This advance is expressed in a variety of familiar figures re
ultimately on the teachings of Christ: upbuilding of a spiritual
house upon an immovable foundation; growth and fruitfulneH
from a divinely implanted seed, or as branches of a living
growth and maturity from a new birth as members of the
body of which Christ is the head. As the basis of the Chris
life is divine, so in all these figures the principle of its growth iai
divine communion in which faith grows exceedingly, love and hope
abound, and fellowship is growing up in all things imto the full-
ness of Christ. In controversial sections especially, one of the
means of establishment by such growth is the possession of a
true gnosis and of the principle of its development and consum-
mation, given in the Gospel and in the spiritual life believe^^
have received upon their acceptance of it. J^|

The character and function of this Christian gnosis is presented
in works on New Testanient theology; * and in recent years the
understanding of the topic has been advanced by the discussions
concerning the relation of Christianity to the Hellenistic mj'steiy
religions with their characteristic feature of gnosis." Reitsen-
stein, while recognizing Z. N. T. W., p. 21, at least an indirect in-
fiuence by Greek philosophy upon the formation of Paul's con-
cepts and thoughts, advocates most definitely the thesis that the
Apostle adopted essentially the language of the mystery religiona,
and that in the New Testament references to gnosis and aUied
terms, they are used in the same mystical sense as in the contem-
porary syncretism. 'Paul was not the first, yet the greatest

» Peine, p. 443 B., 604 £f., Holtimann, I, 476 ff., Gnosis in the New TeaU-
ment; the relation of N. T. teachings to the controlling features of the move-
ment here characterized being developed in special sections of vol. II. Sim-
ilarly in Pfleiderer's Urchrulenlhum, Syncretism and Gnosticism, II, p. 73 ff.,
is followed by discussion of gnosis in the N. T. Writings regarded by him as
poet-Pauline. The mystical element in gnosis in earUer Pauline Epistles is
briefly treated in I, 279 ff. Weinel, H 74; 80, 4; 103. B. Weiss. {J 92 b; 1(
149.
