of these sacraments is manifestly Jewish. A])0s- tolic history exhibits no trace of any real nexus between them and the Hellenic mysteries ; and their subsequent conllict with the mysteries of Isis and Mitlira belongs to a ]>liase of development [losterior to the age of origins. Such general resemblances as their comparison with the mystery rites has discovered may be sutticient to furnish what Karnell has called 'adjacent anthropology' with illustrations of certain laws in the evolution of religion from the human side. But these paral- lels, while remote and indeci.sive in themselves, are al.so accompanied by contrasts much too pro- nounced and signilicant to afibrd solid ground for any theories of definite borrowing or suggestion. It is true, indeed, that, at a later date, recognized analogies led to a deliberate adaptation of the mystery terminology ; and the very name sacra- mimlum, which seems to have been used of initia- tion into the third grade — the grade of miles — in the Mithraic cult, may itself have found entrance into the Church by this avenue (F. Cuniont, Textes ct montiments f (juris relatifs aux mystires de Mithra, 2 vols., Ijrussels, 1895-99, ii. 318, n. U). It is true also tliat, still later, there set in a marked tendency to imitate or compete with the accessories of mystery ceremonial. But the utmost intiuence upon the sacraments with which these pagan rites can be credited in the Apostolic Age is that of having provided the sacramental vocabulary with perhaps one or two convenient words then in current use and of having prepared the way, through familiarity with symbolic worship and its circle of ideas, for the reception of sacramental observances and teaching among Gentile Chris- tians. To attribute to the mysteries any influence more germinal than this is to mistake the soil for the seed. Although the conclusion that the observ- ance of sacramental rites was primitive and uni- versal may appear to be elementary, important consequences follow from it. If such rites obtained from the first, the conception of primitive Chris- tianity as a formless sj)iritual impulse, a mere community of religious experience which after- wards developed its own constitutional order and embodied its worship in appropriate ceremonies, is not tenable. Primitive Christianity was undoiibt- edly charismatic. It bore witness to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dividing to every man severally as He willed. But the sacraments attest that primitive Christianity was ceremonial as well as charismatic. And such ceremonies carry with them the implication of some measure of corporate form, of common regulations, and of recog- nized administrative rule. The co-existence, more- over, of ceremonial side by side with charismatic life, especiallj' with a charismatic life .so universal and powerful as was manifested at the first, atlords a proof of the vigour and stability of the ceremonies themselves. Such a combination could not have been maintained unless these ceremonies had been regarded either as of indispensable value, or as ordained by incontestable authority, or, which was in fact the case, as possessing both of these sanc- tions in the fullest measure.
(b) The observance of sacramental rites was re- garded as of indispensable value in the Apostolic Church. For the earlier half of the 2nd cent, and for the closing years of the 1st this assertion will hardly be challenged. Evidence as to the high place assigned to Baptism and the Eucharist in the Didache, to Baptism in Hermas and Barnabas, to the Eucharist in Ignatius, and to the eucharistic service in Clement of Rome, is decisive and leaves no room for doubt. For NT times the conclusive- ness of the evidence has been disputed. The mere prevalence, however, of these sacramental observ- ances from the first itself affords strong presump-
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tion as to the exceptional reverence in wliicli thej" were lioUl. In the case of a religion old enougli to possess traditional customs one can imagine rites of universal currency wliicli, having become thus consiu!tu(iinary, are regarded as of hut ceremonial sigiiilicance. It is impossible to imagine such formalism in the case of a religion still in its infancy, of a religion so spiritual, moreover, and so intolerant of unreality as that of Christ. These rites must have been esteemed as primary, or they would not have been universally observed. That Bajitism, for instance, was treated as indisjiensable is plain. Kven one converted by a heavenly vision (.'\c y" *2'''), even those upon wliem the Holy Oliost had already fallen (UV), were required to receive it, widleof those whose understanding and experience of the faith were discovered to be essentially defec- tive (19'"") the crucial question at once asked by the Apostle was — ' Into what then were ye bap- tized ? ' To Baptism St. Paul habitually appeals as to a fact of cardinal religious importance (Ko 6'"'S 1 Co G" I'2'», Gal 3-'«- =', Col 2"- '^ Tit 3») ; and he includes it among a series of solenm witnes.ses to the nnit5' which the Christian calling demands in a concatenation of ideas the most exalted conceiv- able (Eph i^- ^- <■). Regarding the Eucharist, again, it may be affirmed with eoniidence that St. Paul could never have expressed himself as he did in 1 Co 1I"-3J had he reckoned its value to be secondary, or its sacredness to be negligible, or its obligation to be anything less than imperative upon all members of the Church. Support has been claimed upon various grounds for the conten- tion that sacramental observance is ' not central ' in the NT. It has been pointed out that in the Acts and writings of the apostles the space devoted to sacramental subjects is extremely exiguous, that in many whole books neither one sacrament nor the other is mentioned, that such references as do occur are for the most part incidental. But it maj- be replied that the books of the NT do not purport to be comprehensive ; that they are occasional or specific in their character ; tliat not one of them is, or professes to contain, a systematic manual of first principles ; that all of them assume the concurrent operation of evangeli-stic preaching and oral instruction ; that, when read as addressed to churches in which sacramental observance was invariable and presupposed, they are at once perceived to be really interwoven with manifold allusions to the sacramental life unobserved before. The argument ex silentio is proverbially a perilous argument. It becomes convincing only when accompanied, as in this case it is not, by inde- pendent proof that silence must infer either ignor- ance or disregard. It may often with equal, if not greater, propriety be used to establish the very contrary of that which it has been cited to make good. Lake's remark applies most perti- nently in this connexion : ' It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of realizing that, if we want to discover the central points of Christian doctrine, we must look not at those to which St. P.aul devotes pages of argument, but at those which he treats as the premises accepted equally by all Christians' [The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, London, 1911, p. 233 n.). It is not really |iar.adoxical to maintain that the NT writers say little about sacramental observance just because sacramental observance was in their eyes a first principle. The emphasis laid in the NT upon the saving grace of faith is another reason adduced to depreciate the primitive importance of the sacra- ments. But saving graces and the means of grace are never placed in contrast in apostolic doctrine. The antithesis is gratuitous and imaginary. The relation between faith and sacrament remains exactly analogous to that which the Gospels rejire-