Patristics and Reform: Thomas Rattray and The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem

Abstract

In reforming Christian worship radical change often follows from the attempt to restore what was ancient. Nowhere is this more clear than among the liturgical scholars of the early seventeenth century, when advances in critical scholarship made it possible for some to believe they could restore the Church’s worship to that of apostolic times. This is well illustrated in the work of Thomas Rattray (1684-1743), a Scot of great learning, and among Scottish Episcopalians of lasting influence. Rattray was a Non-juror, one of those expelled or withdrawn from the churches of England and Scotland after 1689 for refusing obedience to the new regime. They pinned their hopes, and the survival of what they perceived as the true Catholic Faith, on the Roman Catholic House of Stuart in exile in France. Their hopes perished in blood on the field of Culloden in 1746. That was three years after Rattray’s death. The Episcopalians hold Rattray’s name in honour, both because of the part he played in fixing their Church’s constitution, and because of one book of learning and ingenuity, called The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem.