ECCLESIASTICAL AND GENERAL HISTORY 627 



known. Formerly, indeed, it was believed that this influence must 

 be limited to the Christian heresies. It was held that the existence 

 of the Gnostic sects and the rise of other phenomena were to be 

 explained by the influence of paganism on Christianity. But it has 

 become evident in an increasing degree that the church itself was 

 also affected by the alien religions with which it fought. Their influ- 

 ence is apparent in the most varied fields, but especially where rites 

 and ceremonies, sacraments, and popular religious ideas are con- 

 cerned. In Catholicism a religion of the first and a religion of the 

 second order can be distinguished as existing side by side. If the 

 first kind was to a considerable degree affected, the second was very 

 strongly determined by extra-Christian superstitions. To investigate 

 the extent of this influence in regard to each particular problem is 

 always, no doubt, a task demanding a great deal of care and critical 

 tact. We are more inclined in these days to overvalue than to under- 

 value the influence of alien religions, and we are too ready to assert 

 dependence where all that is in question is a parallel set of phenom- 

 ena, developing here and there spontaneously. The abuse of this 

 method, however, must not prevent us from seeing that there are 

 many important phenomena in the inner history of the church which 

 can be explained only by taking account of alien religions; and that, 

 when we are dealing with this history, to look at it from the point of 

 view of the general history of religions is a method that has already 

 borne rich fruit and promises still more. 



But it is not enough to study the influence of alien religions on the 

 history of Christianity. Nay, we have seen with increasing clearness 

 in the last few decades that the origin, too, of Christianity cannot 

 be understood without taking account of them. The Christian relig- 

 ion, no doubt, is the religion of Jesus Christ; but it came when 

 "the time was fulfilled." The Christian religion, then, is the Jewish 

 religion fulfilled, that is to say, brought to a completion and trans- 

 figured. But the Jewish religion in Jesus' time was not a simple 

 affair; on the contrary, through the labors of the prophets and the 

 influence of other religions it had become a spiritualized but also a 

 highly complex fabric. In the breadth of its development it w ; as 

 a syncretistic religion, but even on its inner side it was deepened and 

 enriched by extra-Jewish elements. In the course of its transform- 

 ation into Christianity it did not lose these component parts of its 

 nature. That is why we must go back to Babylon and Assyria, to 

 Egypt and Persia, to discover the origin of important elements in 

 Christianity. We are doing this to-day, but in doing it we too often 

 overlook the more serious and difficult business of studying the 

 changes in meaning which the received elements underwent. Merely 

 to state that they exist, and to say whence they come, carries us 

 a very little way. Nay, we shall become involved in huge misunder- 



