(We may state here that the Thyrsus was the mystic-wand carried by the Initiates in the Mystic Brotherhoods--the Initiate being first tapped with it, and then receiving it from the Hierophant, at the ceremony of formal Initiation.) Clement adds: "We profess not to explain secret things sufficiently--far from it--but only to recall them to memory, whether we have forgot aught, or whether for the purpose of not forgetting. Many things, well I know, have escaped us, through length of time, that have dropped away unwritten. There are then some things of which we have no recollection; for the power that was in the blessed men was great." "There are also some things which remain unnoted long, which have now escaped; and others which are effaced, having faded away in the mind itself, since such a task is not easy to those not experienced; these I revive in my commentaries. Some things I purposely omit, in the exercise of a wise selection, afraid to write what I guarded against speaking; not grudging--for that were wrong--but fearing for my readers lest they should stumble by taking them in a wrong sense; and, as the proverb says, we should be found 'reaching a sword to a child.' For it is impossible that what has been written should not escape, although remaining published by me. But being always revolved, using the one only voice, that of writing, they answer nothing to him that makes inquiries beyond what is written; for they require of necessity the aid of someone, either of him who wrote or of someone else, who walked in his footsteps. Some things my treatise will hint; on some it will linger; some it will merely mention. It will try to speak imperceptibly, to exhibit secretly, and to demonstrate silently." (_The Stromata of St. Clement._)