Comparative liturgics

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Comparative liturgics, whose principles and method were developed so brilliantly by Baumstark, has delivered an even more serious blow to the hypothesis of the monastic origin of the daily cycle. This study has shown that the epoch of the development of the daily cycle after Constantine was marked by a rivalry and even conflict between two types of daily service: ‘corporate’ and ‘monastic’ in Baumstark’s terminology. We will have occasion to dwell on this rivalry in greater detail in the following chapter. Here it is sufficient to say that this fact clearly demonstrates the preservation in the Church of daily services and a daily cycle which were not only distinct from their monastic types, but even appeared before the rise of monasticism. But what is still more important, there can be no doubt about the connection between the daily services of the ‘corporate type with synagogue worship, about their structural dependency on Jewish daily worship. C.W. Dugmore devoted a special work to die study of this dependency, and has demonstrated the synagogical structure of the two basic services of the daily cycle— Vespers and Matins. On the days when the Eucharist was celebrated the daily service (on the pattern of the synagogue worship) preceded the Eucharist, as its first part (missa catechumenorum), while on other days it constituted an independent service, assigned usually to definite hours of the day. In the third century, as is evident even from the very partial texts which reflect this epoch, Vespers and Matins ‘already occupied their present honoured position in the cycle of daily services.’ The existence of these daily services, devoted (according to Tertullian) ‘to common prayer... to the reading of Divine Scripture, to exhortations and instructions,’ explains the cause and manner of combining the synagogue ‘synaxis’ with the Eucharist. Srawley’s answer— ‘it just happened’— acquires greater significance.

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Malihah
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