Note 621 — Lecture X. THE INFLUENCE OF THE MYSTERIES UPON CHRISTIAN USAGES.

The objection which Celsus makes (c. Cels. 1. 1; Keim, p. 3) to the secrecy of the Christian associations would hardly have held good in the apostolic age. Origen admits (c. Cels. 1. 7) that there are exoteric and esoteric doctrines in Christianity, and justifies it by (1) the philosophies, (2) the mysteries. On the rise of this conception of Christian teaching as something to be hidden from the mass, cf. the Valentinians in Tert. c. Valent. 1, where there is a direct parallel drawn between them and the mysteries: also the distinction of men into two classes—πνευματικοὶ and ψυχικοὶ or ὑλικοί—among the Gnostics: Harn. Dogm. 222, cf. Hipp. 1, proœm., p. 4, who condemns τὰ ἀπόρρητα μυστήρια of the heretics, adding, καὶ τότε δοκιμάσαντες δέσμιον εἶναι τῆς ἁμαρτίας μυοῦσι τὸ τέλειον τῶν κακῶν παραδιδόντες, ὅρκοις δήσαντες μήτε ἐξειπεῖν μήτε τῷ τυχόντι μεταδοῦναι κ.τ.λ. Yet this very secrecy was naturalized in the Church. Cf. Cyril Hier. Catech. vi. 30; Aug. in Psalm ciii., Hom. xcvi. in Joan.; Theodoret, Quæst. xv. in Num., and Dial. ii. (Inconfusus); Chry. Hom. xix. in Matt. Sozomen’s (1. 20. 3) reason for not giving the Nicene Creed is significant alike as regards motive and language: εὐσεβῶν δὲ φίλων καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐπιστημόνων, οἷα δὲ μύσταις καὶ μυσταγωγοῖς μόνοις δέον τάδε λέγειν καὶ ἀκούειν ὑφηγουμένων, ἐπῄνεσα τὴν βουλήν· οὐ γὰρ ἀπεικὸς καὶ τῶν ἀμυήτων τινὰς τῇδε τῇ βίβλῳ ἐντυχεῖν.