The story of the temptation of Jesus, if read intelligently “between the lines,” will be seen to indicate the characteristics of the Mithraic initiation. “Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John. And straightway coming up out of the water he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him; and there came a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness, and he was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan [Anra-mainyas], and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.” These different clauses relate to different parts of the mystic ceremony. The sojourn of the apostle Paul in Arabia, it is apparent, was for a purpose in close analogy with that of Jesus in the wilderness, as already described. “It had pleased God,” he says, “to reveal [or unveil] his Son in me;” so, without conferring with anybody, he set forth on his holy errand, and upon his return began to preach a gospel which he declares was not according to man nor taught in lessons, but was received by the revelation. He was instructed at the fountain intuitively, and so was “not a whit behind the chiefest apostles.” Hence in the utmost intensity of feeling he proclaimed, “If we, or even an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you, let him be accursed.” He goes on to recite the history of his career to show his entire independence of Judaism and the other apostles, and dwells upon his absolute rupture with Peter at Antioch on the ground of the adherence of the latter to the discarded restrictions of that religion. The question now becomes pertinent, What is the purport of this “faith”? In the fifteenth chapter of the First Corinthian Epistle he sets forth the chief points as follows: “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; also that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas, and after that of above five hundred brethren at once; after that he was seen of James, and then of all the apostles; and, last of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.” It may appear strange to the common reader to be told that these matters, which the apostle sets forth with so much apparent confidence, are _mystic and arcane the transcript of older theologies and constituted throughout of astrologie symbolism._ The ancient faiths of the different peoples contain doctrines and dramatic narrative closely analogous with the evangelic story of Jesus. The later Persians had the legend of Saoshyas (the savior), the son of the virgin Eredatferi, who conceives him in a miraculous manner. “He will appear and restore all things, after which he will himself become subordinate, that the Creator may be supreme and all in all.”