admonition, that it is good to conceal the king's secret, and that pearls are not to be cast before swine, the primitive Christians instituted what they called the " Discipline of the Secret," according to which no sacrament, and least of all the Eucharist, was to be administered or discussed in the presence of Pagans. Nevertheless, when occasion demanded, we find even the earliest Fathers using this doctrine as a first and universally accepted principle of belief whereon to base their proofs of other dogmas or their refutations of heresy. St. Irenaeus, for example, book 4, chapter 4, convicts Valentine and his followers of inconsistency in that, while admitting that Christ changed bread into His body, they denied His divinity and His power to make all things out of nothing. St. Cyril, also, arguing against the same heretics, asserts the capability of our bodies for immortality on the ground that in holy communion they are so assimilated to the incorruptible body of Christ that, even as the Eucharist consists of corruptible accidents and an incorruptible substance, so our bodies, corruptible by nature, are rendered by hope incorruptible. Three things are here assumed: first, that the consecration effects a real change; second, that corruptible bread becomes the incorruptible body of Christ; and third, that this belief was common alike to the faithful and to heretics. Without this threefold assumption the arguments of the Fathers would be valueless. Again, SS. Hilary and Cyril disprove the contention of the Arians that God the Father and Son are one not by nature but by
