Many of the sacramental rituals of the pagan cults were simply adopted as such by Paul. In many of the mystery cults, there were means for entering into communion with god. The blood and raw flesh of the bulls were eaten to have divine life with the deity.
· The administration of the priest, to cut up and distribute the cake and the liquid to the devotees recorded in the fragmentary inscriptions of the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate the practice had already begun in the areas. The ritual of baptism was also derived from the pagan rituals. In the worship of the pagan mother goddess, Cybele, and her consort Attis, initiation into blessed immortality was secured by anointing the body of the novice with a mixture of blood and bran.
· Paul took over the Mithraic Sunday rather the Jewish Sabbath. Also the Mithraic holidays such as Easter, Christmas, and epiphany were adopted as such. Ike in the pagan cults, Christ was made to be borne of a virgin. Pictures of Mary and Jesus which had a remarkable resemblance of Osiris and Horus were set upon the early churches. Mithraism became to some extent Christianity, Jesus replacing the original deity of the pagan religion.
The ceremony of the bread and wine of the last supper, in the gospel accounts, were nothing but the blessings of bread and wine done in the Jewish celebration of the Passover.
St. Paul made Christ the new Pascal lamb on whom the faithful feed as the true Passover.
As the old covenant was sealed in blood, the new covenant is sealed in the blood of Christ. Sharing the blessed cup of wine became the communion of the blood of Christ. And the sharing of the blessed bread a communion of the body of Christ. The sacramental and the spiritual aspects of the last supper –a simple Jewish Passover- were united in the mind of St. Paul who interpreted the Eucharist the divinely appointed sacrament. It became participation in the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
And Paul elevated baptism as that which elevates man to share a new life.
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