1st century Mass

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How different was the Mass celebrated in the first century as opposed to today?
 
The earliest known description of the Holy Mass is that of Justin Martyr, writing (probably) in Ephesus sometime around the 140s or 150s. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give us as much detail as we might wish for. You can read it in full on the New Advent website. It’s very short, just three paragraphs. Chapters 65 to 67 of his first Apology:

CHURCH FATHERS: The First Apology (St. Justin Martyr) 1
 
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BartholomewB said:
The earliest known description of the Holy Mass is that of Justin Martyr, writing (probably) in Ephesus sometime around the 140s or 150s. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give us as much detail as we might wish for. You can read it in full on the New Advent website. It’s very short, just three paragraphs. Chapters 65 to 67 of his first Apology:

CHURCH FATHERS: The First Apology (St. Justin Martyr) 1
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From 67:
And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.
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Definitely recognizable as the mass.
 
Nobody knows exactly. There are many scholarly books on this subject by orthodox Catholics, but the liturgy for the first few centuries is mostly unknown to us. St. Justin’s account of it gives a very general outline that is common to all Catholic rites, but it is so vague that there is nothing specific about it, much less specifically Roman.

For the most part, it is in the 6th and 7th centuries that we begin to have a much clearer and fuller picture of the Roman rite, thanks to the sacramentaries that date to this period, as well as the main outline and psalmody of the Divine Office thanks to St. Benedict’s Rule, which was based on the pre-existing and older Roman Office (aside from a few differences, they’re practically the same).
 
Catholic21 said:
How different was the Mass celebrated in the first century as opposed to today?
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Liturgy in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries was vastly different (at least in form and appearance) than anything you see today either in the East or West.

Until Christianity was legalized and made the official State religion and the first Council of Nicea in the 4th century, Liturgy was extremely fluid and dynamic.

The only thing that every Liturgy of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 15th and 21st centuries have in common is substance and reality. The gathering together of Christians. Singing and chanting Psalms and hymns. Communal prayer led by a Presbyter. Reading of the Scriptures and catechesis and sermons. Offering of gifts and prayers over them. Eucharistic prayers, breaking of bread and commemorating the Lord. Use of things like vestments, candles, incense and art/icons/statues.

When you see traditionalists, whether Roman or Byzantine, who try to push the idea that the Tridentine Roman Mass or Byzantine Divine Liturgy was being celebrated almost identically in the 1st century as in the 21st, they are flat out wrong and are arguing from ideology over reason or history.
 
Due to many persecutions of Christians, it was probably celebrated in someone’s home secretly rather than openly.
 
ChristMyLife said:
Until Christianity was legalized and made the official State religion and the first Council of Nicea in the 4th century, Liturgy was extremely fluid and dynamic.
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While I agree with the first statement of your post, I have to wonder how we know this?
 
Yes, but it would be a mistake to assume the practices we know of the 6th and 7th centuries did not predate those times substantially.
 
In addition, would the Mass be celebrated in the vernacular language or would it have been Greek as was the language of the New Testament?
 
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The first (and only) description of the Mass in the Gospels is in Luke: 24:27 “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.”

Then, in 24:30 “And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.”

Note: I have left out the narratives of the Last Supper as that was situated specifically in the Passover Meal. There are also references in Revelation.

The earliest Church did not see itself as distinguished from Judaism, and so on Sabbath they went to the synagogues (scripture) and then on Sunday, celebrated the Eucharist.
 
Catholic21 said:
In addition, would the Mass be celebrated in the vernacular language or would it have been Greek as was the language of the New Testament?
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Both at once is the answer, I think. Justin Martyr was living in Ephesus at the time, as far as anyone knows, which was a Greek-speaking city. Justin wrote his own books in Greek. Here are the relevant chapters of the first Apology in Justin’s own Greek. The internet can work wonders!
Justin - The Eucharist
 
Those chapters written by Justin Martyr are amazing! This is one of the things I found when researching early Christianity, they believed in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, something completely lost in Protestants many of whom try and claim that their way of “church service” is more like early Christianity.
 
My guess is that it was celebrated closer to either the Byzantine or Syriac East’s modern way of celebrating it than it was to the Latin west. Not to say any of them are wrong (they are all equally legit expressions approved by the Church).
 
Catholic21 said:
How different was the Mass celebrated in the first century as opposed to today?
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Take a look at the “Constitutions of the Holy Apostles”—AND commentary. The pendulum has gone back and forth on it a few times, as well as opinions on whether it is genuine or forgery, but I think the latest (but, hey, there’s always next week) thinking is that it’s first or second century, and from the Apostles or their apostles.

“Mass” didn’t occur for several centuries, until after Rome adopted the vernacular instead of greek–it comes from the latin word for “dismiss”.

The Liturgy of Adai and Mari is a second century liturgy.

The Divine Liturgy of St. James is also very early . . . but seems to have been significantly shortened over the centuries.

St. Basil significantly shortened the then prevalent byzantine liturgy (to about 3.5 hours, iirc), and this in turn was shortened again by St. John Chrysotum.

Early Roman liturgies do not seem to have been preserved (I don’t know if we have any surviving sources from before they began the switch to Latin from Greek).

Anyway, early liturgy was far longer than modern liturgy . . .
 
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