The Alexandrians of Clement's Day Did Not Refer to the Baptism of Their Catechumen as a 'Leitourgia' Because it had Nothing to Do With Jesus' Offering on the Cross

Peter Jeffrey has initiated an assault on the authenticity of the Mar Saba document discovered by Morton Smith claiming that the liturgical background which the Clement letter presupposes for the church of Alexandria does not square with what we know about early Church liturgy there or anywhere else.

I have argued here that the reason the text does not square with what we know about the Alexandrian service is because most of the information that people pay any attention to comes from a very late period - the fourth century. The Alexandrians from the period before the reforms of Constantine undoubtedly baptized their catechumen at the end of a Christian festival of Unleavened Bread.

I would now like to turn my sights on another small matter. Clement of Alexandria certainly never referred to the Alexandrian practice as a 'liturgy.' As Holman notes:

Clement uses the term leitourgia throughout his works to consistently to reflect an emphasis on Christian 'ministry' rather than on public service and civic obligation. He refers to leitourgia thirteen times in the Stromateis with several nuances: the divine service of celibacy, celestial servants such as angels, demons and natural forces, Paul's ministry, forms of purification ritual, hierarchy of divine service attaining to salvation and the good deeds of the perfect gnostic ... His use of leitourgia outside the Stromateis reflects a similar and similarly general focus on Christian ministry. [Holman, the Hungry are Dying p. 53 - 54]

Now people are likely thinking that I am splitting hairs here. It doesn't matter what Clement referred to the service that accompanied the baptism of the catechumen in Alexandria. But I don't think so. I think it is very important.

The translators of the Septuagint used a couple of different words for "worship" in their work, but leitourgia was not among them. They reserved that word for something very specific. They used "liturgy" to denote the officiating of a priest, what he did when he offered sacrifices in the Temple.

The word retains this use in the New Testament, as when Zacharias, the father of St. John Baptist, performs his "liturgy" in the Temple (St. Luke 1.23). Similarly our Lord is spoken of, in the Book of Hebrews, as having "a more excellent liturgy" than the priests of the Old Testament (Hebrews 8.6). The New Testament adds another meaning to the word as well: liturgy is spoken of as ministry, something done to benefit someone (we can see how this meaning derives from the earlier Greek definition). Still, the New Testament, following the precedent set down in the Septuagint, doesn’t employ the word "liturgy" to mean "worship."

If we look at Hebrews for example leitourgia is used to compare Jesus' sacrifice to the sacrifices of the Jewish (or Samaritan) priesthood. The Testament of Levi speaks of the leitourgia of angels that serve God in a ritual context offering "propitiary sacrifices ... a rational and bloodless leitourgia." The Pauline texts also echo the use of leitourgia as a metaphor for ritual sacrifice.

My point is that one could make the argument that THE REASON Clement does not use the 'leitourgia' associated with the baptism of the catechumen is because IT WAS NOT ORIGINALLY ASSOCIATED WITH JESUS' DEATH AND SACRIFICE.

I see an echo of this in Origen's discussion of the Passion throughout Peri Pascha. After emphasizing that the word pathe has nothing to do with Pascha, Origen goes on to say that the slaughter of the paschal lamb is NOT a 'type' (typos) of the Passion of Christ.

I have noted over and over again at this blog that the Aramaic equivalent of 'the Passion' of Christ would be his yetsirah - i.e. his 'transformation.' I think it was originally a baptismal reference and once again Origen's emphasis that Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were two different festivals underscores the reality that the Alexandrians identified the Resurrection to have occurred on the eighth day of the Hag HaMatzah.

All of these bits and pieces undoubtedly go together to show that the Alexandrians did not baptize their catechumen when Peter Jeffrey seems to think they did. Instead as Origen notes:

It would be too long for us at present to show why we [Christians] are required by the law of God to keep its festivals by eating "the bread of affliction," or "unleavened with bitter herbs," or why it says, "Humble your souls," and such like. For it is impossible for man, who is a compound being, in which "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh," to keep the feast with his whole nature; for either he keeps the feast with his spirit and afflicts the body, which through the lust of the flesh is unfit to keep it along with the spirit, or else he keeps it with the body, and the spirit is unable to share in it. But we have for the present said enough on the subject of feasts. [Against Celsus viii.23]

The point of course is that the theia leitourgia that Jeffrey's knows, loves and reveres has NOTHING to do with the Alexandrian Church of the first, second and third centuries.

It is only by the fourth century, the word leitourgia , together with adjective theia (i.e., Divine Liturgy) had become the technical term for the mystery of the Eucharist. The word Eucharist in turn means thanksgiving. It takes its name from the great prayer of consecration (Anaphora) pronounced by the celebrant of the Divine Liturgy.

The passage which would have provided the greatest obstacle for Clement to identify the ritual washing of the catechumen as a leitourgia would have been Hebrew 8:1 - 6:

Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a leitourgos of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.

For every high priest is ordained to bring offerings and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have something also to offer. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that bring offerings according to the law: who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.

But now hath he obtained a more excellent leitourgia, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. [Heb 6:1 - 8]

The leitourgia of Christ was his offering of himself on the cross for the redemption of humanity. While we no longer have any surviving commentary from Clement on this crucial passage there are a number of examples of Clement's use of the term leitourgia to mean 'sacrificial offering' including;

For the teaching of our Lord at His advent, beginning with Augustus and Tiberius, was completed in the middle of the times of Tiberius. And that of the apostles, including the leitourgia of Paul, ends with Nero [Clement Strom. 7:17]

The reference here is clearly to Paul's martyrdom closing out the apostolic age in the same way as Jesus' crucifixion ended the period of his ministry.

Indeed when I look at Clement's use of leitourgia in the next passage I see a clear echo not only of the gnostic baptism of perfection being represented as something which follows but is ultimately SEPARATE from Jesus' leitourgia - I see an echo of what is described in LGM 1 of To Theodore. Clement writes in a chapter devoted to describing the ritual 'stages' involved in 'gnostic perfection' that:

Whence at last (on account of the necessity for very great preparation and previous training in order both to hear what is said, and for the composure of life, and for advancing intelligently to a point beyond the righteousness of the law) it is that knowledge is committed to those fit and selected for it. It leads us to the endless and perfect end, teaching us beforehand the future life that we shall lead, according to God, and with gods; after we are freed from all punishment and penalty which we undergo, in consequence of our sins, for salutary discipline. After which redemption the reward and the honours are assigned to those who have become perfect; when they have got done with purification, and ceased from all service, though it be holy service, and among saints. Then become pure in heart, and near to the Lord, there awaits them restoration to everlasting contemplation; and they are called by the appellation of gods, being destined to sit on thrones with the other gods that have been first put in their places by the Saviour. [ibid Stom 7:10]

If the reader thinks about the context of this passage there is a clear distinction between leitourgia and telos which is as distinct as the Samaritans view the festivals of Passover and that of Unleavened Bread.

While Passover ends with an offering which frees the Israelites from bondage, the Festival of Unleavened Bread leads to something greater - viz. the glorification and magnification of Israel [Mimar Marqe 2:7]

The point would not have been lost on the earliest Alexandrian Christians who knew that 'Jesus' and 'Christ' were two separate beings with very different functions. Jesus offered himself up to transfer begin the redemption of humanity. Christ on the other hand completed the process by instituting the baptismal sacrament to re-form humanity after the image of the celestial Father in the heavenly ogdoad.

This is also why Origen emphasizes that the pathe of Jesus is a separate concept from the Passion of Christ and all the rest of it. It was 'Jewish error' which led to the identification of two festivals under one title. The Samaritans knew - and still know better - and treat each as separate festivals.