"The Mysteries," says Dr. Cheetham very candidly, "influenced Christianity considerably and modified it in some important respects"; and Dr. Hatch, as we have seen, not only supports this general view, but follows it out in detail. (1) He points out that the membership of the Mystery-societies was very numerous in the earliest times, A.D.; that their general aims were good, including a sense of true religion, decent life, and brotherhood; that cleanness from crime and confession were demanded from the neophyte; that confession was followed by baptism ([gr kaqarsis]) and THAT by sacrifice; that the term [gr fwtismos] (illumination) was adopted by the Christian Church as the name for the new birth of baptism; that the Christian usage of placing a seal on the forehead came from the same source; that baptism itself after a time was called a mystery ([gr musihriou]); that the sacred cakes and barley-drink of the Mysteries became the milk and honey and bread and wine of the first Christian Eucharists, and that the occasional sacrifice of a lamb on the Christian altar ("whose mention is often suppressed") probably originated in the same way. Indeed, the conception of the communion-table AS an altar and many other points of ritual gradually established themselves from these sources as time went on. (2) It is hardly necessary to say more in proof of the extent to which in these ancient representations "things said" and "scenes enacted" forestalled the doctrines and ceremonials of Christianity. (1) See Hatch, op. cit., pp. 290 sq. (2) See Dionysus Areop. (end of fifth century), who describes the Christian rites generally in Mystery language (Hatch, 296).