But Pauline predestination is quite different. It is absolute, and seems inevitably to abolish the necessity and meaning of the sacraments. Anyone who belongs to the number of the elect becomes _ipso facto_ partaker of the resurrection. At the end of all things a great company from the generations of long-past times will arise to life without ever having received baptism or partaken of the Lord’s Supper. That being so, what becomes of the sacraments? In what respect are they necessary? A good deal of energy has been expended in seeking analogies from other religions for the Corinthian baptism for the dead; it would really have been much more to the point to enquire why baptism for the dead was considered desirable. If the dead are among the elect, they have no need of it; if not, they could not have inherited life, even if they had received the sacrament during their sojourn on earth. To what end, then, is this baptism for the dead? The most important point to notice is that everywhere in the Pauline sacraments the eschatological interest breaks through. They effect, not re-birth, but resurrection. That which in the near future is to become visible reality, they make in the present invisibly real by anticipation. The Greek Mysteries are timeless. They reach back to primitive antiquity, and they profess to be able to manifest their power in all generations. In Paul the sacraments have temporal boundaries. Their power is derived from the events of the last times. They put believers in the same position as the Lord, in that they [pg 217] cause them to experience a resurrection a few world-moments before the time, even though this does not in any way become manifest. It is a precursory phenomenon of the approaching end of the world. Separated from the eschatology, the Pauline sacraments would become meaningless and ineffectual. They are confined to the time between the resurrection of Jesus and His parousia, when the dead shall arise. Their power depends on the present, and also on the future, fact. In this sense they are “historically” conditioned. While therefore in the Mystery-religions and in the Johannine theology the sacraments work of themselves, in Paul they draw their energy from a universal world-event, from which it is, as it were, transmitted.