Another point which calls for close attention is the chronological question in connexion with the history of the Mystery-religions. It is from the beginning of the [pg 192] second century onwards that these cults become widely extended in the Roman empire. It is only at this period—the worship of Serapis as an artificial Graeco-Egyptian creation is perhaps an exception—that they come under the influence of late Greek religious thought and feeling, which developed with the decline of the Stoa, and become transformed from imported cults into universal Mystery-religions. The dates and the inner course of this development are for us obscure. So much, however, is certain, that Paul cannot have known the mystery-religions in the form in which they are known to us, because in this fully-developed form they did not yet exist. Assuming the most favourable case, that from his youth up he had had open eyes and ears for the heathen religions by which he was surrounded, he can only have known the cults as they were in their uncompounded state, not as what they passed into when they became filled with the Greek yearning for redemption, and mutually influenced one another. Considerations of this kind lead an authority like Cumont to insist again and again upon the difficulties which stand in the way of assuming an influence of the Mystery-cults on the earliest Christianity._(_160_)_ Especially does he hold it to be quite impossible that the Mithra-religion should have had any point of contact with Paul. Another point which should be mentioned is that those who are engaged in making these comparisons are rather apt to give the Mystery-religions a greater definiteness and articulation of thought than they really possess, and do not always give sufficient prominence to the distinction between their own hypothetical reconstruction and the medley of statements on which it is based. Almost all the popular writings fall into this kind of inaccuracy. They manufacture out of the various fragments of information a kind of universal [pg 193] Mystery-religion which never actually existed, least of all in Paul’s day._(_161_)_ In particular, these works aim at getting hold of the idea of a “Greek Redeemer-god” who might serve as an analogue to Jesus Christ. No figure deserving of this designation occurs in any myth or in any Mystery-religion; it is created by a process of generalisation, abstraction, and reconstruction. Before using the phrase Redeemer-God, one should remember that it means a God who for the sake of men came into the world, died and rose again. Having realised that, one may then try how far the Mystery-religions supply anything corresponding to this—the only adequate—definition._(_162_)_ [pg 194]