I've uploaded, temporarily at least, a copy of my paper for the SBL Annual Meeting Mark Group:
Scripturalization in Mark's Crucifixion Narrative
It's a Word document. Of course there is still lots to do on it, but at least I've begun the process of exploration which writing a conference paper offers.
3 comments:
In terms of what we know about the development of the liturgical year it is IMO unlikely that the first century church (Jewish or Gentile) held a yearly commemoration of the passion at Passover from 6pm Thursday to 6pm Friday (or from the beginning to the end of Friday by Jewish reckoning) Apart from anything else the earliest Christians probably did not celebrate Easter on fixed days of the week (see the Quartodeciman controversy)
The very early church does appear to have held a weekly Friday fast which may well have been used to commemorate the passion (Didache 8 and probable reference in Origen Contra Celsus book 8 chapter 22)
It seems maybe a little unlikely that the 1st century church would have a developed office for this weekly Friday commemoration, but at least this Friday fast probably is first century whereas a special Friday commemoration at Easter may not have developed till the 3rd century.
Thanks, Andrew, for your looking at the paper and for your helpful comments. There is a little more detail on the case for such a liturgical remembrance of the Passion in my Goulder and the Gospels, Part 3, but I also hope to shore up the argument some more in my forthcoming book on the topic. The evidence from the Quartodeciman controversy actually supports the point. The Quartodecimans are based in Asia, celebrate the Passion on 14 Nisan, and it is striking that here, where we have a liturgical difference, we also have a conflict in the Gospels, i.e. the Passion takes place on 14 Nisan in John but on the next day in the Synoptics. What Michael Goulder suggested was that the Quartodeciman controversy has its roots in the same kind of community as the one behind the Fourth Gospel.
Further on Early Church Liturgy.
One thing that might be relevant is the passage on hours of daily prayer in the early third century 'Apostolic Tradition' commonly attributed to Hippolytus.
From chapters 35-36 in Dix chapter 41 Stewart-Sykes
...pray at the third hour and praise God....For at that hour Christ was displayed nailed to the tree.....Pray likewise at the time of the sixth hour. For as Christ was fixed on the wood of the cross that day was divided and a great darkness descended.....And they should pray at the ninth hour....For at that hour Christ pierced in the side poured forth water and blood.
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