Voices In My Head Podcast Episode #275: A History of Christian Worship Part Four - The 4th through 8

Have you ever thought to yourself, man, I'd like to host my own podcast? Well, guess what? You can go to podbean.com/voices and get everything you need to create, manage, and promote your podcast. I use Podbean every week for Voices in My Head. There's easy uploading and publishing tools, stunning templates, custom domains, social and promotional tools, an embeddable podcast player, monetization tools, and more. It is your all-in-one podcasting solution. With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. So go to podbean.com/voices, and when you sign up, use the code "voices" and you'll get a sizable discount. Podbean, for your home podcasting. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer-songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show. Welcome back to Voices in My Head.

As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James, and I'm very glad that you can be here with us again this week. We are in part 4 of our 10-part series on the history of Christian worship. Hope you've been enjoying it so far. If you haven't caught the first 3 episodes, you might be wanting to go back and catch up before you listen to this one. I'm doing my best to give you an overview not just of church history or of history itself, but really just of worship history and how worship has changed over the years. So we're going to dive in today with Session 4: The History of Christian Worship, the 4th through 8th Centuries. So buckle in, here we go. While it is true that in Christ there is a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come, It's also true that every Christian comes into the new creation with baggage from the old life. In baptism, the old Adam is drowned, though as Martin Luther observed, "The old Adam is a mighty good swimmer." Though we may be converted from an old way of life, pieces of the past and influences of our present continue to shape us as people. If we are Christians living in the 21st century, then And for better or for worse, our lives will look different than Christians living in the 16th or the 25th centuries. As Christianity influences and changes the world, it also is influenced and changed by the world. As much as we would like to think that it isn't, it actually is. We all live in the same world together. We can see a great example of the church and its worship both changing and being changed by the culture around AD 313 when Emperor Constantine, through the Edict of Milan, proclaimed that people throughout the Roman Empire, particularly Christians, were to be allowed to worship in whatever way they pleased. Christians, who until this moment in history had been under great persecution, were now given legal rights, were entitled to the return of their property and were allowed to build churches. Until this time, the church had been a countercultural religion, living literally as a distinct colony of heaven on earth. However, with this newfound acceptance in the world, the church's worship began to absorb Greco-Roman architecture, art, dress, civic affairs, ceremonial Language and philosophy. As Christian worship assimilated the world around it, it was also changed in fundamental ways. So we're going to look at that today, ways that worship changed as a result of it being made legal and persecution ending. We're going to start by talking about architecture. Worship and architecture do go hand in hand together, believe it or not. Architecture is something that we have not really thought about much in our worship as of late. We seem to find whatever we can do on the cheap is usually the best way to go when it comes to architecture, but that simply wasn't the way that it always was. Within 70 years of the Edict of Milan, Christianity was promoted as the new state religion. As a result, Magnificent buildings were designed for Christian worship and were erected in Rome, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Christianity was drawing larger crowds now, and as the number of converts grew, the need also grew for bigger worship spaces. Christian worship became public and was no longer taking place in domestic house church gatherings. Christianity had a new status. And this new status greatly influenced its liturgy. Basilicas, Roman public buildings, were adopted as the primary architectural form for Christian worship. In Roman life, basilicas were where people gathered for law courts, important government functions, and for markets. Basilicas were associated with dignity, power, and prestige. Well, they were now also associated with being houses of Christian worship. Basilicas had a wide center aisle bordered by columns and side aisles. Opposite the main entrance was an apse containing the cathedra, or the bishop's chair, with other seats for clergy surrounding it. The bishop would lead the services and preach seated at the cathedra. This was in part due to the fact that Roman philosophers would remain seated while giving instruction. In front of the apse and the basilica was a small square table often placed under a canopy. This was a place of prominence where scripture was read from an elevated pulpit-like desk called an ambo. The ambo was possibly elevated to signify the tradition of Jesus teaching from the mountain, as seen in the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5. Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountainside and he sat down. His disciples came to them, or came to him, and he began to teach them, as it says. Now the decor on the exterior of the basilica wasn't given a lot of attention, but the interior was glorious. Basilicas were covered with mosaics of paintings depicting Christian scenes and stories. The idea was that when one entered into the basilica, they were entering into the new world of faith. Leaving the old familiar secular world behind. Those entering the dimly lit basilicas would find their attention drawn to the table and the cathedra at the end of a long columned vista. This is where the leaders enacted the liturgy in the realm of the "up there." The basilica was a fitting space for pomp and processions, creating drama and a sense of ceremonious dignity. This form of dramatic liturgy would be pervasive in Christian worship for centuries to come. The church would often assemble to celebrate the anniversary of the death of a martyr, or as they called it, their birth into eternity. For this purpose, Christians adapted pagan Roman mausoleums to house the tombs of saints and martyrs. These buildings where they housed the tombs of these saints and martyrs were called Martyria, or Martyries. A large domed Martyrium was built in Jerusalem on the site of Jesus' resurrection. As a result of erecting these great buildings, the church more and more engaged in the practice of veneration of the martyrs. The Martyries also provided the architectural form of many early baptisteries. The central pool of the baptisteries often resembled, you guessed it, a tomb. This gave visible expression to baptism's association with death and resurrection. The Martyries were round, octagonal, and cruciform buildings. In the East, Martyries were widely used as churches, giving Eastern worship a different orientation from the West. The Western churches tended to see the linear, rectangular plan of the Basilica as the only appropriate architectural form for worship. It's a little-known fact that instrumental music was excluded from Christian worship in the pre-medieval period. Noisy musical instruments were associated with paganism, since they used to entice the gods during pagan sacrifices. In hopes of being countercultural, the Christians incorporated plain, homophonic singing into their worship. Homophonic meaning everyone sang the same notes. There was no harmony. Now, it's important to emphasize this wasn't because it was sinful to have instrumental music. Now, I'm a singer and songwriter, as you know, and I love instrumental music. I play it every week in the church. But it literally was a way at this time that— well, really until this time— that the church was trying to be countercultural. So, they would sing and chant Psalms responsively on a regular basis. And even though Christians didn't want to be associated with pagan religions in their music, in the areas of art, interior motifs, liturgical utensils, and tombs, they borrowed from the pagans quite liberally. A good example of this is the church's use of Orpheus. Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and a myth in the Greek religion. He was often depicted as being surrounded by beasts that were charmed by the music of his lyre. Well, Orpheus became the prototype for one of the most popular early artistic representations of Christ called Christ the Good Shepherd. Not only were visions of doves, peacocks, sheep, winepressers, and fishermen incorporated into early Christian art, so were the Greek myths of Amor and Psyche. Amor is also known as Cupid, by the way. Christian worship also experienced a transition from the use of Greek in the liturgy to the use of Latin. Latin was more concise. Was more clear and straightforward than Greek, and it gave a new linguistic style to Christian prayer. Terms like sacrifice, oblation, and redemption entered much more frequently into Sunday worship, appealing to the Roman appetite for juristic imagery. The imperial courts had a huge influence on the rites of Christianity in this period. Because bishops were now elevated to positions of prestige in the empire, They were granted special privileges. While bishops were seated on their cathedras, their fellow clerics would bow down to them during worship gatherings. This is due to the fact that Romans bowed down to judges and consuls who sat upon their seats of honor. This is a questionable practice, in my opinion, and something that Christians should be very wary of. It doesn't come from Scripture. It doesn't come from Christianity. It comes from the Roman Empire. Anyway, side note, that's all that was. Moving on. Familiar ceremonial customs from the imperial courts like processions, torches, lights, and incense were also introduced into Christian worship. Pagan and imperial symbols were reinterpreted to have new Christian meanings. The imperial staffs, processional crosses, and bishops' crosiers absorbed new meanings in Christian worship. Candlesticks were first used for illumination only, but they too began to take on a new liturgical and theological rationale, since Christ is the Light of the World. When the church incorporated adornments into her worship spaces, scriptural and allegorical meanings were applied to them after the fact. In the ancient world, people would kiss each other as an intimate greeting, and they would kiss holy objects as a sign of veneration. Veneration meaning respect or honor, by the way. Christians also adopted this practice into their worship by kissing altars, books, newly baptized people, and fellow believers. It was like Love Potion Number 9. They were kissing everything in sight. Arguably, the most ironic thing to happen in this period was attributing sacredness to clothing that was never before seen as sacred.. When the street clothing of the middle-class people went out of style, they were adopted as the liturgical garments for the clergy. The alb, the amice, the collar, the maniple, and handkerchiefs and chasubles were all once everyday dress from the middle class, but now they were considered to be sacred vestments. A former badge of civic office in the Roman state, now became known as the clerical stole. While these adopted elements of the imperial court added a sense of majesty and drama to the liturgy, they also added to a growing sense of separation between the clergy and the laity. Maybe the most significant change to Christian worship in this time period was the adaptation of pagan prayer practice of facing to the east for prayer Like other borrowed practices, it was given a theological rationale after the fact. East was the direction of Christ's ascending and the Second Coming, so east became the direction that Christians were to face when praying. Church buildings now started being built with the facade of the building facing east, the same way that pagan temples were often built. Because of this new architecture, Christians were now forced to turn away from the table and face the front door if they were going to pray in the eastward direction. The celebrant, however, faced no disadvantage at all since he was already facing east across the table. Eventually, in order for the priest and the people to all be able to face the same direction, churches were built with the apse, or the altar, facing east. The new orientation of the building was a significant change with theological implications, since the priests no longer faced the congregation during the liturgy. Think about that for a moment. The people and the clergy were separated now. They didn't even face the same direction. They weren't looking at each other. Things are not necessarily always good when change comes about through this time period. As we're seeing. Well, let's look at baptism and how it changed a bit. The church, with all of its new adaptations, now had a new relationship with the world. Because of the large number of new converts and the sheer size of the church, there were noticeable effects taking place to Christian initiation rites. The older baptism practices were now seen as impractical, and by the 4th century, the rites and instructions for initiation were condensed from a period of a few years into a period of a few weeks. So, as we talked about before on this podcast, whereas it did literally take years before you could meet all the requirements to be baptized, now it was condensed down to a few weeks. That's quite a change. While adult baptism was still the norm, small children were being brought forth for baptism much more often. It's during this period that confirmation is first mentioned as a separate part of Christian initiation from baptism. For the first time in Christian history, confirmation, not baptism, was used to refer a person to their First Communion. Hear that again. For the first time in Christian history, confirmation, not baptism, was used to refer a person to their First Communion. In Baptism and Confirmation, Christianity now had two separate initiation rites. Because of the new controversies, like Pelagianism and Donatism, baptism started to be seen less as a rite of Christian initiation and was emphasized more as a rite for the cleansing of sin. This led to an increase in both deathbed and infant baptisms. Baptism started to become a rite of childbirth. Eradicating an individual's sin rather than a rite of initiation and incorporation into a separated community of believers. Quite a change in Baptism. And now the Eucharist. Even though from church to church there was much variation, the Eucharist remained the central act of Sunday worship. It was still the main event when Christians gathered together. It was still what made Christian worship Christian. Even though the liturgy was now performed in Latin, two main families of Latin liturgies began to emerge between the 7th and 8th centuries: Gaelic and Roman Rites. So let's examine these two Eucharistic rites. So here are the rites. The service of the word began with an antiphon while the clergy entered. An antiphon, by the way, is a hymn or a psalm performed by two groups of singers chanting alternate sections. So, you could actually have two different parts being sung. The bishop would say, "The Lord is always with you." The people would respond with, "And with your spirit." Three songs were then sung: the Trisagion, the Holy, Holy, Holy, the Kyrie Eleison, Lord have mercy, and the Benedictus from Luke 1:68-79. After this, prayer was prayed by the bishop, which often alluded to a particular season or festival. After this, the lessons were read, an Old Testament and an Epistle passage, the Benedictus—sometimes this preceded readings and sometimes it followed it—and then there was a chanted response. Sort of a way that we do responsive readings today without the chanting. And then a Gospel book, the Gospel book, was brought forward in a procession led by 7 torchbearers. Sometimes the Trisagion was chanted. The Gospel was read. People responded, "Glory be to You, O Lord." Trisagion was chanted again after the Gospel was read. The sermon was given by a bishop or a priest. A prayer for the church followed the sermon, and each petition was offered by a deacon. The people would respond to each petition with the words, "Lord, have mercy." The bishop led a concluding collect. The catechumens were dismissed by deacon. And then came the Eucharist. Bread and wine were brought forward by the people in a solemn procession. Songs of praise were chanted. A preface for the particular day and a prayer followed. Names of those who had made the offerings and names of the dead for whom prayers were requested were read. The peace was passed. Hymns and variable prayers were offered. Eucharistic prayer would then happen. Then the Sursum Corda, or Lift Up Your Hearts, was said. The Sanctus, and a variable prayer. Then words of institution and then another variable prayer closed the Eucharistic prayer. Well, now we have the Roman Rites. We have no surviving text of the Roman Rite, but we can see in the later text that many changes occurred during this period. By the time of Pope Leo the Great , the Eucharist was known as Mass. The 5th century Mass looked like this: A song was sung. A song began the Mass as the clergy entered. Choirs were starting to be used. Then came the Kyrie. Then, collects were offered by the celebrant, which were short prayers followed by the typical form. There would be an address to God. An attribute of God is spoken by which the petition is to be made. Then the petition would be made, followed by the reason for making the petition, and then a doxology. Lectures were read. Chanted psalms were interspersed. The people presented gifts of bread and wine during the offertory, and the choir sang another psalm. Then another collect was prayed over the offering. Then there was an introductory dialogue, and then the Sursum Corda, then the Sanctus, And the Eucharistic Prayer was prayed. This prayer was known as— this prayer known as Canon contains the old elements of the Words of Institution and Anamnesis, or remembering, with the new emphasis on Oblation, or offering. So there's a change from remembering to offering. Notice a lack of prayer for the communicants, or That's also known as the Epiclesis. Also notice a lack of emphasis now on Thanksgiving in the Canon, Thanksgiving also being the word Eucharistia. So here is how it would go: Make for us right, spiritual, worthy, this oblation, which is the figure of the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who the day before he suffered took bread into his holy hands looked up to heaven to You, Holy Father, Almighty, Eternal God, giving thanks, He blessed and broke, and having broken, gave it to His apostles and disciples, saying, "Take and eat of this, all of you, for this is My Body which shall be broken for many." In the same way, after supper, on the day before He suffered, He took the cup, looked up to heaven to You, Holy Father, Almighty, Eternal God, giving thanks, He blessed and gave it to His apostles and disciples, saying, "Take and drink of this, all of you, for this is My Blood. As often as you do this, you make memorial of Me until I come again." Therefore, calling to mind His glorious Passion, Resurrection from the dead, and Ascension into heaven, we offer You this Immaculate Sacrifice, this reasonable sacrifice, this bloodless sacrifice, this holy bread and cup of eternal life, And we pray and beseech You to take up this offering by the hands of Your angels to Your altar on high, as You deigned to receive the gifts of our just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our father Abraham, and that offered to You by Melchizedek the high priest. A careful look of the Roman Rite shows one of the great, the great things that divides between the Eastern and the Western Church. The Eucharist had always been associated with the sacrifice of Christ and our sacrifice in following him, but in the Roman Rites we can see the prominent idea that the Mass was a priestly sacrifice. In the Eastern Church, the focus of the Eucharistic action is epiclesis, a calling down from on high, when the priest invokes the power of the Holy Spirit's blessing upon the bread and wine. The Western Church places a greater emphasis upon Christ's words of institution than upon epiclesis, or the calling down from on high. Though Gregory the Great tried to shorten the lengthy Roman Mass, his revisions were actually added into the Mass, making it even longer. When prayers of intercession were added into the liturgy in addition to Gregory's revisions, The Mass became even more complex. Also, due to the rise of the emphasis on martyrs and saints, long lists of names of saints were also added to the liturgy. The Lord's Prayer was also placed at the end of the Mass during this period. There were several other additions and subtractions to the Roman Rites during this period. A Gospel procession with incense and candles was created. Frequent references to Mary were added. Scripture lessons were reduced to only 2 per service generally., and preaching happened less and less. The result of this was that the Roman Rites lost their brevity, their sense of order, and its sense of joy and thanksgiving. Worship was transformed from a communal gathering where the congregation gladly participated in a solemn rite enacted almost exclu— into a solemn rite almost exclusively offered by the priest. Tragically, worshipers now found the Mass to be a spectator sport. And that is tragic. It's still tragic today when worship becomes a spectator sport. When the sense of joy and thanksgiving and brevity even and order are taken from our worship, it's a tragic thing. Well, music in the Mass also underwent a change in the 4th to 8th centuries. Gregory invented the Schola Cantorum, the school of singers. The singers introduced new antiphonal psalms, or antiphonal hymns rather, which changed according to the seasons of the church year. While the music added much-needed beauty to the Mass, it also made the music more elaborate and thus more difficult for laypeople to sing. This well-meaning addition added yet another layer to the priestly monopolization of the Mass, making worship more more the work of the priest and less the work of the people. In the 5th century Mass, a number of collects for various occasions were added, such as prayers for weddings, prayers for anniversaries, prayers for the dead, prayers for good weather, prayers for illness, and prayers for epidemics. From these prayers came entire Masses devoted to various people and good causes. These Masses were called votive Masses, and from the 7th century on, ordained people were often paid by some wealthy donors to say Mass for their particular cause. In spite of numerous cautions against these kinds of privatized Masses, the votive Mass became the dominant type of Latin Mass. Many good priests and monks in the early 1000s expressed shock at the troubling number of often ignorant clergy who had failed in their duties, especially in celibacy. Many of the clergy were also more than willing to receive financial gain from the votive masses. Fourth-century theological disputes seemed to have been solved in less than satisfactory ways by the end of the eighth century. Looking at the church's worship, it seemed that Christ's sacrifice for the whole world had been reduced to a benefit for wealthy individuals who could pay for votive masses. As Christianity emerged from this period, the East had divided from the West, and it was indeed a very different kind of faith from where it had started. The new worship practices incorporated into the church were heavily influenced by pagan culture and would have tragic consequences for the body of Christ. As we leave the 8th century and enter into the Middle Ages next week, It's unclear whether the church has entered into a time of development or a time of decline. By the end of the 8th century, the church was less persecuted, which was a good thing, but Christian worship had also lost much of its power. I think we can hear this week, as we look at these centuries, the 4th through 8th, we can still see some of the things in our own worship today, even in Protestant worship. Our sanctuaries are often set up the same way. And there's many things that we can see that we still do in the services, but the one thing which I'm afraid we do more and more and we need to caution against is that it seems like too often the service is led almost exclusively by those on the platform. And those in the pews, it becomes more and more a spectator sport. This is something we do not want to take from the 4th through 8th centuries. If we can do anything to combat that point of view, then we must. We must learn how to invite our people to worship again, to a joyous, thankful celebration, to be participants and not spectators in worship. I really want to emphasize that in today's episode of the podcast. It's something that still haunts us and something that still affects us and something that we need to watch for and think together seriously about. How do we get back to a place of making worship for the entire community to God? That we would be calling down from on high the Holy Spirit into our midst and that we would all participate together in the Kingdom of God. What's interesting to me, and maybe the most important part of this, is the one thing that didn't seem to change is that the Eucharist, the communion table, it remained the central act of Sunday Christian worship. So, for the first 8 centuries of Christianity, at least, the Eucharist was what made worship Christian. Interesting. Well, we're gonna do more next week as we go into Session 5. We're gonna be looking at the Middle Ages, the 5th through the 15th centuries. So it's gonna be another long one, and I hope that you've been enjoying this. I have been enjoying going through this with you. So the last question for the day, something to think about after you've heard about Christian worship in this period after the time of Constantine. In your opinion, was this period of Christian worship more a time of development or a time of decline for Christian worship? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Let me know on Twitter @RickLeeJames or on Facebook at the Voices in My Head podcast page, or you can send me a note: rick@rickleejames.com. I'd love to know what you're thinking about these episodes. I hope you're enjoying them and finding them helpful. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. God bless you.

Thank you for joining me here this week on the Voices in My Head podcast. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page on Facebook at facebook.com/rickleejames, and keep up to date on what I'm writing at my author page on amazon.com. Make sure to follow my calendar on the website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, You can book me through my website by clicking on the link for Pare Booking Agency. That's P-A-R-E Booking. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you were to leave me a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction: May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen your inner being for every good work And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore. Amen.