Of course, every further logical step in this direction involves further sacrifice of historical understanding and an increasing necessity to indulge in imaginary constructions. But all these consequences are already present in germ in the mere assertion that Paul is to be understood from the Mystery-religions, even though those who maintain this view do not want to proceed any further than the facts which have to be explained seem to them to warrant. As between the students of Comparative Religion and Drews the relation is similar to that between the legitimate and illegitimate Tübingen schools. Here, too, the alternative lies between “scientific and inconsistent, and consistent and unscientific.” That means that an absolute antinomy appears between the logic of the attempted solution and that of the data of fact; which is as much as to say that the problem has been wrongly grasped, and that this way, whether it be followed for a certain distance only, or right to the end, can never lead to the goal of a satisfactory solution. [pg 237] VIII SUMMING-UP AND FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM THE study of Paulinism has nothing very brilliant to show for itself in the way of scientific achievement. Learning has been lavishly expended upon it, but thought and reflection have been to seek. Writers went to work with an almost inconceivable absence of plan, and wanted to offer solutions before they had made clear to themselves the scope of the problem. Instead of seeking a definite diagnosis, they treated the symptoms separately, with whatever means happened to come to hand. It was inevitable, therefore, that the study of the subject should move along intricate and continually recrossing paths, and engage in long and devious wanderings, only, in some cases, to arrive back again at the point from which it started. That Paul’s doctrine of redemption was thought out on the lines of a physical nature-process had been asserted by Lüdemann as long ago as the year 1872. Nevertheless, theology hit on the plan of “spiritualising” it, and took very nearly thirty years to get back to this discovery. The account which we have given of the history of the subject has revealed the structure of the problem and given it room to develop itself. The inner connexion of the questions determines in advance what the individual solutions can and cannot effect, and at the same time [pg 238] shows what must be provided for in any solution which professes to offer a really historical explanation. To neglect this structure, this schematism of the problem is not permissible. It has not been independently invented and imposed from without upon the past history of research, but represents its actual results, and points the way for all subsequent attempts at a solution. The problem consists in the two great questions: what Paul’s doctrine has in common with primitive Christianity, and what it has in common with Greek ideas.