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.