On the Historical Development of the Liturgy

Trained in classical and oriental philology, Anton Baumstark (1872–1948) was prodigious as a scholar studying the literature, art, and liturgy of the whole church—Oriental, Eastern, and Western. Comparative liturgy, his method for studying the historical development of the liturgy as an organism, has had a lasting influence, notably on the liturgical study of the Christian East. Fritz West, a liturgical scholar ordained in the United Church of Christ, has written numerous articles on liturgical methodology, the three-year lectionary, and worship in his Reformed tradition. He has published two books, The Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark and Scripture and Memory: The Ecumenical Hermeneutic of the Three-Year Lectionaries.

• ContentsList of Abbreviations   ixForeword   xvRobert F. TaftIntroduction   1Fritz WestPreface   39Anton Baumstark1. The Problem and Its Solution  432. Domestic and Congregational Celebrations   533. The Legacy of the Synagogue   624. The Impact of Hellenism   745. Variety and Uniformity   896. Regional Definition and Influential Centers   987. Transferal and Blending   1158. Liturgy and Politics   1289. Cathedral and Monastery   14010. The Work of the Individual   14911. Language and Nation   16212. Development, Persistence, Hardening   17813. Liturgical Language and the Vernacular Priest and Deacon   18914. The Ivy of Poetry   19915. The Demands of Personal Piety   21716. Reform and Standardization   23017. The Limits of What We Can Know   244Short Biographies   249Index of Subjects   291Index of Historical Figures   301Index of Authors, Compilers, Editors, and Translators   307

Fritz West, himself a methodological master of comparative liturgical study, has provided all of us with a great service in the publication of his excellent translation of Anton Baumstark's work. Together with Baumstark’s classic Comparative Liturgy, which set the methodological agenda for most of contemporary historical-liturgical study, English scholars and students now have another significant Baumstark work on method at their disposal. Not to be overlooked are the fine contextual introduction by West and the preface by the great Eastern liturgiologist in the Baumstark school, Fr. Robert Taft, SJ. This book demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that Baumstark's foundational methods of Liturgiewissenschaft, also known as ‘comparative liturgy,’ have a bright future indeed if we are to say anything at all about the history of liturgy. Thank you for doing this, Fritz.Maxwell E. Johnson University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN