Problems in Early History of Liturgy
2005 Louisville, Kentucky
2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002
Convener 2005
L. Edward Phillips (associate professor of historical theology and liturgical studies, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois)
Seminar Participants 2005
Edward Phillips, Martin Connell, Ruth Langer, Clemons Leonhard, John Baldovin, Paul Bradshaw, Jans-Juergen Feulner, Maxwell Johnson, Robin M. Jensen, Michael B. Aune, Glenn Byer, Patrick Regan, Walter Ray, Emmanuel Cutrone, Roy Reed, Robert Taft
Visitors: Stephanie Perdew, Harald Buckinger, Mark Morozowich, Christian McConnell, Ephrem Carr, Mark Schuler
Seminar Report 2005
Mark Morozowich presented a paper demonstrating that the service of the reconciliation of penitents in the Jerusalem tradition finds counterparts in most liturgical traditions, except the Constantinopolitan. This problem was treated by examining the extant sources and the implications of various sources, including canons from later Constantinopolitan edicts. This comparative liturgical study attempts to answer this lacuna.
Ruth Langer presented a chapter from her book in process on the history of the birkat haminim, the Jewish malediction of sectarians/heretics. In this chapter she presents three alternative readings of the evidence for the origins and early history of the prayer: one through more or less traditional methods of the Jewish academy and rabbinic texts; one through the Christian evidence for a Jewish anti-Christian prayer; and one informed by the methods of Daniel Boyarin, et al., which attempts to read all these texts against their historical context. She suggests that there is no evidence for widespread Jewish recitation of this prayer before the time of Epiphanius and Jerome. These also provide our first reliable witnesses to any text of the prayer, but then only to its mention of Nazoreans and minim, not to any other elements of its content. We cannot retroject to this period the texts of the Cairo geniza, dated to the end of the first Christian millennium, and we cannot identify this prayer as lying behind the expulsion of the Johannine community from their local synagogues.
Harald Buchinger presented “The Oldest Attested Readings Cycles? Evidence in Origen for Scriptural Readings in the Liturgy.“ Origen’s vast homiletic corpus contains various hints as to the underlying order of Scriptural readings; one can perceive the proclamation of large portions of the Bible, probably even in its canonical sequence. The paper examined the evidence from Origen’s homilies for the reading of Scripture in third-century Caesarea, for its liturgical context, and for its relative and absolute chronology; moreover, the thesis that Origen attested an early stage of what later were to become the quadragesima of late antique Jerusalem (Charles Renoux, “Origène dans la liturgie de l’Église de Jérusalem,” Adamantius 5 [1999] 37–52) is reassessed. In addition, the credibility of the later testimonies concerning the preaching of Origen (i.e., Eusebius and Socrates Scholasticus) is critically evaluated.
Robert F. Taft, S.J., presented “Cathedral vs. Monastic Liturgy: Vindicating a Distinction.” The by-now classic distinction between cathdral and monastic styles of liturgy, first identified by Anton Baumstark in 1923, has been challenged of late as an invention of the liturgists. This paper demonstrates the falsity of that accusation, advancing numerous primary sources from fourth- to fifth-century monastic rules, descriptions of Late-Antique and Medieval cathedral liturgy, and first-millennium Greek and Syriac monastic sources, all of which illustrate the validity of the distinction beyond cavil. From the second millennium Greek liturgical manuscripts and commentaries of the Byzantine tradition continue to confirm the validity of the distinction in both nomenclature and ritual. So the “invention” is not in the cathedral-monastic distinction, but in the minds of those who do not read the primary sources.
Mark Schuler presented “The Archaeology of Venerating the Sacred Dead: A Holy ‘Family’ and a Holy Woman at Hippos of the Decapolis.” Inhumation in the chancel is attested at a few sites in the Byzantine east. But Haim Goldfus, in his survey of sites in Byzantine Palaestina, asserts, “Burial within the sanctuary—separated from the rest of the church by chancel screens—was not practiced in the churches of the East, unless it was a tomb of a martyr” (“Tombs and Burials in Churches and Monasteries of Byzantine Palestine,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton University, 1997). Recent excavation of the northeast church at Hippos of the Decapolis above the east shore of the Sea of Galilee has documented two new examples of entombment in the chancel of a small church. Both burials provide mechanical means for ongoing veneration. The paper proposes that these anomalous burials are more reflective of practices in the region of the Decapolis than they are of practices in Palaestina and may be a natural evolution from Graeco-Roman practices in that area.
Robin M. Jensen presented “Baptism ad Sanctos” which examined the purpose of baptismal fonts and chambers at sites other than cathedral churches. In particular this paper looked at baptismal installations in fifth- to sixth-century monasteries, cemetery churches, and martyria in Syria, Asia Minor, and North Africa. Jensen asked whether we might assume these installations were designed for immersion baptism of adult pilgrims, new (and still unbaptized) members of religious communities, or perhaps members of Bedouin tribes. Alternatively, Jensen wonders if we have some other kind of ablution ritual, penitential practice, or related form of baptism ad sanctos that goes unmentioned in the primary documentary evidence.
Paul Bradshaw presented his forthcoming article in Studia Liturgica, “The Eucharistic Sayings of Jesus.” Building on his 2004 book, Eucharistic Origins, he discussed evidence for the existence of a primitive tradition of the sayings that was not linked to the Last Supper and the death of Jesus.
In “The Problem of Creedal Formulae in Traditio Apostolica 21:12-18,” Maxwell Johnson gave a brief response to two recent critiques by A. Stewart-Sykes of the interpretation of the baptismal creedal formulae in the recent Bradshaw, Johnson, Phillips Hermeneia commentary on the Apostolic Tradition (ApTrad). In response to Stewart-Sykes’ position that the text of the profession of faith is third-century Roman, Johnson argued, based on recent work by L. Westra on the Apostles’ Creed as well as the recent discovery of a new Ethiopian manuscript of ApTrad, that the text of the Verona Latin has more in common with later than with earlier creedal formulae. In response to the second critique, namely, that there is no trace of a shorter interrogatory formula in the Oriental versions of ApTrad, or that the introduction of a traditio and redditio symboli would have led to an “abbreviation” such as is present in the Gelasianum, Johnson argued that all versions of ApTrad do retain a “trace of a short creedal question,” and there is no proof whatsoever that the addition of the traditio and redditio symboli led to the abbreviation of the baptismal interrogations. In the discussion which ensued it was suggested that the development of “creeds” as such may well have been more catechetical than liturgical.
In his paper “Fifty Days Easter Sunday: The Re-Invention of Pentecost in Christianity,” Clemens Leonhard argued that the Christian Pentecost emerged not before the second half of the second century as a fifty-day period extending (and hence presupposing the existence of) Easter Sunday. He sees especially Tertullian and the Acta Pauli as witnesses for this understanding of the festival. Tertullian must be taken seriously in his interpretation of the meaning of these fifty days as identical with the contents of Easter Sunday. The Christian festival of Pentecost is, thus, the first instance of a progressive development which leads eventually to the full circle of the liturgical year.
Martin Connell examined the evidence for the symbolic meaning of clothing in the Gospel of Mark and offered some preliminary evaluation of the possible relevance for the early development of liturgical practice.