ZJTUROT
309
LITUBQT
abuiulaaoc of liturgical matter, much more tliau is
apparent at the first glance. That the long prayer
in chapters lix-lxi is a magnificent example of the
kind of prayers said in the liturgy of the first century
has always been admitted (e. g.. Duchesne, "Ori-
gines du Culte", 49-51); that the letter, especially in
this part, is fuU of liturgical forms is also evident.
The writer quotes the Sanctus (Holy, holy, holy Lord
of Sabaoth; all creation is full of his gior\') from Is.,
vi, 3, and adds that '* we assembled in unity cry (this)
as with one mouth" (xxxiv. 7). The end of the long
praver is a doxology invoking Cluist and finishing
with the form: "now and for generations of genera-
tions and for ag» of ages. Amen" (Ixi, 3). This
too is certainly a liturgical formula. There are many
others. But we can find more in I Clem, than merely
a promiscuous selection of formulae. A comparison
of the text with the first known I^iturgy actually
written down, that of the Eighth Book of the Apos-
tolic Constitutions " (written long afterguards, in the
fifth century in Syria) reveals a most startling likeness.
Not only do the same ideas occur in the same onler,
but there are whole passages — ^just those that in I
Clem, have most the appearance of liturgical f ormuke
— that recur word for word in the "Apast. Const."
In the "Apost. Const." the Eucharist ic prayer be- gins, as in all liturgies, with the dialogue: "Lift up your hearts ", etc. Then, beginning : ' 'It is truly meet and jast ", comes a long thanksgi ving for various bene- fits corresponding to what we call the preface. Here occurs a detailed description of the nrst l)enefit we owe to God — ^the creation. The various things created — ^the heavens and earth, sun, moon and stars, fire and sea, and so on, are enumerated at length ("Apost. Const.", VIII, xii, 6-27). The prayer ends with the Sanctus. I Clem., xx, contains a prayer echoing the same ideas exactl\% in which the ver>' same words constantly occur. The order in which the creatures are mentioned is the same. Again " Apost. Const.", VIII, xii, 27, introduces the Sanctus in the same way as I Clem., xxxiv, 5-6, where the author actually says he is quoting the Liturgy. This same
Preface in Apost. Const." (loc. cit.), remembering the 'atriarchs of the Old Law, names Abel, Cain, Both, Henoch, Noe, Salmon, Lot, Abraham, Mclchisedech, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Josue. The parallel passage in I Clem, (ix-xii) names Enoch, Noe, Lot, Salmon, Abraham, Rahab, Josue: we may iiot« at once two other parallels to this list containing again almost the same fist of names — ^Heb,, xi, 4-31, and Justin, " Dia- logue", xix, cxi, cxxxi, cxxxxaii. The long prayer in I Clem, (lix-lxi) is full of ideas and actual phrases that come again in Apost. Const.", VIII. Compare for instance I Clem., lix, 2—4, with ** Apost. Const.", VIII, x, 22-xi, 5 (which is part of the celebrant's prayer during the litany of the faithful : Brightman, Eastern Lituisies", p. 12), and xiii, 10 (prayer during the litany iha,% follows the great intercession. Brightman, p. 24). Other no less striking parallels may be seen in DiewB, " Untersuchungen Uoer die sogen. clement. Lituigie," 14-43. It is not only with the Liturgy of " Apost. Const." that I Clem, has these extraordinary resemblances. I Clem., lix, 4, echoes exactly the clauses of the celebrant's prayer during the int«r- cessioQ in the Alexandrine I^te (Greek St. Mark. Briffhtman, 131). These parallel passages cannot all be mere coincidences (Lightfoot realized this, but suggests no explanation. The Apostolic Fathers", London, 1890, I, II, p. 71).
The question then occurs: What is the relation be- tween I Clement and — in the first place — the Liturgy of " Apost. Const." ? The suggestion that first presents itself is that the later document ("Apost. Const.") is quotinff the earlier one (I Clem.). This is Hamack's view ("Gesch. der altchristl. Litteratur", I, Leipzig, 1893, pp. 42-43), but it is exceedingly unlikely. In that case the quotations would be more exact, the
order of I C'leiii. would Ijc kept ; the prayers in tbe
Liturgy have no appearance of being quotations or con-
sc'ioiLs coniiH)sitions of fragments from earlier books;
nor, if the * 'Apost. Con.st." were (luoting I Cloro.,
would there be reduplications such as we have seen
alx)ve (VIII, xi, 22-xi, 5, and xiii, 10). Years ago
Ferdinand Probst spent a great part of his life in try-
ing to prove that the Liturgy of the " Apostolic Con-
stitutions " was the universal primitive Liturgy of the
whole Church. To this enueavour he applied an
enormous amount of erudition. In his "Liturgie der
drei ersten christlichen Jahrhundertc*' (Tubingen,
1870) and again in his "Liturgie des vierten Jahrhun-
derts und deren Reform" (Munster, 1893), he ex-
amined a vast number of texts of Fathers, always with
a view to find in them allusions to the Litui^gy in
question. But he overdid his identifications hope-
lessly. He sees an allusion in ever}' text that
vaguely refers to a subject named in the Liturgy.
Also his books are very involved and difficult to study.
So Probst's theory fell almost entirely into discredit.
His ubiquitous I-.iturg} was rememl^red only as the
monomania of a very learned man; the rite of the
" Eighth Book of the Apostolic Constitutions " was put
in what seemed to be its right place, merely as an
early form of the Antiochene Ijturgy (so Duchesne,
- 'Origines du Culte", 55-6). Ijately, however, there
has come again to the fore what may be dcscril^ed as a modified form of Probst's theory. Ferdinand Kat- tenbusch ("Das apostolische Svmbol", Tubingen, 1900, II, 347, etc.) thought that after all there might be some foundation for Probst's idea. Paul Drews (Untersuchuu^en tiber die sogen. clementinische T^iturgie, Tubingen, 1906) proposes and defends at lengtli what may well be the germ of tnith in Probst, namely that there was a certain uniformity of type in the earliest Liturgy in the sense described above, not a uniformity of detail, but one of general outline, of the ideas expressed in the various parts of the ser- vice, with a strong tendency to uniformity in certain salient expressions that recurred constantly and be- came insensibly liturgical formulae. This type of liturgy (rather than a fixed rite) may be traceil back even to the first centurv. It is seen in Clement of Rome, Justin, et<?.; perhaps there are traces of it even in the Epistle to the Hel)rews. And of this type we still have a specimen in the Apostolic Constitutions ". It is not that that rite exactly as it is in the " Constitu- tions" was used by Clement and Justin. Rather the " Constitutions " give us a much later (fifth century) form of the old Liturgy written down at last in Syria after it bad existed for centuries in a more fluid state as an oral tradition. Thus, Clement, writing to the Corinthians (that the letter was actually composed by the Bishop of Rome, as Dionysius of Corinth savs in the second century, is now generally admitted. Cf . Bardenhewer, "Gesch. der altkirchl. Litt-eratur", Freiburg, 1902, 101-2), uses the language to which he was accustomed in the Liturgy; the letter is full of liturgical ideas and reminiscences. They are found again in the later crystallization of the same rite in the "Apostolic Constitutions". So that book gives us the best representation of the Liturgy as used in Rome in the first two centuries.
This is confirmed bv the next witness, Justin Martyr. Justin (d. ar)out 104). in his famous account of the Liturg}', descril^es it as he saw it at Rome (Bardenhewer, op. cit., 206). The often quoted passage is (I Apologj*)' LXV. 1. "We load liim who nelieves and is joinecl to us, after we have thus bap- tized him, to those who are called the brethren, where they gather together to say prayers in common for ourselves, and for him who has been enlightened, and for all who are everywhere. ... 2. We greet each other with a kiss when the prayers are finished. 3. Then bread and a cup of water and wine are brought to the president of the brQthi^Tv., ^\A\\RV"Si.xvcv^i^'«*
