Search for the Origins of Christian Worship

Title: Search for the Origins of Christian Worship

Author: Bradshaw, Paul F.

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Synopsis

This is a substantially expanded and completely revised verision of Bradshaw's classic account, first published in 1993. Traditional liturgical scholarship has generally been marked by an attempt to fit together the various pieces of evidence for the practice of early Christian worship in such a way as to suggest that a single, coherent line of evolution can be traced from the apostolic age to the fourth century. Bradshaw examines this methodology in the light of recent developments in Jewish liturgical scholarship, of current trends in New Testament studies, and of the nature of the source-documents themselves, and especially the ancient church orders. In its place he offers a guide to Christian liturgical origins which adopts a much more cautious approach, recognizing the limitations of what can truly be known, and takes seriously the clues pointing to the essentially variegated character of ancient Christian worship.

Content

1. Shifting Scholarly Perspectives

• Book about the first few centuries of Christian worship
• The Philological Method
  • Early study was based upon the assumption that Christ or at least the apostles - would have left clear directives
  • The variety of eucharistic rites must be ultimately derived from a single apostolic model
  • Apostolic Constitutions discovered in late 17th century was believed to be the comprehensive liturgy as set forth by the apostles.
  • "The philological method does not function nearly as well with such material as it does with parallel texts that can be compared with one another.
  • Liturgical manuscripts are not unique in this respect. They belong to a genre which may be called "Iiving literature'.This material which circulates within a community and forms a part of its heritage and tradition but is constantly subject to revision and rewriting to reflect changing historical and cultural circumstances.
  • Some liturgical texts included "liturgical debris"
• The Structural Approach
  • “In his well-known work, The Shape of the Liturgy, first published in 1945, Gregory Dix (1901-52) was one of the severest critics of attempts to find a single original apostolic eucharistic rite.16 However, he did not really abandon the theory, but merely revised it. In his view, the various forms of the Christian Eucharist did have a common origin, but this was to be sought in the structure or shape of the rite rather than in the wording of the prayers:”
  • “first-century Jewish liturgy from which Christian worship took its departure was not nearly so fixed or uniform as was once supposed, and that New Testament Christianity was itself essentially pluriform in doctrine and practice.”
  • “what was once one loose collection of individual local churches each with its own liturgical uses, evolved into a series of intermediate structures or federations (later called patriarchates) grouped around certain major sees.”
• The ‘Organic’ Approach
  • “The basic flaw in this approach was a failure to recognize the essential difference between nature and culture:”
• The Comparative Method
• “The Hermeneutics of Suspicion”
  • “it is dangerous to read any ancient source as though it was a verbatim account of a liturgical act.”
  • “Even the fourth-century sets of homilies delivered to new converts to Christianity and intended to instruct them in the meaning of the liturgies of baptism and the Eucharist cannot be presumed to be mentioning everything that was said or done in those services.”
  • “we need to be aware of being too ready to draw the following conclusions:
    • (a) That Authoritative-sounding Statements are Always Genuinely Authoritative” “When some early Christian author proudly proclaims, for example, that a certain psalm or canticle is sung ‘throughout the world’, it probably means at the most that he knows it to be used in the particular regions he has visited or heard about”
    • “(b) That Liturgical Legislation is Evidence of Actual Practice”
      • “Just because an authoritative body makes a liturgical regulation does not mean that it was observed ”
      • “Synodical assemblies do not usually waste their time either condemning something that is not actually going on or insisting on the firm adherence to some rule that everyone is already observing. ”
      • “John Chrysostom describes those who fail to stay for the reception of communion at the celebration of the Eucharist as resembling Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper,”
    • “(c) That Even When a Variety of Explanations Exist for the Origin of a Practice, One of Them Must be Genuine”
      • “Sometimes several writers will allude to the same custom but offer widely differing stories as to its true meaning or origin”
  • “Indeed, the very existence of multiple explanations and interpretations is itself a very good indication that no authoritative tradition with regard to the original purpose and meaning of the custom had survived, and hence writers and preachers felt free to use their imaginations. ”

2. The Background or Early Christian Worship

• “The Influence of Paganism”
• “Gordon J. Bahr in 1970, which encouraged many subsequent scholars to look more closely at the Graeco-Roman background of both Jewish and Christian meals in their attempts to understand the early Eucharist,9 there can be seen a growing trend to take more seriously the influence of the wider pagan environment on the earliest patterns of Christian worship.10
• The Influence of Judaism”
  • “On the other hand, the recognition that Christianity inherited many of its liturgical practices from Judaism has been very long established, and can be traced back at least to the late seventeenth century.”
  • “1945 of Gregory Dix’s magisterial work The Shape of the Liturgy'* it became axiomatic for those searching for the origins of every aspect of primitive Christian liturgical practice to look primarily for Jewish antecedents”
  • “While at one time it seemed perfectly possible to state with a considerable degree of assurance what Jewish worship was like in the first century, now things are by no means so clear. What can only be described as a revolution in Jewish liturgical studies has taken place, a revolution which has almost completely changed our perception of how sources should be used to reconstruct the forms of worship of early Judaism”
• “Earlier Jewish Liturgical Scholarship”
• “The Influence of Joseph Heinemann (1915-77)”

Excerpt From: Unknown Author. “The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship Bradshaw.” iBooks.

Excerpt From: Unknown Author. “The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship Bradshaw.” iBooks. Excerpt From: Unknown Author. “The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship Bradshaw.” iBooks.

Excerpt From: Unknown Author. “The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship Bradshaw.” iBooks.

Excerpt From: Unknown Author. “The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship Bradshaw.” iBooks.

Excerpt From: Unknown Author. “The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship Bradshaw.” iBooks.

Excerpt From: Unknown Author. “The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship Bradshaw.” iBooks.

Other facts

• Used for: Foundations of Liturgy & Sacrament TRS 640
• Purchased: January 2016

Bibliographic info

• Personal name: Bradshaw, Paul F.
• Main title: The search for the origins of Christian worship : sources and methods for the study of early liturgy / Paul F. Bradshaw.
• Edition: 2nd ed.
• Published/Created New York : Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0611/2001058098-d.html
• ISBN 0195217322 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• LC classification (full) BV185 .B734 2002
• Dewey class no. 264/.009/015
• LOC permalink https://lccn.loc.gov/2001058098