Das Neue Testament und sein Text im 2. Jahrhundert. Группа авторов

as an anti-Pesach—around the middle of the second century.

      6 Conclusions

      In search of liturgical Gospel readings as part of a Liturgy of the Word, first traces emerge in the third century. The custom is well established at the end of the fourth century. The assessment of predecessors of this practice requires a distinction between testimonies for interests of groups in these texts and a ritualized performance of readings. The mere existence of the texts proves that they were read. It does not point to communal, let alone ritualized readings. Origen’s testimony points to a much less standardized situation than it can be reconstructed for sources of the later fourth century. Tertullian discusses scriptural texts at meetings of his Christian group. He does not yet know a Liturgy of the Word. Justin’s session of philosophical studies preceding the Eucharist on the Days of Helios is the only possible predecessor of both the Liturgy of the Word and any communal study of Gospel material. However, the claim that Gospel readings began in the latter part of the second century cannot only be based on this argumentum e silentio, because the late first and early second centuries are notoriously undocumented in the history of Christianity. Further arguments are required.

      Justin’s meetings on the Days of Helios are at most remote prototypes of Liturgies of the Word. As leader of a group of philosophers and as a staunch anti-Marcionite, Justin reacted quickly to the newest trends in Christianity. He put the correct versions of the new compositions as well as other texts that supported his approach (apparently Old Testament texts) on the reading list of his group. Justin’s brand of Christianity vanished with the demise of Christian groups organized as circles of philosophers.1 Even if the practice to study and discuss texts independent of one’s sympotic table-talk was neither liturgical nor typically Jewish or Christian, the sudden emergence of Gospel material together with (Old Testament) Prophets cannot be attributed to the novelty of this literature, let alone to a kind of ecclesiastical authority. The choice of texts manifests Justin’s opposition against Marcion. Second century additions to Marcion’s Gospel (cf. Luke 4:16–22; 24:27) and Justin’s reading assignment of “prophets” point into the same direction. Anti-Marcionism is not a re-alignment of Christian and Jewish customs, but an innovative elevation of the role played by the Old Testament in Christianity.

      This is borne out by the observation that the emergence of the Christian Liturgy of the Word is not dependent upon the ritualization of the rabbinic services of Torah reading and prayer. The developments of both Christian and rabbinic traditions follow different lines and interests. The remote parallels between rabbinic and Christian approaches to the reading of texts (either in literary fiction or in actual practice of groups) are due to their common roots within the Greek and Roman ways of living and studying as philosophers. The supposition that Christian groups adopted or inherited Jewish Diaspora customs of reading and studying Torah does not moreover explain the later prominence of the Gospels in Christian liturgies. Even if the Gospels should have been written in the late first century, there was just no Christian liturgy in which they played an essential role. Sympotic meetings of Christians provided a framework for discussions of all kinds of texts and topics. They do not require Gospel texts like the later Liturgies of the Word. It is still not evident for Origen that Gospel readings were indispensable.

      Justin’s group does not perform Liturgies of the Word in their third and fourth century shape and function. Therefore, it is not more than a tentative suggestion that these later Liturgies of the Word took their shape independent of Justin but because of the same reasons. Ephrem the Syrian still wrote tractates against Macion (and others). Opposition against Marcion thus united churches which diverged in other questions. Justin’s choice of texts reveals the same motivation as later designs of liturgies without being their precursor. In later epochs, an obligatory Liturgy of the Word came to stage the sanctity of the canonical Gospels as well as their superiority over other texts. Readings of Old Testament texts supported the same case. The performance of Liturgies of the Word and its ritualized emphasis on the Gospels thus emerged in order to shape and express Christian identity and orthodoxy as Anti-Marcionite.

      Apart from these only tentative suggestions, the origins of the Gospels must be reconstructed based on historical and textual data. Gospel texts emerge in the middle of the second century as reading material of a group of intellectuals/philosophers (Justin). A century later, their reading is attested in the first traces of a Liturgy of the Word preceding the celebration of the Eucharist. The history of Christian liturgies does not require a date of origins for the Gospels before Justin. Even that time—as well as several decades after Justin’s death—Christianity did not practice any type of liturgy that required Gospel readings.