ABSTRACT
For sentimental, historical and no doubt many personal reasons, some people like to take their ritual and theology back to where it all began, in the River Jordan. Theologically, however, there is never a need to return to the River Jordan, and all baptismal rites have developed beyond the Jordan. This study has described the lavish rituals of the Syrian Orthodox and the Church of the East, and surveyed the diversity of rites in the West. These older, foundational rites seem to be a ritual unpacking of the baptism of Jesus with dipping (Christological), naming (trinitarian), and gestures to symbolize the descent of the Spirit (pneumatological) and adoption into an eschatological community (ecclesiological). Other rituals have been added to express sin and repentance, coming to faith, being a new creation, or a resurrected being. For all the differences between the various Eastern rites, and the Western Tridentine and former usages such as the Mozarabic, all rites look back to the Jordan, and ritualize baptism in the conviction that what happened there once, still happens now in every baptism. One of the first ritual supplements to baptism was anointing. Although attempts have been made to find an original pattern and linear development, the diversity found in the ancient texts seems to reflect a diversity found in common secular bathing etiquette. There we find evidence of anointing before or after, or before and after bathing, and also of oil being poured into the baths themselves. All these are reflected in the diversity we find in the early centuries in the emerging baptismal rituals. The peculiar hand-laying and anointing by the bishop in the Roman use would spin off to become a separate and new rite of Confirmation. This was at first a Roman, and then Western peculiarity – and later a theological problem, and it is anachronistic to try to find ‘Confirmation’ in Eastern rites. Most of the themes relating to baptism found in the New Testament are reflected in some way or other in the developing baptismal rites. Some became more important
than others. In many of the rites the theme of rebirth/regeneration and font as womb predominate, and although the death/resurrection theme of Romans 6 is frequently present, it usually takes second place; womb, not tomb, is the major focus. The theme of repentance took on a deeper meaning in the West through the theological influence of St Augustine, though the dramatic renunciation found in the classical rites shows that rejection of sin and evil was always an important theme. In the Eastern rites, though, the emphasis was on restoration of the old Adam in Christ rather than concern with Original Sin. This is expressed most forcefully in the blessing of the font in the Maronite rite where the font is not so much the Jordan as womb of God giving birth to a ‘heavenly Adam’. Though there have been changes in the Eastern rites throughout the centuries and even in recent times, the texts have been more or less stable for many centuries. The variations and similarities between the various Eastern rites witness to a once greater diversity. Even within some Churches – the Maronite and Syrian Orthodox – there are manuscripts witnessing to a once greater variety of usages. In the West the diversity of usages – Roman, Milanese, Gallican, Mozarabic, Celtic – began to shrink, partly by osmosis and mutual borrowing of material, and partly by the gradual adoption of the Carolingian hybrid Roman usage. However, the commentaries from this period still reflect some of the earlier diversity. With the rise of scholastic theology, we find the beginning of a separation between the theology and rite. Definitions of sacrament and baptism resulted in generic definitions, often unrelated to the liturgical text and practice. Finally in the West, with the Council of Trent, we find a suspicion of regional variation, and the move towards a uniform rite. Certainly some diocesan rituals and usages continued, but the standard rite of Trent curtailed many local usages, and discouraged any cultural adaptation. The Tridentine rite held sway in the Roman Catholic Church until the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. These foundational rites of the ancient Churches remain as an important paradigm for the postmodern world, where once again there is an interest in ritual and symbolism. Although some of the more esoteric medieval interpretations of the ritual, and perhaps much of the terminology of the Western scholastic theologians will be unappealing, beneath these ancient ritualizings, there are important expressions of Christian salvation, perhaps summed up in a ghanta in the Syrian Orthodox rite:
