Church ritual differences in the second century

In the New Testament Holy Scripture there is no section similar to the Old Testament ritual law; it clarifies only the spirit of Christian worship (John 4:23–24), determines only what the internal mood of the person praying should be (Matt. 6:5–18), but leaves it to the believers themselves, called to freedom (Gal. 5:13), to establish external forms of worship of the Father in spirit and truth (John 4:24). But not all believers have the same religious mood, and the most Christian truth takes on different shades in the minds of different Christians; and therefore it is not possible to create such a ritual that would satisfy all believers of all times and places. Therefore, it was quite natural that the state of church ritual in which it was in the second century, when the practice of not only local churches, but even each community (parish) was distinguished by its own peculiarities, and the practice of the last quarter of the century differed in many points from the practice of the first quarter. The attitude of a certain part of Christian society towards these ritual differences put a sharp, albeit rather arbitrary, boundary between them: while some differences were not the subject of controversy, did not raise doubts regarding the legality of their existence and were considered normal varieties of Christian ritual, others, on the contrary, were considered as abnormal phenomena subject to abolition, and even threatened to become a reason for schism. Church ritual differences between individual parishes are a very common phenomenon in the 2nd century. In the absence of Christian churches and a range of liturgical books, quite a few details in the service depended on the discretion of the head of the Christian community, therefore, on his character, the degree of his development and often on his origin, and therefore had a random character. Therefore, in the 2nd century. It was possible that the head of one community convened his flock in the triclinium of some respected Christian, and at the same time the head of another parish in the same city considered the usual place of liturgical meetings not quite safe and performed divine services in some deserted place outside the city or in the catacombs; that one primate offered his flock reading from one evangelist in order to revive in their memory some past event, and another on the same day assigned a section from another evangelist for reading in order to give his flock a gospel lesson useful for them in the present; that in one community, following the learned exegetical word of a philosophically educated presbyter, an extensive and eloquent Eucharistic prayer was heard, and in another, after a simple and short exhortation to follow the wonderful instructions given by the Holy Scriptures, the presbyter pronounced a simple and unartificial thanksgiving to the Lord. Similar differences were, of course, noticeable for Christians of the second century, and those of them who had a certain degree of education and had a tendency to enjoy elegant speech, treated with complete sympathy the form of worship that eloquent and learned shepherds gave to it - could be carried away by it more than they should, sometimes paying for their passion by ending up in Gnostic societies similar to those founded by the famous Mark; but such persons could hardly doubt the legality of the existence of another form of worship, simple and artless; on the other hand, only a person with ultramontane views could think that eloquent preaching and prayer were the products of a false mind. In the minds of most Christians, these two typical forms of worship did not stand as incompatible opposites, because their difference did not obscure their common basis: it was clear that each primate “sends prayers and thanksgiving as much as he can,” as well as “everyone gathers (to pray) where he wants and where he can.” The differences between the apparently generally accepted rites of the different periods of the second century are a natural consequence of the influence which time has on all human institutions. The external circumstances among which the believers actually carried out their rituals changed several times; questions arose regarding such cases of church practice that were not provided for by the pastors of previous times; the very idea underlying well-known rituals became clear in the minds of believers from aspects that were not expressed in the ancient form of church ritual. Under the influence of all these circumstances, church rituals were changed or supplemented, went through various phases of development and, finally, by the end of the 2nd century. appeared in a form much more complex and developed than the one it had at the beginning of this century. One can hardly doubt, however, that those differences that historical evidence presents as differences between the rituals of two periods of time were at one time differences between churches: no change in ritual could take place in all churches at the same time; on the contrary, the previous form of church ritual in some places could last for quite a long time. The first historical news about the general order of Christian worship in the 2nd century. found in Pliny's letter to Trajan. Pliny mentions two liturgical meetings - a morning one (before dawn), at which Christians “alternately sang a hymn to Christ, as if to God, and committed themselves by sacrament” to a virtuous life, and another, probably an evening meeting “to eat food.” Kurtz and Gaericke believe that this eating of food should mean both the love supper and the Eucharist. The suspicion of the Roman government was directed precisely at these gatherings for eating food: Pliny applied the Edict of Trajan against the heterias, and the Bithynian Christians “stopped holding” meetings for eating food. As a result of such measures by the Roman government, agapes fell out of use for some time, and the celebration of the sacrament of communion was combined with the morning (“homiletical”) service. Such was the order of worship in the time of Saint Justin, who makes no mention of love suppers or other liturgical gatherings different from those described by him. Finally, in the last years of the II century. agapes came into use again, but the Eucharist was still celebrated at the morning service, before dawn ((horis) antelucanis coetibus.De cor. mil. p. 3. ar. Gieseler). Thus, the order of public worship, introduced at the beginning of the 2nd century. under the influence of unfavorable external circumstances, at the end of the century it was voluntarily withheld by Christians: a Christian of Tertullian’s time accepted the holy mysteries “before all food” even when he received communion at home. In the second half of the 2nd century. There was a noticeable change in the order of the liturgy. During this period, Christians became more and more convinced of the need to celebrate the Eucharist in strict secrecy, impenetrable to non-Christians. St. Justin still finds it possible, in his apology addressed to the pagan emperor, to twice describe the order of performing the most essential part of the liturgy; writes just as openly about the Eucharist and St. Irenaeus; but “all the apologists who appeared in the last quarter of the second century maintain a deep and obviously deliberate silence about the order of the celebration of the Eucharist.” But since extending the requirement that no one except those who have been baptized can be present at the celebration of the liturgy to the catechumens and closing the doors of Christian liturgical meetings on them meant depriving the catechumens of such an important educational means as the “homiletical” part of Christian worship; then the custom was established of allowing them to listen to the first part of the liturgy and sending them out before the start of the Eucharist proper - the liturgy was divided into the liturgy of the catechumens and the liturgy of the faithful. During the time of Tertullian, this custom was already very firmly established: in his essay “On Prescription Against Heretics,” Tertullian strictly condemns heretics for the fact that among them “the catechumens are considered perfect before they learn,” so that “it is not known who their (heretics) catechumens are, who is faithful: they come (to worship) the same way, they listen the same way, they pray the same way.” If the interpretation given to the quotation from the works of Bl. is correct. Jerome, the beginning of the division of the liturgy into two parts dates back to the time of St. Justina. Finally, we can note one unimportant feature of the difference in the order of the liturgy as described by St. Justin and Tertullian, a feature that can have a difference only on the assumption that St. Father and church writer absolutely accurately describe the order of contemporary worship. According to St. The Justinian Liturgy began with the reading of the Holy Scriptures of the New or Old Testament, followed by a sermon and general prayer; according to Tertullian’s description, the liturgy began with a general prayer, similar in content to a great litany, then followed by the reading of sacred scripture and a sermon, and sometimes excommunication. In the writings of Tertullian there are the first news of home communion - home in the proper sense. Pious people, mainly women, put part of the Body of Christ into a reliquary, took it to their home and subsequently ate it before any food. The time of appearance and area of ​​distribution of this custom are unknown with certainty. It developed and became more complicated especially noticeably in the 2nd half of the 2nd century. baptism ceremony. The ritual described by St. Justin, still very simple, consists almost exclusively of those necessary for the performance of the sacraments and positively prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. The Lord commanded the apostles: a) to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in His name (Luke 24:47), b) to teach all nations and c) to baptize those who believed (Mark 16:16) in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Those preparing for baptism during the time of St. Justina: a) fasted and prayed to God for forgiveness of previously committed sins (repented), b) were instructed in the truths of faith and morality, and c) after expressing their consent to baptism, they were baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the time of Tertullian, the catechumen sometimes before the very water of baptism, and sometimes in church under the hand of the primate, renounced the devil, and delusion, and his angels; then, in rather lengthy answers to the primate’s questions, he confessed his faith, and thus moved from serving the devil to serving Christ, entering His army. The believer was then baptized by threefold immersion. Upon leaving the font, the newly baptized person was “anointed with a fragrant unction,” in the likeness of the anointing with oil of the Old Testament priests, and they gave him (the believer) to eat a mixture of milk and honey, as a sign that the believer had become a newborn baby in Christ (1 Peter 2:2). Then the grace of the Holy Spirit was brought down upon the believer through the laying on of hands. For a whole week, the newly baptized abstained from the usual daily ablution. From this it is obvious to what extent the rite of baptism had developed and become more complicated by the time of Tertullian. Three ideas in the baptismal rite of St. Justin's ideas, not even intended, found a fairly clear symbolic expression in the baptismal rite of Tertullian's time (the idea that a Christian is a warrior of Christ, that he is a priest (2 Pet. 2:9), and, finally, that he is a child in Christ (1 Pet. 2:2)). The renunciation of the devil “under the hand of the primate” and the custom of “abstaining from daily ablutions for a whole week” are also new, unknown from the writings of St. Justina ritual details. The same feature in the character of the second half of the second century is revealed by the appearance during this period of a new church position and new holidays. Tertullian first mentions the church position of a reader, and Clement of Alexandria contains the first unclear mention of the holidays of baptism and the birth of Christ. Perhaps even during this period, among the days of Pentecost, they began to distinguish in a special way the fortieth day as the day of the Ascension of the Lord. And differences in the practices of different parishes and differences in rituals of different periods of the 2nd century. They have this common feature that they are not stable: the first rest on such a moving foundation as the personality of one or another presbyter; the latter are the result of circumstances that are valid only at a certain time, representing various phases of the development of church rituals, related to each other as the present and the past, disappearing in the present. A distinctive feature of the differences that make up the peculiarity of a known local church is their stability: usually having as their basis the national characteristics of the Christians of a given church, they (the differences) can exist for more than one century and resist all attempts to replace them with another ritual. Due to the fact that the Carthaginian church had such a representative as Tertullian, its ritual features can be reproduced with greater completeness than the features of any other church. True, some features of the ritualism of the Carthaginian Christians were recorded by Tertullian only because he himself considered them phenomena that were not entirely normal, extremes: but these extremes only represent in a brighter light the general direction of the Christians of the Carthaginian Church and, of course, were not completely isolated phenomena if they were noticed and recorded by Tertullian. The ritual, worked out to the smallest detail, was observed by the Carthaginian Christians with care, bringing them closer in some points to the Jews. Some, for example, considered it an indispensable duty to wash their hands before prayer; others considered it necessary to remove outer clothing before prayer; others prayed with such affectation and so loudly that they reminded Tertullian of the Pharisees; others, at the end of the prayer, hurried to sit down; others extended the severity of fasting to the point that they refrained from giving the kiss of peace to the brethren. Sunday in Carthage was celebrated in the image of the ancient Sabbath: regular activities were stopped so as not to give room to the devil. Standing days were observed with particular strictness in the Carthaginian church. Tertullian testifies with complete clarity that the days of standing are not prescribed by law; but custom gave obligatory force to what was a matter of freedom, and Tertullian himself considers as a strong obstacle to marriage between a Christian and a pagan those difficulties in observing fasting on fasting days that she may encounter from her husband. One might think that this strictness in observing the days of standing is in a causal connection with the idea of ​​militia Dei, symbolically expressed in the rite of baptism. This idea, without a doubt, was in complete harmony with the stern, energetic national character of the North Africans, and was easily assimilated by them and applied to their work. Since Christians are soldiers of Christ, their duty is to faithfully observe the oath they gave to their king and God, their duty is to bear the responsibilities of military service. One of them was fasting during standing days. “Standing,” reasoned the Carthaginian Christians, “got its name from military life, since we too are the army of God (2 Cor. 10:4; 1 Tim. 1:18); but neither the joy nor the sadness that happened in the camp interrupts the standing of the sentries...” It is not surprising if some, trying to elevate the severity of fasting to the severity of its prototype - the discipline of a sentinel, went so far as to be afraid of violating what they considered the sacred duty of a Christian, through a fraternal kiss or even through the acceptance of the holy mysteries. It is also clear that for Christians with this way of thinking, the meaning of fasting was no longer to save a few money through abstinence from food and give it to a widow, orphan or poor person, but in the very process of fasting (standing). In some Western churches, especially the Roman and, probably, the Carthaginian, there was a custom to continue fasting on Saturday. Perhaps Western Christians were motivated by the words of the Lord: “the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast” (Mark 2:20); but it is very likely that another, stronger motive, expressed in the 3rd century, was mixed with a similar motive already in the second century. Victorinus, Bishop of Petabion: Western Christians were afraid that it would seem that they were celebrating the Sabbath with the Jews if they did not fast on this day. On the contrary, in the eastern churches, where there were more Jewish Christians than in the west, and where therefore anti-Jewish tendencies could not have such development as in the western churches, they adhered to the opposite practice. In the east, not only did they not fast on Saturday (with the exception of one Great Saturday), but they brought it closer to Sunday. The “Apostolic Constitutions,” a collection that appeared at the end of the 3rd or early 4th century, but which enjoyed in the East such authority as no other patristic work had, which, of course, would have been impossible if the “Apostolic Constitutions” were not based on the ancient practice of the Eastern churches, advise Christians to hold church meetings on Saturdays for the joyful remembrance of the creation of the world. This contrast in the ritual of the Eastern and Western churches was expressed in all its fullness only later; but even at the end of the second century in the West, Eastern practice became the subject of serious dispute; the reason for the dispute was the Eastern Christians in the west. Another church ritual difference is essentially the same in nature - the difference in the celebration of Easter. It is immediately obvious that the so-called Quartodecimani followed the customs of the Jewish Christians, therefore the opposite practice of the Roman Church is based on the traditions of the first pagan Christians. Only the boundaries of the spread of Judeo-Christian practice in the celebration of Easter do not coincide with the boundaries of the spread of the custom of not fasting on Saturday: in the latter case, the practice of the Roman Church was opposed by the practice of the entire Greek-Eastern Church; on the contrary, on the issue of celebrating Easter, on the side of the Roman Church, as Eusebius put it, “churches throughout the entire universe” stood, while the Quartodecimani occupied a very insignificant corner of the Christian world. The history of relations between representatives of one and the other practice begins in the first quarter of the 2nd century. The Roman bishops Xistus (115–125), Telesphorus, Hyginus and Pius (140–155), knowing about the existence of the Judeo-Christian custom of celebrating Easter, however, sent the Eucharist to those who adhered to it. Around 162, Bishop of Smyrna, St. Polycarp had the opportunity to touch upon this difference during his negotiations with the Roman Bishop Anicetas; both shepherds attached so little importance to this ritual difference that they did not want to argue about it, and parted in peace, each remaining with his own ritual. But around 170–171. the question of celebrating Easter has already caused a strong dispute in Asia Minor itself, namely in Laodicea; Two modern writers have written essays on this issue. Finally, in 196, the bishop of Rome attached the most important importance to this issue. The excitement caused by the dispute over the celebration of Easter spread throughout the entire universal church from Gaul to Mesopotamia: several councils were formed; Several messages were written, from which it became clear that Palestine, Pontus, Phenicia, Mesopotamia, Achaia, Alexandria, Gaul and some other churches adhered to the Roman rite, while the Judeo-Christian custom was followed only by the churches of proconsular Asia with some Christian communities in neighboring regions (Syria, Cilicia, Mesopotamia). The unrest caused by this issue threatened to be resolved by schism: Victor, Bishop of Rome, declared the churches of Asia Minor excommunicated from church communion, and only the intervention of the peacemaker - St. Irenaeus and many other bishops averted the danger that threatened church unity and restored the broken peace of the church. It is as easy to determine the order of celebrating Easter in the Roman Church as it is difficult to reconstruct from the remaining historical monuments all the details of celebrating Easter according to the Asia Minor custom. Easter was a solemn annual remembrance of those sacred events to the memory of which the church dedicated certain days of the week. The founders of the Roman rite of celebrating Easter set out to eliminate the possibility of discrepancies between the annual and weekly commemoration of the suffering, death and resurrection of the Savior. But since such a disagreement would be inevitable if for the annual remembrance of sacred events those days of the year were designated on which these events took place, if Easter was a fixed holiday, then it was established to celebrate these events only approximately at the time of the year in which they occurred, and certainly on those days of the week which, completely in accordance with the history of these events, were dedicated to their remembrance. According to this rite, the resurrection of Christ, which historically took place on the first day of the week of the 16th of Nisan, was not always remembered on the 16th day of Nisan, but always on the first day of the week and never on the 6th, dedicated to the remembrance of Christ’s suffering on the cross. The first Sunday following the 14th of Nisan, or the first full moon after the spring equinox, was chosen as the day of the annual remembrance of the resurrection of Christ. The day of solemn remembrance of the resurrection of Christ was preceded by days of remembrance of the suffering and death of the Savior. The pagan believers reacted to these gospel events as their natural feeling required - they recognized them as sorrowful events. The days dedicated to their annual remembrance were considered days of mourning and fasting: the church mourned about the Bridegroom taken from her and fasted, according to His word (Mark 2); all Christians, not excluding the Eastern ones, recognized the validity of this interpretation of the Lord’s words. The fast before Easter did not have the same duration in all churches and not even among all Christians of the same church; but it seems that nowhere among Christians who followed the Roman rite was it reduced (to one day) to less than two days. The peculiarity of this fast before Easter, in contrast to ordinary days of standing, was that it lasted not until nine o’clock (3 pm), but until the end of the day, or until the night roosters crow (Tert. de jejun. 2. Ar. Gieseler, Const, apost. V. 18. Schürer). On the night of Easter, public worship was held, which ended with the celebration of the Eucharist, which was not celebrated during the days of fasting. Both the feast of the Resurrection of Christ and the days of fasting (especially Friday - Tert. de bapt. 19. pascha, - cumet passio dominica adimpleta est. 1. s. ar. Schürer) bore the common name of Easter; but the holiday itself, the focus of all Easter days, was the day of “celebration of the sacrament of the resurrection of the Lord (Eusebius)” - Sunday, or the so-called later “πa'σχαa'ναστασιμον.” Jewish Christians, acting on impulses as natural as those that guided pagan Christians, had to create an order for the celebration of Easter that deviated significantly from that accepted among pagan Christians. After converting to Christianity, the Jews, of course, did not abandon their previous customs; they continued to celebrate Jewish holidays (cf. Acts 21:20–25; 18:21), especially one as sacred and significant as Easter. But, celebrating it according to Jewish custom, observing, if possible, the requirements of the law (i.e., eating the lamb; if Passover was celebrated in Jerusalem, or at least unleavened bread, if the holiday was celebrated in another city, Christians had to give a Christian character to the holiday by remembering New Testament events closely related to this day. Thus, eating unleavened bread or taking the cup of thanksgiving, a Christian could remember the establishment, with such In the same circumstances, the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist; the Paschal lamb could evoke the memory of the Lamb taking away the sins of the world, slain from the foundation of the world; finally, the very time - the evening of the 14th Nisan - could evoke the memory that several years ago, on this day and hour, the Lord was laid in the tomb. Thus, Christians could equally connect with the Passover celebrated on the 14th of Nisan, sacred memories. 13th (Thursday) and 14th Nisan (Friday). But in the fact that all these memories took place during the celebration of a bright, solemn holiday, there lay a natural possibility of contemplating New Testament events from a different angle from which pagan Christians viewed them - the opportunity to give the New Testament holiday a more solemn rather than a sad character, to lay the foundation in the strict sense for the Salvation Easter, and not the Cross. These features, in all likelihood, distinguished the celebration of Easter among the Asia Minor Christians of the time of Polycrates. The holiday was probably preceded by a one-day fast, which has its basis in Jewish practice. The Christians of Asia Minor, in all likelihood, ate unleavened bread (“the people put aside leavened bread.” I.V. Cheltsov. History of the Christian Church. p. 307). One might think that Polycrates himself was of the belief that Christ ate Easter on the 14th day. (This view was held by the fourteeners contemporary to Eusebius. “Περi'τηςτουπa'σχαεορτh'ς” by Eusebius. Zeitschrift für die historischen Theologie. 1870. S. 230). But the prevailing Christian memories associated with the Asia Minor Easter holiday of the end of the 2nd century bring it closer to Good Friday than to Holy Thursday. a) Πa'ςχασωτh'ριον - the name that Eusebius gives to the Asia Minor holiday - contemporary to the historian St. Athanasius, with a minor change, uses it to mean Good Friday (h'μερασωτh'ρια. Athanas. encyclicaad epis-cop. c. 4. ap. Guericke. S. 169). b) According to Theodoret, the Fourteeners, citing the example of the Evangelist John, celebrated Easter on the 14th day of the moon and celebrated the remembrance of the passion (of Christ) (Schürer. 252. Haereticarumfabularumcompendium, III. 4). It is most likely that the Christians of Asia Minor also celebrated the annual celebration of the resurrection, but it is impossible to prove this with historical evidence. You might be interested in: