Disciplina arcani

Last updated
Baptism in the ancient church Mithchurchcrypt2.jpg
Baptism in the ancient church

Disciplina arcani (Latin for "discipline of the secret") was a custom that prevailed in the 4th and 5th centuries of Christianity, whereby knowledge of certain doctrines and rites of the Christian religion was kept from non-Christians and even from those who were undergoing instruction in the faith so that they may progressively learn the teachings of the faith and not fall to heresy due to simplistic misunderstandings (hence, doctrines were kept from catechumens, Christian converts who had not yet been baptized). [1]

Contents

Historiography

The term disciplina arcani is not ancient. It was coined by the Calvinist writer Jean Daillé in the 17th century. The concept, however, was first proposed by another Calvinist, Isaac Casaubon, in 1614 as a way of explaining the absence of certain doctrines in early Christian writings. On his view, the Church Fathers were imitating the Roman mystery religions. Daillé held that the purpose of the disciplina was to increase the reverence for the sacraments. The Catholic theologian Emmanuel Schelstrate, however, rejected Casaubon's view that it owed anything to the mystery religions. He believed it had been taught by Jesus and practiced by the Apostles. He explained the absence of references to Catholic dogma like the Mass, transubstantiation and the cult of saints by recourse to the disciplina arcani. [2]

History

In the second century, Christians freely communicated rites such as baptism and the Eucharist with pagan groups. Justin Martyr, for example, freely spoke with a pagan audience regarding the rite of the Eucharist. The disciplina arcani began to emerge in the 3rd century. Some have suggested Tertullian as the earliest witness to the practice, although recent scholars have noted Tertullian's belief that Christian teachings were public and should be taught in public. [3] Later, in the middle of the 3rd century, Origen of Alexandria addressed the polemics against Christianity by the pagan Celsus in his Contra Celsum . Celsus accused Christianity of being a religion of secrecy like the Greco-Roman mysteries, and Origen replied that while the prominent doctrines of Christianity are well-known to the entire world, including the virgin birth, crucifixion, resurrection, punishment of the wicked and rewarding of the just, there are a few elements that must be retained within the group. Near the time of Origen, Hippolytus of Rome wrote at the end of his account of the rite of baptism;

If anything needs to be explained, let the bishop speak in private to those who have received baptism. Those who are not Christians are not told unless they first receive baptism. This is the white stone in which John spoke of; "A new name is written on it which no one knows except him who receives the stone. (Ap. Trad. 23:14)

By the fourth century and first half of the fifth century, the practice of disciplina arcani had become universal and is attested in Rome (in the writings of Ambrose), Jerusalem (in the writings of Cyril and Egeria), Egypt, Constantinople, Cappadocia, North Africa, etc. There is evidence that Christians were careful to maintain specific articles of the religion, including removing members of the church who had not yet been baptized before the liturgical eucharist took place. Thus, the liturgy was divided into the Mass of the Faithful and Mass of the Catechumens. In Byzantine liturgy, the deacon often proclaimed, "The doors, the doors!" to signal that the doors must be watched to prevent unbaptized from participating in church activities. There may have been various reasons for maintaining secrecy of some things, including ensuring that outsiders did not attempt to use these rites to gain favours from God, or to shelter important rites from contempt. Furthermore, they also thought that one needed to experience the rite of baptism before learning about it so that teaching more efficient and successful. [1]

By the 6th century, the practice had disappeared. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity</span> Abrahamic religion based on the life of Jesus

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.4 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and chronicled in the New Testament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyril of Jerusalem</span> Christian theologian, bishop, and saint (c. 313 – 386)

Cyril of Jerusalem was a theologian of the early Church. About the end of AD 350 he succeeded Maximus as Bishop of Jerusalem, but was exiled on more than one occasion due to the enmity of Acacius of Caesarea, and the policies of various emperors. Cyril left important writings documenting the instruction of catechumens and the order of the Liturgy in his day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tertullian</span> Roman Christian theologian and writer (c. 155 – c. 220)

Tertullian was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He was an early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity", as well as "the founder of Western theology".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greco-Roman mysteries</span> Religious schools of the Greco-Roman world

Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). The main characterization of this religion is the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice, which may not be revealed to outsiders. The most famous mysteries of Greco-Roman antiquity were the Eleusinian Mysteries, which predated the Greek Dark Ages. The mystery schools flourished in Late Antiquity; Julian the Apostate in the mid 4th century is known to have been initiated into three distinct mystery schools—most notably the mithraists. Due to the secret nature of the school, and because the mystery religions of Late Antiquity were persecuted by the Christian Roman Empire from the 4th century, the details of these religious practices are derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies. Much information on the Mysteries comes from Marcus Terentius Varro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Apostasy</span> Concept in some Christian churches

The Great Apostasy is a concept within Christianity to describe a perception that mainstream Christian Churches have fallen away from the original faith founded by Jesus and promulgated through his Twelve Apostles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacred mysteries</span> Inexplicable or secret religious phenomena

Sacred mysteries are the areas of supernatural phenomena associated with a divinity or a religious belief and praxis. Sacred mysteries may be either:

  1. Religious beliefs, rituals or practices which are kept secret from the uninitiated.
  2. Beliefs of the religion which are public knowledge but cannot be easily explained by normal rational or scientific means.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esoteric Christianity</span> Christian theology

Esoteric Christianity is an approach to Christianity which features "secret traditions" that require an initiation to learn or understand. The term esoteric was coined in the 17th century and derives from the Greek ἐσωτερικός.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacraments of initiation</span> Rites of initiation in Nicene Christianity

The sacraments of initiation are the three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist in Nicene Christianity. As such, they are distinguished from the sacraments of healing and from the sacraments of service.

In the history of Christianity, the African Rite refers to a now defunct Christian, Latin liturgical rite, and is considered a development or possibly a local use of the primitive Roman Rite. Centered around the Archdiocese of Carthage in the Early African church, it used the Latin language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catechesis</span> Christian religious education

Catechesis is basic Christian religious education of children and adults, often from a catechism book. It started as education of converts to Christianity, but as the religion became institutionalized, catechesis was used for education of members who had been baptized as infants. As defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 5 :

Catechesis is an education in the faith of children, young people and adults which includes especially the teaching of Christian doctrine imparted, generally speaking, in an organic and systematic way, with a view to initiating the hearers into the fullness of Christian life.

<i>Contra Celsum</i> Third-century Christian apologetics work by Origen of Alexandria

Against Celsus, preserved entirely in Greek, is a major apologetics work by the Church Father Origen of Alexandria, written in around 248 AD, countering the writings of Celsus, a pagan philosopher and controversialist who had written a scathing attack on Christianity in his treatise The TrueWord. Among a variety of other charges, Celsus had denounced many Christian doctrines as irrational and criticized Christians themselves as uneducated, deluded, unpatriotic, close-minded towards reason, and too accepting of sinners. He had accused Jesus of performing his miracles using black magic rather than actual divine powers and of plagiarizing his teachings from Plato. Celsus had warned that Christianity itself was drawing people away from traditional religion and claimed that its growth would lead to a collapse of traditional, conservative values.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. Joseph Hoffmann</span> Christianity historian, author, and lecturer

Raymond Joseph Hoffmann is a historian whose work has focused on the early social and intellectual development of Christianity. His work includes an extensive study of the role and dating of Marcion in the history of the New Testament, as well the reconstruction and translation of the writings of early pagan opponents of Christianity: Celsus, Porphyry and Julian the Apostate. As a senior vice president for the Center for Inquiry, he chaired the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, CSER, where he initiated the Jesus Project, a scholarly investigation into the historicity of Jesus. Hoffmann has described himself as "a religious skeptic with a soft spot for religion".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity in the ante-Nicene period</span> Period following the Apostolic Age to the First Council of Nicaea in 325

Christianity in the ante-Nicene period was the time in Christian history up to the First Council of Nicaea. This article covers the period following the Apostolic Age of the first century, c. 100 AD, to Nicaea in 325 AD.

The True Word is a lost treatise in which the ancient Greek philosopher Celsus addressed many principal points of early Christianity and refuted or argued against their validity. In The True Word, Celsus attacked Christianity in three ways: by refuting its philosophical claims, by marking it as a phenomenon associated with the uneducated and lower class, and by cautioning his audience that it was a danger to the Roman Empire. Information concerning the work exists only in the extensive quotations from it in the Contra Celsum, written some seventy years later by the Christian Origen. These are believed to be accurate as far as they go, but may not give a fully comprehensive picture of the original work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of baptism</span>

John the Baptist, who is considered a forerunner to Christianity, used baptism as the central sacrament of his messianic movement. Christians consider Jesus to have instituted the sacrament of baptism. The earliest Christian baptisms were by immersion. By the third and fourth centuries, baptism involved catechetical instruction as well as chrismation, exorcisms, laying on of hands, and recitation of a creed. In the West, affusion became the normal mode of baptism between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, though immersion was still practiced into the sixteenth. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther retained baptism as a sacrament, but Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli considered baptism and the Lord's supper to be symbolic. Anabaptists denied the validity of infant baptism, which was the normal practice when their movement started and practiced believer's baptism instead. Several groups related to Anabaptism, notably the Baptists and Dunkards, soon practiced baptism by immersion as following the Biblical example.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacrament</span> Christian rite recognized as of particular importance and significance

A sacrament is a Christian rite that is recognized as being particularly important and significant. There are various views on the existence, number and meaning of such rites. Many Christians consider the sacraments to be a visible symbol of the reality of God, as well as a channel for God's grace. Many denominations, including the Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist, and Reformed, hold to the definition of sacrament formulated by Augustine of Hippo: an outward sign of an inward grace, that has been instituted by Jesus Christ. Sacraments signify God's grace in a way that is outwardly observable to the participant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Order of Christian Initiation of Adults</span> Christian conversion process

The Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA), or Ordo Initiationis Christianae Adultorum, is a process developed by the Catholic Church for its catechumenate for prospective converts to the Catholic faith above the age of infant baptism. Candidates are gradually introduced to aspects of Catholic beliefs and practices. The basic process applies to adults and children who have reached catechetical age. Previously, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults was known as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). The name was changed in 2021 to reflect greater fidelity to the original Latin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Church Fathers</span> Group of ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers

The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical period in which they worked became known as the Patristic Era and spans approximately from the late 1st to mid-8th centuries, flourishing in particular during the 4th and 5th centuries, when Christianity was in the process of establishing itself as the state church of the Roman Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minor exorcism in Christianity</span>

The expression minor exorcism can be used in a technical sense or a general sense. The general sense indicates any exorcism which is not a solemn exorcism of a person believed to be possessed, including various forms of deliverance ministry. This article deals only with the technical sense which specifically refers to certain prayers used with persons preparing to become baptised members of the churches which makes use of such rites. These prayers request God's assistance so that the person to be baptised will be kept safe from the power of Satan or protected in a more general way from temptation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Augustinian Calvinism</span> Type of theology

Augustinian Calvinism is a term used to emphasize the origin of John Calvin's theology within Augustine of Hippo's theology over a thousand years earlier. By his own admission, John Calvin's theology was deeply influenced by Augustine of Hippo, the fourth-century church father. Twentieth-century Reformed theologian B. B. Warfield said, "The system of doctrine taught by Calvin is just the Augustinianism common to the whole body of the Reformers." Paul Helm, a well-known Reformed theologian, used the term "Augustinian Calvinism" for his view in the article "The Augustinian-Calvinist View" in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views.

References

Bibliography

  • Bremmer, Jan (2014). Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN   9783110376999.
  • Cross, F. L.; Livingstone, E. A., eds. (2009) [2005]. "Disciplina Arcani". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd rev. ed.). Oxford University Press.
  • Yarnold, Edward (1994). The Awe-inspiring Rites of Initiation: The Origins of the RCIA. Liturgical Press. ISBN   9780814622810.