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FAITH AS A PREREQUISITE TO THE INITIATION
INTO THE MYSTERIES IN THEODORET OF CYRUS
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IstTvAN PASZTORI-KUPAN
ABSTRACT
Theodoret of Cyrus, one of the last and somewhat late representatives of
Christian apologists, follows his predecessors when he argues that any
knowledge—including the knowledge of and initiation into the mysteries—
must be preceded by faith. This requirement means that those who wish to
attain initiation into any art, science, or knowledge, including a spiritual or
religious mystery, must manifest not only a certain level of interest, but also
faith and confidence both in the person who performs these initiations and in
the very mystery they intend to attain. The examples borrowed from various
philosophical schools, secret religious rites, and the like tend to show that for
Theodoret, initiation into the mysteries of the Christian faith is no exception.
Of course, these mysteries are also different in kind, consisting of doctrinal
ones (e.g. the mystery of the Incarnation, the mystery of the Trinity, etc.) and
of ritual practices including baptism and the Eucharist. Those wishing to be
initiated (e.g. the catechumens) are required to listen to the Lord himself,
the Creator of the Universe, who uses human mediators in order to convey
the message to all. It is interesting to observe that in his argumentation
concerning the necessity of faith for the commencement of the initiation,
Theodoret not only uses biblical expressions and quotations but even adopts
a language and phraseology borrowed from ancient sacred rituals, sometimes
even with strong physical connotations (e.g. “we, the lovers of the Trinity”:
‘Hueic of tig Tpikdoc épactai). It appears that the persuasive rhetoric used by
Early Christian fathers to convince their listeners of the truth of the Gospel
was not very different from the style of non-Christian thinkers and orators.
The longevity of the Greek rhetorical school in Antioch may have played
an important role in the formation and sustenance of such phraseology.
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