As you read Irenaeos' text you might want to briefly glance over the short article I have written. I apologize for including it but I thought it might contain an idea or two worth reflecting on when you read the above text.
The Birth of the Church
Church historians are almost unanimous that there were Christian communities before there was any sort of authoritative set of scriptures specific to Christianity.[1] In fact it would seem that specific texts originally achieved a certain level of authority within relatively isolated communities. Therefore there was a diversity of Christian communities that had differing “scriptures” and it would seem that these scriptures were in fact the product of different communities. Some communities might have only the Johannine texts with a few letters of Paul. Another community might only be familiar with Matthew’s Gospel account. Not until the time of Iranaeus, among the orthodox communities, was there much unanimity concerning which scriptures were authoritative. This of course begs several questions. Before this general agreement what was common to these early communities and what set them apart from the many communities claiming apostolic authority but were considered as early as Paul to be perversions of the Gospel? Did the communities form around specific scriptures or were the scriptures products of communities? If the latter, if not a text, what was the cohesive force of these early communities?
The answer to the first question is worship, namely, the worship of God who is uniquely revealed by His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ and the descent of His Holy Spirit. This worship was experienced as a meal which was at once a heed to the command of the Son to, “do this in remembrance of me,” a sharing in the His triumph over death, and a simultaneous and paradoxical awaiting and being gathered into His Kingdom. If this is what was held in common by the many communities it was also this which set it apart from many other communities. Those who rejected the Father as an evil demiurge would reject a ritual in which the Father reveals Himself through His Son. Those who held matter to be inherently profane could not accept a ritual in which God is experienced through eating and drinking. At the same time those who rejected that Christ was anything other than a prophet could not agree with a ritual in which participation in the Son leads to union with the Father.
The second question is much more difficult and does not have a simple answer. More than likely the community arose from a simultaneous introduction to the narrative of who Christ was and the worship of Christ as God’s anointed. This narrative of Christ’s economia was not originally scriptural but a narrative which a person was initiated into through baptism, the laying on of hands, and participation in the meal of the New Israel. In fact the New Testament texts, some have argued, are not simply historical accounts but the written reflections on the Early Church’s experience of Christ in worship. Metropolitan John Zizioulas expressed this in his class lectures on Christian dogmatics:
Christological hymns in the New Testament, which Paul discovered in the first communities (i.e., Philippians 2). These comprise theological-dogmatic elements for his entire line of thought. The same applies with the literary content of John’s Gospel (John’s Gospel is considered by many as a Eucharist-liturgical text; if not entirely, then at least in its basic core. As for the Gospel’s prologue, it most probably comprises liturgical material that John found to be used in worship). Peter’s literary work also: (Peter’s Epistle A is quite possibly a baptismal Liturgy), etc.[2]
Supporting this view that it was worship which was primarily authoritative is the example of Christian worships use and interpretation of the Judaic scriptures. A few examples of the early Church’s mystagogical interpretation of the Old Testament include the identification of the Passover lamb with Christ and the Eucharist, the Red Sea with baptism, and Isaiah’s vision with the Liturgy. A final point of support is the argument that has been put forward recently by biblical scholars who claim that many of the oldest parts of the New Testament, particularly in Paul’s letters, are hymns and prayers of a liturgical nature.
The Ante-Nicene Church
The letters of Ignatius are of tremendous importance in that they provide a picture of the way that an early Christian community existed. Most importantly Ignatius clearly see’s the hierarchy as essentially Eucharistic and deriving its authority from the Eucharist. He writes to the Philadelphians that, “there is one flesh of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and one chalice that brings union with His blood. There is one altar, as there is one bishop with the priests and deacons.”[3] He begins with the premise that the Eucharist is an image of God’s kingdom and that the bishop is in the place of God. The entire hierarchical structure together with the unique roles of the priests, deacons, and laity derive from the Eucharist.[4]
Both Ignatius and Iranaeus understood that participation in the Eucharist was participation in the life of Christ which led man to adoption as God’s children and a sharing in Christ’s triumph over death.[5] Ignatius says that the Eucharist, “is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote which prevents us from dying, but a cleansing remedy driving away evil, that we should live in God through Jesus Christ.”[6] The Eucharist was for Iraneaus the par excellence experience of orthodoxy. It distinguished New Israel from the old.[7] It also protected the Church from misunderstanding the identity of Christ and the truth of His incarnation. -micah
[1] Post-modernity has challenged the priority of texts over experience—a syndrome still dominant in modern Christian scholarship; the priority of theology, the conventional sense, over ecclesiology, and the priority of faith over the communion experience of the Kingdom of God. The dogma, imposed on all scholarly theological output after the Enlightenment and the Reformation, that the basis of our Christian faith cannot be extracted except from a certain depositum fidei, most notably from the Bible (to which usually Tradition was added), can no longer be sustained. More careful attention is paid and more serious reference is being given to the eucharistic communion experience that has been responsible for and has produced this depositum fidei. Petros Vasileiades READING THE BIBLE FROM THE ORTHODOX CHURCH PERSPECTIVE (published in Ecumenical Review 51 (1999), pp. 25-30).
[2] Metropolitan John Zizioulas, Thessaloniki University’s School of Theology Class Notes 1984-1985. http://www.oodegr.com/english/dogmatiki1/A1.htm#ena
[4] …your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons, who are most dear to me, and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Magnesians VI
[5] By His own blood he redeemed us, as also His apostle declares, “In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins.” And as we are His members, we are also nourished by means of the creation (and He Himself grants the creation to us, for He causes His sun to rise, and sends rain when He wills). He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies. When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him? Irenaeus of Lyons, Book V Chpt. II
[7] And the class of oblations in general has not been set aside; for there were both oblations there [among the Jews], and there are oblations here [among the Christians]. Sacrifices there were among the people; sacrifices there are, too, in the Church: but the species alone has been changed, inasmuch as the offering is now made, not by slaves, but by freemen. For the Lord is [ever] one and the same; but the character of a servile oblation is peculiar [to itself], as is also that of freemen, in order that, by the very oblations, the indication of liberty may be set forth. Irenaeus of Lyons, Book IV Chpt.XVIII
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