The theory that the gospel narrative of the Last Supper, the Passion, the Betrayal, Trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection constitute a mystery-play or plays is set forth by the author in Pagan Christs. On pre-Christian Semitic "mysteries" see Professor Robertson Smith's Religion of the Semites, Lect. vi-xi; and on the ancient conception of sacrifice in general consult that work; also Wellhausen's Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Eng. tr. Pt. I. ch. iii; the work of Fustel de Coulanges on La Cité Antique; and Dr. J. G. Frazer's great treatise The Golden Bough (2nd ed. three vols. 1900, 3rd ed. nine vols., now in process of publication). Concerning the private religious societies among the Greeks, the standard authority is M. Foucart, Les Associations religieuses chez les Grecs, 1873; see also ch. xviii of Renan's Les Apôtres. The imitation of pagan institutions in the Christian Church is dealt with by the late Dr. Edwin Hatch, in his Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1890; and some of the relations between the Jewish Passover and coincident pagan feasts are suggested in the valuable old treatise of J. Spencer, De Legibus Hebræorum (1685 and later), lib. ii, cap 4. The part played by the child-image in pagan and Christian mysteries is noted in Christianity and Mythology, Pt. II, Christ and Krishna, sec. xiii. On other details consult Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ, Div. II. The question as to the rise of baptism comes up in the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, on which see Baur, Church History, Eng. tr., vol. i; where also will be found the material of the controversy on the date of the Easter sacrament. As to the manner of crucifixion in antiquity see Dr. W. Brandt's Die evangelische Geschichte und der Ursprung des Christenthums, 1893, Theil II, § 5, and Pf. Hermann Fulda's treatise, Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung (Breslau, 1878). § 6. Rise of Gentile Christism.