CHAPTER VII.

Masonic Form of the First Christian Church.

THE reader who has followed us through these pages must of necessity be struck with the fact, which we have sufficiently demonstrated, that nearly, if not quite all of the normal institutions of antiquity, were secret or Masonic societies. The moral life and civilization of the nations were born in their secret sanctuaries, and through them communicated to the world.

We now proceed to show that Christianity-itself the revelation of eternal truth, and wisdom, and love sought the same agencies, and surrounded itself with the same Mysteries, the better to protect itself from the enmity of the world, and to work its way into the heart of Humanity.

Those ancient documents known as the "Apostolical Constitutions and Canons," make frequent mention of the disciplina arcani, or secret discipline of the most ancient church. Irenæus, Tertullian, Clemens, Origen, and Gregory, of Nyssa, also furnish us abundant proofs that the ancient church was a secret society. Indeed, so well known was this

peculiar organism, that nearly all ancient writers, whether Christian or pagan, have noticed the fact. Lucian of Samosata speaks of Christ as a magician who established new Mysteries. We learn also from Pliny that the Christians were persecuted in the reign of the Emperor Trajan, as a secret society, under a general law which prohibited all secret associations. The same writer tells us further that they celebrated their Mysteries in the night, or rather in the morning, before day.

The rites* of the Christian religion were celebrated with an air of profound mystery, and were guarded from profane eyes with most scrupulous vigilance. Not only were unbelievers of every description excluded from the view of these rites, but the neophytes also, and all who were not fully initiated into, and entitled to a participation in its ordinances. From all else, the time, and place, and manner of administering them were concealed, and the import of each rite was a profound mystery, which none was at liberty to divulge or explain. To relate the manner in which it was administered, to mention the words used in the solemnity, or to describe the simple elements of which it consisted, were themes upon which the initiated were as strictly forbidden to touch as if they had been laid under an oath of secrecy; not a hint was allowed

* Riddle's Christ. Antiq., et Llenhart; De Antiq. Liturg., et de Disciplina Arcani; and Coleman's Christian Antiquities.

to be given, nor a whisper breathed on the subject to the uninitiated. Even the ministers, when they were led in their public discourses to speak of the sacraments, or the higher doctrines of faith, contented themselves with remote allusions, and dismissed the subject by saying, "The initiated know what is meant." They never wrote about them except through the medium of figurative and enigmatical expressions.

The Christian Brotherhood, like that of the Essenes, comprised four circles, which the novitiate was required to traverse before he could look upon or participate in the highest and most sacred Mysteries of the Church. The central light of Christianity shone in its full splendor only on those who had attained to the highest degree. These favored ones moved in its unclouded radiance, while those in the outer ring were in comparative darkness, and were allowed to approach the light, only after long and severe trial.

The dear-bought experience of the primitive Christians had convinced them that the gross habits of idolaters were not easily and all at once, in many instances, relinquished for the pure and spiritual principles of the Gospel, and that multitudes of professed believers held their faith by so slender a tie that the slightest temptation plunged them anew into their former sensuality, and the first alarm drove them back into the enemy's camp. To dimin

ish, and, if possible, to prevent the occurrence of such melancholy apostasies, which interrupted the peace and prosperity of the Christian society, and brought a stain on the Christian name, was a consummation devoutly wished for by the pious fathers of the primitive age; and accordingly, animated by a spirit of holy jealousy, they adopted the rule, which soon came into universal practice, of instituting a severe and protracted inquiry into the character and views of candidates for admission to the communion of the church,-of not suddenly advancing them to that honorable degree, but of continuing them for a limited period in a state of probation. It was thus that the order of the catechumens arose; an order which, though unknown to the age of Peter and Paul, boasts of a very early introduction into the primitive church; and, at whatever period its date may be fixed, its origin is to be traced to the laudable desire of more fully instructing young converts in the doctrines of the Christian faith, and at the same time affording them opportunities to give evidence of the sincerity of their profession, by the change of their lives and the holiness of their conversation."*

Having passed through the appointed discipline, the neophytes were clothed in white, and, by solemn ceremonies, admitted to the communion of the faithful. Arrived at the centre of the sacred

* Jamieson: Manners of Prim. Christ., p. 132.

circle, they were no longer called Katechomenoi, or learners, but received one or all of the following titles:

1. Oi pistoi, THE FAITHFUL.

2. Photizomenoi,

THE ILLUMINATI, OR ENLIGHTENED. 3. Memuemenoi, THE INITIATED; and Teleioumenoi, THE PER

FECT.

The appellation, Memuemenoi, or the initiated, occurs very often in the Book of Secret Discipline. It denotes such as have been initiated into the secret mysteries of the Christian faith. The phrase," the initiated know" is repeated about fifty times in Augustine and Chrysostom alone. The terms mustai and musta gogetoi are also often used, and, in short, all the phraseology which the profane writers use respecting an initiation into their mysteries. Indeed the right of baptism itself has an evident relation, as Cyril of Jerusalem represents, to the initiatory rites of Eleusis, Samothrace, Phrygia, and Isis. The foregoing titles also conveyed to those who bore them exclusively certain rights and privileges.

"1. They were permitted to be present at all religious assemblies without exception, to take part in the missa catechumenorum, the first religious service of public worship, designed especially for the catechumens, as well as in the missa fidelium, the after-service, which was particularly designed for *Cyril. Hierosol. Catech. Mystagog., 5, et seq.