Worship and its History

It is worth the price of a book,  Walking Where Jesus Walked: Worship in Fourth-Century Jerusalem (Church at Worship: Case Studies from Christian History), just to read the account of Egeria, a nun who kept a travel diary of a 3-year pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the 4th Century. In addition, plenty from Cyril of Jerusalem – and a vision of what it looks like when Scripture’s Story occupies center stage in worship. What was worship like — in Jerusalem — in the earliest days of the establishment of the church there?

What can we learn from ancient worship in the church? If you could adapt or adopt one element, what would it be?

Here are some highlights of this book, a book that is the first in a promising series about worship in the church. The books are designed to be as wide-reaching as possible, with devotional exercises and group questions as well as primary sources to read and consider, maps, charts, timelines, and they hope these books will be used in classes as well as in church groups. If this book is a good example, they will succeed in this task admirably. The book can be read by anyone interested in the history of worship.

So, again, what was it like to worship in Jerusalem in the 4th Century?

Piety involved public worship of reading long passages of Scripture, designed to focus on the regula fidei and punctuated by baptism and Eucharist. Time: daily, weekly, annual services; Christmas on January 6, emphasis on Pascha and Epiphany; ascetic preparation for major feasts. Place: Jerusalem, following Constantine and his mother Eugena, became a place of church building but the worshipers didn’t belong to one “building” but to the Jerusalem church and thus they worshiped in different buildings; no seating in the churches; worshipers were segregated (clergy, laity, men, women, monastic, non-monastic). Prayer: communal more than private and family; regular daily and weekly services; esp important were morning and evening prayer. Preaching: in a single gathering often more than one sermon was preached; the Gospel of Jesus Christ formed the heart of preaching. Music: part of worship; choir or soloist assisted worship; congregants often sang one line they knew as a response; Psalms were prominent. People: all sorts; attendance varied; preaching was done in Greek but translated into Syriac; the bishop was the leader.

But, as I said, read the summary of Egeria’s travel account. Worth it.