Incense

JEFFREY B. PETTIS

The word incense comes from the Latin incendere, “to burn.” According to Exodus 37.29 incense (Hebrew, qtrt; Greek, thymiama) consists of sweet spices made by an apothecary or skilled perfumer. In ancient Judaism the main ingredient for incense was frankincense or olibanum, a whitish resin from southern Arabia (see Pliny, Natural History xii.14; Jer. 11.20; Isa. 60.6). Other ingredients might include a combination of gum resins including stacte, onycha, and galbanum (Ex. 30.34–35). Although burning incense was seen as a domestic luxury in ancient Israel, and sold by specialist perfume merchants (Song of Songs 3.6; 4.6, 14), incense had a particular liturgical use in the Temple as an offering to atone for the people’s sins and propitiate the wrath of God (Num. 26.46–48; cf. Lev. 16.12–13; cf. Ps. 141). In this sense it was distinguished as being sacred and “holy for the Lord” (Ex. 30.37). Incense was burned in portable censers in the Tent of Meeting (Lev. 10.1; 16.12) and later the altar before the Holy of Holies in the Temple was used (Ex. 40.26; 1 Kings 7.48). Only the High Priest burned incense, in the morning and in the evening (Ex. 30.7–8). The scripture recounts the improper making and use of incense (referred to as “strange fire”) as exacting the divine wrath (Num. 10.1–2).

In the New Testament references to incense are predominantly connected with prayer and the concept of prayer arising like incense (see Psalm 141.2, which is used in the Orthodox Vesperal service at the time of the incensing of the church). Zechariah enters the Temple of the Lord “praying in the sixth hour of the incense offering [thumiamatos]” (Luke 1.9–10). The use of incense in the funeral procession of St. Peter of Alexandria in 311 represents one of the earliest attestations in Christian liturgical practice. Earlier Greek Christian writers tended to frown upon it because of its associations with the veneration of the pagan gods (Tertullian, Apologeticus 42; cf. 30; Athenagoras, Supplication for the Christians 42). Its use in the West is attested only after the 9th century. In the Eastern Church the incensing of the altar, church, people, etc. is recorded in the 5th century by Dionysius the Pseudo- Areopagite. He explains how it symbolizes prayer and occurs as an invariable accompaniment to Orthodox services. The priestly prayer of blessing which precedes every burning of incense in church reads: “Incense we offer to Thee, O Christ our God, do Thou receive it on Thy heavenly throne, and send down on us in return the grace of Thy all-holy Spirit.” The prayer of incensing in the Presanctified liturgy also expresses the similar thought from Psalm 141: “Let my prayer be directed to Thee as Incense before Thy presence.”

All the divine liturgies of the Orthodox Church are now accompanied by several formal incensings of the altar, the holy gifts, the gospel book, the icons, and the people. When the deacon or priest conducts the incensings of the church they recite Psalm 50, the penitential psalm, thus demonstrating a symbolic connection with all the biblical strands: an ascentive offering of prayer, a petition for the aversion of the wrath of God, and the offering of honor to various forms of the Imago Dei. Orthodox censers are used with chains that (in Greek practice) have 12 bells attached (symbolizing the 12 apostles) whose joyful sounds represent the transmission of the Good News. In Lent a hand-held silent form of censer is used (katzio).Ortho- dox laity never use the censer in church, its employment being reserved to the ordained: the bishops, priests, or deacons. At home, however, a hand-held censer is often used by the laity in the censing of domestic icons.