whence it is easy to collect further, that the solemn office of the absolution of penitents was never performed in the presence of the catechumens. For the time of absolution was not till all others were dismissed, except the penitents themselves who were to be absolved, which was, immediately before their going to the altar to begin the communion-service. As seems to be clear from those words of Optatus, where he speaks of it as the common custom both in the Church and among the Donatists,' "to give imposition of hands for absolution immediately before their going to say the Lord's Prayer at the altar.” All these things therefore were kept secret from the catechumens: for they were never suffered to be hearers or spectators of any part of them.

SECT. 8.—Fifthly, the Manner of celebrating the Eucharist.

But as the eucharist was the highest mystery in the Christian service, so they were most careful to conceal the manner of its celebration from the catechumens. And in this they made a difference between one sort of penitents and the catechumens. For the highest class of penitents, called Consistentes, or co-standers, were allowed to be present at the communion-prayers, and see the oblation offered and received by the faithful, though they might not partake with them. But catechumens of all ranks were wholly excluded from all this: they were always dismissed before these prayers began, and the doors of the church were locked and guarded by proper officers, to the intent that no uninitiated person should indiscreetly rush in upon them. "We shut the doors," says Chrysostom," when we celebrate the holy mysteries, and drive away all uninitiated persons.' This was one of the secrets of the Church, as we heard St. Austin3 before speak of it. One of the things which a catechumen might not look upon, according to St. Basil. Therefore the author of the Apostolical Constitu

Optat. cont. Parmen. lib. ii. p. 57. Inter vicina momenta, dum manus imponitis et delicta donatis, mox ad altare conversi, Dominicam Orationem prætermittere non potestis. Vid. Constitut. Apost. lib. viii. c. 6, 7, 8, 9. 2 Chrys. Hom. 23. in Mat. p. 236. Aug. in Psal. ciii.

de Spir. Sto. c. 27.

+ Basil.

tions makes it part of the deacon's office not only to command their absence, but also to keep the doors, that none might come in, during the time of the oblation. Epiphanius and St. Jerom bring it as a charge against the Marcionites, "that they despised this discipline, and admitted catechumens indiscriminately with the faithful to all their mysteries." And Palladius forms a like charge against the enemies of Chrysostom, " that in the tumult they raised against him, they gave occasion to the uninitiated to break into the church, and see those things which it was not lawful for them to set their eyes upon." Nay, so strict was the Church then in the observation of this discipline that Athanasius convicted the Meletians of false witness against him, when they pretended to prove, by the testimony of some catechumens, that Macarius, one of his presbyters, had overturned the communion-table in the time of the oblation: he argued, that this could not be so, because "if the catechumens were present, there could then be no oblation.”

Nor did they only exclude catechumens from the sight of these mysteries, but also from all discourses which treated plainly about them. They made a distinction between moral and mysterious subjects, and admitted the catechumens to the one, but not to the other, as I have had occasion formerly to show from the testimonies of Theodoret, St. Austin, and St. Ambrose. To which we may here add that of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, " You were once," says he, "a catechumen, and then we did not discourse of mysteries to you: and now that you have attained by experience to the height of those things which we teach, you will easily perceive that catechumens are not worthy to be hearers of such things." And that of Gaudentius, bishop

10

2 Epiphan. Hæres. + Pallad.

1 Constit. Apost. lib. ii. c. 57. Lib. viii. c. 11. 42. n. 3. 3 Hieron. Com. in Galat. vi. tom. ix. p. 199. Vit. Chrys. c. 9. The same complaint is made by Chrysostom himself in his first Epistle to Pope Innocent, tom. iv. p. 681. Edit. Front. Ducæi.

5 Athan. Apol. 2. tom. i. p. 747. "Theodor. Quæst. 15. in Numer.

Append. tom. x. p. 845.

Catech. Præf. n. 7.

9 Ambros, de Initiatis, c. 1.

6 Book i. chap. iv. s. 8. 8 Aug. Serm. 1. ad Neophytos, in 10 Cyril.

of Brixia, who, in his Sermon to the Neophytes, or persons newly baptized, tells them," he would now open to them those mysteries, which could not be explained in the presence of the catechumens." Sometimes indeed they spake of the eucharist before the catechumens in their popular discourses; but then they did it in such obscure and figurative terms as were understood only by communicants, and not by the catechumens: according to that of St. Chrysostom, "I would speak plainly, but I dare not because of the unbaptized. For they make our expositions to be more difficult, they compel us to speak obscurely, or else we must reveal what is not to be revealed unto them." Upon this account Epiphanius, speaking of the words of institution before the catechumens, would not say, "This bread is my body, this wine is my blood," but "Hoc meum est hoc et hoc, this is my that and that," to let the initiated know his meaning, and not the catechumens. And hence it was they so often used that phrase, "touoi oi μeμvýμevoi," and "nornut fideles, the initiated know what we say;" which phrase Casaubon has observed to occur no less than fifty times in the writings of St. Chrysostom. Casaubon makes another good observation upon this matter, which the learned Albertinus takes from him, and strenuously defends, "that whereas there are three things in the eucharist; 1. the symbols or sacred elements of bread and wine; 2. the things signified by them; and, 3. the rites of celebration; that which the Ancients laboured chiefly to conceal from the catechumens, was not the things signified, but only the symbols or outward signs, and the rites and manner of celebration." For they made no scruple to call the eucharist by the name of Christ's body and blood before the catechumens, at the same time that they would not call it bread and wine, or speak particularly of the form and manner of administering it, as Albertinus proves out of Theodoret and many others. Which shows, that the reason of concealing the mystery from

'Gaudent. Serm. 2. ad Neophytos, Bibl. Patr. tom. ii. p. 14. Ea solùm aperienda neophytis, quæ præsentibus catechumenis explanari non possunt. * Chrys. Hom. 40. in 1 Cor. p. 688. Epiphan. Anchorat. n. 57.

* Casaub. Exercit. 16. in Baron. p. 490. lib. ii. p. 70S.

5 Albertin, de Euchar.

the catechumens was not the belief of transubstantiation, as the Romanists pretend; for then they would have chosen rather to conceal the names of Christ's body and blood, than the names of the outward symbols, and the mystical rites of celebration, the latter of which they studiously concealed, but not the former. He that would see more of this may consult the elaborate discourse of that most acute and learned writer, where he answers all the objections of Coffetellus against the present assertion.

SECT. 9.-Sixthly, the Mystery of the Trinity, the Creed, and the Lord'sPrayer, from the first Sort of Catechumens.

The last sort of things which they for some time concealed from the more imperfect catechumens, were the sublimer doctrines of Christianity, such as the mystery of the Trinity, and hypostatic union, together with the Creed itself and the Lord's Prayer, which the catechumens did not learn till immediately before their baptism. For so Theodoret tells us," that they did not teach this prayer to the uninitiated, but to the baptized, or immediate candidates of baptism. For no one that was not baptized, could presume to say, "Our Father, which art in heaven;" not having yet re ceived the gift of adoption. But he that was made partaker of baptism, might call God his Father, as being adopted among the sons of grace." St. Chrysostom speaks after the same manner: this prayer belongs only to the faithful, as both the rule of the Church and the beginning of the prayer itself teach for an unbaptized person cannot yet call God his Father. This prayer was then peculiar to the communion-service, and never used in church, but only at the altar, where none of the catechumens could be present, but only the faithful. Whence it was called Evxnswv, the prayer of the faithful. And one petition in it was thought to refer more particularly to the eucharist, "Give us this day our daily bread,—prov ÈTIσIOν, our super-substantial, or supercelestial bread,"-as many of the Ancients render it. For these reasons they never taught the Lord's Prayer to any

Theod. Epitom. Divin. Decret. lib. v. Hæret. Fabul. c. 28. προσευχὴν ἐ τὰς ἀμυήτες, ἀλλὰ τὸς μυςαγωγεμένες διδάσκομεν. Hom. 20. al. 19. in Matth. p. 200. Hom. 2. in Cor. p. 740.

Ταύτην τήν

2 Chrys.

of the catechumens but the highest rank of them, the Competentes, a few days before their baptism. As we learn from those words of St. Austin, "Now learn the Lord's Prayer, which ye must repeat eight days hence, when ye are to be baptized." So they received it only on Saturday before Palm Sunday, in order to repeat it on Saturday before Easter, which was the day of their baptism.

They observed the same discipline in reference to the Creed, which they taught to the catechumens at the same time only as they did the Lord's Prayer, a little before their baptism. This they did not always commit to writing, but kept it, as St. Jerom words it, "in tables of the heart, and delivered it by word of mouth, that it might not come to the knowledge of the uninitiated and unbelievers." Which is the reason that Sozomen gives,3 why he did not insert the words of the Nicene Creed into his History, because probably many uninitiated persons might read his book, who ought not to read or hear the Creed. They were as careful not to communicate to new beginners the profound mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, till they had first prepared them by proper preceding instructions for the reception of them. Therefore, as St. Jerom observes, it was the custom of the Church to put off this part of the instruction of catechumens to the last, and not acquaint them with these doctrines till about forty days before they were to be baptized, though the catechetical instruction had continued perhaps for two or three years before.

This was the whole of that discipline, we read so much of among the Ancients, of concealing the sacred mysteries from the catechumens. Among all which we have never the least intimation given that the practice of image-worship, or the adoration of saints and angels, or the doctrine of seven sacraments, were the mysteries they intended to con

Aug. Hom. 42. Ex 50. tom. 10. p. 105. Tenete ergò hanc orationem, quam reddituri estis ad octo dies.-Ad octo dies ab hodierno die reddituri estis hanc orationem, quam hodiè acceptis. Hieron. Ep. ad Pammach.

c. 9. p. 173. Symbolum fidei et spei nostræ, quod ab Apostolis traditum, non scribitur in chartâ et atramento, sed in tabulis cordis carnalibus.

3 Sozomen. lib. i. c. 20.

Hieron. Epist. 61. ad Pammach. c. 4. p. 167. Consuetudo apud nos istiusmodi est, ut his qui baptizandi sunt, per quadraginta dies publicè tradamus sanctam et adorandam Trinitatem.