The Siddur Project

4th Century Christians Prayed Amidah

By Aaron Eby  | Comments (6) | Posted on July 20, 2007

A Christian fourth century collection of documents known as the Apostolic Constitutions (Didascalia Apostolorum) contains a treatise on prayer with remarkable similarity to the Amidah, the central prayer of Judaism.

This is not new news, as scholars have known this for some time. Yet, I find it remarkable.

The Apostolic Constitutions include several different ancient texts and show several layers of redaction and interpolation. In the form that we have them today, these documents are anti-Semitic, supercessionist and Catholic. Yet beneath this veneer there is a fascinating substrata of Jewish influence.

Here are some interesting points in the prayer:

First Section

The first section begins and ends with a remarkable affinity to the first blessing of the Amidah.

Our eternal Saviour, the King of gods, who alone art almighty, and the Lord, the God of all beings, and the God of our holy and blameless fathers, and of those before us; the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob…

…O Thou great protector of the posterity of Abraham, Thou art blessed for ever.

In comparison, here is some of the traditional Amidah prayer found in the siddur today:

Blessed are You, O LORD, our God and God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the great, powerful and awesome God, God above all…

…King, Helper, Savior, and Shield. Blessed are You, O LORD, Shield of Abraham.

Second Section

The second blessing begins with the standard Jewish blessing formulation that begins “Baruch attah…” Note that the word “ages” in Greek is the cognate of the Hebrew word עולם (olam), commonly translated “world” or “universe.”

Thou art blessed, O Lord, the King of ages…

The presence of this blessing formulation in a Christian document shows that it existed as early as the Apostolic era.

Like the second blessing of the Amidah, this part of the Didascalia thanks God for the resurrection.

…But when man was disobedient, Thou didst deprive him of the life which should have been his reward. Yet didst Thou not destroy him for ever, but laidst him to sleep for a time; and Thou didst by oath call him to a resurrection, and loosedst the bond of death, O Thou reviver of the dead, through Jesus Christ, who is our hope.

Compare the traditional Amidah:

You are a King who causes death and resurrects and who causes salvation to sprout forth! And You are faithful to resurrect the dead. Blessed are You, O LORD, who resurrects the dead.

Third Section

The third section contains what is essentially a Kedushah, like the third blessing of the Amidah.

…And the bright host of angels and the intellectual spirits say to Palmoni, "There is but one holy Being;" and the holy seraphim, together with the six-winged cherubim, who sing to Thee their triumphal song, cry out with never ceasing voices, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts! heaven and earth are full of Thy glory;" and the other multitudes of the orders, angels archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities, and powers cry aloud, and say, "Blessed be the glory of the Lord out of His place." But Israel, Thy Church on earth, taken out of the Gentiles, emulating the heavenly powers night and day, with a full heart and a willing soul sings, "The chariot of God is ten thousandfold thousands of them that rejoice: the Lord is among them in Sinai, in the holy place…"

(In case you’re wondering, Palmoni is a Hebrew term meaning “so-and-so,” erroneously identified as the actual name of an angel based on Daniel 8:13.)

Compare with the traditional Amidah:

We will sanctify Your name in the world, as it is sanctified in the highest heights, as it is written by Your prophet, “And one called to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of legions! The fullness of the whole earth is His glory.” Then with a loud rumbling sound, mighty and strong, they cause a sound to be heard, lifting themselves opposite the serafim. Opposite them, they say, “Blessed is the glory of the LORD from His place.”

Fourth Section

The fourth section, weirdly enough, is a blessing regarding the Sabbath and Festivals, just like the fourth blessing in the Amidah on the Sabbath and Festivals.

O Lord Almighty Thou hast created the world by Christ, and hast appointed the Sabbath in memory thereof, because that on that day Thou hast made us rest from our works, for the meditation upon Thy laws. Thou hast also appointed festivals for the rejoicing of our souls, that we might come into the remembrance of that wisdom which was created by Thee…Thou didst enjoin the observation of the Sabbath, not affording them an occasion of idleness, but an opportunity of piety, for their knowledge of Thy power, and the prohibition of evils; having limited them as within an holy circuit for the sake of doctrine, for the rejoicing upon the seventh period. On this account was there appointed one week, and seven weeks, and the seventh month, and the seventh year, and the revolution of these, the jubilee, which is the fiftieth year for remission, that men might have no occasion to pretend ignorance. On this account He permitted men every Sabbath to rest, that so no one might be willing to send one word out of his mouth in anger on the day of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath is the ceasing of the creation, the completion of the world, the inquiry after laws, and the grateful praise to God for the blessings He has bestowed upon men. All which the Lord's day excels…

I find it odd how it rambles on and on praising the Sabbath and Festivals and the Biblical calendar, and then at the very end switches gears entirely by saying they are all superseded by the Lord’s day and then proceeding with a Christological creed. To me, it smacks of later editing.

Fifth Section

The next section is an interesting combination of things. It bears elements of the blessing for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Davidic kingdom, but is most similar to the blessing for “hearing prayer.”

Thou who hast fulfilled Thy promises made by the prophets, and hast had mercy on Zion, and compassion on Jerusalem, by exalting the throne of David, Thy servant, in the midst of her, by the birth of Christ, who was born of his seed according to the flesh, of a virgin alone; do Thou now, O Lord God, accept the prayers which proceed from the lips of Thy people which are of the Gentiles, which call upon Thee in truth, as Thou didst accept of the gifts of the righteous in their generations…

…Now also do Thou receive the prayers of Thy people which are offered to Thee with knowledge, through Christ in the Spirit.

Compare with the Amidah:

Hear our voice, O LORD our God, take pity, and have compassion on us, and accept our prayer with compassion and favor, for You are God Who hears prayers and requests. And do not turn us away from Your presence with nothing, for You hear the prayer of Your people Israel with compassion. Blessed are You, O LORD, Who hears prayer.

The Sixth Section

The sixth and final section bears close similarity to the second to the last blessing of the Amidah, the Thanksgiving blessing.

We give Thee thanks for all things, O Lord Almighty, that Thou hast not taken away Thy mercies and Thy compassions from us; but in every succeeding generation Thou dost save, and deliver, and assist, and protect…

…For all which things do we give Thee thanks through Christ…

Compare with the Amidah:

We give thanks to You, that You are the LORD, our God and God of our fathers forever and ever. It is You, the Rock of our lives, Shield of our salvation in each and every generation…

…For all these things, may Your name be blessed and lifted up, our King, continually and forever and ever…

Implications

As I have stated above, it is clear that this has undergone several layers of editing through the centuries, resulting in something anti-Semitic and supercessionist, something that I personally would not feel comfortable praying. But it is clear that the original stratum prior to these redactions was Jewish liturgy, and specifically the Amidah.

This means that at the point at which the Jewish and Christian world converged in the first century, it was the Jewish system of worship that was passed on to the Apostolic community by its founders.

This also attests to the antiquity of these prayers. If Jewish prayers are found in a patently Christian document, then they must have existed even before the schism between Judaism and Christianity occurred.

This suggests that when we engage in the Jewish prayer system, particularly the Amidah, we are in unity with the very first followers of the Messiah and the community that they founded.

Aaron Eby
5 Av 5767

Excerpts from the Didascalia translation by Philip Schaff, in the public domain, available here. Excerpts from the Amidah are my own translation, copyright FFOZ, and will be available in an upcoming publication.

About the Author: Aaron Eby writes for messiah magazine and other FFOZ publications. He is also the author of the forthcoming siddur project, as well as the forthcoming Hebrew lesson DVD.

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