Essays in Early Eastern Initiation 9781463219413

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Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

Gorgias Liturgical Studies

12

This series is intended to provide a venue for studies about liturgies as well as books containing various liturgies. Making liturgical studies available to those who wish to learn more about their own worship and practice or about the traditions of other religious groups, this series includes works on service music, the daily offices, services for special occasions, and the sacraments.

Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

Edited by Paul Bradshaw

1 gorgias press 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by Gorgias Press LLC Originally published in All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2010

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ISBN 978-1-60724-363-2

ISSN 1937-3252

Published first in the U.K. by Grove Books, 1988.

Printed in the United States of America

Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

edited by Paul F. Bradshaw Associate Professor ofLiturgy, University of Notre Dame, U.S.A.

CHAPTER

CONTENTS

1. Baptismal Practice in the Alexandrian Tradition, Eastern or Western? by Paul F. Bradshaw

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5

2. Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in FourthCentury Jerusalem 18 by Maxwell E. Johnson 3. The Structure of the Syrian Baptismal Rite by Ruth A. Meyers

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EDITOR'S NOTE The Rev. Maxwell Johnson, a Lutheran, and the Rev. Ruth Meyers, an Episcopalian, are both students in the doctoral programme in liturgical studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and these three essays had their genesis as part of a series of seminar papers on the structure of early initiation rites which I organized there in 1987. My own contribution was subsequently revised and presented to a working group on problems in early liturgy at the meeting of the North American Academy of Liturgy in San Francisco in January 1988.

CHAPTER

CONTENTS

1. Baptismal Practice in the Alexandrian Tradition, Eastern or Western? by Paul F. Bradshaw

PAGE

5

2. Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in FourthCentury Jerusalem 18 by Maxwell E. Johnson 3. The Structure of the Syrian Baptismal Rite by Ruth A. Meyers

31

EDITOR'S NOTE The Rev. Maxwell Johnson, a Lutheran, and the Rev. Ruth Meyers, an Episcopalian, are both students in the doctoral programme in liturgical studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and these three essays had their genesis as part of a series of seminar papers on the structure of early initiation rites which I organized there in 1987. My own contribution was subsequently revised and presented to a working group on problems in early liturgy at the meeting of the North American Academy of Liturgy in San Francisco in January 1988.

1. Baptismal Practice in the Alexandrian Tradition: Eastern or Western? by Paul F. Bradshaw The liturgical practices of Egypt have not occupied a prominent place in the study of early Christian initiation, at least in part because of the paucity of materials from which to reconstruct just what those practices might nave been. The only really extensive investigation was made by George Kretschmar in a lengthy German article in 19631, and unfortunately this has not received as much attention as it deserved. In particular such is the insularity of much liturgical scholarship that it has been totally ignored by the authors of subsequent standard English-language works on the history of Christian initiation, including Leonel Mitchell writing on baptismal anointing shortly after Kretschmar2, J. D. C. Fisher writing on confirmation in 19783, and E. C. Whitaker in the second edition of his little study of the baptismal liturgy in 1981.4 All of these have perpetuated the traditional assumption that the early Alexandrian rite was fundamentally Western in character. As our study will show, however, such a simplistic conclusion will not stand up to close scrutiny. T H E B A P T I S M A L SEASON

Whereas, at least from the end of the second century onwards, the paschal celebration seems to have constituted the normal occasion for baptism in the West, Coptic tradition claims that in ancient times baptisms were performed at Alexandria on the sixth day of the sixth week of the great fast, i.e. at the end of forty days, and that originally this forty-day fast was situated immediately after Epiphany. Whilst the two principal authorities for this claim are somewhat late (the tenth-century Melchite Eutychius5 and the fourteenth-century Abu '1Barakat6), nevertheless support is lent to it by references to a forty-day fast in

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2 3 4 s 6

'Beiträge zur Geschichte der Liturgie, inbesondere der Taufliturgie, in Ägypten' in Jahrbuch flir Liturgik und Hymologie 8 (1963) pp. 1-54. Baptismal Anointing (SPCK, London, 1966). see esp. pp.51-58, 73-76. Confirmation: Then and Now (London, 1978), see esp. pp.61-76. The Baptismal Liturgy (SPCK, London, 2nd edn., 1981), see esp. pp.27-28. PG 111.989. See Louis Villecourt, 'Les Observances liturgiques et la discipline de jeûne dans l'Eglise copte' in Le Muséon 38 (1925), p.266.

Baptismal Practice in tbe Alexandrian Tradition, Eastern or Western? 5

both Origen1 and the fourth-century Canons of Hippolytus.2 The time of year is not specified in those sources, but it is clearly separate from the pre-paschal fast, whicn at that time lasted only six days.5 Canon 12 of the Canons of Hippolytus also says that candidates for initiation are to be instructed for forty days prior to their baptism.4 To this may perhaps be added the evidence, admittedly of doubtful value, of a Coptic legend which exists in several different recensions. In the version found in the tenth-century history of the patriarchs of Alexandria by Severus of El Asmunein, it refers to a woman who is said to have brough her two children from Antioch to be baptized at Alexandria during the patriachate of Peter (A.D. 300311), and to have entered the city 'in the week of Baptism, which is the sixth week of the Fast, when infants are baptized'.s This fast appears to have continued to be separate from the paschal cycle until AD. 330, when Athanasius attempted to bring Egyptian practice into line with the rest of the world by locating it immediately before Easter, and combining it with the already existing pre-paschal fast of six days, so that the total period was of six weeks' duration. Unfortunately, he encountered some resistance to this innovation, and even in A.D. 340, as his letter to his friend Sarapion reveals, his reform was still not being implemented. 6 Eventually, however, it appears to have been successfully accomplished, since we hear of no further problems concerning it. What then happened to the baptismal saeason? Thomas Talley presumes that it remained on the traditional day until the patriachate of Theophilus (AD 385412), when it was transferred to Easter.7 He bases this on a legend contained in a papyrus of the sixth or seventh century, which tells how 'from time immemorial' when the patriarchs had come to administer baptism on the appropriate day', a beam of light had come and signed the waters of the font, but one year in the patriarchate of Theophilus this miracle failed to happen. While celebrating the eucharist Theophilus heard a voice saying that it would not do so, unless Orsisius, abbot of the Pachomian communities, came. Two deacons were then sent to bring Orsisius to Alexandria, and he arrived just before Easter. Theophilus once more attempted to consecrate the baptismal waters, and this time all went well. In this way, the legend concludes, the feast of the resurrection and baptism were joined together, 'and thus it is done until this day'.8 > Horn in Lev. 10.2 (PG. 12.528B). Canon 20: see Reni-Georges Coquin, Les Canons d'Hippolyte (Patrologia Orientalis 31.2, Paris, 1966) pp.118-119; English translation in Paul F. Bradshaw, The Canons of Hippolytus (Alcuin/GROW Jt. Lt. Stud. 2, Grove Books, Nottingham, 1987), p.25. 3 Canons of Hippolytus 22: Coquin, pp.120-121; Bradshaw, p.26. * Coquin, op. cit. pp.96-97; Bradshaw, op. cit. pp.17-18. 5 B. Evetts (ed.), History ofthe Patriarchs ofthe Coptic Church ofAlexandria (Patrologia Orientalis 1, Paris, 1948), p.387. For another version of the legend see below, p.9, note 2. 6 See T. J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgcal Year (Pueblo, New York, 1986), pp.168-170. 7 Ibid., p.\96. " W. E. Crum (ed.), Der Papyruscodcx saec. VI- VII der Pbillippsbibliotbek in Cheltenham, (Strasbourg, 1915); French translation in L. Th. Lefort, Les vies coptes de saint Pachdme et de ses premiers successeurs (Bibliotheque de Musion 16, Louvain, 1943, reprinted 1966), pp.389-392. 2

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There is, however, some uncertainty whether this has any historical foundation. Although Albert Ehrhard defended it in an accompanying note when it was first published 1 , both Wilhelm Hengstenburg 2 and Théophile Lefort 3 have been more doubtful about it, and judged it to have been composed to justify the Alexandrian computation of the date of Easter, and in its present form to reflect Pachomian interests; whilst J. L. Duffes and Claude Geay point out that Orsisius is commonly thought to have died around A.D. 380, five years prior to the patriarchate of Theophilus, and they try to argue that paschal baptism was never practised at Alexandria, but that the story in its present form is a piece of later apologetic seeking to establish Melchite liturgical usages in Egypt. On the other hand, they assert that baptisms continued to be performed on the sixth day of the sixth week of the great fast, apparently failing to realize that at this period the pre-paschal season was only six weeks long in total, and so that day would have fallen on the Friday before Easter—the very day when the story says that Orsisius arrived at Alexandria. 4 To add further confusion to the picture, we should also note that a briefer version of the legend, which is found in the tenth-century history of the patriarchs of Alexandria by Severus of El Asmunein, merely speaks of it happening 'during the week of baptism' and says that it was a deacon, Arsensius, who was sent for, making no reference at all to Easter or to the persistence of paschal baptism. 5 There is yet another version of the legend in which all the bishops go to do homage to Theophilus on his appointment, and they find him in church 'for it was the seventh day after the Sabbath on which the people were baptized. And when they had filled the font with water, the archbishop and the other bishops went in and prayed over the Jordan.' One stayed outside, and when Theophilus went out to him, he was then able to call down fire on the font. Once again no reference at all is made to paschal baptism here. 6 In any case, because of the intimate relationship between the fast and the baptismal day, it seems improbable that the one could have been successfully transferred without the other. It would surely have been difficult to convince the general Christian populace of Alexandria that the forty-day fast itself was to be observed immediately before Easter, so long as baptisms continued to be performed on the traditional day, forty days after Epiphany, and the initial opposition to the relocation of the fast referred to earlier may well have been not unrelated to this. Thus it seems unlikely that it took over fifty years for this step to be taken. 1

See Crum. op. cit. pp,132ff. 'Pachomiana, mit einem Anhang ilber die Liturgie von Alexandrien' in A. M. Koeniger (éd.), Beitritge zur Geschichte des cbristlichen Alterums und der byzantin'tschen Literatur (Bonn, 1922, reprinted Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1969), pp.228-252. 3 Op. cit., p.LXXXV. 4 J. L. Dufl es and Claude Geay,Le baptême dans l'église copte (Cairo, 1973), vol. 1, pp,191a-d. This work, though containing useful information, is not a critical study. 5 Evetts, op. cit., p.42 7. 6 E. A. W. Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic Texts (British Museum, London, 1915), p.469; Translation, p.985. 2

Baptismal Practice in the Alexandrian Tradition, Eastern or Western?

1

Moreover, there is some evidence to suggest that at least in Pachomian monasticism, if not at Alexand ria itself, the transfer of the baptismal season was made at an earlier date than the patriarchate of Theophilus. Among the novices in the various communities there were often those who had not previously been baptized, and a story concerning Pachomius relates that 'it was the custom to bring to Phbow during the fast all the catechumens of the monasteries in order to give them baptism.' 1 This would have been necessary because of the absence of ordained ministers in the communities. It should be noted, however, that this remark is not part of the story itself but merely a comment by the redactor, and in any case it does not indicate at what point in the year the great fast took place, so it cannot be used as evidence that paschal baptism was practised before the death of Pachomius in A.D. 346. On the other hand, a further story concerning the abbot Theodore says that, when he became sick, the heads of the various monastic houses came to visit him, 'especially as the days of the holy Pasch were approaching; indeed, all the brotners gather at Phbow to baptize the catechumens. . ,'2 If this is historically reliable, it seems to suggest that here the baptismal day was transferred prior to the death of Theodore in A.D. 368. It is important to note, however, that even after the baptisms had been transferred at Alexandria, they were apparently not situated within the paschal vigil itself, as was the case elsewhere, but the legend speaks of Theophilus and Orsisius going to the church on 'the great Friday of the great Pascha; on Saturday morning he [i.e. Theophilus] opens the baptistry and the customary holy ceremonies take place . . I n other words, the baptism still took place immediately after the conclusion of the forty days. The only other reference to baptism at the paschal season in Egypt concerns the Melchite patriarch Proterios who is said to have been assassinated while baptizing children in A.D. 457, but the descriptions are too imprecise to enable one to judge exactly when in the week the baptism took place.3 It is unlikely that this survived as the sole baptismal season for very long. The second series of'Canonical Responses', attributed to Timothy of Alexandria but probably dating from the fifth century, indicate that candidates for baptism are now infants rather than adults, and that—most likely as a result of this—baptisms can be administered by a priest and are apparently not restricted to any one season of the year.4 A letter of the tenth-century bishop of Memphis, Macarius, 1

Lefort, op. cit., p. 141. ¡bid., p.211. 5 Zacharias Rhetor, Eccl. Hist. 4.1, speaks of him baptizing children 'at the time of the unleavened bread' prior to his death (text in E. W. Brooks, Historia Ecclesiastica Zacbariae Rhetori vulgo adscripta (Durbecq, Louvain, 1953) vol. 1, p.171; Latin trans., vol. 3, p. 119); Evagrius, Eccl. Hist. 2.8 (PG 86.2526), says only that his death took place during the paschal celebration, but Liberatus, Breviarium 15 (PL (58.1017), alleges that it was on tne day before the Triduum—which seems an unlikely occasion for the baptism itself, but could have been that of the final pre-baptismal scrutiny; see below, Pi 1 4 J. B. Pitra, luris Ecclesiatici Graecorum Histarica et Mcmumenta I (Rome 1864), pp.638ff; English translation in E. C. Whitaker, Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy (SPCK, London, 2nd edn., 1970), p.86. 2

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Initiation

maintains that 'when the confusion and perturbation had overcome us' (by which he is probably referring to the establishment of the Melchite patriarchate in Alexandria after the Council of Chalcedon, which gave rise to the assassination of Proterios), the initiatory rites were transferred to the monastery of his namesake St. Macarius, but that only the consecration of the chrism continued to be performed then, and not the baptismal rite itself. 1 T h e disappearance of the baptism was no doubt not unrelated to the fact that there woula not have been a 1 r i ~r 1 hildren needing initiation in this monastic setting as there Moreover, another version of the legend of the An tiochene woman, preserved in the fourteenth-century 'Book of the Chrism', places the event in the patriarchate of Theophilus, and claims that afterwards he wrote to the other patriarchs and asked them to ordain that baptisms should take place at all times, in every place, and by all priests, except during the great fast, unless it was a case of necessity: 'and that has been so until today'. 2 The attribution of this change of practice to Theophilus seems unlikely, but it does serve to show that the baptismal season was thought to have disappeared at an early stage. Sometime between A.D. 577 and A.D. 622 the shape of the Alexandrian Lent underwent a further change, and the forty-day fast was once more detached from the six-day pre-paschal fast, and located immediately before it, so that it now began seven weeks before Easter, and ended on the Friday of the sixth week, with the consecration of the chrism. 3 The following Saturday and Sunday were treated as festal days, and the six-day fast began, as was traditional, on the Monday. 4 This suggests that the memory of the ancient tradition had never really died, and indeed it is quite possible that it had been kept alive in other Egyptian dioceses which had refused to conflate the forty-day fast with the six-day fast and instead compromised by juxtaposing them in this way ever since the fourth century, ultimately persuading tne mother church to come into line. It may even have been the traditional custom at the monastery of St. Macarius where the consecration of the chrism had now been performed for more than a century. 1

Louis Villecourt, 'La lettre de Macaire, êveque de Memphis, sur la liturgie antique du chrême et du baptême à Alexandrie' in Le Muséon 36 (1923), p.38. 2 Here there is only one child, and they are said to arrive in Alexandria 'on the day of the sixth Friday of the holy fast'.- see Louis Villecourt, 'Le livre du chrême' in Le Muséon 42 (1928), p.58. 3 Tall ey,op. cit., 200. Abu '1-Barakat speaks of Palm Sunday as'the end of the holy Forty': see Le Muséon 38, p.314. 4 During that patriarchate of Benjamin I (A.D. 622-661) the Lenten season was further extended by the pre-fixing of another week of fasting. Known as 'the Fast of Heraclius', this is said by Eutychius (PG 111.1090) to have been intended as an act of penance for the emperor Heraclius' failure after his conquest of Jerusalem to keep his promise to spare the Jews living there. It seems likely, however, that the real reason for the addition was to bring the total days of actual fasting before Easter up to the biblical total of forty, since Saturdays and Sundays were never kept as fast days. A similar process can be observed in other pans of the ancient Christian world.

Baptismal Practice in the Alexandrian Tradition, Eastern or Western?

9

Thereafter, therefore, if not before, the consecration of the chrism took place on the Friday nine days before Easter, where it remained, according to the letter of Macarius, until the tenth century when it was again moved, this time to the Thursday of Holy Week in order to fall in line with the custom observed in other parts of the world. 1 Even this, however, is not the end of the story, for by the fourteenth century, according to Abu' 1-Barakat, the consecration of the cnrism was taking place on the sixth Sunday of Lent 1 , and in current Coptic usage baptisms are actually forbidden between Palm Sunday and Pentecost. THE CATECHUMENATE

Such Western evidence as there is suggests that originally the catechumenate there was a lengthy process, lasting anything up to tnree years, but with a very short period of final preparation, probably of only three weeks' duration. Although there are some indications of the possible existence of a similar three-year catechumenate in early times in Egypt, the evidence is of doubtful value. A passage in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, which compares the catechumenate to the three years of growth required for a tree by Old Testament Law before its fruit is consecrated to the Lord, has been thought by some to be implying that the catechumenate had the same duration 1 , but the comparison may well not be meant so literally. Secondly, the letter of Macarius states that originally only adults were baptized, after having been taught the Christian religion for three years', but such a statement at this late date could well be dependent on the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, which had considerable influence in Egypt. A similar affirmation made in the 'Book of the Chrism' 1 could also derive from the same source, or from the letter of Macarius itself, which is reproduced in that document. Thirdly, Canon 1 of the patriarch Peter, issued in A.D. 305, speaks of penitent apostates, who had done penance for three years, being required to fast forty days, in imitation of the fasting of Jesus, before they could be readmitted to communion 1 : is this regulation perhaps influenced by an established pre-baptismal catechumenate of similar length? An important piece of counter-evidence, however, is provided by the Canons of Hippolytus, which in Canon 12 entirely omits the reference to three years of pre-baptismal instruction found in its principal source, the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, and speaks instead of only forty days of instruction. 7 Although this document apparently comes from some other aiocese in northern Egypt rather than Alexandria itself 8 , it does suggest that there at least a longer 1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8

Le Muséon 36, p.39. Le Muséon 38, p.269. Strom. 2.18. See A. Mehat, Étude sur les 'stromates' de Clément d'Alexandrie (Paris 1966), p.221 ; M. Dajarier, A History of the Catechumenate: The First Six Centuries (Sadlier, New York, 1979), p.42. Le Muséon 36, p. 3 4. Le Muséon 41, p.57. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds.), Ante-Nicene Fathers 6 (Scribners, New York, 1926), p.269. Coquin, op. cit., pp.96-97, Bradshaw, op. cit., pp. 17-18. See H. Brakmann, 'Alexandreia und Kanones des Hippolyt' in Jabrbuch fiXr Antike und Christentum 22 (1979) pp.139-149.

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catechumenate was unknown, or had already become extinct by the early part of the fourth century. Furthermore, it has led René-Georges Coquin to conclude that the post-Nicene expansion of the period of final preparation to forty days elsewhere in the early Church was the result of the influence of the Egyptian tradition, a conclusion shared by Talley.1 In this regard, therefore, it would appear that it is not so much that the Alexandrian tradition was Western, as that other traditions became Alexandrian. Equally as significant, however, as any difference in length of the catechumenate between Alexandria and the West is the difference in character. We have no indication of any elaborate ceremonies accompanying admission to this stage of the initiatory process, such as we find in the West, nor reference to a traditio symboli at any point. Moreover, whereas the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus apparently expected there to be a daily exorcism of the candidates during the final period of their preparation, and a similar procedure is recorded by Chrysostom for Antioch and by Egeria for Jerusalem 2 (though later Roman practice was to do this only three times during Lent), we have no trace of such a custom in ancient times in Egypt. In place of the daily exorcism recorded in Apostolic Tradition 20, Canon 19 of the Canons of Hippolytus substitutes a single final scrutiny, apparently without exorcism, whicn takes place a few days before the baptism. 3 Further information concerning a rite of this nature is given in a baptismal ordo interpolated into the Ethiopie version of the Apostolic Tradition. This says that the candidates enter the baptistry and give their names; they are then examined to ascertain whether their preparation has taken place, whether they have read the Scriptures and learned the psalms; and someone acts as a guarantor for each one. Prayer-texts for those who have given in their names then follow. 4 The letter of Macarius confirms that this assembly was an ancient Alexandrian practice, held two days before the actual baptism and called Fishishin, meaning apparently 'scrutiny': 'All tne bishops assembled at Alexandria with the people of every country who were present and were admitted to the Jordan on the fourth day of the sixth w e e k . . . They assembled and the book of the patriarch which is called katbekesis, that is exhortation, was read to those who were to be baptized . . . On the fourth day of the sixth week of the fast the clergy and people assembled in the church of the Evangelists. They filled the Jordan with water. The lectors read. The archdeacon assembled before him the deacons who had written on a paper roll the names of those to be baptized. They read the prayers of baptism, invocations and supplications. H e said to them: fast until the end of tne day. Then communicate and depart. And a second day of fasting is also prescribed for them.' 5 1

R-G. C o q u i n , ' U n e R é f o r m e liturgique du concile d e Nicée (325)?' in Comptes Rendus, Acaâmie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres (Paris, 1967), pp.l 78-192; Talley, op. ai. pp.214ff. 2 See Whitaker, Documents, pp.4, 38, 42. 3 Coquin, Les Canons d'Hippolyte, pp.108-109; Bradshaw, op. cit., p.21. 4 English translation in G. Horner, The Statutes of the Apostles, (Williams and Norgate, London, 1904), pp. 162-164. ' LeMuséon 36, pp.35-36, 38.

Baptismal Practice in the Alexandrian Tradition, Eastern or Western?

II

It seems likely that the practice described in these last two documents represents a conflation of two stages of baptismal preparation which formerly took place on separate occasions, trie enrolling of the candidates and the final scrutiny before baptism. The former would seem to belong originally to the beginning of the forty-day period of preparation, as we find it in fourth-century Jerusalem practice and elsewhere1, and was very likely joined to the latter when children rather than adults became the normal candidates for baptism and the catechumenate fell into disuse. We can see a similar conflation in the Syrian tradition, where Pseudo-Dionysius seems to speak of scrutiny, enrolment, and baptism as taking place on the same day.2 THE PRE-BAPT1SMAL ANOINTING

In the ancient Roman rite, if not in the West generally, pre-baptismal anointing was exorcistic. This does not appear to have been tne case in the Alexandrian tradition. With one exception, which we shall speak of later, the term oil of exorcism' is not used by Egyptian sources of the first five centuries. The 'Canonical Responses' speak only of 'the anointing of oil'3; Cyril of Alexandria calls it 'the chrism of catechesis'4; and the prayeroverthe oil in theSacramentary ofSarapion describes it simply as aleimma, 'ointment', and suggests that its function was seen as healing and re-creation.5 This last document gives no formula for use at the actual moment of anointing, but other sources suggest what it might have been in ancient Alexandrian practice. The fourth-century Didymus the Blind says that 'in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit were we both sealed and baptized.'6 Geoffrey Lam pe understood these two verbs to be referring to the same liturgical action, water baptism7, but the more natural explanation would appearto be that the sealing here is a pre-baptismal anointing, and that both actions were accompanied by a Trinitarian formula.8 Moreover, the legend of the Antiochene woman, to which we have already referred, tells of her baptizing her children while on the voyage to Alexandria, since she feared that they would not survive the journey. She used her own blood to make a sign of the cross on their foreheads and over their hearts in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and then baptized them, saying, 'I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.'9 This confirms not Sec, for example, Whitaker, Documents, pp.24, 41. De Eccl. Hier. 2 4-7 (PG 3.396); English Translation in Whitaker, Documents, p.57. 3 Pitra, I, p.640; Whitaker, Documents, p.86. 4 In Joh. 7 (PG. 74.49D). 5 Text in F. E. Brightman, T h e Sacramentary of Sarapion of Thmuis' in Journal of Theological Studies 1 (1900), p.264; English translation in Whitaker, Documents, p.85. 6 De Trin. 2.15 (PG. 39.720A). 7 G. W. H. Lampe, The Seal of the Spirit (SPCK, London, 2nd edn., 1967), p.241. 8 See Kretschmar, op. cit., pp.44:45. 9 Evetts, op. cit., pp.386-387. In the version in the 'Book of the Chrism' the mother only signs the one child with her blood, and does not baptize him: see Le Musi on 41, p.58. 1

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only the nature o f the formula but also the great 1m portance apparently attached to the inclusion o f this pre-baptismal anointing. A similar formula also seems to have been used in early Syrian practice. 1 Later, however, changes begin to take place in the understanding o f t h e amointing. In the sixth-century Egyptian baptismal rite interpolated into the Arabic version o f the Testamentum Domini, the prayer over the oil asks G o d to send on this oil your holy power, and may it be oil which puts to flight all the works o f the adversary and destroys every evil and every injustice, so that those anointed with it may receive salvation and life and sanctification and turn to you with faith . . T h e minister then signs with oil the candidates' foreheads, eyes, ears, hearts, and hands, saying over each o f them, 'Oil putting to flight all t h e works o f the adversary and planting t h o s e anointed with it in the holy universal Church.' 2 A similar formula is also found in the baptismal rite interpolated into the Ethiopic version o f the Apostolic Tradition o f Hippolytus 3 , and a m o r e developed form o f this appears n o t only in the later C o p t i c rite 4 but also in the Syrian rites. 5 Sebastioan Brock has suggested that t h e formula originally c a m e from Jerusalem to Syria, since its t h e m e s feature in Cyril's Mystagogical Catecheses.6 It would seem likely, therefore, that the C o p t i c tradition in turn inherited it from Syria. In the later C o p t i c rite the pre-baptismal oil is called ' t h e agallielaion o f the oil o f exorcism'. T h e term agallielaion, 'the oil o f gladness', is also used o f the prebaptismal oil in Syrian circles, where again t h e anointing did not originally have exorcistic significance. 7 H o w then aid 'oil o f exorcism' eventually b e c o m e attached to it in the C o p t i c rite? T h e answer to this question seems to lie in the influence wielded in Egypt by the Apostolic Tradition o f Hippolytus. T h e Canons of Hippolytus adopted the term 'oil o f exorcism' for the pre-baptismal anointing from t h e Apostolic Tradition, even though it was alien to the indigenous usage 8 , and later this designation starts to appear in texts influenced by either t h e Apos-

tolic Tradition or the Canons of Hippolytus. It appears in the baptismal rite of the

sixth-century Canons of Basil9, which makes considerable use o f the Canons of Hippolytus, and also in both the ' B o o k o f the Chrism' 1 0 , and the Ethiopic translaSee Whitaker, Documents, pp.40, 48. See A. Baumstark, 'Eine ägyptische Mess- und Taufliturgie vermutlich des 6. Jahrhunderts' in Oriens Christianus 1 (1901), p.35. 5 See Horner, op. cit., pp. 170, 174. 4 See Whitaker, Documents, p.95. 5 See Sebastian Brock, 'Studies in the Early History of the Syrian Orthodox Baptismal Liturgy' in journal of Theological Studies 23 (1972), pp.30-32. 6 Ibid., pp. 38-39. 7 See, for example, P. W. Harkins, St. John Chrysostom: Baptismal Instructions (London. 1963), p.58. 8 Coquin, Les Canons d'Hippolyte, pp.110-111; Bradshaw, op. cit., p.22. ® See W. Riedel, Die Kirchenrechtsquellen des Patriarchats Alexandrien (Leipzig, 1900), pp.279-281. 10 Le Muston 41, p.57. 1

2

Baptismal Practice in the Alexandrian Tradition, Eastern or Western? 13

Don of the Apostolic Tradition.1 However, the manner of its usage in these last two documents confirms that it was indeed foreign to the indigenous tradition and its significance was not properly appreciated, for it was here applied, not to the pre-baptismal anointing at all, but to the post-baptismal unction. T H E C O N F E S S I O N OF FAITH

One of the principal reasons why Alexandrian baptismal practice has traditionally been identified as Western has been the apparent presence of a credal interrogation of the candidates similar to that in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus and the later Roman rite, rather than a syntaxis of the Syrian kind. It is attested by the third-century patriarch Dionysius 2 , and supported by a reference in the works of Origen. 3 This, however, is not of itself sufficient to demonstrate the Western character of the whole rite: it is clear from the evidence presented by other liturgical practices that Egypt was something of a 'maverick' in its form of worship, so that the presence of one element found in another tradition does not necessarily mean that all other elements from that tradition must have been there too. In any case, this interrogatory form of the baptismal confession of faith did not last long in the Alexandrian tradition, but was replaced by a declaratory form with a fivefold shape. Emmanuel Lanne has recently presented evidence for the existence from early times of a fivefold credal affirmation in the Alexandrian tradition 4 , and whilst none of this proves that such a form was used in a baptismal context at an early date, it does suggest that, when the change was made, such a credal form was already an established feature in that ecclesiastical tradition, and it may even have been already in use for some time in baptismal practice in Egyptian dioceses outside Alexandria. It is possible that the change from the interrogatory to the declaratory form of confession of faith came about when the indicative baptismal formula—'I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit'— was adopted. The first evidence for the use of this formula in Egypt is in Canon 19 of the Canons of Hippolytus, where the author apparently has some difficulty in knowing how to combine it with the interrogation, and resorts to the expedient of having it repeated three times, once after each question and answer. 5 Clearly such an arrangement was far from satisfactory, and it is not surprising, therefore, that the later Coptic tradition did what the Western rites would also ultimately do, and placed the confession of faith before the immersion. 1

See Bernard Botte, La tradition apostolique de saint Hippolyte ( M ü n s t e r , 1963), p.47, n.3. 1 In a letter preserved in E u s e b i u s , Ecclesiastical History 7.9. ' In Num. 5.1 (PG. 12.603C). 4 E. Lanne, 'La c o n f e s s i o n d e foi b a p t i s m a l e à Alexandrie et à R o m e ' in A. M . Triacca & A. Pistoia (eds.), La liturgie expression de la foi (Bibliotheca " E p h e m e r i d e s Liturgicae" Subsidia 16, R o m e 1979), pp.213-228. 5 See C o q u i n , Les Canons d'Hippolyte, pp. 112-113; Bradshaw, op. cit., p.23. 4 See W h i t a k e r , Documents, pp.94-95.

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Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

THE POST-BAPTISMAL ANOINTING

Among the points which Kretchmar made in his important study was the suggestion that post-baptismal anointing was a later addition to initiatory practice in Egypt and that the rite there originally included only a single pre-Daptismal unction, as was also the case in the Syrian tradition. 1 Other scholars, however, have assumed that all references to 'chrism' in Alexandrian patristic writers must be a post-baptismal anointing and not to an unction which preceded baptism. 2 This assumption is a dubious one to make, for three reasons. Firstly, at least in some instances the word may be intended in a purely metaphorical sense, as a description of the Holy Spirit, as indeed it seems to be in the New Testament. Secondly, even where it aoes appear to refer to a literal anointing, it need not necessarily be to a post-baptismal unction, since it was not in early centuries a technical term for this but could be employed in a more general sense. 3 Thirdly, since none of the early Alexandrian references specify precisely when in the rite this chrism was bestowed, they could well be speaking of a prebapusmal unction. Thus, for example, the allusion to 'visible waters and visible chrism' in Origen 4 should be treated with some caution. On the one hand, he could in any case be describing the baptismal practice of Caesarea rather than that of Alexandria here, and on the other, it should be noted that he immediately goes on to speak of baptism 'in the Holy Spirit and the water', and elsewhere says that 'the unction of chrism and the baptism have continued in you undefiled.' 5 The order in these last two passages, spirit/water, unction/baptism, may—or may not—be significant, but it should act as a warning against assuming that 'visible chrism' must necessanly be a post-baptismal anointing. There is furthermore the testimony presented by the legend of the Antiochene woman, where such great stress is laid on the inclusion of the pre-baptismal anointing, but no mention made of a post-baptismal unction. Finally, there is another piece of evidence not referred to by Kretschmar which, though of a late date, may be of some importance. The 'Book of the Chrism' contains two legends concerning the origin of the post-baptismal anointing. The first asserts that its use was traditional at Alexandria, the chrism itself having been obtained from the embalming of Jesus, but that it eventually fell into neglect and the supply of chrism disappeared, so that Athanasius had to write to the bishop of Rome and to the patriarchs of Antioch and Constantinople asking them to compose prayers to read over the baptismal oils, Basil being credited with the composition of those adopted. The second legend, on the 1

Op. at., pp.43ff. Fisher (op. of., p.72)even included as fourth-century Egyptian evidence extracts from the homilies attributed to Macarius, which are considered by scholars to be the work of Symeon of Mesopotamia. 3 For example, it is used in reference to the pre-baptismal anointing in Apostolic Constitutions 7.22.2, and. as already noted above p. 12, Cyril of Alexandria, in Job. 7 (PG. 7449D), speaks o f ' t h e chrism of catechesis". 4 In Rom. 5.8 (PG. 14.10*80. 4 In Lev. 6.5 (PG. 12.472D). 6 LcMusion 41. p.57-59.

2

Baptismal

Practice in the Alexandrian

Tradition,

Eastern or Western?

15

other hand, maintains that it was Theophilus who originated the use of chrism. He received from an angel the order to bring balsam trees from Jericho, plant them, extract the balsam and cook the spices, and to do this 'on the Friday of the sixth week in the monastery of St. Macarius, if possible, if not at Alexandria, according to the rite which the angel had made known to him. He fixed the ordo of the manner which is now well-known. H e wrote about it to all the patriarchs. All were in accord except the Armenians because of their innovation.' 1 I do not, of course, wish to suggest that either of these legends provides us with a reliable account of what actually happened, but I do want to suggest that some historical event must have given rise to them. The admission or the loss of the chrism and of the need to seek help from other churches to restore it in the first version is a somewhat embarrassing tale which does not exactly bring credit to the Alexandrian patriarchate. It is, therefore, difficult to imagine why it should have arisen at all, unless there were behind it come recollection of a genuine innovation during the fourth century. It is interesting that the second version too chooses the fourth century for the introduction of the use of chrism, although it does attempt to give it additional status by means of the angelic command and by the claim that it was from Egypt that other churches derived the custom. Once again, there seems to be no reason for such a late date, unless there is some truth to the story, and post-baptismal anointing was a later addition to the Alexandrian practice. Thus the Canons of Hippolytus, which seems to reveal the existence of an established practice of post-baptismal anointing early in the fourth century 2 , may well indicate only the beginnings of this development, since it is highly likely that innovations in liturgical practice would have been adopted in the smaller dioceses before they were accepted in the more conservative patriarchal church. The same may also be true of the Sacramentary ofSarapion, though, on the other hand, it is possible this may have been composed, or at least revised and expanded, later than the middle of the fourth century. 3 T H E C E L E B R A T I O N OF T H E E U C H A R I S T

The initiatory process in the West concluded with a celebration of the eucharist, in which the newly-baptized participated for the first time. It is not clear whether or not the same was true at Alexandria. The tradition here with regard to the eucharist, at least up to the end of the fourth century, was for there to be full celebrations only on Sundays, with communion from the pre-sanctified gifts being practised on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. 4 Since, as we have seen, baptisms were not performed on a Sunday, there seem to be three possibilities 1 2 3

4

Le Muséon 41, p.57. See Coquin, Les Canons d'Hippolyte, pp.112-115; Bradshaw, op. cit., pp.23-24. See Bernard Botte, 'L'Euchologe de Serapion est-il authentique?' in Oriens Christianus 48 (1964) pp.50-56; but cf. G. J. Cuming, 'Thmuis Revisited: Another look at the prayers of Bishop Sarapion' in Theological Studies 41 (1980) pp.568-575. See Socrates, Eccl. Hist. 5.22.

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Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

with regard to the c o m m u n i o n o f the newly-baptized—a special eucharistic celebration on the baptismal day, the reception o f c o m m u n i o n from the reserved sacrament, or even no reception o f c o m m u n i o n at all until the next Sunday. T h e tenth-century letter o f Macarius states that the first o f these was the case: ' W h e n they had finished, they consecrated the holy mysteries . . . and gave them to the baptized. And after that they m a d e t h e m drink from a chalice which they had consecrated, in which milk and h o n e y were mixed . . However, as we have suggested earlier, his account could well have been influenced by knowledge o f t h e procedure described in the Apostolic Tradition o f Hippolytus. T h e legend o f the Antiochene w o m a n , on t h e o t h e r hand, describes tne baptism as taking place 'when the patriarch had finished the liturgy' (by which may be m e a n t the liturgy o f the pre-sanctified), and after t h e baptism 'he gave to the two children o f the holy mysteries'. 2 A n o t h e r version o f the legend also speaks o f the baptism taking place in the evening after t h e liturgy 3 , whilst the legend o f T h e o p h i l u s , as we have seen 4 , places it on a Saturday morning, and makes no explicit reference to a eucharistic celebration in c o n j u n c t i o n with it. Possibly the evening in c o n j u n c t i o n with the liturgy o f the pre-sanctified represents the earlier tradition, and the m o r n i n g reflects the later practice when tne consecration o f the chrism alone was performed. CONCLUSION

In the light o f all this, it does not seem to do justice to the early Alexandrian baptismal rite to classify it as fundamentally Western in character. O n t h e contrary, it should m o r e properly be described as fundamentally Alexandrian in character. T h i s in turn means that we c a n n o t really speak o f two principal liturgical traditions in the early C h u r c h — E a s t e r n and W e s t e r n — b u t should rather acknowledge that there was instead a variety o f local practices, since there were also significant differences between the o t h e r churches which we designate as forming the rest o f the Western liturgical family. T h e s e in the course o f time increasingly c o n f o r m e d to a more standardized m o d e l through a process o f mutual borrowing and adaptation, but neither this resultant c o m p o s i t e pattern nor any o n e o f its constituent traditions can claim to have been the normative baptismal practice o f primitive Christianity, for such a thing-appears never to have existed, which would seem to call into question twentieth-century attem pts to restore it.

Le Muséori 36, pp.35-36. Evetts, op. cit., p.389. ' E A. W. Budge (ed.). Coptic Martyrdoms in the Dialect ofl'pper p.-H)4. 4 Above, p.8. 1 2

Etypt (London. 1914V

Baptismal Practicc in tlx Alexandrian Tradition, Eastern or Western? 17

2. Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in Fourth-Century Jerusalem by Maxwell E. Johnson T h e relationship o f the pr^-Baptismal Catecheses (hereafter, BCs) and the Procatechesis o f Cyril o f Jerusalem to the witness o f the Peregrinatio Egpiae has long been a subject o f controversy, speculation, and conjecture, resulting in the most divergent and tentative conclusions among scholars. One o f the major problems in these fourth-century Jerusalem liturgical sources is how to reconcile Egeria's description o f an eight-week Lent (c. 381-384), including seven weeks ox daily catechetical instruction for the compétentes focussing on both Scripture and the Creed 2 , with Cyril's eighteen (or nineteen) pre-baptismal lectures for the photizomenoi (c. 348) which seem to focus on the Jerusalem Creed alone. 2 This problem is further complicated by the fact that in Cyril's BCs the traditio symboli takes place at the end o f the fifth lecture 3 , but, according to Egeria, it happens only 'after five week's teaching', 4 following which the bishop begins to lecture through the Creed article by article. ATTEMPTS AT RESOLUTION One o f the first attempts at reconciling the witness of Cyril with that o f Egeria was made by F. Cabrol in 1895. 5 According to him, BCs 6-18 are clearly an articleby-article exposition o f the Creed and are, as such, to be assigned to weeks six and seven of Egeria's description o f the Lenten catechetical period. Likewise, Cabrol assigned the Procatecbesis to the first Sunday in Lent, but interpreted BCs 1 -4 as simply belonging somewhere in the first five weeks o f Lent, during which, as Egeria reports, the bishop 'goes through the whole Bible, beginning with Genesis, and first relating the literal meaning o f each passage, then interpreting its spiritual meaning'. 6 Thus BCs 1-4, on Cabrol's view, belong to a larger collection o f pre-baptismal lectures on the Bible which, for the most part, is lost. 7 Peregrinatio 46.1-4. The Latin text used here is that of Hélène Pétrèjitbérie: journal de voyage (Sources chrétiennes 21, Paris, 1948) and the English translation is that of John Wilkinson, Egeria's Travels, London, 1971. 2 The Greek text of the BCs remains that of J-P. Migne, Fatrologia Graeca, (PG), vol. 33. I have used the English translation of Leo P. McCauley and A. A. Stephenson, The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (Washington, 1969-1970). 3 BC 5.12. 4 Peregrinatio 46.3. 5 F. Cabrol, Les Églises de Jérusalem: Ladiscipline et la liturgie au IVe siècle (Pzris, 1895), pp. 143159. 6 Peregrinatio 46.2. 7 Cabrol, op. cit., p. 156. 1

18 Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

While not specifically assigning BC 5 anywhere, Cabrol proposed the following distribution of Cyril's lectures over Egeria's sixth and seventh Lenten weeks. 1 Week Six Week Seven BC 6—Monday BC 12—Monday BC 7—Tuesday BC 13—Tuesday BC 8—Wednesday BC 14—Wednesday BC 9—Thursday BC 15—Thursday BC 10—Friday BC 16—Friday BC 11—Saturday BC 17—Saturday BC 18—Palm Sunday Such a schema is very problematic and was regarded as such in at least two places by Cabrol himself While noting that Egeria indicates that no lectures were given on Saturdays, nonetheless, he assigned both BC 11 and BC 17 to Saturdays. In so doing he offered, as an explanation, that there had either been a change in practice between the time of Cyril and Egeria, or that the absence of Saturday instruction applied only to the first five weeks. 2 Such conjectures may be unnecessary, however, for it is not clear that Saturday instruction is ruled out by Egeria in the first place. All that she does say is that Saturdays and Sundays in the eight-week Lent (other than Holy Saturday) were not fast days. 3 Cabrol's assigning of BC 11 and BC 17 to Saturdays, therefore, need not be a problem. The second place where Cabrol saw a difficulty was in his assignment of BC 14 to a Wednesday. This particular lecture was probably given on a Monday, as therein Cyril refers to a sermon he had delivered 'yesterday, on the Lord's aay'. 4 Again, Cabrol dismissed this by claiming that a change in practice had taken place in the time between Cyril and Egeria and that his schema did not claim to be absolute. 5 Cabrol's schema was further called into question in a 1954 article by A. A. Stephenson. 6 Stephenson raised three other problems in addition to those already noted by Cabrol, namely: (1) that BCs 11 and 12 were, on the basis of internal evidence, probably delivered on successive days; (2) that BC 18 could not have been delivered on Palm Sunday but, owing to its apparent reference to the fasts and vigils of G o o d Friday in 18.17, belonged to Holy Saturday; and (3)

1

Ibid, p. 157. ¡bid., pp. 158-159. 3 Peregrinatio 27.1. 4 BC 14.24. On the interpretation of this lecture see page 29 and the Excursus below, pp.2930. 5 Cabrol, op. cit., p. 159. 6 A. A. Stephenson, 'The Lenten Catechetical Syllabus in Fourth Century Jerusalem' in Theological Studies 15 (1954) pp.103-116. 2

Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in Fourth-Century Jerusalem

19

that BCs 1 -4 which refer to baptism and the forgiveness of sins belong to Cyril's exposition of the Creed itself.1 From this basis Stephenson developed his own hypothesis. By comparing Cyril's lectures, the evidence of the fifth-century Armenian Lectionary (hereafter, AL), and the writings of St. Jerome with the witness of Egeria, Stephenson claimed that the Jerusalem Lenten 'syllabus' was the Creed alone and not Egeria's two-fold cycle. H e also concluded that Cyril's eighteen lectures were in and of themselves a complete course of instruction on the Creed. In Jerome's Contra Ioannem of A.D. 396-399 (written against Cyril's successor, John, whom Jerome suspected of Origenism) Stephenson found evidence that at this time the content of Jerusalem baptismal catechesis was still the Creed. Jerome says that John had summarized in a single sermon the entire contents of this teaching, namely, 'the doctrine of the Holy Trinity'. 2 Further evidence for this Stephenson found in t h e / I I in which nineteen biblical readings are provided for Lenten catechetical instruction. These nineteen readings correspond to the readings included in Cyril's eighteen BCs (with the nineteenth reading included in BC 18).3 Stephenson argued, therefore, that it was simply impossible to correlate Cyril with Egeria and that the weight of evidence lea to the conclusion that Egeria's description of a two-fold Lenten syllabus of Scripture and Creed was an error. This error, he claimed, arose from the fact that Egeria did not know Greek and had to depend upon an interpreter for her information—an interpreter whom she misunderstood! 'It seems possible that . . . her informants, in speaking of "Scripture, the ressurection, and faith" as well as of "the symbol," were making so many attempts to describe the unchanged syllabus of the Catecheses,\.e-, the Creed; and that what they really told her was that the Creed was delivered, not after the fifth week, but—what would have been very surprising to a Westerner— early in Lent, at the end of the fifth lecture, as in the Catecheses. '* Stephenson's conclusion is simply too speculative to warrant uncritical acceptance. While he was probably correct in viewing the BCs as a complete source of instruction on the Creed, his conclusion regarding Egeria's lack of proficiency in Greek—though possible—finds no explicit supporting evidence. Furthermore, his claim that the Jerusalem syllabus was only the Creed in the time ofEgeria's visit also presupposes not only that she misunderstood the time when the traditio symboli took place but that she also erred regarding the content of daily catechesis. 5 1

Ibid., p. 106. In BC 18.22 (not 18.17 as Stephenson says) Cyril writes: 'The Creed which we repeat contains in order the following: "And in one Baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins; and in one Holy Catholic Church; and in the resurrection of the flesh; and in life everlasting." Of Baptism and repentance we have spoken in earlier lectures ...' 2 Ibid., pp. 110-II2. 3 For the Armenian Lectionaiy see A. Renoux, Le Codex arménien Jérusalem 121II (Turnhout, 1971), pp.233-237. All references in this essay are to Ms. J. 4 Stephenson, op. cit., p.116. s Stephenson, op. cit., p. 116.

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Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

Another attempt at reconciling these sources was made by William Telfer in the introduction to his abridged edition of Cyril's work.1 Assuming on the basis of the nineteen readings assigned in the AL that BC 18 is actually a combination of two lectures, Telfer ended up with a total of twenty catechetical lectures for Lent. Assuming also, like Stephenson, that these lectures (as a complete collection) alone provided the course of instruction for the Jerusalem catechumens, he suggested that throughout the forty days of Lent (i.e., the eightweek period of five fast days in each week) lectures were given both in Greek and, for the less Hellenizea simpliciores, in Palestinian Aramaic, alternating on various, though not necessarily successive, days. Such an approach, he argued, would have given the photizomenoi time to assimilate the difficult content of the instruction. At first sight Telfer's approach seems to provide a brilliant solution to the problem. He did precisely what Stephenson did not do in attempting to demonstrate how Cyril's lectures could have been distributed over an eightweek cycle of daily catechesis described by Egeria. And, although Telfer does not refer to this, it is also true that Egeria herself refers to the necessity of an interpreter for those who speak only Syriac or Latin. 2 A second look, however, reveals that his conclusions are rather questionable for at least two reasons. First of all, Egeria's reference to interpreters is to an 'onthe-spot' activity and not an indication of separate gatherings or separate lectures. There is, thus, no basis whatsoever for assuming a Lenten course of twenty lectures in Greek alternating with an additional twenty in Palestinian Aramaic or Syriac. Secondly, and this is more problematic, there is no evidence that Lent (including Holy Week) in the time of Cyril was eight weeks long with five fast days in each week. It is well known that Egeria is the first and only witness to refer to an eight-week Jerusalem Lent. Nevertheless, Telfer assumed (without even referring to Egeria) that an eight-week Lent was the traditional Jerusalem pattern. But, if one does assume that this was the case, then any attempt to make a correlation with Egeria's own description becomes impossible because it would mean that during her visit there would have to have been lectures delivered during Great Week—even after the redditio symboli—and Egeria explicitly says that there were no lectures then on account of the time required for the Holy Week liturgies.3 It may well be that pre-baptismal instruction in the time of Cyril did continue throughout 'Holy Week'. Yet, the idea of an eight-week Lent in Cyril—so necessary for Telfer's hypothesis—is simply unfounded. The most recent scholarship on the development of Lent, in fact, claims that it was a six-week period in tne time of Cyril, including the week that was to become Holy Week. 4 Upon closer analysis, therefore, Telfer's approach and conclusions offer very little assistance in resolving the apparent discrepancies between these sources. Telfer, Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius ofEmesa (London, 1955), pp.34-35. Peregrinatio 47.3-4. 3 Ibid., 46.4-6. 4 See Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (Pueblo, New York, 1986), pp. 168174. 1

2

Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in Fourth-Century Jerusalem

21

In his recent work on the stational character of liturgy in Jerusalem, Rome, and Constantinople, John Daldovin offers what appears to be a more reasonable solution. 1 Noting that the AL has special stational liturgies on fifteen days during its six-week Lent (excluding Holy Week), Baldovin adds to these the six Sundays of Lent, resulting in a total of twenty-one days which have some kind of liturgical gathering over and above the regular daily cycle. According to him, this leaves nineteen days, which is, conveniently, the precise number of catechetical readings provided by the AL and parallel to the BCs of Cyril (with the nineteenth reading included in BC 18). From this he concludes that the lectures given to the photizoneboi were delivered on the non-stational days during the Jerusalem Lent. He assigns them as follows: 1st Week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday; 2nd Week: Saturday; 3rd Week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday; 4th Week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday; Sth Week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday; and 6th Week: Monday and Tuesday. 1 While in this schema BC 14 (where Cyril refers to 'yesterday, on the Lord's day') is placed on a Monday, BCs 6-8 and 10-12 (in which Cyril makes reference to 'yesterday's lecture') 1 are separated in each case by an intervening Wednesday. This separation Baldovin defends by claiming that 'what can be translated as "yesterday's lecture" from Greek can also mean "the previous lecture"—a common enough practice in classroom rhetoric'. 1 Baldovin's approach to the BCs is based, to a large extent, upon A. Renoux's conclusions concerning the Mystagogcal Catecbeses, the series of post-baptismal lectures delivered during Easter Week in Jerusalem. While both Cyril5 and Egeria 6 indicate that during Easter Week mystagogia was to take place daily in the great Church of the Anastasis, the fact remains that there are only five Mystagogical Catecbeses attributed to Cyril, only five days (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday) in Egeria on which such an assembly could be held in the great Basilica7, and only four such days (Monday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) assigned to this purpose in the AL.8 Tnis ap parent reduction from seven to five to four lectures was explained by Renoux on the basis of the evolving stational pattern in the liturgy of Jerusalem.® According to him, the reduction from seven

1

John Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Orions, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 228, Rome, 1987), pp.9093. 2 Ibid., p.93. 3 See BCs 7.1, 8.1, 11.1, and 12.4. 4 Baldovin, op. cit., p.92. s BC 18.33. For the Mystagoncal Catecbeses attributed to Cyril see F. L. Cross, St. Cyril of Jerusalem's Lectures on the Christian Sacraments, (London, 1951). 6 Peregrinatio 46.6 and 47.1-2. 1 2 Ibid., 39.2. 8 Renoux, op. cit., pp.327-33 1. ' A. Renoux, 'Les catéchèses mystagogiques dans l'organisation liturgique Hiérosolymitaine du IVe et du Ve siècle' in Le Muséon 78 (1965) pp.355-359.

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Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

to five came about because of the addition of stational liturgies on Wednesday at the Eleona (on the M o u n t of Olives) and on Friday at Zion, a shift already completed prior to Egeria. Furthermore, he claims that the reduction from five to the tour listed in theAZ, similarly came about because of the addition of a station at the Martyrium of St. Stephen on Tuesday of that same week. Baldovin concludes, therefore, that 'given the relation between stations and lectures during the octave of the Pascha, it seems logical to suggest that a similar balance must have held for the catecheses during Lent'. 1 Such a conclusion may indeed be logical, but it is certainly not without its problems. First of all, while Baldovin is correct in noting that there are fifteen stational days in the AL, he makes an error in his further calculations. T h e six Lenten Sundays plus the fifteen stational days total twenty-one days, but in a sixweek period of seven days each this results in not nineteen but twenty-one days left over! Two days are, thus, left unaccounted for in his proposed schema. 2 Secondly, we have no knowledge of the extent of the stational pattern in the Jerusalem liturgy during the time of Cyril. Baldovin's proposal for the assignment of the BCs, therefore, may possibly be accurate for the early fifth century (i.e., at the time of the AL), but this does not necessarily mean that such is the case for Egeria c. 381 or for Cyril in the late 340s. Also, it is quite a shift in his schema to move from Egeria's claim of daily catechesis to, for example, only one lecture during the second week of Lent and that, presumably, on a Saturday. Finally, Renoux's conclusions regarding tne Mystagogical Catecheses are themselves not beyond question. While the shift from five to four due to the addition of the Stephen station is understandable, the supposed prior shift from seven to five because of the addition of Wednesday and Friday stations is not as convincing. Wednesdays and Fridays themselves may belong to an even older Jerusalem liturgical tradition. In her description of the daily services held during Lent, Egeria says of Wednesdays and Fridays that'at three o'clock they assemble 1 2

Baldovin, op. cit., p.96. In a recent conversation John Baldovin has challenged my calculations by arguing that the Saturday of the sixth week of Lent is not to be included in the counting because, as 'Lazarus Saturday', it, along with Palm Sunday, formed an independent liturgical 'season' between Lent and Great Week in Jerusalem. (On Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday see Talley, op. cit. pp. 176-183.) According to Baldovin, therefore, because Lent in the AL ended on Friday of the sixth week, there are twenty, not twenty-one, days remaining. Furthermore, by subtracting the Procatechesis from these twenty days, the end result is nineteen. Howeverm this assumes that the Procatechesis (which is not even mentioned in the AL) was given on a day independent from those included in his schema! For, in arriving at the twenty-one days separate from the nineteen catechetical days, he has already counted the six Lenten Sundays. But the only day when the Procatechesis could have been delivered in his schema is the first Sunday in Lent because a catechetical lecture is assigned to Monday of the first week. Therefore, while it may be that 'Lazarus Saturday' accounts for one of the remaining two days in his schema, unless it can be shown that the Procatechesis is to be assigned to its own day independent from a Sunday, catechetical, or stational day, there remains at least one day left unaccounted for in his calculations.

Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in Fourth-Century Jerusalem

23

on Sion, because all through the year they regularly assemble on Sion at three o'clock on Wednesdays and Fridays'.1 And Paul Bradshaw writes that 'since Sion was the ancient centre of the Jerusalem church, we may conjecture that the services held there were of long standing.. ,'2 Therefore, granted that in Egeria the services of the Easter octave are held in the morning and that the Wednesday gathering is at the Eleona rather than Sion, the fact that Mystagogia could not take place on these two days may be highly significant. That is, the absence of mystagogia and the presence of liturgical gatherings elsewhere on these two days may, in fact, simply indicate the continuing presence of the structure of the ancient Christian week at Jerusalem originally centred at Sion itself. In other words, there are only five Mystagogjcal Catecbeses because such post-baptismal instruction never did take place in Jerusalem on Wednesday ana Friday during Easter week. Further confirmation of this may be provided by the AL itself. For, if the Tuesday station at the Martyrium of Stephen as well as the Wednesday and Friday stations were all new additions, one would expect the four lectures provided for in the AL to be assigned to Monday, Thursday. Saturday, and Sunday. Yet, they are assigned to Monday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, with the station at Sion now on Wednesday and that of the Mount of Olives on Thursday. 3 In relationship to Egeria's description, what is new in the AL is not only the presence of the Tuesday station but the rather odd juggling of the Mount of Olives and Sion stations and the presence of the second mystagogical lecture 'Before Golgotha' on Friday. In the AL, then, one sees not only the addition of one new station during the Easter octave but (as a result of it?) the entire reshaping of that week. For these reasons Baldovin's approach should be treated with some degree of caution. It may certainly be that the stational pattern of Jerusalem liturgy does provide a partial answer to the problem, but the details of his answer are not fully convincing. They simply do not correlate or reconcile the BCs of Cyril with the witness of Egeria (a witness Baldovin suspects may simply be a description of'an experiment that did not last').4 T H E D E V E L O P M E N T O F AN A L T E R N A T I V E

SOLUTION

According to Mario F. Lages, a three-week period of Lenten preparation of catechumens existed at Jerusalem prior to the end of the third centuiy, and Cyril's BCs were still following the pattern of this three-week catechetical period.5 Lages arrives at this conclusion, first of all, from a structural analysis of 1 2 3 4 5

Peregrinatio 27.5. PaulF. Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church (London, 1981), p.91. Renoux, Le Codex, II, pp.31 1-323 and 327-329. Baldovin, op. cit., n.37, p.92. M. F. Lages, 'Étapes ae l'évolution de carême à Jérusalem avant le Ve siècle. Essai d'analyse structurale' in Revue des Études Arméniennes 6, (1969), pp.67-102; and idem., T h e Hierosolymitain Origin of the Catechetical Rites in the Armenian Liturgy' in Didaskalia I, (1971), pp.2 3 3-2 50.

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Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

the AL. H e notes that, while the nineteen readings for instruction are inserted therein at the beginning of Lent, there is, nonetheless, no indication as to when they are to be delivered during the Lenten season. Furthermore, these readings are inserted as a complete unit, having both a title and conclusion separating them from what precedes and what follows. 1 From this Lages argues that they constituted an independent libellus which pre dated the AL itself. 2 Secondly, he claims that the Psalms distributed on the Wednesdays and Fridays during the ALs six-week Lent 3 were originally two independent units or series of psalmody divided into two three-week periods. Of these two periods the one immediately prior to Easter contains the older layer of tradition. During these three weeks, a consecutive use of psalms is to be noted, beginning with Ps. 82(83) on the Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent and concluding with Ps. 87(88) on the Friday of the sixth week. Although the AL assigns Ps. 21(22) to G o o d Friday, yet in the Georgian Lectionary (hereafter, GLY another witness to the Jerusalem tradition, Ps. 87(88) is itself assigned to that day and, because this is so, Lages sees here the presence of the older Lenten pattern. The order of psalmody preserved in the last three weeks of Lent in the AL and confirmed by the GL, therefore, is a witness to the primitive stage of an earlier three-week Lent at Jerusalem. 5 Thirdly, Lages assigns the nineteen readings in the AL to the fourth, fifth, and sixth weeks of Lent and claims that, prior to the development of Holy Week, they would have concluded on G o o d Friday. Again he finds confirmation of this in the GL where the Lenten readings are to begin on Monday of the fifth week of Lent, that is, exactly nineteen days before baptism on Holy Saturday. In spite of the fact that this catechetical period would no longer be functional in the time of the GL, nonetheless, it preserves this 'tradition'. 6 Finally, Lages compares the contents of the BCs with the introductory rubric in the Canon ofBaptism of the Armenian Liturgy from the ninth- orTenth-century manuscript. This rubric reads in part: T h e Canon of Baptism when they make a Christian. Before which it is not right to admit him into church. But he shall have hands laid on beforehand, three weeks or more before the baptism, in time sufficient for him to learn from the Wardapet [Instructor! Doth the faith and the baptism of the Church.' 7 This rubric goes on to specify the contents of the Wardapet's teaching as being primarily the Creed (with the notable exception of anything explicit about the 1

See Renoux, Le Codex, II, pp.233 and 237. Lages, 'Étapes', p.72. 3 See Renoux, Le Codex, II, pp.239-255. 4 Michael Tarschnischvili, Le grand lectionnaire de l'Église de Jérusalem, 1 (Louvain, 1959), pp.68-79. 5 Lages, 'Etapes', pp.82-83 and 98-98. 6 Ibid., pp.98-100; and Tarschnischvili, p.68, where the following rubric is printed: 'Tertia hora incipiunt legere lectiones instruentes catechumenos ad portas ecclesiae'. 7 E. C. Whitaker, Documents ofthe Baptismal Liturgy (SPCK, London, 2nd edn.. 1970), p.60. 2

Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in Fourt!}-Century Jerusalem

25

Holy Spirit or the Church). Noting the general similarities in content but differences in order between this rubric and the BCs, Lages asserts that the rubric is primitive and that it antedates the BCs which are themselves a further development and adaptation of it. Because of the close relationship between them, as well as the rubric's specification of three weeks of instruction, he proposes that the nineteen lectures would have been given during the three weeks prior to Easter baptism, and concludes that the rubric itself is of Jerusalem origin. 1 In presenting this hypothesis of the third-century three-week Jerusalem Lent, Lages depends on the parallel evidence supplied by Roman liturgical materials. 1 This evidence has most recently been discussed by Thomas Talley.1 In his fifthcentury Historia ecclesiastica Socrates writes that it is the custom of the people of Rome to 'fast for three successive weeks before Easter', and, while he was wrong for the fifth century, Talley notes a curious parallel to this in the later Gelasian Sacramentaiy. In the Gelasianum are provided masses pro scrutiniis for the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent which, he suggests, probably reflect an earlier tradition of public scrutinies for the catechumnens. Similarly, he refers to the tradition which assigned the titles Mediana to the fourth week of Lent and Dominica in mediana to the fifth Sunday. Such titles, he argues, make sense only if the Lenten fast consisted of the three weeks preceding Holy Week. Finally, while admitting the Socrates' evidence is only a possible explantion of the final period of baptismal preparation at Rome, Talley concludes that: ' . . . in the third century, Pascha is appearing as the preferred time for baptism in many parts of the Church, and tne final preparation of candidates is a concern of the period just preceding the great festival. That preparation for baptism is antecedent at Rome to any extended period of ascetical preparation for the festival itself. That being the case, we can say that the masses pro scrutiniis on the third, fourth, ana fifth Sundays in the

1

2 i

Lages, 'Étapes', p. 100, and idem., 'The Hierosolymitain Origin', pp.248-249. It is important to note, nowever, that portions of Lages' work, especially his claim of Jerusalem origins for this Armenian rubric, have been called into question by Gabriele Winkler in her authoritative work, Das Armeniscbe Initiationsrituale (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 217, Rome, 1982), pp.338-370, and especially n.186, p.369. Winkler's criticism is two-fold. First of all, as there were other churches in which an earlier threeweek Lenten period was once customary, his conclusions on the hypothetical relationship between Jerusalem and Armenia appear as too narrow and one-sided. Secondly, and more importantly, Lages looks only at this introductory rubric of the Armenian baptismal rite instead of studying Armenian catechetical preparation as a whole. This is problematic because the contents of instruction specified in the rubric as well as the contents of Cyril's BCs 'belong to the universal contents of faith' and, as such, do not represent a unique parallel between Jerusalem and Armenia at all. Winkler's criticisms, nevertheless, do not necessarily call into question Lages' treatment of the Jerusalem pattern. Lages, 'Etapes', pp.69-70. Talley, op. cit, pp.165-167.

26

Essays in Early Eastern

Initiation

Galasian Sacramentary point to the older core of preparation for paschal baptism.' 1 Although n o t an exact parallel, this R o m a n evidence lends s o m e s u p p o r t a n d credibility to Lages' approach. Further s u p p o r t m a y be indirectly provided by William Telfer. Telfer noted that nowhere in t h e BCs does Cyril refer either to the Nicene homoousios or to Arms by name. For a mid-fourth-century 'orthodox' d o c u m e n t this is rather o d d , and he concluded f r o m this that t h e BCs actually reflect an older pre-Nicene Jerusalem faith tradition. 2 If Telfer is correct in this conclusion, then t h e general a r r a n g e m e n t and contents of Cyril's BCs are adhering to a pattern set in that s a m e period of t h e late third or early fourth century for which Lages argues a three-week Lent. Furthermore, both the AL and the GL, in preserving t h e catechetical readings, therefore, are themselves later witnesses to w h a t would have been an early and well-ingrained Jerusalem tradition. Lages' hypothesis that the BCs of Cyril were delivered d u r i n g t h e final three weeks of Lent has a great deal to offer toward the reconciliation of t h e a p p a r e n t discrepancies between Cyril a n d Egeria. Assuming, with both S t e p h e n s o n a n d Telfer, that t h e eighteen BCs1 of Cyril are a c o m p l e t e course of instruction of t h e Creed, I w o u l d propose that d u n n g an eight-week Lent, as described by Egeria, they were given as follows: Week Five Week Seven Week Six Sunday BC 1 BC 13 Monday BC 1 BC 2 BC 8 Tuesday BC 14 BC 9 Wednesday BC 3 BC 15 BC 4 BC 10 Thursday BC 16 BC 5 BC 11 Friday BC 17 BC 6 Saturday BC 12 BC 18 1

Ibid., p. 167. Lages also notes a parallel between the Roman dominka mediana and the 'Feast of the middle of Easter Lent' in the fourth-century Armenian Canons of St. Sahak (see T h e Hierosolymitain Origin', n.10, pp.235-236). It is also possible, but extremely speculative, that a similar case can be made for a three-week final preparation in fourthcentury North Africa. In Sermon 58, in the context of the delivery of the Lord's Prayer, Augustine refers to the return of the Creed which had just taken place. In so doing he says that in a week's time the Lord's Prayer would have to be returned as well, and that those who had not made a good return of the Creed still had time to learn it before public recitation at baptism. Added to this is a sermon on the Creed by Quodvultdeus of Carthage in which he refers to what could only have been an enrolment of catechumens on the previous night. (The relevant portions of these sermons are cited in Whitaker, op. tit., pp.103, 107). By joining these two witnesses one might reasonably conjecture that there is here a three-week pattern of baptismal preparation with the traditio symboli in week one, the redditio symbolt and the delivery of the Lord's Prayer in week two, its return in the third week and the final profession of faith in the context of baptism itself 2 Telfer, op. cit, pp.61-63. 3 1 say eighteen simply because this is the number of BCs preserved. However, 1 am well aware of the theory which suggests the Cyril was running out of time near the end of Lent (sec BC 18.32) and so compressed BC 18 and BC 19 into one. Cf. I,ages, 'Etapes', pp.98-99, and Telfer, p.34. Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in Fourth-Century Jerusalem

27

While admittedly speculative, there is much to commend this schema as a reasonable hypothesis. First of all, it takes both the B Q ' a n d Egeria's description of 'daily catechesis' at face value without pre-supposing an error or lack of language proficiency on Egeria's part. Secondly, it preserves the sequence of BCs 10-12 as well as BCs 7-8. Thirdly, it places BC 18 (in which Cyril again repeats the Creed for the photizomenoi)' on the day before Palm Sunday and palm Sunday could have easily been the day on which the redditio synboli took place. But, finally, and most importantly, it places BC 5 with its traditio symboli at the end of the fifth week of Lent and so agrees with Egeria's description that the Creed was delivered only 'after five week's teaching'. 1 Because of this, there does need not to be any discrepancy whatsoever between Cyril and Egeria at this point. What Cyril describes as taking place at the end of the fifth lecture (which would have been at the end of the first week in an earlier three-week Lent) takes place in Egeria at the end of the fifth lecture on the Creed near the close of what is now the fifth week of instruction. It is to this same period of instruction, in fact, that the GL refers by placing its rubric concerning baptismal instruction on the Monday of the fifth week of the seven-week Lent, that is, nineteen days before Holy Saturday baptism itself.1 And, by assigning a lecture to each of these days, except for the Sundays, it is precisely my proposed schema of eighteen lectures that would result (though here, of course, instruction would continue throughout Holy Week itself)- In other words, what has changed between the writing of the BCs and Egeria's visit is the development of Holy Week and the length of Lent, not the contents of Lenten teaching during the last three 'traditional' weeks. Two problems, however, might be raised by this schema. First of all, while it does support Egeria's description of daily catechesis, it does so for only three of seven weeks. Secondly, BC 14 is placed on a Tuesday even though internal evidence ('yesterday, on the Lord's day') tends to suggest that it was delivered on a Monday. The first problem is easily solved by assuming with Talley (and Egeria herself) that the remaining weeks were filled with daily instruction in the Bible.4 Whether this instruction continued long after her visit or was an experiment (Baldovin) which was later discontinued when the Jerusalem Lent shifted from eight to seven weeks is impossible to say. Yet there is really no good reason not to believe Egeria's claim that such biblical instruction did once take place. The second problem is not as easily dismissed. If one assumes with theAL that there were actually nineteen rather than eighteen lectures, one could, of course, 1 2 3

4

BC 18.21. Peregrinatio 46.3. See above, n.6 on p.25. It should be noted that in the GL the catechetical readings are in a different order than in Cyril and the A t , and are assigned only to Monday through Friday of Lenten weeks five and six. Saturdays, Sundays, and holy Week are, therefore, excluded from the period of instruction. The GL obviouslt reflects a later stage of development. Yet the point is that by preserving a tradition of beginning catechetical preparation for Easter baptism on the fifth Monday of Lent, the eighteen (but not nineteen) BCs of Cyril would neatly fit this structure. Ialley, op. at., p. 176.

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Essays in Early Eastern Initiation

merely place a nineteenth lecture on the Saturday of the seventh week with the result that BC 14 would then fall on the Monday of that week. Yet this is no solution at all, because one then runs out of days at the beginning of the fifth week. Another solution to this problem has been implicitly suggested by Baldovin's separation of the supposedly sequential BCs 6-8 and 10-12 on die basis of a rhetorical use of'yesterday'. 1 While 'yesterday' is, perhaps, the best translation of the Greek adverb echthes or chthes, the word can also have the general meaning of 'the past as a whole'. 2 The phrase, therefore, can be translated as 'in the past Lord s day', or even, 'formerly, on the Lord's day'. If this is so, then this lecture need not of necessity be assigned to a Monday at all but can be placed on a Tuesday, as in my schema. Thus, although at the time of Egeria's visit to Jerusalem there appears to have been a seven-week process of pre-baptismal instruction, in the context of an eight-week Lent, including more than just the Creed, it is at least plausible that the earlier (third-century?) Jerusalem tradition was a three-week cycle of catechumenal preparation, focusing primarily on the Creed itself. This threeweek credal syllabus seems to underlie Cyril's eighteen BCs and to recur as the final phase of preparation in Egeria. It is also reflected in the later AL and GL, as well as in the opening rubric of the Armenian baptismal rite, and may have parallels with the early development of Lenten preparation in the Roman tradition. Cyril's BCs and Egeria s description are, therefore, in this way reconciled. Both are witnesses to what is, essentially, the same Jerusalem liturgical pattern of catechesis in slightly different historical contexts. EXCURSUS ON BAPTISMAL CATECHESIS 14 BC 14 is extremely interesting in that the specific reference in the sentence discussed above is to a sermon on the Ascension of Christ into heaven. Cyril says: 'The sequence of the Creed would naturally lead me on to speak of the Ascension; but God's grace has so disposed it that you heard most fully about it, according to tne measure of my weakness, yesterday, on the Lord's day; for the course of the lessons in church, by the ordination of divine grace, comprised the narrative of our Saviour's Ascension into heaven.' 3 this means that Cyril preached on the Ascension of Christ on a Lenten Sunday, and in itself this is not so surprising. He was, after all, lecturing on the Creed. What is surprising, however, is that he is not referring to catechesis but to the lessons read at the previous Sunday's liturgy and to his own sermon on those lessons. In other words, Cyril is saying that since the liturgical readings and his sermon had already dealt with the Ascension on Sunday, he did not need to deal with it now in the context of catechesis. 1

See above, p.22. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon ofthe New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, trans, and adapted by W. F. Arndt and F. W. Gingrich (4th Edition, Chicago, 1971), p.3 31. 3 BC 14.24.

2

Reconciling Cyril and Egeria on the Catechetical Process in Fourth-Century Jerusalem

29

A simple solution might appear to be to consult the AL or the GL to determine both what the readings were and to what Sunday of Lent they were assigned; but the AL does not list the readings for the Lenten Sundays and no reference to comparable readings is found in GL. This is actually not unexpected, since, by the time of both lectionaries, the Ascension was well established on the fortieth day of Easter. Thus, we have no supporting lectionary evidence for this simply because we have no lectionaries which include the Lenten Sundays in the time of Cyril.1 We do know, however, that the Old Testament reading for this Sunday was from 2 Kings 2.1-22 (the Ascension of Elijah) because Cyril refers to it in 14.25, but the only place in the surviving lectionaries where this reading is assigned is in the Easter Vigil.2 Cyril also refers in 14.24 to Psalms 4