Nor does he show any knowledge of the idea that Christian baptism arose out of the baptism of Jesus as an imitative reproduction of it. He never, in fact, mentions the baptism of Jesus. Nowhere does he suggest that in baptism the new man, the “Child of God,” is born in the believer, as Jesus was in this act raised to His Messianic office. There is in fact no evidence from the earlier literature which suggests the existence of views of that kind regarding the origin and significance of Christian baptism. In early Christianity it is as far from being an imitative reproduction of the baptism of Jesus as the Church’s Lord’s Supper was from being an imitative reproduction of the historic Last Supper. The conception of an “imitative reproduction” was first introduced by modern theology. To cite the _taurobolium_ as an analogue of Paul’s baptism, with the death and resurrection which it effects, is not admissible. In the first place, the _taurobolium_ is a baptism of blood; in the next place it is closely connected with a sacrifice; in the third place, the burial and rising again are actually represented. The sacramental significance is thus derived from the many-sided symbolism. In Paul there is no trace of all this. “Plain water” effects everything. One point in regard to which great hopes had been placed on the Mystery-religions was the solution of the enigma of I Cor. xv. 29. Wernle regarded it as self-evident that the Apostle in permitting and approving [pg 211] baptism for the dead had allowed himself to become infected by the heathen superstition of his Corinthian converts, and took him to task for this lapse in his book on the “Beginnings of Christianity.” In his zeal he forgot to enquire whether the heathen had any superstition of the kind._(_173_)_ Those who tried to supply this omission did not meet with much success. The heathen showed themselves better than their reputation and less “superstitious” than the Christians! Of a baptism for the dead, or anything at all of this nature, they show no trace. Failing more relevant evidence, some have quoted Plato, who in the _Republic_ (ii. 364-5) makes Adeimantos say, appealing in confirmation to the Orphic writings, that by means of offerings and festivals, atonement and purification for past misdeeds is effected for whole towns as well as for single individuals, for the living and also for the dead. This passage, however, does not refer at all to personal dedications with a view to “renewal,” such as the baptism practised in the Mystery-religions and in Christianity, but to expiatory sacrifices in the ancient Greek sense._(_174_)_ In the _Taurobolia_, representation of one living person by another is supposed to have been possible, but there is no mention of a representation of the dead._(_175_)_ [pg 212] The baptism _of_ the dead which is attested by a papyrus is not a baptism _for_ the dead._(_176_)_