[330] "I am the A and the O, the beginning and the end," the Revelation of John makes the Messiah say (i. 8.). Is there not at the same time in this a concealed reference to Adonis? The Alpha and the Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, form together the name of Adonis--Ao (Aoos) as the old Dorians called the God, whence Cilicia is also called Aoa. A son of Adonis and Aphrodite (Maia) is said ("Schol. Theocr.," 15, 100) to have been called Golgos. His name is connected with the phallic cones (Greek, golgoi), as they were erected on heights in honour of the mother divinities of Western Asia, who were themselves, probably on this account, called Golgoi and golgon anássa (Queens of the Golgoi), and is the same as the Hebraic plural Golgotha (Sepp, "Heidentum," i. 157 sq.). Finally, was the "place of skulls" an old Jebusite place of worship of Adonis under the name of Golgos, and was the cone of rock, on which statue of Venus was erected in the time of Hadrian, selected for the place of execution of the Christian Saviour because it was connected with the remembrance of the real sacrifice of a man in the rôle of Adonis (Tammuz)? [331] Deut. xxi. 23. [332] We notice that already in these distinctions the germs of those endless and absurd disputes concerning the "nature" of the God-man lie concealed, which later, in the first century A.D., tore Christendom into countless sects and "heresies," and which gave the occasion for the rise of the Christian dogma. [333] Rom. i. 3. [334] Rom. viii. 3; 2 Cor. viii. 9; Phil. ii. 7 sq. [335] Gal. iii. 10 sqq.; Rom. iii. 9. [336] Rom. iii. 20, iv. 15, v. 20, vii., sqq. [337] Gal. iii. 19 sqq. [338] Rom. vi. 9 sq. [339] Id. v. 14. [340] Rom. iv. 3 sqq. [341] Rom. vi. 3 sqq. [342] Gal. iii. 27. [343] Cf. above, p. 137. [344] 1 Cor. x. 16 sqq., xi. 23-27. [345] 1 Cor. x. 3 sqq., 16-21. [346] Cf., e.g., Pfleiderer, op. cit., 333. [347] Cf. above, p. 49 sqq. [348] Plato, "Symposium," c. 22. [349] Col. ii. 9. [350] Op. cit., 80. [351] Cf. my work, "Plotin und der Untergang der antiken Weltanschauung," 1907. [352] Gal. ii. 20; Rom. viii. 4, 26. [353] Id. viii. 14 sqq. [354] 2 Cor. iii. 17. [355] Gal. v. 26. [356] 1 Cor. ii. 9, 14; Rom. xii. 2. [357] Op. cit., 86. [358] Wrede, Id. [359] Id. [360] Op. cit., 94. [361] Wrede, op. cit., 85. [362] 1 Cor. xv. 17. [363] Cf. as to the whole question my essay on "Paulus u. Jesus" ("Das Freie Wort" of December, 1909). [364] It is true that other theologians think differently on this point, as, e.g., Feine in his book, "Jesus Christus und Paulus" (1902), declares that Paul had "interested himself very much in gaining a distinct and comprehensive picture of Jesus' activity and personality" (!) (229).