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.