Mystagogue

Mystagogue (Gr. Μυσταγωγός, from μύστης, an initiated person, and ἄγω, to lead), the name in the Greek religious system of the priest whose duty it was to direct the preparations of the candidates for initiation in the several mysteries, as well as to conduct the ceremonial of initiation. It was sometimes applied by a sort of analogy to the class of professional ciceroni, who in ancient as in modern times undertook to show to strangers newly arrived in a city the noteworthy objects which it contained (Cicero, act. 2, In Verrem, 54, c. 59); but the former meaning is its primitive one, and formed the ground of the application of the same name in the Christian Church to the catechists or other clergy who prepared candidates for the Christian mysteries, or sacraments, of baptism, confirmation, and the eucharist, especially the last. In this sense the word is constantly used by the fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries; and ill the well- known lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, although they were addressed to candidates for the mysteries, some for baptism, and some for the eucharist, it is only to the lectures addressed to the latter that the name mystagogic is applied. This distinction vas connected with the well-known Discipline of the Secret; and it appears to have ceased with the abolition or gradual disuse of that discipline. See Du Cange, Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Graecitatis, s.v.; Suicer, Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus, s.v.; SEE MYTSTAGOGY.