No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 September 2012
This essay examines the Anglican claim for the early church as the normative standard for liturgy, as reiterated throughout our history from the time of Thomas Cranmer through the liturgical revisions of the late twentieth century. A secondary claim of general uniformity through similarity in texts of common prayer is then discussed as a point of historic resonance for Anglican identity. Some very general examples of early church evidence follow, as a means of debunking the notion of a unified and simple structure for primitive liturgy. I will then discuss the notion of ‘early church’, and what we mean by terms like it, and follow this with a consideration of liturgical diversity. The gospel call to privilege Christian unity, I will assert, remains the primary stumbling block to the full embracing of the God-given diversity of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church.
A priest of the Episcopal Church, J. Barrington Bates holds a PhD in liturgical studies from Drew University. He currently serves as interim rector of Grace Church Van Vorst, Jersey City, New Jersey, and as adjunct professor of liturgics at the General Theological Seminary.
2. For a detailed discussion of these and other principles, see my work, ‘Expressing What Christians Believe: Anglican Principles for Liturgical Revision’, Anglican Theological Review 92.3 (2010), pp. 455–480.Google Scholar
3. Preface to the first English Book of Common Prayer (1549), reprinted from The Rite Brain: A Liturgical CD-ROM for the Episcopal Church (New York: Church Publishing, 2000).Google Scholar
4. Preface, The Rite Brain.Google Scholar
5. Preface, The Rite Brain.Google Scholar
6. Article XXIV of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, ‘Of Speaking in the Congregation in such a Tongue as the people understandeth’, as adapted by the Episcopal Church (1801) in the ‘Historical Documents’ of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, reprinted from The Rite Brain.Google Scholar
7. Article XXXIV, ‘Of the Traditions of the Church’, ibid.Google Scholar
8. Jardine Grisbrooke, W., Anglican Liturgies of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London: SPCK, 1958), pp. 37–70.Google Scholar
9. Shepherd, Massey H., Jr, ‘The Patristic Heritage of the American Book of Common Prayer of 1979’, Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 53 (1984), p. 232.Google Scholar
10. See Hatchett, Marion, Commentary on the American Prayer Book (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 358. In his Alcuin/GROW Liturgical Study, Grisbrooke posits that the AC manuscript is late fourth-century Syrian (see W. Jardine Grisbrooke [ed. and trans.], The Liturgical Portions of the Apostolic Constitutions: A Text for Students [Bramcote: Grove Books, 1990], p. 6).Google Scholar
11. From the Preface to the first American Book of Common Prayer (1789), reprinted from The Rite Brain.Google Scholar
12. From the ‘Historical Documents’ of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer,emphasis>reprinted from The Rite Brain. The four quadrilateral principles whereby an ‘approach may be by God's blessing made towards Home Reunion’ were affirmed by the 1888 Lambeth Conference: (1) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as ‘containing all things necessary to salvation’, and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith; (2) the apostles’ Creed, as the baptismal symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith; (3) the two Sacraments ordained by Christ himself – Baptism and the Supper of the Lord – ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him; (4) the historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his Church.’ – Resolution 11, Lambeth Conference of 1888, Book of Common Prayer [1979] (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1976), pp. 877–78.reprinted+from+The+Rite+Brain.+The+four+quadrilateral+principles+whereby+an+‘approach+may+be+by+God's+blessing+made+towards+Home+Reunion’+were+affirmed+by+the+1888+Lambeth+Conference:+(1)+The+Holy+Scriptures+of+the+Old+and+New+Testaments,+as+‘containing+all+things+necessary+to+salvation’,+and+as+being+the+rule+and+ultimate+standard+of+faith;+(2)+the+apostles’+Creed,+as+the+baptismal+symbol;+and+the+Nicene+Creed,+as+the+sufficient+statement+of+the+Christian+faith;+(3)+the+two+Sacraments+ordained+by+Christ+himself+–+Baptism+and+the+Supper+of+the+Lord+–+ministered+with+unfailing+use+of+Christ's+words+of+institution,+and+of+the+elements+ordained+by+him;+(4)+the+historic+Episcopate,+locally+adapted+in+the+methods+of+its+administration+to+the+varying+needs+of+the+nations+and+peoples+called+of+God+into+the+unity+of+his+Church.’+–+Resolution+11,+Lambeth+Conference+of+1888,+Book+of+Common+Prayer+[1979]+(New+York:+Church+Hymnal+Corporation,+1976),+pp.+877–78.>Google Scholar
13. Resolution 11, Lambeth Conference of 1888 (http://www.lambethconference.org/resolutions/1888/). At this conference, the bishops assembled also affirmed a principle that ‘no particular portion of the Church should undertake revision [of the Book of Common Prayer] without seriously considering the possible effect of such action on other branches’ (Resolution 10).Google Scholar
14. Bayne, Stephen Fielding, Jr, An Anglican Turning Point: Documents and Interpretations (Austin, TX: Church Historical Society, 1964), p. 194.Google Scholar
15. Resolutions 73–80, Lambeth Conference of 1958 (http://www.lambethconference.org/resolutions/1958/).Google Scholar
16. Lambeth Conference, 1958, The Encyclical Letter from the Bishops along with the Resolutions and Reports (London: SPCK, 1958), p. 2.78.Google Scholar
17. Lambeth 1958, Encyclical, p. 2.79.Google Scholar
18. Lambeth 1958, Encyclical, pp. 2.80–81Google Scholar. See also Bendyshe Burnett, B., ‘Lambeth 1958 and Reunion: An Anglican Version’, Peter Ainslie Memorial Lecture (Grahamstown, South Africa: Rhodes University, 1959)Google Scholar. Burnett contends that Anglicanism in general would benefit from the example of the Church of South India, particularly with regard to restoring the ‘primitive pastoral character’ of the episcopate (p. 2:27).
19. Shepherd, ‘Patristic Heritage’, p. 221.
20. Fenwick, JohnSpinks, Bryan, Worship in Transition: The Liturgical Movement in the Twentieth Century (New York: Continuum, 2000), p. 7.Google Scholar
21. Shepherd, ‘Patristic Heritage’, p. 232.Google Scholar
22. Farrer, Austin M., ‘Eucharist in Church in the New Testament’, in A.G. Hebert (ed.), The Parish Communion: A Book of Essays (London: SPCK, 1937), p. 87.Google Scholar
23. Gregory Dix, ‘The Idea of “the Church” in the Primitive Liturgies’, in Hebert, The Parish Communion, pp. 100–103.Google Scholar
24. Dix, ‘Idea’, p. 111.Google Scholar
25. Dix, ‘Idea’, pp. 131–32.Google Scholar
26. Dix, ‘Idea’, p. 137.Google Scholar
27. Preface (1549), reprinted from The Rite Brain.Google Scholar
28. Stewart-Sykes, Alistair, ‘1549: The Origin of Anglicanism’, in But One Use (New York: The General Theological Seminary, 1999), p. 37.Google Scholar
29. Buchanan, Colin, ‘Liturgical Uniformity’, Journal of Anglican Studies 2.2 (December 2004), pp. 41–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30. Bayne, Anglican Turning Point, p. 196.Google Scholar
31. Bayne, Anglican Turning Point, p. 303.Google Scholar
32. Bayne, Anglican Turning Point, p. 196.Google Scholar
33. Bayne, Anglican Turning Point, p. 197.Google Scholar
34. See Resolution 49 from the Lambeth Conference of 1930 (http://www.lambethconference.org/resolutions/1930/1930-49.cfm). The bishops here upheld ‘the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order as they are generally set forth in the Book of Common Prayer’.Google Scholar
35. Bayne, Anglican Turning Point, p. 198.Google Scholar
36. Bayne, Anglican Turning Point, p. 125.Google Scholar
37. Bayne, Anglican Turning Point, p. 194.Google Scholar
38. So long as we are clear that the book we mean is the Book of Common Prayer, and not the Bible!Google Scholar
39. McGowan, Andrew, Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), p. 251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40. McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, p. 93.Google Scholar
41. McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists, p. 276.Google Scholar
42. Origen, Commentary on the Song of Songs, quoted from Barrington Bates, J., ‘The Holy Eucharist in the Early Church’, Resources in the Anglican Theological Review 84.2 (Spring 2002), p. 399.Google Scholar
43. Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition, pp. 2–15, in Bradshaw, Paul F., Johnson, Maxwell E.Phillips, L. Edward, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), pp. 24–86.Google Scholar
44. Ephrem, ‘Hymns on the Nativity’, No. 4 (trans. Kathleen E. McVey; New York: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 91–104.Google Scholar
45. Egeria, Diary of a Pilgrimage (trans. George E. Gingras; New York: Newman, 1970), pp. 93–94.Google Scholar
46. Justin, Apology I, 61, in Lucien Deiss (ed.), Springtime of the Liturgy: Liturgical Texts of the First Four Centuries (trans. Matthew J. O'Connell; reprint Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1979 [1967]), p. 91.Google Scholar
47. Justin, Apology I, p. 65.Google Scholar
48. Justin, Apology I, p. 65.Google Scholar
49. Bradshaw, Paul F., Reconstructing Early Christian Worship (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009), p. 52.Google Scholar
50. Bradshaw, Paul F., ‘The Liturgical Use and Abuse of Patristics’, in Kenneth Stevenson (ed.), Liturgy Reshaped (London: SPCK, 1982), p. 134.Google Scholar
51. Bradshaw, ‘Liturgical Use’, p. 134.Google Scholar
52. See, for instance, Paul F. Bradshaw, ‘Who Wrote the Apostolic Tradition? A Response to Alistair Stewart-Sykes’, St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 48.2 (2004), pp. 195–206. Bradshaw contends there is no proof that the document originated in Rome (p. 196). See also Bradshaw, Reconstructing Early Christian Worship. Here, Bradshaw asserts that the Apostolic Tradition has ‘come to assume a position of crucial importance … [and] often been wrongly used to support inaccurate conclusions’ (p. 38). See also Paul F. Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship: Sources and Methods for the Study of Early Liturgy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2002). With Maxwell Johnson and L. Edward Phillips, Bradshaw judges the AT ‘to be an aggregation of material from different sources, quite probably arising from different geographical regions and almost certainly from different historical periods, from perhaps as early as the middle of the second century to as late as the middle of the fourth’, comprising ‘artificial literary creations … rather than … a single authentic rite’ (p. 83). See also Bradshaw et al., The Apostolic Tradition; and Jones, Cheslyn, Wainwright, Geoffrey, Yarnold, EdwardBradshaw, Paul, ‘The Apostolic Tradition’, in Cheslyn Jones et al. (eds.), The Study of Liturgy (London: SPCK, rev. edn, 1992), pp. 87–88.Google Scholar
53. For a detailed discussion of the ordination rite for a bishop, for instance, see Spinks, Bryan D., ‘An Unfortunate Lex Orandi? Some Comments on Episcopacy Envisioned in the 1979 ECUSA Ordinal’, Journal of Anglican Studies 2.2 (December 2004), pp. 58–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
54. Bradshaw, ‘Liturgical Use’, p. 138.Google Scholar
55. Bradshaw, ‘Liturgical Use’, p. 140.Google Scholar
56. Bradshaw, ‘Liturgical Use’, p. 141.Google Scholar
57. Shepherd, ‘Patristic Heritage’, p. 221.Google Scholar
58. See Stuhlman, Byron D., Eucharistic Celebration 1789–1979 (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1981) and Prayer Book Rubrics Expanded (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1987), as well as Marion J. Hatchett, Commentary on the American Book of Common Prayer (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980) and Spinks, ‘An Unfortunate Lex Orandi?’.Google Scholar
59. Shepherd, ‘Patristic Heritage’, p. 227. One wonders what Massey Shepherd would think of the latest round of new commemorations in the Episcopal Church. See Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, Holy Women, Holy Men (New York: Church Publishing, 2010). This volume contains commemorations so numerous, including many that occur on the same calendrical day, that it provoked an online ‘Lenten Smackdown’ contest to choose between options!Google Scholar
60. Shepherd, ‘Patristic Heritage’, p. 233.Google Scholar
61. Article 34, ‘Of the Traditions of the Church’, reprinted from The Rite Brain.Google Scholar
62. Spinks, Bryan D., Western Use and Abuse of Eastern Liturgical Traditions (Rome: Centre for Indian and Inter-Religious Studies, 1992), p. 22.Google Scholar
63. Spinks, Western Use, p. 144.Google Scholar
64. Spinks, Western Use, p. 140.Google Scholar
65. Bayne, Anglican Turning Point, pp. 303–304.Google Scholar
66. For but one manifestation of this, see Morris, Clayton L., ‘Prayer Book Revision or Liturgical Renewal? The Future of the Liturgical Text’, in Ruth A. Meyers (ed.), A Prayer Book for the Twenty-first Century: Liturgical Studies, Three (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1996), p. 245.Google Scholar
67. Morris, ‘Prayer Book Revision’, p. 246.Google Scholar
68. Morris, ‘Prayer Book Revision’, p. 245.Google Scholar
69. Stewart-Sykes, ‘1549’, p. 38.Google Scholar
70. Morris, ‘Prayer Book Revision’, p. 246.Google Scholar
71. Issues specific to language cannot readily be addressed in this context. Some aspects of modern liturgical language are critiqued elsewhere; see Barrington Bates, J., ‘Sinful Asyndeton? Problematic Syntax in Contemporary Liturgical Texts’, Theology Today 58.3 (October 2001), pp. 399–411 . Doody decries the [1979] Book of Common Prayer for its lack of ‘that poetic power of rhythm and statement which engraves itself upon the memory’ (Margaret A. Doody, ‘ “How Shall We Sing the Lord's Song upon an Alien Soil?” The New Episcopalian Liturgy’, in Christopher Ricks and Leonard Michaels [eds.], The State of the Language [Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980], p. 117). Given the state of our liturgical language, perhaps it is all the better that we Anglicans appear to be moving away from our book-bound identity!CrossRefGoogle Scholar
72. Bradshaw, ‘Liturgical Use’, p. 134.Google Scholar
73. For example, according to statistics compiled by the Church Pension Fund, average Sunday attendance declined by 14 percent in the five-year period 2005–2009, and fully 19 percent for the ten-year period ending in 2009 (see http://archive.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Domestic_FAST_FACTS_Trends__2005-2009.pdf). According to other online sources, baptized members of the Episcopal Church totaled 3,615,000 in 1965, but only 2,125,012 in 2010 (see http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/dojustice/j325.html and http://archive.episcopalchurch.org/documents/2010_Table_of_Statistics_of_the_Episcopal_Church.pdf).Google Scholar
74. David Briggs, ‘Innovation Key to Church Growth’, Faith & Leadership Newsletter, Duke Divinity School, 4 January 2001.Google Scholar
75. Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Liturgiam authenticam: Fifth Instruction on Vernacular Translation of the Roman Liturgy (Washington, DC: US Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2001).Google Scholar
76. Bradshaw, ‘Liturgical Use’, p. 141.Google Scholar
77. See Lambeth 1958, Encyclical, p. 2.80.Google Scholar
78. See, for instance, Bradshaw, Reconstructing Early Christian Worship and McGowan, Ascetic Eucharists.Google Scholar