CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY BETWEEN JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN LITURGY

Summary

Monshouwer's hypothesis in his article on the reading of the Scriptures in the early Church meets with a number of fundamental objections. It is difficult to fit into the global picture of the history of early Christian liturgy as it can be reconstructed on the basis of numerous liturgico-historical evidence. Furthermore it is hard to reconcile with the fact that Christians from paganism did not take over the observance of the Sabbath from the Jews and the Jewish Christians.

Perhaps Monshouwer's hypothesis could apply to one region, namely Antioch and the Syriac speaking churches in the areas east of that city. There are a number of signs which indicate that in those areas the Sabbath was observed by Jewish Christian groups for an extensive period of time and that this Jewish Christian Sabbath practice exerted an important influence on Christians from paganism. Furthermore it is precisely in these churches that at least from the fourth century there are regular readings from the Old Testament during the Eucharist and that a number of sources originating from these churches know the custom to read first a passage from the Torah and then a pericope taken from one of the Prophets. Therefore we cannot exclude the possibility that during a longer period of time in Antioch and the Syriac speaking area, Jewish Christians came together on the Sabbath to read from the Torah and the Prophets, according to some synagogal system and that certain groups of Christians from paganism also participated in this reading of Scripture on the Sabbath.