Historical Foundations of Worship (Worship Foundations)

Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Perspectives

Ross, Melanie C., Lamport, Mark A., Ross, Melanie C., Lamport, Mark

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781493434985
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Rituals & Practice

This volume brings together an ecumenical team of scholars to offer a historical overview of how worship developed. The book first orients readers to the common core elements the global church shares in the history and development of worship theology and historical practice. It then introduces the major streams of worship practice: Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant, including Reformation traditions, evangelicalism, and Pentecostalism. The book includes introductions by John Witvliet and Nicholas Wolterstorff. A previous volume addressed the theological foundations of worship.

Part 1
Common Roots of Worship

1
Baptism

Bryan D. Spinks

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

—T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding,
The Four Quartets

Like much poetic language, the words of T. S. Eliot tease and are capable of many meanings. We may understand a beginning as a journey toward a goal, and the suggestion that the goal also makes a beginning is apropos of Christian baptism. Phillip Tovey, noting that there is an integral relationship between making disciples and baptism, has expressed it thus: “The fruit of discipleship-making is baptisms, and baptisms are a call to further disciple-making.”1 The beginning is an end, and the end is a beginning.

Baptism and the New Testament

In Galatians, Paul writes, “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal. 3:26–27), and in his Letter to the Romans he asks, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom. 6:3). In these verses Paul assumes a ritual called baptism, and he assumes his readers will be familiar with the ritual. However, neither in these verses nor elsewhere in his letters does he describe the details of this ritual. Nicholas Taylor has succinctly put it this way:

Paul says little about the practice of Baptism. The only reference in the Pauline letters to specific occasions on which Baptism was administered is in 1 Corinthians 1.14, 16, which simply lists the people whom Paul had baptized in Corinth, with no further details. There is no indication as to how the rite related to the conversion of the individuals mentioned and their households; nor is there any mention of catechumenal instruction before and after Baptism. There is no liturgy described, no venue specified. These details form a part of the common knowledge shared by Paul and those to whom he wrote, and in many respects by other of the first generation of Christians also. Paul does not suggest that the occasions on which he administered Baptism were the exception rather than his usual practice, so we should not extrapolate too many generalizations from this brief reference.2

What Taylor says of Paul is true of the whole of the New Testament. To look for or to reconstruct a ritual for baptism from the New Testament writings is as misplaced as would be an attempt to construct a modern scientific manual from the creation stories of Genesis. It was simply not the purpose of the writers. Nevertheless, the New Testament is the place to begin to understand the foundational narratives of Christian baptism.

The Synoptic Gospels all attest that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan. John’s baptism was for repentance, and he proclaims that one coming after him will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Although they have differences, the Synoptic Gospels describe Jesus being baptized by John, a voice announcing him as the beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove. The Fourth Gospel does not attest that John baptized Jesus but does have the Baptist affirm that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. It is possible to see here a ritual—baptism in water, a formula, a belief that the Holy Spirit descends—and those elements are present in subsequent Christian baptismal rituals.

The formula at the baptism of Jesus stresses his unique status as the Son of God, but although Christians were and are regarded as children of God and fellow heirs with Christ, there is no evidence that the words concerning Jesus were used of Christians. In the New Testament we find two formulae, one of which later certainly became a baptismal formula. In Matthew 28:19 the disciples are to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Some scholars have stated that this is a later addition, though their claim has no manuscript support. This may well be what the Matthean community did, on the basis of the “trinitarian” dimensions of Jesus’s baptism—the Son is baptized, the Father speaks, and the Holy Spirit descends (echoing the creation narrative). Mention is made in Acts of baptizing in the name of Jesus. What is important here is that, regardless of the formula, it is a baptizing “into” (eis or epi) the name. Given the importance of the name in the Hebrew Scriptures, at the very least baptism here is understood as being poured into the person and identity of Jesus and all that he is and represents. This is probably why Paul speaks of putting on the Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:27), being baptized into one body (1 Cor. 12:13), or being baptized into Jesus’s death and being united with him (Rom. 6).

One important distinction of Christian baptism from that of John is its pneumatological dimension, and the baptism into the name of Jesus gives a christological dimension. The New Testament writings also give other theological dimensions and themes to baptism. There is a soteriological aspect—baptism washes away sin and saves. It has an ecclesiological dimension in that it incorporates a person into the body of Christ, the church. It is a covenant and is also concerned with the coming kingdom, and so is eschatological. Other images are death and resurrection, being born again, illumination, and stripping off and putting on. Some of these were subsequently articulated in liturgical prayers and formulae in the liturgies that developed, but no liturgy contains them all, and it is probably an overload to attempt to incorporate them all into one service.

The place of faith, and what constitutes faith, is another question that the New Testament does not give an unambiguous answer to. With John’s baptism it seems that the ritual was a response to his preaching, and that also seems to be the case in Acts 2:41—an immediate response. Prior to the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, the eunuch gets instruction on a passage of Isaiah and then is baptized in the next body of water that he and Phillip spot. In Acts 16 the jailer hears the word, resulting in he and his family being baptized. This seems to have been a cultural norm. Most people belonged to a “household” and followed the lead of the head of the household.3 Some households would have contained infants, and so it should be assumed that they too were baptized along with other members who followed the choice of the head of the household.

The Acts of the Apostles has accounts of baptism that present different sequences or patterns of the ritual. In some there is baptism followed by the laying on of hands, which is associated with the gift of the Spirit. Some followers of the Baptist who had received only the baptism of repentance have hands laid on them to complete or transform it into Christian baptism. But with Cornelius the Spirit descends first, and baptism follows. Some scholars have attempted to see some evolutionary ritual pattern in these variations, but often they read their own presuppositions back into the texts. It is better to see these as reflecting different ritual patterns that coexisted, rather than to rearrange them into a developmental pattern.

Pre-Nicene Witnesses

Variety and different patterns and emphases are what we find in the pre-Nicene evidence. The Didache, a church order itself compiled from several sources, is dated by most scholars circa 80 CE, from the region of Antioch.4 It has close affinities with the Gospel of Matthew and seems to have originated in communities that were predominantly Jewish-Christian. Baptism is in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (cf. Matthew), but it also mentions baptism in the name of the Lord. There is a period of fasting by the candidates prior to baptism. What is significant is the permissive method of baptism—in living water (i.e., river, lake, baths, or cistern), warm or cold, or triple pouring. It is significant that in the house church at Dura-Europos (ca. 280) the place for baptism is too small for anything other than standing in shallow water and pouring. It suggests that water, not the amount and method, was the important factor. In the community known to Justin Martyr in Rome, as outlined in Justin’s First Apology (ca. 165), the baptism of new members was done in private, away from the actual congregation—presumably for reasons of modesty. After the act of baptism, the newly baptized arrived at the assembly to join in worship with them. Justin’s community gathered over public baths, and it may be that the baths were the place used for their baptisms.

Other important witnesses are the apocryphal works. There are two versions of the Acts of Thomas, Greek and Syriac.5 Although the Syriac may be the original language, the present Syriac text seems to postdate the Greek, and there are some differences between them. What emerges is different patterns of initiation. In the Greek text, some are by anointing with oil only. Others are by anointing with oil and baptism in water. Some accounts have an invocation of the Holy Spirit over the oil, and baptism is with the trinitarian formula. A lighted lamp after the baptism is also mentioned—possibly a symbol of illumination. The Gospel of Philip mentions a stripping off and putting on of garments, and it also discusses the importance of oil.6 Tertullian, representing North African practice circa 200, witnesses to instruction and fasting as preparation, renouncing of the devil and his pomp, possibly a blessing of the water, baptism, anointing of the head, and the laying on of hands.7 The cumulative evidence and witnesses illustrate differing ritual patterns across geographical areas and different Christian communities. Anointing with olive oil, either before or after the baptism, became a common element. This was part of bathing etiquette in the classical world and was regarded as having health benefits and protective qualities. Sometimes the anointing was before bathing, sometimes after, and for the wealthy it was both before and after using perfumed oil.8 For a faith that preached the Anointed One, on whom the Spirit alighted after his baptism—who was himself prophet, priest, and king—olive oil and perfumed oil were quickly ritualized as a sign of the Spirit and of the newly baptized being anointed heirs with Christ. It was now a spiritual protection and marked the baptized as members of the royal priesthood.

Fourth- and Fifth-Century Homilies and Liturgical Material

In the fourth century we have more information about the rites of baptism and how at least some authors understood them. We have three sets of sermons by John Chrysostom, from when he was a presbyter at Antioch; the catechetical lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem and the mystagogical lectures attributed to him (Jerusalem); the catechetical homilies of Theodore of Mopsuestia (Antioch or Mopsuestia); and homilies of Zeno of Verona and De mysteriis and De sacramentis of Ambrose of Milan, both representing Italy. In addition, we have liturgical material from the Apostolic Constitutions, a church order (possibly by a Eunomian who did not accept that Christ was equal in divinity to the Father) circa 360, from the region of Antioch; from the so-called Apostolic Tradition once associated with a Hippolytus; and prayers from a collection by Bishop Serapion of Thmuis and the Canons of Hippolytus, both reflecting Egyptian practices.

The picture that develops is of regional variations within an emerging common liturgical framework. In Jerusalem, candidates had to “sign up” before Lent, and they were given instruction during Lent leading up to baptism at Easter, which was becoming the preferred time for baptism. Toward the end of the instruction period, the Creed was “given” to the candidates. They also received exorcisms, since this instruction time may have been regarded as a time when the devil and demons would assault the candidates. On Easter Eve the candidates experienced a ritual in which they renounced the devil, his works, and powers of this world; stripped; were anointed and baptized; and, after the postbaptismal anointing, put on a white garment. Cyril gives the prebaptismal anointing a christological significance, and the postbaptismal anointing he associates with the Holy Spirit. Here we see that the two anointings, which have a parallel in secular bathing, are given theological meanings. In some later rites oil is also poured into the baptismal water, which again has a parallel in secular bathing custom.

The Apostolic Constitutions witnesses to a particular community, and its prayers cannot be regarded as applicable to all Christian communities of Antioch and its environs. In book 7, chapters 39–45, there is instruction, ritualized by prayer and the laying on of hands. A full description of the renunciation of Satan is given, and that is followed by the recitation of the Creed. There is a prebaptismal anointing, and then the water is blessed, and the prayer contains the following words: “Look down from heaven, and sanctify the water, [and] give it grace and power, so that he...