225:, etc. There is evidence that Christians were careful to maintain specific articles of the religion, including removing members of the church who had not yet been baptized before the liturgical eucharist took place. Thus, the liturgy was divided into the Mass of the Faithful and Mass of the Catechumens. In Byzantine liturgy, the deacon often proclaimed, "The doors, the doors!" to signal that the doors must be watched to prevent unbaptized from participating in church activities. There may have been various reasons for maintaining secrecy of some things, including ensuring that outsiders did not attempt to use these rites to gain favours from God, or to shelter important rites from contempt. Furthermore, they also thought that one needed to experience the rite of baptism before learning about it so that teaching more efficient and successful.
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centuries of
Christianity, whereby knowledge of certain doctrines and rites of the Christian religion was kept from non-Christians and even from those who were undergoing instruction in the faith so that they may progressively learn the teachings of the faith and not fall to heresy due to simplistic
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If anything needs to be explained, let the bishop speak in private to those who have received baptism. Those who are not
Christians are not told unless they first receive baptism. This is the white stone in which John spoke of; A new name is written on it which no one knows except him who receives
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as the earliest witness to the practice, although recent scholars have noted
Tertullian's belief that Christian teachings were public and should be taught in public. Later, in the middle of the 3rd century,
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in the 17th century. The concept, however, was first proposed by another
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for "discipline of the secret") was a custom that prevailed in the
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The Awe-inspiring Rites of
Initiation: The Origins of the RCIA
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wrote at the end of his account of the rite of baptism:
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77:were imitating the Roman
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453:Esoteric Christianity
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348:Bremmer, Jan (2014).
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250:Esoteric Christianity
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101:and practiced by the
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405:. Liturgical Press.
201:(in the writings of
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432:Tommaso Palamidessi
378:"Disciplina Arcani"
137:with pagan groups.
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270:Patristic theology
170:Hippolytus of Rome
111:transubstantiation
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391:978-0-19-280290-3
306:, pp. 55–58.
265:Mystical theology
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238:Deification
93:theologian
67:Jean Daillé
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288:References
255:Gnosticism
219:Cappadocia
147:Tertullian
87:sacraments
83:disciplina
199:Jerusalem
179:Ap. Trad.
135:Eucharist
63:Calvinist
57:The term
232:See also
133:and the
113:and the
103:Apostles
91:Catholic
281:Theoria
243:Theosis
195:Ambrose
158:in his
131:baptism
125:History
65:writer
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207:Egeria
181:23:14)
156:Celsus
89:. The
211:Egypt
203:Cyril
99:Jesus
34:Latin
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