¹ Origen, the pupil of St. Clement of Alexandria, and the best—informed and most learned of the Church Fathers, who held the doctrine of rebirth and karma to be Christian, and against whom, two hundred and ninety—nine years after he was dead, excommunication was decreed by the exoteric Church, on account of his beliefs, has said : ‘But that there should be certain doctrines not made known to the multitude, which are [revealed] after the exoteric ones have been taught, is not a peculiarity of Christianity alone, but also of philosophic systems, in which certain truths are exoteric and others esoteric’ (Origen Contra Celsum, Book I, c. vii). That Origen was a sound Christian in this view—despite his condemnation as a * heretic’ by the corrupt Second Council of Constantinople, held by the exoteric Church—is clear from sayings attributed to the Founder of Christianity Himself: Unto you [the chosen disciples] it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God; but unto them that are without [i. e. the multitude] all these things are done in parable : that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand’ {Mark, iv. n—ia); cf. St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, ii. 7 ; iii. i—a; and Pistis Sophia, \. 9, ia, 15, ana passim, translation by G. R. S. Mead (London, 1896).