The Bible and the Liturgy

Jean Danielou

Description

To a deplorable extent, Christians accept Church rituals as sacred but baffling heirlooms from the Church’s past. It is to remedy this situation that Father Daniélou has written this book. The Bible and the Liturgy illuminates, better than has ever before been done, the vital and meaningful bond between Bible and liturgy. Father Daniélou aims at bringing clearly before his reader's minds the fact that the Church's liturgical rites and feasts are intended, not only to transmit the grace of the sacraments, but to instruct the faithful in their meaning as well as the meaning of the whole Christian life. It is through the sacraments in their role as signs that we learn. So that their value will be appreciated, Daniélou attempts to help us rediscover the significance of these rites so that the sacraments may once again be thought of as the prolongation of the great works of God in the Old Testament and the New.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Practice
• Christian Rituals
• Biblical Studies
• Philosophie et théologie
• Devotional
• Devotion
• Catholic Church
• Liturgy
• Worship
• Old Testament
• New Testament
• Society of Jesus
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 1973
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268063290
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 23 Mo

Extrait

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
LITURGICAL STUDIES Liturgical Studies
THE BIBLE
AND THE LITURGY
BY
.JEAN DANIÉLOU, S.J.
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA imprimi potest: Theodore J. Mehling, c.s.c., Provincial
nihil obstat: Eugene P. Burke, c.s.c., Censor Deputatus
imprimatur: ✠ Leo A. Pursley, d.d., l. l.d., Apostolic Administrator,
Diocese of Fort Wayne
June. 12, 1956
The original version of this work was published in 1951 by
Les Editions du Cerf, in Paris, under the title of Bible et Liturgie.
First paperback edition, 1966
Reprinted in 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 55-9516
Copyright © 1956 by University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
∞This book was printed on acid-free paper.THE BIBLE AND THE LITURGY Editor's Note
The rites of the Church and the greater feasts of Her liturgical
year were intended to be an unfailing means, not only for trans­
mitting the grace of the Sacraments, but also for instructing the
faithful in their meaning and in the meaning of the whole Chris­
tian life.
During the last centuries, however, the faithful have too seldom
taken proper advantage of this primal source of Christian initia­
tion and growth. The reason is that they have lost familiarity both
with the scriptural types and fgures required for doing so and with
the signifcance given to these types and fgures by Christ Himself,
by the Apostles, and by the Fathers. Too often, in fact, rites and
feasts have come to be treated like sacred but mysterious heirlooms
having no vital meaning for ordinary Christians today, since they
do their work anyway, whether they are fully understood or not.
It is to remedy, if only in part, this most unfortunate, not to say
deplorable, situation that Father Danielou has written the present
work. Taking advantage of the fndings of modern scholarship, he
here examines the sign-language of the Sacraments and of the Feasts
-more particularly, that of Baptism, Confrmation, and the Holy
Eucharist, as well as of the Sabbath-as this language is explained
by the Fathers, who, in turn, based their interpretation on those
given in the New Testament and in Tradition.
vii The present study is published in the hope, therefore, that it will
prove of great value to all who are interested in learning, and in­
structing others in, the meaning of Christianity as this is expressed
in its primary and basic idiom.
MICHAEL A. MATHIS, c.s.c.
Editor, Liturgical Studies
University of Notre Dame
June 6, 1956
VIII Contents
lntr,duction
page l
ONE
The Preparation
page 19
TWO
The Baptismal Rite
page 35
THREE
The Sphragis
page 54
FOUR
The Types of Baptism: Creation and the Deluge
page 70
FIVE
Types of Baptism: The Crossing of the Red Sea
page 86
SIX
Types of Baptism: Elias and the Jordan
page 99
SEVEN
Confrmation
page 114
EIGHT
The Eucharistic Rites
page 127
NINE
The Figures of the Eucharist
page 142
TEN
The Paschal Lamb
page 162
IX ELEVEN
Psalm XXII
page 177
TWELVE
The Canticle cf Canticles
page 191
THIRTEEN
New Testament Types
page 208
FOURTEEN
The Mystery of the Sabbath
page 222
FIFTEEN
The Lord's Day
page 242
SIXTEEN
The Eighth Day
page 262
SEVENTEEN
Easter
page 287
EIGHTEEN
The Ascension
page 303
NINETEEN
Pentecost
page 319
TWENTY
The Feast of Tabernacles
page 333
INDEX
page 349
X THE BIBLE AND THE LITURGY g
Introduction
LEOLOGY defnes the sacraments as "efcacious signs,"-this
being the sense of the scholastic saying (signifcando causant). But,
as things are today, our modern textbooks insist almost exclu­
sively on the frst term of this defnition. We study the efcacious
causality of the sacraments, but we pay very little attention to
their nature as signs. It is, therefore, to this aspect of the sacra­
ments in particular that the chapters of this book will be devoted.
We shall study the si ifcance of the sacramental rites, and, more
generally, that of Christian worship. But the purpose of this study
is not simply to satisfy our curiosity. This question of the sacra­
ments as signs is of fundamental importance for pastoral liturgy.
Because they are not understood, the rites of the sacraments often
seem to the faithful to be artifcial and sometimes even shocking.
It is only by discovering their meaning that the value of these
rites will once more be appreciated.
There was no such problem in the early Church, for the ex­
planation of the sacramental rites held an important place in the
very formation of the faithful. During Easter week, for example,
explanations of the sacraments were given to the newly-baptized
who had received their frst Communion after their baptism dur­
ing the Easter vigil. Etheria, who, at the end of the fourth cen­
tury, attended the Easter celebrations at Jersusalem, describes the
bishop as saying in his last Lenten sermon to the catechumens:
"So that you may not think that anything that is done is without
3 THE BIBLE AND THE LITURGY 4
meaning, after you have been baptized in the name of God, dur­
ing the eight days of Easter week you will be given instruction in
1 the church after Mass." And also, in the sermons given on each
feast of the liturgical year, the meaning of the feast was explained.
Our study will be based essentially on this teaching of the frst
Christian centuries, and will consist, therefore, of an interpreta­
tion of the symbolism of Christian worship according to the
Fathers of the Church. We shall examine successively the sym­
bolism of the three principal sacraments,-Baptism, Confrmation
and the Holy Eucharist; and then that of the Christian week and
of the liturgical year.
But before we study these patristic interpretations, we must
frst defne the principles which inspired them. For this symbol­
ism is not subject to the whims of each interpreter. It constitutes
a common tradition going back to the apostolic age. And what is
striking about this tradition is its biblical character. Whether we
read the instructions concerning the sacraments, or look at the
paintings in the catacombs, we are struck at once by fgures taken
from Holy Scriptures,-Adam in Paradise, Noe in the ark, Moses
crossing the Red Sea,-these are the images used for the sacra­
ments. It is, then, the meaning and origin of this biblical symbol­
ism that we must frst make clear.
That the realities of the Old Testament are fgures of those of
the New is one of the principles of biblical theology. This science
2 of the similitudes between the two Testaments is called typolog.
And here we would do well to remind ourselves of its foundation,
for this is to be found in the Old Testament itself. At the time of
the Captivity, the prophets announced to the people of Israel that
in the future God would perform for their beneft deeds analo­
gous to, and even greater than those He had performed in the
past. So there would be a new Deluge, in which the sinful world
would be annihilated, and a few men, a "remnant," would be
preserved to inaugurate a new humanity; there would be a new
Exodus in which, by His power, God would set mankind free
from its bondage to idols; there would be a new Paradise into
1 XLVI, 5; Petre, (Sources chretiennes), p. 231.
2 This is the term adopted nowadays by most exegetes. See J. Coppens, Les Har­
monies des deux Testaments, p. 98. 5
8 which God would introduce the people He had redeemed. These
prophecies constitute a primary typology that might be called es­
chatological, for the prophets saw these future events as happen­
4 ing at the end of time.
The New Testament, therefore, did not invent typology, but
simply showed that it was fulflled in the person of Jesus of Naza­
reth.5 With Jesus, in fact, these events of the end, of the fullness
of time, are now accomplished. He is the New Adam with whom
the time of the Paradise of the future has begun. In Him is al­
ready realized that destruction of the sinful world of which the
Flood was the fgure. In Him is accomplished the true Exodus
6 which delivers the people of God from the tyranny of the demon.
Typology was used in the preaching of the apostles as an argu­
ment to establish the truth of their message,7 by showing that
Christ continues and go� beyond the Old Testament: "Now all
these things happened to them as a type and, they were written
for our correction" (I Cor. 10, 11). This is what St. Paul calls the
consolatio Scripturarum (Rom. 15, 4).
But these eschatological times are not only those of the life of
Jesus, but of the Church as well. Consequently, the eschatological
typology of the Old Testament is accomplished not only in the
person of Christ, but also in the Church. Besides Christological
typology, therefore, there exists a sacramental typology, and we
fnd it in the New Testament. The Gospel of St. John shows us
that the manna was a fgure of the Eucharist; the frst Epistle of
St. Paul to the Corinthians that the crossing of the Red Sea was a
fgure of Baptism; the frst Epistle of St. Peter that the Flood was
also a fgure of Baptism. This means, furthermore, that the sacra­
ments carry on in our midst the mirabilia, the great works of God
8 in the Old Testament and the New: for example, the Flood, the
Passion and Baptism show us the same divine activity as carried
out in three diferent eras of sacred history, and these three phases
of God's action are all ordered to the Judgment at the end of time.
s See Jean Danielou, Sacramentum futuri, Paris, 1950, p. 98.
4 See A. Feuillet, Le messianisme du Livre d'lsa,e, Rech. Sc. Rel., 1949, p. 183.
6 'The only thing specifcally Christian in the patristic exegesis of the Old Testa­
ment is the application to Christ' (Harald Riesenfeld, The Resurrection in Ezechiel
XXXVI and ih the Dura-Europos paintings, p. 22).
6 Harald Sahlin, Zur typologie des Johannes evangeliums, 1950, p. 8 et se