Entering more into detail, this “Hylic”_(_168_)_ of the Comparative method explains that the primeval concrete and sensuous conception of the _communio_ established by partaking of the flesh and blood of the animal in which the divinity itself dwelt, comes to light again in the primitive Christian Lord’s Supper, at the highest stage of the development of religion, and under this new form acquires a new life._(_169_)_ It would be precarious, he further observes, in view of the fragmentary condition of the sources to attempt to prove a direct dependence on definite phenomena—on the cultus feast of the Mithra-mysteries, for example: “It will be safer to point to the general characteristics of the time, which abounded with ideas of that kind. The infant Christianity lived in an atmosphere which, if I may be allowed the expression, was impregnated with Mystery-bacilli, and grew up on a soil which had been fertilised and made friable by the decay and intermixture of the most various religions, and [pg 206] was specially adapted to favour the upgrowth of seeds and spores which had been long in the ground.” Now, there is no such thing as an atmosphere impregnated with bacteria. Medical science has long since shown that this conception rests on an error, the air being practically free from germs. In theology it is more difficult to get rid of fantastic imaginations, since historical proofs are only available for those who are capable of thinking historically. It must not be overlooked that the eating and drinking which establishes communion with Christ is only one side of the Pauline conception of the Supper. Alongside of it there exists the other, which sees in the feast a confession of faith in the death and the parousia of the Lord, and is quite as significant as the former. It is—in I Cor. xi.—developed in connexion with the repetition of the historic words of Jesus; on it is based the argument that a careless partaking is a transgression against the body of the Lord. And on the basis of this conception, cases of illness and death in the church are to be understood as a warning chastisement pointing to the Last Judgment. This conception must be somehow or other eschatologically conditioned. The communion which is established in the Lord’s Supper is a communion of the eagerly-waiting man with the coming Lord of Glory. The only thing which remains obscure is how this is brought about. The confession of faith in the death and parousia which is combined with the act of eating and drinking does not suffice to explain this further effect. Further, it remains inherently obscure how by eating and drinking the dying and return of the Lord can be shown forth, especially as the Early Christian celebration consisted only in a common meal, and in no way reproduced, as present-day celebrations do, the actions and words of Jesus at the Last Supper.