He Who Dwells In The Midst Of The Cherubim Shine Forth Mp3 Download

[Amancio Mccrae]

Deut 33:2 He said, The Lord came from Sinai, And dawned on them from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran, And He came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones; At His right hand there was flashing lightning for them.

Psalm 80:1 Oh, give ear, Shepherd of Israel,You who lead Joseph like a flock; You who care enthroned above the cherubim, shine forth!

he who dwells in the midst of the cherubim shine forth mp3 download

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Matt 13:43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

- The commands concerning the tabernacle were given to Moses by the Angel- do phrases like "Let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them" (Ex. 25:8) have primary reference to the Angel speaking the words? In the same way, does Psalm 99:1 refer also to the physical presence of an Angel between the cherubim? "The LORD reigneth. . He sitteth between the cherubim (through His Angel); let the earth (land of Israel) be moved". Similarly "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel (the Angel- so Isaiah 63 describes the wilderness Angel), thou that leadest Joseph like a flock (the Angel lead them through the wilderness); thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth" (Ps. 80:1). And again in Ps. 20:1,2 "The God of Jacob (i. e. the Angel who Jacob recognized had been so much in his life) defend thee; send thee help from the sanctuary. . ", as if it was in the sanctuary (Holy Place) that the Angel was located.

Although there are various possible translations of Maranatha,(Our LORD comes, Our LORD has come), the fragments at the end ofthe Book of Revelation show that it was understood at that timeto mean Come LORD. The LORD himself assures his peoplethat he is coming soon to bring the judgement (Rev.22.7, 12, 20),and the prayer reflects this hope of his imminent return. Theposition of these fragments at the end of the Book of Revelationsuggests that they were no longer central to the message of thebook. In other words, Maranatha was being understood in anotherway.

The same prayer appears elsewhere as the closing lines of aletter which give no indication of how it was understood (1Cor.16.22), but also at the close of an early Eucharistic prayer,possibly the earliest known outside the New Testament, a verysignificant context (Didache 10). This links the return of theLORD to the Eucharist. Other lines of the prayer areambiguous: ‘Let this present world pass away’, forexample, could imply either a literal understanding of theLORD’s return or the present transforming effect of theEucharist. Maranatha in the Eucharist, however, must be theoriginal epiklesis, praying for the coming of the LORD.The Didache prayer has no reference to the words of institutionat the Last Supper and no Passover imagery. As implied inJohn’s account of the Last Supper (John 13.1-20), Jesus is‘Thy Servant Jesus’, and thanks are offered for theknowledge, faith and everlasting life made known through him. Thebread and wine are spiritual meat and drink (cf. John 6.25-58)which cause the Name to dwell in the hearts of those who havebeen fed. This could indicate that John’s understanding ofthe Eucharist was the formative influence here, and that it washis new understanding of Maranatha which led to itstransformation into the Eucharistic epiklesis.


Passover or Day of Atonement?

Despite the apparently clear accounts of the Eucharist in theSynoptic Gospels, there are many problems as to its true originand significance. The Passover is the least likely context asthis was the one sacrifice not offered by a priest (m.Yoma5.6), and the earliest tradition remembers Jesus as the greatHigh Priest[2]. The words of institution known tothe evangelists (Matt.26.26-28; Mark 14.22-24; Luke 22.14-20) andPaul (1 Cor.11.23-26) indicate as their context the priestlysacrifice of the Eternal Covenant, in other words, the Day ofAtonement. The position of the Christian altar in a churchbuilding, beyond the boundary between earth and heaven, showsthat it derived from the kapporet in the Holy of holies,the place where the Atonement blood was offered.

Even though Paul knew Christ as the paschal lamb (1 Cor.5.7), hehad also been taught that his death was ‘for our sins inaccordance with the scriptures’ (1 Cor.15.3). This indicatesthat the earliest interpretation of the death of Jesus was basedon the fourth Servant Song, which, in the form known at Qumran,depicts a suffering Messiah figure who bears the sins of others(1Q Isaa 52.13-53.12). He was the High Priest whosprinkled the atonement blood (Isa.52.15) and was himself thesacrifice (Isa.53.10). A similar expectation is found inPeter’s temple sermon; the Servant, the Author of life, wasabout to return from heaven bringing ‘times ofrefreshing’ (Acts 3.13-21). Again, these texts indicate thatthe original understanding of the death of Jesus was the renewalof the Eternal Covenant on the Day of Atonement.

The original context of the Eucharist should sought in the Day ofAtonement, when the High Priest took the blood into the holy ofholies and then returned to complete the rite of atonement andrenewal. At first the Christians had prayed for the literalreturn of the LORD to bring judgement on their enemies and toestablish the Kingdom. Their hopes for the history of their timeswere based on the ancient ritual pattern of the Day of Atonement.Jesus, the great high priest, had sacrificed himself as theatonement offering of the tenth jubilee, had passed into heaven,the true holy of holies, and would emerge again to complete theatonement. When this did not literally happen, John learned inhis vision of the returning high priest (Rev.10) that theexpectations of the Church should return to the temple liturgywhence they had come. In the original temple ritual, the anointedhigh priest, even though he ‘was’ the LORD, had takeninto the holy of holies the blood of a goat which represented hisown lifeblood. As he emerged, he sprinkled ‘his’ blood,i.e. he gave his life, to cleanse and consecrate the creation.This renewed on earth the kingdom of the LORD’s anointed.Hence ‘Thy Kingdom come.’

The Messiah, both High Priest and victim, was the theme of theEucharist as it was of the Day of Atonement. Dix concluded:‘From the days of Clement of Rome in the first century,for whom our LORD is ‘the High-priest of our offerings’Who is ‘in the heights of the heavens (1 Clem.6) it can besaid with truth that this doctrine of the offering of the earthlyEucharist by the heavenly Priest at the heavenly altar is to allintents and purposes the only conception of the eucharisticsacrifice which is known anywhere in the church... there is nopre-Nicene author Eastern or Western whose eucharistic doctrineis at all fully stated who does not regard the offering andconsecration of the Eucharist as the present action of the LORDHimself, the Second Person of the Trinity.’[3]

Interpreting the Eucharist as the Day of Atonement offering,Origen wrote: ‘You who came to Christ the true high priest,who made atonement for you... do not hold fast to the blood ofthe flesh. Learn rather the blood of the Word and hear him sayingto you “This is my blood which is poured out for you for theforgiveness of sins.” He who is inspired by the mysteriesknows both the flesh and the blood of the Word of God (OnLeviticus 9.10). Jerome, commenting on Zephaniah 3 wrote of‘the priests who pray at the Eucharist for the coming of theLORD’. He too went on to link the day of the LORD’scoming to the Day of Atonement, and ‘wait for me, for theday when I rise’ (RSV Zeph.3.8) was read as ‘Wait forme on the day of my resurrection’. This association of thetwo advents of the LORD with the Day of Atonement is found asearly as the Letter of Barnabas, a Levite. As in Jerome,the earthly life of Jesus is compared to the role of thescapegoat who bore the sins, ‘but the point of there beingtwo similar goats is that when they see him coming on the Day,they are going to be struck with terror at the manifest parallelbetween him and the goat (Barn.7). The implication is that theblood of the goat being brought from the holy of holies wasbelieved from the very earliest period to prefigure the Parousiaand that the association of the Eucharist and the Day ofAtonement was well known. Justin in the mid-second century linkedthe sacrificed goat to the second coming, (Trypho 40) and Cyrilof Alexandria wrote some two centuries later: We must perceivethe Immanuel in the slaughtered goat... the two goats illustratethe mystery (Letter 41).

In the Eucharist, the bishop or priest ‘was’ the HighPriest and therefore the LORD (e.g. Ignatius Magn. 6 ‘Letthe bishop preside in the place of God’). He took into theholy of holies the bread and wine of the new bloodless sacrificewhich became the body and blood of the LORD; this effected theatonement and renewal of the creation, and thus established onearth the expected Kingdom. Hence the eschatological emphasis ofthe earliest Eucharists. Dix again: ‘The Eucharist is thecontact of time with the eternal fact of the kingdom of Godthrough Jesus. In it the church within time continually, as itwere, enters into its own eternal being in that Kingdom.’[4] In other words, it was the ancienthigh priestly tradition of entering the holy of holies beyondtime and matter, the place of the heavenly throne. A fragment ofthis temple belief in the eternal present of events which humanshave experienced as history, is to be found in the writings ofthe Deuteronomists who did so much to suppress the mysticalelements of the ancient cult. The rebellious generation who hadbeen at Sinai were told they would not live to enter the promisedland (Num.14.26-35); nevertheless, Moses reminded their children:‘Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant butwith us who are all of us here alive this day’ (Deut. 5.3).

Had the original understanding of the Eucharist derived from thePassover, we should have expected the Exodus imagery ofliberation from slavery and becoming the chosen people. Instead,the expected benefits of the Eucharist were those of the Day ofAtonement. Early evidence drawn from a variety of sources isconsistent in this respect. Bishop Sarapion’s Prayer Book,for example, used in Egypt in the middle of the fourth century,speaks of ‘the medicine of life to heal every sickness andnot for condemnation’ i.e. of the Eucharist bringingjudgement and renewal which are the twin aspects of atonement. Heprayed for angels to come and destroy the evil one, and for theestablishment of the Church, i.e. for the banishing of Azazel andthe establishing of the Kingdom. He prayed that the congregationwould be made ‘living men’ [5](c.f. Thomas 1 ‘the livingi.e. resurrected Jesus’), able to speak of the unspeakablemysteries. ‘Make us wise by the participation of the bodyand the blood.’ This is the high priestly tradition of thetemple, and the ‘living men’ are the first resurrected,the kingdom of priests reigning on earth after the evil one hasbeen bound (Rev.20.6). The Liturgy of John Chrysostom praysthat the holy mysteries may bring remission of sins andforgiveness of transgressions, the gift of the Spirit, access tothe LORD and a place in the Kingdom, healing of soul and body,not judgement and condemnation. Even earlier, the Anaphora ofAddai and Mari had prayed for enlightenment, and hopes forremission of sins, pardon of offences, hope of resurrection andnew life in the Kingdom, and the Liturgy of James hadprayed for peace and salvation, for forgiveness and protectionfrom enemies. All these themes derive from the covenantrenewal of the Day of Atonement.

There is a striking similarity between these prayers and theQumran Hymns, and it would be easy to imagine the singer of theHymns as the priest who had offered the Eucharistic prayers. Thesinger knows the mysteries and has been purified from sin (1QH IXformerly I and XII formerly IV). He is one of the angels in theholy of holies, (1QH XIV formerly VI), he is strengthened by theSpirit (1QH XV formerly VII), he has experienced light andhealing (1QH XVII formerly IX), he has been purified and becomeone of the holy ones, been resurrected and given understanding,he has stood in the assembly of the living, those with knowledge(1QH XIX formerly XI). A creature of dust, he has been saved fromthe judgement, entered into the Covenant and stands in theeternal place illumined by perfect light (1QH XXI formerlyXVIII).

A recurring theme of the liturgies is that of fear and awe. Ahomily on the mysteries attributed to Narsai (Homily XVII A, latefifth century) speaks of ‘the dread mysteries... leteveryone be in fear and dread as they are performed... the hourof trembling and great fear.’ As the Spirit is summoned tothe bread and wine, ‘the priest worships with quaking andfear and harrowing dread.’ The people stand in fear as theSpirit descends. In the mid-fourth century, Cyril of Jerusalemspeaks of the ‘most awful hour’ when the priest beginsthe consecration and of ‘the most awful sacrifice’(Catecheses 23.4,9). John Chrysostom has similar words todescribe the coming of the Spirit (On Priesthood 6.4. 34-36), andthe people are commanded in the liturgy ‘to stand infear.’ Perhaps the oldest example of all is the Anaphoraof Addai and Mari which speaks of ‘the great, fearful,holy, life-giving, divine mystery’, before which thepeople stand in silence and awe. The priest prays as did Isaiah(Isa.6.5): ‘Woe is me... for mine eyes have seen the LORD ofHosts’, and, in the manner of Moses in the tabernacle(Exod.5.22): ‘How dreadful is this place, for this day Ihave seen the LORD face to face...’

Again, the setting is the holy of holies and the imagery drawnfrom the Day of Atonement. The earliest biblical account warnsAaron only to enter the Holy of holies once a year, afterelaborate, preparation on the Day of Atonement. The LORD warnsthat he will appear in the cloud upon the kapporet, andAaron might die (Lev.16.2). The Mishnah records the fearof the high priest as he entered the holy of holies: he spent aslittle time as possible in the holy place (m.Yoma 5.1), and atthe end of the ritual ‘he made a feast for his friendsbecause he had come safely out of the holy of holies’(m.Yoma 7.4). When the Glory of the LORD came to the deserttabernacle, Moses was not able to enter (Exod.40.35) and when theGlory came to the temple, the priests had were not able tocontinue their ministrations there (1 Kgs 8. 10-11). The verypurpose of the tabernacle was to provide a place where the LORDcould dwell in the midst of his people (Exod.25.8), and if thisholy place was not pure, the LORD departed (Ezek.8-11). Johndescribed the incarnation as the Glory dwelling on earth, theWord made flesh (John 1.14).


Theurgy and Apotheosis

Several passages in the Merkabah texts have suggested to scholarsthat drawing down the LORD into the temple was a major element ofthe temple service. ‘The temple and the service performedthere were thought of as able to attract the Shekinah (thepresence of the LORD)... we can seriously consider thepossibility that temple service was conceived as inducing thepresence of the Shekinah in the holy of holies.’[6] The Hebrew Scriptures show thatthe LORD had been expected to appear in his temple (Num.6.23-26,Isa.64.1, Mal.3.1), enthroned between the heavenly beings(Isa.6.1-5), or to speak from above the cherubim of the kapporet(Exod.25.22). The psalmist prayed that the Shepherd of Israel,enthroned upon the cherubim, would shine forth and come to savehis people (Ps.80.1-2, 3, 7, 19), that he would shine on hisservant (Ps.119.135). The psalmist also prayed for the LORD toarise and come to help his people (e.g. Pss 3.7; 7.6; 68.1),and he was certain that the LORD would appear (Ps.102.12). TheLevites were appointed to serve before the ark, to invoke, tothank and the praise the LORD, the God of Israel (1 Chron.16.4),and there may have been a double meaning to the familiar cry‘hallelujah’, since the first meaning of hll is‘shine’. Was the cry ‘Make the LORD shine’,cause his presence to shine forth, as the psalmist had prayed?

The theurgical practices of pagan mysteries in the early years ofChristianity are relatively well known. The Chaldean Oraclesdescribe how to make an image of the goddess Hecate and how todraw her down into it. Certain words, materials and objects (symbols)were believed to have a special affinity with a particular deity.‘The objects became receptacles of the gods because they hadan intimate relationship with them and bore their signatures (sunthemata)in the manifest world.’[7] The gods gave instructions how therites were to be performed and the ritual of invoking the deitywas theourgia or hierourgia, divine or sacred work.‘The body of the theurgist became the vehicle through whichthe gods appeared in the physical world and through which hereceived their communion.’[8] The theurgic acts were believed tounite the soul to the will and activity of the deity, but not toeffect complete union. It was believed that the divine order wasimpressed on the world. The symbols of theurgy functioned in anmanner similar to Plato’s forms in that both revealed thedivine order. Plato had taught that the Demiurge completed themoulding of the world after the nature of the model (Timaeus39e). He too had been moulded after the nature of the model (Gen.1.27).

Now this correspondence of heaven and earth is familiar from thetemple and its rites, and it was far older than Plato. There ismuch in the Timaeus, for example, which seems to be dependent onthe teachings of the Jerusalem priesthood of the first temple.The high priest, too, ‘was’ the LORD on earth when hewore the sacred seal which enabled him to ‘bear’ thesins of the people (Exod.28.36-38). It has also been suggestedthat much of the Syrian Iamblichus’ theurgy, written earlyin the fourth century CE, derived directly from the practice ofthe Jewish temple mystics. Even his Semitic name invitesspeculation, deriving as it does from ‘ the LORD isKing’.[9]

Dionysius used the language of theurgy when he described theChristian mysteries in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Thebread and wine were the symbols of Christ (437CD) whoseoriginal divine work had been to become a man. The bishop repeatsthe sacred work with the sacred symbols: ‘He uncovers theveiled gifts... he shows how Christ emerged from the hiddennessof his divinity to take on human form’ (444C).

The mystery at the very heart of the first temple has been lost,but some texts invite speculation. When Solomon was enthroned asking he became the LORD, although the Chroniclerdoes not explain the process (1 Chron.29.20-23). Since the kapporetwas the throne of the LORD, there must have been some linkbetween the enthronement of the human king as the LORD and hisbeing set on the place where the LORD used to appear. Origenimplies that in the Day of Atonement ritual, the sacrificed goatwas the LORD, the king (Celsus 6.43 PG XI 1364). The blood ofthis goat was sprinkled first on the ‘throne’ and thenbrought out from the holy of holies to effect the atonement bycleansing and healing the creation. In other words, the blood‘carried’ the power of the divine life. In thebloodless sacrifice of the Christians, the wine was substitutedfor the blood of the goat (cf. Heb.9.12) , but the same processwas believed to take place. The Christian altar, as we shall see,derived from the kapporet in the holy of holies, the placewhere the atonement blood was transformed and the LORD waspresent.

The royal psalms suggest that when the king entered the Holy ofholies he was ‘born’ in the glory of the holy ones andbecame the Melchizedek priest, the LORD (Ps 110). He was raisedup, that is, resurrected to the heavenly life (Ps.89.19;Heb.7.15-17). This must have been the moment when he became kingand was declared to be the Son (Ps.2.7). Praying for the presenceof the LORD in the holy of holies and in the person of the royalhigh priest at his inauguration, must have been the originalcontext of the Maranatha prayer. Since, as the writer tothe Hebrews knew, the high priest offered himself as theatonement sacrifice but was represented by the blood of the goat,the LORD must also have been invoked at every atonement sacrificewhen the life of the royal high priest was represented by theblood of the goat. The first Christians, believing that they wereseeing the ancient liturgy fulfilled in history, used the Maranathaprayer initially to pray for the Parousia in their own lifetime.After John’s vision of the angel in the cloud, however, theprayer returned to its original setting as they prayed for theLORD to come to the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

When the Day of Atonement is recognised as the original contextof the Eucharist, other elements in the tradition fall intoplace. The epiklesis derived from the Maranatha prayer.The earliest forms do keep the word ‘come’ and areaddressed to the Second Person whereas later forms are prayers tothe First person to ‘send’. Serapion’s epiklesispreserves the older belief about the presence of the LORDdwelling in the holy of holies: ‘O God of truth, let thyholy Logos come and dwell (epidemesato) upon this bread,that the bread may become the body of the Logos and upon this cupthat the cup may become the cup of the truth......’ There isa long epiklesis in the Acts of Thomas 27 whichcalls on Christ to ‘come’. All those who have beensealed with baptism perceive a human form and then receive thebread of the Eucharist. In the earlier period, the Spirit wasunderstood to be the Logos (e.g. Justin, Apology 1.33: ‘Itis wrong to understand the Spirit and the Power of God asanything else than the Word who is also the first-born ofGod’). It was not until Cyril of Jerusalem (mid-fourthcentury) that the Third Person Spirit epiklesis began tobe used, the prayer for the Father to send the Spirit onto thebread and wine.

The form in Addai and Mari is addressed to the Son:‘O my LORD, may thy Holy Spirit come and rest upon thisoffering’ but other unique features of this prayer invitespeculation as to its ultimate origin. The original from has nomention of God the Father or of the Trinity, of the crucifixionor resurrection of Jesus, it does not mention bread, wine, cup,Body or Blood, or the name of Jesus. There is no reference topartaking or communion. Dix again: ‘All these things... arenot of the framework of the prayer as they are the framework ofthe prayers that have been inspired by the systematic Greektheological tradition. Addai and Mari is a eucharistic prayerwhich is concentrated solely upon the experience of theEucharist... Maranatha... The ecstatic cry of the firstpre-Pauline Aramaic speaking disciples is the summary of what ithas to say.’[10] Was this derived from a a templeprayer from the Day of Atonement? There were ‘a great manyof the priests obedient to the faith’ in the earliest daysin Jerusalem (Acts 6.7).

Several writers reveal that it was the Word which came into thebread and wine, but complications arise from the fact that logoscan be understood to mean both the Word, the Second Person,or simply a prayer. Irenaeus, for example, argued ‘...if thecup which has been mixed and the bread which has been madereceives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body andblood of Christ...’ (Against Heresies 5.2.3. PG 7. 1125 also1127). Origen, commenting on the Eucharist, said that theconsecration was ‘by the Word of God and prayer’(quoting 1 Tim.4.5), where ‘word’ could be understoodin either sense (On Matthew 11 PG 13 948-9), but his usageelsewhere suggests that he intended the Second Person. Athanasiustaught that after great prayers and holy invocations, ‘theWord comes down into the bread and wine and it becomes hisbody’ (Sermon to the Baptised PG 26.1325). As late as theearly sixth century, Jacob of Serug could write ‘Togetherwith the priest, the whole people beseeches the Father that hewill send his Son, that he may come down and dwell upon theoblation.’


The Traditions of the Priests

The mystery of the Eucharist was associated with Melchizedek.Eusebius wrote: ‘Our Saviour Jesus, the Christ of God, evennow performs through his ministers today sacrifices after themanner of Melchizedek’ (Proof 5.3). Melchizedek is known inthe Hebrew Scriptures only as the king of Salem, the priest ofGod Most High who brought out bread and wine to Abraham(Gen.14.18), and as the royal high priest, the divine Son whowould bring the Day of Judgement (Ps.110). In the QumranMelchizedek text, however, he is divine, the heavenly highpriest, the anointed prince who comes to Jerusalem to perform thegreat Atonement at the end of the tenth Jubilee and to establishthe Kingdom. In the New Testament, Jesus is identified as thisMelchizedek (Heb.7.15), and the bread and wine of his sacrificemust have had some link to the bread and wine of Melchizedek.

What this was we can only guess, but the meal of bread and winewas associated with the vesting of the (high?)priest. The Testamentof Levi describes how seven angels vested him and fed him‘bread and wine, the most holy things’[11] (T.Levi 8.5), suggesting thatconsuming bread and wine was a part of the consecration process.In the Hebrew Scriptures ‘the most holy things’ are thepriests’ portion of the offerings, and only the priestscould consume them (e.g. Lev.6.29; Ezek.42.13; Ezra 2.63). The mostholy was originally believed to communicate holiness (e.g.Exod.29.37), but at the beginning of the second temple periodthere was a new ruling from the priests and only uncleanness washeld to be contagious (Hag.2.12). This is significant as itsuggests that the communication of holiness through consumingsacrificial offerings was a characteristic of the‘Melchizedek’ cult of the first temple but not of thesecond. It was, however, known to the author of the Testamentof Levi, and so this may have been how the elements of theEucharist were originally understood.

The Testament of Levi also describes the priestly serviceof the archangels in the highest heaven; they offer atonementsacrifices before the Great Glory and these offerings aredescribed as bloodless and logike, literally‘logical’ or ‘intellectual’ but commonlyrendered ‘reasonable’, ‘the reasonable andbloodless sacrifice’ (T.Levi 3.6). It has been suggested,however, that logike in the context of liturgy indicates‘belonging to the Logos’, just as it is used by Clementto describe the flock of the Good Shepherd who were not reasonablesheep, but sheep of the Logos (Instructor III 112i)[12]. The atonement sacrifice offeredby the archangels in Levi’s vision would then be thebloodless sacrifice of the Logos. What we cannot tell is whetheror not this was a pre-Christian text and whether or not otherreferences to the ‘reasonable’ sacrifice should beunderstood in this way.

There is nothing in the Hebrew Scriptures or in any related textwhich describes or explains the mystery of the Holy of holies andhow the presence of the LORD was believed to be present. Thismust, however, have been known to the priests who officiatedthere, and raises the question of what it was that Jesus the highpriest is said to have transmitted secretly to a few of hisdisciples after his own experience of ‘resurrection’.The evidence is consistent from the earliest period. Ignatius ofAntioch, wrote early in the second century, that our own highpriest is greater (than those of old) for ‘he has beenentrusted with the Holy of holies and to him alone are the secretthings of God committed’ (Phil.9). Clement of Alexandriacondemned people who were ‘making a perverse use of divinewords... they do not enter in as we enter in, through thetradition of the LORD by drawing aside the curtain’(Misc.7.17). The ‘true teachers preserved the tradition ofblessed doctrine derived directly from the holyapostles(Misc.1.1) and this tradition had ‘been impartedunwritten by the apostles’ (Misc.6.7). There had beenmysteries concealed in the Old Testament which the LORD revealedto the apostles and ‘there were certainly among the Hebrewssome things delivered unwritten’ (Misc.5.10).

The most likely mysteries to have been concealed in the OldTestament and transmitted unwritten are those of the priests,especially the secrets of the Holy of holies. There is no knownexplanation of the rites of atonement; all that survive are thepractical details of