Problems in Early History of Liturgy
2002 Reston, Virginia
2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002
Convener 2002
Martin Connell (assistant professor of liturgical studies, School of Theology, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota)
Seminar Participants 2002
John F. Baldovin, S.J., Jill Burnett, Martin Connell, Manny Cutrone, Richard Fabian, Steven Hawkes-Teeples, S.J., Maxwell Johnson, John Klentos, Lizette Larson-Miller, L. Edward Phillips, Walter Ray, Dominic E. Serra; (visitors) Stefanos Alexopoulos, Ephrem Carr, O.S.B., Christian McConnell, David Pitt, Paul A. Zalonski, S.J.
Seminar Report 2002
Summaries of the papers presented:
“The Dedham Scroll and Its Place in the History of Private Communion Prayers” by Stefanos Alexopoulos
The Dedham scroll is a twelfth-century manuscript which contains ten private communion prayers and two prayers in times of temptation. This paper deals with the origins and history of private communion prayers, arguing that the origins of these prayers lie in the catechetical instructions of the late fourth, fifth, and early sixth centuries and then put together in collections such as the Dedham scroll. From there the prayers made their way into the euchological tradition and eucharistic formularies (Taft) and within monasticism in the developing service of Holy Communion such as that presently found in the Horologion.
“The Empire Baptized” by John Baldovin
The author led a discussion of this work forthcoming as the second chapter of the Oxford Illustrated History of Christian Worship, edited by Karen Westerfield Tucker and Geoffrey Wainwright. Sections of the chapter discussed were the architectural setting for worship, the emergence of the major rites, the structure of the eucharistic rite, as well as the development of the eucharistic prayer.
“Festal Detritus: The Emergence of the Feast of the Ascension” by Jill Burnett
This essay evaluates Jean Daniélou’s suggestion that Gregory of Nyssa was the first to institute a commemoration of Christ’s ascension on the fortieth day after Easter. Creating a separate ascension feast changes a unitive celebration of ascension/Pentecost to a focus on Pentecost that reflected the theological issues concerning the Holy Spirit whose consubstantiality with the Father had recently been affirmed by the Council of Constantinople and refuted the Pneumatomachians and others who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
“‘Just as on Easter Sunday’: On the Feast of the Presentation” by Martin Connell
Taking off from Talley’s work on the origins of the liturgical year in which the origins of Lent were found in the Alexandrian forty-day period after Epiphany, this paper gathered evidence from Egeria’s late fourth-century travel diary and from late fourth- and fifth-century sermons of Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, and Cyril of Alexandria. The author concentrated on light imagery and the use of candles as well as on Scriptural narratives with and without a vocabulary of “meeting,” such as, respectively, the Johannine raising of Lazarus and the Lucan presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple.
“Tertullian’s ‘Diem baptismo sollemniorem’ Revisited: A Tentative Hypothesis on Baptism at Pentecost” by Maxwell Johnson
In this paper Johnson argued for the antiquity of baptism at Pentecost already in the Jerusalem Christian community reflected in Acts 2. At Qumran and in the sectarian Judaism reflected in the Book of Jubilees Pentecost was already a feast of covenant renewal and of the reception of new members. Johnson also critiqued the characteristic distinction between Johannine (John 3) and Pauline (Romans 6) baptismal theology arguing that a baptismal theology of “new birth” and “adoption” in water and the Holy Spirit is also Pauline and certainly consistent with Pentecost. Pentecost may well antedate Pascha as a baptismal feast.
“Narrative and Ritual in the Book of Jubilees and Early Christianity” by Walter D. Ray
In previous papers the author has argued for a relationship between the calendar of the Book of Jubilees and the calendar of the early Jerusalem church. Significantly, the Jerusalem church uses not only the calendar but also the narrative that it ritualizes. In this paper he expanded the investigation to look at other ritualizations of the Jubilees narrative and their possible relationships to Christian Eucharist and initiation rituals.
“Postbaptismal Anointing” by Dominic Serra
This paper suggests that the prebaptismal consecratory anointing may have more in common with the Western practice of reserving such an anointing until after the baptismal bath. In both cases the consecratory anointing takes place after the turning of the initiate from the realm of Satan to that of Christ. Any anointing that follows this “turning” cannot be exorcistic but only consecratory.