The Worship of the Ancient Church
The objective of this paper is to summarize what can be known of the worship of the post-apostolic church, from Pliny the Younger's letter to the reforms of Gregory the Great. The elements of preaching, public reading of Scripture, prayer, hymnody and psalmody, and the Lord's Supper, as well as the observance of the Lord's Day and the development of feast days, will be examined and developments evaluated.
The Apostolic Church (33-100 A.D.)
Our starting point is our understanding of the essential continuity between the worship of the apostolic church and that of the synagogue which preceded it. "It is well known that the Christian service of reading, sermon, and prayer," says Roman Catholic liturgical scholar Josef A. Jungmann, "had its model in the service held each Sabbath morning in the synagogue."
Hughes Old, in his magisterial The Reading and Preaching of Scripture in the Worship of the Christian Church (7 volumes planned), suggests, on the basis of James 2:1, regarding one coming "into your assembly" (sunag_g_n), that for 30-40 years after Pentecost "the Christians had their own synagogues and maintained liturgy much as other synagogues in the city."
Old summarizes:
"James' little remark about Christian synagogues suggests that the Christians of Jerusalem started out by following the worship patterns of the Jewish synagogue, with its strong emphasis on preaching and teaching."
This view has considerable scholarly support among both New Testament scholars, liturgists, and church historians. R. P. Martin, in Worship in the Early Church, points out that the early Christians were diligent at attending the "prayer assembly" (t_ proseuch_ - Acts 1:14), the term used being "a regular one for the Jewish synagogue fellowship" (Acts 16:13,16). Martin notes "that some scholars have drawn the inference from this word that the disciples in Jerusalem formed themselves into a synagogue." These Christian synagogues continued to worship as they had, Christianizing the synagogue's form: prayer in Jesus' name, a Christological interpretation of the Old Testament, and the observance of the Lord's Supper. "There would be no need to invent new forms of worship," says Martin.
"Christianity entered into the inheritance of an already existing pattern of worship, provided by the Temple ritual and synagogue liturgy . . ."
Martin quotes W. D. Maxwell's An Outline of Christian Worship with approval: "Christian worship . . . arose from the fusion . . . of the synagogue and the Upper Room." Again, "The church . . . borrowed many of its forms of worship from the Temple and synagogue," says Martin, and of these "the influence of the synagogue on Christian worship was more permanent and deep." Oscar Cullmann, writing in his important monogram, Early Christian Worship, concurs: "The individual elements of the outward form arose from Judaism." Renown liturgical scholar Horton Davies supports this view as well:
". . . the worship of the early Christians is basically a modification of synagogue worship, with the special addition of the Lord's Supper. For this reason it is important to understand the character of synagogue worship, itself a simplification of the worship of the Temple."
So it was, he argues,
"the church did not inaugurate an entirely new type of worship . . . the temple and the synagogue and their liturgies formed the natural background of their worship."
What this meant in practice was that the worship of the early Christians consisted of simple, even spiritual services of Scripture reading, exposition, prayer, and psalmody, to which was added the observance of the Lord's Supper. The early Christians purposely avoided the ceremony and ritual of the temple in favor of the simplicity of the synagogue.
One may take Acts 2:42 as the basic text describing the worship of the Apostolic church:
And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Scholars since Martin Bucer in his defense of the reform of worship, Grund und Ursach, and modern exegetes such as Oscar Cullmann, I.H. Marshall, and Everette Harrison, among others, have argued that Luke is identifying the four essential elements of the church's worship.
1. The ministry of the word. Lectio continua reading and exposition of Scripture was taken from the synagogue (e.g. Luke 4:16-27; Acts 13:14; Acts 15:21; etc). and became a central element of Christian worship (cf. Acts 5:42; 6:2,4).
2. The ministry of the table. Most modern commentators agree that the phrase, "the breaking of bread," can only refer to the observance of the Lord's Supper.
3. The ministry of prayer. "Prayer" is literally "the prayers" and according to most commentators refers to formal, stated, public prayers, again patterned after the intercessions of the synagogue.
4. Fellowship (Koinonia). Scholars from Martin Bucer, in his influential Grund und Ursach, to Jeremias have suggested that koinonia may refer to alms-giving as an element of the worship of the early church. Indeed, it does have a range of meaning from "sharing" to "participation" to "fellowship." It indicates, at least, their devotion to one another and to the Christian assembly.
5. Psalmody. "Psalmody was a part of the synagogue service that naturally passed over into the life of the church," says E. F. Harrison. Morning prayers at the synagogue normally began with the chanting of Psalms 145-150. Not surprisingly, we find the early Christians lifting their voices "with one accord," likely indicating singing or reciting the Psalms in unison (Acts 4:24).
6. Lord's Day Worship. We read of the church assembly at Troas.
And on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul began talking to them, intending to depart the next day, and he prolonged his message until midnight. (Acts 20:7)
"Here the text does seem to imply," says Hughes Old, "that it was the regular procedure to meet on the first day of the week and break bread." This view would be supported by the account of the collections at Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:2).
The picture that emerges from the pages of the New Testament, particularly from Acts 2:42; 4:23-31; 20:7, is that of a church worshiping after the simple manner of the synagogue: the word was read and explained, the Lord's Supper was observed, the prayers were offered, psalms were sung, all in the context of the mutuality of fellowship and on the Lord's Day. Little is to be seen of ceremonial or ritual. This short review of the biblical data provides us with a norm, a standard by which to evaluate the subsequent developments in the worship of the church. This is the concern of the remainder of this paper.
Post-Apostolic Church (100-600 A.D.)
Old notes the problems in trying to reconstruct the worship of the post-apostolic and particularly the ante-Nicene Church: the dearth of primary sources. "We admit," he says, "that the church of the second and third centuries has not left us a great amount of material about its worship, especially in regard to actual sermons." As Jungmann has pointed out, "practically no written texts were used in ancient times" and "only a little . . . was actually written down." Yet it has left us enough, in such documents as the Didache (ca. 80-ca. 110), the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (ca. 217), Justin Martyr's First Apology (ca. 155), and writings of Tertullian (ca. 150-ca. 225) and Origen (ca. 185-ca. 254), and the only three sermons of the period, one from Melito of Sardis (ca. 130-ca. 190), the so-called Second Epistle of Clement (ca. 125), and a third from Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215). From these documents "it is evident that preaching and teaching occupied a primary place in the life of the earliest Christians." One can see strong lines of continuity between the worship of the apostolic church and that of the early post-apostolic church. From the time of Constantine's conversion (ca. 313) resources multiply. But there also begins a drift away from Apostolic simplicity toward ceremonialism, ritualism, and asceticism, which under Gregory became normative for the church for the next thousand years.
Baptism
Baptism in the New Testament, and as described in the Didache (ca. 80-ca. 110 A.D.) and Justin Martyr's First Apology (ca. 155 A.D.), reflects the continuing Apostolic simplicity into the late first and early second centuries. Justin describes a simple washing with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, without any additional anointings, washings, or exorcisms which would become so prominent in the fourth century. In Tertullian's On Baptism (ca. 200-206), however, pre-baptismal anointing with chrism has been added as well as the imposition of hands. Tertullian was the first to apply the term "sacrament" or "oath" to baptism and understood the covenantal dimension of commitment. He even urged delay of baptism beyond infancy to an age of responsible choice lest those baptized as children "fail to fulfill their promises." Those who understand baptism's "mighty import" will "fear its reception more than its delay," he insists.
Tertullian is biblical throughout his presentation. Yet he (and frankly, Justin before him) approaches baptismal regeneration and we see in his stress upon preparation of or baptism through "repeated prayers, fasts, and bending of the knee, and vigils all the night through, and with the confession of all bygone sins" the beginnings of an approach that emphasizes the worthiness of the one to be baptized, not the graciousness of the gospel.
With Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition (ca. 217) ceremonialism begins to creep into the worship of the church. Hippolytus treats baptism as a series of exorcisms, the Eucharistic Prayer as something approaching magic, and yet says little about the prayer of intercession or the reading and preaching of Scripture. However he is very concerned with "correct order" and "minute details," notes Old. He was, to put it simply, a "ceremonialist." Unlike the case of Justin Martyr's Apology, extrabiblical rituals and practices abound (e.g. oil or cheese and olives are offered to God; milk, honey, and water were distributed in the "paschal mass;" the observance of six hours of prayer is urged.
His extra-biblical ceremonialism is especially clear concerning baptism. Catechumens were expected to be instructed for three years before they could be baptized. Ceremonies were to be intensified in Holy Week leading up to baptism and first eucharist. Catechumens were to be "exorcised daily" throughout the week. They were to be washed on the fifth day, fast on Friday and Saturday, be exorcized by the bishop on Saturday, who was to "breathe on their faces and seal their foreheads and ears and noses . . ." All Saturday night was to be spent by catechuems in vigil. The baptism itself involved oils of thanksgiving and exorcism, the devil was to be renounced and various ritual movements to be observed (e.g. facing east).In other words, we find in Hippolytus a dramatic increase in both the church's asceticism (with fasts and sleep deprivation) and its ceremonialism. Salvation by works and magic are clearly on the horizon. The change in the sixty years since Justin's Apology is so significant that one wonders if the date of the Apostolic Tradition might be off by a hundred years, or if the neo-platonic trends (asceticism and ceremonialism) had not made deeper inroads in the second century than heretofore considered.
By the fourth century the Apostlic Constitutions (c. 380), Ambrose's On the Sacraments (ca. 380-390), several sermons of Augustine, and especially Cyril of Jerusalem's Mystagogical Catechisms (ca. 350 A.D.), reinforced by Egeria's observations recorded in her Pilgrimage Journal (ca. 381-384), demonstrate that the ceremonial simplicity of previous centuries had vanished. In Jerusalem baptismal preparations were expanded to take place over several days. On the Saturday before Easter an all-night vigil was held. Elaborate ceremonies would unfold in which the baptismal font was blessed, final exorcisms and anointing took place, and finally catechumens were tri-immersed in the name of the Trinity. The bishop then laid hands on the initiated and anointed them with chrism. Chrismation is particularly instructive because it likely started a standard post-bathing practice which gradually became a part of the baptism ritual and eventually was given sacramental status. Its development as a ritual, says Old, "likely owes its existence to a concern to make baptism and first communion which followed it into Christian mysteries more splendid than the rites of initiation so popular in the Helenistic world." The baptized were dressed in white robes and led back into the church to receive first communion just as the light of Easter day was beginning to break. "This was all quite splendid as liturgical drama," admits Hughes Old, but it also "was far removed from the sort of baptismal service held by the apostles."
Yet Cyril's innovations proved influential. At the same time that Cyril was developing the symbolic ritualism that would prove so influential in the liturgical development of the church, Constantine was providing the ecclesiastical theaters in which the ceremonies could be housed. "Constantine's architectural donations provided the setting for worship as mystery," Old claims. New monumental church buildings were erected on historic sites in Jerusalem: Church of the Nativity, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Church of Eleona on the Mount of Olives. Torch-light processionals were held in connection with the churches and various historic sites such as Bethlehem, Lazarus' tomb, Gethsemane, and Golgotha. Jerusalem and its surroundings, says Hughes Old, were turned into a "theme park" for religious tourists. Cyril's "new conception of the liturgy," as Dom Gregory Dix calls it, was widely imitated through the influence of returning pilgrims who eagerly sought to duplicate their Jerusalem experience. "In the 80's & 90's of the (fourth) century the new Jerusalem observances begin to come in like a flood all over Christendom," says Dix. Rentel refers to fourth century Jerusalem not only as "a perpetual and inexhaustible source for new liturgical practices" and the major influence on liturgical development of the newly founded Constantinople and its future Byzantine form of Christianity. There were misgivings, particularly in the older churches about Cyril's innovations, but in the end they prevailed. Dix figures that Cyril's Holy Week and Easter cycle "is at the basis of the whole future Easter observances of this culminating point of the Christian year." He attributes to Cyril and the Jerusalem church the creation of the "divine office" (with its multiple hours of prayer), the church calendar, the use of liturgical vestments, the carrying of lights, and the use of incense.
Christian baptism "had become an elaborate liturgical drama rivaling the initiatory rites of the Greek mystery religions," Old observes. Moreover, baptisms came to be delayed until late in life, when one had proven one's worthiness to receive it. "Baptism had become a sign of salvation by works rather than salvation by grace."
Augustine's writings, particularly his polemics against Pelagius, reemphasized the baptism of infants particularly as a sign of the graciousness of salvation. Infant baptism again became customary. But it remained encrusted with multiple anointings, exorcisms, gestures, and rituals that betrayed its original apostolic simplicity, and an accompanying ethos of worthiness that tended to compromise the graciousness of the gospel.
Lord's Day
Pliny the Younger (A.D. 110) notes that Christians assembled to worship on the first day of the week, as does Justin Martyr who calls it the "Lord's Day" in his Apology (c. 155 A.D.), as well as in his Dialogue with Trypho (ca. 135 A.D.). The Didache (c. 80-110) locates worship on the Lord's Day, and Tertullian transferred most of the Sabbath legislation of the Old Testament to Sunday. Beginning with Constantine the Roman Christian emperors mandated that Sunday be a day of rest as well as worship. As for special fast days, Origen and others saw this as a Judaizing tendency while offering a strong commitment to the Lord's Day.
However, as noted in the preceding section, in the third and fourth centuries the church began to develop an elaborate calendar of feast and fast days. The observance of Easter and Pentecost may go back to the first century. Christmas was added in the fourth century. Lent was originally developed in the fourth century as a penitential preparation for Easter baptisms. Advent was added in the sixth century to parallel Lent as penitential preparation for Christmas.
Increasingly lost in the expanding calendar was the weekly Christian Sabbath, its lectio continua readings, its celebration of the resurrection, and its theme of grace. "Asceticism set the foundation of much in the liturgical calendar," says Old. The fastings of Advent and Lent overwhelmed the feasts of Christmas and Easter. Saints days, which began quite early in the church's history, were joined in the fifth century with Marian feasts, further obscuring the celebration of the Lord's Day. We shall have more to say about this as we look at the reforms of Leo and Gregory in the section on the reading and preaching of Scripture below.
Praise
Above we have noted the singing of Psalms in the Apostolic church. The earliest Christians also seem to have sung their own canticles. Within Scripture we find the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), the Benedictus (Luk3 1:68-79), and the Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2:29-32). Many scholars argue that Philippians 2:5-11 and Colossians 1:15-26 are early Christian hymns. The New Testament also provides a glimpse of the hymns of heaven in Luke 2:14, Revelation 4:8, and Revelation 15:3. "There is little question that the first Christians wrote hymns to Christ and sang them in their worship side by side with the psalms," says Old. Pliny the Younger (112 A.D.) clearly says that that early Christians sang "a hymn antiphonally to Christ." The Odes of Solomon (c. 110 A.D.), a collection of 40 hymns written in Syriac, are full of Christian grace and love.
Early in the church's history psalmody became "the preferred expression of Christian praise." Orthodox believers "became weary of new hymns supposedly inspired by the Holy Spirit," Old explains. John D. Witvliet has provided a convenient collection of testimonies from the church fathers, both describing and affirming the practice of psalm-singing in the early and patristic church. Basil (ca. 330-379), Ambrose (ca. 339-397), Chrysostom (ca. 347-407), Athanasius (c. 295-373), and Cassiodorus (485/90-ca. 580) all bear witness to the prevalence of Psalm-singing in the early centuries. Other sources can add to the list the testimonies of Tertullian (ca. 150-ca. 225), Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260-ca. 320), Augustine (343-430), Jerome (ca. 345-420), and Apollinaris Sidonius (ca. 431-ca. 482). So decided was the church's preference for the psalms, and so exploitive had heretical hymn-writers become of the genre, that the Councils of Braga (350), Laodicea (ca. 360), and Chalcedon (451) prohibited the use of non-canonical hymns in public worship. "From earliest times the Christian community sang the Psalms following the practice of the synagogue," says Mary Berry.
However, toward the end of the fourth century Ambrose of Milan (c. 339-97) wrote hymns that were so popular that others began to do the same. Prudentius (348-410), Fortunatus (530-610), and Gregory the Great (540-604) were among those who developed collections, though it was probably not until much later than hymns began again to be used in the regular worship of the church.
The Syrian church had a strong tradition of hymnody. Ephren the Syrian (ca. 306-73) has been called by Hughes Old "the Shakespeare of the Syriac language." In the Greek church, Romanos the Melode (ca. 510-ca. 560) developed and preached long metrical sermons. But generally, as public worship came to be increasingly non-participatory for the laity, the movement of church music was away from congregational singing and in the direction of specialized monastic choirs. The Gregorian chant, developed by Gregory the Great, institutionalized by Charlemagne (742-814) and implemented by the monks, became the usual mode of musical praise in the Middle Ages.
Reading & Preaching of Scripture
History provides overwhelming evidence for the vitality of the ministry of the word and the post-apostolic era. Justin Martyr's Apology (c. 155) tells of readings from the "memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets" which were read "as long as time permits," and where the presiding elder "instructs and exhorts," presumably on the basis of the reading. Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150-215) provides one of the earliest extant Christian sermons, a verse-by-verse exposition of Mark 10:17-31, preached with historical-grammatical awareness in which he allows Scripture to interpret Scripture.
Origen (c. 185-254) provides the historian with the earliest sizable collection of sermons. He preached each weekday, working his way through the books of the Old Testament one after the other, of which 20 on Genesis, 15 on Exodus, and a number of others remain. Thirty-three sermons on Luke are also available. In Caesarea he preached through the whole Bible. Origen was a brilliant lectio continua preacher who paid close attention to the historical-grammatical meaning of the text of Scripture. Hughes Old regards him as "the greatest preacher of the second and third centuries." However he also can be understood as the founder of the "Alexandrian" school of preaching. His four-fold interpretation of Scripture culminating in the "allegorical" or "spiritual" understanding of the text, the sensus spiritualis, proved to be of immense importance in the history of preaching, exercising a decisive influence upon Medieval exposition.
The Apostolic Constitutions (c. 380) describe worship practices in which there were five Scripture readings in each service: the Law, Prophets, Epistles, Acts, and Gospels. A sermon would follow the Scripture lesson, and presumably be based upon it.
John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) was the greatest of preachers in an age of great preaching. The historians refer to him variously as "golden mouthed" (the meaning of his name), as "surpassing all his contemporaries in the purity and elegance of his style," and as "the most illustrious representative of the school of Antioch." He preached daily in Antioch form 385-397. He was a master of classical rhetoric and a skilled expositor of the Antiochean, historical-grammatical school. "His excellence we appreciate today," says Old, "from an exegetical point of view, from an ethical point of view, and from a literary point of view." For Chrysostom, as for all the Antiochean preachers, the historical meaning of the text of Scripture was of supreme importance. The Antiocheans reacted against the allegorical school of Alexandria which from the middle of the third to end of the fourth centuries dominated Christian preaching in the east. Origen pioneered and popularized the Alexandrian exegesis and had been closely followed by prominent figures such as Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Hesychius of Jerusalem. The allegorizing Alexandrians, said the Antiocheans "had not given sufficient attention to the historical meaning of the text" and "all too quickly" developed "fanciful speculations," says Old, and "introduced ideas which came from Greek philosophy and were quite foreign to Scripture."
His dialogue On the Priesthood is "the first Christian treatise on the office of the ministry." Chrysostom himself primarily preached lectio continua sermons. He preached through Genesis, Matthew, John, Acts, Hebrews, and a number of Paul's epistles. He also preached catechetical sermons and sermons for feast days. At the center of Chrysostom's understanding of Christian ministry is the preaching of God's word.
Ambrose (c. 339-97) preached in Milan, capital of the Western Roman Empire contemporaneous with Chrysostom in Antioch. Ambrose's sermons on Luke show him to be a classic expositor of Scripture in the manner of the synagogue and the early church. The allegorical influence of Origen and the Alexandrian school is present but not decisive. His preaching is rooted in a grammatical-historical understanding of the text.
However, Old considers Ambrose's preaching in De sacramentis as exemplifying "a new approach to preaching" which he terms "liturgical" or "mystagogical" preaching. Ambrose treats the sacraments as mysteries into which converts have been initiated. He explains each step in the process: effeta exorcism, pre-baptismal anointing, renunciation of Satan, blessing of the font, baptism, post-baptismal anointing, benediction, first communion, and first use of the Lord's Prayer. Old considers De sacramentis "one of the most important expressions of a very distinctive approach to worship." That is, it exemplifies typological worship, worship in which every movement and gesture contains hidden meaning. As we saw in the section on baptism, beginning with Cyril of Jerusalem Christians began to explain Christian sacraments as rites of initiation paralleling those of the Helenistic mystery religions, only better. This approach fit well with the allegorical method of interpreting Scripture typical of the Alexandrian school. "What we have in De sacraments is one of the earliest examples of an allegorical interpretation of worship," says Hughes Old. This is crucial, says Old, because "a whole new approach to worship is beginning to set in, an approach that will make the celebration of the rites more important than the preaching." Moreover, he continues, "Preaching will be understood as mystagogy. More and more preaching will be thought of as the explanation of the rites; more and more it will be imagined that it is the rites themselves which communicate; and eventually it will come to the point where the rites will be celebrated without any preaching at all. They will be thought of as sufficient in themselves. They will no longer seal the preaching of the Word but will replace the preaching of the Word."
Augustine of Hippo (354-430), a disciple of Ambrose, is regarded by Old as "the greatest Latin theologian of antiquity," "a master of classical oratory," and "a great expository preacher." His five hundred sermons are the largest collection to survive from Latin antiquity and include a lengthy series on John, 1 John, and the Psalms. According to Old, Augustine gave "first importance" to straight-forward grammatical-historical expositions of Scripture. Though he would use allegorical methods, his sermons are rooted in the text and the biblical author's intent. In his sermons on John his text is the lesson just read, indicating lectio continua reading of Scripture preceded his lectio continua preaching of Scripture. When preaching on the Psalms it was typically the Psalm that had just been sung in the service. Augustine's sermons on 1 John are of particular interest because they are the equivalent of the mystagogical catechisms of Cyril of Jerusalem and Ambrose. That is, they were designed for the new converts who had been baptized on Easter Sunday. However there is no trace of the mystagogical. Augustine departs significantly from the approach of Ambrose, his revered teacher, though he does so without comment. Hughes Old speculates that "Perhaps he sensed the direction in which this approach would take the worship of the church and stepped back from it." In this he resembles John Chrysostom who also emphasized the moral instruction of new converts. Augustine, Hughes Old continues, "does not understand Christian worship in terms of the rites of the mystery religions. For Augustine Christian worship is to be understood in terms of the communion between God and His people."
His festal preaching is also expository. Hughes Old draws what he calls the "obvious contrast between the elaborate festal sermons of the Greek Fathers, most notably Gregory of Nazianzus, and the simple, straight forward sermons of Augustine." As a former professor of rhetoric he could have used the more artistic form of preaching. But he clearly chose not to do so, "sticking instead with the form of the expository sermon as it was developed in the synagogue in the early Christian church."
Augustine's De doctrina christiana, On Christian Doctrine, or better On the Art of Christian Teaching is the Christian classic on the subjects of rhetoric, hermeneutics, and exegesis. "Probably no other book on preaching has had so strong an effect on how Christian preachers have preached," argues Hughes Old. Repeatedly the reader senses that he has connected with some of much of the best of the Christian, and particularly Protestant tradition.
When Augustine distinguishes between what is to be used and what is to be enjoyed, and identifies God as the One alone who is to be enjoyed, one hears the echo of the Shorter Catechism's first question. When he divides the preacher's task into two parts: understanding the meaning of Scripture and communicating its meaning once understood, one sees the foundation of Christian ministry. His emphasis on love as his foundational hermeneutic; his emphasis on authorial intent; his emphasis on the piety of the minister; his urging of study of the original languages; his emphasis on the analogy of faith (2.6; 3.2,26,28); his principle that "wherever truth may be found it belongs to his master;" his advocacy of a broad liberal arts education encompassing history, natural sciences, mathematics, mechanical arts, logic, rhetoric, and even philosophy, all demonstrated the profound influence of Augustine upon the broader Christian and specifically Protestant tradition.
For Augustine, Christianity is a "religion of the Word," notes Old, "and that is why he gives such attention to the reading and preaching of Scripture in worship."
Hughes Old calls De doctrina christiana a "manual on preaching." It makes love of God and neighbor the aim of preaching: "God is to be loved for His own sake, and our neighbor for God's sake." Any understanding of the Scriptures which does not end here, which "does not tend to build up this two-fold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought." And worship is fundamentally of the enjoyment of God, who reveals Himself through His word, who displays there His wisdom and glory, and who evokes our adoration and praise.
But with Augustine we also see the emergence of a different method of Scripture selection, lectio selecta. Suitable Scripture tenets were beginning to be selected on the basis of the requirements of the church calendar, then rapidly developing. This meant that the lectio continua was interrupted for Easter, Pentecost, Christmas, a few fast days and saint days. But within a few centuries the expansion of the church calendar led in practice to the abandoning of the lectio continua in favor of the lectio selecta.
With the collapse of the empire and its educational institutions, the last classically educated men such as Leo (ca. 400-461) and Gregory (ca. 540-604) saw it as their responsibility to "codify the liturgy so that those who had little training in the literary arts could conduct public worship with some sort of integrity. Prayers were written and put into sacramentaries, lectionaries began to take shape, and the sermons of the better preachers were collected and put into homilaries . . . the most perceptive Christian leaders of the time realized they had to prepare the church to carry on through the Dark Ages."
Old calls Leo the Great (ca. 400-461) "a most brilliant ray in the sunset of classical civilization," a "virtual successor to the Roman Caesars" whose statesmanship saved Rome repeatedly, "a capable thinker," and "an orator of proven gifts."
Leo's sermons were not biblical expositions in the tradition of the synagogue and early church. They are more like the panegyrics of Gregory of Nazaianzus and classical oratory. They are characterized by Jean Lecercq as "liturgical sermons," that is, commentaries on the meaning of liturgy. Old characterizes Leo's sermons as mystagogy. Leo, like Cyril of Jerusalem and Ambrose, understands worship as mystery, the sermon providing the explanation of the mystery. His preaching is entirely festival preaching, preaching for holy days. "The cycle of feasts and fasts has become the schema on which the substance on which Christian doctrine can be explained," notes Old. "With the preaching of Leo the festal has become the chief sermon genre." This, says Old, is "a pivotal development in the history of Christian worship." Indeed Old claims, "this shift from expository to festal preaching was what engendered the lectionary."
In his Lenten sermons, Leo preaches Lent. That is, the feast day determines the sermon that is to be preached, and consequently what Scripture lessons were to be read. His practice is a departure from the sequential, systematic, daily, and Lord's Day preaching of Origen, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Augustine. The expository sermon, still the usual mode of preaching in the fifth century, was soon to be supplanted by lectionary sermons.
It was also during Leo's time that Lent became the primary liturgical season, with its penitential cast. Old attributes this to the barbarian invasions and the troubled times. When Advent is added to the calendar in the sixth century the annual church calendar came to be dominated by penitential fasting, virtually a "schedule of fasting," as Christians more and more sought through fasting, penitence, and prayer to move God to deliver civilization from the barbarians by showing themselves worthy of His blessing. Penitential fasting came to dominate the church calendar with a regrettable "air of Pelagianism."
Gregory the Great (ca. 540-604) is the one who pulled together the process of standardizing the liturgy. He is described by Hughes Old as a man of "exceeding brilliance," "the evening star of the patristic age," "the last of the Fathers of the Western Church," and "the morning star of the Middle Ages." Though his term as pope was short (590-604) he was able in that time, Old notes, to "set the foundation stones of a new civilization that would last a thousand years." He was to become, says Old, "the final authority on the liturgical tradition of the Roman church."
Unlike Leo, Gregory's preaching was expository, a characteristic patristic homily, a running commentary on a text of Scripture, using Scripture to explain Scripture.
Anticipating the hard times ahead, codified the lectionary, the sacramentary, and prepared a book of homilies so that if the church lacked a learned ministry, at least a literate one might carry on the teaching ministry of the church. By the end of the sixth century the mass would typically be celebrated without a sermon. The Scripture would be read, but not preached.
As we have seen, Charlemagne, eager to establish all things Roman in his revived "Holy Roman Empire," insisted upon the use of Roman music, that is, the Gregorian chant, throughout his realm, and established musical schools, the schola cantorum, throughout Europe. The Benedictine monks embraced Charlemagne's reforms with great enthusiasm. Similarly, Charlemagne sought to have a sermon in every parish church each week and on holy days, and used the Gregorian lectionary as the basis of his reforms, charging Alcuin with producing a revised lectionary and homilary.
Prayer
Relative to other aspects of the worship of the early church there is good documentation for the ministry of prayer. The First Epistle of Clement (90 A.D.) concludes with a prayer of praise, of intercession for the afflicted, for the salvation of the nations, for the civil government, and for the church. Justin Martyr's First Apology (ca. 155) describes a prayer of intercession for the sanctification of believers and for all people everywhere. The Apostolic Constitutions (ca. 387) records the complete texts of comprehensive prayers of intercessions. These prayers are an outstanding example of praying "according to Scripture," and are filled with biblical content. One also notes that freedom in prayer was permitted in the early centuries. Justin Martyr (155) reports that the president prays "according to his ability." Hippolytus (217) uses the same language.
But the prayers of intercession ultimately were to "fade as the Middle Ages progressed," as Hughes Old points out. Beginning with Origen, Platonic and Neoplatonic asceticism so influenced Christian practice that practical prayer concerns for this world were abandoned for the "spiritual" concerns of the soul's union with God. "Mental prayer was cultivated," says Old, "as a means of escaping the material world."
Origen's "On Prayer" shows significant influence by neo-Platonism. He understood that the proverbial "vision of God" came by way of ascetic preparation of the soul. Crouzel describes his thought as "a moderate Platonism mixed with Stoicism and a touch of Aristotelianism." He is believed to have been a student of Ammonius Saccas, the father of Neo-Platonism.
Oulton and Chadwick describe Origen as a "Platonic idealist." This means, in their words, that "the whole thought of Origen is dominated by the conviction of the inferiority of the material and visible as compared with the immaterial and invisible, and consequently by the dualism involved in this outlook" (my emphasis). Origen can speak of the mind as "still imprisoned in the body." The material world, for him, is of little importance.
Consequently Origen's piety is that of the ascetic. For Origen, prayer is never petition for the concerns of this world. Laments are not voiced. Daily bread is spiritualized. Earthly things and needs are only shadows of spiritual things and one's true spiritual needs. The spiritually mature "shall not waste words about the paltry thing that is the shadow." Prayer, instead, is contemplation of the invisible ideal.
Proper contemplation, however, is only possible as one divorces oneself from the distractions of the material world. Hence the link between asceticism and contemplation. As the body is denied food (through fasting), sexual relations (through celibacy), sleep (through observing the hours of prayer), contemplation of the divine and spiritual progress become possible.
One finds throughout Origen's treatise an interweaving of biblical insight and neo-platonic/ascetic distortions. The commentators identify "the outstanding feature" of On Prayer as its "unvarying biblical character." Origen writes eloquently of the value of the disposition of prayer (whether or not one's petitions are answered). "The greatest benefits result from the attitude of, and preparation for, prayer," he says. He provides strong biblical support for his argument. But for Origen, this also means one must "shut every door of the faculties of sense." Not only must one rid the mind of anger and licentiousness, but also of all sense of impressions from the material world, a view which cannot be biblically sustained.
He believes in petitions, citing Old Testament examples of answered prayer. But as the commentators point out, he "falls short of the richness of the Bible teaching about prayer," particularly in relation to "the range of things for which the Christian ought to pray" (my emphasis). Why does he do so? His Platonism. "As a Platonist he is convinced concerning the inferiority of the material world." Only spiritual things are to be sought in prayer, not "trivial and earthly things." Hence, the bread for which the Christian is to pray is the spiritual bread of John 6. "Origen dismisses the plain, literal meaning of the petition," observe Oulton & Chadwick.
According to Hughes Old, after Origen the ideal piety of the Christian community came to be that of the celibate, not of the married man. The ideal life was to be lived in the cloister, not the family. Origen's influence on the Christian church was vast, as the monastic ideal dominated Christendom for well over a thousand years. Likewise, ascetic prayer, prayer as contemplation not lament, complaint, and petition, would become the norm.
Lord's Supper
Respecting the Lord's Supper we witness in the early centuries a gradual movement from a covenantal understanding of the eucharist to a ceremonial understanding.
In the New Testament it is clear that the meal in the upper room is a covenantal meal, in line of continuity with Abraham's meal with Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18), his meal with the three heavenly visitors (Genesis 18:1-8), Jacob's meal prepared for his father Isaac (Genesis 27:19), supremely the Passover (Exodus 12, 13), and the subsequent meal on Sinai (Exodus 24). All three synoptic gospels and the Apostle Paul identify the covenantal language: "This is my blood of the covenant" (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; cf. Hebrews 9:20). Hughes Old expresses the meaning of covenant meals simply: "partaking of the meal was the act of entering into a covenant with the Lord." In the New Testament the Last Supper, which becomes the Lord's Super, is a meal not a mass, a supper not a sacrifice, communion not mystery.
From the Didache we learn that the early church maintained strong continuity with the Passover Seder, filling the Passover form with Christian content. Scholars have found it remarkable that in the Didache (ca. 80-ca. 110 A.D.), the oldest eucharistic liturgy that we posses, Jesus' words are not repeated in a prayer of consecration setting apart the elements. Many scholars have concluded on that basis that the Didache is not describing a celebration of the sacrament, but as Old argues, "surely this opinion is in error." The language of sacrifice is found in the Didache but only in the sense of a "sacrifice of praise" (14:1; cf. Malachi 1:21; Hebrews 13:11). "The eucharistic prayers," admits Richardson, "portray a period when the Lord's Supper was still a real supper.
Justin Martyr's First Apology (ca. 155) consolidates the several Passover prayers into a single prayer of thanksgiving for which certain features were customary, but which gave great latitude to the one presiding, who prayed "according to his ability." Justin's consecration of the bread and wine is a thanksgiving. The words of institution are included in the liturgy but appear not to be a formula of consecration. As with the Didache the eucharist is considered a sacrifice only in the sense of a "sacrifice of praise" (Malachi 1:11). According to Old, the "covenantal aspect" is evident in that "those who participate are baptized and keep or intend to keep God's commandments."
By the time of Hippolytus' Apostolic Traditions (c. 217), the language of sacrifice has begun to shift from the metaphorical to the actual. The bread and the wine are seen as an offering or oblation. Though there is still "no formulated canon," as Old points out, the words of institution have moved from the liturgy into the prayer of consecration. His meaning is unclear and his intent has been widely debated. It is also unclear how much weight should be given to HIppolytus, a schismatic bishop, or to what extent he was reporting the views and practice of the church and to what extent he was advocating for what then may have been a minority position. Again, those who record liturgies have a distinct advantage over those whose remain unwritten and extemporaneous. But as Hughes Old points out, "From this point on the communion services begins to become more and more an act of consecration and sacrifice. The eucharistic prayer begins to occupy greater and greater importance as the act of consecrating or transforming the bread and wine and presenting them as oblation or sacrifice to God."
The series of sermons preached by Ambrose between 380 and 390, entitled De sacramentis, "On the Sacraments" reveals a great deal about the evolution of eucharistic practice by the end of the fourth century. Ambrose clearly understands words of Jesus on the eucharistic prayer to be words of consecration by which the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ. They are then "offered" as an "oblation." That is, the consecrated bread and wine are offered as a sacrifice to God. "One notices," Hughes Old observes, "that with his increased emphasis on consecration and oblation, the aspects of thanksgiving and covenant have receded into the background."
Diminished participation in the sacraments, mentioned already in connection with the delay of baptism, is also evident toward the end of the fourth century in relation to the Lord's Supper. Emphases on the "worthy receiving" of the eucharist led to increased numbers of Christians watching but not receiving the elements. Both John Chrysostom and Augustine denounced this practice yet it persisted and grew.
Also negatively impacting the level of lay participation in the sacrament was the increased dramatization of its administration. Again we mention Cyril of Jerusalem's Mystagogical Catechisms (ca. 350 A.D.) as well as Etheria's description of her visit to Jerusalem in her Pilgrimage Journal (fl. 410), which revealed highly dramatized eucharistic practices after the fashion of the mystery religions, with preparatory rites, washings, anointings, exorcisms, candlelight processions, midnight baptisms, white robes, and communion at dawn of Easter Sunday. This coincided with the cultivation of what Hughes Old calls "sacred fear." This can be seen in the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350-428), who saw the eucharist as an event to be celebrated as an "awe-filled mystery."
In time the devotional posture of fear and awe led, in the east, to moving the most sacred part of the service to a position behind the iconostasis, the sacred screen, hidden from the people. In the west the words of consecration were spoken in a reverential hush that was inaudible to the congregation, and accompanied by the ringing of bells. With the elevation of the host, the people were to bow reverentially.
Augustine (354-430) reemphasized the biblical and covenantal understanding of the Lord's Supper. He stressed the divine initiative and grace in the sacraments and gave to the church its classical definition of a sacrament as an external sign of an inward and spiritual grace, and as a "visible word." Regrettably, Augustine's insights fell on "hard times," as Hughes Old points out. Classical civilization was collapsing before the barbarian onslaught. For generations to follow he was either neglected or misunderstood.
With the Romanizing of the empire of Charlemagne (742-814), including his church, and the language used within that church, the triumph of the ceremonial was assured. Because the church was ministering to a people who could not understand ecclesiastical Latin, it was imperative that the church's message be acted out in the drama of the liturgy. Pictures, symbols, vestments, gestures, rituals, and images became the means by which the church communicated its message. "More and more the faithful understood the liturgy as a sacred drama to be watched with awe ... even though the worshippers might not understand the liturgical language, they could understand the visual ceremonies." In something of an understatement Old continues: "The splendid celebration of the Roman Mass in a Rhineland cathedral in the year 1500 had developed into something quite different from the celebration of the Passover Seder that Jesus observed with His disciples in the upper room."
In the space of 500 years the church moved from word-based Apostolic simplicity to Medieval ceremonial ostentation. Lectio continua reading of Scripture gave way to lectio selecta; expository preaching gave way to festal or lectionary preaching; free prayer gave way to written liturgies; congregational hymnody and psalmody gave way to monastic choirs; the Lord's Supper gave way to the mystery of the mass; the Lord's Day gave way to the church calendar; and baptism got lost in a host of washings, anointings, and exorcisms. The ministry of the church shifted from the pastoral to the priestly, from the ministry of the word to the offering of the eucharistic sacrifice. In the process the word-focused and fed piety of the church gave way to an ascetic detachment from this world and a superstitious attachment to visual ritual and relics. It took 500 years for this transition to occur. It would be 1000 years before these developments would be challenged and the call to reform the church "according to Scripture" would be heard.