HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*
CHAPTER V:
CHRISTIAN WORSHIP.
I. The richest
sources here are the works of Justin M.,
Tertullian, Cyprian, Eusebius, and the so-called Constitutiones
Apostolicae; also Clement of Rome
(Ad Cor. 59-61), and the Homily falsely ascribed to him (fully
publ. 1875).
II. See the books
quoted in vol. I. 455, and the relevant sections in the archaeological works of
Bingham (Antiquities of the
Christian Church, Lond. 1708-22. 10 vols.; new ed. Lond. 1852, in 2 vols.),
Augusti (whose larger work fills
12 vols., Leipz. 1817-31, and his Handbuch der Christl.
Archaeol. 3
vols. Leipz. 1836), Binterim (R.C.),
Siegel, Smith & Cheetham (Dict.
of Chr. Ant., Lond. 1875, 2 vols.), and Garrucci
(Storia della arte crist., 1872-80, 6 vols.)
§ 59. Places of Common Worship.
R. Hospinianus: De Templis, etc.
Tig. 1603. And in his Opera, Genev. 1681.
Fabricius: De
Templis vett. Christ. Helmst. 1704.
Muratori (R.C.):
De primis Christianorum Ecclesiis. Arezzo, 1770.
HĂĽbsch: Altchristliche Kirchen. Karlsruh, 1860.
Jos. Mullooly:
St. Clement and his Basilica in Rome. Rome, 2nd ed. 1873.
De VogĂĽĂ©:
Architecture civile et relig. du Ie au
Vlle siècle. Paris, 1877, 2 vols.
The numerous works
on church architecture (by Fergusson, Brown, Bunsen, Kugler, Kinkel, Kreuser,
Schnaase, LĂĽbke, Voillet-le-Duc, De VogĂĽĂ© etc.) usually begin with the
basilicas of the Constantinian age, which are described in vol. III. 541 sqq.
The Christian worship, as might
be expected from the humble condition of the church in this period of
persecution, was very simple, strongly contrasting with the pomp of the Greek
and Roman communion; yet by no means puritanic. We perceive here, as well as in
organization and doctrine, the gradual and sure approach of the Nicene age,
especially in the ritualistic solemnity of the baptismal service, and the
mystical character of the eucharistic sacrifice.
Let us glance first at the
places of public worship. Until about the close of the second century the
Christians held their worship mostly in private houses, or in desert places, at
the graves of martyrs, and in the crypts of the catacombs. This arose from
their poverty, their oppressed and outlawed condition, their love of silence
and solitude, and their aversion to all heathen art. The apologists frequently
assert, that their brethren had neither temples nor altars (in the pagan sense
of these words), and that their worship was spiritual and independent of place
and ritual. Heathens, like Celsus, cast this up to them as a reproach; but
Origen admirably replied: The humanity of Christ is the highest temple and the
most beautiful image of God, and true Christians are living statues of the Holy
Spirit, with which no Jupiter of Phidias can compare. Justin Martyr said to the
Roman prefect: The Christians assemble wherever it is convenient, because their
God is not, like the gods of the heathen, inclosed in space, but is invisibly
present everywhere. Clement of Alexandria refutes the superstition, that
religion is bound to any building.
In private houses the room best
suited for worship and for the love-feast was the oblong dining-hall, the triclinium, which was never wanting in a
convenient Greek or Roman dwelling, and which often had a semicircular niche,
like the choir290 in the later churches. An elevated seat291 was used for reading the
Scriptures and preaching, and a simple tables292 for the holy communion. Similar
arrangements were made also in the catacombs, which sometimes have the form of
a subterranean church.
The first traces of special
houses of worship293 occur in Tertullian, who speaks of going to
church,294 and in his contemporary, Clement of Alexandria,
who mentions the double meaning of the word ekklhsiva.295 About the year 230, Alexander Severus granted the Christians the
right to a place in Rome against the protest of the tavern-keepers, because the
worship of God in any form was better than tavern-keeping. After the middle of
the third century the building of churches began in great earnest, as the
Christians enjoyed over forty years of repose (260-303), and multiplied so fast
that, according to Eusebius, more spacious places of devotion became everywhere
necessary. The Diocletian persecution began (in 303,) with the destruction of
the magnificent church at Nicomedia, which, according to Lactantius, even
towered above the neighboring imperial palace.296 Rome is supposed to have had, as early as the beginning of the
fourth century, more than forty churches. But of the form and arrangement of
them we have no account. With Constantine the Great begins the era of church
architecture, and its first style is the Basilica. The emperor himself set the
example, and built magnificent churches in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and
Constantinople, which, however, have undergone many changes. His contemporary,
the historian Eusebius, gives us the first account of a church edifice which
Paulinus built in Tyre between a.d.
313 and 322.297 It
included a large portico (pro;pulon) a quadrangular atrium (ai[qrion) surrounded by ranges of columns; a fountain in the
centre of the atrium for the customary washing of hands and feet before
entering the church; interior porticoes; the nave or central space (basivleio" oi\ko") with galleries above the
aisles, and covered by a roof of cedar of Lebanon; and the most holy altar (a{gion aJgivwn qusiasthvrion). Eusebius mentions also the
thrones (qrovnoi) for the bishops and
presbyters, and benches or seats. The church was surrounded by halls and
inclosed by a wall, which can still be traced. Fragments of five granite
columns of this building are among the ruins of Tyre.
The description of a church in
the Apostolic Constitutions,298 implies that the clergy occupy
the space at the cast end of the church (in the choir), and the people the
nave, but mentions no barrier between them. Such a barrier, however, existed as
early as the fourth century, when the laity were forbidden to enter the
enclosure of the altar.
§ 60. The Lord’s Day.
See Lit. in vol. I. 476.
The celebration of the Lord’s
Day in memory of the resurrection of Christ dates undoubtedly from the
apostolic age.299 Nothing
short of apostolic precedent can account for the universal religious observance
in the churches of the second century. There is no dissenting voice. This
custom is confirmed by the testimonies of the earliest post-apostolic writers,
as Barnabas,300 Ignatius,301 and Justin Martyr.302 It is also confirmed by the younger Pliny.303 The Didache calls the first day "the Lord’s Day of the
Lord."304
Considering that the church was
struggling into existence, and that a large number of Christians were slaves of
heathen masters, we cannot expect an unbroken regularity of worship and a
universal cessation of labor on Sunday until the civil government in the time
of Constantine came to the help of the church and legalized (and in part even
enforced) the observance of the Lord’s Day. This may be the reason why the
religious observance of it was not expressly enjoined by Christ and the
apostles; as for similar reasons there is no prohibition of polygamy and
slavery by the letter of the New Testament, although its spirit condemns these
abuses, and led to their abolition. We may go further and say that coercive
Sunday laws are against the genius and spirit of the Christian religion which
appeals to the free will of man, and uses only moral means for its ends. A
Christian government may and ought to protect the Christian Sabbath
against open desecration, but its positive observance by attending
public worship, must be left to the conscientious conviction of individuals.
Religion cannot be forced by law. It looses its value when it ceases to be
voluntary.
The fathers did not regard the
Christian Sunday as a continuation of, but as a substitute for, the Jewish
Sabbath, and based it not so much on the fourth commandment, and the primitive
rest of God in creation, to which the commandment expressly refers, as upon the
resurrection of Christ and the apostolic tradition. There was a disposition to
disparage the Jewish law in the zeal to prove the independent originality of
Christian institutions. The same polemic interest against Judaism ruled in the
paschal controversies, and made Christian Easter a moveable feast.
Nevertheless, Sunday was always regarded in the ancient church as a divine
institution, at least in the secondary sense, as distinct from divine
ordinances in the primary sense, which were directly and positively commanded
by Christ, as baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Regular public worship absolutely
requires a stated day of worship.
Ignatius was the first who
contrasted Sunday with the Jewish Sabbath as something done away with.305 So did the author of the so-called Epistle of Barnabas.306 Justin Martyr, in controversy with a Jew, says that the pious
before Moses pleased God without circumcision and the Sabbath,307 and that Christianity requires
not one particular Sabbath, but a perpetual Sabbath.308 He assigns as a reason for the selection of the first day for the
purposes of Christian worship, because on that day God dispelled the darkness
and the chaos, and because Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his
assembled disciples, but makes no allusion to the fourth commandment.309 He uses the term "to
sabbathize" (sabbativzein), only of the Jews, except in
the passage just quoted, where he spiritualizes the Jewish law. Dionysius of
Corinth mentions Sunday incidentally in a letter to the church of Rome, a.d., 170: "To-day we kept the
Lord’s Day holy, in which we read your letter."310 Melito of Sardis wrote a treatise on the Lord’s Day, which is
lost.311 Irenaeus
of Lyons, about 170, bears testimony to the celebration of the Lord’s Day,312 but likewise regards the Jewish
Sabbath merely as a symbolical and typical ordinance, and says that
"Abraham without circumcision and without observance of Sabbaths believed
in God," which proves "the symbolical and temporary character of
those ordinances, and their inability to make perfect."313 Tertullian, at the close of the second and beginning of the third
century, views the Lord’s Day as figurative of rest from sin and typical of
man’s final rest, and says: "We have nothing to do with Sabbaths, new
moons or the Jewish festivals, much less with those of the heathen. We have our
own solemnities, the Lord’s Day, for instance, and Pentecost. As the heathen
confine themselves to their festivals and do not observe ours, let us confine
ourselves to ours, and not meddle with those belonging to them." He thought
it wrong to fast on the Lord’s Day, or to pray kneeling during its continuance.
"Sunday we give to joy." But he also considered it Christian duty to
abstain from secular care and labor, lest we give place to the devil.314 This is the first express evidence of cessation from labor on
Sunday among Christians. The habit of standing in prayer on Sunday, which
Tertullian regarded as essential to the festive character of the day, and which
was sanctioned by an ecumenical council, was afterwards abandoned by the
western church.
The Alexandrian fathers have
essentially the same view, with some fancies of their own concerning the
allegorical meaning of the Jewish Sabbath.
We see then that the ante-Nicene
church clearly distinguished the Christian Sunday from the Jewish Sabbath, and
put it on independent Christian ground. She did not fully appreciate the
perpetual obligation of the fourth commandment in its substance as a weekly day
of rest, rooted in the physical and moral necessities of man. This is
independent of those ceremonial enactments which were intended only for the
Jews and abolished by the gospel. But, on the other hand, the church took no
secular liberties with the day. On the question of theatrical and other
amusements she was decidedly puritanic and ascetic, and denounced them as being
inconsistent on any day with the profession of a soldier of the cross. She
regarded Sunday as a sacred day, as the Day of the Lord, as the weekly
commemoration of his resurrection and the pentecostal effusion of the Spirit,
and therefore as a day of holy joy and thanksgiving to be celebrated even
before the rising sun by prayer, praise, and communion with the risen Lord and
Saviour.
Sunday legislation began with
Constantine, and belongs to the next period.
The observance of the Sabbath
among the Jewish Christians gradually ceased. Yet the Eastern church to this
day marks the seventh day of the week (excepting only the Easter Sabbath) by
omitting fasting, and by standing in prayer; while the Latin church, in direct
opposition to Judaism, made Saturday a fast day. The controversy on this point
began as early as the, end of the second century
Wednesday,315 and especially Friday,316 were devoted to the weekly
commemoration of the sufferings and death of the Lord, and observed as days of
penance, or watch-days,317 and half-fasting (which lasted till three o’clock
in the afternoon).318
§ 61. The Christian Passover. (Easter).
R. Hospinianus: Festa Christ., h.e. de
origine, progressu, ceremonies el ritibusfestorum dierum Christ. Tig. 1593,
and often.
A. G. Pillwitz: Gesch. der
heil. Zeiten in der abendländ. Kirche. Dresden, 1842.
M. A. Nickel (R.C.): Die heil.
Zeiten u. Feste nach ihrer Gesch. u. Feier in der kath. Kirche. Mainz, 1825-1838. 6 vols.
P. Piper: Gesch. des
Osterfestes.
Berl. 1845.
Lisco: Das
christl. Kirchenjahr. Berlin, 1840, 4th ed. 1850.
Strauss (court-chaplain
of the King of Prussia, d. 1863): Das evangel. Kirchenjahr. Berlin, 1850.
Boberstag: Das
evangel. Kirchenjahr. Breslau 1857.
H. Alt: Der
Christliche Cultus, IInd Part: Das Kirchenjahr, 2nd ed. Berlin
1860.
L. Hensley: Art. Easter in Smith
and Cheetham (1875), I. 586-595.
F. X. Kraus (R.C.): Art. Feste in
"R. Encykl. der Christl. AlterthĂĽmer," vol. I. (1881), pp. 486-502,
and the Lit. quoted there. The article is written by several authors, the
section on Easter and Pentecost by Dr. Funk of TĂĽbingen.
The yearly festivals of this
period were Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany. They form the rudiments of the
church year, and keep within the limits of the facts of the New Testament.
Strictly speaking the
ante-Nicene church had two annual festive seasons, the Passover in
commemoration of the suffering of Christ, and the Pentecoste in
commemoration of the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, beginning with
Easter and ending with Pentecost proper. But Passover and Easter were connected
in a continuous celebration, combining the deepest sadness with the highest
joy, and hence the term pascha (in
Greek and Latin) is often used in a wider sense for the Easter season, as is
the case with the French paque or paques, and the Italian pasqua. The Jewish passover also
lasted a whole week, and after it began their Pentecost or feast of weeks. The
death of Christ became fruitful in the resurrection, and has no redemptive
power without it. The commemoration of the death of Christ was called the pascha staurosimon or the Passover proper.319 The commemoration of the resurrection was called the pascha anastasimon, and afterwards Easter.320 The former corresponds to the
gloomy Friday, the other to the cheerful Sunday, the sacred days of the week in
commemoration of those great events.
The Christian Passover naturally
grew out of the Jewish Passover as the Lord’s Day grew out of the Sabbath; the
paschal lamb being regarded as a prophetic type of Christ, the Lamb of God
slain for our sins (1 Cor. 5:7, 8), and the deliverance from the bondage of
Egypt as a type of the redemption from sin. It is certainly the oldest and most
important annual festival of the church, and can be traced back to the first
century, or at all events to the middle of the second, when it was universally
observed, though with a difference as to the day, and the extent of the fast
connected with it. It is based on the view that Christ crucified and risen is
the centre of faith. The Jewish Christians would very naturally from the
beginning continue to celebrate the legal passover, but in the light of its
fulfillment by the sacrifice of Christ, and would dwell chiefly on the aspect
of the crucifixion. The Gentile Christians, for whom the Jewish passover had no
meaning except through reflection from the cross, would chiefly celebrate the
Lord’s resurrection as they did on every Sunday of the week. Easter formed at
first the beginning of the Christian year, as the month of Nisan, which
contained the vernal equinox (corresponding to our March or April.), began the
sacred year of the Jews. Between the celebration of the death and the
resurrection of Christ lay "the great Sabbath,"321 on which also the Greek church
fasted by way of exception; and "the Easter vigils," 322 which were kept, with special
devotion, by the whole congregation till the break of day, and kept the more
scrupulously, as it was generally believed that the Lord’s glorious return
would occur on this night. The feast of the resurrection, which completed the
whole work of redemption, became gradually the most prominent part of the
Christian Passover, and identical with Easter. But the crucifixion continued to
be celebrated on what is called "Good Friday."323
The paschal feast was preceded
by a season of penitence and fasting, which culminated in "the holy
week."324 This
fasting varied in length, in different countries, from one day or forty hours
to six weeks;325 but after the fifth century, through the
influence of Rome, it was universally fixed at forty days,326 with reference to the forty
days’ fasting of Christ in the wilderness and the Old Testament types of that
event (the fasting of Moses and Elijah).327
§ 62. The Paschal Controversies.
I. The sources for the paschal
controversies:
Fragments from Melito, Apollinarius, Polycrates, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, and Hippolytus, preserved in Euseb.
H. E. IV. 3, 26; V. 23-25; VI. 13; The
Chronicon Pasch. I. 12 sqq., a passage in the Philosophumena of Hippolytus, Lib. VIII. cap. 18 (p. 435, ed. Duncker &
Schneidewin, 1859), a fragment from Eusebius
in Angelo Mai’s Nova P. P. Bibl. T. IV. 2O9-216, and the Haeresies of Epiphanius, Haer. LXX. 1-3; LXX. 9.
II. Recent works, occasioned
mostly by the Johannean controversy:
Weitzel: Die
Christl. Passafeier der drei ersten Jahrh. Pforzheim, 1848 (and in the "Studien und
Kritiken," 1848, No. 4, against Baur).
Baur: Das
Christenthum der 3 ersten Jahrh. (1853). TĂĽb. 3rd ed. 1863, pp. 156-169. And
several controversial essays against Steitz.
Hilgenfeld: Der
Paschastreit und das Evang. Johannis (in "Theol. JahrbĂĽcher" for 1849);
Noch ein Wort ĂĽber den Passahstreit (ibid. 1858); and Der
Paschastreit der alten Kirche nach seiner Bedeutung fĂĽr die Kirchengesch. und
fĂĽr die Evangelienforschung urkundlich dargestellt. Halle 1860 (410 pages).
Steitz:
Several essays on the subject, mostly against Baur, in the "Studien
u. Kritiken,
"1856, 1857, and 1859; in the "Theol. JahrbĂĽcher, "1857, and art. Passah
in "Herzog’s Encycl." vol. XII. (1859), p. 149 sqq., revised in
the new ed., by Wagenmann, XI. 270 sqq.
William Milligan: The Easter Controversies of the second century in their
relation to the Gospel of St. John, in the "Contemporary Review"
for Sept. 1867 (p. 101-118).
Emil SchĂĽrer:
De Controversiis
paschalibus sec. post Chr. soc. exortis, Lips. 1869. By the same: Die
Paschastreitigkeiten des 2ten Jahrh., in Kahnis’ "Zeitschrift für
Hist. Theol." 1870, pp. 182-284. Very full and able.
C. Jos. von
Hefele (R.C.): Conciliengeschichte, I. 86-101 (second ed. Freib.
1873; with some important changes).
Abbé Duchesne: La
question de la Pâque, in "Revue des questions historiques," July 1880.
Renan: L’église
chrét. 445-451; and M. Aurèle, 194-206 (la question de la Páque.
Respecting the time of the
Christian Passover and of the fast connected with it, there was a difference of
observance which created violent controversies in the ancient church, and
almost as violent controversies in the modern schools of theology in connection
with the questions of the primacy of Rome, and the genuineness of John’s
Gospel.328
The paschal controversies of the
ante-Nicene age are a very complicated chapter in ancient church-history, and
are not yet sufficiently cleared up. They were purely ritualistic and
disciplinary, and involved no dogma; and yet they threatened to split the
churches; both parties laying too much stress on external uniformity.
Indirectly, however, they involved the question of the independence of
Christianity on Judaism.329
Let us first consider the
difference of observance or the subject of controversy.
The Christians of Asia Minor,
following the Jewish chronology, and appealing to the authority of the apostles
John and Philip, celebrated the Christian Passover uniformly on the fourteenth
of Nisan (which might fall on any of the seven days of the week) by a solemn
fast; they fixed the close of the fast accordingly, and seem to have partaken
on the evening of this day, as the close of the fast, but indeed of the Jewish
paschal lamb, as has sometimes been supposed,330 but of the communion and
love-feast, as the Christian passover and the festival of the redemption
completed by the death of Christ.331 The communion on the evening of the 14th (or, according
to the Jewish mode of reckoning, the day from sunset to sunset, on the
beginning of the 15th) of Nisan was in memory of the last pascha
supper of Christ. This observance did not exclude the idea that Christ died as
the true paschal Lamb. For we find among the fathers both this idea and the
other that Christ ate the regular Jewish passover with his disciples, which
took place on the14th.332 From the day of observance the
Asiatic Christians were afterwards called Quartadecimanians.333 Hippolytus of Rome speaks of
them contemptuously as a sect of contentious and ignorant persons, who maintain
that "the pascha should be observed on the fourteenth day of the first
month according to the law, no matter on what day of the week it might
fall."334 Nevertheless the Quartadecimanian observance was probably the
oldest and in accordance with the Synoptic tradition of the last Passover of
our Lord, which it commemorated.335
The Roman church, on the
contrary, likewise appealing to early custom, celebrated the death of Jesus
always on a Friday, the day of the week on which it actually occurred, and his
resurrection always on a Sunday after the March full moon, and extended the
paschal fast to the latter day; considering it improper to terminate the fast
at an earlier date, and to celebrate the communion before the festival of the
resurrection. Nearly all the other churches agreed with the Roman in this
observance, and laid the main stress on the resurrection-festival on Sunday.
This Roman practice created an entire holy week of solemn fasting and
commemoration of the Lord’s passion, while the Asiatic practice ended the fast
on the 14th of Nisan, which may fall sometimes several days before
Sunday.
Hence a spectacle shocking to
the catholic sense of ritualistic propriety and uniformity was frequently
presented to the world, that one part of Christendom was fasting and mourning
over the death of our Saviour, while the other part rejoiced in the glory of
the resurrection. We cannot be surprised that controversy arose, and earnest
efforts were made to harmonize the opposing sections of Christendom in the
public celebration of the fundamental facts of the Christian salvation and of
the most sacred season of the church-year.
The gist of the paschal
controversy was, whether the Jewish paschal-day (be it a Friday or not), or the
Christian Sunday, should control the idea and time of the entire festival. The
Johannean practice of Asia represented here the spirit of adhesion to
historical precedent, and had the advantage of an immovable Easter, without
being Judaizing in anything but the observance of a fixed day of the month. The
Roman custom represented the principle of freedom and discretionary change, and
the independence of the Christian festival system. Dogmatically stated, the difference
would be, that in the former case the chief stress was laid on the Lord’s
death; in the latter, on his resurrection. But the leading interest of the
question for the early Church was not the astronomical, nor the dogmatical, but
the ritualistic. The main object was to secure uniformity of observance, and to
assert the originality of the Christian festive cycle, and its independence of
Judaism; for both reasons the Roman usage at last triumphed even in the East.
Hence Easter became a movable festival whose date varies from the end of March
to the latter part of April.
The history of the controversy
divides itself into three acts.
1. The difference came into
discussion first on a visit of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, to Anicetus, bishop
of Rome, between a.d. 150 and
155.336 It was
not settled; yet the two bishops parted in peace, after the latter had charged
his venerable guest to celebrate the holy communion in his church. We have a
brief, but interesting account of this dispute by Irenaeus, a pupil of
Polycarp, which is as follows:337
"When the blessed Polycarp sojourned at Rome in the days of
Anicetus, and they had some little difference of opinion likewise with regard
to other points,338 they forthwith came to a peaceable understanding on
this head [the observance of Easter], having no love for mutual disputes. For
neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe339 inasmuch as he [Pol.] had
always observed with John, the disciple of our Lord, and the other
apostles, with whom he had associated; nor did Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe
Gr. (threi’n) who said that he was bound to maintain the custom of the
presbyters (= bishops) before him. These things being so, they communed
together; and in the church Anicetus yielded to Polycarp, out of respect no
doubt, the celebration of the eucharist Gr. (thVn eujcaristivan), and they
separated from each other in peace, all the church being at peace, both those
that observed and those that did not observe [the fourteenth of Nisan],
maintaining peace."
This letter proves that the
Christians of the days of Polycarp knew how to keep the unity of the Spirit
without uniformity of rites and ceremonies. "The very difference in our
fasting," says Irenaeus in the same letter, "establishes the
unanimity in our faith."
2. A few years afterwards, about
a.d. 170, the controversy broke
out in Laodicea, but was confined to Asia, where a difference had arisen either
among the Quartadecimanians themselves, or rather among these and the adherents
of the Western observance. The accounts on this interimistic sectional dispute
are incomplete and obscure. Eusebius merely mentions that at that time Melito
of Sardis wrote two works on the Passover.340 But these are lost, as also that of Clement of Alexandria on the
same topic.341 Our chief
source of information is Claudius Apolinarius (Apollinaris),342 bishop of Hierapolis, in
Phrygia, in two fragments of his writings upon the subject, which have been
preserved in the Chronicon
Paschale.343 These are as follows:
"There are some now who, from ignorance, love to raise strife
about these things, being guilty in this of a pardonable offence; for ignorance
does not so much deserve blame as need instruction. And they say that on the
fourteenth [of Nisan] the Lord ate the paschal lamb (to; provbaton e[fage) with his disciples, but that He himself
suffered on the great day of unleavened bread344 [i.e. the fifteenth of
Nisan]; and they interpret Matthew as favoring their view from which it appears
that their view does not agree with the law,345 and that the Gospels seem,
according to them, to be at variance.346
The Fourteenth is the true
Passover of the Lord, the great sacrifice, the. Son of God347 in the place of the lamb ...
who was lifted up upon the horns of the unicorn ... and who was buried on the
day of the Passover, the stone having been placed upon his tomb."
Here Apolinarius evidently
protests against the Quartadecimanian practice, yet simply as one arising from
ignorance, and not as a blameworthy heresy. He opposes it as a chronological
and exegetical mistake, and seems to hold that the fourteenth, and not the
fifteenth, is the great day of the death of Christ as the true Lamb of God, on
the false assumption that this truth depends upon the chronological coincidence
of the crucifixion and the Jewish passover. But the question arises: Did he protest from the Western and Roman
standpoint which had many advocates in the East,348 or as a Quartadecimanian?349 In the latter case we would be obliged to distinguish two parties
of Quartadecimanians, the orthodox or catholic Quartadecimanians, who simply
observed the 14th Nisan by fasting and the evening communion, and a
smaller faction of heretical and schismatic Quartadecimanians, who adopted the
Jewish practice of eating a paschal lamb on that day in commemoration of the
Saviour’s last passover. But there is no evidence for this distinction in the
above or other passages. Such a grossly Judaizing party would have been treated
with more severity by a catholic bishop. Even the Jews could no more eat of the
paschal lamb after the destruction of the temple in which it had to be slain.
There is no trace of such a party in Irenaeus, Hippolytus350 and Eusebius who speak only of
one class of Quartadecimanians.351
Hence we conclude that Apolinarius
protests against the whole Quartadecimanian practice, although very mildly and
charitably. The Laodicean controversy was a stage in the same controversy which
was previously discussed by Polycarp and Anicetus in Christian charity, and was
soon agitated again by Polycrates and Victor with hierarchical and intolerant
violence.
3. Much more important and
vehement was the third stage of the controversy between 190 and 194, which
extended over the whole church, and occasioned many synods and synodical
letters.352 The Roman
bishop Victor, a very different man from his predecessor Anicetus, required the
Asiatics, in an imperious tone, to abandon their Quartadecimanian practice.
Against this Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, solemnly protested in the name of a
synod held by him, and appealed to an imposing array of authorities for their
primitive custom. Eusebius has preserved his letter, which is quite
characteristic.
"We," wrote the Ephesian bishop to the Roman pope and
his church, "We observe the genuine day; neither adding thereto nor taking
therefrom. For in Asia great lights353 have fallen asleep, which shall
rise again in the day of the Lord’s appearing, in which he will come with glory
from heaven, and will raise up all the saints: Philip, one of the twelve
apostles, who sleeps in Hierapolis, and his two aged virgin daughters; his
other daughter, also, who having lived under the influence of the Holy Spirit,
now likewise rests in Ephesus; moreover, John, who rested upon the bosom of our
Lord,354 who was also a priest, and bore the sacerdotal plate,355 both a martyr and teacher; he
is buried in Ephesus. Also Polycarp of Smyrna, both bishop and martyr, and
Thraseas, both bishop and martyr of Eumenia, who sleeps in Smyrna. Why should I
mention Sagaris, bishop and martyr, who sleeps in Laodicea; moreover, the
blessed Papirius, and Melito, the eunuch [celibate], who lived altogether under
the influence of the Holy Spirit, who now rests in Sardis, awaiting the episcopate
from heaven, in which he shall rise from the dead. All these observed the
fourteenth day of the passover according to the gospel, deviating in no
respect, but following the rule of faith.
"Moreover, I, Polycrates,
who am the least of you, according to the tradition of my relatives, some of
whom I have followed. For seven of my relatives were bishops, and I am the
eighth; and my relatives always observed the day when the people of the Jews
threw away the leaven. I, therefore, brethren, am now sixty-five years in the
Lord, who having conferred with the brethren throughout the world, and having
studied the whole of the Sacred Scriptures, am not at all alarmed at those
things with which I am threatened, to intimidate me. For they who are greater
than I have said, ’we ought to obey God rather than men.’ ... I could also
mention the bishops that were present, whom you requested me to summon, and
whom I did call; whose names would present a great number, but who seeing my
slender body consented to my epistle, well knowing that I did not wear my gray
hairs for nought, but that I did at all times regulate my life in the Lord
Jesus."356
Victor turned a deaf ear to this
remonstrance, branded the Asiatics as heretics, and threatened to excommunicate
them.357
But many of the Eastern bishops,
and even Irenaeus, in the name of the Gallic Christians, though he agreed with
Victor on the disputed point, earnestly reproved him for such arrogance, and
reminded him of the more Christian and brotherly conduct of his predecessors
Anicetus, Pius, Hyginus, Telesphorus, and Xystus, who sent the eucharist to
their dissenting brethren. He dwelt especially on the fraternal conduct of
Anicetus to Polycarp. Irenaeus proved himself on this occasion, as Eusebius
remarks, a true peacemaker, and his vigorous protest seems to have prevented the
schism.
We have from the same Irenaeus
another utterance on this controversy,358 saying: "The apostles have
ordered that we should ’judge no one in meat or in drink, or in respect to a
feast-day or a new moon or a sabbath day’ (Col. 2:16). Whence then these
wars? Whence these schisms? We keep the feasts, but in the leaven of
malice by tearing the church of God and observing what is outward, in order to
reject what is better, faith and charity. That such feasts and fasts are
displeasing to the Lord, we have heard from the Prophets." A truly
evangelical sentiment from one who echoes the reaching of St. John and his last
words: "Children, love one another."
4. In the course of the third
century the Roman practice gained ground everywhere in the East, and, to
anticipate the result, was established by the council of Nicaea in 325 as the
law of the whole church. This council considered it unbecoming, in Christians
to follow the usage of the unbelieving, hostile Jews, and ordained that Easter
should always be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon
succeeding the vernal equinox (March 21), and always after the Jewish passover.359 If the full moon occurs on a Sunday, Easter-day is the Sunday
after. By this arrangement Easter may take place as early as March 22, or as
late as April 25.
Henceforth the Quartadecimanians
were universally regarded as heretics, and were punished as such. The Synod of
Antioch, 341, excommunicated them. The Montanists and Novatians were also
cleared with the Quartadecimanian observance. The last traces of it disappeared
in the sixth century.
But the desired uniformity in
the observance of Easter was still hindered by differences in reckoning the
Easter Sunday according to the course of the moon and the vernal equinox, which
the Alexandrians fixed on the 21st of March, and the Romans on the
18th; so that in the year 387, for example, the Romans kept Easter
on the 21st of March, and the Alexandrians not till the 25th of
April. In the West also the computation changed and caused a renewal of the
Easter controversy in the sixth and seventh centuries. The old British, Irish
and Scotch Christians, and the Irish missionaries on the Continent adhered to
the older cycle of eighty-four years in opposition to the later Dionysian or
Roman cycle of ninety-five years, and hence were styled "Quartadecimanians
"by their Anglo-Saxon and Roman opponents, though unjustly; for they celebrated
Easter always on a Sunday between the 14th and the 20th of
the mouth (the Romans between the 15th and 21st). The
Roman practice triumphed. But Rome again changed the calendar under Gregory
XIII. (a.d. 1583). Hence even to
this day the Oriental churches who hold to the Julian and reject the Gregorian
calendar, differ from the Occidental Christians in the time of the observance
of Easter.
All these useless ritualistic
disputes might have been avoided if, with some modification of the old Asiatic
practice as to the close of the fast, Easter, like Christmas, had been made an
immovable feast at least as regards the week, if not the day, of its
observance.
Note.
The bearing of this controversy
on the Johannean origin of the fourth Gospel has been greatly overrated by the
negative critics of the TĂĽbingen School. Dr. Baur, Schwegler, Hilgenfeld,
Straus (Leben Jesu, new ed. 1864, p. 76 sq.), Schenkel, Scholten, Samuel
Davidson, Renan (Marc-Aurèle, p. 196), use it as a fatal objection to
the Johannean authorship. Their argument is this: "The Asiatic practice
rested on the belief that Jesus ate the Jewish Passover with his disciples on
the evening of the 14th of Nisan, and died on the 15th;
this belief is incompatible with the fourth Gospel, which puts the death of
Jesus, as the true Paschal Lamb, on the 14th of Nisan, just before
the regular Jewish Passover; therefore the fourth Gospel cannot have existed
when the Easter controversy first broke out about a.d. 160; or, at all events, it cannot be the work of John to
whom the Asiatic Christians so confidently appealed for their paschal
observance."
But leaving out of view the
early testimonies for the authenticity of John, which reach back to the first
quarter of the second century, the minor premise is wrong, and hence the
conclusion falls. A closer examination of the relevant passages of John leads
to the result that he agrees with the Synoptic account, which puts the last
Supper on the 14th, and the crucifixion on the 15th of
Nisan. (Comp. on this chronological difficulty vol. I. 133 sqq.; and the
authorities quoted there, especially John Lightfoot, Wieseler, Robinson, Lange,
Kirchner, and McClellan.)
Weitzel, Steitz, and Wagenmann
deny the inference of the TĂĽbingen School by disputing the major premise, and
argue that the Asiatic observance (in agreement with the TĂĽbingen school and
their own interpretation of John’s chronology) implies that Christ died as the
true paschal lamb on the 14th, and not on the 15th of Nisan.
To this view we object: 1) it conflicts with the extract from Apolinarius in
the Chronicon Paschale as given p. 214. 2) There is no contradiction between
the idea that Christ died as the true paschal lamb, and the Synoptic
chronology; for the former was taught by Paul (1 Cor. 5:7), who was quoted for
the Roman practice, and both were held by the fathers; the coincidence in the
time being subordinate to the fact. 3) A contradiction in the primitive
tradition of Christ’s death is extremely improbable, and it is much easier to
conform the Johannean chronology to the Synoptic than vice versa.
It seems to me that the Asiatic
observance of the 14th of Nisan was in commemoration of the last
passover of the Lord, and this of necessity implied also a commemoration of his
death, like every celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In any case, however, these
ancient paschal controversies did not hinge on the chronological question or
the true date of Christ’s death at all but on the week-day and the manner of
its annual observance. The question was whether the paschal communion
should be celebrated on the 14th of Nisan, or on the Sunday of the
resurrection festival, without regard to the Jewish chronology.
§ 63. Pentecost.
Easter was followed by the
festival of Pentecost.360 It rested on the Jewish feast of harvest. It was universally
observed, as early as the second century, in commemoration of the appearances
and heavenly exaltation of the risen Lord, and had throughout a joyous
character. It lasted through fifty days_Quinquagesima _which were
celebrated as a continuous Sunday, by daily communion, the standing posture in
prayer, and the absence of all fasting. Tertullian says that all the festivals
of the heathen put together will not make up the one Pentecost of the
Christians.361 During that period the Acts of the Apostles were
read in the public service (and are read to this day in the Greek church).
Subsequently the celebration was limited to the fortieth
day as the feast of the Ascension, and the fiftieth day, or Pentecost proper
(Whitsunday) as the feast of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the birthday
of the Christian Church. In this restricted sense Pentecost closed the cycle of
our Lord’s festivals (the semestre Domini), among which it held the third place (after Easter and Christmas).362 It was also a favorite time for
baptism, especially the vigil of the festival.
§ 64. The Epiphany
The feast of the Epiphany is of later origin.363 It spread from the East towards the West, but here, even in the
fourth century, it was resisted by such parties as the Donatists, and condemned
as an oriental innovation. It was, in general, the feast of the appearance of
Christ in the flesh, and particularly of the manifestation of his Messiahship
by his baptism in the Jordan, the festival at once of his birth and his
baptism. It was usually kept on the 6th of January.364 When the East adopted from the West the Christmas festival,
Epiphany was restricted to the celebration of the baptism of Christ, and made
one of the three great reasons for the administration of baptism.
In the West it was afterwards
made a collective festival of several events in the life of Jesus, as the
adoration of the Magi, the first miracle of Cana, and sometimes the feeding of
the five thousand. It became more particularly the "feast of the three
kings," that is, the wise men from the East, and was placed in special
connexion with the mission to the heathen. The legend of the three kings
(Caspar, Melchior, Baltazar) grew up gradually from the recorded gifts, gold, frankincense,
and myrrh, which the Magi offered to the new-born King, of the Jews.365
Of the Christmas festival there is no clear trace before the fourth
century; partly because the feast of the Epiphany in a measure held the place
of it; partly because of birth of Christ, the date of which, at any rate, was
uncertain, was less prominent in the Christian mind than his death and
resurrection. It was of Western (Roman) origin, and found its way to the East
after the middle of the fourth century for Chrysostom, in a Homily, which was
probably preached Dec. 25, 386, speaks of the celebration of the separate day
of the Nativity as having been recently introduced in Antioch.
§ 65. The Order of Public Worship.
The earliest description of the
Christian worship is given us by a heathen, the younger Pliny, a.d. 109, in his well-known letter to
Trajan, which embodies the result of his judicial investigations in Bithynia.366 According to this, the Christians assembled on an appointed day
(Sunday) at sunrise, sang responsively a song to Christ as to God,367 and then pledged themselves by
an oath (sacramentum) not to do any evil work, to commit no theft, robbery, nor
adultery, not to break their word, nor sacrifice property intrusted to them.
Afterwards (at evening) they assembled again, to eat ordinary and innocent food
(the agape).
This account of a Roman official
then bears witness to the primitive observance of Sunday, the separation of the
love-feast from the morning worship (with the communion), and the worship of
Christ as God in song.
Justin Martyr, at the close of
his larger Apology,368 describes the public worship more particularly,
as it was conducted about the year 140. After giving a full account of baptism
and the holy Supper, to which we shall refer again, he continues:
"On Sunday369 a meeting of all, who live in
the cities and villages, is held, and a section from the Memoirs of the
Apostles (the Gospels) and the writings of the Prophets (the Old Testament) is
read, as long as the time permits.370 When the reader has finished, the president,371 in a discourse, gives all
exhortation372 to the imitation of these noble things. After
this we all rise in common prayer.373 At the close of the prayer, as we have before described,374 bread and wine with water are
brought. The president offers prayer and thanks for them, according to the
power given him,375 and the congregation responds the Amen. Then the
consecrated elements are distributed to each one, and partaken, and are carried
by the deacons to the houses of the absent. The wealthy and the willing then
give contributions according to their free will, and this collection is
deposited with the president, who therewith supplies orphans and widows, poor
and needy, prisoners and strangers, and takes care of all who are in want. We
assemble in common on Sunday because this is the first day, on which God
created the world and the light, and because Jesus Christ our Saviour on the
same day rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples."
Here, reading of the Scriptures,
preaching (and that as an episcopal function), prayer, and communion, plainly
appear as the regular parts of the Sunday worship; all descending, no doubt,
from the apostolic age. Song is not expressly mentioned here, but elsewhere.376 The communion is not yet clearly separated from the other parts of
worship. But this was done towards the end of the second century.
The same parts of worship are
mentioned in different places by Tertullian.377
The eighth book of the Apostolical Constitutions
contains already an elaborate service with sundry liturgical prayers.378
§ 66. Parts of Worship.
1. The reading of Scripture lessons from the Old Testament with
practical application and exhortation passed from the Jewish synagogue to the
Christian church. The lessons from the New Testament came prominently into use
as the Gospels and Epistles took the place of the oral instruction of the
apostolic age. The reading of the Gospels is expressly mentioned by Justin
Martyr, and the Apostolical Constitutions add the Epistles and the Acts.379 During the Pentecostal season the Acts of the Apostles furnished
the lessons. But there was no uniform system of selection before the Nicene
age. Besides the canonical Scripture, post-apostolic writings, as the Epistle
of Clement of Rome, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Pastor of Hermas, were
read in some congregations, and are found in important MSS. of the New
Testament.380 The Acts
of Martyrs were also read on the anniversary of their martyrdom.
2. The sermon381 was a familiar exposition of Scripture and
exhortation to repentance and a holy life, and gradually assumed in the Greek
church an artistic, rhetorical character. Preaching was at first free to every
member who had the gift of public speaking, but was gradually confined as an
exclusive privilege of the clergy, and especially the bishop. Origen was called
upon to preach before his ordination, but this was even then rather an
exception. The oldest known homily, now recovered in full (1875), is from an
unknown Greek or Roman author of the middle of the second century, probably
before a.d. 140 (formerly
ascribed to Clement of Rome). He addresses the hearers as "brothers"
and "sisters," and read from manuscript.382 The homily has no literary value, and betrays confusion and
intellectual poverty, but is inspired by moral earnestness and triumphant
faith. It closes with this doxology: "To the only God invisible, the
Father of truth, who sent forth unto us the Saviour and Prince of immortality,
through whom also He made manifest unto us the truth and the heavenly life, to
Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen."383
3. Prayer. This essential part of all worship passed likewise
from the Jewish into the Christian service. The oldest prayers of
post-apostolic times are the eucharistic thanksgivings in the Didache, and the
intercession at the close of Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians, which seems
to have been used in the Roman church.384 It is long and carefully
composed, and largely interwoven with passages from the Old Testament. It
begins with an elaborate invocation of God in antithetical sentences, contains
intercession for the afflicted, the needy, the wanderers, and prisoners,
petitions for the conversion of the heathen, a confession of sin and prayer for
pardon (but without a formula of absolution), and closes with a prayer for
unity and a doxology. Very touching is the prayer for rulers then so hostile to
the Christians, that God may grant them health, peace, concord and stability.
The document has a striking resemblance to portions of the ancient liturgies which
begin to appear in the fourth century, but bear the names of Clement, James and
Mark, and probably include some primitive elements.385
The last book of the Apostolical
Constitutions contains the pseudo- or post-Clementine liturgy, with special
prayers for believers, catechumens, the possessed, the penitent, and even for
the dead, and a complete eucharistic service.386
The usual posture in prayer was
standing with outstretched arms in Oriental fashion.
4. Song. The Church inherited the psalter from the synagogue,
and has used it in all ages as an inexhaustible treasury of devotion. The
psalter is truly catholic in its spirit and aim; it springs from the deep
fountains of the human heart in its secret communion with God, and gives
classic expression to the religious experience of all men in every age and
tongue. This is the best proof of its inspiration. Nothing like it can be found
in all the poetry of heathendom. The psalter was first enriched by the inspired
hymns which saluted the birth of the Saviour of the world, the Magnificat of Mary, the Benedictus of Zacharias, the Gloria in Excelsis of the heavenly host, and the Nunc Dimittis of the aged Simeon. These hymns
passed at once into the service of the Church, to resound through all
successive centuries, as things of beauty which are "a joy forever."
Traces of primitive Christian poems can be found throughout the Epistles and
the Apocalypse. The angelic anthem (Luke 2:14) was expanded into the Gloria in Excelsis, first in the Greek church, in
the third, if not the second, century, and afterwards in the Latin, and was
used as the morning hymn.387 It is one
of the classical forms of devotion, like the Latin Te Deum of later date. The evening hymn
of the Greek church is less familiar and of inferior merit.
The following is a free
translation:
"Hail! cheerful Light, of His pure
glory poured,
Who is th’ Immortal Father, Heavenly, Blest,
Holiest of Holies_Jesus Christ our Lord!
Now are we come to the Sun’s hour of rest,
The lights of Evening round us shine,
We sing the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Divine!
Worthiest art Thou at all times, to be sung
With undefiled tongue,
Son of our God, Giver of Life alone!
Therefore, in all the world, Thy glories,
Lord, we own."388
An author towards the close of
the second century389 could appeal against the Artemonites, to a
multitude of hymns in proof of the faith of the church in the divinity of
Christ: "How many psalms and odes of the Christians are there not, which
have been written from the beginning by believers, and which, in their
theology, praise Christ as the Logos of God?" Tradition says, that the antiphonies, or responsive songs; were
introduced by Ignatius of Antioch. The Gnostics, Valentine and Bardesanes also
composed religious songs; and the church surely learned the practice not from
them, but from the Old Testament psalms.
The oldest Christian poem
preserved to us which can be traced to an individual author is from the pen of
the profound Christian philosopher, Clement of Alexandria, who taught theology
ill that city before a.d. 202. It
is a sublime but somewhat turgid song of praise to the Logos, as the divine
educator and leader of the human race, and though not intended and adapted for
public worship, is remarkable for its spirit and antiquity.390
Notes.
I. The Prayer of the Roman
Church from the newly recovered portion of the Epistle of Clement to the
Corinthians, ch. 59-61 (in Bishop Lightfoot’s translation, St. Clement of
Rome, Append. pp. 376-378):
"Grant unto us, Lord, that
we may set our hope on Thy Name which is the primal source of all creation, and
open the eyes of our hearts, that we may know Thee, who alone abidest
Highest in the highest, Holy in the holy; who layest low the insolence
of the proud: who scatterest the imaginings of nations; who settest
the lowly on high, and bringest the lofty low; who makest rich
and makest poor; who killest and makest alive; who alone art the
Benefactor of spirits and the God of all flesh; who lookest into the
abysses, who scannest the works of man; the Succor of them that are in
peril, the Saviour of them that are in despair; the Creator and Overseer
of every spirit; who multipliest the nations upon earth, and hast chosen out
from all men those that love Thee through Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son,
through whom Thou didst instruct us, didst sanctify us, didst honor us. We
beseech Thee, Lord and Master, to be our help and succor. Save those among us
who are in tribulation; have mercy on the lowly; lift up the fallen; show
Thyself unto the needy; heal the ungodly; convert the wanderers of Thy people;
feed the hungry; release our prisoners; raise up the weak; comfort the
faint-hearted. Let all the Gentiles know that Thou art God alone, and
Jesus Christ is Thy Son, and we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pastures
"Thou through Thine
operation didst make manifest the everlasting faithful of the world. Thou,
Lord, didst create the earth. Thou art faithful throughout all generations,
righteous in Thy judgments, marvellous in strength and excellence. Thou that
art wise in creating and prudent in establishing that which Thou hast made,
that art good in the things which are seen and faithful with them that trust on
Thee, pitiful and compassionate, forgive us our iniquities and our
unrighteousnesses and our transgressions and shortcomings. Lay not to our
account every sin of Thy servants and Thine handmaids, but cleanse us with the
cleansing of Thy truth, and guide our steps to walk in holiness and
righteousness and singleness of heart, and to do such things as are good and
well-pleasing in Thy sight and in the sight of our rulers. Yea Lord, make Thy
face to shine upon us in peace for our good, that we may be sheltered by Thy
mighty hand and delivered from every sin by Thine uplifted arm. And deliver up
from them that hate us wrongfully. Give concord and peace to us and to all that
dwell on the earth, as thou gavest to our fathers, when they called on Thee in
faith and truth with holiness, that we may be saved, while we render obedience
to Thine almighty and most excellent Name, and to our rulers and governors upon
the earth.
"Thou, Lord and Master,
hast given them the power of sovereignty through Thine excellent and
unspeakable might, that we knowing the glory and honor which Thou hast given
them may submit ourselves unto them, in nothing resisting Thy will. Grant unto
them therefore, O Lord, health, peace, concord, stability, that they may
administer the government which Thou hast given them without failure. For Thou,
O heavenly Master, King of the ages, givest to the sons of men glory and honor
and power over all things that are upon earth. Do Thou, Lord, direct their
counsel according to that which is good and well pleasing in Thy sight, that,
administering in peace and gentleness with godliness the power which Thou hast
given them, they may obtain Thy favor. O Thou, who alone art able to do these
things and things far more exceeding good than these for us, we praise Thee
through the High-priest and Guardian of our souls, Jesus Christ, through whom
be, the glory and the majesty unto Thee both now and for all generations
and for ever and ever. Amen."
II. A literal translation of the
poem of Clement of Alexandria in praise of Christ.
{Umno" tou' Swth'ro"
cristouv . (Stomivon pwvlwn ajdavwn).
"Bridle of untamed colts,
O footsteps of Christ,
Wing of unwandering birds,
O heavenly way,
Sure Helm of babes,
Perennial Word,
Shepherd of royal lambs!
Endless age,
Assemble Thy simple children,
Eternal Light,
To praise holily,
Fount of mercy,
To hymn guilelessly
Performer of virtue.
With innocent mouths
Noble [is the] life of those
Christ, the guide of children.
Who praise God
O Christ Jesus,
O King of saints,
Heavenly milk
All-subduing Word
Of the sweet breasts
Of the most high Father,
Of the graces of the Bride,
Prince of wisdom,
Pressed out of Thy wisdom.
Support of sorrows,
That rejoicest in the ages,
Babes nourished
Jesus, Saviour
With tender mouths,
Of the human race,
Filled with dewy spirit
Shepherd, Husbandman,
Of the spiritual breast.
Helm, Bridle,
Let us sing together
Heavenly Wing,
Simple praises
Of the all holy flock,
True hymns
Fisher of men
To Christ [the] King,
Who are saved,
Holy reward
Catching the chaste fishes
For the doctrine of life.
With sweet life
Let us sing together,
From the hateful wave
Sing in simplicity
Of a sea of vices.
To the mighty Child.
O choir of peace,
Guide [us], Shepherd
The Christ begotten,
Of rational sheep;
O chaste people
Guide harmless children,
Let us praise together
O holy King.
The God of peace."
This poem was for sixteen
centuries merely a hymnological curiosity, until an American Congregational
minister, Dr. Henry Martyn Dexter,
by a happy reproduction, in 1846, secured it a place in modern hymn-books.
While preparing a sermon (as He. informs me) on "some prominent
characteristics of the early Christians" (text, Deut. 32:7, "Remember
the days of old"), he first wrote down an exact translation of the Greek
hymn of Clement, and then reproduced and modernized it for the use of his
congregation in connection with the sermon. It is well known that many Psalms
of Israel have inspired some of the noblest Christian hymns. The 46th
Psalm gave the key-note of Luther’s triumphant war-hymn of the Reformation:
"Ein’ feste Burg." John Mason Neale dug from the dust of ages many a
Greek and Latin hymn, to the edification of English churches, notably some
portions of Bernard of Cluny’s De Contemptu Mundi, which runs through nearly three thousand
dactylic hexameters, and furnished the material for "Brief life is here
our portion." "For thee, O
dear, dear Country," and "Jerusalem the golden." We add Dexter’s
hymn as a fair specimen of a useful transfusion and rejuvenation of an old
poem.
1. Shepherd of tender youth,
None calls on Thee in vain;
Guiding in love and truth
Help Thou dost not disdain_
Through
devious ways;
Help from
above.
Christ, our triumphant King,
We come Thy name to sing;
4. Ever be Thou our Guide,
Hither our children bring
Our Shepherd and our Pride,
To shout Thy
praise!
Our Staff
and Song!
Jesus, Thou Christ of God
2. Thou art our Holy Lord,
By Thy perennial Word
The all-subduing Word,
Lead us where Thou hast trod,
Healer of
strife!
Make our
faith strong.
Thou didst Thyself abase,
That from sin’s deep disgrace
5. So now, and till we die,
Thou mightest save our race,
Sound we Thy praises high,
And give us
life.
And joyful
sing:
Infants, and the glad throng
3. Thou art the great High Priest;
Who to Thy church belong,
Thou hast prepared the feast
Unite to swell the song
Of heavenly
lov
§ 67. Division of Divine Service. The Disciplina Arcani.
Richard Rothe:
De Disciplinae
Arcani, quae dicitur, in Ecclesia Christ. Origine. Heidelb. 1841; and his art. on
the subject in the first ed. of Herzog (vol. I. 469-477).
C. A. Gerh. Von Zezschwitz: System
der christl. kirchlichen Katechetik. Leipz. 1863, vol. I. p. 154-227. See also his art. in
the second ed. of Herzog, I. 637-645 (abridged in Schaff’s "Rel.
Enc.").
G. Nath. Bonwetsch (of Dorpat): Wesen, Entstehunq
und Fortgang der Arkandisciplin, in Kahnis’ "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol."
1873, pp. 203 sqq.
J. P. Lundy: Monumental Christianity. N.
York, 1876, p. 62-86.
Comp. also A. W. Haddan in Smith & Cheetham, I.
564-566; Wandinger, in Wetzer
& Welte, new ed. vol. I. (1882), 1234-1238. Older dissertations on the
subject by Schelstrate (1678), Meier (1679), Tenzell (1863), Scholliner
(1756), Lienhardt (1829), Toklot (1836), Frommann (1833), Siegel
(1836, I. 506 sqq.).
The public service was divided
from. the middle of the second century down to the close of the fifth, into the
worship of the catechumens,391 and the worship of the faithful.392 The former consisted of scripture reading, preaching, prayer, and
song, and was open to the unbaptized and persons under penance. The latter
consisted of the holy communion, with its liturgical appendages; none but the
proper members of the church could attend it; and before it began, all
catechumens and unbelievers left the assembly at the order of the deacon,393 and the doors were closed or
guarded.
The earliest witness for this
strict separation is Tertullian, who reproaches the heretics with allowing the
baptized and the unbaptized to attend the same prayers, and casting the holy
even before the heathens.394 He
demands, that believers, catechumens, and heathens should occupy separate
places in public worship. The Alexandrian divines furnished a theoretical
ground for this practice by their doctrine of a secret tradition for the
esoteric. Besides the communion, the sacrament of baptism, with its
accompanying confession, was likewise treated as a mystery for the initiated,395 and withdrawn from the view of
Jews and heathens.
We have here the beginnings of
the Christian mystery-worship, or what has been called since 1679 "the
Secret Discipline," (Disciplina Arcani), which is presented in its full development in the liturgies of the
fourth century, but disappeared from the Latin church after the sixth century,
with the dissolution of heathenism and the universal introduction of infant
baptism.
The Secret Discipline had
reference chiefly to the celebration of the sacraments of baptism and the
eucharist, but included also the baptismal symbol, the Lord’s Prayer, and the
doctrine of the Trinity. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and
other fathers make a distinction between lower or elementary (exoteric) and
higher or deeper (esoteric) doctrines, and state that the latter are withheld
from the uninitiated out of reverence and to avoid giving offence to the weak
and the heathen. This mysterious reticence, however, does not justify the
inference that the Secret Discipline included transubstantiation, purgatory,
and other Roman dogmas which are not expressly taught in the writings of the
fathers. The argument from silence is set aside by positive proof to the
contrary.396 Modern
Roman archaeologists have pressed the whole symbolism of the Catacombs into the
service of the Secret Discipline, but without due regard to the age of those
symbolical representations.
The origin of the Secret
Discipline has been traced by some to the apostolic age, on the ground of the
distinction made between "milk for babes" and "strong meat"
for those "of full age," and between speaking to "carnal"
and to "spiritual" hearers.397 But this distinction has no reference to public worship, and
Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, addressed to a heathen emperor, describes
the celebration of baptism and the eucharist without the least reserve. Others
derive the institution from the sacerdotal and hierarchical spirit which appeared
in the latter part of the second century, and which no doubt favored and
strengthened it;398 still others, from the Greek and Roman mystery
worship, which would best explain many expressions and formulas, together with
all sorts of unscriptural pedantries connected with these mysteries.399 Yet the first motive must be sought rather in an opposition to
heathenism; to wit, in the feeling of the necessity of guarding the sacred
transactions of Christianity, the embodiment of its deepest truths, against
profanation in the midst of a hostile world, according to Matt. 7:6; especially
when after Hadrian, perhaps even from the time of Nero, those transactions came
to be so shamefully misunderstood and slandered. To this must be added a proper
regard for modesty and decency in the administration of adult baptism by
immersion. Finally_and this is the chief cause_the institution of the order of
catechumens led to a distinction of half-Christians and full-Christians,
exoteric and esoteric, and this distinction gradually became established in the
liturgy. The secret discipline was therefore a temporary, educational and
liturgical expedient of the ante-Nicene age. The catechumenate and the division
of the acts of worship grew together and declined to, together. With the
disappearance of adult catechumens, or with the general use of infant baptism
and the union of church and state, disappeared also the secret discipline in
the sixth century: "cessante causa cessat effectus."
The Eastern church, however, has
retained in her liturgies to this day the ancient form for the dismission of
catechumens, the special prayers for them, the designation of the sacraments as
"mysteries," and the partial celebration of the mass behind the veil;
though she also has for centuries had no catechumens in the old sense of the
word, that is, adult heathen or Jewish disciples preparing for baptism, except
in rare cases of exception, or on missionary ground.
§ 68. Celebration of the Eucharist.
The celebration of the Eucharist
or holy communion with appropriate prayers of the faithful was the culmination
of Christian worship.400 Justin Martyr gives us the following description,
which still bespeaks the primitive simplicity:401 "After the prayers [of the
catechumen worship] we greet one another with the brotherly kiss. Then bread
and a cup with water and wine are handed to the president (bishop) of the
brethren. He receives them, and offers praise, glory, and thanks to the Father
of all, through the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, for these his gifts.
When he has ended the prayers and thanksgiving, the whole congregation
responds: ’Amen.’ For ’Amen’ in the Hebrew tongue means: ’Be it so.’ Upon this
the deacons, as we call them, give to each of those present some of the blessed
bread,402 and of the wine mingled with water, and carry it
to the absent in their dwellings. This food is called with us the eucharist,
of which none can partake, but the believing and baptized, who live
according to the commands of Christ. For we use these not as common bread and
common drink; but like as Jesus Christ our Redeemer was made flesh through the
word of God, and took upon him flesh and blood for our redemption; so we are
taught, that the nourishment blessed by the word of prayer, by which our flesh
and blood are nourished by transformation (assimilation), is the flesh and
blood of the incarnate Jesus."
Then he relates the institution
from the Gospels, and mentions the customary collections for the poor.
We are not warranted in carrying
back to this period the full liturgical service, which we find prevailing with
striking uniformity in essentials, though with many variations in minor points,
in all quarters of the church in the Nicene age. A certain simplicity and
freedom characterized the period before us. Even the so-called Clementine
liturgy, in the eighth book of the pseudo-Apostolical Constitutions, was
probably not composed and written out in this form before the fourth century.
There is no trace of written liturgies during the Diocletian
persecution. But the germs (late from the second century. The oldest
eucharistic prayers have recently come to light in the Didache ,which contains
three thanksgivings, for the, cup, the broken and for all mercies. (chs. 9 and
10.)
From scattered statements of the
ante-Nicene fathers we may gather the following view of the eucharistic service
as it may have stood in the middle of the third century, if not earlier.
The communion was a regular and
the most solemn part of the Sunday worship; or it was the worship of God in the
stricter sense, in which none but full members of the church could engage. In
many places and by many Christians it was celebrated even daily, after
apostolic precedent, and according to the very common mystical interpretation
of the fourth petition of the Lord’s prayer.403 The service began, after the dismission of the catechumens, with
the kiss of peace, given by the men to men, and by the women to women, in token
of mutual recognition as members of one redeemed family in the midst of a
heartless and loveless world. It was based upon apostolic precedent, and is
characteristic of the childlike simplicity, and love and joy of the early
Christians.404 The service
proper consisted of two principal acts: the oblation,405 or presenting of the offerings
of the congregation by the deacons for the ordinance itself, and for the
benefit of the clergy and the poor; and the communion, or partaking of the
consecrated elements. In the oblation the congregation at the same time
presented itself as a living thank-offering; as in the communion it
appropriated anew in faith the sacrifice of Christ, and united itself anew with
its Head. Both acts were accompanied and consecrated by prayer and songs of
praise.
In the prayers we must
distinguish, first, the general thanksgiving (the eucharist in the
strictest sense of the word) for all the natural and spiritual gifts of God,
commonly ending with the seraphic hymn, Isa. 6:3; secondly, the prayer of
consecration, or the invocation of the Holy Spirit406 upon the people and the
elements, usually accompanied by the recital of the words of institution and
the Lord’s Prayer; and finally, the general intercessions for all
classes, especially for the believers, on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ
on the cross for the salvation of the world. The length and order of the
prayers, however, were not uniform; nor the position of the Lord’s Prayer,
which sometimes took the place of the prayer of consecration, being reserved
for the prominent part of the service. Pope Gregory I. says that it "was
the custom of the Apostles to consecrate the oblation only by the Lord’s
Prayer." The congregation responded from time to time, according to the
ancient Jewish and the apostolic usage, with an audible "Amen, "or
"Kyrie eleison." The "Sursum corda," also, as an incitement
to devotion, with the response, "Habemus ad Dominum," appears at
least as early as Cyprian’s time, who expressly alludes to it, and in all the
ancient liturgies. The prayers were spoken, not read from a book. But
extemporaneous prayer naturally assumes a fixed form by constant repetition.
The elements were common or
leavened bread407 (except among the Ebionites, who, like the later
Roman church from the seventh century, used unleavened bread), and wine mingled
with water. This mixing was a general custom in antiquity, but came now to have
various mystical meanings attached to it. The elements were placed in the hands
(not in the mouth) of each communicant by the clergy who were present, or,
according to Justin, by the deacons alone, amid singing of psalms by the
congregation (Psalm 34), with the words: "The body of Christ;"
"The blood of Christ, the cup of life;" to each of which the recipient
responded "Amen."408 The whole congregation thus received the elements, standing in the
act.409 Thanksgiving and benediction concluded the celebration.
After the public service the
deacons carried the consecrated elements to the sick and to the confessors in
prison. Many took portions of the bread home with them, to use in the family at
morning prayer. This domestic communion was practised particularly in North
Africa, and furnishes the first example of a communio sub una specie. In the same country, in
Cyprian’s time, we find the custom of infant communion (administered with wine
alone), which was justified from John 6:53, and has continued in the Greek (and
Russian) church to this day, though irreconcilable with the apostle’s
requisition of a preparatory examination (1 Cor. 11:28).
At first the communion was
joined with a love feast, and was
then celebrated in the evening, in memory of the last supper of Jesus with his
disciples. But so early as the beginning of the second century these two
exercises were separated, and the communion was placed in the morning, the love
feast in the evening, except on certain days of special observance.410 Tertullian gives a detailed description of the Agape in refutation
of the shameless calumnies of the heathens.411 But the growth of the churches and the rise of manifold abuses led
to the gradual disuse, and in the fourth century even to the formal prohibition
of the Agape, which belonged in fact only to the childhood and first love of
the church. It was a family feast, where rich and poor, master and slave met on
the same footing, partaking of a simple meal, hearing reports from distant
congregations, contributing to the necessities of suffering brethren, and
encouraging each other in their daily duties and trials. Augustin describes his
mother Monica as going to these feasts with a basket full of provisions and
distributing them.
The communion service has undergone many changes in the
course of time, but still substantially survives with all its primitive
vitality and solemnity in all churches of Christendom,_a perpetual memorial of
Christ’s atoning sacrifice and saving love to the human race. Baptism and the
Lord’s Supper are institutions which proclaim from day to day the historic
Christ, and can never be superseded by contrivances of human ingenuity and
wisdom.
§ 69. The Doctrine of the Eucharist.
Literature. See the
works quoted, vol. I. 472, by Waterland (Episc.
d. 1740), Döllinger (R. Cath.,
1826; since 1870 Old Cath.), Ebrard (Calvinistic,
1845), Nevin (Calvinistic, 1846),
Kahnis (Luth. 1851, but changed
his view in his Dogmatik), E. B. Pusey
(high Anglic., 1855), RĂĽckert (Rationalistic,
1856), Vogan (high Anglic.,
1871), Harrison (Evang. Angl.,
1871), Stanley (Broad Church
Episc., 1881), Gude (Lutheran,
1887).
On the Eucharistic
doctrine of Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, there are also special
treatises by Thiersch (1841), Semisch (1842), Engelhardt (1842), Baur
(1839 and 1857), Steitz (1864),
and others.
Höfling: Die
Lehre der ältesten Kirche vom Opfer im Leben und Cultus der Christen. Erlangen, 1851.
Dean Stanley: The Eucharistic Sacrifice.
In "Christian Institutions" (N. Y. 1881) p. 73 sqq.
The doctrine concerning the
sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, not coming into special discussion, remained
indefinite and obscure. The ancient church made more account of the worthy
participation of the ordinance than of the logical apprehension of it. She
looked upon it as the holiest mystery of the Christian worship, and accordingly
celebrated it with the deepest devotion, without inquiring into the mode of
Christ’s presence, nor into the relation of the sensible signs to his flesh and
blood. It is unhistorical to carry any of the later theories back into this
age; although it has been done frequently in the apologetic and polemic
discussion of this subject.
1. The
Eucharist as a Sacrament.
The Didache of the
Apostles contains eucharistic prayers, but no theory of the eucharist. Ignatius
speaks of this sacrament in two passages, only by way of allusion, but in very
strong, mystical terms, calling it the flesh of our crucified and risen Lord
Jesus Christ, and the consecrated bread a medicine of immortality and an
antidote of spiritual death.412 This view, closely connected with his high-churchly tendency in
general, no doubt involves belief in the real presence, and ascribes to the
holy Supper an effect on spirit and body at once, with reference to the future
resurrection, but is still somewhat obscure, and rather an expression of
elevated feeling than a logical definition.
The same may be said of Justin
Martyr, when he compares the descent of Christ into the consecrated elements to
his incarnation for our redemption. 413
Irenaeus says repeatedly, in
combating the Gnostic Docetism,414 that broad and wine in the
sacrament become, by the presence of the Word of God, and by the power of the
Holy Spirit, the body and blood of Christ and that the receiving of there
strengthens soul and body (the germ of the resurrection body) unto eternal
life. Yet this would hardly warrant our ascribing either transubstantiation or
consubstantiation to Irenaeus. For in another place he calls the bread and
wine, after consecration, "antitypes," implying the continued
distinction of their substance from the body and blood of Christ.415 This expression in itself, indeed, might be understood as merely
contrasting here the upper, as the substance, with the Old Testament passover,
its type; as Peter calls baptism the antitype of the saving water of the flood.416 But the connection, and the usus loquendi of the earlier Greek fathers, require us to take the
term antitype, a the sense of type, or, more precisely, as the antithesis of
archetype. The broad and wine represent and exhibit the body and blood of
Christ as the archetype, and correspond to them, as a copy to the original. In
exactly the same sense it is said in Heb. 9:24_comp. 8:5_that the earthly
sanctuary is the antitype, that is the copy, of the heavenly archetype. Other
Greek fathers also, down to the fifth century, and especially the author of the
Apostolical Constitutions, call the consecrated elements "antitypes"
(sometimes, like Theodoretus, "types") of the body and blood of Christ.417
A different view, approaching
nearer the Calvinistic or R
