§ 17.3. =The Constitution of the Pauline Churches.= Founding upon the works of Mommsen and Foucart, first of all Heinrici and soon afterwards the English theologian Hatch[7] has wrought out the theory that the constitution of the churches that were wholly or mainly composed of Gentile Christians was modelled on those convenient, open or elastic rules of associations under which the various Hellenistic guilds prospered so well (θίασοι, ἔρανοι),--associations for the naturalization and fostering of foreign, often oriental, modes of worship. In the same way, too, the Christian church at Rome, for social and sacred purposes, made use of the forms of association employed in the Collegia or Sodalicia, which were found there in large numbers, especially of the funeral societies in which both of those purposes were combined (_collegia funeraticia_). In both these cases, then, the church, by attaching itself to modes of association already existing, acknowledged by the state, or tolerated as harmless, assumed a form of existence which protected it from the suspicion of the government, and at the same time afforded it space and time for independent construction in accordance with its own special character and spirit. As in those Hellenic associations all ranks, even those which in civil society were separated from one another by impassable barriers, found admission, and then, in the framing of statutes, the reception of fellow members, the exercise of discipline, possessed equal rights; as, further, the full knowledge of their mysteries and sharing in their exercise were open only to the initiated (μεμυημένοι), yet in the exercise of exoteric worship the doors were hospitably flung open even to the ἀμυήτοι; as upon certain days those belonging to the narrow circle joining together in partaking of a common feast; so too all this is found in the Corinthian church, naturally inspired by a Christian spirit and enriched with Christian contents. The church also has its religious common feast in its Agape, its mystery in the Eucharist, its initiation in baptism, by the administration of which the divine service is divided into two parts, one esoteric, to be engaged in only by the baptized, the other exoteric, a service that is open to those who are not Christians. All ranks (Gal. iii. 28) have the same claim to admission to baptism, all the baptized have equal rights in the congregation (see § 17, 7). It is evident, however, that the connection between the Christian churches and those heathen associations is not so to be conceived as if, because in the one case distinctions of rank were abolished, so also they were in the other; or that, because in the one case religious festivals were observed, this gave the first hint as to the observance of the Christian Agape; or that, because and in the manner in which