But sacramental tendencies already make their appearance in the future-hope which was to lead up to Christianity. The usual view is to the effect that Paul was the first to introduce the mystical element into baptism and the Lord’s Supper. There is nothing to prove that. How can we possibly tell that these ceremonies were previously purely symbolic acts? Any one who reads with an open mind the Synoptic accounts of John’s baptism must recognise that it was not only a symbol of purification on repentance, but is thought of as in some way or other guaranteeing salvation._(_194_)_ A transaction, however, which itself gives and effects such a result is to be regarded as a sacrament. The manner in which Paul speaks of early Christian baptism and of the Lord’s Supper does not make the impression that he is asserting for the first time the effectual working of the ceremony; it is rather as if he took it for granted as something given and self-evident. This would agree with the observation noted above that the baptism of John, from which primitive Christian [pg 243] baptism was derived, was already thought of as a sacrament. Whether the Lord’s Supper in the intention of Jesus Himself directly conveyed something to the partakers, or whether it only became a sacrament in primitive Christian times, must be left undecided. That the intensified eschatological expectation should go so far as to produce sacramental conceptions is in itself intelligible. Those who stood on the threshold of the coming glory must have been eagerly anxious to gain an assurance that they themselves would be partakers therein and to obtain tangible guarantees of “deliverance” from the coming judgment. The conception of “marking out” and “sealing” plays in apocalyptic thought a very important part. Similar provisions are a characteristic product of any intense expectation of the future. It is, therefore, highly probable that the Baptist, and primitive Christianity, created eschatological sacraments which, as already established and accredited, Paul had only to take over. The bearing of these statements and considerations must be shown from the Epistles. How far it is possible to trace the genesis of the mysticism and the sacramental doctrine from the eschatological beliefs of the Apostle cannot be determined _a priori_. The one thing certain is that no other way of explanation is possible than that which leads from the circumference of his future-hope to the central idea of his “theology.” All other interpretations hang in the air.