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Baptist, Baptists, Catholicism, Christian, Christianity, Eucharist, evangelicals, Protestants, sola, sola scriptura
The Last Supper (c.1598), by El Greco. WikiPaintings.org)
The major topic that prompted me to delve into a series on the Sacraments was wondering why Evangelical Protestants* don’t celebrate them. How can a people who profess to base their faith on Scripture alone ignore the very things — in fact, some of the only things — that Jesus told us explicitly to do? Baptism and the Eucharist are the only two of the Seven Sacraments that Evangelical Protestants have preserved in any form — but even these are relegated to the status of marginal, symbolic acts in very many cases. I’ve already written a bit about Evangelicals and Baptism.
Now, in considering the Eucharist, the perfectionist and scholar in me wants to offer a thoroughly researched and documented treatise on the theology of the different Protestant interpretations of the Eucharist, but this topic is now pressing and I thought I would give you instead a few preliminary thoughts. The Wiki provides a decent overview if you like that kind of thing. (And good Lord I had no idea it was this complicated and fragmented and daunting.)
* I am going to start capitalizing “Evangelical Protestant” as a proper noun (even though it’s incorrect! incorrect! by the Chicago Manual of Style) to distinguish Evangelical Protestants, the ones I grew up with and complain about from time to time, from other kinds of Protestants to whom my criticisms might not apply, such as Lutherans. I do this for the sake of not confusing or alarming my dear friend.
Institution of the Eucharist (1442), by Fra Angelio.
Compared to the rest of His teaching in the Gospels, Jesus gave us few direct, unambiguous commands. Among them are some of the last words he gave us before departing this earth: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mark 28:19) — an explicit imperative to baptize — and His words at the Last Supper: “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). One would think that the Apostles and the Early Church would place great emphasis on these things. And in fact they did: they were the very basis of early Christian worship, as St. Justin testifies.
The Witness of the Apostolic Church in Scripture
One would also think that Evangelical Protestants, professing to live and worship by the Word of God in Scripture, would place great emphasis on celebrating these essential Christian sacraments. For coming to faith in Christ is always, as a rule, followed immediately by baptism in Scripture. Likewise for the Eucharist: for it is clear from Scripture that the Apostolic Church celebrated it frequently, if not at every gathering:
Last Supper (1510), by Albrecht Dürer.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. . . . And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts. (Acts 2:42,46)
On the first day of the week [i.e. Sunday, the Lord's Day], when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. (Acts 20:7)
The word translated “as often as” in 1 Corinthians 11:25–26 is simply ἐὰν (eàn), most literally if — if you take the cup, do this — whenever you take the cup — but implying that it is something that will be done. It only makes sense in the context as an implication that it will be done frequently:
“Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:25–26)
Most crucially, Jesus tells us that He is the Bread of Life (pun intended):
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst . . . . Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (John 6:35,55–56)
The gyrations to which Evangelical commentators must go in order to evade a sacramental interpretation of Baptism and the Eucharist in these passages is rather uncomfortable to see.
The Reality in Many Evangelical Churches
The Last Supper (Coburg Panel) (c.1500), by Matthias Grünewald. (WikiPaintings.org)
But as my new Protestant friends have just recently attested, and as I myself saw in my wanderings, many Evangelical churches seldom celebrate the Eucharist at all — as infrequently as once a month or even once a quarter. Some have even dispensed with it altogether. It blows my mind how the celebration that Scripture plainly indicates was the central act of early Christian worship can have become so irrelevant, to people claiming to follow in the same tradition — how far down and far away the acorn has fallen.
I struggle to understand it. I would be happy if the leadership of one of these churches stopped by and explained the reasoning. But the very idea of dispensing with the Eucharist must rest on the assumption that Baptism and the Eucharist aren’t sacraments at all, but merely symbols or “ordinances.” This idea certainly wasn’t present in the theology of the better-known and revered Protestant Reformers such as Luther and Calvin, who both fully affirmed the sacramentality of Baptism and the Eucharist, and the Presence (however that Presence is understood) of Christ in the Eucharist. It was Huldrych Zwingli who first rejected the idea of the Sacraments, though it’s unclear to me (as yet) how this idea made it into modern Evangelicalism, which largely flowed out of the Second Great Awakening. The rejection of sacramentality seems to have followed in the death of any sense of the sacred at all.
The Last Supper (1594), by Tintoretto.
These modern Evangelicals want to avoid any suggestion of doing something “religious” or “liturgical” or “ritualistic” or — God forbid — Catholic. The idea of “sacraments,” in the Evangelical mindset, suggests that some “works” other than mere belief in Christ is necessary for salvation. The notion that “faith alone” saves, taken in this sense, rejects any idea of sacramentality before it can even begin. If we assume from the get-go that nothing else is necessary for salvation — something Scripture never shows — then any other idea, even if plainly stated in Scripture, is short-circuited.
These churches make a token of practicing Baptism and the Eucharist occasionally, just because they are plainly commanded by Christ. But they have no real meaning or efficacy. If something is merely symbolic, it must be unimportant and unnecessary. It becomes a mere “symbolic act of obedience” — read, “We do this just because He said to do it.” If it doesn’t do anything — if it in itself isn’t necessary for salvation, and doesn’t further the Kingdom of God — then why should we bother doing it? I often get the feeling that these churches feel that the Eucharist is merely gets in the way of the more important work of the church, preaching and teaching and evangelizing.
Not that those things aren’t important. For how are the lost to hear the Gospel without a preacher (Romans 10:14)? But the Early Church, and the Church throughout history, has understood that, as St. Paul says, the Bread and the Cup are a participation — a communion — in the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16). Through the eating of His Body and the drinking of His Blood, we abide in Him and He in us (John 6:56). It is a “remembrance,” but it is a remembrance in the same way the Passover was a remembrance of the Old Covenant: a re-presentation, “as often as you take it,” of the salvific sacrifice of Christ, our Passover Lamb — the New Covenant that saves us and sets us free. How can anyone shuffle that off as merely a quarterly “symbolic act of obedience”?
I am an evangelical christian, and I do agree with the points you have raised that we do tend to celebrate eucharist/communion as a ‘by the way, lets get this over with’ event, which is very sad. I think it is equally sad when we end up celebrating it without our minds and hearts being focused on the sacrifice that Jesus Christ gave of Himself on the cross. And it is even sadder, when, having partaken of the body and blood of Christ, we go out and live lives that dishonor God and seek glory for ourselves. As children of the Most High God, bought by the precious blood of Christ, may each one of us allow the resurrectiion power of Christ work in us and through us, to transform us and the people around us.
Thanks for the comment! I initially had a line in my post about feeling like some thought the Eucharist was a “nuisance,” but I decided that was too mean-spirited and removed it — but maybe some people really do think that way. As I commented above there are even some Catholic (if not the majority of Catholics) who take it for granted and don’t truly reflect on Christ’s sacrifice. We are not supposed to receive if we are in mortal sin or have been away from Mass and Confession for a while — taking to heart what Paul said (1 Cor 11:27–32) — but I’m afraid many “cultural Catholics” do. I do believe that Christ is really there in the Sacrament whether we have faith in it or not — but those who don’t truly embrace Him may close themselves off from receiving His grace. I can testify to that overwhelming and transforming Resurrection power.
This sounds familiar! I think you’re right that it’s just when you strip a sacrament of all power, you get a symbol and the Protestant ethos isn’t too keen on symbols anyway.
I also think the utilitarianism of Protestantism comes out in this way, either in the seeker-friendly attitude that avoids anything even vaguely esoteric or the more traditional attitude that sees church as a training ground for mission. Both are very out-ward focused actually, and that’s a great thing, but it’s why we have the liturgy of the Word and the of the Eucharist, and the historic division between the catechumens and the baptised. We need both.
Looking forward to the rest of the posts!
Absolutely! It strips away not just the symbolic but any sense of the sacred — any sense that one is in a holy place in church, in which to honor God with our reverence; that people or places or things or activities are sacred, and that God is anyone but our friendly neighbor. God is and can be that kind of intimate, personal God to us, through Jesus — but he is still God, the Creator of the Universe. Where is the awe?
I don’t think it’s a lack of awe as such. In my Calvinistic Anglican world, I remember plenty of awe and reverence for the Lord of the Universe, it just wasn’t expressed as reverence the way Catholics think of it. It was all internal and what you thought and felt and your moral actions, but never in ritual. Was that your experience?
Once, for thrills, I attended World Harvest Church (http://whclife.com) to see what the Megachurch experience was like.
There was no communion that Sunday, and it sounded like there was no set schedule for it. At the end of the service, Rod Parsley announced that communion was going to happen the following Sunday because at 3:00 that morning, the Holy Spirit had woken him up and told him to have communion the following week because “something special was going to happen”.
Reading the church’s website, it is clear that Baptism and Communion are only symbols to that church, and my experience tells me that neither are truly important. Only one thing is important in that church–that an individual must make a conscious act of asking Jesus into their heart. I have never bought this theology, and it goes against everything I grew up with.
I giggled at the asterisk–you begin to understand why Protestant is such a troublesome term!
Oh, I’m well familiar with Rod Parsley and his church. During my little visit to Columbus a few years ago, my mom called them and asked them to pray for me, which I do appreciate.
The internets are abuzz this morning (I guess, have been for a few days) with a story I thought you’d find interesting, if you haven’t already seen it: the suggestion (of suggestions of) a Lutheran ordinariate of the Catholic Church. I’m particularly amused by all the people — from Calvinists to Traditionalist Catholics — whose panties are in a bunch over the statement that there are some for whom “the changes introduced by the Second Vatican Council were an adequate response to Luther’s request for reforms five centuries ago.”
Hmm, an interesting prospect and an interesting article (though I wish the author had taken the time to quickly look up the name of the worldwide Lutheran communion instead of printing the wrong name). Most of the reforms Luther demanded are in fact in place now, whether through the Council of Trent or through Vatican II. And I’m not -too- bothered by the idea of a Lutheran ordinariate. I wouldn’t want to be a part of it, but who’s to say others wouldn’t? It sort of jettisons some key pieces of Lutheran theology though–Lutherans in the ordinariate would have to recognize the Bishop of Rome as the indisputable, infallible, and unilateral head of the church, something that Lutherans have taught against for centuries. It seems like it would just be easier to join the Roman Catholic church than to set up an ordinariate.
I’ve heard of the Lutheran World Federation, but apparently there is also a International Lutheran Federation? Perhaps a federation of more conservative Lutherans? Fr. Z has some reflections on it as a former Lutheran — it was through him that I found the Vatican Insider article. I suspect this will be a big deal for conservative Lutherans as it has been for conservative Anglicans, who are alienated by the liberal shift of many other Anglicans, especially on sexual and gender issues. As somebody I read pointed out — and this is the whole reason for the ordinariate — this would allow whole congregations to come to Rome together. Individuals converting entails leaving their community, and that is often not a good thing.
The body mentioned in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod’s site is actually called the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Council. It is the smallest of the three international Lutheran bodies and by far the most conservative, like the WELS, with 24 member churches representing a few million members. Next up is the International Lutheran Council, still conservative, but not as conservative as the CELC, with 34 member churches representing roughly 3.5-4 million Lutherans. It is mostly influenced by the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.
The largest by far is the Lutheran World Federation, with 143 member churches representing 70 million Lutherans, which is moderate to liberal and which includes my church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is this body that the article references, because it mentions General Secretary Martin Junge, who is the GS of the LWF.
Kind of an interesting response from Fr. Zuhlsdorf. He doesn’t seem to have any love for his former tradition. I, too, am curious about what Rome would consider to be “legitimate traditions”. To my knowledge, nothing that Lutherans do on Sunday morning conflicts with Roman Catholic theology except who is welcomed to communion–and even among Lutherans, there are very sharp divides. I can’t imagine something being forbidden, unless it’s allowing Pastors to marry. Obviously, some theological shifts will be necessary to bring the Lutherans in the ordinariate in line with Rome, but maybe you can think of traditions that wouldn’t be allowed anymore.
Fr. Z also has no love for ecumenism, which I find disheartening. He does have a point, though, that the LWF doesn’t govern any members, so Pastor Junge’s opinion is just that, an opinion.
Actually, assuming you aren’t already contemplating it, I’d like to hear your answer to your own question–why do you think that some Protestants don’t celebrate the Eucharist?
That’s what I hoped I considered a little in the post: a rejection of the idea of sacramentality as “works,” leaving them with “ordinances” deprived of any real power or meaning, and therefore any real reason to devote themselves to them. Feeling they have better things to do, like more preaching and teaching and evangelizing. Also, I suspect, a preoccupation with real-life “application” and “relevance” and feeling that “churchy” stuff is unattractive.
In reply to your other comment: That’s nice to know. My other Lutheran friend, a new Christian, for whom the note above was meant, is Missouri Synod.
Yeah, I noted that Fr. Z was rather negative toward the Lutheran tradition, but especially toward the idea of rejecting an ordinariate as “against ecumenism.” As you’ve called me on before, Catholics tend to look down on the “let’s get along” kind of ecumenism in favor of convincing others of the truth of Rome, or seeking real progress in resolving theological differences, even if only on the individual level — but occasionally, as with the Lutherans and the doctrine of justification, on a larger scale. Sometimes, though, the “let’s get along” and “let’s work to understand each other” kind is necessary before one can go the longer mile — especially when many Reformed Protestants reject even that. The idea that it’s better to preserve the weakening unity of a schismatic tradition (it’s true!) than allow people inclined to come back to Rome to do so, is what doesn’t sit well with Catholics. It seems to embrace the idea that “all roads are equally valid,” and we reject that.
“Legitimate traditions” might be liturgy and hymnody, style and externals. There is a fair degree of latitude within the Catholic Church for how things are done (there are a dozen or so different “rites” — the “Eastern Rite” for example, and Byzantine, and Maronite, and now Anglican Use, and a lot more) as long as the right things are done in accord with Rome. I don’t know enough about Lutheran liturgy to really give a specific answer, but if it’s true that “nothing conflicts” externally (there are certainly a few theological issues to iron out, and of course the authority of the pope at the root), then it could be a matter of keeping everything the same but making a few tweaks. Traditions that might need to be dropped, I guess, or modified, might be some of the historic confessions.
Also, Catholics welcome anybody who wants to to come worship with us. We just expect them to understand and affirm our faith before they are allowed into full Eucharistic communion. And we don’t allow anyone who wants to to become priests (not women, not married men [though there are exceptions to that], or people unrepentantly practicing sinful lifestyles — which goes for any sort of sinful lifestyle).
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for the very interesting post. I agree that a great deal of Evangelical Churches have abandoned the ordinance of communion. I would imagine that this is due to the increasing casual seeker friendly approach that many churches have embraced over the past few years.
While I do not agree with the idea that Christ is physically present in the Eucharist, I do appreciate the reverence that the church gives to biblical ordinances. We modern protestants could learn something from this indeed.
I believe that Western Christianity has missed the mark in numerous ways because of the division that was brought about via. Constantine, when he succeeded in driving a wedge between Gentile and Jewish believers.
The early church celebrated communion in light of Passover. The very sacrifice of Christ on the cross was an exact fulfillment of the Passover Seder (the telling). Every year as the Jewish people celebrated the Passover, they foretold of the Lamb of God who would come. Once Jesus was crucified they continued to celebrate the feast as a memorial to His resurrection.
The communion table was originally celebrated as more of a communion meal rather than a ceremony in a church service. While I don’t think anything is wrong in itself with the idea of the church setting, it is unfortunate that communion has for the most part been divorced from its Jewish roots in Western Christianity.
What do you suppose that Constantine did to “drive a wedge between Gentile and Jewish believers”? I’ve not heard this before.
I wouldn’t say that Western Christianity — speaking of the Catholic Church — has been “divorced” from its Jewish roots. (I think Protestantism, in “divorcing” itself from the Catholic Church, is now missing an awful lot.) The Church reads and studies the Old Testament and the Psalms just as ardently as it always has. In fact, the Old Testament underpins everything we believe. We teach that Jesus is our Passover Lamb, the fulfillment of the Old Covenant and of all the prophecy and Scripture in the Old Testament. Just because we aren’t all wearing yarmulkes doesn’t mean we’re “divorced” from the Hebraic roots of Christianity.
My mother (not Catholic, quite evangelical) is very big into the “Jewish roots” movement, too. And I do think there is very much of value and interest in studying the Jewish antecedents of our faith and everything we do, to help us understand better what it is we’re doing and better understand God and His love for us. Catholics do that, too; here are a few really excellent books:
(Speaking of Early Christians: I think you’ll find that the Early Church believed unanimously in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which was foretold by the Old Testament, and was very well understood by the earliest Jewish Christians.)
But we’re not Jews; we’re Christians. Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant, and gave us the New Covenant in His blood. He replaces the Old Covenant, which is now obsolete and has passed away (Hebrews 8:13, 2 Corinthians 5:17). The observances of the Old Covenant were but shadows of things to come, but now we have the substance of them in Christ (Colossians 2:16-17, Hebrews 8:2). Studying the Old Covenant is nice and edifying, but we shouldn’t place ourselves under it again! That’s the whole point of Paul’s letters against the Judaizers (Galatians 4:9-10, etc.).
The idea that Constantine was a Christian is pure myth. Constantine was a Mithras worshipper (Roman Sun god) not a Christian. As a result he began to mix the pagan worship of false gods with Christianity. Many pagan practices began to be adopted by the church during this age that has absolutely no foundation in Scripture.
Here is a short list of just some of these unscriptural compromises.
• The names of saints were inscribed on statues of pagan gods.
• Pagan holidays were adapted by the church as opposed to biblical feast days.
• The Sabbath was moved from Saturday to Sunday
• Gentile Christians & Jewish Christians were divided by Constantine, and Jews were forcibly required to abandon traditional biblical feasts and customs for a new gentile version of Christianity. Constantine officially made a division between the Jew and Christian by law.
Constantine absolutely despised Jews, and was instrumental in forcing a division between Gentile and Jewish believers. In my estimation Constantine did more to harm the cause of Christ than perhaps any other person in history. It was through Constantine that the mixture of paganism was introduced into the church of Rome.
Okay. You have quite a few different claims here. Let me take them one at a time.
First, Mithras was not the Roman sun god. The Roman sun god was Phoebus, Helios, or Apollo. Mithraism was a Roman mystery cult that first developed around the first century and was popular among the military. It never had a particularly widespread following among the Roman public at large.
Second, I’ve never heard that Constantine had any particular affinity for Mithraism. He certainly didn’t embrace Mithraism publicly, and you’ll have to cite some documentary evidence to make such a claim. He wasn’t much of a Christian for most of his life — he was only baptized a Christian on his deathbed — but he had a lot of sympathies for Christians. He claimed to have had a vision of the cipher of Christ in the sky (probably the Chi-Rho) at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, with the words In hoc signo vinces, “in this sign you will conquer.” He had his soldiers emblazon the symbol on his shield, and he won the battle. Soon after he issued the Edict of Milan, which effectively legalized Christianity and ended official persecution by the Roman government. Constantine donated land and built several basilicas for the Christian community in Rome, including the original St. Peter’s, St. Paul outside the Walls, and St. John Lateran. His mother St. Helena was a Christian and made several trips to the Holy Land, where Constantine also built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the traditional site of the Crucifixion and Christ’s tomb. He also called together the first Council of Nicaea. … Anyway, no, at least publicly, Constantine was not a Mithraist and was very supportive of Christianity.
Third, the claim that Constantine “began to mix pagan worship and practices with Christianity.” I’ll speak generally and then I’ll address the particulars you cite. You’ll have to support these claims. Constantine was the secular emperor, not the bishop of Rome. You’ll have to provide some evidence of how and when he ever had any direct influence on the Church. Even at the Council of Nicaea, he called the council and then stepped aside as an observer to let the bishops do their work. This is well documented.
You place a lot of emphasis on the claim that certain practices “aren’t in Scripture.” First, I think a lot of them are and you’re just not seeing them. Second, there’s no evidence that anyone in the Early Church ever held the idea of sola scriptura, that every element of faith had to be found explicitly in Scripture. That’s a Protestant doctrine that never gained any currency at all before the time of Luther. Scripture is the Word of God, but it’s not the only thing God said. Jesus Himself was the Incarnate Word, and His teachings to His Apostles, which they passed on as Tradition, are also a source of Christian doctrine. The Bible is not, and never claims to be, a compendium of all Christian belief.
As to “unscriptural compromises”:
Names of saints being inscribed on statues of pagan gods: I’ve never heard that, and I seriously doubt it. Statues of gods were, well, not very saint-like, and wouldn’t be very adaptable. They were usually naked and “heroic,” or else they were massive cult statues chocked full of pagan attributes. Nobody would ever have accepted those statues as representative of real humans, let alone saints. The imagery of Christian worship developed along a different path and very early, long before the time of Constantine. See, for example, the art in the Roman Catacombs and the icons of Eastern Christianity.
Pagan holidays adapted as Christian feasts: Again, there’s no evidence of that. “Easter” in English may be adapted from the name of a pagan festival, but in Latin and Greek the feast of the Resurrection was always called Pascha, Passover (it still is called that in Eastern Christianity), and celebrated according to various reckonings of the Jewish calendar. Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity, is the other one people (usually non-Christians?) like to pick on. But documentary evidence of the Christian celebration of the Nativity on December 25 actually predates any evidence of the Roman Sol Invictus or any other pagan holiday at that time. Anything else?
Let me “flush” this thing before I lose something; I’m typing on my iPad.
The Sabbath moved from Saturday to Sunday: Well, not quite. First of all, though it’s sometimes called the Sabbath, everybody knows that Sunday is not the Jewish Sabbath. The Early Christians — back to the very first generation, the Apostles themselves — celebrated Christian worship on Sunday, which they called “the Lord’s day,” in honor of Christ’s Resurrection, which superseded the Jewish Law. This is in the Bible. To cite just a few verses, and there are more: Acts 20:7: The “first day of the week” is Sunday. 1 Cor 16:1-2: They’re taking a collection on “the first day of the week” because that’s the day they’re getting together “to break bread” anyway. If this were the same day as the Sabbath, Paul would certainly have called it that. Revelation 1:10: When do you suppose “the Lord’s Day” was? As you seem well aware, the earliest Christians were Jews. They would celebrate their Jewish synagogue services on the Sabbath, and then after the sun went down (then Sunday by their reckoning), they would celebrate the Christian mysteries.
Constantine dividing Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians: As I said originally, I’ve never heard this and you’ll have to cite some evidence other than your own assertions. While it’s clear that Constantine didn’t care much for the Jewish religion, Jewish Christians by the fourth century were already pretty well distinct from traditional Jews and were seen, by Constantine, by the Jews, and by everybody else, as Christians, not practitioners of Judaism. As for the law: Jews had the same protections under the Edict of Milan that Christians did.
Again your claim about “a mixture of paganism and Christianity in the Church of Rome”: this is a very common anti-Catholic claim, but can you support it? What practices do you suppose were “pagan” in origin?
By, the way, this happened to come up in my daily reading of the Catechism this morning (I don’t really believe in coincidences):
1096. Jewish liturgy and Christian liturgy. A better knowledge of the Jewish people’s faith and religious life as professed and lived even now can help our better understanding of certain aspects of Christian liturgy. For both Jews and Christians Sacred Scripture is an essential part of their respective liturgies: in the proclamation of the Word of God, the response to this word, prayer of praise and intercession for the living and the dead, invocation of God’s mercy. In its characteristic structure the Liturgy of the Word originates in Jewish prayer. The Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical texts and formularies, as well as those of our most venerable prayers, including the Lord’s Prayer, have parallels in Jewish prayer. The Eucharistic Prayers also draw their inspiration from the Jewish tradition. The relationship between Jewish liturgy and Christian liturgy, but also their differences in content, are particularly evident in the great feasts of the liturgical year, such as Passover. Christians and Jews both celebrate the Passover. For Jews, it is the Passover of history, tending toward the future; for Christians, it is the Passover fulfilled in the death and Resurrection of Christ, though always in expectation of its definitive consummation.
Oh, and thanks for the comment. I do appreciate it.
Leo the Great in his day says that it was the custom of many Christians to stand on the steps of the church of St. Peter and pay homage to the sun by obeisance and prayers (cf. Euseb. Alexand. in Mai, “Nov. Patr. Bibl.”, 11, 523; Augustine, Enarration on Psalm 10; Leo I, Sermon 26). When such conditions prevailed it is easy to understand that many of the emperors yielded to the delusion that they could unite all their subjects in the adoration of the one sun-god who combined in himself the Father-God of the Christians and the much-worshipped Mithras; thus the empire could be founded anew on unity of religion. Even Constantine, as will be shown farther on, for a time cherished this mistaken belief. It looks almost as though the last persecutions of the Christians were directed more against all irreconcilables and extremists than against the great body of Christians.
Constantine was trying to bring Christianity and sun-god worship together, in order to have what he considered the best of both worlds. This resulted in a mixture of the two religions.
In the dedication of Constantinople in 330 a ceremonial half pagan, half Christian was used. The chariot of the sun-god was set in the market-place, and over its head was placed the Cross of Christ, while the Kyrie Eleison was sung. Shortly before his death Constantine confirmed the privileges of the priests of the ancient gods. Many other actions of his have also the appearance of half-measures, as if he himself had wavered and had always held in reality to some form of syncretistic religion. In other words he was trying to appeal to Christians and pagans, thus mixing the two religions. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04295c.htm The Catholic Encyclopedia
While Constantine was noted for favoring Christianity, his rule brought about the marriage of Christian practices with pagan customs. A more orthodox form of Christianity was given birth to that looked very little like the first century church.
Here is another interesting take on the Roman Catholic Church from a Jewish perspective.
The Rape of Torah by PROFESSOR WA LIEBENBERG
The Early Church Fathers, Medieval Period, High Middle Age, East-West Split, Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and Christianity in the Modern Era
Christianity began as a Jewish sect, called the Natsarim (Nazarenes).35 36 The Christian Church traces its history to Y’shua and the Twelve Apostles, and the early dominant Church saw the bishops of the Church as the successors of the Apostles in general. We are speaking here of the Roman Catholic Church. Apostolic Succession is central to the doctrines of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican Churches. They believe that the bishops are the spiritual successors of the original twelve apostles, through the historically-unbroken chain of consecration. They still hold this view to this very day.
From the beginning, Christians were subject to various persecutions. These persecutions often resulted in death for Christians such as Stephen37 and James, the son of Zebedee.38 Larger-scale persecutions followed at the hands of the authorities of the Roman Empire. It began in 64 AD, when, as reported by the Roman historian Tacitus, the Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for that year’s great Fire of Rome.
According to Church tradition, it was under Nero’s persecution that the early Church leaders, Peter and Paul, were martyred in Rome. Further widespread persecutions of the Church occurred under nine subsequent Roman emperors which followed—including Domitian, Decius and Diocletian. From the year 150, Christian teachers began to produce theological and “apologetic” works aimed at defending their faith. These authors are known as the Church Fathers, and the study of them is called Patristics. These Church Fathers include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.
All these early Church fathers opposed the Torah-based teachings of the “Jews.” A doctrine was birthed that they were in the “Dispensation of Grace” and that the Torah of the TaNaCh (Old Covenant) is not valid anymore. Furthermore, all the Jewish Books in the Newer Covenant, written years before Paul’s Epistles, were considered not so important and moved to the end, and Books such as Romans and the Epistles written by Paul were moved to the front of the Brit Chadashah. The Roman Church was being birthed and the Letters written to them was regarded as superior. To make things worse, these Letters were also viewed through the eyes of the Roman Christian, and not viewed from a Jewish perspective.
New teachings and thinking patterns were developed and the Jewish Torah-based lifestyle was seen as ‘Old Testament’ and obsolete. To make matters worse, the early Church Fathers regarded Torah as a doctrine straight from the pit of Hell! One of the main reasons for resisting any Jewish doctrine or thinking pattern was because they believed and promoted the idea that the Jews killed Y’shua the Messiah. Jews were seen as part of the “bad guys”.
Christianity was legalized in the Fourth Century when Constantine I issued the Decree of Milan in 313. Constantine was instrumental in the forming of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which sought to address the Arian39 heresy and formulated the Nicene Creed. The Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglican Communion, and many Protestant churches 40 still use the Nicene Creed.
In 324, Constantine the Great announced his decision to transform Byzantium into Nova Roma and on May 11, 330, he officially proclaimed the city the new capital of the Roman Empire. The city was renamed
35 Fortescue, Adrian (1912). “Veneration of Images”. Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved on 2007-11-26 36 Acts 7:59 37 Acts 12:2
38 “It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our clemency and moderation should continue to the profession of that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. … We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give their conventicles the name of churches.” Halsall,
Paul (June 1997). “Theodosian Code XVI.i.2″. Medieval Sourcebook: Banning of Other Religions. Fordham University. Retrieved on 2006-09-19 39 Arianism is the teaching of the Christian theologian Arius (c. AD 250-336), who lived and taught in Alexandria, Egypt, in the early 4th century. The most controversial of his teachings, considered contrary to the Nicene creed and heretical by the Council of Nicaea, dealt with the relationship between God the Father and the person of Jesus, saying that Jesus was not one with the Father, and that He was not fully, although almost, divine in nature. This teaching of Arius conflicted with trinitarian christological positions which were held by the Church (and subsequently maintained by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and most Protestant Churches) 40 “The History of the Church”, Howard A. White, http://www.appiusforum.com/restoration.html
Hmmm, a whole new set of claims? What happened to the ones you were going to support before?
As I said and admitted before, Constantine wasn’t much of a Christian (really wasn’t a Christian at all, until his deathbed conversion). The fact that he himself practiced syncretism and “half-measures,” or even that many other Christians in his day did, is no reflection on the truth of Christ’s Church. There are many compromising Christians today, too.
If Constantine’s efforts resulted in a “mixture” of Christianity and sun worship, do you see evidence of sun worship in the Roman Catholic Church today? What about in the Church Fathers? You might peruse the writings of some Fathers who were roughly contemporary with Constantine, such as St. Ambrose (c. A.D. 340–397), St. Jerome (c. A.D. 347–420), or St. Augustine (A.D. 354–430); or some that were later, such as Pope St. Gregory the Great (c. A.D. 540–604). (You can read many of their writings here.) Do you find sun worship? What about in today’s Catechism?
“Orthodox,” you know, means “fixed belief.” So orthodoxy is adherence to the right beliefs of the faith that were set forth in the beginning. If you’re concerned about the orthodoxy of the fourth century being different than the orthodoxy of the first century, you might read the canons of the First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325), and also some first century writings of the Church: The Didache is instructive, as are the Letter of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (both of these can be dated as early as A.D. 70, or as late as the A.D. 90s, depending on the scholar), or the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (ca. A.D. 100). These are all considered orthodox writings.
This article you quote from a “Jewish perspective” is pretty scary and frankly possibly heretical. The New Testament is clear as water that the Old Covenant is “obsolete” and has “passed away.” See the verses I already cited to you (Hebrews 8:2,13, and pretty much the whole Letter to the Hebrews; 2 Corinthians 5:17, Colossians 2:16-17, Galatians 4:9-10, and that’s just to begin with). If anyone is seeking to impose Torah on today’s Christians — and Paul is deadly and explicitly clear that it’s through faith, not through the Law (Torah), that we are saved — then they’re falling prey to the early (and apparently still alive) heresy of the Judaizers, which was rejected by the Church at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15).
It is evidently clear the Christianity came out of Judaism. The roots of Christianity are clearly Hebrew, and not Western. My point being that when the gentile believers began to outnumber Jewish believers the church began to take on a great deal more gentile style.
Unfortunately many of the early church fathers were actually very anti-Semitic, and began to renounce Jews, and force them to comply with a more Gentile version of Christianity by denying them the right to practice the Feasts of the Lord, and denying them the right to keep the Kosher Torah laws.
The idea that the Old Covenant has been abolished is purely a Western gentile idea that came about as the result of divorcing Christianity from its Jewish roots. Everything Jesus and the apostles taught was straight out of the Old Testament. The law never was intended to save anyone, as it was clearly added over 400 years after the promise of Messiah that God gave to Abraham. (Galatians 3:16-18)
The law was our school master to bring us to Messiah, but this does not mean that we abolish the law. Jesus never said that He came to abolish the law. He said that He came to fulfill it, which actually means to bring it to its logical conclusion. (Matthew 5:16-18)
Paul said that the law was good if it was used for its intended purpose. This simply means that we are not saved by Torah observances, but by the blood of Christ alone. (Rom 7:16, 1 Tim 1:8)
The Western church has basically thrown the baby out with the bath water by divorcing itself from its Hebrew roots. There is so much of Scripture that we will never be able to grasp if we do not see it threw the eyes of a Hebrew because it is not a Western book, it is a Middle Eastern book, and must be approached as such.
The church in the West abandoned the observance of the Feasts of the Lord, which are so rich in prophetic significance, and instead embraced Christmas, and Easter. While I celebrate Christmas with my family, and as a church, I prefer to call Easter by its less offensive name Resurrection Sunday.
It is unfortunate that when someone attempts to bring Christians back to their roots that immediately people imagine that we are preaching legalism. I myself do not observe Kosher Torah laws etc., and worship on Sunday. This is because I am a Gentile, and not a Jew. It is also the fact that I live in a predominant Gentile culture. However I do recognize that a great deal of what the Western church espouses as traditional Christianity is not really what the church looked like in the first century.
I will address the pagan practices later.
Paul said:
Paul, a Jew, says that observances of festivals and new moons are Sabbaths are “shadows of things to come.”
The idea that the Old Covenant has been abolished is a purely biblical idea, spelled out by Paul and the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, both Jewish believers themselves. I do not know any other way to explain it to you other than to show you the Scripture, which I have. If believers, whether Gentile or Jew, want to note the passing of the Jewish feasts, then that’s fine and edifying. But they are not a part of the New Covenant. Yes, the Law was a pedagogue, leading us to the Messiah. But now He has come and we are there. Jesus did bring the Law to its fulfillment. What has passed away are the ordinances about uncleanness, temple worship, and the like. What remains is the New Law which is written on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33, Romans 2:15) — God’s natural law that transcends the Torah and everything before, as revealed by Jesus Christ.
You will have to show me how any “Church Father” “renounced Jews” or “forced them to comply” with anything, or how any Jewish believer was ever so forced. You continue to throw out these unsupported claims. The fact is, the Jewish people rejected Christ, and they rejected their brother Jews who believed in Christ. Not only did the Church become “more Gentile,” but the Jewish believers within it, rejected by their brethren, in time left behind their heritage. Christ superseded the Torah and made it unnecessary. We are saved through faith, not the Torah. Is it any wonder that the Christian Church, even Jewish believers within it, drifted in time from Jewish cultural observances?
You continue to claim that the Western Church has “divorced” itself from its Hebrew roots. It absolutely has not. I have shown you several times the degree to which we study the Hebrew Scriptures in the light of their prophetic significance and Christ’s fulfillment of them. Every day we have readings from the Old Testament and expositions upon them. Biblical scholars learn the Hebrew language and the Hebrew context of Scripture. In what way is anything being “divorced”?
I say again, if you want to know “what the Church looked like in the first century,” read, above all else, the Bible. Do you find evidence of strict adherence to the Jewish feasts and observances in the writings of Peter, Paul, John, James, or Jude — who were all Jews? Next read the Apostolic Fathers, especially the Didache, St. Clement, and St. Ignatius. Clement, who was the fourth bishop of Rome and lived at the time of Peter, is believed to have been a Jew himself. Where do you find the degree of adherence to Jewish customs that you are espousing? This is “traditional Christianity.”
By the way, my googling just found this book, which goes to the heart of our question. I don’t know this scholar, but the reviews I am reading are good (Mike Aquilina, whom I respect, likes it), and it may be worth a read:
Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways: Early Jewish-Christian Relations by Thomas A. Robinson
Here is Mike’s review, which is sturdy.
Thanks Joseph. I will check out some more of these church fathers. I simply disagree with you about the Old Testament. I am not sure we will come eye to eye on this. I hear what you are saying, we are just struggling over some symantics so let’s just leave it at that.
I will read the article you suggested.
Thanks
I would recommend the following book as well http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Jewishness-Gospel-Message-Christians/dp/1880226669
I’m at a retreat this weekend, and found this book in the bookstore — if you are interested in a Jewish perspective on the Catholic Church:
Honey from the Rock: Sixteen Jews Find the Sweetness of Christ
I appreciate it. I am always interested in hearing things from another perpective. It seems about the timew we think we have a handle on something, something opens an entirely new door.
This one, too, by the same author:
Salvation Is From the Jews
Thanks