These approaches each have their merits and drawbacks. However, this study seeks to address a different set of questions and problems. While Theodore’s catechesis does indeed provide considerable detail regarding the form and content of the liturgy in Antioch at the end of the fourth century, this was by no means his purpose in preaching. To be sure, the catechist did want to communicate these things to his students, but his aim in doing so was always to guide them in their experience of liturgy. His extended descriptions of each liturgical moment and consistent application of vivid language to these rites aimed to create the appropriate emotional response among his audience. Chapter four detailed the ways in which Theodore devoted the early sermons of his catechesis to a detailed explanation of the theological content of the creed. It is as if his words on the subject still hung in the air when he took up the teaching of the liturgy in the latter half of his catechetical curriculum. In initiating the catechumens into the mysteries of the Christian church, Theodore repeatedly emphasized the way in which each physical component of the liturgy was pregnant with theological meaning and how its performance brought one into contact with a heavenly reality.

Bell’s approach to ritual has been very influential among ritual theorists, since it provides a way to understand ritual on its own terms rather than as a practice that points to a set of ideas that often vary markedly between different practitioners of the same rites. Our concern with Theodore’s pedagogy, however, presents some difficulties for the application of Bell’s ideas. Theodore clearly did not think in Bell’s terms. Indeed Bell argues that ritualized actors generally do not understand how ritual does what it does. Furthermore, Theodore taught the liturgy in order to insure that the catechumens understood what the rites meant, that they would think rightly about their ritual actions. Just as Theodore never separated theological profession from the believing community, he also never separated ritual action from ritual thought. In other words, Theodore’s theory of ritual and the liturgical pedagogy that flows from it assumes the very dichotomy Bell aims to dismantle. Nevertheless, Bell’s discussion of ritual contributes to our understanding of the role of ritual in these sermons and in the process of Christianization and conversion. The ritualized actions of baptism and the eucharist, as well as Theodore’s teaching on these subjects, fit into the matrix of community and creedal theology we have been considering. Performing the rituals of the confessing community established the community, reinforced its hierarchy, and played a critical role in expressing what it meant to be an initiated Christian. Theodore’s teaching of the liturgy from his position within the hierarchy of the church reinforced the community and the clergy as authoritative experts in the prevailing outlook of the community.

Theodore’s sermons apply many of these techniques in order to engage the catechumens with a vivid interpretation of what he wanted them to see as a totally new Christian life. Theodore structured these sermons to introduce the catechumens to the full range of the experience they were about to have but also took great pains to instruct them in the appropriate way to engage with these experiences intellectually and emotionally. The candidate was about to take part in a divine drama. Whether in baptism or the eucharist, he or she would witness firsthand and for the first time the priestly services. These liturgical services were supposed to express profound realities, and Theodore wanted to ensure that his pupils missed nothing. The candidates needed to know the stages of the rituals and their place in them. He instructed them about each component of the ritual experience: the registrar of baptism, the deacons, the priest, the font, the table, and the elements of the ritual meal, unpacking the significance of each of these, its appearance or dress, its physical nature, and the spiritual reality to which it corresponded. He also taught the catechumens their place in this liturgical drama. One cannot miss Theodore’s profound conviction that catechumens needed instruction in worship. He taught them about their own posture, dress, and actions. He even treated the mental, emotional, and ethical states appropriate for the catechumens.

Theodore used these five sermons to guide his pupils through the many aspects of the liturgies they were about to experience. This chapter seeks to capture his concern for such a holistic introduction to liturgy. When the catechumens took part in the liturgies, he wanted them to know that they performed theological truths and experienced these truths as physically manifest in their bodies. Theodore did not leave the recognition of this process to chance; he never assumed that a spontaneous response to Christian teaching and liturgy would be a proper response. He took pains to insure that ritual performance had its proper impact on the catechumen. Where the sermons on the Nicene Creed had taught the catechumens how they should believe in God, these five sermons present Theodore’s attempt to teach them how to experience God.

One aspect of the liturgical experience that deserves special attention pertains to the roles of the various clerics involved in the administration of the sacraments. The consecrated water, bread, and wine did not exhaust the symbols of the two liturgies. The officiating churchmen also fulfilled important symbolic functions in the course of the liturgies. Theodore invested their physical presence and appearance with great meaning. Their actions at the baptismal font or before the eucharist portrayed to all witnesses a heavenly reality that he urged the catechumens to recognize.

Thus far we have focused primarily on the passive experience of the catechumens. To press the metaphor of drama a bit further, we have seen the catechumens as the audience of a liturgical drama in which clerical actors with sacramental props put on an elaborate production choreographed by Christ for the purpose of reflecting a heavenly reality. However, the catechumens were not properly an audience to this cosmic drama. Rather, insofar as it was designed to incorporate them into the church and initiate them into its mysteries, it required the catechumens to participate. As actors alongside the clergy, they had their own roles to play. This section focuses more precisely on the catechumens as participants in these liturgies. We will turn here to the variety of ways in which catechumens participated physically in these rites.

Into these few simple gestures of the catechumens, Theodore imported the whole of baptismal symbolism and Trinitarian doctrine. The gestures performed in the baptismal font constituted the assent of the catechumens to these ideas as well as their initiation into the faith. The gestures associated with the eucharistic liturgy, the rite that sustained Christians in the faith, also functioned similarly. We have seen the elaborate symbols of the eucharist and how the catechist presented them to his students. The catechumens really only performed one simple act in this context: they ate the bread and drank the wine. Again, Theodore’s lengthy description of this meal, its depth and varieties of meaning, and the heavenly reality to which it pointed all culminated in the act of consuming the elements. At this point, the catechumens were to enter into that heavenly reality and take their place alongside the priests and deacons at the heavenly meal attended by Christ the high priest and his angels. Unlike exorcism and baptism, the gesture performed by the candidates in the eucharist would not serve as a constitutive element of the rite, but rather the rite would even go on without any individual parishioner being in attendance. Nevertheless, Theodore’s approach to liturgical action stressed the participation of the catechumens as actors on a stage of cosmic significance when they partook of the eucharistic elements.

Thus the clothing of the catechumens served primarily to denote the spiritual reality reflected in their actions. It joined words and gestures in the exorcism to declare the great need they had to rid themselves of satanic dominion and associate themselves with Christ. The orarium denoted the freedom from Satan acquired through exorcism. The nudity of the baptismal font reinforced the catechumens’ stated need for salvation, and their white robes held out the promise of heavenly fulfillment of divine promise. At each stage, the attire of the catechumens served as a reminder to themselves of these realities. As they removed and added clothing, they acted out the realities that lay behind the sacramental rite in which they engaged.

Theodore presented to his catechumens a liturgical experience designed to affect the entirety of who they were as persons. In the course of the liturgy, the catechumens would speak words, perform actions, and adopt gestures that would transform them physically, mentally, and spiritually into Christians. Theodore’s teaching on the Creed had presented to the catechumens the cognitive content of the faith. However, in their experience of the baptismal and eucharistic liturgies, they were actually to realize those truths. There the catechumens would declare their sinful state along with their intention to associate themselves with Christ. Their gestures and the posture of their bodies would likewise assert these things as truths that they had appropriated. Furthermore, they would be initiated into a lifelong experience of nourishing themselves on the eucharistic meal. The drama of the eucharistic liturgy portrayed spiritual realities that the catechumens would perform. This participation served to keep their minds focused on the things of Christ and his perpetual work on behalf of his people. Thus, throughout their liturgical experience, the actions of the catechumens were supposed to recall and cement the ideas that they had been taught. Theodore’s instruction showed a deep concern to link ideas with actions and concentration on theological truths with the performance of those truths.