“It was inevitable when a new group of associations came to exist side by side with a large existing body of associations, from which it was continually detaching members, introducing them into its own midst, with the practices of their original societies impressed upon their minds, that this new group should tend to assimilate, with the assimilation of their members, some of the elements of these existing groups.
“This is what we find to have been in fact the case. It is possible that they made the Christian associations more secret than before. Up to a certain time there is no evidence that Christianity had any secrets. It was preached openly to the world. It guarded worship by imposing a moral bar to admission. But its rites were simple and its teaching was public. After a certain time all is changed; mysteries have arisen in the once open and easily accessible faith, and there are doctrines which must not be declared in the hearing of the uninitiated.”[111]
The effect of these pagan mysteries upon Christian baptism, and upon the Lord’s Supper also, will be more clearly seen when we remember how simple a ceremony New Testament baptism was. It followed immediately upon confession of faith in Christ. There was no preparatory ceremony, no ritual, only the simple formula. There was no confusion or controversy concerning the “mode,” for submersion alone was known within Christian circles.
When the current of history emerges at and after the middle of the second century, marked changes appear which are so identical with gnosticism and the Greek mysteries that there can be no question as to their source.[112] Among these changes were the following:
The name is changed, and the new terms used come directly from the familiar mysteries. Justin calls it ψωτισμός, φωτιζεσθαι, “enlightenment.”[113] Those who had passed the tests were “sealed,” φραγις--a term from the mysteries.[114] It was also called μυστήριον,[115] “Mysteries” and many other terms, all of which sprung from the “mysteries of Greek paganism, rather than from the New Testament.”
The time of baptism of adults was changed to meet the pagan conception of it as a purifying and saving act. A long preparation was demanded, and, to meet the pagan idea that it removed sins, it was often deferred until near the close of life in order to make the most of both worlds.[116] The initiated in the Greek mysteries were given a password: σύμβολον or σύνθημα. “So the catechumens had a formula which was only entrusted to them in the last days of their catechumenate, the baptismal formula itself, and the Lord’s Prayer.”[117] A special rite accompanied the giving of this formula. Otherwise both the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed were kept as “mysteries”; the technical name for creed remains to this day as σύμβολον “symbol.”[118]