ions is the consciousness of sin or
of guilt pre-eminent. Sacrifice was believed to exert an influence on
the deity which is quasi-physical, and in sacrificial feasts God and
worshipper are in mysterious union. Sometimes, indeed, such contact with
deity is thought to be dangerous, and the rites indicate avoidance
(tabu), and sometimes it is thought desirable.

So universal are such ideas that the problem in particular religions is
not their origin but their form. In the Old Testament repeatedly they
are found in conflict with the prophetic ideals. Sometimes the prophets
denounce them, sometimes ignore them, sometimes attempt to reform and
control them. Jesus ignores them, his emphasis being so strong upon the
ethical and spiritual that the rest is passed by. In the early Church,
still Jewish, the belief was in the coming of a mysterious power from
God which produced ecstasy and worked wonders. St Paul also believes in
this, but insists that it is subordinate to the peaceable fruits of
righteousness. With the naturalization of the Church in the Gentile
world ethical ideas became less prominent, and the sacramental system
prevailed. By baptism and the Lord's Supper grace is given (_ex opere
operato_), so that man is renewed and made capable of salvation. Already
in the 2nd century baptism was described as a bath in which the health
of the soul is restored, and the Lord's Supper as the potion of
immortality. Similar notions present in the ethnic faiths take the
Christian facts into their service, the belief of the multitude without
essential change remaining vague and undefined. While the theologians
discussed doctrine the people longed for mystery, as it satisfied their
religious natures. By sacraments they felt themselves brought into the
presence of God, and to sacraments they looked for aid. Many sacraments
were adopted by portions of the Church, until at last the sacred number
seven was agreed upon.

The concepts of salvation.

As the way of salvation was modified, so too was the idea of salvation:
the dream of a Messianic kingdom on earth, with its corollary the
resurrection of the physical body, faded away, especially after the
Roman empire adopted Christianity; It was no longer the Jewish nation
against the heathen empire, for the Jewish nation had ceased to be, and
the empire and the Church were one. Salvation henceforth is not the
descent of the New Jerusalem out of heaven, but the ascent of the saints
to