Church of Smyrna, to the Epistle, in which they communicated the account of his martyrdom '.

6. Finally, we have the direct attestation of Justin Martyr : that, in his days, the prayers and thanksgivings of the Church invariably terminated with some one or other modification of it.

In all that we offer up, says he, we bless the Creator of all things, through his Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost 2.

The conversion of Justin to the faith of the Gospel took place, about the year 130, or only about some thirty years after the death of St. John.

We learn, therefore : that, under one phraseological variation or another, the liturgical prayers

σε,

1 Αἰνῶ εὐλογῶ σε, δοξάζω σε, σὺν τῷ αἰωνίῳ καὶ ἐπουρανίῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ, ἀγαπητῷ σου παιδί· μεθ ̓ οὗ σοι καὶ Πνεύ ματι ̔Αγίῳ ἡ δόξα, καὶ νῦν καὶ εἰς τοὺς μέλλοντας αἰῶνας. Epist. Eccles. Smyrn. § xiv. Patr. Apost. Cotel. vol. ii. p. 201.

Ἐῤῥῶσθαι ὑμᾶς εὐχόμεθα, αδελφοὶ, στοιχοῦντας τῷ κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον λόγῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ· μεθ' οὗ δόξα τῷ Θεῷ καὶ Πατρὶ καὶ ̔Αγίῳ Πνεύματι, ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ τῇ τῶν ἁγίων ἐκλεκτῶν. Ibid. § xxii. p. 204.

It may be added, that Pionius, the copyist of the Epistle, still winds up the whole with the same familiar Doxology.

"Ινα καί με συναγάγῃ ὁ Κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς μετὰ τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν αὐτοῦ· ᾧ ἡ δόξα, σὺν Πατρὶ καὶ ̔Αγίῳ Πνεύματι, εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ibid. § xxiv. p. 204.

2

Ἐπὶ πᾶσί τε οἷς προσφερόμεθα, εὐλογοῦμεν τὸν ποιητὴν τῶν πάντων, διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ διὰ Πνεύματος τοῦ ̔Αγίου. Justin. Apol. i. Oper. p. 77.

and praises of the Church, from at the least an era which within thirty years reaches the apostolic age, always terminated with a solemn joint doxology to the three persons of the Trinity; those three divine persons, whom Justin, speaking in the plural form, declares to have been universally worshipped by his contemporaries, in avowed consequence of the catechetical instruction which they themselves had received from their ecclesiastical predecessors 1.

CHAPTER VIII.

RESPECTING THE TESTIMONY AFFORDED TO THE FACT OF THE POSITIVE ANTIQUITY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY, BY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHRISTIAN

MYSTERIES.

As men religiously believe, and as they frame their liturgies in correspondence with their religious belief: so likewise, to proselytes or to children, will they communicate theological instruction.

If the early Church held the doctrine of the Trinity we may be sure, that that doctrine would, in due time, be communicated to every convert and to every child of christian parents.

Hence, if it should appear that no such doctrine was ever so communicated: there would be a strong presumption, that no such doctrine was ever collectively or ecclesiastically maintained.

Having observed, as Athanasius remarks, the great wisdom of the Apostles, in not prematurely communicating the doctrine of Christ's divinity to

those who were unprepared to receive it: the Church, from a very early period, adopted a mode of institution, reasonable and natural in itself, but singular on account of its attendant phraseology.

During the first part of their theological education, nothing more than the general truths of Christianity was communicated to the Catechumens and so slowly was the divine light suffered to beam upon what Tertullian calls the preparatory Schools of the Auditors, that it was not until the very eve of their baptism, that its particular truths, viewed as universally depending upon one preeminent truth, were at length distinctly propounded. To their instruction in these particular truths, of which they had hitherto been kept (so far as it was possible to keep them) in a state of profound ignorance, were devoted the forty days. which immediately preceded their baptism: and this studied concealment was rendered the more easy, because, in the primitive Church, the sacrament of Baptism was administered only at the two great festivals of Easter and Whitsuntide 3.

1 See Athan. de sent. Dionys. cont. Arian. Oper. vol. i. p. 432. This was the precise mode of instruction employed in the Christian Mysteries.

2 Auditorum tyrocinia. Tertull. de Pœnit. Oper. p. 481. Audientes et Auditores ea ætas vocabat Catechumenos. Rhenan. Comment. in loc.

3 Ambros. Epist. ad Marcell. xxxiii. Oper. col. 582. Ambros. de his qui myster. initiant. c. i. Oper. col. 1229. Hieron.

Such a catechetical process, advancing from generals to particulars and from the less recondite to the more recondite, was undoubtedly both natural and rational: but its attendant phraseology was not a little remarkable.

The institution of the Catechumens was spoken of as AN INITIATION INTO THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES : and the communication of what was deemed the preeminent particular truth of Revelation, with its subordinate and dependent particular truths, was considered and technically mentioned as THE FINAL

ENUNCIATION OF THE GRAND SECRET.

After this vital secret had been propounded to him, the now fully instructed and therefore competent Catechumen, advancing to the laver of regeneration, and there (when questioned as to his faith) distinctly asserting the secret which he had previously received, became henceforth an Illuminated Mysta: and, in such capacity, he was carefully charged to refrain from betraying the secret to those who were without or to those who were still uninitiated '.

Epist. ad Pammach. Ixi. c. 4. Oper. vol. ii. p. 180. Cyril. Catech. xvii. p. 201. Rhenan. Comment. in Tertull. de coron. mil. Oper. p. 433. Isidor. in Comment. in Tertull. adv. Marcion. lib. iv. Oper. p. 219. Wheatley on the Common Prayer. chap. v. sect. 19. § 2.

1 Cui nec Symbolum Trinitatis, nec interrogatio legitima et ecclesiastica, defuit. Firmil. Epist. ad Cyprian. lxxv. in Oper. Cyprian. vol. ii. p. 223.

Ἐρωτᾶτο ἕκαστος, εἰ πιστεύει εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ