Post intelligent and civil comments. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the NLM
How much of this, however, is anachronistic, i.e., the medieval church consciously trying to make its liturgy resemble that of the Jewish Temple?
As far as I know, mainstream scholarship holds that early Christian worship was almost completely spontaneous. Clergy did not wear special vestments, incense was not used ceremonially, there were n oritual torches, ritual chants, ritual bells, etc. These are all medieval accretions.
I suspect that if we were to go to a first or second-century liturgy, it would resemble nothing like, say, a Latin High Mass. It would rather resemble a typical low-church Protestant service (one which had a Eucharist).
Of course, the theology would be Catholic, but in its externals very much like Evangelical.
No?
The idea that early Christian worship was informal and spontaneous is precisely one of the received views that Margaret Barker challenges in her work.
Eric G,
Are you hoping it was? Keep in the mind, in the ancient world, everything was highly ritualized, particularly worship. I wouldn't count on your theory. Besides, Pius XII in Mediator Dei condemned "archeologicalism" when it comes to Catholic worship.
Tom
Even prior to someone like Barker, that idea is a very weak assumption.
It actually seems to me that the idea of that which is early Christian is necessarily simple, etc. is a fairly modern -- and certainly more typically protestant -- sort of bias.
There was elaborate art, ritual/ceremonial and the like in these times and we see early Christian examples of their being employed.
Eric G.
You will have a hard time arguing this opinion. There are liturgies in the Eastern Churches that date back to the 200s, and there is no reason to believe that even at that time these were novelties. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that prior to the Constantinian era the Church lacked ritualized forms for worship and the sacraments. All available evidence in fact testifies to the contrary.
I look forward to reading Margaret Barker's book on the Temple roots of Christian liturgy.
It sounds quite fascinating.
Of course, I would be looking at this subject from a somewhat different angle, but I am sure it will be interesting reading nonetheless.
Very interesting. I had always suspected that the Temple may have been more important than "the synagogue" in 1st to 2nd century worship. As is obvious from the writings of Paul and James, Our Lord was considered the new high priest, not the new "archisynagogus." In addition modern scholars really doubt whether what is usually considered "synagogue services" actually existed until the very late 1st century, after the destruction of the Temple.
As to supposed reconstructions of what happened in Christian services. The fact is that there are no real descriptions of Christian worship between Paul's letters and the writings of St. Justin Martyr in the mid-second century. What liturgical historians produce in their books are mostly conjectures (wishful thinking?) founded on the most fragmentary of evidence.
This is certainly an interesting topic and I found Barker's book 'The Great High Priest' very interesting when I read it 5 years ago.
Regardless of how Christian liturgy developed, there is definitely a conscious desire to look to Temple liturgy for inspiration, and this is reflected in architecture, vesture etc. Consider for example, the 'Solomonic' columns that support the baldachino in St Peter's. They find their mythical origin in Solomon's Temple.
The links between the Temple liturgy and Christian worship are plentiful: one only has to read the Scriptures and then reflect on our Catholic liturgical tradition to see the resonances...
I am about to write a book review on a book about Solomon's Temple, and thus have been mulling on this issue for some time. Again, this is something I'd like to write for the NLM if only I had the time!
I would support any work that seeks to examine the liturgical forms of the early Church beyond the all too common belief that public worship in the Church was (as my high school religion text suggested) no more then an informal gathering with “storytelling” and a meal (I have even heard that the use of incense began for no reason other then the lack of deodorant in those times!).
Mr. Dino Marcantonio (whose work in neoclassical architecture was discussed last month on NLM) has written an interesting essay about the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome where he touches on the liturgy of the early Church. I will quote a relevant passage from the begining of the article:
http://
www.marcantonioarchitects...n_clemente.html
"There is much talk nowadays about restoring selected liturgical practices of the primitive Church so as to uncover an original purity, obscured by centuries, it is claimed, almost millenia, of extraneous accretions. So far as the Church’s building program is concerned, this is also true. Typically the archi-liturgical reform program is marked by an appeal to evoke the domestic setting of the early Church’s liturgy. As Christians were either persecuted or, at best, de facto tolerated until Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., they were indeed forced to meet secretly. However, there is still heated debate, fueled by comparatively little evidence, as to precisely what were the physical arrangements. We know that some churches were built before the end of the persecutions; however, none have survived so we know next to nothing about them. We do have evidence that Christians gathered in the tituli, or private properties donated to the Christian community by sympathetic patricians. But, again, very little is known about the architectural modifications that were made to accommodate religious services.i For all we know, these places were used in such a way as to imitate as much as possible the Temple and synagogal forms of the Jews. Indeed, what would one expect of the early Church, which grew directly from the Hebrew tradition. In any case, we should not be surprised at the lack of evidence as the primitive Church was convinced of the imminence of the Second Coming, a significant disincentive to investment in lasting church buildings.
Despite the paucity of remains, however, there is a suggestion in the liturgical reform program that a domestic setting per se is most fitting for the liturgy. Hence contemporary churches ought somehow to imitate this domestic intimacy, principally by designing horizontally proportioned spaces, and arranging the seating “in-the-round” in order to focus attention on the assembly. The proposed imitation of the ancient liturgical setting ends there, however, as the program for archi-liturgical reform, broadly speaking, also promotes the adoption of architectural forms which are decidedly untraditional, namely those modernist forms which are currently the fashion in the architectural profession today. In support, one often hears the phrase from Sacrosanctum Concilium “The Church has not adopted any particular style of art as her very own” (123) repeated with a depressing lack of finesse, as though the Church were obliged to adopt every trend without distinction.
There is every reason to believe, however, that an examination of the early basilicas built under Constantine and soon after would be very instructive regarding the primitive Church’s attitude toward the architectural setting for the liturgy, for a serious argument could be made that there was no radical shift in the Christian mentality regarding building after 313. It must be remembered that the construction of these early basilicas was a delicate political affair. Most of the aristocracy and the general population were still pagan, and would have been offended had Constantine pursued a triumphalist Christian building program ordered to the purposes of the state, possibly provoking an unstable political situation. For this reason, he proceeded very cautiously. The early basilicas were all constructed on private land on the outskirts of town, most outside the city walls (fuori le mura), and their exteriors were highly austere, even plain, so as not to attract attention. Only the interiors were richly decorated, and those would only be seen by the faithful.ii With this in mind one would expect these new church buildings to have been designed in organic continuity with the more secretive architectural settings which preceded them. Whatever was novel (permanent altars, elaborate decorations, etc.) represented the release of a longing that had been growing for generations, and the faithful who lived through the construction of the churches would not have been surprised, much less offended, by anything built."
This seems like a very interesting piece of scholarship to read.
I have been intrigued by this topic over the past few years as well. Also, I have often wondered if the diminished sense of the sacrificial nature of the Mass that we see today could be rediscovered by a deeper understanding of the sacrifices offered to God in the Jewish temple.
What happened to Eric? Tom
Lk 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read; and there was given him the book of the prophet Isaiah.
i guess 'modern scholars' do not think this synagogue service actually occurred.
I have yet to read any of her books but I've watched video of Margaret Barker speaking at Mormon conferences and the impression I have is that the Mormons believe her work supports their cause and she certainly didn't contradict this impression in her talks. In fact, she wove many dubious arguments in support of the book of Mormon during this conference which makes me wonder how objective and worthwhile her scholarship actually is.
In any case the Temple subject is extremely interesting and I'd like to read these books when I find the time.
Eric G. wrote: "As far as I know, mainstream scholarship holds that early Christian worship was almost completely spontaneous. Clergy did not wear special vestments, incense was not used ceremonially, there were no ritual torches, ritual chants, ritual bells, etc. These are all medieval accretions..."
I'm not sure what you consider to be mainstream scholarship but the picture you paint is not even consistent with outdated Vatican II era scholarship.
A good short summary of Vatican II era thinking might be T. Klauser's "Short History of the Western Liturgy" which was written before 1965 and revised in the 1970's I believe. The bibliography is impressive and it provides a nice summary statement of the ideology that inspired the novus ordo Mass. Chapter headings such as "Dissolution, Elaboration, Reinterpretation and Misinterpretation," "Rigid Unification and Rubricism," et cetera, ought to indicate the general tone of this tract.
Despite the evident hostility towards the "smells and bells" you speak of the author does not go so far as to suggest that these things are mere medieval accretions (this would be quite dishonest). In fact, Klauser - apparently summarizing scholarly consensus of the time - locates the origin of elaborate ceremonial in the era of Constantine with a certain high point (of decadence from his perspective) in the time of Pope Saint Gregory the Great. I would clarify that the existence of improvisation or extemporization at a given time does not mean that ritual details were absent - there is not a real dichotomy here – nor does it imply that the trajectory towards liturgical books was in any way contrary to the authentic spirit of Christian worship. In any case the assertion that ritual lights, chants, bells, et cetera are merely medieval accretions is totally absurd.
For the sake of brevity necessary in a comment box of this kind I have put together a small chronologically ordered bibliography of texts pertinent to the nature and history of improvisation and the early history of liturgical books.
C. Hanson, "The Liberty of the Bishop to Improvise Prayer in the Eucharist," Vigiliae Christianae 15 (1969)
L. Bouyer, "L'improvisation liturgique dans l'Eglise ancienne," La Maison-Dieu 111 (1972)
M. Vos, "A la recherche de normes pour les textes liturgiques de la messe," Revue d'Histoire ecclesiastique 69 (1974)
P. De Clerck, "Improvisation et livres liturgiques: lecons d'une histoire," Communautes et liturgie 60 (1978)
A. Bouley, "From Freedom to Formula: the Evolution of the Eucharistic Prayer from Oral Improvisation to Written Texts," Studies in Christian Antiquity 21 (1981)
E. Palazzo, "Le role des libelli dans la pratique liturgique du haut Moyen Age: Histoire et typologie," Revue Mabillon 62 (1990)
P.-M. Gy, "The Different Forms of Liturgical Libelli," Fountain of Life (1991)
I’m no liturgical scholar, just an interested layman really, but here are some more recent and general titles from my bookshelf that have been very helpful to me in understanding what mainstream scholarship is saying about the early liturgy.
E. Mazza, "The Origins of the Eucharistic Prayer," (1995)
P. Bradshaw, "Early Christian Worship" (1998)
E. Palazzo, "A History of Liturgical Books: From the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century" (1998)
E. Mazza, "The Celebration of the Eucharist: The Origin of the Rite and the Development of Its Interpretation" (1999)
P. Bradshaw, "The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship" (2002)
P. Bradshaw, "Eucharistic Origins" (2004)
If I may return to Klauser’s quaint diatribe I must say that in describing Christian liturgy prior to its supposed demise in ceremonial and accretions, he bases the core of his perspective on sources that have since been demonstrated to be quite dubious. For example there is a section devoted entirely to the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus as some sort of pristine example of unadulterated Christian worship (or course the Apostolic Constitutions, the Didache and other such sources are invoked – refer to the books listed above for general commentary on such sources). Of late the Hippolytean source has been a subject of particular interest to me and I should like to provide a bibliography of more recent sources that have shaped my own perspective on this matter. I consider this to be important because I believe that many of the errors of Vatican II era scholarship rest upon faulty assumptions regarding the sources of early liturgy. Without further ado here are the texts that I have found to be the most useful and/or engaging:
J.A. Cerrato, “Hippolytus between East and West”
A. Brent, “Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century”
A. Stewart-Sykes, "On the Apostolic Tradition"
Bradshaw, Johnson and Phillips, "The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary" (Hermeneia)
J. Baldovin, “Hippolytus and the Apostolic Tradition: Recent Research and Commentary,” Theological Studies, 64 (2003)
St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48 (2-3), 2004, Brent, Cerrato, Bradshaw, Stewart-Sykes, et al.
Please excuse the "cool" smilies, the text in those places was '8' followed by ')'
Fr. Augustine Thompson O.P. said: “Modern scholars really doubt whether what is usually considered ‘synagogue services’ actually existed until the very late 1st century, after the destruction of the Temple.”
Stigmatized responded: “ Lk 4:16… i guess 'modern scholars' do not think this synagogue service actually occurred.”
To make a long story short Fr. Augustine is quite correct, although my impression is that there is not exactly consensus on this matter. You object on the basis of the Gospel mention of synagogue activities but Fr. Augustine was speaking specifically of a ‘synagogue service’ which I interpret to mean the more formal synagogue liturgy which has been mistakenly viewed as the matrix of Christian liturgy at least insofar as the service of the word is concerned.
My understanding is that recent scholarship often interprets elements of the early synagogue liturgy as it was hitherto conceived (the quorum, the priestly benediction, the praying of the Shema and Tefillah, etc.) as being imports from the temple worship that ceased in 70 AD. My understanding is that some scholars of Jewish liturgy go so far as to say that prior to the third century AD there was not really any form of Sabbath liturgy and if this is true then what is referred to in Luke is the variable custom of gathering on the Sabbath to hear the reading of the Torah.
Part of the reason why this suggestion of recent scholarship is significant ought to be clear to one familiar with the “standard model” of Christian liturgy as articulated in such seminal works as “The Shape of the Liturgy” by Gregory Dix. Recent scholarship calls into question many of the assumptions and conclusions of what I call “Vatican II era scholarship” which sees the liturgy as directly descended from the synagogue service on the one hand, and the Jewish meal prayers on the other (berakah, et cetera). The bottom line is that the sources of early liturgy (Christian and Jewish) ought to be employed with much greater care and circumspection than has often been the case in the past. The presupposition of a fixed first-century synagogue liturgy is simply not substantiated by the sources (which then calls into question other assumptions derived from this), and the fact is, our knowledge of details in the first century is too sparse as to support many of the conclusions of earlier scholarship; at the very least it casts a shadow upon many of the inordinate enthusiasms of the late liturgical movement. I’m no expert on the finer details, and this is perhaps not the place for such a discussion, but here are a couple books from my collection that speak to this subject and a couple more that I am merely aware of as being quite pertinent (in chronological order of course).
L. Hoffman, "The Canonization of the Synagogue Service," (1979)
H. McKay, "Sabbath and Synagogue: The Question of Sabbath Worship in Ancient Judaism," (1994)
D. Falk, "Jewish Prayer Literature and the Jerusalem Church in Acts," in "The Book of Acts in its Palestinian Setting," (1995)
Bradshaw and Hoffman, eds, "The Making of Jewish and Christian Worship," (1991)
Bradshaw and Hoffman, eds, "Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times," (2000)
A good portion of Margaret Barker's book, "The Great High Priest" can be previewed at Google books:
http://books.google.com/books?
hl...ddtPfxw#PPP1,M1
Perhaps the one of Margaret Barker's books that reveals most clearly both the interest and the eccentricity of her scholarship is *The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God* (1992). Baldly put, the thesis of the book is that before the Babylonian Captivity the Jews were not purely monotheistic. They worshipped El, the creator God, and his son YHWH, their God, the God of Israel and (eventually) the only true God (obscuring, but not eclipsing, El, until aftern the return from the Exile). YHWH is for Barker the pre-Incarnate Son, pure and simple, and her book tells the story (as she sees it) of the 500+ year struggle between "the Deuteronomists" and their later intellectual descendants, the Pharisees, to "purify" the Israelite religion of any beliefs and practices that would suggest anything other than a pure moniotheism, as over against the adherents of "The Older Testament" (to give the title of her first book) which was ritualistic and symbolic, as opposed to legalistic and scribal.
Insofar as she applies this to Christianity, it makes for a Binitarian (the Father and the Son) rather than a Trinitarian perspective; but then she introduces "Hokhmah" or "Wisdom" (Sophia) as the third party, so as to make it in a sense "trinitarian." I cannot recall how she develops the theme further, as I borrowed the book from a friend when it was first published in 1992, and have not seen it since that time.
About a year ago a friend sent me some links to accounts of talks that she had given, and it did rather seem that she was being made much of by Mormons, some of whose views about linguistic and cultural parallels between the "history" revealed in the Mormon scriptures and those of pre-Christian "sectarian" or "fringe" Judaism she seemed inclined to endorse.
As a non-scholar (in this area) and non-specialist I think it's odd that insufficient attention has been given - in studying the 'earliest' Christian liturgy - to the descriptions of the Heavenly Liturgy in the Apocalypse (Revelation), which after all is part of the N. T. canon. It's hardly 'informal ... spontaneous ... horizontal ... focused on the assembly....'
gathering on the sabbath to read the torah is precisely what i meant by a synogogue service. the gospels weren't written yet so the torah and the prophets were all there was to read. it is pretty obvious. all the cleverly worded statements and lists of books in the world can't change it. most of the jews in the world at the time of Christ lived outside of israel. they had no access to the temple and their synogogues were of even geater importance to the life of their communities. in an era in which there was no printing press and no other means of transmitting the written word other than scrolls it would not be possible for people to learn about their faith except by gathering in the place where the scroll was kept for common use. to say that everyone had their own scrolls at home and that there was no need for formal services to hear them read would not be true. a lot of wool is being pulled down over this blog.
Stigmatized,
I appreciate your skepticism towards my statements as I believe that skepticism is generally a fitting attitude with respect to claims put forth about ancient liturgy. I take no offense at having my comments characterized as wool pulled over this blog.
I cannot speak for Father Augustine but in my opinion your objection to Father’s original statement was based on a misunderstanding of the issues. Similarly I believe your current objection is based on a misunderstanding of what I was actually attempted to put forth.
You said: “gathering on the sabbath to read the torah is precisely what I meant by a synagogue service…The gospels weren't written yet so the torah and the prophets were all there was to read.”
The existence of synagogical worship in the first century is not in dispute, it is rather the specific nature of the synagogue services that is in question (well, there are scholars who would deny the existence of the synagogue at this time and consider Luke-Acts to be anachronistic fiction but I wouldn’t call such a view mainstream or necessarily respectable). My understanding is that study of the Torah is the basic component of the synagogue service and the impetus of its primitive form (this is not to say that the primitive synagogue service was merely didactic, but it was the worship of God specifically through the hearing and pondering of the Torah – even the later readings from the Prophets, which included what we would call the historical books, were chosen in light of what was proclaimed from the Torah, thus the priority was still clear). What I was talking about above was the tendency of certain (mostly outdated) scholarship to view later synagogical forms as representative of first century practice and of building a theory of Christian liturgical origins on this basis. Perhaps you don’t realize that there is a great deal of literature (from such giants as Dix, Baumstark and Jungmann) which seeks to elaborate the early form of Christian worship on the basis of presumed preexistent synagogical practices that now appear to be later developments transposed upon the first century with little or no foundation. The reason I consider this to be an important issue is because of the formative influence that such theories had on the implementation of the modern liturgical reform. Many of the criticisms of traditional worship and many of the initiatives and decisions pertaining to the new rites were predicated upon fiction. In retrospect I would say that Pope Pius XII’s warnings against archaeologism were prophetic – but I digress. Here is a positive and yet basically realistic scholarly opinion on the matter:
"A direct dependence of the Christian liturgy of the Word on the worship of the synagogue for the earliest period is neither demonstrable nor likely. It is clear however that from the 2nd to the 4th century a development took place, at the end of which the liturgy of the Word...in important witnesses of the East exhibits an obvious affinity with the synagogical worship as regards the order of readings but also of the prayers. Especially in the Syriac region long-standing and close contacts with the Jews had openly existed which became effective in the history of tradition, after the separation of the Church from Jewry was completed."
H.B. Meyer, "Eucharistie: Geschichte, Theologie, Pastoral," in "Gottesdienst der Kirche: Handbuch der Liturgiewissenschaft" p. 117
I can't remember the source at the moment but I do recall reading a somewhat unorthodox but provocative discussion of this subject from the vantage point of Christian worship as influential in the formation of the canonical synagogue services. In any case to make statements about parallels between Christian liturgy and synagogue services prior to the third or fourth century is to strain the available evidence significantly (to say the least).
The common approach used to be to put the components of the Mass of the Catechumens alongside a crude outline of the imaginary first century Jewish synagogue service and "demonstrate" that the fore-mass is simply the continuation of the synagogue. I certainly don't doubt the importance of the synagogue in early Christian life, but the fact is that this classical picture is grossly inadequate and most probably quite wrong. I intimated above that some of these features of the imaginary first century synagogue service are now thought to be practices proper to the temple worship of that time that were only incorporated into the synagogue service at a later time (some features were quite simply later developments; at least if one sticks with the concrete evidence). Similarly there are those who, based on archaeological and literary evidence, believe that what we think we know about the structure of the synagogue service hardly applies to pre-third century Jewish practices. Either way, greater circumspection and reservation is in order in "reconstructing" first century Christian worship and the limits of such reconstructive effort need to be made very clear – this was my closing point and I stand by it. Most of what is spouted off about the early liturgy in popular forums is little more than haphazard caricature and quite often absurdity. So that you don't have to simply take my word for it I will quote some leading scholars.
"A growing number of scholars now doubt that any form of regular Sabbath liturgy as such was a feature of the synagogue before the third century. Instead, it seems to have been an assembly for the primary purpose of studying a portion of the Torah on every Sabbath and festival (at which some praying might also have been done) that was a regular feature of the synagogue from the outset, and may have constituted the fundamental reason for the emergence of that institution...The morning assembly on Sabbaths and festivals also included a second reading from the Prophets...This too was probably a later development, though Luke 4:16-30 and Acts 13:15 indicate that it was established in the first century CE."
P. Bradshaw, "The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship," pp. 36-37
"Dix [Dom Gregory Dix] shared the standard scholarly consensus that the first half of the rite was 'in its Shape simply a continuation of the Jewish synagogue service of Our Lord's time', and declared that its 'original unchanging outline...everywhere' was:
1. Opening greeting by the officiant and reply of the church.
2. Lesson.
3. Psalmody.
4. Lesson (or Lessons, separated by Psalmody).
5. Sermon.
6. Dismissal of those who did not belong to the church.
7. Prayers.
8. Dismissal of the church.
This conclusion involves two major presuppositions: first, that the contents of the first-century synagogue Sabbath service were fixed and are known to us; second, that the fact that these eight elements are consistently found in liturgical sources from the fourth century onwards means that they must have been in existence from early times. But all of this is far from certain...
Moreover, while Dix believed that the custom of singing psalms between the readings 'must have been familiar to our Lord and His apostles, since it was universal in the synagogues of their day', we have already seen that more recent scholarship has cast serious doubt on this...
What we are left with in terms of alleged similarities between the worship of the synagogue and that of the early Church is simply that both apparently had readings from their Scriptures, preaching, and prayers. These are not particularly striking parallels. Nor have we any reason to suppose that this development must have involved an 'unchanging outline...everywhere'."
P. Bradshaw, "Search," pp. 122-123
"...Many efforts were made to try and establish Jewish origins for Christian daily prayer. However the idea that we can trace a direct line between synagogue worship and that of the early church is now largely abandoned. Jewish scholars also were increasingly pointing out the dearth of evidence for a recognizable synagogue service at the time of Christ. The tradition of twice daily prayer in Christianity does not seem to have direct Jewish roots."
G. Woolfenden, "Daily Liturgical Prayer: Origins and Theology," p. 4 (2004)
I can only reproduce so much information in a comment box so I would suggest looking into the sources I provided above if you are interested in more of the details. I would also add the book "Reconstructing the First-Century Synagogue: A Critical Analysis of Current Research" by Stephen Catto (published last month) for a more general and most up-to-date discussion of the subject of the synagogue. This book has a detailed chapter devoted to the Lukan text you referred to as well.
Charles A.,
I too am a non-scholar in this area but I must confess that I am greatly intrigued by the liturgy and do a good bit of casual reading on the subject. The liturgical role of the early Christian hymns, the possible liturgical implications of Hebrews, Luke-Acts, Revelation, et cetera are a subject of deep fascination to me but unfortunately I haven't researched this particular topic in any detail. The liturgical reading of Revelation is a deeply patristic theme and you would think that the spirit of Ressourcement would have revived this profound idea, but the impression I have is that it is generally written off as anachronistic. The post-Nicene fathers may have understood things in this way but the biblical author couldn’t possibly…, et cetera.
I did at one point put together a bibliography on this precise subject in the hope that one day I would be able to devote some time to it. Currently I've only collected a fraction of this list but I will provide it here in case you're interested. Perhaps two years from now I will have studied the texts below and will be in a better position to discuss the topic intelligently.
O. Cullman, "Early Christian Worship" (1953)
M. Shepherd, "The Paschal Liturgy and the Apocalypse" (1960)
G. Delling, "Worship in the New Testament" (1962)
Y. Congar, "The Mystery of the Temple" (1962)
E. Maly, "Israel: God's Liturgical People," in "Liturgy for the People: Essays in Honor of Gerhard Ellard, S.J., 1894-1963" (1963)
P. Prigent, "Apocalypse et liturgue" (1964)
F. Hahn, "Worship in the Early Church" (1973)
E. Cothenet, "Earthly Liturgy and Heavenly Liturgy according to the Book of Revelation", in "Roles in the Liturgical Assembly," (1981)
D.R. Carnegy, "Worthy is the Lamb: The Hymns in Revelation," in "Christ the Lord" (1982)
J. Levenson, "The Temple and the World," Journal of Religion 64 (1984)
W. Dumbrell, "The End of the Beginning: Revelation 21:22 and the Old Testament" (1985)
D. Aune, "The Apocalypse of John and the Problem of Genre," Semeia 36 (1986)
D. Barr, "The Apocalypse of John as Oral Enactment," Interpretation 40 (1986)
C. Deutsch, "Transformation and Symbols: The New Jerusalem in Rev. 21:1-22:5," Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 78 (1987)
H. Ulfgard, "Feast and Future: Revelation 7:9-17 and the Feast of Tabernacles," New Testament Series 22 (1989)
U. Vanni, "Liturgical Dialogue as a Literary Form in the Book of Revelation," New Testament Studies 37 (1991)
R. Murray, "The Cosmic Covenant" (1992)
J.P. Ruiz, "Revelation 4, 8-11, 5, 9-14: Hymns of the Heavenly Liturgy," SBLSP 34 (1995)
A.R. Nusca, "Heavenly Worship, Ecclesial Worship: A Liturgical Approach to the Hymns of the Apocalypse of St. John" (1998)
E. Balentine, "The Torah's Vision of Worship" (1999)
W. Hulitt Gloer, "Worship God! Liturgical Elements in the Apocalypse," Review and Expositor 98 (2001)
D. Mathewson, "A New Heaven and a New Earth: The Meaning and Function of the Old Testament in Revelation 21:1-22:5," Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 238 (2003)
S. Pattemore, "The People of God in the Apocalypse: Discourse, Structure and Exegesis," Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 128 (2004)
G. Schimanowski, "Connecting Heaven and Earth: The Function of Hymns in Revelation 4-5," in "Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions" (2004)
the belief that Jesus of Nazareth is the savior was brought to rome by Peter, or other jewish disciples. the church of rome began among the jews of rome. it grew within their community. how could pagan roman believers have created from their own marvelous creativity a service based on the jewish scriptures which were written in a language they did not as a rule understand?? all of the ancient churches began from the first jewish converts. when you say, "I intimated above that some of these features of the imaginary first century synagogue service are now thought to be practices proper to the temple worship of that time that were only incorporated into the synagogue service at a later time," i would say Of Course...in other words, just as a child can go to church and then imitate what he sees as play so did the jews who visited the temple and returned to their far away countries imitate the practices of the temple in their communities in order to make themselves feel closer to the temple. this did not occur at a later time but was continually the case as the jews were commanded to make the temple the center of their lives. it is pretty basic. the worship of the early church comes from both the temple/synagogue services which the first christians in jerusalem and other places attended, even daily, and from the evening meal in the jewish household with began with the breaking of bread. Jesus gave this common daily rite within the household a new and incredible reality. when the temple was destroyed and the jewish believers were no longer welcome in the synagogues they had to meet in their own places for the readings. their numbers having become so large required special places where they could carry out the readings and share in the common meal. the other pagan converts looked to them entirely as they knew Jesus and the apostles were jews. the use of "uncertainty" to deny basic facts is a sad characteristic of modern scholarship because, in the end, one must deny more and more in order to be consistent in one's denial.
stigmatized,
First I should like to thank you for your reply and second I should apologize for not making my points with sufficient clarity. Based on my introductory studies on this topic I would say that modern scholarship is not about uncertainty for its own sake. There has been a lot of insight into the complexities of Christian and Jewish life in the first centuries AD as well as the limits of the sources. To accept these evidences is to be open to reality and hopefully gain fuller access to the truth (one way or another). To dogmatically cling to superficial narratives that don’t really explain the data is to be deluded or complacent. I think if you return to Fr. Augustine’s original statement and can discern how your subsequent reply is quite irrelevant, you may then understand that your debate with me is similarly frivolous. I hope that you will give scholarship a fair chance and delve deeper into the historical, literary and archaeological sources. I fear that I lack the perspicuity to be of much help since hitherto my attempts at clarification have seemingly served to obfuscate matters further.
Cheers!
dear L_D, i have read a number of the books on your lists and they simply do what i have said. Bradshaw is relying on uncertainty. but we have more to rely on than uncertainty. there is actual evidence from the scriptures themselves and from comparitive liturgy. we know what we have now and we can compare the earliest versions of the various liturgies...monastic, cathedral, and synagogue. when we do so we are not left with nothing...we are left with jewish prayer forms being used by christians. there are many ways of distancing oneself from this reality, not the least of which is 'modern scholarship'.
stigmatized,
Thank you for your fair reply. I do agree that excessive agnosticism does happen and can be a danger or sorts, and I can basically agree with your position on this so far as post-fourth century worship is concerned, however, if the topic is specifically first-century worship I must say that I find the observations of scholars such as Bradshaw to be very compelling. I don't believe I am competent to try and convince you of this, and if you have read some of this scholarship and do not share my view it may be that we simply have very different perspectives; I can respect that.
I do not believe that I am simply predisposed to embrace uncertainty on this topic. Quite frankly I wish that we had ten times the sources on early liturgy. I just do not believe that the Scriptures and other early sources provide a comprehensive picture of the developments of Christian worship. This is largely a conjectural enterprise and many of the assumptions of earlier scholarship have been severely undermined.
And for the record I do not have some innate hostility towards the idea that Christian worship is rooted in Jewish worship; I sense that maybe you believe this is where I'm coming from. On the contrary I believe that this is obviously the case and I embrace this fact; it is the finer details of this picture that concern me. However I will admit that compared to some I have a tendency to stress the distinctiveness of Christian worship but I believe this is actually justified based on Biblical and early Patristic evidence. How many Jews gathered in the synagogue to sing hymns to Christ as to a God? I believe that the Christological element is decisive in this discussion, as is the import of the revelation of the Kingdom, and that the "schism" from Judaism may have been earlier than is sometimes thought. Of course by accepting the conjectural nature of this sort of investigation I would not presume to assert my views in an absolute way.
I do tend to believe that viewing the celebration of the Eucharist as merely a development of the Passover meal is seriously lacking. This is not to say that the prayers of the early Christian communities were not based on Semitic forms, but while I agree that the Christian Eucharist clearly took over substantial elements from the Jewish traditions I also believe that it had taken on a distinct form of its own from apostolic times. The Eucharistic actions had its own unique (and radical I would say) context from the very beginning. It was not simply the repetition of the Passover tradition or of Sabbath worship; it was the celebration of the Lord’s Day, the first day of a new creation and the manifestation of the Kingdom of God and the presence of the Risen Lord in His body the Church; the assembly of those who have died with Christ and now worship in Spirit and truth. This is the real inner dynamism in the development of early Christian worship insofar as it is a distinct reality. To try and separate this from the Jewish context would obviously be a mistake, but the newness of Christian worship is not always appreciated in my opinion, especially when things are neatly wrapped up as simple developments of Jewish worship.
But this is probably a tangential discussion, and it is certainly too complex to be treated of adequately in a little comment box. Ultimately my view is that the apparent skepticism of current scholarship is a good thing because it may open up avenues of exploration that would otherwise be missed by clinging to the old outlines of 1950’s scholarship. There are always new archaeological discoveries that shed new light on those early centuries and I’m at least open to the possibility that the standard theories are partial at best and perhaps missing some significant insight. If the price of this is to admit a fair degree of uncertainty in these matter than so be it.
Cheers!
dear D_L, please do not forget something very important...the jewish day begins at sundown. sunday begins on saturday evening. the L=rd's day was celebrated by them at the evening meal which concluded the sabbath day, following the assembly to read and study the scripture. bread was broken at the start of this evening meal which took place in the houses of the believing jews and often lasted into the night as they were recalling what Yeshua said and did. the blessing over bread was and is the start of the evening meal among religious jews. these two elements, referred to by '50s people as "word" and "table", were separate at the beginning. there weren't any gospels read in the first part because there weren't any written yet. the believers were discussing amongst themselves the words of Yeshua and even the ritual bath necessary in the jewish observance, and still necessary, was used by them for their purpose. it is obvious...except for those divorced from judaism without visitation privileges.
Most really early Christians would have been spending Saturday at the synagogue. Romans understood Jews taking off Saturday.
Sunday, the Lord's Day, was a workday, though. So they might have a night meal or certain prayers on Saturday night, but they were sneaking off to Sunday Mass in the early morning, before cockcrow.
If you look at things like the Didache, it seems that the informal features were pretty well restricted to the meal part. Not the communion part - the agape chowdown after synagogue/Mass part. A synagogue chowdown is somewhat formal, in that people remember they're in synagogue and not at home. (Something that some people apparently had trouble remembering, once they started eating and drinking wine.) Psalm singing seemed to have happened lots of places, but especially at home in a Christian home, in social situations. You get a lot of early Christians talking about how delightful it was to spend time singing the psalms with friends, or with one's spouse.
It would also seem that all the first and second generation Christians had a fearsomely huge knowledge of the Old Testament, even after the early Christians stopped going to synagogue on Saturday. So clearly, there was a good deal of formal and informal use of those scriptures. Of course, they were all read in the light of pointing to Jesus as well.
the breaking of bread took place in people's houses, not in the synagogue.
Take a look at this picture of an Orthodox Christian Church.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki...ch-
interior.jpg
See anything that looks like it might be modeled after the Temple?
With certain areas where people are not allowed to pass through? The Nave is as far as most of us go. Clergy and their designates are the only ones allowed in the Sanctuary.
[quote]1Cr 14:16[/quote][quote] Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?[/quote]
The "room of the unleared" is the porch and narthax.
Why is that?
Did you not know that Christians have been replaying "over and over again" the same thing year after year that they did in the Temple in the earliest of days?
When they were kicked out of the Temple and James was killed they went into some of the more wealthy members homes and continued what they were doing. They didn't change it... they arranged everything to be as close to what they were doing in the Temple as possible. They knew that they did not have to have the Temple, they themselves were able to call on The Holy Spirit regardless of where they were. Even when hiding from the authorities because it was illeagal to teach Christianity.
That's the root of it. It was illeagal. What do secular scholars know about the underground movement called Christianity?
If you want to understand Christianity, arrange to go to catechumen classes and ask questions from the clergy. It is their "clerical job" to have maintained this information, all the record keeping is done through their offices.
A secular scholar could do nothing more than go ask them. Why not learn it in person.
Listen to The Divine Liturgy year after year (it repeats) and ask questions... it will all come together. Listen to the homilies (the preaching and teaching). (Some call it boring... old and dead. These are usually people who do not yet know what is happening.) Follow the whole Church not just a specific minister. Learn what she teaches from her.
I challenge you to look for the "DOGMA"... and be careful about DOCTRINES.
Forgive me...
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