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A Series of Lessons in Mystic Christianity1072
now.” The Occult Teachings state that when He returned in His astral form,
after the crucifixion, He taught them many important and advanced mystic
truths, “speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” (Acts 1:3)
The early Christian Fathers spake and wrote openly regarding the
Christian Mysteries, as all students of Church History well know. Polycarp,
Bishop of Smyrna, writes to certain others hoping that they are “well versed
in the sacred Scriptures and that nothing is hidden from you; but to me
this privilege is not yet granted.” (The Epistle of Polycarp, chapter 7) Ignatius,
Bishop of Antioch, says that he is “not yet perfect in Jesus Christ. For I now
begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as my fellow disciple.” He also
addresses them as being “initiated into the Mysteries of the Gospel, with
St. Paul, the holy, the martyred.” Again: “Might I not write to you things
more full of mystery? But I fear to do so, lest I should inflict injury on you
who are but babes. Pardon me in this respect, lest, as not being able to
receive their weighty import, ye should be strangled by them. For even I,
though I am bound and am able to understand heavenly things, the angelic
orders, and the different sorts of angels and hosts, the distinction between
powers and dominions, and the diversities between thrones and authorities,
the mightiness of the æons, and the preëminence of the cherubim and
seraphim, the sublimity of the Spirit, the kingdom of the Lord, and above all
the incomparable majesty of Almighty God—though I am acquainted with
these things, yet am I not therefore by any means perfect, nor am I such a
disciple as Paul or Peter.”
Ignatius also speaks of the High Priest or Hierophant, of whom he asserts
that he was the one “to whom the holy of holies has been committed, and
who alone has been entrusted with the secrets of God.” (Epistles of Ignatius)
St. Clement of Alexandria was a mystic of high rank in the Inner Circle of
the Church. His writings are full of allusions to the Christian Mysteries. He
says among other things that his writings were “a miscellany of Gnostic notes,
according to the time philosophy,” which teachings he had received from
Pontaemus, his instructor or spiritual teacher. He says of these teachings: