receive the secret
traditions of the true knowledge, and expound them aloft and
conspicuously; and as we have heard in the ear, so to deliver them to
whom it is requisite; but not enjoining us to communicate to all without
distinction, what is said to them in parables. But there is only a
delineation in the memoranda, which have the truth sown sparse and
broadcast, that it may escape the notice of those who pick up seeds like
jackdaws; but when they find a good husbandman, each one of them will
germinate and will produce corn."

Clement might have added that to "proclaim upon the houses" was to
proclaim or expound in the assembly of the Perfect, the Initiated, and
by no means to shout aloud to the man in the street.

Again he says that those who are "still blind and dumb, not having
understanding, or the undazzled and keen vision of the contemplative
soul ... must stand outside of the divine choir.... Wherefore, in
accordance with the method of concealment, the truly sacred Word, truly
divine and most necessary for us, deposited in the shrine of truth, was
by the Egyptians indicated by what were called among them _adyta_, and
by the Hebrews by the veil. Only the consecrated ... were allowed access
to them. For Plato also thought it not lawful for 'the impure to touch
the pure.' Thence the prophecies and oracles are spoken in enigmas, and
the Mysteries are not exhibited incontinently to all and sundry, but
only after certain purifications and previous instructions."[106] He
then descants at great length on Symbols, expounding Pythagorean,
Hebrew, Egyptian,[107] and then remarks that the ignorant and unlearned
man fails in understanding them. "But the Gnostic apprehends. Now then
it is not wished that all things should be exposed indiscriminately to
all and sundry, or the benefits of wisdom communicated to those who have
not even in a dream been purified in soul (for it is not allowed to hand
to every chance comer what has been procured with such laborious
efforts); nor are the Mysteries of the Word to be expounded to the
profane." The Pythagoreans and Plato, Zeno, and Aristotle had exoteric
and esoteric teachings. The philosophers established the Mysteries, for
"was it not more beneficial for the holy and blessed contemplation of
realities to be concealed?"[108] The Apostles also approved of "veiling
the Mysteries of the Faith," "for there is an instruction to the
perfect," alluded to in Colossians i. 9-11 and 25-27. "