The Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark 9781463219598

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T h e Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark

Gorgias Liturgical Studies

31

This series is intended to provide a venue for studies about liturgies as well as books containing various liturgies. Making liturgical studies available to those who wish to learn more about their own worship and practice or about the traditions of other religious groups, this series includes works on service music, the daily offices, services for special occasions, and the sacraments.

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark

Fritz West

1 gorgia* press 2009

Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2009 by Gorgias Press LLC Originally published in All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2009

1

ISBN 978-1-60724-382-3

ISSN 1937-3252

Published first in the U.K. by Grove Books, 1995.

Printed in the LTnited States of America

CONTENTS CI I A P T E R

PAGE

Introduction

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1. An Intellectual Biography 2.

6 13

Early Methodological Thought

3. An Introduction: The Comparative Method

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4. Comparative Liturgy: In Theory

26

5. Comparative Liturgy: Practice

33

6.

Legacy

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7.

Postscript

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DEDICATION To Mark Searle meinem Doktorvater Requiescat

in

pacem

Introduction Anton Baumstark made a substantial contribution to the methodology o f modern liturgical studies. In his lifetime comparative liturgy became an accepted approach for the study o f the liturgy and contributed in no small measure to the new understanding o f the liturgy that emerged after World War 1 among Roman Catholic liturgical scholars. Since his death his book Comparative Liturgy has Become a classic in the field. Though his ideas are now viewed with a critical eye, nis continuing influence is apparent both in the current understanding o f the liturgy and in approaches to its study. T h e picture o f the liturgy as a coherent historical whole stretching from India to Ireland owes much to his insights. So, too, does our structural understanding o f the liturgy. Liturgical studies now assumes the structural character o f the liturgy; and the methodology o f o n e school, the structural analysis o f the Mateos School o f oriental liturgiology, builds directly upon his methodology. 1 T h e following pages will describe the history o f an idea: comparative liturgy. As comparative liturgy bears the stamp o f its creator, this history is in part biographical. It arose directly out o f Baumstark's temperament, gifts, and interests, especially his critique of the cultural studies o f his day. It was shaped by Baumstark's position as a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical historian working in the shadow o f the modernist controversy. However, with its use o f the comparative method, comparative liturgy also has a history in its own right. While it is widely assumed that comparative grammar served as the inspiration for comparative liturgy 2 , both comparative grammar and comparative liturgy belong to a larger family o f comparative sciences. They are marked by the use of the comparative method which coupled the organic model with the method of comparison. More exactly, they applied systematic comparison to cultural phenomena which they held to be organic. Comparative liturgy, tnen, stands where two histories meet: the personal history o f Anton Baumstark and the intellectual history o f the comparative method. Its history is the tale a man and his method. In tracing this history we shall begin with the man and end with his method. Our first sections will provide an intellectual biography of Anton Baumstark and a discussion of his early methodological musings. At that point we shall interrupt our focus upon Baumstark himself with an interlude on the comparative method. In the following two sections we will return to Baumstark in presenting an exposition o f his mature methodological thought, comparative liturgy. T h e final major section will discuss his methodological legacy in the field o f liturgical studies. 1

2

Robert Taft, 'The Structural Analysis of Liturgical Units: An Essay in Methodology,' in Worship 52(1978) p.317. See also the revision of this article in his Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding (Pastoral Press, Washington, DC, 1984) pp. 152-153. Bernard Botte makes just this claim in his Foreword to Anton Baumstark, Comparative Liturm, (A. R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd., London, 3rd ed, 1958) p.viii. Indeed, Anton Baumstark himself acknowledges similarities between his method and that of comparative grammar. See Baumstark, Comparative Liturm, p.3; Anton Baumstark, 'Ein liturgiewissenschaftliche Unternehmen deutscher Benediktinerabteien,' in Deutsche Literaturzeitung 40(1919) cols. 902-3; Anton Baumstark Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, in Ecclesia Orans vol. 10 (Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1923) pp.2-5. Introduction

5

1. An Intellectual Biography1 Carl Anton J o s e p h Maria D o m i n i k u s B a u m s t a r k was born into a scholarly R o m a n C a t h o l i c family on 4 August, 1872. Raised in C o n s t a n c e ( B a d e n ) G e r m a n y , B a u m s t a r k studied philology and the classics as well as Syriac and its literature. After university he lived in R o m e for five formative years, from 1 8 9 9 to 1904, as a resident o f the G e r m a n study house, C a m p o S a n t o Teutonico, literally in t h e s h a d o w o f St. Peter's Basilica. In his position as rector o f this house, Anton de Waal ( 1 8 3 7 - 1 9 1 7 ) , sought to strengthen t h e historical study o f the church a m o n g G e r m a n Catholics. O n the invitation o f de Waal G e r m a n priests and scholars used it as their h o m e in R o m e while pursuing research in the Vatican archives and library. For these five years, then, B a u m s t a r k benefited f r o m t h e stimulation o f living in a working c o m m u n i t y o f historical scholars. 1'he years at C a m p S a n t o Teutonico gave direction and focus to Baumstark's scholarly endeavours. U p o n the urging o f Anton de Waal, he turned his energies toward the liturgy and literature o f the church in the eastern M e d i t e r r a n e a n , especially t h e nonBvzantine East. In this effort de Waal facilitated the f o u n d i n g o f t h e journal Oriens Christianas with Baumstark as its editor. In the winteV o f 1 9 0 3 - 1 9 0 4 , B a u m s t a r k travelled to the N e a r East and, after visiting libraries and m o n u m e n t s visited in Egypt, Palestine and Syria, returned to R o m e with reams o f notes and photographs. 2 Also at C a m p o S a n t o leutonico, he made the a c q u a i n t a n c e o f the art historian, J o s e p h Strzygowski ( 1 8 6 2 -

1

2

6

There are numerous short biographies of Baumstark in print: Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1974ed, sv'Baumstark, Anton'; Lexikon flir Theologie und Kirche 1958 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Anton' by Hieronymus Engberding; Georg Graf, 'Zum Geleit und zum Andenken an Anton Baumstark und Adolf Rücker,' Oriens Christianus 37(1953) pp.1-5; Odilo Helming, 'In memoriam Anton Baumstark,' Tijdschrifi voor Liturgie 33(1949) pp.161-3; Theodor Klauser, 'Anton Baumstark, 1872-1948,' Ephemerides liturgicae 63 (1949) pp.185-7; Das katholische Deutschland: Biographisch-bibliographisches Lexikon, 1933 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Anton' by Wilhelm Kosch; Neu' Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Anton' by Burkhardt Neunheuser; Enciclopedia cattolica, 1949 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Anton Joseph Maria' by Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina; Olivier Rousseau, 'Antoine Baumstark (1872-1948)' in La maison Dieu 16 (1948) pp. 156-8; Adolf Rücker, 'Anton Baumstark zum 60. Geburtstag' in Litterae Orientales; orientalistischer literaturbericht 52(1932) pp.1-11. Otto Spiess, 'Anton Baumstark, (1872-1948)' in Bonner Gelehrte: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Bonn: Sprachwissenschaften (Bonn, Ludwig Rohrschied Verlag, 1970) pp.347-349; Neue Deutsche Biographie, 1953 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Gelehrte und Publizisten (2) Carl Anton Joseph Maria Dominikus' by Otto Spiess; I have not been able to locate yet another biography to which reference is made in the literature: G. Berger, 'Ein grosser Gelehrter und ein grosser Christ' in Einst und Jetzt: Berichte aus dem antiquariat Ludwig Kohrscheid Bonn 276. Beilage 29 (Bonn, np, 1954). Baumstark's bibliography has been published in nearly complete form: Herta Elisabeth Killy, Bibliographia Baumstarkiana' in Ephemerides liturgicae 63 (1949) pp.187-207. Another valuable source is the correspondence between Baumstark and Hans Lietzmann found in Hans Lietzmann Glanz und Niedergang der deutschen Universität: 50 jähre deutschen Wissenschaftgeschichte in Briefen an und von Hans Lietzviann (1892-1942), Run Aland (ed) (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1979) passim. Anton Baumstark, 'Palaestinensia. ein vorläufiger Bericht." in Römische Quartalschrift 20(1906) pp.125-7

The Comparative Liturg\> of Anton Baumstark

1941). N o t o n l y did Strzygowski spark an interest in Christian art, a r c h i t e c t u r e a n d archaeology in B a u m s t a r k , b u t h e also s t i m u l a t e d his t h i n k i n g a b o u t m e t h o d in t h e s t u d y of t n e liturgy. For f i f t e e n years a f t e r leaving R o m e B a u m s t a r k ' s life was b u r d e n e d . U n a b l e to o b t a i n a university a p p o i n t m e n t , he t a u g h t classics at a s e c o n d a r y school r u n by his g o d f a t h e r . In 1909, h e m a r r i e d Frieda A n n a Trondle, a 'good b u t s i m p l e w o m a n ' 1 w h o b o r e h i m a f a m i l y of f o u r t e e n , n i n e s o n s a n d five d a u g h t e r s . T h e s e w e r e difficult t i m e s f o r Baumstark. G i v e n his responsibilities at h o m e a n d school, t h e t i m e available f o r scholarly pursuits was sharply curtailed. W h i l e writing his Gescbicbte der syrischen Literatur, h e w o r k e d till t h e wee h o u r s of t h e m o r n i n g , g e t t i n g by o n o n l y a f e w h o u r s sleep. A n d t h e n t h e r e was W o r l d W a r 1. S h o r t on t i m e a n d w i t h o u t ready access t o a university library, B a u m s t a r k ' s scholarly w o r k s u f f e r e d . T h o u g h h e p u b l i s h e d s o m e m o n o g r a p h s , m u c h of his w r i t i n g in these years c a m e in t h e f o r m of reviews of b o o k s a n d literature, e n c y c l o p e d i a articles, a n d pieces f o r t h e p o p u l a r press. O p p o r t u n i t i e s finally c a m e B a u m s t a r k ' s way in t h e peace w h i c h f o l l o w e d W o r l d War I. Of special i m p o r t for him w a s a relationship with t h e A b b e y of M a r i a Laach. The m o n k s of this abbey, c o m m i t t e d to a liturgical a p o s t o l a t e even b e f o r e t h e war, w e r e m o r e t h a n ready f o r t h e o p p o r t u n i t i e s w h i c h peace a f f o r d e d . Yet t h e p r o g r a m m e of t h e a b b e y was t o o a m b i t i o u s to rely solely u p o n m e m b e r s of t h e m o n a s t i c c o m m u n i t y a n d it n e e d e d help. To s h a p e t h e i r a p p r o a c h to liturgical studies, to p r o d u c e t h e i r p u b l i c a t i o n s a n d p r o g r a m m e s , t h e m o n a s t i c c o m m u n i t y enlisted t h e efforts of a n u m b e r of liturgical scholars o u t s i d e t h e abbey, B a u m s t a r k a m o n g t h e m . T h i s was a r e l a t i o n s h i p of m u t u a l benefit. A b b o t l l d e f o n s H e r w e g e n (1874-1946) n o t only e n c o u r a g e d B a u m s t a r k to t u r n his a t t e n t i o n to t h e liturgies of t h e West, b u t gave h i m a q u i e t place to w o r k a n d o p p o r tunities to publish. For his part B a u m s t a r k played a central role in s h a p i n g t h e u n d e r s t a n d i n g of liturgical studies e m b r a c e d by t h e abbey, served as e d i t o r of its journal, t h e ]abrbuch fur Liturgieivissenschajt, a n d p r o v i d e d leadership f o r its liturgical weeks. 2 T h e s e years a f f o r d e d B a u m s t a r k professional o p p o r t u n i t i e s as well. In 1921, w h e n a p p r o a c h i n g his fiftieth birthday, he finally received t h e o f f e r of a university position. T h r o u g h t h e intercessions of his friend Mans L i e t z m a n n (1875-1942), he was able to take a position at t h e University of Bonn as professor honorarius f o r early Christian oriental civilization. H o w e v e r , at n o t i m e did B a u m s t a r k hold a regular, f u l l - t i m e university a p p o i n t m e n t . In a d d i t i o n to his w o r k in Bonn, w e find h i m t e a c h i n g at N i j m e g e n a n d U t r e c h t in H o l l a n d a n d at M u n s t e r in G e r m a n y . For m o s t of his years in university teaching, B a u m s t a r k held t h r e e p a r t - t i m e a p p o i n t m e n t s , c o m m u t i n g f r o m o n e university t o a n o t h e r , i n d e e d f r o m o n e c o u n t r y to a n o t h e r , in o r d e r to fulfil his duties. Yet, hono u r s did c o m e his way. In 1925 t h e C h u r c h a d d e d its a p p r o b a t i o n to t h a t of t h e a c a d e m y w h e n t h e C a t h o l i c faculty of t h e University of Bonn g r a n t e d B a u m s t a r k a d o c t o r of t h e o l o g y degree honoris causa.3 Finally, u p o n his sixtieth b i r t h d a y in 1932, colleagues a n d f o r m e r s t u d e n t s p u b l i s h e d a. festschrift in his h o n o u r . For B a u m s t a r k , a f t e r years of struggle as an i n d e p e n d e n t scholar, these rewards were sweet i n d e e d . 1

Odilo Helming, in a conversation with the author at t!ie Abbey of Maria Laach on 5 September 1983. Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, pp.vn and ix. 3 Baumstark. Missale Romanian: Seine Entwicklung ihre nichtigsten Urkunden und Probleme (Uitgeveri| 'Het Hooghius', Kindhoven. 1929) Jed ication page. 2

An Intellectual

Biography

1

But Baumstark was not destined for tranquillity and in the early 1930s his life took another troubled turn. The change was a direct result of his earnest support of the National Socialist Party. Baumstark's political commitments served to isolate him, straining relationships both in the academy and in the Church. Because of his involvement in the election of 1932 and his polemical writing for the party, Odo Casel (18861948) removed Baumstark from the editorship of Jahrbuch fiir Liturgiewissenscha.fi. Appeals for reinstatement which Baumstark made to Abbot Herwegen were of no avail. Priaefully he thereafter refused to publish in the pages of that journal, which was his main outlet for work in the area of western liturgy. In addition to his rift with the Abbey of Maria Laach, he encountered difficulties at the University of Münster. There colleagues tried to have him removed on charges that he had obtained his teaching post through political favouritism. In Baumstark's words, his involvement in the politics of the Third Reich brought him 'Verdruss und Undank'. 1 These developments affected Baumstark's priorities. No longer publishing in the area of western liturgy, his attention shifted to other areas of inquiry. Through the encouragement of Professor Paul Kahle (1875-1964) at the University of Bonn, Baumstark added yet another area to his already extensive scholarly interests, namely, that of Biblical studies, especially the textual traditions of Near Eastern texts and the harmonizations of the Gospels. However, with his political commitments placing increasing demands upon his time and energy, scholarship no longer held his attention undivided. He wrote, 'Devotion to the powerful work "of a political organization of our people" which the great Führer of a new Germany put before us as a national task and which no truly sensitive witness to the fate of his people may shun, limits the time at my disposal for scholarly work of any kind.' 2 Partly due to age, partly to events, Baumstark's opportunities for scholarly work were now shrinking. In 1940, at the age of 67, he retired from his one remaining teaching post at the University of Nijmegen. Though he had planned to continue editing the journal Oriens Christianus, wartime conditions forced that journal to cease publication within the year. Anton Baumstark died in Bonn on 3 1 May 1948 at the age of 75. Baumstark had a fecund mind and a productive pen. His bibliography contains no less than 546 publications, both popular and scholarly, on a wide variety of topics. His coeditor on Oriens Christianus, Adolf Rücker (1880-1948), likened Baumstark's intellectual development to that of a tree, which adds new growth without supplanting older rings.3 More than once encouragement for growth came from Baumstark's mentors or colleagues. To the area of classical and Near Eastern literature and philology studied at the university, Baumstark added upon the stimulus of Anton de Waal the literature and liturgy of the Christian East; Christian art and archaeology upon the influence of Josef Strzygowski; the liturgy of the Western Church and comparative liturgy upon the urging of Ildefons Herwegen; and the textual criticism and history of the Bible after conversations with Professor Paul Kahle. In addition to these fields, we may mention the litera1 2

3

8

Lietzmann, Glanz und Niedergang, p.825. Baumstark, Anton, 'Beiträge zur Buchmalerei des christlichen Orients 1: Frühchristlich-syrische Prophetenillustration durch stehende Autorenbilder,' in Oriens Christianus 3rd series 9(1934) p.104. Rücker, 'Anton Baumstark zum 60. Geburtstag', pp.5-6.

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

ture and euchology of Islam. The image of annual rings particularly captures the cumulative character of Baumstark's intellectual growth. Earlier interest continued even as new rings were added. Despite the diversity and breadth of Baumstark's interests and learning, his scholarly work had focus. Save for his work in Syrian literature, all that he wrote sought to elucidate the life, liturgy and literature of the church in the Mediterranean basin. Even the knowledge of Judaism and Islam were pursued not for their own sake, but rather to give breadth to his study of the Christian church. His thorough knowledge of the languages and cultures of the Mediterranean basin allowed him to study the churches in that area on a broadly comparative basis. This area he regarded as an historical unity. Though each church in the Mediterranean basin bore the stamp of its immediate cultural milieu, he saw that all were related through the cultural commerce around and across the inland sea. As a scholar, both Baumstark's strength and his weakness lay in his use of hypotheses. With the breadth of his thought, knowledge, and interests, he was able to suggest hypotheses and relationships which would have eluded a scholar of narrower focus. However, his hypotheses were not always carefully crafted. Indeed, at times they were extravagant or, as Olivier Rousseau termed it, referring to both his politics and his intellect, Utopian'. 1 Bernard Botte (1893-1980) wondered whether Baumstark was able to distinguish truly between his hypotheses and historical reality, counting this as his chief limitation'. 2 Baumstark is best thought of as a pathfinder. Just as persons of his age ventured into unknown lands, so did Baumstark embark upon intellectual explorations. In this world he was well-travelled. Fluent in numerous languages, familiar with a variety of cultures, he was able to move with ease through literatures and liturgies across the breadth of the church. To go so far from home, to travel so deep into the unknown, takes a tenacity which is not always attractive. Certainly this was true of explorers in the nineteenth century, like H.M. Stanley, who brought to their task a passion and a singlemindedness that had its brutal side. Baumstark possessed a similar temperament. An anecdote told by Kunibert Mohlberg (1878-1963) gives us insight into his personality. After informing Baumstark of a palimpsest which challenged one of his hypotheses, Mohlberg writes, he 'pounded on me like a Jupiter tonans, and literally cast a curse upon me and my palimpsest'. 3 Adolf Riicker, while showing great appreciation for Baumstark's book reviews, commented that 'he can indeed occasionally be acerbic, if it appears necessary to him' 4 ; and his student Odilo Heiming confided to me that Baumstark could be 'a difficult man'. 5 Baumstark brought to his scholarly work the pathfinder's passion; while required to reach his goal, the intensity and drive of that passion did not always make for a pleasant travelling companion. The ecclesial milieu in which Baumstark found himself exercised a formative influence upon his scholarly work. He was not merely an historian, but a Roman 1 2 3

4 5

Rousseau, 'Antoine Baumstark (1872-1948)', p.158. Botte, 'Foreword to the Third Edition' in Anton Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.ix. Kunibert Mohlberg, 'Vertrauliches aus meinem Umgang mit mittelalterlichen Handschriften,' m Miscellanea histórica Alberti de Meyer, vol. 2 (Univeriteits-bibliothek, Leuven, 1946) p.1326-7. Riicker, 'Anton Baumstark zum 60. Geburtstag', p. 10. Heiming, personal comment.

An Intellectual Biography

9

Catholic historian working at the turn of the twentieth century in the bosom of the Church. This was the era of the modernist controversy, when the Church regarded history to be at odds with faith. Roman Catholic historians of this period, especially those in holy orders, found themselves in a predicament of no mean sort. Though few were condemned as modernists, all had to arrive at strategies for using historical methods in ways acceptable to the Church. Some were cautious and tried to minimize the theological implications of their scholarship by concentrating upon narrow, technical topics. 1 Others worked confidently in the knowledge that one day the Church would have to bend to the realities of history. 2 Yet others, Baumstark among them, were accommodating. Not only did he use neo-scholastic categories to explain the place of an historian in the Church, but in a larger sense comparative liturgy can be seen as an historiographical solution to a theological problem. Given its considerable impact upon Baumstark s thought, let us then pause to consider the theological climate abroad in the Church of his day and his response to it. From the middle of the nineteenth century until after World War I, the Church held history at arm's length. 3 It did so in the framework of neo-scholastic theology which drew a clear distinction between nature and grace, and sharply delimited the power of natural reason. Essentially, it held, reason only had the power to explore the natural world. Though it could establish the existence of God as well as the logical necessity of the Christian faith, it could never know the mysteries of the Christian faith in themselves. These were made known directly by God only to the mind elevated by supernatural grace, that is, to the Church and its clergy. On this basis neo-scholastic theologians built an epistemology distinguishing two orders of knowledge: first, a theology which was certain and, second, allother human sciences which were not. Here we find bold contrasts between Church and world, theology and science, faith and history. The eternal life of the Church was marked by constancy, unity, and consistency; the historical life of the world was characterized by change, plurality, and contradiction. The Truth of the Church was deemed to be supernatural, objective and necessary; the truth of the world was held to be natural, subjective and contingent. In the words of Louis Billot (1846-1931), professor of dogmatics at the Gregorian University in Rome, 'dogmas have no history'. 4 1

C u t h b e r t Butler, 'Abbot C.uthbert Butler to Friedrich von Hügel' in T h o m a s Michael Loome, Liberal Catholicism, Reform Catholicism, Modernism: A Contribution to a New Orientation in Modernist Research Tübingen Theologische Studien, vol. 14 (Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Mainz, 1979) p.442. 2 F d m u n d Bishop may serve as an example. See below. 3 O n the theology of this period see Gerald McCool, Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century. (The Seabury Press, N e w York, 1977) and Mark Schoof, A Survey of Catholic Theology, ¡8Ó0-1970 (Paulist N e w m a n Press. N e w York, 1970). For R o m a n Catholic intellectual life of this period see: H e n r i - l r e n é e M a r r o u , 'Philologie et histoire d a n s la p é r i o d e d u pontificat d e Léon XIII' in G i u s e p p e Rossini (ed) Aspetti della culturo cattolica nell'eta de LeoneXIII: atti delconvegno tenuto a Bologna, il27-28-29 dicembre 1960 (Edizioni 5 lune, R o m a 1961), pp.71-106 and Bernard Welte, 'Zum S t r u k t u r w a n d e l der katholischen Theologie im 19. J a h r h u n d e r t ' in Auf der Spur des Wegen: Philosophische Abhandlungen über verschieden Gegenstände der Religion und Theologie (Herder Verlag, Freiburg in Westfalien, 1965) pp.380-409. 4 Louis Billot q u o t e d in Roger Aubert, The Christian Centuries: A New History of the Catholic Church: Vol. 5 The Church in a Secularized Society (Darton, L o n g m a n and I b d d , L o n d o n , 1978) p. 179.

10

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

In the Church of this period, historians f o u n d themselves in a tenuous position, with their place depending in large part u p o n the theology and temperament of the reigning pope. Life for historians was tolerable under Leo XIII (1810-1903), w h o was accommodating and encouraged the study of both theology and history. Since, he held, G o d created both Church and world and G o d cannot be self-contradictory, then the facts and findings of history will ultimately confirm, not contradict, the truths of theology. Life for historians became difficult when his successor took another tack. Perceiving the Church to be under attack, Pius X (1835-1914) c o n d e m n e d the purveyors of historical truth in the decree Lamentibili and the encyclical Pascendi. However, at no time in this period was life easy for historians in the Church. They worked on the margins of the Church, which welcomed them only on its own terms. Baumstark accepted this invitation. Using neo-scholastic categories, he defined h o w it was that he—a layman and an historian—could legitimately study the liturgy of the Church, l b do so he had to establish that the study of the liturgy fell into the second order of knowledge. Only if this were so could (1) a layman (2) study liturgy as history (3) using natural reason. In answering this question Baumstark took an approach c o m m o n in his day. The liturgy, he argued, could be studied as both theology and history. In so far as the liturgy refers to G o d it belongs to the realm of theology and only those in holy orders can study this dimension of it. However, 'It is only its subject-matter which belongs to Theology.' 1 T h e liturgy is also an historical p h e n o m e n o n and can be studied as such. As comparative g r a m m a r studies language and not that to which language refers, Baumstark argued, so comparative liturgy analyzes the liturgy and not God. Comparative grammar can parse the sentence 'God exists' without ever taking a position on the truth claimed by that statement. Analogously, comparative liturgy does not use reason to study God, but rather to study the liturgy whose referent is G o d . This being the case, Baumstark claimed, a layman such as himself can use natural reason to study the liturgy without fear of trespassing upon theology's sacred precincts. There remained, however, the tnorny problem of the theological implications of historical data. This problem, central to the modernist controversy, impacted liturgical no less than biblical scholars. Indeed, two liturgical scholars, Pierre Batiffol 2 (1841-1929) and Louis Duchesne 3 (1843-1922), had books c o n d e m n e d by Rome. In his answer to this question Baumstark appears like a positivist hard-liner trying to will the problem away. The historian's obligation, he argued, is to present the facts, regardless of the speculations of the theologians. ' . . . Comparative Liturgy should always be on its guard against pre-conceived ideas and above all against theories constructed (in a way dear to theologians) in the interests of a system.' 4 However, since theological theory is not Church dogma, this stance does not imply a contradiction of the first order of knowledge by the second. Though facts may contradict theories of h u m a n invention, they can never contradict the depositum fidei handed down by Christ to the Church. Indeed Baumstark 1 2

3

4

Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.3. See Emile Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Casterman, Paris, 1962) pp.2215, 364-392. See Emile Poulat, 'Mgr. D u c h e s n e et la crise m o d e r n i s t e ' in Collections de l'Ecole française de Rome; vol. 23, Monseigneur Duchesne et son temps; actes du colloque organisé par l'école française de Palais Farnisé, 23-25 Mai 1973 (Ecole française de Rome, Rome, ¡975) pp.353-373. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.7

An Intellectual Biography

11

was careful to distance himself from 'modernist truths'. 'We certainly do not mean to suggest that science and dogma can be in contradiction or to propound the modernist thesis of double truth. All we insist on is that facts must be given their true value.' 1 Baumstark is here basing his argument upon the understanding of the two orders of knowledge held by Pope Leo XIII. In this confidence, Baumstark notes the example of the anaphora of Addai and Mari. Lacking the Words of Institution which the Church held to be consecratory, this anaphora seemingly contradicted dogma. But Baumstark writes, 'Now whatever be the theological considerations involved, we are not justified in conjuring the fact away. It is the theologians, not the liturgists, whose business it is to relate the historical datum to the unchangeable character of dogma. This historian, if he is a Catholic, while accepting the truth of dogma unreservedly, must no less certainly accept the fact which confronts him. In such cases he will remind himself in full sincerity of the saying of that great Pontiff, Leo XIII: Veritas non erubescit nisi abscondi. '2 Baumstark is asserting that the historian can explore the past confident that no facts discovered can ever contradict the depositumftdei of the Church. So did Baumstark, the historical positivist, understand his place in tne Church. Confident of both data and dogma, he trusted their ultimate harmony to God. To place Baumstark in relationship to his age, it is instructive to compare him with the English liturgical scholar Edmund Bishop (1846-1917). Between Baumstark and Bishop one finds some striking similarities: hoth are Roman Catholic laymen, historians of the liturgy and historical positivists. But, unlike Baumstark, Bishop could not imagine an accommodation between the historical method and neo-scholastic theology. The two, in his eyes, were unalterably opposed. In holding this view Bishop understood himself to be a modernist. For Bishop the policies of Leo XIII had only served to mask an inherent opposition between the presuppositions of the historical critical method and neoscholastic theology. In 1905 he wrote, 'When I observe how one set of persons (the theologians) proceed confidently from affirmation to affirmation, and from deduction to deduction, and how the work of historical investigation is proceeding in the hands of another set of persons, it is, to my mind, as though the builders of Babel were pushing on their construction cheerfully with eyes turned heavenwards, without giving a thought to the work of sapping and undermining the edifice that is going on below.' 3 In Bishop's view the days of neo-scholasticism were numbered. The historical consciousness and scientific ethos were simply a fact of life which theologians could ignore only at their own risk. This danger Baumstark never saw.

1 md 2

3

-

Ibid., p.8; for a statement of Leo XIII on this point see 'Bref de sa sainteté Léon XIII aux organisateurs du congrès scientifique international des catholiques' in Compte rendu, Congrès scientifique international des catholiques, tenu à Paris du 8 au 13 Avril 1888 vol 1 (Bureau de Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne, Pans, 1889) p.vii. Edmund Bishop, 'History and Apologetics' in Loome, Liberal Catholicism, Reform Catholicism, Modernism, p.380. On Bishop as a modernist see in this volume, pp.59-76.

12

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

2. Early Methodological Thought At the beginning o f a s e m i n a r held at the University o f Leipzig on the Friday after Pentecost in the year 1893, the Arabic scholar L u d o l f Krehl ( 1 8 2 5 - 1 9 0 1 ) greeted his student Anton B a u m s t a r k i n a w e l l - i n t e n d e d display o f affability. H e wished his R o m a n C a t h o l i c student well on that 'goldene Freitag,' the n a m e for the Friday after Pentecost in the Syrian tradition. In so doing, this Protestant professor unwittingly revealed his mistaken assumption that the liturgical calendar o f the church in Syria was identical to that o f the R o m a n Catholic C h u r c h . For y o u n g Anton Baumstark, this b u m b l i n g greeting was indicative o f a presupposition c o m m o n a m o n g his teachers o f philology. B e they Protestant o r Catholic, his teachers tended to a s s u m e as a m a t t e r o f course that liturgies in the Mediterranean basin were derived from R o m e . After recounting this a n e c d o t e in a b o o k review published in 1904, Baumstark c o m m e n t e d that things were different in 'our generation'. 'We have broken and we wish to c o n t i n u e to break with the one-sidedness o f a historical perspective, for which existed—so far as Christian matters are c o n c e r n e d — essentially only the central and western E u r o p e a n cultures from t h e beginning o f antiquity to the Middle Ages and beyond. But now in o u r day t h e Christian orient in all cultural areas is d e m a n d i n g its rightful place as a party in t h e historical developm e n t o f h u m a n c u l t u r e . . . N o w when we prepare a Syriac text a n e w for publication, we shall n o longer regard it as merely o n e m o r e fragment in an i m m e n s e chrest o m a t h y o f a northern Aramaic dialect. R a t h e r we wish to see it considered as part o f the fabric o f the life o f the Syrian nation, o r rather a fabric o f an expression o f that nation—Christianity adapted to that t i m e and p l a c e — w h i c h presents itself to us in each text. W i t h o u t a douDt t h e m o s t delicate o f the textual studies to be found in this field are liturgical texts.' 1 Even in 1893, as a university student o f twenty-one, Baumstark showed a keen interest and a revisionist spirit in matters methodological. Behind his e n c o u n t e r with Professor Krehl lay o n e o f Baumstark's life-long concerns: the proper regard for the cultures o f the Mediterranean basin and their interrelationships. Underlying this concern lay a critique o f the way scholars o f his day regarded the cultures o f the inland sea. In Baumstark's j u d g m e n t their understanding was at least Euro-centric, if n o t R o m o - c e n t r i c ; they interpreted the culture o f the eastern Mediterranean not in their own right but in terms o f E u r o p e a n culture. T h i s historical perspective belied a moral stance which judged all culture by R o m a n standards: language in terms o f Latin, art in terms o f R o m a n art, laws in terms o f R o m a n law, and so on. T h i s Eurocentric cultural perspective Baumstark discerned in his teachers, philologists o f the late nineteenth century, w h o treated the Christian orient merely as a 'variant' o f R o m a n Christianity, w i t h o u t a history worthy o f study for its own sake. T h e same attitude was apparent in tne R o m a n C a t h o l i c C h u r c h and its understanding o f the liturgy. As E u r o p e a n s viewed culture, so did the Church view the church. O f particular concern to Baumstark was the C h u r c h ' s view o f the liturgy. It was seen to have its 1

Anton Baumstark, 'Beprechung: Hilgenfeld (ed) Ausgewählte Gesänge des Giivargis Warda von Arbel\ in Orlens Christianus 4(1904) p.229. Early Metbodological

Thought

13

roots in an apostolic liturgy, given to the apostles by Jesus Christ and entrusted through Peter to Rome. In this perspective, 'history' became a story of disintegration in which apostolic perfection became sullied by historical development. The relationship which this position envisioned between earlier and later forms was not historical at all but ideal, with earlier forms furnishing the ideal for measuring the adequacy (or more often the inadequacy) of later forms. This Romo-centric perspective on the liturgy, in Baumstark's opinion, was but an instance of the Euro-centrism which he had first encountered and critiqued in his teachers. 1 It was one thing for Baumstark to critique current thinking and quite another to offer a constructive solution. What was needed was nothing less than a wholly new conceptual framework for interpreting the cultures of the Mediterranean and their relationships. Baumstark found this in the work of Josef Strzygowski, an art historian and visitor to Campo Santo Teutonico. Like Baumstark, Strzygowski was a student of culture in the Mediterranean basin who was critical of the Euro-centrism which dominated his field. In his book, Orient oder Rom?, Stryzgowski challenged the Rome-centred view of art history with the argument that the flow of aesthetic influence in the Mediterranean basin had been quite the reverse of what had been commonly assumed: from East to West rather than from West to East. In a book review published in the same year as the anecdote, Baumstark gave approbation to Strzygowski's ideas in writing 'we should accustom ourselves to think of Rome as essentially without influence, the heiress of a purely Hellenic tradition.' 2 For his constructive proposal, Strzygowski applied the comparative method to the study of the history of art. He sought to overcome with this method the obstacles to. the writing of art history which he thought were inherent in the available evidence. According to Stryzgowski only monumental works of art remain intact over time, urban structures made of stone. The wooden structure typical of the hinterlands naturally deteriorated with time. Thus, in Strzygowski's view, a history of art which takes into account only the extant evidence will inevitably be skewed toward the imperial and away from the popular. To solve this problem, Stryzgowski employed a comparative method which he claimed could reconstruct lost architectural forms indirectly from inferences found in existing structures. Such a procedure is possible, Strzygowski claimed, because art is an organism which manifests its essential features in a variety of cultures and eras. In this organic framework, the stone structures in one region can present fully developed examples of structures only alluded to in the art of another and, as such, be used to flesh out its history. 3

1

Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.5 and Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, p.30. A n t o n Baumstark, 'Besprechung: Josef Strzygowski, Kleinasien, ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte,' in Oriens Christianus 4 (1904) p.415 3 Josef Strzygowski, Origins of Christian Art (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1923) passim; for a critical s t u d y see: Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing, Kunstforschungoder Kunstwissenschaft'!' Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, NF, H e f t 31 (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, M ü n c h e n , 1950-1).

2

14

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

W h i l e stimulated by this approach, B a u m s t a r k did not feel he could go so far. H e was certainly ready to see t h e liturgy as s o m e t h i n g organic. In 1903 he had written, 'Until t h e t i m e o f L u t h e r t h e Christian liturgy was s o m e t h i n g unified from its roots. It was locally very diverse, but organic throughout, that is, it developed according to laws w h i c h originated in its being. A liturgical text can be fully understood only when a historical p r o b l e m o f the liturgy can be properly solved u p o n t h e broadest comparative basis.' 1 Baumstark had m o v e d a long way in the ten years since his e n c o u n t e r with Professor Krehl. H a v i n g t h e n insisted u p o n the integrity o f cultural forms, including those o f the liturgy, as representative o f the cultures which shaped t h e m , he n o w c a m e to regard the liturgy as an organic unity. T h e essential similarity o f all liturgies, Baumstark now thought, sprang from t h e fact that they were all manifestations o f a single, natural (that is, governed by laws) organism. H e r e was his response to the Euro-centrism o f his teachers and the R o m o - c e n t r i s m o f t h e C h u r c h . For if all liturgies were manifestations o f o n e essence then n o single liturgy, like that o f R o m e , c o u l d serve as the measure for all others. Rather, all were to be evaluated in light o f t h e organic whole from which they sprang. B a u m s t a r k t h o u g h t that this liturgical organism originally c o n t a i n e d all o f the liturgies o f the C h u r c h . B e c a u s e o f events in the sixteenth century, however, this organic unity no longer existed in its original form. Early in that century Protestant reformers shaped worship according to their o w n criteria; later in that century t h e C o u n t e r - r e f o r m a t i o n , in establishing the C o n g r e g a t i o n o f Sacred Rites, began correcting and directing the liturgy o f the R o m a n C a t h o l i c C h u r c h . Protestants and Catholics alike, then, exercised their wills u p o n the worship o f the C h u r c h rather than allowing it to develop according to its laws. In this way, argued Baumstark, the 'natural growth' o f the liturgy was interrupted in the W e s t in the sixteenth century. O n l y the liturgies o f t h e East c o n t i n u e d to develop organically a c c o r d i n g to the laws which sprang from their c o m m o n being. B a u m s t a r k w a n t e d to follow Strzygowski all trie way and use the comparative m e t h o d in the study o f the liturgy. But, in his j u d g m e n t , the t i m e for that had n o t yet c o m e . T h o u g h he recognized that the liturgy, as an organic unity, should be studied 'upon the broadest comparative basis', t h e analysis o f its data had not yet advanced to that point at which the comparative m e t h o d would apply. Its use would require a knowledge o f the liturgy's patterns and laws o f d e v e l o p m e n t , which had yet to be d e d u c e d from the plethora o f liturgical data. T h o u g h Strzygowski's c o n f i d e n c e in the comparative m e t h o d allowed him to reconstruct architectural forms w h i c h had been lost to history, B a u m s t a r k was m o r e tentative in regard to the liturgy. H e wrote, 'A c o m p a r a t i v e liturgy, with a clearly and universally recognized m e t h o d is, however, unfortunately a science which is yet to be established.' 2

1

2

Anton Baumstark, 'Besprechung: Die nestorianische Iäufliturgie, (ed) Diettrich' in Oriem Christianus 3(1903) pp.220-221. The following paragraphs reflect upon this citation. Ibid.

Early Methodological Thought 15

3. An Interlude: The Comparative Method Analogies f r o m the study of life came to scholars like Strzygowski and Baumstark indirectly through comparative grammar. These scholars were a part of the second wave of comparative sciences. While the first wave, comparative grammar, drew its organic t h o u g h t directly f r o m the natural scientists of the early nineteenth century, the second wave, the comparative sciences of culture, took its organic t h o u g h t f r o m the first. Impressed by its apparent success in comparative grammar, scholars of culture a d o p t e d the comparative m e t h o d with high hopes. Friedrich M a x Milller (1823-1900), a scholar of both language and religion, gave voice to this h o p e in 1867. 'It was supposed at one time that comprehensive analysis of t h e language of mankind m u s t transcend the powers of man; and yet by the c o m b i n e d and well directed efforts of m a n y scholars, great results have been obtained, and the principles that m u s t guide the student of the Science of Language are n o w firmly established. It will be the same for the Science of Religion.' 1 The topic of this section is the use of the comparative m e t h o d in both of its stages. In addition to providing context for o u r consideration of comparative liturgy, it will also yield criteria for evaluating the appropriate use of the comparative m e t h o d . T h e starting-point for considering comparative g r a m m a r is unequivocally its use of organic thought. T h e models, m e t h o d s and aspirations of this approach to the study of language all proceeded f r o m the analogy which linguists drew between language and organic life. N o passing fad, organic t h o u g h t influenced t h o u g h t a b o u t language t h r o u g h o u t the nineteenth century. In the view of Ernst. Cassirer (1874-1945) the organic model did no less than establish the p r o g r a m m e for linguistic structuralism. 2 E. F. K. Koerner built a book-length article on this fecund suggestion and concluded that 'the concept of organism, including the conscious and half-conscious adoption of the m e t h o d s of the biologist, botanist or anatomist have proved crucial in the d e v e l o p m e n t of linguistics.' 3 Nineteenth century linguists applied organic t h o u g h t to language as both m o d e l and metaphor. 4 In a purely metaphorical sense, these scholars used the adjective 'organic' to depict the coherency of language, as we might speak of, for example, a poem. I'he terms which linguistics yet borrows from botany (root, stem) and zoology (family, mothertongue) imply this organic metaphor. It is, however, the use of the organic model which was the hallmark of comparative grammar. These scholars applied this model to language in two senses, the methodological and the ontological. T h e methodological aspect of the organic model asserted that—like an 1

Friedrich Max Miiller, Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 1 (Scribners, Armstrong, & Co, N e w York, 1873) p.xix. 2 Ernst Cassirer 'Structuralism in M o d e r n Linguistics,' in Word 1(1945) p.107. ' F.. F. K. Koerner, 'European Structuralism. Early Beginnings' in T h o m a s A. Sebeok (ed) Historiography of Linguistics, Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. U ( M o u t o n , T h e Hague/Paris, 4

1975) p.730. T h e following paragraphs rely u p o n distinctions f o u n d in Cassirer's article 'Structuralism in M o d ern Linguistics' pp.99-110.

16

The Comparative

Liturgy1 of Anton

Baumstark

organism—languages contain interrelated parts which function to maintain the whole. In this analogy between a language and an organism, scholars of comparative grammar had in mind the more complex organisms of the animal kingdom, namely vertebrates. In another sense, however, linguistics pictured language as an organic being. Whereas the methodological aspect of the organic model stresses structure, the ontological aspect stresses transformation. This model held language to be a developing organism which manifested itself in the languages known to history. As such, scholars of comparative grammar held language to be nature not history, distinguishing these two realms by their determinacy, according to the positivism of the day. Nature, being governed by law was seen to be absolutely determinate; history, being governed by human will, was regarded as utterly indeterminate. In this distinction lay a methodological implication: language being nature, its study was a science, able to use exact procedure to obtain precise results. For a concrete example of comparative grammar, we turn to one whose understanding of language and linguistics proved especially influential: August Schleicher (1821 -1865). While not an imaginative thinker, Scnleicher had the gift of synthesis, fashioning a comprehensive approach to the study of language from numerous strains current in his day. This synthesis dominated the study of language for more than half a century, from the middle of the nineteenth century to the publication of the Course in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) in 1914. So influential did it become that, using the notion of Thomas S. Kuhn, one may speak of a Schleicherian paradigm. It passed into the comparative sciences of culture as scholars in those fields turned to comparative grammar for a model and a mentor. 1 Schleicher held language to be a natural organism and its study to be a natural science. 2 'Languages are natural organisms, which—without being determined by the will of men—arose, grew and developed in accordance with specific laws and in their time will age and die o u t . . ,'3 Upon this organic understanding, Schleicher examined language in two frames of reference, being and becoming. These two aspects could not only be studied separately, systematically and historically respectively, but one could infer the other: being could infer becoming. Traces of past development found in later forms could be used both to classify languages and to reconstruct earlier forms. Understanding language in this way, Schleicher applied to language methods borrowed from the life sciences. H e classified language with his Stammbaumtheorie in conscious imitation of botanical classification; he understood himself to be using paleontological 1

See E. F. K. Koerner, 'Towards a Historiography of Linguistics: 19 th and 20th Century Paradigms,' in Herman Parret (ed) History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics (de Gruyter, Berlin, 1976) pp.692-699 and 'European Structuralism: Early Beginnings," pp.745-760. 2 On the comparative method in the study of language see H. N. Hoenigswald, 'On The History of the Comparative Method' in Anthropological Linguistics 5( 1963) pp. 1 -11, John P Maher, 'More on the History of the Comparative Method: The Tradition of Darwinism in August Schleicher's Work,' in Anthropological Linguistics 8(1966) pp. 1-12 and T. M. S. Priestly, 'Schleicher, Celakovsky and the Family-Tree Diagram' in Historiographica Linguistics 2(1975) p.299-333. 3 August Schleicher, 'Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft' rn Hans Helmut Christmann (ed) Sprachwissenschaft des 19. Jahrhundert (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1977) p.88.

An Interlude: The Comparative Method

17

procedures in his reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European (abbreviated as PIE). Neither language classification nor reconstruction originated with Schleicher, yet his confidence in tne law-governed understanding of the natural organism of language led him to carry these procedures further than his predecessors had dared. Schleicher was a contemporary of Charles Darwin, although the biological thought which informed his approach arose earlier. His ideas can be traced back to those of the Naturphilosophen and tne comparative anatomy of Georges Cuvier. Comparative grammar drew its ontological understanding of language from the Naturphilosophen, so called because of their philosophical orientation and predominantly German origin. These thinkers understood the whole of nature to be essentially, if not mystically, related through the life-force at work within it. They sought to demonstrate this unity of life in a unity of plan, arguing that all living forms were but variations upon a single plan. Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) attempted to define the Urpflanze, the archetype of all plants; Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) sought to demonstrate the unity of plan in the animal kingdom through detailed studies of skeletal structures; Lorenz Oken (1779-1851) suggested that the archetypal plan of all vertebrates was a generalized backbone. Although in retrospect these schemata seem fanciful, their orientation toward patterned transformation led to advances in the areas of embryology, morphology, and cell theory. Schleicher's concept of language parallels these thinkers' understanding of life: he held it to be a unitary, metaphysical organism whose variations on the plane of history were but manifestations of tne one. 1 While the Naturphilosophen provided nineteenth century scholars of language with the ontological model, Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), the 'father' of comparative anatomy, guided their use of the methodological model. What particularly impressed nineteenth century linguists was Cuvier's work in palaeontology, that is, his ability to infer a whole animal from mere fossils and fragments. Cuvier's own thinking was ideological-, as the purpose of any organism is to live, then God must have endowed nature at creation with the means by which the parts of every organism would serve that end. He held these means to be logically prior to the existence of an organism, determining its physical organization as well as the relationship of its parts. He called them the 'conditions of existence': 'As nothing may exist which does not include the conditions which made its existence possible, the different parts of each creature must be coordinated in such a way as to make possible the whole organism, not only in itself but in its relationship to those which surround it, and the analysis of these conditions often leads to general laws as well founded as those of calculations and experiment.' 2 1

2

For a philosophical discussion of the Naturphilosophen see S. F. Mason, Main Currents in Scientific Thought. A History of the Sciences (Henry Schuman, New York, 1953) pp.280-290; for particular treatments of Goethe and Geoffroy see E. S. Russell, Form and Function. A Contribution to the History ofAnimal Morphology (John Murray, London, 1916) pp.45-78; f o r a recent treatment of Geoffroy in the context of his debate with Cuvier see loby A. Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate: French Biologyi in the Decades Before Darwiti (Oxford University Press, New York, 1987). Georges Cuvier, Le régne animal distribué d'après son organisation pour servir de base à l'histoire naturelle des animaux et d'introduction à l'anatomie comparée, vol. 1 (Déterville, Paris, 1824) p.6. Translation by William L. Coleman, Georges Cuvier, Zoologist: A Study in the History of Evolution (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1964) p.42.

18

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

Using the conceptual framework of the conditions of existence, Cuvier was able to exercise the inferential reasoning required for his palaeontological studies. He posited toward this end the principle of the correlation of parts, a virtual corollary to the conditions of existence. Cuvier held that it was possible to work back from a part to the whole, say, from a shoulder blade to a skeleton, by determining how the conditions of existence would require all parts to be correlated to make for a living whole. 1 Nineteenth-century scholars of language borrowed from Cuvier both his structural understanding of organisms and his use of inferential reasoning. They drew the methodological organic model from his understanding of organisms. With this model, which stresses the whole as a unified system of interrelated parts, linguists in the nineteenth century explored the structural aspects of language. However, linguists also attempted reconstructions after the manner of paleontology. They sought to reconstruct the putative single ancestor of all Indo-European languages, PIE, by comparing Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. Schleicher went so far as to reconstruct a whole fable in PIE. 2 These attempts at linguistic reconstruction, like Cuvier's palaeontological reconstructions, draw inferences from comparisons made within a structural and systemic conceptual framework. 3 The possibility of transferring method from biology to linguistics is created by suggestive parallels between language and life. These parallels have long been noted. Indeed, in The Descent of Man published in 1871, Charles Darwin wrote that 'the formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process are curiously parallel.' 4 In this century, Joseph Greenberg has argued that 'the theory of evolution as transformation applied mutatis mutandis and with relatively minor modification both to linguistic and biological change.' 5 Among the similarities which he enumerates are: (1) the conservative rates of their change; (2) the creation of new forms through geographic isolation; (3) the difficulty in defining new forms (biological species and linguistic dialects); and 4) the branching tree diagram used in both disciplines. 6 1

Recent studies on Georges Cuvier are Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate; Coleman, Georges Cuvier, Zoologist, and Dorinda O u t r a m , Georges Cuvier: Vocation, Science and Authority in Postrevolutionary France ( M a n c h e s t e r University Press, 1984). See also t h e discussion of Cuvier in Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences ( P a n t h e o n Books, N e w York, 1970) pp.263-279. For his work in paleontology, see the third c h a p t e r of M a r t i n ) . C. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Palaeontology (Neale Watson Academic Publication, N e w York, 1976) pp.101-163. 2 August Schleicher, 'Eine Fabel in indogermanischer Sprache' in Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung 5 (1868) pD.206-8. 3 For discussions of Cuvier's influence u p o n the study of language, see: Cassirer, 'Structuralism in M o d e m Linguistics', pp.106-108; Koerner, T u r o p e a n Structuralism', pp.729-33; and Erich Rothacker, Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissenschaften (H. Bouvier u n d Co., Verlag, Bonn, 1947) p.94. 4 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (J. Murray, London, 1871) p.40. s J o s e p h H. Greenberg, 'Language and Evolution', in Language. Culture and Communication: Essays by Joseph H. Greenberg (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1971) p.110. 6 Ibid., pp.112-3.

An Interlude: The Comparative Method

19

On the basis of these parallels comparative grammar claimed language was life and consciously borrowed procedures, notably comparison, from its study. 1 The procedure of systematic comparison exploits for analytical purposes the similarities and dissimilarities found between the members of a field of comparison. It does so in a two-step process: first it classifies, then it contrasts. Though botn of these steps involve comparison, they attend to different features. One classifies on the basis of similarity; one contrasts on the basis of difference. In classification, one gathers into one group those members which are sui generis. Further instances of classification are created in like manner; they are deduced from the similarities found between groups already determined. When one has clearly classified on the basis of similarity, then one may fruitfully contrast the dissimilarities. For example, it was first necessary to identify positively the whale as a mammal on the basis of similarity to other mammals before it was fruitful to compare it to the fishes with which it shares an environment. 2 In biological comparison descent and structure are closely tied. Structure in most cases can serve as a positive indicator of descent in life because of the relatively narrow range of biological change which is possible for the genetic system within the earth's environment. Indeed, as the biological classification system developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it proceeded on the basis of observable structure. This, however, did not settle the question of what this structure represented. The Naturpbilosophen thought structures in life forms to be variations of a single structure and the classification system to be a catalogue of types. Others (Lamarck, Buffon) thought structure to be indicative of descent. It was of course these later forces that won the day as Charles Darwin put forward his theory of evolution. But note: this theory did not require a thorough revision of the classification system. Given the close correlation of structure and descent in the organic world, classification on the basis of structure in large part reflects descent. Thus, though Darwin revolutionized the theoretical underpinnings of biological classification, his theories had little impact upon the classification system itself. It merely reinterpreted in light of descent categories created on the basis of structure. Since languages also exhibit a correlation between structure and descent, all of this is of great moment for the topic at hand. As in life so in language is perduring structure a positive indicator of descent. In both language and life, the student can delineate fields of comparison on the basis of structural similarities. In life the two kingdoms, plant and animal, constitute structurally analogous fields; within language, linguistic families constitute similar fields. More significantly, the structures in these fields can be used for determining descent. Both the zoologist, Georges Cuvier, and the botanist, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), developed systems of classification for their respective kingdoms 1

2

For discussions of various aspects of the history of classification in biology, see: A.J. Cain, 'Deductive and Inductive M e t h o d s in post-Linnaean T a x o n o m y ' in Proceedings of the Linnaean Society, London 170 (1959) p. 185-217; Paul Lawrence Farber, ' T h e T y p e - C o n c e p t . i n Zoology d u r i n g t h e First Half of the N i n e t e e n t h C e n t u r y ' in journal of the History of Biology 9(1976) p.93-119; Ernst Mayr, Principles of Systematic Zoology (McGraw-Hill, N e w York, 1969); G e o r g e G a y l o r d S i m p s o n , ' A n a t o m y and M o r p h o l o g y : Classification and Evolution: 1859-1959' in Proceedings oftheAtnerican Philosophical Society 103 (1959) pp.286-306; and Frans A. Stafleu, 'A Historical Review of Systematic Biology' in Systematic Biology: Proceedings of an International Conference (National A c a d e m y of Sciences. Washington, DC, 1969) pp.16-44. A Broadfield, The Philosophy of Classification ( G r a f t o n & Co., L o n d o n , 1946) pp.12-41.

20

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

which relied upon structural similarities. On the basis of structural analysis scholars of comparative grammar could both classify languages into language families and reconstruct PIE through a comparison of linguistic 'fossils'. In this correlation of structure and descent lay the success of the organic understanding of language in its methodological aspect and its contributions to structural linguistics. The difference between language and life lies in the means of their transmission: the systems of communication used in their reproduction. Life is communicated internally and genetically: language is conveyed externally and socially. In this difference, all other similarities notwithstanding, lies a quantum leap. Genetic information reproduces the structures of life in a highly determinate fashion within an extremely delimited range for change, whereas socialintercourse passes on linguistic structure in a much less determinate and delimited manner. This fact places limits upon the utility of comparison in the study of language. While fruitful, its classification can never be as complete, nor its contrasts as crisp, nor its reconstructions as certain as those possible in the study of life. The utility of the organic model declines steeply as we move into its ontological use. For this understanding, as we have already said, scholars of comparative grammar drew upon the ideas of the Naturpbilosopben to imagine all language to be a single organism manifesting languages on the plane of history in accordance with its laws. Making no distinction between the two aspects of the organic model, however, these scholars of comparative grammar brought comparison to bear on language in this ontological sense. Schleicher, for example, used his Stammbaumtheorie to classify language on the basis of the relationship of structure to meaning. Yet there is a difference. Whereas language families are structurally analogous and their structure indicates descent, this is not so for all of human language. At the categorical level of language and life the similarities which allowed for the fruitful use of the organic model in its methodological aspect no longer pertain. Loosed from its structural underpinnings, the ontological use of the organic model became mere speculation. Since the ontological organic model operated in the realm of speculation rather than that of history, it was susceptible to preconception. One common preconception found among comparative linguists actually originated in biology. Biologists have tended to perceive life on continua, from simplicity to complexity across species, from unity to variety across time. This is the case despite the fact that linear regularity is only one aspect (and not the defining one) of the classification of life forms. In fact, biological classification is organized group in group: life contains kingdoms, kingdoms contain phyla, phyla contain classes, classes contain orders, orders contain families, families contain genera, genera contain species. A possible reason for this predilection for linearity is the visual image presented by written classification systems. Usually the group-in-group classifications are indicated by incremental indentation, thus implicitly conveying a linear and hierarchical aspect. Whatever its origin, this presumption of linearity passed readily into comparative grammar, especially into its use of the ontological organic model. Thus did Schleicher in his Stammbaumtheorie picture language 'development' in linear terms, growing from the simple to the complex. 1

1

Simpson, 'Anatomy and Morphology', pp.295-6.

An interlude: The Comparative Method

21

T h e reasoning e m p l o y e d by the ontological aspect o f the organic m o d e l was, to use a term coined by Erich Rothacker, 'organological'. It attended to t h e processes and manifestations o f the whole: ' I f (the area o f culture) contains all in a whole, t h e n its parts, its phases, its processes can only be understood in terms o f the w h o l e . . . t h e e m b r y o , the design at origin, the first foundations imply the whole within t h e m . . . . In place o f causal relationships o n e finds the relationship o f a manifestation expressing t h e whole.' 1 In this 'Logic o f the W h o l e , ' historical causality and the social existence o f language were given a back seat to the organological expression o f the whole through its issue. Developm e n t was seen to be organic, proceeding from the simple to the c o m p l e x , t h e o n e to t h e many. It u n f o l d e d according to law, inexorably, u n i n f l u e n c e d by h u m a n intention. In this framework, the task o f language studies b e c a m e the identification o f metaphysical essences rather than the d e t e r m i n a t i o n o f historical causality. In t h e words o f Ernst Cassirer, the perspective o f the ontological organic m o d e l proposed 'an entirely metaphysical description o f language u n d e r the c o v e r o f a scientific and empirical theory.' 2 T h e comparative sciences o f culture borrowed the comparative m e t h o d f r o m c o m parative g r a m m a r . 3 T h e y regarded religion, law, folklore, society and the like as linguists viewed language: cultural organisms, in nature n o t history, governed by law n o t will. In most cases, however, the character o f these aspects o f culture limited t h e utility o f t h e organic model. Unlike languages, few o f t h e m exhibited evident structure, m u c h less o n e indicative o f descent. For this reason the m e t h o d o l o g i c a l aspect o f the organic model, just that aspect which yielded such a rich harvest in the study o f language, a i d not apply. O n l y the ontological aspect o f the organic m o d e l could be used for conceptualizing these cultural organisms. T h e s e scholars further followed the lead o f linguists in using c o m parative procedures drawn f r o m the study o f life. In the absence o f evident structure, these procedures lacked c o g e n c y and, at their worst, give the a p p e a r a n c e o f scholars playing at science. For an example, we can take a passage from the comparative ethnologist, Edward Burnett Tyler ( 1 8 3 2 - 1 9 1 7 ) . ' W h a t |the ethnographer's] task is like m a y be a l m o s t perfectly illustrated by c o m paring these details o f culture with the species o f plants and animals studied by t h e 1 2 3

Rothacker, 'Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissenschaften', p.90. Cassirer, 'Structuralism in Modem Linguistics', p. 110. There is remarkably little secondary literature on the comparative method and the comparative sciences. On the comparative method in anthropology, see: Erwin H. Ackerknecht, 'On the Comparative Method in Anthropology' in R. F Spencer (ed) Method and Perspective in Anthropology' (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1954) pp.117-125; Kenneth E. Bock, 'The Comparative Methods in Anthropology', in Comparative Studies in Society and History1 8 (1965-6) pp.269-80; and Morris Ginsberg. 'The Comparative Method' in Morris Ginsberg (ed), Essays in Sociology' and Social Philosophy, vol. Evolution and Progress (Macmillan, New York, 1961) pp. 194-207 On comparative religion, see: Eric Sharpe, Comparative Religion. A History (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1975) especially Chapter 2: 'He Who Knows One, Knows None,' pp.27-46; and Jonathan /.. Smith, 'Adde Parvum Parvo Magnus Acervus Erit", in History of Religions 11(1971) pp.67-90. The only piece of literature which attempts an intellectual history, and then in verv sketchy form, is the very stimulating but brief section in Rothacker, Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissetiscbafien, pp.78-106.

22

The Comparative Liturgy' of Anton Baumstark

naturalist. To the e t h n o g r a p h e r the b o w and arrow is species, t h e habit o f flattening children's skulls is a species, the practice o f reckoning n u m b e r s by tens is a species. T h e geographical distribution o f things and their transmission from region to region have to be studied as the naturalist studies the geography o f his botanical and zoological species.' 1 T h e passage speaks for itself. Despite the s h o r t c o m i n g s o f these sciences, o n e c a n n o t overstate t h e sense o f discovery awakened by its m e t h o d . In 1911 A d o l f H a r n a c k ( 1 8 5 1 - 1 9 3 0 ) declared that the comparative m e t h o d had ' b e c o m e unequivocally t h e q u e e n o f the sciences' w h i c h 'no discipline is able to ignore.' 2 And in his introductory text on c o m p a r a t i v e religion published in 1 9 0 5 , Louis H e n r y J o r d a n ( 1 8 5 5 - 1 9 2 3 ) sought to d e m o n s t r a t e the wide applicability o f the c o m p a r a t i v e m e t h o d by means o f an a n n o t a t e d list o f n o less than twenty-seven c o m p a r a t i v e sciences. The list begins with comparative a n a t o m y , philology and g r a m m a r , proceeds through comparative education to c o m p a r a t i v e jurisprudence, through comparative colonialization to comparative symbolics, and ends with comparative liturgies! 3 W h a t was it that this approach allowed these scholars to see? To begin with, the comparative m e t h o d allowed these scholars to see culture as a field o f comparison. As language included all languages, these cultural organisms included all cultures, past and present, as equal m e m b e r s o f a field. T h i s was a discovery o f n o small m o m e n t . Cultural historians or that period (as B a u m s t a r k and Strzygowski clearly saw) often divided culture and history a l o n g moral lines. In an historical framework, the elevation o f o n e era o u t o f history to the O l y m p i a n heights o f cultural j u d g m e n t m a d e terms like 'ancient' and 'classical' into code words for cultural superiority. Alternatively, m o r a l distinctions could set aside o n e c u l t u r e — b e it that o f R o m e , E u r o p e o r t h e W e s t — to serve as the measure for all others. All this was swept aside by the organic m o d e l o f the comparative m e t h o d . In the opinion o f the English comparative historian, Edward August F r e e m a n ( 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 9 2 ) , that m e t h o d allowed scholars to see culture and history as undivided unities. It o p e n e d up for t h e m 'a world in which times and tongues and nations which before s e e m e d parted poles asunder, n o w find each o n e its own place, its o w n relations to every other, as m e m b e r s o f o n e c o m m o n primeval b r o t h e r h o o d . ' 4 Insofar as the ontological organic m o d e l allowed these scholars to see all eras and cultures equally as m e m b e r s o f a single, undivided field o f c o m p a r i s o n , it allowed t h e m , in s o m e sense, to 'discover' history, culture, and, indeed, h u m a n i t y . 5 In addition, the organic m o d e l allowed these scholars to discern aspects o f culture. T h e organisms w h i c h they perceived were what we have c o m e to regard as cultural institutions: religion, g o v e r n m e n t , education, family, etal. Prior to the use o f the organic

Edward Burnett lylor, Primitive Culture. Researches into the Development ofMythobgy, Philosophy, Religion, Art and Custom (J. Murray, London, 1871) p.8. 2 Adolf Harnack, Aus Wissenschaft und Lehen, vol. 1 (A. Töpelmann, Glessen, 1911) p.6. 3 Louis Jordan, Comparative Religion: Its Genesis and Growth (Macmillan & Co. Ltd., London, 1896) pp.27-51. 4 Edward August Freeman, Comparative Politics (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1905) pp.196. 5 Jonathan Z. Smith, 'Map ls Not H-rritorv', in Map Is Not Territory>. Studies in the History> of Religions (E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1978) pp.295-6.' 1

An Interlude: The Comparative Method

23

model, with history and culture divided along ideal lines, these institutions were not apparent. To see them required a comparative perspective, a field of comparison containing multiple members. As long as Christianity was regarded as the true faith, all other religions were held to be false, Christianity had no equal, and the cultural category 'religion' did not exist. In a phrase of Eric Sharpe 'he who knows one, knows none.' 1 But when Christianity was placed in a category along with Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, then a meaningful category of religion could begin to emerge. The organic model of the comparative method in this way created the cultural categories which form the basis of modern academic disciplines: mythology, religion, folklore, culture, law, society, economy, politics, and so forth. Without any question in these comparative sciences of culture we have the forerunners of present-day academic disciplines: comparative grammar preceded linguistics; comparative religion, history of religions; comparative ethnography, anthropology. Yet, even as these scholars were discarding one morality, they embraced another. When discarding an ideal morality, they embraced a developmental one. Though including all eras and cultures in one field of comparison, these scholars did not regard all members to be equal: they superimposed upon that field a developmental schema. Simple-evolutionary in form, it followed lines which ran from the simple (i.e. 'primitive') to the complex (i.e. 'civilized'), from the one to the many. Jonathan Z. Smith astutely observes that this simple evolutionary pattern is in fact a combination of the logical patterns seen in the Naturphilosophen and the developmental pattern found in the 'evolutionists' (Buffon, Lamarck, Cuvier, Darwin). In this schema, in which all that is simple is deemed early and all that is complex late, historical analysis becomes simply superfluous to cultural classification. In the words of the comparative ethnologist, Edward Burnett Tyler, 'Little respect need be had in such comparison for date in history or for place on a map; the ancient Swiss lake-dweller may be set aside the Medieval Aztec, and the Ojibwa of North America beside the Zulu of South Africa.' 2 Finally, the comparative method allowed these scholars to think that they had placed the study of culture on a scientific footing. In the framework of the organic model, reason acquired (or so it was thought) the inferential powers available to science. No aspect of the comparative method generated any more enthusiasm than this. What is striking is the degree to which these scholars, working around the turn of the twentieth century, understood themselves to be emulating the earlier work of Georges Cuvier. In an example from the popular literature of the 1890s, The Five Orange Pips by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), we find Sherlock Holmes expounding to Watson on this very topic. 'Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes, and placed his elbows upon the arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. "The ideal reasoner," he remarked, "would, when he has once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it, but also all the results which would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single 1 2

Sharpe, 'He Who Knows One, Knows None', pp.27-46. Tyler, Primitive Culture, p.6.

24

The Comparative Liturgy of Antun

Baumstark

bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents, should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses".' 1 Holmes gives us a privileged insight into the attraction which the comparative method held for the intellectual imagination of the late nineteenth century. Its organic framework enhanced the power of analytical reasoning by attributing implications to facts which had previously been seen to be standing in isolation. 2 Of course, the actual case was quite otner. While these scholars imagined their logic to be comparative in the tradition of Cuvier, in fact it was organological after the manner of Schleicher. The comparative sciences of culture bring into relief the chief limitation of the organic model: the difference between nature ana culture. As already noted, the essential difference between nature and culture lies in the means by which they develop. Nature is generated genetically, whereas culture is transmitted socially. While this same difference can be found between language and life, the similarities between those two—in particular their correlation of structure and descent—allowed linguists to use the comparative method with considerable success. In the study of culture, however, where no such similarities are to be found, the use of this method was wholly inappropriate. The French structural anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, commented succinctly on this essential difference. 'The historical validity of the naturalist's reconstruction is guaranteed, in the final analysis, by the biological link of reproduction. An axe, on the contrary, does not generate an axe.'3 To be sure, its use here was not without some benefit. The organic model did allow scholars to catch a glimpse of the historicity of culture and define its main aspects. In the main, however, the comparative method in the study of culture was a dream built on an illusion. The dream was for science; the illusion was the organic nature of culture.

1

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventure V: The Five Orange Pips, in The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes (Castle, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1982) p.75 2 The influence of Georges Cuvier upon the comparative sciences is discussed by Ackerknecht, 'On the Comparative Method In Anthropology", pp.118-123, and Smith, A d d e Parvum Parvo Magnus Acervus Erit, pp.81-2. 3 Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (Basic Books, New York, 1963) p.4. An Interlude:

The Comparative

Method

25

4. Comparative Liturgy: In Theory1 With time Baumstark was able to realize his hope for a comparative liturgy. Whereas in 1903 he held the method to be a desideratum whose time had not yet come, 2 by 1919 he was confidently describing its logic and procedures. 3 What changed in this period was Baumstark's understanding of the organic nature of the liturgy. In his earlier proposal he had suggested the use of the ontological aspect of the organic model, but he despaired of defining either the patterns of development or the laws that governed them. In his mature methodological writings, beginning in 1919 and culminating with Liturgie comparée in 1934 4 , Baumstark offered a full and confident understanding of the liturgical organism in both its transformational and structural aspects. Not only was he able to identify the patterns and laws of development, but also he drew upon tne methodological aspect of the organic model to propose a structural approach for the study of liturgy. Baumstark's ideas about the liturgy and its study were widely accepted in the field. Specifically, he exercised a major influence upon the understanding of liturgical studies wnich was shaped at the Abbey of Maria Laach in the years immediately following World War I. While the abbey proposed that the liturgy be studied both systematically and historically, the historical branch of the field included only comparative liturgy and Religionsgeschichte. In other words, the abbey embraced comparative liturgy as the conceptual framework for the history of the liturgy itself; the task of Religionsgescbichte was to situate the liturgy in its broader cultural milieu. Odo Casel described these two branches in the introduction to the first volume of the Jahrbuch für Liturnewissenschafl. 'Religionsgescbicbte shall regard its primary task to be researching the relationship of the Christian liturgy in its beginnings to the cults of contemporaneous religions, notably Jewish and Hellenistic. Comparative liturgical history shall pursue the further development of (Christian) cultus, while delineating its organic growth and deducing therefrom the laws of its liturgical development.' 5 The secondary literature on Anton Baumstark is very sparse. Only one article is devoted solely to Baumstark: D. H. Tripp, 'Comparative Method in Liturgical Study' in Modern Churchman ns 13(1970) p. 188-197. References to Baumstark are found in passing in a number of publications. Of particular note are discussions of Baumstark in Joseph Heinemann, Prayer in the Temple: Forms and Patterns, Richard Sarason (tr) Studia judaica, vol 9 (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1977) passim; Richard Sarason, 'On the Use of Method in the Modern Study of Jewish Liturgy' in William S. Green (ed) Approaches to Ancient Judaism: Theory and Practice Brown Judaic Studies, vol. 1 (Scholars Press, Missoula, Montana, 1978) especially pp. 127-130 and Eric Werner, The Sacred Bridge (Columbia University Press, New York, 1959) passim. 2 Baumstark, 'Besprechung: Die nestorianische Taufliturgie', pp.220-1. 3 Baumstark, 'Ein liturgiewissenschaftliche Unternehmen', cols. 897-905, 921-927. 4 Delivered in Erench as a lecture series to the Benedictine monks at Amay-sur-Meuse in the spring o f 1932, Liturgie comparée was first published as a series of articles in Irenikon 11(1934) pp.5-34, 129-146; 293-327, 358-394, 481-520 and 12(1935) pp.34-53 and then in book form Liturgie comparée; conferences faites au Prieuré d'Aniay (Monastère d'Amay, Chevetogne, n.d.). The third edition of that work, from which Comparative Liturgy* is translated, was revised by Dom Bernard Botte, OSB, and published in 1953. 5 Odo Casel, 'Zur Einführung' in Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft 1(1921) p,3. 1

26

The Comparative Liturgy* of Anton Baumstark

Baumstark's understanding of the organic nature of the liturgy closely followed August Schleicher's understanding of language. Parallel quotes from these two authors reveal striking similarities. Schleicher: 'As with the natural sciences, so also does linguistics have as its task the research of an area in which the power of unchanging natural laws are recognizable, in which the wishes and will of men can alter nothing.' 1 Baumstark: 'It is undoubtedly necessary to stress that in the case of the liturgy, it is wholly a matter of processes which—reflecting the impersonal regularity of laws—are able to work their effect in a completely spontaneous manner without any conscious awareness on the part of individuals responsible for liturgical development.' 2 Linguist and liturgist describe in remarkly similar language the inner workings of their respective 'organisms.' In these quotes both Baumstark and Schleicher draw an analogy between an organism and the whole field, be it liturgy or language. Both understood their respective organisms to be nature not history, that is, to be transforming according to laws which operate independently of human will. Nevertheless, the organism of language and liturgy also contrasted. Whereas Schleicher understood laws to govern all of language, Baumstark knew this was no longer the case with the liturgy. When in the West in the sixteenth century human will overrode liturgy's natural laws, that branch of the organism, in some sense, 'died'. Baumstark understood the organism of the liturgy to develop according to two fundamental laws. His first law of liturgical evolution governs the process of change in the liturgy: 'I shall describe it as the Law of Organic Development ("Organic" and therefore "Progressive").' 3 The process governed by this law, one of displacement of the old by the new, produces a pattern of development from simplicity to richness (see below). This is a gradual process. Secondary elements first take their place beside primitive elements, but, as 'they assume a more vigorous and resistant character ' 4 and the liturgy comes to be abbreviated, it is precisely the more primitive elements which are the first to go, leaving at the very most mere vestiges of their original forms. The vigour of the recent, coupled with the vulnerability of the ancient, results in a process of evolution whose essential dynamic is displacement. If Baumstark's first law of liturgical evolution brings about change in the liturgy, his second laweffects continuity. This law ensures 'that primitive conditions are maintained with greater tenacity in the more sacred seasons of the Liturgical Year;'5 its thrust is simply that liturgical communities (in a manner analogous to linguistic communities) tend to be more conservative at the most solemn times in their common life. Although this pattern of liturgical retention had been observed earlier by the British liturgical scholar Adrian Fortescue, 6 Baumstark's organic framework enhanced its interpretative 1 2

3 4 s 6

August Schleicher, Die Sprache Europas in systematischer Uebersicht (H. B. König, Bonn, 1850) p.3. Baumstark, 'Das Gesetz der Erhaltung des Alten in liturgisch hochwertiger Zeit', in Jahrbuchfllr Liturgiewissenschaft 7(1927) p.22. Ibid., p.23. Ibid. Ibid., p.27. Adrian Fortescue, The Mass.- A Study of the Roman Liturgy (Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1912) p.270.

Comparative Liturgy: In Theory

27

power. In its status as law, the investigator could use this observation to reconstruct earlier practices from these vestiges of the past. In Comparative Liturgy Baumstark mentions these two laws in tandem, perhaps because they apply to the two fundamental processes of liturgical development: growth and conservation. 1 In the same work, however, four other laws are mentioned, three of which were formulated by two of Baumstark's students. Fritz H a m m observed two of these laws: ' . . . that the older a text is the less is it influenced by the Bible and that the more recent a text is the more symmetrical it is.'2 Hieronymus Engberding (1899-1969) observed another law: 'that the later it is, the more liturgical prose becomes charged with doctrinal elements.' 3 Apparently Baumstark observed the one remaining law mentioned, 'Certain actions which are purely utilitarian by nature may receive a symbolic meaning either from their function in the Liturgy as such or from factors in the liturgical texts which accompany them.' 4 Each of these laws describe particular aspects of the process of liturgical development and may be seen as corollaries to Baumstark's first law, The Law of Organic Development. These laws effected the patterns apparent in the development of the liturgical organism. As was typical in the use of the comparative method, Baumstark superimposed patterns of linear development upon the liturgy, although he did not accept the simple evolutionary patterns of development without modification. While the simpleevolutionary model understands development to move from unity to variety, Baumstark observed in the history of the liturgy that the opposite was the case. Rather than beginning with one and ending with many, the liturgy began with many and ended with one. In this Baumstark was rejecting the understanding of liturgical development which was conveyed by the notion of an apostolic liturgy. That view of the liturgy also saw the liturgy developing on a continuum from unity to variety, though it did not take this picture from the simple evolutionary model. Forthrightly rejecting this pattern, Baumstark wrote, 'Uniformity is not the starting-point, but the destination of liturgical development.' 5 Baumstark believed that the liturgy's developmental pattern from variety to uniformity proceeded through a dialectic of conquest. In this process the variety which reflects liturgical specificity struggled unsuccessifully against the uniformity which reflects liturgical universality. In his understanding the earlier the liturgy the more varied it becomes, a result of the historical propensity of the liturgy to relate to time and place.Though Baumstark held that the first Christian liturgies stemmed from Jewish roots and were manifestations of the liturgy's organic unity, they were also shaped by circumstance and culture, notably Hellenistic ritual and rhetoric. That variety, however, 1

Evans Beethoven Algar, 'Laws of Liturgical Change: An Examination of the Motive Forces of Conservation and Renewal at Work in the Liturgy of Fourth Century Antioch and Syria' (PhD dissertation, King's College, The University of London, 1970) pp. 16-21. 2 Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.59. See Fritz H a m m , Die liturgischen Einsetzungsberichte im Sinner vergleichender Liturgieforschung untersucht. Liturgiegeschicbte Quellen und Forschungen, vol. 23 (Verlag der Aschendorffschen Verlags Buchhandlung, Münster im Westfalien, 1928) p.33. 3 Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.60. 4 Ibid., p. 130. 5 Baumstark, Vom Geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, p.71.

28

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

came to stand in dialectical tension with a progression toward uniformity which sprang from the essence of the liturgical organism. This tension was first felt as regional churches sought to regulate and dominate local usage; later it emerged again as regional churches came under the sway of the more influential Sees. Finally, all variety, be it regional or local, fell before the ascendancy of two particularly influential local rites: those of Rome in the West and of Constantinople in the East. In the framework of the comparative method this battle for specificity was a lost cause. Although the early church communities had the desire to shape their own worship, their will was impotent before the law-governed patterns of organic development. In this case, the will toward local usage was powerless to resist the liturgy's organic 'progress toward victorious uniformity'. 1 Baumstark also revised the second developmental continuum presumed by the comparative method: that of simplicity to complexity. Rather than reversing this pattern, Baumstark refined it by recasting it in vanous ways: austerity and richness 2 , simplicity and richness 3 , or brevity and prolixity.4 This pattern of development results from the Law of Organic Development and is unquestionably linear, though mitigated rather than inexorable. While its primary movement is along the continuum from, say, austerity to richness, there is also at work a secondary 'retrograde movement' 5 , which resulted in the liturgy being abbreviated, especially after the fifth century. The reason for this, Baumstark claimed, lay in Jragilitas carnis. '6 The decline of religious zeal evident in this period led to the elaboration of the liturgy being curtailed, an illustration of the dynamic of displacement by which, Baumstark held, the liturgy organically develops. Just as the pattern from variety to unity entails more than unmodified uniformatization, so too does the pattern from simplicity to richness entail more than unmitigated growth. Rather it is a complex process of expansion and curtailment in which more recent richness overwhelms and obscures the primitive simplicity. In the comparative method, Baumstark thought he had found solutions to both historiographical and theological problems. In the first place, the organic model provided Baumstark with the inferential reasoning needed to overcome the intrinsic limitations of liturgical data. In particular, it provided the liturgical historian with the means for overcoming the scarcity or even dearth of evidence available for the study of the early liturgy. 'Unhappily, | documents! are rare for the remote period when the formative development of the liturgy came about.' 7 In Baumstark's view these interruptions in the chain of witnesses were not due merely to the ravages which time visits on all historical evidence, but had their origins in the character of the liturgy itself, whose development, being organic, goes unnoticed by contemporary witnesses. 'Until the sixteenth century, and still today in the Christian orient, every single liturgical development throughout the Church occurred silently and stealthily.' 8 As a general rule, the time, place and occasion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp. 16-19. Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., p.20. Ibid. Ibid., p.21. Ibid., p.23. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.2 Ibid. Comparative

Liturgy': In Theory

29

of liturgical innovation occurs without record by the contemporaries of that innovation. To overcome the 'silences' of liturgical history, Baumstark followed the scholars of comparative grammar: he suggested the use of the inferential reasoning found in the natural sciences. Just as known later forms could imply unknown earlier ones in the case of animals and languages, so too, Baumstark claimed, could known later liturgical forms serve the historian of the liturgy. In his reflection upon the liturgical apostolate of the Abbey of Maria Laach written in 1919, Baumstark explicitly proposed this approach 'Since the external witnesses are naturally always the surest witnesses, they consequently cannot be valued highly enough. In those instances where they are lacking, there is nothing else to be done than to reconstruct the development of a rite inferentially from an analogous liturgical form which stands at the end of the period in which one is interested. In so doing the liturgical historian is following the same procedure as the geologist who determines from the present-day layer of the earth's surface the upheavals which have formed that surface or the biologist who reconstructs the history of organic life which precedes the present-day forms. To be sure, in the case of an inferential method of this kind, a necessary presupposition is that the development has taken place according to universal laws wliich can be determined empirically rather than according to the blind caprice of pure chance whose power always remains outside of the grasp of scholarly research.' 1 If one assumes, as Baumstark did with his use of the methodological aspect of the organic model, that the liturgy is an organically developing structured unity, such an inferential method is a reasonable and acceptable procedure. Although Baumstark made reference to palaeontological reconstruction in the quote above, he took geological reasoning to be the closest parallel to the inferential approach required by the liturgical historian. 2 After mentioning the vast collections of external evidence available to the historian of the Tridentine rite, Baumstark wrote, 'Yet it is the form of liturgical action and the liturgical texts of a given age which by their structure and rubrics can best teach us how their historical development came about, just as geology draws its conclusions from the observable stratifications of the earth's crust.' 3 The essence of this parallel lies in the ability of geologist and liturgist alike to draw diachronic implications from synchronic data. In its function as the earth's crust geological formations are a present synchronic reality. However, they also possess a diacnronic dimension. The strata of the earth's crust present a record of the past, layered evidence for the geological periods which preceded the present one. In addition, study of these formations and their strata can reveal the processes which brought them into being. Baumstark contended that a similar relationship of synchrony to diachrony pertained in liturgical forms. In particular, he suggested that the unrecognizable remnants of earlier liturgical forms which the processes of growth and curtailment leave in the present-day liturgy are synchronic evidence of their diachronic development. Through a comparison of analogous liturgical forms, Baumstark asserted, the liturgical scholar nas the ability to understand these remnants for what they actually are, reconstruct their primitive forms, and determine the processes which brought them into being. 1 2 3

Baumstark, 'Ein liturgiewissenschaftliche U n t e r n e h m e n ' , col. 904. Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, p.4. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.2.

30

The Comparative Lìturgj of Anton

Baumstark

Though claiming geological procedures for his model, Baumstark actually used methods drawn from nis philological training. H e claimed, for exam pie, that the data for this procedure are no more than agreements and differences. 'To account for differences it is necessary to consider the ethnic, cultural and linguistic character of the regions where the liturgy developed . . . As far as the agreements are concerned, two explanations are possible. Tney may be due either to a common primitive basis or to the subsequent influence of one liturgical type on another.' 1 This is none other than the procedure used by philologists for establishing textual families: agreements between manuscripts may stem either from their common origin in the same text or from faults which entered the manuscript through subsequent copying and became characteristic of a particular stemma of the manuscript's family. Further evidence for the influence of philology upon Baumstark's methodology is to be found in the philological vocabulary which he uses throughout the first chapter of Comparative Liturgy: 'variant' and 'stratum/a. '2 In a further contribution to the historiography o f t h e liturgy, the comparative method provided Baumstark with a solution to the problem which perplexed nim in 1903: the classification of liturgical data 'which is so difficult to comprehend in its entirety.' 3 It classified liturgical data in terms of the life of any organism: ancestral roots (Jewish legacy), internal life (Christian initiative), external environment (Hellenistic milieu). In Comparative Liturgy Baumstark repeatedly organizes data into these three categories. 4 In the logic of the organic model, this classification implies evaluation. The relationships to the organism upon which this system of classification is based vary in the influence which they wield. Of special import for Baumstark were liturgical practices 'rooted in the Jewish mother ground.' 5 Because their relationship to Christian worship was one of lineal descent, their impact could be assumed to be immediate and great. Baumstark analyzed this relationship through philological reasoning. 6 Just as in philology the agreement of a later rescension with its Urtext is given the greatest weight, so did Baumstark regard agreements between Jewish and Christian forms. Turning to Christian worship, we move from the 'ground' to the 'organism'. Calling the worship of the Jerusalem church (Acts 2.42) 'The embryo of all liturgical development' 7 , Baumstark understood the liturgy of the church to be an individuated organism from the very start. Dealing now with the organism of the liturgy itself the laws and patterns of the comparative method apply. Finally, as we move outside of the organism to the Hellenistic milieu influence becomes indirect and environmental. For this reason parallels between Hellenistic and Christian forms do not carry nearly the weight of parallels found within the organism or back to its roots. In addition to solving historiographical problems, the organic model provided Baumstark with an historiographical solution to the theological conundrum which he faced as a Roman Catholic historian of the liturgy. Through it Baumstark both 1

Ibid., pp. 3-4. Schleicher's Stammbaumtheorie also shows the influence of philological method. See 1 foemgswald, 'On the History of the Comparative Method,' p.8. 3 Baumstark, 'Besprechung: Die nestorianische Taufliturgie', p.221. 4 Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp.2-14, 63-70, 102-110. 5 Ibid., p. 18. 6 See the discussion of comparative structural analysis of the eucharistic rite below. 7 Baumstark, Vom Geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, p.6. 2

Comparative Liturgy: In Theory

31

challenged and confirmed the Church's view of the liturgy. While challenging the Romo-centrism of the Church in viewing the R o m a n rite as one of many, his m o d e l c o n firmed the unity and continuity of liturgical tradition in a way compatible with neoscholastic theology. For Baumstark viewed the liturgy organically rather than historically. Although professingto embrace an historical perspective, Baumstark's point of view was in fact developmental. In a truly historical understanding, no line would be drawn between the liturgy and its milieu; Hellenistic influences would function on a par with Jewish and Christian. Baumstark's developmental model, on the other hand, gave priority to the exercise of tradition and set it apart from its historical setting. In so doing Baumstark's model showed respect for the distinctions which the neo-scholastics drew between Church and world, and faith and history.

32

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark

5. Comparative Liturgy: Practice As Baumstark moves from theory to practice, the structure of the liturgy comes to play a larger role. In Comparative Liturgy Baumstark separates his discussion of theory in chapters one and two from that of practice in chapters 3 through 10. An examination of these two sets of chapters, the explication of theory and a demonstration of practice, exhibits a contrast that we have already observed in comparative grammar where the ontological organic model dominated the conceptual framework, the methodological was more apprent in its execution. The same is true with Baumstark's comparative liturgy, that is, while its theory stresses the transformation of the liturgical organism, its practical demonstration takes seriously its structural aspects. In the final eight chapters of Comparative Liturgy Baumstark presents an intentional and systematic demonstration of his method. For Baumstark structure is a feature of units found within the liturgy. These units, externally discreet and internally structured, are of two kinds: the liturgical and the heortological. By liturgical units, he understands those orders which are 'all of some considerable extent, and known severally as akalouthia in Greek, teYmesta in Syriac, and ordo in Latin'.2 They contain three distinct aspects: structure, text and action. While Baumstark does not use the phrase 'heortological units', he clearly regards both the sanctorale and Lent to be structures and analyzes them as such. Both of them constitute temporal unities—one a cycle, the other a season—and both contain feasts. Baumstark's understanding of structure is conjunctive. Whereas today we might use the term structure to refer to the liturgical year as a whole entity, Baumstark understood structure to be but an aspect of the whole. In liturgical units, it stands alongside texts and actions, in heortological units, feasts. Yet the role it plays in these units is crucial; it conjoins the 'contents' of the unit in an organizing framework. This is quite different from Dom Gregory Dix's notion of 'the shape of the liturgy'. Dix integrates actions and structure while regarding texts to be variable, whereas Baumstark hangs actions and texts in a structural framework. Consequently, Baumstark is able to treat texts and actions on the one hand and feasts on the other apart from their respective structures as though he is removing them from their place in a framework to get a closer look. Accordingly, liturgical structures, texts and actions on the one hand heortological structures and feasts on the other are all treated separately in chapters of their own. A crude analogy to Baumstark's notion of unit and structure may be found in vertebrate anatomy. Similar to the distinction between unit and structure is that of a whole animal and its skeleton. Though the skeleton is but an aspect of the animal, it organizes and carries its various parts. In a similar fashion, the structure of liturgical units carries texts and actions, and that of heortological units, feasts. Furthermore, an anatomist can through dissection remove an organ from an animal in order to examine it in itself or compare it to analogous organs from other vertebrates. In a similar fashion, Baumstark removes texts and actions on the one hand, and feasts on the other from their structural 1

2

A full discussion of this topic can be found in my doctoral dissertation: Frederick S. West, T h e Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark in Its Intellectual Milieu' (PhD Dissertation, University of Notre Dame) pp.295-345. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.31.

Comparative Liturgy: Practice 33

homes, examines them in themselves, and compares them to analogous structures. The limits of this analogy comes with the growth and development of a unit. Often Baumstark sees one part of a unit being added or replaced in away that has no parallel in vertebrate life. Baumstark's structural understanding provides him with a choice of method. Since the structural understanding breaks the liturgy down into component parts, Baumstark is then able to choose, from a variety of methods, the best one for studying a particular aspect of the liturgy. For structured totalities, Baumstark employs comparative structural analysis; to liturgical texts, he applies comparative textual analysis; on liturgical actions and liturgical feasts, he uses comparative historical analysis. Thus one of the benefits of Baumstark's structural understanding of the liturgy is methodological flexibility and choice: the ability to suit his methods to his materials. Let us begin with comparative structural analysis. Baumstark describes its purpose, procedures and logic most clearly in its application to liturgical units. 'These structures, both in their fully developed forms and at every stage in their evolution, are very often the result of a hignly complex process. To show the tendencies which govern their growth, to separate the primitive strata from more recent ones, to reconstitute them in their often completely unrecognizable primitive forms, is the task of the historian of Comparative Liturgy. By the law which requires that liturgical evolution should proceed from the simpler to the more complex, we shall deem the more austere the more primitive. Moreover, we shall have to regard as primitive phenomena which are found with the same meaning, the same function, and in the same area, in all Christian Rites, or at least in a sufficiently large number of such Rites, and especially so if they have parallels in the Liturgy of the Synagogue. We shall pronounce the same verdict where anything has a Jewish parallel, even when it is limited to a few Christian Rites or it may be only to one. On the other hand, we shall consider as recent all phenomena peculiar to a single Rite or to a few Rites, but without parallel of any kind in the Synagogue. The same verdict must also be pronounced on those which, although absolutely or almost universal, change their meaning, place or function from one Rite to another.' 1 This passage holds before us the promise of Cuvier, that is, the possibility of reconstruction through the inferential reasoning which practitioners of the comparative method so enthusiastically embraced. Though Baumstark believed that the power of inference derives from the organic nature of the liturgy, we see here, once again, the essentially philological character of his method. As with manuscripts, so with liturgical orders, antiquity is indicated by either temporal parallels between strata or structural agreements between orders. The orientation to origins in this approach is unmistakable. The procedure can be likened to winnowing, in which the wheat of constancy, indicating antiquity, is to be separated from the cnaff of variability, indicating later additions. Tne terms 'primitive' and 'secondary' serve as tools for this winnowing process. 'Primitive' may refer to the time of Jesus (as in the case of the eucharistic liturgy) 3 or some later time (as in the discussions of the Greek orthros or the Cathedral Rite.)4 'Secondary' may refer to any time 1 1 2

Ibid., pp.31-32. Ibid., pp.42-51 Ibid., pp.32-42, 111-129.

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Baumstark

later than the time of origin. Presumably, in many cases a more exacting analysis could distinguish multiple strata in the development of aspects of the liturgy and thereby provide a preliminary step in the writing of a general history of the liturgy. Even when Baumstark does define multiple layers, as in his analysis of the sanctorale, he places the evidence in two categories only, the original or 'primitive' and the later or 'secondary'. 1 Given Baumstark's orientation to origins, the dual stratifications were adequate: the secondary stratum had little interest for him save as chaff to be separated from the wheat of the primitive stratum of origins. In this framework, the term 'primitive' acquires an honorific connotation not unlike the older term 'apostolic' which Baumstark nad discarded as a historical. There is no doubt that Baumstark's procedures and terminology were located in history far more firmly than was the earlier quest for an apostolic liturgy; it is equally clear that his is a history with a purpose, an oriented history, seeking to unveil the obscure beginnings of the liturgy of the Christian church in the time closest to the most sacred days of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Behind his scholarship lay a religious intent. It sought that knowledge which could enrich liturgical participation through 'a transhistorical comm u n i o n of mind.' 2 Let us take for an example Baumstark's discussion of the Mass or Divine Liturgy. 3 Here he holds closer to his theoretical discussion than in other applications of this method. 4 H e employs the terminology of structure and stratum; he compares different examples of the Mass or Divine Liturgy on the level of the whole structure; he makes note of parallels which point to a c o m m o n antiquity; he attributes those aspects of the structure with parallels to the primitive stratum and relegates those without parallels to the secondary stratum. However, Baumstark does not stop with structural comparison. Indeed, one can delineate two distinct steps in his procedure for analyzing the eucharistic rite. In the first step he analyzes it with the procedures, terminology and logic of comparative structural analysis 5 ; in a second step he seeks to trace the historical roots of the various c o m p o n e n t parts of that structure. Baumstark traces the Liturgy of the Word to the worship of the Jewish synagogue 6 , the Liturgy of the Meal to the cenapura or Jewish table prayers 7 , and the Anaphora to the Jewish table prayers of the Jozer in the service of the Synagogue. 8 H e assumes continuity between liturgical forms in this second step no less than he aid in the first. However, whereas the first step presumes only a structural continuity, the second step suggests the possibility as well of ritual and even textual continuities, for example between the Anaphora and the Jozer. T h e area of the origins of Christian liturgy is, of course, a notoriously delicate historical problem, and these suggestions as to origin are all fraught with difficulty. Through the use of comparative structural analysis, 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

Ibid., pp. 175-189. Baumstark, Vom Geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie. p.2. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp.42-51 Ibid, Baumstark also uses this m e t h o d for heortological units in c h a p t e r 10 a n d for liturgical and heortological units in t a n d e m in c h a p t e r 7. Ibid., pp.42-43. Ibid., pp.43, 44-46. Ibid., p.43. Ibid., pp.46-51.

Comparative Liturgy: Practice

35

Baumstark sought to analyze these origins by means of a rigorous scientific method. It is ironic, then, that this discussion of the eucharistic rite should lead him in the end to the realm of historical speculation. Baumstark uses comparative textual analysis when considering liturgical prayers (Chapter 6) and poetry (Chapter 8).1 Once again he uses a two-step process, beginning with a survey, a philological tour deforce, which leaves the reader with the strong impression of the relatedness of all Christian liturgies. These surveys clearly reflect the intent of the ontological aspect of the organic model: they depict all liturgies as equally comparable members within a discreet whole. 2 In his second step, Baumstark analyzes the data in the three categories of cause created by this model: Christian creativity (life within the liturgical organism), Jewish legacy (the roots of the organism), and Hellenistic milieu (the environment of the organism). 3 His use of this approach in regard to Christian poetry is of particular interest. 4 Here Baumstark employs a different logic for each of the three categories of cause: historical reasoning for Christian creativity, typological reasoning for the Hellenistic milieu, and genealogical reasoning for the Jewish ancestry. The choice of argumentation for each category reflects the influence which the ontological organic model understood that category to exercise upon the development of the liturgy. Baumstark's third approach, comparative historical analysis, uses the catalogue, a tool common among practitioners of the comparative method. To set the stage for Baumstark's use of this tool, let us first look at a catalogue taken from the writings of Sir James George Frazer (1852-1941), author of The Golden Bough: 'Burial grounds were taboo; and in New Zealand a canoe which had carried a corpse was never afterwards used, but was drawn on shore and painted red. Red was the taboo colour in New Zealand; in Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga and Samoa it was white. In the Marquesas a man who had slain an enemy was taboo forten days; he might have no intercourse with his wife and might not meddle with fire; he had to get some one to cook for him. A woman engaged in the preparation of cocoanut oil was taboo for five days or more.' 1 Such a catalogue presents a hard surface which cracks when questioned. 2 While broad in scope, it is lowon analysis, united by no more than the concept of'taboo'. In the words of Franz Steiner (1909-1952), one finds here a 'rhetoric of association'. 3 Baumstark used this same procedure for analyzing non-textual aspects of the liturgy, actions and feasts. 4 For an example, we may take the catalogue which Baumstark assembled on the lavabo, the action of washing hands in the course of the eucharistic 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Ibid., in C h a p t e r Five entitled 'Stereo-typed Prayers and Brief Formulae' B a u m s t a r k discusses yet o t h e r texts, namely, litanies and versicles. Since, however, Baumstark a t t e n d s t o t h e structure of these texts, his approach is a f o r m of c o m p a r a t i v e structural analysis. Ibid., pp.52-58, 92-102. Ibid, pp.63 70, 102-110. Ibid., pp. 102-110. Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th edition, sv 'Taboo' by Sir J a m e s G e o r g e Frazer. Smith, 'Adde Parvum Parvo M a g n o Acervus Erit', p.252. Franz Steiner, Taboo (Philosophical Library, N e w York, 1956) p.92. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, chapters 8 and 9.

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service. To aid analysis I have numbered the pieces of evidence which Baumstark cites. 'It is also from the framework of the pre-Anaphoric Liturgy that e.g., 1) among the Copts, the washing of hands was transferred to the Prothesis. 2) This rite incidentally was already the subject of the symbolic explanation of the Catechesis of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. 3) But its historical origin should be sought in the rules regulating Jewish meals as we know them from the Tractate Berakhoth of the Misbna (viii. 2-4), according to which the washing of hands took place at the end of the meal. Hence it was at the point where the common meal of the Agape passed over to the Eucharistic Celebration that the practice must have had its original place in the Christian assemblies. 4) Tertullian, in fact, having described the course of the Agape makes the Great Eucharistic prayer, which he calls canere Deo, begin after the washing of the hands, post aquam manualem et lumina.'' The data mentioned in the above quotation are widely disparate in time, place and source: a liturgy from Egypt of the eighth century (?), a catechetical sermon from Palestine of the fourth century, a polemic from North Africa of the second century and a body of Jewish euchological regulations set down in the second century, but presumed to describe Jewish ritual actions at the time of Jesus. Too disparate to be historically connected, the items in this catalogue are merely associative, a catalogue of references to the lavabo. In the exercise of the comparative method, items of a catalogue were understood to be organically related. They were regarded as manifestations on the plane of history of a single organism: religion for Frazer and liturgy for Baumstark. Given the philological training of Baumstark and the linguistics roots of his method, we may draw a parallel between his use of the catalogue and a chrestomathy, a tool used for analyzing a language. If, for example, a linguist wishes to analyze the use of relative clauses in a particular language, that person could assemble a variety of examples and analyze them as a set. This set is called a chrestomathy. In the organic understanding of language, the members of a chrestomathy were understood to be manifestations of language on the plane of history. Baumstark had a similar understanding of items in his catalogues. Comparative historical analysis is only apparently historical; in reality it used organological reasoning for analyzing historical data.

1

Ibid., p. 133. Comparative Liturgy: Practice

37

6. Legacy Anton Baumstark bequeathed a treasure store of ideas to the field of liturgical studies. To be sure, subsequentgenerations have appropriated this legacy critically. Some ideas have been discarded, others recast. Throughout this process, however, Baumstark has retained his place dsfons et origo of ideas and methods now current in the field. The process by which the comparative liturgy of Anton Baumstark has been appropriated by liturgical scholars falls into two distinct phases, refinement and revision. His students sought to refine their teacher's method; members of the Mateos school of oriental liturgiology have thoroughly revised it. While granting Baumstark the compliment of emulation, his students also sought to distance themselves from the absolutism of their Doktorvater. This dual dynamic is apparent in the writings of Fritz H a m m and Hieronymus Engberding( 1899-1969), both of whom took care to refine Baumstark's understanding of liturgical laws. In his effort in this regard H a m m focuses upon the ways laws function in the development of the liturgy. Like Baumstark he understands the liturgy to be a life-form and the laws of nature to be absolute, 'admitting no exceptions'. 1 Though laws ought to be rigorously applied to phenomena which are governed by iron-clad laws (such as physics), argued Hamm, this is not the case with the liturgy. Here H a m m is not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. In his study of the words of institution in the eucharistic prayer, first written as a dissertation under Baumstark, H a m m intentionally applied the methods of comparative liturgy and in the process himself formulated laws.2 But, he argued, laws do not function in liturgy as they do in nature. While laws in the latter case can be relentlessly applied and possess predictive power, the situation is more complex in the case of the liturgy. 'Our subject matter is liturgical life and no life-form can withstand being dissected completely into dead formulas and rules.' 3 Here H a m m is using the language of life as a vitalist rather than as a naturalist. Specifically, he sees that the liturgy is not distinct from its environment as the self-contained system of an organism is discreet within its world. Rather the life forms of the liturgy are continually stimulated and profoundly influenced by their historical milieu. H a m m attributes the complexity of the liturgy's development, in part, to the interplay of laws, 'the reciprocal influences of the operations of all the laws which we are able to determine.' 4 Thus does he hold that laws in the liturgy are mitigated rather than absolute, reciprocal rather than linear, and less than wholly determinate. Though Engberding was also concerned with the import of liturgical laws his interests lay in their logic. Like Hamm, he pays particular attention to the role of exception in the functioning of those laws. He notes that liturgical laws are formulated inductively through the examination of relevant instances on a case-by-case basis and, as such, limited in their validity. Since proof of a law is cumulative, each subsequent case constitutes a potential exception and each case that is not governed by a law which applies to 1

Fritz Hamm, Die liturgischen Eimetzunpbenchte, p.96. Ibid., p.33. 3 ¡bid., p.97 4 Ibid. 1

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it constitutes 'an exception to the rule.'1 Thus, Engberding concludes, 'a law determined by such an analysis can never claim more than a conditional validity.'2 The distinction between laws in the study of liturgy and nature is not as great as Engberding seems to imply, however. Like liturgical laws, laws in nature are also determined inductively and constitute no more than a statement of statistical probability, albeit of high degree. The difference between them lies in their tolerance for exception. Given the regularity of nature, a single true exception to a law has the power to limit or overthrow it; given the indeterminate (read: 'historical') nature of the liturgy exceptions are tolerated and stand alongside laws without posing a challenge to them. Stated otherwise, laws in history function at a lower level of statistical probability than those in nature. Or, in the words of Hieronymus Engberding, they possess only 'a conditional validity'. Both Hamm and Engberding modified Baumstark's understanding of law in the light of their views of the liturgy. While Hamm certainly and Engberding probably shared Baumstark's understanding of scientific law, neither of them saw it as appropriate for the study of the liturgy. Both distinguished between the regularity apparent in liturgical development and that found in the natural world. In so doing they departed significantly from Baumstark's understanding of the liturgy as nature, in but not of history, governed by exceptionless laws. In seeing the liturgy to be history not nature, both Hamm and Engberding felt compelled to adjust their understanding of law accordingly. Over time Baumstark's ideas on method have come to be assimilated by liturgical scholars and incorporated into their own methodologies. This is particularly apparent with the Mateos school of oriental liturgiology which arose at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome under the tutelage of Juan Mateos (1917-). Mateos himself does not see his method to be specifically indebted to Baumstark, but rather he traces it to the comparative approach generally employed by eastern liturgiologists in the days of his training. Furthermore, he contrasts his own textual studies to Baumstark's use of hypotheses; Baumstark began with answers whereas Mateos and his school take as their starting-point the careful scrutiny of liturgical texts.3 However, Roben Taft, the one member of the school who has written in the area of methodology, draws heavily upon Baumstark's ideas and methods. In defining his own structural method for the study of the liturgy, Taft states, 'It owes nothing genetically to the structuralist school, but is rather my own elaboration of procedures learned by apprenticeship in what can be legitimately called the "Mateos School" of oriental liturgiology, methods which are themselves an extension of Anton Baumstark's system of "comparative liturgy" later perfected by H. Engberding and others of Baumstark's school.' 4 'Iäft, like Baumstark, distinguishes tradition from history in an organic conceptual framework. Specifically, he regards tradition to be a genetic continuity focused upon the becoming rather than the immediacy of the present. He asserts, 'Liturgical history, therefore, does not deal with the past, but with tradition, which is a genetic vision ofthe present, a Hieronymus Engberding, 'Neues Licht über die Geschichte des Textes der Ägyptischen Markusliturgie' in Ortens Christianus 40 (1956) p.46, n.32. 2 Ibid. 3 Personal correspondence, Robert Taft, S.J. to the author. 16 March 1980. 4 Robert Taft, T h e Structural Analysis o f Lituipcal Units: An Essay in Methodology', p.317. See also the revision of this article in his Beyond East and West, pp.152-153 1

Legacy

39

present conditioned by its understanding of its roots.' 1 With the organic concept of 'the genetic', Taft is able to reflect on the connection between present liturgical practice and past liturgical forms that is valued within the churches of the catholic tradition. In his view past is past, and present is present, but tradition, genetically links the two. Therein lies the import of the study of liturgical traditions. Far from being of mere antiquarian interest, it gives genetic depth of our understanding of present forms. In his methodological writings, Taft employs the organic model in both its transformational and structural aspects. His use of the transformational or ontological aspect of the organic model is reflected in the title of one of his articles on methodology, 'How Liturgies Grow: The Evolution of the Byzantine "Divine Liturgv'V Throughout his writings on the liturgy Taft tries to discern the original forms, the later growtn and the frequent decomposition of liturgical forms. 2 However, it is the evocative language which Taft employs to describe the devolution of the liturgy that most powerfully conveys his sense of organic wholeness. When describing the state of the antiphons in the enarxis of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, Taft notes, 'This exemplifies another common element in liturgical history: the process whereby ecclesiastical compositions multiply and eventually suffocate the scriptural elements of a liturical chant, forcing, in turn, the decomposition of the original liturgical unit, so that what we are left with is simply debris, bits and scraps of this and that, a verse here, a refrain there, that evince no recognizable form or unity, until they are painstakingly reconstituted in their original structures by piecing together the remaining scraps.' 3 Such passages are vintage Taft and have the power to evoke a longing for the unviolated whole of the liturgical component in its organic integrity. At the same time, Taft understands liturgical services in the light of the methodological aspect of the organic model: integral, ordered totalities which evolve through subsequent temporal strata. Most often he employs Dix's term 'shape' to describe the totality of a liturgical service. In the history of the eucharistic celebration, for example, Taft is able to discern the subsequent shapes which characterize the various strata of liturgical development. H e finds the first stratum of liturgical development described in the First Apology of Justin Martyr, written in the middle of the second century. The second shape ofliturgical structure took form after the Peace of Constantine in 313 C.E. when the liturgy simultaneously experienced a standardization which gave unity to liturgical families and an enrichment which created contrasts between them. This development proceeded according to a regular pattern. In all liturgical families the enrichment occurred at the same places and in the same way, that is, it occurred at those places which Taft calls the 'soft-points' of the liturgy, those places where there are actions performed without words: (1) the entrance into the church building before the readings; (2) the kiss of peace and the transfer of gifts between the word service and the eucharistic prayer and the fraction; and (3) communion and the dismissal rites after the eucharistic 1 2 3

Ibid., pp.318-319. See also Beyond East and West, p.153. Ibid., pp.324. See also Beyond East and West, p.159. Taft, 'How Liturgies Grow: The Evolution of the Byzantine "Divine Liturgy" ' in Orientalia Christiana Periodica 43 (1977) p.367. See also the revision of this article in his Beyond East and West, p. 176.

40

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

prayer. Each of these 'soft-points' was filled in with the same structure: the ritual action was covered by an antiphonal chant and concluded with a collect. Whereas the enrichment at these soft-points' in the second stratum kept intact the primitive stratum described by Justin Martyr, further enrichment in the third stratum violated that shape. It did so according to a pattern first observed by Baumstark: more primitive elements were cut back while more recent ones were retained.1 After his discussion of these three strata, Taft concludes, 'This illustrates, I think, not only the usefulness of a structural approach in isolating the original shape and purpose of our by now rather cluttered liturgical rites, but also shows the underlying commonality of our general liturgical traditions, which in liturgiology, as in linguistics, makes comparative structural analysis possible.'2 Like Baumstark, Taft brings into relationship images from language and life to depict the liturgy as an integral, transforming totality whose shape remains recognizable over the course of history. Taft describes his method of liturgical study as 'the structural analysis of liturgical units.'3 In this phrase we find a close verbal parallel to the title of the third chapter of Baumstark's Comparative Liturgy, 'The Structure of the Great Liturgical Units.' But Taft gives new meanings to both o f t h e key concepts in this phrase, 'structure' and 'liturgical units'. What Baumstark called liturgical units, Taft—as we have already seen—calls shape: the totality of a liturgical service. Taft reserves the term 'unit' to refer to those constituent parts of the liturgy which make up the totality of a service. An awareness of liturgical history reveals that these units benave with some independence, possessing a potential for growth and mobility independent of the services in which they are found. Thus, Taft writes, 'I have found it preferable to identify, isolate and hypothetically reconstruct individual liturgical structures, then trace their history as such, rather than attempt to study complete rites as a unity in each historical period. For it has been my constant observation that liturgies do not grow evenly, like living organisms. Rather, their individual elements possess a life of their own.'4 Despite the contrasting terminologies, it is apparent that Taft's notion of liturgical units builds upon Baumstark's structural understanding of the liturgy. As for example in his treatment of the litany,5 Baumstark understood liturgical totalities to contain discrete identifiable component parts. For his part Taft has developed this incipient notion of component parts into a powerful methodological concept and tool. The other term shared Dy Taft and Baumstark is 'structure.' Again we need to note the movement of Taft's understanding beyond that of Baumstark. For Baumstark, it will be recalled, 'structure' refers to the order of ritual unities which perdure overtime: the Mass or Divine Liturgy, the Liturgy of Hours, the sanctorale cycle, and seasons. Though, in his view, elements—texts, actions, and feasts—may vary over time, the structures remain

1

2 3 4 5

Taft, 'The Structural Analysis of Liturgical Units,' pp.325-326. See also Beyond East and West, pp.160-161. Ibid., pp.328-329. See also Beyond East and West, p.161. Ibid., p.314. See also Beyond East and West, p. 151. Taft, 'The Structural Analysis of Liturgical Units,' p.318. See also Beyond East and West, p.154. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp.71-80. Legacy

41

fundamentally constant. Taft, on the other hand, redefines structure as an 'intelligibility framework,' 1 a working hypothesis. 'The "structure" is simply a model that reveals how the object 'works'. Of course this analysis is not carried on in a vacuum. There must be a constant dialectic between structural analysis and historical research.' 2 laf t has clearly benefited from the advances which the philosophy of science has made beyond the absolutist notions common in the positivism of Baumstark's day in particular, Taft owes his methodological sophistication to recent advances in the understanding of conceptual models, such as those of Karl Popper (1902- ), of whom Taft makes specific mention. 3 In so doing, he has liberated the concept of structure from the straitjacket of absolute meaning and recast it into a supple tool, capable of accommodating new information and insights which surface in the course of study. Clearly Taft, using the insights of his mentor Juan Mateos and recent developments in the philosophy of science, has been able to reshape Baumstark's comparative liturgy into a sophisticated methodology of comparative structural analysis.

1 2 3

Ibid., p.316. See also Beyond East and West, pp.151-154. Ibid., p.316. See also Beyond East and West, pp.152-153. Ibid. See also Beyond East and West, p. 153.

42

The Comparative Liturgy' of Anton

Baumstark

7. Postscript Baumstark was a pathfinder, bold o f thought. To be sure, his boldness was both blessing and bane, the source o f both his creativity and his grandiosity. Yet, in the end, it gave him a pathfinder's courage. W i t h an intensity and single-mindedness that suffered no fools, Baumstark forged ahead into the u n k n o w n and w h e n he emerged, he had r e m a p p e d the whole liturgical world. W h e r e a s before his journey the R o m a n rite stood on a pinnacle by itself with all o t h e r liturgies ranged b e l o w it, after his travels the liturgy was seen as a unity containing a series o f analogous structures, reciprocally related, stretching from India to Ireland. In this light, we can place Baumstark's contributions to t h e study o f the liturgy beside t h e advances which the comparative m e t h o d brought to the structural understanding o f language. According to Balthasar Fischer, Baumstark issued a warning to both the a c a d e m y and the C h u r c h : ' D o n o t merely believe that t h e R o m a n liturgy is the liturgy; the R o m a n liturgy is a liturgy.' 1

1

Balthasar Fischer, 'Schwerpunkte der liturgiewissenschaftliche Forschung im deutschen Sprachgebiet im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert', in Nordisk Kallokvium IV i Latinsk Liturgiforskning 15-17 funi 1978 pò Lysebu/Oslo (Institutt for kirkehistorie, Universitet i. Oslo, Oslo, 1978) p.15.

Postscript

43

7. Postscript Baumstark was a pathfinder, bold o f thought. To be sure, his boldness was both blessing and bane, the source o f both his creativity and his grandiosity. Yet, in the end, it gave him a pathfinder's courage. W i t h an intensity and single-mindedness that suffered no fools, Baumstark forged ahead into the u n k n o w n and w h e n he emerged, he had r e m a p p e d the whole liturgical world. W h e r e a s before his journey the R o m a n rite stood on a pinnacle by itself with all o t h e r liturgies ranged b e l o w it, after his travels the liturgy was seen as a unity containing a series o f analogous structures, reciprocally related, stretching from India to Ireland. In this light, we can place Baumstark's contributions to t h e study o f the liturgy beside t h e advances which the comparative m e t h o d brought to the structural understanding o f language. According to Balthasar Fischer, Baumstark issued a warning to both the a c a d e m y and the C h u r c h : ' D o n o t merely believe that t h e R o m a n liturgy is the liturgy; the R o m a n liturgy is a liturgy.' 1

1

Balthasar Fischer, 'Schwerpunkte der liturgiewissenschaftliche Forschung im deutschen Sprachgebiet im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert', in Nordisk Kallokvium IV i Latinsk Liturgiforskning 15-17 funi 1978 pò Lysebu/Oslo (Institutt for kirkehistorie, Universitet i. Oslo, Oslo, 1978) p.15.

Postscript

43

T h e Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark

Gorgias Liturgical Studies

31

This series is intended to provide a venue for studies about liturgies as well as books containing various liturgies. Making liturgical studies available to those who wish to learn more about their own worship and practice or about the traditions of other religious groups, this series includes works on service music, the daily offices, services for special occasions, and the sacraments.

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark

Fritz West

1 gorgia* press 2009

Gorgias Press LLC, 180 Centennial Ave., Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2009 by Gorgias Press LLC Originally published in All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2009

1

ISBN 978-1-60724-382-3

ISSN 1937-3252

Published first in the U.K. by Grove Books, 1995.

Printed in the LTnited States of America

CONTENTS CI I A P T E R

PAGE

Introduction

5

1. An Intellectual Biography 2.

6 13

Early Methodological Thought

3. An Introduction: The Comparative Method

16

4. Comparative Liturgy: In Theory

26

5. Comparative Liturgy: Practice

33

6.

Legacy

38

7.

Postscript

44

DEDICATION To Mark Searle meinem Doktorvater Requiescat

in

pacem

Introduction Anton Baumstark made a substantial contribution to the methodology o f modern liturgical studies. In his lifetime comparative liturgy became an accepted approach for the study o f the liturgy and contributed in no small measure to the new understanding o f the liturgy that emerged after World War 1 among Roman Catholic liturgical scholars. Since his death his book Comparative Liturgy has Become a classic in the field. Though his ideas are now viewed with a critical eye, nis continuing influence is apparent both in the current understanding o f the liturgy and in approaches to its study. T h e picture o f the liturgy as a coherent historical whole stretching from India to Ireland owes much to his insights. So, too, does our structural understanding o f the liturgy. Liturgical studies now assumes the structural character o f the liturgy; and the methodology o f o n e school, the structural analysis o f the Mateos School o f oriental liturgiology, builds directly upon his methodology. 1 T h e following pages will describe the history o f an idea: comparative liturgy. As comparative liturgy bears the stamp o f its creator, this history is in part biographical. It arose directly out o f Baumstark's temperament, gifts, and interests, especially his critique of the cultural studies o f his day. It was shaped by Baumstark's position as a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical historian working in the shadow o f the modernist controversy. However, with its use o f the comparative method, comparative liturgy also has a history in its own right. While it is widely assumed that comparative grammar served as the inspiration for comparative liturgy 2 , both comparative grammar and comparative liturgy belong to a larger family o f comparative sciences. They are marked by the use of the comparative method which coupled the organic model with the method of comparison. More exactly, they applied systematic comparison to cultural phenomena which they held to be organic. Comparative liturgy, tnen, stands where two histories meet: the personal history o f Anton Baumstark and the intellectual history o f the comparative method. Its history is the tale a man and his method. In tracing this history we shall begin with the man and end with his method. Our first sections will provide an intellectual biography of Anton Baumstark and a discussion of his early methodological musings. At that point we shall interrupt our focus upon Baumstark himself with an interlude on the comparative method. In the following two sections we will return to Baumstark in presenting an exposition o f his mature methodological thought, comparative liturgy. T h e final major section will discuss his methodological legacy in the field o f liturgical studies. 1

2

Robert Taft, 'The Structural Analysis of Liturgical Units: An Essay in Methodology,' in Worship 52(1978) p.317. See also the revision of this article in his Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding (Pastoral Press, Washington, DC, 1984) pp. 152-153. Bernard Botte makes just this claim in his Foreword to Anton Baumstark, Comparative Liturm, (A. R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd., London, 3rd ed, 1958) p.viii. Indeed, Anton Baumstark himself acknowledges similarities between his method and that of comparative grammar. See Baumstark, Comparative Liturm, p.3; Anton Baumstark, 'Ein liturgiewissenschaftliche Unternehmen deutscher Benediktinerabteien,' in Deutsche Literaturzeitung 40(1919) cols. 902-3; Anton Baumstark Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, in Ecclesia Orans vol. 10 (Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1923) pp.2-5. Introduction

5

1. An Intellectual Biography1 Carl Anton J o s e p h Maria D o m i n i k u s B a u m s t a r k was born into a scholarly R o m a n C a t h o l i c family on 4 August, 1872. Raised in C o n s t a n c e ( B a d e n ) G e r m a n y , B a u m s t a r k studied philology and the classics as well as Syriac and its literature. After university he lived in R o m e for five formative years, from 1 8 9 9 to 1904, as a resident o f the G e r m a n study house, C a m p o S a n t o Teutonico, literally in t h e s h a d o w o f St. Peter's Basilica. In his position as rector o f this house, Anton de Waal ( 1 8 3 7 - 1 9 1 7 ) , sought to strengthen t h e historical study o f the church a m o n g G e r m a n Catholics. O n the invitation o f de Waal G e r m a n priests and scholars used it as their h o m e in R o m e while pursuing research in the Vatican archives and library. For these five years, then, B a u m s t a r k benefited f r o m t h e stimulation o f living in a working c o m m u n i t y o f historical scholars. 1'he years at C a m p S a n t o Teutonico gave direction and focus to Baumstark's scholarly endeavours. U p o n the urging o f Anton de Waal, he turned his energies toward the liturgy and literature o f the church in the eastern M e d i t e r r a n e a n , especially t h e nonBvzantine East. In this effort de Waal facilitated the f o u n d i n g o f t h e journal Oriens Christianas with Baumstark as its editor. In the winteV o f 1 9 0 3 - 1 9 0 4 , B a u m s t a r k travelled to the N e a r East and, after visiting libraries and m o n u m e n t s visited in Egypt, Palestine and Syria, returned to R o m e with reams o f notes and photographs. 2 Also at C a m p o S a n t o leutonico, he made the a c q u a i n t a n c e o f the art historian, J o s e p h Strzygowski ( 1 8 6 2 -

1

2

6

There are numerous short biographies of Baumstark in print: Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1974ed, sv'Baumstark, Anton'; Lexikon flir Theologie und Kirche 1958 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Anton' by Hieronymus Engberding; Georg Graf, 'Zum Geleit und zum Andenken an Anton Baumstark und Adolf Rücker,' Oriens Christianus 37(1953) pp.1-5; Odilo Helming, 'In memoriam Anton Baumstark,' Tijdschrifi voor Liturgie 33(1949) pp.161-3; Theodor Klauser, 'Anton Baumstark, 1872-1948,' Ephemerides liturgicae 63 (1949) pp.185-7; Das katholische Deutschland: Biographisch-bibliographisches Lexikon, 1933 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Anton' by Wilhelm Kosch; Neu' Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Anton' by Burkhardt Neunheuser; Enciclopedia cattolica, 1949 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Anton Joseph Maria' by Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina; Olivier Rousseau, 'Antoine Baumstark (1872-1948)' in La maison Dieu 16 (1948) pp. 156-8; Adolf Rücker, 'Anton Baumstark zum 60. Geburtstag' in Litterae Orientales; orientalistischer literaturbericht 52(1932) pp.1-11. Otto Spiess, 'Anton Baumstark, (1872-1948)' in Bonner Gelehrte: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Bonn: Sprachwissenschaften (Bonn, Ludwig Rohrschied Verlag, 1970) pp.347-349; Neue Deutsche Biographie, 1953 ed, sv 'Baumstark, Gelehrte und Publizisten (2) Carl Anton Joseph Maria Dominikus' by Otto Spiess; I have not been able to locate yet another biography to which reference is made in the literature: G. Berger, 'Ein grosser Gelehrter und ein grosser Christ' in Einst und Jetzt: Berichte aus dem antiquariat Ludwig Kohrscheid Bonn 276. Beilage 29 (Bonn, np, 1954). Baumstark's bibliography has been published in nearly complete form: Herta Elisabeth Killy, Bibliographia Baumstarkiana' in Ephemerides liturgicae 63 (1949) pp.187-207. Another valuable source is the correspondence between Baumstark and Hans Lietzmann found in Hans Lietzmann Glanz und Niedergang der deutschen Universität: 50 jähre deutschen Wissenschaftgeschichte in Briefen an und von Hans Lietzviann (1892-1942), Run Aland (ed) (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1979) passim. Anton Baumstark, 'Palaestinensia. ein vorläufiger Bericht." in Römische Quartalschrift 20(1906) pp.125-7

The Comparative Liturg\> of Anton Baumstark

1941). N o t o n l y did Strzygowski spark an interest in Christian art, a r c h i t e c t u r e a n d archaeology in B a u m s t a r k , b u t h e also s t i m u l a t e d his t h i n k i n g a b o u t m e t h o d in t h e s t u d y of t n e liturgy. For f i f t e e n years a f t e r leaving R o m e B a u m s t a r k ' s life was b u r d e n e d . U n a b l e to o b t a i n a university a p p o i n t m e n t , he t a u g h t classics at a s e c o n d a r y school r u n by his g o d f a t h e r . In 1909, h e m a r r i e d Frieda A n n a Trondle, a 'good b u t s i m p l e w o m a n ' 1 w h o b o r e h i m a f a m i l y of f o u r t e e n , n i n e s o n s a n d five d a u g h t e r s . T h e s e w e r e difficult t i m e s f o r Baumstark. G i v e n his responsibilities at h o m e a n d school, t h e t i m e available f o r scholarly pursuits was sharply curtailed. W h i l e writing his Gescbicbte der syrischen Literatur, h e w o r k e d till t h e wee h o u r s of t h e m o r n i n g , g e t t i n g by o n o n l y a f e w h o u r s sleep. A n d t h e n t h e r e was W o r l d W a r 1. S h o r t on t i m e a n d w i t h o u t ready access t o a university library, B a u m s t a r k ' s scholarly w o r k s u f f e r e d . T h o u g h h e p u b l i s h e d s o m e m o n o g r a p h s , m u c h of his w r i t i n g in these years c a m e in t h e f o r m of reviews of b o o k s a n d literature, e n c y c l o p e d i a articles, a n d pieces f o r t h e p o p u l a r press. O p p o r t u n i t i e s finally c a m e B a u m s t a r k ' s way in t h e peace w h i c h f o l l o w e d W o r l d War I. Of special i m p o r t for him w a s a relationship with t h e A b b e y of M a r i a Laach. The m o n k s of this abbey, c o m m i t t e d to a liturgical a p o s t o l a t e even b e f o r e t h e war, w e r e m o r e t h a n ready f o r t h e o p p o r t u n i t i e s w h i c h peace a f f o r d e d . Yet t h e p r o g r a m m e of t h e a b b e y was t o o a m b i t i o u s to rely solely u p o n m e m b e r s of t h e m o n a s t i c c o m m u n i t y a n d it n e e d e d help. To s h a p e t h e i r a p p r o a c h to liturgical studies, to p r o d u c e t h e i r p u b l i c a t i o n s a n d p r o g r a m m e s , t h e m o n a s t i c c o m m u n i t y enlisted t h e efforts of a n u m b e r of liturgical scholars o u t s i d e t h e abbey, B a u m s t a r k a m o n g t h e m . T h i s was a r e l a t i o n s h i p of m u t u a l benefit. A b b o t l l d e f o n s H e r w e g e n (1874-1946) n o t only e n c o u r a g e d B a u m s t a r k to t u r n his a t t e n t i o n to t h e liturgies of t h e West, b u t gave h i m a q u i e t place to w o r k a n d o p p o r tunities to publish. For his part B a u m s t a r k played a central role in s h a p i n g t h e u n d e r s t a n d i n g of liturgical studies e m b r a c e d by t h e abbey, served as e d i t o r of its journal, t h e ]abrbuch fur Liturgieivissenschajt, a n d p r o v i d e d leadership f o r its liturgical weeks. 2 T h e s e years a f f o r d e d B a u m s t a r k professional o p p o r t u n i t i e s as well. In 1921, w h e n a p p r o a c h i n g his fiftieth birthday, he finally received t h e o f f e r of a university position. T h r o u g h t h e intercessions of his friend Mans L i e t z m a n n (1875-1942), he was able to take a position at t h e University of Bonn as professor honorarius f o r early Christian oriental civilization. H o w e v e r , at n o t i m e did B a u m s t a r k hold a regular, f u l l - t i m e university a p p o i n t m e n t . In a d d i t i o n to his w o r k in Bonn, w e find h i m t e a c h i n g at N i j m e g e n a n d U t r e c h t in H o l l a n d a n d at M u n s t e r in G e r m a n y . For m o s t of his years in university teaching, B a u m s t a r k held t h r e e p a r t - t i m e a p p o i n t m e n t s , c o m m u t i n g f r o m o n e university t o a n o t h e r , i n d e e d f r o m o n e c o u n t r y to a n o t h e r , in o r d e r to fulfil his duties. Yet, hono u r s did c o m e his way. In 1925 t h e C h u r c h a d d e d its a p p r o b a t i o n to t h a t of t h e a c a d e m y w h e n t h e C a t h o l i c faculty of t h e University of Bonn g r a n t e d B a u m s t a r k a d o c t o r of t h e o l o g y degree honoris causa.3 Finally, u p o n his sixtieth b i r t h d a y in 1932, colleagues a n d f o r m e r s t u d e n t s p u b l i s h e d a. festschrift in his h o n o u r . For B a u m s t a r k , a f t e r years of struggle as an i n d e p e n d e n t scholar, these rewards were sweet i n d e e d . 1

Odilo Helming, in a conversation with the author at t!ie Abbey of Maria Laach on 5 September 1983. Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, pp.vn and ix. 3 Baumstark. Missale Romanian: Seine Entwicklung ihre nichtigsten Urkunden und Probleme (Uitgeveri| 'Het Hooghius', Kindhoven. 1929) Jed ication page. 2

An Intellectual

Biography

1

But Baumstark was not destined for tranquillity and in the early 1930s his life took another troubled turn. The change was a direct result of his earnest support of the National Socialist Party. Baumstark's political commitments served to isolate him, straining relationships both in the academy and in the Church. Because of his involvement in the election of 1932 and his polemical writing for the party, Odo Casel (18861948) removed Baumstark from the editorship of Jahrbuch fiir Liturgiewissenscha.fi. Appeals for reinstatement which Baumstark made to Abbot Herwegen were of no avail. Priaefully he thereafter refused to publish in the pages of that journal, which was his main outlet for work in the area of western liturgy. In addition to his rift with the Abbey of Maria Laach, he encountered difficulties at the University of Münster. There colleagues tried to have him removed on charges that he had obtained his teaching post through political favouritism. In Baumstark's words, his involvement in the politics of the Third Reich brought him 'Verdruss und Undank'. 1 These developments affected Baumstark's priorities. No longer publishing in the area of western liturgy, his attention shifted to other areas of inquiry. Through the encouragement of Professor Paul Kahle (1875-1964) at the University of Bonn, Baumstark added yet another area to his already extensive scholarly interests, namely, that of Biblical studies, especially the textual traditions of Near Eastern texts and the harmonizations of the Gospels. However, with his political commitments placing increasing demands upon his time and energy, scholarship no longer held his attention undivided. He wrote, 'Devotion to the powerful work "of a political organization of our people" which the great Führer of a new Germany put before us as a national task and which no truly sensitive witness to the fate of his people may shun, limits the time at my disposal for scholarly work of any kind.' 2 Partly due to age, partly to events, Baumstark's opportunities for scholarly work were now shrinking. In 1940, at the age of 67, he retired from his one remaining teaching post at the University of Nijmegen. Though he had planned to continue editing the journal Oriens Christianus, wartime conditions forced that journal to cease publication within the year. Anton Baumstark died in Bonn on 3 1 May 1948 at the age of 75. Baumstark had a fecund mind and a productive pen. His bibliography contains no less than 546 publications, both popular and scholarly, on a wide variety of topics. His coeditor on Oriens Christianus, Adolf Rücker (1880-1948), likened Baumstark's intellectual development to that of a tree, which adds new growth without supplanting older rings.3 More than once encouragement for growth came from Baumstark's mentors or colleagues. To the area of classical and Near Eastern literature and philology studied at the university, Baumstark added upon the stimulus of Anton de Waal the literature and liturgy of the Christian East; Christian art and archaeology upon the influence of Josef Strzygowski; the liturgy of the Western Church and comparative liturgy upon the urging of Ildefons Herwegen; and the textual criticism and history of the Bible after conversations with Professor Paul Kahle. In addition to these fields, we may mention the litera1 2

3

8

Lietzmann, Glanz und Niedergang, p.825. Baumstark, Anton, 'Beiträge zur Buchmalerei des christlichen Orients 1: Frühchristlich-syrische Prophetenillustration durch stehende Autorenbilder,' in Oriens Christianus 3rd series 9(1934) p.104. Rücker, 'Anton Baumstark zum 60. Geburtstag', pp.5-6.

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

ture and euchology of Islam. The image of annual rings particularly captures the cumulative character of Baumstark's intellectual growth. Earlier interest continued even as new rings were added. Despite the diversity and breadth of Baumstark's interests and learning, his scholarly work had focus. Save for his work in Syrian literature, all that he wrote sought to elucidate the life, liturgy and literature of the church in the Mediterranean basin. Even the knowledge of Judaism and Islam were pursued not for their own sake, but rather to give breadth to his study of the Christian church. His thorough knowledge of the languages and cultures of the Mediterranean basin allowed him to study the churches in that area on a broadly comparative basis. This area he regarded as an historical unity. Though each church in the Mediterranean basin bore the stamp of its immediate cultural milieu, he saw that all were related through the cultural commerce around and across the inland sea. As a scholar, both Baumstark's strength and his weakness lay in his use of hypotheses. With the breadth of his thought, knowledge, and interests, he was able to suggest hypotheses and relationships which would have eluded a scholar of narrower focus. However, his hypotheses were not always carefully crafted. Indeed, at times they were extravagant or, as Olivier Rousseau termed it, referring to both his politics and his intellect, Utopian'. 1 Bernard Botte (1893-1980) wondered whether Baumstark was able to distinguish truly between his hypotheses and historical reality, counting this as his chief limitation'. 2 Baumstark is best thought of as a pathfinder. Just as persons of his age ventured into unknown lands, so did Baumstark embark upon intellectual explorations. In this world he was well-travelled. Fluent in numerous languages, familiar with a variety of cultures, he was able to move with ease through literatures and liturgies across the breadth of the church. To go so far from home, to travel so deep into the unknown, takes a tenacity which is not always attractive. Certainly this was true of explorers in the nineteenth century, like H.M. Stanley, who brought to their task a passion and a singlemindedness that had its brutal side. Baumstark possessed a similar temperament. An anecdote told by Kunibert Mohlberg (1878-1963) gives us insight into his personality. After informing Baumstark of a palimpsest which challenged one of his hypotheses, Mohlberg writes, he 'pounded on me like a Jupiter tonans, and literally cast a curse upon me and my palimpsest'. 3 Adolf Riicker, while showing great appreciation for Baumstark's book reviews, commented that 'he can indeed occasionally be acerbic, if it appears necessary to him' 4 ; and his student Odilo Heiming confided to me that Baumstark could be 'a difficult man'. 5 Baumstark brought to his scholarly work the pathfinder's passion; while required to reach his goal, the intensity and drive of that passion did not always make for a pleasant travelling companion. The ecclesial milieu in which Baumstark found himself exercised a formative influence upon his scholarly work. He was not merely an historian, but a Roman 1 2 3

4 5

Rousseau, 'Antoine Baumstark (1872-1948)', p.158. Botte, 'Foreword to the Third Edition' in Anton Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.ix. Kunibert Mohlberg, 'Vertrauliches aus meinem Umgang mit mittelalterlichen Handschriften,' m Miscellanea histórica Alberti de Meyer, vol. 2 (Univeriteits-bibliothek, Leuven, 1946) p.1326-7. Riicker, 'Anton Baumstark zum 60. Geburtstag', p. 10. Heiming, personal comment.

An Intellectual Biography

9

Catholic historian working at the turn of the twentieth century in the bosom of the Church. This was the era of the modernist controversy, when the Church regarded history to be at odds with faith. Roman Catholic historians of this period, especially those in holy orders, found themselves in a predicament of no mean sort. Though few were condemned as modernists, all had to arrive at strategies for using historical methods in ways acceptable to the Church. Some were cautious and tried to minimize the theological implications of their scholarship by concentrating upon narrow, technical topics. 1 Others worked confidently in the knowledge that one day the Church would have to bend to the realities of history. 2 Yet others, Baumstark among them, were accommodating. Not only did he use neo-scholastic categories to explain the place of an historian in the Church, but in a larger sense comparative liturgy can be seen as an historiographical solution to a theological problem. Given its considerable impact upon Baumstark s thought, let us then pause to consider the theological climate abroad in the Church of his day and his response to it. From the middle of the nineteenth century until after World War I, the Church held history at arm's length. 3 It did so in the framework of neo-scholastic theology which drew a clear distinction between nature and grace, and sharply delimited the power of natural reason. Essentially, it held, reason only had the power to explore the natural world. Though it could establish the existence of God as well as the logical necessity of the Christian faith, it could never know the mysteries of the Christian faith in themselves. These were made known directly by God only to the mind elevated by supernatural grace, that is, to the Church and its clergy. On this basis neo-scholastic theologians built an epistemology distinguishing two orders of knowledge: first, a theology which was certain and, second, allother human sciences which were not. Here we find bold contrasts between Church and world, theology and science, faith and history. The eternal life of the Church was marked by constancy, unity, and consistency; the historical life of the world was characterized by change, plurality, and contradiction. The Truth of the Church was deemed to be supernatural, objective and necessary; the truth of the world was held to be natural, subjective and contingent. In the words of Louis Billot (1846-1931), professor of dogmatics at the Gregorian University in Rome, 'dogmas have no history'. 4 1

C u t h b e r t Butler, 'Abbot C.uthbert Butler to Friedrich von Hügel' in T h o m a s Michael Loome, Liberal Catholicism, Reform Catholicism, Modernism: A Contribution to a New Orientation in Modernist Research Tübingen Theologische Studien, vol. 14 (Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Mainz, 1979) p.442. 2 F d m u n d Bishop may serve as an example. See below. 3 O n the theology of this period see Gerald McCool, Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century. (The Seabury Press, N e w York, 1977) and Mark Schoof, A Survey of Catholic Theology, ¡8Ó0-1970 (Paulist N e w m a n Press. N e w York, 1970). For R o m a n Catholic intellectual life of this period see: H e n r i - l r e n é e M a r r o u , 'Philologie et histoire d a n s la p é r i o d e d u pontificat d e Léon XIII' in G i u s e p p e Rossini (ed) Aspetti della culturo cattolica nell'eta de LeoneXIII: atti delconvegno tenuto a Bologna, il27-28-29 dicembre 1960 (Edizioni 5 lune, R o m a 1961), pp.71-106 and Bernard Welte, 'Zum S t r u k t u r w a n d e l der katholischen Theologie im 19. J a h r h u n d e r t ' in Auf der Spur des Wegen: Philosophische Abhandlungen über verschieden Gegenstände der Religion und Theologie (Herder Verlag, Freiburg in Westfalien, 1965) pp.380-409. 4 Louis Billot q u o t e d in Roger Aubert, The Christian Centuries: A New History of the Catholic Church: Vol. 5 The Church in a Secularized Society (Darton, L o n g m a n and I b d d , L o n d o n , 1978) p. 179.

10

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Baumstark

In the Church of this period, historians f o u n d themselves in a tenuous position, with their place depending in large part u p o n the theology and temperament of the reigning pope. Life for historians was tolerable under Leo XIII (1810-1903), w h o was accommodating and encouraged the study of both theology and history. Since, he held, G o d created both Church and world and G o d cannot be self-contradictory, then the facts and findings of history will ultimately confirm, not contradict, the truths of theology. Life for historians became difficult when his successor took another tack. Perceiving the Church to be under attack, Pius X (1835-1914) c o n d e m n e d the purveyors of historical truth in the decree Lamentibili and the encyclical Pascendi. However, at no time in this period was life easy for historians in the Church. They worked on the margins of the Church, which welcomed them only on its own terms. Baumstark accepted this invitation. Using neo-scholastic categories, he defined h o w it was that he—a layman and an historian—could legitimately study the liturgy of the Church, l b do so he had to establish that the study of the liturgy fell into the second order of knowledge. Only if this were so could (1) a layman (2) study liturgy as history (3) using natural reason. In answering this question Baumstark took an approach c o m m o n in his day. The liturgy, he argued, could be studied as both theology and history. In so far as the liturgy refers to G o d it belongs to the realm of theology and only those in holy orders can study this dimension of it. However, 'It is only its subject-matter which belongs to Theology.' 1 T h e liturgy is also an historical p h e n o m e n o n and can be studied as such. As comparative g r a m m a r studies language and not that to which language refers, Baumstark argued, so comparative liturgy analyzes the liturgy and not God. Comparative grammar can parse the sentence 'God exists' without ever taking a position on the truth claimed by that statement. Analogously, comparative liturgy does not use reason to study God, but rather to study the liturgy whose referent is G o d . This being the case, Baumstark claimed, a layman such as himself can use natural reason to study the liturgy without fear of trespassing upon theology's sacred precincts. There remained, however, the tnorny problem of the theological implications of historical data. This problem, central to the modernist controversy, impacted liturgical no less than biblical scholars. Indeed, two liturgical scholars, Pierre Batiffol 2 (1841-1929) and Louis Duchesne 3 (1843-1922), had books c o n d e m n e d by Rome. In his answer to this question Baumstark appears like a positivist hard-liner trying to will the problem away. The historian's obligation, he argued, is to present the facts, regardless of the speculations of the theologians. ' . . . Comparative Liturgy should always be on its guard against pre-conceived ideas and above all against theories constructed (in a way dear to theologians) in the interests of a system.' 4 However, since theological theory is not Church dogma, this stance does not imply a contradiction of the first order of knowledge by the second. Though facts may contradict theories of h u m a n invention, they can never contradict the depositum fidei handed down by Christ to the Church. Indeed Baumstark 1 2

3

4

Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.3. See Emile Poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Casterman, Paris, 1962) pp.2215, 364-392. See Emile Poulat, 'Mgr. D u c h e s n e et la crise m o d e r n i s t e ' in Collections de l'Ecole française de Rome; vol. 23, Monseigneur Duchesne et son temps; actes du colloque organisé par l'école française de Palais Farnisé, 23-25 Mai 1973 (Ecole française de Rome, Rome, ¡975) pp.353-373. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.7

An Intellectual Biography

11

was careful to distance himself from 'modernist truths'. 'We certainly do not mean to suggest that science and dogma can be in contradiction or to propound the modernist thesis of double truth. All we insist on is that facts must be given their true value.' 1 Baumstark is here basing his argument upon the understanding of the two orders of knowledge held by Pope Leo XIII. In this confidence, Baumstark notes the example of the anaphora of Addai and Mari. Lacking the Words of Institution which the Church held to be consecratory, this anaphora seemingly contradicted dogma. But Baumstark writes, 'Now whatever be the theological considerations involved, we are not justified in conjuring the fact away. It is the theologians, not the liturgists, whose business it is to relate the historical datum to the unchangeable character of dogma. This historian, if he is a Catholic, while accepting the truth of dogma unreservedly, must no less certainly accept the fact which confronts him. In such cases he will remind himself in full sincerity of the saying of that great Pontiff, Leo XIII: Veritas non erubescit nisi abscondi. '2 Baumstark is asserting that the historian can explore the past confident that no facts discovered can ever contradict the depositumftdei of the Church. So did Baumstark, the historical positivist, understand his place in tne Church. Confident of both data and dogma, he trusted their ultimate harmony to God. To place Baumstark in relationship to his age, it is instructive to compare him with the English liturgical scholar Edmund Bishop (1846-1917). Between Baumstark and Bishop one finds some striking similarities: hoth are Roman Catholic laymen, historians of the liturgy and historical positivists. But, unlike Baumstark, Bishop could not imagine an accommodation between the historical method and neo-scholastic theology. The two, in his eyes, were unalterably opposed. In holding this view Bishop understood himself to be a modernist. For Bishop the policies of Leo XIII had only served to mask an inherent opposition between the presuppositions of the historical critical method and neoscholastic theology. In 1905 he wrote, 'When I observe how one set of persons (the theologians) proceed confidently from affirmation to affirmation, and from deduction to deduction, and how the work of historical investigation is proceeding in the hands of another set of persons, it is, to my mind, as though the builders of Babel were pushing on their construction cheerfully with eyes turned heavenwards, without giving a thought to the work of sapping and undermining the edifice that is going on below.' 3 In Bishop's view the days of neo-scholasticism were numbered. The historical consciousness and scientific ethos were simply a fact of life which theologians could ignore only at their own risk. This danger Baumstark never saw.

1 md 2

3

-

Ibid., p.8; for a statement of Leo XIII on this point see 'Bref de sa sainteté Léon XIII aux organisateurs du congrès scientifique international des catholiques' in Compte rendu, Congrès scientifique international des catholiques, tenu à Paris du 8 au 13 Avril 1888 vol 1 (Bureau de Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne, Pans, 1889) p.vii. Edmund Bishop, 'History and Apologetics' in Loome, Liberal Catholicism, Reform Catholicism, Modernism, p.380. On Bishop as a modernist see in this volume, pp.59-76.

12

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

2. Early Methodological Thought At the beginning o f a s e m i n a r held at the University o f Leipzig on the Friday after Pentecost in the year 1893, the Arabic scholar L u d o l f Krehl ( 1 8 2 5 - 1 9 0 1 ) greeted his student Anton B a u m s t a r k i n a w e l l - i n t e n d e d display o f affability. H e wished his R o m a n C a t h o l i c student well on that 'goldene Freitag,' the n a m e for the Friday after Pentecost in the Syrian tradition. In so doing, this Protestant professor unwittingly revealed his mistaken assumption that the liturgical calendar o f the church in Syria was identical to that o f the R o m a n Catholic C h u r c h . For y o u n g Anton Baumstark, this b u m b l i n g greeting was indicative o f a presupposition c o m m o n a m o n g his teachers o f philology. B e they Protestant o r Catholic, his teachers tended to a s s u m e as a m a t t e r o f course that liturgies in the Mediterranean basin were derived from R o m e . After recounting this a n e c d o t e in a b o o k review published in 1904, Baumstark c o m m e n t e d that things were different in 'our generation'. 'We have broken and we wish to c o n t i n u e to break with the one-sidedness o f a historical perspective, for which existed—so far as Christian matters are c o n c e r n e d — essentially only the central and western E u r o p e a n cultures from t h e beginning o f antiquity to the Middle Ages and beyond. But now in o u r day t h e Christian orient in all cultural areas is d e m a n d i n g its rightful place as a party in t h e historical developm e n t o f h u m a n c u l t u r e . . . N o w when we prepare a Syriac text a n e w for publication, we shall n o longer regard it as merely o n e m o r e fragment in an i m m e n s e chrest o m a t h y o f a northern Aramaic dialect. R a t h e r we wish to see it considered as part o f the fabric o f the life o f the Syrian nation, o r rather a fabric o f an expression o f that nation—Christianity adapted to that t i m e and p l a c e — w h i c h presents itself to us in each text. W i t h o u t a douDt t h e m o s t delicate o f the textual studies to be found in this field are liturgical texts.' 1 Even in 1893, as a university student o f twenty-one, Baumstark showed a keen interest and a revisionist spirit in matters methodological. Behind his e n c o u n t e r with Professor Krehl lay o n e o f Baumstark's life-long concerns: the proper regard for the cultures o f the Mediterranean basin and their interrelationships. Underlying this concern lay a critique o f the way scholars o f his day regarded the cultures o f the inland sea. In Baumstark's j u d g m e n t their understanding was at least Euro-centric, if n o t R o m o - c e n t r i c ; they interpreted the culture o f the eastern Mediterranean not in their own right but in terms o f E u r o p e a n culture. T h i s historical perspective belied a moral stance which judged all culture by R o m a n standards: language in terms o f Latin, art in terms o f R o m a n art, laws in terms o f R o m a n law, and so on. T h i s Eurocentric cultural perspective Baumstark discerned in his teachers, philologists o f the late nineteenth century, w h o treated the Christian orient merely as a 'variant' o f R o m a n Christianity, w i t h o u t a history worthy o f study for its own sake. T h e same attitude was apparent in tne R o m a n C a t h o l i c C h u r c h and its understanding o f the liturgy. As E u r o p e a n s viewed culture, so did the Church view the church. O f particular concern to Baumstark was the C h u r c h ' s view o f the liturgy. It was seen to have its 1

Anton Baumstark, 'Beprechung: Hilgenfeld (ed) Ausgewählte Gesänge des Giivargis Warda von Arbel\ in Orlens Christianus 4(1904) p.229. Early Metbodological

Thought

13

roots in an apostolic liturgy, given to the apostles by Jesus Christ and entrusted through Peter to Rome. In this perspective, 'history' became a story of disintegration in which apostolic perfection became sullied by historical development. The relationship which this position envisioned between earlier and later forms was not historical at all but ideal, with earlier forms furnishing the ideal for measuring the adequacy (or more often the inadequacy) of later forms. This Romo-centric perspective on the liturgy, in Baumstark's opinion, was but an instance of the Euro-centrism which he had first encountered and critiqued in his teachers. 1 It was one thing for Baumstark to critique current thinking and quite another to offer a constructive solution. What was needed was nothing less than a wholly new conceptual framework for interpreting the cultures of the Mediterranean and their relationships. Baumstark found this in the work of Josef Strzygowski, an art historian and visitor to Campo Santo Teutonico. Like Baumstark, Strzygowski was a student of culture in the Mediterranean basin who was critical of the Euro-centrism which dominated his field. In his book, Orient oder Rom?, Stryzgowski challenged the Rome-centred view of art history with the argument that the flow of aesthetic influence in the Mediterranean basin had been quite the reverse of what had been commonly assumed: from East to West rather than from West to East. In a book review published in the same year as the anecdote, Baumstark gave approbation to Strzygowski's ideas in writing 'we should accustom ourselves to think of Rome as essentially without influence, the heiress of a purely Hellenic tradition.' 2 For his constructive proposal, Strzygowski applied the comparative method to the study of the history of art. He sought to overcome with this method the obstacles to. the writing of art history which he thought were inherent in the available evidence. According to Stryzgowski only monumental works of art remain intact over time, urban structures made of stone. The wooden structure typical of the hinterlands naturally deteriorated with time. Thus, in Strzygowski's view, a history of art which takes into account only the extant evidence will inevitably be skewed toward the imperial and away from the popular. To solve this problem, Stryzgowski employed a comparative method which he claimed could reconstruct lost architectural forms indirectly from inferences found in existing structures. Such a procedure is possible, Strzygowski claimed, because art is an organism which manifests its essential features in a variety of cultures and eras. In this organic framework, the stone structures in one region can present fully developed examples of structures only alluded to in the art of another and, as such, be used to flesh out its history. 3

1

Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.5 and Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, p.30. A n t o n Baumstark, 'Besprechung: Josef Strzygowski, Kleinasien, ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte,' in Oriens Christianus 4 (1904) p.415 3 Josef Strzygowski, Origins of Christian Art (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1923) passim; for a critical s t u d y see: Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing, Kunstforschungoder Kunstwissenschaft'!' Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse, NF, H e f t 31 (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, M ü n c h e n , 1950-1).

2

14

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

W h i l e stimulated by this approach, B a u m s t a r k did not feel he could go so far. H e was certainly ready to see t h e liturgy as s o m e t h i n g organic. In 1903 he had written, 'Until t h e t i m e o f L u t h e r t h e Christian liturgy was s o m e t h i n g unified from its roots. It was locally very diverse, but organic throughout, that is, it developed according to laws w h i c h originated in its being. A liturgical text can be fully understood only when a historical p r o b l e m o f the liturgy can be properly solved u p o n t h e broadest comparative basis.' 1 Baumstark had m o v e d a long way in the ten years since his e n c o u n t e r with Professor Krehl. H a v i n g t h e n insisted u p o n the integrity o f cultural forms, including those o f the liturgy, as representative o f the cultures which shaped t h e m , he n o w c a m e to regard the liturgy as an organic unity. T h e essential similarity o f all liturgies, Baumstark now thought, sprang from t h e fact that they were all manifestations o f a single, natural (that is, governed by laws) organism. H e r e was his response to the Euro-centrism o f his teachers and the R o m o - c e n t r i s m o f t h e C h u r c h . For if all liturgies were manifestations o f o n e essence then n o single liturgy, like that o f R o m e , c o u l d serve as the measure for all others. Rather, all were to be evaluated in light o f t h e organic whole from which they sprang. B a u m s t a r k t h o u g h t that this liturgical organism originally c o n t a i n e d all o f the liturgies o f the C h u r c h . B e c a u s e o f events in the sixteenth century, however, this organic unity no longer existed in its original form. Early in that century Protestant reformers shaped worship according to their o w n criteria; later in that century t h e C o u n t e r - r e f o r m a t i o n , in establishing the C o n g r e g a t i o n o f Sacred Rites, began correcting and directing the liturgy o f the R o m a n C a t h o l i c C h u r c h . Protestants and Catholics alike, then, exercised their wills u p o n the worship o f the C h u r c h rather than allowing it to develop according to its laws. In this way, argued Baumstark, the 'natural growth' o f the liturgy was interrupted in the W e s t in the sixteenth century. O n l y the liturgies o f t h e East c o n t i n u e d to develop organically a c c o r d i n g to the laws which sprang from their c o m m o n being. B a u m s t a r k w a n t e d to follow Strzygowski all trie way and use the comparative m e t h o d in the study o f the liturgy. But, in his j u d g m e n t , the t i m e for that had n o t yet c o m e . T h o u g h he recognized that the liturgy, as an organic unity, should be studied 'upon the broadest comparative basis', t h e analysis o f its data had not yet advanced to that point at which the comparative m e t h o d would apply. Its use would require a knowledge o f the liturgy's patterns and laws o f d e v e l o p m e n t , which had yet to be d e d u c e d from the plethora o f liturgical data. T h o u g h Strzygowski's c o n f i d e n c e in the comparative m e t h o d allowed him to reconstruct architectural forms w h i c h had been lost to history, B a u m s t a r k was m o r e tentative in regard to the liturgy. H e wrote, 'A c o m p a r a t i v e liturgy, with a clearly and universally recognized m e t h o d is, however, unfortunately a science which is yet to be established.' 2

1

2

Anton Baumstark, 'Besprechung: Die nestorianische Iäufliturgie, (ed) Diettrich' in Oriem Christianus 3(1903) pp.220-221. The following paragraphs reflect upon this citation. Ibid.

Early Methodological Thought 15

3. An Interlude: The Comparative Method Analogies f r o m the study of life came to scholars like Strzygowski and Baumstark indirectly through comparative grammar. These scholars were a part of the second wave of comparative sciences. While the first wave, comparative grammar, drew its organic t h o u g h t directly f r o m the natural scientists of the early nineteenth century, the second wave, the comparative sciences of culture, took its organic t h o u g h t f r o m the first. Impressed by its apparent success in comparative grammar, scholars of culture a d o p t e d the comparative m e t h o d with high hopes. Friedrich M a x Milller (1823-1900), a scholar of both language and religion, gave voice to this h o p e in 1867. 'It was supposed at one time that comprehensive analysis of t h e language of mankind m u s t transcend the powers of man; and yet by the c o m b i n e d and well directed efforts of m a n y scholars, great results have been obtained, and the principles that m u s t guide the student of the Science of Language are n o w firmly established. It will be the same for the Science of Religion.' 1 The topic of this section is the use of the comparative m e t h o d in both of its stages. In addition to providing context for o u r consideration of comparative liturgy, it will also yield criteria for evaluating the appropriate use of the comparative m e t h o d . T h e starting-point for considering comparative g r a m m a r is unequivocally its use of organic thought. T h e models, m e t h o d s and aspirations of this approach to the study of language all proceeded f r o m the analogy which linguists drew between language and organic life. N o passing fad, organic t h o u g h t influenced t h o u g h t a b o u t language t h r o u g h o u t the nineteenth century. In the view of Ernst. Cassirer (1874-1945) the organic model did no less than establish the p r o g r a m m e for linguistic structuralism. 2 E. F. K. Koerner built a book-length article on this fecund suggestion and concluded that 'the concept of organism, including the conscious and half-conscious adoption of the m e t h o d s of the biologist, botanist or anatomist have proved crucial in the d e v e l o p m e n t of linguistics.' 3 Nineteenth century linguists applied organic t h o u g h t to language as both m o d e l and metaphor. 4 In a purely metaphorical sense, these scholars used the adjective 'organic' to depict the coherency of language, as we might speak of, for example, a poem. I'he terms which linguistics yet borrows from botany (root, stem) and zoology (family, mothertongue) imply this organic metaphor. It is, however, the use of the organic model which was the hallmark of comparative grammar. These scholars applied this model to language in two senses, the methodological and the ontological. T h e methodological aspect of the organic model asserted that—like an 1

Friedrich Max Miiller, Chips from a German Workshop, vol. 1 (Scribners, Armstrong, & Co, N e w York, 1873) p.xix. 2 Ernst Cassirer 'Structuralism in M o d e r n Linguistics,' in Word 1(1945) p.107. ' F.. F. K. Koerner, 'European Structuralism. Early Beginnings' in T h o m a s A. Sebeok (ed) Historiography of Linguistics, Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. U ( M o u t o n , T h e Hague/Paris, 4

1975) p.730. T h e following paragraphs rely u p o n distinctions f o u n d in Cassirer's article 'Structuralism in M o d ern Linguistics' pp.99-110.

16

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Liturgy1 of Anton

Baumstark

organism—languages contain interrelated parts which function to maintain the whole. In this analogy between a language and an organism, scholars of comparative grammar had in mind the more complex organisms of the animal kingdom, namely vertebrates. In another sense, however, linguistics pictured language as an organic being. Whereas the methodological aspect of the organic model stresses structure, the ontological aspect stresses transformation. This model held language to be a developing organism which manifested itself in the languages known to history. As such, scholars of comparative grammar held language to be nature not history, distinguishing these two realms by their determinacy, according to the positivism of the day. Nature, being governed by law was seen to be absolutely determinate; history, being governed by human will, was regarded as utterly indeterminate. In this distinction lay a methodological implication: language being nature, its study was a science, able to use exact procedure to obtain precise results. For a concrete example of comparative grammar, we turn to one whose understanding of language and linguistics proved especially influential: August Schleicher (1821 -1865). While not an imaginative thinker, Scnleicher had the gift of synthesis, fashioning a comprehensive approach to the study of language from numerous strains current in his day. This synthesis dominated the study of language for more than half a century, from the middle of the nineteenth century to the publication of the Course in General Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) in 1914. So influential did it become that, using the notion of Thomas S. Kuhn, one may speak of a Schleicherian paradigm. It passed into the comparative sciences of culture as scholars in those fields turned to comparative grammar for a model and a mentor. 1 Schleicher held language to be a natural organism and its study to be a natural science. 2 'Languages are natural organisms, which—without being determined by the will of men—arose, grew and developed in accordance with specific laws and in their time will age and die o u t . . ,'3 Upon this organic understanding, Schleicher examined language in two frames of reference, being and becoming. These two aspects could not only be studied separately, systematically and historically respectively, but one could infer the other: being could infer becoming. Traces of past development found in later forms could be used both to classify languages and to reconstruct earlier forms. Understanding language in this way, Schleicher applied to language methods borrowed from the life sciences. H e classified language with his Stammbaumtheorie in conscious imitation of botanical classification; he understood himself to be using paleontological 1

See E. F. K. Koerner, 'Towards a Historiography of Linguistics: 19 th and 20th Century Paradigms,' in Herman Parret (ed) History of Linguistic Thought and Contemporary Linguistics (de Gruyter, Berlin, 1976) pp.692-699 and 'European Structuralism: Early Beginnings," pp.745-760. 2 On the comparative method in the study of language see H. N. Hoenigswald, 'On The History of the Comparative Method' in Anthropological Linguistics 5( 1963) pp. 1 -11, John P Maher, 'More on the History of the Comparative Method: The Tradition of Darwinism in August Schleicher's Work,' in Anthropological Linguistics 8(1966) pp. 1-12 and T. M. S. Priestly, 'Schleicher, Celakovsky and the Family-Tree Diagram' in Historiographica Linguistics 2(1975) p.299-333. 3 August Schleicher, 'Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft' rn Hans Helmut Christmann (ed) Sprachwissenschaft des 19. Jahrhundert (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1977) p.88.

An Interlude: The Comparative Method

17

procedures in his reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European (abbreviated as PIE). Neither language classification nor reconstruction originated with Schleicher, yet his confidence in tne law-governed understanding of the natural organism of language led him to carry these procedures further than his predecessors had dared. Schleicher was a contemporary of Charles Darwin, although the biological thought which informed his approach arose earlier. His ideas can be traced back to those of the Naturphilosophen and tne comparative anatomy of Georges Cuvier. Comparative grammar drew its ontological understanding of language from the Naturphilosophen, so called because of their philosophical orientation and predominantly German origin. These thinkers understood the whole of nature to be essentially, if not mystically, related through the life-force at work within it. They sought to demonstrate this unity of life in a unity of plan, arguing that all living forms were but variations upon a single plan. Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) attempted to define the Urpflanze, the archetype of all plants; Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) sought to demonstrate the unity of plan in the animal kingdom through detailed studies of skeletal structures; Lorenz Oken (1779-1851) suggested that the archetypal plan of all vertebrates was a generalized backbone. Although in retrospect these schemata seem fanciful, their orientation toward patterned transformation led to advances in the areas of embryology, morphology, and cell theory. Schleicher's concept of language parallels these thinkers' understanding of life: he held it to be a unitary, metaphysical organism whose variations on the plane of history were but manifestations of tne one. 1 While the Naturphilosophen provided nineteenth century scholars of language with the ontological model, Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), the 'father' of comparative anatomy, guided their use of the methodological model. What particularly impressed nineteenth century linguists was Cuvier's work in palaeontology, that is, his ability to infer a whole animal from mere fossils and fragments. Cuvier's own thinking was ideological-, as the purpose of any organism is to live, then God must have endowed nature at creation with the means by which the parts of every organism would serve that end. He held these means to be logically prior to the existence of an organism, determining its physical organization as well as the relationship of its parts. He called them the 'conditions of existence': 'As nothing may exist which does not include the conditions which made its existence possible, the different parts of each creature must be coordinated in such a way as to make possible the whole organism, not only in itself but in its relationship to those which surround it, and the analysis of these conditions often leads to general laws as well founded as those of calculations and experiment.' 2 1

2

For a philosophical discussion of the Naturphilosophen see S. F. Mason, Main Currents in Scientific Thought. A History of the Sciences (Henry Schuman, New York, 1953) pp.280-290; for particular treatments of Goethe and Geoffroy see E. S. Russell, Form and Function. A Contribution to the History ofAnimal Morphology (John Murray, London, 1916) pp.45-78; f o r a recent treatment of Geoffroy in the context of his debate with Cuvier see loby A. Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate: French Biologyi in the Decades Before Darwiti (Oxford University Press, New York, 1987). Georges Cuvier, Le régne animal distribué d'après son organisation pour servir de base à l'histoire naturelle des animaux et d'introduction à l'anatomie comparée, vol. 1 (Déterville, Paris, 1824) p.6. Translation by William L. Coleman, Georges Cuvier, Zoologist: A Study in the History of Evolution (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1964) p.42.

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Using the conceptual framework of the conditions of existence, Cuvier was able to exercise the inferential reasoning required for his palaeontological studies. He posited toward this end the principle of the correlation of parts, a virtual corollary to the conditions of existence. Cuvier held that it was possible to work back from a part to the whole, say, from a shoulder blade to a skeleton, by determining how the conditions of existence would require all parts to be correlated to make for a living whole. 1 Nineteenth-century scholars of language borrowed from Cuvier both his structural understanding of organisms and his use of inferential reasoning. They drew the methodological organic model from his understanding of organisms. With this model, which stresses the whole as a unified system of interrelated parts, linguists in the nineteenth century explored the structural aspects of language. However, linguists also attempted reconstructions after the manner of paleontology. They sought to reconstruct the putative single ancestor of all Indo-European languages, PIE, by comparing Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. Schleicher went so far as to reconstruct a whole fable in PIE. 2 These attempts at linguistic reconstruction, like Cuvier's palaeontological reconstructions, draw inferences from comparisons made within a structural and systemic conceptual framework. 3 The possibility of transferring method from biology to linguistics is created by suggestive parallels between language and life. These parallels have long been noted. Indeed, in The Descent of Man published in 1871, Charles Darwin wrote that 'the formation of different languages and of distinct species and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process are curiously parallel.' 4 In this century, Joseph Greenberg has argued that 'the theory of evolution as transformation applied mutatis mutandis and with relatively minor modification both to linguistic and biological change.' 5 Among the similarities which he enumerates are: (1) the conservative rates of their change; (2) the creation of new forms through geographic isolation; (3) the difficulty in defining new forms (biological species and linguistic dialects); and 4) the branching tree diagram used in both disciplines. 6 1

Recent studies on Georges Cuvier are Appel, The Cuvier-Geoffroy Debate; Coleman, Georges Cuvier, Zoologist, and Dorinda O u t r a m , Georges Cuvier: Vocation, Science and Authority in Postrevolutionary France ( M a n c h e s t e r University Press, 1984). See also t h e discussion of Cuvier in Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences ( P a n t h e o n Books, N e w York, 1970) pp.263-279. For his work in paleontology, see the third c h a p t e r of M a r t i n ) . C. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Palaeontology (Neale Watson Academic Publication, N e w York, 1976) pp.101-163. 2 August Schleicher, 'Eine Fabel in indogermanischer Sprache' in Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung 5 (1868) pD.206-8. 3 For discussions of Cuvier's influence u p o n the study of language, see: Cassirer, 'Structuralism in M o d e m Linguistics', pp.106-108; Koerner, T u r o p e a n Structuralism', pp.729-33; and Erich Rothacker, Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissenschaften (H. Bouvier u n d Co., Verlag, Bonn, 1947) p.94. 4 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (J. Murray, London, 1871) p.40. s J o s e p h H. Greenberg, 'Language and Evolution', in Language. Culture and Communication: Essays by Joseph H. Greenberg (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1971) p.110. 6 Ibid., pp.112-3.

An Interlude: The Comparative Method

19

On the basis of these parallels comparative grammar claimed language was life and consciously borrowed procedures, notably comparison, from its study. 1 The procedure of systematic comparison exploits for analytical purposes the similarities and dissimilarities found between the members of a field of comparison. It does so in a two-step process: first it classifies, then it contrasts. Though botn of these steps involve comparison, they attend to different features. One classifies on the basis of similarity; one contrasts on the basis of difference. In classification, one gathers into one group those members which are sui generis. Further instances of classification are created in like manner; they are deduced from the similarities found between groups already determined. When one has clearly classified on the basis of similarity, then one may fruitfully contrast the dissimilarities. For example, it was first necessary to identify positively the whale as a mammal on the basis of similarity to other mammals before it was fruitful to compare it to the fishes with which it shares an environment. 2 In biological comparison descent and structure are closely tied. Structure in most cases can serve as a positive indicator of descent in life because of the relatively narrow range of biological change which is possible for the genetic system within the earth's environment. Indeed, as the biological classification system developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it proceeded on the basis of observable structure. This, however, did not settle the question of what this structure represented. The Naturpbilosophen thought structures in life forms to be variations of a single structure and the classification system to be a catalogue of types. Others (Lamarck, Buffon) thought structure to be indicative of descent. It was of course these later forces that won the day as Charles Darwin put forward his theory of evolution. But note: this theory did not require a thorough revision of the classification system. Given the close correlation of structure and descent in the organic world, classification on the basis of structure in large part reflects descent. Thus, though Darwin revolutionized the theoretical underpinnings of biological classification, his theories had little impact upon the classification system itself. It merely reinterpreted in light of descent categories created on the basis of structure. Since languages also exhibit a correlation between structure and descent, all of this is of great moment for the topic at hand. As in life so in language is perduring structure a positive indicator of descent. In both language and life, the student can delineate fields of comparison on the basis of structural similarities. In life the two kingdoms, plant and animal, constitute structurally analogous fields; within language, linguistic families constitute similar fields. More significantly, the structures in these fields can be used for determining descent. Both the zoologist, Georges Cuvier, and the botanist, Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), developed systems of classification for their respective kingdoms 1

2

For discussions of various aspects of the history of classification in biology, see: A.J. Cain, 'Deductive and Inductive M e t h o d s in post-Linnaean T a x o n o m y ' in Proceedings of the Linnaean Society, London 170 (1959) p. 185-217; Paul Lawrence Farber, ' T h e T y p e - C o n c e p t . i n Zoology d u r i n g t h e First Half of the N i n e t e e n t h C e n t u r y ' in journal of the History of Biology 9(1976) p.93-119; Ernst Mayr, Principles of Systematic Zoology (McGraw-Hill, N e w York, 1969); G e o r g e G a y l o r d S i m p s o n , ' A n a t o m y and M o r p h o l o g y : Classification and Evolution: 1859-1959' in Proceedings oftheAtnerican Philosophical Society 103 (1959) pp.286-306; and Frans A. Stafleu, 'A Historical Review of Systematic Biology' in Systematic Biology: Proceedings of an International Conference (National A c a d e m y of Sciences. Washington, DC, 1969) pp.16-44. A Broadfield, The Philosophy of Classification ( G r a f t o n & Co., L o n d o n , 1946) pp.12-41.

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which relied upon structural similarities. On the basis of structural analysis scholars of comparative grammar could both classify languages into language families and reconstruct PIE through a comparison of linguistic 'fossils'. In this correlation of structure and descent lay the success of the organic understanding of language in its methodological aspect and its contributions to structural linguistics. The difference between language and life lies in the means of their transmission: the systems of communication used in their reproduction. Life is communicated internally and genetically: language is conveyed externally and socially. In this difference, all other similarities notwithstanding, lies a quantum leap. Genetic information reproduces the structures of life in a highly determinate fashion within an extremely delimited range for change, whereas socialintercourse passes on linguistic structure in a much less determinate and delimited manner. This fact places limits upon the utility of comparison in the study of language. While fruitful, its classification can never be as complete, nor its contrasts as crisp, nor its reconstructions as certain as those possible in the study of life. The utility of the organic model declines steeply as we move into its ontological use. For this understanding, as we have already said, scholars of comparative grammar drew upon the ideas of the Naturpbilosopben to imagine all language to be a single organism manifesting languages on the plane of history in accordance with its laws. Making no distinction between the two aspects of the organic model, however, these scholars of comparative grammar brought comparison to bear on language in this ontological sense. Schleicher, for example, used his Stammbaumtheorie to classify language on the basis of the relationship of structure to meaning. Yet there is a difference. Whereas language families are structurally analogous and their structure indicates descent, this is not so for all of human language. At the categorical level of language and life the similarities which allowed for the fruitful use of the organic model in its methodological aspect no longer pertain. Loosed from its structural underpinnings, the ontological use of the organic model became mere speculation. Since the ontological organic model operated in the realm of speculation rather than that of history, it was susceptible to preconception. One common preconception found among comparative linguists actually originated in biology. Biologists have tended to perceive life on continua, from simplicity to complexity across species, from unity to variety across time. This is the case despite the fact that linear regularity is only one aspect (and not the defining one) of the classification of life forms. In fact, biological classification is organized group in group: life contains kingdoms, kingdoms contain phyla, phyla contain classes, classes contain orders, orders contain families, families contain genera, genera contain species. A possible reason for this predilection for linearity is the visual image presented by written classification systems. Usually the group-in-group classifications are indicated by incremental indentation, thus implicitly conveying a linear and hierarchical aspect. Whatever its origin, this presumption of linearity passed readily into comparative grammar, especially into its use of the ontological organic model. Thus did Schleicher in his Stammbaumtheorie picture language 'development' in linear terms, growing from the simple to the complex. 1

1

Simpson, 'Anatomy and Morphology', pp.295-6.

An interlude: The Comparative Method

21

T h e reasoning e m p l o y e d by the ontological aspect o f the organic m o d e l was, to use a term coined by Erich Rothacker, 'organological'. It attended to t h e processes and manifestations o f the whole: ' I f (the area o f culture) contains all in a whole, t h e n its parts, its phases, its processes can only be understood in terms o f the w h o l e . . . t h e e m b r y o , the design at origin, the first foundations imply the whole within t h e m . . . . In place o f causal relationships o n e finds the relationship o f a manifestation expressing t h e whole.' 1 In this 'Logic o f the W h o l e , ' historical causality and the social existence o f language were given a back seat to the organological expression o f the whole through its issue. Developm e n t was seen to be organic, proceeding from the simple to the c o m p l e x , t h e o n e to t h e many. It u n f o l d e d according to law, inexorably, u n i n f l u e n c e d by h u m a n intention. In this framework, the task o f language studies b e c a m e the identification o f metaphysical essences rather than the d e t e r m i n a t i o n o f historical causality. In t h e words o f Ernst Cassirer, the perspective o f the ontological organic m o d e l proposed 'an entirely metaphysical description o f language u n d e r the c o v e r o f a scientific and empirical theory.' 2 T h e comparative sciences o f culture borrowed the comparative m e t h o d f r o m c o m parative g r a m m a r . 3 T h e y regarded religion, law, folklore, society and the like as linguists viewed language: cultural organisms, in nature n o t history, governed by law n o t will. In most cases, however, the character o f these aspects o f culture limited t h e utility o f t h e organic model. Unlike languages, few o f t h e m exhibited evident structure, m u c h less o n e indicative o f descent. For this reason the m e t h o d o l o g i c a l aspect o f the organic model, just that aspect which yielded such a rich harvest in the study o f language, a i d not apply. O n l y the ontological aspect o f the organic m o d e l could be used for conceptualizing these cultural organisms. T h e s e scholars further followed the lead o f linguists in using c o m parative procedures drawn f r o m the study o f life. In the absence o f evident structure, these procedures lacked c o g e n c y and, at their worst, give the a p p e a r a n c e o f scholars playing at science. For an example, we can take a passage from the comparative ethnologist, Edward Burnett Tyler ( 1 8 3 2 - 1 9 1 7 ) . ' W h a t |the ethnographer's] task is like m a y be a l m o s t perfectly illustrated by c o m paring these details o f culture with the species o f plants and animals studied by t h e 1 2 3

Rothacker, 'Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissenschaften', p.90. Cassirer, 'Structuralism in Modem Linguistics', p. 110. There is remarkably little secondary literature on the comparative method and the comparative sciences. On the comparative method in anthropology, see: Erwin H. Ackerknecht, 'On the Comparative Method in Anthropology' in R. F Spencer (ed) Method and Perspective in Anthropology' (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1954) pp.117-125; Kenneth E. Bock, 'The Comparative Methods in Anthropology', in Comparative Studies in Society and History1 8 (1965-6) pp.269-80; and Morris Ginsberg. 'The Comparative Method' in Morris Ginsberg (ed), Essays in Sociology' and Social Philosophy, vol. Evolution and Progress (Macmillan, New York, 1961) pp. 194-207 On comparative religion, see: Eric Sharpe, Comparative Religion. A History (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1975) especially Chapter 2: 'He Who Knows One, Knows None,' pp.27-46; and Jonathan /.. Smith, 'Adde Parvum Parvo Magnus Acervus Erit", in History of Religions 11(1971) pp.67-90. The only piece of literature which attempts an intellectual history, and then in verv sketchy form, is the very stimulating but brief section in Rothacker, Logik und Systematik der Geisteswissetiscbafien, pp.78-106.

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naturalist. To the e t h n o g r a p h e r the b o w and arrow is species, t h e habit o f flattening children's skulls is a species, the practice o f reckoning n u m b e r s by tens is a species. T h e geographical distribution o f things and their transmission from region to region have to be studied as the naturalist studies the geography o f his botanical and zoological species.' 1 T h e passage speaks for itself. Despite the s h o r t c o m i n g s o f these sciences, o n e c a n n o t overstate t h e sense o f discovery awakened by its m e t h o d . In 1911 A d o l f H a r n a c k ( 1 8 5 1 - 1 9 3 0 ) declared that the comparative m e t h o d had ' b e c o m e unequivocally t h e q u e e n o f the sciences' w h i c h 'no discipline is able to ignore.' 2 And in his introductory text on c o m p a r a t i v e religion published in 1 9 0 5 , Louis H e n r y J o r d a n ( 1 8 5 5 - 1 9 2 3 ) sought to d e m o n s t r a t e the wide applicability o f the c o m p a r a t i v e m e t h o d by means o f an a n n o t a t e d list o f n o less than twenty-seven c o m p a r a t i v e sciences. The list begins with comparative a n a t o m y , philology and g r a m m a r , proceeds through comparative education to c o m p a r a t i v e jurisprudence, through comparative colonialization to comparative symbolics, and ends with comparative liturgies! 3 W h a t was it that this approach allowed these scholars to see? To begin with, the comparative m e t h o d allowed these scholars to see culture as a field o f comparison. As language included all languages, these cultural organisms included all cultures, past and present, as equal m e m b e r s o f a field. T h i s was a discovery o f n o small m o m e n t . Cultural historians or that period (as B a u m s t a r k and Strzygowski clearly saw) often divided culture and history a l o n g moral lines. In an historical framework, the elevation o f o n e era o u t o f history to the O l y m p i a n heights o f cultural j u d g m e n t m a d e terms like 'ancient' and 'classical' into code words for cultural superiority. Alternatively, m o r a l distinctions could set aside o n e c u l t u r e — b e it that o f R o m e , E u r o p e o r t h e W e s t — to serve as the measure for all others. All this was swept aside by the organic m o d e l o f the comparative m e t h o d . In the opinion o f the English comparative historian, Edward August F r e e m a n ( 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 9 2 ) , that m e t h o d allowed scholars to see culture and history as undivided unities. It o p e n e d up for t h e m 'a world in which times and tongues and nations which before s e e m e d parted poles asunder, n o w find each o n e its own place, its o w n relations to every other, as m e m b e r s o f o n e c o m m o n primeval b r o t h e r h o o d . ' 4 Insofar as the ontological organic m o d e l allowed these scholars to see all eras and cultures equally as m e m b e r s o f a single, undivided field o f c o m p a r i s o n , it allowed t h e m , in s o m e sense, to 'discover' history, culture, and, indeed, h u m a n i t y . 5 In addition, the organic m o d e l allowed these scholars to discern aspects o f culture. T h e organisms w h i c h they perceived were what we have c o m e to regard as cultural institutions: religion, g o v e r n m e n t , education, family, etal. Prior to the use o f the organic

Edward Burnett lylor, Primitive Culture. Researches into the Development ofMythobgy, Philosophy, Religion, Art and Custom (J. Murray, London, 1871) p.8. 2 Adolf Harnack, Aus Wissenschaft und Lehen, vol. 1 (A. Töpelmann, Glessen, 1911) p.6. 3 Louis Jordan, Comparative Religion: Its Genesis and Growth (Macmillan & Co. Ltd., London, 1896) pp.27-51. 4 Edward August Freeman, Comparative Politics (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1905) pp.196. 5 Jonathan Z. Smith, 'Map ls Not H-rritorv', in Map Is Not Territory>. Studies in the History> of Religions (E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1978) pp.295-6.' 1

An Interlude: The Comparative Method

23

model, with history and culture divided along ideal lines, these institutions were not apparent. To see them required a comparative perspective, a field of comparison containing multiple members. As long as Christianity was regarded as the true faith, all other religions were held to be false, Christianity had no equal, and the cultural category 'religion' did not exist. In a phrase of Eric Sharpe 'he who knows one, knows none.' 1 But when Christianity was placed in a category along with Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, then a meaningful category of religion could begin to emerge. The organic model of the comparative method in this way created the cultural categories which form the basis of modern academic disciplines: mythology, religion, folklore, culture, law, society, economy, politics, and so forth. Without any question in these comparative sciences of culture we have the forerunners of present-day academic disciplines: comparative grammar preceded linguistics; comparative religion, history of religions; comparative ethnography, anthropology. Yet, even as these scholars were discarding one morality, they embraced another. When discarding an ideal morality, they embraced a developmental one. Though including all eras and cultures in one field of comparison, these scholars did not regard all members to be equal: they superimposed upon that field a developmental schema. Simple-evolutionary in form, it followed lines which ran from the simple (i.e. 'primitive') to the complex (i.e. 'civilized'), from the one to the many. Jonathan Z. Smith astutely observes that this simple evolutionary pattern is in fact a combination of the logical patterns seen in the Naturphilosophen and the developmental pattern found in the 'evolutionists' (Buffon, Lamarck, Cuvier, Darwin). In this schema, in which all that is simple is deemed early and all that is complex late, historical analysis becomes simply superfluous to cultural classification. In the words of the comparative ethnologist, Edward Burnett Tyler, 'Little respect need be had in such comparison for date in history or for place on a map; the ancient Swiss lake-dweller may be set aside the Medieval Aztec, and the Ojibwa of North America beside the Zulu of South Africa.' 2 Finally, the comparative method allowed these scholars to think that they had placed the study of culture on a scientific footing. In the framework of the organic model, reason acquired (or so it was thought) the inferential powers available to science. No aspect of the comparative method generated any more enthusiasm than this. What is striking is the degree to which these scholars, working around the turn of the twentieth century, understood themselves to be emulating the earlier work of Georges Cuvier. In an example from the popular literature of the 1890s, The Five Orange Pips by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), we find Sherlock Holmes expounding to Watson on this very topic. 'Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes, and placed his elbows upon the arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. "The ideal reasoner," he remarked, "would, when he has once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it, but also all the results which would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single 1 2

Sharpe, 'He Who Knows One, Knows None', pp.27-46. Tyler, Primitive Culture, p.6.

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bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents, should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses".' 1 Holmes gives us a privileged insight into the attraction which the comparative method held for the intellectual imagination of the late nineteenth century. Its organic framework enhanced the power of analytical reasoning by attributing implications to facts which had previously been seen to be standing in isolation. 2 Of course, the actual case was quite otner. While these scholars imagined their logic to be comparative in the tradition of Cuvier, in fact it was organological after the manner of Schleicher. The comparative sciences of culture bring into relief the chief limitation of the organic model: the difference between nature ana culture. As already noted, the essential difference between nature and culture lies in the means by which they develop. Nature is generated genetically, whereas culture is transmitted socially. While this same difference can be found between language and life, the similarities between those two—in particular their correlation of structure and descent—allowed linguists to use the comparative method with considerable success. In the study of culture, however, where no such similarities are to be found, the use of this method was wholly inappropriate. The French structural anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, commented succinctly on this essential difference. 'The historical validity of the naturalist's reconstruction is guaranteed, in the final analysis, by the biological link of reproduction. An axe, on the contrary, does not generate an axe.'3 To be sure, its use here was not without some benefit. The organic model did allow scholars to catch a glimpse of the historicity of culture and define its main aspects. In the main, however, the comparative method in the study of culture was a dream built on an illusion. The dream was for science; the illusion was the organic nature of culture.

1

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventure V: The Five Orange Pips, in The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes (Castle, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1982) p.75 2 The influence of Georges Cuvier upon the comparative sciences is discussed by Ackerknecht, 'On the Comparative Method In Anthropology", pp.118-123, and Smith, A d d e Parvum Parvo Magnus Acervus Erit, pp.81-2. 3 Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (Basic Books, New York, 1963) p.4. An Interlude:

The Comparative

Method

25

4. Comparative Liturgy: In Theory1 With time Baumstark was able to realize his hope for a comparative liturgy. Whereas in 1903 he held the method to be a desideratum whose time had not yet come, 2 by 1919 he was confidently describing its logic and procedures. 3 What changed in this period was Baumstark's understanding of the organic nature of the liturgy. In his earlier proposal he had suggested the use of the ontological aspect of the organic model, but he despaired of defining either the patterns of development or the laws that governed them. In his mature methodological writings, beginning in 1919 and culminating with Liturgie comparée in 1934 4 , Baumstark offered a full and confident understanding of the liturgical organism in both its transformational and structural aspects. Not only was he able to identify the patterns and laws of development, but also he drew upon tne methodological aspect of the organic model to propose a structural approach for the study of liturgy. Baumstark's ideas about the liturgy and its study were widely accepted in the field. Specifically, he exercised a major influence upon the understanding of liturgical studies wnich was shaped at the Abbey of Maria Laach in the years immediately following World War I. While the abbey proposed that the liturgy be studied both systematically and historically, the historical branch of the field included only comparative liturgy and Religionsgeschichte. In other words, the abbey embraced comparative liturgy as the conceptual framework for the history of the liturgy itself; the task of Religionsgescbichte was to situate the liturgy in its broader cultural milieu. Odo Casel described these two branches in the introduction to the first volume of the Jahrbuch für Liturnewissenschafl. 'Religionsgescbicbte shall regard its primary task to be researching the relationship of the Christian liturgy in its beginnings to the cults of contemporaneous religions, notably Jewish and Hellenistic. Comparative liturgical history shall pursue the further development of (Christian) cultus, while delineating its organic growth and deducing therefrom the laws of its liturgical development.' 5 The secondary literature on Anton Baumstark is very sparse. Only one article is devoted solely to Baumstark: D. H. Tripp, 'Comparative Method in Liturgical Study' in Modern Churchman ns 13(1970) p. 188-197. References to Baumstark are found in passing in a number of publications. Of particular note are discussions of Baumstark in Joseph Heinemann, Prayer in the Temple: Forms and Patterns, Richard Sarason (tr) Studia judaica, vol 9 (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1977) passim; Richard Sarason, 'On the Use of Method in the Modern Study of Jewish Liturgy' in William S. Green (ed) Approaches to Ancient Judaism: Theory and Practice Brown Judaic Studies, vol. 1 (Scholars Press, Missoula, Montana, 1978) especially pp. 127-130 and Eric Werner, The Sacred Bridge (Columbia University Press, New York, 1959) passim. 2 Baumstark, 'Besprechung: Die nestorianische Taufliturgie', pp.220-1. 3 Baumstark, 'Ein liturgiewissenschaftliche Unternehmen', cols. 897-905, 921-927. 4 Delivered in Erench as a lecture series to the Benedictine monks at Amay-sur-Meuse in the spring o f 1932, Liturgie comparée was first published as a series of articles in Irenikon 11(1934) pp.5-34, 129-146; 293-327, 358-394, 481-520 and 12(1935) pp.34-53 and then in book form Liturgie comparée; conferences faites au Prieuré d'Aniay (Monastère d'Amay, Chevetogne, n.d.). The third edition of that work, from which Comparative Liturgy* is translated, was revised by Dom Bernard Botte, OSB, and published in 1953. 5 Odo Casel, 'Zur Einführung' in Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft 1(1921) p,3. 1

26

The Comparative Liturgy* of Anton Baumstark

Baumstark's understanding of the organic nature of the liturgy closely followed August Schleicher's understanding of language. Parallel quotes from these two authors reveal striking similarities. Schleicher: 'As with the natural sciences, so also does linguistics have as its task the research of an area in which the power of unchanging natural laws are recognizable, in which the wishes and will of men can alter nothing.' 1 Baumstark: 'It is undoubtedly necessary to stress that in the case of the liturgy, it is wholly a matter of processes which—reflecting the impersonal regularity of laws—are able to work their effect in a completely spontaneous manner without any conscious awareness on the part of individuals responsible for liturgical development.' 2 Linguist and liturgist describe in remarkly similar language the inner workings of their respective 'organisms.' In these quotes both Baumstark and Schleicher draw an analogy between an organism and the whole field, be it liturgy or language. Both understood their respective organisms to be nature not history, that is, to be transforming according to laws which operate independently of human will. Nevertheless, the organism of language and liturgy also contrasted. Whereas Schleicher understood laws to govern all of language, Baumstark knew this was no longer the case with the liturgy. When in the West in the sixteenth century human will overrode liturgy's natural laws, that branch of the organism, in some sense, 'died'. Baumstark understood the organism of the liturgy to develop according to two fundamental laws. His first law of liturgical evolution governs the process of change in the liturgy: 'I shall describe it as the Law of Organic Development ("Organic" and therefore "Progressive").' 3 The process governed by this law, one of displacement of the old by the new, produces a pattern of development from simplicity to richness (see below). This is a gradual process. Secondary elements first take their place beside primitive elements, but, as 'they assume a more vigorous and resistant character ' 4 and the liturgy comes to be abbreviated, it is precisely the more primitive elements which are the first to go, leaving at the very most mere vestiges of their original forms. The vigour of the recent, coupled with the vulnerability of the ancient, results in a process of evolution whose essential dynamic is displacement. If Baumstark's first law of liturgical evolution brings about change in the liturgy, his second laweffects continuity. This law ensures 'that primitive conditions are maintained with greater tenacity in the more sacred seasons of the Liturgical Year;'5 its thrust is simply that liturgical communities (in a manner analogous to linguistic communities) tend to be more conservative at the most solemn times in their common life. Although this pattern of liturgical retention had been observed earlier by the British liturgical scholar Adrian Fortescue, 6 Baumstark's organic framework enhanced its interpretative 1 2

3 4 s 6

August Schleicher, Die Sprache Europas in systematischer Uebersicht (H. B. König, Bonn, 1850) p.3. Baumstark, 'Das Gesetz der Erhaltung des Alten in liturgisch hochwertiger Zeit', in Jahrbuchfllr Liturgiewissenschaft 7(1927) p.22. Ibid., p.23. Ibid. Ibid., p.27. Adrian Fortescue, The Mass.- A Study of the Roman Liturgy (Longmans, Green and Co., New York, 1912) p.270.

Comparative Liturgy: In Theory

27

power. In its status as law, the investigator could use this observation to reconstruct earlier practices from these vestiges of the past. In Comparative Liturgy Baumstark mentions these two laws in tandem, perhaps because they apply to the two fundamental processes of liturgical development: growth and conservation. 1 In the same work, however, four other laws are mentioned, three of which were formulated by two of Baumstark's students. Fritz H a m m observed two of these laws: ' . . . that the older a text is the less is it influenced by the Bible and that the more recent a text is the more symmetrical it is.'2 Hieronymus Engberding (1899-1969) observed another law: 'that the later it is, the more liturgical prose becomes charged with doctrinal elements.' 3 Apparently Baumstark observed the one remaining law mentioned, 'Certain actions which are purely utilitarian by nature may receive a symbolic meaning either from their function in the Liturgy as such or from factors in the liturgical texts which accompany them.' 4 Each of these laws describe particular aspects of the process of liturgical development and may be seen as corollaries to Baumstark's first law, The Law of Organic Development. These laws effected the patterns apparent in the development of the liturgical organism. As was typical in the use of the comparative method, Baumstark superimposed patterns of linear development upon the liturgy, although he did not accept the simple evolutionary patterns of development without modification. While the simpleevolutionary model understands development to move from unity to variety, Baumstark observed in the history of the liturgy that the opposite was the case. Rather than beginning with one and ending with many, the liturgy began with many and ended with one. In this Baumstark was rejecting the understanding of liturgical development which was conveyed by the notion of an apostolic liturgy. That view of the liturgy also saw the liturgy developing on a continuum from unity to variety, though it did not take this picture from the simple evolutionary model. Forthrightly rejecting this pattern, Baumstark wrote, 'Uniformity is not the starting-point, but the destination of liturgical development.' 5 Baumstark believed that the liturgy's developmental pattern from variety to uniformity proceeded through a dialectic of conquest. In this process the variety which reflects liturgical specificity struggled unsuccessifully against the uniformity which reflects liturgical universality. In his understanding the earlier the liturgy the more varied it becomes, a result of the historical propensity of the liturgy to relate to time and place.Though Baumstark held that the first Christian liturgies stemmed from Jewish roots and were manifestations of the liturgy's organic unity, they were also shaped by circumstance and culture, notably Hellenistic ritual and rhetoric. That variety, however, 1

Evans Beethoven Algar, 'Laws of Liturgical Change: An Examination of the Motive Forces of Conservation and Renewal at Work in the Liturgy of Fourth Century Antioch and Syria' (PhD dissertation, King's College, The University of London, 1970) pp. 16-21. 2 Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.59. See Fritz H a m m , Die liturgischen Einsetzungsberichte im Sinner vergleichender Liturgieforschung untersucht. Liturgiegeschicbte Quellen und Forschungen, vol. 23 (Verlag der Aschendorffschen Verlags Buchhandlung, Münster im Westfalien, 1928) p.33. 3 Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.60. 4 Ibid., p. 130. 5 Baumstark, Vom Geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, p.71.

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The Comparative Liturgy of Anton

Baumstark

came to stand in dialectical tension with a progression toward uniformity which sprang from the essence of the liturgical organism. This tension was first felt as regional churches sought to regulate and dominate local usage; later it emerged again as regional churches came under the sway of the more influential Sees. Finally, all variety, be it regional or local, fell before the ascendancy of two particularly influential local rites: those of Rome in the West and of Constantinople in the East. In the framework of the comparative method this battle for specificity was a lost cause. Although the early church communities had the desire to shape their own worship, their will was impotent before the law-governed patterns of organic development. In this case, the will toward local usage was powerless to resist the liturgy's organic 'progress toward victorious uniformity'. 1 Baumstark also revised the second developmental continuum presumed by the comparative method: that of simplicity to complexity. Rather than reversing this pattern, Baumstark refined it by recasting it in vanous ways: austerity and richness 2 , simplicity and richness 3 , or brevity and prolixity.4 This pattern of development results from the Law of Organic Development and is unquestionably linear, though mitigated rather than inexorable. While its primary movement is along the continuum from, say, austerity to richness, there is also at work a secondary 'retrograde movement' 5 , which resulted in the liturgy being abbreviated, especially after the fifth century. The reason for this, Baumstark claimed, lay in Jragilitas carnis. '6 The decline of religious zeal evident in this period led to the elaboration of the liturgy being curtailed, an illustration of the dynamic of displacement by which, Baumstark held, the liturgy organically develops. Just as the pattern from variety to unity entails more than unmodified uniformatization, so too does the pattern from simplicity to richness entail more than unmitigated growth. Rather it is a complex process of expansion and curtailment in which more recent richness overwhelms and obscures the primitive simplicity. In the comparative method, Baumstark thought he had found solutions to both historiographical and theological problems. In the first place, the organic model provided Baumstark with the inferential reasoning needed to overcome the intrinsic limitations of liturgical data. In particular, it provided the liturgical historian with the means for overcoming the scarcity or even dearth of evidence available for the study of the early liturgy. 'Unhappily, | documents! are rare for the remote period when the formative development of the liturgy came about.' 7 In Baumstark's view these interruptions in the chain of witnesses were not due merely to the ravages which time visits on all historical evidence, but had their origins in the character of the liturgy itself, whose development, being organic, goes unnoticed by contemporary witnesses. 'Until the sixteenth century, and still today in the Christian orient, every single liturgical development throughout the Church occurred silently and stealthily.' 8 As a general rule, the time, place and occasion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp. 16-19. Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., p.20. Ibid. Ibid., p.21. Ibid., p.23. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.2 Ibid. Comparative

Liturgy': In Theory

29

of liturgical innovation occurs without record by the contemporaries of that innovation. To overcome the 'silences' of liturgical history, Baumstark followed the scholars of comparative grammar: he suggested the use of the inferential reasoning found in the natural sciences. Just as known later forms could imply unknown earlier ones in the case of animals and languages, so too, Baumstark claimed, could known later liturgical forms serve the historian of the liturgy. In his reflection upon the liturgical apostolate of the Abbey of Maria Laach written in 1919, Baumstark explicitly proposed this approach 'Since the external witnesses are naturally always the surest witnesses, they consequently cannot be valued highly enough. In those instances where they are lacking, there is nothing else to be done than to reconstruct the development of a rite inferentially from an analogous liturgical form which stands at the end of the period in which one is interested. In so doing the liturgical historian is following the same procedure as the geologist who determines from the present-day layer of the earth's surface the upheavals which have formed that surface or the biologist who reconstructs the history of organic life which precedes the present-day forms. To be sure, in the case of an inferential method of this kind, a necessary presupposition is that the development has taken place according to universal laws wliich can be determined empirically rather than according to the blind caprice of pure chance whose power always remains outside of the grasp of scholarly research.' 1 If one assumes, as Baumstark did with his use of the methodological aspect of the organic model, that the liturgy is an organically developing structured unity, such an inferential method is a reasonable and acceptable procedure. Although Baumstark made reference to palaeontological reconstruction in the quote above, he took geological reasoning to be the closest parallel to the inferential approach required by the liturgical historian. 2 After mentioning the vast collections of external evidence available to the historian of the Tridentine rite, Baumstark wrote, 'Yet it is the form of liturgical action and the liturgical texts of a given age which by their structure and rubrics can best teach us how their historical development came about, just as geology draws its conclusions from the observable stratifications of the earth's crust.' 3 The essence of this parallel lies in the ability of geologist and liturgist alike to draw diachronic implications from synchronic data. In its function as the earth's crust geological formations are a present synchronic reality. However, they also possess a diacnronic dimension. The strata of the earth's crust present a record of the past, layered evidence for the geological periods which preceded the present one. In addition, study of these formations and their strata can reveal the processes which brought them into being. Baumstark contended that a similar relationship of synchrony to diachrony pertained in liturgical forms. In particular, he suggested that the unrecognizable remnants of earlier liturgical forms which the processes of growth and curtailment leave in the present-day liturgy are synchronic evidence of their diachronic development. Through a comparison of analogous liturgical forms, Baumstark asserted, the liturgical scholar nas the ability to understand these remnants for what they actually are, reconstruct their primitive forms, and determine the processes which brought them into being. 1 2 3

Baumstark, 'Ein liturgiewissenschaftliche U n t e r n e h m e n ' , col. 904. Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, p.4. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.2.

30

The Comparative Lìturgj of Anton

Baumstark

Though claiming geological procedures for his model, Baumstark actually used methods drawn from nis philological training. H e claimed, for exam pie, that the data for this procedure are no more than agreements and differences. 'To account for differences it is necessary to consider the ethnic, cultural and linguistic character of the regions where the liturgy developed . . . As far as the agreements are concerned, two explanations are possible. Tney may be due either to a common primitive basis or to the subsequent influence of one liturgical type on another.' 1 This is none other than the procedure used by philologists for establishing textual families: agreements between manuscripts may stem either from their common origin in the same text or from faults which entered the manuscript through subsequent copying and became characteristic of a particular stemma of the manuscript's family. Further evidence for the influence of philology upon Baumstark's methodology is to be found in the philological vocabulary which he uses throughout the first chapter of Comparative Liturgy: 'variant' and 'stratum/a. '2 In a further contribution to the historiography o f t h e liturgy, the comparative method provided Baumstark with a solution to the problem which perplexed nim in 1903: the classification of liturgical data 'which is so difficult to comprehend in its entirety.' 3 It classified liturgical data in terms of the life of any organism: ancestral roots (Jewish legacy), internal life (Christian initiative), external environment (Hellenistic milieu). In Comparative Liturgy Baumstark repeatedly organizes data into these three categories. 4 In the logic of the organic model, this classification implies evaluation. The relationships to the organism upon which this system of classification is based vary in the influence which they wield. Of special import for Baumstark were liturgical practices 'rooted in the Jewish mother ground.' 5 Because their relationship to Christian worship was one of lineal descent, their impact could be assumed to be immediate and great. Baumstark analyzed this relationship through philological reasoning. 6 Just as in philology the agreement of a later rescension with its Urtext is given the greatest weight, so did Baumstark regard agreements between Jewish and Christian forms. Turning to Christian worship, we move from the 'ground' to the 'organism'. Calling the worship of the Jerusalem church (Acts 2.42) 'The embryo of all liturgical development' 7 , Baumstark understood the liturgy of the church to be an individuated organism from the very start. Dealing now with the organism of the liturgy itself the laws and patterns of the comparative method apply. Finally, as we move outside of the organism to the Hellenistic milieu influence becomes indirect and environmental. For this reason parallels between Hellenistic and Christian forms do not carry nearly the weight of parallels found within the organism or back to its roots. In addition to solving historiographical problems, the organic model provided Baumstark with an historiographical solution to the theological conundrum which he faced as a Roman Catholic historian of the liturgy. Through it Baumstark both 1

Ibid., pp. 3-4. Schleicher's Stammbaumtheorie also shows the influence of philological method. See 1 foemgswald, 'On the History of the Comparative Method,' p.8. 3 Baumstark, 'Besprechung: Die nestorianische Taufliturgie', p.221. 4 Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp.2-14, 63-70, 102-110. 5 Ibid., p. 18. 6 See the discussion of comparative structural analysis of the eucharistic rite below. 7 Baumstark, Vom Geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, p.6. 2

Comparative Liturgy: In Theory

31

challenged and confirmed the Church's view of the liturgy. While challenging the Romo-centrism of the Church in viewing the R o m a n rite as one of many, his m o d e l c o n firmed the unity and continuity of liturgical tradition in a way compatible with neoscholastic theology. For Baumstark viewed the liturgy organically rather than historically. Although professingto embrace an historical perspective, Baumstark's point of view was in fact developmental. In a truly historical understanding, no line would be drawn between the liturgy and its milieu; Hellenistic influences would function on a par with Jewish and Christian. Baumstark's developmental model, on the other hand, gave priority to the exercise of tradition and set it apart from its historical setting. In so doing Baumstark's model showed respect for the distinctions which the neo-scholastics drew between Church and world, and faith and history.

32

The Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark

5. Comparative Liturgy: Practice As Baumstark moves from theory to practice, the structure of the liturgy comes to play a larger role. In Comparative Liturgy Baumstark separates his discussion of theory in chapters one and two from that of practice in chapters 3 through 10. An examination of these two sets of chapters, the explication of theory and a demonstration of practice, exhibits a contrast that we have already observed in comparative grammar where the ontological organic model dominated the conceptual framework, the methodological was more apprent in its execution. The same is true with Baumstark's comparative liturgy, that is, while its theory stresses the transformation of the liturgical organism, its practical demonstration takes seriously its structural aspects. In the final eight chapters of Comparative Liturgy Baumstark presents an intentional and systematic demonstration of his method. For Baumstark structure is a feature of units found within the liturgy. These units, externally discreet and internally structured, are of two kinds: the liturgical and the heortological. By liturgical units, he understands those orders which are 'all of some considerable extent, and known severally as akalouthia in Greek, teYmesta in Syriac, and ordo in Latin'.2 They contain three distinct aspects: structure, text and action. While Baumstark does not use the phrase 'heortological units', he clearly regards both the sanctorale and Lent to be structures and analyzes them as such. Both of them constitute temporal unities—one a cycle, the other a season—and both contain feasts. Baumstark's understanding of structure is conjunctive. Whereas today we might use the term structure to refer to the liturgical year as a whole entity, Baumstark understood structure to be but an aspect of the whole. In liturgical units, it stands alongside texts and actions, in heortological units, feasts. Yet the role it plays in these units is crucial; it conjoins the 'contents' of the unit in an organizing framework. This is quite different from Dom Gregory Dix's notion of 'the shape of the liturgy'. Dix integrates actions and structure while regarding texts to be variable, whereas Baumstark hangs actions and texts in a structural framework. Consequently, Baumstark is able to treat texts and actions on the one hand and feasts on the other apart from their respective structures as though he is removing them from their place in a framework to get a closer look. Accordingly, liturgical structures, texts and actions on the one hand heortological structures and feasts on the other are all treated separately in chapters of their own. A crude analogy to Baumstark's notion of unit and structure may be found in vertebrate anatomy. Similar to the distinction between unit and structure is that of a whole animal and its skeleton. Though the skeleton is but an aspect of the animal, it organizes and carries its various parts. In a similar fashion, the structure of liturgical units carries texts and actions, and that of heortological units, feasts. Furthermore, an anatomist can through dissection remove an organ from an animal in order to examine it in itself or compare it to analogous organs from other vertebrates. In a similar fashion, Baumstark removes texts and actions on the one hand, and feasts on the other from their structural 1

2

A full discussion of this topic can be found in my doctoral dissertation: Frederick S. West, T h e Comparative Liturgy of Anton Baumstark in Its Intellectual Milieu' (PhD Dissertation, University of Notre Dame) pp.295-345. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, p.31.

Comparative Liturgy: Practice 33

homes, examines them in themselves, and compares them to analogous structures. The limits of this analogy comes with the growth and development of a unit. Often Baumstark sees one part of a unit being added or replaced in away that has no parallel in vertebrate life. Baumstark's structural understanding provides him with a choice of method. Since the structural understanding breaks the liturgy down into component parts, Baumstark is then able to choose, from a variety of methods, the best one for studying a particular aspect of the liturgy. For structured totalities, Baumstark employs comparative structural analysis; to liturgical texts, he applies comparative textual analysis; on liturgical actions and liturgical feasts, he uses comparative historical analysis. Thus one of the benefits of Baumstark's structural understanding of the liturgy is methodological flexibility and choice: the ability to suit his methods to his materials. Let us begin with comparative structural analysis. Baumstark describes its purpose, procedures and logic most clearly in its application to liturgical units. 'These structures, both in their fully developed forms and at every stage in their evolution, are very often the result of a hignly complex process. To show the tendencies which govern their growth, to separate the primitive strata from more recent ones, to reconstitute them in their often completely unrecognizable primitive forms, is the task of the historian of Comparative Liturgy. By the law which requires that liturgical evolution should proceed from the simpler to the more complex, we shall deem the more austere the more primitive. Moreover, we shall have to regard as primitive phenomena which are found with the same meaning, the same function, and in the same area, in all Christian Rites, or at least in a sufficiently large number of such Rites, and especially so if they have parallels in the Liturgy of the Synagogue. We shall pronounce the same verdict where anything has a Jewish parallel, even when it is limited to a few Christian Rites or it may be only to one. On the other hand, we shall consider as recent all phenomena peculiar to a single Rite or to a few Rites, but without parallel of any kind in the Synagogue. The same verdict must also be pronounced on those which, although absolutely or almost universal, change their meaning, place or function from one Rite to another.' 1 This passage holds before us the promise of Cuvier, that is, the possibility of reconstruction through the inferential reasoning which practitioners of the comparative method so enthusiastically embraced. Though Baumstark believed that the power of inference derives from the organic nature of the liturgy, we see here, once again, the essentially philological character of his method. As with manuscripts, so with liturgical orders, antiquity is indicated by either temporal parallels between strata or structural agreements between orders. The orientation to origins in this approach is unmistakable. The procedure can be likened to winnowing, in which the wheat of constancy, indicating antiquity, is to be separated from the cnaff of variability, indicating later additions. Tne terms 'primitive' and 'secondary' serve as tools for this winnowing process. 'Primitive' may refer to the time of Jesus (as in the case of the eucharistic liturgy) 3 or some later time (as in the discussions of the Greek orthros or the Cathedral Rite.)4 'Secondary' may refer to any time 1 1 2

Ibid., pp.31-32. Ibid., pp.42-51 Ibid., pp.32-42, 111-129.

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Baumstark

later than the time of origin. Presumably, in many cases a more exacting analysis could distinguish multiple strata in the development of aspects of the liturgy and thereby provide a preliminary step in the writing of a general history of the liturgy. Even when Baumstark does define multiple layers, as in his analysis of the sanctorale, he places the evidence in two categories only, the original or 'primitive' and the later or 'secondary'. 1 Given Baumstark's orientation to origins, the dual stratifications were adequate: the secondary stratum had little interest for him save as chaff to be separated from the wheat of the primitive stratum of origins. In this framework, the term 'primitive' acquires an honorific connotation not unlike the older term 'apostolic' which Baumstark nad discarded as a historical. There is no doubt that Baumstark's procedures and terminology were located in history far more firmly than was the earlier quest for an apostolic liturgy; it is equally clear that his is a history with a purpose, an oriented history, seeking to unveil the obscure beginnings of the liturgy of the Christian church in the time closest to the most sacred days of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Behind his scholarship lay a religious intent. It sought that knowledge which could enrich liturgical participation through 'a transhistorical comm u n i o n of mind.' 2 Let us take for an example Baumstark's discussion of the Mass or Divine Liturgy. 3 Here he holds closer to his theoretical discussion than in other applications of this method. 4 H e employs the terminology of structure and stratum; he compares different examples of the Mass or Divine Liturgy on the level of the whole structure; he makes note of parallels which point to a c o m m o n antiquity; he attributes those aspects of the structure with parallels to the primitive stratum and relegates those without parallels to the secondary stratum. However, Baumstark does not stop with structural comparison. Indeed, one can delineate two distinct steps in his procedure for analyzing the eucharistic rite. In the first step he analyzes it with the procedures, terminology and logic of comparative structural analysis 5 ; in a second step he seeks to trace the historical roots of the various c o m p o n e n t parts of that structure. Baumstark traces the Liturgy of the Word to the worship of the Jewish synagogue 6 , the Liturgy of the Meal to the cenapura or Jewish table prayers 7 , and the Anaphora to the Jewish table prayers of the Jozer in the service of the Synagogue. 8 H e assumes continuity between liturgical forms in this second step no less than he aid in the first. However, whereas the first step presumes only a structural continuity, the second step suggests the possibility as well of ritual and even textual continuities, for example between the Anaphora and the Jozer. T h e area of the origins of Christian liturgy is, of course, a notoriously delicate historical problem, and these suggestions as to origin are all fraught with difficulty. Through the use of comparative structural analysis, 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

Ibid., pp. 175-189. Baumstark, Vom Geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie. p.2. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp.42-51 Ibid, Baumstark also uses this m e t h o d for heortological units in c h a p t e r 10 a n d for liturgical and heortological units in t a n d e m in c h a p t e r 7. Ibid., pp.42-43. Ibid., pp.43, 44-46. Ibid., p.43. Ibid., pp.46-51.

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35

Baumstark sought to analyze these origins by means of a rigorous scientific method. It is ironic, then, that this discussion of the eucharistic rite should lead him in the end to the realm of historical speculation. Baumstark uses comparative textual analysis when considering liturgical prayers (Chapter 6) and poetry (Chapter 8).1 Once again he uses a two-step process, beginning with a survey, a philological tour deforce, which leaves the reader with the strong impression of the relatedness of all Christian liturgies. These surveys clearly reflect the intent of the ontological aspect of the organic model: they depict all liturgies as equally comparable members within a discreet whole. 2 In his second step, Baumstark analyzes the data in the three categories of cause created by this model: Christian creativity (life within the liturgical organism), Jewish legacy (the roots of the organism), and Hellenistic milieu (the environment of the organism). 3 His use of this approach in regard to Christian poetry is of particular interest. 4 Here Baumstark employs a different logic for each of the three categories of cause: historical reasoning for Christian creativity, typological reasoning for the Hellenistic milieu, and genealogical reasoning for the Jewish ancestry. The choice of argumentation for each category reflects the influence which the ontological organic model understood that category to exercise upon the development of the liturgy. Baumstark's third approach, comparative historical analysis, uses the catalogue, a tool common among practitioners of the comparative method. To set the stage for Baumstark's use of this tool, let us first look at a catalogue taken from the writings of Sir James George Frazer (1852-1941), author of The Golden Bough: 'Burial grounds were taboo; and in New Zealand a canoe which had carried a corpse was never afterwards used, but was drawn on shore and painted red. Red was the taboo colour in New Zealand; in Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga and Samoa it was white. In the Marquesas a man who had slain an enemy was taboo forten days; he might have no intercourse with his wife and might not meddle with fire; he had to get some one to cook for him. A woman engaged in the preparation of cocoanut oil was taboo for five days or more.' 1 Such a catalogue presents a hard surface which cracks when questioned. 2 While broad in scope, it is lowon analysis, united by no more than the concept of'taboo'. In the words of Franz Steiner (1909-1952), one finds here a 'rhetoric of association'. 3 Baumstark used this same procedure for analyzing non-textual aspects of the liturgy, actions and feasts. 4 For an example, we may take the catalogue which Baumstark assembled on the lavabo, the action of washing hands in the course of the eucharistic 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Ibid., in C h a p t e r Five entitled 'Stereo-typed Prayers and Brief Formulae' B a u m s t a r k discusses yet o t h e r texts, namely, litanies and versicles. Since, however, Baumstark a t t e n d s t o t h e structure of these texts, his approach is a f o r m of c o m p a r a t i v e structural analysis. Ibid., pp.52-58, 92-102. Ibid, pp.63 70, 102-110. Ibid., pp. 102-110. Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th edition, sv 'Taboo' by Sir J a m e s G e o r g e Frazer. Smith, 'Adde Parvum Parvo M a g n o Acervus Erit', p.252. Franz Steiner, Taboo (Philosophical Library, N e w York, 1956) p.92. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, chapters 8 and 9.

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service. To aid analysis I have numbered the pieces of evidence which Baumstark cites. 'It is also from the framework of the pre-Anaphoric Liturgy that e.g., 1) among the Copts, the washing of hands was transferred to the Prothesis. 2) This rite incidentally was already the subject of the symbolic explanation of the Catechesis of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. 3) But its historical origin should be sought in the rules regulating Jewish meals as we know them from the Tractate Berakhoth of the Misbna (viii. 2-4), according to which the washing of hands took place at the end of the meal. Hence it was at the point where the common meal of the Agape passed over to the Eucharistic Celebration that the practice must have had its original place in the Christian assemblies. 4) Tertullian, in fact, having described the course of the Agape makes the Great Eucharistic prayer, which he calls canere Deo, begin after the washing of the hands, post aquam manualem et lumina.'' The data mentioned in the above quotation are widely disparate in time, place and source: a liturgy from Egypt of the eighth century (?), a catechetical sermon from Palestine of the fourth century, a polemic from North Africa of the second century and a body of Jewish euchological regulations set down in the second century, but presumed to describe Jewish ritual actions at the time of Jesus. Too disparate to be historically connected, the items in this catalogue are merely associative, a catalogue of references to the lavabo. In the exercise of the comparative method, items of a catalogue were understood to be organically related. They were regarded as manifestations on the plane of history of a single organism: religion for Frazer and liturgy for Baumstark. Given the philological training of Baumstark and the linguistics roots of his method, we may draw a parallel between his use of the catalogue and a chrestomathy, a tool used for analyzing a language. If, for example, a linguist wishes to analyze the use of relative clauses in a particular language, that person could assemble a variety of examples and analyze them as a set. This set is called a chrestomathy. In the organic understanding of language, the members of a chrestomathy were understood to be manifestations of language on the plane of history. Baumstark had a similar understanding of items in his catalogues. Comparative historical analysis is only apparently historical; in reality it used organological reasoning for analyzing historical data.

1

Ibid., p. 133. Comparative Liturgy: Practice

37

6. Legacy Anton Baumstark bequeathed a treasure store of ideas to the field of liturgical studies. To be sure, subsequentgenerations have appropriated this legacy critically. Some ideas have been discarded, others recast. Throughout this process, however, Baumstark has retained his place dsfons et origo of ideas and methods now current in the field. The process by which the comparative liturgy of Anton Baumstark has been appropriated by liturgical scholars falls into two distinct phases, refinement and revision. His students sought to refine their teacher's method; members of the Mateos school of oriental liturgiology have thoroughly revised it. While granting Baumstark the compliment of emulation, his students also sought to distance themselves from the absolutism of their Doktorvater. This dual dynamic is apparent in the writings of Fritz H a m m and Hieronymus Engberding( 1899-1969), both of whom took care to refine Baumstark's understanding of liturgical laws. In his effort in this regard H a m m focuses upon the ways laws function in the development of the liturgy. Like Baumstark he understands the liturgy to be a life-form and the laws of nature to be absolute, 'admitting no exceptions'. 1 Though laws ought to be rigorously applied to phenomena which are governed by iron-clad laws (such as physics), argued Hamm, this is not the case with the liturgy. Here H a m m is not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. In his study of the words of institution in the eucharistic prayer, first written as a dissertation under Baumstark, H a m m intentionally applied the methods of comparative liturgy and in the process himself formulated laws.2 But, he argued, laws do not function in liturgy as they do in nature. While laws in the latter case can be relentlessly applied and possess predictive power, the situation is more complex in the case of the liturgy. 'Our subject matter is liturgical life and no life-form can withstand being dissected completely into dead formulas and rules.' 3 Here H a m m is using the language of life as a vitalist rather than as a naturalist. Specifically, he sees that the liturgy is not distinct from its environment as the self-contained system of an organism is discreet within its world. Rather the life forms of the liturgy are continually stimulated and profoundly influenced by their historical milieu. H a m m attributes the complexity of the liturgy's development, in part, to the interplay of laws, 'the reciprocal influences of the operations of all the laws which we are able to determine.' 4 Thus does he hold that laws in the liturgy are mitigated rather than absolute, reciprocal rather than linear, and less than wholly determinate. Though Engberding was also concerned with the import of liturgical laws his interests lay in their logic. Like Hamm, he pays particular attention to the role of exception in the functioning of those laws. He notes that liturgical laws are formulated inductively through the examination of relevant instances on a case-by-case basis and, as such, limited in their validity. Since proof of a law is cumulative, each subsequent case constitutes a potential exception and each case that is not governed by a law which applies to 1

Fritz Hamm, Die liturgischen Eimetzunpbenchte, p.96. Ibid., p.33. 3 ¡bid., p.97 4 Ibid. 1

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it constitutes 'an exception to the rule.'1 Thus, Engberding concludes, 'a law determined by such an analysis can never claim more than a conditional validity.'2 The distinction between laws in the study of liturgy and nature is not as great as Engberding seems to imply, however. Like liturgical laws, laws in nature are also determined inductively and constitute no more than a statement of statistical probability, albeit of high degree. The difference between them lies in their tolerance for exception. Given the regularity of nature, a single true exception to a law has the power to limit or overthrow it; given the indeterminate (read: 'historical') nature of the liturgy exceptions are tolerated and stand alongside laws without posing a challenge to them. Stated otherwise, laws in history function at a lower level of statistical probability than those in nature. Or, in the words of Hieronymus Engberding, they possess only 'a conditional validity'. Both Hamm and Engberding modified Baumstark's understanding of law in the light of their views of the liturgy. While Hamm certainly and Engberding probably shared Baumstark's understanding of scientific law, neither of them saw it as appropriate for the study of the liturgy. Both distinguished between the regularity apparent in liturgical development and that found in the natural world. In so doing they departed significantly from Baumstark's understanding of the liturgy as nature, in but not of history, governed by exceptionless laws. In seeing the liturgy to be history not nature, both Hamm and Engberding felt compelled to adjust their understanding of law accordingly. Over time Baumstark's ideas on method have come to be assimilated by liturgical scholars and incorporated into their own methodologies. This is particularly apparent with the Mateos school of oriental liturgiology which arose at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome under the tutelage of Juan Mateos (1917-). Mateos himself does not see his method to be specifically indebted to Baumstark, but rather he traces it to the comparative approach generally employed by eastern liturgiologists in the days of his training. Furthermore, he contrasts his own textual studies to Baumstark's use of hypotheses; Baumstark began with answers whereas Mateos and his school take as their starting-point the careful scrutiny of liturgical texts.3 However, Roben Taft, the one member of the school who has written in the area of methodology, draws heavily upon Baumstark's ideas and methods. In defining his own structural method for the study of the liturgy, Taft states, 'It owes nothing genetically to the structuralist school, but is rather my own elaboration of procedures learned by apprenticeship in what can be legitimately called the "Mateos School" of oriental liturgiology, methods which are themselves an extension of Anton Baumstark's system of "comparative liturgy" later perfected by H. Engberding and others of Baumstark's school.' 4 'Iäft, like Baumstark, distinguishes tradition from history in an organic conceptual framework. Specifically, he regards tradition to be a genetic continuity focused upon the becoming rather than the immediacy of the present. He asserts, 'Liturgical history, therefore, does not deal with the past, but with tradition, which is a genetic vision ofthe present, a Hieronymus Engberding, 'Neues Licht über die Geschichte des Textes der Ägyptischen Markusliturgie' in Ortens Christianus 40 (1956) p.46, n.32. 2 Ibid. 3 Personal correspondence, Robert Taft, S.J. to the author. 16 March 1980. 4 Robert Taft, T h e Structural Analysis o f Lituipcal Units: An Essay in Methodology', p.317. See also the revision of this article in his Beyond East and West, pp.152-153 1

Legacy

39

present conditioned by its understanding of its roots.' 1 With the organic concept of 'the genetic', Taft is able to reflect on the connection between present liturgical practice and past liturgical forms that is valued within the churches of the catholic tradition. In his view past is past, and present is present, but tradition, genetically links the two. Therein lies the import of the study of liturgical traditions. Far from being of mere antiquarian interest, it gives genetic depth of our understanding of present forms. In his methodological writings, Taft employs the organic model in both its transformational and structural aspects. His use of the transformational or ontological aspect of the organic model is reflected in the title of one of his articles on methodology, 'How Liturgies Grow: The Evolution of the Byzantine "Divine Liturgv'V Throughout his writings on the liturgy Taft tries to discern the original forms, the later growtn and the frequent decomposition of liturgical forms. 2 However, it is the evocative language which Taft employs to describe the devolution of the liturgy that most powerfully conveys his sense of organic wholeness. When describing the state of the antiphons in the enarxis of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, Taft notes, 'This exemplifies another common element in liturgical history: the process whereby ecclesiastical compositions multiply and eventually suffocate the scriptural elements of a liturical chant, forcing, in turn, the decomposition of the original liturgical unit, so that what we are left with is simply debris, bits and scraps of this and that, a verse here, a refrain there, that evince no recognizable form or unity, until they are painstakingly reconstituted in their original structures by piecing together the remaining scraps.' 3 Such passages are vintage Taft and have the power to evoke a longing for the unviolated whole of the liturgical component in its organic integrity. At the same time, Taft understands liturgical services in the light of the methodological aspect of the organic model: integral, ordered totalities which evolve through subsequent temporal strata. Most often he employs Dix's term 'shape' to describe the totality of a liturgical service. In the history of the eucharistic celebration, for example, Taft is able to discern the subsequent shapes which characterize the various strata of liturgical development. H e finds the first stratum of liturgical development described in the First Apology of Justin Martyr, written in the middle of the second century. The second shape ofliturgical structure took form after the Peace of Constantine in 313 C.E. when the liturgy simultaneously experienced a standardization which gave unity to liturgical families and an enrichment which created contrasts between them. This development proceeded according to a regular pattern. In all liturgical families the enrichment occurred at the same places and in the same way, that is, it occurred at those places which Taft calls the 'soft-points' of the liturgy, those places where there are actions performed without words: (1) the entrance into the church building before the readings; (2) the kiss of peace and the transfer of gifts between the word service and the eucharistic prayer and the fraction; and (3) communion and the dismissal rites after the eucharistic 1 2 3

Ibid., pp.318-319. See also Beyond East and West, p.153. Ibid., pp.324. See also Beyond East and West, p.159. Taft, 'How Liturgies Grow: The Evolution of the Byzantine "Divine Liturgy" ' in Orientalia Christiana Periodica 43 (1977) p.367. See also the revision of this article in his Beyond East and West, p. 176.

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prayer. Each of these 'soft-points' was filled in with the same structure: the ritual action was covered by an antiphonal chant and concluded with a collect. Whereas the enrichment at these soft-points' in the second stratum kept intact the primitive stratum described by Justin Martyr, further enrichment in the third stratum violated that shape. It did so according to a pattern first observed by Baumstark: more primitive elements were cut back while more recent ones were retained.1 After his discussion of these three strata, Taft concludes, 'This illustrates, I think, not only the usefulness of a structural approach in isolating the original shape and purpose of our by now rather cluttered liturgical rites, but also shows the underlying commonality of our general liturgical traditions, which in liturgiology, as in linguistics, makes comparative structural analysis possible.'2 Like Baumstark, Taft brings into relationship images from language and life to depict the liturgy as an integral, transforming totality whose shape remains recognizable over the course of history. Taft describes his method of liturgical study as 'the structural analysis of liturgical units.'3 In this phrase we find a close verbal parallel to the title of the third chapter of Baumstark's Comparative Liturgy, 'The Structure of the Great Liturgical Units.' But Taft gives new meanings to both o f t h e key concepts in this phrase, 'structure' and 'liturgical units'. What Baumstark called liturgical units, Taft—as we have already seen—calls shape: the totality of a liturgical service. Taft reserves the term 'unit' to refer to those constituent parts of the liturgy which make up the totality of a service. An awareness of liturgical history reveals that these units benave with some independence, possessing a potential for growth and mobility independent of the services in which they are found. Thus, Taft writes, 'I have found it preferable to identify, isolate and hypothetically reconstruct individual liturgical structures, then trace their history as such, rather than attempt to study complete rites as a unity in each historical period. For it has been my constant observation that liturgies do not grow evenly, like living organisms. Rather, their individual elements possess a life of their own.'4 Despite the contrasting terminologies, it is apparent that Taft's notion of liturgical units builds upon Baumstark's structural understanding of the liturgy. As for example in his treatment of the litany,5 Baumstark understood liturgical totalities to contain discrete identifiable component parts. For his part Taft has developed this incipient notion of component parts into a powerful methodological concept and tool. The other term shared Dy Taft and Baumstark is 'structure.' Again we need to note the movement of Taft's understanding beyond that of Baumstark. For Baumstark, it will be recalled, 'structure' refers to the order of ritual unities which perdure overtime: the Mass or Divine Liturgy, the Liturgy of Hours, the sanctorale cycle, and seasons. Though, in his view, elements—texts, actions, and feasts—may vary over time, the structures remain

1

2 3 4 5

Taft, 'The Structural Analysis of Liturgical Units,' pp.325-326. See also Beyond East and West, pp.160-161. Ibid., pp.328-329. See also Beyond East and West, p.161. Ibid., p.314. See also Beyond East and West, p. 151. Taft, 'The Structural Analysis of Liturgical Units,' p.318. See also Beyond East and West, p.154. Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, pp.71-80. Legacy

41

fundamentally constant. Taft, on the other hand, redefines structure as an 'intelligibility framework,' 1 a working hypothesis. 'The "structure" is simply a model that reveals how the object 'works'. Of course this analysis is not carried on in a vacuum. There must be a constant dialectic between structural analysis and historical research.' 2 laf t has clearly benefited from the advances which the philosophy of science has made beyond the absolutist notions common in the positivism of Baumstark's day in particular, Taft owes his methodological sophistication to recent advances in the understanding of conceptual models, such as those of Karl Popper (1902- ), of whom Taft makes specific mention. 3 In so doing, he has liberated the concept of structure from the straitjacket of absolute meaning and recast it into a supple tool, capable of accommodating new information and insights which surface in the course of study. Clearly Taft, using the insights of his mentor Juan Mateos and recent developments in the philosophy of science, has been able to reshape Baumstark's comparative liturgy into a sophisticated methodology of comparative structural analysis.

1 2 3

Ibid., p.316. See also Beyond East and West, pp.151-154. Ibid., p.316. See also Beyond East and West, pp.152-153. Ibid. See also Beyond East and West, p. 153.

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7. Postscript Baumstark was a pathfinder, bold o f thought. To be sure, his boldness was both blessing and bane, the source o f both his creativity and his grandiosity. Yet, in the end, it gave him a pathfinder's courage. W i t h an intensity and single-mindedness that suffered no fools, Baumstark forged ahead into the u n k n o w n and w h e n he emerged, he had r e m a p p e d the whole liturgical world. W h e r e a s before his journey the R o m a n rite stood on a pinnacle by itself with all o t h e r liturgies ranged b e l o w it, after his travels the liturgy was seen as a unity containing a series o f analogous structures, reciprocally related, stretching from India to Ireland. In this light, we can place Baumstark's contributions to t h e study o f the liturgy beside t h e advances which the comparative m e t h o d brought to the structural understanding o f language. According to Balthasar Fischer, Baumstark issued a warning to both the a c a d e m y and the C h u r c h : ' D o n o t merely believe that t h e R o m a n liturgy is the liturgy; the R o m a n liturgy is a liturgy.' 1

1

Balthasar Fischer, 'Schwerpunkte der liturgiewissenschaftliche Forschung im deutschen Sprachgebiet im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert', in Nordisk Kallokvium IV i Latinsk Liturgiforskning 15-17 funi 1978 pò Lysebu/Oslo (Institutt for kirkehistorie, Universitet i. Oslo, Oslo, 1978) p.15.

Postscript

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