are supposed to be based, equally recalls the Talmud: "Who thinks favourably of his neighbour brings it about that fair judgments are also made of him." "Let your judgment of your neighbour be completely good." "Even as one measures, with the same measure shall it also be measured unto him." Rom. xiv. 13 and 1 Cor. viii. 7-13 need not necessarily be an allusion to Jesus' tender consideration for those who are ruined by scandal, as we find in the Talmud: "It would have been better that the evil-minded had been born blind, so that they would not have brought evil into the world" (cf. also Nork, "Rabbinische Quellen und Parallelen zu neutestamentlichen Schriftstellen," 1839). And does Paul's usual phrase of greeting, "from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," really contain the avowal of the "Father-God" preached by Christ? For the connection of the divine Son and bearer of salvation with the "Father-God" is a general mythological formula which occurs in all the different religions--witness the relation between Marduk and Ea, Heracles and Zeus, Mithras and Ormuzd, Balder and Odin. What then does it mean when Paul speaks of the "meekness and humility of Christ," who lived not for his own pleasure, who made no fame for himself, but was "submissive," assumed the form of a servant, and was "obedient" to the will of his "father," even to the death of the cross? All these traits are reproduced directly from the description of the suffering servant of God in Isaiah, which we know had a great part in shaping the personality of Jesus. Meekness, humility, charitableness, and obedience are the specific virtues of the pious of Paul's time. It was a matter of course for Christ also, the ideal prototype of good and pious men, to be endowed with these characteristics. Abraham was obedient when he sacrificed his son Isaac; and so was the latter to his father, being also submissive in himself bringing the wood to the altar and giving himself up willingly to the sacrificial knife. And we know what a significant rôle the story of Isaac's sacrifice has always played in the religious ideas of the Jews. Moreover, the heathen redeemer deities--Marduk, of the Mandaic Hibil Ziwâ, Mithras and Heracles--were also obedient in coming down upon earth at the bidding of their heavenly father, burst the gates of death, and gave themselves up, in the case of Mithras, even to be sacrificed; and Heracles served mankind in the position of a servant, fought with the monsters and horrors of hell, and assumed the hardest tasks at the will of others. [317] Kalthoff, "Die Entstehung d. Christentums," 1904, 15. [318] P. Wernle, "Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu, Religionsgesch. Volksbücher," 2 Aufl., 4. [319] Gunkel, op. cit., 93.