Lift Up Your Hearts

The First Mass?

Someone recently asked me when the first Mass was celebrated, by whom, and what it looked like. This person was aware that Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper. He was also aware that the Apostles were the first priests of the New Covenant (possessing the fullness of the priesthood, as bishops do today). The main point was to ask whether the first Mass was celebrated on Easter Monday? Or perhaps the Second Sunday of Easter (i.e., the day Saint Thomas the Apostle touched the wounds of Jesus)? Some days, weeks, or months later? And who was the main celebrant? Peter? John the Beloved?

I told the questioner that I thought it was a fascinating question, although, as he himself realized, maybe a little too precise. I proposed that the Ascension and Pentecost seem like necessary markers for the full development of the Eucharist. Jesus had much to teach the apostles during the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension, and the Holy Spirit had more to teach as well (when they could bear it) for some decades to come as the apostolic age unfurled. Whether it was Peter or James or John who celebrated the 7:30 a.m. quiet Mass or the 11 a.m. traditional Mass (or the 5:00 p.m. contemporary!) is probably not one that we will ever have an answer for, as such detail was not considered by the apostles necessary to pass on. (Although, if there's some ancient Eastern text which recounts the first Divine Liturgy with all the apostles, I am happy to go with that.)

What we do have is the affirmation in Acts 2:42 that the baptized were dedicated to "the breaking of the bread," undoubtedly a reference to the Eucharist. This is mentioned immediately after the baptism of about three thousand souls on Pentecost. So this suggests a connection to Pentecost for a full understanding of the celebration of the rite instituted by Jesus on Holy Thursday. At this time, it seems to have also been connected to ongoing worship in the Jerusalem temple, which continued within the Jerusalem church for at least a few years.

From the Lord's Supper to the Supper of the Lamb

I'd propose that by the end of the apostolic age (i.e., the death of John on Patmos and the conclusion of the visions which make up the final book of the Bible), the Holy Spirit had provided to the Church a pretty robust understanding of the different dimensions of the Eucharist. Many Protestants prefer to look to Holy Thursday for the model of the Lord's Supper. It seems pretty clear to me (and many others) that the early Christians over the course of the first century developed their worship from a model based solely on the Last Supper to a model based on the supper of the Lamb described in the Book of Revelation, without ever losing sight of the original institution. The early Christians understood themselves not simply to be imitating the ritual performed by Jesus in the Cenacle, but to be participating in worship that spanned both earth and heaven, with the presence of all the angels and saints, looking not only backwards in time but forwards as well. Of course, both the rite from the Upper Room and the heavenly worship of the Book of Revelation constantly point backwards or forwards or, mysteriously, now-wards to Jesus's self-offering on the cross.

Liturgical elements in the tradition

At the same time, many elements of early Christian Sunday Eucharistic worship are not precisely outlined in the Scriptures themselves. So when were those "added?" In recent centuries scholars have spent a lot of time on these questions. There are interesting questions of development here, as well as our discernment of contemporary liturgical practice. Should we try to return to the Eucharistic worship of the apostles themselves? Is that acessible to us?

Preface Dialogue

What is accessible to us are some texts from the second and third centuries. Our worship even today contains these elements. A great example is the "Preface Dialogue." We can trace this back at least as far as an early third-century rite of ordination of a bishop, passed down as the Traditio apostolica attributed to Antipope Saint Hippolytus, who lived circa 170–235/236. (Yes, he is titled both antipope and saint—that's a different topic.) The original Traditio apostolica was in Greek; the most complete manuscript is in Latin; and the Latin is supplemented by multiple Ethiopic, Coptic, and Arabic manuscripts. Benedictine scholar Bernard Botte provides the Latin, with missing letters filled in:

D(omi)n(u)s uobiscum.
Et omnes dicant:
Et cum sp(irit)u tuo.
Sursum corda.
Habemus ad dominum.
Gratias agamus d(omi)no.
Dignum et iustum est.

That should look familiar!

So even if the original Greek is lost, we can be confident that around the year 200, this dialogue between priest and congregation was a part of the Christian Eucharistic liturgy, what today in the West we call the Mass. The Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century knew it was ancient and so kept it as well. (In fact, the English translation of "Sursum corda" as "Lift up your hearts" comes from Cranmer.) I don't know if any non-denominational-type pastors incorporate such a dialogue into their extemporaneous Lord's Supper today. There's much more from the Traditio apostolica which is worth exploring at another time.

The bridge between Scripture and later centuries: Apostolic Tradition and Development

The main point is that the text stands as a unique bridge between strictly Biblical elements of Eucharistic worship and later developments in liturgy. It is possible that this "Preface Dialogue" dates back to the apostles themselves and was passed on in practice while not being recorded in one of the 26 books of the New Testament. It is also possible that the dialgoue developed organically in the first decades and centuries of post-apostolic worship. In either case, we have no record of the Eucharist being celebrated without it. If I had to propose what the "first Eucharist" celebrated by Peter sometime around Pentecost looked like, it would not be unreasonable to include this dialogue.

Whether it is apostolic or part of the immediate post-apostolic developments, the antiquity of such a dialogue—Biblical in inspiration but not directly from the text of Scripture—raises many questions for Protestants as to the nature of development in the Church. If the Holy Spirit inspired the early Christians to "add" something to the liturgy, can we ever take it away? Is everything added prior to the year, say, 200, okay to keep, but anything added after the year 200 to be considered suspicious? Is the point of our worship to recreate the liturgy as celebrated by Saint Peter, or as described in the Traditio apostolica, or is it something else?