[220] Heitmüller, _Taufe und Abendmahl bei Paulus_, 1903, p. 47. Certainly the hypothesis is not supported by the parallel which Paul draws in 1 Cor. x. 21 between the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Paul does not say that the heathen had fellowship with their gods by partaking of them in a meal; the fellowship with those gods (verse 20) could be conceived of in other ways. For example, the cult god may have been conceived of in the sacrificial meals as the host at a feast. In point of fact, such an idea was no doubt widely prevalent. It is attributed to the Phrygian mysteries, for example, by Hepding, who supposes that the eating from the drum and drinking from the cymbal meant the entrance of the initiate into the circle formed by the table-companions of the god.[221] At any rate, the savage notion of eating the god is not clearly attested for the Hellenistic period, and certainly dependence of Paul upon such a notion is unlikely in the extreme. [221] Hepding, _Attis_, 1903, pp. 186f. No close parallel, then, can be established between the Christian sacraments and the practices of the pagan cults. But the very fact that the Pauline churches had sacraments at all--irrespective of the form of the particular sacraments--may conceivably be made a ground for connecting Paulinism with the Hellenistic religions. The argument depends upon one particular view of the Pauline sacraments; it depends upon the view that baptism and the Lord's Supper were conceived of as conveying blessing not in virtue of the disposition of soul with which they were administered or received but in virtue of the sacramental acts themselves. In other words (to use traditional language), the argument depends upon the view that the Pauline sacraments conveyed their blessing not _ex opere operantis_ but _ex opere operato_. In the Pauline churches, it is argued, the beginning of the new life and the communion with the cult god were connected with certain ceremonial acts. So it was also in the mystery religions. Therefore Paulinism is to be understood in connection with the mysteries. But the interpretation of the Pauline Epistles upon which this hypothesis is based is fraught with serious difficulty. Did Paul really conceive of the sacraments as conveying their blessing _ex opere operato_? The general character of the Epistles certainly points in an opposite direction. An unprejudiced reader of the Epistles as a whole certainly receives the impression that the writer laid extraordinarily little stress upon forms and ceremonies. Salvation according to Paul was dependent solely upon faith, the simple acceptance of the offer contained in the message of the Cross. Any connection of such a religion with external forms seems even to be excluded expressly by the Epistle to the Galatians. A dispensation of forms and ceremonies, according to that Epistle, belongs to the period of childish bondage from which Christ has set men free.