Apostolic Tradition

Nathan P. Chase (1990-2025) was assistant professor of liturgical and sacramental theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. He contributed articles to the field of liturgical studies, including pieces on liturgy in the early Church, initiation, the Eucharist, inculturation, and the Western Non-Roman Rites, particularly the Hispano-Mozarabic tradition. With Maxwell E. Johnson, he co-authored The Apostolic Tradition: Its Origins, Development, and Liturgical Practices (Liturgical Press, 2025), and The Origins of the Canons of Hippolytus (Liturgical Press, 2024). He was the author of The Homiliae Toletanae and the Theology of Lent and Easter (Peeters, 2020) and The Anaphoral Tradition in the ‘Barcelona Papyrus’ (Brepols, 2023).Maxwell E. Johnson is emeritus professor of liturgy at the University of Notre Dame and a retired presbyter in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. His numerous publications are on the origins and development of early Christian liturgy, contemporary rites, and current ecumenical and theological questions in both East and West. He is the author and/or editor of more than twenty-five books and over one hundred essays and articles. He is also a former president of the North American Academy of Liturgy, a member of the Society of Oriental Liturgy, a member of Societas Liturgica, and a member of the scientific advisory board for the journal Ecclesia Orans. He has received the Berakah Award from the North American Academy of Liturgy and the Christus Rex Award from the Liturgical Studies Institute at Valparaiso University.

• ContentsAbbreviations   viiIntroduction   1Chapter 1:  English Translations of Ethiopic I and Arabic I   47Chapter 2:  The Prologue and the Short and Long Endings   93Chapter 3:  Orders and Ministries   99Chapter 4:  The Daily Horarium   143Chapter 5:  Christian Initiation   165Chapter 6:  Eucharist, Foodstuffs, Firstfruits, and Meal Practices   271Chapter 7:  Treatment of the Sick and Christian Burial   363Chapter 8:  Assorted Rituals in the Apostolic Tradition and Additional Texts Added into the Apostolic Tradition in Ethiopic I   383Chapter 9:  Conclusion   393

"This timely and thorough study revisits the elusive Apostolic Tradition once associated with Hippolytus, discussing the implications of the Ethiopic Aksumite evidence as well as Arabic witnesses. An Asiatic rather than Roman origin is agreed upon now by most scholars, and Johnson and Chase mount a compelling argument for an Egyptian provenance. Discussing this composite work in themes rather than chapters makes this study easier to follow than previous studies, and it will be a crucial book for early Christian liturgy."Bryan D. Spinks, Bishop F. Percy Goddard Professor Emeritus of Liturgical Studies and Pastoral Theology, Yale Divinity School and Yale Institute of Sacred Music