Ceremony

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

an assemblage of several actions, forms, and circumstances, serving to render a thing magnificent and solemn. Applied to religious services, it signifies the external rites and manner in which the ministers of religion perform their sacred functions, and direct or lead the worship of the people. In 1646, M. Ponce published a history of ancient ceremonies, showing the rise, growth, and introduction of each rite into the church, and its gradual advancement to superstition. Many of them were borrowed from Judaism, but more from Paganism. In all religions adapted to the nature of man there must be some positive institutions for fixing the mind upon spiritual objects, and counteracting that influence of material things upon habits and pursuits which is, and must be, constantly exerted. Without such institutions, religion might be preserved, indeed, by a few of superior understanding and of strong powers of reflection; but among mankind in general all trace of it would soon be lost. When the end for which they are appointed is kept in view, and the simple examples of the New Testament are observed, they are of vast importance to the production both of pious feelings and of virtuous conduct; but there has constantly been a propensity in the human race to mistake the means for the end, and to consider themselves as moral and religious, when they scrupulously observe what was intended to produce morality and religion. The reason is obvious: ceremonial observances can be performed without any great sacrifice of propensities and vices; they are palpable; when they are observed by men who, in the tenor of public life, do not act immorally, they are regarded by others as indicating high attainments in virtue; and through that self-deceit which so wonderfully misleads the reason, and inclines it to minister to the passions which it should restrain, men have themselves become persuaded that their acknowledgment of divine authority, implied in their respect to the ritual which that authority is conceived to have sanctioned, may be taken as a proof that they have nothing to apprehend from the violation of the law under which they are placed. But, whatever be the causes of this, the fact itself is established by the most extensive and the most incontrovertible evidence. We find it, indeed, wherever mankind have had notions of superior power, and of their obligation to yield obedience to the will of the supreme Being.

Under the system of polytheism which prevailed in the most enlightened nations previous to the publication of Christianity, this was carried so far, that the connection between religion and morality was in a great degree dissolved, rites and ceremonies, sacrifices and oblations, were all that it was thought requisite to observe; when these were carefully performed, there was no hesitation in ascribing piety to the persons who did perform them, however deficient they might be in virtuous and pious dispositions. Even under the Mosaical dispensation, proceeding as it did, immediately from heaven, and adapted, as in infinite wisdom it was, to the situation of those to whom it was given, the same evil early began to be experienced; and although it was lamented and exposed by the prophets, and the most enlightened men among the Jews, it was so far from being eradicated, that it continued to acquire strength, till it was exhibited in all its magnitude in the character prevalent among the Pharisees at the period of Christ's manifestation. With this highly popular and revered class of men, religion was either merely a matter of ceremony, or was employed, for base and interested purposes, to cast a veil of sanctity over their actions. They said long prayers, but it was for a show; they gave alms, but it was after they had sounded a trumpet, that the eye of man might be fixed upon their beneficence; and, as to the point now under review, they were most strikingly described by our Saviour, when he said of them, "They pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, but they neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and truth." The Christian religion not only expressly guards against an evil which had become so prevalent, but its whole spirit is at variance with it, its own ceremonial observances being few, and obviously emblematical of whatever is excellent and holy. But still the Gospel finds human nature as other religions found it; and ecclesiastical history, even from the earliest periods, shows with what astonishing perverseness, and with what wonderful ingenuity, men departed from the simplicity of Christianity, and substituted in its room the most childish, and often the most pernicious, practices and observances. The power of godliness was lost in forms; and the innovations of a profane will-worship became almost innumerable. The effect was, that men regarded God as less concerned with the moral conduct of his creatures, than with the quantum of service they performed in his temples; and religion and morals were so disjoined, that one became the substitute for the other, to the universal corruption of the Christian world.

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary

An assemblage of several actions, forms, and circumstances, and solemn. Applied to religious services, it signifies the external rites and manner wherein the ministers of religion perform their sacred functions. In 1646, M. Ponce published a history of ancient ceremonies, tracing the rise, growth, and introduction of each rite into the church, and its gradual advancement to superstition. Many of them were borrowed from Judaism, but more from paganism. Dr. Middleton has given a fine discourse on the conformity between the pagan and popish ceremonies, which he exemplifies in the use of incense, holy water, lamps and candles before the shrines of saints, voltive gifts round the shrines of the deceased, &c. In fact, the altars, images, crosses, processions, miracles, and legends, nay, even the very hierarchy, pontificate, religious orders, &c. of the present Romans, he shows, are all copied from their heathen ancestors.

An ample and magnificent representation in figures of the religious ceremonies and customs of all nations in the world, designed by Picart, is added, with historical explanations, and many curious dissertations. It has been a question, whether we ought to use such rites and ceremonies which are merely of human appointment. On one side it has been observed that we ought not. Christ alone is King in his church: he hath instituted such ordinances and forms of worship as he hath judged fit and necessary; and to add to them seems, at least, to carry in it an imputation on his wisdom and authority, and hath this unanswerable objection to it, that it opens the door to a thousand innovations (as the history of the church of Rome hath sufficiently shown, ) which are not only indifferent in themselves, but highly absurd, and extremely detrimental to religion.

That the ceremonies were numerous under the Old Testament dispensation is no argument; for, say they.

1. We respect Jewish ceremonies, because God hath not appointed them.

2. The Jewish ceremonies were established by the universal consent of the nation; human ceremonies are not so.

3. The former were fit and proper for the purposes for which they were appointed; but the latter are often the contrary.

4. The institutor of the Jewish ceremonies provided for the expense of it; but no provision is made by God to support human ceremonies, or what he has not appointed.

These arguments seem very powerful; but on the other side of it has been observed, that the desire of reducing religious worship to the greatest possible simplicity, however rational it may appear in itself, and abstractedly considered, will be considerably moderated in such as bestow a moment's attention upon the imperfection and infirmities of human nature in its present state. Mankind, generally speaking, have too little elevation of mind to be much affected with those forms and methods of worship in which there is nothing striking to the outward senses.

The great difficulty here lies in determining the length which it is prudent to go in the accommodation of religious ceremonies to human infirmity; and the grand point is to fix a medium in which a due regard may be shown to the senses and imagination, without violating the dictates of right reason, or tarnishing the purity of true religion. It has been said, that the Romish church has gone too far in its condescension to the infirmities of mankind; and this is what the ablest defenders of its motley worship have alleged in its behalf. But this observation is not just; the church of Rome has not so much accommodated itself to human weakness, as it has abused that weakness, by taking occasion from it to establish an endless variety of ridiculous ceremonies, destructive of true religion, and only adapted to promote the riches and despotism of the clergy, and to keep the multitude still hood-winked in their ignorance and superstition. How far a just antipathy to the church puppet-shows of the Papists has unjustly driven some Protestant churches into the opposite extreme, is a matter that certainly deserves a serious consideration.

See Dr. Stennett's Ser. on Conformity to the World; Robinson's Sermon on Ceremonies; Booth's Essay on the Kingdom of Christ; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History; with Mac Laine's Note, vol. 1: p. 203, quarto edit. Jones's Works, vol. 4, p. 267.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): (n.) Behavior regulated by strict etiquette; a formal method of performing acts of civility; forms of civility prescribed by custom or authority.

(2): (n.) A ceremonial symbols; an emblem, as a crown, scepter, garland, etc.

(3): (n.) A sign or prodigy; a portent.

(4): (n.) Ar act or series of acts, often of a symbolical character, prescribed by law, custom, or authority, in the conduct of important matters, as in the performance of religious duties, the transaction of affairs of state, and the celebration of notable events; as, the ceremony of crowning a sovereign; the ceremonies observed in consecrating a church; marriage and baptismal ceremonies.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Latin caerimonia, a word sanctioned by Ciceronian usage, but of uncertain etymology, and variously derived:

(1) from Ceres, and the offerings made to her;

(2) from Caere, the Etrurian town, whither the sacred things and Vestals of the Romans were conveyed for safety from the Gauls (Forcellini, Lex. Tot. Latin.);

(3) from Carere;

(4) from Carus and Caritas;

(5) from Cerus, an obsolete Latin word = Pius, Sanctus, i.e. pious, sacred (Scaliger);

(6) from Coira-=Cura (Georges' Lexikon );

(7) from Caelum, as though it should be Caelimonia.

Particular ceremonies are treated in this work under their appropriate heads. We propose only to consider here

(1) whether the term is a suitable one to denote Christian church services, and

(2) its import in creeds and symbolical books, making free use of Palmer's article in Herzog, Real-Encyklop. (Suppl. 1:314).

Whenever the word ceremony is used in an indefinite way of a religious act, we must not overlook the ditinction between the essential, necessary part of the act, without which no worship can be, and its accompanying forms, which only serve to give it greater solemnity, and bring out more strikingly the contrast with common life. This non-essential part only is ceremony. To illustrate farther: the religious act may be defined as something done in obedience to divine command, and therefore necessary to salvation; while ceremony represents man's voluntary work, the offspring of the connection of the religious impulse and his esthetic taste. Hence results the truly Protestant doctrine that these forms, because they are subjectively conditioned, may vary according to times and places. The Roman Catholic Church, in spite of her longing for absolute unity, is unable to prevent some freedom and variety in this respect, and allows that particular rites (ritus particulares) need not be everywhere exactly the same, though universal ones (ritus universales) must be observed always and everywhere alike. On this point Melancthon rightly says, "We do not fully understand what our opponents mean" (Non satis intelligimus, quid velint adversarii); for by the distinction of universal and particular rites, the Protestant view is, in fact, conceded to be correct, and the only question would seem to be, which rites belong to the one and which to the other class. Yet, under the Romish view, we have only to rank among the universals as many as possible of the most formal, unmeaning, and arbitrary things, and thus make them obligatory. In the distinction of the divinely commanded and the humanly devised, we must keep in view (1) that the Mosaic law made what we call ceremony the subject of divine enactment, and did not leave it to man's choice; and (2) that this choice is not individual caprice. Whatever, through the Church's tendency to improvement in matters of worship, has grown into ritual forms — whatever has become settled practice in the Church, should be respected by the individual, as a custom inherited from the fathers — with the condition, indeed, that when a ceremony has lost its original, correct meaning, or assumed a false one, or when its outward form has become opposed to the moral consciousness and condition of the Church, Christian freedom may assert its right to abolish, simplify, or replace such ceremony.

The distinction may be made clearer by the following illustrations: To baptize is not a ceremony, but a necessary church act; but the use of a cope and surplice, of a silver baptismal cup and bowl, of certain liturgically prescribed words, the laying on of the hands, the sign of the cross — these constitute ceremony. Again, we celebrate the Lord's Supper in obedience to Christ's command, but ceremony prescribes how we shall furnish a table, as a New Testament altar; what kind of vessels we shall use; whether, like the Lutherans, we shall give the wafer to each communicant, with the same words, or, like the Reformed, shall cut the bread, etc.; whether the communicants shall kneel or not, etc. These examples show that what is necessary and what is voluntary, what is divinely enjoined and what is pleasing to man, the kernel and the shell, cannot be mechanically separated; and that, though some ceremony enters into all religious services, it should never be mere empty, unmeaning form. What are called in public life court ceremonials are indeed such, but the minister of the Gospel may not be merely a master of ceremonies. In judicial proceedings ceremony may have real Significance: e.g. in the taking of oath, the raised hand and set form of words, the assumption of a black cap by the judge when pronouncing sentence of death, and the breaking of a staff before the execution, non- essential, yet symbolic acts, powerfully influence the imagination.

The application of the term ceremony to the rites of Christian baptism, marriage, burial, etc. is repugnant to our feelings, as implying excessive formality. The Socinians alone call baptism and the Lord's Supper ceremonies, regarding them as essentially unmeaning observances, though enjoined by Christ. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic and High- Church view assigns to certain ceremonial acts somewhat of saving efficacy, to attain which duly authorized forms must be observed. The evangelical Protestant, eschewing either extreme, accepts as helps in the Christian life such ritual forms as by their outward correspondence with the religious idea tend to edify; but he does not trust in them as having power to save; for him, far more important than sprinkled water, folded hands, chrism, or holy vessel, is the Word of God, understood by all, and pointing him to the sacrifice of Christ as his hope and salvation. We see, therefore, that the term ceremony is less frequently applicable to the services of the Protestant than to those of the Roman Catholic or Greek Church; and, indeed, in this sense the word is rather foreign to Protestant ecclesiastical and scientific language.

The Reformers were not punctilious in this respect, however; but, in their symbolical books, used ceremony as synonymous with ritus ecclesiasticus, and named, as such, ordo lectionum, orationum, Vestitus ecclesiasticus et alia similia (Apol. Conf. 12; Hase, Libri Symb. p. 250). Frequently ceremony was confounded with traditiones, and what holds good of these applies also to it. Nevertheless, a clear perception of the import of ceremony, and its distinction from the essential church act, is shown in their doctrine that it is not "per se cultus divinus aut aliqua saltem pars divini cultus" (Form. Concord. Epit. cap. 10, p. 651), and that no general conformity therein is required by the practice of the ancient Church; and of more importance still, that no justifying or saving power belongs to the performance of ceremonial acts (Apol. 8, p. 206. Paulus ideo damnat Mosaicas ceremonias, sicut traditiones damnat, quia existimabantur esse opera, quae merentur justitiam coram Deo). If such an opinion of their value obtains, they must be abandoned (Luther, Tischreden, th., 11, cap. 10, 3). So we must not, for the sake of our ease or peace, take part in ceremonies which conscience disapproves. If those in use fail to effect the true aim of all ceremonies, i.e. the teaching the ignorant and producing harmony of worship, the Church may and should establish others; so that, on the one hand, the people lack not those seemly forms, which justly apprehended, "do serve to a decent order and godly discipline," and, on the other, be not so overburdened or misled by them as "in the bondage of the shadow" to lose "the freedom of the spirit" (Preface to English Prayer- book).

The Articles of Religion of the Church of England declare that "the Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies" (Art. XX): and "every particular Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies, etc." The Methodist Episcopal and Protestant Episcopal churches have similar articles. "If our reasonable service to God as Christians implies certain external acts of worship, these external acts must be performed after an external manner — that is to say, there must be certain forms and ceremonies in our divine worship. And those sects, like the Quakers, who have pretended to deny this fact, have proved, by their own quaint and peculiar ceremonies, that something of the sort is needful even to their form of Christianity. But as it is needful, so likewise is it advantageous to observe decent and orderly ceremonies in religion." Without such institutions, religion might be preserved, indeed, by a few of superior understanding and of strong powers of reflection, but among mankind in general all trace of it would soon be lost. When the end for which they are appointed is kept in view, and the simple examples of the New Testament are observed, they are of vast importance to the production both of pious feelings and of virtuous conduct; but there has constantly been a propensity in the human race to mistake the means for the end, and to consider themselves as moral and religious when they scrupulously observe what was intended to produce morality and religion. The reason is obvious: ceremonial observances can be performed without any great sacrifice of propensities and vices; they are palpable; when they are observed by men who, in the tenor of public life, do not act immorally, they are regarded by others as indicating high attainments in virtue; and through that self-deceit which so wonderfully misleads the reason, and inclines it to minister to the passions which it should restrain, men have themselves become persuaded that their acknowledgment of divine authority, implied in their respect to the ritual which that authority is conceived to have sanctioned, may be taken as a proof that they have nothing to apprehend from the violation of the law under which they are placed (Watson, s.v.).

"The rites and ceremonies of the Christian Church, agreeably to the general rules of Scripture, ought to be of such a kind as to promote the order, the decency, and the solemnity of public worship. At the same time they ought not to be numerous, but should preserve that character of simplicity which is inseparable from true dignity, and which accords especially with the spiritual character of the religion of Christ. The apostles often remind Christians that they are delivered from the ceremonies of the law, which are styled by Peter 'a yoke which neither their fathers nor they were able to bear' ( Acts 15:10). The whole tenor of our Lord's discourses, and of the writings of his apostles, elevates the mind above those superstitious observances in which the Pharisees placed the substance of religion; and, according to the divine saying of Paul, 'The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, aid joy in the Holy Ghost' ( Romans 14:17). The nature of this kingdom is forgotten when frivolous observances are multiplied by human authority; and the complicated, expensive pageantry of Roman Catholic worship, together with the still more childish ceremonies which abound in the Eastern or Greek Church, appear to deserve the application of that censure which the apostle pronounced when he reprented the attempts made in his days to revive the Mosaic ritual as a 'turning again to weak and beggarly clients.'

Further, all the Scripture rules and examples suggest that, in enacting ceremonies, regard should be had to the opinions, the manners, and prejudices of those to whom they are prescribed; and that those who entertain more enlightened views upon the subject should not despise their weak brethren. Upon the same principle, it is obvious that ceremonies ought not to be lightly changed. In the eyes of most people, those practices appear venerable which have been handed down from remote antiquity. To many the want of those helps to which they have been accustomed in the exercises of devotion might prove very hurtful, and frequent changes in the external parts of worship might shake the steadfastness of their faith. The last rule deducible from the Scripture examples is this, that the authority which enacts the ceremonies should clearly explain the light in which they are to be considered; should never employ any expressions, or any means of enforcing them, which tend to convey to the people that they are accounted necessary to salvation; and should beware of seeming to teach that the most punctual observance of things in themselves indifferent is of equal importance with judgment, mercy, and the love of God." — Hill, Lectures on Divinity (N. Y. ed., 1). 773). See also Palmer, in Herzog's Real-Enyklop Ä die, Supplem. 1:314; Farindon, Sermons, 2:130, 151; 3:27, 226; Common Prayer (Ch. of England), Of Ceremonies; Barrow, Works (N. Y. ed.), 1:593; 2:339; 3:168.