Class Six - The Text
The Church and Sacraments
Scope: One of the results of Christianity becoming the imperial religion under Constantine in the 4th century is that its structures expanded to meet its new place in the world. The church grew from small local assemblies into a worldwide organization with a hierarchical structure, extensive material holdings, and substantial social obligations. Corresponding to its emergence from persecution to privilege in tbe empire was the expansion of the church's impact on both time and space. As the church occupied the great basilicas of Rome, worship expanded to fill the space allotted it. The simple rituals of the early church (baptism and the Lord's Supper) developed into elaborate liturgies. The sacramental system sanctified the moments of life. The liturgical year created a new sense of time, and the communion of the saints demonstrated the power of sanctification in human life.
Outline - This Religion Called Christianity
I. The conflict with Gnosticism had defined Christianity as an embodied and institutional religion, but the establishment of Christianity as the imperial religion had a profound effect on its public presence.
A. Its status shifted from that of a persecuted minority to a state sponsored majority; fervor was no longer a requirement of membership.
B. It changed overnight from a group that met secretly in households and catacombs to an organization in charge of basilicas and public charities.
C. Although the local congregation was still of fundamental importance, an elaborate superstructure of administration for the church matched that of the empire.
This Religion Called Chritianity
II. Although from its earliest days Christianity had fom1s of structure drawn from Greco-Roman and Jewish antecedents, its growth and public involvement led to elaborate patterns of hierarchy.
A. Even before Constantine, the simple administrative structure reflected in the Pauline letters had become more hierarchical.
1. A single bishop (episcopos) emerged as head over a board of elders (presbyteroi) and deacons (diakonoi).
2. This arrangement was legitimated in tenns of cultic language (priesthood/sacrifice).
3. Christianity thenceforth consisted of two great classes: the clergy and the laity.
B. Under empire, hierarchical structures became even more elaborate, both at the local level (orders of clergy leading to priesthood and episcopacy) and at the regional level (patriarchs).
C. The patriarch of the imperial city (Rome, then Constantinople) asseJied authority over the entire "ecumenical" church.
This Religion Called Chritianity
III. With the expansion of the church's structure and its occupation of great public spaces for worship its own liturgy (public worship) also became more elaborate.
A. In the few glimpses of early Christian worship given by the New Testament, baptism and the Lord's Supper emerge as two ritual activities, centered in the experience of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
B. In the imperial period, both expand in dramatic ways as lihlrgy grows to fill the space allotted to it.
1. The basilicas have a fundamental structure of a long hallway. called a nave, at the end of which is usually a circular space called the apse.
2. In the apse is the sanctuary, where the ritual activity is centered.
3. The later Gothic cathedrals have a transept, a horizontal expansion in the nave, so that the church takes on the form oi the cross.
4. In this large space, the clergy and priests carry out the activities of worship, while members of the congregation become observers.
5. The clergy take on vestments, processions, music, incense, and bells, tbe accoutrements of a public event.
6. Baptism becomes an elaborate and public rihlal of initiation the Easter Vigil tbat is preceded by months of preparation.
7. The Eucharist (Mass), as celebrated by a bishop in a basilica, loses much of its quality as a meal and gains a quality of public, even civic, ceremony.
This Religion Called Chritianity
IV. Christianity reached into every aspect of life, finding ways of sanctifying time and space.
A. The sanctification of time was both communal and individual.
1. The sacraments of the church grew beyond baptism and the Eucharist to include confirmation, matrimony, holy orders, penance, and the anointing of the sick.
2. The "liturgical year" sanctified time through the celebration of the events of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection in two great cycles: the Easter cycle and the Christmas cycle.
3. Martyrs and confessors were considered as "saints" whose lives revealed the power of the divine in Christ and were exemplary and efficacious for other believers.
B. The sanctification of space developed later but reflected the same impulse to bring everything into the realm of the sacred.
1. Pilgrimage to "holy places" (especially the Holy Land) begins in the 4th century and grows in popularity.
2. Reverence for the tombs of the martyrs grows into the cult of relics, which extends their influence through space and time.