66. Parts of Worship. (Chapter 5: Christian Worship.) (History of the Christian Church) (Schaff, Philip)

1. The reading of Scripture lessons from the Old Testament with practical application and exhortation passed from the Jewish synagogue to the Christian church. The lessons from the New Testament came prominently into use as the Gospels and Epistles took the place of the oral instruction of the apostolic age. The reading of the Gospels is expressly mentioned by Justin Martyr, and the Apostolical Constitutions add the Epistles and the Acts. During the Pentecostal season the Acts of the Apostles furnished the lessons. But there was no uniform system of selection before the Nicene age. Besides the canonical Scripture, post-apostolic writings, as the Epistle of Clement of Rome, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Pastor of Hermas, were read in some congregations, and are found in important MSS. of the New Testament. The Acts of Martyrs were also read on the anniversary of their martyrdom.

2. The sermon was a familiar exposition of Scripture and exhortation to repentance and a holy life, and gradually assumed in the Greek church an artistic, rhetorical character. Preaching was at first free to every member who had the gift of public speaking, but was gradually confined as an exclusive privilege of the clergy, and especially the bishop. Origen was called upon to preach before his ordination, but this was even then rather an exception. The oldest known homily, now recovered in full (1875), is from an unknown Greek or Roman author of the middle of the second century, probably before a.d. 140 (formerly ascribed to Clement of Rome). He addresses the hearers as brothers and sisters, and read from manuscript. The homily has no literary value, and betrays confusion and intellectual poverty, but is inspired by moral earnestness and triumphant faith. It closes with this doxology: To the only God invisible, the Father of truth, who sent forth to us the Saviour and Prince of immortality, through whom also He made manifest to us the truth and the heavenly life, to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

3. Prayer. This essential part of all worship passed likewise from the Jewish into the Christian service. The oldest prayers of post-apostolic times are the eucharistic thanksgivings in the Didache, and the intercession at the close of Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, which seems to have been used in the Roman church. It is long and carefully composed, and largely interwoven with passages from the Old Testament. It begins with an elaborate invocation of God in antithetical sentences, contains intercession for the afflicted, the needy, the wanderers, and prisoners, petitions for the conversion of the heathen, a confession of sin and prayer for pardon (but without a formula of absolution), and closes with a prayer for unity and a doxology. Very touching is the prayer for rulers then so hostile to the Christians, that God may grant them health, peace, concord and stability. The document has a striking resemblance to portions of the ancient liturgies which begin to appear in the fourth century, but bear the names of Clement, James and Mark, and probably include some primitive elements.

The last book of the Apostolical Constitutions contains the pseudo- or post-Clementine liturgy, with special prayers for believers, catechumens, the possessed, the penitent, and even for the dead, and a complete eucharistic service.

The usual posture in prayer was standing with outstretched arms in Oriental fashion.

4. Song. The Church inherited the psalter from the synagogue, and has used it in all ages as an inexhaustible treasury of devotion. The psalter is truly catholic in its spirit and aim; it springs from the deep fountains of the human heart in its secret communion with God, and gives classic expression to the religious experience of all men in every age and tongue. This is the best proof of its inspiration. Nothing like it can be found in all the poetry of heathendom. The psalter was first enriched by the inspired hymns which saluted the birth of the Saviour of the world, the Magnificat of Mary, the Benedictus of Zacharias, the Gloria in Excelsis THE heavenly host, and the Nunc Dimittis THE aged Simeon. These hymns passed at once into the service of the Church, to resound through all successive centuries, as things of beauty which are a joy forever. Traces of primitive Christian poems can be found throughout the Epistles and the Apocalypse. The angelic anthem (Luke 2:14) was expanded into the Gloria in Excelsis, first in the Greek church, in the third, if not the second, century, and afterwards in the Latin, and was used as the morning hymn. It is one of the classical forms of devotion, like the Latin Te Deum of later date. The evening hymn of the Greek church is less familiar and of inferior merit.

The following is a free translation:

An author towards the close of the second century could appeal against the Artemonites, to a multitude of hymns in proof of the faith of the church in the divinity of Christ: How many psalms and odes of the Christians are there not, which have been written from the beginning by believers, and which, in their theology, praise Christ as the Logos of God? Tradition says, that the antiphonies, or responsive songs; were introduced by Ignatius of Antioch. The Gnostics, Valentine and Bardesanes also composed religious songs; and the church surely learned the practice not from them, but from the Old Testament psalms.

The oldest Christian poem preserved to us which can be traced to an individual author is from the pen of the profound Christian philosopher, Clement of Alexandria, who taught theology ill that city before a.d. 202. It is a sublime but somewhat turgid song of praise to the Logos, as the divine educator and leader of the human race, and though not intended and adapted for public worship, is remarkable for its spirit and antiquity.

Notes.

I. The Prayer of the Roman Church from the newly recovered portion of the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, ch. 59-61 (in Bishop Lightfoot's translation, St. Clement of Rome, Append. pp. 376-378):

Grant to us, Lord, that we may set our hope on Your Name which is the primal source of all creation, and open the eyes of our hearts, that we may know You, who alone abidest Highest in the highest, Holy in the holy; who layest low the insolence of the proud: who scatterest the imaginings of nations; who settest the lowly on high, and bringest the lofty low; who make rich and make poor; who kill and make alive; who alone art the Benefactor of spirits and the God of all flesh; who lookest into the abysses, who scannest the works of man; the Succor of them that are in peril, the Saviour of them that are in despair; the Creator and Overseer of every spirit; who multipliest the nations upon earth, and have chosen out from all men those that love You through Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, through whom You didst instruct us, didst sanctify us, didst honor us. We beseech You, Lord and Master, to be our help and succor. Save those among us who are in tribulation; have mercy on the lowly; lift up the fallen; show Thyself to the needy; heal the ungodly; convert the wanderers of Your people; feed the hungry; release our prisoners; raise up the weak; comfort the faint-hearted. Let all the Gentiles know that You are God alone, and Jesus Christ is Your Son, and we are Your people and the sheep of Your pastures

You through Your operation didst make manifest the everlasting faithful of the world. You, Lord, didst create the earth. You are faithful throughout all generations, righteous in Your judgments, marvellous in strength and excellence. You that art wise in creating and prudent in establishing that which You have made, that art good in the things which are seen and faithful with them that trust on You, pitiful and compassionate, forgive us our iniquities and our unrighteousnesses and our transgressions and shortcomings. Lay not to our account every sin of Your servants and Your handmaids, but cleanse us with the cleansing of Your truth, and guide our steps to walk in holiness and righteousness and singleness of heart, and to do such things as are good and well-pleasing in Your sight and in the sight of our rulers. Yea Lord, make Your face to shine upon us in peace for our good, that we may be sheltered by Your mighty hand and delivered from every sin by Your uplifted arm. And deliver up from them that hate us wrongfully. Give concord and peace to us and to all that dwell on the earth, as you gave to our fathers, when they called on You in faith and truth with holiness, that we may be saved, while we render obedience to Your almighty and most excellent Name, and to our rulers and governors upon the earth.

You, Lord and Master, have given them the power of sovereignty through Your excellent and unspeakable might, that we knowing the glory and honor which You have given them may submit ourselves to them, in nothing resisting Your will. Grant to them therefore, O Lord, health, peace, concord, stability, that they may administer the government which You have given them without failure. For You, O heavenly Master, King of the ages, give to the sons of men glory and honor and power over all things that are upon earth. Do You, Lord, direct their counsel according to that which is good and well pleasing in Your sight, that, administering in peace and gentleness with godliness the power which You have given them, they may obtain Your favor. O You, who alone art able to do these things and things far more exceeding good than these for us, we praise You through the High-priest and Guardian of our souls, Jesus Christ, through whom be, the glory and the majesty to You both now and for all generations and for ever and ever. Amen.

II. A literal translation of the poem of Clement of Alexandria in praise of Christ.

umno tou swthrou Ih)sou

This poem was for sixteen centuries merely a hymnological curiosity, until an American Congregational minister, Dr. Henry Martyn Dexter, by a happy reproduction, in 1846, secured it a place in modern hymn-books. While preparing a sermon (as He. informs me) on some prominent characteristics of the early Christians (text, Deut. 32:7, Remember the days of old ), he first wrote down an exact translation of the Greek hymn of Clement, and then reproduced and modernized it for the use of his congregation in connection with the sermon. It is well known that many Psalms of Israel have inspired some of the noblest Christian hymns. The 46^th Psalm gave the key-note of Luther's triumphant war-hymn of the Reformation: Ein' feste Burg. John Mason Neale dug from the dust of ages many a Greek and Latin hymn, to the edification of English churches, notably some portions of Bernard of Cluny's De Contemptu Mundi, which runs through nearly three thousand dactylic hexameters, and furnished the material for Brief life is here our portion. For you, O dear, dear Country, and Jerusalem the golden. We add Dexter's hymn as a fair specimen of a useful transfusion and rejuvenation of an old poem.