His lessons to man were all oral. The church he established received none but traditional instruction. The gospels of his life were written more than half a century after the crucifixion. The apostles, commissioned to go forth and preach the Gospel, held their meetings in upper chambers, and in secrecy, and part of their manner of teaching, if not all, was founded upon the still-prevailing systems of the Kabbalistae and philosophers. There were grades observed in the orders of ministry. The diaconate, the {72} presbyter, priest or elder, and the [Greek: episkopos] or bishop. So there were three grades of the laity--catechumens, (not yet baptized,) baptized persons, and "the faithful." The policy of the apostles (who, when they were taught to be harmless, were to be wise) adapted itself to the then existing state of affairs. It was not only for fear of the Jews, as at first, that they adopted the method of instruction in secret, and which is to this day recognised by the catholic church as the then _disciplina arcani_, or "discipline of the secret;" but they kept it up even during the times of persecution, down to the time of St. Augustin. When our Saviour was insulted by the scribes and Pharisees, saying, "why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?" &c. He said to them, "why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?"[79] Still more did he rebuke them, when they asked him, "why walk not thy disciples according to the traditions of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?" In his answer, he replied, "laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups, &c., &c. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition."[80] St. Paul afterward, well knowing the then systems of philosophy, and their then traditional instruction, wrote to them at Philippi,[81] "Beware lest any man spoil you through {73} philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments (or elements) of this world, and not after Christ." Then St. Paul, guarding the early Christians so carefully, writes to the faithful in Thessaly, "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which ye have received _of us_,"[82] &c. When St. Paul preached on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, it was in an upper chamber where they were gathered together.[83] At an earlier date, the first day of the week after the crucifixion, in the evening, "when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst," &c.[84] When Pliny was proconsul in Judea, such charges were made against the Christians on account of their secrecy, as caused severe persecution, not for matters of religion, but for supposed cannibalism. He writes to