Srobably referring to the Jewish Sabbath. The ewish Christians themselves observed the Sabbath, and some attempted to force its observance upon the Gentiles (Gal 4'°, Col 2'"). But the Sabbath and metho<l of its observance are e8t)ecially dis- tinguished from the Lord'B day [cf. Ign. loc. cit. ' no longer sabbatizing (iraj3;3nWfoi'7-es), but living according to the Lord's day,' and Ep. Barn. loc. cit. Sabbaths are not pleasing to God, ' therefore wo observe the eighth day for rejoicing ']. On the early hi.story of the Christian Sunday, see esp. T. Zahn, Skizziti fius dem Leben der alten Kirche, cap. vi.
Of the existence of yearly festivals we have no intimation at all in N T. "The Jewish Christians still observed the Jewish feasts (Ac 2' 20'*, 1 Co 10'). There is no allusion in 1 Co 5'- ' (' Our pass- over also hath been sacrificed, even Christ, where- fore let us keep the feast,' etc. ) to the observance of Easter. The context sliows that the apostle is not speaking literally. The starting-point of his theme is the comparison of the Church to a ' new lump ' from which the old leaven has been purged out. ' We, too,' he says, ' as well as the Jews, have a Passover lamb ; therefore let us keep the feast . . . with tlie unleavened breiul of sincerity and truth.' His imagery is borrowed from the distinctively Jewish passover, but the lesson drawn applies to the whole Christian life, not to any special occasion— ^oprdj'ai/itF is rather ' keep festival' than 'keep the feast.' It is noticeable, however, that in the later Paschal controversy both parties referred to aiiostolic usage (see Eus. IIE v. 23, 24), in view of which we are not justified in drawing an argument from silence against the apostolic foundation of the Easter festival, and the exact date of its institution must be left an open question. In 1 Co we find that St. Paul presents to us a
picture of two kinds of Christian woisliip. In cii. 14 is described a meeting wliose chief aim is mutual ediiication; in 11"-" one of a very dillcrent char- acter and ceremonial, the purpose of which is to 'eat the Lord's Supper' {KvpiaKiv Se'tiri'oi>). In the same way two kiiuis of religious observance are di>liiiguislied in the account ol the primitive Church (Ac 2-'-'), 'the breaking uf liread and the prayers.' It is not quite certain whetlier rah jrpoffei/xais here refers to tlie public prayers in tlie temple which the Christians attended {e.g. 3'), or to the meetings of the community ; but as the writer is describing the salient elements distinctive of the Christ inn life, the latter has a slight balance in its favour. In any case there is abundant evidence {e.<j. Ac 1" Ol. 48. 47 42JM. 81 etg ) that the Christians at this time held assemblies for worship distinct from the ' breaking of the bread.'
This distinctively Christian worship was not held to take the place of the temple services, which were attended with scrupulous regularity (Ac 3'). Neither — and this, of course, refers not only to the first days of Christianity — did it take the place of individual private prayer (cf. Ac 10" IG''', £ph 6'", Ph 1^).
(a) The public service. — The purpose of this service was uefore all thinjjs edification, and this not only for those who were already believers, but also for unbelievers. It had, then, a missionary aspect, and for this purpose was made as public and open as possible. At Jems, it took place especially in the temple as long as this was purmitteu (Ac 2*' 3" 5'-'), or in some public place (Ac 2^, cf. "). Un- believers were welcome to attend and listen (1 Co 14-^). Every Christian had received the Holy Ghost and a 'gift' as the 'manifestation of the Spirit' within him (see 1 Co 12""-). Whatever was the gift he possessed, he was bound to put it at the service of the community and use it in hanuonious working with the whole {ib.'-"-). Hut if we look through the lists of gifts in Ko 12«f-, 1 Co 12'"f- we see that there are some (c.^. miracles, healings) which would not qualify tlieir possessors to contri- bute to the worship of the community. So we find a distinction drawn in 1 P 4'"' " between the gifts of speaking and the gifts of ministering (oia>coi'ti;> = contributing by personal help or ofi'erings to the common support). To the former it fell to take part in the public worship. St. Paul mentions ( 1 Co 14*") as constituent elements of this service ' a psalm,' ' a teaching,' ' a revelation,' ' a tong\ie,' ' an interpretation.' 'fhe division is not a rigid one : a ' psalm ' might be also a ' tongue ' (cf. ib."'j. Nor is the enumeration exhaustive ; prayer is not in- cluded, though it formed an integral p.art of the service (cf. 11^). We may then, perhaps, divide as follows : (o) teaching, (^) prayer, (7) praise.
(«) Ttaching. — We are only conaidcrinp here the plftce occupied by teaching in the serviccB. We mtiat treat later ol the wider quention ol teachinj^ in general. A di»f;ourse loniud part o( tlie service in the Jewish Bynai;ogue where it waa con- nected with the reading of an aiipiiinted jwrtion of the OT Bcripturcs (Lk *'""'■, Ac i:i" ; me Vitringa, de .S;/n. Vet. Bk. tn. pt. i. c. 6, pt. ii. c. 12 ; ychiirer, liJ I*, i 27). We have several uiHtancee of dittcourses in the Christian services {r.g Ac 207<i ), and there is no doubt the 'teaching* in these a-sseniblies took the form of one or more discourses. But the question of pnhlic reeling is not q\lit« 80 obvious. It is, however, on il im'on grounds quit« probable in itself, and is supportetl bv certain supposed allusions in NT. Thus Tiuiotliv is told (1 Ti 4i3) to 'give heed to reading, to exhortation, and to teaching' , and the writer of the Apoc. alludes tfl the arrangenienU for the puhlir reoding of bis book (Kev l^', cf. Col 4111). Somewhat later there arose a separate ollice called that of the ' readier," whose duly it was to read in the public services (see Harnaok, Die tog. apovl Kirchrnordnung, 'Texte u. Unf Btl. II. Hft. 6).