It would seem from St. Justin's apology, that
much was left to the particular devotion of the bishop or priest who
offered mass, and hence we might expect not to find in the earliest
liturgies great uniformity, except in essentials and general outline.
Yet Le Brun has endeavoured to restore, from the early Christian
writers, the liturgy used in the first four centuries: and it contains
the most important prayers and ceremonies of the mass in its more
modern form.
[Sidenote: Discipline of secrecy.]
We shall so often have to recur to the discipline of secrecy alluded
to above, that we consider it necessary to speak of it briefly,
before we proceed further. The Pythagoreans, the Stoics, Plato, the
Epicureans and other ancient philosophers concealed their doctrines
from the uninitiated: the mysteries also of Osiris, Isis, Bacchus,
Ceres, Cybele etc. were carefully kept secret. There was no novelty
therefore for the ancients in the discipline of secrecy, the
institution of which in the Christian church is attributed by many
fathers to Christ himself, who directed that his disciples should not
"give what is holy to dogs, or cast pearls before swine". Matt. VII,
6. This injunction was observed by the whole church from the apostolic
age till the fifth century in the east, and the sixth century in the
west: it extended to dogmas as well as rites, and in particular to
those of the holy Trinity and the sacraments, especially the blessed
Eucharist[5].
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