The Sacred Writings of The Early Liturgies

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-3-8496-2129-2
Verlag: Jazzybee Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 140 Seiten

'The Sacred Writings Of ...' provides you with the essential works among the Early Christian writings. The volumes cover the beginning of Christianity until before the promulgation of the Nicene Creed at the First Council of Nicaea. This book contains the following chapters: The Divine Liturgy of James The Divine Liturgy of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark The Liturgy of the Blessed Apostles.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Schaff, Philipp

Leseproben

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE TO THE EARLY LITURGIES

It is in curious contrast with the work of Brett and others like-minded that we have in these Edinburgh translations a reflection from the minds of divines who are unused to liturgies, and who have no interest in their elucidation. For the mere reader this is not an advantage; but the student who goes to the originals will find that it affords at times no inconsiderable help. These translations are "inartificially drawn," as the lawyers say. They are so much Greek and Latin rendered grammatically by competent scholars, who have no theories to sustain, and who are equally devoid of technique and of a disposition to exhibit it for the support of preconceptions. Not infrequently one gets a new view of certain stereotyped expressions from the way in which they are here handled. The liturgiologist finds his researches freshened by etymologies he had hardly thought of, here literally rendered. Of course, these are mere specimens, and no one can use them for argument, except by comparison with the Greek, or the Latin of Renaudot, or the originals in Syriac or Coptic; but they will prove very useful in many ways. The whole science is in its infancy; and we have no specimen of a primitive liturgy unless it be the Clementine, so called. The specimens here given are like cloth of gold (Ps. xlv. 13), moth-eaten and patched, and spangled over with tinsel; and the true artist has only the one object in view,-to restore it, that is, to the king's daughter, as it was aforetime.

The following is the announcement of the Messrs. Clark in the Edinburgh edition: "The Liturgy of St. James has been translated by William Macdonald, M.A.; that of the Evangelist Mark by George Ross Merry, B.A.; and that of the Holy Apostles by Dr. Donaldson."

It will be observed that the translations are given in the Edinburgh series with hardly a line of comment, and with no editorial helps to the reader whatever. These have been scantily supplied, here and there, where the case seemed to require some elucidation; and in a few instances I have ventured to reduce a word or two in the rendering to liturgical phraseology.

The interest which has recently been awakened in liturgiology, and which exists among the learned so generally, will justify me in stating somewhat at large the considerations which are prerequisites to an intelligent study of these compilations. I shall not depart from my rule, nor formulate my personal convictions; but I must indicate sources of information not mentioned by the Edinburgh editors, only remarking, that, while they have cited the learned and excellent Dr. Neale, with others who advance untenable claims in some instances, I shall refer to writers of a more moderate school, such as have taken a less narrow and more historic view of the whole matter. By claiming too much, and by reading their own ideas back into the ancient exemplars, many good and learned men have overdone their argument, and confused scriptural simplicity with the artificial systems of post-Nicene ages. Earnest and worthy of respect as they are, I must therefore prefer a class of writers who breathe the spirit of the ante-Nicene Fathers as better elucidating the primitive epoch and its principles, alike in doctrine and worship.

Hippolytus, in a few terse sentences, has pointed out the epoch of David, in its vast import, as the dawning of Christianity itself.2 More elaborately, a recent writer of great erudition has expounded the same historic fact, and given us the pivot of Hebrew history on which turns the whole system of that "goodly fellowship of prophets" who heralded the Sun of righteousness as successive constellations rise before the day. The learned Dean Payne-Smith, more minutely than Hippolytus, identifies Samuel, the master of David, as the great instrument of God in shaping the institutions of Moses to be a prelude to the Advent; in other words, transforming a local and tribal religion into that of Catholicity. The value of the Dean's condensed and luminous elaboration of this cardinal truth can hardly be overstated.

But, to go behind even the Dean's stand-point, we shall better comprehend the era of which, under God, Samuel was the author, by noting the immense importance of that specific Mosaic ordinance which not only made it possible, but which proves that an all-wise prolepsis governed the whole law of Moses. We generally conceive of the Mosaic system as one of unlimited hecatombs and burnt-offerings. On the contrary, it was a system restricting and limiting the unsystematized primeval institution of sacrifice, which had done its work by passing into the universal religions and rituals of Gentilism.3 When the seminal idea of expiation, atonement, and the blood of innocence as a propitiation for guilt, was communicated to all the families of the earth, the Mosaic institutions limited sacrifices for the faithful, and localized them with marvellous significance. Previously the faithful everywhere had imitated the sacrifices of their fathers, Noah and Abraham, who reared their altars everywhere, as Job also did,-wherever they dwelt or sojourned. Now mark the first step towards a more spiritual worship, based, nevertheless, on the fundamental principle of sacrifice. Moses ordains as follows:-

1. "When ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you,...then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you, your burnt-offerings," etc.4

2. "Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest; but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of the tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee."5

3. "If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put His name there, be too far from thee" [i.e., for frequent sacrifices; observe, nevertheless, the law as to the sanctity of blood in thy common use of meats, and forbear to sacrifice, till the opportunity comes], "only thy holy things which thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt take, and go unto the place which the Lord shall choose; and thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God."6

4. "Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God, in the place which He shall choose."7

5. "Thou mayest not sacrifice The Passover within any of thy gates;...but at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place His name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the Passover."

Note, further, that all this provision and prevision was part of the great Messianic system, which reached its crisis in the time of David, as prophetic of "the Son of David."

It was the office of Samuel to take the Mosaic ordinances just there, and to shape them for the advent of the Lamb of God, for His sacrifice upon Calvary, and for the setting-up of His universal kingdom.

The Institutions of Samuel, therefore, were in essence institutions for the Gospel-day, and they were completed by the anointing of David as king, and by his prophetic mission to provide the Psalter (of which more, by and by); then the Ark came out of curtains, and the Lord chose and appointed the place of which Moses had spoken,-none other than the spot where Abraham had rehearsed in type the Sacrifice and Resurrection of Christ, according as it was written:8 "Jehovah-Jireh...in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen." Thus, all sacrifice acceptable to God was shown to have reference to the Paschal Lamb, who on that mount of the Lord should be sacrificed, and rise again, as was accomplished in a figure aforetime.9

And next, the Psalmist commemorates the putting away of the migratory Tabernacle, and the rest of the Ark of the Covenant in the place designed for the grand accomplishment of redemption ("the sure mercies of David"), as follows:10 -

"He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which He loved. And He built His sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which He hath established for ever."

Thus, localized sacrifice was made to designate the spot where the one propitiatory sacrifice should be offered, "for the sins of the whole world;" and that spot in turn interpreted the great canon of redemption,11 -

"Without shedding of blood is no...