In the two aspects of
the mystery of baptism discussed so far we have recognized the aim and the
source of the Christian mystery: the aim is the Ogdoad of eternal life—the
source is the redeeming power of the Cross. In between lies the earthly life
span of the mystes: there the divine power of the initiation received in
baptism is at work, but has not yet achieved its own “fulfillment”: for the end
and goal (τελος) of Christian teleiosis is the eschatological vision of God in the
transfiguration of the flesh. In this earthly life, he who has received the
initiation of baptism is indeed possessed of life everlasting (he has entered
into the Ogdoad but he cannot yet behold it: “it hath not yet appeared what we
shall be, [but] we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like to him;
because we shall see him as he is”—I John 3:2), but his possession of it is not
secure. The mystery of baptism is a lifelong decision between light and darkness,
between Christ and Belial, life and death. Or else, to use another early
Christian image: the mystes has already reached the harbor of the transcendent
world, and yet his perilous voyage continues; he bears in his soul the seal
that opens all gates on his heavenward journey, but his ascent is still
threatened by demons and spirits. This is the paradox of the mystery. It would
be highly profitable to adduce all the profound ideas and precious images with
which the early Christians adorned this “mystery of the interim.” It would be
profitable to show how the mystery of decision is expressed in the ritual of
baptism: how the mystes turns away from Satan, the “black one,”
and toward Christ the king of light, who comes from the East like the sun and
brings him the illumination (φωτισμος) of baptism. Such a study would be particularly
significant because the ritual of this mystery of the fundamental Christian
decision contains much Greek material, emanating largely from that common sphere
which also forms the background of the symbolic usages of the mysteries. To
this category belong the image of Satan dwelling in the dark West; the
breathing and spitting upon the evil one; mil and honey as the food of the
mystes; and the symbolism of the salt. (Hugh Rahner, “The Christian Mystery and
the Pagan Mysteries,” in Joseph Campbell, ed., The Mysteries: Papers from
the Eranos Yearbooks [Bollingen Series XXX 2; Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1955], 337-401, here, pp. 398-99, emphasis added)
