Another ceremony used in the admission of Catechumens, at least in some Churches, mentioned by S. Augustine De Peccatorum meritis, ii. 42.:  “Sanctification is not of one kind only:  for I suppose that Catechumens also are sanctified in a certain way of their own by the sign of Christ’s Cross, and the Prayer of the Imposition of Hands; and that which they receive, though it be not the Body of Christ, is yet an holy thing, and more holy than the common food which sustains us, because it is a sacrament.”  From this passage it has been inferred that consecrated bread (εὐλογίαι, panis benedictus), taken out of the oblations provided for the Eucharist, was given to the Catechumens,—an opinion which seemed to have some support in the comparison between “that which the Catechumens receive,” and “the food which sustains us.”  But Bingham maintains Antiq. X. ii. § 16. that S. Augustine here refers only to the symbolical use of salt, of which he says in his Confessions, I. xi., that while yet a boy he “used to be marked with the sign of His Cross, and seasoned with His salt.”  The meaning of this so-called “Sacrament of the Catechumens” was that by the symbol of salt “they might learn to purge and cleanse their souls from sin.”