Section: 2A5 - Origins of Christian Ceremonies.
Number of quotes: 29
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
John Henry Newman
Book ID: 324 Page: 239/240
Section: 2A5,3C
In the course of the fourth century two movements or developments spread over the face of Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by Eusebius, that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own.….
The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holy days and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church.
The eighth book of Theodoret’s work Adversus Gentiles, which is, “On the Martyrs,” treats so largely on the subject, that we must content ourselves with but a specimen of the illustrations which it affords, to the principle acted on by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. “Time, which makes all things decay,” he says, speaking of the Martyrs, “has preserved their glory incorruptible. For as the noble souls of those conquerors traverse the heavens, and take part in the spiritual choirs, so their bodies are not consigned to separate tombs, but cities and towns have distributed them; and they call them saviours of souls and bodies, and physicians, and honour them as the protectors and guards of cities, and, using their intervention with the Lord of all, through them they obtain divine gifts.
….
But though all men made a jest of them, yet at least the Greeks could not decently complain, to whom belonged libations and expiations, and heroes and demi-gods and deified men. To Hercules, though a man, and compelled to serve Eurystheus, they built temples, and constructed altars, and offered sacrifices in honour, and allotted feasts; and that, not Spartans only and Athenians, but the whole of Greece and the greater part of Europe.”
….
I have given extracts from Theodoret for the developments of the fourth and fifth centuries….
Quote ID: 7775
Time Periods: 45
Caesar and Christ: The Story of Civilization
Will Durant
Book ID: 43 Page: 578/579
Section: 2A5
The form, ceremony, and vestments of Hebrew worship passed down into Christian ritual…Many Judaic festivals—e.g., Passover and Pentecost—were accepted into the Christian calendar, however altered in content and date…In Christ and Peter Christianity was Jewish; in Paul it became half Greek; in Catholicism it became half Roman. In Protestantism the Judaic element and emphasis were restored.
Quote ID: 8479
Time Periods: 2
Catechism Of The Catholic Church
Pope John Paul II
Book ID: 48 Page: 291
Section: 2A3,2A5
The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.{604} The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:{605}As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.{606}
This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: “Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.”{607} From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God.{608} The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead….
Quote ID: 8465
Time Periods: 012
Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical
Frank C. Senn
Book ID: 54 Page: 4
Section: 2A5,2A1,2A2
As the whole of human life and endeavors is a system of rituals, so is the life and mission of the Christian community a system of rituals.. . . .
The rites of washing (baptism) and eating and drinking together (eucharistic meal) that Jesus instituted and commanded to be done had a prehistory in Judaism and corollary rites in other religions.
Quote ID: 1205
Time Periods: 12
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 138
Section: 2A5
On the floor of the Elijah church they wrote in mosaic letters, “Prophet, thou who to our prayers hast providentially stirred the rain-bearing clouds and pitied the populace, remember the donors of this humble city.” Elijah in this dry land had succeeded to the local sky god of the pagan past.{124}
Quote ID: 1362
Time Periods: 4567
Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
Ramsay MacMullen
Book ID: 57 Page: 140
Section: 2A5
In turn, the word-sets to accomplish this are best known through what priests recited at baptisms, that doorway to the church. Every entrant thus received instruction in the doctrine. It explains why one unhappy victim paralyzed by hexing, in hopes of help, applied to Saints John and Cyrus. Sleeping in the martyrion, he was vouchsafed a vision and advice from them: to roast a pig’s lung and rub it on his body with wine: but also, to dig near his bedroom, to discover and disarm the defixio buried there by his enemy. The desired cure was thus ensured while the doctrine of demonic causation was confirmed.{133}
Quote ID: 1367
Time Periods: 567
Cults of the Roman Empire, The
Robert Turcan
Book ID: 209 Page: 330
Section: 2A5
Christians and pagans passed the ball back and forth. The former accused the demons of fraudulent borrowings from their form of worship, and the pagans in their turn imputed the same plagiarism to the disciples of Christ. It was the sign of a rivalry that at the time was vehement and close-fought. The defenders of the polytheistic tradition placed Christianity on the same level as ‘barbarian mysteries’, to use an expression of Celsus. This type of reaction was to be found two centuries later from the pen of Maximus of Madaurus (St Augustine’s correspondent), for whom devotions to the Punic martyrs Miggin, Sanam and Namphano resembled the monstrosities of Egyptian superstition - like Virgil’s latrator Anubis - battling at Actium against Apollo and the gods of Rome (Augustine, Letters, 16).
Quote ID: 5175
Time Periods: 2
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 2, The
Edward Gibbon
Book ID: 210 Page: 11/12
Section: 2A5
The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity; but they were continued from choice. By imitating the awful secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians had flattered themselves that they should render their sacred institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world.{1} But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtile policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was concluded that they only concealed what they would have blushed to disclose.
Quote ID: 5189
Time Periods: 12
Early Christian Church, The
J.G. Davies
Book ID: 214 Page: 113
Section: 2A5
There is indeed every reason to accept the accuracy of the statement of Arnobius, written at the opening of the fourth century: ‘the gods are neglected, and in the temples there is now a very thin attendance. Former ceremonies are exposed to derision, and the time-honoured rites of institutions once sacred have sunken before the superstitions of new religions’. Here was both the opportunity for and the partial result of the advance of Christianity.PJ: This is in the file "Extracted Notes"
Quote ID: 5280
Time Periods: 2
Europe and the Faith
Hilaire Belloc
Book ID: 84 Page: 46
Section: 2A5,2C
If you read (in Ignatius’ seven certainly genuine letters) of Episcopacy and of the Eucharist, you may think him a wrong-headed enthusiast. But you know that you are reading the work of a man who personally witnessed the beginnings of the Church; you know that the customs, manners, doctrines and institutions he mentions or takes for granted were certainly those of his time, that is, of the origin of Catholicism, though you may think the customs silly and the doctrines nonsense.
Quote ID: 2238
Time Periods: 2
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 4
Section: 2A5
The justification of the existence of differences is to be found in the nature of Christianity itself. It was designed to be at once universal and permanent, to embrace all races of mankind, and to meet the needs of successive ages. The presumption is that, this being so, [the Faith] was also designed to adapt its outward forms to the inevitable changes of human society, and that its earliest institutions were meant to be modified when it gathered new races of men into its fold, and came into close contact with new elements of human life. The presumption does not run counter to any words, or to any clear inference from any words, of the New Testament, and it has been universally accepted by all Christian communities.
Quote ID: 5766
Time Periods: 2
Growth of Church Institutions, The
The Rev. Edwin Hatch, M. A., D.D., (Reader In Ecclesiastical History In The University Of Oxford Sec
Book ID: 230 Page: 18/19
Section: 2A5
The diocesan system as it now exists is the effect of a series of historical circumstances. It is impossible to defend every part of it as being primitive, nor is it necessary to do so. It is sufficient to show that it is the result of successive readaptations of the Church’s framework to the needs of the times. Behind those readaptations we may properly believe that the Holy Spirit has been working.
Quote ID: 5772
Time Periods: 3
History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Book ID: 432 Page: 45/46
Section: 1A,2A5,2C
Instead of enthusiastic independent Christians, we find a new literature of revelation, the New Testament, and Christian priests. When did these formations begin? How and by what influence was the living faith transformed into the creed to be believed, the surrender of Christ into a philosophic Christology, the Holy Church into the corpus permixtum, the glowing hope of the Kingdom of heaven into a doctrine of immortality and deification, prophecy into a learned exegesis and theological science, the bearers of the spirit into clerics, the brethren into laity held in tutelage, miracles and healings into nothing, or into priestcraft, fervent prayers into a solemn ritual, renunciation of the world into a jealous dominion over the world, the “spirit” into constraint and law?There can be no doubt about the answer: these formations are as old in their origin as….[John’s note: "as the rejection of Paul’s gospel"] (see PJ Note below)
Quote ID: 8723
Time Periods: 234
History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Book ID: 432 Page: 46
Section: 1A,2A5
The Christian Church and its doctrine were developed within the Roman world and Greek culture in opposition to the Jewish Church.
Quote ID: 8724
Time Periods: 234
History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Book ID: 432 Page: 99
Section: 1A,2A5
Instead of the frequently very fruitless investigations about “Jewish-Christian”, and “Gentile-Christian”, it should be asked, What Jewish elements have been naturalised in the Christian Church, which were in no way demanded by the contents of the Gospel?PJ: Amen!
Quote ID: 8735
Time Periods: 2
History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Book ID: 432 Page: 127
Section: 1A,2A5
But, besides the Greek, there is no mistaking the special influence of Romish ideas and customs upon the Christian Church. The following points specially claim attention…
Quote ID: 8741
Time Periods: 234
Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 341 Page: 305/306
Section: 2A5
It seems fair to infer that, since there were great changes in the ritual of the sacraments, and since the new elements of these changes were identical with elements that already existed in cognate and largely diffused forms of worship, the one should be due to the other.This inference is strengthened when we find that the Christian communities which were nearest in form and spirit to the Hellenic culture, were the first in which these elements appear.
Quote ID: 7892
Time Periods: 2
Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity, The
Edwin Hatch
Book ID: 321 Page: 334
Section: 2A5
There is no adequate evidence that, in the first age of Christianity, association was other than voluntary. It was profoundly individual. It assumed for the first time in human history the infinite worth of the individual soul. The ground of that individual worth was a divine sonship. And the sons of God were brethren. They were drawn together by the constraining force of love. But the clustering together under that constraining force was not necessarily the formation of an association. There was not necessarily any organization.1 The tendency to organization came partly from the tendency of the Jewish colonies in the great cities of the empire to combine, and to a far greater extent from the large tendency of the Greek and Roman world to form societies for both religious and social purposes.
Quote ID: 7752
Time Periods: 1234
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church
A Study of a Conflict from the Maccabees to Donatus By W.H.C. Frend
Book ID: 316 Page: 180
Section: 2A5
The outward forms of Christian organization and, it would seem, many features of the Christian liturgy, were recognizably those of the Hellenistic synagogue.{19} Jews and Christians might mutually insult each other as ‘hypocrites’,{20} ‘heretics’,{21} and ‘atheists’,{22} but the vital issue at stake was still which synagogue{23} represented Israel.{24}
Quote ID: 7668
Time Periods: 2
Music and Worship In Pagan and Christian Antiquity
Johannes Quasten
Book ID: 156 Page: 87/88
Section: 2A5
The pagans frequently used boys’ choirs in their worship, especially on festive occasions. This custom may be explained in the first place by the musical quality of boys’ voices; their individuality and beauty, which could not be matched by either men’s or women’s voices, was greatly valued in antiquity. Thus Lucian of Samosata calls the boy’s voice “perfectly delicate, not so deep as to be called masculine nor so fine as to be effeminate and lacking in power, but falling soft, mild and lovely upon the ear.” {160} The chief reason, though, for the participation of boy’s choirs in cultic celebrations is to be found in the fact that the innocence of young boys was expected to have a particularly strong influence upon the divinity.{161} So it was, as can be seen repeatedly, that “an innocent boy, whose parents are both still living,” was employed at pagan sacrifices and oracles as a medium between god and man.In the sacrifices of the Greeks boys who were (GREEK)* were necessary, and in Rome quatuor pueri praetextati patrimi et matrimi were used in the service of the Fratres Arvales, twelve priests who made annual offerings to the field Lares.{162}
....
In Delos, at the solemn sacrifices, choirs of boys who danced and sang to the cithara and the flute were always in attendance.{165} Similarly we find that thirty chosen boys sang the hymns in honor of Hecate on Stratonikeia.{166} In fact in many areas it appears that regular singing schools for such boys were founded.
Quote ID: 3320
Time Periods: 2
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 43
Section: 2A5
Consequently, if you compare Luther’s order of worship with Gregory’s liturgy, it is virtually the same! {37}
Quote ID: 3526
Time Periods: 26
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 45
Section: 2A5,2D
At no time did Luther (or any of the other mainstream Reformers) demonstrate a desire to return to the practices of the first-century church. These men set out merely to reform the theology of the Catholic church.
Quote ID: 3527
Time Periods: 6
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 45
Section: 2A5,2C
Under Luther’s influence, the Protestant pastor simply replaced the Catholic priest.
Quote ID: 3528
Time Periods: 7
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 51
Section: 2A5
It is no wonder that the so-called “Reformation” brought very little reform in the way of church practice. {84}
Quote ID: 3531
Time Periods: 6
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 101
Section: 2A5
Following the path of the pagans, Christians adopted the practice of burning incense and having vestal (sacred) virgins. {22} Thankfully, the Protestants dropped the sacrificial use of the Lord’s Supper, the burning of incense, and the vestal virgins. But they retained the priestly caste (the clergy) as well as the sacred building.Pastor John’s note: But… Jesus mentioned eunuchs for God.
Quote ID: 3546
Time Periods: 2
Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
Frank Viola
Book ID: 168 Page: 104
Section: 2A3,2A5
Footnote 46 Music and Worship in Pagan & Christian Antiquity, pp. 162-168. Tertullian (160-225) demonstrates the relentless efforts of the Christians to do away with the pagan custom of the funeral procession. Yet the Christians succumbed to it. Christian funeral rites, which drew heavily from pagan forms, begin to appear in the third century (David W. Bercot, ed., A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998, p 80; ….
Quote ID: 3551
Time Periods: 23
Paganism and Christianity 100-425 C.E. a Sourcebook
Ramsay MacMullen and Eugene N. Lane
Book ID: 170 Page: 84
Section: 2A5
their worship belongs rather to custom than truth.” Seneca also censures the sacred institutions of the Jews, especially the Sabbath … they lose in idleness almost a seventh of their life . . . he says: Meanwhile the customs of the accursed race have gained such influence that they are now received throughout all the world. … The Jews, however, are aware of the origin and meaning of their rites. The greater part of the people go through a ritual not knowing why they do so.”
Quote ID: 3685
Time Periods: 2
Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303), The
William Barry
Book ID: 342 Page: 28
Section: 2A5
Paganism, it may be briefly said, was to furnish Roman Christianity with many of its holiday or outward shows.
Quote ID: 7922
Time Periods: 2
Vigilantius and His Times
William Stephen Gilly
Book ID: 284 Page: 217/218/219
Section: 2A3,2A5
The abuse which Paulinus endeavoured to remove, viz. banqueting in honour of a saint, was very common, (even according to the admission of Tillemont) in the Christian church, towards the close of the fourth century. Ambrose endeavoured to restrain it at Milan. Augustine did all in his power to banish it from his diocese, {ᾠ} and Jerome spoke of it with disgust, complaining that even some of the monastic order would gluttonously feast themselves at festivals, until their stomachs rejected the load of food which they had swallowed.But the misplaced indulgence, which led ecclesiastics of that period to be tender towards forms of heathenism, so long as they were disguised under a Christian mask, prevented their checking the evil with a high hand, and denouncing it with the severe voice of authority. Thus it was tolerated until it became a crying sin. Though it was unusual in those days to have representations of men and animals painted in churches, yet the profanation was introduced at Nola, under the vain hope that pictures would serve as instructors, and teach a purer morality to the peasants who got drunk in hounour of St. Felix.
. . . .
Such were the expedients of Paulinus to correct an evil, to which he had himself so largely contributed, by instilling into these poor rustics false notions of religion, and by drugging them into a state of feverish excitement; by making them drunk with the expectation of beholding miracles at the dead man’s bidding. It was his fatal dictation and example, which trained baptized Christians to idolatry, by teaching them to invocate and adore a departed saint, and to kneel before his tomb and his relics!
Quote ID: 7220
Time Periods: 24
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