The Sacramentary SACRAMENTORUM) (LIBER Historical & Liturgical Notes on the Homan ^Missal BY ILDEFONSO SCHUSTER Abbot of the {Monastery of St Taut's Without the Walls. from the Italian by Translated ARTHUR LEVELIS-MARKE, M.A. VOLUME I (Parts i and 2) .7 .ΛI ■ LONDON BURNS OATES & WASHBOURNE LTD. PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY SEE I924 CHRIST THE KING SEMINARY LIBR exfz /343? NIHIL OBSTAT: Fr. INNOCENTIUS APAP, S.Th.M., O.P. Censor Deputatus. IMPRIMATUR: EDM. CAN. SURMONT, Vicarius Generalis. Wbstmonasterii, die 20» Octobris, 1924. ■Vade and Printed in Great Britain PREFACE *"^ΗΕ5Ε hasty notes were originally intended by ' me for the limited circle of my own pupils, whether at the Pontifical Higher School of Sacred Music, or later at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. In thus yielding to the persuasion of influential persons desirous of a wider field for my efforts, I have, in giving them to the Press, no other end in view save that of sharing with devout and studious souls, especially among my brother-priests, whatever sentiments of faith and reverence our Lord may have deigned to grant me, his unworthy servant, in the course of my daily meditation on the Roman Missal. It has not been my wish either to write a book exclusively for the learned, or to compose a mere manual of piety. The whole of theology will be found contained in the revered and time-honoured Roman formulas of the holy Sacrifice ; and faith, moreover, reminds me that our divine Saviour has constituted the Church to be the depositary of the mystical science of prayer, and has given her, through the unspeakable groanings of the Spirit, the key to the very heart of God himself. Omnipotentia supplex! I have, therefore, guarded against analyzing the eucharistie formularies with that critical indifference which would fail to estimate at its true value the venerable antiquity of the documents under con­ sideration. Rather have I approached their study with the fearful reverence of the believer, who feels, in those sublime pages, the heart-beat of a thousand generations of martyrs, doctors, and saints, who have not alone conceived nor merelyrecited the words they contain, but have actually experienced them in their own lives. It is a fact without doubt that the Roman Missal represents in its entirety the loftiest and most important work in eccle­ siastical literature, being that which shows forth with the greatest fidelity the life-history of the Church, that sacred poem in the making of which ha posto mano e cielo e terra.1 To bring out clearly the subject-matter in its historical and archaeological aspect, by rapid but accurate touches, to illus­ trate it by expressive comparisons, to point out the theo­ logical authority for its most important statements, whilst Ί 1 Dante, Paradiso, xxv, 1-2.—Tst. V CHRIST THE KIN’S SF?. I-· LIWV ;γ vi The Sacramentary at the same time drawing attention to the artistic beauty of its mystical aspect—such has been the aim that I have ever kept in view. Some would, perhaps, have wished me to be less concise, preferring a full exposition and commentary to a work of private study and spiritual preparation for the intelligent recitation of the prayers in the Missal—Psallam spiritu, psallam et mente, as says St Paul. This was likewise my own original idea, but 1 had to condense my scheme when, with barely a third of the work completed, our Lord thought fit to call me away from books and libraries to take up the pastoral rule of this ancient and world-renowned church, which, in place of the pen, now claims the whole of my strength. The notes which follow represent, conse­ quently, but the scanty fruit of those rare moments of leisure that a shepherd of souls may find at his disposal. Yet the wishes expressed by friend and disciple alike will, I trust, in some measure be satisfied by the publication of this Liber Sacramentorum, and in dedicating it to them in particular I will make my own the prayer of that great Apostle near whose sacred tomb its teachings were first uttered : Et nunc commendo vos Deo et verbo gratiae ipsius, qui potens est aedificare et dare hereditatem in sanctificatis omnibus (Acts xx, 32). t ILDEFONSO, Abbot and Ordinary. Patriarchal Basilica of St Paul, Rome, in Natali Apostolorum, 1919. CONTENTS PAGE v Preface ......... PART I SONGS OF ZION BESIDE THE WATERS OF REDEMPTION (GENERAL CONCEPTIONS OF SACRED LITURGY) CHAPTER I. The Sacred Liturgy : Its Divisions and Sources II. Christian Initiation - - - - - III. Ecclesiastical Prayer in the Early Church - - 3 12 - 26 IV. The Historical Setting of St Gregory’s Reform of the Roman Liturgy - 39 V. “ Fractio Panis ” - - - · 53 - - 66 - - 72 VIII. The Part of the Lateran Musical “ Schola ” in the Development of the Roman Liturgy - 78 IX. Sinners and Penitents under Ancient Ecclesiastical Discipline · 116 - - - VI. The Papal Mass at the Roman Stations VII. Poetry and Music in the Eucharistic Synaxis X. Holy Orders - - - - - .126 - XI. The Consecration of Basilicas in Early Christian Times XII. Sacred Art in the House of God 136 - - - - 161 . . . - 173 XIV. The Church’s Consecration of States and Rulers - 180 XIII. Religious Consecration XV. The Nuptial Blessing - - . XVI. The Liturgy on the Threshold of Eternity vn . . - -190 198 vi i i The Sacramentary PART II THE INAUGURATION OF THE KINGDOM OF THE MESSIAH INTRODUCTION PAGH Chapter I. Hierarchy and Worship in Rome in the Early Centuries of Christianity -an „ IL The Roman Calendar - 230 „ III. The Origin and Evolution of the “ Ordinarium Missae 262 THE SACRED LITURGY FROM ADVENT TO SEPTUAGESIMA First Sunday of Advent : Station at St Mary Major - - 319 Second Sunday of Advent: Station at Holy Cross in Jeru­ salem ........ 323 Third Sunday of Advent : Station at St Peter’s - 325 - Wednesday in Emder Week : Collecta at the Title of Eudoxia. Station at St Mary Major ..... 329 Friday in Ember Week: Collecta at St Mark’s. Station at the Twelve Holy Apostles ..... 333 Saturday in Ember Week : Station at St Peter’s - - 337 Fourth Sunday of Advent : Station at the Twelve Holy Apostles ....... . Christmas Eve·. Station at St Mary Major - - 356 - Christmas Day : The First Mass—at Midnight. ad Praesepe . Station at St Mary . . - 361 . The Second Mass—at Dawn. Station at St Anastasia 368 The Third Mass—in Daylight. Station at St Mary Major (at St Peter’s) ..... 3^ St Stephen the Protomartyr : Station at St Stephen’s on the Ccelian Hill ....... St John, Apostle and Evangelist: Station at St Mary Major 38, The Holy Innocents : Station at St Paul’s - . . ,0. Contents IX PACS Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity - December 29. St Thomas of Canterbury, Bishop and December 31. St Sylvester, Pope the Cemetery of Priscilla and . - 388 Martyr - 391 Confessor : Station at 393 - January i. Octave of our Lord : Station at St Mary in Trastevere ........ 395 January 2. Octave of St Stephen - - - - . January 3. Octave of St John - - - . -398 January 4. Octave of the Holy Innocents - . January 5. Vigil of the Epiphany : Station at St Peter’s January 6. The Epiphany of our 398 . 398 - 399 Lord : Station at St Peter’s 400 Sunday within the Octave of the Epiphany : Station at the Title of Pammachius ...... 405 Octave of the Epiphany ...... 408 Second Sunday after the Epiphany : Station at St Eusebius - 409 Third Sunday after the Epiphany - Fourth Sunday after the - . - - 412 Epiphany ..... 414 Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany ..... 415 Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany ..... 416 PART I SONGS OF ZION BESIDE THE WATERS OF REDEMPTION (GENERAL CONCEPTIONS OF SACRED LITURGY) I CHAPTER I THE SACRED LITURGY : ITS DIVISIONS AND SOURCES HE sacred Liturgy, in its widest sense, has for its objective the religious and supernatural polity of Christianity in its various expressions, whether sacramental, euchological, ritual, literary or artistic. It embraces, therefore, as in a vast combination, the highest efforts of the human mind to grasp and express that which is indescribable and divine. Nor is this all. As children of the Catholic Church, and heirs of the truths revealed to the former patriarchs and prophets of Israel, our religious polity not only dates in its fundamental principles from before the coming of the Son of God, but is many centuries older than the oldest civilizations recorded in history, and by this fact alone commands the respect and veneration of the learned. Indeed, it is im­ possible to speak of its origin as merely natural and human, both because the dogmatic clement in Christianity emanates from a direct and positive divine revelation, and because the life and action of the Church are derived from the Spirit of Christ, which dwells and works within her. The Church’s Liturgy may, therefore, be considered as a sacred poem, in the framing of which both heaven and earth have taken part, and by which our humanity, redeemed in the blood of the Lamb without spot, rises on the wings of the Spirit even unto the throne of God himself. This is more than a mere aspiration, for the sacred Liturgy not only shows forth and expresses the ineffable and the divine, but also, by means of the sacraments and of its forms of prayer, develops and fulfils the supernatural in the souls of the faithful, to whom it communicates the grace of redemption. It may even be said that the very source of the holiness of the Church is fully contained in her Liturgy ; for, without the holy sacraments, the Passion of our Lord, in the existing dispensation instituted by almighty God, would have no efficacy in us, since there would be no channels capable of conveying its treasures to our souls. The domain of liturgy is unsurpassed in range by any other science, embracing as it does the origin of man, his essential relations with his Creator, the Redemption, the sacraments, divine grace, Christian eschatology; in fact, whatever is most sublime and beautiful, most necessary and important in 3 T 4 The Sacramentary the whole world. For the sake of order, however, this vast field may be divided into various sections, each of which concerns one special aspect of Catholic worship. The division may be made thus : (a) Sacramental T (δ) Psalmody (Divine Office) Sacred Liturgy (<·) Extraordinary or Occasional Liturgy J Essential Rites S? ( Ceremonial Rites Heortology Hymnody Sacred Music Antiphonal Psalmody Responsorial Psalmody Direct Psalmody I Dedication of Churches Altars /Architecture Cemeteries ' l’a‘ndng Sacred Arts Consecration or jrgins Blessing of ‘ Abbots k Sovereigns (/i) Liturgy of the Dead As a science, sacred Liturgy has its canons, its laws, its subdivisions, in the same manner as the other sciences, especially that of dogmatic theology, to which it is closely related both in its method and in its object. It aims, in fact, at a systematic study of Christian worship, distinguishing and classifying the various liturgical forms according to the type which marks each family, arranging them in accordance with the date of their institution, examining and comparing the various types, in order to trace them back to a common origin. Thus only does it become possible to follow out the development from a single stock of liturgies apparently so unconnected as, for instance, the Roman, the Gallican, and the Mozarabic. Yet, unless this were done, we should fail to understand how it was that the unity of the faith did not have as its immediate consequence a like unity in its primitive liturgical expression ; whereas recent careful study and patient research have discovered in all liturgies, even in those which differ most from one another, a common foun­ dation. Occasionally the same idea is expressed by wholly different forms and wording ; but there is no longer room for doubt that the Eastern and Western liturgies all spring from one and the same root of great antiquity, which forms, as it were, the foundation and support of Catholic unity in religious worship. The sources from which we gain information about the sacred Liturgy are both direct and indirect. To the first category belong the ancient and modern publi­ cations of Eastern Anaphoras and of the various Latin Sacra- The Sacred Liturgy 5 mentaries. Prince Maximilian of Saxony has recently under­ taken the publication in successive parts of the different texts of the Oriental liturgies, including the Syro-Maronite, Chaldaic, Greek, Armenian, and Syro-Antiochene ; but there is no lack of good illustrative examples and annotations on almost all the Oriental liturgical books edited up to the present time.1 Among the Western sources, the Leonine, Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries call for special notice, as well as the Ordines Romani, the Missale Gothicum, the ancient Gallican Missal and the Mozarabic liturgical books. The various liturgies, taking into account their chrono­ logical development and their ethnographical relationship, may be roughly grouped as shown on p. 6. This table indicates merely the main outlines of classifica­ tion of the various liturgical families; and, in some cases, the relationships suggested have a purely approximate value, as, for instance, in deriving from the Roman all the other Latin liturgies. Particular mention should be made of the ancient Roman Sacramentaries, although they are far from giving us the actual state of the Liturgy in Rome in its primitive period, as they have all, more or less, been affected by Gallican influences in adapting them to local usage. The Gregorian Sacramcntary.—This is the title given by Pope Adrian I (784-791) to a collection of Masses said at the “ Stations,” some of which are undoubtedly anterior to the pontificate of Gregory the Great. The collection, however, contains many elements of a decidedly later date. The compiler has evidently based his work on a Sacramentary attributed to St Gregory, but as we do not know to what extent he modified the original, we should, perhaps, be more accurate in calling it after Pope Adrian I. This Sacramcntary contains only the stational Masses at which the Pope usually assisted, omitting all other feasts and solemnities to which no station was attached.3 The Gelasian Sacramentary.—This name was formerly given in France to a Roman liturgical collection, which found its way into Gaul between the years 628 and 731, long after the time of Gregory the Great, but considerably before that of Adrian I. The original Roman work, however, suffered many alterations in France, on account of which it needs to be examined with much discrimination before it can be cited as a witness to the liturgical customs of Rome before the time of Charlemagne. The introduction of the Gregorian 1 The most important work on this subject is still that of F. E Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, vol. i, Oxford 1896. 1 C/. Duchesne, Christian Worship: its Origin and Evolution, 5th ed , London 1919, pp. 120 sq. 6 The Sacramentary (α) Δίδαχΐ} lb) Epistola I. Clementis (c) Epistola S Ignatii { Second Century. ( Western Liturgies St Justin. Fragmentary 3 I Latin Palimpsest of Verona. Tertullian Third Century. Canones Hippolyti , Catecheses of St ' Cyril Apostolic Con­ stitutions1 Eastern Antiochene James (Greek) Syriac I Liturgy of St \ James (Syriac) Basil ξ Fourth Century. Liturgies John Chrysostom Greek Armenian Anaphora of Bickel (Sixth Nestorian of Century) Persia and . SS Addai and Mari Liturgy of k Mesopotamia I Anaphora of Theodore of V Mopsue Mopsuestia, of Nestorius, etc. Euchology of Serapion Alexandrine J Coptic Liturgies Latin f Roman Greek Liturgy of St Mark St Cyril of Alex- rAbyssinian andria Liturgy of the Twelve Apostles St Gregory Nazianzen St Basil I Aquileia Milanese I Ravenna Gallican Mozarabic .Celtic Sacramentary into France threatened for a time to over­ shadow the Gelasian collection, but the former, having been found wholly inadequate to the Church’s daily requirements, was amplified and enriched from that attributed to Pope 1 C/. Funk, Didascalta et Constitutiones Apostolorum, Paderborn «90S· The Sacred Liturgy 7 Gelasius, which, as a result of this fusion, has left many marks of its influence even in the Romano-French Liturgy of the present day.1 Missale Francorum.—This is represented by a single frag­ mentary uncial codex of the seventh century, originally preserved in the Abbey of St Denis, and now in the Vatican Library. The eleven Masses which it contains are all Roman in form, but the collection is not free from Gallican interpola­ tions, especially in the rubrics.1 2 The Leonine Sacramentary.—This is the fullest and most ancient of the Sacramentaries ; but, unfortunately, the very nature of the matter brought together by the compiler and the unusual disorder in its arrangement show that it could never have borne an official character. It contains, for instance, vigorous denunciations of false zealots, who sub specie gratiae deceive the simple, and insists upon the necessity of guarding against their craftiness. Some of the Masses would appear to have been inspired by the misery and anguish of the Romans whilst their city was being besieged by the Ostrogoths (537-539), and one of the collects for the dead has reference to the burial of Pope Simplicius (died 483). In any case, the collection is prior to the time of St Gregory, and seems to be the only Roman source untainted by extraneous additions. Perhaps the fortunate preservation of this text is due to the strictly private nature of the collection, which was therefore kept wholly within the confines of the basilica or titular church for which it was destined. The material collected by the compiler has every mark of authenticity, but the hypothesis is not to be dis­ missed that the collection, as a whole, never had an official character nor any practical aim, for the very reason that it was never actually brought into use. According to some authorities, the compiler had in view merely the literary interest of the contents.3 The Ravenna Roll.—The document bearing this name is an opistographical scroll in large uncial characters which belonged, in all probability, to the metropolitan archives of Ravenna. It contains in all forty prayers of the Roman type in preparation for Christmas, but it is extremely difficult to 1 C/. Duchesne, Christian Worship, 5U1 ed., pp. 125 sq. 'lop.cit.,pp.i2,^sq. 3 This Sacramentary was first published by Bianchini from an uncial codex of the seventh century, preserved in the Chapter Library of Verona {Liber Pontifical., vol. iv). Muratori re-edited it in Liturgia Romana vetus I ; but the brothers Balleriui brought out later a more correct edition, which is reproduced in Migne, P.L., vol. Iv. An ex­ cellent edition is that recently published by Feltoe, Saeramentarxum Leonianum, Cambridge Univ. Press 1S96. Cf. Duchesne, of. at.. PP· »35 '?· 8 The Sacramentary determine their date, which might be as early as the time of St Peter Chrysologus.1 Ordines Romani.—-These form a very important collection of ceremonials of various periods, enabling us to follow, step by step, the development of the papal liturgy in Rome’from the eighth to the fifteenth century. The first of these Ordines, which is the most ancient, appears to date from the eighth century, but not all the matter which it contains is of the same period, nor has it the same right to be considered exclusively Roman. As in the case of the Sacramcntaries, so here, when introduced into other episcopal secs, these forms become modified and are adapted to local usage, without maintaining any further connection with that development which the Liturgy was continuing to show even in Rome itself. Thus we read of the curious case of Amalarius,12 who, after having recognized the authority of the Ordo Romanus as unquestioned, found, to his great amazement, on the occasion of his journey to Rome in 832, that the clergy there were completely ignorant of the very existence of the said Ordo.3 The most important documents of the Gallican Liturgy are the Missale Gothicum of the Church of Autun, dating from the end of the seventh century;4 the Missale Gallicanum vetus of the same period ;5 the eleven Masses discovered by Mone in a palimpsest of 760-781, formerly belonging to John II, Bishop of Constance;6 the Lectionary of Luxeuil (seventh century) ; the Homilies of St Germanus of Paris; and the Missal of Bobbio (seventh century). The Spanish or Mozarabic Liturgy has left us a greater number of documents, but these have not yet all been published. Dom Morin brought out in 1893 the Liber Comicus or Comes, containing the lessons of the Mass with very important rubrics. Dom Férotin has published the Liber Ordinum, a kind of prayer-book or ritual ; but a careful study of the Sacramentary and Antiphonary is still required, for the Mozarabic rite, as revived in the fifteenth century by Cardinal Ximenes for use in a chapel of the Cathedral of Toledo, contains many additions borrowed from the Roman Liturgy ; consequently the Mozarabic Missal and 1 It was first edited bv Ceriani : 7/ rotolo opistografo del -principe Antonio Pio di Savoia, Milan 1883. Later this article was republished in Archiv. Stor. Lombardo, 1884, vol. i sq. • Amalarius Fortunatus, Bp. of Treves, ob. 846.—Tb. • Duchesne, op. cit., 146 sq. 4 C/. Delisle in Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, Part 1, vol xxxii, in which the author has collected and catalogued all the Latin Sacramentaries known to him. 1 Cf. Duchesne, op. cit., pp. 152 r?. • Mone, Lateinische und griechische Messen aus dem ttveiten bts sechsten Jahrhundert, Frankfurt 1850; P.L., vol. cxxxviii, 863. The Sacred Liturgy 9 Breviary reproduced by Migne in his Latin Patrology (vol. Ixxxv) are of no real scientific use. The Liturgy of Milan, too, has its own documentary sources, among which the most important are the tenth­ century Sacramentary of Biasca and that of Bergamo of the eleventh. The monks of Solesmes have brought out an Ambrosian Antiphonary accompanied by a minute and ex­ haustive treatise by Cagin. Magistretti also has published the Beroldus of the twelfth century, showing the great historical and liturgical importance of these collections of ceremonial usages, recalling as they do the Ordines Romani. Lastly, Ceriani edited the ancient text of the Ambrosian Missal, and since his death, Magistretti and Ratti,1 con­ tinuing the work of the great master, have completed the materials for a critical study of that most precious heirloom of the Church of Milan. Regarding the word “ Missal,” it should be noted that this name, as well as the liturgical work thus designated, dates only from the Middle Ages, towards the Carlovingian period. The faithful of earlier times were acquainted with the Sacramentaries, but these correspond as to their contents in part only to the Missale plenarium. In order to understand the question more clearly, it is necessary to bear in mind the special character of religious worship in the primitive Church. Unlike modern Christians, who are content in church to unite their intention with that of the priest, without understanding the words of the prayer, the ancient Christians were desirous that the actio should be truly shared by all, and be eminently dramatic, so that not only the bishop, but the priests, deacons, and other clergy, the singers and the people should have their own distinct parts to perform. From this arose the necessity of having separate texts for these various parts. Thus, while the bishop or the priest had for his use the Liber Sacramentorum, the soloist would have the Responsorial, the pupils of the schola their Antiphonary, the sub-deacon his Epistolarium, and so on. The Sacramentary, or Liber Sacramentorum, therefore, contained all the prayers to be recited by the bishop or by the priest, not only in the Mass, but in the administration of all the other sacraments, which were, in fact, intimately con­ nected with the eucharistie actio. Thus the forms for the administration of Baptism and of Confirmation were part of the liturgy of Easter Eve; those of Absolution were contained in the rites for reconciling penitents on Maundy Thursday. The prayers in that of Extreme Unction followed the Absolu­ tion of the Sick ad succurrendum before the Mass and the 1 Now Pope Pius XI. io The Sacramentary Viaticum ; the rites of Ordination were contained in the ceremonies of the nocturnal Station at St Peter’s on Ember Saturday, while the nuptial benediction was to be found in a sort of appendix containing the Masses for special occasions —e.g., marriages, funerals, the dedication of churches, the anniversaries of the consecration of bishops and priests, etc. The whole is so intimately linked together and disposed in such order as to show, even in its bibliographical arrange­ ment, that the holy Eucharist is the true centre of Christian worship, whereby all the other sacraments are co-ordinated with it, either by preparing the soul to receive it worthily, or by preserving the grace conferred by it. Consequently all those parts of the service intended for the minor orders of ministers, such as introits, lessons, antiphons, and graduais, were excluded from the Sacramentary, which comprised, on the other hand, all those which are used by the priest in the administration of the sacraments, and are now scattered through the Missal, the Pontifical, and the Roman Ritual. In such manner did the Sacramentary completely justify its ancient title of Liber Sacramentorum. This system, however, though possible in Rome and in other metropolitan churches, where a special place was set apart in the sanctuary for the liturgical codices, in order to have them close at hand, presented grave difficulties in country parishes and in churches where, for want of clergy and of funds, the Roman stational liturgy had been reduced to its most simple expression. We can well imagine the case of a poor country priest, somewhat advanced in years, assisted only by three or four fidgety boys acting as lectores. He would require an entire library for the celebration of Mass—to wit, the Sacra­ mentary, the book of the Gospels, that of the Epistles, the Antiphonary, the Responsorial ; and would, moreover, have the trouble of searching through the collection in order to find the collects, the scriptural readings, the proper chants; in a word, the various parts required in the service. The simplest solution of his difficulties would have been to com­ bine all these compilations into one, by copying out for each day at full length the entire Mass belonging to the different feasts of the year. This is the origin of the Missalc plenarium of the Carlovingian epoch. It was entitled plenarium because, unlike the early Sacramentaries, it contained the whole of the eucharistie liturgy, without the need of employing any other book. When we compare the Missal in use in our churches since the Tridentine reform with the medieval Missal and with the Gregorian Sacramentary, the difference is by no means funda­ mental. Ours is richer and more varied in the proper of the The Sacred Liturgy n Saints, but the stational Masses of the Sunday, of Advent, of Lent, and of the saints’ days comprised in the Sacra­ mentary of St Gregory are, with few exceptions, almost identical. We can, therefore, say that our eucharistie codex, taking into account the natural development con­ tinued through several centuries of existence, is the same in substance as that used by the great doctors of the Church in the Middle Ages, under the name of Gregory the Great. We have said that it is in substance the same, but by this we do not mean that there is an absolute identity. Altera­ tions and additions have been made, the greater number of them before the time of the Council of Trent; but, happily, the severe standard of liturgical reform which inspired the Popes of the latter half of the sixteenth century purified the Roman Missal of many additions, tropes, sequences, collects and Masses of the later Middle Ages, which detracted from the harmony of the marvellous liturgical structure erected by the Popes who ruled from the fourth to the eighth century. The Masses of the auxiliatorum were suppressed, together with those for the judgements of God, as also the custom of celebrating on Sundays the Mass de Trinitate in place of the proper of the Sunday. There were further abolished the festivals of fools, of asses, etc., and other grotesque abuses which had crept into the sanctuary. Some valuable material, however, which might perhaps have been reintroduced was omitted, owing, no doubt, to the want of documents at the disposal of the liturgists of the sixteenth century. Thus among the gaps in the Missal of to-day we deplore the suppression of the various prefaces in which both the Leonine and Gregorian Sacramcntaries were so rich ; so much so that each feast in the year, and each Sunday of special importance, had its own proper preface. The Middle Ages, in order to economize time and paper, had too readily cast away all this Roman accumulation, barely retaining some ten or twelve special prefaces for Lent, Easter, Pentecost, etc., while the praefatio communis still in daily use sufficed for all other occasions. May we be permitted to hope that in some future revision of the Missal the supreme authority will restore to its former place of honour this venerable and beautiful portion of the liturgical treasure bequeathed to us by SS Leo, Gelasius, and Gregory the Great? It is true that primitive Roman tradition showed itself somewhat adverse from admitting into the actual Canon Missae all those changing and variable portions which found so much favour with the Gallican mind ; but it is certain that the tradition of the prefaces proper to the feast dates back in Rome at least as far as the time of Leo I. CHAPTER II CHRISTIAN INITIATION APTISM is not merely a form by which one is admitted to the fellowship of the faithful, but is the sacrament which contains and confers on the soul supernatural life itself. Wherefore, whatever may be the degree of holiness to which that soul is eventually raised by God, whatever spiritual gifts may after wards adorn it, these graces will only develop and confirm in it the pristine sanctity infused by the sacrament of Baptism. As the tree is virtually contained in the seed, so Baptism is the very life of the Christian soul. It is the chaste and fruitful womb of holy Mother Church, in which she conceives and brings forth for Christ all the peoples of the earth. A clear understanding of this is necessary in order to raise our minds to the sublime ideal which inspired the rites that we are about to describe. By grasping their spiritual sense we shall be better able to comprehend the mind of those men of true genius, those builders of an earlier age, who raised the grand baptisteries of the Lateran, of Ravenna, Pisa, Florence, Siena and many other cities of Italy. From the very earliest dawn of Christianity initiation into the Faith has comprised two distinct rites—Baptism and the infusion of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. The administration of the latter sacrament was ordinarily reserved to the Apostles and to the heads of the Christian communities, whereas Baptism could be conferred by a deacon or even by one of the laity. Our earliest sources of information do not describe, it is true, the discipline of the catechumens as we find it fully practised in the third century, but the very nature of things leads us to suppose that, even from the beginning, there must have been a special rule for those who, whilst preparing for Christian Baptism, could not yet be partakers of the holy sacraments. A period of instruction must certainly have preceded such a final conversion as the ancients justly defined Baptism to be; and, as the Διδαχν}attests, fasting and confes­ sion of sins accompanied the catechetical instruction from the very first. St Justin is our most authoritative witness to the baptismal rites as they were performed about the year 150, when he wrote his first Apologia. There we find the profession of B 12 Christian Initiation 13 faith : /χ«τά το ούτως, λουσαι τδν 'πίΐΐί,ισμίνον και συγκατατίθαμίνον ;χ the special prayers recited publicly by the whole assembly, and the fasting and confession which preceded the sacramental immersion. {Ενχατθαι τ« καί anciv ι^στίυοντ«ς παρά του Üeoû προημαρτημίνων άφισιν διδάσκονται, ημών σννί,υχομίνων και ονννΐ)στ(υόν~ων avTois.)J As we find no trace of any other public and solemn fast except that which took place before Easter, we may be almost certain that from then onwards the solemn administration of Baptism was reserved for the Paschal season. This rule was not, however, strictly adhered to, as among the works of Hippolytus there is a sermon attributed to him and addressed to those about to be baptized “α’ς τα άγια Οίοψάναα,” whence it would appear that, in those very early days, even in Rome, according to Eastern custom, solemn Baptism could be administered also at the feast of the Epiphany.3 The form of prayer referred to by St Justin has not been preserved, but, on the other hand, we have many versions of the baptismal creed which cate­ chumens had to recite publicly before going down into the font. Some writers have wished to see in the words with which St Paul compares the Holy Spirit to an unction diffused in the soul an allusion to the Chrismatio of Baptism, for which we have no certain testimony earlier than the third century ; but more modern exegetes reject this materialistic interpretation of the Pauline text, as also a similar gloss on a passage from Theophilus of Antioch {circa a.d. 180)—Tu vero non vis ungi oleo Dei? nos enim ideo Christiani vocamur, quod Dei oleo ungamur.4 By far the greater part of the information we possess concerning the baptismal rites in Rome and in Cartilage at the time of Septimius Severus is undoubtedly derived from Tertullian. In a special treatise of his on Baptism he describes in glowing colours, in his rude but vigorous African style, the ceremonies of the Christian initiation, the minister, the prayers, and the lasts preceding it ; the solemn renun­ ciation of Satan, the sacramental immersion, the anointing with chrism, the imposition of the Bishop’s hands, together with the invocation of the Holy Ghost ; the participation in the eucharistie banquet, and the redemption of the cup of milk and honey which brought the ceremony to a close. In his treatise de Resurrectione this prolific writer thus sums up the baptismal ceremony : Caro abluitur ut anima emaculetur ; caro ungitur ut anima consecretur ; caro signatur ut et anima 1 1 3 * Apolog. 1, c. Ixiii; P.G. VI, coi. 42S. c. Ixi, P.G. VI, coi. 420. Ed. Achelis, pp. ^57-58 (Leipzig 1897). Lit. I, ad Autolycum 12; P.G. IV, coL 1042. 14 The Sacramentary muniatur, caro manus impositione adumbratur, ut et anima Spiritu illuminetur ; caro Corpore et Sanguine Christi vescitur ut et anima Deo saginetur.1 The Canons of Hippolytus, whether they represent an ancient disciplinary document of Rome, or whether, as seems more probable, they belong to Alexandria and are of the time of Bishop Dionysius, contain the most complete litur­ gical description of the rites of Baptism at the close of the third century. The catechumen was to be presented to the Bishop by persons who would vouch for the genuineness of his intention, after which he was admitted to Confession; then, having listened to the reading of a passage from the Gospels suitable to the occasion, he made a public profession of his desire for Conversion.2 On Thursday in the great Paschal week3 the catechumens were allowed to bathe and to take a meal, but during the two following days they had to observe a strict fast, which lasted until after they had received Baptism. An ecclesiastic—at Rome and in Africa it was the exorcist—was specially entrusted with their instruction. The Paschal night having come, the Bishop laid his hands on them, whilst reciting the last exorcisms, so that, Satan being now driven out, their soul should henceforth acknow­ ledge the supreme dominion of Christ. Kneeling at the feet of the Bishop, the aspirants turned towards the East, the region of light and the symbol of divine indwelling, and promised always to obey the holy law of God. He then breathed upon their faces and signed them with the sign of the cross on the forehead, the lips, the cars, and the breast. Next followed the solemn Paschal vigils, during which a certain number of scriptural passages were read, with ex­ planations, probably, by the Bishop or by the priests, and a like number of collects recited. At length, when day was about to break, the catechumens, laying aside their garments, turned to the West to mark their renunciation of Satan. Then, having been anointed with holy oil, as though the supreme moment of their fight with the Evil One had come, they descended full of faith into the holy font, showing thus in symbol their death and burial with Christ himself, as St Paul has so well explained to us. The Bishop then questioned them in this manner : “ Dost thou believe in God the Father almighty?” “ 1 do believe.” “ Dost thou believe 1 c. viii, P.L. II, col. 8o6. 1 Early monachism used this word in its pristine Christian significa­ tion, applying it to the religious state and the profession of a monk, in so far as it implies the renewal of the promises made when a catechu­ men, and a return to the innocence of Baptism. s Our Holy Week. Christian Initiation 15 in Jesus, the Son of God?” “ I do believe.” “ Dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost?” “ I do believe.” Then, after this threefold profession of faith, the sacred minister baptized them in the name of the blessed Trinity. On coming out of the water their bodies were again anointed by a priest with oil mixed with balm—Chrismatio. Then the Bishop laid his hands upon their heads, invoking the Holy Ghost, and making the sign of the cross on their foreheads—Consignatio. The holy sacrifice was then offered up, at which the neophytes were admitted for the first time to share in the sacred mysteries. Corpus Christi, proclaimed the Bishop as he gave into their hands the particle of consecrated bread, and then, testifying their faith anew in the sacramental presence of our Lord in the Eucharist, answered solemnly : A men. Sanguis Christi, repeated the deacon as he brought to their lips the sacred chalice, and the neophytes again replied : Amen. After the Communion they were given a cup of milk and honey, to signify that henceforth they were citizens of the heavenly kingdom, that true Land of Promise flowing with milk and honey, of which prophetic mention is made in Holy Writ. The baptismal rites of Jerusalem are known to us through the Peregrinatio of Egeria,1 and the explanations of the mysteries attributed to St Cyril. At the beginning of Lent the candidates gave in their names to the Bishop, and if the inquiries made as to their manner of living proved satis­ factory they were admitted to the instructions given every morning by the Bishop or by his delegate. During Lent other clergy of lesser rank recited the exor­ cisms, and breathed upon the faces of the candidates; and three weeks before Easter they were taught the Creed— Traditio symboli—in order that they might be able to repeat it to the Bishop at the commencement of Holy Week. The days commemorating the Passion of our Lord at Jerusalem were too much taken up with the contemplation of his sufferings to allow of the clergy devoting themselves in any special way to the catechumens. Therefore these were collected together in the porch of the baptistery only on the night preceding Easter Sunday, when the very suggestive rite of the renouncing of Satan, common to all liturgies, was to take place. Pointing with his forefinger towards the West, the region of darkness, the candidate said : “I renounce thee, O Satan, thee and thy worship.” Then, pointing to the East, he recited the sacred symbol of the Faith. After laying aside his garments, the new Christian athlete was anointed all over with holy oil previously exor­ 1 Etheria.—Tr. 16 The Sacramentary cized. He then went down into the font, where he received Baptism by a threefold immersion, followed at once by the anointing with chrism as in the Canons of Hippolytus.1 The ceremony ended with the celebration of the eucharistie Sacri­ fice on Golgotha in the Basilica of the Martyrium, when the neophytes were admitted for the first time to the holy table.2 The baptismal rite in use in the Western Churches of Rome and Milan, of Gaul, and of Spain, agrees in its main features with that of the Eastern Churches. The initiation of the catechumen comprised three distinct ceremonies—the exorcism, the breathing on the face and the anointing. In Spain the anointing of the body followed immediately upon the first exorcism, whilst at Milan and in Rome it was deferred until the actual moment of Baptism. This diversity of custom perturbed the Bishops of Gaul for a time, so they consulted the Holy See on this question towards the year 400. Rome replied that it was immaterial on which day the anointing was administered as long as it took place after the third scrutiny. We know too little about the order and number of these scrutinies or examinations, the prayers preparatory to which are recorded in the Gallican Missal. On the other hand, we possess a good deal of information concerning the ceremony of the traditio symboli on the Sunday before Easter, when it was the custom in France to bless the holy oils—dies unctionis. On Maundy Thursday the catechumens recited the Creed in the presence of the Bishop, but they did not then make their renunciation of Satan, as was done in the Roman rite. This was put off until the vigil of Easter. Notwithstanding these slight differences, the baptismal rite of the Gallican Church is identical in all its essential features with that of Rome. After the exorcism of the waler, without further anointing, except at Milan, the candi­ dates proceeded to their threefold immersion in the font. On emerging from the water, they were led before the Bishop, who anointed them on the head with chrism, clothed them in a white tunic, and, at Milan and in Gaul, also washed their feet. This last rite, inspired no doubt by that passage in the Gospel where our Lord washes the feet of Peter, saying, He that is -washed needeth not but to wash his feet, for he is clean wholly, was customary also in Spain until it was abolished by the forty-eighth canon of the Council of Elvira. The baptismal ceremonies in Rome were not less grand in any way than those of the other liturgies. The supreme Power of the Keys, the memory of the Baptism of those early 1 CL Canones Hippolyti in Duchesne, Christian Worship n. cn * Duchesne, of. til., p. 512. r 04 17 Christian Initiation Roman Christians conferred by the Apostles Peter and Paul, the historical traditions attached to the ancient catacombs of the Via Nomentana, where was preserved the memory of the chair and font used by St Peter; all these things contributed to give a peculiar solemnity to the rite of Baptism when administered in that privileged spot, which still retains a special atmosphere of devotion unlike any other. When the custom of baptizing at the Epiphany fell into disuse, Easter and Pentecost were the only days on which Baptism was solemnly administered at Rome. It took place at Easter because the font, according to St Paul, symbolizes the tomb into which the soul descends with the crucified Christ, in order to rise again therefrom to a new life of grace ; and at Pentecost because the coming down of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles represents our consignatio and the infusion of the Holy Spirit into the Christian soul. The anointing with chrism was, in fact, a sacramental rite intimately connected with that of Baptism, of which it was considered to be the natural complement—confirmatio sacra­ menti. When, later on, under Eastern influence, the Churches of Spain and Sicily attempted to revive the usage of administering Baptism at the Epiphany, the Popes did not fail to condemn this practice as constituting in their eyes a dangerous innovation in the Roman Patriarchate. As in the East, so also in the Eternal City, those cate­ chumens who were desirous of completing their initiation presented themselves at the beginning of Lent to the Pope, in order to be inscribed in the list of the clecti or competentes, and undertook from that moment to follow earnestly the course of instruction prepared for them. There were, how­ ever, many in those days, especially among the nobility, who preferred to postpone the receiving of Baptism until that moment when the near approach of death should render its obligations less onerous and its privileges more certain. The rite of initiation to the order of catechumens—ordo ad christianum faciendum—was very simple in Rome, consisting as it did of the breathing on the face of the candidate by the priest, of an exorcism, of the signing of the cross on the forehead, and of the placing of a grain of salt on the lips. Then followed during Lent the long catechetical preparation of the electi, with at least three scrutinies, and a very com­ plicated but imposing order of rites and instructions. According to the Ordines Romani of the seventh century, there were seven scrutinies, none of which took place on Sundays; but from the Gelasian Sacramentary, from a record of the Chapter at Naples1 and from a question put by 1 A need. Mareds., pp. 427, 428. 2 18 The Sacramentary Senarius, vir illustris, to the Roman deacon John,1 we gather that in the fourth century there were only three scrutinies, and that these were, as a matter of fact, held on the Sunday itself. Duchesne observes that in the seventh century these scrutinies must have lost the greater part of their early significance, since Baptism was then administered only to infants. He is, therefore, at a loss to understand how it was that the rite, instead of becoming shortened, continued to develop in such an elaborate manner that the number of the scrutinies was doubled, thus making the ceremony still more complicated. This constitutes a problem which that learned liturgist prefers to leave unsolved.2 To us, however, this development of the baptismal liturgy in the seventh century seems quite natural. The Baptism of adults had become by that time a mere memory, and survived in the Liturgy only as a ceremony. Having passed out of the region of actuality into that of symbolism, the rite developed therein exceed­ ingly. This development may be compared to that which we notice in the Lenten liturgy of the seventh and eighth centuries, when Gregory I and Gregory II introduced the three Sundays in preparation for Lent, the four Stations in Quinquagesima week, those of the Thursdays in Lent, and of the Sundays following the great vigils of the Saturdays in Ember week, celebrated at St Peter’s {dominica vacat). Of the seven great scrutinies of the Ordo Romanus VU, four are, in fact, only a repetition of the first ante auris aperitionem, showing that this one, too, as the others, had been introduced at a later date for a symbolical purpose, merely in order to bring the number of the scrutinies up to that of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.3 The first examination began on the Wednesday of the third week in Lent, when, about the hour of Terce, an acolyte, after calling over the names of the catechumens, arranged the youths on the right hand and the maidens on the left. A priest then passed along the ranks and signed them with the sign of the cross on their foreheads, laid his hands upon them, and placed salt, which had been previously blessed, on their lips, in order to symbolize the doctrine of the new knowledge which was to give, as it were, a supernatural savour to their future lives. At the beginning of the Mass the catechumens withdrew; but after the first collect the deacon called them once more before the Bishop, who said to them : Orate, electi, flectite genua. They then knelt in prayer, and after a short pause the prelate continued : Levate, complete orna1 foannis Diaconi Efist, ad Senarium, P.L LIX d 401 ’ of. cit., p. 305. ’ n ' ’ Ord. Rom. VI/; P.L. LXXXVII, col. 998 Christian Initiation 19 tionem vestram, et dicite: Amen. The godfathers and god­ mothers now signed their future godchildren once more on the forehead with the sign of the cross; next came three other acolytes for the recitation of the exorcisms, which were accompanied by the imposition of hands; and lastly a priest repeated the same rite and recited a final prayer. The first Christian initiation was now accomplished. After a reading from Ezcchiel—Haec dicit Dominus: effundam super vos aquam—the candidates were formally dismissed ; but at the Offertory the godparents made the oblations on their behalf, causing their names to be inscribed on the diptychs of those who gave offerings. The same rites were repeated on the following Saturday, but the third scrutiny in the following week—in aperitione aurium—had special importance, for then the disciplinary veil guarding the mysteries was carefully removed, so that the catechumens might be initiated into the secrets of the sons of God, and might come to the full knowledge of the holy Gospel, of the Creed, and of the Lord’s Prayer. Up to that time they had learnt only the outlines of the Gospel teaching; but now Christ, by means of his Church, presents to them the tables of the new law of love : Dominus legem dat. These words are inscribed in the open book held by the figure of the Saviour seated in majesty on his throne in the apse of many an ancient Roman basilica ; and it is more than probable that this solemn and triumphal representation of the divine Lawgiver is intended to commemorate the touching ceremony of the Christian initiation in aperitione auris. After the singing of the Gradual, four deacons appeared carrying the books of the Gospels, which they placed on the four corners of the altar. A few verses were read from each and a brief explanation given by the Bishop ; then the catechumens were taught the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. Qua lingua confitentur Dominum nostrum Jcsum Christum? asked the Bishop ; and two acolytes, each carrying in his arms a little child, the one Byzantine and the other Roman, recited in both languages the symbol of faith. The Credo and Pater having been explained, the catechumens retired, and the Mass continued as in the first scrutiny. The fourth, fifth, and sixth examinations had no special importance, but the seventh was held in the Lateran about the hour of Terce on the morning of Holy Saturday. After the usual exorcisms the priest touched with saliva the principal organs of the senses of the catechumen, thus recalling the Ephpheta of the Gospel narrative. The supreme conflict with the Evil One is now about to begin. After the manner of athletes descending into the arena, the candidates for Baptism lay aside their garments and are anointed on the breast and on the 20 The Saeram entary shoulders with blessed oil—oleum catechumenorum. At Rome in the fourth century the renouncing of Satan and the profession of faith were repeated by the aspirants themselves as they stood on the ambo; in later times it was sufficient for a priest to recite the Credo in the name of all present. This profession of faith being completed, the candidates were dismissed until sunset, when the great Paschal vigil began. The holy oils used in Baptism had been consecrated by the Pope on the preceding Thursday. On that day, before the Chrismal Mass—distinct in Rome both from that of the reconciliation of penitents and from the third in Coena Domini—the subdeacons had prepared in the sacristy two vases, the one of pure oil, the other of oil with an admixture of balm poured into it by the Pope himself. The rite of the blessing of the holy oils proceeded thus : Towards the end of the Canon of the Mass the faithful presented to the Pope their own little glass phials filled with oil for the anointing of the sick—oleum infirmorum. Of these he blessed a few, which were brought to the altar by the deacons ; the others, placed by the people on the podium enclosing the sanctuary, were blessed at the same time by the Bishops and priests who celebrated with him on that day, and who recited together with him the prayers prescribed for the blessing of the holy oils. This first blessing being finished, the Mass was con­ tinued at the words of the canon per quem haec omnia. After the Communion of the Pope, and before the clergy received the holy Eucharist from his hands, the ministers brought to the papal throne the large vessels containing the chrism and the oil of the catechumens. The Pope breathed three times on the first, made the sign of the cross over it and recited a lengthy eucharistie prayer, praefatio, in which all the scrip­ tural allusions to the Chrismatio were recorded, from the anointing of Aaron, of the kings of Juda, and of the prophets, down to that of the martyrs of the new dispensation who were anointed with the inward grace of the Paraclete. The blessing of the oil of catechumens was much less impressive, but it comprised the breathing, the signing of the cross, and the eucharistie prayer with the Preface. Now that all was made ready for the Baptism, at the first dawning of the joyful day of the resurrection of the Lord, the catechumens prepared themselves to rise again with him, after having first descended into the symbolical tomb of the baptismal font. That night had been passed in reading the most striking passages from the Scriptures having reference to Baptism, each lesson being followed by a prayer; and, to break the monotony of the reading, the choir, from time to time, had sung some of the most beautiful from among their Christian Initiation 21 many canticles.1 After the twelfth reading, the Pope and the candidates, to the singing· of the psalm Sicut cervus, moved in procession to the baptistery, while the Schola within the Basilica of the Lateran sang the Litany alternately with the people, reciting first seven petitions, then five, and lastly three, until such time as the Pope returned. The ancient Lateran Baptistery still exists, though bare of all that once adorned it. We know, however, that a golden lamp, in which burned a mixture of asbestos and balm, once stood on a column of porphyry in the centre of the font. On one side was a silver group representing our Lord and St John the Baptist with a lamb, from the feet of which gushed forth a fountain of water, while seven other fountains flowed from as many stags’ heads arranged around the interior of the piscina. The Lateran Baptistery, however, is not the only one in Rome, nor is it even the most ancient. Besides that one ad nymphas beati Petri which remained in use at least until the fifth century, there was another very celebrated baptistery erected by Pope Damasus near the Basilica of St Peter ; while a third one, probably for the use of the rural population, was situated in the cemetery of Pontian in the Via Portuense. Moreover, there was a baptistery at San Lorenzo in Damaso ; one also known under the title of Anastasia, another under that of Marcellus; in fact, most of the urban parishes pos­ sessed their own baptistery. The blessing of the water of Baptism, like the consecration of the holy oils, inspired in Rome one of the most sublime eucharistie prayers to be found in the whole Sacramentary. The Pope first breathed on the water, as in the beginning the Spirit of God hovered over chaos to infuse life into its depths; then, in accordance with the Ordines Romani of the eighth century, he repeatedly traced the sign of the cross over the font and in the water, in which, after the ninth century, it became the custom to dip the Paschal candle. The blessing being ended, a phial of perfumed chrism was poured into the font. When all was in readiness for the baptism, the archdeacon presented to the Pope the candidates who, after the threefold profession of faith, were immersed in the holy font while the Pope pronounced the sacramentary forms. In order to shorten the ceremony when the catechumens were numerous, priests, deacons and acolytes all took off their shoes and went down into the water to assist in the baptizing. The Pope after a while left the baptistery, and, entering the consignatorium, awaited the neophytes, to whom he administered the 1 They were usually taken from the traditional collection of “ odes,” or scriptural canticles, reserved exclusively for the Office of Matins. 22 The Sacramentary Consignatio, the first Chrismatio, on the head, being given immediately after Baptism by one of the priests. In conse­ quence of the concession permitting priests to perform the baptismal anointing, this solemn consignatio by the Pope— in addition to the invocation of the Holy Ghost upon the neophytes—involved a second unction with chrism on the forehead, accompanied by the words : In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. With this the sacramentum regenerationis christianiae was complete, and the Church had now only to associate the spiritual resurrection of her children with the bodily resurrection of the Lord by celebrat­ ing the universal feast, the Pascha nostrum, in the joy of the Holy Ghost. When, therefore, the newly baptized Christians, clothed in white garments, returned in procession to the Lateran Basilica, the solemn Paschal sacrifice at once com­ menced, at which the neophytes communicated for the first time. It was customary, moreover, up to the seventh century, to bless a draught of milk and honey for their consumption. During all the seven days of Easter week the grand con­ ception of the resurrection of the human race by means of holy Baptism dominated the whole liturgy. Each morning Mass was said expressly for the neophytes. In the evening, after Vespers in the Lateran, the procession returned ad jontes—that is, to the baptistery and to the consignatorium, to venerate those holy places which, next to the altar of their first Communion, would henceforth remain in the eyes of all the faithful of Rome as the sanctuaries of their redemption. Out of consideration for the Byzantine colony, which at that time was very numerous, Greek canticles alternated with the Latin ones, and the whole Church seemed as if she wished, like a loving mother, to rock these newborn children of hers, Heaven’s latest recruits, to the strains of her sweetest melos, as they visited during those first Easter days the great Roman sanctuaries of St Peter, St Paul and St Laurence. Thus they went ever surrounded by that same atmosphere of mystic enthusiasm which had inspired the Popes of old to enrich the Paschal liturgy with such profound and suggestive symbolic rites. If the minds of those early generations—raised by the sacred rites to the full comprehension of those sublime words of St Peter, who called the neophytes gens sancta, genus electum, regale sacerdotium, clothed as it were in the white garment of the sanctity and merits of Christ the Redeemer— were penetrated by the theological teaching which pervades the ancient baptismal liturgy, we too should be inspired thereby to a high ideal of the dignity of our vocation, who, as Christians, have participated in the same baptism. Una Christian Initiation 23 fides, unus Christus, unum baptisma, whose waters are indeed poured forth upon the earth, but which spring- de praecordiis divinitatis, from the very heart of God himself. Some examples of ancient inscriptions taken from the Roman baptisteries will help us to realize more fully the supreme importance given in early Christian doctrine to the holy sacrament of Baptism, and to the symbolism connected therewith. 1. Inscription by Sixtus III on the architrave of the Lateran Baptistery (432-440) : Gens sacranda polis hic semine nascitur almo, quam (oecundatis Spiritus edit aquis. Virgineo foetu genitrix Ecclesia natos quos, spirante Deo, concipit, amne parit. Coelorum regnum sperate, hoc fonte renati non recipit felix vita semel genitos. Fons hic est vitae, qui totum diluit orbem, sumens de Christi vulnere principium. Mergere, peccator, sacro purgande fluento; quem veterem accipiet proferet unda novum. Insons esse volens, isto mundare lavacro, seu patrio premeris crimine, seu proprio. Nulla renascentuin est distantia, quos facit unum unus fons, unus Spiritus, una fides. Nec numerus quemquam scelerum, nec forma suorum terreat, hoc natus flumine sanctus erit. This may be translated as follows : In this spot a holy race destined to Heaven is born begotten by the Spirit who gives life to these waters. Here Mother Church brings forth her pure offspring, conceived by the virtue of the Holy Ghost. O ye who have been born again in this fount, aspire to the heavenly kingdom ! For its bliss is not for those who live for the world alone. This is the living spring which refreshes all the earth, whose source is in the Wounds of Christ. Come, O sinner, desirous of washing away the stains of sin, bathe thyself in this sacred stream ! The (vater that receives thee grown old will restore the innocence of thy former youth. 0 thou who longest for purity, whether weighed down by original sin or thine own wrongdoing, bathe in this font and be made clean ! All who receive life here are made equal by one Baptism, one Spirit, one Faith. Let neither the guilt nor the number of thy sins appal thee—he who is born again in these waters shall surely be holy. 2. Inscription placed in the Baptistery of the Apostles, probably in the Vatican : Sumite perpetuam sancto de gurgite vitam ; Cursus hic fidei, mors ubi sola perit. Roborat hic animos divino fonte lavacrum, et dum membra madent, mens solidatur aquis. Auxit apostoheae geminatum sedis honorem Christus, et ad coelos hanc dedit esse viam ; Nam cui siderei commisit limina regni, Hic habet in templis altera claustra poli. 24 The Sacramentary Draw from this holy fount life eternal. Here faith comes forth and death alone is vanquished. The stream which flows from Heaven strengthens the heart, and whilst it bathes the limbs, confirms the mind. Christ gave a double glory to the Apostolic See, permitting that this should be the way to eternal bliss, so that he to whom were entrusted the keys of the heavenly kingdom should in this sanctuary also be guardian of a second Gate of Life? 3. Inscription placed in the Consignatorium, probably in the Vatican Baptistery, where stood the chair of wood said to be that of St Peter : Istic insontes coelesti flumine lotas, pastoris summi dextera signat oves. Huc undis generate veni, quo Sanctus ad unum Spiritus ut capias te sua dona vocat. Tu, cruce suscepta, mundi vitare procellas disce, magis monitus hac ratione loci. Here the innocent lambs, washed clean in the heavenly fount, are signed by the right hand of the Chief Shepherd. Hasten hither, O newly born in the waters of Life ! The Holy Spirit calls thee to become one of a blessed family and to rejoice in his gifts. Having received on thy forehead the sign of the cross, do thou learn to flee the dangers of the world, keeping thyself in special control by the memories of this place? 4. In the Baptistery of the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso : Iste salutaris fons continet inclitus undas et solet humanum purificare luem. Munia sacrati quae sint vis scire liquoris : dant regeneratricem flumina sancta fidem. Ablue fonte sacro veteris contagia vitae, o nimium felix, vive renatus aqua. Hunc fontem quicumque petit, terrena relinquit, subicit et pedibus coeca ministeria. 1 The meaning of this inscription is not altogether clear. The two­ fold honour conferred on the Apostolic See is evidently the evangelizing, with the martyrdom and burial places, of the two Princes of the Apostles. The additional privilege, therefore, granted to the Roman Church would be the circumstance that the holder of the keys of heaven guards a second door of paradise in his own baptistery. In order, however, that this latter privilege may constitute a special glory for the Apostolic See, it is not sufficient that baptism should open to everyone the gate of heaven—all other churches had their baptistery too—but it is further necessary that this baptism should have special historical connection with the Apostle Peter. Either he himself in­ augurated the baptistery, if the inscription refers to the cemetery ad nymphas beati Petri ubi baptisabat, or he consecrated it by his martyrdom ; or again because his successors, the Popes, make use of it in his name, all which circumstances are true of the baptistery of St Damasus in the Vatican. * To what circumstances does this refer? The same problem arises with regard to this as in the case of the former inscription, of which this one is, as it were, the continuation. Monitus hac rattone loci— that is, by the very spot on which St Peter was crucified. Christian Initiation 25 From this noble source a health-giving river flows, cleansing every human stain. Wouldst thou know the virtue of these holy waters? Behold, through faith art thou born again. Wash away the sins of thy past life at this holy spring. O happy one, born to a new life through these waters, live in gladness ! Who seeks this fount abandons earthly thoughts and tramples underfoot the servitude of darkness. 5. In the Roman Baptistery of the Titulus Anastasiae: Qui peccatorum sordes abolere priorum, Terrenisque optas maculis absolvere vitam, Huc ades ad Christi fontem sacrumque liquorem, Corpus ubi ac mentes pariter sensusque lavantur, Aeternumque datur casto baptismate munus. Hanc autem fidei sedem construxit ab imis Militiae clarus titulis aulaeque fidelis Romanaeque urbis praefectus Longinianus.1 Thou who seekest to wash away the pollution of thy sins, and to cleanse thy life from every earthly stain, draw near to the fount of Christ, to this sacred stream in which the soul with all its powers is bathed together with the body, and a pure baptism is rewarded by eternal gain. Longinianus, prefect of the Eternal City, high in military rank, and faithful adherent of the Imperial House, raised from its foundation this holy shrine. 1 Flavius Macrobius Longinianus was prefect of Rome in 403. CHAPTER III ECCLESIASTICAL PRAYER IN THE EARLY CHURCH HE custom of the synagogue, confirmed by the example of the prophets and Apostles,1 led the first Christians to pray at dawn, at noon, and at sunset, and occasionally also at night,2 whether in order to honour the blessed Trinity by a daily threefold praise, or perhaps to consecrate the entire day God by dedicating to him the three chief periods into whi it is commonly divided. In later days theology wished to give, in addition to these ascetic reasons, a more dogmatic meaning to this pious custom by pointing out that, as the constant presence of the Blessed Sacrament preserved always upon the altar adds to the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass a sense of continuity, so the laus perennis unites the Church closely to the divine Victim who is in heaven semper vivens ad interpellandum pro nobis.3 The eucharistie Agape, celebrated at sunset on Saturday and carried on well into the night,4 was the starting-point of the primitive Christian liturgy. From this soon followed the substitution of Sunday for Saturday as the weekly holy day, and the institution of that most ancient of all liturgical rites, the Vigil of the Sunday Feast. With the exception of these sacramental rites, the Church in Jerusalem remained attached, for some time longer, to the ceremonies and prayers of the synagogue,5 until after the destruction of the Temple, when the faithful of Ælia Capitolina, on their return from Pella, felt themselves to be wholly freed from the yoke of the Israelitish Law, and in exactly the same position as the faithful of Antioch and other churches founded by St Paul. In spreading the Gospel among the Gentiles, the Apostles had reduced to a minimum the obligations of the new religion. The Council of Jerusalem and the Epistles of St Paul enlighten us sufficiently11 as regards the general principles of Christian conduct and their application to the innumerable exceptional cases to which contact with idolaters gave rise, whilst the Διδαχ/j furnishes even to-day the most abundant source from which we derive our knowledge of the ceremonies of those very early times. T 1 Dan. vi, io; Acts ii, 15; x, 9; xvi, 25. 1 Psalm cxviii. 3 Heb. vii, 25. « Acts XX, 7 Sq. • Acts ii, 42; v, 42. « Acts xv, i zq.; Gal. ü so. 26 Ecclesiastical Prayer τη In this we find that two days of fasting in the week are counselled—the Wednesday and the Friday.1 The Lord’s Prayer and the Doxology are to be recited three times a day.3 Sunday is especially set aside for the eucharistie synaxis, but the faithful are exhorted to meet together and to keep vigil even more frequently.3 The whole work, in fact, evidences the widest divergence from the spirit of the synagogue as dominated by the Pharisees. Besides the Δώαχτ/and its obscure indications of a form of prayer distinct from the Mass which the faithful were wont to recite at certain fixed hours, St Clement,'4 St Ignatius3 and Pliny in his letter to Trajan, all speak of public prayers apart from the eucharistie sacrifice as ordained by the Apostles. There is, further, an allusion to the abovementioned prayer in the first Epistle of St Paul to Timothv,® where the terminology used by the Apostle is that which the Hebrews adopted to distinguish the different parts of their daily prayer. On certain days two kinds of meetings were held, the one at night devoted to prayer, the other at close of day for the celebration of the Agape. The ignorant pagan commonly accused the Christians of eating human flesh, but the apos­ tates who gave information to the Governor of Bithynia were honest enough to bear willing testimony to the perfect morality of that feast, so that the cibum promiscuum tamen et innoxium of Pliny7 not only contains no allusion to the eucharistie bread, but proves, on the contrary, that the Agape, in those places where its use continued, was already completely separate from the sacrificial rite of the Mass. We have already noted Justin’s detailed description of this nocturnal meeting in his first Apologia. On Sunday at dawn the faithful of the countryside and the various parts of the town all came together in an appointed place, where the reading of the Scriptures, the chanting of prayers, and the ardent words of the Bishop prepared their souls for a worthy reception of the holy Sacrament, whilst the deacons carried forth the Bread of Life to those few who were prevented from being present. Here the Vigilia dominicalis, as in the time of St Paul, consists in the celebration of Mass only,5 whereas with Hermas the history of the Liturgy advances another step. Besides the Sunday observance, other days 1 Διδαχή c. viii. a op. ci/., c. xiv. 3 op. ci/., c. xvi. 4 Clem., Ep. ad Cor., xl, xlii. 8 Ignat., Ep. ad Ephes, xiii. 0 c, ii, 1-2. 7 Plinii Epis/, ad Traianum X, xcrii. The text according to some critics is not altogether trustworthy, but the arguments which they produce do not appear to establish the apocryphal character of the letter. 8 ΑροΊοζ. I, Ixvii ; P.G. VI, p. 427. 28 The Sacramentary were set apart for prayer and fasting {statio).1 Although from the text of the Pastor the statio would appear to be a matter of private devotion only; still, by comparing the words of Hermas with the testimony of Tertullian and of St Cyprian, we come to the conclusion that, although it was not obligatory, it was of a public character, beginning like the vigil before the Sunday at dawn,2 and lasting until None, when the fast ended. During those early days of Christianity the Paschal Vigilia alone had the privilege of being obligatory upon all the faithful, and of taking up the whole of the night, whereas the other vigils were usually left to the piety of the people and began only towards dawn. Gradually, as the Church extended her conquests, and as the light of theology revealed more and more to her children that sublimitas et profundum which the Apostle contemplated in our Lord, it naturally followed that this clearer knowledge or gnosis was reflected in the Liturgy. In the second century other feasts besides that of Easter began to be kept in honour of the mysteries of our Redemption, Good Friday, Pentecost and the Ascension.3 The birthdays of the martyrs1 were celebrated ; nocturnal vigils were multiplied, and private prayer three times a day was no longer enough to satisfy the devotion of the faithful. Terce and None were, therefore, kept distinct from morning and evening prayer ; in Christian households psalms were sung in common, and the ancient chant, being considered too simple, was already adorned with the harmonies of the responsorial Alleluia. Clement of Alexandria often speaks of prayer at fixed hours ; he also draws attention to the nocturnal vigil ; but from the context it would appear that he considered these as purely private acts of piety, only practised by the more devout.5 Tertullian is the most prolific and talented author of his day. In his various works, apologetic, ascetical, and polemic, besides giving evidence of vast learning—unlike Justin or Clement—he shows himself familiar with the ecclesiastical traditions, not only of Carthage, but of Rome and the other churches of Italy, Africa and Greece. After his separation from the Catholics, with whom he disagreed on matters almost entirely of discipline, he often found himself, ' Similit. V. : rt ipÛpivbt &Sr ίλήλνθαη ; ότι φημΐ, κύριε, στατίωνα ΐκω. Edit. A. Hilgenteld, Leipzig «866, p. 84. 1 Hennas, id., ipèpivbt. 3 Pentecost is mentioned by St Paul (1 Cor. xvi, 8). Cf. Acts xiii, 2. Tertullian affirms that in his time Baptism was administered on that day {De Baftismo, c. xix; P.L. I, 1331). Cf. P. de Meester, L'Ascennone del Signore, in Rassegna Gregoriana, May 1902, pp. 76-77. * Cf. S. Baumer, Hitt. du Bréviaire, Paris 1905, pp. 77 sq. 4 of. cit., pp. 6264. Ecclesiastical Prayer 29 bv the position he had adopted, forced into opposition to their rites and usages. Hence it is that his writings contain so much information concerning ecclesiastical discipline in the third century. Besides the Easter τταννυχί?,1 the nocturnae convocationes2 often brought the faithful together to watch and pray, especially during the night preceding the Sundays and the festivals of the martyrs, as well as in times of persecution,3 when it was not possible for them to assemble in the daytime. There existed as yet no law which should compel Christians to pray at fixed hours,* therefore assisting at the stationes, where5 the offering of the divine Sacrifice at the commence­ ment of the hour of None put an end to the semi-jejunium,6 was regarded as a pious custom, of counsel only. Later, when Tertullian had joined the Montanists, these devout practices, which were in no sense obligatory, became the subject of bitter contention on the part of that learned but scathing teacher, who wished to see them universally en­ forced, and considered it extremely lax not to prolong the fast beyond the hour of None.7 Even then there were some Christians who, according to ancient custom, kept the stations privately, and did not assist at the Mass. Others considered the Kiss of Peace unsuitable on such days ; while some, in order to lengthen the period of fasting, even abstained from receiving Holy Communion until quite late in the day. The stational prayers alone were recited kneeling,8 this symbol of penitence being especially forbidden during the Paschal season and on Sundays, although Tertullian con­ cedes that everyone might kneel at morning prayers if he wished to do so ; from which we infer that these, at least, were said privately in the home. Morning and evening prayers, he says, are so generally in use as to be almost obligatory (legitimatae orationes) but, besides these, the habit of sanctifying the hours of Terce, Sext and None by the singing of psalms is right and proper, as these hours call to mind the blessed Trinity, and also mark the divisions of the secular day.10 Tertullian remarks also on the various liturgical abuses which he considers he ought to combat sharply. There were some persons who were causing scandal in church because they did not kneel on Saturdays;11 others went to the statio 1 3 4 6 • 8 10 Ad uxorem II, c. iv ; P.L. I, 1407. De fuga, xiv; P.L. II, 141. De oratione, xxiii; P.L. 1, 1299. op. cit., c. xix, p. 12S7. De jejun., x ; P.L. II, 1017. De oratione, xxiii, 1298-99. op. cit., xxviii, 300. 3 l.c. 7 op. cit., x, pp. 1017 sq. • De oratione, xxviii, 1304. 11 op. cit., xxiii, 1298. 30 The Sacramentary in their oldest clothes.1 Some threw off their cloaks during prayer, after the manner of the pagans, whilst others sat down as soon as the prayer was over,3 as though the act of praying for some time with arms raised and extended in the form of a cross had utterly exhausted them. Although Ter­ tullian writes so fully on the liturgical usages of his time, yet he never mentions that the prayers used at various hours of the day were said publicly in church. Indeed, the perse­ cution of the year 202 had already begun ; the hierarchy was dispersed, and the faithful were obliged to bribe the agents of the police to ignore the rare occasions when it was possible for them to meet for worship under cover of darkness. On such occasions as these the Mass regained its original place— viz., at the conclusion of the night vigil. Unlike Justin, who describes the ceremonies of the euchar­ istie sacrifice, Tertullian dilates on the simplicity of the Christian “ love-feasts.”’ These charitable repasts, preceded and followed by prayer, were extremely frugal in character, and were especially prepared for the poor ; for in Rome, at Carthage and Alexandria, wherever, in fact, there were to be found several thousands of Christians, one common table could not suffice for all the faithful. The religious spirit of the Christians made these intimate and cordial meetings an opportunity for exercising their musical and poetic talents by reciting poems and singing psalms composed for the occasion (in medio cancre ... de proprio ingenio). This, however, is not the only reference to music contained in the works of Tertullian. He also tells us that the more zealous were accustomed even then to insert the Alleluia in their private prayers,4 and that, when they assembled together, they preferred the responsorial psalms to those in directum. Clement of Alexandria had already laid down rules on the matter in his Stromata, allowing, indeed, such chants with responsorial hemistichs (άκροστίχια ύττο^άλλίΐν), but pointing out at the same time that the chant should merely embellish the psalmody, and avoid for that reason the chromatic tones, TÙç χρωρατικάς άρρονιά?.5 Whilst in his De anima Tertullian speaks of the psalmody which followed the scriptural lesson6 at Mass, in his Apologeticus—with reference rather to the Agape—he says, speak1 op. fit., xviii, 1280-1. 1 of. fit.. xvi, 137c. 3 A fol., xxxix; P.L. I, 538 tq. 4 De oratione, xxviii, 1302. * Stromata I, i; P.G. VIII, 708; Paedag. II, c. iv ; P.G. XIII, 445. C/. also de Nourry s notes in P.G. IX, 469, n. 84. e De anima, c. ix; P.L. II, 701. The text is important, especially for its mention of the litany which always followed the homily in the Mas· Scripturae leguntur, aut psalmi canuntur, aut adlocutiones Proferuntur aut fetitiones delegantur. * Ecclesiastical Prayer 31 ing generally : Fidem sanctis vocibus pascimus.' We know, however, from Justin that the consecratory anaphora also was modulated upon definite inflexions of the voice, intended to express the emotion of the priest while performing that holy rite.2 Origen, ever unyielding, seems, with his spirit of pure devotion, to attach very slight importance to the traditional prayers of Terce, Sext and None. It is true that he speaks of prayers (τά$ ΐΐρο<ηαγΘάσα<ϊ τ* ίϋχά$)3 as appointed for these hours of the day, but the ideal which he desires for his gnostic (ascete) is that of prayer far more exalted and con­ tinuous than that established by tradition. There is a close resemblance to Tertullian in the discipline embodied in the Canones Hippolyti, that document of doubtful origin and much controverted authorship.4 Here we find the night vigils to be neither daily nor obligatory ; the liturgical hours of Terce, Sext and None are celebrated in church on days when the Station is held, whilst on other days the faithful are counselled at least to consecrate them in their homes by­ private prayer; the same being done in the case of night devotions. The evening or Vesper prayer bears the same private character, except, perhaps, on the evening of Satur­ day, when it was joined to the Agape and to the prayer of the Lucerna'' which ushered in the vigil of the Sunday. The possible absence of the bishop or the priest from the Agape is foreseen and provided for; it would in such a case be the deacon’s duty to distribute the portions and to pronounce the various formulas of the blessing. St Cyprian, alluding to the original hours set aside for prayer according to Hebrew tradition, observes that orandi nunc et spatia et sacramenta creverunt . . . and speaks of morning and evening prayers in honour of Christ risen from the dead and become the Light of the World.6 He re­ peatedly insists on the night prayer,7 and his very insistence would induce us to believe that, especially during the period of persecution mentioned above, there was no strict eccle­ siastical law on the subject. During the night preceding St Cyprian’s martyrdom the faithful of Carthage watched before the procurator’s house where he was kept under arrest, and the deacon Pontius, in narrating the circumstance, points out very touchingly that the people wished by this vigil to pay him in advance, as it were, the honour due to a martyr on his natal day. 1 3 < 5 o 7 Apolog., xxxix, p. 532. 1 Afolog. I, Ixvii ; P.G. VI, 4a7 J9· Contr. Celsum VI, xli ; P.G. XI, 1359-60. Cf. Baümer, op. at., 69 sq. Canon., 26, 27, 25. Haünier, op. cit., 72. Cypr., De Dornin. Orat.; P.L. IV, 542. Op. cit., xxix; P.L. IV, 538; xxxvi, p. 543. The Sacramentary It is strange that the Council of Elvira, which laid down so many canons concerning the Liturgy and ecclesiastical discipline in Spain, is entirely silent on the subject of the divine Office; while Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Commentary on the Psalms (327-340) repeatedly speaks of psalm-singing as occurring both at morning and evening and during the night, as if it were a public and universal custom throughout the Church.1 We must remember, however, that Eastern ecclesiastical traditions would take a long time to reach the far-off Iberian Peninsula, and that the silence of the Council of Elvira with regard to the divine Office can easily be ex­ plained if we admit the hypothesis that, owing to its recent introduction into Spain, abuses would hardly have had time to arise, and it was upon such that the Fathers of the Council were called together to give their judgement. The Canon Psalmorum, attributed to Eusebius, but perhaps the work of some contemporary writer, is still more explicit. At Vespers, as in the Vigils, twelve psalms are to be sung, three at dawn and three others in the evening.2 From this last document it would appear that the first period of arrang­ ing and fixing the form of liturgical prayer is now to close with the era of the persecutions. By this time the discipline of the Church has tended to become uniform, and there is need only of some great event or some powerful institution to seal the sacred rile with the lasting impress of worldwide stability. For the Latin peoples this was essentially the task of the Church of Rome alone. The evidence we have just considered, though it bears witness to the custom of public prayer as distinct from the Eucharistic sacrifice, tells us very little indeed about the rites and elements of which such prayer was composed. At the close of the Apostolic Age, when, during the pontificate of Clement, the Pastor of Hennas described his first visions, there were, besides the Sunday feast, days consecrated to fasting and prayer, the latter beginning very early in the morning and ending at the hour of None, after the offering of the holy sacrifice. Very probably this rile (borrowed from the synagogue, where the Pharisee of the Gospel fasted bis tn sabbato each Monday and Thursday) was carried out on Wednesdays and Fridays, since the most ancient Roman lectionaries still show traces of the scriptural lessons assigned throughout the year to these stational Masses during the week. There was not, however, any 1 Comment, in fsalm. xci, P.G. XXIII, 1772; Ps. exlii, P G XXIV 9 ; Ps. Ixtv, P.G. XXIII, p. 649. ' * P.G. XX1I1, 1395. Ecclesiastical Prayer 33 ecclesiastical law obliging· the faithful to assist at them ; on the contrary, when the Montanists were desirous of making the practice obligatory, the Church insistently defended its true characteristic of voluntary worship. Let us now turn our attention to the liturgical heritage of Rome in the Middle Ages—at a period, that is, when the divine Office in the Eternal City had embodied such features as originated in Palestine and Egypt, where the monks had established a weekly cursus of psalmody, by day and by night. Here we find our attention arrested by another form of night prayer, still surviving in the Roman Missal, which on certain more solemn feasts regularly precedes the Mass of the Vigil celebrated at dawn. Since then we know that the most ancient form of the divine Office, its very nucleus, as it were, is certainly to be found in the ττανμυχίΐ of the Sunday or of the nights preceding the natal day of the more famous martyrs, and also that this vigilia, according to the testimony just cited from Pliny, Justin and Tertullian, terminated with holy Mass, we may well believe that in the vigilia of the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries the most ancient type of the Roman vigilia lies hidden. Besides the oratio lucernaris, preserved only in the Easter Vigil, we find this rite ordinarily made up of scriptural lessons—twelve in the Gelasian Sacramentary and six in the Gregorian—interspersed with prophetic odes (cantica) and with the collects recited by the presiding ecclesiastic. Formerly these collects were preceded by the private prayers of the people, and these with their relative forms of appeal and various insertions were bound considerably to lengthen the service, which then concluded with the Litany, the purpose of which was to serve as an introduction to the solemn celebration of the Eucharist. It is noteworthy that the psalmody of this ΐταννυχι? is not taken from the psalms, but from the prophetic books, thus corresponding to those chants or morning odes so general throughout the East. Λ passage of the Liber Pontificalis referring to Pope Symmachus, who is believed to have inserted in the Sunday Mass the Great Doxology, placed elsewhere at the end of Matins, would cause us to see in this liturgical displacement a disordering of the ancient rite of the vigil; and this is all the more likely when we reflect that the Church of Rome would hardly have modelled her cursus on the Eastern type, had she still preserved her own in the fourth or fifth century. In the life of St Melania the Younger there are to be found some valuable indications concerning the Roman Liturgy. Among other things, mention is made of the παννυχίι preced­ ing the Feast of St Lawrence held in his basilica by the Tiber. 34 The Sacramentary Here, too, we find the custom of daily Communion carried back to the time of SS Peter and Paul, together with the rite of giving Communion for the last time to those lying at the point of death. The passages describing the round of duties instituted by St Melania among her nuns at Jerusalem are much more doubtful. Some writers are desirous of seeing here a source of derivation of the Roman cursus, but it is much safer to presume that in an environment where, accord­ ing to Cassian, almost every monastery boasted its own cursus, Melania, too, would have availed herself of that liberty of liturgical eclecticism which obtained in Palestine, in order to draw up a canon on her own account. This does not mean that the Roman tradition may not henceforth have had its own canon—we know, as a matter of fact, that in the Convent of Hippo Melania used to recite her own special canon at night, after the cursus of the nuns was finished— but simply that we must plead ignorance of any connection that there may be between Melania’s liturgy and the Roman cursus, supposing such a cursus to have been in existence at that time. The solemn rites of Easter; the Sunday; the Stations on Wednesday and Friday, and, in very early days, on Saturday also; the three weeks’ fast preceding Easter; possibly the three Ember seasons, with Pentecost, Ascensiontide and Christmas (243-336) ; and after the second century some feasts of martyrs also ; in these we have the original elements from which the ancient Roman Liturgy developed. Although in the fourth century the people flocked in great numbers to the occasional night assemblies, we gather from a letter of Pelagius to Demetrias the Virgin, who was living in retirement in Rome, that towards the year 414 there existed as yet no fixed and ancient tradition, even among ecclesiastics, regarding the daily cursus (Debet aliquis esse determinatus et constitutus horarum numerus. . . . Opti­ mum est ergo huic operi matutinum deputari tempus . . . usque ad horam tertiam . . . in secretiori domus parte);1 so much so that Pelagius himself had to instruct Demetrias concerning it. From the way, too, in which St Jerome speaks in his letter to Læta, it may be concluded that the cursus was a matter left still to the private devotion of the faithful. The early responsorial psalmody remained for a long time the only choral form used in Rome. Even after the anti­ phony of Syria had spread by way of Antioch, Constan­ tinople, Neocæsarea, Milan, Carthage and Hippo throughout the entire Western world, the capital of Christendom rc1 P.L. ΧΧΧ1Π, 1115. Ecclesiastical Prayer 35 mained among the last to accept it. Thus the antiphonal melodies of the Gregorian Antiphonary indubitably betray a late origin as regards the Gradual, Tract, and Alleluiatic jubilus. If Augustine, moreover, in order to justify the introduction of antiphony in the Offertory and during the Holy Communion at Hippo, was obliged to appeal to the custom of Carthage, it is probable that the Roman practice was not on his side, since otherwise he would scarcely have failed to cite it. Indeed, even to-day the Mass for the Easter Vigil is wholly without antiphonal psalmody. The deacons, therefore, for a long period acted as soloists in the Roman basilicas, several of them attaining to great skill in their art, and even finding opportunity therein to gratify the natural vanity of musicians. Pope Damasus sometimes praises their placidum modulamen, but the austere Jerome disapproves of their operatic trills, as also of their aromatic applications to the throat, in order to render the sound of the voice more affected. To Pope Damasus, familiar from childhood with the archives of the Roman Church, poet of the catacombs and the martyrs, and patron of Jerome’s biblical studies, ancient tradition points as the true founder of the daily cursus in Rome. It is true that his correspondence with St Jerome regarding the introduction of the Graecorum psallentiam into the Holy City is apocryphal—the ΐταμμυχις of the Sunday had by this time fallen into disuse, nec psallentium mos tenetur, nec hymni decus in ore nostro cognoscitur1—but it was at any rate earlier than the sixth century, when these letters found their way (about 530) into the Liber Pontificalis, their witness being further confirmed by other important docu­ ments. It was certainly Damasus who commissioned Jerome to correct the Psalter by the Itala text, and as the new version soon penetrated into the responsorial books of Rome, such a change as this could hardly take place without an entire revision of the whole heritage, liturgical and musical, of the Pontifical Church. Furthermore, according to the evidence of St Gregory I, it was Damasus, too, who first introduced into Rome the custom of singing the Alleluia in the Sunday Mass, as was done at Jerusalem : Ut alleluia hic diceretur, de Jerosoly morum Ecclesia, e beati Hieronymi traditione, tem­ pore beatae memoriae Damasi papae traditur tractum.- Amid so many liturgical changes taking place in Rome, Damasus is not likely to have been reluctant to introduce there the ecclesiastical cursus also, at a time when, through the1 2 1 Ci. Liber Pont if., ed. Duchesne, i, 215. 2 Ep. Gre£. I, ix, n. xii ; P.L. LXXV1I. col. 956. 36 The Sacramentary initiative of St Ambrose at Milan, it was being adopted everywhere in Italy. The Graecorum psallentiam of the apocryphal text of Damasus is, then, in agreement with the canendi mos orientalium partium1 of St Augustine, when indicating the first beginnings of the Milanese Office; and Paulinus the priest, the biographer of Ambrose, in describing the very same rite, explains even more clearly the significance of the Graecorum psallentiam when he says that the saintly bishop instituted hoc in tempore primum antiphonae, hymni ac vigiliae in Ecclesia,2 St Augustine, Paulinus, and the letters attributed to Damasus all agree, therefore, in describing the rapid spread of these rites of psalmody in the West. Although no single passage explicitly affirms it, yet a con­ currence of reasons leads us to the conclusion that the intro­ duction of the divine Office into Rome dates back, in all probability, to the end of the fourth century—that is, to the time of Pope Damasus and of St Jerome. We may call to mind once more the tragic circumstances which caused Ambrose to introduce the canendi mos orien­ talium partium into Milan, so that he might resist the tyranny of the Arians who wanted to seize his basilica. The intrepid prelate shut himself up therein with his people and sustained a siege of several days, until his firmness obliged the Court party to abandon their hateful designs. Moreover, so that the people should not be overborne by such great distress, and that their courage might be proof against the wiles of the Arians, Ambrose introduced into the Milanese Liturgy, together with the cursus, that special collection of psalmody in the form of acrostics, refrains and doxologies, together with processions at night, preceded by crosses illuminated with candies, which in Antioch and Constantinople had already commonly acquired the name of antiphonia. We shall doubtless not be diverging from the truth if, while bearing in mind the origin of the Roman Antiphon from Milan and Antioch, we reconstruct the history of the Gre­ gorian “ Cento ” after this fashion. A certain passage in the Liber Pontificalis, which attributes the custom of reciting the Psalter before the Mass to Pope Celestine 1 (422-432), is capable of several different explana­ tions. While the compiler of the second edition of this Pope’s Life (written some time before the latter half of the sixth century) maintains such psalmody to have been antiphonal, Duchesne and others have seen in it the beginning of the Roman cursus. Amid such diversities of opinion it is not easy to see one’s way clearly, for the Liber Pontificalis 1 Confers. I, ix, c. vii; P.L., XXXII 77O< » P.L. XIV, 31. 11 Ecclesiastical Prayer yj seems to speak of the entire recital of the Psalter before the Mass; while in the Milanese rite and in that of the other churches of Lombardy we have precisely this same recital of the Psalter, after the first portion of the solemn vigils. This coincidence is too significant for us to reject absolutely the theory which sees in Celestine’s Life a further confirmation of the dependence of the Roman Antiphonal Liturgy on that of the metropolis of Lombardy. The fact that Hormisdas, according to his biographer,1 composuit clerum et psalmis erudivit, does not greatly eluci­ date the history of the Roman cursus. Yet since the Roman schola cantorum is certainly prior to the pontificate of Gregory I, we might possibly see in this passage evidence for the origin, or at least the survival, of that pontifical school of music; unless, indeed, the document simply alludes to the distribution and ordering of the clergy for the different urban titles where the cursus was to be followed, in obedience to Justinian’s new law of the year 528. It is well known that the Apostolic See prescribed the observance of the cursus in all the dioceses immediately dependent on the metropolis, so that the bishops, in the actual course of their consecration in Rome, had to promise in writing to carry out its observance in accordance with the formula laid down in the Liber Diurnus.2 Now it happened that a certain Eleutherius, on returning to his own church after his episcopal ordination, met with strong opposition on the part of his clergy to the introduction of daily vigils ; so he appealed to the Pope, who strongly supported him in his task of bringing his rebellious clergy into submission. The passage gives the name of the Pope sometimes as Gelasius and sometimes as Pelagius, but the critics are agreed in recognizing the document as contemporary with Justinian, or at most only a little later in date. We may turn also to the famous decree De libris recipien­ dis et non recipiendis, which, as regards its primitive elements, may well go back to the time of Damasus (366384), and which treats of the readings from Holy Writ then customary during the night vigils. It mentions that in Rome, ob singularem cautelam, the Acts of the Martyrs were not read, and that it was deemed advisable to substitute for them the opuscula atque tractatus orthodoxorum patrum. This liturgical movement was by no means confined to the Italian Peninsula, but spread throughout Gaul and Africa, where, in 393, the bishops assembled at Council of Hippo forbade that, without the approval of the local ordinary, 1 Lib. Ponti/. I, p. 269. a Batiffol, History o/ the Roman Breviary (London 1912), p. 38. 38 The Sacramentary quicumque sibi preces aliunde describit ... ex regionibus vel ecclesiis transmarinis.1 Freedom in liturgical matters and individual initiative in Christian worship, dating from primitive times, were already threatening to become excessive ; hence, to prevent disorders, it was now time that the Roman Church, while duly respect­ ing the almost paternal rights of Milan, should legislate for all the faithful, and herself become the vindicator of the lex supplicandi. She fulfilled this mission mainly through the work of St Gregory the Great. 1 O/>. S. Leonis, P.L. Ill, c. 436. CHAPTER IV THE HISTORICAL SETTING OF ST GREGORY’S REFORM OF THE ROMAN LITURGY HE spell of the sacra Urbs which, in the Leonine Sacramentary, still continued to link the world’s destinies with its own, was definitely broken by the Lombard invasion. The ancient dread of the parousia and of the end of the world weighed more fearfully upon the minds of those who, even more than the Romans of old, could now repeat with their distant ancestors : Fuimus Trocs, fuit Ilium el ingens gloria Teucrum. Rome herself had been so inured to the occupations and the plunderings which she had suffered under Alaric and Genseric that now, in the sixth century, she could consider her own downfall at the hands of the nefandissima gens Langobar­ dorum, as the official documents call them, as inevitable. Such was the gloomy disposition of the public mind about the year 546, when, with Totila already threatening the capital, Sabinus, the blind Bishop of Canosa, caused himself to be conveyed to the summit of Monte Cassino, in order that he might both comfort his soul, distracted by earthlywoes, with the contemplation of a better and heavenly kingdom, and renew the bond of an old friendship with St Benedict. One day, as the prelate was dining in the refectory of the monastery, and the great Patriarch with his disciples was cheering him with gentle and affectionate atten­ tions, the talk fell upon Rome. Equally with St Benedict, Sabinus had been the recipient of many marks of esteem and respect from Totila, but nevertheless he did not conceal his fear lest the barbarian's cruelty should utterly crush the ancient queen of the world. Benedict, who in that very spot had seen the King of the Goths prostrate at his feet, and had foretold to him that his occupation of Rome would be the beginning of his own overthrow, smiled at such fears. Gazing with prophetic vision into the dim future, he assured the good Sabinus that it would not be Totila who would lay waste the Holy City, but that Rome would destroy herself, and fall a victim to her own decrepitude, under an onrush of disasters, earth­ quake, pestilence and famine. 4° The Sacramentary At that prophecy, the fame of which reached generations as yet unborn, Sabinus and the monks may well have shuddered. Five centuries after the death of St Benedict, Monte Cassino still reminded her guests, upon their entering her refectory, that— in refectorio qui est justa ipsum dormitorium, pro/eta vid de roma. Totila did, indeed, occupy the Eternal City; but deeply impressed by the prediction of St Benedict, he gave to her inhabitants such signal proofs of pity and justice that the Liber Pontificalis was able to record of him that he bore himself towards them as a father among his own children. At a time nearly contemporary with these events, whilst already the Patriarch of Monte Cassino was causing to be prepared that tomb which was to receive his worn-out body, there was born in Rome, in the ancestral palace on the Cœlian Hill beside the Clivus Scaurus, a child, chosen in accordance with the far-seeing designs of Providence to be at once the authoritative interpreter of the teaching of St Benedict, the chronicler of his life, the depositary of his world mission, and the resplendent glory of his spiritual posterity. This was Gregory the Great, from whose writings we have taken the particulars set down above. If it be true that the Middle Ages begin with St Gregory, then the old scholastic axiom that death is the source of life has never met with more fatal verification ; for the end of the world, so much dreaded in the Byzantine period, and so often menacingly foretold by the holy Pontiff in his homilies to the people, was truly an awful and living reality, a spectacle witnessed by the world at large. For, indeed, the Lombard invasion, and, outside of the Roman dukedom, the mingling of oppressors with oppressed, caused a profound change in all that unity of institutions, artistic, literary, juridical and religious, which at that time comprised the Christian polity of the romanum imperium. Cities and townships, episcopal palaces and monasteries were destroyed by hundreds in the first onrush of blind fury ; the aqueducts were broken, the land laid waste, commerce paralyzed, municipal government overturned, civil and ecclesiastical laws set at defiance, while in their stead arose a formless conglomeration of barbarian Germanic edicts, having no clear conception of civil liberty, personal propertv or hereditary right. Italy was thus more than sunk in barbarism; her very existence was to all appearance annihi­ lated. To such material woes as these, scarcity and want the horrors of war, floods, famine and disease, and the St Gregory's Reform deceitful desertion of the Byzantines, lent still further bitterness ; while the haughty bearing of the Ecumenical Faster in his patriarchal sec of Constantinople, and the Aquileian schism of the “ Three Chapters ” seemed as if they wished to take advantage of the universal distress to involve Italy and the Holy Sec in one common ruin. The subject is so involved that we can scarcely do more than touch upon it here; yet it is necessary to take due note of all these outward circumstances in order the better to understand the spirit of the reform brought about by Gregory the Great. When the Saint, at first Praetor in Rome, next a monk at the Clivus Scaurus, then delegate at Constantinople, and finally Abbot of Sant’ Andrea, was lamenting the cruel fate that flung him constantly hither and thither in the world, when by natural disposition he was given to the tranquil reflections of philosophy, neither be nor any of his contcmporarics could have foreseen how by means of that hard training divine Providence was preparing the future Pontili to be the saviour of the Roman people. Hence it was that on September 3, 590, upon the death of Pelagius II, he did his utmost to evade the yoke of pastoral cares, finally invoking the imperial veto, that last refuge of the desperate; but the united will of the people overcame his humility, and he was obliged to bow his head in resignation under the hands of the bishops assembled for his consecration. The Lombard incursion into Italy had threatened to shake the very foundations of Catholic social life; hence Gregory needed, before all else, to set himself to their reconsolidation. Truly, our divine Redeemer desired to establish among mankind in the supernatural order also that arrangement which he had devised from the beginning in the course of Nature, when he created man a social being, and decreed that onlv by means of society would he be able to attain to that perfection to which he was called. For this reason, also, the structure of a perfect society has been given bv our Lord to the whole body of the redeemed ; a society supernatural in origin and aim, but visible by reason of the members that compose it, as also of its actions and the means which it employs. Consequently, since our Saviour has made his Church the one depository of all the treasures of redemption, outside of her there is no salvation. A society without authority and without directive means of action moves like the blind rush of a crowd ; hence our Lord has bestowed upon his Church that form of government most in harmony with human nature. Peter, with the keys of heaven, has the sovereignty of all powers on earth also : IIic habet in terris altera claustra poli. | 41 B^^^B B^^^B B^^^B B^^^B B^^^^B B^^^^E E^^^^EF B^^^^BE B^^^B ■; m^^^B B^^^B, B^^^B B^^^B B^;■>, rR^^^B B^^^B E^^^B |JSh~ B ■ Bn B ^|^ΕΒ Ππ^^μΒ ! y^BB ' ^BB Hfl B^^^^B B^^BB BIBB»· ffld^BB RB <Μ^ΒΒ BII^MB hJ^B B 42 The Sacramentary Since, however, the exclusive and universal rule of one person alone, though it has its advantages, is in practice unsuitable to the good government of whole nations, the other bishops derive through him their own lofty mission as individual shepherds of particular churches. This is the reason, in the Church’s hierarchical constitu­ tion, for the specific separation into dioceses, vital cells in a single organism, characterized by a systematic variety which harmonizes admirably with the unity of the supreme pontifi­ cate and carries the spiritual life-stream, at once single and multiform, to every member of the corporate body. It was this fundamental realization of the nature of the Church which inspired Gregory in his great task of religious reform. The well-being of a whole, he argued, results from the well-being of its parts ; and since God has decreed that these parts, too, should each occupy the position of an organic whole, having clearly defined and specific functions with absolutely distinct characteristics, the Pontiff made it his special care to reanimate the Christian consciousness in the life of the diocese. The Lombards had thrown into confusion the boundaries of the dioceses; Gregory consequently set them again in order. In some cases the few remaining relics from episcopal treasuries had been carried away by stealth across the sea, so he caused inventories of these to be drawn up before persons who would act as sureties, with the intention that when peace was restored they might be given back to the bishop. He also exercised every caution before approving the nomination of prelates to vacant sees ; but when once they were enthroned he would not suffer even the smallest arbitrary lessening of their authority, being ever ready to confirm to each diocese its customary rites and privileges. Having been an abbot of monks before he was Pope, Gregory liked to consider the bishops of his metropolitan province somewhat in the light of his own monks, treating them with all that firm yet gentle kindness which had dis­ tinguished his abbatial rule. Thus to one who was ill-provided against the winter’s cold he sends a mantle and a horse; another, of a nature lacking somewhat in straightforwardness, he reproves; a third was a little close-fisted and gouty, and is exhorted, therefore, to greater liberality; a fourth, who was weakly, he forbids to fast more than five times a year, while enjoining upon him to come, with the return of warmer weather, to Rome, to the Palace of the Lateran, either that he may be nursed back to health, or otherwise die in the arms of his old master Pope Gregory himself. Remorselessly vigilant over the discipline of the monas- St Gregory's Reform 43 tcries of Italy, Gregory, while very remotely preparing the way for monastic exemption from episcopal authority by direct appeal to the Apostolic See, was careful to guard himself against disturbing in any way the peace of the dioceses, and laid down, with wise judgement, the first rules of what we might almost call the Jus Regularium. Nothing escaped his attention, and as he had at heart the maintaining of a good understanding between Abbots and Bishops, he displayed a prudent reserve on occasions of abbatial elections, when the choice fell upon persons who were not altogether praiseworthy. Nor did he disdain to concern himself with the material needs of the young novices, and during a v inter of bitter cold and distressing scarcity he caused all the religious under seventeen years of age to be sent from the Tuscan Archipelago to Rome, so that they might suffer less from hunger, and have him at hand to minister to their wants. Thanks to this prudent watchfulness, which does honour to his name, for Gregory signifies “vigilant,” a new stream of spiritual vitality now flowed through all the churches of Italy. It was not long before Agilulf and his Lombards conformed to the Catholic polity of the Latin peoples and received the orthodox Roman baptism. Once within the bosom of holy Church, her former persecutors set themselves, with all the fiery energy peculiar to their race, to rebuild the ruined churches and monasteries, and to set up schools, hospitals and clerical communities, to such an extent that every noble Lombard, in the century following St Gregory’s death, would have considered himself unworthy of his spiritual lineage if he had not erected on his own domain some church or convent ob redemptionem animae suae. In Italy, especially in the rural districts, they are so numerous that the entire countryside is bedecked with them as with jewels. Gregory, however, began his work of reform with the head before he attempted the revival of the whole body. His starting-point was the episcopium latcranense, and since the reform which he contemplated was not to be a mere official act, but was rather to consist in a real deepening of the Christian spirit, he removed from the dwelling-place of Christ’s Vicar on earth the whole of the lay clement, placing the various offices of his household under the care of eccle­ siastics or of monks of exemplary life. It was a colossal building, or, rather, group of buildings, that Lateran palace, which, in the night of the Middle Ages, u a le cose mortali andô di sopraS" 1 Cf. Dante, Paradiso, xxxi, 36.—T*. 44 The Sacramentary In the sacred precincts of the Basilica of the Saviour and of the Baptistery of Sylvester, beside the Palace of Pope Vigilius and the Synodal Hall with its eleven apsidal recesses rich in mosaics, there arose the pontifical residence, with its chapels and library, its baths and towers, and whatever else of cultural treasure the Popes of old had been able to collect therein as in a very ark of refuge. Encircled though it was by a girdle of monasteries on its inner side, along the Cœlian and Esquiline Hills, yet the patriarchal see of Rome pos­ sessed, too, its own monasterium laieranense, founded probably in the lifetime of St Benedict, but in any case before the era of Pelagius II and the destruction of Monte Cassino by the Lombards. Close to the Baptistery was to be seen the orphanage of the papal choir, just then awaiting its re-establishment at the hands of St Gregory. There the young clerics were taught, not only music, but theology and the sciences, so that not a few of the former pupils of that conservatorium passed from it to be raised later to the papal throne itself. Every day, but more lavishly at certain fixed seasons, the widows, orphans and poor of Rome received in free gift from Gregory their necessary supplies, clothing, beds and cover­ ings. Daily about 4,000 nuns claimed relief from the papal exchequer, and at the solemn feasts of Easter and of SS Peter and Paul the nobles, together with the monks and the clergy, assembled to receive a token of the unfailing lovingkindness of their supreme Pastor—a kiss from the Pope himself—and also a little gift of precious perfumes as a slight remembrance of the goodwill of St Peter towards them. Λ reform carried out on a purely legal basis may be too violent in its mode of action, and therefore may often meet with but indifferent success. It is the intellect which must determine the will ; whence it comes that, in order to promote the good, we have to begin by making it loved, and especially by educating the mind to its reception. To allure the heart with mere feeling is not sufficient, for it is a blind force not easily controlled; we must turn, rather, to the mind if we wish to persuade and convince. For some time after the peace of Constantine, the Christians in their private liturgical worship had filled for themselves the void caused by the temporary interruption of that episcopal teaching which, in the beginning, had formed an integral part of the eucharistie synaxis. St Leo I had, indeed, in a period of exceptional disturbance, restored the old custom, but after his day it was abandoned, to be again revived by St Gregory, who had been already accustomed when Abbot to speak daily to his monks, commenting, as in his Moralia, upon the Book of Job or some other part of the sacred Scriptures. The Roman people, gathered together for the stations or BQHBKUE31I! Si Gregory's Reform 45 for the feasts of the martyrs, had thus frequent opportunity of beholding with admiration their Pontiff, who, personally when his health allowed him, or otherwise by proxy through his deacon, expounded the Gospel to the faithful, seated on his marble throne in the hemicycle of the apse at the end of the sanctuary. His manner of speech was simple and easy, at once free from the rhetorical subtleties which at times characterized St Augustine, and from the somewhat pompous mannerism displayed by St Leo. He expressed himself in faultless, grammatical Latin, as pure as his own soul, and, like a father teaching his children, was careful for the eternal welfare of each separate individual. Gregory, through his sermons, has contributed more than any other to the development of the various forms of that popular devotion which was so well marked in the Middle Ages, by dwelling on the devotion to the holy angels, the apparitions of souls detained in Purgatory, the offering of Masses on their behalf, and finally by the little edifying stories of which the Pontiff had always such a plentiful collection. Now that we have seen the destinies of Italy restored by the infusion of the Lombard stock with noble Latin blood, diocesan life revived in the peninsula, and the Christian consciousness awakened in Rome and throughout all Italy, the moment has at length come to study St Gregory’s liturgical reform, of which we have so far traced out merely the foundations. The Saint’s liturgical standards arc well known. He writes to Augustine of Canterbury that he is to choose freely from the Frankish churches those ritual customs which he may consider the most suitable for his English neophytes, since non pro locis res, sed pro rebus loca amanda sunt ; and in another letter, addressed to Bishop John of Syracuse, he declares himself ready to apply this eminently eclectic prin­ ciple to the Roman Liturgy itself. In this he was faithfully following the tradition of his predecessors, so that the Roman Liturgy did not definitely enter upon its period of starts until after the death of the great teacher. Note his words to the Bishop of Syracuse : Si quid boni vel ipsa1 vel altera ecclesia habet, ego et minores meos quod ab illicitis prohibeo, in bono imitari paratus sum. Stultus est enim qui in eo se primum existimat, ut bona quae viderit, discere contemnat. Happily the liturgical heritage of the Apostolic See is unrivalled in splendour and suitableness by that of any other church ; hence the holy Pope, as if to reassure us against his own theories, which might prove somewhat disastrous for the history of the ancient Liturgy, affirms that his innova1 i.t., of Constantinople. 46 The Sacramentary tions in the Mass were in reality nothing· else than a return to the purest Roman tradition. In nullo aliam ecclesiam secuti sumus, he asserts, not even when he put the Alleluia back into its place of honour on all Sundays except in Lent, since this was the actual Roman tradition inaugurated by Pope Damasus under the auspices of St Jerome. Et ideo magis in hac re illam consuetudinem amputavimus, quae hic a Graecis fuerat tradita. Nor was it a real innovation when he gave greater importance to that last relic of the primitive Litany (Kyrie eleison), which originally followed the Office of the Vigil before the commencement of the eucharistie Anaphora. Moreover, between the time of the earliest watchings in the cubicula of the martyrs in the suburban cemeteries and that of Constantine’s splendid basilicas, many circumstances had arisen to modify the ancient sacrificial rite. The early with its final litany had almost disappeared, while the solemn entrance of the Pope into the church for the celebration of the divine mysteries had grown vastly more imposing, thanks to the schola cantorum and its musical prelude to the whole eucharistie actio—a prelude that was called simply introitus. It was to this introit that Gregory reattached the Kyrie, thus insuring that the priest’s collect should not be said without at any rate some sort of intro­ ductory formula. It was Gregory, likewise, who placed the singing of the Pater Koster before the fraction of the consecrated species, in order that it might form, as it were, the conclusion of the eucharistie Canon ; since originally, so he argued, the conseeratory Anaphora could have been nothing else than a free paraphrase of the prayer which our Lord himself had taught the Apostles. Gregory had, perhaps, heard vaguely of the tradition laid down in the Didache, according to which the threefold daily prayer of the Christians consisted of a triple Pater Noster, recited at the morning, noon and evening hour. In the Apostolic Age, he added, the Lord’s Prayer was the starting-point of the whole Liturgy ; it was therefore altogether unsuitable that the Canon, composed by scholas­ ticus quidam, should wholly supplant the Gospel prayer, which was recited, not indeed at the altar, in fractione—that is to say, at the moment of the sacrifice—but only after the fraction of the Host, when, the offering of the Eucharist having ended with the Anaphora, the Pope returned to his throne to prepare for Holy Communion. It was then no mere rubrical nicety, no question of a moment sooner or later, which led Gregory to give the Pater Noster a place within the Roman consecratory Anaphora, but rather a profound St Gregory's Reform theological reason, resting upon the primitive liturgical tradition of the Apostolic Age. Ever since the days of St Paul the unity of the Christian family under the rule of its lawful pastors was symbolized by the unity of the altar—of the eucharistie bread and wine— in which all alike shared. Almost down to the time of Justin Martyr the faithful from every quarter of the city and its suburbs made their way on the Saturday, as it was growing dusk, to the Esquiline, to the titulus Pastoris, in order to celebrate, together with the Pope and his clergy, the solemn vigil of the ensuing Sunday. It was only later that, taking example, perhaps, from the great capitals of Antioch and Alexandria, the various urban tituli assigned to the different presbyteries became so many reproductions in the Urbs of the original sole title of the Shepherd, where the faithful of the district received the holy sacraments at the hands of the clergy of that particular title. But in order that the sense of unity of the ecclesia romana should not be weakened by this system of parochial division, which bore a purely administrative character, not only did there obtain for a long period the use of a single baptistery in which every one was born again into Christian life at the hands of the Holy Father—the sponsus ecclesiae; but, more than this, every Sunday the Pontiff used to send to the presbyteries attached to the different titles a consecrated particle from his eucharistia, so that, being placed in their chalices as a sacrum fermentum, it might typify the identity of the Sacrifice and the Sacrament which united both Shepherd and sheep in the one and only faith. We see the last remaining memento of this rite in the eucharistie particle which is still at this day placed in the chalice after the breaking of the Host. Thanks to these rites, the parochial Mass of the titular priests did not obscure the memory of the single primitive papal synaxis formerly held in the house of the family of Pudens. The recollection, too, of the earlier stations at the cemeteries always lived on in Rome, even after the pestilence, notwithstanding the danger of venturing beyond the shelter of the city walls on account of the Lombards. Gregory, however, with that wonderful adaptability to circumstances which revealed in him the former Roman praetor under the papal pallium, substituted the titular churches within the walls for the extra-mural basilicas of the martyrs. His idea of having popular processions was a stroke of genius, fostered, doubtless, for many years past, during the pro­ cessions in which, as monk and abbot, he had taken part within the enclosure of his monastery on the Cœlian. This wish of Gregory’s was realized on the morrow of the death 48 The Sacramentary of Pope Pelagius, when, while still simply a candidate for the Holy See, he announced his famous litania septiformis, in which the faithful from all parts of the city, moving in seven companies and chanting the Kyrie eleison, were to go in procession to the Vatican Basilica, to implore from almighty God the cessation of the pestilence by which all Rome was being devastated. When that scourge had ceased, famine, war and earth­ quake succeeded each other until finally the Pontiff offered himself to God as a victim in expiation of the sins of the people. In those tragic days, as John the Deacon relates, Gregory was to be seen at the head of his clergy, leading the way from one Roman sanctuary to another, to entreat the martyrs for the safety of his people. Decimated though they were by famine and disease, yet they ever followed him, drawn onwards by the attractive holiness of their episcopus, who now, since the shameful flight of the Byzantine governor, had become the Consul of God also—Dei Consul factus. In seeing and listening to their Father the Pope, the Roman people even became oblivious of the ring of hostile swords drawn now so close about the city as to hem her in within a wall of steel. Their case appeared wellnigh des­ perate, since the treacherous malice of the Exarchs, jealous of Gregory’s political success with the Lombards, broke truce and armistice, in order to enrage the barbarians and thus deprive Gregory of the honour of being the saviour of Italy. The Pontiff himself, regarding all this with the scrutinizing gaze of a philosopher, realized on the one hand the utter impossibility of any resistance to the invaders on the part of the Italians, and, on the other, already foresaw that vita nova which should arise, full of vigour and strength, from the fusion of the two races; and so he insistently defended the cause of peace, though not openly daring as yet to put forward publicly the conditions it might entail. He commended Italy, therefore, to the care of divine Providence, and in the eucharistie prayer, just before the consecration of the holy mysteries, at the place where the Roman Liturgy was wont to make mention of the particular intentions for which the sacrifice was being offered, he inserted those words so expressive of the great yearning of his pastoral heart— diesque nostros in tua pace disponas—which the Canon Missae has for ever kept as the precious legacy of St Gregory the Great. Meanwhile the besiegers were pressing ever closer and closer. Gregory just then was commenting to his people upon the Prophet Ezechiel, but there came a day when the lamentations broke down the eloquence of the venerable teacher. “Let no one be angry with me,” he said to his 49 St Gregory's Reform assembled hearers, “ if henceforth I say no more, since you all see how our tribulation has reached its height. From the Roman eagle, once so proud, they have stripped all the leathers. Where is the Senate now? Where are the legions which carried the terror of our power to the ends of the earth? Instead of these, refugees come ileeing to us daily, some driven from their homes and despoiled of their every possession; others wounded, mutilated and horribly ill-used." At length there dawned, il not a definite peace, at any rate an honourable settlement with the Lombard host, and the penitential stations were changed into festivals of gratitude and thanksgiving. Gregory again took up his interrupted teaching, and, acting on the suggestion of his friends, arranged in definite shape the collection of his homilies in Evangelia which began from this time to be read at the recitation of the divine Office. These homilies, forty in number, represent in all proba­ bility but a very small part of St Gregory’s sermons—only those, in fact, which treat of the Gospel ; but, besides com­ menting upon Job and Ezcchiel, he must have dealt in like manner with other books of Holy Scripture—the Books of Kings, for instance—and must very frequently have addressed the Roman presbyterium gathered together in the consis­ torium of the Lateran. Gregory’s homiletic style is clear and smooth : first of all, he gives a succinct explanation of the literal meaning of the Gospel passage read at Mass, without losing himself, as St Jerome does, amid digressions into textual criticism. Then he proceeds to the moral application of the text, and it is here that the former Abbot of St Andrew makes himself felt as a great master with mature experience of the ways of the spiritual life. Yet even in his highest flights he desires above all things to be approved of the people; so he does not fail to add some edifying anecdote, nearly always drawn from personal experience, calling his hearers themselves to witness. In the sermons of St Gregory the theological argument appears indubitably less profound than in those of St Leo ; but the forty homilies far surpass in moral effect the dis­ courses of Attila’s conqueror, who lingers too long amid lofty speculations and dogmatic abstractions for one whose audience is but an ignorant multitude. When Gregory speaks we feel that he is well accustomed to the giving of many ascetic addresses and dissertations, and that he has many things to say to his flock, who are desirous of assuring him of their own anxiety for their common salvation; so much so, indeed, that while he is preaching the stational Mass becomes too long, and the less fervent are found 4 5° The Sacramentary complaining of the untiring eloquence of the one-time Praetor. This sign of discontent displayed on the faces of the more impatient does not escape St Gregory, but because, as a person of much experience, in choosing between the tradi­ tional chants of the Mass and the sermon, he gives preference to the latter, he therefore decides to curtail the ancient melodies which now for several centuries past had accom­ panied the eucharistie synaxis, thus leaving more time for the Word of God. According to John the Deacon, we have here the motive which caused the Saint to rearrange the collection of the chants of the Mass, the Cantatorium, which, taken probably from Milan in the time of St Damasus, had been gradually recast, developed and amplified by Roman hands. We cannot exactly determine the part in this development of the Roman liturgical chant taken respectively by Leo I, Symmachus, John and Boniface, whom an anonymous writer of the eighth century calls the co-authors of the cantus annualis. Yet from all sources the conclusion is reached that the exact meaning of the Antiphonarium Centonem, as John the Deacon calls the Gregorian version, is explained for us in those lines written in honour of St Gregory, which of old were usually inscribed on the first page of his Antiphonary : Ipse Patrum monumenta sequens, renovavit et auxit> Carmina in officiis retinet quae circulus anni. He did, in fact, revise all that vast collection of music, compressing, correcting, beautifying and reducing to more harmonious proportions the exuberant growth of those religious melodies which, originating in the East and trans­ ferred to Milan, retained many elements little suited to the more sober and orderly taste of the Westerns in general, and of the Romans in particular. Did Gregory accomplish such a task alone? It is necessary for us to bear in mind the great work of abbreviation already going on for more than a century at the hands of the magistri romanae ecclesiae, as Amalarius styles them ; but the ancients are agreed in attributing to the Pontiff the completed edition of the Antiphonarium. We know from another source that, after the Saint had reorganized his two scholae of singers at St Peter’s and in the Lateran, an authentic copy of St Gregory’s musical recension was still preserved in the latter palace, in the time of John the Deacon, together with the rod with which, when confined at times to his bed by gout, he would recall the wandering attention of his too lively pupils. There are some writers who have wished to see in a canon of the Roman Council of July 5, 595, the terminus a quo of St Gregory's Reform 51 the schola of the Roman singers, and even the date of foundation of the musical institution. It was an ancient custom in Rome for the deacon to sing the responsorial solo at the Mass from the steps of the ambo—responsorium graduate. It resulted from this that in choosing the deacon for this purpose more attention was paid to musical skill than to holiness of life; and the deacons, anxious to sing with taste, neglected the other duties of their ministry. In order, therefore, to do away with this abuse, St Gregory forbade the Roman deacons to exercise any longer the office of solo singers, reserving it henceforth to the subdeacons, or failing them, to clerics of lower degree. Some authorities have deduced from this rule that in 595 the schola of singers did not as yet exist in Rome. This conclusion, however, does not hold. It is not said that the subdeacons are to carry out the entire singing of every kind, antiphonal or responsorial, in Mass and Office; they are merely charged exclusively with the duty of executing the responsorial solo, which, by reason of the importance attached to it, was formerly reserved to the deacon, and sometimes even to the bishop. On this account Gregory wished to entrust its execution to an acolyte, in the absence of a subdeacon, rather than give it to the younger lectors, as would have seemed the more likely course to pursue. More­ over, the Canon of the Roman Council of 595, far from excluding the existence of the schola, presupposes it, since without the schola musical skill sufficient for the rendering of solos could hardly have been expected of the subdeacons, much less from the inferior clerics. The Introit, Offertory and Communion Antiphons, too, date back at least to the time of Celestine I, a type of chant which necessarily demands a choir of singers and takes for granted, therefore, the establishment of a schola. On this point we have a further piece of evidence which contains a definite solution of the problem, witnessing as it does to the existence of the schola at least fifty years before the pontificate of St Gregory. It is the epitaph on the tomb of Pope Deusdcdit, who died in 618, fourteen years after St Gregory, in which occur these lines, calling attention to the cursus honorum of the deceased : Hic vir ab exortu Petri est nutritus ovili, Excuvians Christi cantibus hymnisonis. If Pope Deusdcdit was brought up from early childhood in the musical conservatorium of St Peter’s, it follows that this must be very much older than the Roman Council of 595, and probably goes back to the era of Pope Celestine I. The establishment of the two choir schools, the Vatican and the 52 The Sacramentary Lateran, attributed to St Gregory by John the Deacon, docs not necessarily imply a foundation ad imis, but only a re-establishment and reorganization, seeing that pestilence, famine and siege would have scattered far and wide the orphan children received therein. With Gregory’s work of critically revising the liturgical chants went hand in hand his recension of the Roman Sacramentary, in which, taking into account the hardships which evil times had imposed upon the faithful, the Pope shortened both prayers and ceremonies, arranged in a different manner the course of eucharistie stations, and finally suppressed whatever was superfluous and unsuitable in the old collections. To rescue in proportion as the former Imperium decayed all classes of society; to inoculate the Latin blood with the new and eager zeal of the Catholic Lombards; to make them Italians in their turn; to rebuild on the foundations of the diocesan ecclesiastical life the dislocated hierarchical system, inspiring it anew with spiritual energy; to shed the light of the Church’s inner holiness upon the outside world by means of processions, in which priests, monks and virgins poured forth the psalms in exquisite harmony ; to make all this vast movement of reform a permanent one by means of books or of lasting institutions; to mould the new polity of the Middle Ages, so essentially Christian, out of the ruins of the ancient world—such was Gregory’s great work. Some may call him the Apostle of England, others may even give to him the glory of having laid the foundation of the temporal power of the Popes; but these arc only side issues in that manifold and stupendous achievement of his, so intimately realized by the Roman people on the morrow of his passing from them, that they, after their own special manner, saluted him as the Consul of God. Ihsque Dei Consul factus, laetare triumphis, Nam mercedem operum jam sine fine habes. CHAPTER V “FRACTIO PANIS” HE coming of our Lord into this world constitutes the fulfilment of the divine promises made to the patriarchs and prophets;1 hence the New Testa­ ment, far from abrogating the Old Law, com­ pletes it and gives it its final perfection.2 It is for this reason that the Catholic Liturgy, inasmuch as it is the expression of the Church’s perfect and essential worship of almighty God, neither annulled nor wholly proscribed the former Lsraelitish ritual with its joyous songs of Sion, but rather, reanimating these with the light of the Gospel, and engrafting thereon her own prayers and intercessions, brought them to the knowledge of redeemed humanity in like manner as the flower which blossomed upon the stem of Jesse. The worship of the Father in spirit and in truth, which was from the beginning the essential end and aim of the creation of the world, was also that of the incarnation of the Word of God and of the founding of his Church. To adore in spirit means nothing less than to lift up oneself to God with the soaring Hight of a pure soul, clear of every stain, and free from every earthly attachment. It is the gift of the Holy Ghost. I o adore in truth—what is it save worthily to acknowledge the divine perfections, without needless search­ ings regarding the object of our worship, in thanksgiving for that Catholic revelation which recognizes Jesus Christ our Lord, the Truth himself, as its source? I he prayer of no mortal creature, indeed, can fully satisfy this twofold condition ; it is the privilege of the eternal and divine High Priest alone to adore the Father with a perfect adoration. Yet so that humanity may neither remain deprived of the efficacy of this prayer, nor shut out from participating in the glory of this adoration by which alone it can reach its true goal, our Lord has willed by means of his Church to associate our nature closely with his own life of sanctity and prayer. Hence all the faithful, inasmuch as they are true members of the mystical body of Christ, have a share in his sacerdotal dignity, and the Spirit of the Lord adores and prays in them in a manner so exalted and so worthy of God that St Paul is at a loss to explain this intimate intercourse of the soul with its Creator, save by calling it the “ unspeakable groanings ” of the Spirit. 2 Matt, v, ϊ7· 1 Rom. i, 2. 53 54 The Sacramentary Yet the individual life of the mystical members of Christ is to be distinguished from that of the whole Body, his Church. This latter is One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, united to the Saviour by an eternal and perfect marriage­ bond, whereas the individual faithful only share in this endowment proportionately to the faith and love which joins them to Christ and the Church. For this reason the holiness of Christendom and its social worship are also quite distinct from the holiness and piety of the faithful as individuals; these last being, as it were, a reflection and consequence of the Church’s sanctity. The devotion and personal goodness of the members of the Church may vary indefinitely, and may depend upon a number of contingencies, but the devotion and goodness of the mystical body of Christ are inherent and eternal. It follows from this that the piety of the faithful as individuals bears a wholly different stamp from the piety of the Church. This last claims the special name of Liturgy, which defines it as the essential and perfect worship which Christian society, as such, renders to God through Christ. In practice the sanctity of Christendom and its supernatural life consist mainly of this worship offered to the sacred Trinity, just as the life of the soul expresses itself principally in operations of intellect and will. Of the entire number of the rites and formulas comprised in Christian worship some are of divine institution,1 as the sacraments ; others, such as certain parts of the canonical Office and other extra-sacramental rites, are ordained by the Church, always acting, however, under the guiding and vivifying influence of the Holy Ghost. The history of the ancient Christian Liturgy is exceedingly obscure, owing to the lack of necessary documents; and one might almost think that a kind of mysterious cloud were hiding from the eyes of men the footprints of our Saviour along the pathway of redemption. Though we may feel only too strongly that the most natural attitude for a soul confronted by God’s lovingkindness is that of prayer, we have, nevertheless, to lament the almost total loss of primitive Christian euchology, of prayers frequently extemporary and expressive of thanks­ giving, often handed down by oral tradition, just as the άγραψα,2 the λογία of Jesus and the axioms of the early ciders mentioned by Papias3 and Irenaeus.4 The eucharistie sacrifice was instituted by the Saviour at 1 C/. Probst, Liturgie der drei eriten christlicken Jahrhunderte, Part I, Tubingen 1870. Fouard, Vie de J.C., 2, appendix. 5 A. Resch, Agrapha, Texte und Untersuchungen, etc., Leipzig 18S0, Y» 4· C/· L tl. Ropes, Die sprâche Jesu, die in den kanonischen Evangehen mcht überliefert sind, 1896. (/bid., xiv 2 ) ’ Cf. Fragmenta beati Papiae ep., in Routh, Reliquiae Saerae, i, 044. 4 Seniores afud Irenceum (of. cit., 47-68). J w “ Fractio Panis ” 55 a meal, purely religious in character, the ceremonial of which it is not difficult to reconstruct. We know also from the New Testament writers that the sacrament of Confirma­ tion was conferred by means of an episcopal invocation, accompanied by the imposition of hands;1 to Extreme Unction was joined the oratio fidei of the presbyters ;2 while Episcopal Ordination demanded a preparatory fast, the Invocation and the imposition of hands by the celebrant.3 St Paul mentions also a bonam confessionem coram multis testibus but it is doubtful whether this is to be taken as meaning a preparatory profession of faith. In any case, it is certain that from the earliest times there existed certain well-defined catechetical formulas, known in all the churches. Moreover, the inspired mind of the Apostles must have determined these formulas very early, together with the ceremonies and the whole setting of the sacramental rites which constitute the predominating element in our worship; and this becomes the more certain when we reflect that the extra-sacramental assemblies, being based on the customs of the synagogue, had the model for their cere­ monial close at hand. For the celebration of the sacraments, on the other hand, the Apostles had recourse almost solely to the gifts infused into the Church by her heavenly Bride­ groom, so that they might translate into tangible forms and noble words the new emotions welling up in every heart. Those were the true songs pro torcularibus, when the strong new wine in the new skins fermented, as it were, under the action of the divine Spirit.5 The Epistles of St Paul, especially those to the Corinthians,6 the pastorals addressed to Timothy,7 the Διδαχή,8 the Song of Solomon,’ the Canticles in the Apocalypse;10 these, with some few phrases of Clement I11 and of Ignatius,12 furnish us with 1 Acts viii, 15-17. 2 James v, 14-15. 8 Acts xiii, 3. 4 i Tim. iv, 14; i, 18. • Matt, ix, 17-18. 8 i Cor. x, 16. T i Tim. iii, 16. C/. Th. Innitzer, Der “ hymnus" in Epheserbriefe, i, 3> Μ· {Zeitschr. f. Kat hoi. Theolog., 1904, iii, 612-21.) 8 Cj. P. Cagin, L'Euchologie latine étudiée dans la tradition de ses formulaires, ii ; L'Eucaristia, Canon primitif de la Messe, ou Formulaire essentiel et premier de toutes les liturgies, Desclée, 1912, viii ; “ L'Eucharistia ” primitive et la Διδαχή, 252-2S8. 9 Cj. I. Labourt et P. Batiffol, Les Odes de Salomon. Une oeuvre chrétienne des environs de l'an 101-120. Traduct. française et introduc­ tion historique, Paris, Lecoffre, 1911. 10 Cj. G. Morin, Un texte préhieronymien du Cantique de l'Apoca­ lypse; l'hymne" Magna et Mirabilia," in Rev. Bénédict., 1909, pp. 044-9. « S Clément Roman., Epist. I ad Corinth., c. xl sq., Edit. Funk, Tübingen 1887, pp. 110/17. 13 Cf. I. Nirschl, Die Théologie des hl. Ignatius, Mainz 1S80; E. Car. v. d. Goltz, Ignatius von Antiochien als Christ und Theologe, Leipzig 1894 {Text, und Untersuchungen, etc., xii, 3). ζ6 The Sacramentary materials as scanty as they are precious for a slight recon­ struction of the original scheme of the Liturgy, although they scarcely suffice for sketching its bare outline. Once we allow for the judaizing tendency of the early Church of Jerusalem1 when, under the sole episcopal ride of James, “ the Lord’s brother,” even St Paul had, for an instant, to adapt himself to the harmless ritual of the Temple,2 it is not strange that the ceremonial of the synagogue should have been willingly adopted in the extrasacramental gatherings of the first Christians. Moreover, since we know that, prior to the episcopate of James, Peter and John also used to frequent the Temple services,3 follow­ ing therein the example of our Lord himself,'1 it seems needful to conclude that the grafting of the Hebrew cere­ monial upon the Christian rites took place by the authority of the twelve Apostles, rather than merely through the individual initiative of the frater Domini with his strictly judaizing surroundings.5 Without, however, exaggerating the value of such euchological borrowings, the obstinate persistence of certain Aramaic elements in all liturgies6— Amen, Alleluia, Anathema, Maran Atha, etc.7—cannot be explained, especially in the Roman and Greek world in which St Paul lived, otherwise than by taking into account the almost hieratic importance attached by Christian tradition until this time to those formulas which had their origin in Jerusalem.8 We have spoken of the influence of the Jewish capital upon the Christian Liturgy, but we must reckon also with the other numerous synagogues scattered throughout East and West.’ These existed under the protection of the law, and were represented juridically by a community partly religious, partly national in character, having benefactors, a treasury and common burial-grounds, and maintaining more or less cordial relations with the great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. St Paul, when on his missionary journeys, always made his headquarters at the local synagogue,10 where his role of stranger and disciple of Gamaliel gave him the privilege of 1 “ Vides, frater, quot millia sunt in Judaeis qui crediderunt et omnes aemulatores sunt legis." Acts xxi, 20. 2 Acts xxi, 20-27. 3 Acts ili, 1. 4 John vii, 10-11, 37; v, 1. 4 The feasts mentioned by New Testament writers are those ordained under the law. Cf. Acts xiii, 2 = Feast of Tabernacles (?) ; Lev. xvi, 29. e i Cor. xvi, 22 ; Rom. viii, 15. 7 Af>oc. xix, 1-7 ; Διδαχή ix. x. 8 Cf. Paliogra-ph, musicale, v. vi ; v. d. Goltz, E., Neue Fragmente aus der Agyftischen Liturgie nach der Verôflentlichung von Dorn P. de Puniet, Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, 190g, vol. xxx, pp. 352-61. • Cf. O. Marucchi, Manuale d'Archeologia cristiana, II, c. i, pp *5 *9... . 10 Acts xui, 40. “ Fractio Panis ” 57 interpreting- the law to the people,1 and only when his words were not received did he separate his first disciples from the synagogue, to reassemble them in the house of one of the more wealthy among the faithful.2 Theological and historical reasons would naturally establish a prejudice in favour of Israel, and her rites occupied such a place of honour among the early Christians that even to-day the first part of the eucharistie ceremonial corresponds exactly to that which was observed in the houses of prayer of the Dispersion.3 We may fairly affirm that the Jewish euchology penetrated into the Christian Church vested in the fulness of its musical setting, with its traditional alleluiatic melodies,4 and with its living and popular forms of psalmody, both responsorial and antiphonal, although we are not at present able to determine more accurately the harmonic elements from whence all this was derived.5 In order to realize better the historical conditions which influenced the development of the Christian Liturgy, especially in the Latin world, a knowledge of the surround­ ings in which it grew up is of capital importance.6 It is in the town or country homes of the more prosperous Christians among whom the preaching of St Peter, St John7 and St Paul at Rome bore such marvellous fruit, that we find the first “cenacles” of the Roman Church. We can still recognize the sites of some of these places of resort, domes­ ticae ecclesiae, on the Aventine and the Viminal, as well as in the suburban estates of the Acilii Cdabriones and the Flavii along the Salarian and Ardeatine Ways.8 The pastoral administration within the city was early divided into seven districts and placed under the charge of the presbyteral college and of the seven regionary deacons, whose dependence upon the episcopus was very much more complete than at Alexandria. The prerogatives of the pontifical primacy, 1 Acts xvii, 2; cf. C. Fouard, Saint Paul, ses Missions, Paris, Lecoffre, c. ii, pp. 31 sq. 2 Acts xix, S, 9. 3 Mark xii, 38, 39; Luke xx, 46; Acts xiii, 14 sq. 4 P. Wagner, Origine e sviluppo del canto liturgico, Versione italiana del Sacerdote M. R., riveduta dall'autore, Siena, Tipografia Pontificia S. Bernardino, 1910, c. i, pp. 34 sq. 8 P. Cagin, Archaïsme et progrès dans la restauration des Mélodies Grégoriennes, in Rassegna Gregor., iv, 1905, pp. 295 sq. Cf. A Gastoue, Les Origines du Chant Romain—L'Antiphonaire Grégorien, Picard et Fils, Paris. 8 Tertull., Apolog. XLII, P.L. I, 557-8; De Fuga XIV, P.L. II, 141-2; O. Marucchi, op. cit., III, c. v, p. 388. 7 “ Ista quam felix ecclesia . . . ubi Petrus passioni dominicae adaequatur, ubi Paulus Joannis exitu coronatur, ubi apostolus Joannes, posteaquam in oleum igneum demersu-·, nihil passus est, in insulam relegatur.” Tertull., De Praescr., P.L. II, 59. 8 O. Marucchi, op. cit., p. 387. The Sacramentary universally acknowledged, even by those heretics who were trying to wrest from it its protection, rendered altogether harmless this early presbyteral oligarchy1—scarcely men­ tioned by Hermas2—while it left the Popes full opportunity to extend that efficacious influence over the churches of the whole world to which all ancient writers bear witness. The tangible symbol of this supreme authority of the Popes was probably, for some time at least, the ecclesia Pudentiana in the house of Pudens on the Viminal. The connection of St Peter with this family is indeed shrouded in the obscurity of legend, but recent excavations and researches have given further probability to the hypothesis that the Apostle was in actual relation with the gens Cornelia of the Aventine and also with the family of Pudens, all of whose monumental records converge upon the cemetery of Priscilla, where ancient tradition has preserved the remembrance of the baptism administered by St Peter himself.3 The history of the ecclesia Pudentiana or Titulus Pastoris makes mention in its records of that enigmatical Hermas, brother of Pius I,4 who dedicates the early chapters of his visions to Pope Clement, that he may communicate them to the churches. Near this spot Justin set up his school, and perhaps also Tatian.5 It would seem, indeed, that the theological tradition lingered long in that locality, since, close by, a memoria martyris Hippolyti of the fourth century preserved also the record of the famous antipope, one of the most powerful minds of Christian antiquity.6 We are still far from arriving at a didascaleion, properly speaking, such as flourished at Alexandria, yet the existence of a catechetical school on the Viminal near the vicus patricius remains highly probable. In spite, however, of the great importance of the titulus pastoris, the faithful could not all assemble on every occasion in the stately atrium before the tablinium where the Pope celebrated Mass; and though Justin, in his first Apologia, seems to assert positively that the Christians were wont to gather on the Sunday in one single place of assembly,7 yet in the interrogatory to which he was afterwards subjected by 1 O. Marucchi, op. cit., pp. 391 sq. 3 An account of the literature relating to this celebrated work is to be found in Bardenhewer, Patrologia, Italian trans, by Rev Prof A. Mercati, i, 238-9. 3 De Rossi, Bullettino d'Archeol. Crist., 1867, pp. 49 sq.; Marucchi, op. at., pp. 27-8. J ’ ‘ CJ. Marant, Ad opera S. Justini praefatio, c. iii ; P.G. VI n 122 5 Euseb.. Htstor., v, 13. ’ 1 « CJ. de Rossi, Bullet., ser. Ill, ann. 6° (1818), c-ce · «r tv ann .0 (1882)9-76; ann. 2o (,8831,6065. ' 5 55 ’ 3βΤ< ’ ann· 1 ’ Apolog. I, c. Ixvii; P.L. VI, 429. “ Fractio Panis ” 59 Rusticus, the Roman Prefect, he maintains the exact oppo­ site : An existimas omnes nos in unum locum convenire? Minime res ita se habet. Indeed, some centuries later the Pope on festival days was still accustomed to send to the priests of the titular churches a particle of his own Euchar­ istia,1 to be placed in the chalice as a sacrum fermentum, to signify the union of the Christian flock with their pastor and the identity of the eucharistie sacrifice, which, celebrated in many places, was yet always offered in the name and in the stead of the one Episcopus of the capital of the world.2 Justin preserves to us the fullest account of a eucharistie assembly in the second century.3 In the cemetery of Priscilla the so-called Greek chapel and the adjoining baptistery offer very suggestive points of comparison for the identifying of them with the places described by the celebrated martyr ; but the question is foreign to our purpose here, for which it will suffice to reproduce the text of the Martyr-Philosopher. I. Koivàs εύχάι ποιησόμ^νοι νπίρ re ίαυτων καί του φωτισΟίντοτ, κα.1 άλλων πανταχοΰ πάντων ευτόνων . . . Άλλή- Xow φιλήματι άσπα^όμεΑα παισάμε- ροι των εύχών. Έπειτα προσφΑρεται τφ προεστώτι των αδελφών Αρτοι καί ποτήριον Οδατοί καί κράματος· καί οδτοι λαβών αίνον καί δό£αν τώ πα- τρί των Αλών διά τον όνύματος τον Τίου καί του Τίνεύματος του AyΙου ΑναπΑμπει καί ευχαριστίαν ύπίρ του κατηξιωσθαι τούτων παρ' αυτόν ΑπΙ πολύ ποιείται · ον συντελΑσαντος ràs ευχάτ καί την ευχαριστίαν, πά$ ό πα­ ρών λαδ$ Απευφημεϊ λΑγων · ’Αμήν . . . Ένχαριστήσαντοτ δί τοΟ προεστωτος, καί Απευφημήσαντος παντύς του λαού, οΐ καλούμενοι πα/5 ήμιν Διάκονοι δι· Post preces modulamine fusas pro nobis, pro eo qui illuminatus est, pro aliis omnibus ubivis de» gentibus, ab orationibus desisB timus, nosque invicem osculo com· ____ __ C plectimur? Affertur dein ei qui fratribus praeest panis poculusque aquae et vini ; qui (ea) accipiens ______ D________________ laude et gloria Patrem omnium prosequitur per Filii et Spiritus Sancti nomen, et pro iis quibus ab Eo dignamur abunde gratias E reddit. Postquam preces ct Gra­ tiarum Actionem compleverit, om­ nis qui adest populus gratiose F dicit. Anien. . . . Cum vero praeses egerit grates et u Eucharistiam,” et omnis qui adest populus adclamaverit, qui a nobis diaconi 1 Innocentii I, Ερ. ad Decentium ep. Eugub. P.L. XXVI, 553-4* 2 Cf. Cagin, L'Euchologie Latine; II, L'Eucharistie, c. vili, 252 sq. 3 C/. P. de Puniet, Le nouveau papyrus d'Oxford, in Rev. BAnt'dict. XXVI, 1909, pp. 34-51· —? 58 6o The Sacranientary G vocantur dant unicuique praesen­ tium (ut accipiant) de pane Eucharistiae et de vino aqua (mixto); (quaeque) vero etiam iis qui minime adsunt deferunt. . . . Docemur vero escam eucharisticam esse corpus et sanguinem lesu, propter verba precis. . . . Postquam omnibus H attulerimus, benedicimus omnium rerum factorem per Filium eius lesum Christum et Spiritum Sanctum.1 δόασι ίκάστφ των παρδντων μκταλάβιιν drô τοΰ ιΰχαριστηΟίντοτ Αρτου και oli ου και ϋδατοί, καί τού où παροΰσιν άποφίρουσιν . . . Την δι' ίύχίμ λόγου τού παρ'αΰτοΰ ΐϋχαρισθΑσαν τροφήν... ’ Ιησού καί σάρκα καί αΐμα (διδάχβη ptv ΐϊναι.. . ΈττΙ πασί Tt προσφΐρδ- μιΟα ίΰλν,οΰμιν τύν ποιητήν των πάν­ των διά τοΰ Υιού αυτού 'Ιησού Χριστού καί διά 11νιύματο$ του Αγίου . . . II. ΤΑ απομνημονιύματα των ‘Απο­ στόλων, τ) τά συγ γράμματα των προtytrûv άναγινώσκιται μίχρα ΐγχωρΐϊ: Είτα παυσαμίνου τοΰ αναγινώσκοντοι, ό προιστώί διά. λόγου την vovOeaiav καί πρδκλησιν........ ποίάται. "Έπειτα άνιστάμίθα κοινή πάντα, καί εύχΑι π/μπομΐν.., καί..παυσαμίνων ημών τήι (υχηι,... ό προίστώί εύχάι όμοίω$ καί (ι'χαριστίαΐ, 'όση δύναμα αΰτώ άναπίμπιι, καί ό λΑοϊ ιπαφημά λί­ γων Αμήν a ‘ ? ? Leguntur ____________ Commentaria β zXpostolorum et aliae Prophetarum Scripturae, prout vacat ; cumque ________ 7______ lector desierit, praeses exhortans alloquitur. Hinc omnes simul 5 surgi mus et preces fundimus, . . . a quibus postquam destiterimus, e iterum pro suis viribus praeses precatur et grates reddit, (cui) et populus iure adclamat. Amcn? In Justin’s account of the Eucharist we have kept the same order as that followed in his first Apologia, where the author sketches twice over in different circumstances the scheme of the Mass in his day, describing first the Anaphora properly so called, and then, some pages further on, the explanatory or preparatory portion of the Mass, consisting of readings from the Scriptures and the homily of the bishop. From the text of the apologist we can clearly establish the following elements as composing the eucharistie liturgy of the second century. (The letters employed in this outline refer to the different portions analyzed in the preceding text.) 1 Justini, Apolog. I, P.G. VI, 427. 2 Op. Ct/., 42g. : .... 1 jKSftJp- - 61 “ Fractio Panis ” i Mass o] the Catechumens. a Readings from the Gospel (New Testament, including the Pauline Epistles, etc.). β Readings from the Prophets (Old Testament). 7 Homily of the Bishop. Mass of the Faithful. <5 Litany for the various needs of the Church. < Eucharistic Anaphora recited by die Bishop. π A. B. C. D. E. F. G. II. Mass of the Faithful. ô Litany for the various needs of the Church. Kiss of Peace. Offertory. c Eucharistic Anaphora with Invocation of the Trinity, predominately christological. Final doxology. Popular acclamation.1 Communion. Thanksgiving. The author of the Apologia, in order to attain his object, had to treat the preparatory portion of the Mass as being" of secondary importance, so that he could develop his dogmatic arguments regarding the eucharistie transubstantiation and maintain the position laid down by him in such precise terms against the common calumnies of the pagans. The sacramental theology of Tertullian calls, on the other hand, for greater reserve, laying, as it does, special stress upon the ethical aspect of Christian worship. Among the rites of the Mass he mentions the commemoratio litterarum divinarum,12 the psalmodie prayer (fidem sanctis vocibus pascimus), and the bishop’s address (ibidem etiam exhorta­ tiones); but, passing rapidly over the description of the eucharistie gatherings, the sharp-tongued apologist insists above all upon the ethical end of the Christian Agape,3 which Justin does not so much as mention. This points to the conclusion that also in the West, in Africa and at Rome, these love-feasts had been already separated from the eucharistie sacrifice, as we find in the Διδαχή and in Pliny’s letter to Trajan. It was in the Agape, in all probability, that those New Testament psalms mentioned by St Paul and the early writers had found place, though always excluded from the eucharistie liturgy, properly so called. A’on prius discumbitur quam oratio ad Deum praegustetur ; editur . . . ita saturantur, ut qui meminerit etiam per noctem adorandum sibi Deum esse; post aquam manualem et lumina, ut quisque de scripturis sanctis vel de proprio ingenio potest, provocatur in medium Deo canere. Hinc probatur quomodo biberis. 1 With reference to this final “ Amen ” cf. Διδαχή c. ix, xxxix ; fcrtullian, De Spectaculis, P.L. J, 733. 2 Apolog.,c. xxxix; P.L. I, 531 sq. ,»·,·» 3 Cf E F v dcr Goltz, Unbekannte Fragmente altchristlicher Gemeindeordnungen. Nach C. Harpers englischer Ausgabe des Æthiopischen Kirchen Kcchtsbuchs. (bitzungsberichte dcr K. 1 reuse. Akad. der Wissenschaftcn, 1906, pp. M’-SZ·) 6z The Sacramentary Aeque oratio convivium dirimit. Inde disceditur.1 St Cyprian adds far more gracefully : Quidquid, inclinato jam sole in vesperam, diei superest, ducamus hunc diem laeti, nec sit vel hora convivii gratiae coelestis immunis. Sonet psalmos convivium sobre; et, ut tibi tenax memoria est, vox canora, aggredere hoc munus, ex more. . . . Prolectet aures religiosa mulcedo.2 Tertullian points out also some further liturgical features of his time. Thus, during the Litany, after the Bishop’s sermon . . . oramus . . . manibus expansis, quia innocui, capite nudo, quia non erubescimus ; denique sine monitore, quia de pectore, oramus pro omnibus imperatoribus ; vitam illi prolixam, imperium securum, domum tutam, exercitus fortes, senatum fidelem, populum probum, orbem quietem, et quaecumque hominis et Caesaris sunt.3 It is not impossible that the author is here paraphrazing a portion of that same Litany of which traces remain in the one recited on Good Friday after the lessons in the Oilice of the Presanctified. Other references of Tertullian are no less important for the history of the Latin Liturgy in the second century. S» colligere interdiu non potes, habes noctem, luce Christi luminosam. Non potes discurrere per singulos; sit et in tribus ecclesia.4 Quale est, ex ore quo Amen in Sanctum protuleris—the final acclamation of the Anaphora—gladiatori testimonium reddere; els αιώνα? άπ’ αιώνα? alii omnino dicere, nisi Deo Christo?5 Describing once more the heretical assemblies, he says, In primis, quis catechumenus, quis fidelis incertum est: pariter adeunt, pariter audiunt, pariter orant,5 making evident allusion to the Litany which regularly followed the reading of the Scriptures, and the homily of the Bishop.7 Before proceeding to speak of the liturgies, Eastern and Western, posterior to the peace of Constantine, we must at any rate draw attention to the important studies made by Dorn Cagin upon the reconstruction of the Roman Canon of the Mass and the fixing of the text of the eucharistie Ana­ phora, which from apostolic times has formed the common foundation of all other Christian liturgies. The close reason­ ing of this learned monk, joined to the vast and minute analysis to which he has subjected the eucharistie text of the Egyptian Apostolic Statutes, renders at least highly probable, Apolog., xxxix. Cypriani, Efist, ad Donatum. P.L. IV, 227. Apolog., xxx ; P.L. I, 504. < De Fuga, P.L. II, p. 142. S De Spectaculis, P.L. I, 733. Ci. De Corona, P.L. II > c. i ii, 99. β De Praescript., P.L. II, cxli, 68. ■ Cf. Monumenta Ecclesiae Liturgica I, Hturgicat vetustis simae. I 2 3 “ Fractio Panis ” 63 if not quite certain, his theory that in the Latin text of the palimpsest of Verona we possess what is actually the most ancient type of the hymnus eucharisticus previous to the interpolations of the second century. While referring- the reader for explanation to Doni Cagin’s own work, we will here transcribe the venerable formulary from the edition issued by Hauler.1 Gratias tibi referimus, Deus, Per dilectum puerum tuum Jesuni Christum, Quem in ultimis temporibus Misisti nobis Salvatorem Et Redemptorem Et angelum voluntatis tuae, Qui est verbum tuum inseparabile, Per quem omnia fecisti, Et beneplacitum tibi fuit; Misisti de coelo in matricem virginis, Quique in utero habitus, incar­ natus est Et filius tibi ostensus est ; Et Spiritu Sancto Et virgine natus ; Qui voluntatem tuam complens, Et populum sanctum tibi adquirens, Extendit manus cum pateretur, Ut a passione liberaret Eos qui in te crediderunt ; Qui, cumque traderetur volun­ tariae passioni Ut mortem solvat Et vincula diaboli dirumpat, Et infernum calcet, Et justos illuminet, Et terminum figat, Et resurrectionem manifestet, Accipiens panem, Gratias tibi agens, Dixit: Accipite, manducate; Hoc est corpus meum Quod pro vobis confringetur. Similiter et calicem Dicens : Hic est sanguis meus Qui pro vobis effunditur ; Quando hoc facitis, Meam commemorationem facitis. Memores igitur mortis Et resurrectionis ejus, Offerimus tibi panem et calicem, Gratias tibi agentes, Quia nos dignos habuisti Adstare coram te Et tibi ministrare. Et petimus, Ut mittas Spiritum tuum Sanctum In oblationem sanctae Ecclesiae; In unum congregans, des omnibus, Qui percipiunt, sanctis In repletionem Spiritus Sancti, Ad confirmationem fidei in veri­ tate, Ut te laudemus et glorificemus Per puerum tuum Jesum Christum, Per quem tibi gloria et honor Patri et Filio cum Sancto Spiritu, In sancta Ecclesia tua, Et nunc et in saecula saeculorum. Arnen. The latter part of the Epistle of Clement I to the Corinthians offers a very significant instance of an abrupt transition from the epistolary and hortative manner to this lyrical style inspired by our Anaphora, thus demonstrating the extreme antiquity of this literary form, of which there are so many traces in the Roman Pontifical. After exhorting his readers to peace and submission, the Pontiff ex abrupto goes on : Inspector omnium Deus, et Dominus spirituum, et herus universae carnis, qui elegit Dominum Jesum Christum et nos per eum in populum peculiarem, det omni animae quae gloriosum et sanctum nomen ejus invocaverit, fidem, timorem, 1 Cagin, op. cit., pp. 147 s9' 64 The Sacramentary paeon, patientiam, aequanimitatem, continentiam, castitatem et pudicitiam, ut nomini ejus recte placeat per summum sacerdotem et patronum nostrum Jesum Christum, per quem illi gloria, majestas, potestas, honor et nunc et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. The beautiful prayers contained in sections IX and X of the Διδαχή, though drawing their inspiration from the dominating idea of the eucharistie mystery, are simply lor the Agape and constitute no part oi any liturgical Anaphora. Two famous documents of the fourth century, the one Italian, the other from Palestine, describe at length the ceremonies of the Mass as they were carried out in Italy and at Jerusalem. In the Easter week of the year 348, St Cyril, w ho was then only a simple priest under Bishop Maximus of Jerusalem, gave a course of explanatory conferences, the very model of their kind, to the neophytes whom he had already initiated into the Christian faith during the preceding Lent. There remained to be explained only that portion of the Catechism which the disciplina arcani kept hidden at that lime from the uninitiated, and Cyril set to work to lift the veil in five conferences—“ττρύ$ tous νεοφώτιστους.'1 In the fifth conference, the only one which concerns us, he describes the missa jidelium, since the Mass of the Catechumens must have been quite familiar to his hearers, seeing that the abuse o! remaining in this class up to the end of one’s life in order to be baptized on one’s deathbed was only too widespread. Cyril first explains the meaning oi the bishop washing his hands before commencing the Anaphora; then, passing over the cherubicon, he comes to the dialogue between the celebrant and the people, ’Άνω τάς καρδίας, followed by the splendid eucharistie hymn preceding the Trisagion. The Invocation he regards ideally, in one single view, inclusive of the sacramental formula Christi verba continens, as Justin words it. The Litany follows with the Commemoration of the Dead and the final Amen of the people. To the priest’s invitation, Άγια άγιο is, already mentioned in the Διδαχή, the choir at the moment of Communion reply that one only is holy, Christ Jesus; then to the singing of the verse of the psalm Gustale et videte quoniam suavis est Dominus, as a solo, /i€-ù ptÀous Octov, the faithful approach to receive the Holy Eucharist. The consecrated particle is placed in the hand of each; then, drawing near to the sacred chalice, they sign themselves with the sign of the cross on eyes and forehead. The thanksgiving pronounced by the bishop in the name of 1 Some MSS. attribute the “ Mystagogic Catecheses ” to Bishop John. This authorship is not unlikely, as, strictly speaking, it would fall to Cyril to give only the instructions preparatory to baptism. “ Fractio Panis ” 65 nil present sums up that more intimate thanksgiving already made by each one in the secrecy of his own heart, during such time as the sacred ministers were occupied in distributing the holy mysteries to the faithful.1 The account of the Eucharist given in the De Sacramentis makes only a passing illusion to the rites of the Mass without giving any real description of them. The author, who is evidently accustomed to the Ambrosian rite, is desirous of showing that the transubstantiation of the eucharistie elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ takes place through the all-powerful efficacy of our Lord’s own words. To this end he says that that which precedes the consecration—viz., Laus Deo, oratio pro populo, pro re gibus, pro caeteris, is offered up in the name of the priest and of the assembly, adding : at ubi venitur ut conficiatur . . . sacra­ mentum, jam non suis sermonibus sacerdos, sed utitur ser­ monibus Christi, and ends by calling to mind the formula used by the priest in giving the Holy Communion : Dicit tibi sacerdos: Corpus Christi. Et tu dicis: Amen.2 1 S. Cyrilli Hierosol, Catech. Mystagog., v; P.G. XXXIII, iïio sq. » L. IV, c. iv; P.L. XVI, col. 460. CHAPTER VI THE PAPAL MASS AT THE ROMAN STATIONS ROM the commencement of the eighth century rituals and explanations of the ceremonies of the Mass begin to be less rare, but no document exceeds in importance the collection known as the Ordines Romani, by means of which we are able to follow the development of the papal liturgy in Rome all through the Middle Ages. It is not easy, indeed, always to fix the exact date of these ceremonials, which often amount to no more than mere aids to memory compiled at different times from ancient sources. There is nothing more impersonal than the Liturgy, and it is this which makes it difficult to recognize the successive emanations of these documents and correctly to establish their chronology.1 The Ordo Romanns I, to which we now refer, was finally revised in the eighth century, but there are older elements in it, showing clearly the state of the papal Liturgy after the reform of St Gregory. This was the period of the great stational processions, revived by him, after a century of wars, sieges and civil trouble had caused them to be temporarily abandoned.2 When the Mass was not preceded by a procession, the Pope went straight to the stational church and vested in the secretarium, aided by the chief persons of the Apostolic Palace; while the bishops, clergy and monks took their places within the building. When all was ready, one of the regionary subdeacons approached the sacristy door, calling out, Schola, upon which the paraphonist presented himself before the Pope and announced the names of those soloists who were to sing the Epistle and the Gradual. The Ordo adds that when this was once done, no change was allowed to be made in the persons of the singers, under penalty of being excluded from holy Communion on that day. The papal retinue, in their many-coloured mantles, their paenulas, mappulas and white tunics, now arranged them­ selves in order for their triumphal entry into the basilica, while, at a sign from the Pope, a subdeacon bade the para­ phonist intone the antiphon of the Introit. The latter bowed to the prior of the schola: domne jubete, F i Cf. P.L. LXXVIII, 937 sq. 3 Cf. H. Grisar, La più antica descrizione della Messa pontificia solenne, Civiltà Cattol., 20 magg. 1905, pp, 463 sq. 66 ‘E- The Papal Mass and the choir, placed on either side before the altar, sang the melody from the Gregorian Antiphonary. The seven deacons then went into the secretarium to escort the Pope, who made his entrance into the basilica in procession, sup­ ported by the chief dignitaries of the Lateran Court. Before proceeding up the sanctuary, however, the cortège paused to allow the Pontiff to adore a particle of the Holy Eucharist reserved lor that purpose in a pyx from a previous Mass. This was retained on the altar during the ensuing ceremony, as a symbol of the eternal sacrifice of Calvary, ever perpetu­ ated in the Church until the day of the final τταρουσ-ία of the Lord,1 donec veniat. Traversing the marble enclosure reserved for the singers, the Pope went up to the tribunal, where the episcopal throne was set facing the altar. There he at once exchanged the Kiss of Peace with the bishop of the week, the archpriest and the deacons ; and while, at a sign from him, the prior of the schola was bringing the Introit to an end with the Doxology, he knelt in prayer lor a moment at the altar, kissing in con­ clusion the holy table and the Book of the Gospels. The church was already re-echoing with the plaintive strains of the ever-repeated Kyrie, in which the people also might join ; and, when all was ready, the Pope intoned the Gloria, which was taken up by the bishops and priests, thus becoming from a simple morning hymn, as it was at first, a specially sacer­ dotal chant. After the oratio and the reading of the first lesson from the Uld Testament by the subdeacon, a solo singer went up into the ambo cum cantatcrio and intoned the Gradual. After the second or New Testament lesson, usually taken from St Paul’s Epistles, there followed, according to the season of the year, the Tract or Alleluiatic Verse; lastly, the deacon ascended the ambo with the Book of the Gospels, and read from it a short passage which the Pope, as a rule, commented upon .aid explained to the people, using very simple thoughts and familiar words. Formerly the catechumens were dismissed at this point, as also those who lor their transgressions had been excluded from communion with the Church. The Eastern and Am­ brosian Liturgies still retain the formulas for this dismissal, 1 “ Salutat Sancta." The rite is parallel with that described by S Germanus of Paris in his “ Expositio Missae,” P.L. LXX1I, 9a, 3, and by Gregory of Tours in the “ De Gloria Martyrum, c. Ixxxv. It was also common to the Greek liturgy; in fact, the obeisance made by the faithful when the priest passed with the “ holy Gifts during the great Intron seems to have arisen from the custom of carrying the Holy Eucharist in procession, as was done by the Latins, whatever explana­ tion may be given to it nowadays by the Easterns, b Germanus, too, mentions this obeisance, “ incurvati adorarent. 68 The Sacramentary but the rite itself, together with the Great Litany which then ushered in the missa fidelium properly so called, have long disappeared from the Roman Liturgy. In the first half of the sixth century, in a church in the neighbourhood of Monte Cassino, the deacon, as St Gregory relates,1 still used to pronounce the formula for dismissing those who were excom­ municated, but the later Roman sources arc entirely silent on this point. Meanwhile the sacred ministers spread the linen cloth on the altar, and the Pope, accompanied by the deans of the notaries and by the defensores, approached the enclosure reserved to the great nobles, in order to receive personally their offerings for the holy sacrifice. The archdeacon followed him, ready to pour the ampullae of wine one by one as they were presented to him by the faithful into a large two-handled chalice held by a subdeacon. After the men, came the turn of the women. The Pope then went to the matroneum to receive the offerings of the ladies, pausing for a while at the foot of the steps leading to the tribunal to take over also those of the high officials of the Lateran Court. The bishops and priests in the meantime collected the offerings of the people at the pergula, which shut off the space reserved for the clergy. Thus the sacrifice about to be offered to almighty God bore a thoroughly collective and social character, inas­ much as each one took his part in it, bringing his own contri­ bution for supplying the material elements of bread and wine ; as one of the oldest prayers in the Gregorian Sacramentary so well expresses it: Ut quod singuli obtulerunt ad honorem nominis tui, cunctis proficiat ad salutem. The Pope himself was not exempt from taking with his people his share in the offerings for the sacrifice, and very pathetic for this reason was the privilege accorded to the orphaned singers of the Lateran, who, on account of their poverty, used to bring as their offering only the ampulla containing the water, which the archdeacon poured into the chalice in the form of a cross. Here originally followed the reading of the diptychs with the oratio super nomina, preserved in the Gallican Liturgy and in the secreta of the prayer .1 cunctis in the Roman Missal ; but at Rome, in 410, it had already been transposed to just before the Consecration. The various chalices of wine, to­ gether with the loaves of unleavened bread, were arranged on the altar for the Communion ; and whilst the schola repeated the last neums of the antiphon ad offertorium, the Pope went up to the altar to begin the eucharistie actio itself. Up to this point there has been nothing that rightly belongs to the sacrifice as such; the choir therefore remain'seated until the 1 Dialog,, lib. II, aj. The Papal Mass 69 priest begins the praefatio. The bishops and priests now range themselves in a double line behind the Pope; the sub­ deacons take up their position near the gates separating the tribunal of the clergy from the people, and all remain in their places motionless and bowed down until the end of the Canon. Just before the Pater Noster, the archdeacon goes up to the Pope, and when the latter elevates the Host in the sight of all and recites the final doxology per ipsum, he, too, lifts up on high one of the eucharistie chalices from the altar. This was the solemn showing of the sacred mysteries to the people common to nearly all liturgies, of which our medieval elevation is merely a reflex. The eucharistie particles which are detached at this point in the actio from the Host consecrated by the Pope are given to the acolytes, who bear them to the priests of the titular churches in their several parishes to be placed in the chalice at the conclusion of the canon of their own Mass, thus sym­ bolizing the identity of the Sacrifice and Sacrament by which pastor and flock alike arc nourished and sanctified. Before the Pope completes the fractio of the sacred mysteries, which symbolizes the violent death of the divine Victim, he gives a last greeting to the people as an augury of peace—Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum ; and the peace thus invoked by the pastor is at once passed on to the clergy, nobles and people by means of the apostolic embrace, the osculum sanctum. The archdeacon receives it from the Pope and exchanges it with the chief among the bishops ; the men and the women embrace separately, while the nobles and the great ladies do the same in the senatorium and matroneum. The consecratio and the sacrifice are complete at the end of the canon ; here, in the Gallican rite, the bishops used even to bless the people, so as to allow those to depart who did not intend to receive holy Communion. At Rome the Pope used now to leave the altar to return to his throne, whence he gave instructions to the nomenclator, to the saccllarius and to the notary of the majordomus concerning those whom he wished to invite to dinner, either at his own table, or at that prepared in his name in the apartments of the majordomus. To those who were thus invited the Holy Communion was forthwith imparted in the Church ; so closely was the memory of the agape still bound up with that of the eucharistie feast. ' While this is being done, the bishops, priests and deacons, from around the papal throne, proceed with all solemnity to the fractio panis. They break up the eucharistie bread, pre­ sented to them bv the acolytes in small linen bags, and place the particles on the patens, to the singing of the schola who meanwhile intone the Agnus Dei that eloquent chant, in which, from the time of Pope Sergius I (687-701), the people 70 The Sacramentary also joined—thus investing with solemn dignity this sym­ bolical fractio, which after the Consecration and the Invoca­ tion is the most characteristic moment of the eucharistie actio. It appertained to the second of the seven deacons to give the sacred particle for Communion to the Pope, who, upon taking it, first broke off a fragment which the archdeacon replaced in the large two-handled chalice, from which the Pontiff then received the precious Blood. The chalice having been placed again on the altar, the archdeacon announced to the people the date and place of the next station ; and as one chalice alone would not have sufficed for the Communion of so great a number of the faithful as presented themselves it was customary, in order to show also in a tangible form the oneness of the sacrifice in which all participated, to pour some few drops of the eucharistie wine from the Pope’s chalice into the large cup (σκύφο$) of the people. The bishops and priests received their particle of the consecrated bread from the hands of the Pope ; they then drew near to receive Communion from the Pope’s chalice, which was presented to them by the archdeacon, while that which still remained over after their Communion was also poured into the σκνφος of the people. To facilitate the recep­ tion by the faithful of the Holy Communion under both kinds with greater reverence, and with less difficulty, a regionary subdeacon, so as to avoid any danger of spilling, placed in the chalice a tube of precious metal, such as is still in use at the Papal Mass. When the Communion of the higher clergy was finished, the Pope, with the bishops and priests, distributed the Blessed Sacrament to the nobles and the people, while the choir chanted the Communion psalm with its antiphon. The deacons, bearing the two-handled chalices, assisted the Pope and the bishops ; and of the priests, some distributed the sacred particles, while others carried the σ-κνφος. As soon as the nobles and great ladies had received the Communion, and while the holy Sacrament was still being administered to the people, the Pope returned to his throne in order to give Communion to the regionary subdeacons ; and on feast days also to twelve children chosen from the schola of the singers. Therefore the subdeacons, who had previ­ ously received the holy Communion, came to the assistance of the schola, so that they sang the Antiphon and Communion psalm in alternate verses until the distribution of the holy mysteries was completed. Then, standing before the altar, alone, but in the name of all, the Pope recited the collect ad complendum in thanksgiving for the holy gifts received ; a deacon sang the formula of dismissal, ite, missa est, to which K, The Papal Mass 71 the people having answered Deo gratias, the pontifical pro­ cession began to return towards the secretarium. Seven acolytes with lighted candles went in front; a subdeacon gently waved the smoking thurible, then came the Pope, followed by the bishops, priests and monks, the schola, the standard-bearers, and all the other high officials of the Patriarchate. Everyone bowed down as the Pontiff passed by, saying, ]ube, domne, benedicere, to which he responded : Benedicat nos Dominus.1 1 Ordo Romanus 1 ; P.L. LXXVIII, 937 sq. CHAPTER VII POETRY AND MUSIC IN THE EUCHARISTIC SYNAXIS AVING thus far studied the elements of our subject, we are now ready to differentiate and arrange in chronological order the component parts of this splendid assemblage of eucharistie rites. If it is true that in them the bridegroom utters a language of love so ineffable that it can scarcely be translated into human speech, it may equally be said that the bride soars to such sublimity of thought as can only be under­ stood by those chosen souls who, through a spotless life, realize in themselves the ideal of grace and sanctity possessed in all its fulness by the Church. Hence, to be fully under­ stood, the sacred Liturgy must above all be realized in union with the one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Litanies, collects, scriptural readings, eucharistie prayers and general acclamations, all these we have found in sufficient number from the second half of the first century onwards in the writings of St Paul and St John, and above all in the Διδαχή. Moreover, which is more remarkable, they main­ tained the same order in liturgical use as they had formerly occupied in the ττροσα,’χ·^ of Palestine and Greece. Perhaps it will be thought singular that we have at once brought our readers to assist at the holy sacrifice in the Roman catacombs at the time of Justin and Tertullian, and then carried them off to Jerusalem, to Milan, and to the great Constantinian basilicas of the Lateran and of St Peter, with­ out first of all furnishing them with any introductory explana­ tion of the ritual and euchological constituents of the sacred actio. Here we must plead guilty to a little artifice on our part, arising from the wish to give an immediate impression of the lyrical sublimity of Christian worship, before proceed­ ing to analyze its separate formulas, since these latter are as little able as the human skeleton to convey to us the full joy and beauty of the actual living body. Nevertheless it is time to examine more in detail various elements which go to make up our Missal, especially now that we are in a position to appreciate the beauty of them and to realize the place which each has occupied in the arrangement and development of liturgical ceremonial. The eminently dramatic character of the actio sacra being granted, we will begin by distinguishing the various musical types to which the psalm-chants in the Mass belong. H 72 Poetry and Music 73 The Psalter, the book of ecclesiastical prayer par excellence, furnished our Saviour and his Church with the accents of that sublime supplication which, foretold in different forms and at different times in the songs of David, found its true comple­ tion in the vesper prayer uttered upon Calvary on the first Good Friday. We know of four different kinds of psalmody in the early Church : (a) A solo singer chanting in an assembly of persons a psalm which is interrupted after every verse or group of verses by a refrain sung by those present ; this is the psalmus responsorius. It has the great advantage of closely uniting the feelings of the cantor with those of the congregation, arousing their mutual attention and ensuring that the two alternate parts shall be closely interwoven and shall complete each other. This intimate bond and inter-connection, as well in the melodies of the psalmody as in the scriptural readings to which the psalmody served as ornament and setting, is one of the most striking features of the ancient liturgy, em­ phasised by the eminently dramatic forms which unfolded themselves with a regular and natural dignity, just as in a great drama or in the scenic representation of a sacred poem. For a right understanding of the beauty of the Roman Liturgy, and especially of the Missal, too great an emphasis cannot be laid upon the fact that all these prayers, chants and ceremonies were originally intended and arranged to be carried out in a spacious basilica. Low Masses took their rise much later, and simply constitute an adaptation of the grandeur of the stational Liturgy, which had been purposely so drawn up as to be participated in by a very large number of persons. I he origin of the responsorius is bound up with that of the Psalter itself ; indeed, some psalms demand exclusively this form of rendering with refrains, such as Psalm cxxxv, which was sung by the great choir at the dedication of the Temple of Jerusalem, while the people cried out Quoniam in aeternum misericordia ejus. Christian antiquity took over this custom from the synagogue, where it still flourishes; it even found its way beyond the strictly liturgical rite into the private devotion of the faithful, as when Evodius at the deathbed of St Monica chanted Psalm c, to which Augustine and the other members of her family replied with the refrain : Miseri­ cordiam et judicium cantabo tibi, Domine.1 1 August., Confess., lib. IX, c. xii, n. 3. St Jerome in his life of St Paul, the first Hermit, relates how St Anthony buried his friend “hymnos quoque et psalmos de Christiana traditione decantans’ (c. xiii), and the responsorial psalm sung at Ostia at St Monica’s deathbed was probably one of those which belonged to this collection of traditional funeral psalms. The Sacramentary (δ) Akin to the responsorial psalm is that which is recited without interruptions by a soloist, the persons assembled answering- him only by some formula or final doxology, such as A men, Benedictus Deus, Alleluia, or something similar. Psalms xl, Ixxi, Ixxxviii, and especially Psalm cv—Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel a sacculo el usque in saeculum. Et dicet omnis populus: Fiat, fiat—all bear witness to this custom among the Hebrew people. In the time of Cassian the rite of the Gallican monasteries, unlike that of the Eastern monasteries, required that the assembly should sing the Gloria Patri immediately upon the termination of the psalm by the soloist ; whereas in Egypt and in Palestine this doxology was reserved for the conclusion of the antiphonal psalm only.1 (c) Antiphonal psalmody differs from responsorial in that the original soloist’s part having been done away with, the people were divided into two choirs for the execution of, as it were, a duet, singing alternate verses to different melodies, sometimes even in different languages, and coming into unison again at intervals of an octave.2 Later on, when the polyphonic element with its consonance in octaves had become of secondary importance, and had been forgotten, it was the double choir and the answering in turn which came to be considered as the characteristic of the antiphonal psalm. The people’s refrain3 was not necessarily chosen from the psalm itself, as was done in the case of the responsorial chant (the Alleluia inserted in the alleluiatic psalms came, however, to be regarded as a true psalmodie element), but might also be taken from other parts of the Scriptures; and in this case it bore some particular application or indicated the special meaning given by the Liturgy to a psalm in certain circum­ stances. Thus at Pentecost the antiphon of the Introit is taken from the Book of Wisdom (i, 7) Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum, and the psalm which follows, Psalm Ixvii—Exsurgat Deus et dissipentur inimici ejus—alludes directly to the mission of the Holy Ghost—namely, to glorify our Lord and to humble his foes. It very soon became the custom—earlier in the East than in the West—to make the doxology (Gloria Patri) the conclusion of the antiphonal psalm, thus giving to this latter a markedly Trinitarian and anti-Arian character. The origin of the antiphon is generally considered to date back to the years 344-357, when the monks Flavian and Diodorus brought it to Antioch in order to combat the Arian Poetry and Music 75 universally known, and even before his day Eusebius Pam­ philus discoursed on it at length.1 We shall return later on to speak of the sources of the antiphony. (d) Related to antiphonal and responsorial psalmody is that which may be called the psalmody of the Litany, consisting of verses repeated alternately by priest and people; traces of which Baiimer thinks may be found as far back as the first century. The early Christians in general gave to this type oi chant the name of Litania. Unlike the preceding kinds of psalmody, the Litany was not derived exclusively from the Psalms, and, even when emanating thence, the paraphrase was so free that it quite lost its literary unity (unalterably preserved on the other hand in antiphonal and responsorial psalmody), and became rather a lively dialogue between the people and the celebrant.2 In proportion then as the Litany broke away from the text of the Psalter, it gained in freshness of inspiration, spiritual vitality and sense of reality. The last part of our litania major or Litany of the Saints, together with the preces of the Breviary at Prime and at Compline, are among the best examples of this Litany, which originally marked the transition between the Vigilia and the Mass which followed it at daybreak. Very characteristic of the litania was the Collect, which united and summed up the common thought of the worshippers. The Gloria, which is now inter­ posed in the Mass between the Litany and the Collect, represents an insertion of much later date." (e) Altogether different from this alternating psalmody was the psalm known as in directum or tractus, which was en­ trusted exclusively to the skill of a soloist. Cassian relates how the monks of Egypt used, when keeping their night vigils, to recite twelve psalms in directum: paril· pronunciatione, contiguis versibus, and St Benedict ordains this psalmody in directum for the day hours whenever the small number of monks would make antiphonal chanting too great a burden. The in directum is the easiest and most convenient kind of psalmody, and is that which has in the end prevailed over the other kinds in ecclesiastical use. It is remarkable, too, that both Cassian and St Benedict attached peculiar importance to it, observing that it was the only sort ol psalmody suitable to a very small community, whose members, moreover, would probably be tired out after a hard day’s work.3 The in directum was called also the tract us, unless we are to 1 C/. Wagner, op. cit., 21, 22; La petite antiphone in Dictionnaire d archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, edited by Dom F. Cabrol, I, 2, col. 2473· . , „ 2 F. Cabrol, Liturgical Prayer, p. 35. 8 Cassian, Institut. II, 12. 76 The Sacramentary understand by this latter term a special kind of psalmody in directum, one enriched with more solemn and more ornate melodies. Some derived the name tractus from the slow manner of its execution, while others held that it simply meant the psalmodie continuity proper to this type of psalmody, without the interpolation of any refrain what­ soever. The fact is, that while the directaneum of the soloist was preferred by the monks of ancient Egypt just because it was more rapid and less fatiguing, in the Rule of St Benedict, on the other hand, the subtrahendo, attached to the responsorial invitatory of the vigils, has become synonymous with morose,1 and marks an entirely different type of performance. In more recent times certain liturgists have sought to recog­ nize in the tractus the sadness proper to penitential seasons. We would, however, observe that the tract Laudate Dominum of the Easter vigil, and the eighth Gregorian tone, to which many tracts belong, are not in the least melancholy or mourn­ ful in character, and we shall see later on that the tractus was the Sunday and Feast day chant of the Roman Liturgy, previous, that is, to the introduction of the alleluiatic verse for all the Sundays outside of Lent. The characteristics of the tractus were the solo singing and the continuity of psalmodie modulation without any interruption or refrain on the part of the congregation, it would seem to be a fact of much less importance, on the other hand, that, in the eucharistie Liturgy, the tractus is intimately connected with the Scripture lesson which precedes it. (Compare, for instance, the Cantemus Domino of Holy Saturday and the Benedictiones of Ember Saturday, coming after the lesson about the three children in the fiery furnace.) (/) The psalmus gradualis is not strictly speaking a distinct kind of psalmody ; it merely signifies a responsorial chant with solos sung from the steps of the ambo. It is derived by some from a transformation of the tractus, after this latter had taken on a much more ornate type of melody of an antiphonal character, becoming thus a true responsorial antiphony ; yet we know that the responsorial gradual was already in use long before the time of Leo I, and that it was co-existent with the gradual. Before concluding this short summary of the different psalmodie forms anciently in use in the early Church, we must point out, however briefly, the æsthetic law which measures and determines all these prolonged melodies and refrains. We allude to parallelism, which is a kind of echo between the 1 Regula S Benedicti, c. xliii, “ Propter hoc omnino subtrahendo et morose volumus dici.” Poetry and Music 77 two parts of one and the same psalmodie verse. Biblical parallelism has been defined by Dom Cabrol as the ih^thm of thought;1 it thus preserves fur us, as it were, the last trace of the original poetical form of the Psalms and Canticles, composed according to metrical laws which have only been brought to light by recent study. Parallelistic redundancy resembles a gentle lulling of the mind in devout affections, from which the entranced spirit is for ever drawing forth fresh sweetness; and this is the effect of an intense comprehensiveness of thought seeking repeated individual expression, thus prolonging the spiritual joy of the faithful soul. Antithetic parallelism, on the other hand, unlike redundancy, provides strong contrasts of light and shade, at times carrying the sacred lyric to heights hardly attainable by any kind of profane literature. In both these kinds of parallelism the characteristic element which it con­ cerns us most to notice is the alternating unison and the mutual refrain of the various members of the verse or parts of a psalm, for this constitutes the æsthetic basis of respon­ sorial and strophic psalmody. While Psalm Ixx offers us several examples of parallelism in half-verses, Psalm cvi gives us, on the other hand, four little sketches,2 matchless in their purity of outline, and separated the one from the other by means of one and the same eucharistie verse : Confiteantur Domino misericordiae ejus et mirabilia ejus filiis hominum, with which also the psalm is brought to a conclusion as with a kind of doxology. We have thus traced the sources of our psalmodie forms, beyond the mere custom of the synagogue, back to the fundamental laws of artistic literary perceptions among the Semitic peoples, from whom we ourselves, aedificati super fundamentum Apostolorum et Prophetarum, have with full right inherited, together with the sacred legacy of the Scrip­ tures, the artistic setting in which they were contained. The time has now come in which to examine the use which the Church has made of her treasures; for, like the mystical bride presaged in the song of Debbora,3 she gives out most joyfully to the faithful the rich booty brought to her by her divine bridegroom, returning from battle as victor over death and hell. 1 op. cit., p. 14. * They are those of a man lost in the desert and about to die of hunger, a prisoner, a sick person, and lastly a ship caught in a storm and in danger of foundering. * Judg. v, 30. CHAPTER VIII THE PART OF THE LATERAN MUSICAL “SCHOLA” IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN LITURGY HE INTROIT.—That which has been remarked concerning· the origin of so many other eccle­ siastical rites is equally true of the Introit—viz., that having been first introduced into the liturgy of one particular Church, it gradually spread everywhere until at last it became an integral part of Cathol ceremonial. We have already stated the reasons why there could be neither Introit nor any psalmodie antiphony as such, during the first three centuries, so long as the condition of the Church did not allow of the bishop entering his basilica in state accompanied by a triumphal escort. Yet it seems that there must have been some kind of initial greeting or accla­ mation uttered by the celebrant to those present before the beginning of the scriptural lessons, since besides a text from the pseudo-Dionysius, which describes how the priest, having censed the altar and choir, returns to the vima and άπάρχτται T/p' χ^αλμων /ζίλωδία?,1 a passage in St Basil mentions a Euchology which preceded the readings from the prophets. Ου γάρ Ôé τούτοι? άρχούμζθα