> the mythical motif of heracles standing at the cross-road having to choose between vice (kakia) and virtue (aret), the motif of the two roads, one leading to light and life the other to darkness and death and the widespread existence of lists of vices and virtues (qumran 1 qs 3,18-4,26 and philo who gives us the longest list of vices and virtues ever seen in ancient literature) proves that there was a longing for a religion with high ethical demands. but this longing could also be met by a libertine protest: a conviction that man had to follow his carnal nature and thereby attain freedom. there was also a longing for a direct experience of divine light, a belief in the spirit being able to ascend into heavenly regions. the arable land was prepared and ready, the seed only had to be sown, and this can explain how a rather self-assured magician could trigger a totally new religion, gnosticism > paul is not using any gnostic savior myth about primordial man, but what wayne a. meeks has named the baptismal unification formula: in baptism man is united to the heavenly adam before the fall, being still dressed in glory and gods image. geo widengren has proved that baptism is part of the old royal enthronement ritual also used for investiture of the high priest. the king became the custodian of eden and the tree of life.  > cf. the assyrian kings seen nursing the tree of life on the stone slabs dug out from the palaces. the temple and its high priest was the earthly representation of the garden of eden. in early christian baptism man was reintroduced into paradise receiving the bread of life and water of life (sometimes as a 4-fold drink: water, wine, milk and honey from the 4 paradise-rivers). the role played by man/anthropos in the gnostic cosmogonies must also be seen as taken over from the early baptismal movement in the jordan valley
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