My own view, for what it is worth, is that it is quite probable that the Eucharistic liturgy started to develop and be elaborated in Antioch quite early, because of the situation in that city, where there were Christians who had been Jews, or Gentiles, or – and this would increasingly have been the case – born into Christian families. My hypothesis is that in such situations there was a need to have a more elaborate liturgy which managed to meet two aims as far as possible: have a clear even if mystical significance, express the essence of the Christian faith, and to be relatively uniform and consistent. Let us go over these.To have a liturgy which had a clear significance. It did not have to be entirely understandable in intellectual terms, but it needed to convey a significance, a meaning, which began with words and actions, but transcended these. They are all directed towards a process, after all, the words used for the liturgy mean “offer”: Syriac qurbono, Greek anaphora and Latin oblation. This indicates that the liturgy did not simply reproduce Jewish forms. An older school of scholars tried to say that the Eucharistic liturgy had developed from Jewish meals. We will not be going into that here, but suffice it to say that some modern scholars do not believe this is so, and the documentary evidence is against it. The theory of continuity between the Eucharistic ceremony and Jewish forms is based on assumptions and on filling in silences. In fact, it often happened that the Our Lord and His Christian Church deliberately did what seemed right to them, irrespective of whether or not it was different from the Jewish practice. Hence, Our Lord’s words in the Sermon on the Mount, and His abolition of the purity laws. Hence the changes which the Church made as more and more Gentiles came into it.
I suggest, that the Eucharistic liturgy was, from the very beginning, unrecognisable as a Jewish meal: that would follow from the terms of the New Testament accounts and St John’s Gospel chapter 6 where people were outraged by what the Lord said to them. Of course, the full meaning of the Eucharist was mystical. That means, it surpasses human understanding. But people can accept that provided they understand that it is a divinely sanctioned mystery. The divine authorises the mysterious liturgy, and its mystery is a pointer to the divine: for God and His holiness can never be defined in words.
That is, I contend that the Eucharist had significance from the very time of its establishment, and that it was elaborated so that this significance was unmistakable. Further, all those who were present would need to have had a shared understanding. This is important because of the different views of what the Eucharist was, and once more, Ignatius witnesses to this. To provide for a certain consistent framework which would provide some uniformity, and minimise the chance that people would feel that they had wandered somewhere strange or alien to their faith, and so that as the faith spread, something which was uniform would be spread. And where else would this be as important as Antioch? I think it is no accident that Ignatius of Antioch was the first person we know of to call the Church a catholic, meaning “universal” Church. All Christians would have known that there were Christians in other places, that they were part of a swiftly growing faith. But I doubt that there was anywhere else where the conduct of foreign missions and the supervision of other churches meant as much as it did in Antioch. Perhaps Rome and Alexandria vied for second place. This is speculative, but it is not guesswork.
Having said that, let us consider what we know about the Eucharistic liturgy in ancient Antioch. First, it is without foundation, in my view, to say that we can take the Gospel of St Matthew and the Didache as being Antiochian documents, reflecting the situation there. I will not enter into that here. It is enough to say that the onus of proof is on those who assert that they can, and also to rule out other places. No one has done this, so far as I can see. No, our earliest evidence is the New Testament, and that is followed by the letters of Ignatius of Antioch.
Now, I believe that it can be maintained that there was some unity in the Eucharistic liturgies of the Christian world. This is the reason that the New Testament was compiled: it was for all Christians. For example, although there are grounds to think that St Paul wrote more than two and not less than three letters to the Corinthians, he edited them with a view to their publication for all Christians, St Peter refers approvingly to the letters of St Paul while warning about twisting them, and we know that Ignatius and Polycarp intended that his (Ignatius’) letters would be distributed and read throughout the Christian world. I am yet to come across a single reference in any ancient document to any “communities” referring to documents as being theirs or as coming from some other community (whatever the notoriously vague word ‘community’ may mean here).
With Ignatius we have evidence which unquestionably applies to Antioch, and evidence that he write to other churches as if his ideas and teaching applied to all of them. In fact, he works on the basis that there is one global church made up of many churches in various locations: which is the idea we have today.
St Ignatius specifically mentions the Eucharist four times in his letters: Ephesians 13.1; Philadelphians 4, and Smyrnaeans 7.1 and 8.1. As we have already seen, some are unsure as to whether in Ephesians 13.1, Ignatius is referring to offering to God the Eucharist and praise, or thanksgiving and praise. First of all, as a few scholars have noted, this is a false dichotomy: Ignatius means both, Eucharist and thanksgiving, together with praise. Second, there is so much in Ignatius on the importance of sharing the Eucharist which the bishop has consecrated that the sacramental interpretation of these passages is the natural one. St John Chrysostom wrote of the Eucharistic sacrifice: “… this sacred Mystery is called the Eucharist, because it is a remembrance of God’s many favours, and because through it the most sublime mystery of God’s providence is proclaimed, and because it urges us to give thanks for all things. For, if the birth of Christ is called everything, (Matthew 1:22), what then should one call the Crucifixion, the shedding of His Blood, and His giving of Himself to be our food in the Holy Eucharist?”
As we shall see, this is still the same view of the Eucharist as Maronites would have. It does not exclude the pre-Vatican II Latin idea that the Eucharist is pre-eminently the sacrifice of Calvary, rather, it adds to it. Perhaps St John Chrysostom’s most important work, however, is the liturgy which goes under his name. The Syriac liturgy is not the same as the Greek, but it is now thought that he may indeed have been the author of the early Greek text (even if he did not write it from scratch, but rather developed earlier materials), and it has been changed many times since his age. St John is not believed to have been an innovator in the liturgy, but to have restored some practices such as nocturnal liturgies, and to explain the liturgy to the faithful. It is said that here, in liturgical instruction, he did bring something new.
What St John Chrysostom did not do, apparently, was make a great contribution to theology: he witnesses to rather than develops doctrine, or so it is said. This may be a function of his chief role which was as a preacher: the homilist tries to exhort his congregation to live better lives, there is no need to teach them advanced doctrine. However, the fact that he is probably responsible for two of the most important anaphoras: one in the Syriac and one in the Byzantine tradition, both bearing his name, goes to show that by the time of Chrysostom the Eucharistic service we know today was in existence, even if it has changed from time to time and place to place.
This is an opportune place to say a word about ancient church architecture. The architectural and archaeological evidence is very poor. Considering the texts which have survived, known as “Church Orders”, Maclean concluded: “The earliest account of Church building is given in the Didascalia, which mentions ‘holy churches’, presbyters’ seats ‘in the part of the house which is turned to the East,’ the bishop’s throne in the midst of them, the laymen also sitting ‘in another part turned to the East’ behind the presbyters, the women behind them, so that when they stand to pray the rulers (praepositi) rise first and, after them the laymen, and then the women. All pray toward the East … (he cites several texts). One deacon attends to the eucharistic offerings, another guards the door outside; later in the service both serve together inside the church. The deacon arranges the congregation and keeps order, the aged and the young sitting in separate parts of the church …”
” … There are porticoes or chambers … ‘towards the East’ … these may be sacristies, for … the deacons carry into them what remains of the Eucharistic elements after the communion of the people. The church, which is oblong, and turned to the East, is like a ship with the bishop as helmsman, the deacons in trim garments as sailors and headrowers (toikharkhoi), the laymen (‘the brethren’) as passengers. The reader stands in the middle on a raised place.”
Maclean refers to other places where this naval imagery is used of the church and her ministers and people. He also notes that the altar was raised on three steps and veiled, and the bishop’s throne and the baptistery stood on three steps, probably in the East, and probably the same steps as the altar, with presbyters to the right and the left. The bishop was the celebrant: the priests and deacons assisted him. There were apparently places for men and women to the right and left of the altar, but the lectern was outside the altar. All places were lit.
There is also evidence of an oblong baptistery and other odd buildings outside the church. Whether all churches had all these buildings or the same layout is simply unknown: but the point is that the Church Orders seem to have seen this as the regular format. It seems that, during the Liturgy of the Word, the bishops and presbyters would leave their seats in order to go to the West, and face East, and all the people would face the East together. As Maclean says: “Standing was the normal attitude (cf. Mark 9:25; Luke 18:11, 13), kneeling or genuflexion was practised as a sign of special penitence, but was forbidden on Sundays and between Easter and Pentecost …”
Of interest to me is that the Arabic version calls the baptistery a phōtistērion or “place of light”, has this about light in the Church: “Let them be lighted with many lights as a figure of heavenly things, especially in the reading of the pericopae of the sacred books.”
Other than this, we should not forget that little is known about other matters, such as how many priests there were in Antioch, where the Mass would be celebrated, and even when, except that it was on Sundays and feast days, and not at all on each and every week-day, except the week after Easter, the week after Pentecost and during Lent. Why it would be celebrated several times in some other weeks, I do not know.