Part 12 (1/2)

3. The relation of Paul to the Mystery Religions of his time is a topic which has of late been actively discussed. A thesis now widely maintained has been expressed by Loisy in an epigrammatic form: ”The mystery of Paul's conversion is his conversion to the mysteries.” To discuss the question in all its bearings, one would need a general acquaintance with cla.s.sical literature, a special knowledge of religious conditions in the early Roman Empire, and, most important of all, a first-hand exegetical knowledge of Paul's epistles.

A marked feature of the age in which the Apostle lived was a merging of deities, and the practice of oriental cults side by side with the official Roman religion and the wors.h.i.+p of the Caesar. This syncretism was promoted by the tolerance of an official religious indifferentism, and by a pantheistic philosophy which was hospitable to the wors.h.i.+p of a multiplicity of deities as aspects of the One and the All. At a time when the Orontes was pouring its waters into the Tiber, the mysteries of the oriental religions were actively propagated in the West and coalesced with the mysteries practiced among the Greeks.

In spite of the labours of philologists and archaeologists, our knowledge of the ritual of the various mysteries and even of the ideas symbolized is comparatively slight. It can still be said with c.u.mont that, ”shut out from the sanctuary like profane outsiders, we hear only the indistinct echo of the sacred songs and not even in imagination can we attend the celebration of the mysteries.”[233]

233: ”Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain,” 2d ed., 1909, p. 17; E. T., ”The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism,”

1911, p. 11.

The moral effect of the mystery cults is also a matter of some doubt.

Plato, as we know (_Phaedo_, 69 D, 81 A), had a high opinion of the Greek mysteries; but the cruel and sensual rites of the oriental religions scandalized the Latin writers as well as the Christian apologists. Even c.u.mont, who thinks that the mystery cults were superior in their religious appeal and influence to the cold, prosaic and austere Roman religion, admits that by the adoption of the mysteries ”barbarous, cruel and obscene practices were undoubtedly spread.”[234] It is evident that the oriental religions became spiritualized in course of time, and that the various deities at least of Egypt and of Syria came to be conceived, in accordance with the dominant philosophy, in a henotheistic or pantheistic way. Uhlhorn thinks that oriental wors.h.i.+p ”with all its distortions was more profound, and contained unconscious presages of the Deity who has indeed in birth and death descended to redeem us.”[235]

234: ”Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain,” 2d ed., p.

308; E. T., p. 208.

235: ”Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism,” p. 33.

When Paul preached ”the mystery of G.o.d which is Christ” (Col. ii. 2), he incorporated into Christianity, it is said, in adapting it to the Gentile world, features which were common to the mystery brotherhoods of the day, and virtually transformed it into a mystery religion. Pauline Christianity, say the extreme advocates of this view, adopted its vocabulary, its missionary methods, its philosophical and religious ideas, its sacraments and symbolism, its mystical experiences and even its organization, from the compound of oriental mysticism and Greek philosophy which was popular in the cities which Paul visited.

The points in dispute will appear if we glance at the Pauline doctrine of the sacraments, and of dying and rising with Christ, and then at the Pauline vocabulary.

That the ritual of the mysteries had something in common with the Christian sacraments is shown by the fact that the charge of borrowing was made from both sides in early times. The Christian writers accuse the heathen priests of a blasphemous parody of the Christian sacraments inspired by the spirit of lies, and the priests retorted that the sacraments were a plagiarism from the mysteries. c.u.mont believes that both were much mistaken.

The material for comparison is somewhat meagre because baptism is not prominent in Paul's epistles. He never mentions his own baptism, and, aside from I Corinthians i., in which he says that he was not sent to baptize, he uses the verb in but four pa.s.sages (I Cor. x. 2; xii. 13; xv. 29; Gal. iii. 27); the noun in two (Eph. iv. 5; Col. ii. 12); and both verb and noun in one pa.s.sage (Rom. vi. 3-4). In the mysteries there were l.u.s.trations with salt water, water of the Nile and sacred water, but little is known of the exact significance of the rituals. Kennedy is not persuaded that it meant regeneration.[236] There was no baptizing ”in the name of” the G.o.ds.

236: ”St. Paul and the Mystery Religions,” 1913, pp. 229 ff.

On the other hand we know little of any sacrificial meal in the mysteries corresponding to the Eucharist. Reitzenstein observes that unless a happy chance sheds more light upon the use and meaning of the mystery-meals common in most cults, a comparison with the sacraments remains only ”a play with possibilities.”[237] Clemen thinks that both the inst.i.tution of the Lord's Supper by Jesus and its continued observance are fully explained without bringing in foreign influences.[238]

237: ”Die h.e.l.lenistische Mysterienreligionen,” 1910, p. 51.

238: ”Primitive Christianity,” p. 242.

It is probable that the mystery cults exerted an influence upon the later development of sacramental doctrine, but this is aside from our question. Thus Wendt would place the influence of the mystery religions upon the Christian sacraments in the post-Pauline age, and thinks that ”to Acts we owe the undoubtedly correct tradition that these Christian rites go back to a date preceding the h.e.l.lenistic mission of Paul, and must be sought for in the very earliest practice of the Apostolic community.”[239] Hatch also believes that between apostolic and post-apostolic times the sacraments were modified in important respects under the influence of the mysteries. ”The primitive 'see here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?' pa.s.sed into a ritual which at every turn recalls the ritual of the mysteries.”[240]

239: ”Historical Trustworthiness of the Book of Acts,” _Hibbert Journal_, October, 1913, pp. 146, 147.

240: ”Hibbert Lectures,” 1888, p. 299.

Those who push back the influence of the mysteries upon the sacraments to the teaching of Paul himself are compelled to interpret the Apostle's language, contrary, we believe, to the best exegetical tradition, in a physical or what is called an _ex opere operato_ sense. It is significant that when the sacraments are so interpreted they appear to be a foreign element in Paul's system. ”It is no wonder that interpreters like Heitmuller and Weinel, who attribute a magical view of the sacraments to Paul, are concerned to point out that his sacramentalism is a sort of erratic boulder in his system as a whole.”[241] We are reminded of Clemen's principle that the sense of the New Testament pa.s.sage should be fully ascertained before dependence is a.s.sumed.

241: Kennedy: ”St. Paul and the Mystery Religions,” p. 283.

When von Dobschutz says that ”the unique sacramental conception of the Early Church, which has no a.n.a.logy in the history of religion because it belongs essentially to the Christian religion, has its origin solely in Christian faith and Christian experience,”[242] the same may be said of Paul's doctrine of dying and rising again with Christ. When Paul says ”buried with him in baptism” (Rom. vi. 4 and Col. ii. 12), he speaks of no pantheistic or magical union with the deity such as seemed to dominate the thought of the mysteries, so far as their meaning can be ascertained. In both contexts Paul immediately goes on to exhortation.

”Let not sin reign” (Rom. vi. 12), ”Seek the things above; mortify your members” (Col. iii. 1-5). It should further be noticed that the pa.s.sage most relied upon to prove Paul's borrowing from the mysteries (Rom. vi.) was addressed to a church which Paul did not found, composed of both Jewish and Gentile Christians. The doctrine in question was not put forth as a novelty, but is a.s.sumed to be known to them: ”Are ye ignorant, etc.?” (Rom. vi. 3).

242: Kennedy: ”St. Paul and the Mystery Religions,” quoted, p. 279.

Paul's doctrine of dying and rising with Christ is ethical rather than ”metaphysical” or magical or sacramental. It is surprising to find how little sacramental it is. With no allusion to his own baptism or to the Lord's Supper he says, ”I have been crucified with Christ. The world is crucified to me and I to the world” (Gal. ii. 20; vi. 14). ”Christ died for all, therefore all died” (2 Cor. v. 14). ”To know Christ, to be found in him, to be transformed into his death” (Phil. iii. 8 f.). His doctrine is based upon a personal experience of grace, and this is a.s.sociated with the Cross rather than with the sacraments. The bond which mediated his union with Christ in His death was faith. It was through faith that the Spirit is to be received (Gal. iii. 14), and even when he says, ”Christ liveth in me,” he adds, ”I live in the faith of the Son of G.o.d” (Gal. ii. 20, and see Eph. iii. 17). He would gain Christ that he might have ”the righteousness of G.o.d through faith”

(Phil. iii. 9). The Cross and not the sacraments was central alike in the Apostle's experience and in his doctrine of dying and rising with Christ, and the bond of union between him and Christ was faith. There was no mystical absorption of personality as in the Hermetic prayers: ”Thou art I, and I am thou.”