I’m holding in my hands the new edition of The Mass of Early Christians. It’s in the warehouse. It’s even on Amazon.
What’s new in this expanded edition? Lots. The book’s a good deal bigger. There are at least six new chapters — on Clement of Rome, Cornelius, Firmilian, the Anaphora of St. Mark, Eusebius, and the Council of Nicea. I added several more apocryphal texts, and included a discussion of the recently discovered Gospel of Judas. I also added more texts by Irenaeus, Cyprian, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and others. Still other chapters were extensively rewritten based on more recent scholarship.
In case you missed the reviews the first time around, here’s a sampling:
“This is an excellent and exciting work. I wish that The Mass of the Early Christians was compulsory reading for all ordinands. Mike Aquilina is to be congratulated.”
— Robert Beaken, New Directions (U.K.)“All Christians from liturgical traditions can read this book with profit and find comfort in the firm historical basis of their own worship. Those who have shunned liturgical worship might after reading this book reconsider their position and wonder what they have been missing.”
— Christian Book Reviews“The Mass we know on Sunday—the Mass you encounter in this book—is where Tradition lives, where Church’s memory reigns ‘in the Spirit.’ Read this book, then, and remember.”
— Scott Hahn, professor, Franciscan University“Aquilina is to be congratulated for making these texts accessible to a new and wide-ranging audience allowing us to echo the cry voiced by the martyrs of North Africa in the third century: ‘we cannot live without the Mass!'”
— Fr. Joseph Linck, rector, St. John Fisher Seminary“Mike Aquilina has performed a needed service in making this heritage accessible to non-specialists.”
— Oswald Sobrino, Esq.
Can you tell I’m excited? Hope you like the new edition as much as I do.
[…] Mike Aquila at The Way of the Fathers plugs his book, btw I bit. But then again, when it comes to buying books, I’m a bit of a easy sell. […]
Great, will be on my next Amazon order.
I tried to get it before, but the bookstore I went to said all there copies had been sold and I held off when I heard later there was to be a new edition.
Darn! I just bought a copy of the 1st ed. two weeks ago. But I love it, and may yet order the new one. Keep it up, Mike.
Also… Love what B. XVI said about Cyprian this week.
Congratulations, Mike. It’s now on the first tier of my wish list. (Yes, it’s large enough to require classification.)
Thanks, guys! You’re feeding my children!
I’ll trade you my old 1st edition for your new 2nd edition ;) Thanks for all your work!
Query: Liturgical minimalists often cite the “simple” Mass of the early Church as a way to counter what they view as excessive rubricism, i.e., following the Missal and various Vatican instructions. Does you book address this argument, directly or indirectly, and what role might it play in Pope Benedict’s budding “reform of the reform”?
“you” = your
I don’t directly address the uses and abuses of liturgical history. In his foreword, the Church historian Father Joseph Linck brings up Pope Pius XII’s warning against “false antiquarianism.” But my book is not prescriptive in the least. I merely lay out the texts as they appear in the historical record, and I give a little bit of background. I do think it’s the most complete set of texts that’s widely available and affordable. It’s useful, I suppose, in providing historical perspective to those who want to reform the reform. It’s also a useful tool for apologetics, as Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican reviewers have noted.