in Exodus. The view of baptism and the Eucharist as primarily dona grata is indicated in I Cor. 10 and is set forth clearly in the Fourth Gospel. Birth from water and Spirit (3, 5) is a gift and so is the bread from Heaven (6, 32 ff.); the analogy of manna is made explicit. These are gifts, like the living water for which the woman of Samaria could have asked (4, 10, 14). The Fourth Gospel speaks indeed of eating the flesh of the Son of man and drinking his blood (6, 53); this is deliberately strong language uttered in defiance of opposition in a manner which almost anticipates Tertullian. Y e t , as the paradox was already in Paul made more intelligible b y the emphasis on the Lord of faith rather than the Jesus of Galilee and b y his doctrine (certainly not Hellenistic) that the Church is itself the Body of Christ, so also the Johannine view that Jesus was the Word offered an interpretation. To Philo already manna was God's Word and God's Word was the food of the soul. (The idea appears
1 2
1

Cf. K . Prtimm, Christentum / . Theol.

als

Neuheitserlebnis.

St. x v i i (1916), 212.

also in Hebr. 6, 4 where the reference is, I think, to teaching and revelation and perhaps baptism, rather than to the Eucharist. ) This idea of dona data retained its force among Christians; Justin Martyr (Apol. I 65) tells how at the Eucharist the presiding brother gave thanks to God for the fact that he had thought the community worthy of these things. The food of which they partook and the water of baptism were gifts and also pledges of better things to come. Such was also the Spirit, which was so intimately linked to them. (For Paul and his successors Spirit and 'spiritual* had none of the idealizing and abstract character which they are liable to suggest to us. Spirit was an active power showing itself in concrete tangible manifestations as well as in the rational or ecstatic inspiration and in the special holiness or normal piety of individuals. The same power was seen in the water of baptism, and in the Bread and Cup of the common meal.) This sense of gratitude for the total content of the gifts of grace accounts for the somewhat generalizing character of the Eucharistic prayers in the Didache. These express thanks to God for what he has given, 'thy holy Name which thou hast made to dwell in our hearts', 'the knowledge and faith and immortality which thou hast made known to us through Jesus thy Servant', 'spiritual (i.e. supernatural) food and drink'. Any idea that what we call the Christian sacraments were in their origin indebted to pagan mysteries or even to the metaphorical concepts based upon them shatters on the rock of linguistic evidence. Paul never uses telete or its correlatives, and has myein only once, and then metaphorically to describe what life had taught him (Phil. 4, 12), just as in Epictetus IV 1, 140. He has mysterion often, but always as in the Septuagint to mean 'secret'and commonly 'secret which might and must now be proclaimed from the house tops', some aspect of the 'mystery of the kingdom of God' as revealed to the disciples (Mark 4, n ) , the novum which impinged on the world and caught it unaware. It is mysterion, again, in the singular (in I Cor. 4 , 1
1
1

Cf. H . Windisch ad. loc. and W . Bauer on Joh. 6, 3 1 .

the plural is an ordinary plural). It has been thought that embateuo in Col. 2, 18 is to be connected with the use of the word at Claros (p. 118, above); but this is, I think, a misunderstanding, for Paul probably means 'expatiating on what lie has seen' and not 'what he has seen when entering as an initiate'. The Fourth Gospel has none of these words, not even the neutral mysterion. Ideas can be transposed into a different vocabulary but we seldom banish from our speech words which we have had in common use. The absence from early Christian writing of other terminology commonly applied to pagan worship, even of the less esoteric kind, tells its own story. In fact, for all his travels and missionary labors, Paul shows extremely little knowledge of paganism as a concrete phenomenon; he speaks of it in terms of what as boy and youth he had heard in sermons in the synagogue. A s for the writer of the Fourth Gospel, he lived in a closed Christian circle; the Greeks who 'would see Jesus' (12, 21) are lay figures in the drama, introduced to prefigure the predestined spread of the good tidings. Let me add that in pagan initiatory rites, washing was no more than a preliminary, and meals were meals, with no known special significance save in Mithraismand Mithraism was not, it seems, a notable force in the world around nascent Christianity. We cannot, again, imagine copious impromptu prayer in a pagan rite. In accordance with Jewish custom, Jesus uttered a blessing or gave thanks (the terms are synonymous) before breaking the Bread; hence the name Eucharist and what it connotes. The blessings or thanksgivings of Christians at their common meal or Eucharist long continued to admit
1 2

Cf. N o c k , J. Bibl. Lit. L I I (1933), 131 ff. O n Christian innovation in terms for baptism cf. Fascher, Pauly-Wissowa, i v A 2504, 12. O n Mithraic meals cf. Cumont, R. Arch. 1946, i, 183 ff.; C u m o n t Rostovtzeff in Excavations at Dura-Europos, R e p . v i i / v i n 107 ff., 75, 124 ff.; . I. Vermaseren, De Mithrasdienst in Rome (Diss. Utrecht, 1951) 169 s.v. maaltijd. A g a i n s t the ascription of mysterious character to the t e x t on the Janiculum referring t o a worshipper of Syrian deities cf. J . - L . Robert, R. it. gr. L I V (1941), 263 f., L V (1942), 361, L X I I I (1950), 216. O n the kykeon a t Eleusis cf. Eitrem, S. Oslo, x x (1940). 140 ff.; it w a s a solemn preliminary t o initiation, and not a part thereof, and there was no table-fellowship or continued repetition.
2

of free individual improvisation, but essentially followed the Jewish pattern. 'Blessing God's Name' might be called the classic expression of Jewish piety: private and public prayer alike, while containing much intercession, laid great stress on the heart-felt praise of God for all his mercies. The Christians naturally emphasized above all their thankfulness for what God had done for them in recent times, and they added a new and important elementtheir approach to God in prayer and praise through Jesus as Servant () or as Christ. Paganism also expressed gratitude for blessings received but affords no analogy to this use of thanksgiving as a central act of devotion. The earliest known Eucharistic prayers begin, 'We give thanks to thee, Our Father' and 'We give thanks to thee, God'; later development was to increase the Jewish element, b y including the Sanctus, introduced b y Vere dignutn et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere; Domine sancte... or equivalent phrases.
1

V
DEVELOPMENT IN T H E S E C O N D A N D THIRD CENTURIES

So much for origins and forms. The message which Paul and others brought to the Gentile world contained much that was unfamiliar and could not easily be understood or assimilated. Further, since the end of the world seemed imminent, time could not be spared, as it was later, for any catechumenate or proper preparation for baptism. The passage quoted from I Corinthians 10 probably means that some of Paul's converts at Corinth regarded themselves as having received an unconditional guarantee of a privileged status in the universe, such as some pagan rites were thought to afford. This idea was presumably attached to baptism;
2

A p a g a n philosopher could pour o u t heartfelt praise to G o d (Epict. 16, 19 ff.) and the h y m n of Cleanthes is essentially of this kind, since the existence of deities other t h a n Zeus is there unimportant; b u t this is a matter of individual expression. T h e forms of praise which close Corp. Herm. I and Ps. A p u l . Ascl. are clearly influenced b y Judaism. T h e realism with which this was regarded is shown b y the practice of 'baptism for the dead' on which cf. Early Gentile Christianity, 84 f. H . J. C a d b u r y ' s discussion of w h a t he calls 'overconversion' (in The Joy of Study, ed. Sherman E . Johnson [ N . Y . 1951], 43 ff.) is instructive.
2

the next chapter of the same Epistle suggests that, as one might have expected from the pagan evidence, they were not predisposed to regard the communal meals as a mysterium tremendumquite the reverse. Again, with the waning of the idea that the Lord would very soon come again, the Church became a continuing society in a continuing world. It would have been only too natural for Christians to think of themselves as having, in Lucian's phrase, a new telete. After all, there can have been few if any Greek-speaking inhabitants of cities in the Near East who had not some awareness of the fact that there were ceremonies called mysteria and teletai. It is the more surprising to see how slow and slight was the adaptation before the fourth century of anything like mystery terminology and even of its metaphorical application as seen in Greek philosophers and in Philo, let alone of any effective approximation or reinterpretation of any feeling that a serious analogy to Christian practice existed in the world around. It has indeed been thought that the description of baptism as sphragis, 'seal* or photismos (or photismo) 'illumination' and of the baptized as 'perfect' or 'being perfected', teleioi, teleioumenoi, is based on the language of initiation, but this is not so. Sphragis and its cognates were used of the tattooing or branding of sacred eunuchs and of devotees or initiates in various cults, but sphragis was not a term for a pagan initiation as such. It was perhaps already applied, as the corresponding Hebrew word was later, to circumcision and Paul uses it in a context concerned with circumcision, but it denotes the general situation of the baptized believer in relation to God rather than baptism itself and, while later very often used of baptism, was not restricted to i t . In any event it must be remembered that seals and sealing were from the earliest known times infinitely more widespread and important in the daily life of the ancient world than they are with us; the metaphor was inevitable.
1 2 3

Peregrin. 1 1 ; cf. Cels. ap. Orig. C. Cels. 111 59 (discussed p. 208 later) and v i 24. 2Cf. F . J. Dolger, Sphragis and Ant. u. Chr. 1 (1929). 66 ff., 88, (1930), 100, 278, i n (1932) 257 ff.; W . Heitmuller, Neutest. Stud. Heinrici, 40 ff.; C u m o n t , Harv. Theol. Rev. x x v i (1933), 156. R o m . 4, 11 (with Lietzmann's note); C. Bonner, Melito, 29, 95; E . Peterson, Vig. Chr. i n (1949), 148 n. 25.
8

So was also the metaphor of light: apart trom Old Testament usage, there was the sun, there was the light of the moon and the stars, there were those helpful surrogates by which man saved from darkness time for work and kept his feet from stumbling or taking the wrong direction; there was now the quite special sense of having passed out of darkness into light. The natural symbolism of light showed itself in pagan piety, but I can find no evidence that photismos was a term denoting initiation. Latin usage is significant; while illumino was common in earlier usage, illuminatio appears to be almost wholly confined to Christian language and illuminator wholly so. So again both adjective and verb meaning 'perfect' in Greek not only are not technical terms of initiation (Greek did not run to technical terms), but are not even words conspicuous in that context. Teleios is primarily moral, as in Matt. 5, 48, which echoes Deut. 18, 13 and Levit. 19, 2; it can also have the sense 'full-grown, mature'. To pass for a moment from terminology to ideas, the concept that Christ became man in order that man in his entirety might become as God is common in Greek Christian thought from Irenaeus onwards. A t first sight this looks like an imported idea and, while the supposed parallels from initiation do not carry much weight, there are interesting analogies in Hermetism. Nevertheless, the formulation of the idea proves on examination to be the product of a development which, while it could be and was enriched b y the Platonic idea of being made like to God, lay entirely within the range of Christian presuppositions. Further, it is m y impression that the idea is linked primarily to the Incarnation and to the redemptive and
1 2

Cf. Nilsson, Acta Inst. Romani R. Sueciae, x v (1950), 96 ff.; Gesch. 11 5 1 5 . A p u l . Met. x i 27-9 thrice uses inlustro in the c o n t e x t of initiation, but it can mean 'glorify'; note specially 29 felici illo amictu illustrari posse, where the reference is t o the privilege of wearing on ceremonial occasions the garb of an initiate. O n perfection, cf. H . J. Schoeps, Aus fruhchristlicher Zeit, 290. T h e combination of tele(i)os and telete in P l a t . S y m p . 210A, Phaedr. 249C, P l u t . Rom. 28, 10 is a figure of speech. O n telos cf. A . Wifstrand in Nilsson 11 671 n. 1. For the exuberant v a r i e t y of Christian language and imagery, cf. A . v. Harnack, Terminologie d. Wiedergeburt (Texte u. Unters. X L I I , iii, 1918), 97 ff.; also H . R a h n e r Z. hath. Theol. L I X , 1935, 348 ff. on t h e idea of b a p t i s m as rebirth from the Spirit and the Virgin (i.e. the Church) and P . L u n d b e r g , La typologie baptismale (Acta Sent. Neot. Upsal. x , 1942).
2

exemplary action of Christ; the sacraments, though involving a more intimate participation in divine experience than is suggested b y our evidence for pagan initiation, are, so to speak, necessary modalities. Returning to our study of words, we find that Ignatius speaks of 'fellowinitiates of P a u l ' but in a metaphorical sense; his use of mysterion is Biblical and Pauline, and shows a certain appreciation of the term's solemn sound. Neither he nor the other Apostolic Fathers have teleo (in the sense 'initiate') or telete] they too use mysterion as 'secret', 'symbol'. The Apologists naturally display somewhat more knowledge of pagan practice, though it is at times rather bookish knowledge. Justin speaks of the bread and cup of water in the mysteria of Mithras as an imitation in advance b y daimones of the Eucharist; but he speaks also of lustral washings before entering a pagan temple as standing in a similar relation to baptism, which means that the point of comparison was not initiation as such. Further as Prumm remarks, Justin, like Clement of Alexandria, was concerned to find an analogy between Christianity and philosophy; he sought none between Christianity and pagan worship. In general, Justin uses mysterion to denote the Christian revelation as a whole, the appearance and passion of Christ, and anything in the Old Testament which could be interpreted as prefiguring the new salvation; this seems entirely unrelated to his use of mysteria with reference to paganism. Particular interest attaches to a slightly later text edited by Campbell Bonner, the homily of Melito on the Passion. Melito uses anew the Pauline combination of Red Sea, manna, and water from the rock, and repeatedly applies mysterion to the Passover as prefiguring the death of Christ;
1 2 3 4

O n divinization cf. J. Religion, x x x i (1951), 214 f.; the idea is applied to b a p t i s m in the Theophania handed down under the name of H i p p o l y t u s (8, 1 ii 262, 10 f. ed. Bonwetsch-Achelis), b u t this is, I think, generally and rightly ascribed to a later time. Eph. 12, 2. Apol. 1 66, 4, 62, 1; cf. 1 54, 6, 62, 2 (on t a k i n g off shoes) and Dial. 70, 1 (with C u m o n t , Textes et monuments, 11 20 n. 2), 78, 6, 69, 1; P r u m m , Neuheitserlebnis, 438 f. Cf. H . v . Soden, Z. neut. Wiss. ( 1 9 1 1 ) , 201; H . G . Marsh, / . Theol. St. X X X V I I (1936), 64 f. F o r mysterion in Ep. ad Diogn. cf. Meecham on 4, 6; it is not applied t o the sacraments.
2 8 4

it is the original Passover of the Exodus, not the contemporary commemoration. The power of verbal association in Greek was strong enough to lead him to speak of E g y p t as 'uninitiated in the mystery', but the primary sense of mysterion remained 'datum or Old Testament prototype of redemption'; 'the Law became Word'. Elsewhere he uses the word of a natural prototype of baptism, the renewal by washing in the sea of the sun and other heavenly bodies. From this time on till well into the third century mysterion and cognate words are seldom used of the sacraments, and mysterion is generally either in the singular or, if used in the plural, it is an ordinary plural; myein for baptism is apparently quite exceptional. Mysterion is still primarily 'secret'in the Pauline sense of what had been secret and was now revealed, or in the other sense of esoteric teaching still reserved for a 'happy few'. In the second meaning mysterion could be used seriously by convinced adherents and sarcastically b y opponents. From either side the transition to the idea of initiation was easy, but the point of departure remains 'secret' rather than 'initiatory rite', Biblical rather than pagan. When the analogy of pagan
1 2 3 4

Homily on the Passion ( K . - S . L a k e , Studies and Documents x i i , 1940), 84/5 p. 147, 16 p. 95. 33 P- 107. 7 P- 9 (cf. p. 47); cf. R. P. Casey, / . Bibl. Lit. L X (1941), 83, 87. E . J. Goodspeed, Apologeten, 3 1 1 ; cf. H . Rahner, Griech. Mythen in christlicher Deuturtg, 73 ff., on the w a y s in which ancient and mediaeval Christians found the Cross and baptism typified in the most varied aspects of nature and life. Goodspeed 312 gives a fragment ascribed to Melito which speaks of the leading of Isaac to be sacrified as a novel m y s t e r y , but doubts its authenticity. Cf. K . Priimm, Z. kath. Theol. L X I (1937). 39i ff. T h e evidence of the A p o c r y p h a l A c t s is of particular interest, for t h e y are documents in which we should not expect a n y high degree of caution and traditionalism. Acta Pauli 3, 23 p. 32 S c h m i d t - S c h u b a r t speaks of 'initiating in the seal in the Lord' (for the genitive cf. E . Peterson, Vig. Chr. i n 148, and P o r p h y r y ' s quotation of Apollonius of T y a n a in Stob. 1 70, 10 W a c h s m u t h [Epist. 78] referring to the theme of Philostrat. Ap. Ty. i n 14, 32, 5 1 , v i i 14). Mysterion is used of consecrated oil (chrism) in Acta Thomae 121 (11 ii 230 Lipsius-Bonnet), mystagogia in one t e x t of A. Jo. 106 (11 i, 203, 17), in an Eucharistic context; 'mysteria of Christ', in the same setting, is a variant reading in A. Thorn. 121 (n ii 231), as is 'mystes of Christ' in Mart. Matth. 11 (11 i 228). Passio S. Pauli Ap. 15 (I 40, 6) has divinorum mysteriorum vivificatione sacrati of baptism. Contra, in A. Jo. 47 (11 i 174) Great and Small mysteries serve as a metaphor for rades of miracle; ib. 96 (p. 198) mysteria (in the plural) refers to all t h a t is shown forth in the Dance, the repetition of which was not commanded; t h e singular mysterion in 100 (p. 201) denotes the meaning of the Cross ' T h y mysteria' in A. Thorn. 25 (11 ii 141) means 'saving truths', as it m a y
8 2 3 4

rites to Christianity is adduced, it is usually incidental and involves such generalities as the need for a preliminary purification, or the appropriateness of Small mysteries coming before Great, and the reference is commonly to doctrine; and so, in other words, this is the literary metaphor as used b y Plato and Philo alike. Clement of Alexandria once speaks at length of Christianity in terms of a Dionysiac analogy, but there are several special features to note in this passage (Protr. 1 1 , 118 ff., i 83 f, St.). First, he had in mind the Bacchae of Euripides and not actual contemporary worship; secondly, as he goes on, his language brings in Eleusinian terms which had become literary commonplace, and also Christian allusions; thirdly, he is speaking of Christian life as a whole and not of the sacraments in particular; fourthly, as has been remarked, the parallel which he desires to emphasize for Christianity is that of philosophy. When he speaks of pagan mysteries at length in Protr. 2, 12 ff. (i 1 1 St. ff.), it is with abhorrence at the impropriety of their myths and rites and the absurdity of their symbols and without any sense of their being analogous to the sacraments.
1

Origen's usage is similar. On occasion he could employ an analogy. Thus, Celsus had urged that, whereas those who summoned people to other teletai addressed their invitation t o those who had clean hands and clear heads, the Christians invited sinners. Origen in reply (III 59) said that the Christians summoned sinners to repentance and did not invite them t o 'the teletai which we have' till they had shown
well in 88 (p. 204), 136 (p. 243). Otherwise , telete, (in the ritual sense), epoptes appear t o be absent from this literature. So the mysteries of t h e C o p t i c - G n o s t i c literature are primarily matters of special revelation, and Mani's Book of the Mysteries appears t o h a v e been principally concerned w i t h theological controversy and n o t with ceremonial (P. Alfaric, Ecritures manichiennes, 11 1 7 ff.). I t m a y be recalled t h a t H o r . Epp. 1 16, 73 ff. used the Bacchae in a moral allegory; note also the use of the story of P e n t h e u s in Strom. 1 13, 57 (ii 36 St.): F o r Clement's use of mysterion etc. cf. Marsh, i.e. (p. 205, n. 2); P r u m m , Neuheitserlebnis, 439 and Z. kath. Theol. L X I (1937) 39** F o r teletai in a simile cf. Strom, 4, 19 (ii 338); for epopteia, 1 28, 1 7 6 (ii 108), with express b u t unidentifiable reference t o P l a t o . T h e idea, so prominent in Clement, t h a t there were some truths which were not t o b e communicated even t o all believers w a s a t least foreshadowed in 1 Cor. 3, 2 and h a d analogies in Judaism (M. S m i t h , Tannaitic Parallels, 156), as well as in Platonism and the Hermetica. Certainly mysterion. etc., h a v e in Clement no special a t t a c h m e n t t o the sacraments.
1

amendment of life. He carries on the metaphor

(6) , . , , , . , (62)
1

Y e t , as . Miura-Stange remarked, the mystery-religions were something foreign to both Celsus and Origen; Celsus mentioned them for the purpose of polemical argument, just as Origen (ib. I 7) referred not only to philosophy but also to mysteries in general as having their secrets without arousing popular disapproval. Origen does however elsewhere employ the metaphor of initiation just as he sometimes, when speaking of the Eucharist, usestheterm 'mysteries', and as a term that would be understood. Y e t in his writings the predominating sense of mysterion appears to be 'fact of revelation made explicit in Christ or foreshadowed in the Old Testament*and again 'higher truth to be apprehended only b y those who had mounted to a particular stage in the spiritual ascent'.
2

Celsus u. Origenes (Z. neut. Wiss., Beth, i v , 1926), 156. F o r t h e metaphor of initiation in Origen cf. F . J. Dolger, Ichthys 11 5 1 6 f. (apropos of disciplina arcani) and In Cant. cant, n (G.C.S. XXXIII 1 7 1 ) , qui per sact'amentum vitis et botrum cypri initiati ad perfectionem feruntur et calicem novi Testamenti ab Iesu susceptum bibere contendunt. In Cant. cant. 1 (ib. 92), sub tempore mysteriorum, of the kiss of peace a t the Eucharist is so used as t o suggest t h a t myst. was now familiar; cf. In Num. x v i 9 (G.C.S. x x x 152), bibere autem dicimur sanguinem Christi non solum sacramentorum ritu sed et cum sermones eius recipimus and In lib. Iud. v i 2 (ib. 500) ubi vero iam militiae coelestis sactamenta gustavimus et pane vitae refecti sumus. F o r the plural cf. In Levit. i x 10 (G.C.S. x x i x 438), qui mysteriis imbutus est; In Exod. x i n 3 (ib. 274) qui divinis mysteriis interesse consuestis; Sel. in Ps. Horn. II in Ps. x x x v n (P.G. x n 1386D) accedere ad tanta et tarn eximia sactamentaall referring to the Eucharist. This might be t h o u g h t to reflect p a g a n usage (cf. p . 186 n. 2), b u t I think it is a generalizing plural; cf. In Levit. (G.C.S. x x i x 352) ad suscipienda verbi Dei mysteria (which means, I suppose, baptism and also Christian doctrine) and Comm. in Rom. 8 (P.G. x i v 1040) typus tantummodo mysteriorum; (with reference t o baptism). In a n y e v e n t we have the translation of Rufinus and not the ipsissima verba. I t m a y be remarked t h a t three of Dolger's quotations come from discussions of Old T e s t a m e n t prototypes. So in In Levit. x i n 3 (G.C.S x x i x 471 f.) we h a v e mysterii magnitudinem, t o denote w h a t was m e a n t b y the ordinance a b o u t the shewbread, before ecclesiastica mysteria (the Eucharist as thus prefigured) and, later, mysteria revelanda (secrets t o be shown t o A b r a h a m ) . Cf. In Levit. i x 9 (ib. 436 f.) quid haec (sc. sacrificia) etiam secundum rationem mysticam contineant and sed mirum contuere ordinem sacramentorum (also of O . T . offerings) before t h e Christian reference in 10 (p. 438). In lib. Iesu Nave I V (G.C.S. x x x 307 ff.) has per baptismi sacramentum Iordanis fluenta digressus es.... and nec ipsum absque mysterii ratione arbitror scriptum (of the w a y in which Jordan parted) and agni
8

To be sure, sacramentum, which for Christians came t o be the principal Latin equivalent of mysterion, was freely applied by Tertullian to baptism and the Eucharist a n d occasionally to pagan rites or beliefs. B u t sacramentum had overtones which mysterion lacked. It meant an oath in general, and in so doing carried possibilities of suggestiveness which did not attach to , and it meant the soldier's oath of loyalty in particular; this marked entry on military life, was the symbol of loyalty to its rules and its ruler, and fitted the idea of militia Christi. Again, Apuleius used sacramentum to mean 'the mutual loyalty which might be expected of dumb animals (and which poor Lucius, when transformed into the shape of an ass, did not find), and 'the dignity of a court'. Sacramentum had a wide range of meaning and in seeking to understand its use b y Christian
1 2 3

mysterium (of the Passover); entry on the catechumenate corresponds t o t h e passing of the R e d Sea, baptism t o the passing of Jordan; cf. also (ib. 3 1 3 f.( ea quae in I ordone gesta referuntur formam teneant sacramenti quod per baptismum celebratur. L i k e earlier Jewish and Christian writers, Origen was familiar with mysteria in the p a g a n sense (cf. also In Num. x x 3, G.C.S. x x x 193, in huius ergo idoli mysteriis consecratus est Istrahel) b u t the material quoted and w h a t the reader m a y find b y looking a t Baehrens' index in G.C.S. x x x under mysterium, sacramentum, etc. show t h a t the primary connotations of mysterion were for him those which it had acquired in Christian usage (so In Exod. 2, G.C.S. x x i x 186 baptismi mysteria, with reference t o 1 Cor. 10) and these were perhaps somewhat more 'sacramental' than earlier. Origen's use of the metaphor of initiation has a literary flavor; cf. C . Cels. v i i 10 (ii 162 Koetschau) where and are used for the more recondite parts of w h a t the Prophets had t o reveal ( in Entretien d'OrigSne avec eraclite... ed. J. Scherer (Pub. Soc. Fouad, Textes et Doc. i x , 1949). 1 5 2 , 10, 154, 2 is 'esoteric' and 'with inner meaning'; ib. 174, 1 mysteria is used of the wheels in Ezekiel). F o r t h e usage of H i p p o l y t u s cf. P r u m m , Z. hath. Theol. L X I I I (1939), 207 ff.; ib. 350 ff. he treats t h a t of Athanasius, as J. Danielou, Platonisme et theologie mystique, 189 ff. does t h a t of Gregory of N y s s a . So Cor. 1 5 , Adv. Marc. 1 13; cf. in general J. H . Waszink on Tert. Anim. 1, 4. (Note initio of baptism in Monog. 8; sacramento infanticidii in Apol. 7, discussed b y Dolger, Ant. Chr. i v 188 ff. seems to me a piece of Tertullian's own sarcasm). Cf. the contrast in Tert. Cor. 11 (with Chr. Mohrmann, Vig. Christ, v i , 1952, 1 1 2 f., 1 1 6 f.) and also Orig. In Libr. Jesu, V 2 (G.C.S. x x x 315) militiae huius et cinguli sacramentum. O n the soldier's oath cf. A . v . Premerstein, Werden u. Wesen d. Prinzipats (Abh. Bayer. A had. N . F . 1937), 7 9 - sacramentum and J. H . Gilliam, Yale Classical Studies, x i (1950), 233; for its use as a simile note E p i c t e t . 1 14, 15 ff. (cf. Sen. Ep- 95. 35) Met. 111 26 and 3; for the second sense, cf. the use of religio in Suet. Tiber. 33 (with Rietra's note and reference t o Cod. lust, m 1, 14 pr. on the oath taken b y a judge).
1 2 2 s v 3

writers we must not try to press any one sense. Certainly Tertullian called sacraments sacramenta because they fitted the general associations which the word had in his mind; he did not call other things sacramenta because they seemed akin to the sacraments. In fact, the word sacramentum retained 'une grande plasticite'.
2

VI
DEVELOPMENT IN T H E FOURTH CENTURY

The free application of mystery terminology to the Christian sacraments, like the full elaboration of disciplina arcani?
F o r the range of suggestion of sacramentum cf. Chr. Mohrmann, Vig. Chr. in (1949), 170 f. and i v (1950), 197; we shall a w a i t eagerly the special s t u d y which she announces. O . Casel, Jahrb. f. Liturgiewiss. V I I I (1928), 227 ff. (cf. Das christliche Kultmysterium (ed. 2), 105 f.) has stressed (1) the language of L i v y concerning the solemn o a t h of the Samnite legio linteata (x 38, 2; cf. i x 40, 9); (2) the m u t u a l pledge of unhallowed union which w a s ascribed t o members of the Bacchanalia (Liv. x x x i x 1 5 , 13); (3) the sacramentum of A p u l . Met. x i 15; (4) the t a k i n g of oaths of conform i t y (cf. Nilsson 11 667) before participation in certain rites. I t will be observed t h a t in (1) we h a v e a comparison, ritu quodam sacramenti vetusto velut initiatis militibus, and a metaphor, sacrati. A s for (2), t o the R o m a n authorities this was a criminal conspiracy (cf. L i v . x x x i x 18, 3) and in (2) and (3) alike the point of departure of the metaphor is military service and not initiation. Further in (3) sanctae huic militiae is stressed, and rogabaris is after all the manuscript reading; if it is correct, the pledge of l o y a l t y which mattered for L u c i u s is primarily t h a t which Isis demanded in t h e vision and n o t w h a t was t o follow in his initiation. A s for (4), an o a t h w a s in no known instance a mode of initiation; it was a t most a concomitant. T h e phrase sollemnis et sacrata militia is used of the service of disciplined soldiers who remembered their sacramentum, as contrasted w i t h the caeca et fortuita (militia) of undisciplined soldiers; the latter also had sworn and it was not the oath which m a d e the difference (Liv. V I I I 34, 10). It is possible t h a t the tattooing of soldiers as practised in the later E m p i r e was t h o u g h t to involve something like a consecration to the military service of the Emperor, b u t this was a preliminary t o the sacramentum (Veget. 11 5) and practical reasons m a y h a v e predominated, as in the t a t t o o i n g of the fabricenses and of the hydrophylaces (Perdrizet, Arch. Rel. Wiss. x i v , 1 9 1 1 , 99). A man m i g h t not normally fight unless d u l y enlisted; cf. P l u t . Q. R. 39 p. 2 7 3 E ; w i t h H . J. Rose's note. W h a t e v e r m a y be t h o u g h t as t o early ideas which m a y lie behind this, it was in effect a matter of R o m a n legal definition of the situation (sacrati conmilitiones in S. H . A . Gord. 14, 1 is naturally a piece of rhetoric). T h e essence of military (as of other) oaths w a s t h e conditional curse which the individual invoked upon himself if he should fail t o do his d u t y . [For an oath as required of men entering a religious b o d y which lacked mysteries, cf. A . D u p o n t - S o m m e r , D e a d Sea-Scrolls, tr. . M . R o w l e y , 47, 51.] Mohrmann, V. Chr. m (1949), 170. Cf. Ddlger, Ichthys, 11 5 1 6 ff.; v . H a r n a c k , T.U. X L I I , iii 124; O . Perler, Reallex Ant. Chr. 1 667 ff. In spite of this, P s . A u g . Quaest. vet. nov. Test.
2 s 1

belongs essentially to the period of the triumph of the Church and can be explained as an answer to an internal rather than an external challenge. It was a matter of diplomatic and paedagogic technique and involved a fairly conscious effort, which is made very clear in various sermons to catechumens awaiting baptism on Easter E v e , to evoke the right sentiments in the neophytes and to maintain these sentiments thereafter. W e see a somewhat comparable attitude in the use of curtains around the altar, and later still in the iconostasis. Now that the Church had come out of the period of persecution it was necessary to make entry into it sufficiently serious and it was appropriate to give all possible dignity to Christian worship. W e now find the metaphorical language of initiation coming into increasing use; but it was based on the metaphor as a traditional mode of expression and not on the concrete reality of initiations. Dramatic ceremonies in public were familiar in Augustine's boyhood but initiations, in spite of the vigor with which Firmicus attacked them (together with other manifestations of paganism) and in spite of the enthusiasm with which the pagan aristocracy of Rome clung to them, must have been disappearing fast. The use of the term mystagogia is particularly marked in the fifth century when organized paganism was almost everywhere dead. Two further reflections are in order. First, even at this time the traditio symboli in baptism was no less solemn than regeneration at the font; Augustine, again, describes a sacrament as tamquam visibile verbum. The essential secret was the revelation, not a visible expression as such, and there was no possibility of an antithesis between the two. Second, it is easy to contrast the Papal Mass of the sixth
1 2

(C.S.E.L. L ) 1 1 4 , 6, p. 305 could still contrast t h e simplicity and opennes of Christian rites w i t h the secrecy of p a g a n mysteries. T h i s is like an objection which Philo, Spec. leg. 1 3 1 9 f. m a d e against Gentile teletai (cf. L u c a n i x 5 7 6 f.). Consistency is not t o be expected. Incidentally, K . Priimm, Z. k. Theol. L X I I I (1939). 1 1 4 has well suggested t h a t the use of mysterion in t h e N e w T e s t a m e n t m a d e it more natural for the F a t h e r s t o a d o p t m y s t e r y terminology. O n t h e iconostasis cf. K . Holl, Ges. Aufs. z. Kirchengesch. n 225 ff. W e m a y compare E . Bishop's remark (R. H . Connolly, Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, 93) on the idea of a h o l y a w e in worship as stressed b y Cyril of Jerusalem in t h e middle of the fourth century. * In. Jo. Evang. tract. 80, 3.
1

century, as reconstructed b y Edmund Bishop, or the elaborate ceremonial of Sancta Sophia with the scene in the Upper Room or with one of the untidy meetings of the Corinthian converts of Paul. Y e t the process of elaboration owed nothing essential to pagan ritual. It depended rather on the splendors of the old Temple of Jerusalem and on those of the New Jerusalem as portrayed in the lectionary; it depended also on the fashions of secular life. After Const antine an Imperial Church must needs move towards a magnificence and solemnity like those of the Imperial Court. Only recently Theodor Klauser has shown how some of the attributes of episcopal state were simply taken over from those of civil dignitaries; the bishops were now such. To argue as I have done is not to suggest that pagan mysteries had no influence on the development and acceptance of Catholic Christianity; the surprise is that on the evidence they had so little. W e can of course see something like a recrudescence of the old psychology in certain Holy Week ceremonies in East and West alike, as for instance in the Eastern greeting at Easter 'Christ is risen' and the response 'He has truly risen'. The same attitude appears in the hodie of various liturgical celebrations of festivals and in certain Epiphany ceremonials. I do not for one moment suggest deliberate direct adaptation or any such interpretatio Christiana as appears in the acceptance of Natalis Solis Invicti as the birthday of the Sun of Righteousness. Rather we see how the annual commemoration of the drama of salvation made its natural impact on men living closer to the soil and to nature than most of us do. In any event the old Jewish typology did not only survive; it was cherished and developed.
2 3

Novum pascha novae legis Phase vetus terminat.

The Genius of the Roman rite (reprinted in Liturgica Historica). Der Ursprung d. bischoflichen Insignien u. Ehrenrechte; cf. his AbendIdndische Liturgiegeschichte, 12 f. C f . Harv. Theol. Rev. x x v n (1934), 9 4' P- A r g e n t i - H . J. Rose, Folk-Lore of Chios, 364; Usener, Kl. Schr. i v 429 ff.; Holl. op. cit. n 123 ff.; E . G . Turner, Aberdeen Papyri, p. 5 A u g u s t i n . Serm. 220 (cf. Mohrmann, Ephem. liturg. L X V I , 1952, 50 f.) is instructive.
2 3 1 l2 1

Unless I am mistaken, scholarly opinion is moving towards something like the position which I have outlined. If you look back a quarter of a century to the second edition of Carl Clemen's indispensable Religionsgeschichtliche Erklarung des Neuen Testaments you will find a patient analysis of many studies which resulted in very different conclusions. Eating the body and drinking the blood of the Lord was put on a level with the fact that in some remote past the worshippers of Dionysus rent animals asunder and devoured them and were perhaps supposed to partake of the god's fleshand that though b y the beginning of our era such rending was no more than a respectable survival. am the vine; ye are the branches' was again thought to reflect the same cult and belief in baptismal regeneration was related to the taurobolium. The Mandaeans, also, have had their day. Without exaggeration and oversimplification little progress is made in most fields of humanistic investigation. Hypotheses such as have been mentioned have served to stimulate a great amount of critical enquiry; they have liberated the study of Christian beginnings from an unwholesome isolation; they have freed us from an overemphasis on these aspects of early Christianity which commended themselves to reasonable votaries of progress at the beginning of this century. In reacting against them we must beware of exaggeration in the opposite direction and of any tendency to assume simple relations of cause and effect in an area in which they are very rare. W e must, again, do justice to the high seriousness and continued vitality of ancient paganism and to the essential unity of much of man's behavior towards the unseen. In the beautiful words of Gerardus van der Leeuw, ' E s gibt aber nur ganz wenige Gedanken, die es der Menschheit vergonnt ist, iiber das Gottliche zu denken, und diese hat... die Vorwelt langst gedacht, sei es in anderen, fremdartigen Formen'.
1 2

F . J. Dolge'r, Ant. u. Chr. i v (1934), 7 7 notes the repugnance to the idea of feeding, even metaphorically, on a deity shown in Philostr. A p. Ty. 20. Cf. Augustine Retract. 1 12 (13), 3: nam res ipsa, quae nunc Christiana religio nuncupatur, erat et apud antiquos nec defuit ab initio generis humani quousque Christus veniret in came, unde vera religio, quae iam erat, coepti appellari Christiana.
2

INDEX
Aaron, 122 Abel, x v A b i r a m , 130 A b r a h a m , 130, 140 Accame, S., 112, 1 1 4 Adonis, 29, 42f., 72, 105 A g a p e , the, 76L A ion, 16 Alexander, xi, xii, 114, 116, 122 Alexander of Abonuteichos, 118 A l f a r i c , P., 45, 139 Andocides, 112 Anrich, G . , 81 Antichrist, 45 Anubis, 120 Apollo, 4f., 1 1 , 118 Apollonius of T y a n a , 45, 138 Apollos, x v i i Apologists, the, 137 Apophthegmata Patrum, 15 Apostolical Succession, 126 Apotheosis, 65 Apuleius, 13, 17, 19, 34, 56, 61, 65, 86, 1 1 5 , 119, 120, 141, 142 Arataeus, 120 Arbesmann, P. R., 112 Archigallus, the, 66f. Argenti, P., 144 Aristides, 6, 73, ii9f. Aristophanes, 32, 49, 92, 1 1 1 , 114, 115, 118, 121 Aristotle, 6, 115 Armstrong, A . H., xix Arnobius, 9, 16 Artemidorus, xii, 118, 120 Artemis, 3f., 34 Asceticism, 88, 97 Asclepius, 4f., 114, 120 A s t r a l mysticism, 90 Astrology, 3, 7f., 14, 9of., n 8 f . Athanasius, 141 Athenian culture, 1 1 1 - 1 3 Atonement, 43f., 70 Attis, 4, 29, 42f., 53, 63, 72, 74f., 105, 108, 116, 1 1 7 ; see also Cybele Augustine, St., 92, 143, 144 Augustus, xii Autarkeia, 90 Authority, 20, ioof. Baalim, 4, 9 Baehren, 141 Balla, ., 40 Baptai, 61 Baptism, vii, ix, 14, 54, 59-68, 8486, 124-134, 135, i37f., Hof., 143, 145; for the dead, 84, 134 Basilides, xvii Baudissin, W . W . von, and Eissfeldt, O . , 33f. Bauer, W . , x x , 52 Behm, 130 Bell, . I., xviii Berossus, 7 Bertram, G . , 105 Bethune-Baker, J. F., 131 B e v a n , E . R., vii, xix, 5, 10, 12, 90, 97, 102 Beyerhaus, J., 10, 50 Bickermann, E., 125 Bidez, J., 82 Billerbeck, P., see Strack and Billerbeck Bishop, E., 143, 144 Bishop, 100 Blackman, A . M . , 60 Blood, D a y of, 106; see also Dies Sanguinis B o d y / B l o o d of Christ, 128, 130, 131, 145; see also bread and wine, etc. Boissier, G . , 16 Boll, F., 90 Bonhoffer, . , 94f. Bonner, C , 109, 118, 135, 137 Bonnet, H., 60 Boulanger, . , ioo Bousset, W . , 14, 23, 29, 32f., 43ff., 50, 53ff., 63, 73, 82, 88, 99, 108

Brauninger F., 15, 30 B r e a d / b r e a d and wine, 125, 129, 131, 132, 133, 137 3rehier, E., 31 Buckler, W . H., 22 Buckler-Calder-Guthrie, 117 Bultmann, R., xiii, x i v , xx, 24, 52, 59. 96 Burckhardt, J. J., 127 Burkitt, F. C , xx, 33, 44, 64, 68 Burrows, M . , xviii Burton, E . de W . , 50 Cabiri, 6, 75, 113 Cadbury, H. J., 109, 134 Caesar-worship, 7, 17 Cain, x v C a l v a r y , sacrifice of, i29f. Carcopino, J., 13 Carpus, Papylus and Agqthonice, Acts of, 82 Carratelli, G . P., 115 Casel, O., 23, 29, 31, 58, 63, 70, 72., 77f., 8of., 98, 109, 142 Casey, R. P., xx, 29, 138 Celsus, 45, 103, 135, 1391. Cerfaux, L., 30, 33 Chaldaic Oracles, xiv Charlesworth, M . P., xix Chirius Fortunatus, 53 Christ, W . , and Stahlin, U., 31, 89 Christianity, early evolution of, xii, xiii-xvii, 109, 1 2 4 - 1 3 4 ; borrowings from other religions, vii, 121, 135 Christology, 41, 46ft.; Pauline, 47ft. Chrysippus, 121 Chrysostom, St. John., 72 Cicero, 82, n o Cichorius, 16, 39 Circumcision, 128, 130, 135 Civitas Dei, 101 Claros, 118, 133 Cleanthes, 5, 134 Clemen, C , 30, 34, 36f., 39, 41, 48, 5off., 68-70, 73, 76f., 89, 94f., 96f., 98f., 100, 105, 145 Clement of A l e x a n d r i a , 29, 34, 74, 99, 103, 130, 137, 139 Clement of Rome, 34 Clementine Homilies, 23 Colossae, x v i Colson, F. H., xviii, 3, 98, 124

Communion/communal meals, 125, 129, 132, 135; see also Eucharist, Meals, religious, etc. Confession-inscriptions, pagan, 2 1 ; see also Inscriptions Connolly, R. H., 143 Consecration, 117, 122, 142 Constantine, 144 Constitutiones Apostolorum, 82 Conversion, 17, 92 Cook, A . B., 2, 9, 32, 56, 65, 73f. Cortez, R., 120 Corybantes, 115 Covenant-relationship, 43, 64, 691., i f . , 85, 128 Creation, N e w , 28, 64 Criobolium, 66f. Cross, F. L., xxi Cross, F. M . , ix, xviii Cult-society, 13, 72f. Cumae, 114 Cumont, F., xix, if., 4, 10, i3f., 191. 34, 53, 56, 59, 62, 651., 76, 90, 114, 133, 135, 137 Cybele, 6, 9, 53, 62, 651., 74f., 116, 1 1 7 ; see also Attis Cynics, the, n f . , 22, 57, 93f. Cyril of Jerusalem, 143
7

Daimones, 137 Damascius, 53 Danielou, J., 141 Dathan, 130 Dattari, G . , 35 Deacons, 86 D e a d Sea Scrolls, ix, 142; see also Qumran Death, 120, 130, 134 Deissmann, . , , 22, 33, 376*., 44, 82, 100 Deities, identification of, 8ft. Delphi, 5, 18 Demeter, 6, o, 65, n o , 1 1 5 , 1 1 6 ; Homeric Hymn to, n o , n 1 Demianczuk, J., 112 Deonna, W . , 39 Deubner, L., n o , 111 Diatribe, 93f. Dibelius, M . , 30, 40, 47ft., 63, 94, 103 Didache, 7 7 - 8 1 , 88, 132 Diehl, 113 Dies Sanguinis, 63, 65, 106

Dieterich, . , 6, 30, 40, 51, 74f., 107 Dieterich, K . , 98 Dindorf, 19 Dio of Prusa, 5, 96 Diodorus Siculus, 6 Diogenes Laertius, 57 Dionysus 4, 1 1 , 731., n o , 1141., 116, 119, 145 Dispersion, Jewish, x, 2 Dittenberger, n o Dix, G . H., 52 Dobschutz, E . von, 25, 27, 89, 931., 101 Dodds, E . R., xx, 115 Dogma, 47, 102 Dolger F. J., 351., 38, 45, 72, 76, 831., 123, 135, 140, * 42, 145 Dona data, 124-34 Doresse, J., xxi Dornseiff, F., 36 Doutte, E., 73 Dudley, D . R., x i x Dugmore, C . W . , 130 Dupont-Sommer, . , 142 Dura-Europos, x, xi, 133 Easter, 106 Eclogue, Fourth, 39 Ecstasy, 88f. Ehrenberg, V., 8 Ehrhard, . , 25, 52, 77, 86 Eitrem, S., 3off., 38, 45, 53. 55, 62, 65, 70. 133 Elchasaites 23 Eleusis, 6, 6of., 62, 65, 74, 86, 1 1 0 17, 121, 133, 139 Embatcuo, 133 Empedocles, 92 Enoch, x v Epictetus/21, 95, 132, 134, 141 Epicureanism/Epicureans, 12, 93, 96 Epicurus, 1 1 , 92 Epiklesis, 83 Epiphaneia, 39, 41 Episcopate, monarchic, 104, 126 Epoptcs, 6, 30, 1 1 1 - 1 3 , 139 Eschatology, ix, 59 Essenes/Essenism, ix, x, xiv, 23, 27 Euangelion, xiii, 3sff. Eucharist, vii, 271., 58, 68-86, 98, 107, 124-34, 137. H o i .
1 x

Euhemerism, n , 29 Eunuchs, sacred, 135 Euripides, 32, 114, 115, 139 Eusebius, 4, 35, 82 Eve, x v Exclusiveness, 17, 104, i n f . Fabre, P., xix, 109 Faith, 89, 130, 131 Faith, Hope and Love, 88f. Farnell, L. R., 6, 18, 741., 83, 113 Fascher, 125, 133 Fate, 91, 98, 103 Father, G o d the, 56, 129 Fatherhood of G o d , 56, 64 Fathers, Apostolic, 137, 143 Fehrle, E., 18 Festugiere, A . J., xix, xxi, 109, 1 1 5 , 118 Finkelstein, L., xviii Firmicus Maternus, 421., 75, 143 Frank, T . , x i x Fraser, P. M . , xix Frazer, J. G . , 53, 74 Freedman, D . N., xxi Fridrichsen, . , xxi, 126, 127 Fuchs, H., 41, 101, 125 Fuks, . , xviii G a l e n , 113, 121 G a l l , A . von, 44, 69 Gartner, B., xx, xxi Gebhardt, V., 42, 82 Geffcken, J., 8, 94 Gilliam, J. H., 141 Ginzberg, L., xix, 123T. Glottolalia, 89 Glotz, G . , 105 Gnosis, 15, 88f., 92, 99, 102 Gnosticism/Gnostics, xii, xiii-xvii, 14, 41 45, 48f., 139 G o d , xi, x v , x v i , 132 Godfearers, 2 Gods, the pagan, viii, ix, xii, 113 Goodenough, E. R., xviii Goodspeed, E . J., 138 Gospel, the Fourth, xiii, xvii, 131, 133 G r a c e , doctrine of, 122, 126, 13 if. Graillot, H., 62, 67, 106 G r a n t , F. C , xix, xxi Grant, M . , xix G r a n t , R. M . , xx, xxi

G r a y , G . B., 70 Greek language and thought, x, xi, x v i , 109, i n , 116, 1 1 7 , 122, 135, 136ft. Gregoire, H., 4 Gregory of Nyssa, 141 Gressmann, H., 3, 8, 10, 90 Griffith, G . T . , xviii Grill, J., 34 Grobel, K . , xxi Gruppe, 119 Guignebert, Ch., 47 Guillaumont, . , xxi Guntert, H., 48 G w y n n , . , 92 Halliday, W . R., 1, 23, 57, 59, 67, 101 Hanslik-Andree, 118 Harder, R., 118 Harnack, A . von, 30, 44, 63f., 99, 128, 142 Harpocrates, 120 Hartleben, 113 Hatch, E., 4, 1 1 , 23, 29, 57, 68, 70, 91, I02f. Hatch, E . and Redpath, . . , 30, 391 Haussouillier, B . and Ingholt, H., 65 Head, . V., 36 H e a v e n l y Lord, x v i Heavenly M a n , 29 Heilige Handlung, n o , 114 Heim, R., 53 Heitmuller, W . , 63, 135 Helios, 119 Hell, harrowing of, 107 Hellenism, xi-xii, xiv, x v , 109, 116 Helmreich, 113 Hemberg, B., 113 Hennecke, E . , 77, 81 Hepding, H., 43, 67, 106 Heraclitus, xiii, 5if. Hercher, 120 Hereafter, the, 1 1 5 , 1 1 7 Hermes, x i v Hermes Trismegistus, x v i Hermetic writers and literature, xi, xiv, x v i , xvii, i4f., 26, 30, 4 7 - 5 1 , 55, 62f., 64, 92, 98f., 103, 134, 139 Hermetism, 16, 57, 92f., 94, 96, 9 7 99, 100, 103, 136

Herodotus, 49, 112, 1 1 4 Herter, H., 8 Hesiod, 60 Hilaria, 53, 106 Hill, G . F., 4, 32 Hippolytan Church Order, 107 Hippolytus, 23, 75, 137, 141 Hippolytus, Liturgy of, 78, 80 Hocart, A . M . , 74 Holl, K . , 42, 89, 100, 103, 143, 144 Homeric Hymn to Demeter, n o , i n Hopfner, T h . , 7, 14 Horace, 92, 139 Hoskyns, Sir E . C , 24 Hubaux, J., 61 Hunkin, J. W . , 22, 26 Iamblichus, 83, 108 Iconostasis, 143 Ignatius, 59, 126, 137 Illumino/ illuminatio/ illuminator, 136 Imhoof-Blumer, F., 36, 119 Incarnation, idea of, ix, i36f. "In Christ," 52 Individual/individualism, nf., n o f . , 114, 123 Inge, W . R., 51 Ingholt, H., 65 Initiation, 53, 60-67, 74f., 86f., 10921, 133 i35f-> 137 138, 140, 142*. Inscriptions, x-xii, ii3f., 118 Iranian beliefs, xii, x i v , yf., 48, 64, 97 Irenaeus, 45, 136 Isaac, 138 Isis, 6, iof., 13, 19, 26, 32, 34, 53f., 61, 65, 87, 116, 118, 120, 142 Isocrates, 39 Jacoby, . , 49 Jaeger, W . W . , 47, 90 Jeremiah, 122 Jeremias, F., 42 Jessen, 119 Jesus Christ, vii, ix, x v i , xvii, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, 1 3 1 , I33f., i36f., 140 John the Baptizer, 124 Johnson, S. E . , 134 Jonas, H., x x Jones, . . M . , xix Jones, R. M . , 90

Josephus, ix, 3, 19, 41 Judaism: early ix-xi, x i v ; Hellenistic, xiii, xiv, x v i , xvii, 2, 15, 1 2 1 124 Judgment, 131 Julian, xii, 20, 58, 72, 75, 97, 100, i03f., 108, 1 1 7 Justification, 26 Justin, vii, 45, 76, 132, 137 Juvenal, 19, 42 K a b b a l a , the, x i v Kaerst, J., 11 Kaibel, G . , 37 Keil, B., 40, 119 Keil, J., 4 Keil, J., and von Premerstein, . , 62 Kennedy, . . . , 47 Kern, 0., 6, 32 K i n g d o m of G o d , 60, 65, 69, 80, 132 Kings, deification of, 1 0 ; see also Caesar-worship Kircher, K., 74 Kirk, . E., vii Kirsch, J. P., 62 Kittel, G . , xx, 130 Klauser, T . , xxi, 144 Klostermann, E 44, 69 Knox, W . L., xii, 25, 30, 43, 46, 51,
M

Lehmann, K., 113 Leipoldt, J., 61 Leisegang, H., 52 Lemnos, 113 Leto, 3 L e w y , H., xviii Lieberman, S., xviii Liechtenhan, R., 9, 54, 82, 91, 95, 97 Lietzmann, H., 13, 38, 43, 47, 49, 55, 68f., 70, 73, 771, 79*, 82, 85, 8f., 135 Light, metaphor of, 136, 138 Lightfoot, J. B., 30 Linforth, I. M . , 115 L i v y , 61, 112, 142 Lobeck, C . . , 23 Loeschke, G . , 106 Logos doctrine, xiii, 51L, 123, 131, 138 Lohmeyer, E., 30 Loisy, . , 5, 24, 26ft\, 31, 43, 53, 59, 64, 66, 68f., 76, 78, 102 Lord's Supper, the, 33, 127, 130; see also Last Supper Lucan, 143 Lucian, 31, 88, 112, 135 Lucretius, 34, 92
9

77, 81, 86, 123 Kornemann, E . , 10 Korte, . , 65 Kozelka, L., 106 Kraeling, C . H., xviii, 124 Krebs, E., 41 Kroll, J., io6f. Kroll, W . , 14, 30 Kykeon, 74, 133 Kyrios, 28, 32-35, 41, 46 Lactantius, 45 L a g r a n g e , M.-J., 84 Lake, K . - S . , 138 Last Supper, the, 43, 771"'., 125, 1 2 9 ; see also Eucharist, Lord's Supper Latte, K . , 12, 22 Laum, B., 66 Lausiac history, 15 L a w , the Jewish, ix, x-xi, x v i , 26, 43, 95, 98, 123, 130 L a w , Christianity as a new, 70 Lawson, J. C , 60 Leclercq, H., 34, 73, 81, 87

Ma, 3 M a c D o n a l d , G . , 10 M a g i c , xi, 3, 16, 28, 3 if., 53, 57, 62L, 65, 74, 78 Mandaeans, 46, 48, 52, 85, 97L, 145 Manetho, 7 M a n i / M a n i c h a e i s m , xvii, 48, 139 M a n n a , 123, 128L, 130, 131, 137 Maran, Mart, 33 Marcion/Marcionism, 85, 127 Marcus, R., xviii Marrou, H. L, xix M a r s h , H . G . , 124, 137, 139 M a r t i a l , 34 Matthew, Martyrdom of, 138 Mattingly, H., 4, 38 M a y e r , A . L., 71 Meals, religious, ix, 72-76, 125, i28f., 133 Meautis, G . , 93 Meecham, 137 Melchisedek, 129 Melito, 118, 137L Menander the Gnostic, 45, 112 Mendel, G . , 120

Meritt, . D., i n , 112 Messiah/Messianism, ix, 46, 7 1 , 123, 1241., 128 Meter, 3 M e w a l d t , J., n Meyer, E., 12, 33, 41 Militia Christi/sacra/sancta, 30, 91, i4if. Ministry, Christian, 86 Minns, E., 62 Missionary religion, Christianity as a, 251., 9 Missionary religions, xvi, 11 M i t h r a i s m / M i t h r a s , xi, xii, 6f., 20, 29. 53, 581-, 61, 651., 76, 102, n6f., 133, 137 Miura-Stange, . , 140 Mnesimachus, 120 Mohrmann, Chr., 141, 142, 144 Mohrmann, F. van der M . - C , xix, 123 Molland, E., 126 Monotheism, 9, 29, 52, 122 Moore, C . H., 67 Moore, G . , 22 Moore, G . F., xviii, 124 Morality and religion, 176*., 122, 124, 128, 136 Mormonism, 85 Moses, 122, 127, 129 Mother Goddess, 3 Munck, S., 127 Murray, G., viii Myesis, i n , 118, 132, 138 Mystagogos, 1 1 1 , 112, 143 Mysteries/mystery religions, xiii, 3, 5ff., i3<f., 23, 29, 37, 41, 53, 55-65, 68, 70, 72-76, 86, 91, 104, 109-22, 130, 140 Mysterion, 29, 68, 1 1 7 , 122, 132, 133, 135, 137*, Hof., H 3 Mystery religion, Christianity as a, 23-56, 72 Mystery-terminology, 3off., 67f., 1 1 7 - 2 4 , 1321., 135-43 Mysticism, 136*., 56, 89, 98f., io2ff.; astral, 90; "Christ mysticism," 52ff. M y t h , vii, xiv, 127, 139 Mythol. Vatic, 83 Naassenes, 29 "Name of Jesus," 63
I 2

Neoplatonism/Neoplatonists,
5

xvii,

i f. Neopythagoreanism/Neopythagoreans, 13, 151., 22, 92, 97 Nilsson, M . P., xii, xix, xx, 83, 109, n o , i n , ii7ff., 127, 142 Nock, A . D., viii, xviii, xix, xx, xxi, 4, 91., 13, 16, i8f., 2if., 3if., 341., 37, 39, 5, 55, 61, 641., 83, 86, 90, 94, 99, ioif., 104, 109, 113, 115, 117, 119, 120, 1251., 133 Nonnus, 106 Norden, E., 30, 34, 39, 99 Notscher, Fr., 105 Nous, 99 Odes of Solomon, 48f. Oehler, J., 37 Old Testament, i26f., 130, 136, 1371., 140 Oliver, J. H., 112 Oppermann, H., 73 Order, Church, 86 Orgia, 117 Origen, 115, 135, 139. Orpheotelestai, the, 115 Orpheus, x i v Orphica/Orphicism, n , 13, 23, 30, 62, 84, 92, 100 Osiris, 29, 42f. 60, 72, 1051., 120 Otto, W . , 8 Overbeck, J. . , 5 O v i d , 57
f

Paganism, relation to Christianity, vii, viii, i32ff., 136-44 Panamara, 118 Panathenaea, the, 117 Paribeni, R., 62 Parousia, 28, 39, 47, 55, 97 Passion, Christ's, 137 Passover, 1231., 129, 130, 137^, 141 Paul, St./Paulinism, viii, ix, xi, xii, xiv, xvi, xvii, 15, 236% 125-28, 130-34, 3 7 , 144 Paul, Acts of, 138 Paul, Passion of St., 138 Pausanias, 4, 74, 119 Peek, W . , 118 Pentateuch, 123 Pentheus, 139 Perdelwitz, R., 64 Perdrizet, P., 34, 142

P e r g a m o n , 113 P e r l e r , O . , 142 Personalities, divine, 9 P e t e r s o n , E . , 3of., 35, 125, 135, 138 P e t r e m e n t , S., x v i , x x P e t t a z o n i , R., . P f i s t e r , F., gi. 38f., 67, 115 P h i l l i m o r e , J. S., 39 P h i l o , i x , x, x i i i , 15, 291., 38, 41,
f

Prumm,

K.,

117,

131,

137**,

*4*,

49, 5i 55-57, 99, i22f., 124, 131, 135, 139, H 3 P h i l o d e m u s , 22 P h i l o s o p h y , x i i , x i i i , x v , 12, 14, 17, 90-99, io2ff., 121, 137, i39f. P h i l o s t r a t u s , 112, 138, 145 Photismos, 15, 671"., 1351". P i c a r d , C h . , 30, 62, 113, 118 P i c k , B . , 35 P i n d a r , 115, 118 P l a t o / P l a t o n i s m , x v , x v i , x v i i , 9, 14, 84, 103, 115, 121, 136, 139 Pleroma, xiii P l i n y , 22 P l o t i n u s , x v i i , 55 P l u t a r c h , x i , 9, 12, 22, 29, 61, 97, 112, 121, 142 Pneumatikos, 15 P o e r n e r , J., 61 P o h l e n z , M . , 9, 941"., 97 P o l s t e r , G . , 56 P o l y b i u s , 13 P o r p h y r y , x v i i , 19, 82, 138 P o s i d o n i u s , 102 P o w e r ( s ) , d i v i n e , x v , x v i , 9, 17, P r a y e r / p r a i s e , 129, 1331. P r e d e s t i n a t i o n , i x , 26 P r e - e x i s t e n c e o f C h r i s t , 49f. P r e i s i g k e - B i l a b e l , 120 P r e i s i k e , F., 35 P r e i s k e , H . , 85 P r e m e r s t e i n , A . v o n , 36, 141 P r e s b y t e r s , 78, 86, 100 Preuschen, E., and B a u e r , W . , 30, 37 P r i e s t , 7 1 , 129 P r i m a l M a n , 4 7 ; see also Man P r i n g s h e i m , H . G . , 61 P r o c l u s , 89 Prometheus, x v P r o p h e t s , C h r i s t i a n , 78 P r o v i d e n c e , 9, 37

143 P s e u d o - A p u l e i u s , 134 P s e u d o - A u g u s t i n e , 142 P t o l e m y , 90 P u b e r t y rites, n o Puech, ., 3 P u e c h , H . - C , 127 P u r i f i c a t i o n , i n , 115, 139 Pythagoras/Pythagoreans, Quispel, G., xx Q u m r a n , ix, x, x v i i i

121

R a h n e r , H . , 138 R a m s a y , W . M . , 2, 33, 41, 62 R a n s o m , 42f. R a v e n n a s , 118 R a w l i n s o n , A . E . J., v i i , v i i i , 1, 33, 441., 47, 50, 52, 64 R e a l i t y , m a n ' s r e l a t i o n to, ii5f. R e b i r t h / r e g e n e r a t i o n , i4f., 40, 53, 60-67 R e d e m p t i o n , 43f. R e i n a c h , A . J., 2 R e i t z e n s t e i n , R., x i v , 1, 4, 6-9, i4f., 22f., 25-31, 33, 40-44, 4 M 8 , 5055, 57, 59*, 62f., 64-67, 74, 85, 87f., 89f., 92, 94, 97-99, 3 , *<>7 R e l i g i o u s e x p e r i e n c e , the, n6f. R e p e n t a n c e , i x , 139 R e s u r r e c t i o n , 65 ; o f C h r i s t , v i i , x v i , io5ff. ; o f C h r i s t i a n s , m y s t i c a l , b y b a p t i s m , 64 R e u t e r s k i o l d , E . , 70, 74 R e v e l a t i o n , 24, i22f., 132, 137, 140,
i o

26,

Heavenly

143 R i e t r a , 141 R i t t e r , H . , 16 R o b e r t , J . - L . , 114, 115, 133 R o b e r t , L . , 119 R o b i n s o n , H . W . , 124 R o b i n s o n , J. . , 77 R o e d e r , G . , 14 R o h d e , E . , 31 Roma, 4 R o m e , C h u r c h of, 63 R o s c h e r , W . , 8, 14 R o s e , H . J., 8, 18, 73, 115, 142, R o s t o v t z e f f , M . , x v i i i , x i x , 74, R o u s s e l , P . , i n , 112, 118, 126 R o w l e y , . M . , 142 R u f i n u s , 140

144 133

Sabazius, 1 1 4 Sacraments/sacramentalism, 54, 8486, 126, i3iff., 137, 138-43; see also Baptism, Eucharist Sacramentum, i^if. Sacrifice, 116, i23f., 128, 129, 130 Saintyves, P., 46L Salisbury, F., 4 Sallustius, 72, 75, 102, 108 Salmon, G . , 23 Salvation, i26f., 130, 137, 144 Samothrace 1 1 3 , 114, 115 * Sancta Sophia, 144 Sanctus, the, 134 Sanday, W . , 24, 5 if., 77 Sarapis, 8, 30, 34, 62, 73, 83, i i 9 f . ; see also Isis Sayce, A . H., 74 Scapegoat, 42 Scepticism, 12 Schede, M . , 40 Scheftelowitz, J., 42, 74 Scherer, J., 141 Schniewind, 130 Schoeps, H . J., viii, 124 Scholem, G . , xiv, x x Schrader, H., 60, 73 Schulz, O . T h . , 39 Schwartz, E . , 106 Schweitzer, . , viii, 131 Scott, E . F., 24, 89 Scott, J. . , 62 Scott, W . , 14, 30, 49 Scriptures, 103 Scyles the Scythian^ 114 Seals/sealing, ritual, 1 3 5 ; see also tattooing Sebomenoi, 2 Seidl, E., 1 1 9 Seleucids, the, xi-xii Sellin, E . , 41 Seltman, C . T . , 4, 9 Seneca, 90, 96, 121, 141 Septuagint, xiii, 122, 132 Serapion, 78 Seth, x v Simon M a g u s , x v i Smith, Fr., 27 Smith, M . , 109, 123, 139 Smith, W . R., 73 Socrates, x v , 121 Soden, H. von, 137 Sokolowski, F., 115

Son of G o d , viii, 44(1., 129, 1 3 6 ; see also Christology, etc. Son of M a n , 44, 49, 1 3 1 , 136 Sopatros, 53 Soter, 35ff., 46, 119 Soteria, x, 36f., 86, 92 Soul, xiv, x v Spiegel, S., xix Spiegelberg, W . , 7, 36 Sphragis, 67, 135 Spirit, Holy, 50., 67, 83, 85., 99, 100, 124, 129, 13 if. Stahlin, O . , 74 Steinleitner, F., 22, 33, 42 Stendahl, K . , xviii Stengel, P., 42 Stephanus-Dindorf, 40 Stewart, Z . , 109 Stoicism/Stoics, n f . , 14, 16, 2 if., 2% 5*i 54, 9i, 93*, 94-97 Strack, H . L . and Billerbeck, 26, 40, 44, sof., 64, 82, 86f., 98, 108, 124 Strathmann, H., 52 Substitution, 67 Suetonius, 141 Svoronos, J., 33 Swete, . B., 51, 126 Syneidesis, 95 P., 95,

T a m m u z , 122 T a r n , W . W . , xviii, xix, n T a r s u s , 94 T a t i a n , 3, 1 1 , 51, 54, 103 Tattooing, 135, 142 Taurobolium, 65, 66f., 145 T a y l o r , L . R., 10 T c h e r i k o v e r , V . , xviii Telesterion, the, n o , i n f . Telete, 31, 62, 68, 1 1 5 , 1 1 7 - 1 2 2 , 132, i35ff., 139, 143 Tertullian, x v , 6of., 76, 131, i 4 i f . T h a n k s g i v i n g , i33f T h e o n of Smyrna, 31 T h e o p h a g y , 74, 145 Theophrastus, 115 Theos Hyfsistos, 2 T h e u r g y , 15 T h e r a p e u t a i , the, T h o m a s of Aquinum, 85 T h o m a s , J., 124 Thomas, Acts of, 45, 49, 54, 138 Thomas, Gospel of, x v i i

Thomsen, . , 73 Thoth, x v i Tibullus, 19, 61 Timotheus, 8f. T o r a h , 123 Trophonius of Lebadea, 118 T u r n e r , C . H., 126 T u r n e r , E . G . , 144 T y p o l o g y , Christian, i26ff., 144 Uberweg, F. and Praechter,

130,

U.,

89 Ultimate Deity, x v i Universalism in Christ's attitude: in Hellenistic religion, 7 - 1 1 ; in primitive Christianity, 2$ff. Unnik, W . C . van, xxi Upper Room, the, 144 Usener, H., 2, 144 Valerius M a x i m u s , 51 V a n der Leeuw, G . , 109, 145 Vasconcellos, J. L . de, 120 Vegetius, 142 Venetus, 118 Vermaseren, . I., 133 Vettius Valens, 91 Virgil, 83, 92 Vogliano-Cumont, 120 Wachter, T h . , i8f. W a l k e r , C . H., 52 W a l t o n , F. R., 109, 1 1 0 Walzer, 115 Waszink, J. H., 141 W a t e r , 128, 131, 132, 137 Weber, W . , 8f., 34, 39

Weinreich, O., 13, i9f., 22, 30, 34, 36, 86, 92 Weiss, J., xii, 24, 33, 63, 69, 84, 88, 100 Wellhausen, J., 33 W e n d l a n d , P., 1, n f . , 37f., 42 Wesendonk, O . G . von, 4, 48 Wetstein, J. J., 100, 108 Wetter, G . P., 25, 38, 45, 4, 54*, 68f., 7 1 , 78, 86, ioif., 107 Whitaker, G . H., xviii W i l a m o w i t z , 114, 1 1 7 , 120 Wilcken, U., 10, 19, 62 Wilcken, U., and Mitteis, L., 32 Williams, N. P., 69 W i l l i g e r , E., 341., 44, 51 Wilson, R. M . L., xx Windisch, H., 26, 40, 50, 99 W i s d o m of G o d , 50 Wolff, G . , 82 Wolfson, . . , xviii W o o d w a r d , A . M . , 13 W o r d of G o d , 1 3 1 ; see also Logos doctrine W o r l d Soul, x v , x v i Xanthoudides, S., 73 Y a h w e h , 56 Youtie, H. C , 119L Zahn, R., 10 Zeno, 12, 95 Zeus, 134 Zielinski, T h . , 5, 9, 84 Zijderveld, C , 118 Zingerle, J., 18, 22 Zuntz, G., 112, 115