Lloyd G. Patterson

Worship During the Fourth and Fifth Centuries

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The fundamental pattern of early Christian worship continued to develop through the fourth and fifth centuries. However, “families” of liturgical practice began to emerge, and styles of worship varied from one Christian region to the other. By this time, one can begin to speak of “Eastern” and “Western” characteristics of Christian liturgy.

With the end of the persecutions and the beginning of the period in which Christianity became the public cultus of the Roman imperial government, the number and variety of liturgical sources multiply, though they still reflect the oral-formal tradition continued in these new circumstances.

It has been common to speak of this period as witnessing the emergency of “families of rites,” results of the growing influence on local practices of the great sees [areas governed by prominent bishops] of the time. It would perhaps be truer to say that our evidence, still scattered and incomplete, suggests a more specific process of consolidation, at least in the East.

Evidence for Eastern Liturgy

The Apostolic Constitutions, coming from Antioch in the late fourth century, are the central body of evidence. Long available, it has been recognized only recently for the compilation of the diverse materials it is. It opens with directions for various aspects of the Christian life (I–VI) containing excerpts of Didascalia, incorporates the blessing prayers of Didachē partially reorganized into a contemporary eucharistic structure (VII, 25–26), and includes a version of the ordination section of the Apostolic Tradition (VIII, 1–5). If Apostolic Constitutions is still a “church order” based on the sort of structure of description found in Didachē, Justin, and the Apostolic Tradition, it has been stretched out of shape by the diverse materials accommodated within it, perhaps in an effort to organize the variety of practices in use in the region of the Syrian capital.

Central to the Apostolic Constitutions, however, are elaborate directions and prayers for baptism (VII, 39–45) and Eucharist (VII, 6–15), generally thought to reflect the practices of the church of Antioch itself. Distinctive features of baptism include a unified taking of the confession of faith separate from the washing itself and a subsequent episcopal anointing with the invocation of the Spirit. Those of the Eucharist includes the dismissal of catechumens and litanic prayers of the faithful led by deacons, and an elaborate anaphora similar in shape to that reflected in the Apostolic Tradition, but including extended Preface and Sanctus and introducing diaconal prayers for the living and dead before the concluding doxology.

Less well known from this period is the recently discovered east Syrian evidence of the use in the church of Edessa of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, notable for retaining early Jewish Christian blessing forms reminiscent of the type found in Didachē, but set within a structure roughly similar to that elaborated in Apostolic Constitutions. From Egypt as well, light has been shed on the background of the Alexandrian Liturgy of St. Mark by the late nineteenth-century discovery of the “prayer book” (euchologion) of Serapion (d. 360?), bishop of Thmuis and correspondent of Athanasius. This collection may have been preserved because of the intrinsic interest of its prayers at the Scripture readings, homily, dismissal of the catechumens, and common prayers before the Eucharist (1–12) and at the baptismal (19–25) and ordination (26–38) rites. But it also preserves an anaphora different in shape from Apostolic Constitutions and of undoubted Egyptian pedigree (cf. the Der Balizeh and Strasbourg fragments), in which Preface and Sanctus are followed by invocations over the oblation before and after the institution narrative.

For the East in general, however, similarities between the Apostolic Constitutions and the later rite of Constantinople suggest that its central sections contain a version of the rites eventually adopted in the new imperial capital. With additions of its own, notably its use of the anaphora attributed to John Chrysostom (d. 407) and occasionally replaced by those of Basil of Caesarea (d. 379) and the Jerusalem Liturgy of St. James, these latter rites eventually commended themselves widely where imperial influence extended in the East.

Egeria’s Diary of a Pilgrimage, the account of a journey of a Gallo-Hispanic religious woman through Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt at the turn of the fifth century, offers graphic descriptions of liturgical life, including the paschal rites at Jerusalem and its environs.

Evidence for Western Liturgy

Comparable Western evidence is restricted to much later books, all showing effects of the promotion of the Roman rites under the Frankish auspices of Pepin IV and Charlemagne in the eighth and ninth centuries. The peculiar features of the north Italian Ambrosian Missal, the Gallo-Hispanic Missale Gothicum and Missale Bobbiense, and the Gallo-Irish Stowe Missal, many of which may reflect the appropriation of Eastern practices throughout Italy, must be studied in the light of such writings as those of Ambrose of Milan (d. 396) and Isidore of Seville (d. 636). Evidence of the rites of Latin Africa, before the Vandal conquest of the fifth and the Justinian reconquest of the sixth century, is entirely in the form of allusions in such writings as those of Augustine (d. 421).

Of the Roman rites themselves, after the fourth-century introduction of Latin as the liturgical language, such evidence as we have comes from similarly later books, though it is here possible to identify the oldest form of the Roman eucharistic prayer or canon, wrongly attributed to Gelasius I (d. 496), and early seasonal materials that may partly derive from the time of Leo I (d. 461), before encountering the work attributed to Gregory I (d. 604), whose name is traditionally attached to the rites adopted by the Frankish liturgical reformers. Apart from a certain restraint in the adoption of Eastern practices, and the formulation of a eucharistic canon different in structure from that of the Apostolic Tradition but perhaps not entirely without contemporary parallels (cf. Ambrose, De Sacramentis), we may think of the earliest Latin rites of the Roman church as similar to those that preceded them.

Instructional and Homiletical Material

Of unique significance for this period are the bodies of catechetical and homiletic material, which are themselves liturgical in character as well as in contents, which reflect the newly public position of the church, and provide a wealth of detail about liturgical practice.

While we have references to catechetical instruction before baptism in Justin and the Apostolic Tradition, and in Tertullian, Origen (d. 254?), and other earlier writers, it is from the fourth century onward that we have evidence of two types of formal episcopal addresses: the first delivered at and after the formal acceptance of candidates for the paschal baptism, devoted to the exposition of the teachings of the baptismal confession of faith, and occasionally the Lord’s Prayer; the second consisting of post-baptismal (“mystagogical”) addresses devoted to the meaning of baptism and Eucharist for those who had now participated in them.

Of such addresses, we have a series, not always complete or given in the same years, by Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (d. 386), Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428), and John Chrysostom (d. 407), the last as presbyter of Antioch. We also have two post-baptismal catecheses of Ambrose of Milan, De Mysteriis, and (now widely accepted) De Sacramentis. Among other evidence, Augustine, De Catechizandis Rudibus, provides advice and a model narration to a Carthaginian deacon charged with the initial address to those seeking admission as catechumens, while his De Fide et Symbolo purports to be based on his catechetical instructions as presbyter of Hippo. Maximus the Confessor’s (d. 663) Mystogogia is a mystical interpretation of the Constantinopolitan eucharistic liturgy of his time, and an important source for its instruction.

Such earlier homilies as survive include that of Melito, bishop of Sardis (d. 190), On the Passover, and the great collections of the scriptural homilies of Origen. From the fourth century onward, however, comes a profusion of homilies too great to be enumerated, including series by Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 390), Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395), John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), as well as of Ambrose, Augustine, Leo I, and Gregory I. With respect to all of these, it can only be noticed in general that the public liturgical assemblies of this period allowed and even required new forms of homiletic address, having in view non-Christians as well as Christians, and larger physical spaces than had before been the case. Several writings of the period, most notably Chrysostom, On Priesthood, but also Gregory of Nazianzus, On His Flight, and even Ambrose, On the Duties of Ministers, are of interest as addressing or reflecting the challenge of preaching in these circumstances.

Such catechetical lectures and homilies were, in this period as distinct from ours, regarded as integral parts of the liturgy itself rather than as attachments or additions to it. Initially taken down in shorthand in the course of delivery, they often reflect another stage in the appropriation of classical styles of public oratory for Christian purposes.

Later Theological Issues

Liturgical theology in this period turns on the theological significance of liturgical practice. Thus, both Athanasius (Ad Serapion I.14, 30) and the “homoisousian” [holding that the Son is “of like substance,” rather than of “the same substance,” with the Father] Basil of Ancyra (Epiphanius, Panarion 73.3) argue for their different ways of stating the equality of the persons of the Godhead against the Arians on the ground that Father, Son, and Spirit are together at work in baptism, while the enhanced specificity of the invocation (epiklēsis) of the Spirit on the oblation in the various forms of anaphora in the Constantinopolitan rite emphasizes what seemed the orthodox Trinitarian implications of earlier liturgical prayers. While the Carolingian theologians Ratramnus and Radbertus developed their several views of the relation of the body and blood of Christ to the eucharistic bread and wine with references to a variety of early Christian writers, it is doubtful if the latter would have understood the terms of the debate, prone as they were to proceed by reference to the theology inherent in liturgical language rather than to raise questions on the basis of it.

Conclusion

The erosion of the oral-formal tradition of liturgical practice is not easily traced in our sources themselves. The consolidation of rites in the East may well have impelled a new concern for precision in liturgical language, though the ninth-century Constantinopolitan euchologion (Barberini manuscript) is the first surviving document to appear to assume the actual use of liturgical books. For the West, it may be assumed that inroads upon the classical tradition required the use of such books at a much earlier date, perhaps particularly in Spain and Gaul; though the late date of our actual sources, which generally assume their use, makes it hard to say when this occurred. It is only in Carolingian ivory book covers that liturgical books appear on altars in tandem with books of the Gospels, though these may reflect a practice long-familiar at the time.

The issue here is not a small one. Much that is central to the character of early liturgical practice hinged on the continuation of the oral-formal tradition and was obscured when the cultural decline of the later centuries necessitated its abandonment. At that point, whenever and by what stages it occurred, different notions of the nature of Christian liturgical gatherings began to make their influence felt.

Worship in the Second and Third Centuries

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Worship during the second and third centuries continued to follow the course set by New Testament liturgical traditions. Consequently, the discussion of worship during this period centered on the significance of baptism and of the Eucharist, understood in its full content of the service of Word and of the Lord’s table.

Evidence in the “Apostolic Fathers”

The works designated “Apostolic Fathers” also contain allusions to the significance of baptism and Eucharist in the same period as that of the New Testament.

Of these, two are Italian in provenance. “The First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians” (1 Clement) is a formal letter from the Roman church, to be dated after the Domitian persecution at Rome in a.d. 96, supporting the authority of the leadership of the Corinthian church against certain detractors. The letter probably has the baptized in view when it speaks of the duties of those who bear “the name” of Christ (58:1–2). But it certainly has the eucharistic community in view when it elaborates the Pauline theme of the various functions of the members of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12–31) with a complicated analogy between the responsibilities of the high priest, Levites, and people in offering the sacrifices of the Old Covenant and the functions of the apostolically appointed leaders and members of the church (1 Clement 42–44). Moreover, the lyric blessing prayer for the unity of the church, with which the letter draws to a close (59:3–64:1), is a free adaptation of the structure of Jewish blessing prayers with which we may assume Clement was familiar from eucharistic use.

Closely related to 1 Clement, both in time and place, are the apocalyptic visions of the Shepherd of Hermas, which exhort the leaders of the church to oversight of the baptized (Visions IX, 7–10) and take baptism as the mandate for repentance and the cultivation of purity (Mandates III, 1–7) in seeming qualification of Hebrews 6:1–8.

Of Asian provenance are the letters of Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, written to the churches he expected to visit on his way to martyrdom at Rome in the reign of the Emperor Trajan (d. a.d. 117). In warning against “docetic” teaching of a proto-Gnostic sort, which denies the incarnation of the Word, Ignatius asserts the importance of the eucharistic gathering of the baptized with the bishop, elaborating Johannine themes (cf. 1 John 2:18–25; 5:6–12) to show its importance as exhibiting the faith that “there is only one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup to unite us in his blood” (Epistle to the Philadelphians 4; cf. Epistle to the Ephesians 13:1; Smyrneans 7:1, etc.).

Also of Asian provenance is the Martyrdom of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (d. a.d. 156), himself numbered liturgically among the “Quartodecimans” who observed the Passover on the Jewish date 14 Nisan (see the discussion of Justin, below). This work, which contains evidence of later elaboration of various sorts, nonetheless preserves a blessing prayer attributed to Polycarp at the time of his death (ch. 14), which may well reflect his normal eucharistic blessing prayer but is here adapted to giving thanks for his being worthy of death and asking that he be accepted as a “pleasing sacrifice.” Like the blessing prayer of 1 Clement 59:3–64:1, it is evidence of the free Christian use of the form of Jewish blessing prayers.

The Didachē

Among other writings, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” (Didachē) was long unrecognized in an adapted version incorporated in the late fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, but is now known through the late nineteenth-century discovery of an independent manuscript. This is an unusual second-century Greek compilation and editing of early Aramaic materials from Syria-Palestine (a minority view says Egypt) perhaps as early as the late first century. In its present second-century form, Didachē brings together moral instruction, the “two ways” document (1–6), directions “about baptism” (7), fasting and prayer (8), and “about the Eucharist”: blessings to be said over wine and bread before the meal and a connected set of blessings to be said afterward (9–10). Directions follow covering the right of visiting prophets to give thanks and the need to appoint bishops and deacons (11–15), together with an exhortation to observe the Sunday Eucharist (14).

As a second-century document, Didachē follows an outline roughly similar to that found in Justin and Hippolytus (see below), in which a pre-baptismal catechesis precedes a description of paschal baptism and Eucharist, and is followed by a reference to the Sunday Eucharist and other matters. It is, for this reason, sometimes called an early “church order.” The particular circumstances that impelled its effort to conform earlier materials to newly emerging norms of practice, however, are not clear.

As to these early materials, interest naturally centers on the blessings to be said before and after meals, unquestionably Christian adaptations of the Jewish Sabbath and festival meal blessings. The order of wine and bread, and the lack of reference to the Last Supper “tradition,” still cause some skepticism regarding them. But plain words of the text, as well as the paschal context in which they have been set in conjunction with baptism, make it likely that they are eucharistic blessings, and even that the connected series after the meal, Christian adaptations of the Jewish blessings over the final “cup of blessing,” supply us with the long-needed clue as to the structure of prayers into which the blessings over the eucharistic bread and wine were set together when it became normal to gather for the Eucharist apart from an actual meal.

Justin Martyr

From the mid-second century to the end of the period of persecutions, we have an increasing body of liturgical evidence in the form of actual descriptions of liturgical practices, as well as of other writings with liturgical implications. The former, Justin Martyr’s First Apology and Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition, require special attention, though at least a selection of the latter must be noticed.

Justin’s First Apology, the work of a teacher of the Greek-speaking Roman church (d. a.d. 167), is easily neglected where it is assumed that liturgical writings will be of the sort with which we are familiar. As a general explanation and defense of Christianity for a pagan readership, it concludes with a description of Christian meetings for baptism and Eucharist (61–67) designed to allay suspicions of ghastly secret ceremonies to which their private character gave rise. Consequently, the description seems incomplete from our perspective. Despite its generality, however, this description follows precisely the pattern, not of Justin’s making, wherein details of paschal baptism and Eucharist (“how we dedicated ourselves to God when we were made new through Christ,” 61) are followed by a reference to the Sunday Eucharist (“on the day called ‘of the sun,’ there is a meeting in one place,” 67). Indeed, this pattern, roughly that already encountered in the present Didachē, doubtless reflects the practice of the Roman church once the Passover had come to be celebrated on a Lord’s Day following the Jewish feast, as was the case by the time of the visit of Polycarp of Smyrna to Pope Anicetus in a.d. 155 (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, 14).

Moreover, Justin’s description is by no means lacking in specific detail. The paschal description assumes pre-baptismal catechesis, fasting, and prayer before a threefold washing “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (cf. Matt. 28:19), after which the newly baptized join the Eucharist for common prayers and the kiss of peace (61, 65). The elaborate interpretation of this new birth and remission of sins, with the use of the term illumination (cf. Heb. 6:4) and exposition of the divine triad (62–64) is likely catechetical in origin.

Justin’s appended description of the Eucharist (65), repeated briefly in his treatment of its weekly use (67), exhibits the sequence of “taking, blessing over, breaking (here omitted), and distribution” as it had evolved when detached from an actual meal, with a unified oral-formal blessing prayer and assenting Amen. His interpretation of the rite as a “memorial” commanded by Jesus (cf. 1 Cor. 11:23–26), participation in the body and blood of Christ, and the pure sacrifice of the New Covenant (66, cf. Dialogue with Trypho 41, 70, 117) likely reflects the themes expected to inform the blessing prayer. But the treatment of the Sunday Eucharist adds a reference to preliminary readings from the Jewish Scriptures and the “memoirs of the apostles,” followed by a homily, before the common prayers and kiss of peace, and thus provides our earliest evidence of such a Christian adaptation of the synagogue service in connection with the Sunday Eucharist.

Irenaeus

Unavoidable among theological writers of liturgical significance is Irenaeus of Lyons (d. a.d. 190?), a native of Asia Minor, correspondent of members of the Roman church, presbyter, and bishop of the Greek-speaking community at Lyons. His “Detection and Refutation of Falsely So-called Knowledge” (Adversus Haereses, or Against Heresies) is at once a response to Valentinian, Marcionite, and Gnostic teachings and a compendious presentation of Christian belief of far-reaching influence. His brief Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching is a catechetical digest of its main themes.

Irenaeus’ liturgical value is at once seen in his main contention that his opponents rely on a false interpretation (hypothesis) of the Scriptures different from the apostolic tradition (paradosis) communicated by the bishops at baptism (Against Heresies I.8.1, 9.1, 4, cf. III.2.2, 3.3). This tradition is “what we believe” about the one God and Father, the one Word incarnate in the flesh, and the Spirit which communicates new life in Christ to believers (I.10.1, cf. I.3.6, 22; II.28.1–3). Not only does Irenaeus refer here to the baptismal catechetical instruction with which he is familiar and which would eventually take shape in baptismal confessions of faith (creeds), but his whole work is, in genre, an expanded form of such instruction.

Irenaeus’ treatments of baptism and Eucharist assemble and develop now traditional interpretations, particularly those of baptismal rebirth (I.21.1; II.22.4; III.17.1) for the remission of sins (III.12.7) and the gift of righteousness and incorruption (III.17.2), and of the Eucharist as the prophecies’ pure sacrifice of the last days (IV.17.5), the oblation commanded by the Lord (IV.18.1), in which the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ after “the invocation of God” (IV.18.5). In his own view, the baptismal and eucharistic use of water, bread, and wine as means of participation in Christ show the goodness and usefulness of the physical creation (III.17.2; IV.18.2, 4–6; V.2.2–3) in contrast to the views of his opponents, who theoretically equate matter and evil, yet inconsistently continue the use of water, bread, and wine. (IV.18.5).

The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus

It is hard to overestimate the importance of the identification (by E. Schwartz [1910] and R. H. Connolly [1916]) of a Coptic document, discovered in 1848 and called “an Egyptian Church Order,” as the Apostolic Tradition listed among the writings of Hippolytus of Rome (d. a.d. 236). Now pieced together, on this basis, from a hitherto unidentified Latin manuscript, from Greek excerpts included in the later fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, and from other sources, this work is now generally regarded as that of Hippolytus, an Irenaean theologian, presbyter of the Roman church, opponent of the bishops Zephyrinus (d. 217) and Callistus (d. 233), and schismatic bishop. As such, it purports to describe the proper conduct of the rites of the Roman church in Hippolytus’ time. While still not a liturgical book, it is an invaluable discussion of Roman liturgical practice.

The Apostolic Tradition follows the outline already familiar from Justin. Here, however, an extensive section on ordinations (2–15) precedes that on paschal baptism and Eucharist and includes a detailed description of the Eucharist of the newly ordained bishop. In consequence, the paschal section (16–23) treats baptism in detail but adds only brief notes on the Eucharist that follows it, while the Sunday Eucharist is omitted in the interest of a scattering of directions on other matters, including the continuation of communal meals whose non-eucharistic character is insisted on (25–26).

The Roman provenance of the Apostolic Tradition is evident from its broad structural similarities to Justin, and its use in the paschal baptism of interrogations accompanying the three washings (“Do you believe … ? I believe … ”) that employ much of the language of the Roman baptismal confession later attested by the letter of Marcellus of Ancyra to Pope Julius I in a.d. 340 (Epiphanius, Panarion 72) and by Rufinus of Aquileia’s early fifth-century Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed.

An uncertain number of features of the Apostolic Tradition, however, may be Hippolytus’ own adaptations or proposals. His rigorist position on the restoration of apostates in persecution is evident in the care with which he insists catechumens be selected (16), in his acceptance of the “baptism of blood” as an alternative to baptism in water (19), and possibly in the dramatic positioning of the baptismal interrogations. The careful descriptions of the functions of bishop, presbyters, and deacons in the ordination prayers (3, 8, 9) may also owe something to his own views, as may the unified language of his episcopal eucharistic prayer or anaphora (4), the theological stress on the independent existence of the Word in its opening thanks for the work of God, and in the appearance of an oblation of the “memorial” and invocation of the Spirit following the “institution narrative.” In this latter respect, its similarities with later Eastern eucharistic prayers rather than the later Roman canon have often been noticed. But there is no reason why a Roman prayer should not have had parallels with contemporary Asian types (cf. Martyrdom of Polycarp, 14), and we are not clear as to the limits of improvisation acceptable at the time.

Some Other Evidence

Only a selection of other materials from the third century can be noticed here, and then only for its correspondence with the types of evidence thus far encountered.

Didascalia. From Syria, perhaps quite early in the third century, comes the “Catholic Teaching of the Twelve Apostles and Holy Disciples of Our Savior” (Didascalia), now reconstructed by conflating a Syrian translation with Greek excerpts incorporated in the later fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions. Though often described as a “church order,” this work does not follow the structure that we have in the present Didachē, Justin, or Apostolic Tradition, but is a “disorderly” collection of material on various matters of belief and morals. Its liturgical interest lies in its provision, in connection with the comments on the pastoral responsibilities of the bishop, of prayer forms for the reconciliation of the excommunicate (6–7), its brief reference to the bishop’s liturgical functions (9), and its assortment of graphic details concerning the physical arrangement and appropriate conduct of the sorts of people who might gather at the eucharistic meetings (15).

Tertullian. Other contemporary liturgical evidence is found in the two major Latin writers of the period. Of these, Tertullian (d. a.d. 220) is the earlier and more comprehensive, a presbyter (?) of the church of Carthage, appropriator of Irenaeus and contemporary of Hippolytus, who came to accept the claims of the Montanist martyrs to a special possession of the gifts of the Spirit. By contrast, Cyprian (d. a.d. 258), bishop of Carthage, though a devoted reader of Tertullian, supported the authority of bishops to restore apostates to communion, and opposed the claims of the “confessors,” who had been prepared to die in persecution, to special powers of forgiveness.

Tertullian’s treatise On Baptism (De Baptismo), the only work on the subject in our period, might be the exception to our rule that liturgical matters are not subjects of treatment in themselves, were it not essentially an anti-Gnostic tract, concerned to defend (cf. Irenaeus) the regenerative power of water, the primordial source of life, when the Spirit is invoked upon it, the triune name employed, and the Spirit given through anointing and laying on of hands (2–8). In pursuing this subject, Tertullian provides details of baptismal practice not otherwise found in Justin or even Hippolytus (e.g., baptism at Pentecost and at the paschal feast), as well as, with the challenge of persecution in view, endorsing (16) the “baptism of blood” (see Hippolytus) and discouraging (18) the apparently hitherto common practice of baptizing infants (i.e., “households”).

Tertullian’s On Prayer (De Oratione) is perhaps more topical, though in arguing the superiority of Christian to Jewish prayer it provides the earliest commentary on the Lord’s Prayer (2–9), incidentally taking “daily bread” to refer to the Eucharist—“daily” referring to the “perpetuity” and “indivisibility” of our membership in the body of Christ (6). Once again, the treatise supplies details otherwise lacking, in this case of practices of corporate and private prayer, such as comments on kneeling and standing with hands extended (orans), the exchange of the kiss of peace and the reception of the Communion, and the prohibition of kneeling at the paschal feast and Pentecost.

More at large, Tertullian develops themes of Irenaeus to the point that the body is washed and fed in baptism and Eucharist so that both body and soul may be saved (cf. De Resurectione Carnis, 8), and introduces his own subsequently influential interpretation of the eucharistic sacrifice as a service or duty assigned as means of rendering satisfaction to God (On Prayer, 19).

Cyprian. Cyprian’s extensive debt to Tertullian includes an underlying assumption regarding the purity of the church, which leads, in his case, to insistence on the importance of eucharistic communion with the bishop rather than of such extraordinary spiritual gifts as Tertullian had come to value in the Montanist’s (On the Unity of the Church, 5–6, 8, 23). Thus he rejected (perhaps recalling Tertullian, On Baptism, 15) the baptism performed by the schismatic bishops who followed Novatian in condemning, in part on the basis of Hebrews 6:4–8, his willingness to allow the restoration of apostates to Communion (Epistles 69–74).

In this badly so-called “rebaptism” controversy, Cyprian was opposed by the Roman bishop Stephen, who supported the reception of the schismatically baptized. Cyprian, in his stress on unity with the bishop as the guarantee of the purity of the church, inadvertently laid the foundation for the later Donatist schism, which originated in refusal of Communion with any bishops who had committed apostasy in persecution. For our purposes, this controversy is a further indication, here provided in characteristically Latin form, of the significance of baptism and Eucharist as defining true Christian identity.

Worship in the New Testament Era

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Worship in the New Testament period was ordered around baptism and the Eucharist. Baptism marks the entrance of the believer into the worshiping community, while the Lord’s Supper, together with the teaching of the Scriptures, forms the content of the worship gathering.

The Oral-Formal Tradition

Early Christian liturgy, like its Jewish and pagan counterparts, was an oral-formal phenomenon. The early liturgical gatherings were not lacking in basic shape and structure, in the use of specific confessional formulas, and structures of prayer. Although what was said allowed for improvisation and adaptation, it was not by any means “extemporaneous” in our modern sense. It followed rules, essentially unwritten, but important for that very reason to be observed by those responsible for their conduct if others were to take their appropriate parts. But it was, in principle and practice, not something to be written down for reading in the manner of later times. Those familiar with the classical tradition of poetry and oratory, and of public speaking or rhetoric more generally, will at once recognize here an assumption as natural to that time as it is foreign to ours.

The oral-formal character of early Christian liturgy helps to explain the general value placed on liturgical language as a means of appropriating and transmitting the Christian proclamation (tradition, paradosis), as in the famous dictum of Prosper of Aquitaine that the structure of prayer underlies the structure of belief (Lex orandi statuat legem credendi). But it has a specific significance for the study of the sources that provide us with descriptions of liturgical gatherings. These sources were written only in particular circumstances, with the specific purposes of preservation, explanation, and—often most important—when there was a dispute over what should be done and said. These sources are mishandled when studied as if they were extracts of liturgical books of the sort with which we are familiar. They need to be studied in the light of the particular purposes that impelled their writing in the time before circumstances made continuation of the oral-formal tradition difficult.

The Physical Evidence

Early Christian liturgy, like that of any period, is physical as well as vocal. The physical evidence of places used for liturgical gatherings has at last begun to receive the attention it deserves. This evidence includes the so-called “house churches” (“Christian houses” or sometimes, by an obvious association, “temples of the Christians”), renovated domestic structures of which we have increasing evidence from the second century onward. It also includes the baptisteries and basilicas, and the complexes of buildings of which they were part, erected under the auspices of Constantine and his successors following the period of persecution. These all, whether still in use or in ruins, tell us much about the character and significance of the rites for which they made physical provision. So, too, do the pictorial evidence of the catacombs at Rome, and elsewhere, and the wall decorations of the later buildings—which show us the people who gathered for the Christian meetings and the vesture and furnishings with which they were familiar.

The New Testament Evidence

Particular problems are posed by our earliest written sources. Many but by no means all of these writings were later collected into the New Testament. The rest were designated “Apostolic Fathers” by the Anglican patristic scholar Archbishop James Ussher (d. a.d. 1656). For our purposes, all of these writings provide evidence of the liturgical practices of the communities of the first and early second centuries. Those later regarded as “Scriptures,” however, must also be studied for their subsequent liturgical influence. A case in point is the command of Matthew 28:19–20 to baptize into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, itself an interpretation of the significance of baptism rather than a liturgical formula, which had a wide influence on later catechetical and baptismal practice. Another is the Last Supper tradition of 1 Corinthians 11:23–25 (cf. Mark 14:22–24; Matt. 26:26–28; Luke 22:17–19), once again not itself a liturgical formula, which became the institution narrative incorporated into later eucharistic prayers.

The Writings of Paul. Among the writings that later became part of the New Testament, the Pauline letters deserve special attention. 1 Corinthians contains our earliest references to baptismal practice, at least in the negative sense of insisting that it is baptism “into the name” of Christ rather than that of the baptizer (1:15). It also contains our earliest references to eucharistic practice in the form of instructions for the observance of the blessings over the bread and wine mandated by the Last Supper tradition (11:17–34), with its own even earlier implication that the Eucharist is a “memorial” of the new paschal sacrifice of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 5:7–8). In both cases, these rites are interpreted by Paul as entrance into and sustenance in the life of the members of the body of Christ affected by the Holy Spirit (12:12–31).

The Gospels. The synoptic gospels, however different in genre from the Pauline letters, must also be read as documents intended for communities constituted by baptism and Eucharist. Here baptismal allusions include a reference to Jesus’ death as a baptism foreshadowing the martyrdoms of principal disciples (Mark 10:38–40; Luke 12:50). Moreover, in Matthew, the account of the baptism of Jesus is so treated as to anticipate the new relationship to God, in Christ, through the Spirit in which the baptized stand, and into which others are to be brought. Indeed, the command of Matthew 28:19–20 (“make disciples … baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them … ”) may well assume a pattern of practice, conversion, baptism, and catechesis [instruction] not unlike that assumed by Paul.

Synoptic eucharistic allusions abound. The accounts of the miraculous feedings (Mark 6:41–42; 8:6–8; Matt. 14:19–20; 15:36–37; Luke 9:16–17), which employ the technical language of “taking, blessing over, breaking, and giving,” almost certainly were viewed in the churches as foreshadowings of the Eucharist before their incorporation into the gospel narratives. Moreover, the passion narrative includes a form or forms of the Last Supper tradition (cf. 1 Cor. 11:23–25) placing the last meal on the day of the slaughter of the Passover lambs. This is a crucial element in the tradition’s view of Jesus’ death as a new Passover sacrifice. Whatever the historical accuracy of this narrative, it incorporates an already established “tradition” conveying this interpretation of the death of Jesus through the use of eucharistic terminology familiar to its readers.

Of particular interest is Luke 24:13–35, where the appearance of the risen Christ to the disciples at Emmaus is recounted in language reminiscent of a eucharistic meal, perhaps even suggesting familiarity with an introductory interpretation of the Scriptures but certainly employing the technical language of “taking, blessing over, breaking, and giving” at the supper of which the risen Christ is the host.

In the gospel of John, baptismal and eucharistic allusions are carefully disguised. However, the subject of baptism is easily recognized in the discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus over being “born again” through the Spirit (John 3:1–15), while allusion is again made to the baptism with which the disciples must be baptized (16:1). Similarly, while John replaces the Last Supper “tradition” with the account of the washing of the disciples’ feet and its accompanying command (13:3–11), he gives a eucharistic interpretation with the miraculous feeding (6:25–65) and to the discussion of the vine and branches at the last meal (15:1–17). Baptism and Eucharist are doubtless to be discerned in the references to water and wine (or blood) in the account of the marriage feast at Cana (2:1–11) and in the passion narrative (19:34).

Other New Testament Evidence. Among the other writings now collected in the New Testament, special interest centers on the book of Hebrews, which exhorts those who have been baptized and have participated in the Eucharist to resist apostasy in the face of persecution (6:1–8), and was later appealed to (by Cyprian) as grounds for rigorous refusal to restore apostates to the communion of the church. 1 Peter, whether or not it is the baptismal instruction some have found it to be, assumes that its readers belong to the community of the baptized (1:3, 21–23; 2:2) and are eucharistic participants (2:5). Revelation, which describes its vision as received on the Lord’s Day (1:9–10), has been thought to reflect a structure of scriptural interpretation and eucharistic action and certainly promises the martyrs “hidden manna” and “a new name” at the final “wedding supper of the Lamb” (2:17; 19:7–9).

More specific references to baptismal and eucharistic practice are found in the Acts of the Apostles. While something like a paradigmatic sequence of repentance, baptism “into the name of Jesus Christ,” and the gift of the Spirit, seems to be assumed (2:38), the accounts of baptism (presumably drawn from diverse sources) do not exhibit this sequence in practice (8:9–16, 26–40; 10:44–48). The reference to a daily “breaking of bread” in the primitive Jerusalem community (2:46), if it is eucharistic, is unusual in view of the normal practice of meeting for the Eucharist on the Lord’s Day. But clearer, even graphic, is the account of Paul’s healing of Eutychus during a meeting for the “breaking of bread” at Troas (20:7–12), presumably on the evening of the end of the Sabbath and the beginning of the Lord’s Day on the Jewish reckoning of days from sunset.