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The Jewish Influence on Early Christian Liturgy

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The Jewish Influence on Early Christian Liturgy The Jewish Influence On Early Christian Liturgy Christianity began life as a kind of Judaism, which, like that of the Dead Sea Scroll sectarians and the Samaritans, did not accept the Oral Torah, later enshrined in the Mishnah, Talmudim, and Midrash from 200 CE. As the Jewish scholar David Flusser commented in 1987 in ‘Jewish sources in early Christianity’ Like every new religion, Christianity developed stage by stage. In its first years its development was extremely fast. Christianity had already [in the first century] spread not only among Palestinian Jews, but also among Jews in the Diaspora (1987: Flusser, 68). Christianity retained the Written torah which is traditionally the Old Testament (tanakh) . The New Testament was added to these Scriptures. As time progressed, other elements were added that reflected the increasingly gentile background of its converts who soon outnumbered those of Jewish origin. Added to this phenomenon was the fact that the Christian expulsion from the synagogue apparently was not effected at least until after Gamaliel II’s activities at Yabneh, thus allowing almost two-thirds of a century of Christian liturgical development within a Jewish milieu. The elements that were absorbed into Christian worship evidently sprang from this period of disturbance and change as well as from a common biblical heritage. During the first century there was a decline in sacrificial ritual (only carried out in the Jerusalem Temple), which was being replaced by synagogue prayer and liturgy as well as by rituals within the home. The Pharisees, by transplanting the rituals of the temple to the home, helped to free the later sages from the necessity of offering sacrifices, and prepared the way for the reforms that rabbinic Judaism needed in order to adapt to life without the Jerusalem Temple, which the Romans had destroyed in 70 CE, A sizeable number of liturgical fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal an organised prayer ritual. Shemaryahu Talmon commented in 1960: Dr Marianne Dacy - SSEC Conference May 2013 Embedded in the scrolls and fragments...there appear to be scattered portions of a ‘Manual of Benedictions’, viz, a collection of blessings arranged according to the calendar, containing daily prayers side by side with festival prayers, after the manner of the mahazorta still used in the Syrian Church. His remarks have been vindicated in recent years with the publication of scrolls showing the practice of prayer at fixed times, public prayers, and prayers of fixed content. Prayers in the Temple The great Israeli Jewish liturgist, Joseph Heinemann, concluded that several liturgical elements had been transferred from the Second Temple to the synagogue. These included the Shema and a form of the Amidah (18 Benedictions), the use of certain biblical poems including the Hallel psalms, the recitation of the Decalogue as part of the Shema liturgy, and versions of certain rituals used by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. Daily Prayer Synagogue worship traditionally dates from after the Babylonian exile in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. Sources from the days of the Second Temple indicate that worshippers were scrupulous about reciting their prayers at exactly those hours when the daily services were being offered in the temple and the incense was being burned. During the Second Temple period, synagogue prayer was seen as complementing the temple sacrifices. The daily synagogue prayers, according to talmudic tradition, were instituted to correspond to the daily sacrifices (b. Ber. 26b). The archaeologist Eric Meyers also considers archaeological evidence supports the view that Jews and Christians relocated to Galilee. On the basis of the archaeological evidence he suggested that Jewish and Christian communities continued to live in harmony until the seventh century CE in various locations including Capernaum. The Benediction of the Minim Dr Marianne Dacy - SSEC Conference May 2013 Some scholars associate the ejection of Christians from the synagogue with the period of Yabneh and the twelfth benediction, the so-called Benediction of the Minim (heretics). Passages in John (9:22, 12:42, and 16:2) have been interpreted as pointing to the expulsion of Christians from the synagogue. If this is so, were these expulsions isolated cases, or on a more universal level? It would be difficult to pinpoint when Christian participation in synagogue worship ceased. Yet, despite Christian borrowing of elements belonging to Jewish liturgical practice, certain elements that belong to the essential framework of Jewish liturgy as it was developing before the fall of the temple were not retained in Christian liturgy, were retained only for a short time, or were radically changed. These elements include the prayer section of the daily service, which consists of the Shema liturgy and its blessings as well as the Amidah and accompanying blessings. The other essential element of the daily service was retained, namely the Torah readings. Research indicates that Torah reading and study were the chief religious activities in the synagogue during the Second Temple period. However, from material found at Qumran it would appear that the prayer forms were well developed earlier. The Question of the Shema for the Early Christians The Christian stance on Jesus was one of the key elements leading to separate Christian worship from Jewish worship and most likely was the main reason for the non-retention in Christian worship of the recitation of the Shema. In the case of the Shema, the point could be made that a movement that declares Jesus to be divine, would not be inclined to recite the text of the Shema, but would substitute cult prayers centred around Jesus’ death and resurrection. Again, why retain the use of tefillin (phylacteries), tallit (prayer shawl) or mezzuzah if the ‘Jesus’ symbolism is to distinguish the new movement, whose members came in increasing numbers from the ranks of non-Jews? The Didache and Early Christian Liturgical Documents There is an allusion to the Shema in the beginning of the Didache, which speaks of loving God and neighbour, cited as the first two commandments in the synoptics (Matt 22:34–40; Luke 10: 25– 28; Mark 12: 28–34). Dr Marianne Dacy - SSEC Conference May 2013 The Way of Life is this: First, you shall love the God who made you, secondly, your neighbour as yourself; and whatsoever you would not have done to yourself, do not do to another. (Didache 1:2) Some have argued that the Amidah or Shemoneh Esreh (HaTefillah, The Prayer par excellence), was a creation of the rabbis of Yabneh, as was the building of the recitation of the Shema into a regular daily liturgy. This, however, would not do justice to the evidence from Qumran, nor the obvious Jewish practice of the Shema reflected in the New Testament and Philo, as well as Ben Sira. According to the Talmud (Ber. 12a), the recitation of the Decalogue was dropped by Judaism, in reaction to the sectarians who retained only the Decalogue, which was part of the liturgy of the Shema at the time. This information is corroborated by evidence from the first part of the Didache, itself believed to be a composite document. It seems evident that the first part, known as The Two Ways, was part of an original pre-Christian Jewish document from the first century or earlier. While the so-called Golden Rule of Hillel and some of the prescriptions of the Decalogue are mentioned, the Sabbath is omitted. The Way of Life is this: ‘First, you shall love the God who made you, secondly, your neighbour as yourself; and whatsoever you would not have done to yourself, do not do to another’(Didache 1:2). But the second commandment of the teaching is this: 2. You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery, you shall not covet your neighbour’s goods (Didache 2:1,2). The Didascalia, a third-century document from Asia Minor, declares that only the Decalogue but not the other commandments need be observed by Christians. It claims to have been compiled by the apostles at Jerusalem immediately following the Council described in Acts 15. The law therefore is indissoluble; but the second legislation is temporary, and is dissoluble. Now the law consists of the ten words and the judgements (decalogus et iudicia). (Didascalia 26:9–10). Dr Marianne Dacy - SSEC Conference May 2013 In addition, the Apostolical Constitutions declare that the Decalogue is valid, but that Christ has released Christians from the bonds of the law. It is possible the text in the Babylonian Talmud (written up about the same time as Constantine was active (5th century CE) omitting the Decalogue, is a reaction to the Christian attitude to the law. Since the doctrine of the unity of God expressed in the Shema is basic to Judaism, it stands to reason then, that the first Christians, being of Jewish origin, were strongly affected by its influence and by their religionof origin. The New Testament (source?) reveals that Jesus reveres the Shema. Josephus alludes to the morning prayers of the Essenes, which would have included the Shema and its blessings as well as a form of the Amidah and its surrounding blessings. And as for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for before the sunrise, they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising(Wars 2.8.5). It also should be noted that John’s Gospel, in John 17, for example, brings together the themes of love and unity in God, which are central to the Shema, but in an altered context. May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you..
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