Matthew S.C. Olver: When praying shapes not the believing: Ambrose and Chrysostom as test cases for the tension between liturgy and theology

The appeal to lex orandi, lex credendi and to liturgy as primary theology are often made without recourse to particular liturgical rites and corresponding theologians. Thus, these claims deserve to be tested with particular historical instances. This paper will examine two key examples: Ambrose and John Chrysostom. With both, there is substantial evidence of their eucharistic theology (Ambrose in his mystagogies and Chrysostom in his preaching) alongside the text of the anaphoras that they used (the text Ambrose reproduces in De sacramentis and Chrysostom’s eponymous anaphora). I will show that for both figures there is a tension between aspects of their eucharistic theology and their anaphoras, which raises questions about the degree to which they treated their respective anaphoras as primary theological sources for their secondary reflection.