1. Separation of catechumens from believers and men from women was carried out rigorously throughout the Patristic age.
3-4. Contrast [22. 6]. The kiss of peace marked the close of the service that preceded the eucharist (e.g., Constitutions VIII, 11, 9).
5. 1 Corinthians 11. 10.
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1. The imposition of hands was partly in blessing, partly in exorcism ([20. 3]). In later days the first of these impositions was regarded as the formal admission to the catechumenate.
2. A universal Patristic teaching.
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2. Hippolytus knows only two classes of catechumens, the hearers and those “set apart”. Subsequently the latter were called “elect”, “competent” or “enlightened”, and an intermediate class (“kneelers”) was introduced. Hippolytus says nothing about the duration of this last stage, but four to six or more weeks is later common.
3. Exorcism before baptism was universally practised and has survived in some form or other in practically all the traditional baptismal liturgies. It lacks New Testament precedent, but is based on the dualism found in John 14. 30, etc., according to which this world—and so all its unregenerate inhabitants—is under the sway of Satan and his angels. In Hippolytus’s community the exorcisms were presumably performed by the teachers, as he does not recognize exorcists as a separate class (compare on [chapter 15]).
4. The text of the last clause is so uncertain that the meaning of the whole is dubious. The Testament, however, asserts that the episcopal exorcism is bound to make an unworthy candidate betray himself, and there is no reason to doubt that Hippolytus believed the same.