(5) The conception of a priest-into which I will not now enter was certainly strengthened by the mysteries and associations.

The full development or translation of the idea is found in the great mystical writer of the end of the fifth century, in whom every Christian ordinance is expressed in terms which are applicable only to the mysteries. The extreme tendency which he shows is perhaps personal to him; but he was in sympathy with his time, and his influence on the Church of the after-time must count for a large factor in the history of Christian thought. There are few Catholic treatises on the Eucharist and few Catholic manuals of devotion into which his conceptions do not enter.1

I will here quote his description of the Communion itself: "All the other initiations are incomplete without this. The consummation and crown of all the rest is

p. 131; Theodoret, dial. 2, vol. iv. 125. There was a sacred formula. Basil says that no saint has written down the formula of consecration: de Spir. Suncto, 66, vol. iv. pp. 54, 55. After saying that some doctrines and usages of the Church have come down in writing, Tà dè ék τῆς τῶν ἀποστόλων παραδόσεως διαδοθέντα ἡμῖν ἐν μυστηρίῳ παρεδεξά μea, he instances the words of the Eucharistic invocation as among the latter ; τὰ τῆς ἐπικλήσεως ῥήματα ἐπὶ τῇ ἀναδείξει τοῦ ἄρτου τῆς ἐυχαριστίας καὶ τοῦ ποτηρίου τῆς ἐυλογίας τίς τῶν ἁγίων ἐγγράφως ἡμῖν καταλέλοιπεν.

1 In Dionysius Areop. (s. v. iepápxns, ed. Corderius, i. 839), the bishops are τελεσταί, ἱεροτελεσταί, τελεστάρχαι, μυσταγωγοί, τελεστουργοί, τελεστικοί; the priests are φωτιστικοί; the deacons, καθαρ τικοί; the Eucharist is ἱεροτελεστικωτάτη (c. 4). The deacon, ἀποκαPaípeι TOÙS ȧTEλéστovs (c. 5, § 3, p. 233), i.e. dips them in the water; the priest, φωταγωγεῖ τοὺς καθαρθέντας, i.e. leads the baptized by the hand into the church; the bishop, ἀποτελειοῖ τοὺς τῷ θείῳ φωτὶ κεκοινωνηκότας.

་

the participation of him who is initiated in the thearchic mysteries. For though it be the common characteristic of all the hierarchic acts to make the initiated partakers of the divine light, yet this alone imparted to me the vision through whose mystic light, as it were, I am guided to the contemplation (étoíav) of the other sacred things." The ritual is then described. The sacred bread and the cup of blessing are placed upon the altar. "Then the sacred hierarch (iepápɣns) initiates the sacred prayer and announces to all the holy peace: and after all have saluted each other, the mystic recital of the sacred lists is completed. The hierarch and the priests wash their hands in water; he stands in the midst of the divine altar, and around him stand the priests and the chosen ministers. The hierarch sings the praises of the divine working and consecrates the most divine mysteries, (ἱερουργεῖ τὰ θειότατα), and by means of the symbols which are sacredly set forth, he brings into open vision the things of which he sings the praises. And when he has shown the gifts of the divine working, he himself comes into a sacred communion with them, and then invites the rest. And having both partaken and given to the others a share in the thearchic communion, he ends with a sacred thanksgiving; and while the people bend over what are divine symbols only, he himself, always by the thearchic spirit, is led in a priestly manner, in purity of his godlike frame of mind (ev kalaρóτηтi τῆς θεοειδοῦς ἕξεως), through blessed and spiritual contemplation, to the holy realities of the mysteries."1

1 Dion. Areop. Eccles. Hier. c. 3, par. 1, §§ 1, 2, pp. 187, 188.

Once again I must point out that the elements-the conceptions which he has added to the primitive practices are identical with those in the mysteries. The tendency which he represented grew: the Eucharistic sacrifice came in the East to be celebrated behind closed doors: the breaking of bread from house to house was changed into so awful a mystery that none but the hierophant himself might see it. The idea of prayer and thought as offerings was preserved by the NeoPlatonists.

There are two minor points which, though interesting, are less certain and also less important. (a) It seems likely that the use of diπTuxa-tablets commemorating benefactors or departed saints-was a continuation of a similar usage of the religious associations.1 (b) The blaze of lights at mysteries may have suggested the use of lights at the Lord's Supper.2

It seems fair to infer that, since there were great changes in the ritual of the sacraments, and since the new elements of these changes were identical with elements that already existed in cognate and largely diffused forms of worship, the one should be due to the other.

This inference is strengthened when we find that the Christian communities which were nearest in form and spirit to the Hellenic culture, were the first in which

1 For in the decree mentioned in a previous note (p. 292, n. 2), among other honours to T. Ælius Alcibiades, he is to be pŵтоv TOîs διπτύχοις ἐνγραφόμενον.

2 Cf. for the use of lights in worship, the money accounts, from a Berlin papyrus, of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus at Arsinoê, a.d. 215, in Hermes, Bd. xx. p. 430.

these elements appear, and also those in which they assumed the strongest form. Such were the Valentinians, of whom Tertullian expressly speaks in this connection.1 We read of Simon Magus that he taught that baptism had so supreme an efficacy as to give by itself eternal life to all who were baptized. The λourpov (wns was expanded to its full extent, and it was even thought that to the water of baptism was added a fire which came from heaven upon all who entered into it. Some even introduced a second baptism.2

So also the Marcosians and some Valentinian schools believed in a baptism that was an absolute sundering of the baptized from the corruptible world and an emancipation into a perfect and eternal life. Similarly, some other schools added to the simple initiation rites of a less noble and more sensuous order.3

It was but the old belief in the effect of the mysteries thrown into a Christian form. So also another Gnostic school is said to have not only treated the truths of Christianity as sacred, but also to have felt about them what the initiated were supposed to feel about the mysteries-"I swear by Him who is above all, by the

1 Adv. Valent. 1. Hippolytus (1, proœm; 5. 23, 24) says the heretics had mysteries which they disclosed to the initiated only after long preparation, and with an oath not to divulge them: so the Naassenes, 5. 8, and the Peratæ, 5. 17 (ad fin.), whose mysteries "are delivered in silence." The Justinians had an oath of secrecy before proceeding to behold "what eye hath not seen" and "drinking from the living water," 5. 27.

2 Eg. Marcus, in connection with initiation into the higher mysteries. Hipp. 6. 41, and the Elkasaites as cleansing from gross sin, 9. 15. 3 Eus. H.E. iv. 7.

Good One, to keep these mysteries and to reveal them to no one;" and after that oath each seemed to feel the power of God to be upon him, as it were the password of entrance into the highest mysteries. As soon as the oath had been taken, he sees what no eye has seen, and hears what no ear has heard, and drinks of the living water-which is their baptism, as they think, a spring of water springing up within them to everlasting life.

Again, it is probably through the Gnostics that the period of preparation for baptism was prolonged. Tertullian of the Valentinians that their period of prosays bation is longer than their period of baptized life, which is precisely what happened in the Greek practice of the fourth century.

The general inference of the large influence of the Gnostics on baptism, is confirmed by the fact that another element, which certainly came through them, though its source is not certain and is more likely to have been Oriental than Greek, has maintained a permanent place in most rituals-the element of anointing. There were two customs in this matter, one more characteristic of the East, the other of the West-the anointing with (1) the oil of exorcism before baptism and after the renunciation of the devil, and (2) the oil of thanksgiving, which was used immediately after baptism, first by the presbyter and then by the bishop, who then sealed the candidate on the forehead. The very variety of the custom shows how deep and yet natural the action of the Gnostic systems, with the mystic and magic customs

9 Hipp. 5. 27, of the Justinians. Cf. Hilgenfeld, Ketzergesch. p. 270.