SECRET, DISCIPLINE OF THE (Lat. Arcani Disciplina), a discipline of the early church, founded upon the words of Christ, "give not that which is holy to dogs," Matt. vii. 6, in virtue of which Christians fully initiatea in the doctrine and practice of the church withheld from pagans and catechumens in the preparatory stage the knowl edge of certain doctrines, and the liberty of presence at certain rites connected with the most solemn mysteries of the Christian religion. This practice originated in the obloquy which was drawn upon the doctrines of the church from the false and monstrous con ceptions of these doctrines which were circulated among pagans. Against these calumnious misconceptions the earliest of the so-called "apologies" are addressed; and it seems certain that at the time at which Justin wrote his first apology, the middle of the 2d c., no objection existed against speaking openly of the mystery of the encharist. —(See Justini Apol., i. 66.) Very soon after this, however, the "secret" is clearly trace able. The first reason for its adoption was that assigned above—namely, to guard time more sacred and mysterious doctrines from popular misconception and blasphemy among the pagans. This precaution of concealment was extended to catechumens. partly in order to avoid, shocking too suddenly their half-formed convictions by the more startling improbabilities of Christian belief; partly also, no doubt, to guard against the danger of the betrayal of these mysterious doctrines to pagan spies•approaching in the false garb of catechumens. The discipline of the secret appears in several forms (.) Both unbelievers and catechumens were removed from the church at the commence ment of that portion of the liturgy which specially relates to the celebration of the eucharist—the so-called Missa Fidelium. See MAss. (2.) The lectures addressed by the presiding teacher to the body of the catechumens in general were confined to the general doctrines of Christianity. The more mysterious doctrines, those which regarded the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist, called " mystagogic," were only communi cated at the close, and to those only who had undergone the preliminary probation.
(3.) The eucharist, if referred to at all in the presence ut the uninitiated, was spoken of in words so conceived as to conceal its nature. Many curious examples of this conceal. met might be cited. Origen, alluding to the eucharist (Horn. 8, in Exod. 4), says merely: "The initiated know what I mean." When Chrysostom was writing to pope Innocent I. an account of a tumult in the church at Constantinople. in which the sacred cup was overact, and the consecrated elements spilled, he says, without. reserve, " The blood of Christ was spilled." But Palladius, the deacon, in his life of Chrysostom, which was designed for the pagans as well as for the Christians, takes the precaution to use the words "the symbols which are known to the faithful." Still more curiously, Epiphanius, in citing the well-known words of the eucharistic formula, " This is my body," suppresses the word under which the mysterious idea is contained, and writes, "This is my that thing." Touto moo esti lode. A very curious example of this amphibo logical language regarding the eucharist will be seen in a Greek inscription discovered some years since at Autun, in France.—(See Edin. Rev., July, 1864.) There is some uncertainty as to the period during which this discipline lasted in the church. It commenced most probably in the time of Justin, as his contemporary, the heretic Marcion, is known to have protested against it as an innovation {Meander's Ilirchen-gesehiehte, i. 540). It is even thought not impossible by some that Justin's mode of writing was an exceptional one, and that the secret may have been in use before his time. On the other hand, it is certain that it outlived the period out of the condition of which it arose, and was maintained long after the ages of persecution. The traces of it had not entirely disappeared in the 6th century.—(See Schelstrate, Diss. de Discip. Areani, 1685; Scholliner, Diss. de Discip. Anent, 1766; and on the Protestant side, Tenzel, De Discip. Amami (in reply to Schelstrate); Rothe, De Disc. Ascent, Heidelberg. 1831.)