The act, moreover, by which the individual becomes partaker in the new being is in the two cases quite different. The Mystery-religions represent the “transfiguration” of the living being as effected by his receiving into himself a divine essence, by means of the gnosis and the vision of God. It is thus a subjective act. According to Paul’s teaching the “transfiguration” is not brought about by the gnosis and vision of God. These are rather the consequence of the renewal, the efficient cause of which is found, not in the act of the individual, and not in the inherent efficacy of the sacrament, but in a world-process. So soon as the individual enters by faith and baptism into this new cosmic process he is immediately renewed in harmony therewith, and now receives spirit, ecstasy, gnosis, and everything that these imply. What according to the Greek view is the cause, is for Paul the consequence. Thus, even though the conceptions show a certain similarity, they do not correspond, because they are connected with the central event of the mysticism in each case by chains which run in opposite directions. A figure which exactly illustrates one’s meaning may claim pardon even for somewhat doubtful taste. In the Mystery-religions, individuals climb up a staircase step [pg 225] by step towards deification; in Paulinism they spring in a body into a lift which is already in motion and which carries them into a new world. The staircase is open to all; the lift can only be used by those for whom it is especially provided. So far as Comparative Religion is concerned, therefore, the case is exactly the same in regard to the “physical” element in the mystical doctrine of redemption as it was in regard to that of the sacramental doctrine. On close examination the historico-eschatological character of the Pauline conception is in both cases so all-pervading that it invalidates any parallel with the Mystery-religions, and leaves them with nothing in common but the linguistic expression. The mystical and sacramental aspects of the “physical” element in redemption do not for him stand on the same footing with the eschatological, which is immediately given with the conceptions of transformation and resurrection, but must be in some way capable of being derived from it. Only when that is done will the Pauline doctrine of redemption be explained.