1] "Wisdom will not enter into the soul of a base man, nor
dwell in a body that is involved in sin;" hence these higher teachings
are given only to those who are "athletes in piety and in every virtue."

Christians did not admit the impure to this knowledge, but said:
"Whoever has clean hands, and, therefore, lifts up holy hands to God ...
let him come to us ... whoever is pure not only from all defilement,
but from what are regarded as lesser transgressions, let him be boldly
initiated in the Mysteries of Jesus, which properly are made known only
to the holy and the pure." Hence also, ere the ceremony of Initiation
began, he who acts as Initiator, according to the precepts of Jesus, the
Hierophant, made the significant proclamation "to those who have been
purified in heart: He, whose soul has, for a long time, been conscious
of no evil, especially since he yielded himself to the healing of the
Word, let such a one hear the doctrines which were spoken in private by
Jesus to His genuine disciples." This was the opening of the "initiating
those who were already purified into the sacred Mysteries."[132] Such
only might learn the realities of the unseen worlds, and might enter
into the sacred precincts where, as of old, angels were the teachers,
and where knowledge was given by sight and not only by words. It is
impossible not to be struck with the different tone of these Christians
from that of their modern successors. With them perfect purity of life,
the practice of virtue, the fulfilling of the divine Law in every detail
of outer conduct, the perfection of righteousness, were--as with the
Pagans--only the beginning of the way instead of the end. Nowadays
religion is considered to have gloriously accomplished its object when
it has made the Saint; then, it was to the Saints that it devoted its
highest energies, and, taking the pure in heart, it led them to the
Beatific Vision.

The same fact of secret teaching comes out again, when Origen is
discussing the arguments of Celsus as to the wisdom of retaining
ancestral customs, based on the belief that "the various quarters of the
earth were from the beginning allotted to different superintending
Spirits, and were thus distributed among certain governing Powers, and
in this way the administration of the world is carried on."[133]

Origen having animadverted on the deductions of Celsus, proceeds: "But
as we think it likely that some of those who are accustomed to deeper
inv