This introduction to the history of Western liturgy is a translation of Marcel Metzger’s recently updated Histoire de la liturgie. Les grandes étapes. The first French edition appeared in 1994, followed by an English translation in 1997. With the arrival of the updated and expanded French edition in 2024, Madeleine Beaumont (the original translator) has collaborated with Barry Hudock to produce the present English-language version.

The updated edition begins with a foreword, explaining the author’s aim to maintain the introductory character of the book, while adding new information and insights, providing a chapter on the liturgical movement, and updating the translations of primary sources (a change imitated in the English translation). Other changes include a switch from endnotes to footnotes, clearer formatting of subheadings, a smoother introduction of quotes and the occasional rearrangement of the text to present the narrative more effectively.

After an introductory chapter on the historical study of liturgy, six chapters cover the chronological development of the Latin rite from the New Testament to the present day. Most chapters follow a similar outline: first, important liturgical sources are introduced, and then key topics are covered – the liturgical assembly, the Eucharist, baptism, ordained ministries, marriage, reconciliation, sacraments of healing, daily prayer, the liturgical year, funerals and devotion to the saints. Each chapter includes citations from ancient and medieval sources, sometimes quoted at length.

While in many places the text of the original translation is unaltered, there are substantial additions and modifications in this revised edition. Chapter iii, for example, includes new information about the Apostolic tradition, the liturgical theology of Justin Martyr, and reconciliation in the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas. Chapters vi and vii, meanwhile, contain the fullest articulation of Metzger’s interpretation of the historical development of Western liturgy (largely in continuity with that found in the first edition). Chapter vi now includes a detailed summary of the transformation of the Western Church into a clerical society, and a section on the ‘Instrumentalization of the sacraments’ in the second millennium, summarised as a ‘utilitarian logic’ that displaced reception of the Eucharist as the basis of a relationship with the celebration of the Mass as a means of grace. In chapter vii, on the liturgical movement and developments leading up to Vatican II, Metzger describes the personalities, institutions and papal initiatives of this period as part of a renewed recognition of the liturgy as the privileged source of Christian piety.

Throughout the book, Metzger introduces readers to methodological issues, such as the need to avoid projecting the preoccupations and usages of a subsequent era into the past, and the importance of oral tradition and institutional autonomy in the first Christian centuries. Fundamentally, however, his method is theological and pastoral, given his conviction that Christian liturgy must correspond to the will of Christ (p. 9) and his regular appeals to the movement of the Holy Spirit that allows for the liturgy to be experienced, understood and, when necessary, adapted by the Church (pp. 6, 205, passim).

Metzger’s own interpretation is summarised in his introduction to chapter vi, where he criticises both the vision of sacramental/liturgical practice in The seven sacraments altarpiece (painted by Rogier van der Weyden in the fifteenth century) and the inclusion of this image in a Vatican reprint of the Catechism of the Catholic Church published in the early 2000s. The history of Latin liturgy in the second millennium is thus ‘a long period of decline’ (p. 8), characterised by the neglect of the liturgy as a source of authentic spirituality, an understanding of the sacraments divorced from their liturgical context, and a marginalisation of the assembly. Much in this analysis follows from the evidence that Metzger presents, but sometimes the reader might wonder how much of the Western liturgical heritage is open for re-evaluation, especially given statements elsewhere in the book in favour of tradition and continuity. Consider, for example, the author’s cool attitude towards Mass propers of the contemporary Roman missal which originate in a fifth-century controversy involving Pope Gallasius and the pagan Roman festival of Lupercalia (p. 115): given that most liturgical formulae, both East and West, date back centuries, if not millennia, the reader is left wondering why these prayers in particular are ill-suited for use today.

Metzger’s introduction combines brevity with considerable breadth, and quotes key sources, often at length, allowing the texts to speak for themselves. As a classroom textbook, History of the liturgy would be better suited to graduate than undergraduate students: some terminology will be difficult for a novice reader to grasp. The presentation of Christian history in the context of the broad vistas of Western civilisation may also require more familiarity with historical and cultural context than many modern undergraduates possess. On the other hand, the absence of a bibliography (found in the first edition), the uneven character of the footnotes (those added in the new edition are mostly intended to address specific points, rather than to broaden the scope for further reading) and the inconsistent updates of primary source translations (for example, Cyril of Jerusalem is still quoted from a 1977 version, despite the appearance of more recent English translations) all suggest that this text would be best read alongside one or two other introductory works. In such circumstances, the new edition will furnish a good overview of the history of the Latin rite that argues for the consistency of the reforms following Vatican II with the broad sweep of Christian history, alongside a conviction that the liturgy was and remains a source of authentic spirituality.