Bet ha-t'pillah - House of Prayer in the Christian Tradition: A Spiritual and Theological History
by Neville Ann Kelly, D.Min., Ph.D. (Cand.)
Adjunct Professor of Theology, Mount Marty College
ABSTRACT
This essay was submitted to the Graduate Theological Foundation as a Doctor of Ministry Project in 2005. It is posted here in an effort to provide potential resources for those seeking to understand the many dimensions represented in the Christian tradition's phrase "house of prayer." The document is comprised of 5 chapters with an extensive Bibliography.
The essay seeks to explore the meaning of the term “house of prayer,” which finds its usage in a variety of significantly disparate settings within both Judaism and Christianity. These broad, elusive and often ideological definitions make asking the basic question, “What is a house of prayer?” a challenging and complex task. Originating in the sixth century B.C.E. prophetic writings of the Hebrew Scriptures, and quoted by Jesus in three of the New Testament gospels, the term is replete with an embedded tradition, though the riches of its historic memory may remain obscured by the shadowy mist of several millennia. The prophetic origin of the phrase, and its use in one of Jesus’ most prophet-like gestures, seems to have consistently associated it with different types of Christian reform; though, interestingly, it has been used by the religious status quo in efforts to energetically quell such reform as well. Either way, the term is evocative of both the place of and the act of prayer itself. Unraveling some of the entangled threads of the origins, history and contemporary usage and implications of “house of prayer” within the Christian tradition will require a meandering journey through its Judaic roots, Christian adaptation, and historical function.
INTRODUCTION
Unraveling some of the entangled threads of the origins, history and contemporary usage and implications of “house of prayer” within the Christian tradition will require a meandering journey through its Judaic roots, Christian adaptation, and historical function. The story, once told, can then begin to interpret contemporary applications and development of the very ancient phrase. But limitations abound. Our roadmap can only sketch out the vast topography that can only really be known by personal vision; the sight of the three-dimensional landscape, meeting the distant horizon in its sweeping immensity is quite different than unfolding its incomplete, two-dimensional illustration. Studying even the finest map will never adequately approximate the grandeur of seeing an expansive landscape meet its distant horizon. But it can guide us along the way.
Our map originates in a fourfold worship pattern found within the Hebrew Scriptures. Chapter One will explore the Jewish tradition from which the phrase “house of prayer,” bet ha-t’pilla in Hebrew transliteration, has emerged. First, we will trace the early patterns of Hebrew worship at the “high place,” or bama, and the subsequent Mosaic development of the tabernacle, or mishkan which traveled with the people through the wilderness until finally resting in Solomon’s temple. The dramatic history of the temple of Jerusalem will then be explored, recognizing its eventual role in the political and religious centralization of the Judaic people. The rustic roots of Hebrew worship will be returned to as we glimpse development of the Jewish synagogue. Origins of “house of prayer” will be found in the context of this history, where the bt ha-t’pill becomes the all-inclusive temple of Jerusalem in the post-exilic oracle of Third Isaiah, Isa 56:1-7: “for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” The bet ha-t’pilla will begin to emerge as a dynamic, archetypical experience of the human quest for worship of and communion with the divine. The structural yet spontaneous stability of the high place bama, the mobile transcendence of the tent-like mishkan, the magnificent grandeur of the temple, all become dimensions of the bet ha-t’pilla, the house of prayer, which finds its expression in varied ways throughout religious history.
Chapter Two continues to outline the Jewish inheritance of the bet ha-t’pilla in the New Testament, particularly through a somewhat detailed exegesis of the Gospel tradition of Jesus’ cleansing of the Jerusalem temple. Jesus’ quotation of the Isaiah 56 text above, recorded by the evangelists in Matt 21:13, Mark 11: 17, Luke 19:46 and alluded to in John 2:16, has transmitted the phrase “house of prayer” into the Christian tradition. Understanding the background and implications of the seminal Gospel accounts will be helpful toward establishing the origins of Christian usage and interpretation of the phrase. Only by laying such a foundation can an adequate contemporary interpretation of “house of prayer” be made.
Chapter Three will turn to the household, or oikos, tradition of the early church, which further frames the ongoing experience of the bet ha-t’pilla in Christian life and worship. The earliest communities, formed around Jesus of Nazareth, will be investigated first. Foundational to the expansion and itinerant mission of the early Christians, the domestic oikos will be understood as the first Christian adaptation of the Hebrew bet ha-t’pilla. Then, the early Christian house churches will be noted as primary site for social and cultural organization within the Roman Empire, where they established the first paradigm for church organization and structure. As such, early Christian households contributed a stable, yet movable, context for theological development of the Christian house of God, or oikon tou theou. Changing needs of the early church after Constantine brought about adaptations of original oikos structures, which eventually led to a more architectural understanding of the church as a particular place, and less as a household community.
Attempts to retrieve the more dynamic household origins of the Christian Church in selected monastic and mendicant reform movements will be studied in Chapter Four. The bet ha-t’pilla becomes the monastic house of God, the domus Dei, ordered and integrated in both everyday and sacred affairs by the Rule of Saint Benedict. Precursors to both the Rule and to the monastic movement will be explored, noting the evolution of the Christian oikos into monastic community life. The fourfold dimensions of Hebrew worship will again take shape in Benedict’s structure, and will take a variety of shapes in subsequent centuries of Benedictine reform. An excursus is taken in this chapter to discover the theological and philosophical background of the divergence of the so-called active and contemplative life, which becomes a significant dialectic in ongoing expressions of the bet ha-t’pilla. One example is Saint Francis of Assisi, who will seek to alternate the active life of apostolic ministry with regular contemplative solitude. A review of his Rule for Hermitages will demonstrate an established pattern for continued Franciscan reforms. Usage of the phrase “house of prayer” for solitary and community-based hermitages within the Franciscan tradition will remain an important contributor to the house of prayer concept.
Having reviewed elements of these scriptural, historical, and broadly theological developments, interpretations, and uses of ‘house of prayer,” we will turn in Chapter Five to the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. The architectural church structure will be understood by review of documents as the house of prayer in Post-Reformation England. Changing religious patterns brought about by the Second Vatican Council will add further discussion to the action/contemplation dialectic, while fomenting broad attempts at reconciling the contemplative life as necessary to effective apostolic action. Active congregations, desiring a more supportive prayer life, will institute the worldwide House of Prayer Movement. Houses of Prayer birthed in this epoch will gradually become precursors to the more diverse spirituality centers of the twenty-first century.
The concluding chapter will ponder our original question, “What is a house of prayer?” with the broadened, though certainly less than complete, background this survey has granted. In view of the complex richness of the tradition explored, questions will remain. Nonetheless, in light of this beginning pursuit of its historical origins, its theological and practical interpretations, and its developmental vicissitudes, we can perceive the bet ha-t’pilla —in purest form—as an essence, a persistent, existential impulse of the human spirit. Though often defined by space, the “house” of prayer is the human heart, both stunned and silent before God, as well as empowered and engaged in service of humanity.
A Note on Method
This research utilizes insights of the historical-critical method of biblical study, realizing that Scripture was formed over time by particular communities in very unique settings, quite different from our own. Thus, the meaning and contemporary relevance of the sacred text issues, in some degree, from our understanding of its original theological perspective and setting in life. Nonetheless, honoring the ancient practice of midrash, the continuing exploration of the inexhaustible riches contained in the scriptures can be brought to ever-increasing depths within “the ongoing life of the community which preserves those traditions and in some sense finds its identity in them.” Such participation in the historic memory of a living tradition is the operative basis for this inquiry.
Additionally, critical analysis of both biblical and historical text recognizes that a multiplicity of perspectives—theological, political, ideological, personal—have influenced the construction of its narrative, and influence our reading. It is within these varying perspectives that the story of the past becomes our story in a living anamnesis, shaped by and shaping our present, guiding us onward into the future. This work attempts to plot a roadmap—the story of the “house of prayer”—without mistaking it for the territory to be explored. The territory remains, vast and sweeping, for its newest explorers.