2. Approaching Catechesis

We have now considered Theodore’s life and the circumstances surrounding his education, ecclesiastical career, and writings. Subsequent chapters address three key components of Theodore’s catechesis, but first we must take a step back from Theodore to consider several important factors surrounding the way clergy framed catechesis and the rites of initiation. Many preachers catechized Christian converts and they did so within a cultural and religious context far wider than simply one preacher in one location. This chapter assesses the context in which full initiation into the church took place, the way clergy presented initiation to outsiders, and some of the variety of emphases the teachers of Christian faith presented to those pursuing initiation. [1]

We often hear of Christianity as a proselytizing religion that emphasized the spread of its message of salvation. While in some ways this is indeed an accurate representation of the missionary focus of Christianity, it can easily lead to false impressions of openness and transparency regarding Christian beliefs and practices. In reality, initiated Christians shrouded in secrecy some of their most important distinctive features. Those interested in Christianity but who had not yet been catechized and baptized would have encountered claims of secrecy on a regular basis. A close look at Christian secrecy, however, calls into question the validity of the claim to a well-maintained practice of secrecy. Nevertheless, the persistence of the claim raises important questions about why Christians went to such lengths to insist they kept secrets.

In claiming secrecy, the church fit itself into a broadly held set of expectations regarding religious truth and practice. Religious secrecy recurs as a common feature of a late antique culture in which many religious traditions guarded, or attempted to guard, the rites, myths, or beliefs that they did not want outsiders to know. These traditions regularly constructed dramatic rites of initiation designed to overawe initiates and produce lifelong devotees to the cult. Both these claims to secrecy and the dramatic educational and cultic mechanisms used to reveal these secrets served the purpose of maintaining boundaries and lending authority to the officials who presided over the rites. Christian attempts to appropriate secrecy and the dramatic revelation of secrets provide an important backdrop for the consideration of what it meant for a person to approach baptism and catechesis. It also provides critical context for understanding the various rhetorical approaches Theodore and other catechists used in revealing Christian secrets. While preachers crafted different strategies to disclose the beliefs and practices of the church, they all used catechesis as a dramatic liminal period in which to impart what they understood as uniquely Christian truths essential for proper insiders within the community.

“Let none of the catechumens be present; none of the uninitiated; none of those who are not able to pray with us. Take note of one another! The doors!” [2] This exclamation of the deacon marks a turning point in the fourth-century version of the liturgy of St. James. With this cry, the public portion of the weekly service ended and, from that point on, only those who had been properly initiated into the church through catechism and baptism were allowed to remain. The Apostolic Constitutions urged the clergy to follow the proper procedure for insuring the secrecy of the service after the uninitiated left: “Let the sub-deacons stand at the door of the men and the deacons at the door of the women, so that no one may depart and the door may not be opened at the time of the offering, even if it is one of the faithful.” [3] In short, it was preferable to exclude fully initiated Christians from the secret portions of the service than to run the risk of disclosing the mysteries even to catechumens, some of whom may have regularly attended the public portion of the liturgy for years. What could motivate such a rigorous exclusivity? The question is particularly interesting given the frequency with which Christians and their scriptures spoke in universal and inclusive terms about the availability of Christian salvation. Insofar as fourth-century Christian authors give both the idea of secrecy and the idea of universality some of its fullest expression of the late antique period, they will provide the basis for the present analysis.

The question of Christian secrecy has long been the object of scholarly attention. [4] Modern liturgists often label the idea that certain aspects of the Christian liturgy ought to be kept secret from those who have not received baptism the disciplina arcani, or the discipline of secrecy. The liturgical enactment of the discipline mentioned above provides the clearest expression of this Christian ideal. However, this was not simply a matter of worship in a narrow sense. Christian secrecy applied equally to the ritual performance of the sacraments and to some of the doctrines bound up with them. It is precisely this matrix of Christian secrets that occupied the catechetical instructors charged with initiating converts. As such, the catechetical sermons of Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, in particular, bear directly on the disciplina arcani, in that they were the mechanism used to reveal the secrets of Christian doctrine and worship.

By the time these fourth-century catechists preached their sermons, secrecy had had a long and varied history in the Christian tradition. The theme of secrecy plays a prominent role in many of the earliest Christian texts. The Gospel of Mark presents a prime example. Jesus responds to the inquiries of his disciples who want to know why he teaches in parables with the famous saying, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order ‘that they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’ ” [5] Gospels, canonical and non-canonical alike, depict Jesus as regularly teaching through parables that were difficult to comprehend, and scholars have repeatedly wrestled with the significance of this gospel theme. [6]

Early Christians developed this and other themes from Christian scriptures in articulating a rather extensive maintenance of Christian secrecy. [7] The Didache, already by the turn of the second century, cited the Gospel of Matthew as the impetus for preserving the secrecy of the eucharistic meal. [8] “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.” [9] Here, the most cherished components of the Christian cult are the pearls and the swine are, of course, unbelievers. The author of the Didache expresses the concern that unbelievers will not only mistreat the holy things of the Christian liturgy but might also use the knowledge of these things against believers in some unspecified way. Likewise, Athanasius used Matthew 7.6 to critique his so-called Arian opponents, writing, “And they are not ashamed to parade the sacred mysteries before Catechumens, and worse than that, even before heathens … We ought not then to parade the holy mysteries before the uninitiated, lest the heathen in their ignorance deride them, and the Catechumens being over-curious be offended.” [10] Others focused more on the harm that might come to one who learns about the eucharistic meal without proper initiation. [11] They appealed to Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians 11.29. In teaching about the Lord’s Supper, Paul warned, “For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.” The implication drawn from this passage was that the clergy had an obligation to keep the elements of the sacred meal away from unbelievers, because if they were to eat without “discerning” the body, they would run the risk of divine judgment.

John Chrysostom struggled to explain the meaning of 1 Corinthians 15.29 to his congregation without divulging the creedal formula used in the baptismal rite: Even the golden-mouthed preacher preferred this sort of inelegance to the premature disclosure of the church’s mysteries. Cyril of Jerusalem urged caution with respect to matters of Christian theology. He warned the catechumens that it was unsafe to discuss the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with unbelievers because such ideas ran the risk of causing them harm: “The sun blinds people suffering from poor sight, and those with weak eyes are distressed and blinded by its light; not that the sun of its nature is blinding, but because the human eye cannot look upon it. Similarly, unbelievers, whose sickness is of the heart, cannot look upon the splendor of the Godhead.” [13] He even insisted that the baptismal candidates refrain from mentioning any of his instructions to the other catechumens. [14] Theodore preached at length about the power of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. He explained how these sacraments joined a person to God and the Christian community. If a person had not been properly catechized, he or she would fail to understand the deeper meaning of the sacred meal and miss its significance to his or her detriment. [15] Thus converts received warnings regarding the mortal danger associated with discussing secret matters with a person not properly prepared by catechesis.

Liturgical forms developed over time and by the fourth century came to include secret components beyond the celebration of the eucharist. The public portion of the worship service contained a series of prayers, scripture readings, and the homily. Only after the dismissal of the uninitiated did the kiss of peace and the Lord’s Supper take place. The kiss of peace fell into this portion of the liturgy because it provided a liturgical enactment of unity and fellowship within the Christian community. One could not extend this gesture towards the uninitiated, since proper affiliation with the church formed the basis of the Christian fellowship expressed through the kiss. [16] Traditional practice and exegesis of the scriptural passages mentioned above served to keep the eucharist in the restricted part of the service as well. A Trinitarian formula associated with early baptismal professions of faith likely provided the impetus for later creedal formulations, as well as for the secrecy associated with baptism and creed. [17] The details of this development remain somewhat obscure, but by the fourth century, clergy and theologians assumed that the doctrine encompassed all of these liturgical components. [18]

Catechesis and baptism form part of what clearly constitutes a set of initiation rituals or rites of passage. [19] The insistence on secrecy played an important role in creating distance between those on each side of these rites. Those converting to Christianity in this period were expected to undergo a time of moral testing and doctrinal instruction as a part of the process of being initiated into the church. This probationary period usually lasted a year, with the bulk of the instruction taking place during Lent and baptism being administered early on Easter Sunday morning. [20] During this Lenten instruction, the catechumens learned the creed, basic Christian theology and, in some cases, the meaning of the sacraments they were about to take part in for the first time.

Despite the fact that at least from the beginning of the second century Christians were being encouraged to maintain some sort of liturgical secrecy, the actual practice of the disciplina arcani is surprisingly difficult to determine. Liturgical scholarship has traditionally assumed that secrecy was diligently maintained. [21] Some have called this position into question by cataloging references in public sermons to the liturgical elements that were supposed to remain secret, concluding that “there can have been few secrets left for a fourth-century catechumen as he commenced his instruction.” [22]

This later position is bolstered when one looks at late Roman elites who were well positioned to have exposure to Christianity yet maintained the traditional cult. Several important examples illustrate the knowledge of the Christian mysteries among the uninitiated. In the early second century, Pliny derived a rudimentary sense of Christian worship, including the ideal of secrecy through interviewing Christians, or at least former Christians. [23] Justin Martyr seems to have felt little reluctance in disclosing components of Christian worship in his defense of the faith to the emperor Antoninus Pius. [24] Origen’s refutation of the attack on Christianity by Celsus shows that at least this one critic knew the scriptures fairly well and was at least familiar with the practice of Christian baptism. [25]

In the fourth century, as advocacy for the maintenance of the disciplina arcani reached a crescendo, even more evidence of lax enforcement appears. The anti-Christian treatise by the emperor Julian, Against the Galileans, offers a strong case for the disclosure of Christian mysteries. Julian quoted several times from the first chapter of the Gospel of John and then concluded, “But if the only begotten son is one thing and God the Word something else, as I have heard it said by some of the members of your sect, then it seems that not even John was foolish enough to declare that [Jesus was God].” [26] While Julian did not reveal the wording of the creed, he did mention some of the central sticking points in the fourth-century controversies over the incarnation of Christ.

Julian also disclosed information about the secret rites of the church. He ridiculed the doctrine of baptism, first quoting Paul and then arguing for its utter foolishness:

Julian again appeals to scripture in his critique of Christian practice. He simply mocks the idea that baptism removes sin. If its cleansing ability cannot even remove diseases that afflict only the surface of the skin, how could it possibly reach down into a person’s soul and cleanse the heinous sins that so stain it?

The eucharist also came under Julian’s attack. He touched on this Christian practice while critiquing Christians for their failure to maintain the ancient performance of sacrifices, whether pagan or Jewish. [28] The Christians had so rejected the Jewish cult that they even refused to observe the Jewish feasts: Julian suggests that he keeps the ancient cultic traditions of the Jews better than do the Christians. How he does this is not entirely clear. Perhaps he refers to his attempts to rebuild the temple of the Jews in Jerusalem. He may also be suggesting that both he and the Jews follow their ancestral cult, whereas the Christians worship in a way that is unprecedented. He clarifies this point later, in the context of discussing Jewish sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem: “You have invented a whole new way of sacrificing that does not need Jerusalem.” [30] Julian’s critique focuses on the charge of Christian innovation. However, in doing so, he mentions that Christians have a sacrifice of their own, one that does not need the temple of Jerusalem.

Gregory of Nazianzus indicates that Julian had been baptized and was not simply a catechumen; indeed, he had even served as a reader in the church. [31] Furthermore, Constantius II, Julian’s cousin and predecessor as emperor of the western half of the empire, saw to it that he received a Christian education under Eusebius, the bishop of Nicomedia. [32] His knowledge of the Christian scriptures, evidenced even in the few quotations discussed above, confirms this training. Thus it is no surprise that Julian possessed ample material for the critique he leveled against Christianity, including the details of Christian liturgy.

Not only did Julian know these things, he publicized them in his attack against the Christians. Since the majority of the literary manuscripts we have from this period were at one point copied by a churchman or monk, it is no great surprise that this attack on the church does not have a strong manuscript tradition. In fact, what we know about the content of this text comes mostly from refutations of it. [33] Thus it is difficult to determine just how widely this text might have circulated. That Libanius’ funeral oration for Julian mentions the work suggests that it was something that his contemporaries would have at least known about. [34]

Nevertheless, one would likely err in concluding that Julian’s diatribe against the Christians was widely disseminated or broadly known, even among the relatively small literate portion of the population. Julian was not a particularly well-liked emperor, and one can imagine his written work failing to captivate his subjects. The significance of this text for us is that it supplies an example of the mysteries being disclosed to an uninitiated audience. One can imagine this happening on a much smaller scale with some frequency. Julian was not the only apostate after all. [35] A person might leave the church and as a result lose the desire to keep the mysteries a secret. Others may simply not have been as concerned as the clergy who stressed secrecy. [36] One only needs to read a few sermons by a preacher like John Chrysostom before learning that his congregation frequently failed to live up to the high ethical standards he set for them.

Furthermore, the council of Nicaea and the creed promulgated after 325 had become a hugely contentious matter affecting the whole empire. Numerous clergy were exiled and recalled repeatedly throughout the fourth century. The creed itself, particularly the precise terminology of the text, stood at the very heart of the matter. As we will see in chapter three, the recitation of the creed held an important position in the process of initiation and the teaching of the creed received considerable attention. Clergy often warned catechumens not to reveal it to outsiders, even to other catechumens who had not yet been accepted to receive baptism. However, a matter of such importance for imperial politics would not have escaped the attention of administrators for long. Interested parties could hardly have failed to know at least the basic issues at stake, the idea that the controversy dealt with the person of Christ and how Christians were to understand him in relationship to God.

One prominent example of this can be found in Themistius, a fourth-century pagan philosopher and rhetor who acted as an advisor to most of the eastern emperors who held the throne during his adult life. [37] His orations contain several references to Hebrew and Christian scriptures. [38] These references, focusing primarily on political life and statecraft, usually remain rather vague. Nevertheless, they bear witness to Themistius as the sort of interested individual who did not convert but who had considerable professional motivation to maintain an awareness of Christianity.

Particularly relevant for the discussion of Christian secrecy, Themistius also showed an understanding of some of the issues at stake in the theological controversy over the incarnation. His Oration 1 was addressed to Constantius and delivered in Ancyra in the year 350. The oration took up the topic of philanthrōpia, the love of humankind. In the relevant passage, Themistius sought to explain how it could be considered good for either God or an emperor to condescend in showing love towards the mass of humanity. In this context, Themistius stated: The idea that anything other than God derives from him and is, as a matter of necessity, lesser than God, coincides nicely with Constantius’ theological commitments. [40] Furthermore, commentators agree that this passage very likely refers directly to the contemporary controversy over the Christian understanding of the relationship between God and Christ. [41] Themistius clearly had some understanding of the contentious theological issues that focused on the supposedly secret doctrines of the creed. This awareness is further evidenced by comments made in speeches to Jovian [42] in 365 and to Valens [43] in around 375. In each case, Themistius urged the emperor to adopt a policy of religious toleration in dealing with the various Christian factions within the empire. [44] Themistius clearly had substantial, even if not comprehensive, understanding of important points of Christian difference.

All of this strongly suggests that people, particularly those who would have cared to discover it, would likely have had access to much of the basic information about the secret matters of the church: a statement of faith regarding the divinity of Christ, a ritual bath meant to purify a person from sin, and a ritual meal or symbolic sacrifice. Nevertheless, calls for secrecy and the liturgical practice of secrecy were a regular occurrence in this period. In considering the motivation for maintaining this fiction, we must think about this Christian practice within the broader context of late antique religion.

Of course, Christianity does not offer the only religious context in which secrecy played a significant role. [45] The so-called mystery religions based their cults on the maintenance of boundaries between insiders and outsiders who had not been initiated into the myths and rites of the community. [46] In general, the mysterious nature of these religions means that we are forced to piece together knowledge of their practices. Although the secrets of these enigmatic cults were rather well maintained, a common feature is a concern for personal transformation through participatory ritual. [47]

Apuleius’ Metamorphoses takes its name from the transformations experienced by its fictional protagonist Lucius. While dabbling in magic, he was turned into an ass. Eventually moved by the devotion of Lucius, the goddess Isis frees him from this fate and transforms him back into a human. This act of divine intervention precedes the further metamorphoses Lucius would experience as an initiate into the cult of Isis. Describing his initiation into the cult of Isis, Lucius expresses the desire to disclose the initiation rites but resists for fear that he will incur the displeasure of the goddess: He proceeds to describe an emotional encounter with the divine in rather vague terms, just enough to pique the interest of his readers, but not enough to give a clear sense of what the rites entailed. Here we see secrecy used to entice the audience of the novel by offering the promise of a profound experience.

Interestingly, this discussion follows a description of Lucius’ transformation from an ass back into a human in which Apuleius describes in some detail rites in honor of Isis that would have been part of a secret cult ritual: This text depicts the ritual enactment of a theophany in which the devotees of the goddess minister to her needs. The description of the rite then rises to a crescendo with the entrance of the members of the cult: He proceeds to describe these items: an ornate lamp in the shape of a boat, an altar, a golden palm branch, a deformed left hand, a golden fan, and an amphora. The significance of these objects remains unclear in most cases, but the scene obviously amounts to one of absolute sensory overload. The jostling surge of the crowd, the smell of perfume, the deafening rattle of the sistrums, all contribute to an intense atmosphere. Later, when Lucius refuses to disclose the details of his initiation into the cult, he encourages the reader to imagine even more elaborate rites.

This fictional account of a mystery cult in action clearly resonates with other practices of Greco-Roman mystery cults whose adherents participated in secret rituals not disclosed to outsiders. Among these are the Mithraic rites, carried out in dark man-made caves where worshippers encountered an elaborate set of cosmological symbols and the dramatic image of the god Mithras slaying a bull. [51] The rites that took place in these Mithraea led devotees through the grades of “raven,” “male bride,” “soldier,” “lion,” “Persian,” “sun-runner,” and “father,” with each successive elevation effecting a new personal transformation. [52] While the Mithraic rites arose toward the end of the first century AD, the cult of Demeter dated back to the eighth century BC. The Eleusinian mysteries were a fertility cult celebrated annually in the city of Eleusis, just west of Athens. A pair of powerful priestly families in Athens administered the cult, but anyone who was not ritually impure and could afford the fees could be initiated into the cult. [53] This would allow participation in the annual cult, which sought to ensure the return of fertility following the infertility of winter. The rites associated with initiation to the cult seem to have included the ritual search for the goddess Persephone. This act entailed a personal quest for the goddess with the results often described as dramatically transformative: “Blessed are earth-bound mortals who have seen these rites, but the uninitiated, who has no share in them, never has the same lot when dead in misty darkness.” [54] Blessed happiness, particularly in the afterlife, appears consistently in the claims of the initiated: “Beautiful indeed is the Mystery given us by the blessed gods: death is for mortals no longer an evil, but a blessing.” [55] Finally, there is the dramatic participatory rite of the taurobolium associated with the worship of Magna Mater. [56] In this rite, the celebrant was concealed in a pit in the ground covered with perforated boards onto which a bull was led: “When the beast for sacrifice has been brought into position here, they pierce his breast with a hunting spear consecrated to the gods; the vast wound pours forth a stream of steaming blood, and over the bridge of planks below a reeking river gushes out and seethes all around.” [57] The celebrant emerged from the pit, as from a grave, a transformed person, one born again into the world as a new man. The Christian Prudentius offers our only description of this rite. His derisive tone and even the details of the rite he describes call his account into question. Regardless of the specific form of the rite, the taurobolium is well attested in inscriptions, and fourth-century participants in the rites understood it as a ritual of rebirth. [58]

Christian sources also offer glimpses of the way catechesis could captivate a group of catechumens being initiated. The pilgrim Egeria noted in her travel log that those just baptized in Jerusalem in the middle of the fourth century received their instruction in the mysteries with a great deal of enthusiasm: “The bishop relates what has been done, and interprets it, and, as he does so, the applause is so loud that it can be heard outside the church.” [59] This instruction, called mystagogy, entails an explanation of baptism and the eucharist to those who have just experienced these rites. Even if Egeria’s description contains some exaggeration, it strongly suggests a significant response, and likely a rather emotional response. Such a clamor surely requires a crowd, and the communal nature of catechesis must not pass unnoticed in this context. Chapter three deals more fully with the community, but suffice it to say here that catechumens underwent initiation in groups and with the assistance of a previously initiated layperson who helped lend credibility to these rites. In disclosing the rituals of baptism and the eucharist, Theodore and Chrysostom both showed a strong inclination toward the dramatic and the participatory. They repeatedly employed the term “awe-inspiring” (Greek phriktos or phrikōdēs; Syriac dḥl), which captures this emphasis nicely. [60] Theodore preached: Theodore teaches here that the ritual of the eucharist virtually places the person partaking of it in heaven. The rites inspire awe, and Theodore urges his audience to imagine themselves in heaven with Christ through the act of partaking.

At this point, discussions of Christian worship and the mystery religions often turn towards comparison and the sticky questions of influence, genealogy, and syncretism. [62] The important thing to note, however, is that secrecy and the language of personal transformation exists across late antique religious groups. The expectation of an interaction that was both personal and efficacious provides the background for individual religious experience. Furthermore, the use of highly emotive language and rites to punctuate divine encounters has analogues across a broad range of religious traditions. We witness in this context a variety of phenomena emerging from a cultural milieu with an apparent consensus regarding religious secrecy. State and civic cults aside, guarding central religious secrets and employing ritual for disclosing those secrets pervaded late antique religion. Even when the mysteries did not remain entirely secret, an insistence upon secrecy allowed Christians and practitioners of many other cults to assert a claim to a unique status. It helped maintain a distinction between insiders and outsiders. Furthermore, it strengthened the position of the clergy who functioned as the keepers of the secrets and the only official mechanism through which one could receive the key to the divine mysteries. This habit could even serve a proselytizing function with religious communities attempting to increase their appeal by insisting that they have something worth hiding from outsiders. Secrecy was important enough that people pressed the claim to it even when that claim entailed a certain falsehood. As such, the disclosure of those secrets became equally important, and considerable effort went into creating a profound experience of the divine in the rites and even in the process of teaching the rites. It remains to note that these expectations extended to literary sensibilities, which demanded ornate language, [63] as well as public displays of state power presented in similar terms. [64]

This consideration of some of the features of late antique religious initiation more broadly helps us understand the context in which catechumens approached the Christian community for the purpose of being initiated. A certain level of secrecy surrounded Christian belief and worship, and catechumens approached initiation with the expectation of experiencing something profound. The catechists we know of used a wide variety of rhetorical strategies as they approached the task of meeting these expectations. The remainder of this chapter focuses on some of the variety of rhetorical strategies used in catechesis.

As clergy negotiated the process of maintaining the boundaries of the community and initiating new Christians, they used the anticipation of the dramatic rites and the tradition of catechetical instruction to produce the maximal impact on the catechumens. These preachers insisted that converts needed more than to have their names placed on the rolls of the church. They needed education and orientation towards Christian worship. In the chapters that follow, we will analyze the catechetical curriculum of Theodore in depth, but here we consider various different approaches catechists took to their sermons.

On the one hand, catechetical sermons cover a relatively consistent range of topics, with doctrine, ritual, and ethics predominating. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem during the middle of the fourth century, took a rather straightforward systematic approach to his catechetical preaching. The first sermon in the collection by Cyril, called the Procatechesis, addresses introductory matters of faith. Cyril stresses the importance of pursuing baptism and the great understanding that will come as a result of catechetical teaching. [65] Sincerity and earnest pursuit of baptism dominate the sermons. [66] Cyril follows this with eighteen sermons comprising the Catechesis. The first three discuss baptism and faith. Cyril stresses the cleansing impact of exorcism and baptism. [67] He elaborates on God’s grace and the forgiveness of sin but also insists that catechumens make progress in avoiding sin. [68] The next fifteen sermons teach the creed then held in the city of Jerusalem. Cyril preaches on God and his attributes, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. His final sermon treats the church and the resurrection of the saints.

As we will see, this arrangement of lessons follows pretty closely Theodore’s approach in so far as Theodore preaches through the creed in a similar fashion. The biggest difference between Theodore and Cyril is that Cyril waited until after baptism and the eucharist to explain the details of these rites, while Theodore explained them beforehand. Cyril argues in the first of these mystagogical catecheses that he has waited to explain the mysteries because “seeing is believing.” [69] He thought allowing the candidates to experience baptism without any real idea of what it meant offered the best way to exploit the impact of ritual secrecy. Hearing the interpretation of what had already happened to them then apparently prompted the response recorded by Egeria. Theodore seems to have thought just the opposite, that understanding the meaning of the rites before experiencing them would heighten the dramatic impact. In each case, the catechist sought to create an atmosphere in which his teaching would have the greatest impact.

While John Chrysostom also frequently instructed his catechumens in the doctrine of the creed during their catechetical training, he took a much less systematic approach to the presentation of this material. It seems that his primary strategy to approaching catechesis entailed enfolding the catechumens into a definitively Christian moral world. Chrysostom addressed in detail how Christians should perceive things such as jewelry, spectacles, oracles, drunkenness, leisure, and worldly goods, to name but a few topics of moral concern. In his tenth Baptismal Instruction, Chrysostom was about to instruct the catechumens in the mysteries of the Christian church when he broke off mid-thought to return to the theme that had dominated the previous sermon, the swearing of oaths: “Therefore, I wished to initiate you in all these matters today. But what is happening to me? My concern over your oaths—a concern that makes my soul waste away—does not let me go.” [70] His audience apparently found his concern tiresome; [71] nevertheless, he proceeded to warn them against the error of making oaths. A number of Chrysostom’s moral precepts would have been shared by his contemporaries outside the church, particularly Stoic philosophers. Whatever similarities may have existed between Stoic and Christian ethics, however, Chrysostom emphasized the uniquely Christian nature of proper behavior. The moral conduct of the believer ought to flow from Christian theology and a desire to relate rightly to the God of the creed. Thus he sought to present a thoroughly Christianized moral code without reference to any wider philosophical influences.

Such proper conduct required nothing shy of open combat with the devil, and a bold confrontation with the daimones that inhabited the world. [72] God provided baptism as a cleansing from sin and anointing with oil as a sign and seal to protect the Christian from diabolical temptations. Chrysostom preached extensively on the exorcisms that were a part of the catechetical program because he was convinced that the full benefit and appropriation of exorcism and baptism required catechesis. An uninitiated Christian baptized on his deathbed, who then went on to recover, would lack necessary training. In his first homily on the Acts of the Apostles, in the midst of a lengthy discourse on avoiding post-baptismal sin, Chrysostom argued concerning such a person, that “if he recovers from his illness, [he] is as vexed as if some great harm had been done to him. For since he has not been prepared for a virtuous life, he has no heart for the conflicts which are to follow, and shrinks at the thought of them.” [73] Chrysostom insisted that sound catechesis prepared candidates to pursue a proper Christian life. Furthermore, by cultivating this sense of danger surrounding baptism, Chrysostom elevated the importance of both the rite itself and the preparation for the rite, each of which the catechumen needed to experience in conjunction with the other and only within the proper context of the church.

We see catechetical preachers using secrecy and emotional language to emphasize the boundary between insiders and outsiders. In doing so, these preachers sought to give their audiences a theological vision of Christianity and their future place within it. Not all of the imaginative tools passed on to catechumens through the catechetical process pertained to the disciplina arcani, and secrecy was not the only important strategy for integrating new initiates. Offering ways of thinking about the world and the place of the Christian within it also provided important means of integration. Two brief examples from catechetical contexts will help to elucidate this point.

The first comes from Augustine’s On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed. The text is actually a letter of Augustine to a young deacon in Carthage named Deogratias. He has been given the charge of teaching catechumens and expresses to Augustine considerable concern regarding his abilities. Although his reputation as a good teacher has already reached Augustine, he fears that he bores his students. Augustine offers a warm response full of encouragement and recommendations for how to approach the process of teaching those uninstructed in Christian doctrine. These were not baptismal candidates, but rather catechumens who wanted instruction in the faith as a way to help them make the decision to seek acceptance into the rank of the competentes, those immediately preparing for baptism. [74] Augustine offers two different ways to address the catechumens based on their level of education and their knowledge of pagan as well as Christian literature. Though the two approaches are distinct, they develop out of the same basic approach. Augustine urges Deogratias to begin the education of his catechetical students with biblical history. In each case, the scheme of creation, fall, God’s covenantal faithfulness, and the advent of Christ gives structure to the lessons he advocates. In this way, the catechumens will encounter all of human history as oriented toward God and, in particular, toward the coming of Christ for the purpose of redemption. [75] For Augustine, the biblical history necessary for teaching catechumens comprises an account of God’s redemptive work from the beginning of time. This story encompassed all of human history. If rightly taught and understood, Augustine believed it would make clear the right choice and urge the catechumen to seek baptism, to secure their position in God’s redemptive work. The aim was to present a powerful mental image of a thoroughly Christian past, present, and future.

Though slightly more modest in the expanse of its vision, a similar attempt to articulate a palpably Christian world can be found in Cyril of Jerusalem’s catechetical sermons. A theme that ties in with a major emphasis of Cyril’s episcopate emerges in these sermons. Jerusalem was ecclesiastically subordinate to its coastal rival Caesarea, and Cyril actively promoted the elevation of Jerusalem as the preeminent see of Palestine. To this end, he focused attention on the biblical history of Jerusalem, the fact that James the brother of Jesus became the first Christian bishop in Jerusalem and, most especially, the presence of the true cross in this city. [76] Cyril also promoted Jerusalem’s central role in the eschatological future of the church, as the place where Christ would come again. [77] Cyril imagined a Jerusalem that held a place of central importance in the Christian story, even to the point of being the center of the world. [78] His promotion of this image featured prominently in his catechetical homilies as well: [79] “Yet one should never grow weary of hearing about our crowned Lord, especially on this holy Golgotha. For others merely hear, but we see and touch.” [80] Cyril singles out the catechumens of Jerusalem as having pride of place. Their relationship to Golgotha and the cross of their messiah should act as a special reminder of the truth of their faith. Golgotha itself offered an apologetic for Christ’s death and resurrection against anyone who might doubt: “For if I should now deny it, Golgotha here, close to which we are now gathered, refutes me; the wood of the Cross, now distributed piecemeal from this place over all the world, refutes me.” [81] Cyril made every attempt to use the presence of the cross in Jerusalem and the spiritual topography of the city for the education of the baptismal candidates. Jan Willem Drijvers is right to point out the political motives of Cyril’s attempts to promote Jerusalem. [82] But that should not diminish our attention to the means he used to accomplish this goal. By stressing the holiness of sites around Jerusalem and their value as mnemonic devices, Cyril presented an image of his catechumen’s immediate surroundings that forcefully declared the validity of Christianity. The success of his approach can be discerned in the esteem given to Jerusalem at the Council of Constantinople in 381, where it was declared “the mother of all churches.” [83]

Each of these collections of sermons accomplished far more than simply furnishing baptismal candidates with information regarding Christological particularities, moral precepts, or the content of the liturgical mysteries. Rather, these preachers carefully crafted comprehensive curricula for initiation into the Christian church. These sets of sermons aimed at a holistic approach to catechesis and initiation. Any attempt to maintain a distinction between doctrine, cult, and ethics breaks down in this context. The preachers structured their catecheses to affect the entirety of the candidates. They aimed to instruct the thoughts, words, and actions of those seeking initiation into the church. They insisted that catechumens needed more than information about the mysteries, even more than the experience of the mysteries. They maintained that candidates needed the preacher to reveal to them, through catechesis, the nature of the Christian life in a controlled and systematic way. Maintaining the rhetorical efficacy of secrecy allowed the clergy to heighten the gravity and profundity of initiation, to punctuate the experience and the material taught, and to do all of this within the structured community of the church.

These sermons offer various rhetorical strategies for dealing with the transition from an outsider’s knowledge of the Christian mysteries to an insider’s. In each case, however, the catechist used bold and emotional language to stress the idea that the baptismal candidate was moving into a radically different stage of Christian experience. He or she was leaving behind the other catechumens and fully joining the Christian community. Though the rigid boundary between members of the church and unbaptized catechumens was liturgically enacted at every eucharistic service with the removal of the uninitiated, the boundary was sometimes very publically shown to be porous. Consider the example of Ambrose’s acclamation as bishop when he was yet unbaptized. [84] Though he had to undergo the rites before he could assume his episcopal position, he had clearly come to hold a position of prominence within an important Christian family in Milan, which allowed his dramatic elevation. Similarly, Constantine and Constantius engaged with the formation of Christian doctrine at the highest levels, yet without receiving baptism. The Apostolic Constitutions also speaks to a problem of boundary maintenance when it discusses the need for travelling Christians to carry letters from their home church, lest someone unbaptized claim the contrary and receive communion illicitly. [85]

Nevertheless, whatever an individual might have heard from a disgruntled former Christian or a loose-tongued practitioner of the faith, he or she had not been incorporated into the church by the proper clerical authorities. In this way, it did not matter if the person coming for catechesis knew much or only a little about the mysteries of the Christian church. The clergy made every effort to present catechetical instruction, and the community to which it introduced a person, as a proper initiation and incorporation into a life centered on Christ in heaven and the church. Preachers did not primarily reveal to the catechumens the cognitive content of Christianity, but rather the approaching position of the catechumen in an idealized image of a body of Christians directing their lives towards Christ in the course of corporate worship. Creedal theology, ethics, renunciation of the devil, redemptive history, and sacred geography could each be used in different circumstances to engage catechumens and promote this Christianized image of the world. Catechesis permitted many approaches and, at this point, we turn to the consideration of Theodore’s catechesis and the context in which it took place, the Christian community.