I should like to comment on the claims made by your respondent Steve Nibbs (SA 10 March).

Perhaps Steve Nibbs could furnish your readers with some verifiable examples of the, ‘hedonism – sensual gratification and self indulgence’ he claims were ever present in the rituals of the pagan mystery religions of antiquity? In fact, the mystery religions were noted for their high degree of moral integrity, i.e. Mithraism.

Steve may be confusing the early Christian church with the pagans.

The early church practised the Agape or love feast. Such feasts often degenerated into licentiousness and drunkenness. The Christians of Corinth were reproved for their conduct by no less a personage than St Paul in his eponymous epistle to the Corinthians. Augustine, the famed bishop of Hippo, also condemned the love feast and prohibited its practice throughout his African See.

The sexual licence, drunkenness, and the use of psychotropic drugs during the Agape became an increasing embarrassment to the evolving established church. Indeed, it has been suggested that the ‘ecstasy’ of St Paul may itself have been drug induced, (see: ‘Paul’s Mysticism’ John L Cheek, 1970).

In consequence, the Agape was gradually removed from Christian ritual in its original form, at a series of church Councils, e.g. Carthage (393), Orleans (541), and finally Trullan (692), where excommunication was the penalty for the continuance of the practice.

It is true that pagans and Christians have had their differences down the centuries – but what is an orgy between friends?

Larry Wright, Burford Avenue, Swindon