lieved that
whereas the unbaptized were subject to the inimical decrees of the
stars, the regenerate were immune.

Judged by our standards this belief is magical, just as the Jewish
eschatology is mythological. Neither has part or lot in modern
thinking; this does not necessarily prove that they are wrong, but it
means {77} that the problem for us is not one of details, but of
opposing systems, the parts of which cannot be interchanged. We can,
with logical propriety, accept the Graeco-Jewish eschatology or the
Graeco-Oriental sacramental regeneration if we reject modern thought.
But we cannot, except in intellectual chaos, combine the two, or
appropriately express modern thought in language belonging to the
ancient systems.

The modern man does not believe in any form of salvation known to
ancient Christianity. He does believe that so long as life lasts, and
he does not know of any limit to its duration, good and evil are
realities, and those who do good, and are good, achieve life of
increasingly higher and higher potentiality. If anything were gained
in practical life by calling this "salvation," it would be right and
wise to do so. But in fact it is disastrous, for it obscures thought
and confuses language.

Thus there is no doubt as to the general resemblance of the Christian
offer of salvation to that of other cults, and the obvious point of
difference--the presence of the Jewish eschatology--has no claim to
superior truth. What, then, are the points of difference between
Christianity and the other cults which explain the triumph of the
Church? Two popular but probably mistaken explanations may first be
discussed.

It is often said that Christianity had an enormous advantage in that
Jesus was an historic person, whereas the Lords of the other cults were
not. But {78} closer analysis does not confirm the importance of this
difference.

The initiates of the other cults believed that their Lords were
historic persons, just as Christians believed that Jesus was. They
had, indeed, lived a long time ago, but this was no disadvantage: any
one who reads Tatian's _Oratio ad Graecos_ can see how antiquity, not
recentness, was regarded as desirable. The general argument of
Christians was not that Jesus was historic, and the other Lords were
not, but that he fulfilled a true offer of salvation, made in a more
remote antiquity than any pagan religion could claim, while the heathen
Lords were demons, misunde