t
of the moral beauty which pervaded the whole life of the brotherhoods
there can be no doubt. Many of the converts had formerly led
disreputable lives; but these were the most likely to appreciate the
gain of being no longer outlaws, but members of a true family. The
heathen were amazed at the kind of people whom the Christians admitted
and treated like brethren; but in the first century scandals do not seem
to have been frequent. Women, who were probably always the majority,
enjoyed a consideration unknown by them before. The extreme importance
attached by the early Church to sexual purity made it possible for them
to mix freely with Christian men; indeed, the strange and perilous
practice of a 'brother' and a virgin sharing the same house seems to
have already begun, if this is the meaning of the obscure passage in I
Cor. vii. 36.

Chastity and indifference to death were the two qualities in Christians
which made the greatest impression on their neighbours. Galen is
especially interesting on the former topic. But we must add a third
characteristic--the cheerfulness and happiness which marked the early
Christian communities. 'Joy' as a moral quality is a Christian
invention, as a study of the usage of charha in Greek will show. Even in
Augustine's time the temper of the Christians, 'serena et non dissolute
hilaris' was one of the things which attracted him to the Church. The
secret of this happy social life was an intense realisation of
corporate unity among the members of the confraternity, which they
represented to themselves as a 'mystery'--a mystical union between the
Head and members of a 'body.' It is in this conception, and not in
ritual details, that we are justified in finding a real and deep
influence of the mystery-cults upon Christianity. The Catholic
conception of sacraments as bonds uniting religious communities, and as
channels of grace flowing from a corporate treasury, was as certainly
part of the Greek mystery-religion as it was foreign to Judaism. The
mysteries had their bad side, as might be expected in private and
half-secret societies; but their influence as a whole was certainly
good. The three chief characteristics of mystery-religion were, first,
rites of purification, both moral and ceremonial; second, the promise of
spiritual communion with some deity, who through them enters into his
worshippers; third, the hope of immortality, which the Greeks often
called 'deification,' and which was sec