And so with the Mysteries. There can be no more doubt that
these were modified in their later stages, to compete with the
rival forces of Christianity, than that the romance of Apollonius
and the reforms of Julian were suggested by the story of the
Gospels and the ascetic training and philanthropic activity of
the Church. On the other hand, there were original elements
in these Mysteries (as we have seen in regard to the Eleusinia),
which were akin to Christianity and helped to prepare the way
for it; and there were other elements which, whether for good
or evil, could easily be absorbed in it. How far was this
actually the case? Dr Hatch traces the influence of the
Mysteries down to the Middle Ages, and thinks that it was
wide spreading and on the whole injurious. Mysteries take
the place of the simple rites and open teaching of the early
Church. Baptism no longer follows immediately on conversion,
but is sometimes deferred to the end of life, and is always pre-
ceded by a long course of instruction. It is administered, as
a rule, only once a year with ceremonies closely resembling
those of Eleusis. A more recent writer carries back this
influence to the New Testament itself. ‘The great difference
between the teaching of the Synoptic Jesus on the one hand,
and the teaching of Paul, of the Fourth Evangelist, and of the
author of the Hebrews on the other, is just that the latter is
permeated, as the former is not, by the ideas of spiritual com-
munion, of salvation, of justification and mediation: ideas which
had found an utterance, however imperfect, in the teaching of
the thiasi...Christians are, like the Pagan Mystae, called upon
to be ὅσιοι and ἅγιοι. And in the second Corinthian Epistle
Paul speaks of the Eucharist in a manner which shows that
already, in the churches which he had founded, it had taken


1 See Lightfoot, Phil. p. 273 foll.
