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Considerations of Methodology in the Study of the Mystery Religions and Early Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Bruce M. Metzger
Bruce M. Metzger
Affiliation:
Princeton Theological Seminary
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Extract

From the days of the Renaissance and Reformation to the present, the Mystery Religions of antiquity have engaged the attention of classical scholars and theologians alike. During what may be called the precritical stage of the study of this subject, it was commonly believed that by the Mysteries a constant succession of priests or hierophants transmitted from age to age an esoteric doctrine, better and nobler than that of the popular religion. Whether this recondite science had been derived originally from the hidden wisdom of India or Egypt, or from the Old Testament, or even from a primitive revelation to all mankind, was debated with characteristic disregard for historical methodology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 1955 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1955

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References

1 Perhaps the first from the standpoint of classical scholarship as well as Protestant theology to give serious consideration to the Mysteries was Isaac Casaubon. In his De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes (London, 1614) he attempted to show that sacramental ceremonies in the early Roman Catholic Church were influenced by the ancient Mystery religions. (I have used the Geneva edition, 1655, where the Mysteries are treated on pp. 477 ff.).

2 E.g., de Sainte Croix, G. E. J., Recherches historiques et critiques sur les mystères du paganisme (Paris, 1784)Google Scholar, and Creuzer, F., Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker (Leipzig, 1810Google Scholar).

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4 For a brief summary of some of the earlier discussions of the question of the relation of the Mysteries to Christianity, see Cheetham, Samuel, The Mysteries, Pagan and Christian (London, 1897), pp. ixGoogle Scholar sqq.

5 Besides the scores of monographs published during the past century which deal exclusively with the relation of the Mysteries to Christianity, there are hundreds of volumes which devote one or more chapters to this question, not to speak of hundreds of additional studies in which the authors more briefly express their opinion on the problem. In addition, there is an enormous bibliography on the Mysteries per se. A. D. Nock remarks with subtle sarcasm, “‘Saviour-gods’ and mysteries probably did not bulk so large in the life of the first century a.d.. as in modern study”; see his “Early Gentile Christianity and its Hellenistic Background,” in Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation, ed. Rawlinson, A. E. J. (London, 1928), p. 81Google Scholar.

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7 Op. cit.

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27 Macchioro, Vittorio, Orfismo e Paolinismo, studi e polemiche (Montevarchi, 1922)Google Scholar; and From Orpheus, to Paul, , a History of Orphism (New York, 1930)Google Scholar.

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29 Case, Shirley Jackson, Experience with the Supernatural in Early Christian Times (New York, 1929), pp. 106–145Google Scholar, and The Origins of Christian Supernaturalism (Chicago, c. 1946Google Scholar).

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31 Holland, A., Les cultes de mystères; l'ancienne rédemption païenne et le Christianisme (Paris, 1938Google Scholar).

32 Hyde, W. W., Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire (Philadelphia, 1946CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

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34 Prentice, William K., The Gospel of the Kingdom of God (Boston, 1953), pp. 139–162Google Scholar.

35 Cf. the following statement in a letter which Flavius Vopiscus attributes to Hadrian: “The land of Egypt … I have found to be wholly light-minded, unstable, and blown about by every breath of rumour. There those who worship Serapis are, in fact, Christians, and those who call themselves bishops of Christ are, in fact, devotees of Serapis…. Even the patriarch himself, when he comes to Egypt, is forced by some to worship Serapis, by others to worship Christ,” Scriptores historiae Augustae, Firmus, viii (Loeb Classical Library, III, 399 f., ed. and trans, by David Magie). The fact that this letter is an obvious forgery does not detract from its value in reflecting the opinion of a fourth century non-Christian author who wrote perhaps during the Julian revival. Christian syncretism in Egypt emerged at least as early as the second half of the second century when certain Gnostics established a Larium in Alexandria where they venerated images of Jesus, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers (Irenaeus, I, xxv, 6 [I, 210, Harvey]).

36 See Deubner, L., De incubatione capita quattuor (Leipzig, 1900)Google Scholar; Hamilton, Mary, Incubation, or the Cure of Disease in Pagan Temples and Christian Churches (London, 1906)Google Scholar ; and E. J., and Edenstein, L., Asclepius, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1945Google Scholar).

37 See Lucius, Ernst, Die Anfänge des Heiligenkults (Tübingen, 1904)Google Scholar; Hyde, W. W., Greek Religion and Its Survivals (Boston, 1923), pp. 41–85Google Scholar; Delehaye, Hippolyte, Les légendes hagiographiques, 3rd ed. (Brussels, 1923), pp. 140–201Google Scholar; Laing, G. J., Survivals of Roman Religion (Boston, 1931)Google Scholar, and idem, “Roman Religious Survivals in Christianity,” in J. T. McNeill (ed.), Environmental Factors in Christian History (Chicago, 1939), pp. 72–90.

38 While it is doubtless true that the earliest artistic representations of Mary with the infant Jesus do not portray her nursing the child, as was customary in the representation of Isis and Horus (so G. A. S. Snijder, De forma matris cum infanto sedentis apud antiquos [Vienna, 1923], p. 69), it is equally true that subsequent Christian art and cultus betray decided borrowings in this and other respects from the cult of Isis (and perhaps also the cult of Astarte); see W. Drexler, s.v. “Isis,” in W. H. Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie; Trede, Theodor, “Die Himmelskönigin,” in his Das Heidentum in der römischen Kirche, II (Gotha, 1890), 338–371Google Scholar; Legge, Francis, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, I (Cambridge, 1915), 84–89Google Scholar; and Peek, Werner, Der Isishymnus von Andros und verwandte Texte (Berlin, 1930Google Scholar). With reference to the cult of Astarte, see Rösch, Gustav, “Astarte — Maria,” Theologische Studien und Kritiken, LXI (1888), 265–299Google Scholar; cf. Trede, op. cit, “Die grosse Muttur,” pp. 85–121.

39 Blinkenberg, Chr., “Darstellungen des Sabazios und Denkmäler seines Kultus” in his Archaeologische Studien (Copenhagen, 1904), pp. 66–128Google Scholar, and Cumont, F., Comptes rendus de l'académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1906, pp. 72–79Google Scholar.

40 See Schneider, A. M., Refrigerium nach literarischen Quellen und Inschriften, Inaug. Diss. (Freiburg im B., 1928)Google Scholar; Buonaiuti, E., “Refrigerio pagano e refrigerio cristiano,” Ricerche religiose, V (1929), 160–167Google Scholar; Perrot, A., Le “Refrigerium” dans l'au delà (Paris, 1937)Google Scholar; Eliade, Mircea, “Locum refrigerii …,” Zalmoxis, revue des études religieuses, I (1938), 203–208Google Scholar; and Quasten, J., “‘Vetus superstitio et nova religio,’ the Problem of Refrigirium in the Ancient Church of North Africa,” Harvard Theological Review, XXXIII (1940), 253–266CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 See Loeschcke, Gerhard, Jüdisches und Heidnisches im christlichen Kult (Bonn, 1910), pp. 16–36Google Scholar; Dieterich, A., Nekyia, 2te Aufl. (Leipzig, 1913)Google Scholar; Alföldi, Andrew, A Festival of Isis in Rome under the Christian Emperors of the Fourth Century (Budapest, 1937)Google Scholar ; Nilsson, M. P., “Pagan Divine Services in Late Antiquity,” Harvard Theological Review, XXXVIII (1945), 63–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rahner, Hugo, Griechische Mythen in christlicher Deutung (Zürich, 1945Google Scholar).

For a classical statement of the multifarious influence of paganism on the early and the medieval Church, see Charles Reade, The Cloister and the Hearth, chap. 74 (Everyman's Library edition, chap. 72). No little research went into this chapter of Reade's historical novel; for his sources, see Turner, Albert M., The Making of the Cloister and the Hearth (Chicago, 1938), pp. 186–188Google Scholar.

Some consideration of the earlier period is also given in Seznec, Jean, La survivance des dieux antiques (Studies of the Warburg Institute, XI [London, 1940])Google Scholar, Eng. trans, and revision. The Survival of the Pagan Gods; The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art (New York, 1953Google Scholar).

42 Metzger, B. M., “St. Jerome's Testimony Concerning the Second Grade of Mithraic Initiation,” American Journal of Philology, LXVI (1945), 225–233CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 According to epigraphical evidence, the taurobolium was efficacious for twenty years (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, VI, 504, of a.d. 376, and 152, of a.d. 390), for eternity (CIL, VI, 510 of a.d. 376), and, possibly, for twenty-eight years (so an inscription discussed by Cumont in Comptes rendus de l'académie des inscriptions, 1923, pp. 253 ff.). See Moore, Clifford H., “The Duration of the Efficacy of the Taurobolium,” Classical Philology, XIX (1924), 363–365CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 For a balanced essay on the general immunity of Jews from influences of the Mysteries, see Hooke's, S. H. chapter, “Christianity and the Mystery Religions,” in the symposium, Judaism and Christianity; vol. i, The Age of Transition, ed. by Oesterley, W. O. E. (London, 1937), pp. 235–250Google Scholar. Despite its valued contribution by collecting scattered materials, Goodenough's, E. R.Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 3 vols. (New York, 1953)Google Scholar falls short of proving that pre-Christian, Palestinian Judaism had been influenced by the Mysteries per se; see Smith's, Mortontrenchant critique in the Anglican Theological Review, XXXVI (1954), 218–220Google Scholar.

45 A noteworthy example of this change of emphasis in Pauline studies is to be found in W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism; Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (London, 1948Google Scholar).

46 According to the map prepared by Nicola Turchi (in his Le religioni misteriosofiche del mondo antico [Rome, 1923]), showing the diffusion of the Mysteries of Cybele, dea Syria, Isis, Mithra, Orpheus-Dionysus, and Samothrace in the Roman Empire, the only cult which penetrated Palestine proper was the the Isiac cult. Evidence (is it merely numismatic?) for this cult was found at Aelia Capitolina, i.e., subsequent to Hadrian's rebuilding of Jerusalem c. a.d. 135. By this time all the fundamental doctrines and sacraments of the Church had been fixed. It should be observed, however, that similar maps which Herbert Preisker includes in his Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 1937) indicate no archaeological remains of the cults of Isis, Mithra, and Cybele within Palestine.

Jerome provides literary evidence that at Bethlehem the cult of Adonis found a foothold as a result of Hadrian's attempt to paganize Jerusalem and its environs; Epistola lviii ad Paulinum, 3, “Bethleem, nunc nostram et augustissimum orbis locum, … lucus inumbrabat Thamuz, id est Adonidis, et in specu, ubi quondam Christus paruulus uagiit, Ueneris amasius plagebatur” (CSEL, LIV, 532, 4–8 Hilberg). See also von Baudissin, Wolf Wilhelm, Adonis und Esmun (Leipzig, 1911), p. 83Google Scholar and p. 522, note 5.

47 E.g., Justin Martyr, Apol. I, lxvi, 4 and Dial., lxx, 1; and Tertullian, de Corona, xv (CSEL, LXX, 186–188 Kroymann) and de Praescript, xl (ib., 51 f.).

48 E.g., apparently Celsus, ap. Origen, c. Celsum, vi, 22 (GCS, Orig., II, 91–93 Klostermann) and, no doubt with exaggeration, Flavius Vopiscus, Firmus, viii (quoted above in footnote 35).

49 Schweitzer, A., Geschichte der Paulinischen Forschung (Tübingen, 1911), pp. 151 fGoogle Scholar. (Eng. trans., Paul and His Interpreters [London, 1912], pp. 192 f.Google Scholar). In a similar vein F. C. Conybeare refers to “the untrained explorers [who] discover on almost every page connections in their subject matter where there are and can be none, and as regularly miss connections where they exist” (The Historical Christ [London, 1914], p. viiiGoogle Scholar).

50 Bevan, Edwyn R., in the symposium, The History of Christianity in the Light of Modern Knowledge (Glasgow, 1929), p. 105Google Scholar; reprinted by Kepler, Thomas S., Contemporary Thinking about Paul, An Anthology (New York, 1940), p. 43Google Scholar.

51 For this distinction, see Deissmann, Adolf, Licht vom Osten, 4te Aufl. (Tübingen, 1923), pp. 226Google Scholar ff. (Eng. trans., Light from the Ancient East [New York, 1927], pp. 262Google Scholar ff.)

52 Conybeare, op. cit., p. viii.

53 The text of the two letters is given by Selwyn, E. G. in the introduction of his commentary on The First Epistle of St. Peter (London, 1949), pp. 8Google Scholar f.

54 The parallel is discussed by Milburn, R. L. P. in Journal of Theological Studies, XLVI (1945), 68CrossRefGoogle Scholarf.

55 Toynbee, Arnold J., A Study of History, VI (Oxford, 1939), 276 ff.Google Scholar, and 376–539. On anthropological and cultural parallels in general, see Nilsson, M. P. in Gercke-Norden's Einleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft, 4te Aufl., II, iv (Leipzig, 1933). 58 ff.Google Scholar; Rose, H. J., Concerning Parallels, Frazer Lecture, 1934 (Oxford, 1934)Google Scholar; and Nock, A. D. in Gnomon, XV (1939), 18 f.Google Scholar, and American Journal of Philology, LXV (1944), 99 ffGoogle Scholar.

56 The two facts that all human beings eat and that most of them seek companionship with one another and with their god account for a large percentage of similarities among the examples from around the world gathered by Fritz Bammel in his interesting study of Das heilige Mahl im Glauben der Völker, eine religionsphänomenologische Untersuchung (Gütersloh, 1950).

57 So, e.g., Hepding, Hugo, Attis, seine Mythen und sein Kult (Giessen, 1903), p. 200Google Scholar, note 7, and Rahner, , Eranos-Jahrbuch, XI (1944), 397 fGoogle Scholar. On the other hand, Moore thinks that “in aetemum renatus represents rather the enthusiastic hopes of the devotee than any dogma” (op. cit., p. 363), and Nilsson regards the phrase as reflecting “a heightening which was easy to make in an age when so many spoke of eternity” (Geschichte der griechischen Religion, II [München, 1950], 626Google Scholar) ; but they have apparently forgotten that Augustine tells of having known a priest of Cybele who kept saying, “Et ipse Pileatus christianus est” (“and even the god with the Phrygian cap [i.e. Attis] is a Christian”), In Ioannis evangelium tractatus, vii, 1, 6 (Migne, PL, XXXV, 1440). The imitation of the Church is plain in the pagan reforms attempted by the Emperor Julian, a devoted adherent to the cult of Cybele. In general see Clemen, Carl, Der Einfluss des Christentums auf andere Religionen (Giessen, 1933), especially pp. 22–29Google Scholar.

58 Nock, A. D., “The Vocabulary of the New Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature, LII (1933), 134Google Scholar, who cites additional words common in popular religions but absent from the New Testament. See also Nock, , “Hellenistic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments,” Mnemosyne, 4th Ser., V (1952), 177–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 200, “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.”

59 See Nock, , “Mysterion,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, LX (1951), 201–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, xi (Loeb Classical Library, p. 29); see also lviii, “We must not treat legend as if it were history” (op. cit., p. 139).

61 Apuleius refers to “quosdam libros litteris ignorabilibus praenotatos, partim figuris cuiuscemodi animalium concepti sermonis compendiosa verba suggerentes, partim nodosis et in modum rotae tortuosis capreolatimque condensis apicibus a curiosa profanorum lectione munita,” Metamorphoses, xi, 22. On the contrary, Christians not only made available the Greek Scriptures, but prepared versions in the principal vernaculars as well. On the contrast in general, see Harnack, , Bible Reading in the Early Church (London, 1912), pp. 28 f.Google Scholar and 146 f.

62 For the history of views regarding the disciplina arcani down to the present century, see Gravel, Heinrich, Die Arcandisciplin, I Theil: Geschichte und Stand der Frage, Diss. Münster (Lingen a/Ems, 1902)Google Scholar. For more recent summaries, see A. Jülicher in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie, V, 1175 f.; L. Schindler, Altchristliche Arkandisziplin und die antiken Mysterien, Program. Tetschen (1911); Vacandard, E., “Arcane,” Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, III (1924), 1497–1513Google Scholar; and Perler, O., “Arkandisziplin,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, I (1950), 667–676Google Scholar.

63 E.g. Pseudo-Augustine, Quaestiones veteris et novi Testamenti, cxiv, 6 (CSEL, L, 305 Souter): Hinc est unde nihil apud nos in tenebris, nihil occulte geritur. Omne enim, quod honestum scitur, publicari non timetur; illud autem, quod turpe et inhonestum est, prohibente pudore non potest publicari. Quam ob rem pagini mysteria sua in tenebris celebrant, uel in eo prudentes. Erubescunt enim palam inludi; turpia enim, quae illic uice legis aguntur, nolunt manifestari, ne qui prudentes se dicunt hebetes his uiceantur, quos stultos appellant.

64 So, inter alia, I Cor. 10 and the Fourth Gospel. See Nock's, discussion of “Baptism and the Eucharist as ‘Dona Data,’” in Mnemosyne, 4th Ser., V (1952), 192–202Google Scholar.

65 Nock, , “Mystery,” Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, XI, (1937), 174Google Scholar.

66 Tertullian, De baptismo, v (CSEL, XX, 204, 29 ff. Reifferscheid and Wissowa). Probably because of its great expense, the taurobolium appears never to have been required for membership in the cult of Magna Mater.

67 Albrecht Dieterich's generalization, “It is remarkable that a sacramental meal should play so large a part in the dominant cults of later antiquity” (Eine Mithrasliturgie, 3te Aufl., Leipzig and Berlin, 1923, p. 102), exceeds all bounds of legitimate inference from actual evidence.

68 Clement of Alexandria, Cohortatio ad gentes, ii (GCS, Clem., I, 16, 19 Stählin), and Arnobius, Adversus nationes, v, 26 (CSEL, IV, 197, 24 Reifferscheid).

69 So, e.g., Gardner; see footnote 19 above.

70 Eitrem, S., “Eleusinia — les mystères et l'agriculture,” Symbolae osloenses, XX (1940), 140Google Scholar ff.

71 Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus, ii, 15 (GCS, Clem., I, 13, 12 Stählin), and Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanorum religionum, xviii, 1 (43, 17 Ziegler). It may be pointed out, for whatever it is worth, that Firmicus makes a point of contrasting the Christian and Phrygian rites; see also Groton, William M., The Christian Eucharist and the Pagan Cults (New York, 1914), pp. 81Google Scholar ff.

72 Op. cit., pp. 104 f.

73 Op. cit., pp. 185 f.

74 Edited by Točilescu, Gregor G. in Archäologisch-epigraphische Mitteilungen aus Oesterreich, VI (1882), 8Google Scholar f.

75 Hemberg, Bengt, Die Kabiren (Uppsala, 1950Google Scholar).

76 Justin Martyr, Apol. I, lxvi, 4; cf. Dial., lxx, i and Tertullian, de Praescr., xl.

77 See, e.g., Lietzmann, Hans, Messe und Herrenmahl (Tübingen, 1926)Google Scholar, Eng. trans, by Dorothea Reeve, H. G., Mass and the Lord's Supper, A Study in the History of the Liturgy, fasc. I (Leiden, 1953—)Google Scholar; Williams, N. P., “The Origins of the Sacraments,” in Selwyn, E. G. (ed.), Essays Catholic and Critical, 3rd ed. (London, 1929), pp. 367–423Google Scholar; Arnold, August, Der Ursprung des christlichen Abendmahl im Lichte der neuesten liturgiegeschichtlichen Forschung (Freiburg, 1937)Google Scholar; Jeremias, Joachim, Die Abendmahlsworte Jesus, 2te Aufl. (Göttingen, 1949)Google Scholar, and “The Last Supper,” Journal of Theological Studies, L (1949), 1–10Google Scholar; and Higgins, A. J. B., The Lord's Supper in the New Testament (London, 1952)Google Scholar.

78 On the Jewish background of the Lord's Supper, see especially Ugolini, Blasius, “Dissertatio de ritibus in Coena Domini ex antiquitatibus paschalibus illustratis,” in his monumental Thesaurus antiquitatum sacrum, XVII (Venice, 1755). 1127–1188Google Scholar; Georg Beer's introduction, “Zur Geschichte des Paschafestes,” in his ed. of Die Mischna, II Seder, Moëd, 3. Traktat, Pesachim (Giessen, 1912), pp. 1–109, especially pp. 92–109 which deal with the Lord's Supper; Billerbeck's, Paul excursus, “Das Passamahl,” in Strack, H. L. and Billerbeck, , Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, IV, i (München, 1928), 41–76Google Scholar; Dix, Gregory, The Shape of the Liturgy, 2nd ed. (London, 1949), pp. 48 ff.Google Scholar; and Jeremias's works mentioned in the preceding footnote.

Whether the Prayer of Aseneth (otherwise called Joseph and Asenath) preserves indications of a Jewish religious meal distinct from the Passover and similar to the Lord's Supper has no immediate bearing upon the present inquiry, for the date of the completed form of this apocryphon may well be post-Christian, and in any case it is basically Jewish in its outlook. For the relevant passages see Kilpatrick, G. D. in Expository Times, LXIV (1952), 4–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and J. Jeremias's reply, ibid, pp. 91–92.

The resemblance between the Lord's Supper and certain Mithraic ceremonies, which Justin Martyr explained (see footnote 76 above) as due to the work of demons in anticipation of the Christian sacrament, may be regarded either as fortuitous or as the result of adaptation by Mithraic priests of an impressive rite in the Christian cultus.

79 Nock observes that although paganism expressed gratitude for blessings received, “we cannot imagine copious impromptu prayer in a pagan rite,” Mnemosyne, 4th Ser., V (1952), 201Google Scholar. In this connection reference may be made to a third century papyrus edited by Schermann, Theodor, Frühchristliche Vorbereitungsgebete zur Taufe, in Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung, III (München, 1917)Google Scholar.

80 With regard to the Christian terminology of baptism, Erich Fascher concludes: “Aufs Grosse und Ganze gesehen haben die ersten Christen also schon durch die Wortwahl (Wörter, die selten und weder in der Profangräcität noch in LXX kultisch bestimmt sind) ihr Eigentümliches zum Ausdruck gebracht,” article on “Taufe,” Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie, Zweite Reihe, 8te Halbband (IV, A, II), 2504, 12–17. See also Nock's judgment on the difference of sacramental terminology, footnote 58 above.

81 See, among many treatments, Hartte, Konstantin, Zum semitischen Wasserkultus (vor Ausbreitung des Christentums), Diss. Tübingen (Halle, 1912)Google Scholar ; Polster, Gottfried, “Der kleine Talmudtraktat über die Proselyten,” Angelos, Archiv für neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte und Kulturkunde, II (1926), 2–38Google Scholar; Leipoldt, J., Die urchristliche Taufe im Lichte der Religionsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1928)Google Scholar; Coppens, J., “Baptême,” Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplément, I (1928), 852–924Google Scholar, especially “Rapports entre les mystères païens et le baptême chrétien,” 911–920; Jeremias, J., “Der Ursprung der Johannestaufe,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, XXVIII (1929), 312–320Google Scholar; Finkelstein, Louis, “The Institution of Baptism for Proselytes,” Journal of Biblical Literature, LII (1933), 203–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rowley, H. H., “Jewish Proselyte Baptism and the Baptism of John,” Hebrew Union College Annual, XV (1940), 313–334Google Scholar; and Marsh, H. G., The Origin and Significance of New Testament Baptism (Manchester, 1941)Google Scholar.

Reitzenstein's, conclusions in his Die Vorgeschichte der christlichen Taufe (Leipzig and Berlin, 1929)Google Scholar rest upon the very dubious methodology of appealing to evidence from the Mandaic literature, which dates in its present form from the seventh and eighth centuries, and is itself partly dependent on Christianity. Recent evaluations of the limited usefulness of Mandaism in accounting for elements in Christian origins include those by Knox, W. L., St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 212–219Google Scholar, and Dodd, C. H., The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 115–130CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a guide to the extensive literature on the subject, see Pallis, S. A., Essay on Mandæan Bibliography, 1560–1930 (Copenhagen and London, 1933)Google Scholar.

82 Nock, A. D., “A Note on the Resurrection,” in Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation, ed. Rawlinson, A. E. J. (London, 1928), p. 48Google Scholar.

83 The phrase is Nock's, ibid., p. 49. See also Ring, George C., S.J., “Christ's Resurrection and the Dying and Rising Gods,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, VI (1944), 216–229Google Scholar, and Bertram, G., “Auferstehung (des Kultgottes),” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, I (Stuttgart, 1950), 919–930Google Scholar.

84 Of no little significance is Paul's choice of the pair of verbs with which he begins this account of the institution of the Lord's Supper, παρέλαβον and παρέδωκα. These correspond exactly to qibbēl and māsar, the termini technici with which Pirke Aboth, the heart of the Mishnah, opens (“Moses received the Torah from Sinai and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua to the Elders, and the Elders to the Prophets, etc.” 1,1).

The fact that occasionally either παραδιδόναι and tradere or παραλαμβάνειν, accipere, and percipere, were used with reference to the Mysteries (for examples see Lobeck, op. cit., I, 39, note; Anrich, op. cit., p. 54, notes 4 and 5; Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, pp. 53 f.) cannot be supposed to throw significant light upon Paul's usage in I Cor. 11:23 (pace Eduard Norden, Agnostos Theos [Berlin, 1913] pp. 288 f.) in view of the facts that (1) no pagan example has been found which employs both verbs side by side, and (2) as a Rabbi trained at Jerusalem, Paul would not only have known verbatim the phraseology embedded in Aboth, but would have frequently heard the verbs used in the course of rabbinical debate.

85 See Dodd, C. H., The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (London, 1936)Google Scholar.

86 Contrary to W. F. Albright's statement that in the Sumerian original of the epic of Inanna's Descent to the Nether World the goddess “is explicitly said to remain three days and three nights in the underworld” (From Stone Age to Christianity, 2nd ed. [Baltimore, 1946], pp. 341Google Scholar f. note 81), a careful examination of the epic (conveniently edited by Pritchard, J. B., Ancient Near Eastern Texts [Princeton, 1950], pp. 52–57Google Scholar) indicates that it is “after three days and three nights had passed” (line 169) that Ninshubur, perceiving that his mistress, Inanna, has not returned from the Nether World, proceeds to make the rounds of the gods, lamenting before each of them in accord with a formula which Inanna had previously given him. Then Father Enki devises a plan to restore the goddess to life; he fashions two sexless creatures and instructs them to proceed to the Nether World and to sprinkle the “food of life” and the “water of life” upon Inanna's impaled body. This they do, and the goddess subsequently revives. The time of the reanimation is not disclosed, but doubtlessly the mythographer conceived it to be considerably later than the period of three days and three nights. On this point also see Nötscher, F., “Zur Auferstehung nach drei Tagen,” Biblica, XXXV (1954), 313–319Google Scholar.

87 Hepding thought that the reanimation of Attis was fixed in the night of the 24th, but the evidence for this is not certain (op. cit., pp. 165 ff.).

88 Glotz, Gustave, “Les fêtes d'Adonis sous Ptolémée II,” Revue des études grecques, XXXIII (1920), 169–222CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 213. Professor Nock calls to my attention Lambrechts's, P. study in Annuaire de l'institut de philologie orientates et slaves, XIII (Brussels, 1953)Google Scholar.

89 Among many discussions of this belief, see especially Freistedt, Emil, Altchristliche Totengedächtnistage und ihre Beziehung zum Jenseitsglauben und Totenkultus der Antike (Münster, 1928), pp. 53Google Scholar ff.

90 For an interesting suggestion why Jesus emphasized the importance of the third day after his death, see SirHoskyns, Edwyn, The Fourth Gospel, 2nd ed. (London, 1947), pp. 199–200Google Scholar. Hoskyns points out that, according to customs of hospitality prevailing in the East, three days constitute a temporary habitation, and the fourth day implies permanent residence. When, therefore, in accord with Hosea's promise that the Lord had not permanently humiliated his people but would raise them up on the third day (Hosea 6:2), “it is said in the Gospels that Jesus emphasized the importance of the third day after His death, what is meant is that He assured to His disciples that death could not permanently engulf Him … He would be but a visitor to the dead, not a permanent resident in their midst” (Hoskyns, op. cit., p. 200).

91 It must not be supposed that the recurring annual festival of Easter belies what has just been said regarding the particularity of the Christian message. It has been proved that the celebration of Easter did not arise at once out of belief in the Resurrection, but developed later by gradual stages out of the Jewish Passover; see Schwartz, E., “Osterbetrachtungen,” Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, VII (1906), 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92 Notably the cult of Attis by Iamblichus as reported by Julian, Oration V, and by Sallustius, Concerning the Gods and the Universe, § iv.