iple of S.
John,[97] speaks of himself as "not yet perfect in Jesus Christ. For I
now begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as my
fellow-disciples,"[98] and he speaks of them as "initiated into the
mysteries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred."[99] Again
he says: "Might I not write to you things more full of mystery? But I
fear to do so, lest I should inflict injury on you who are but babes.
Pardon me in this respect, lest, as not being able to receive their
weighty import, ye should be strangled by them. For even I, though I am
bound [for Christ] and am able to understand heavenly things, the
angelic orders, and the different sorts of angels and hosts, the
distinction between powers and dominions, and the diversities between
thrones and authorities, the mightiness of the aeons, and the
pre-eminence of the cherubim and seraphim, the sublimity of the Spirit,
the kingdom of the Lord, and above all the incomparable majesty of
Almighty God--though I am acquainted with these things, yet am I not
therefore by any means perfect, nor am I such a disciple as Paul or
Peter."[100] This passage is interesting, as indicating that the
organisation of the celestial hierarchies was one of the subjects in
which instruction was given in the Mysteries. Again he speaks of the
High Priest, the Hierophant, "to whom the holy of holies has been
committed, and who alone has been entrusted with the secrets of
God."[101]

We come next to S. Clement of Alexandria and his pupil Origen, the two
writers of the second and third centuries who tell us most about the
Mysteries in the Early Church; though the general atmosphere is full of
mystic allusions, these two are clear and categorical in their
statements that the Mysteries were a recognised institution.

Now S. Clement was a disciple of Pantaenus, and he speaks of him and of
two others, said to be probably Tatian and Theodotus, as "preserving the
tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy
Apostles, Peter, James, John, and Paul,"[102] his link with the Apostles
themselves consisting thus of only one intermediary. He was the head of
the Catechetical School of Alexandria in A.D. 189, and died about A.D.
220. Origen, born about A.D. 185, was his pupil, and he is, perhaps,
the most learned of the Fathers, and a man of the rarest moral beauty.
These are the witnesses from whom we receive the most important
testimony as to the existence of definite Mysteries in th