Worship in the New Testament IN WORSHIP to CfT).fiAm , riV'WNWA/ s o 2 hwt Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/worshipinnewtestOOmoul Also in this series: 1. ESSAYS ON THE LORD’S SUPPER, by O. Cullmann (Professor of New Testament Studies at Basel and in the Sorbonne) and F. J. Leenhardt (Professor of Theology at Geneva). 2. WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH OF SOUTH INDIA, by T. S. Garrett, M.A. (Lecturer at Tamilnad Theological College and member of C.S.I. Synod Liturgy Group). 3. AN EXPERIMENTAL LITURGY, by G. Cope, M.Sc. (Tutor in Extra- Mural Department, University ofBirmingham), J. G. Davies, M.A., D.D. (Professor of Theology, University of Birmingham), and D. A. Tytler, M.A. (Director of Religious Education in the Diocese of Birmingham). 4. JACOB’S LADDER: THE MEANING OF WORSHIP, by William Nicholls, M.A. (Assistant Professor of Divinity, St. John’s College, Winnipeg, Canada). 5. WORSHIP IN ANCIENT ISRAEL, by A. S. Herbert, M.A, B.D. (Professor in Old Testament Language and Literature, Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham.) 6. THE PASCHAL LITURGY AND THE APOCALYPSE, by Massey H. Shepherd, Ph.D, S.T.D, D.D. (Professor of Liturgies, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California.) 7. THE EUCHARISTIC MEMORIAL (Part I, The Old Testament), by Max Thurian, Sub-Prior of the Brotherhood of Taize in France. 8. TFIE EUCHARISTIC MEMORIAL ( Part II, The New Testament), by Max Thurian. 9. WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, by C. F. D. Moule, D.D. (Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge). 10. PREACHING AND CONGREGATION, by Jean-Jacques von Allmen (Professor ofPractical Theology in the University of Neuchatel). 11. HOLY WEEK: A SHORT HISTORY, by J. G. Davies, M.A, D.D. (Professor of Theology, University of Birmingham). 12. WORSHIP AND CONGREGATION, by Wilhelm Hahn (Professor of Practical Theology in the University of Heidelberg). 13. HYMNS IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP, by Cecil Northcott, M.A, Ph.D. (Editorial Secretary of the United Society for Christian Literature and Editor of the Lutterworth Press, London). ECUMENICAL STUDIES IN WORSHIP No. 9 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT by C. F. D. MOULE, Hon. D. D. (St. Andrews) Lady Margaret's Professor ofDivinity in the University of Cambridge JOHN KNOX PRESS Richmond, Virginia ECUMENICAL STUDIES IN WORSHIP General Editors: J. G. DAVIES, M.A., D.D. Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology and Director of the Institute for the Study of Worship and Religious Architecture in the University of Birmingham A. RAYMOND GEORGE, M.A., B.D. Principal, Wesley College, Headingley, Leeds Advisory Board: PROFESSOR OSCAR CULLMANN Universities of Basel and the Sorbonne PROFESSOR H. GRADY DAVIS Chicago Lutheran Seminary, U.S.A. DR. F. W. DILLISTONE Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford PROFESSOR ROGER HAZELTON Dean, Graduate School of Theology, Oberlin College, Ohio, U.S.A. PROFESSOR J. KUMARESAN Gurukul Lutheran College, Madras, India DR. R. STUART LOUDEN Kirk of the Greyfriars, Edinburgh DR. ROBERT NELSON Graduate School of Theology, Oberlin College, Ohio, U.S.A. CANON D. R. VICARY Headmaster, King’s School, Rochester, England CONTENTS prologue page 7 I. THE ROCK WHENCE YE WERE HEWN 9 H. THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS : 1 8 1. “The breaking of the loaf” 18 2. The president 29 3. Eucharistic procedure 30 4. Sacramental theory 35 5. The Homily and the Scripture 43 m. baptism 47 IV. OTHER TYPES OF WORSHIP 6 1 V. THE LANGUAGE OF WORSHIP 67 EPILOGUE 82 87INDEX Published by Lutterworth Press, London, England, and John Knox Press, Richmond, Virginia Copyright © 1961 C. F. D. Moule Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-7174 Fourth printing 1 967 Printed in the United States J- 4638 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my thanks to the editors of this series, Professor J. G. Davies and the Reverend A. R. George, for reading an early draft of this essay and making most valuable suggestions; and to Professor E. C. Ratcliff, who was good enough to read a later draft and raise many interesting matters with me : I only wish that my own learning and the scope of the essay allowed for these to be adequately discussed. C. F. D. M. B.J.R.L. E.T. H. T.R. I.C.C. I.G. J.B.L. J.N.T.S. J.T.S. R.B. S.-B. S.J.T. T. W.N.T. Z.N.T.W. ABBREVIATIONS Bulletin of the John Rylands Library at Manchester Expository Times Harvard Theological Review International Critical Commentary Inscriptiones Graecae (1873 ff) Journal ofBiblical Literature Journal called New Testament Studies Journal of Theological Studies Revue biblique H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (1922-8) Scottish Journal of Theology Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament (ed. G. Kittel and G. Friedrich, 1933- ) Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 5 PROLOGUE A distinguished dutch scholar has spoken of “a certain ‘pan- liturgism’ which sees everywhere in the Pauline epistles the back- ground of the liturgy whenever a simple parallel in wording between them and the much later liturgies is found”;1 and it is certainly true that it is fashionable at present for students of the New Testament to find liturgy everywhere. This is partly the result of a healthy swing of the pendulum away from a narrowly literary approach to the New Testament towards a vivid recognition that here are not “bookish” writings so much as the deposit of community life—and, in particular, the life of worshipping communities. Partly, also, it is due to the liturgical movement, with its reawakened concern for the theology and practice of worship in our own day. Enthusiastically as these tendencies and movements are to be wel- comed, they have brought with them the temptation to detect the reverberations of liturgy in the New Testament even where no litur- gical note was originally struck. Granted that it is impossible to over- emphasize the importance of worship in any Christian community, ancient or modem, yet it is possible, in one’s enthusiasm, to squeeze the evidence beyond its capacity. An attempt is made, therefore, within the limits of this small book, to provide a sober presentation of the evidence for Christian corporate worship—for no attempt is made to pursue the big subject of indivi- dual, private worship—within the New Testament period. It is too much to hope either that such conclusions as are reached will command the assent ofall, or that the frequent failure to reach positive conclusions at all will win the approval of many. But the aims of this book are limited, and they will have been achieved if in it the data for a recon- struction of Christian practice in the early days and of the motives behind it have been adequately displayed. And if the writer fails to detect “liturgy” in the more specialized sense everywhere, it remains 1 W. C. van Unnik, “Dominus Vobiscum”, in New Testament Essays (in mem. T. W. Manson, ed. A. J. B. Higgins, 1959), 272. 7 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT true—and this is the most significant single fact for the student of liturgical origins—that the Christians of this period saw the worship of God as the whole purpose of life. They did not worship efficiency or security, regarding divine service on Sunday as a means to such ends : the meaning and end of all life was nothing other than the worship of God. An attempt is made in the epilogue to bring this out. 8 I THE ROCK WHENCE YE WERE HEWN Distinctively Christian worship bears the same sort of relation to Jewish worship as the distinctively Christian writings do to the Jewish scriptures. It was in the context of the use of the Jewish scriptures that the Christian traditions about the triumph and victory of God in Jesus Christ were first shaped and formulated and then written down. But they were not simply a parallel growth to Jewish scripture or a mere addition to it: the relationship was one at once ofmore intimacy and of greater contrast than that. The starting-point of Christian tradition was what God had done in Christ. And since Christ was recognized by the Christians as having both fulfilled God’s design and transcended the sketch of that design in scripture, the Christians found themselves both using and transcend- ing the Old Testament scriptures. Moreover, since Christ was both recalled as a historical figure of the past, and also experienced as a con- temporary presence in the Christian congregation, the authority ofHis remembered teaching merged with that of His inspiration still speak- ing through the lips of Christian prophets and men and women ofGod. Jesus was not only like a Rabbi of the past: He still continued to speak through His own interpreters. Thus, on a foundation of Old Testament words, there arose a structure of teaching and incident recalled from the past, and of in- spired contemporary utterance, to form a distinctive edifice, at once continuous, and yet also in striking contrast, with its Jewish ante- cedents. 1 The Christian scriptures are an organic union of Jewish scripture, Christian tradition, and inspired interpretation. In the same way, Christian worship, like Christian literature, was continuous with, and yet in marked contrast to, Jewish worship. Like the Christian scriptures, it grew out of words borrowed, out of tradi- tions remembered, and out of inspired utterances; and, as with the 1 See O. Cullmann in S.J.T. Ill, 1950, 180 ff.; C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures , 1952; J. W. Doeve, Jewish Hermeneutics in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, n.d., about 1953. 9 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT scriptures, so in worship, the Jesus who was remembered was found to be the same Jesus who was experienced and who was present wherever two or three were assembled in His name. Christian worship was con- tinuous with Jewish worship and yet, even from the first, distinctive. It is therefore with theJewish “matrix” that we have to begin, for the sake both ofcomparison and contrast.1 As is well known, the Temple at Jerusalem continued, until its destruction in a.d. 70, to be the focus of Jewish worship. TheJewish synagogue (an institution ofobscure origin, but perhaps dating virtually from the time of the exile) was in essence simply a “gathering together” (which is what the Greek, ovvaycayfjy means) of a local group to hear the scriptures read aloud, to praise God and pray to Him together, and to he instructed. In theory at any rate, the synagogue system was not an alternative to the Temple cultus. Religion on the level of its national consciousness and in its official form still found expression in the sacrificial cultus at the single Temple, the one centre of world Judaism. Indeed even when a worshipper was not himself offering a sacrifice, his prayers seem often to have been offered actually in the Temple, or at least linked with the hours at which sacrifice was offered. In Luke 1 : 10 the whole congregation pray in the court while Zacharias offers the incense in the Holy Place (cf. Rev. 8 : 3 f.) ; in Acts 3 : 1 Peter and John go up to the Temple at the hour of prayer which was also the hour ofthe evening sacrifice (see Exod. 29: 39, etc.) ; and in Acts 10: 30 a God-fearing Gentile prays at the same evening hour. So in the Old Testament, in 1 Kings 18:36 Elijah’s prayer and offering on Mount Carmel are at the time of the offering of the oblation (cf. Ezra 9:5); and in Dan. 6 : 10 Daniel prays towards Jerusalem three times a day (cf. Ps. 55: 17). (Incidentally one may ask whether it is significant for the provenance of the traditions behind Matthew and Luke respec- tively that in Matt. 6 : 5 ostentatious prayer is in the synagogue, but in Luke 18: 10 in the Temple. In Matt. 5: 23 f., however, there is no doubt about the Temple being in view.) “In theory,” then, the synagogue was secondary to the Temple. But it has to be admitted that “in whose theory?” would be a legitimate question. For it is probably a mistake to imagine that there was any one 1 See C. W. Dugmore, The Influence of the Synagogue upon the Divine Office, 1944; O. S. Rankin, “The Extent of the Influence of the Synagogue Service upon Christian Worship”, The Journal ofJewish Studies 1, 1948, 27 ff. (stressing the contrast). 10 THE ROCK WHENCE YE WERE HEWN Jewish “orthodoxy” in the New Testament period. Rather, we have to imagine various types of thought and practice existing side by side. No doubt the priestly aristocracy, mainly Sadducean, maintained that the Temple cult was essential, and alone essential. But equally, we have some idea, through the accounts of the Essenes in Philo and Josephus, and, recently, through the Qumran writings, of how differently a sec- tarian, but still priestly, group might be behaving at the same time. 1 Evidently the Qumran sect maintained a priesthood and a ritual organization, but one which was independent and sharply critical of the Temple hierarchy. Although not in principle opposed to animal sacrifice as such, they seem to have regarded the Jerusalem hierarchy as so corrupt that they must for the time being dissociate themselves from the system; and in the meantime, making a virtue of necessity, they were able to console themselves with the reflection that praise and prayer, “the offering of the lips”, was equal in value to the traditional sacrifice.2 In addition to groups which held such an attitude, it is just possible that there were extreme movements within Judaism which were opposed to the Temple cultus on principle, and were content with a synagogue type ofworship alone—a kind of “Quaker”Judaism. Dr. Marcel Simon has published interesting speculations about this in connexion with the Christian martyr Stephen and the so-called “Hel- lenists” of Acts3 ; and it is possibly relevant to note that no lamb is mentioned in the accounts of the Last Supper itself (as distinct from its preparation, Mark 14: 12 and parallels). It is possible that this is only because the accounts of the Last Supper are influenced by later euchar- istic practice; or it might be because the meal was no Passover; or, again, it might be (as Dr. Ethelbert Stauffer has suggested)4 because 1 Philo, prob. 75; Josephus, Ant. 18.1.5. The most important of the Qumran documents for this purpose is the so-called Manual ofDiscipline (designated 1 QS in current notation), which may be conveniently read in the annotated translation by W. H. Brownlee in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Sup- plementary Studies , nos. 10-12, 1951. 2 See J. M. Baumgarten, “Sacrifice and Worship among the Jewish Sectarians of the Dead Sea (Qumran) Scrolls”, H.T.R. XLVI, 1953, 154-7; J. Carmignac, “L’utilite ou l’inutilite des sacrifices sanglants dans la ‘R£gle de la Communaute’ de Qumran”, R. B. LXIII, 1956, 524-32. 3 M. Simon, St. Stephen and the Hellenists, 1958, and earlier studies there cited. (I do not by any means agree with all his conclusions.) 4 E.g. in Jesus, Gestalt und Geschichte , 1957, 86, Eng. trans. Jesus and His Story, i960. B. Gartner, “John 6 and the Jewish Passover”, in Coniectanea Neotesta- mentica XVII, 1959, 46 ff., suggests that Jesus might the more easily have held a lambless but Passover-like meal on the day before the Passover if Jews of the II WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Jesus had already been banned as a false teacher by the officials of Judaism, and a heretic was not permitted a lamb. But might it, alterna- tively, be that Jesus was a non-sacrificing Jew? Or may it even be that Jesus, prescient in His anticipation of the fall ofJerusalem and the de- judaizing of the Gospel, deliberately attached His teaching not to the lamb (whether there was lamb on the table or not) but to those elements of the food and drink which would always be available? But that was a digression about varieties of attitude within Judaism. The important point for the present purpose is that the Christian Church was bom within a context of Temple and synagogue; indeed, it has always been tempting to find already there the two components of Christian worship—the Sacraments, corresponding to the Temple, and “the Word”, corresponding to the non-sacrificial, non-sacramental synagogue, with its strong element ofreading and instruction. Accord- ingly, there have been times when what is now represented in the Anglican Church by Matins and Evensong and by the “Ante-Com- munion” has been traced to the synagogue service, while “the Liturgy”, the Holy Communion or Eucharist proper, has been treated as a kind of counterpart to the sacrificial and the cultic in Judaism. But in fact neither Judaism nor Christianity is so simple as to be fairly stylized in this manner; and it will be better simply to note the Jewish setting and to see what picture of Christian worship emerges from such evidence as we possess, before we try to make rash generali- zations or formulate principles. While we are thinking, however, about the various components ofworship, it is perhaps worth while to remark in passing that the whole history of worship might be written round the fascinating and difficult question of the relation between the out- ward and the inward; and that something is undoubtedly lost (what- ever corresponding gains there may be) when such external expressions as, let us say, corporate movement form no part of worship. Whether for Judaism or for Christianity, the absence of scope for rhythmic movement, for choral chanting, for the throwing of the whole body into the expression of worship, is going to make a considerable differ- ence—perhaps both for better and for worse—in the whole manner of dispersion were familiar with such celebrations when they could not come up to Jerusalem. Evidence that this was the case is scanty, but he cites Josephus Ant. 14.10.8 for Jews in Delos, and Mishnaic evidence for the usage in Palestine out- side Jerusalem. So M. Black, “The Arrest and Trial ofJesus” in New Testament Essays (as in Note 1, p. 7), 32 refers to “the [Passover] celebrations in the synagogue, especially in the Diaspora, without a paschal lamb.” See further A. Jaubert, “Jesus et le calendrier de Qumran”,J.N. T.S. VII, 1, October i960, 23. 12 THE ROCK WHENCE YE WERE HEWN worship. 1 The same applies—again, both positively and negatively—to the wearing ofspecial garments, and to colour and ornament generally. Whatever may have been the circumstances in which the Apocalypse was written, the scenery of heaven which it presents—with the cere- monial dress, the loud noise, the rhythmic movement, and the ordered arrangement—seems to reflect an appreciation of the place of these things in worship. It might even represent a “compensation”, in vision, for one who, by his faith, as well as (perhaps) by the fall ofthe Temple, had become cut offfrom the stately splendour of worship at Jerusalem. But ofcourse there is gain as well as loss in being driven to an almost static simplicity; and the ideal is probably only reached when the two can be combined. Little “cells” of friends worshipping informally but also converging periodically for the more formal public worship ; the alternation of the “Quaker” and the “Catholic” emphasis, of the in- ward and the outward—it is by such means that the whole person is most likely to be drawn up into a total attitude of worship. If, now, we attempt a reconstruction of the manner of worship in the early Church, the Acts will provide an important field of inquiry. But before looking at this evidence, it is right to ask what may be discovered about Jesus* own attitude during His ministry. It is impossible to doubt that He worshipped in the Temple. All four Gospels preserve allusions to this. According to Luke, He is found in the Temple as an infant when His parents bring Him to be presented as their first male child, in accordance with the Law; and again when He goes up to Jerusalem as a boy for His first Passover. According to the unanimous witness of all four Gospels, it was when He had come to Jerusalem for the Passover that He was arrested and put to death. The Fourth Gospel expressly mentions His presence in the Temple also for the “feast of tabernacles” (John 7:2 f.) and for the winter festival of Hannukkah or Dedication (John 10: 22). What is not expressly evidenced is that Jesus Himselfever offered an animal sacrifice. The nearest that the Gospels come to it is in sayings which might suggest approval of the sacrificial system (Mark 1 : 44 and parallels and Matt. 5: 23 £). But such sayings can hardly be pressed to mean positive approval of sacrifice. The meaning of Matt. 5 : 23 f. is, in fact, almost identical with that of Christ’s quotation from Hosea, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Matt. 9: 13; 12: 7); and although that only means that mercy is more important than sacrifice, one cannot 1 See the reference to movement in the worship of the Therapeutae in Philo, vit. cont. 84 (cited by G. Delling, Der Gottesdienst im Neuen estament, 1952). B 13 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT help wondering whether (as has already been suggested) Jesus Himself possibly worshipped without sacrificing. Further attention must be directed to this in connexion with the Last Supper. However, that Jesus cared about the Temple worship, whether or not He actually joined in sacrifice, is evident enough, if only from the story of the expulsion of the dealers from its outer court. Whether this was an attack upon mercenary-mindedness or a gesture towards the Gentiles, in either case it betokens a reckless zeal for the reform of the Temple. It is difficult to see it as an attack upon the Temple system as such. Equally clearly, however, Jesus also saw that the Temple was doomed. The charge that He had said “I will destroy this Temple . . .” was not, according to Mark 14: 57-59, substantiated. But that He had indeed said something that might have been so interpreted, emerges from the taunts levelled at Him in Mark 1 5 : 29 (parallel to Matt. 27 : 40). And in the introduction to the apocalyptic discourse (Mark 13:2 and parallels) He foretells the destruction of the Temple; while John 2: 19 has the saying “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it”; and Matt. 12: 6, “something greater than the Temple is here”. There is enough in these traditions to explain the attitude ofStephen (Acts 6:14) who is accused of saying that Jesus is going to destroy “this place”. If there is no doubt that, despite these reservations, Jesus worshipped in the Temple, it is equally clear that He regularly went to synagogue on the sabbath (cf. Acts 17: 2, of Paul). In Luke 4: 16 it is expressly described as His custom to do so ; and even if we were to discount this as evidence, there is, all over the Gospels, a sufficient number of refer- ences to Jesus teaching and healing in synagogues to leave us in no doubt on this score. It is sometimes alleged that in synagogue Jesus would necessarily have recited the entire Psalter in the course of public worship. Of this there is no clear evidence. That the Psalter was at some period divided into sections corresponding with the lectionary cycles for other parts of the scriptures1 neither proves that this held good for the time of Christ nor that, even if it did, all the Psalms in the sections were publicly used. This is worth mentioning, since the indiscriminate use in certain branches of Christian worship of the entire Psalter, including the fiercely nationalist and bloodthirsty songs, is sometimes defended on 1 See A. Guilding, “Some Obscured Rubrics and Lectionary Allusions in the Psalter”, J. T.S.n.s. Ill, 1, April 1952, 41 fF., and The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship, i960. 14 THE ROCK WHENCE YE WERE HEWN the ground that Jesus Himself used them all. One can only ask “Did He?” and, even ifHe did, would that necessarily be determinative (any more than the use, if that were substantiated, of animal sacrifices) for the post-resurrection practice of the Christian Church? That Jesus was steeped in the scriptures, including the Psalter, is suggested by the sayings attributed to Him in the Gospels. But the same evidence seems to suggest also a very considerable freedom in selection. In sum, then, it may be said that, while Jesus used at least some of the Jewish institutions of worship, and apparently did so with ardour and great devotion, He refused to shut His eyes to the nemesis which was to overtake a Temple which had been made mercenary and ex- clusive; He saw in His ministry and in His own self the focal point of the “new Temple”; and He was satisfied with nothing but the absolute sincerity and spirituality ofwhich the Temple was meant, but too often failed, to be the medium: “the hour cometh and now is when neither on this mountain [at Samaria] nor in Jerusalem shall they worship the Father ... the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4: 21, 23). The practice of private prayer by Jesus is too familiar a matter to require more than mention here,1 and, in any case, private prayer is not the subject of this inquiry; but the immensely significant address Abba which Jesus used in His own prayer to God will be discussed at a later point. Coming now to the Acts, we find at once that the apostles in Jeru- salem seem, as a matter of course, to have gone to prayer, at first, at any rate, in the Temple. We have already noticed the reference (Acts 3:1; cf. Luke 18: 10; 24: 53 ; Acts 2: 46) to Peter andJohn going there; and there are references to Paul not only worshipping in the Temple (Acts 22: 17) but being ready to pay the expenses of sacrifice for a group of men, presumably poor men, as an act ofJewish piety (Acts 21: 23-26). In the same way, contact is scrupulously maintained with the synagogue by such as Stephen (Acts 6 : 9) and Paul (Acts passim), both in Jerusalem and outside Judaea in the dispersion, until they are expelled from it. Expulsion from the synagogue inevitably took place sooner or later (as John 16: 2, cf. 9: 22, implies, and Acts 18: 6 f. bears witness); and it is likely that the final recognition that 1 There is a valuable section on this in A. R. George, Communion with God, 1953. See also K. H. Rengstorf’s Commentary on Luke (Das Neue Testament Deutsch, 1958), 251-3. 15 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Christianity was incompatible with non-Christian Judaism had far- reaching influence on the shaping of Christian ways of worship. But that was not immediately; and in the meantime not only were the Jewish places ofworship retained by the Christian Jews but doubt- less also the Jewish religious calendar. Many, at least, of the early Christians are to be assumed to have gone on observing the sabbath (Saturday) even if the next day of the week (Sunday) eventually came to occupy a dominant position as the day of the resurrection (Ignatius Magn. 9: i, Barnabas 15: 9, etc.; cf. Rev. 1: 10 and the vision which follows). In any case, the sabbath (Saturday) remained in Jewish societies the only day free for worship (in Gentile societies there was no weekly free day, only the pagan festivals at irregular intervals) ; and it is likely enough, as H. Riesenfeld suggests,1 that the Christians began simply by prolonging the sabbath during the night of Saturday-Sunday, by way of observing the accomplishment in Christ of the Jewish sab- bath. The rationalization of an eighth day—the day after the seventh — as marking the beginning ofa new creation seems to be an idea brought in from Jewish apocalyptic (see Barnabas 15: 8 £). Rom. 14: 5 f. bears witness to the existence, within the Christian community, ofa diversity of views on the observance of holy days. Of the great festivals, the Jewish Passover probably continued to be kept by Christians long after they had found an existence of their own, especially as it lent itself so naturally to a Christian connotation and was bound up with the tradi- tions of the death of Christ (cf. Acts 20: 6; 1 Cor. 5:7). Other Jewish festivals too must have persisted.2 In Acts 20: 6 it is implied that Paul observed the Passover (so far as that was possible outside Jerusalem) before leaving Philippi; then, in Acts 20: 16, we find him hurrying so as to reach Jerusalem by Pentecost. Is this in order to celebrate with fellow Christians the Birthday of the Christian Church? Even if it was, it would of necessity have meant also celebrating the festival publicly with the non-Christian Jews : how could that be avoided if one was actually atJerusalem? There must have been a great deal ofoverlapping ofJewish feasts and Christian connotations, the one merging into and tending to colour the other. Passover and Pentecost, in their Christian 1 “Sabbat et Jour du Seigneur” in New Testament Essays (as in Note 1, p. 7) ; cf. C. W. Dugmore (as in Note 1, p. 10), 28, 30. 2 See D. Daube, “The Earliest Structure of the Gospels”, J.N.T.S. 5, 3, April 1959, 174/m.; E. Lohse in T.W.N.T. VI, 49, Anm. 35 on the (?Christian) Passover of 1 Cor. 5 : 6-8 ; and (49) on the possibility of Christian Pentecosts outside Jerusalem. See also H. Kretschmar, “Himmelfahrt und Pfingsten”, Zeitschriftfur Kirchengeschichte, 4th series, IV, 1954-5, 209 ff. 16 THE ROCK WHENCE YE WERE HEWN forms as Easter and Whitsunday, were destined to form the basis of the “Christian Year”. 1 Only when the observance ofa certain calendar became bound up with views incompatible with the freedom of the Christian Gospel and the Christian estimate of Christ do we find Paul protesting against it, as in Gal. 4: 10 f.; Col. 2: 16. The same is true of circumcision. The practice of it alongside of Christian baptism by ajudaizing party within the Church only becomes a matter of contention when it encroaches upon the essential Gospel and challenges the uniqueness and finality of Christ (Acts 15, etc.). Paul is prepared to circumcise Timothy so that he may be acceptable to the Jews (Acts 16: 3) ; but he will not yield for an instant to those who want to treat circumcision as a necessary condition of membership in “God’s Israel”, over and above incorporation in Christ (Gal. 2: 5; 5: 2; 6: 11-16). 1 A. A. McArthur, The Evolution ofthe Christian Year, 1953 ; J. van Goudoever, Biblical Calendars, 1959. 17 II THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS i. “The breaking ofthe loaf ” Whatever distinctive forms of Christian worship there were, sprang up side by side with Jewish worship or even within it. What purport to be the beginnings of the distinctive aspects are alluded to in Acts 2 : 42 : the newly baptized persevered in their faithfulness to the teach- ing which the apostles gave and to the sharing (kolvtovia), to the breaking of the loaf and to the prayers. Koivoovla appears, almost always in the New Testament, to mean “sharing in”, or “causing to share in”, something or someone, rather than “fellowship” in the sense of mutual or reciprocal companionship (it is only in 1 John 1 : 3 that such a sense seems almost inevitable), or in the concrete sense of “a community”.1 What, then, is intended by “the KOLvcovia” in Acts 2: 42? Are we to understand that it was a sharing together in the Holy Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 13: 14)? Or does the word allude to sharing the (sacramental) bread and wine—to “com- munion” in the liturgical sense? Or is it, rather, an anticipatory refer- ence to the joint-possession of goods by the Christian community? On the whole, it seems most likely to mean this last. 2 For, although the free gift of the Spirit is indeed mentioned not further away than v. 38, it would be strange to represent “sharing in the Holy Spirit” simply by the absolute, undefined koivcjvlcl ; and the same applies to the suggestion that it means specifically the eucharistic “communion” 1 J. Y. Campbell, “Koivajvla and its cognates in the N.T.”, J.B.L. 51, 1932, 352 ff. Bo Reicke, Diakonie, Festfreude und Zelos in Verbindung mit der altchristlichen Agapenfeier, 1951, 25 f. (Koivoovla is “centripetal”—sharing together—or “centrifugal”—sharing with others, distributing). See also J. G. Davies, Members One ofAnother: Aspects of Koinonia, 1958. 2 See Bo Reicke, Glaube und Leben der Urgemeinde: Bemerkungen zu Apg. 1-7, 1957* 57 f.J H. Schiirmann, Der Abendmahlsbericht, Lukas 22, 7-38, 1958, 67 f. J. Jeremias, on the other hand, suggests that Acts 2: 42 represents the course of early Christian worship—teaching, fellowship-meal, Eucharist, prayer (Die Bergpredigt, 1959). 18 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS (in i Cor. io: 16 ffi the definition is much clearer), unless one takes “the breaking ofthe loaf” as an explanatory phrase in apposition to the KOLvcjvla. It is simpler to take vv. 44-47 as an expansion and ex- planation, respectively, of the phrases “the Koivaivia, the breaking of the loaf, and the prayers” : the Christians held their goods in com- mon (vv. 44 f.) ; they “broke bread” together in private houses, that is, first in one home, then in another (v. 46, /car’ oZkov) ; and they worshipped and praised God in the Temple (vv. 46 £). Whenever the Acts account may have been written, there is nothing here that seems incompatible with the very earliest days of the Christian Church in Jerusalem. But what, then, was this breaking of the loaf? Part of the answer may well be that the sharing ofgoods just mentioned consisted in large measure in the sharing offood. It was precisely at communal meals that distribution of the necessities of life was made to the indigent. This is borne out by the description in Acts 6 : 1 f. of the daily distribution to widows. But one cannot deny the likelihood that, in the very practical and material mutual help and comfort of these community meals, the Christians also realized the spiritual bond uniting them with one another and with Jesus Christ. These occasions must have been more than merely opportunities for the dole. On this reckoning, while “the kolvojvlcl ”—the sharing of goods—included more than food, the meals, conversely, were occasions for something greater and deeper than the mere distribution offood. To say that in some sense they were also sacred meals does not, however, take us far. For a devoutJew, there was no meal that was not sacred. Indeed, it is an unprofitable question to ask whether “the breaking” (kAolgl^) means a merely “secular” act or a ritual “fraction” of the loaf. There is no reason to suppose that a pious Jew would even begin to eat so much as a biscuit without a brief expression of praise and thanks to God as he broke it, even if he were entirely alone. 1 And that “breaking” need only mean the inevitable preliminary to eating, whether for oneself or for distribution among a company of guests, is proved by Isa. 58: 7 (LXX ScadpijmeLv rov *prov), Lam. 4: 4 1 For grace with meals, W. H. Brownlee in his comment (see Note 1, p. n) on 1 QS vi. 6, compares the practice of the Essenes (Josephus B.J. 2, 13 1, and possibly Sibyl, iv. 24-26 reflecting Essene influence; c.f. R. H. Charles on iv. 27), the practice of the Pharisees (Aristeas 184 f.; Mishnah, Berakhoth iii), and the practice ofJesus (Matt. 14: 19; 15: 36; 26: 26 f., etc.). But the “grace” in Aristeas is a very odd and very pro-Hellene affair. 19 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT (LXXd SiclkAlov ovk eonv aurois'), both passages being concerned simply with the provision of food for the needy. In Jer. 1 6: 7 the LXX actually uses the words apros', “loaf”, and /cAav, “to break” in reference to a funeral feast (where also “drinking the cup” is mentioned). That is admittedly a religious, one might say even a ritual, usage; but at least it shows that the words are quite natural out- side a strictly sacramental context.1 Thus, there appears to be nothing essentially significant (for our present purposes) about the word /cAacris', “breaking”, even though it (and the concrete noun /cAdcr/xa cognate with it) did rapidly acquire, in Christian usage, a specialized, Eucharistic sense. 2 Accordingly, it is not in the words, “the breaking of the loaf”, but in their context that one must look if one is to detect any further significance in what the Christians did together at their meals. And in fact it does appear from the context that there is more to be said. The very reference to the “exultation and transparent sincerity” with which they took their meals (Acts 2: 46)® invites one to look beneath the surface. Is there not something distinctive about these exultantly joyful shared meals? In the first place, it needs to be remembered that the meals which the disciples had already shared with Jesus before His death must themselves have been memorable. There is nothing that links friends more closely than the sharing of food; and with such a Friend and Master those fellowship meals—even at their most incidental — must have been unforgettable. Then, the traditions told of a spec- tacular miracle associated with communal feeding—the multiplication of the loaves : seemingly, a foretaste of the banquet of the longed-for Messianic age. Further, astonishing though it might seem, the tradi- tions spoke clearly of meals shared with the Master after His resurrec- 1 In the Talmud “to break ( bs\ prs) bread” is a recognized phrase; see S.-B. I, 687, II, 619 f., IV, 621 f. 2 J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words ofJesus, Eng. trans., 1955, 83, n. 6, says “The constantly repeated statement that ‘breaking of bread’ is a term for ‘holding a meal’ in Jewish sources seems to be an ineradicable misapprehension” ; but he allows (ibid. 82, n. 5) that the phrase “breaking of bread” can mean the whole ritual at the beginning of the meal—grace, breaking of bread, and distribution. See Behm, in T.W.N.T., III, 728. 3 See E. Haenchen in loc., who gives good reasons for refusing Jeremias’s punctuation (Eucharistic Words, as in preceding Note, 84, n. 4) which takes these words with the following words about worship. 20 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS tion. 1 All this would be bound to mean that those who had now been baptized into the ownership of Jesus Christ and into His allegiance would find in each meal together at least a very vivid reminder of the One who had so often broken bread with His disciples during His ministry, and who after His resurrection was made known to the two at Emmaus as He broke the bread. There are many who think that this is where the significance of these meals in the early days of the Palestinian Christians ends. They were simply the fellowship meals of those who shared together in a loyalty to Jesus and His way of life. Any connexion with the Last Supper and the death of Christ belongs, it is alleged, only to the cultic meals of the later Hellenistic Christian communities.2 But is it conceivable that that other memory—the memory of the Last Supper—was not also vivid at the very first—indeed, at its most vivid then? The earliest datable account of any Christian meal is in i Cor. ii : 17 ff. If we take vv. 23-25, for the moment, as an authentic account of Christian tradition, they would suggest that Christians could hardly have participated in meals together without often recalling at them the close link thus established not only with Christ, but, more explicitly, with His death. To break bread and share a cup together would be to recall not only the unseen presence of the Lord and many meals formerly shared with Him, but also the New Covenant which He had inaugurated at that particular meal in the upper room, in the context of His sacrificial self-surrender at Passover-time, in which they found themselves bonded into God’s People. This was the covenant- rite in which they knew themselves to be true Israel — “God’s Israel”, as it is called in Gal. 6: 16. It was because Jesus was recognized by Christians as God’s chosen King, because His death and the solemn meal anticipating it were seen to be the inauguration of the New Covenant sealed by His blood, that every meal together was at least capable of meaning for the Christians a renewal of their commitment as true Israel, as the real People of God. There is no need to believe that every meal explicitly carried this significance: no doubt there was an uninstitutional freedom and flexibility. But if the Pauline tradition is a true one, it is difficult to believe that there was not, from the very first, 1 See O. Cullmann, e.g. in Early Christian Worship, Eng. trans., 1953, 15. 2 See H. Lietzmann, Mass and Lord's Supper , Eng. trans., 1953, 58; A. B. Macdonald, Christian Worship in the Primitive Church, 1934; and the bibliography in Bo Reicke, Diakonie, etc., as in Note 1, p. 18 ; also (for discussion and criticism) A. J. B. Higgins, The Lord’s Supper in the New Testament, 1952. 21 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT a vivid awareness ofthis aspect of the Christian breaking ofbread also.1 And to concede this is to recognize something sacramental as an original element in distinctively Christian worship. At this point we must digress a little to ask whether there is anything comparable in pre-Christian practice. The Dead Sea Scrolls include, as is well known, one (usually known as the Manual ofDiscipline) which throws much light on the practices and institutions of the Jewish Sect who lived at Qumran. It is tempting to find, in the regulations for their community meals, a parallel for the Christian practice. But these meals in fact, so far as the account takes us, were (as Professor H. H. Rowley says) “comparable with the common meals of members of monastic orders today, and no members of these orders would confuse them with the sacrament”. 2 It is a striking analogy to the Christian position, that the Sect saw themselves as true Israel.3 But so far as our present inquiry is concerned, there is nothing recognizably sacramental in the Qumran meal. Is there any other direction in which we may look for a Jewish analogy to the sort of thing which (on the Pauline evidence) we are assuming for the Christians? In 1889 P. Batiffol published a curious document in Greek, generally known as “Joseph and Aseneth”.4 It is of the nature of what the Jews called Haggadah—a narrative romance—built upon the Biblical refer- ence to the marriage between Joseph the Jew and the aristocratic Egyptian lady Aseneth (or Asenath, see Gen. 41:45). In this story, when Aseneth wants to kiss Joseph he explains that it is not fitting for him to let her do so, since she is a pagan and he a God-fearing man. The important matter for our purposes is the way in which these con- trasting ideas are expounded. Joseph is one, he says of himself, who blesses the living God, who eats the blessed bread of life and drinks the blessed cup ofimmortality and anoints himself with the blessed chrism of incorruptibility. Aseneth, by contrast, is one who blesses the dead, dumb idols, who eats from their table “bread of choking” and drinks from their libations a “cup of ambush”, and who anoints herself with the “chrism of destruction”. When Aseneth is distressed at this repulse, 1 It is this which, as it seems to me, turns the flank of the Lietzmann positio- (see preceding Note), which distinguished the bread-breaking, as a mere fellown ship-meal of the Palestinian Communities, from the “Pauline’' type of Eucharist. 2 The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament , 1957, 16. But, for a different emphasis, see K. G. Kuhn, “The Lord’s supper and the Communal Meal at Qumran’’ in The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. K. Stendahl, Eng. trans., 1958. 3 See R. Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments3 , 1958, vii. 4 P. Batiffol, Studia Patristica, Fascicule 1, 2, 1889-90. 22 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS Joseph prays for her, asking God to renew her with His Holy Spirit, that she may eat God’s bread of life and drink His cup of blessing, and be numbered among His chosen people. Now all this is strikingly reminiscent of Christian Eucharistic lan- guage, and, if it is pre-Christian, must point to some conception, other- wise unknown in Judaism, of ritual meals to which one could scarcely deny the term sacramental. Professor G. D. Kilpatrick has suggested1 that here the curtain is indeed lifted for a moment on some otherwise unknown Jewish religious practice sufficiently similar to the Last Supper for these two to have a common origin independent of the Passover. Professor J. Jeremias also accepts a pre-Christian origin, noting, as particularly significant, the absence of any reference to baptism. 2 But Batiffol himself placed the document as late as the fifth century ofthe Christian era, and one would need extremely convincing evidence to establish that the story has not been worked over by some Christian hand, or composed by someone at least acquainted with Christianity . 3 Thus, it is impossible to say with any confidence that there are pre- Christian Jewish analogies to what is indicated in i Cor. n. Is there, then, any analogy from the pagan world? There were confraternities — Oiaooi and croupe?at—some of them apparently connected with mystery religions; and no doubt their activities in- cluded communal meals. Bauer4 is even able to quote a scholion on Plato which says that the common meals of the Lacedaemonians were called <£iAma because they were assemblies of friendship (fcXla? avvaycoya). If the Christian alternative for fcXla is dydnrj, then these cjuXina might be regarded as a striking pagan parallel to 1 E.T., LXIV, i, Oct. 1952, 4 ff. 2 See, e.g., his “Die missionarische Aufgabe in der Mischehe (1 Cor. 7: 16)” in N.T. Studien fur Bultmann, 1954, 256; and Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries , Eng. trans., i960, 33. 3 P. Ressler’s translation into German, 1928, with brief notes, assigned it to Essene origin; and Kohler, in The Jewish Encyclopaedia II, 172-6, treats it as essentially Jewish with only slight Christian revision. K. G. Kuhn (as in Note 2, p. 22) regards it as non-Christian. But E. W. Brooks, Joseph and Asenath, 1918, comes down decisively, like Batiffol before him, in favour of its Christian character, adding to the apparently Eucharistic references the evidence of the exaltation ofvirginity and the prominence of the idea offorgiveness. This edition, incidentally, has a useful account of the extant versions of the work (vii-ix) ; and is the discussion of the veil (xiv f.) relevant to 1 Cor. 11? 4 Worterbuch zum Neuen TestamentB, 1958, s.v.agape, or Arndt and Gringrich’s English edition of Bauer3 , 1957, Introduction. 23 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT the Christian “love-feast” which itself came to be called dy 77-77, “a love”. 1 Moreover, the process ofinitiation into the mysteries, which was believed to bring immortality, was at certain points connected with ceremonial eating or drinking. But beyond this the likenesses do not seem to extend ; and the really distinctive thing about the Christian sacramental meal (at any rate, as it is reflected in St. Paul’s allusions) is its essentially historical and eschato- logical character. Looking back to an event ofthe past, it looks forward to the consummation of God’s design; and in the present, at each celebration, it finds a creative meeting of the two. To the Pauline conception, then, of the Christian communal meal it appears to be impossible to establish any real counterpart either in Judaism or in the pagan world. But does the Pauline tradition itself go back to any actual institution by Jesus? Is it even, broadly speaking, representative of what was done in St. Paul’s day by the majority of the Christian congregations scattered over the world? Is it not an in- vention essentially ofHellenic—not primitive Palestinian—Christianity, or perhaps of Paul himself? The most realistic answer to this last question is “No”. It is difficult to believe that the words “I received from the Lord . . .” (1 Cor. 11 : 23) are intended to refer to a direct vision accorded privately to the apostle (despite Gal. 1: 12). The correlative verbs vapeXafiov and 7rape$a>Ka naturally apply to the receiving and transmitting of traditions; and it is intrinsically improbable, in any case, that what is here described should be the contents of a vision. “From the Lord” is therefore more naturally interpreted as a reference to apostolic traditions going right back to the Lord Himself. Paul is claiming to be in fine with tradition. 2 But even so, can we believe that such a claim was justifiable? And is not the only other New Testament reference to a dominical command to commemorate the death of Christ—namely Luke 22: 19b — dependent on the Pauline passage? The authentic character of the Pauline account is not to be so lightly dismissed. As has just been pointed out, the mystery-religion outlook is radically different from what is represented in 1 Cor. 11. If, then, the Pauline words are taken to represent a Hellenic ele- ment grafted on to a Palestinian stock, the grafting would need to have been a very extraordinary process. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to imagine St. Paul having the effrontery to claim as a tradition 1 See C. Spicq, Agapk dans le Nouveau Testament, II, 1959, 347 ff. 2 See a good discussion in V. Taylor, Jesus and His Sacrifice, 1937, 201 ff. 24 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS which he hadfaithfully passed on something which in fact he had im- ported from paganism. And, further, it is far from certain that the “longer text” of Luke 22: 19 (including the clause just referred to) is either post-Lukan or even merely borrowed by Luke from Paul. A case can be made for the originality of the longer text and for its wit- nessing independently to the same tradition as is reflected in 1 Cor. n.1 In any case, even if we were to omit the allusion to a dominical command to commemorate the death of Christ, and ignore the pecu- liarly Lukan and Pauline matter, there would still remain in the narra- tives of the Last Supper alike in Paul, Luke, Matthew and Mark a reference to the blood of Christ shed for many; and it is exceedingly difficult to escape the conclusion that in all available references to the traditions there is at least a linking of the idea of the death of Christ on behalfofothers with this fellowship meal. And although many scholars find difficulty in including among the aboriginal elements of the tradi- tion the description of the blood of Christ as “covenant-blood” 2 even this seems, after all, to represent a quite possible Aramaic phrase ; 3 and certainly nothing is more obviously natural to Old Testament thought than the idea ofthe Covenant between God and His People, which was one day to be renewed in a deeper, more inward, more effective way (Jer. 31:31). If, then, the Pauline and Lukan accounts of the Last Supper do represent in the main not a recent Hellenizing development but a primitive tradition, then from the very first “the breaking of the loaf” (which in itself, as we have argued, need be no more than a Semitic phrase for starting a meal) could always for the Christians have been associated with the covenant renewed by God in the death of Christ. This removes the grounds for chronological or topographical distinc- 1 See Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words ofJesus (as in Note 2, p. 20), 87 ff; and H. Schiirmann, Der Einsetzungsbericht, 1955. The late Dr. T. W. Manson, on the other hand, thought that the longer text, though indeed Lukan, arose from Luke’s own augmentation of his material by a liturgical phrase: Luke 22: 14-18 and 21-38 is “L” material, into which Luke himselfhas inserted 19, 20—liturgical words which he may have learned from Paul. I do not find Jeremias’ explanation convincing. But I do not think that it is necessary to regard the “interpolation” as unhistorical, still less as post-Lukan. Schiirmann’s conclusions, based on very detailed statistical examination of the context, are worthy of respect. 2 See, e.g., E. Lohse, Mdrtyrer und Gottesknecht , 1955, 126, and the bibliography in H. Schiirmann (as in Note 1 above), 95, nn. 324 ff. See also the discussion in W. D. Davies, Paul and RabbinicJudaism, 1948, 244 ff. 3 J. A. Emerton, “The Aramaic underlying to haima mou tes diathekes in Mk. xiv. 24”, J.T.S. n.s. VI, 2, Oct. 1955, 238 ff. 25 WORSHIP IN THE NBW TESTAMENT tions, such as Lietzmann made in Mass and Lord’s Supper , between a primitive Palestinian fellowship-meal and a sacramental, Hellenistic “Eucharist”. The sharing of the bread and wine, with an expression of praise to God for what He had done in the death and resurrection of Christ, may from the first have been known as a means of renewing union with the risen Christ. Here, in short, may have been from the first a real sacrament—the use of material things, the bread and wine, in the context ofthe mighty work ofGod in Christ, in such a way that the worshippers are confronted with God Himself, brought to a fresh decision before Him, and so enabled to enter into a relationship with Him. It does not follow that every reference to the breaking of bread, in circumstances such that no special mention was made of the death of Christ, is necessarily a reference to a sacrament. Even the Pauline phrase “whenever you eat this loaf and drink the cup, you declare the Lord’s death . . .” (i Cor. n : 26) need not compel us to a pedantic literalism turning every Christian act of feeding into a “Eucharist”. Admittedly, if a devout Jew always “said grace” before eating, it is difficult to imagine a devout Christian not using a distinctively Christian form of grace; and, if so, it is a question exactly where one draws the line be- tween a Christian grace and a memorial ofthe death ofChrist by which the occasion becomes a sacrament. But the point is that a clearly sacra- mental use, whether invariably present or not, does seem to have existed from the earliest days among the Christians. Ifwe may digress for a moment on the subject ofgrace before meals, the directions in Didache 9, 10 look uncommonly as though they related simply to an extended grace before and after a meal. And to such there appears to be reference also in 1 Tim. 4:5. There we find a repudiation of some false teaching which evidently included elaborate food-taboos; and as against this teaching, it is affirmed that everything created by God is good, “and nothing is to be rejected, if it is accepted with thanksgiving (cu^apujTta) ; for it is consecrated (ayia^erai) through the word of God and prayer (Zvrevgis*)”. Here “the word of God” is perhaps a reference to the divine declaration ofthe goodness of created things (Gen. 1:31); and the prayer is the prayer ofthanksgiving over food (see B. S. Easton in loc.). This passage from 1 Tim. has passed into many academic graces used before dinner in the ancient Univer- sities, in such forms as sanctijica dona tua per verbum et orationem. But Justin, Apol. i. 66, draws a parallel between the incarnation “through the word of God” and the transformation of the eucharistic elements 26 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS over which thanksgiving has been made “through the word of prayer which comes from God”; and it seems possible that already by the time of i Tim., although no such transformation was yet imagined, the grace pronounced over the food was itself regarded as God’s divinely given word. In that case, the phrase means “through the word of God, namely prayer”. In either case, evrev^, more narrowly “inter- cession”, seems to be used here in its more general sense of “prayer”. 1 Thus, to return to the main issue, it is impossible, at an early period, to draw hard and fast lines between “mere” eating and “sacramental” participation, between mere grace before meals and Eucharist. What does seem to be justified is the recognition of the early existence of a sacramental “Eucharist”. A good case may no doubt be made for the Didache’s references being to a non-sacramental meal (possibly, as Audet and others before him suggest, 2 preUminary to a “Eucharist” proper) ; and certainly it would be almost ludicrous to hold that when, on the storm-tossed ship, St. Paul took bread and broke it before the whole company (Acts 27: 35), he must have been doing something “sacramental”. But it is another matter when at Troas a body of Christians assembles on a Sunday3 expressly to break bread (Acts 20 : 7). There it seems highly probable that something more than a “mere meal” is intended. In the New Testament there is very little trace ofany technical name such as “Eucharist” or “Holy Communion” to distinguish the rite. Indeed, the only names there are describe, rather, the larger context from which the Eucharist proper was ultimately to be distinguished. In 1 Cor. 11 : 20, reference is made to a “Lord’s supper”, KvpiaKov Selnvov; a supper, that is, associated with Jesus as Lord, and con- trasted (in this instance) with the selfish use of food as “one’s own supper” (1 v. 21). Again, it is probable that in Jude 12 the ayaTrai in which the antinomians are shamelessly enjoying themselves are the Christian love-feasts. If so, this is the only instance in the New Testa- ment of this term (unless in 2 Pet. 2: 13 ayairaiz is the right reading, rather than a^arais). In the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, however, this technical term is evidently well established, as is also the technical 1 It occurs only once elsewhere in the N.T.—in 1 Tim. 2:1; but see Bauer or Arndt and Gringrich s.v. Does it conceivably refer to the eucharistic intercession, during which thanks would also be offered? 2 J.-P. Audet, La Didache, 1958, 415. Before him, see (e.g.) Lietzmann (as in Note 2, p. 21), and G. Bomkamm, Das Ende des Gesetzes, 1952, 123 ff. * Or on the night ending the sabbath (see Note 1, p. 16). 27 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT use of the verb dyarrav in the sense “to keep a love-feast* * (it is un- likely that this is the meaning of the verb in John 13 : 1). (Why the noun ay/anr], “love**, ever came to be adopted for this sense of “loving-feast ’ * is obscure, unless the pagan parallel cited above (p. 23) throws any light—and, in any case, there the word is not “loves**, which it would be if the parallel were exact.) 1 But even if, as yet, there was no technical name for the sacrament — the Eucharist proper within the love-feast—there is no reason (if the argument so far is on the right lines) to doubt its existence. How often, then, was it celebrated? The Last Supper, whether a Passover or not, 2 was at least at the paschal season and was clearly related to the Passover; and Passover was an annual festival. Did Jesus then intend the breaking of the loaf in memory ofHim to be no more than an annual act?3 The only actual phrase of frequency associated with the Lord’s Supper in the whole New Testament, in 1 Cor. 11 : 26, is unfortunately a relative phrase — “as often as . . .’*. If we take “eating this bread and drinking the cup” to refer to ordinary meals, then the memorial is intended to attach to every meal taken by Christians together (even if, as has been already remarked, this would still not need to be pedantically pressed) ; but if, as seems far more probable, it refers to a special occasion for worship, then we are no nearer to determining how frequently that happened. Almost all we have to go by, therefore (so far as New Testament evidence goes) is the fact that in Acts 20: 7 coming together on the first day of the week to break bread is mentioned as though it were a matter of course. But a weekly “coming together” is further suggested by the fact that in 1 Cor. 16: 1 f. St. Paul instructs the Corinthians to make an allocation ofmoney out oftheir savings for theJerusalem poor every Sunday (/card fuav Gafarov). In Didache 14: 1 the injunction to come together every “Lord’s day” to break bread is explicit: but the date ofthis section ofthe Didache (as indeed ofany part ofthat writing) is uncertain.4 The term “the Lord’s day” occurs once in the New 1 See C. Spicq, as in Note 1, p. 24. 2 For the thorny question as to the date of the Last Supper, and whether it was a Passover or not, see, among very many others, J. Jeremias (as in Note 2, p. 20), Ch. I; A. J. B. Higgins, as in Note 2. p. 21; A. Jaubert, “La date de la demiere C£ne”, Revue de Vhistoire des religions, CXLVI, 140 ff. ; M. Black, “The Arrest and Trial of Jesus and the Date of the Last Supper” in New Testament Essays, as in Note 1, p. 7, 19 ff. 3 See A. J. B. Higgins, as in Note 2, p. 21. 4 See J.-P. Audet, as in Note 2, p. 27, in loc. 28 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS Testament itself: that the seer of the Apocalypse finds himself in the Spirit (? in a trance or ecstasy) on the Lord’s day (Rev. i : io) suggests that it was a day for worship; and the whole of the Apocalypse is indeed full of the sights and sounds of worship. In any case, moreover, Jewish Christians in the early days would, as we have seen, still have kept the sabbath; and the distinctively Christian act of worship may well have followed on the night of the sabbath or in the small hours ofthe Sunday (which, after all, was not yet a holiday, and could not normally be a whole day of worship). Sabbath was, for Jews, especially a memorial of the creation. The new creation in Jesus Christ would suitably have been celebrated weekly, in connexion with the sabbath, or at the breaking of the day of the resurrection.1 Thus, it may certainly be said that the Jewish sabbath provided a strong incentive to the Christians for a weekly Eucharist, although it is impossible to find any secure evidence for it as an invariable practice, still less for any hard and fast rule to this effect. We must be content to say that it is likely enough to have been a weekly practice; and a little later, outside the New Testament, we have (besides the Didache just cited) Pliny’s famous stato die (io. 96-7), Barnabas 15:9, and Justin (Apol. I. 67.3). To sum up thus far, there appears to be sufficient evidence for believing that, from the earliest days, a sacrament such as came to be called the Holy Communion or Eucharist was celebrated, probably weekly, and usually in the context of a communal meal. 2. The president If we turn now to the conduct of eucharistic worship, in the first place, it is unfortunately impossible to be certain who presided. It is natural to assume that an apostle would preside (or at least be invited to preside), if present. The prestige of the Twelve, as eye-witnesses commissioned by the Lord to give evidence of the Gospel facts, may be assumed to have set them at the head of a congregation assembled for worship. (It does not follow, although this is often too lightly assumed, that the same prestige necessarily put them at the administra- tive head of any community—still less that the dominical commission itself included any such responsibility.) The same no doubt applied to St. Paul, where his apostleship was recognized, although, as is evident from 2 Cor., that was not everywhere. Failing an apostle, the president would presumably be one of the elders of the local congregation, but 1 See Note 1, p. 16. 29C WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT not necessarily always the same one. Even much later, Justin, Apol. I.65, simply alludes to the president (o TTpotoToof), as though there might be different persons on different occasions. One of the theories of the origin of episcopacy looks primarily to the Eucharist. 1 On this showing, the celebrant might have been the “bishop”—the chief elder- overseer (or presbyter-bishop), who would be assisted by the other elder-overseers (or presbyter-bishops) and the deacons. But in fact it seems reasonable to find the functions of these ministries in several different activities concurrently—not only in liturgical leadership but also in pastoral and administrative responsibilities. In the Pastoral Epistles, nothing is said specifically about worship among the quali- fications of presbyter-overseers and deacons. 3. Eucharistic procedure What actually took place at a Eucharist? No doubt the answer to that question would vary at different periods and in different areas. In the earliest days and in Judaea—to judge from Acts—it seems to have been something like the following. The Christians met together daily, weekly, or at irregular intervals, to enjoy the companionship of meals together (as also to supply the needs of the indigent, Acts 2: 45, 6: i). 2 They shared their food with one another in a spirit of exultant joy (because of the triumph of Christ and its shortly expected consumma- tion, and because of their mutual bond with one another in Christ), and with transparent sincerity (a mark of their prevailing intimacy and freedom from guilty secrets)—Acts 2 : 46. To such meals (usually in the evening, or at night, or even in the small hours, for the reasons already given) we may assume that each member would bring his own contribution according to his means. Slaves might bring the remains of feasts at which they had been waiters; the better-off might buy something for the occasion; many a housewife would see what she could find in the larder. And it was most probably at the beginning of such a meal—a real meal, for the satis- faction of hunger and for the assistance of the indigent—that the president, whoever he might be that day, would take a loaf or biscuit, and, as he held it, would burst into a flood of praise. He would praise 1 See, e.g., H. F. Hamilton, The People of God, II, 1912, 87 ff.; and, for a sum- mary, T. O. Wedel, The Coming Great Church, Eng. ed., 1947, 136. 2 Bo Reicke (as in Note 2, p. 18), 158 f., compares the phrase for the indigent in 1 Cor. n : 22 (ol pi] e^ovre?) with exactly the same phrase in a description of a festal distribution of largesse in Neh. 8 : 10 (LXX 2 Esdras 18 : 10 ol pi] exovre?). 30 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS or “bless” God, both for His wonderful works of creation and for His mighty deeds in history; but, most especially, for what He had done in Jesus Christ, and what He would do ultimately through Him. And here reference would be made to what Jesus Himself had said about His body and blood as He handled the bread at the Last Supper in the upper room. There might also be petitions and intercessions. This rendering of praise—this blessing or “eulogy”—might be short or long: it rested with the president. (By the time ofthe Didache (io: 7), if indeed the Eucharistic prayer is meant, ordinary presidents were wisely held within bounds by a fixed form: only “prophets” were allowed free rein.) As he concluded, he would break the single loaf or biscuit for distribution, and there might be at this point explicit allusion to the idea of the many fragments all belonging to the single loaf—a parable and pledge of the union of the many worshippers as parts of a single loaf, as limbs of a single body (1 Cor. 10: 17), a fore- taste of the final assembling of the scattered fragments of God’s Israel at the consummation (Didache 9: 4, 10: 5, cf. the Jewish prayer for the gathering of Israel, in the ‘ amidah , i.e. “standing”, prayer in synagogue worship).1 This done, the meal would proceed. There would, no doubt, be informal conversation, grave and gay, the exchange ofnews and views, the discussion of problems and anxieties, of hopes and fears. Then, after supper, came a second blessing or thanksgiving, this time not over the bread but over a cup, with appropriate allusions and, again, with the appropriate part ofthe narrative ofthe upper room and, probably, allusion to the expectations of the future. The president, it seems, would then take a sip from the cup and pass it round for each in turn to drink from. Most of this is deduction, partly from known Jewish practice, partly from the New Testament narratives of the upper room. It must be remembered, however, that those narratives describe something that took place at Passover time, and it is possible that only at Passover time would the Christian communal meals have approximated at all closely 1 W. Bauer (as in Note 4, p. 23) s.v. apros (or, in Arndt and Gringrich’s trans- lation, xiii) cites Diog. Laert. 8, 35, where Pythagoras says that the one loaf (ets apros) has served as a bond between friends. On Didache 9:4 see E. R. Goodenough, “John a Primitive Gospel”, J.B.L. 64, 1945, 145 ff., C. F. D. Moule, “A note on Did. 9: 4”, J.T.S. n.s. VI. 2, Oct. 1955, 240 ff., H. Riesenfeld, “Das Brot von den Bergen, zu Didache 9, 4”, Eranos 45, 1956, 142 ff, L. Cerfaux, “La Multiplication des Pains dans la Liturgie de la Didache”, Studia Biblica et Orientalia, 1959, II. N.T., 375 ff 31 WORSHIP IN THB NEW TESTAMENT to the Jewish Passover pattern. There is some reason to believe that i Cor. ii was itself written at the Passover season; 1 and it follows that the procedure at meals at other seasons was not necessarily so paschal in character, although the original event, being itself paschal both by chronology and significance, may be assumed to have coloured all procedure to some extent. Reference has already been made to the absence of all mention of a paschal lamb at the Last Supper itself, as distinct from its preparation (and compare the passing allusion in i Cor. 5:7). At all events, that devoutJews never began a meal without breaking the foodstuff with a “benediction”—that is, a rendering of praise to God—seems clear; and, equally, that the host shared the initial piece of food with his guests. That at a special meal such as that of the Passover, or even that of a voluntary religious group of associates (a so-called hahurah or “fellowship”), there was a cup at the end, with a thanks- giving over it, seems equally well established. 2 Whether the normal Jewish practice was for each guest at this point to drink from his own cup, or whether it was to share in a single cup, is disputed.8 The tradi- tions about the upper room all agree that Jesus passed the cup to the disciples (possibly even refraining Himself) : and it is not unreasonable to believe that this passing round ofa single cup, whether a peculiarity or not, was perpetuated at Christian gatherings thereafter. If this is a fair reconstruction of primitive Christian practice in the Judaean areas, it means that the essentials were the breaking and sharing of a foodstuff at the beginning of the meal, and the sharing of a cup at the end, both with benedictions. Moreover, the benedictions included reference to Jesus and His atoning death with eager expecta- tion of the longed-for consummation in the future ; at any rate, this is not only a priori probable but seems to be indicated for St. Paul’s 1 T. W. Manson . J.T.S., XLVI, 1945, 8 . 2 D. Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism, 1956, 330 f., makes a case for “the cup of blessing” being the third of four cups prescribed for the Passover-eve service. In that case, it would be the fourth cup that Jesus (perhaps) abjured in the words “I will not drink henceforth . . 3 Jeremias (as in Note 2, p. 20), 44, holds that the shared cup was normal. Contra H. Schurmann, Der Paschamahlbericht, 1952, 60 (citing modem writers pro and contra), and S.-B. IV, 58 f., 62. But the notion of a “loving-cup”—a single cup shared by all—may be assumed to be instinctive and universal, and it is not easy to believe that it was abnormal at Passover. That it was at some period avoided for hygienic reasons (S.-B. IV, 59 a) only reinforces the impression that it was otherwise normal. 32 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS tradition, which he may have received from Palestinian sources (i Cor. 11:26). It is to be noted here that the words “Do this . . .” (1 Cor. 11 : 24 f. ; Luke 22: 19), even if a genuine tradition of the words of Jesus, are unlikely to represent a dominical command to perform the actions of breaking and distributing. As G. Dix and others have observed, no devout Jew would need such a command : he would naturally do this whenever a communal meal took place. 1 The operative words, therefore, must be “in remembrance ofme”. It is not that the disciples are commanded to break bread and share wine. The former they would do every time they ate; the latter, at least on festal or community occasions. It must be, rather, that the command bids them, whenever they do this, to do it “with special intention ’. There is no evidence within the New Testament of a tradition that any “manual acts”, in imitation of what Jesus may have done in the upper room, were regarded as a sine qua non for a celebration of the Lord’s Supper. But when Christianity left prevailingly Judaean sur- roundings, whether in Galilee or at Syrian Antioch, or further out in the pagan world, as at Corinth and other Pauline churches, the typically Judaean “breaking of the bread” might not be supported by social custom; and here, to judge again from 1 Cor. 11 : 24 and perhaps from the account of the meeting at Troas in Acts 20: 7, 11, it may have been deliberately perpetuated, as a re-enactment of what Jesus did at the Last Supper. Similarly, if the procedure with the cup, and the stage at which it occurred, were maintained unchanged on Gentile soil, that, too, might be for specifically Christian reasons, in places where there was not the further support of antecedent custom. But the nature of the communal meal lying between these two points may there have been more akin to that of the pagan Otaaot and iratpetal such as were associated with mystery-religions or political movements, than to that of the Jewish haburoth. It may have been precisely this that led the way to the gross abuses which appear to have necessitated ultimately the segregation of the breaking of bread and the sharing of the cup from the real meal so that they became a separate, self-contained ritual. This separation of com- mon fellowship from sacramental rite is utterly alien to St. Paul’s mind (cf. 1 Cor. 11), and, when it did come, must have been accepted only as the less of two evils. When the divorce was effected, the dya7r^, or “love-feast”, evidently continued independently as a separate entity. 1 G. Dix, The Shape ofthe Liturgy, 1945, 55 f.; Jeremias (as in Note 2, p. 20), 126. 33 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT There is no direct evidence from the New Testament of this step having yet been taken. But sooner or later it was accomplished; and there is all too clear evidence for the abuse of the common meal, in i Cor. ii and perhaps also in 2 Pet. 2: 13 and Jude 12. And indirect evidence that the segregation had already taken place before the end of the New Testament period may be derived from a comparison of the different accounts of the words ofJesus at the Last Supper. In 1 Cor. 11 : 25 and Luke 22: 20 the position of the cup “after supper” is ex- pressly mentioned; and in neither of these places have the words over the cup been brought into precise parallelism with the words over the bread. 1 By contrast, the Markan and Matthean forms, where the parallelism is exact, may reflect an assimilation of the cup-saying to the bread-saying resulting from their later juxtaposition when the inter- vening meal or dya^ had dropped out.2 Finally, it must be noted that no “general confession” is clearly evidenced for New Testament Eucharists. The Lord’s Prayer contains 1 If the earliest “cup words” were in some form other than “This is my blood . . then it seems to me more than ever impossible to be sure that the mention of blood at this point proves that the wine used must have been red (which, in turn, is said to indicate a paschal meal). The whole of such a construc- tion is conjectural. See Jeremias, 29; D. Daube (as in Note 2, p. 16), 176—but he exercises great caution. 2 A third step in the evolution has been suggested, which, however, seems very far-fetched. The suggestion is that a third stage is represented by the language of John 6 (assuming that this is consciously Eucharistic), where the words are not “body and blood” but ‘ ‘flesh and blood”. The special significance of this—sup- posing that it is to be fitted into this evolutionary scheme—could be that, in the original sayings, neither “body” nor “blood” was strictly sacrificial in connota- tion. They both represented the self-surrender ofJesus, in terms (it might be) of the suffering Servant of Isa. 53, but not in terms of cultic sacrifice. The mention of the covenant, however, when associated with “blood” (whether in the original words ofJesus or, as some hold, later and at a non-Jewish stage—but see Notes 2, 3, p. 25), would invest the word “blood” with definitely sacrificial associations; and the approximation of the cup-saying to the bread-saying would then alter the bread-saying so that it, too, took on a sacrificial meaning : and the substance of an animal sacrifice is flesh and blood. But the Johannine use of oap£, “flesh”, arises almost certainly not from any such process as is here suggested but from a motive which runs right through the Gospel and the Johannine Epistles—that of affirming the reality of the incarnation as against “docetist” theories (cf. Heb. 2: 14). Moreover, it is simpler (as has been observed, p. 25) to regard the covenant-theme as an original element. But the assimilation of the two sayings to one another in their essential structure may well be still the result of the approximation of the two when the intervening meal had been removed. 34 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS a prayer for forgiveness, i Tim. 5 : 20 may be thought to imply public penance, and Jas. 5: 16 alludes to mutual confession: that is all. 4. Sacramental theory There is within the New Testament no clear definition of a sacra- ment. But it is possible to deduce from St. Paul’s epistles the principles of sacramental worship, at any rate as he saw them. St. Paul’s clearly sacramental viewpoint emerges, albeit incidentally, from his discussion in 1 Corinthians of food offered to idols. What were Christians to do, when the only meat obtainable, other than the “cosher” meat in the Jewish market (from which they may have been boycotted), had all been ritually offered to pagan gods? That (as 1 Cor. 8 shows) was a question put to St. Paul by his Christian friends in Corinth, though by some it had already been answered. There were enlightened, sophisti- cated, comparatively intellectual Christians there who said “Eat it by all means: it is not altered by being offered to an idol”. But St. Paul is more careful. He readily agrees (1 Cor. 8: 4-6, 10: 19) that there has been no transformation in the meat itself: an idol is nothing, and as far as that goes, we are neither the better nor the worse for eating the meat. But, he says, it is vital that our freedom from superstitious scruples should not be allowed to force the pace for a weaker mentality and thus injure a fellow-Christian’s conscience. One must consider not merely one’s own position but one’s influence on others less emanci- pated (1 Cor. 8:7-13, 10: 23 ff). Besides—and this is where the sacramental principle emerges—though the meat is not changed, the use of it with a particular intention and in a particular context may and can affect our relationship with the unseen powers of evil and good : there may, that is, be a change ofrelation even though there is no change of material (1 Cor. 10: 20-22). And St. Paul invokes the analogy of the Eucharist: “the cup of blessing”—that is, the cup over which we bless God—does it not involve participation in the blood ofChrist? The loaf which we break, does it not mean participation in the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10: 16)? That is to say, the use ofbread and wine in a context of Christian worship and (as we have seen) in relation to Christ’s death effects an actual participation in Christ’s sacrificed life—and St. Paul’s readers evidently know it. It actually unites the worshippers with Christ—and with one another: the single loaf broken up and shared is a means of the joint-participation of the many members in the life of a single body (1 Cor. 10: 17). And so vividly real is this for St. Paul that, in 1 Cor. 11, he is able 35 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT to say that abuse of this relationship (as by a selfish indifference to the needs of others—a failure to recognize the body corporate which has been created by the surrendered body of Christ) brings illness or even death, so deadly earnest is the apostle’s attitude to the real presence of the Lord and the dynamic meaning of a sacramental relationship. It is in this context that we find the first explicit mention in the New Testament of self-examination as a preparation for Communion.1 Here at least there is direct evidence of the view that “Christian cor- porate worship is above all the Body of Christ taking visible form”.2 Thus, although we have no information within the New Testament about the -details of procedure, which, indeed, may not have been fixed and standardized so early, this, at all events, can be said: that at least for St. Paul the Lord’s Supper was no mere recalling ofa memory from the past, nor only a looking forward to the future, but a potent means of present contact with the risen Lord. If such use of i Cor. 8 and io as well as n is justified, this interpreta- tion of the Eucharist as more than bare recollection or anticipation rests on a firmer foundation than merely the meaning of els' ttjv ijjcrjv avdfjLvrjcnv. It has been argued by Jeremias3 that this means “in order to remind God” of what Jesus has done. This is far from con- vincing;4 and even the observation5 that, for the Hebrews generally, “remembrance” tended to mean something more dynamic (something nearer to “re-presentation”) than mere mental recollection may, while true, not take us all the way. But the “sacramentalism” of St. Paul’s outlook does seem to emerge from the context as a whole. And it is plausible to see a similarly vivid awareness of the meaning of this sacrament reflected in such passages as John 6 and Heb. io. In John 6, while a false, materialistic parody of sacramentalism is repudi- ated — “the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life”—there is also the daring language about eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of Man. This language (shocking in the extreme to Jewish sensibilities about the 1 See C. F. D. Moule, “The Judgment theme in the Sacraments”, in The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology (in hon. C. H. Dodd, ed. W. D. Davies and D. Daube), 1956, 454 ff. 2 E. Schweizer, “Worship in the New Testament”, The Reformed and Presby- terian World, XXIV, 5, March 1957, 199 (Eng. trans. of Der Gottesdienst im N.T. , 1958). 3 As in Note 2, p. 20; 159 ff. 4 See, e.g., D. Jones, f.T.S. n.s. VI. 2, Oct. 1955, 183 ff. 6 G. Dix (as in Note 1, p. 33), 161 f. 36 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS drinking of blood) seems to mean two things, among much else: first, that the real incarnation must be taken with brutal seriousness and not refined away into some sort of “docetic” notions; and secondly, that salvation is not merely by seeing and listening and learning but by “assimilating” Christ: by so taking into one’s life the surrendered life of Christ that new life and strength come into one’s character. That such a message should be attached to the narrative of physical, material feed- ing strongly suggests its application to the eucharistic feast. In Heb. io: 26-31, in a context which seems to be best explained as concerned with the mortal danger of apostasy—a lapse back from Christianity into non-Christian Judaism—the fatal step is described in terms oftreading underfoot the Son ofGod and treating as “common” (un-sacred) the blood of the covenant by which one had been dedi- cated. This, though not demonstrably eucharistic, is reminiscent of the eucharistic context of 1 Cor. 11 where (although there it is not apostasy but common gluttony and selfishness) the sin is a failure “to recognize the body”—the body ofChrist surrendered for us and that body, which is the Church, which was thereby created. Heb. 6: 3 ff. seems to be, like Heb. 10: 26 ff., a reference to apostasy, but in terms ofa baptismal background. Elsewhere in Hebrews, the passage most often associated with the eucharist is 13 : 10 ff. But it is questionable whether in fact the reference is not even wider, although it quite possibly includes eucharistic wor- ship. The description of praise and almsgiving, in 13 : 15 f., as accept- able sacrifices is typical of a widespread religious idea ranging from the Old Testament (possibly actually Hos. 14: 2 here cited) and the Apocrypha, Philo, and the Qumran documents1 to the more refined and philosophic pagan writers. 2 It stands for a recognition that true worship of God is independent of material sacrifices or at any rate on a deeper level than they. And in the present context this idea gains point if it is correct to see in the whole epistle to the Hebrews an earnest exhortation addressed to Christians who had come out from Judaism. They are urged to recognize that, by leaving Judaism, they have not been bereft of priesthood and sacrifice nor unchurched. They have the philosopher’s “inward” worship, and more. They have more than all that Judaism and the philosophers put together could offer—they have 1 See Note 2, p. 11. But for this sect the substitution of morality, etc., for animal sacrifice may have been regarded as only a temporary expedient. 2 See, e.g., references given by H. Windisch in loc. (Lietzmann’s Handbuch zum N.T.). 37 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT the realities of which these were only the adumbration or the hints. If that is the force of “we have an altar” in 13 : 10, the altar in question is most naturally interpreted as primarily the cross (or the “heavenly altar” upon which the sacrifice of the cross is offered) ; and the Chris- tian’s “eating” from that altar must be his entire relationship with Christ, including, but going beyond, the offering of praise and alms- giving, and including other expressions of that relationship besides the Holy Communion, however central that might be. Participation in Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice is the inward meaning of all that the Christians do. This is only one of many interpretations. One of the exegetical problems involved in reaching a decision is to determine what is meant by those who serve the tabernacle having no right to eat from it. In the interpretation just put forward the passage is taken to mean simply that there can be no access to the Gospel of the death of Christ (no access to the “heavenly altar”) for non-Christian Jews (described as “those who serve the tabernacle” because Judaism is, throughout this epistle, described in terms of the Pentateuchal assembly in the wilderness, of which the priests, who serve the tabernacle, are the most privileged). It has been suggested alternatively that the whole phrase means “we have a sacrifice [51c] like that from which in the Mosaic Law even the priests are not allowed to eat”—that is, Christ’s self-sacrifice is com- parable to the solemn sacrifice of the day of Atonement, of which no part was eaten, even by the priests (Lev. 6: 30). But this does violence to the meaning of Ovoiaorripiov (which means altar, not sacrifice), as well as introducing a curiously oblique reference to the nature of the atonement. Again, the allusion has been interpreted more specifically as an allusion to the Eucharist. But there is nothing to compel one to this conclusion ; and it seems more natural (assuming the situation sug- gested in the previous paragraph) to see in the whole passage ( vv. 10-16) a reply for the Christians to give to the non-Christian Jews who taunt them with having lost priesthood and sacrifice. On the contrary, they are to say, we have an altar, and one from which even the most privi- leged among you, who boast of your sacrificial system, are not yet qualified to eat. In parenthesis, vv. 11-14 recognize that such a claim will lead to ostracism; and the ritual of the day of Atonement is used as a symbol for Christ’s expulsion and thus as a ground for accepting this consequence : let us go outside the camp with Jesus, who, like the victims of that sin-offering (Lev. 16: 27), was taken “outside”. Then the apologia continues: we have sacrifices of our own to offer also — 38 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS those of praise (the “fruit-offering” from our lips) 1 and of almsgiving and other good deeds. These are the sacrifices which really please God.2 There is no need to find in these latter phrases’a doctrine ofmeritorious “good works”, as though these human “offerings” were effective for atonement; the point is simply that the Christian “sacrifice” of praise and gifts is pleasing to God rather than the animal sacrifices which the readers of Hebrews are taunted for having abandoned. If, then, specific allusions to the Holy Communion in Hebrews are uncertain and at best scanty, yet the principles of Christian worship are there. And among these a further principle, of wide influence, has yet to be mentioned, and one which is particularly prominent in this epistle. Jesus is described as the High Priest who has entered heaven on our behalf. The analogy seems, again, to be the day of Atonement — the only day in the Jewish year when the inner sanctuary, the “holy of holies”, was penetrated into by any human being. Only on that day the High Priest, and he alone and not without elaborate precautions, entered into the august presence represented by the “mercy seat”, the symbolic throne ofGod on the top of the ark (Lev. 16: 13). The whole assembly outside may be imagined to have waited eagerly until he reappeared (Lev. 16: 20). This analogy is magnificently applied to Christ’s glorification and exaltation and looked-for reappearance. Having offered Himself (the “Body” prepared for Him by God — Ps. 40 in the version in which it is quoted in Heb. 10: 5), He has entered heaven (9: 24), there to make intercession for us (7: 25); and thence He will reappear, apart from sin, to bring salvation (9: 28). The fact ofthe death and resurrection ofChrist, truly man, is our confidence before God; and whatever Christian worship is offered on earth is linked with that which is beyond the veil, where Christ stands as our representative before the heavenly throne (10: 19-22). It may therefore even be said that, in a manner of speaking, the worshipping Church is already united with the whole company of heaven : Christians have already come to mount Sion and are there at worship with the angels in festal array and the whole community of the firstborn (12: 22 ffi). 1 Cf. 1 QS 9 : 4-5 ; and the liturgical terms used metaphorically by St. Pau (see Epilogue, pp. 83 f.). 2 B. Reicke (as in Note 2, p. 18), 25 f., plausibly associates the Koivcovla of Heb. 13: 16 (as in Acts 2: 42, see above, p. 18) with the distribution of food actually at the fellowship meal. He is less convincing when he argues (pp. 37 f.) that in Jas. 1: 27, 2: 16 the “religion” {dpr^crKeia) and the phrases “Go in peace, be warmed and filled” are all to be associated with the corporate worship of the community. 39 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT This brings us to the well-known but remarkable fact that i Clement (which may date from within the New Testament period) presents many striking parallels to the thought and language of Hebrews, and contains allusions which it is difficult to believe are not eucharistic. And it is far from impossible that, even if the writer to the Hebrews is not attempting to reproduce liturgical language, he is in fact so steeped in it that it echoes through his mind. And it may even be that the resemblances between Hebrews and i Clement reflect the manner of celebrating Holy Communion in first-century Rome which was known to both these writers.1 To acknowledge this is not to go back on the conclusion that Heb. 13 : 10 is not to be limited to the Eucharist. Two further observations must here be made. First, about sacrifice or offering or oblation. Of recent years renewed prominence has been given to the “offertory” at the Eucharist in Anglican Churches. For many generations, before the present time, the placing of the bread and wine on the table had been (and in many churches still is) obscurely performed by the celebrant in the sanctuary so as to be scarcely noticed by the congregation, in contrast to the collecting of the money, which is congregational and obvious and terminates with a procession of col- lectors to the sanctuary. But originally the bread and wine really came from the congregation: they were themselves contributed by the participants, and might be regarded as a symbol ofthe bringing to God of the whole stuff of daily life: representing, as they did, the human toil and labour of the week, they could be regarded as a kind of first- fruits—a token of the bringing to God of the whole community’s “produce”, and, in it, of the whole community itself, and of all creation. These ideas go back to early writers such as Irenaeus and Cyprian, and find famous expression in Augustine;2 and they have been widely revived in our own day in many churches where the carry- ing up of bread and wine from the congregation to the sanctuary has been restored to prominence, in addition to the collection of money. Essentially this use of the offertory as a symbol ofthe bringing of the worshippers and of all creation to God seems compatible enough with the New Testament, even ifit is there not brought into explicit relation to the eucharistic elements. The offering to God ofa sacrifice consisting of ourselves, soul and body (Rom. 12: 1), or of our praises and our deeds of loving service to others (Heb. 13 : 16, etc.) is explicitly men- tioned. 1 See A. Naime, The Epistle to the Hebrews , 1922, xxxiv. 2 Iren. adv. Haer. iv. xvii. 4-xviii. 6; Cyprian de op. et el. xv. Aug. serm. 229. 40 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS But (as was said earlier), to be true to the New Testament, one needs to avoid any suggestion that such “sacrifices” are imagined as in them- selves things of “merit”, winning our salvation. They are simply the response of human gratitude to God’s initiative in giving Himself up, in Christ, on our behalf. It is God’s act—God’s self-giving in Christ — which alone has reconciled us to Him (2 Cor. 5 : 19, etc.) : the rest— whatever we can do—is all response. And it is perhaps significant that nowhere in the New Testament (if the exegesis ofHeb. 13 : 10 ff. above is right) is there any allusion to the Eucharist as in any sense the offering of the sacrifice of Christ—still less are the loaf and the cup called a “sacrifice”. They are means, rather, of participating in a sacrifice already achieved once and for all (1 Cor. 10: 16; Heb. 9: 12, etc.). That is to say, in the New Testament the death of Christ is sometimes described as a sacrifice, and so is the offering of praise and obedient service by Christians (albeit in a sense which must evidently be secondary to and dependent on Christ’s sacrifice). But the sharing ofthe bread and wine, in the context of remembrance of that sacrifice and of thanks- giving for it, is looked upon not as a fresh sacrifice but as a uniting of ourselves with Christ in His self-giving, and as a renewal of the obligations and relationships which spring from the once-and-for-all death of Christ (1 Cor. 10: 16-18, 11: 26-34). h seems best, therefore, to describe this not as offering a sacrifice but rather as a realistic entering into and sharing of Christ’s sacrifice. 1 The second observation concerns the meaning ofblessing and thanks- giving. There is no doubt that Jewish ideas and practice strongly in- fluenced the words used over the bread and wine. In the Didache (9 : 2, etc.) one can actually watch a Christian adaptation of a Jewish formula in progress. The Jewish formula gave thanks for God’s “servant” 1 See C. F. D. Moule, The Sacrifice of Christ, 1956. If 1 Clem. 44:4 (the presbyter-episcopi offering the gifts of their episkope) is evidence for a sacrificial interpretation within the New Testament period, at any rate it is not within the New Testament canon. Here, among other places, it does not present a parallel to Hebrews. E. L. Mascall, in “The Offertory in the Eucharist”, Parish and People 21, Autumn 1957, n ff., is concerned to distinguish the offertory (as only the preparation for sacrifice) from the sacrifice itself; but this (as J. G. Davies shows in “The Meaning of the Offertory”, Parish and People 22, Spring 1958, 3 ff.) is an arbitrary division. It is better to see the entire action as one and indivisible (and, I would add, even to accept the present position of the prayer of oblation in the 1662 Book ofCommon Prayer). But it is further necessary, as I see it, to distinguish even the whole eucharistic action from the sacrifice itself, if we are to be true to N.T. emphases. But here we are in very deep doctrinal and liturgical water; and much depends upon our definition of sacrifice. 41 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT David; the Christian adds, in parallel, a reference to God’s “servant” Jesus. 1 But quite apart from any details of wording, the Jewish concep- tion of “benediction” must be given its due weight. J.-P. Audet argues 2 that the Jewish berakah or “blessing” is not exactly mere thanksgiving: it is rather an outburst ofpraise—a jubilant declaration of God’s prow- ess and exploits, both in creation and in history. It is something more wholly God-centred than even the thanking God for specific mercies: it is adoration. There are innumerable examples of this type ofadoring praise in the Old Testament and other Jewish literature; and it is the spirit of this, rather than of “mere” thanksgiving, which no doubt largely inspires the Christian formulae, even though (in such a context), they may be indifferently described both by evXoyelv (“bless”) and euxcLpicrrelv (“give thanks”). 3 Majestic examples of Christian benedic- tions are to be found in Eph. i and i Pet. i, although these are not explicitly connected with sacramental, “eucharistic” worship. From Jewish antecedents, and still more from the Christian under- standing of the Holy Spirit, it follows, moreover, that, strictly speak- ing, the object of the verbs evXoyetv and is God Him- self, not the materials, bread and wine. Even though, writing (may we not suppose?) rather loosely, St. Paul in i Cor. io: 16 seems to make the cup the object (cf. Luke 9: 16, in the feeding of the multitude, but contrast Mark 6: 41; Matt. 14: 19), it is contrary to the outlook of Judaism and of the New Testament generally to pronounce a blessing (let alone to invoke the Holy Spirit) on impersonal, material objects;4 and it seems reasonable to believe that St. Paul means “the ‘cup of blessing’ regarding which (or over which) we bless (God)”. 5 At any rate, an “epiclesis”, or invocation of the Holy Spirit upon non-personal objects is alien to the New Testament doctrine of the Holy Spirit and of persons, and is a retrograde step. Non-personal objects may be conse- 1 See C. F. D. Moule, “The Influence of Circumstances on the use of Christo- logical Terms”, J.T.S. n.s. X. 2, Oct. 1959, 252. 2 As in Note 2, p. 27; 377 ff. 3 As others, e.g. F. Gavin, The Jewish Antecedents of the Christian Sacraments, 1928, 71 f., had already pointed out. 4 1 Sam. 9: 13 (Samuel blesses the sacrifice) is not a common usage. It is rather different when the “blessing” is conceived of as “making prosperous”: Deut. 28: 5 (“blessed shall be thy basket and thy kneadingtrough”), Prov. 5: 18 (“let thy fountain be blessed”). In general, the Hebrew brk, “bless”, is distinguished from kds, “consecrate”. 6 See Jeremias (as in Note 2, p. 20), 119. And note that in Matt. 26: 26 the Old Syriac has “blessed over it” where the Greek has simply evXoyqoas. 42 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS crated, that is, dedicated for a special purpose in the service of God, but not inspired (2 Tim. 3: 16 is exceptional). Incidentally, it is of course true that it is logically redundant to invoke the Spirit even upon persons, when those persons have, as baptized Christians, already received the Spirit. But if “the Lord be with thee!” is a legitimate salutation, one can scarcely quarrel with an invocation of the Spirit in a similar context. 1 5. The Homily and the Scripture So far, nothing has been said about scripture-reading or preaching at the Eucharist, and it is safe to assume that, at least in the earliest days, this was not a sine qua non of its celebration. But sooner or later this element came in as a regular part of the proceedings, and it claims our attention at this point. It is a mistake to assume that a eucharistic sermon, when it did occur, was always and necessarily different in kind from a sermon in another context. 2 Accordingly, the topic of homilies or sermons in general will be taken up later, under the heading of “other types of worship”. But if, as is intrinsically likely, an apostolic letter sometimes met with its first reading when the community were assembled for eucharistic worship, that in itself testifies to the wide range and the general character of even a eucharistic homily. Of the New Testament epistles, the most noteworthy in this connexion is 1 Corinthians, which, in its closing verses, contains: (a) allusion (possibly) to the “kiss of peace” (16: 20),3 ( b ) a “fencing ofthe table”, in the form ofa ban upon non-Christians (16: 22), 4 (c) (perhaps) the eucharistic invocation in its Aramaic form, marana tha, “Our Lord, come!” (16: 22, but see the discussion below, pp. 70 f.) : and finally (d) the grace (16: 23). All this, it has been pointed out, corresponds with the ejaculations in 1 This question is discussed by J. G. Davies, The Spirit, the Church, and the Sacraments, 1954, and by A. R. George, “The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Sacraments”, The London Quarterly and Holborn Review, 1955, 185 ff., where the epiclesis is also discussed. 2 Contra R. H. Fuller, What is Liturgical Preaching?, 1957. 8 On this, see C. Spicq (as in Note 1, p. 24), 339 f., 340, n.i. J .B. Lightfoot (as Spicq observes) sees no direct allusion to liturgy in the phrase at this date (Notes on Epistles of St. Paul, 1895, 90). 4 See G. Bomkamm (as in Note 2, p. 27). 43 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT Didache io : 6. If this really means that St. Paul actually designed this long epistle with the expectation that it would be read at a worship assembly, just before the Eucharist, 1 then we must suppose that he, at least, saw nothing inappropriate in a eucharistic homily which, as well as eucharistic references, contained exhortation, rebuke, and advice about a whole range of topics, as well as elaborate doctrinal passages. But one is bound to admit that this expressly eucharistic connexion is only conjecture and that there is very little further evidence within the New Testament that such was the regular intention with epistles from pastors or even with St. Paul’s in particular; and even the Didache for- mulae occur perplexingly after, not before the eucharistic prayer (unless, indeed, the prayer in the Didache is only a preliminary to the true Eucharist). 2 There is something to be said for dissociating the end of i Corinthians from the Eucharist after all. 3 All that one can be sure of is that apostolic letters were read at assemblies of Christians (cf. Col. 4: 16; Philem. 2; Rev. 1: 3) when there must at the very least have been prayer of some sort, and there may often have been eucharistic worship ; and it is likely enough that, when there was no apostolic message, a homily ofa quite general nature may sometimes have been delivered even at a specifically eucharistic gathering. On the other hand, when the Eucharist was at Passover time, or in so far as the Eucharist was to some extent always paschal, the tendency (other things being equal) would be to relate the eucharistic homily specifically to the Christian paschal theme. The Jewish custom of expounding the meaning of the exodus at Passover time—both on Passover eve and at the paschal meal itself—may very well have pro- vided the model. It has even been suggested that the Gospels themselves as a whole bear the stamp of the Passover haggadah or exposition.4 A 1 See H. Lietzmann, Mass and Lord’s Supper, Eng. trans., 1953, p. 186; J. A. T. Robinson, “Traces of a Liturgical Sequence in 1 Cor. 16:20-24”, J.T.S. n.s. IV. 1, April 1953, 38 ff. 2 See Note 2, p. 27. 3 Why should not the maranatha be an invocation to reinforce the “ban” (anathema), rather than a eucharistic invocation? The “come, Lord Jesus!” of Rev. 22: 20 follows a terrific “ban” (vv. 18 f.). Even in Didache 10: 6 maranatha follows an exclusion phrase, rather than presenting itselfas a eucharistic invocation proper. See E. Peterson, EIS QEOE, 1926, 130 f., C. F. D. Moule, “A Recon- sideration of the Context of Maranatha”, J.N.T.S. VI. 3, July i960, 307 ff. 4 D. Daube’s article as in Note 2, p. 16. 44 THE FELLOWSHIP MEAL AND ITS DEVELOPMENTS post-New Testament example of a Christian paschal homily may be seen in the very remarkable sermon of Melito.1 So much for the eucharistic homily as such. But here a fact must be noted which might otherwise cause confusion, namely that apostolic epistles which we have just been discussing as “homilies” or sermons and which were as yet no part of scripture, today constitute part of the scripture readings at the Eucharist. We are used to both readings from scripture and (in some Chinches) a sermon at the Eucharist. Whether it was the regular practice in the very earliest days (as later; cf. Justin Apol. i. 67) to have readings at the Eucharist from the scripture (i.e. from the Old Testament) cannot be said with certainty. We may safely assume that the synagogue practice of reading from the Law and the Prophets must have influenced Jewish Christianity, and probably at the Eucharist as well as on other occasions (1 Tim. 4: 13 is generally interpreted as a reference to the public reading of scripture). But how far, it is not possible to say. One may simply note that, whereas today there may be (a) readings from the Old Testament (in some com- munions, e.g. S. India), from Epistles, and from Gospels and ( b ) a sermon, in those early days of the New Testament period the only scripture available was the Old Testament, while the Epistles and the Gospel traditions were then in the making and were rather in the category of a homily. Looking back over this review of such evidence as the New Testa- ment affords in respect of eucharistic practice, we must confess that the evidence is slight and vague. What may, however, be said is that it does justify the use of bread and wine, in the context ofcongregational thanksgiving, and of the words of Christ in the upper room, and of the recollection of His death, as a means of uniting the worshippers with Christ in His death and resurrection : that is, as a sacrament. It is ques- tionable whether originally the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine were intended to symbolize the breaking of Christ’s body and the shedding ofHis blood; but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, from the first, the bread and wine were being used in direct relation to the death of Christ and to the union of believers with Him in it. Equally clear is the close relationship between the sacramental rite and the ordinary fellowship of the Christian community. To abuse the latter is to do grave despite to the former (1 Cor. 11). The New Testa- ment has no room for religious practices in water-tight compartments. 1 Ed. Campbell Bonner, 1940. 45D WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT On the other hand, not all of the interpretations of the Eucharist which quite soon begin to appear may be justified by the New Testament. This applies in particular, as has already been observed, to the interpre- tation of the elements as a sacrificial offering in the strict sense, and to the “blessing” (as distinct from “consecrating”, that is, dedicating) of the elements . 1 1 It has been customary, especially since G. Dix (as in Note i, p. 33), 50, to speak of the fourfold shape of the liturgy as it emerged from the N.T. ante- cedents. In an article already referred to (“The Meaning of the Offertory”, Parish and People 22, Spring 1958, 3 ff.) J. G. Davies justly challenges this as an oversimplification. 46 Ill BAPTISM The Eucharist has been discussed first, simply because the account of the early Church’s activities in Acts 2 : 42 seemed a suitable starting- point and led on to this topic. But in fact it is Baptism which is men- tioned first (in vv. 38, 41), and throughout the New Testament there is far more frequent reference to Baptism than to Holy Communion. This may be because the Eucharist, for all its great importance in the Church’s life, is, in a sense, secondary, as only a reappropriation and renewal of the definitive fact of Baptism. Baptism and Eucharist were very closely connected, adult Baptism no doubt leading, in normal circumstances, straight to the first Eucharist; and, of the two, Baptism was the normative rite. As the primary and decisive step, as the rite of entry into the Church, as the summary par excellence ofthe whole action of the Gospel, it naturally dominated and set the pattern for theological thought. 1 In the New Testament, it is fair to say, 2 Baptism is assumed as the way ofentry into the Christian Church. It is taken as a matter ofcourse in (to cite only some of the passages) Acts 2: 38, 41; 8: 13, 16, 36; 9: 18; 10: 47; 19: 3 ; Rom. 6: 3 ; 1 Cor. 6:11 (apparently), 12: 13 ; Gal. 3 : 27; Eph. 4: 5; Col. 2: 12; Tit. 3:5; Heb. 6: 2 (perhaps), 4 (probably); 1 Pet. 3: 21. And although Matt. 28: 19 is the only New Testament reference to an actual command by Christ to perform it, and although the context of this passage and its trinitarian formula raise serious doubts about its authenticity as a literal verbum Domini , yet, even without it, there is little doubt as to the universality of the practice in the Christian Church. In some of the passages just adduced, it is simply assumed that Christians, as such, must have been baptized; and the same is at least implied in others. Moreover, the whole context ofthought attaching to Baptism in the 1 C. F. D. Moule, “The Judgment theme in the Sacraments” (as in Note 1, p. 36), 454 ff. 2 Though see S. I. Buse in A. Gilmore (ed.), Christian Baptism, 1959, 115 ff., for hesitations. 47 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT New Testament is clearly enough a reflection of Christ’s own ministry: 1 His own baptism, His special endowment by the Spirit, His life of service, His death, His resurrection—this, which is the “pattern” ofthe Gospel-story, is the “pattern” also ofChristian Baptism. It is an epitome of the “Abba! Father!”, the cry of obedient sonship, which is the key to the understanding both of Christ’s relationship with God and with the Holy Spirit, and of believers’ adoption as sons of God through Christ in the power of the Spirit. If this is so, it becomes of less moment to determine the remoter antecedents ofChristian Baptism. This, which is undeniably a fascinating subject, must not be pursued here. The dis- covery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has given a new impetus to this inquiry, and readers are referred to the vast literature which it has evoked.2 Actual descriptions of Christian Baptisms in the New Testament are tantalizingly brief. The most circumstantial is that of the Ethiopian in Acts 8, in which, as is well known, the Western text ( v . 37) includes a short baptismal creed. St. Paul’s baptism is even more briefly described in Acts 9. In Acts 19 : 1 ff. there is another short account of the baptism of a particular group of persons. The most perplexing question attach- ing to the Acts evidence is that of the relation between Baptism and the reception ofthe Spirit. 3 In the case ofthe mission ofPhilip the Evangel- ist in Samaria (Acts 8) baptism with water precedes the coming of the Spirit, which occurs only later, with the imposition of apostolic hands. In the case ofCornelius and his company (Acts 10) the Spirit anticipates baptism, and that without imposition of hands. In the case of the disciples found by Paul at Ephesus (Acts 19) baptism into the name of Jesus is forthwith followed by imposition of hands with manifestations of the Spirit’s presence, the disciples having previously been baptized only withJohn the Baptist’s baptism. The question ofthe imposition of hands is an obscure one: it is further discussed below (pp. 50, 54). In any case, it is not ofprimary importance. The controlling consideration is a comparatively simple one: that, however many other religions or groups use water-lustration or comparable water-rites, the Christian water-rite is distinctive in that it is in(to) the Name of Jesus and in- 1 See W. F. Flemington, The New Testament Doctrine ofBaptism, 1948, passim ; D. M. Baillie, The Theology of the Sacraments, 1957, 75 ff. Further discussion of this issue is to be found in A. Gilmore (ed.), as in preceding Note, especially R. E. O. White (pp. 84 ff). 2 See e.g., J. A. T. Robinson, “The Baptism ofJohn and the Qumran Com- munity”, H.T.R., L. 3, 1957, and literature referred to there. 3 See G. W. H. Lampe, The Seal of the Spirit, 1951. 48 BAPTISM volves reception of the Spirit: 1 whereasJohn baptized only with water, Christian baptism is distinctively with Spirit also (Matt. 3:11; John 1 : 26, 3 3 ; Acts 1 : 5 ; 2 : 3 8). That the temporal relation between the use of water and the manifestation of the Spirit is variable, is not really surprising: normally (in adult conversion) simultaneous, they may be separated in time—and that in either direction—according to circum- stances. The same applies to the moment of conscious “decision for Christ”. This may precede baptism by days (as in St. Paul’s case) or weeks (as was no doubt true of many catechumens as soon as teaching and training became at all systematic), 2 or even years; equally it may be almost simultaneous, as appears to have been the case with the Philip- pian gaoler (Acts 16: 33) and many other early sudden conversions. Further observations on the order of events will be made later. When it came to the point of baptism, it was natural that the ques- tion should be asked “Is there anything to prevent our taking this step?”—a question akin to that in the story of the Ethiopian (Acts 8:36 —though “What is there to prevent . . . ?” is not quite the same): so natural that one hesitates to see in it, with Cullmann,3 a technical term of the baptismal “scrutinies”, still less to link it with the Gospel narrative about the disciples attempting to prevent children approach- ing Jesus (Mark 10: 14, etc.). As for the thorny question of the baptism of infants and children, the following observations may be offered. First, there is no doubt that any Jewish Christian community, familiar with circumcision in in- fancy (outside Judaism, the circumcision of infants seems to be rare),4 would have a natural predisposition in favour of some infancy rite. Against this, however, it has to be admitted that the only close analogy in orthodox Judaism to the Christian water-rite was, by definition, an adult one, namely proselyte baptism; and moreover, that since circum- cision was only for males, it is hardly likely to have been the most influential of analogies for the Christian rite of entry, which was for both sexes.6 If, on the other hand, one urges that 1 Cor. 7: 14 indicates 1 Despite A. Gilmore (as in Note 2, p. 47), 115. 2 When was the catechumenate established? Heb. 6: 1 f. seems to be a hint. For the curious order “ kerygma”, baptism, “ didache”, see J.-P. Audet (as in Note 2, p. 27), 359. 3 Baptism in the New Testament, Eng. trans., 1950, Appendix 71 if. For criticism, see A. Gilmore, 125. 4 See A. Gilmore, 56, n. 4. 6 See H. H. Rowley, cited by A. Gilmore, 24, and E.T. LXIV, 1952-3, 362; LXV, 1953-4. 158; D. Daube (as in Note 2, p. 32), 106, 113. 49 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT that St. Paul was ready to entertain a conception of the “hallowing” or sanctification of the unwitting child by the dedication of a parent, nevertheless this same context (it has been justly observed)1 alludes equally to the hallowing of an adult non-Christian partner, and does not, therefore, take us any way towards a doctrine of entry into the Christian Church by proxy. The allusion to baptism on behalf of the dead (i Cor. 15 : 29) might be more to the point; but it is too obscure to carry much weight. 2 Thus, so far as hints as to theory go, or analogies to practice, the upshot is not entirely clear, although on the whole adult baptism has, thus far at least, the better of the argument. As for the actual practice by Christians of infant baptism, there is no direct evidence for it in the New Testament. The baptism of entire households (as of the Philippian gaoler, Acts 16: 33) may be intended to include infants, but it is impossible to prove it. That Jesus blessed little children (Mark 10: 13-16) has nothing directly to do with the matter. If paedobaptism, therefore, is to be justified, it must be on other grounds than that of evidence for the practice within the New Testament. What is clear is that, in any case, ifand when infant baptism is practised, it cannot by itself carry the whole of the theological im- plications of adult baptism. Any infant-rite necessarily implies some further step at years of discretion. The reference in Acts 8: 15-17 to the imposition of apostolic hands at some interval after baptism pro- vides a convenient Biblical precedent for the use of the imposition of episcopal hands at what is now called Confirmation. But, if so, it has to be added that Acts 19: 5 f. makes it clear that the imposition of hands was integral to the baptism; and on any showing the use of the water and the receiving of the Spirit belong theologically together, whether or not there is a visible focus of the latter at some remove (chronologically speaking) from the former. (See further Heb. 6 : 2.) In short, Baptism, what is now called “Confirmation”, and Eucharist form together a single complex of entry into the Christian Church.® But for our present purpose what is important is the nature of the worship and procedures associated with Baptism. For this the direct 1 A. Gilmore (ed.), as in Note 2 , p. 47, 148. 2 Cf. J. Jeremias in J.N.T.S. II. 3, Feb. 1956, 155 f. See M. Raeder “Vikariats- taufe in 1 Cor. 15 29 ?” Z.N.T.W. XLVI, 1955, 258 fF. for an unusual theory (viz. that the phrase means “those who are baptized with a view to being united, at the resurrection, with their Christian friends who have died”). 8 G. W. H. Lampe, as in Note 3, p. 48, passim. 50 BAPTISM evidence within the New Testament is meagre. It scarcely goes beyond the use ofthe name ofJesus, preceded by some briefconfession offaith, doubtless given in answer to interrogation, as virtually in the Western text of Acts 8:37: “Philip said, ‘If you believe with your whole heart, it is possible’. And in reply he said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God’.” It is possible that the candidate’s declaration of loyalty, if not his profession of faith, is alluded to in the notoriously obscure word i7T€pajrrjiia in 1 Pet. 3:21. But the debate on its meaning still continues. 1 The nature of the baptismal creed has been matter for prolonged discussion. The rudimentary one just quoted is Christological, not theological, still less trinitarian; and apart from Matt. 28 : 19 there is no direct evidence in the New Testament for a trinitarian formula in the administration of Baptism (and indeed even Matt. 28 : 19 is not strictly to be so described). 2 It has, indeed, been argued by O. Cullmann3 that the earliest creeds were thus simply confessions offaith in Jesus as Lord; that the clauses relating to belief in God the Father were added when pagans, with no monotheistic background, were brought in; and that the clauses about the Spirit grew from the association ofthe Holy Spirit with Baptism. This has been criticized (e.g. by J. N. D. Kelly) ; 4 but the truth may well be that different practices in this regard were indeed evoked by different circumstances. As G. F. Moore had suggested long before, it may be that, whereas within Judaism the “theological”, monotheistic confession could be taken for granted, in the pagan world a fuller creed may have been necessary from the earliest times.6 Obvi- ously, in the last analysis, a Christology is itself impossible without the confession of God as Creator and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if there is only scanty direct evidence for the words used at Baptism, beyond a minimal credal formula, or for the procedure, beyond the use of water and, sometimes at least, the imposition of hands, the New Testament contains many allusions to the meaning of Baptism, and from these it is possible to reconstruct rather more fully what may have been said and done at adult baptisms. Perhaps after fasting (cf. Acts 9: 9, 19; 13 : 2 £), and after it had been 1 See I. Buse in A. Gilmore (ed.), as in Note 2, p. 47, 175 2 Cf. J.-P. Audet, as in Note 2, p. 27, 362 f. 3 The Earliest Christian Confessions, Eng. trans., 1949. 4 Early Christian Creeds, 1950, 25 ff. 6 Judaism I, 1927, 188 f. 51 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT established by question and answer that the candidate was suitable and ready, there was, first, the renunciation of the whole kingdom of evil and ofthe whole selfas attached to that realm. It is possible that already (as in later days) this was symbolized by the candidate facing westwards for the renunciation ; and it may have been associated also with the act ofremoving the clothes preparatory to going into the water. Certainly St. Paul speaks of the death of Christ Himself, and of the Christian with Christ, as divestiture (see Col. 2: 11, 15; 3:9; cf. Rom. 13: 12; Eph. 4: 22; Jas. 1: 21; 1 Pet. 2: 1); and he describes Christians as being clothed with Christ (Gal. 3 : 27, cf. Rom. 13 : 14), or with “the new humanity” (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3: 10); and it is difficult not to associate this metaphor with the actual movements of the baptized. In parenthesis, it may be remarked here (returning for a moment to the analogy of circumcision) that this “stripping off” of the old life, the old self, the whole world ofthe old life, was also comparable, in a way, to circumcision; for whereas circumcision was a symbolic “divesti- ture” of a small part of the body which might be taken to represent impurity and evil, Baptism involved a divestiture or stripping off of the entire self; and it went back to the moment when Christ sur- rendered and “stripped off” His own body. The comparison with circumcision is worked out in Col. 2: 11 f. Next came, presumably, the formal declaration of faith, the creed, the candidate perhaps facing east; then the water. The Ethiopian in Acts 8:38 “went down” into the water with Philip the evangelist; and John the Baptist doubtless caused his converts actually to wade into the Jordan. Whether the baptizand was then actually plunged beneath the surface or whether, as he stood in the water, he poured the water over himself, or had it poured over him, does not appear from the New Testament itself. All that can be said is that total immersion would fit well with the doctrine of death and burial with Christ and with the symbolism of the drowning of wickedness as in the Deluge. On the other hand, it must be noted that the verb j3a7rrt£eiv and the noun P'aTTTLGfia are not exact equivalents of fiairreiv and a^fj respectively. The latter mean “to dip” and “dipping”; but jSaTm'feiv means “to deluge” or “douse”, and so far no occurrence of j8d7TTioyxa is known except in its technical sense of “baptism”. It looks, therefore, as though Baptism was properly neither a mere sprinkling (paimcr/ros') nor an immersing (fiarj), but a “deluging” with water. 1 Later times, as we 1 D. W. B. Robinson, The Meaning ofBaptism, 1958, 6 ff., and T.IV.N.T. s.v. 52 BAPTISM know, presented a variety of practice—immersing, sprinkling, pour- ing (cf. Didache 7). Further, there is, in the New Testament, no direct evidence for the exact relation of the baptismal formula to the use of the water. We are only told that Baptism was in or into the name of (the Lord) Jesus — that is, the name was uttered (whether by the officiant or by the candi- date or by both), 1 and also Baptism was into the name, that is, the ownership, the protection of Jesus, and into membership in Him.2 Still less is there evidence ofany symbolic connexion ofthe formula of Baptism with the actual movements in the use of the water (as, for instance, there was sooner or later a triple immersion or sprinkling to match the trinitarian formula). The nearest we come to any explicit connexion between the formula and the water is in the phrase in Eph. 5 : 26, where Christ is spoken ofas cleansing his Bride the Church “in the bath of water in utterance” (iv prjfxaTt). The precise meaning of the last two words is much debated. P. Bonnard, commenting on the passage,3 and drawing upon S. Hanson’s The Unity of the Church in the New Testament. Colossians and Ephesians (Upsala, 1946), thinks that the reference is neither to the whole Gospel (as purifying the Church simultaneously with baptism), nor merely to the baptismal formula itself, but rather, in a more general way, to the utterance which plays its part in the celebration of baptism whether on the lips of the officiant or of the baptizand himself. Professor E. C. Ratcliff4 suggests, more plausibly, that the “utterance” is the Lord’s own address to His Bride. In the early Syrian baptismal rite, the ministrant actually said “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” Coming up, or out, from the water, the newly baptized would then be re-clothed—an action which might symbolize the “putting on” of the risen Christ, the being clothed with the new humanity, with the Body of Christ. It is the correlative action to the divestiture of the old. Sooner or later it seems to have been made a formal symbol, by the use of a special garment.5 1 See J. H. Crehan, Early Christian Baptism and the Creed, 1950. 2 See bibliography in A. Gilmore (ed.), as in Note 2, p. 47, 122, and add W. Heitmiiller, Im Namen Jesu, 1903. 3 In Commentaire du Nouveau Testament, 1953. 4 In a private communication. See Didascalia Apostolorum. The Syriac Version translated and accompanied by the Verona Latin Fragments, with an Introduction and Notes, R. Hugh Connolly, 1929, 93. 6 See F. L. Cross (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1957, s.v. Chrysom. 53 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT This may have been followed, as in St. Paul’s case (Acts 9: 19), by the breaking ofa previous fast; and the food might symbolize the entry of the chosen People into the Promised Land. Just as the Israelites, on their first entry into Palestine, “ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year” (Josh. 5: 12), so Christians are described in Heb. 6: 4 f. as having “tasted” the heavenly gift and the word ofGod and the powers of the coming age (cf. Ps. 34: 8 and 1 Pet. 2: 3), metaphors which would certainly gain in point if a ritual breaking of the fast was cus- tomary at Baptism. Sooner or later honey was a recognized food on this occasion (cf. Luke 24: 42, v. /., Tert. de cor. mil., 3, Hippolytus, Ap. Trad, xxiii. 2, and, incidentally, Joseph and Aseneth—editions as in Note 4, p. 22 and 3, p. 23). The standing description of the Promised Land in the Old Testament is of a land flowing with milk, as well as honey; but in the New Testament milk seems to be a metaphor chiefly for the food of the immature (whether commendably, as in 1 Pet. 2 : 2, or, in a context of rebuke for retarded growth, in 1 Cor. 3:2). But we must return now to a vital question already alluded to earlier —the relation between Baptism and the Holy Spirit. That the two belong theologically together is clear enough from such passages as Acts 10: 45-47; 19: 1-6; 1 Cor. 12: 13 ; and accordingly it seems right in Tit. 3 : 5 to translate “ ... he saved us through the bath of regenera- tion and ofrenewal by the Holy Spirit”, rather than “. . . through the bath of regeneration and through renewal . . .” (as though these were two separable “moments”).1 But if so, was there in New Testament times a visible “focus” of the reception of the Spirit at Baptism? Later at any rate “chrismation”, that is, symbolic anointing with oil, was used, and (or) the imposition of hands. We have already looked at references to the imposition of hands (pp. 48, 50 above). It is impossible to be certain whether this was regular practice at, or after, Baptism: only that it was practised at least sometimes. Still less can be said with certainty of chrismation. In 1 John 2: 20 ff. reference is made to a “chrism” possessed by Christians. This is clearly a metaphorical reference either to the reception of the Spirit or to the possession of the Gospel—that “knowledge” through which the Spirit is received. 2 But whether the use of the metaphor implies the use of material chrism at Baptism is another matter. It is quite possible, though not demonstrable, that it does. It is known that 1 G. W. H. Lampe (as in Note 3, p. 48), 59 f. 2 See C. H. Dodd, Moffatt Commentary, 1946, in loc. 54 BAPTISM in a later period chrismation in some uses preceded and in others fol- lowed Baptism, and it is just possible that in i John 5:8 the order “Spirit, water, and blood” may reflect the particular usage of the churches of the Johannine circle—chrism first, then Baptism, then Eucharist.1 But the order need not be significant; for if “water and blood” were already linked together by theJohannine Passion narrative (John 19: 34 f.) it is difficult to see how the mention of the Spirit could be inserted between the two. Again, in 2 Cor. 1:21 Christians are spoken of as “anointed” by God; but it is impossible to say whether this is derived from an actual rite, or is not rather a metaphorical description of the status of Christians as adopted into the community of “Christ”, the “Messiah”, the “Anointed”. The same problem attaches to the metaphor of sealing {a^payi^iv). In the same context as the passage just cited, namely in 2 Cor. 1 : 22, Christians are also described as “sealed” by God; and this word is applied twice in Ephesians (1 : 13 ; 4: 30), and that with reference to the reception of the Spirit. Moreover, in an obscure passage, 2 Tim. 2: 19, God’s “foundation” is described as bearing as its “seal” the phrase “the Lord knows those who are his”. Since there is a long Old Testament and Jewish history to this metaphor, including the idea that God’s redeemed are marked with a distinguishing sign (the taw or cross), and that circumcision is a “seal”, it appears that the word is closely associ- ated with rites denoting “belonging” to God, and is thus highly appropriate to a rite of entry into a religious community.2 But, once more, it would be running ahead of the evidence to deduce, simply from the New Testament use of the word, that already the sign of the cross was actually made at Baptism. It may well be so ; but we cannot be certain. A further term evidently associated with Baptism was enlighten- ment. In certain pagan mystery initiations, a part was played by a bril- liantly illuminated room into which the initiate was suddenly intro- duced after being kept in darkness. And in Christian Baptism a lighted taper was sooner or later being used as a symbol. But there is nothing in the New Testament to suggest that there was as yet in the Christian rite of entry any literal symbol corresponding to the metaphors of 1 See T. W. Manson, “Entry into Membership of the Early Church”, J. T.S. XLVIII, 1947, 25 ff.; W. Nauck, Die Tradition und der Charakter des ersten Johannes-briefes, 1957, 147 ff.; A. Gilmore (ed.), as in Note 2, p. 47, 167 ff. 2 See bibliography in E. Dinkier, “Jesu Wort vom Kreuztragen” in Neutesta- tnentliche Studien fur Bultmann, 1954, 117. 55 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT enlightenment; and the use in Heb. 6: 4 of the participle “enlightened” (/zeva>s'. In the New Testament, most often transliterated, it is sometimes translated. Luke sometimes renders it by aArjOaizfa: 27; 12: 44; 21: 3) or cV dArjOclag (4: 25); and in Rev. 1: 7 (vat, amen) Greek and Semitic stand side by side, while in Rev. 22: 20 just cited “Yes (vat), I am coming soon”, is answered by “Amen, come, Lord Jesus!” In the passage discussed earlier, 2 Cor. 1: 15 ff., several Greek words are used with allusion to the “Amen” which is, as it were, the “text” of the meditation: “Yes” (vat), “faithful” (moTos'), “confirming” (jSejSat&v). 1 But if there is ample material in the New Testament to illustrate the force ofAmen, the only specific allusions to its use actually in Christian worship are in two passages. The passage just cited culminates (2 Cor. 1 : 20) in the words: “therefore also the Amen is uttered to God’s glory by us through Christ”. And in 1 Cor. 14: 16 St. Paul asks how the un- instructed person (tStoiTTys') can be expected to say “the Amen” to a thanksgiving uttered in a “tongue”, that is, it would seem, an inarticu- late, ecstatic ejaculation intelligible only to such as were spiritually en 1 See Note 1, p. 72. 74 THE LANGUAGE OF WORSHIP rapport with the speaker. However, it was probably common, and Justin (Apol. i. 65) mentions the Amen to the celebrant’s eucharistic prayer as a regular feature: “when he has finished the prayers and the thanksgiving, the whole people there assents, iTrevcfyrjfjLel ‘Amen’. In Hebrew ‘Amen* means ‘so be it !’ ” In the main, then, the liturgical use ofAmen is as the congregation’s appropriation and confirmation of what has been uttered on their behalfby the leader of the worship. There is less logic in the use of it at the end ofwhat has been said or sung by the whole company (as Amen is often sung at the end of a hymn today—cf., again, Rev. 7: 12—and as it is used sometimes in Jewish liturgy also), although this too (as has been seen) can be justified as a reaffirmation, redundant but, sparingly used, effective.1 Foreign words in liturgy constitute an interesting study. Besides “Amen”, some, at least, of the Greek-speaking communities of the New Testament period used Marana tha, as we have seen, apparently as an invocation, possibly at the Eucharist (but see Note 3, p. 44 above). In 1 Cor. 16:22 Maranatha is closely accompanied by the word Anathema (for a suggested reason, see same Note). Anathema , unlike its companion, is a Greek word. It means “an accursed object”, something or someone placed under the ban (in the LXX it represents herem). Its other occurrences in the New Testament are in Rom. 9:3; Gal. 1 : 8 f. and Acts 23: 14. In 1 Cor. 16: 22 its object is “anyone who does not love the Lord”; in Gal. 1 : 8 f. it is anyone who brings a false Gospel; and in Rom. 9 : 3 St. Paul declares that he himself is ready to fall under the ban of exclusion from Christ, if only that could save his fellow Jews. The Acts example is not relevant for our purposes. The anathema was thus evidently a formula of excommunication (in the case of one already within the community) or of exclusion (in the case of one attempting to enter illegitimately). If 1 Cor. 16: 22 is intended (like Didache 10: 6, according to J.-P. Audet, etc.) to mark the beginning of the Eucharist proper, then we may have here early examples of “the fencing of the table”—the solemn exclusion of all except Christians in full communion. To judge by Rev. 19 Christians also used (as we still do) the cry “(h)allelu-Jah”, “praise yejah!”. “Hosanna” (a rough trans- literation of the Hebrew for “Save, we pray!” from Ps. 118: 25) may also have been current. In the New Testament it occurs only in the accounts of the Triumphal entry in Matt. (21: 9, 15), Mark (11:9 Q> 1 Note the final Amen to books of the N.T. in the textus receptus\ and see the Jewish Authorized Daily Prayer Book (tr. S. Singer, ed. I. Abrahams, 1914), e.g. p. 14. 75 WORSHIP IN THE NEW TESTAMENT andJohn (12: 13); but in the Didache (10: 6) it appears in liturgical use and it may have been so used at an early date, perhaps as a shout of acclamation rather than as a conscious prayer for divine help. One other Semitic word has a particularly interesting history, namely Abba. In the Gospels it occurs only once, in the Markan account of Christ’s “agony” (that is, struggle or contest) in the Garden of Geth- semane. There (14: 36), at the very climax of this titanic battle of obedience against all the powers of disobedience, Jesus cries “Abba, Father, everything is possible for thee: let this cup pass from me. Yet not my will but thine be done.” Now it seems to be established that, whereas “Abba” was a common enough form among the contem- poraries ofJesus when a child addressed his father, it is unexampled as the address of a worshipper to his heavenly Father. In such cases the same root (’B) would be used, but a different, more formal termination (