It implies the notion that some advantage attaches to the knowledge of it which gives the initiated a position superior to outsiders. The heathens gave the name of “mysteries” to the symbolical or sacred words and acts which they kept secret from the multitude, or to the hidden meaning of their liturgy, understood only by the initiated. The Fathers applied the term to the sacred words and acts of the true religion, kept secret from the heathen and catechumens, and understood only by the perfect, especially the mysteries knowable only by Faith which are veiled under the sacramental appearances (cf. Card. Newman, Development, p. 27).
1. The notion of theological mystery properly so called implies that the mysterious truth is incapable of being discovered by human reason, and that, even after it is revealed, reason cannot prove its existence. These conditions, however, are fulfilled by many truths which are not usually styled mysteries. Hence we must add the further condition that the truth should be naturally unknowable on account of its absolute and objective superiority to our sphere of knowledge, and that we should consequently be unable to obtain a direct and proper, but only an analogical, representation of its contents. A mystery is therefore subjectively above reason and objectively above nature.
2. That there are such mysteries has been defined by the Vatican Council. “Besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are proposed for our belief the mysteries hidden in God, which, unless they were divinely revealed, could not be known.” Although by means of analogy we may obtain some knowledge of these mysteries, nevertheless human reason is never able to perceive them in the same way as it perceives the truths which are its proper object. “The Divine mysteries, by their very nature, so far surpass the created intellect that, even when they have been imparted by Revelation and received by Faith, they nevertheless remain hidden and enveloped, as it were, in a sort of mist, as long as in this mortal life we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight” (sess. iii., chap. 4). And the Council speaks of the
