It is to be noted that Reitzenstein tries in vain to render intelligible either the connexion of the soteriological mysticism with the facts of the death and resurrection, or the fellowship which is therein presupposed between the believer and the Lord. In his exposition of Rom. vi. the parallels with the Mystery-religions force him into a wrong line, and compel him to think of the objective process as a subjective one. He assumes that everything becomes clear and simple if once the Apostle is understood to speak of a _voluntary_ dying, which is neither purely physical nor merely metaphysical, but is based upon the thought that we must not sin any more because we have taken upon us Christ’s person and lot, and have crucified our natural man. But in Paul it is not a question of an act which the believer accomplishes in himself; what happens is that in the moment when he receives baptism, the dying and [pg 226] rising again of Christ takes place in him without any cooperation, or exercise of will or thought, on his part. It is like a mechanical process which is set in motion by pressing a spring. The minute force employed in pressing the spring bears no relation to that which thereon comes into play; only serves to release a set of forces already in existence. In the Mystery-religions the thought is: We desire not to sin any more, therefore we will undergo initiation. Paul’s logic is the converse of this, and takes the objective form: Christ’s death and resurrection is effectually present in us; therefore, we are no longer natural men and cannot sin any more. The whole distinction lies in the fact that the mysticism of the Apostle of the Gentiles is based on historico-eschatological events, whereas the Mystery-religions are in their nature non-historical. Where they make use of myths they use them in the last resort merely as pictures of that which the “mystes” performs or undergoes, not as events charged with a real energy, as the death and resurrection of Jesus are for Paul. But the fact of the far-reaching outward and inward resemblances of language between the Graeco-Oriental and the Pauline mysticism are not affected by that. As though by a pre-established harmony in the history of religion, it came about that the mysticism which developed out of eschatology was able to find complete representation in the language of the Mystery-religions, and found there ready to its hand conceptions and expressions which facilitated, suggested, and in some cases were even indispensable to its fuller development. Reitzenstein’s merit is that of having determined exactly and unmistakably the meaning of Paul’s language, and having at the same time shown that Jewish Hellenism and Greek philosophy had practically no part in him.