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 BV 823 .B34 1888 
 Baring-Gould, S. 1834-1924 
 Our inheritance 
 
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 S/i,/j 
 
OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
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OUR INHERITANCE 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF 
 
 5n t!;e jTirsit Cbree Centiines;^ 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 S. BARING-GOULD, M.A., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF I 
 " OUR PARISH CHURCH ; " " LIVES OF THE SAINTS ; " ETC. 
 
 ' ' Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. 
 Amen." — S. Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
 HonUon : 
 SKEFFINGTON & SON, 163, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1888. 
 
London : 
 
 Hekdebsok, Bait, & Spaldino, Lithograpihc and Oekeral Fkimtebb, 
 
 3 & 5, Maryxebone Lane, W. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In the following pages I have attempted a history of the Holy- 
 Eucharist in the first ages of the Church in a form as popular 
 as such a subject admits of treatment, where reference has 
 constantly to be made to early Greek and Latin writers, as 
 well as to the Jewish authorities, for those services of the 
 ancient Church of the Old Covenant out of which the Christian 
 Liturgy sprang. 
 
 To crush this extensive subject into a nutshell — I have 
 undertaken to establish the following propositions : — 
 
 1. We have a number of early Liturgies belonging to all the 
 branches of the Church, as well as to those heretical bodies 
 which separated from the Church in the fifth century. By 
 comparing these Liturgies together, we find that all are as much 
 alike in type and feature as are the races of mankind, each 
 slightly varied, just as each race of man has its speciality in 
 feature and colour ; but that, in spite of such varieties, all are 
 organically one. 
 
 2. This fact leads us to conclude that, just as the human 
 race sprang from one mother, so do these many liturgies 
 derive from one parent Liturgy. 
 
 3. Further : — the cause of the differences is due to the 
 fact that this one Mother Liturgy was not committed to 
 writing ; it was not fixed as to its verbal expression ; the 
 main structure, nevertheless, was determined from the first. 
 
 4. All the references of the early Fathers to the Eucharist 
 agree with this Mother Liturgy as reconstructed from analysis 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 of the extant Liturgies, with elimination of individual pecu- 
 liarities. 
 
 5. This Mother Liturgy was fixed, almost certainly, by the 
 Apostles before their dispersion. 
 
 6. In fixing the Liturgy, the Apostles would certainly be 
 guided by their recollection of the Institution by Christ, and 
 this they would follow step by step. 
 
 7. In the Liturgy we find many traces of derivation from 
 the services of the Temple. We find in fact that it bears 
 marked relation to many of the rites and usages under the 
 Law, but altered, fulfilled, and given a Christian interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 8. It is probable, therefore, that just as Christ showed to 
 the disciples going to Emmaus that Moses and all the Prophets 
 foretold His Passion and Resurrection, so that He, on the great 
 night, showed to His Apostles how that all the sacrifices and 
 the ceremonial of the Temple led up to, and found fulfilment in, 
 Him, and that the New Institution which He then appointed 
 was to be the reflection of Him, an after-glow in time to come, 
 of which the sacrifices and other rites of the Temple were a 
 foreglow in time past. 
 
 9. That, consequently, the many points of connexion that 
 are found in the Liturgy, tying it to the Temple worship, 
 are due to Christ's appointment on the great night of the 
 Institution. 
 
 10. That Christ took the Morning Service of the Temple — 
 which every Jew repeated either as a private memorial, or as a 
 congregational memorial, every day, as the framework of the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 11. That He introduced into it other elements, the fulfil- 
 ment of the ceremony of the oblation of first-fruits, of the 
 sacrifices, both of beasts and of incense, of the offering of the 
 shew-bread, of the Passover, &c. That, in a word, He took 
 all these distributed coloured rays, and reunited them in<?//^, in 
 the pure white ray of the New Institution. 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 12. That the true explanation of many rites and customs 
 associated with the Eucharist, matutinal celebration, the use 
 of leavened bread, of the mixed cup, of the several gestures of 
 the celebrant, of the sequence of the several parts of the 
 liturgy, of the vesture of the priest, &c., is to be found in 
 tenacious adhesion by the Church to those things associated 
 with the Institution by Christ on the night before His 
 Passion. 
 
 13. Collaterally, I have shown how great and how tough 
 was tradition in the first three centuries, and how that, for 
 instance, the dispute relative to the exact date of the Cruci- 
 fixion is due to disregard on one side of the testimony of 
 tradition. 
 
 Now many of the points touched on deserve treatment 
 severally and at length, and I have not been able to devote to 
 some of them that space which they individually deserve. 
 It has been my object, not to write a compendious treatise 
 for the learned, but to write a book that may interest the 
 many. 
 
 I must express my gratitude to some kind friends, specialists, 
 who have been so good as to read my proofs, and give me 
 their advice ; they are not, of course, responsible for my 
 argument or conclusions ; such are the Rev. R. F. Littledale, 
 D.C.L. ; the Rev. C. E. Hammond, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor 
 of Exeter College, Oxford, and Vicar of Menheniot, Cornwall ; 
 the Rev. J. B. Hughes, M.A., Vicar of Staverton, Devon, late 
 Headmaster of Blundel's School, Tiverton ; and the Rev. Dr. 
 Adler, Chief Rabbi, London, who has not only lent me 
 " Zunz: Vortrage," a scarce book I was unable to procure, but 
 has also been so good as to look through the proofs of two of 
 my chapters, that on the Sabbath, and that on the Morning 
 Service of the Jews, and to give me his advice thereon. 
 
 In the midst of many pursuits and much distraction, a 
 dominant interest in the matter now treated has for long 
 
VllI PREFACE. 
 
 been mine, but I have waited in hopes that it would be taken 
 up and dealt with by a worthier hand. Time creeps on, and I 
 feel reluctant to let go unpreserved materials collected and 
 conclusions arrived at on a very important subject, especially 
 when that is one lying very near to the heart ; and so, finally, I 
 have written this book. That it is imperfect, marred in many 
 ways, and inadequate to the subject dealt with, no one would 
 more promptly admit than myself The light shed on the great 
 Mystery may be feeble, still, it is such light as I have ; and it 
 should be the object of each of us, as far as in us lies, as far as 
 our knowledge and our abilities extend, to say, Paravi lucernam. 
 C J iris to nico. 
 
 S. BARING-GOULD. 
 
 Lezu Trenchard, 
 
 Devon. 
 All Saints' Day, iJ 
 
BOOKS OF REFERENCE. 
 
 (Only such as are in Ettglzsh are here given.) 
 
 The Liturgies of SS. Mark, James, Clement, Chrysostom, and Basil, 
 AND the Church of Malabar. Translated by the Rev. J. M. 
 Neale, D.D., and he Rev. R. F. Littledale, LL.D. 4th Edition. 
 London : Hayes. 
 
 The Christians of S. Thomas and their '.Liturgies. By the Rev. 
 G. B. Howard. London and Oxford : Parker, 1S64. 
 
 Early Liturgies: Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. xxiv. Clark, Edin- 
 burgh, 1872. 
 
 The Apostolic Liturgy and the Epistlk to the Hebrews. By the 
 Rev. J. E. Field. London : Rivington's, 1S82. 
 
 The Apostolic Constitutions : Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vol. xvii. 
 Clark, Edinburgh. 
 
 The Daily Prayers : The Order of Service for Every Day in the Year, accord- 
 ing to the custom of the German and Polish Jews. Translated by Rev, 
 A. P. Mendez. London : Valentine, 1864. 
 
GLOSSARY OF TERMS. 
 
 Ambo : A raised desk from which the Lections were read. 
 
 Anaphora : The second part of the Liturgy, properly the original service of the 
 Eucharist for the Lord's Day. It commences with the " Lift up your 
 hearts," and includes the rest of the service to the end. 
 
 Antidoron : Overplus Bread from that offered for Consecration. This hallowed, 
 but unconsecrated, bread is distributed after the Liturgy in the Oriental, 
 Armenian, and Coptic Churches. 
 
 Bema : The Sanctuary; corresponding to — Within the Altar-rails. 
 
 Canon : Properly a Rule, that which is fixed. It applies— o. To the Rule of 
 Faith ; /3. To those books which the Church ruled to be alone accepted 
 as genuine and authoritative ; 7. To that part of the Liturgy which was 
 fixed, or ruled, as essential, that is to say, the Consecration, Great 
 Oblation, Great Intercession, ending with the Lord's Prayer, down 
 to the Embolismus, or Prayer against temptation. This is the distinction 
 in the Roman Liturgy. 
 
 Catechumen : One under training for admission to the Church by baptism. 
 
 Cherubic Hymn : A hymn in the Liturgy of Constantinople. 
 
 Coal : A name in some liturgies for the Consecrated Bread (Isaiah vi. 6, 7). 
 
 Collect : Originally an assembling together, and applied — o. First, to the 
 assembly of the faithful for prayer ; ^. Secondly, to the gathering to- 
 gether of the desires and petitions of the people into one prayer, said by 
 the celebrant. 
 
 Competentes : The highest order of Catechumens, in Greek Photizonunoi , those 
 being illuminated. The term extended to those who had been baptized, 
 and were preparing for Communion. 
 
 CORBAN : The name in the Malabar Liturgy for the Eucharistic sacrifice. 
 
 Diptychs : Lists of names of the living and the dead to be commemorated at the 
 altar. 
 
 Ectene : .\ litany. 
 
GLOSSARY OF TERMS. XI 
 
 Elevation : The lifting up of the Consecrated Bread. In the Greek Church 
 this takes the place of the waving of the sheaf before God, and it occurs 
 within the Bema, the doors being closed. In the Latin Church it is a 
 showing of It to the people for the purpose of adoration. 
 
 Embolism us : A short Prayer against temptation, which follows the Lord's 
 Prayer. 
 
 Energumen : A madman, one supposed to be possessed by an evil spirit. 
 
 Entrance, The Little : A rite in the East consisting of the solemn bringing 
 of the Book of the Gospels to the Holy Table. It is derived from the 
 procession of the Torah in the Synagogue, where the Book of the Law is 
 solemnly brought from the Ark. In the East the Gospel is carried with 
 lights to the altar, and then taken to the ambo, where it is read. An 
 analogous procession of the Gospel with lights exists in the Western 
 Church. 
 
 Entrance, The Great : A similar procession, with incense and lights, when 
 the bread and wine are brought into the chancel. The only remains of 
 it in the West is the transfer of the bread and wine from the credence 
 table to the altar. 
 
 Eucharist : Literally, Thanksgiving. Applied to the Holy Communion 
 Service as the Christian Sacrifice of Praise. 
 
 Eulogy : Praise. The Great Eulogy is the great Hymn of Praise. 
 
 Fraction : The Solemn Breaking of the Breaci. i. At the words of Institution ; 
 2. Before Communion. The fractions have been multiplied, and some 
 omitted. Originally there were probably but these two. 
 
 Intercession, The Great : The prayer said by the celebrant for all estates of 
 men in the Church, including the living and the dead. 
 
 Introit : In the Western Liturgies, the Psalm sung at the approach of the 
 celebrant to the altar. 
 
 Kiss of Peace : A kiss given anciently in the Liturgy by the faithful, the one to 
 another. 
 
 Lections: The readings in the Pro-Anaphora. Originally four — i. The Law; 
 2. The Prophets ; 3. The Epistle ; 4. The Gospel. 
 
 Mass : The Eucharistic service, so called, colloquially at first, from the Dismissals 
 
 in it. 
 Mass of the Catechumens : The first part of the Eucharistic service, at which 
 
 the unbaptized, &c., might be present. 
 
 Mass of the Faithful : The second part of the Eucharistic service, at which 
 only the baptized might attend. 
 
Xll GLOSSARY OF TERMS. 
 
 Oblation : The offering made to God — a. Of the unconsecratcd bread and 
 wine. In this book called the Offertory. /3. Of the Consecrated 
 Elements, in this book the term Oblation restrained to this latter. 
 
 Preface : That portion of the Great Thanksgiving which follows '" Lift up your 
 hearts," as far as the response, " Holy, holy, holy." 
 
 Pro-Anaphora : The first part of the Liturgy, originally the service for the 
 Sabbath, and a simple adaptation and development of the Sabbath 
 morning service of the Jews. 
 
 Sacramentary : The book containing the Canon and the variable portions of 
 the Mass, as collects, prefaces, &c. 
 
 Sancta Sanctis : An exclamation in the Eastern Church when the celebrant 
 elevates the Host. He calls, " Holy things to the holy." To which the 
 people respond, " There is One Holy," &c. This takes the place of the 
 Jewish Schema. 
 
 Sanctus : " Holy, holy, holy," &c., also called the Triumphal Hymn. 
 Triumphal Hymn : See " Sanctus." 
 
 Veil : A veil formerly hung between the chancel and the body of the church. 
 As the celebrant passed through it, he said the Prayer of the Veil. 
 Afterwards the term veil came to be applied to the covering thrown over 
 the chalice and paten, and then this prayer was shifted, and said 
 when the celebrant removed the covering. 
 
 Washing of Hands : This took place before the beginning of the Great 
 Eucharistic Prayer, at the commencement of the principal part of the 
 Liturg)'. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introductory... 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Framework 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Pedigree 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The " Constitutions of the Apostles " 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Didache 
 
 Symmetrical Structure 
 
 The Clementine Liturgy ... 
 
 The Basilica 
 
 The Celestial Temple 
 The Collect ... 
 The Lections 
 The Gospels... 
 The Dismissals 
 
 The Sabbath 
 
 The Jewish Morning Prayer 
 The Paschal Lamb ... 
 The Agape ... 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 CHAPTER XVI, 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 14 
 21 
 
 36 
 
 45 
 52 
 60 
 68 
 84 
 95 
 
 122 
 
 133 
 142 
 
 155 
 
XIV 
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 The First-fruits 
 
 The Bread ... 
 
 The Wine 
 
 The Veil 
 
 The Kiss of Peace ... 
 
 The Vesture 
 
 The Litany of Intercession 
 
 The Preface 
 
 The Great Thanksgiving ... 
 
 The Consecration ... 
 
 The Discipline of the Secret 
 
 The Great Intercession 
 
 The Preparation ... 
 
 The Communion ... 
 
 The Post-Communion 
 
 Tradition 
 
 The Summing-up in One ... 
 
 The Altar 
 
 The Upper Chamber 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 INDEX 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 CHAPTER XXXHI. 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 -^1^- 
 
 Frontispiece. — The Prayer of the Veil, from a Fresco in the Catacomb of S. 
 
 Cyriacus page 
 
 Fig. I. — Plan of part of a Roman House at Pau ... ... ... ... 71 
 
 2. — Plan of a Roman House... ... ... ... ... ... ... 72 
 
 3.- — Divan at Damascus ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 72 
 
 4. — Section of a Three-storey House, Pompeii, restored ,. . ... ... 73 
 
 5. — Church in the Catacomb of S. Agnes ... ... ... ... ... 78 
 
 6. — ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, Salita del Cocomero ... ... ... 78 
 
 7.— Plan of Old Christian Basilica 81 
 
 8. — ,, ,, Basilica of S. Sinforosa, with Cella adjoining... ... ... 81 
 
 9. — The Agape, from a Painting in the Catacomb of SS. Peter and 
 
 Marcellinus .-■ ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 172 
 
 10. — Fish and Eucharistic Bread, from a Tombstone at Modena... ... 208 
 
 ,, II. — Fish-bearing Basket with Eucharistic Bread, from the Cemetery of 
 
 S. Lucina... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 208 
 
 12. — Ciborium and Veil, from an Ivory of the 13th Century ... ... 218 
 
 13. — The Tunic, from a Fresco in the Catacombs ... ... ... .. 232 
 
 ,, 14. — The Toga, from a Fresco in the Catacombs ... ... ... ... 233 
 
 15. — The Pallium, from a Mosaic at Ravenna ... ... ... ... 234 
 
 ,, 16. — The Psenula, from a Fresco in the Catacomb of SS. Peter and 
 
 Marcellinus ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 235 
 
 ,, 17. — The Epitrachelion, from an Ivory at Milan ... ... ... .. 240 
 
 ,, 18. — The Attitude of Prayer, from a Monument in the Catacombs ... 262 
 
 19. — The Institution, from a Gold Book-cover found at Sinigaglia ... 307 
 
 ,,20. — Plan of the Temple of Theseus at Athens ... ... ... ... 375 
 
 21. — ,, ,, Church of SS. Cosmas and Damian at Rome ... ... 376 
 
ILLUSTRATIVE TABLES. 
 
 *•■ 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 Framework of the Liturgy 
 
 20 
 
 II. 
 
 Pedigree of Liturgy of Jerusalem 
 
 •• 25 
 
 III. 
 
 ,, ,, Alexandria 
 
 .. 26 
 
 IV. 
 
 ,, ,, Edessa 
 
 29 
 
 V. 
 
 ,, ,, Ephesus 
 
 • 31 
 
 VI. 
 
 ,, ,, Rome 
 
 • • 34 
 
 VII. 
 
 Analysis of Liturgy described by Justin 
 
 62 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, Tertullian ... 
 
 .. 62-3 
 
 IX. 
 
 ,, ,, ,, S. Chrysostom 
 
 ■• 63 
 
 X. 
 
 „ the Clementine Liturgy 
 
 .. 66-7 
 
 XI. 
 
 Pedigree of Flavian Emperors-. 
 
 77 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Triple Division of the Eucharist ... 
 
 140 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Analysis of the Jewish Schacharith ... 
 
 .. 152-4 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The 14th and 15th Nisan 
 
 ■■ 159 
 
 XV. 
 
 Order of Proceedings at the Last Supper 
 
 ■ • 174 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Alteration in the Litany 
 
 .. 251-2 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Hallel and Great Thanksgiving 
 
 .. 271-2 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The Preface 
 
 •• 275 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Eucharistic Prayer 
 
 .. 277 
 
 XX. 
 
 Te Deum and Liturgy ... 
 
 .278-79 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The Consecration 
 
 .. 283 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The Structure of a Collect 
 
 •• 317 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Christian Writers 
 
 •• 337 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Analysis and Comparison of Liturgies 
 
 • 351 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The Great Synthesis 
 
 •• 352 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Temple Service and Liturgy ... 
 
 • 370 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 96, line \^ for peak read beak. 
 
 Page 97, line i, for Deacons irad Deacon. 
 
 Page 99, line 7 from bottom, /(?r knew nW know. 
 
 Page 105, lines 4 and 5, read familiarity of those to whom they 
 write with this quadruple reading. 
 
 Page 125, line 21, ^//c'r dismissals add Ji and D. 
 
 Page 148, line 1 4, y?;;' accompaniment rf«'^ accompaniment. 
 
 Page 153, line 8 from bottom, omit comma. 
 
 Page 155, bottom \me,for 158 read 153. 
 
 Page 22,1, put* on line 13 after meat; change asterisk, line 
 15, into t ; and invert order of references at bottom, 
 cliangiug also tlie /narks of reference. 
 
OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 FAMILY PORTRAITS — IN THE CHURCH — POINT TO A SUCCESSION OF 
 LIFE — THE LITURGIES — INDICATE A PRIMITIVE APOSTOLIC SOURCE — 
 THE LITURGY PERFORMED AT LEAST ONCE WEEKLY — ORIGINALLY 
 FORMED AFTER THE PATTERN OF THE FIRST INSTITUTION — PRESERVES 
 TRACES OF CONNEXION WITH JEWISH ORDINANCES — LITTLE ALTERED 
 IN THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES — NO INCENSE — THE LITURGY NOT 
 COMMITTED TO WRITING — A FIXED FRAMEWORK VARIOUSLY FILLED 
 OUT — THE LITURGY OF THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS — A LITURGI- 
 CAL ENQUIRY BY NO MEANS UNINTERESTING. 
 
 The writer was one day going through an Elizabethan 
 mansion that had remained in the possession of the same 
 family for three centuries. It was crowded with ancient 
 carved oak, the walls were hung with tapestries and ancestral 
 portraits, the rooms furnished with i6th century cabinets, 
 with Jacobean tables and Chippendale chairs. But, although 
 the house was crowded with relics of the past, it was full 
 also of modern comforts ; venerable articles of artistic design 
 and execution intended to serve one purpose, when that 
 purpose failed, were not discarded, but were retained and 
 turned to a kindred end. As the writer entered the hall, 
 one of the daughters of the house, who was showing him round, 
 stepped back from the door she had opened to let him pass, 
 and in so doing placed herself unconsciously beneath the 
 
 B 
 
OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 portrait of a beautiful woman dressed in the brocade of a 
 long passed age. The young girl beneath the picture was 
 strikingly like the portrait ; the writer recognized the resem- 
 blance with an exclamation, which elicited the rejoinder, 
 " Oh ! that is our White Lady who walks the house." 
 
 Since then, often has that incident recurred to the mind of 
 the author of this treatise, when studying the antiquities of 
 the Christian Church. He has assisted at living rites, has 
 listened to the recitation of creeds, has joined in prayers that 
 have recalled in feature, in expression, in tone, old liturgies, 
 old teachings and devotions, that have carried him back on 
 the wings of imagination to remote times, when the Church 
 was young and full of zeal. The old ghosts really walk, 
 really inhabit the ancient but ever habitable Church of God, 
 not as ghosts, but as living existences, vigorous, and renewing 
 their youth perpetually. 
 
 The resemblance between the girl and her ancestress had 
 probably escaped the notice of the bulk of visitors ; and how 
 few there are who enter the Church, join in her prayers and 
 praises, who know anything of the past history of the offices 
 and liturgy they use and love, who realise the continuity that 
 exists, the inherent unity that subsists, between the present 
 and the past. Some men, looking through the courts of the 
 Lord's House, marvel at the old lumber, as they deem it, that 
 it contains, and would fain refurnish it with the most modern — 
 if somewhat vulgar — appliances of luxury; and others love its 
 old relics, simply because old, and have no appreciation of 
 their adaptability to ever-varying circumstances. 
 
 Of theheritage of primitive Christian times, the Liturgy — that 
 is to say, the Eucharistic service — is of an interest hardly realised. 
 That service is found in various forms and in many languages, 
 and some of these forms are dead and buried in the dust of 
 libraries, others have got astray from the Orthodox Church, 
 and have fallen into heretical hands, others again are alive 
 and in daily use. Some there are, likewise, young and new, 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 that bear the ineffaceable lineaments of the old, evidence of 
 hereditary life-blood streaming through their arteries. 
 
 The analysis of these liturgies, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, 
 Ethiopian, the comparison of them with each other, and with 
 early forms, yield remarkable results ; they show us a marked 
 identity of character, that points certainly to their derivation 
 from some common type, earlier than the divergence of the 
 Churches the one from the other. The study of the liturgies 
 has hitherto been confined to scholars, and has interested 
 scholars only ; for the means of working in this field has been 
 at the disposal of the few only whose training has been 
 scholarly. It is so no longer. Almost all the material is 
 placed within reach of everyone, translated and easily acces- 
 sible. It seems, therefore, that the time has come when the 
 result of the labours of liturgical specialists may be brought 
 within the range of the general reader. 
 
 In 1877, Dr. Lightfoot, now Bishop of Durham, wrote an 
 introduction to the newly-discovered portion of the Epistle 
 of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, a document of 
 antiquity and sacred authority only second to the writings 
 of the Apostles ; a document emanating from those who had 
 received the Gospel from the mouths of Saints Peter and 
 Paul. In his introduction. Dr. Lightfoot commented on the 
 fact that this letter contained very distinct echoes of prayers 
 in the ancient liturgies, [and he asked, " Has S. Clement 
 here introduced into his Epistle a portion of a fixed 
 form of words then in use in the Roman Church ? 
 Have the extant liturgies directly borrowed from this 
 Epistle ? or do they owe this resemblance to some com- 
 mon type of liturgy, founded (as we may suppose) on the 
 prayers of the synagogue } The origin of the earliest extant 
 liturgies is a question of high importance ; and with the 
 increased interest which the subject has aroused in England of 
 late years, it may be hoped that a solution of the problems 
 connected with it will be seriously undertaken ; but no satis- 
 
 B 2 
 
OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 factory result will be obtained unless it is approached in a 
 thoroughly critical spirit, and without the design of sup- 
 porting foregone conclusions."* 
 
 That work remains to be done by the critical scholars ; this 
 treatise pretends to be no more than an attempt to sum up and 
 place before the public the results already attained, and to 
 offer a few suggestions as to lines upon which the student may 
 with advantage pursue research. 
 
 When the sun breaks through clouds and sends rays over the 
 prospect, we know that, although we may not see the orb, if 
 the rays be traced up, they will converge at a point behind the 
 clouds, where the sun is. So, when we take the liturgies, and 
 trace them back, we come to the conclusion that away behind 
 the mists that obscure the dawn of Christianity, there is some 
 typal Eucharist from which these several forms issue. And 
 it is a fact that, various and many as the liturgies are, yet 
 they do point to a common origin, for all bear stamped on them 
 a character which is common, an organization which is all 
 but identical. 
 
 This is a point we have to make abundantly clear ; but this 
 is not all. Through the mists of the first three centuries 
 appear but scanty gleams of light. We have few writers of 
 that period, nevertheless we can show that not only their plain 
 statements, but also their casual allusions, allow us to see that 
 the Eucharist in their days was performed in a manner sub- 
 stantially identical with that which a comparison of the extant 
 liturgies of a later date leads us to suspect was the normal 
 pattern in sub-apostolic times. 
 
 We know the dates at which the several Churches separated, 
 and if we see that the liturgies in each possess similar 
 structural features, we are justified in concluding that these 
 features belonged to the mother Church from which they 
 issued. The Nestorian heresy was condemned in A.D. 431, 
 
 * "S. Clement of Rome," an Appendi.\, London, 1877, p. 270. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 and from that date the Syrian communities have remained 
 estranged from the Orthodox Church, yet the liturgies in use 
 among them to this day bear the strongly marked features 
 that belong also to those of the Greek Church, which has held 
 the true faith. " It will be evident," says Mr. Hammond, 
 " that the points of agreement carry us back to a period 
 antecedent to the date of separation ; for the mutual hostility 
 of the Church and the separated communities was such that 
 neither would have borrowed from the other, and hence that 
 which is common to both must have been common to them 
 before the division."* 
 
 From the fourth century either simmering mistrust or open 
 rupture has marked the relations between the Churches of 
 East and West ; the bent of mind, the form of culture, the 
 national characteristics were different in the West from the 
 East ; they were separated by language, by remoteness, and 
 at last politically dissociated. It is inconceivable that the 
 Churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, should take 
 their liturgies as a loan from the Churches of the Latin 
 tongue, nor would the Church of Rome stoop after the third 
 century to learn from the Greek-speaking Churches of the 
 Orient how to offer worship to God. Nevertheless there 
 exists a structural likeness between the liturgies of East and 
 West, testifying to a common origin. 
 
 The liturgy was the great common act of prayer and 
 thanksgiving offered by the Church to Almighty God, every 
 Lord's Day at least, at which every Christian was present, 
 unless withheld by force of circumstance. Wherever a Church 
 was founded by an Apostle, there the divine worship was 
 instituted, and there it continued, not performed occasionally, 
 but, if not day by day, at least week by week, and year by 
 year, becoming annually more stereotyped in form. Men 
 grew up from infancy familiar Avith a certain order, if not 
 
 * "Liturgies, Eastern and Western," by C. E. Hammond, Oxford, 1878, p. 20. 
 
OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 with certain words, and the traditional usage became ham- 
 mered by weekly repetition into a set and unalterable type. 
 And when we find the same type everywhere but slightly 
 varied among Churches of Apostolic parentage, the convic- 
 tion forces itself on us that the Apostles themselves must 
 have had some fixed pattern upon which they instituted the 
 liturgical services wherever they established the beginnings 
 of a Church. Moreover, when we calmly and reverently con- 
 sider what was the position of the Apostles at the first, and 
 what their condition of mind and feeling must have been, it is 
 hard not to admit the belief that they went back for their great 
 pattern to the night previous to the Passion, to the institution 
 of the Eucharist by Christ Himself. 
 
 After the outpouring of Pentecost, when the clouds of 
 doubt and the state of bewilderment and alarm in which they 
 had been held since the Passion cleared away, the Apostles 
 found themselves called upon, not only to organize the multi- 
 tudes who accepted the Gospel into a Church, but also to 
 settle some general type of worship. Then, illumined by the 
 Holy Ghost, who was promised to guide them, and to bring 
 to their remembrance all things that Christ had said and 
 done, they looked back upon the past, on the scene in the 
 upper chamber, all haze of forgetfulness and misconception 
 was dispersed, and glittering and distinct stood forth every 
 incident of that eventful night. Can we question that in their 
 desire to fulfil exactly the command to " do this in remem- 
 brance " of their Lord, they would strive to reproduce in their 
 celebrations of the Holy Eucharist the very acts and words, 
 and sequence of events, that took place when the Sacrament 
 was instituted, and that this it was which gave to the liturgies 
 their special character, never obliterated, however remodelled, 
 overlaid with ceremonial, and enriched with rhetoric .-* 
 
 But this is not all. Our Blessed Lord declared that He 
 had not come to destroy, but to fulfil ; the prophets from 
 Moses had testified to Him, and the sacrifices of the Tabcr- 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 nacle and Temple had prefigured His redemption. He had 
 taught in the synagogues and frequented the Temple, for the 
 honour of which He had shown great zeal. What more 
 likely, therefore, than that, in instituting the great Sacrament 
 of the new Covenant, He should make of it but the flower 
 and fulfilment of the services under the old Covenant ? 
 
 The Church sprang out of Judaism. The Apostles were 
 all descendants of the chosen race, brought up in the midst 
 of Jewish institutions, familiar with the daily and weekly 
 prayers and worships of the synagogue and Temple. That 
 the new Christian liturgy and devotions should betray a like- 
 ness to the forms with which the Apostles were acquainted is 
 not surprising. Their Master had sanctioned with His pre- 
 sence these old religious services, and had shown that they 
 were incomplete, not that they were superstitious and 
 improper. 
 
 We can in some measure understand how that the Apostles 
 with tender piety to their Lord, when assembled for the 
 great commemorative rite He had appointed as His 
 memorial, should endeavour to fix every feature of the in- 
 stitution, should strive reverently to reproduce them, and 
 shrink from all deviation from His order, and question the 
 advisability of any addition, verbal or ceremonial. Indeed 
 the very text of the early liturgies points to some such a 
 clinging to reminiscences in the minor particulars, for they 
 speak of Christ lifting up His eyes to heaven, of His ele- 
 vating the bread and wine, as oblation to the Father, points 
 not mentioned by the Evangelists. 
 
 The same reverence which would restrain the Apostles 
 from altering anything in the Divine appointment would 
 weigh also on their immediate successors, who would hold 
 with tenacity to what they had received from their teachers ; 
 but that same reverence and caution about innovation would 
 be relaxed somewhat in the next generation. 
 
 S. John died about A.D. lOO. His disciple Polycarp lived 
 
8 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 till A.D. 155.* Ignatius fell a martyr in A.D. no. Clement of 
 Rome must have written about the same time as S. John 
 died. Justin Martyr suffered A.D. 165 ; Irenaeus lasted till 
 A.D. 202 ; Clement of Alexandria, who had been taught by 
 those who had received instruction from the disciples of the 
 Apostles, died about A.D. 220. We have chains linking with 
 the Twelve, and carrying on, be it remembered, in weekly 
 iteration the Eucharistic worship after the type appointed by 
 the Apostles. It has been urged that tradition is of all 
 authorities least trustworthy. So it is in matters of fact ; 
 traditional anecdotes grow and change their character, and, 
 when sifted, prove unhistorical ; but the case is altered with 
 forms of worship repeated at least once every seven dajs, 
 and never intermitted from the first Eucharistic celebration 
 after Pentecost to the present date. There have been eccle- 
 siastical earthquakes which have shaken the old structures to 
 their foundations, filling them with rents that have been 
 patched up with incongruous fittings. There have been 
 changes in taste which have varied the adornments ; but 
 in the first three centuries no great alterations, nothing 
 materially affecting the fabric of the Eucharist, can have 
 occurred ; they were ages of persecution, when the Service 
 could only be carried on with secrecy, and with the most 
 limited means of enrichment. That it went through some 
 change we do not doubt, but that change cannot have been 
 revolutionary ; nor is it conceivable that in every branch of 
 the Church wherever scattered, the change, if revolutionary, 
 should have been in one direction. We know with what 
 caution, with what rigorist severity the Churches tested the 
 Scriptures, sifting out all such writings as could not trace 
 their pedigree to the Apostles. Is it conceivable that they 
 should have exhibited greater laxity with regard to the 
 liturgy, which was regarded as the most solemn and sacred 
 
 * The date as fixed by Professor Salmon, Acadtmy, Aug. 15, 1885. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 bond betwixt earth and heaven ? Polycarp of Smyrna and 
 Anicetus of Rome could not agree as to the observance of 
 Easter, because Polycarp had received the custom he observed 
 from S. John himself, and Anicetus claimed the unaltered 
 tradition from his predecessors. If the bishops of Smyrna 
 and of Rome held with such tenacity to their several 
 traditions relative to the observance of a yearly festival, we 
 may be satisfied that they would hold with at least equal 
 determination to the mode of observance of the weekly 
 Commemoration. 
 
 In A.D. 148 Justin Martyr presented his Apology to the 
 Emperor Antoninus Pius, and in that he gives an account, 
 necessarily sketchy, of the Eucharistic service ; that was not 
 half a century after the death of S. John. Polycarp and 
 Papias, two disciples of the Apostles, were alive at the time ; 
 probably there were others whose names we do not know. 
 
 This sketchy account gives us all the main features of 
 the liturgies that emerge into literary form when the stress 
 and agony of persecution had passed away. When peace 
 came to the Church in 313, then the condition of affairs 
 was so altered, that we can allow that great and deep- 
 going changes may have taken place, modifying materially 
 the liturgical form ; but previous to that, there can have 
 been no temptation to development in the direction of 
 elaborateness and amplification of ritual. Constantine sent 
 to Cyril of Jerusalem a splendid robe for use in baptismal 
 ministrations ; at the same time pomp and ceremony poured 
 into the Church from the palace, and, perhaps, were taken 
 over as spoil from the temples of the deserted gods, — 
 that was the revolutionary epoch, and therefore it is of 
 supreme importance that we should collect all the information 
 we can relative to the Eucharist from the writers before that 
 date, and that we should scrape off the paint and gilding 
 from the liturgies after that date, to reach the unaltered 
 substance that was submitted to decoration. 
 
lO OUR INIIERITANXE. 
 
 For instance, the majority of early liturgies have forms of 
 prayer and blessing for the oblation of incense. Now from 
 Irenaeus, disciple of Polycarp, the pupil of S. John, we gather, 
 as we should suppose would be the case, that in his time no 
 incense was used in Christian worship.* We therefore cut 
 away all the ceremony for the offering of incense out of the 
 liturgies, as an addition of a later date. Moreover, we have 
 in the earliest liturgy that has come down to us unaltered, 
 one that actually dates from a time of persecution, no mention 
 whatever of incense. 
 
 That there was no iv7'itten liturgy in the primitive age we 
 may assume. We never hear of tradition delivering up 
 copies of liturgies — only of books of the Sacred Scriptures. 
 There was almost certainly no authoritative form of words 
 handed down by the Apostles ; the fact of the manifold variety 
 of liturgical utterance proves this. But that there was a 
 general structural type, that seems certain, for that remains 
 constant. " Under the dictation of habit and experience," says 
 Bishop Lightfoot, " these prayers were gradually assuming a 
 fixed form. A more or less definite order in the petitions, 
 a greater or less constancy in the individual expressions was 
 already perceptible (when Clement wrote circ. lOo). As the 
 chief pastor of the Roman Church would be the main instru- 
 ment in thus moulding the liturgy, the prayers, without 
 actually being written down, would assume in his mind a fixity 
 as time went on. When, therefore, at the close of his epistle 
 he asks his readers to fall on their knees, and lay down their 
 jealousies and disputes at the footstool of grace, his language 
 naturally runs into these antithetical forms and measured 
 cadences which his ministrations in the church had rendered 
 habitual with him when dealing with such a subject." 
 
 * "Adv. Hxres. IV. c. 17." "The Church makes offerings tlirough Jesus 
 Christ to God, as is said, In every place incense is offered in My Name and a pure 
 sacrifice. Now John declares this incense to be the prayers of the Saints." But 
 the pure sacrifice he explains as the Kucharist. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. I I 
 
 What is true of Clement is true of others. We can only un- 
 derstand the force of their words if we know what was the 
 weekly form of worship in the Church, and allow that very 
 early it had obtained some fixity. We find writer after 
 writer recurring to the same order of argument, using the 
 same somewhat conventional expressions, harping on the 
 same chords, and we only see the reason of this when we 
 have made ourselves acquainted with the liturgy. Their 
 minds were furrowed, so to speak, in certain lines of thought, 
 impressed with certain forms of expression, had taken up 
 certain similes, texts of Scripture repeated every Lord's Day, 
 and when they came to write, their pens reproduced these 
 familiar thoughts and words and illustrations, in unconscious 
 quotation. 
 
 At first the words were not fixed, only the framework of 
 the service ; such is the conclusion which the phenomena of 
 multifariously varied liturgical expression in constant order 
 establishes as the sole means of explaining the phenomena. 
 In Jerusalem, at Antioch, Alexandria, Corinth, Ephesus, 
 Rome, everywhere the broad outlines were determined, but 
 the flow of words that filled them was unrestrained at first, 
 then gradually assumed rigidity, and congealed into settled 
 formularies. 
 
 When the liturgies were consigned to writing, those who 
 wrote them believed that they were penning the ipsisshna 
 verba of the Apostles, whereas what they had received was 
 not the words themselves, but the ground-plan on which the 
 words were to be built up. Thus we have the liturgies called 
 after their presumed authors, S. James the Lord's Brother, 
 S. Mark, S. Peter, S. Thomas, &c. Those who committed 
 them to paper sincerely believed that the familiar words used 
 weekly in their Churches of Apostolic foundation were of 
 coeval institution. To a certain extent they made no 
 mistake ; in their broad features these liturgies could trace 
 back to the first founders of the Church, but when, for 
 
12 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 instance, the Syriac transcriber of the Anaphora of S. James 
 claims for it, that it is verbally "what he heard and 
 learned from the mouth of the Lord, and he did not add and 
 did not omit a single word," then we know that he fell into 
 error. 
 
 That the Oriental Churches, Greek, Syrian, Egyptian, 
 Ethiopic, did not hold, any more than did the Western 
 Churches, that the form of words was divinely or even 
 apostolically fixed, but that on the contrary a wide margin 
 of liberty was allowed, is shown by the fact that bishops 
 made no scruple to compose fresh prayers, to expand and 
 to curtail the Eucharistic service. Consequently the texts 
 vary, but substantially the framework remains the same. 
 That has indeed undergone some modification, but not so 
 as in any way to obscure its original character. Thus, the 
 liturgy of S. James, already mentioned, has produced some 
 forty to sixty others, all differing in the language employed, but 
 all alike in structure. 
 
 The earliest extant complete Eucharistic service that has 
 been preserved is one in the eighth Book of the so-called 
 " Apostolic Constitutions," preserved therein like a fly in 
 amber ; and it has this special value, that, from the fact of 
 its insertion in a literary composition, it has been retained 
 therein unaffected by the disintegration on one side, and the 
 accretion on the other, to which a liturgy in actual use is sub- 
 jected. 
 
 The eighth Book of the Constitutions was put together in the 
 beginning of the fourth century, about A.D. 320, certainly not 
 later, and perhaps earlier ; but the materials of which it is 
 composed belong to a much earlier period, and the liturgy, 
 containing prayers for those enduring persecution, in pri- 
 sons and in mines, and intercession for the persecutors, 
 cannot be later than the end of the third century. 
 
 The first mention we have of the liturgy of S. James is at 
 the Council " in Trullo " held in the domed hall of the palace 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 1 3 
 
 at Constantinople, (a.d. 692,) but the earliest MSS. we have 
 do not go back to anything like this date. Moreover, there are 
 two forms in which this liturgy has come to us, one in Greek, the 
 other in Syriac, differing slightly from each other, so that we 
 cannot say exactly what the form of the liturgy was that is 
 mentioned by the Council. Nevertheless, we can obtain a 
 pretty general idea, for we have a letter by James, Bishop of 
 Edessa, A.D. 651-710, describing the liturgy in his day, which 
 shows that it has remained almost unaltered. The Nestorian 
 Communities have been alienated since A.D. 431 ; the Mono- 
 physite since A.D. 451 ; but all these Churches have liturgies 
 that belong to a type almost identical, if not altogether 
 identical, with that given in the eighth Book of the "Apostolic 
 Constitutions." 
 
 The study of liturgies may seem to the general reader the 
 driest on which he could be invited to enter. It is not so. It 
 is a study that incidentally throws floods of light on the belief, 
 the habits, the virtues and faults of the primitive Christians, and 
 it is a study that directly concerns that institution by Christ 
 which has ever formed the axle round which Christian life has 
 turned ; about which, also, much controversy has raged. We 
 can hardlydoubt that a studyof the earlyhistory of the Eucharist 
 in the period before it underwent much change will elucidate 
 many a difflculty, dispel many a prejudice, and deepen in the 
 heart the sense of the value of those formularies which we 
 have been accustomed to use and have learned instinctively 
 to love, but which we have only imperfectly understood. 
 
Chapter II. 
 
 THE FRA ME WORK. 
 
 THE STRUCTURE OF A LITURGY — GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE SHOWS 
 LINGUISTIC RELATIONSHIP — SO LIKENESS OF LITURGICAL STRUCTURE 
 — ALL LITURGIES DIVISIBLE INTO TWO PARTS, I. THE PRO-ANAPHORA, 
 2. THE ANAPHORA— ORIGINALLY DISTINCT OFFICES— THE PRO- 
 ANAPHORA DERIVED FROM THE SABBATH DAY SERVICE OF THE SYNA- 
 GOGUE — AND THE SABBATH DAY SERVICE OF THE EARLY CHURCH — 
 DERIVATION OF THE NAME MASS FROM THE DISMISSALS— THE RE- 
 LATION OF THE CHRISTIAN TO THE JEWISH SABBATH SERVICE — DIF- 
 FERENCE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST RELATIVE TO THE CONSECRATION 
 — INTERCESSIONS, NUMEROUS— CURTAILED — IN PROCESS OF CUR- 
 TAILMENT—THE MARKS OF DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE LITURGICAL 
 FAMILIES APPEARED— ANALYSIS OF MAIN LITURGICAL STRUCTURE. 
 
 What grammar is to a language, that structure is to a 
 liturgy. We can no more grasp the character and pecu- 
 liarities of a liturgy without a knowledge of its framework 
 than we can understand the character and peculiarities of a 
 tongue without a knowledge of its grammar. 
 
 Before we proceed further, it will be advisable to give a 
 general outline of what is the main structure of the primitive 
 liturgy, as revealed to us by analysis and comparison of extant 
 Eucharistic offices. 
 
 In the year 870, and for ten or fifteen years after, a body of 
 colonists from Norway left their mother country and settled 
 some in Faroe, but the majority in Iceland. Thenceforth 
 these colonies were cut off from the influences that affected 
 the speech of their brethren. They have retained their 
 ancient tongue, but Farocse and Icelanders have each 
 
THE FRAMEWORK. 1 5 
 
 severally modified the language they inherited, yet have not 
 altered it to such an extent as the Norwegians who have 
 been brought into contact with Lapps, and Finns, and 
 Germans. The Danish and the Swedish tongues are closely 
 akin to Norse, Icelandic, and Faroese ; they have all a common 
 grammar and common word-roots, only the inflexions and 
 modulations of tone have varied the speeches of these several 
 peoples. We have literary monuments of the Norse of the 
 eleventh century, before the divergence was as marked as at 
 present, and with the help of these, and by comparison of the 
 several ramifications of the Scandinavian dialects, it is easy to 
 reconstitute the original mother-language from which all are 
 derived. In precisely the same way do we attain to a 
 knowledge of the mother-liturgy from which those of East 
 and West, of Europe, Africa, Asia are derived. And just as 
 Faroese and Icelanders have been cut off from those 
 influences which have affected Norwegians, and Swedes, and 
 Danes, so have the Nestorians of Kurdistan, and the Jacobites 
 of Armenia and Egypt been separate from the main 
 stream of Ecclesiastical life in the Orthodox Church, and 
 therefore furnish us with invaluable particulars for the 
 reconstruction of the earliest type of liturgy ; for these 
 heretical communions, from the very fact of their isolation, 
 have clung with tenacity to their ancient forms of worship, 
 inherited from the Church before their separation, and have 
 proved even more conservative respecting them than the 
 Church herself 
 
 Now let us take the broad features of the service of which 
 we have documentary evidence, as it is found everywhere 
 throughout the world and in all ages. 
 
 It is everywhere and always divisible into two distinct 
 parts, the so-called Pro-Anaphora {i.e., " before oblation "), 
 Mass of the Catechumens, or as we call it, Ante-Communion 
 service, and secondly, into the Anaphora (" oblation "), Mass 
 of the Faithful or Communion service proper. 
 
l6 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Originally these two offices were absolutely distinct. The 
 first we believe to have been no other than an amplification 
 of the Schacharith, the latter portion of the Sabbath-day 
 service of the Synagogue, and to have been used by the 
 primitive Christians on Saturday, i.e., on the Sabbath ; the 
 Anaphora, on the other hand, we hold to have been the special 
 service for the Lord's day. When, however, through persecu- 
 tion, the observance of the Sabbath could no longer be main- 
 tained, then the Sabbath morning service was united with, 
 and preceded the service for the Lord's day. The faithful 
 attended both, but as soon as the system of training for 
 baptism began, and some sort of penitential discipline came 
 to be enforced, then the candidates for baptism and the peni- 
 tents were suffered to attend the former service only, the old 
 Sabbath day office transferred to the Sunday. It ended with 
 the dismissal of Catechumens and Penitents, hence it acquired 
 the somewhat colloquial designation of the Missa Cateclm- 
 menorortmi, the dismissal of the candidates ; and the main 
 Eucharistic service in the West — from its ending with the 
 dismissal of the Faithful, was named the Missa Fidelium. 
 They were colloquial designations, but they have been accepted, 
 and have acquired dignity. It is, however, odd that the dis- 
 missals should have given a designation to the services at the 
 conclusion of which they took place, and that to this day the 
 Eucharist should be called the Mass. These two services 
 have been in most liturgies welded together. Since the 
 Catechumenal dismissals have ceased, the line of demarcation 
 has everywhere disappeared except in England, where the 
 exodus of non-communicants after the sermon exactly 
 reproduces the departure of the unbaptized, the penitents, 
 and the possessed with devils, in the ancient Church. 
 
 The Ante-Communion service consisted of a general inter- 
 cession, then of readings from Scripture, psalmody, a 
 sermon, and a litany of intercession for those who were 
 dismissed. In the synagogue, in like manner on the Sabbath 
 
THE FRAMEWORK. IJ 
 
 morning, there were readings from Scripture, psalm, sermon, 
 and prayer for all conditions of men. If we bid the Pro- 
 Anaphora stand back under the picture of the synagogue 
 Sabbath service, the family likeness is undeniable. The 
 Anaphora, Mass of the Faithful, or Communion proper, 
 began with the Offertory, the oblations on one hand of alms, 
 on the other of bread and wine for the Eucharist. This was 
 followed by a litany of intercession for all men and for 
 fruitful seasons. This was followed by an invitation to a 
 general thanksgiving, which led to a burst of praise from the 
 congregation, the Triumphal Hymn, " Holy, holy, holy. Lord 
 God of Hosts," &c., after which the Celebrant proceeded with 
 the great prayer of Thanksgiving, in which he recited the 
 history of God's dealings with man from Creation to Redemp- 
 tion. Then, just as at the Passover the Institution was 
 recited, so here in the Christian rite was recited the 
 institution of the Eucharist ; the central act of the 
 whole service. The consecration consisted of a reci- 
 tation of the institution by Christ, followed by a reiteration 
 by the Celebrant — that is to say he recited first of all how 
 Christ had appointed the Eucharist as a memorial of His 
 passion and ordered its continual repetition, after which, 
 pursuant of His command, the Celebrant consecrated the 
 elements in the same manner, and using the same gestures, as 
 Christ had employed at the Institution. Then came a Great 
 Intercession by virtue of the merits of the sacrifice of the 
 death of Christ, and this was followed by the Communion 
 of the clergy and the people. After this came again an 
 intercession for the whole world, a thanksgiving and 
 then the dismissal. 
 
 Every Communion service throughout the world of any 
 antiquity and authority has these organic members, but there 
 is a small difference in the distribution of parts owing to 
 different methods of curtailment, and to the distribution of 
 the parts curtailed. 
 
 c 
 
1 8 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 To begin with the Consecration. East and West are 
 divided as to usage in this portion of the Eucharistic service. 
 The East maintains the old, the original form consisting of — 
 1st. Recitation of the Institution by Chri.st ; and then 
 2nd. Observance of His command by the Celebrant — 
 but in the West the latter has been folded over the former so 
 as to make both coincide, the gestures of the Celebrant 
 attending the narrative of the performance of these gestures 
 by Christ. If the reader will look at the Prayer of Conse- 
 cration in the Anglican Communion Service, he will see the 
 rubrical directions at the side of the words of Institution. 
 In the Eastern and primitive usage, all the priest's part 
 came after the recitation of the words of Institution. This 
 will be explained more fully later on ; what is evident is that 
 the Western usage is a mere curtailment of the older. 
 Another and much more thorough-going curtailment took 
 place with the Intercessions. Of these in the combined 
 services there were Jive : one at the beginning and one at the 
 end of the Pro-Anaphora ; one at the beginning, one at the 
 end, and one in the middle of the Anaphora. Now all these 
 were alike — or very much alike. The second alone had a 
 peculiar character, it was a prayer for, blessing of, and dismissal 
 of, those unqualified to attend the Eucharistic service proper. 
 When the dismissals ceased, then this particular series of 
 intercessions and blessings disappeared. The first, initial 
 Intercession of the Pro- Anaphora went very early, but the 
 remains of it linger in the Collects for the day, as shall be 
 shown further on. After this, and the prayers of the 
 Dismissals were gone, there still remained three Inter- 
 cessions of great length for the Church throughout the 
 World, for bishops and clergy, and laity, for sufferers and 
 travellers, for kings and magistrates, for the army, and 
 for fruitful seasons. We have the remains of the first of 
 these in our Prayer for the Church Militant. This was 
 originally a Litany. Then came the great intercessional 
 
THE FRAMEWORK. I9 
 
 prayer of the Celebrant ; and lastly another litany of 
 intercession from all the communicants, a counterpart to 
 the initial litany of intercession in the Anaphora. This last 
 Intercession was speedily got rid of Then there remained 
 only the two first of the Anaphora, intercessions three and 
 four of the original service, that is to say, the Litany, and the 
 Great Prayer of Intercession. Different Churches treated 
 them differently, with the common object of shortening the 
 service. Some Churches discarded the Litany, others broke 
 the Great Intercession up into parts and intercalcated it 
 with the Great Thanksgiving. 
 
 There was a practical reason for this latter proceeding. 
 
 The great Eucharistic prayer was of enormous length. It 
 began with a record of the glory and majesty of God, with an 
 enumeration of His attributes and perfections ; then it pro- 
 ceeded to describe creation in great detail ; then to relate the 
 fall of man, next to state that the mercy of God did not leave 
 him without hope and guidance. It proceeded to show how 
 the world was chastised with a flood ; how Abraham was 
 called ; how the patriarchs were led by God ; how after the 
 bondage of Egypt, Israel was brought forth by the Almighty 
 arm ; how the Promised Land was recovered ; how the 
 prophets were sent to encourage to obedience, and to 
 denounce evil ; how at length, in the fulness of time, God 
 sent His Son, born of a woman, to enlighten and redeem 
 man. Then came the narrative of the Incarnation, the 
 Ministry, the Passion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. 
 Not only was this Eucharistic prayer of prodigious length ; 
 but it was always prayed by Celebrant and people with 
 uplifted hands. This proved exceedingly exhausting, and 
 to relieve the strain, certain Churches broke up the Great 
 Intercession, and intruded parts of it into the Great Thanks- 
 giving, so as to allow of the lowering of the arms for a while. 
 
 The ways in which the several Churches dealt with the 
 Great Intercession constitute the marks which differentiate 
 
 C 2 
 
20 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 their liturgies into groups or families. We will consider 
 these groups in the next chapter. The following table of 
 the primitive Eucharistic service, as conjecturally restored, 
 will assist the reader in understanding what follows. 
 
 ^asi0 Of tlje CateC^umen^. 
 
 (Sabbath Day service.) 
 
 Preparatory prayer and Benediction. 
 
 General Litany of Intercession. 
 
 1st lesson : from the Law. 
 
 Psalm. 
 
 2nd lesson : from the Prophets. 
 
 Psalm. 
 
 3rd lesson : from the Epistles. 
 
 Psalm. 
 
 4th lesson: from the Gospels. 
 
 Psalm. 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 Intercession for and dismissal of Non-Commumicants with 
 
 blessing. 
 
 Sl^a00 of t^e ifaitljfuU 
 
 (Lord's Day service.) 
 Preparatory prayer (of the veil). 
 
 Pledge of Unity. 
 
 General Litany of Intercession. 
 
 Sursum Corda and Preface. 
 
 The Triumphal Hymn. 
 
 Great Thanksgiving. 
 
 The Consecration. 
 
 Great Eucharistic Intercession. 
 
 Sancta Sanctis and Communion. 
 
 General Litany of Intercession. 
 
 Thanksgiving and dismissal of Communicants with blessing. 
 
Chapter III. 
 
 THE PEDIGREE. 
 
 THE PROCESS OF DISINTEGRATION— EXTREME LENGTH OF THE CANON 
 —LITURGIES GROUPED BY THE VARIOUS WAYS IN WHICH THEY 
 ARRANGED THE INTERCESSION — ORIGINAL ORDER — THE FIVE 
 FAMILIES — I. THE FAMILY OF JERUSALEM — 2. THAT OF ALEXANDRIA 
 — 3. THAT OF EDESSA— 4. THAT OF EPHESUS— 5. THAT OF ROME 
 — ALTERATIONS IN THE ROMAN LITURGY. 
 
 The great Eucharistic Intercession was very lengthy. God 
 was entreated to have mercy on the whole Church, wherever 
 scattered throughout the world, on every Episcopate, then on 
 the priesthood and the diaconate everywhere ; after that 
 there followed special intercession for the diocese, for the 
 bishop of it, and its clergy, for the widows, virgins, those 
 living in marriage, those with child, for those who gave 
 alms to the poor, and brought oblations to the altar, 
 for little children, the sick, the newly baptized, for the 
 unbaptized but under training, for travellers by land or sea, 
 for those deranged in mind, for penitents, for the king and 
 all in authority, for the army, for enemies and persecutors ; 
 then followed a commemoration of the dead, of patriarchs, 
 prophets, martyrs, and Apostles ; lastly, an entreaty for the 
 fruits of the earth in due season. 
 
 This was very long. Moreover, the same Intercession 
 was made twice by the congregation, and summed up with a 
 Collect by the Celebrant at the Anaphora, once at the 
 beginning, also at the end. 
 
 It lent itself to division, for one part referred to the 
 
22 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Church Militant, whereas the other referred to the dead in 
 Christ. This was a natural cleavage which, as we shall see, 
 was taken advantage of when this Intercession was broken 
 up. 
 
 As already said, the method of treatment of the Great 
 Intercession marks off the groups of liturgies. All Churches 
 were embarrassed with the same difficulty — the inordinate 
 length of the service compounded out of two distinct offices 
 for separate days, and with the repetition of Intercessions, now 
 became unnecessarily numerous. They met the difficulty, 
 and solved it in different ways, which we will now enumerate. 
 We do not pretend that these are the sole differentiating 
 features of the liturgies, but they are those which are most 
 marked. 
 
 We will first premise that the Anaphora began with the 
 Offertory of Bread and Wine, attended originally by no 
 offertory prayer, only by a prayer on entry into the holy 
 place, called the " Prayer of the Veil." 
 
 Also, that in the Consecration by the Celebrant, his portion, 
 as distinguished from the recitation of the Institution, will be 
 designated by us the Oblation. 
 
 The original order was then thus : 
 
 The Offertory. 
 
 The Litany of Intercession, with Collect. 
 
 The Invitation to Praise. 
 
 The Great Thanksgiving. 
 
 The Institution and Oblation. 
 
 The Great Intercession. 
 
 The changes of arrangement constitute five families. 
 
 I. That of Jerus.\LEM. This kept the Great Intercession 
 untouched in its primitive position ; the Litany of 
 Intercession was retained in the Greek S. James, 
 omitted in the Syriac S. James. 
 
THE PEDIGREE. 23 
 
 II. That of Alexandria. This put the Great Intercession 
 
 after the Triumphal Hymn and Preface ; it omitted 
 the Litany. 
 
 III. That of Edessa. This split the Great Intercession 
 
 into two, and put the Commemoration of the Dead 
 after the Great Thanksgiving, and before the Oblation ; 
 but retained the Intercession of the Living in its 
 primitive place. It retains a trace only of the Litany 
 of Intercession. 
 
 IV. That of Ephesus. This did away wii^h the Great Inter- 
 
 cession, but retained a collect of Intercession in the 
 place of the Litany. This is also the Anglican 
 arrangement, and was the Gallican. Traces only of 
 the Litany of Intercession remain. 
 
 V. That of Rome. This split the Great Intercession into 
 
 two, and put the portion in which the living are com- 
 memorated after the Triumphal Hymn, but retained 
 the Commemoration of the Dead in its primitive place. 
 The reverse treatment to the Edessian. Traces sur- 
 vive of the Litany of Intercession. 
 
 The final Litany of Intercession by all the Communicants 
 is almost wholly gone, but remains of the first Litany in the 
 Mass of the Faithful linger on in collects or prayers for the 
 dead, or for the whole Church. 
 
 As has been said in the former chapter, the entire liturgy is 
 made up of two distinct and independent offices, and it is 
 but natural that there should be some awkwardness in their 
 junction. Anyone nowadays who assisted at the Roman 
 Mass would have no idea, unless previously instructed, that 
 the service was not originally one. The two portions have 
 been more completely united than have Litany and Mattins 
 in the Anglican Morning Service. In a good many of the 
 Liturgies a little hesitation appears as to where Pro- 
 
24 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Anaphora ends and Anaphora begins. In some the Litany 
 of Intercession was reckoned as belonging to the Mass of the 
 Catechumens, whereas in others it was held to belong to that 
 of the Faithful. 
 
 We will now treat a little more fully of the several families 
 of liturgies. 
 
 I. Jerusalem was the Mother Church of Christendom. 
 
 From Jerusalem the Gospel light radiated throughout the 
 world ; and had not the destruction of the city led to the 
 depression of the Church in it, Jerusalem would have taken 
 the place as first among all of the patriarchates of Christen- 
 dom. From the Church at Jerusalem, governed by James, 
 the Lord's brother, issued that of Antioch, founded by S. 
 Peter. 
 
 To the family of liturgies connected with Antioch and 
 Jerusalem belongs that of the "Constitutions," commonly 
 called the Clementine. 
 
 The liturgy attributed to S. James is not a more recent 
 recension of that in the " Constitutions," it is, as we have it, a 
 niece, the daughter of a twin sister. This liturgy exists in 
 two versions, one Greek, the other Syriac, both in the main 
 alike, but each with accretions acquired since they separated, 
 individualising them. The Greek S. James is still in use in 
 the Isles of the Levant on the festival of the Saint ; and 
 the Syriac S. James is used b}- the Jacobite Churches of the 
 East, and by the Christians of S. Thomas on the Malabar 
 Coast, since they were despoiled of their own liturgy by the 
 Jesuits in 1599. A later edition of the Greek S. James is 
 that of S. l^asil. Bishop of Ca:sarea in Cappadocia (a.D. 370- 
 380), which is still said in the Eastern Church on all Sundays 
 in Lent except Palm Sunday, and certain other holidays. 
 
 The Greek S. James is of less antiquity than the Syriac 
 of the same name. It has undergone a Byzantinizing pro- 
 cess, bringing it into accord with the liturgy of Constantinople. 
 
THE PEDIGREE. 25 
 
 Theodore Balsamon, at the end of the twelfth century, in- 
 duced the Greek Church to adopt universally the liturgy of 
 S. Chrysostom in place of that of S. James. The MSS. 
 of the Syriac S. James go back to the eighth century, but 
 the liturgical treatise of James of Edessa enables us to trace 
 its features a century earlier. 
 
 Akin to the liturgies of Jerusalem and of the "Constitutions" 
 was that of Antioch. This has not come down to us entire, 
 but we can make out its character from the writings of S. 
 John Chrysostom, and it has been reconstructed by Mr, 
 Hammond with great skill from the notices he has left. The 
 order was this — Sursum Corda, the Preface, the Triumphal 
 Hymn, the Great Thanksgiving, the Consecration, the Great 
 Intercession. It retained, in addition, both the litanies, but 
 apparently the second was said before Communion, immedi- 
 ately after the preparation of the Communicants.* S. John 
 Chrysostom was born at Antioch, A.D. 347, and there 
 ordained priest. We have moreover the liturgy of Constanti- 
 nople, which bears his name, and is now in ordinary use 
 throughout the Orthodox Church, and this is, in all likeli- 
 hood, a re-edition of the venerable liturgy of Antioch with 
 amplifications and curtailments. The Armenian Eucharistic 
 service is derived from the Greek S. James. 
 
 This is the pedigree so far as we have come. 
 
 (Apostolic Liturgy.) 
 
 Clementine. (Jerusalem.) (Antioch.) 
 
 Greek S. James. Syriac S. James. Constantinople. 
 
 Armenian. Greek S. Basil. 
 
 We bracket such as are lost textually. 
 
 '"The Ancient Liturgy of Antioch," by C. E. Hammond, Oxford, 1879. 
 
26 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 II, The second group is that of Alexandria. The Church 
 of Alexandria was founded by S. Mark the Evangelist, 
 
 The original liturgy of this Church, a Greek-speaking one, 
 is lost. In A.D. 350 missionaries from the Church of Alexandria 
 carried the Gospel into Ethiopia, that is to say, Abyssinia, and 
 with the Gospel they likewise carried the liturgy, which was trans- 
 lated into the Ethiopic vernacular. Moreover, the old Egyptians 
 accepted the faith from Alexandria, and with it the liturgy 
 which was handed down from S. Mark — orally, not textually. 
 It was translated into the Egyptian tongue, that is to say, 
 Coptic. The Egyptian Church lapsed into the Monophysite 
 heresy, and so got separated from the Orthodox Church of 
 the East, However, we have the Coptic liturgies, as well as 
 the Ethiopic liturgies. What is more, we have a Greek 
 liturgy of S. Mark, of which only two MS. copies exist. 
 Now, by comparison of these various threads of evidence, it is 
 possible to see what was the original structure of the liturgy 
 of the Church of Alexandria — we find that it also was twin 
 sister to that of Jerusalem. The pedigree becomes therefore 
 further extended. 
 
 (Apostolic Liturgy.) 
 
 Ill I 
 
 Clementine. (Jerusalem.) (Aniioch.) (Alexandria.) 
 
 I I 
 
 (S. Mark) Ethiopic. 
 
 original. 
 
 S. Mark. Coptic. More recent 
 
 S. Cyril. Ethiopic. 
 
 After the rise of Constantinople to be the seat of imperial 
 power in the East, and with the constant interchange between 
 the Churches of Alexandria and Constantinople, the liturgy 
 of Alexandria became greatly influenced by that of Constanti- 
 
THE PEDIGREE, 2/ 
 
 nople, and was modified and altered into likeness to that in 
 use in the Imperial City. 
 
 III. The third family is that of Edessa, of which Abgar 
 the Black was king in our Lord's time ; who was the first 
 prince — if the tradition can be trusted — to accept the Gospel. 
 
 In the 4th century, Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in 
 Palestine, the Father of Church History, visited Edessa, and 
 found in the library there letters in Syriac, purporting to be 
 a correspondence between King Abgar and our Lord ; he 
 desiring to be healed of a sickness, and to have teachers sent 
 into his kingdom. Eusebius translated these letters, and 
 inserted them in his history. There can be no question that 
 they are apocryphal, and that they were forged by some 
 Edessian, eager to be able to show some documentary 
 -evidence which would substantiate the tradition of which 
 the princes were proud, that the Osrhoenic kingdom was the 
 first to receive the Gospel. It does, however, seem probable 
 that Christianity did take root in Edessa in the ist century, 
 and that those that carried the truth there were Thaddaeus and 
 Maris, not Thaddaeus the Apostle, but one of the seventy 
 disciples, as was also Maris. If the Edessians could have 
 claimed one of the Twelve as their apostle, their vanity 
 would have led them so to do ; but the tradition that 
 they owed their conversion to two otherwise obscure 
 disciples of the Twelve was too strong for them to upset 
 it. From these two, Thaddaeus — or, as they called him, 
 Adaeus — and Maris, the Eastern Syrians claim to have 
 received their liturgy. This liturgy is especially important. 
 As has been already said, the Coptic and the Abyssinian Eucha- 
 ristic offices have been, at a very early date indeed, translated 
 from the Greek ; but that of the Church of Edessa was 
 never translated, it is in the original Chaldee in which it was 
 composed. 
 
 In or about A.D. 880, when the Danes were in possession 
 
28 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 of London, our great King Alfred made a vow to God, that 
 if He would enable him to recover this city out of their 
 hands, he would send alms to those remote Christians in 
 India, whose Church had been founded by S. Thomas and 
 S. Bartholomew. In 883, when he was master of London, 
 he fulfilled his vow, and despatched two of his nobles, 
 Sighelm and Athelstan, with presents to the faithful in 
 India. If this statement did not rest on the authority 
 of the most trustworthy of chronicles,* we might have 
 doubted it. How came Alfred to know that there was a 
 suffering Church, a little flock of believers surrounded by 
 the wolves on the far-off Malabar coast, a Church claiming 
 to be of apostolic foundation ? We cannot tell how he 
 knew it, or what at that time turned his thoughts in that 
 direction. We hear no more of the Christians of S. Thomas 
 for centuries, except a vague allusion by the traveller Marco 
 Polo in the 13th century, who did not reach them, till in 
 1 502, when on his second visit to India, Vasco de Gama, to his 
 great astonishment discovered on the S.W. coast, a people 
 who professed the faith of Christ, which they declared had 
 been handed down to them from apostolic times. No sooner 
 were the Portuguese settled at Goa, than every sort of pressure 
 was brought to bear on this little Church, to force it to 
 submit to Rome. The bishops were seized by the inquisition, 
 and deported to Portugal or Rome, and one was burnt alive. 
 In 1599 a synod of the IMalabar Church was convened under 
 the Portuguese Archbishop, supported by Portuguese match- 
 locks and pikes, and the unhappy Christians were forced to 
 surrender their copies of the liturgy they used, which were 
 immediately consigned to the flames. Fortunately we know 
 sufficient of its general structure and the form of prayers, to 
 be sure that it was very closely related to that of Ada^us and 
 Maris. But as the Malabar Christians had maintained, 
 
 " Anglo-Saxon Chron.," si4b. ann. 
 
THE PEDIGREE. 29 
 
 apparently for ages, connexion with the Nestorian Churches 
 of Syria, this similarity is not to wondered at. 
 The pedigree, as further extended, stands thus : 
 
 Apostolic Liturgy. 
 
 I I I I I 
 
 Clementine. (Jerusalem.) (Antioch.) (Alexandria.) (Edessa.) 
 
 ^1 
 
 I I 
 
 SS. Adieus Malabar 
 
 and Maris, of S. Thomas. 
 Chaldee. 
 
 IV. The fourth group is that which is thought to be 
 derived from Ephesus, the Church founded by S. Paul, but 
 which was organized and governed till his death by S. John 
 the Divine. Of the original liturgy of Ephesus we have not 
 only no copy, but no information, and all we can conjecture 
 concerning it is derived from certain liturgies in Europe, 
 those of Gaul, Spain, and Milan, apparently akin, the first of 
 which is traceable to Churches having a more or less certain 
 connexion with Ephesus. Probably the ancient liturgy of 
 the British Church belonged to the same family. 
 
 This group, though formed in Western Europe, presents 
 such unmistakeable Eastern peculiarities as to point to the 
 East, and not improbably to Ephesus, as the region of its 
 origin. From the Greek colony of Marseilles the Gospel 
 entered Gaul. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, was a disciple of 
 Papias and Polycarp, and the Church of Aries venerates 
 the memory of its founder Trophimus the Ephesian. That 
 of Besangon was placed under a disciple of Iren^us as its 
 bishop. 
 
 From the old Gallic liturgies came those employed by 
 the Goths and the Franks, and we have precious remains 
 of their sacramentaries, that is to say, of the variable parts 
 in the Eucharistic office. That which was invariable was 
 not committed to writing at an early age ; it was committed 
 
30 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 to memory. Thus it is that these sacramentaries give only 
 the changing parts of the Hturgy. 
 
 All these old Gallic, Gothic, and Teutonic services are gone ; 
 they were swept away by the will of the great Carolingian 
 sovereigns to make place for the Roman Missal. S. Gregory 
 the Great, in one of his letters, speaks of the difference 
 between the liturgies of the Churches : " In Rome the use of 
 the Mass is one, in the Gallican Churches it is different " 
 (Ep. xi. 64), The last token of their existence is a notice 
 by Hilduin, who died A.D. 842, and who says that till the 
 introduction of the Roman Missal, the Eucharist had been 
 celebrated in the Gallic Churches in that form in which they 
 had received it along with the Gospel. 
 
 The names of some of the early Bishops of Milan, Ana- 
 tholius, Monas, Calimerus, Eustorgius, Dionysius, point to a 
 Greek origin, and the liturgy of that Church bears indi- 
 cations of kinship with the Gallic and descent from the East. 
 S. Ambrose (A.D. 374-397) probably recast it ; since that 
 date, however, the Ambrosian rite has been looked on with a 
 sinister eye by Rome, which, though it has not succeeded in 
 abolishing it altogether, has greatly influenced and Roman- 
 ised it. Mr. Hammond thinks that the Ambrosian is a 
 sister liturgy to the Roman, and not to the Gallican liturgy. 
 
 The ancient liturgy of the Spanish Church has had a 
 singular history. It is usually termed the Mozarabic liturgy, 
 probably a term of contempt given it by those in Spain of 
 ultramontane inclinations. In its present form it is attributed 
 to S. Isidore, Bishop of Seville (A.D. 601-630). It is 
 certainly akin to the Gallican, and of Eastern origin. It 
 underwent a final revision by Cardinal Ximenes in 1500, who 
 saved it from extinction by endowing a chapel in the 
 cathedral of Seville, in which that liturgy was to be used for 
 ever. 
 
 " This Mozarabic liturgy," says a great authorit)', " is as un- 
 questionably not derived from the Roman, as it is not an 
 
THE PEDIGREE. 3 1 
 
 agglomeration of a native liturgy with the Roman. It is 
 rather, like the Gallic, the venerable ancient liturgy of Spain, 
 which was not composed by S. Isidore, but was supposed by 
 him to be an heritage received from the Apostle Peter, and 
 which he, with the assistance of the 4th Toledan Synod, recast. 
 However energetically he may have worked, and left his 
 impress on this monument of the past, he no more composed 
 it than did Gelasius or Gregory compose the Roman 
 Divine Service."* 
 
 The pedigree now stands extended thus : — 
 
 Apostolic Liturgy. 
 
 I I I I I I 
 
 Clementine. (Jerusalem.) (Antioch.) (Ephesus.) (Alexandria.) (Edessa ) 
 
 I I 
 
 (Gallican.) (Spanish.) 
 
 ! I 
 
 I III 
 
 (British.) Gotho-Gallic. Frank. Mozarabic. 
 
 V. We come lastly to the Roman liturgy, which, originally 
 confined to the Church of the Imperial City on the Tiber 
 and to North Africa, has elbowed out all other rites 
 where it has been allowed to do so, and has extended through 
 the world, accepted — though not always without demur — by 
 most Churches that acknowledge the Papal obedience. 
 
 The liturgy of the African Church — that is, of the Latin- 
 speaking settlements on the African coast of the Medi- 
 terranean, of which Carthage was the metropolitan see, have 
 disappeared with the great overthrow that these colonies met 
 with, first at the hands of the Vandals, and then of the 
 Mussulmans ; but although not a single text remains, some 
 of the principal writers of the ancient Church, Tertullian 
 (a.d. 160-245), Cyprian (bp. c. 246, d. 258), Augustine 
 
 * Schill in Real-Encyklopedie. Freiburg, 1886, s.v. Liturgie. 
 
32 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 (a.u. 354-430) have left us sufficient information concerning 
 it to satisfy us that it was, if not identical with the Roman, 
 at all events very closely allied to it. As the Church in 
 North Africa was a daughter of the Roman Church, this 
 is what we should have expected. 
 
 Of the Roman liturgy we have no authentic information 
 prior to the fifth century. The Pontifical Annals of the See 
 of Rome is a collection of traditions of various degrees 
 of value and of uncertain date, and no reliance can be ^placed 
 on the statements made with reference to the early history of 
 the See of Rome and its occupants. According to that 
 authority, for instance, Sixtus I. (119-128) introduced the 
 " Thrice Holy " into the liturgy, whereas we judge from the 
 letter of Clement of Rome that it existed in the service before 
 this date. Telesphorus (a.d. 128-138) is said to have 
 introduced the Gloria in Excelsis. This is possible ; but 
 inasmuch as we know from the " Apostolic Constitutions " 
 that it formed already a part of morning prayer, it is 
 hardly more than possible. Celestine I. (d. 432) is said to have 
 settled the psalms sung in the liturgy, which is probable 
 enough. Leo I. (440-461) added four words to the canon. 
 Much more important than these doubtful statements 
 is the testimony of Innocent I. (402-417) that no alterations 
 were tolerated in that liturgy which had been handed 
 down in the Church from S. Peter, the chief of the Apostles. 
 Vigilius (a.d. 405-54) sent a copy of the unchangeable 
 portion of the service, the Canon, to Profuturus, Bishop 
 of Braga, in Spain, and said, in the letter accompanying 
 it, that the Canon remained true to Apostolic traditions. 
 With it he sent the variable portions suitable to the 
 several festivals. 
 
 The original Roman liturgy was certainly in Greek, 
 as the early Church in Rome was a Greek-speaking Church, 
 and the first bishops were Greek. Greek inscriptions 
 belong to the earliest in the catacombs. 
 
THE PEDIGREE. 33 
 
 When the translation into Latin took place we do not 
 know, but the Latin Mass to this day bears traces of its Greek 
 origin. No remains of the original Greek liturgy remain, 
 because it never was committed to writing ; the version took 
 place whilst the liturgy was still in fluid condition, unfixed 
 save in outline, and before persecution had ceased. 
 
 Justin Martyr, who wrote from Rome about A.D. 148, 
 describes the Eucharistic service in such a manner that 
 we see it must have coincided very closely indeed with 
 that in the Apostolic Constitutions ; and indeed the Mass 
 still in use bears evidence of such a descent. As the Gospel 
 spread, and the Latin-speaking inhabitants of Rome 
 and Italy flowed into the Church and swamped the Greek 
 element, then the liturgy was no longer rendered in Greek 
 but in Latin. There was no translation proper, only 
 a flow of Latin words through the channels in which 
 Greek had previously streamed. 
 
 One very remarkable point of contrast remains to be 
 noticed between the Western and the Eastern liturgies. In 
 the East, the Pro-Anaphora, the Ante-Communion Service, 
 remains unchanged, but bishops and saints composed fresh 
 Anaphoras without hesitation, not, be it remembered, varying 
 the form, but the words. On the other hand, the Western 
 Church held to the Anaphora as fixed, and varied the Pro- 
 Anaphora with changeable collects and prefaces. Yet, 
 though the East changed the latter part of the dual service, 
 and the West changed the former part, in both East and 
 West the type remains fixed in the main outlines, 
 
 Gelasius, Bishop of Rome (A.D. 492-496) is said to have 
 composed some of the variable portions, and a Sacramentary 
 called by his name has been found in a 9th century MS. 
 But Gregory the Great (A.D. 590-604), who took pity on the 
 darkness in which our English forefathers lay, and sent to us 
 Augustine with the Gospel, was the most important liturgical 
 reviser the Roman Church had. As he reset the old music, 
 
 D 
 
34 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 SO did he recast the old words. He condensed what was 
 long in the Gelasian liturgy, and inserted a short passage. 
 " Dispose our days in Thy peace, and deliver us from eternal 
 damnation, and bid us be numbered in the flock of Thy 
 elect."* That was the extent of his addition. What he 
 altered in position was the Lord's Prayer, which he found 
 separated from the Canon, as it is still separated from it in 
 the Ambrosian rite, and which he put back in the place from 
 which he believed that by error it had slipped. By some 
 curious error of our Reformers the Lord's Prayer got adrift in 
 our Communion Service, and was left by them stranded after 
 the reception. Now, if our Liturgy went through another 
 reform, doubtless it would be put back into its proper 
 place before reception. That would be a change analogous 
 to the change effected by Gregory. Having the Gelasian form, 
 we have only to compare it with Gregory's reform, and to 
 see how very slight was the alteration which he felt himself 
 justified in making. From that time to this no alteration of 
 any importance has been made in the present form of the 
 Roman liturgy. 
 
 Our pedigree is now complete. 
 
 Apostolic Liturgy. 
 
 Clem. (Jerus.) (Ant.) (Eph.) (Alexand.) (Edessa.) (Rome.) 
 
 Gelasian- (African. ) 
 
 Gregorian. 
 
 There are several points in the Roman Canon or Anaphora 
 that indicate a remote antiquity. The commemoration of 
 the Apostles does not follow the order given in the Gospels, 
 nor do the words of Institution accord with the Gospel 
 
 • Yet the end has a strong resemblance to the passage from the liturgy in 
 Clement of Rome, " We will ask the Creator to guard the members of His elect 
 that is numbered throughout the whole world." 
 
THE PEDIGREE. 35 
 
 narrative, almost certainly proving a date of redaction earlier 
 than the Gospels. The list of Popes commemorated follows 
 the Greek order, as given by Hegesippus and Irenaeus, and 
 not the Latin tradition. Confessors are not commemorated, 
 and this points to a date prior to 303. Moreover, it is full of 
 peculiar expressions which, belong to a very early period.* 
 
 *"Votasua' instead of "preces," " Communicantes et memoriam vener- 
 antes,' " Meritis precibusque," "quam oblationem — rationabilem," "servi tui, 
 sed et plebs tua sancta," "hostia," " dormiunt in somno pads," &c. 
 
 D 2 
 
Chapter IV. 
 
 THE ''CONSTITUTIONS" OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 STORY OF A CALTFF— THE MAGIC BOOK OF THE "CONSTITUTIONS " — THE 
 WORLD IT OPENS TO US — DATE OF PUBLICATION, 320-340 — A COM- 
 PILATION OF MUCH EARLIER MATERIAL — ITS CONTENTS — THE 
 SEVENTH BOOK A COLLECTION OF SCRAPS— THE EIGHTH BOOK A 
 PONTIFICAL — WHERE THE COMPILATION WAS MADE UNCERTAIN — 
 OBJECT OF THE EDITOR— A PROTEST AGAINST LAXITY OF DISCIPLINE 
 AND CURTAILMENT OF LITURGY CONSEQUENT ON THE ALTERED 
 RELATIONS OF THE CHURCH— TWO ACCOUNTS OF THE EUCHARIST 
 IN THE "CONSTITUTIONS" — THE LITURGY IN THE EIGHTH BOOK MADE 
 UP OF TWO OR MORE FRAGMENTS— OMISSION OF LORD'S PRAYER ACCI- 
 DENTAL — THE WORDING OF THE PRAYERS NOT FIXED — THE TYPE, 
 HOWEVER, ALWAYS CONSTANT. 
 
 An Oricntial story tells of a Califf who on a summer day 
 Opened a magic book that had been given him, and was at 
 once transported to another clime, among strange people, 
 whose tongue he could not understand, and whose customs 
 were unlike any with which he was familiar. Amongst this 
 people in this foreign clime he remained, till the book 
 dropped from his hands, when he found himself again where 
 he had been when he opened the volume. Some such an 
 effect will be produced on the reader who is induced to take 
 up and open the "Constitutions of the Apostles." He will 
 find himself at once translated to a time of persecution, and 
 into the midst of the Church in process of organization ; he 
 will meet with strange customs, rites, and regulations, that 
 tell him what the world was, when the Gospel began to 
 
THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE APOSTLES. 37 
 
 spread through it like a purifying stream, and what the 
 Church was, to which was entrusted the mission of evangeli- 
 sation. 
 
 But though much which he will encounter will be strange, 
 yet he will also find that much is the same now as was in the 
 early days of the faith. Human nature has not altered ; and 
 with something like amusement, the modern parish priest 
 will read of the petty envies, the greed, the selfishness among 
 those who received the alms of the Church ; the very diffi- 
 culties and annoyances that he meets >vith nowadays were 
 rampant in the Church in the days of her youth. He will 
 find that there were then forward and blustering believers, 
 and others weak-kneed, who were ever seeking excuses to 
 escape from duties that entailed risk or inconvenience. 
 
 An account of the " Apostolic Constitutions " can hardly 
 fail to be of interest, and must necessarily be here given, 
 because it contains three accounts of the Eucharist in a 
 primitive age, one of which is unfortunately only an account 
 of what we should call nowadays the Ante-Communion 
 Service ; the second is merely a guide to lay members of the 
 congregation as to their private devotions during the service ; 
 but the third is a complete liturgy, and is (as a whole) the 
 earliest liturgical monument we possess. 
 
 The " Constitutions of the Apostles " consists of eight 
 books, published between A.D. 320-340. It was known and 
 quoted in this edition by Epiphanius just after the middle of 
 the fourth century. 
 
 The volume published under this title consists of a com- 
 pilation of much earlier matter, of which the first six books, 
 less only a few additions made by the compiler, are a com- 
 plete vade mecwn of moral and disciplinary teaching affecting 
 the exterior of Church life. The seventh book is, on the 
 other hand, a collection of fragments. It contains a version 
 of the Didache — itself made up of pre-existing matter, and 
 of other material ; the eighth book is also a collection, chiefly 
 
38 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 of liturgical matters — it is, to use a mediaeval word, a 
 Pontifical, 
 
 The work occupying the first six books belongs to the earlier 
 half of the third century. Although the matter in the 
 seventh and eighth books was put together in the fourth, 
 some of the material is of extreme antiquity, the Didache, 
 for instance, belonging to the sub-Apostolic age. 
 
 The second book contains instructions on the duties of 
 bishops, priests, and deacons ; of readers, exorcists, and 
 deaconesses. In this book occurs a description of a Christian 
 church, and of the first part of the Eucharistic Service — 
 that is to say of the Pro-Anaphora, the Eucharist proper 
 being passed over with a few words, on account of that 
 caution which was observed in the early ages, lest the mystery 
 of the Eucharist should be profaned by becoming generally 
 known and ridiculed. 
 
 The seventh book is a mere stitching together of odds and 
 ends, and the perusal of the " Constitutions " conveys to the 
 reader's mind the impression of its being the library of some 
 ecclesiastical collector, sewn together without much respect 
 to the subjects inserted side by side. For instance, the 
 seventh book is compiled of — i. The Didache ; 2. A tract 
 on meats offered to idols ; 3. A tract on Baptism ; 4. A 
 treatise on Fasts, and the observance of the Sabbath ; 
 
 5. A portion of the Eucharistic Prayer of Thanksgiving ; 
 
 6. Another tract on Baptism and Unction ; 7. A catalogue 
 of bishops ordained by the Apostles ; 8. The Gloria in 
 Excelsis, with additions as used in the liturgy. 
 
 The eighth book contains, as already said, sundry liturgical 
 documents, and forms a manual for bishops. After a brief 
 introduction, follow instructions on the election and conse- 
 cration of a bishop ; then ensues the complete form of the 
 Eucharistic Service, the earliest we have. This again is 
 followed by forms of ordination of priests, deacons, sub-deacons, 
 readers, and deaconesses. Finally come formularies for the 
 
THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE APOSTLES. 39 
 
 benediction of baptismal water and oil, and the book con- 
 cludes with directions for baptism, for the celebration of 
 festivals, and concerning prayers for the dead. That the 
 complete work should contain repetitions and contradictions 
 is not surprising, considering its origin. Not only do the 
 various documents belong to various dates, but also to 
 different branches of the Church. In the fifth book, the 
 hearers are addressed as converted Gentiles ; the sin of the 
 Jews is pointed out in rejecting Christ as their sovereign, 
 therefore, " To you, the converted of the Gentiles, is the 
 kingdom given." "Ye are translated from your former vain 
 mode of life, ye have despised idols, and have come to the 
 full light." The former Israel "have left the vineyard 
 uncultivated, and have killed the stewards of the Lord of the 
 vineyard — but by you He, whom they rejected, has been 
 received as the corner-stone." In the sixth book, however, 
 we have an exhortation to the faithful not to shrink from 
 touching dead bodies, even those of the martyrs, as con- 
 tracting ceremonial uncleanness — an exhortation that could 
 have been addressed only to converts from Mosaism. In the 
 Eucharistic Prayer in the seventh book, Abraham 
 and Jacob are spoken of as " our fathers,"* and God is 
 appealed to as "Thou great protector of the posterity of 
 Abraham ! " which indicates usage in a congregation of 
 believers of the circumcision. The Didache, moreover, a 
 much amplified version of the little book recently recovered 
 and published by Bryennius, Bishop of Nicomedia, is dis- 
 tinctly a work belonging to Jewish Christians — in its form as 
 given by Bryennius, Ebionite — for it does not mention 
 the Divinity of Christ, or the Redemption, and apparently 
 deliberately avoids the recognition of the Lord's Day as 
 
 * Not much stress can be placed on this quotation of Abraham and Jacob as 
 "our fathers," for in the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians he 
 speaks in the same way of the patriarchs, and this language was common to 
 Gentile as well as Jewish Christians. 
 
40 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 commemorative of the Resurrection. We shall have more to 
 say of the Didache presently, when we come to treat of the 
 mention of the Eucharist in it. 
 
 That the original material of the " Constitutions " belongs 
 to a far earlier period than its publication appears from the 
 extent to which regulations are made as to the treatment of 
 martyrs. On the one hand, over-bold Christians are rebuked 
 for courting martyrdom, for presenting themselves volun- 
 tarily before the magistrates ; on the other hand, timorous 
 Christians meet with rebuke for shrinking from those of their 
 brethren who are in prison or condemned to the mines, for 
 fear of attracting suspicion to themselves, and incurring 
 danger accordingly. The editor has not, unfortunately, been 
 content to publish his collection intact ; he has meddled with 
 his material, adding and altering, as suited his view. 
 
 Moreover, to give to the collection a weight that it might 
 not otherwise carry, he attributed it to the Apostles 
 themselves. 
 
 We ask what was the object of the editor in thus giving 
 his library of literary tracts and books, and odds and ends, 
 an authority it could not legitimately claim ? Apparently 
 he was a rigorist. When persecution had ceased, and the 
 Church breathed freely, when it became fashionable to 
 profess Christianity, then a great relaxation of discipline 
 took place, a relaxation which had already called forth the 
 remonstrance of Tertullian, before the breaking forth of the 
 Diocletianic persecution. Not only was there less strictness 
 of life exacted, but the laxity invaded the churches, and 
 affected the conduct of divine worship. The lengthy praj'ers, 
 the repeated intercessions, were considered intolerable, and 
 there was not merely a demand for curtailment, but very 
 generally a concession on the part of the celebrant to this 
 demand. To oppose both the relaxation of morals and the 
 curtailment of the liturgy, the author of the "Constitutions" 
 issued his collection of old documents as one work, and 
 
THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE APOSTLES. 4I 
 
 attributed to them the names and authority of the Apostles, 
 in the hope that by this pious fraud he might attain a good 
 end, and arrest further decay of discipHne and Hturgical 
 alteration. 
 
 He was a clumsy workman, for he took no pains to make 
 one part of the work agree with another ; and when he put 
 together fragments, he left the rough edges unplaned and un- 
 smoothed, and fitted the pieces together without judgment. 
 An instance of each fault can be found in his dealing with the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 As already said, he gives two accounts of the Eucharist, 
 one in the second book, another in the eighth ; and in one he 
 gives the Litany of Intercession before the dismissal of the 
 Catechumens, in the other he i^gives it after they have left. 
 The reason of this disagreement is that the documents he 
 used differed, and he either did not observe the discrepancy* 
 or he did not venture to alter one to agree with the other. 
 
 As an instance of clumsy patching, we may quote this. 
 The eighth book begins with the order of consecration of 
 bishops, then gives a liturgy, then goes on with the rest of the 
 ordinal, the ordination of priests, deacons, &c. The liturgy 
 is out of place where he put it ; it breaks the ordinal in half ; 
 but his reason is also clear. He had a liturgy, or rather 
 some liturgical fragments, which he purposed to insert some- 
 where, and he saw in the ordination of bishops a command 
 to place the Eucharist on the hands of the newly consecrated 
 bishop ; thereupon he concluded he had lit on a right 
 place for the insertion, and there accordingly he thrust in his 
 liturgy. 
 
 We have spoken of this liturgy as one of the fragments. 
 This is the case. The compiler had not, apparently, one 
 complete Eucharistic Service in MS. under his hand, but two 
 or three MSS., containing portions of the liturgy, and these 
 he pieced together again with such clumsiness that the separate 
 fragments are distinguishable. We can show here also an 
 
42 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 instance of his want of skill. After having given from what 
 we will call MS. A, the Pro-Anaphora down to the dismissal 
 of the non-communicants, then he took up MS, B., which 
 began before the dismissal, and attached it to the former ; the 
 consequence is he gives us tivo dismissals — that is to say, 
 after the Church has been cleared of non-communicants, the 
 deacon orders them all out again. 
 
 After the consecration apparently MS. B. came to an end, 
 and the compiler finished off the liturgy with either another 
 fragment of A, or with a third MS., C, but in so doing omitted 
 the Lord's Prayer, which came just where B failed him. 
 
 It has been a cause of much debate why in this liturgy in 
 the " Constitutions " the Lord's Prayer is absent, although we 
 know from the comparison of every other liturgy in Christen- 
 dom that it was found in the Eucharistic Service before the 
 Communion, but the real solution of the difficulty is that 
 proposed. 
 
 Now the compiler would not have gained his end had he 
 composed a liturgy of his own ; what he published must 
 commend itself to his readers as having the flavour of 
 antiquity. Aged bishops and priests who read his book must 
 have been able to say. Such was the liturgy in the days of our 
 youth, before there set in this wave of impatience and 
 clamour for curtailment ; such also was the liturgy in its 
 simplicity, when we worshipped God in catacombs and in 
 [)rivate houses, and before there was such an invasion of pomp 
 and ceremonial. Unless what the compiler gave to the 
 world was really old, or very like the old, he would have been 
 detected and denounced at once. Every aged presbyter 
 could have and would have repudiated the whole work, 
 because in this one matter of experience it could be proved a 
 fraud. 
 
 Wc may almost certainly, on these grounds, which are 
 confirmed by internal evidence, accept this liturgy in the 
 eighth book as dating from the end of the third century. 
 
THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE APOSTLES. 43 
 
 The author of an article on this liturgy in the Church 
 Qitarterly* says : " We are strongly inclined to believe that the 
 Clementine liturgy is a genuine representation of a liturgy 
 used somewhere in the West, probably in Rome, about the 
 middle of the third century ; not the exact liturgy, in so 
 many words, because it appears to be constructed out of at 
 least two, and perhaps more, independent documents, and 
 because of the presence of the long rubrics, which, we believe, 
 would be an utter anachronism in any liturgy even approach- 
 ing the latest date ever assigned to this one ; yet genuine in 
 a very true sense, because the documents out of which it is 
 constructed are genuine, probably being the libelli which 
 bishops, and probably priests too, had for their own use to 
 study the service in. In that case the rubrics might pro- 
 bably belong to the libelli themselves ; or they might, as 
 before suggested, be due to the compiler."*}* 
 
 That originally the liturgy was determined as to its general 
 shape and the sequence of parts, but otherwise unfixed, 
 we think the sequel will prove. As a river may be conducted 
 through a channel artificially constructed, here to take a direct 
 course, there to leap down a weir after feeding a conduit ; 
 then to take a stately sweep ; and as that river may at times 
 fill its bed to the brink, at others flow with diminished stream, 
 sometimes roll in turgid flood, at others pearl in limpid 
 purity ; so with the liturgy. It had its course marked out ; 
 but the volume of words, whether full or scant, that took this 
 course, was left to the ability of the celebrant, or his fervour 
 at the moment. So was the proclamation of glad tidings left 
 to men, fixed as to the truths declared, free as to the manner 
 in which the declaration was to be made, now with the golden 
 rush of eloquence, then with the meagre dribble of stuttering 
 
 * Church Quarterly Review, April, 1882, p. 56. 
 
 t Probst, in his " Liturgie d. 3 ersten Jahrhunderte," Tiibingen, 1870, had 
 already pointed out the existence of two distinct liturgies united into one in the 
 Clementine liturgy. 
 
44 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 lips, and yet — O divine power of eternal truth ! — as often 
 effective in fertilising to fruit of good works, in the trickle as 
 in the flood. 
 
 We shall see presently how varied are the texts of the 
 Great Eucharistic Thanksgiving and the Intercessory Prayer. 
 It is the same story told by different narrators ; the words 
 differ, but the story is the same ; it is the same melody sung in 
 many variations, infinitely modified, yet always organically, 
 inherently, one. 
 
Chapter V. 
 
 THE DIDACH&. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF THE ORIGINAL DIDACHE — PROTESTANT OPINION 
 ON THE ACCOUNT OF THE EUCHARIST IN IT — THE DIDACHE A 
 HERETICAL COMPOSITION — NOT AN ORIGINAL WORK, BUT COMPOSITE 
 — ITS CONSTITUENTS — ALREADY IN THE " CONSTITUTIONS " — THE 
 EUCHARIST IN THE DIDACHE NO MEMORIAL OF THE LORD'S DEATH — 
 
 FORMS OF THANKSGIVING — THEVERSION IN THE "CONSTITUTIONS" 
 
 THE LATTER AN ECHO OF THE EUCHARISTIC PRAYER OF THANKS- 
 GIVING — THE FORMER EBIONITE — A SECOND FORM OF THE EUCHA- 
 RISTIC PRAYER IN THE " CONSTITUTIONS." 
 
 Some years ago Philotheus Bryennius, at the time Metro- 
 politan of Serrhae in Macedonia, afterwards of Nicomedia, 
 discovered in the Hbrary of the Holy Sepulchre, at Constan- 
 tinople, a MS. that contained, among other works, a little 
 book called "The Teaching of the Apostles." He published 
 this in 1883 at Constantinople. It almost at once roused 
 great interest, and awoke in some minds perplexity, in others 
 exultation. 
 
 By Protestants generally it was accepted as a proof that at 
 an early epoch, if not during the lives of the Apostles, at least 
 just after their death, the Eucharist was regarded in a very low 
 aspect, utterly unlike that which it assumed in the Church 
 from the third century to the present day. A little further 
 consideration cooled their enthusiasm, for it appeared that on 
 much the same grounds rationalists could appeal to the 
 Didache as proof that, at this early period in the Church, 
 
46 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 there was no belief in our Lord's Divinity, no realisation of 
 such a tremendous doctrine as the Redemption, and no 
 assurance that the Resurrection was a fact. Since the publi- 
 cation of the Didachd in 1883 critics have turned their atten- 
 tion to it, free from prejudice, and from purpose to wrest its 
 testimony to establish foregone conclusions. The result is 
 not one that gives to the Didache a high and authoritative 
 position. 
 
 The Didache is not an original composition. It opens with 
 a transcript of a work on the Two Ways, i.e., the Way of 
 Life, and the Way of Death, which has also been incorporated 
 into the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas, 
 and from which Clement of Alexandria has also quoted.* It 
 does not quote from any of the Canonical Gospels, but only 
 from one, apparently the " Gospel of the Twelve Apostles," 
 which was in circulation among the Nazarenes and Ebionites. 
 
 The Didache was already known to scholars, because, as 
 already said, it is embedded in the seventh book of the 
 " Constitutions," but as there given it is much fuller and more 
 orthodox than the version published by Bryennius. The 
 question arises, Is the shorter version the original from 
 which that in the "Constitutions" is an amplification? or — Do 
 both derive from a common original, the short version being 
 an adaptation to suit the views of the Ebionite heretics, and 
 that in the " Constitutions " a filling out of the somewhat 
 meagre orthodox original .-' Wc think the latter is the true 
 explanation. It is not conceivable that a work holding such 
 low views of Christ, as that published by Bryennius, could 
 have circulated in the Church. The tone is utterly contrary 
 to that of S. Paul and of S. Peter. The Eucharistic prayers 
 and thanksgivings avoid all allusions to the Sacrifice of the 
 Death of Christ. When the Lord's Day is spoken of, it is as 
 " The Lord's Day of the Lord " — in the version in the 
 
 * Strom. I. c. 20. 
 
THE DIDACHE. 47 
 
 *' Constitutions " it is " The Day of the Resurrection of the 
 Lord." The Eucharist, in the Didache, instead of being a 
 memorial of the Lord's Death, is a solemn act of looking 
 forward to the Final Judgment. 
 
 In considering this account of the Eucharist it must be 
 borne in mind that the Didache is a layman's manual, and 
 that therefore it does not give the celebrants' part of the 
 liturgy, only the prayers that were to be used by the communi- 
 cants at the Eucharistic Service. The reader will observe 
 how all reference to the Atonement is avoided. The account 
 of the Eucharistic Service is as follows. We quote the 
 Bryennius version. 
 
 " With regard to the Eucharist, give thanks after this 
 manner : First, with regard to the cup, ' We give thanks to 
 Thee, our Father, for the holy vine of Thy child David, 
 which Thou hast made known to us through Thy Child 
 Jesus ; to Thee be glory for ever.' But with regard to the 
 broken bread, ' We give thanks to Thee, our Father, for the 
 life and knowledge which Thou hast made known to us 
 through Thy Child Jesus ; to Thee be glory for ever. As 
 this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains, and 
 gathered together became one, so let Thy Church be gathered 
 together from the ends of the earth into Thy Kingdom, for 
 Thine is the glory and power through Jesus Christ for ever. 
 But let no one eat and drink of your Eucharist except those 
 baptized in the name of the Lord, for regarding this also the 
 Lord hath said, ' Give not that which is holy to the dogs.' 
 
 " But after being filled, give thanks thus : ' We give thanks 
 to Thee, Holy Father, for Thy Holy Name, which Thou hast 
 caused to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and 
 faith and immortality which Thou hast made known to us by 
 Jesus Thy Child ; to Thee be glory for ever. Thou, 
 Almighty Ruler, madest all things for Thy Name's sake ; 
 Thou gavest men food and drink for enjoyment, that they 
 might give thanks to Thee, but as Thou blessedst with 
 
48 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 spiritual food and drink and eternal life through Thy Child. 
 Before all things we give thanks to Thee that Thou art 
 mighty ; to Thee be glory for ever. Remember, O Lord, 
 Thy Church to deliver her from all evil and to perfect her in 
 Thy love, and gather her together from the four winds, her 
 the sanctified, into Thy kingdom which Thou preparedst for 
 her ; for Thine is the power and the glory for ever. Let 
 grace come, let the world pass away. Hosanna to the God 
 of David. If any one be holy, let him come, if anyone be 
 not holy, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen.' 
 
 " On the Lord's day of the Lord come together and break 
 bread, and give thanks after confessing your transgressions, 
 that your sacrifice may be pure." 
 
 There are one or two points deserving of notice here. In 
 the first place the cup is taken before the bread, contrary to 
 the universal usage of the Church, but in accordance, no 
 doubt, with the Gospel of the Twelve, which in this particular 
 agreed with that of S. Luke (xxii. 17), and with the account 
 by S. Paul (i Cor. x. 16). 
 
 In the next place the Hosanna is altered — it is "to the God 
 of David," not " to the Son of David." * 
 
 The version in the " Constitutions" has quite another charac- 
 ter. If it was amplified and given an orthodox complexion 
 by the compiler, he showed in this an amount of skill such as 
 he manifested nowhere else. 
 
 Here is the first collect. 
 
 "We give thanks to Thee, Holy Father, for that life which 
 Thou hast made known to us by Jesus Thy Son, by whom 
 Thou madest all things, and governest the whole world ; 
 whom Thou hast sent to become man for our salvation ; 
 whom Thou hast permitted to suffer and to die ; whom Thou 
 hast raised up, and been pleased to glorify, and hast set Him 
 down on Thy right hand ; by whom Thou hast promised us 
 
 * But this may be a mere slip 0€<t. for vi(^. 
 
THE DIDACHE. 49 
 
 the resurrection of the dead. Do Thou, O Lord Almighty, 
 everlasting God, so gather together Thy Church from the 
 ends of the earth into Thy kingdom, as this corn was scattered, 
 and gathered together became one bread. We also, our 
 Father, thank Thee for the precious blood of Jesus Christ, 
 which was shed for us, and for His precious Body, whereof 
 we celebrate the antitype, as Himself appointed, ' to shew 
 forth His death.' For through Him be glory to Thee for 
 ever. Amen." 
 
 Is not the latter form in complete harmony with the ideas 
 of S. Paul in his epistles, and with the liturgical prayers 
 found in every Church founded by the Apostles, and in 
 agreement with the language of the fathers of the first 
 centuries ? All the Christianity seems washed out of the 
 prayer in the Didachd of Bryennius. 
 
 The Bryennian Didache does agree in tone with what we 
 know were the tenets of the Ebionites, but it is out of tune 
 altogether with Apostolic Christianity. That it has been 
 curtailed from a fuller version, the mention of the Lord's day 
 shows. The wording there in the form in the " Constitutions " 
 is " On the Day of the Resurrection of the Lord — i.e., The 
 Lord's Day — come together." In the Ebionite text it runs 
 " On the Lord's Day of the Lord." * 
 
 The colourless thanksgiving in the Ebionite Didache 
 assumes another complexion in the version in the " Consti- 
 tutions," where it is a condensation of the celebrant's Great 
 Eucharistic Thanksgiving, following a type that recurs again 
 and again in the writers of the first three centuries, because 
 all — writer and celebrant alike — followed the lines of the Rule 
 of Faith, the true Teaching of the Apostles concerning God's 
 dealing with man from Creation to Redemption. This is the 
 thanksgiving for the communicant as given in the " Constitu- 
 tions." 
 
 * Instead of Trji* dvatrrelfft/tof toD Kvpiov rjnipav, Trjv KVpia.K'qv, it has Kara 
 KvpiaKT}!' Se Kvplov. 
 
50 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 "We thank Thee, O God and Father of Jesus our Saviour, 
 for Thy Holy Name, which Thou hast made to dwell among 
 us ; and that knowledge, faith, love, and immortality which 
 Thou hast given us through Thy Son Jesus. Thou, O 
 Almighty Lord God of the universe, hast created the world, 
 and the things that are therein, by Him ; Thou hast planted 
 a law in our souls, and before all didst prepare things for the 
 service of men. O God of our holy and blameless fathers, 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Thou also art powerful, faithful, 
 and true, and without deceit in Thy promises ; who didst 
 send upon earth Jesus Thy Christ to live with men, as a man, 
 when He was God the Word, and Man, — do thou, through 
 Him, be mindful of Thy holy Church, which Thou hast 
 purchased with the precious blood of Thy Christ, and deliver 
 it from all evil, and perfect it in Thy love and truth, and gather 
 us all together into Thy Kingdom which Thou hast prepared. 
 May Thy Kingdom come. Hosanna to the Son of David. 
 God the Lord was manifested to us in the flesh. If any one 
 be holy, let him draw near," &c. 
 
 Now this is an echo of the Eucharistic prayer. It contains 
 a sequence of ideas. It begins with mention of the glory of 
 God as creator. It speaks of the law written in the heart 
 of fallen man, — the law of Nature, also of the patriarchs — an 
 allusion to the old covenant, then it speaks of the incarnation 
 and death of Christ, and then of the restoration of all things. 
 All this is found much developed in the Great Thanksgiving, 
 and this prayer of the communicants can only be properly 
 understood when we know what that was, — but the meagre 
 form in the Ebionite Didache is without this sequence, and 
 consequently without connexion with any other formulary by 
 which it can be illustrated. 
 
 The compiler of the " Constitutions " seems to have been 
 struck by the thanksgiving he had just taken from the 
 Didache ; it sounded a note in his heart, and at once — as 
 soon as ever he has finished transcribinc: the Didache — he 
 
THE DIDACHE. 5 1 
 
 goes on, " Since we are vouchsafed such blessings, let us call 
 upon God by continual prayer, and say : " — Then follows a 
 sublime version of the Eucharistic prayer, going through the 
 whole record of creation, the fall, the promise of restoration, 
 the call of the patriarchs, the giving of the Law, the Incarna- 
 tion, the Resurrection. Into this comes the Sanctus, and 
 after it the prayer of oblation. It is — what the Te Deum 
 also was — a paraphrase of the central portion of the liturgy 
 for lay devotion, or for use in divine worship at other times 
 than the Eucharistic celebration. 
 
 The prayers in the Didache are — (a) that before Communion, 
 and (3) that after Communion, and are these only; of the part 
 said by the celebrant nothing is given. And these are based 
 on corresponding prayers in the Paschal Ritual among the 
 Jews.* 
 
 * Jewish prayer before distribution at Paschal rite — "Praised be Thou, O Lord 
 our God, king of the world, who hast created the fruit of the vine, for ever and 
 ever, Amen," and "Praised be Thou .... who hast brought the bread 
 out of the earth, for ever and ever, Amen." The Act of Praise over the unleavened 
 bread is "Praised be Thou .... who hast sanctified us through Thy 
 commandment, and hast commanded us to eat unleavened bread, for ever and 
 ever, Amen." 
 
 E 2 
 
Chapter VI. 
 
 SYMMETRICAL STRUCTURE. 
 
 THE STRUCTURE OF HEBREW POETRY — THE DISCOVERY OF BISHOP 
 LOWTH — FOLLOWED BY BISHOP JEBB — THE SAME LAW GOVERNED 
 LITERARY STYLE — THE FOUR RULES OF COMPOSITION GIVEN BY DR. 
 FORBES — EXAMPLES — THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON — THE LORD'S 
 PRAYER — PARALLELISM IN OUR LORD'S LIFE — INTROVERTED 
 PARALLELISM BETWEEN HIS BIRTH AND HIS DEATH — ^THE BEARING 
 OF THE RULE OF PARALLELISM ON THE LITURGY — THE EXISTENCE 
 OF LITERARY FORM AN EVIDENCE OF ANTIQUITY — LOST WHEN THE 
 LITURGY CAME INTO THE HANDS OF GREEKS AND ROMANS. 
 
 Hebrew poetry followed in its structure a rule different from 
 that observed elsewhere. Its essential characteristic consists 
 in a correspondence of lines, in antithesis, and not, as in 
 classic poetry, in rhythm of feet, or as in Scandinavian, in 
 alliteration and the employment of euphemisms, or as in 
 modern languages, in the recurrence of similar final sounds. 
 It observed a rhythm of ideas, and not of sounds. Bishop 
 Lowth first observed this, and he designated it Parallelism, 
 which he defined to be " a certain equality, resemblance, 
 or relationship between the members of each period ; 
 so that in one or more lines or members of the same 
 period things shall answer to things, and words to words, as 
 it fitted to each other by a kind of rule or measure." * By 
 this discovery he was able to furnish an interpretation of 
 many an obscure passage in Scripture, that which is not at 
 
 * Lowth's " Lectures on Hebrew Poetry," Proelec. xix. 
 
SYMMETRICAL STRUCTURE. 53 
 
 once intelligible in one line or member of a sentence being 
 made clear and unambiguous by the parallel expression in 
 the corresponding line or member. 
 
 Bishop Lowth was followed by Bishop J ebb, who showed 
 that the same mode of composition adopted by the writers of 
 the Old Testament was adopted also by those of the New, 
 who wrote no longer in Hebrew, but in Greek. They carried 
 into the other language that form of composition which to 
 their minds had acquired a sanction by use in the inspired 
 writings of the Prophets, and which moreover commended 
 itself to their taste. Their sense of literary style, shaped 
 under Hebrew influence, exhibited itself in the composition of 
 their Greek writings. 
 
 Dr. J. Forbes followed Jebb in the same line, and in his 
 " Symmetrical Structure of Scripture," * developed this prin- 
 ciple in a masterly and brilliant treatise. He points out four 
 arrangements adopted by the sacred writers. 
 
 1. Parallel lines gradational, as in Ps. i. — 
 
 How blessed is the man 
 
 Who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly ; 
 nor stood in the way of shmers, 
 nor sai in the seat of the scornful^ 
 
 where in the triplet the lines gradually rise, one above the 
 other, not merely in their general sense, but specially, through- 
 out their corresponding members. 
 
 2. Parallel lines antithetic, as Ps. xx. 8 — 
 
 They have bowed down diwd fallen; 
 
 We have risen, and stand upright. 
 
 And Proverbs xxvii. 6 — 
 
 Faithful are the wounds of a friend j 
 Deceitful are the kisses of an enemy ^ 
 
 where every word has its opposite. 
 
 * Edinburgh, Clark, 1854. 
 
54 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 3. Parallel lines constructive, as 2 Cor. xi. 22 — 27. 
 
 22. Are they Hebrews ? — So am I. 
 Are they Israelites ? — So am I. 
 Are they Abraham^ s seed? — So atn J. 
 
 23. Are they ministers of Christ ? — I am more. 
 
 In labours more abundant, 
 In stripes above measure, 
 In prisons more abundant, 
 In deaths oft. 
 
 24, 25. Of the Jews 
 
 Five times received I forty stripes save one, 
 Three times I was beaten with rods, stoned once. 
 Three times I suffered shipwreck, one night and day 
 I was in the deep. 
 
 26. In jotirneyings oft, 
 
 In perils of rivers, perils of robbers, 
 
 In perils by own cou7itryvien, perils from strangers, 
 In perils in the city, perils in wilderness, 
 
 In perils by sea, perils hy false brethren. 
 
 27. In labour and pain, 
 
 In watchings ofte7t, 
 In hunger and thirst, 
 
 Infastifigs often. 
 In cold and 7iakedness. 
 
 The correspondence in the construction and expressions is 
 still more apparent in the original Greek. 
 
 4. Parallel lines introverted, as, Ps. cxxxv. 15 — 18. 
 
 The idols of the heathen are silver and gold : 
 The work of men's hand ; 
 
 They have mouths, but they speak not ; 
 They have eyes, but they see not ; 
 They have ears, but they hear not ; 
 Neither is there any breath in their mouths ; 
 They that make them are like unto them : 
 So are all they who put their trust in them. 
 
SYMMETRICAL STRUCTURE. 55 
 
 The most remarkable instance of introverted parallelism, 
 however, is found in S. Paul's Epistle to Philemon. 
 
 A. 1—3. Epistolary. 
 
 B. 4 — 7. Prayer of Paul for Philemon. Philemon's hospitality. 
 C. 8. Authority. 
 
 D. 9, 10. Supplication. 
 E. 10. Onesimus, Paul's convert. 
 F. II, 12. Wrong done by Onesimus. Amends by Paul. 
 G. 12. To receive Onesimus, same as receiving Paul. 
 H. 13, 14. Paul — Philemon. 
 I. 15. Onesimus. 
 I. 16. Onesimus. 
 H. 16. Paul — Philemon. 
 G. 17. To receive Onesimus, same as receiving Paul. 
 F. 18, 19. Wrong done by Onesimus. Amends by Paul. 
 E. 19. Philemon, Paul's convert. 
 D. 20. Supplication. 
 C. 21. Authority. 
 B. 22. Philemon's hospitality. Prayers of Philemon for Paul. 
 A. 23 — 25. Epistolary. 
 
 A very remarkable instance of parallelism exists in the 
 Lord's Prayer. 
 
 Our Father, who art in Heaven, 
 
 !Thy Name be hallowed, 
 Thy Kingdom come. 
 Thy Will be done 
 
 i As in Heaven so in Earth, I (of Earth, material, 
 
 1 Give us this day our daily Bread, I of Heaven, spiritual.) 
 
 {Forgive our Debts (as we forgive our debtors), 
 Lead us not into Temptation, 
 Deliver us from Evil, 
 For Thine is the Kingdom and the Glory. 
 
 Here the two middle members have a hidden correspondence. 
 Heaven and Earth are mentioned in the first, and implied in the 
 second, for the Bread is not only that which feeds the body, 
 and which God gives from the Earth, but also that which 
 feeds the soul, and which God gives from Heaven. 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount is constructed with marvellous 
 skill and beauty ; but for the true understanding of its 
 
56 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 parallelism, the reader is referred to Dr. Forbes's book already 
 noticed. What has apparently escaped the notice of the 
 writers who have treated of the symmetrical structure of 
 Scripture is the fact of the parallelisms in Our Blessed Lord's 
 life, not in His sayings only, but in His acts. For instance. 
 His three miracles of raising the dead show a parallelism of 
 gradation. 
 
 1. The Daughter of Jairus ; a child, just dead, in the house. 
 
 Christ takes the hand. 
 
 2. The young man of Nain ; an adult, on way to burial, in 
 
 the road. Christ touches the bier. 
 
 3. Lazarus ; man of full age. Dead three days. Buried. 
 
 Christ calls aloud. 
 
 So is it with many of our Lord's actions. One stands over 
 against another, is like it, and yet in some material point 
 differs from it, and this difference makes the signification of 
 the act different also. 
 
 Thrice did the Bathkol, or voice from heaven, proclaim 
 Christ's nature and honour. First at His baptism ; secondly, 
 at the Transfiguration ; and thirdly, on His way to agony and 
 death in Jerusalem. 
 
 Thrice did our Lord give sight to the blind ; thrice was 
 there a miraculous draught of fishes ; thrice did He raise the 
 dead ; thrice did He foretell His death. Thrice was He asso- 
 ciated with women who were adulteresses : the first was the 
 Samaritan woman, the second was the Galilean Magdalen, 
 and the third was the Jewish woman taken in the very act, 
 brought before Him in the temple. Thrice did Christ issue 
 the injunction to become as children — first to Nicodemus, 
 when He bade him be bom again ; then on the return from 
 Tabor, when He set a child in the midst of His striving and 
 ambitious disciples ; and lastly, on the further side of Jordan, 
 when young children were brought to Him for His blessing. 
 
SYMMETRICAL STRUCTURE. 57 
 
 He began His ministry with the miracle of Cana, the turning 
 of water into wine at the marriage feast ; and His last act at 
 the close of His ministry was the institution of the Eucharist, 
 at His marriage feast with the Church, when He took the cup, 
 and pronounced over the wine, " This is My Blood." 
 
 At the first call of the Apostles He miraculously filled their 
 net, and gave the promise that they should become fishers of 
 men. After His resurrection, when they had returned to their 
 vocation as fishers, again He called them, to send them 
 forth fishing for men in verity, and then once more He gave 
 them a miraculous draught. At the first the net brake — 
 figure of the schisms which would rend the unity of the 
 Church ; at the second it brake not — figure of the final in- 
 gathering of the united Church before the last Judgment. 
 
 An introverted parallelism is found in the main events of 
 His life and work. 
 
 A. The Holy Ghost overshadows Mary. 
 B. Descent from Heaven to be Incarnate. 
 C. Nativity. The cave of Bethlehem. 
 D. Life sought by Herod. 
 
 E. Epiphany. Gifts of Magi as to a king. 
 
 F. Descent into Egypt to escape death. 
 
 G. Baptism. Voice from Heaven. 
 
 H. Ministry. 
 G. Transfiguration. Voice from Heaven. 
 F. Ascent to Jerusalem to His Death. 
 E. Mocking homage ; gifts, crown, sceptre, robe. 
 D. Life taken by Herod and Pilate. 
 C. Resurrection. The cave of Golgotha. 
 B. Ascent into Heaven. 
 A. The Holy Ghost comes down on the Church. 
 
 The first event in the sacred story is the Annunciation to 
 Mary that the Holy Ghost would overshadow her, and the last 
 event is the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the newly-formed 
 Virgin Church, the Bride. 
 
 Christ came down from Heaven to be born of Mary, and 
 He ascended again into Heaven to His Father. As He was 
 
58 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 born into the world, so after death He rose again, a new birth 
 from the womb of the grave, each time born of a virgin 
 mother ; for as Mary was a spotless maiden, so was the tomb one 
 in which no man had been laid. At the beginning of His life 
 He was pursued, and His life sought by Herod ; at the end 
 He was pursued and His life taken. Herod, Pilate, and the 
 Jews were implicated in His death. At His nativity a star 
 shone miraculously out of the sky over Bethlehem, and at 
 midnight there was a great light to the shepherds ; at His 
 death the sun was darkened at the mid-day. When His life 
 was sought, He fled into Egypt ; when taken He descended into 
 Hades. At the bcgining of His life He was circumcised and 
 shed His blood ; at His close He sweated drops of blood in 
 His agony* 
 
 We have turned aside from the consideration of the liturgies 
 to this topic of symmetry in Hebrew poetry, which pervaded 
 all the writers of the New Testament as well as the Old, 
 because, as will be seen, the earliest liturgy we possess shows 
 us a very remarkable structure of antithetical parts, complex, 
 so complex that at first blush we should feel disposed to reject 
 it as a composition of only literary interest, and not of an- 
 tiquity, and not one that had been in actual use. On second 
 thoughts, however, and a closer examination, we see that the 
 Greek compiler was completely unconscious of its structure, 
 that the finish given to it belonged to an order of literary style 
 in which the Greek mind saw no charm, — that already, in the 
 formulary given by the compiler the symmetry is broken 
 through, and we see how that afterwards in every succeeding 
 age a further and further dissolution of parts took place, till 
 at length the traces of antithetical arrangement disap- 
 peared completely. So far from perfection of parallelism 
 being evidence of lateness of composition, it is proof 
 
 * Attention was drawn to the parallelisms in Our Lord's life by the author in 
 an article contributed to " The Welcome" August, 1887. 
 
SYMMETRICAL STRUCTURE. 59 
 
 of primitiveness. S. Paul certainly took great pains 
 to give literary roundness and compactness to his writings 
 — to give them form and style, but precisely these 
 rules of form and style which he cultivated ceased to be 
 recognised almost immediately after the death of the Apostles 
 and the dispersion of the Jews. Gentile converts were 
 colour-blind to these beauties. After the Apostolic age no 
 trace of this parallelism is found in the Christian writers ; it 
 remains in the liturgies, as a fragrance gradually dispersed, 
 unappreciated, unperceived even, but its existence indicates 
 the great antiquity of the formularies that present these 
 features. 
 
Chapter VII. 
 
 THE CLEMENTINE LITURGY. 
 
 THE TWO ACCOUNTS OF THE EUCHARIST IN THE "CONSTITUTIONS"— 
 THE ACCOUNT OF THE LITURGY GIVEN BY JUSTIN MARTYR IN I48 — 
 ANALYSIS OF HIS ACCOUNT — ANALYSIS OF ORIGEN'S ACCOUNT OF 
 THE LITURGY, CIRC. 240 — ANALYSIS OF TERTULLIAN'S ACCOUNT OF 
 THE LITURGY, CIRC. 200— ANALYSIS OF S. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM'S 
 ACCOUNT OF THE LITURGY, CIRC 370— ANTITHETICAL FORM OF 
 LITURGY IN THE "CONSTITUTIONS" — THREEFOLD TYPE IN PRAYER — 
 THE STRUCTURE OF THE LORD'S PRAYER WITH PREFACE AND 
 EMBOLISMUS— THREEFOLD STRUCTURE OF THE CANON— THE SAME 
 STRUCTURE IN THE OBLATION— ANALYSIS OF THE LITURGY IN THE 
 EIGHTH BOOK OF THE " CONSTITUTIONS." 
 
 In the "Constitutions" of the Apostles, as already said, if we 
 exclude the brief collection of prayers in the Didache in- 
 corporated with other material in the seventh book, we find 
 two accounts of the Eucharist : the first, very short, and con- 
 cerning the Pro-Anaphora, is in the second book, the other, 
 fairly complete, is in the eighth book. In the main both 
 agree, they differ only as to the place of the litany of inter- 
 cession. In the middle of the second century Justin Martyr, 
 in his first Apology for Christianity, gave in outline a descrip- 
 tion of the Eucharistic service, and these are the points he 
 indicates as forming it — 
 
 1. Lections from the {a) Old and {b) New Testaments. 
 
 2. Sermon. 
 
 3. Prayers said by all in common for all estates of men 
 (The Litany of Intercession). 
 
THE CLEMENTINE LITURGY. 6l 
 
 4. The Kiss of Peace. 
 
 5. The Offertory of the Elements, Bread and Wine 
 mingled with water. 
 
 6. A long Thanksgiving, which, as we learn from him 
 elsewhere,* mentioned the Creation and all temporal benefits 
 conferred on man, such as the means of well-being, the 
 qualities of various kinds of created things, the changing 
 seasons, and so forth ; as well as the spiritual blessings given 
 man by the destruction of his spiritual enemies through the 
 Passion of Jesus Christ. The Passion seems to have been 
 commemorated, and the words of Institution recited,-f- which 
 part of the thanksgiving Justin considered to effect the 
 Consecration. 
 
 7. Prayers ; in particular one for the enjoyment of eternal 
 life.:): This part of the service was closed by the united 
 " Amen " of the congregation, 
 
 8. The Communion. 
 
 This order of service agrees almost exactly with that of 
 Jerusalem, in the middle of the fourth century, as we gather 
 from the Catechetical lectures of S. Cyril of Jerusalem, also 
 with that of Antioch, as collected out of the sermons of 
 S. John Chrysostom, and that of Africa and Rome, as can be 
 gathered from Tertullian's writings ; also in structure it is 
 the same as the liturgy given in the second and eighth books 
 of the " Apostolic Constitutions." Origen also not only makes 
 a quotation from the liturgy as he knew it at Alexandria, but 
 also in his treatise on Prayer (c. 14) describes the whole 
 liturgy, in another chapter he gives (c. 33) the Canon but in 
 veiled language, which could be understood by the initiated 
 alone. His account agrees with that by Justin on one 
 
 * Apol i., c. 13; Dial. Tryph., cc. 41, 117. 
 t Apol. i., c. 66. X Apol. i., c. 13. 
 
62 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 hand, and with that in the " Constitutions " on the other. 
 According to him, this was the order of the service — 
 
 Lections. 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 Dismissal of Catechumens, Penitents, &c. 
 
 Prayer for the Flock. 
 
 The Kiss of Peace. 
 
 The Offertory of the Elements, Bread and Wine. 
 
 The Preface, containing praise of the Trinity and for 
 
 Creation, leading up to — 
 
 The Triumphal Hymn, " Holy, holy, holy." 
 
 The Great Eucharistic Prayer, containing thanks for the 
 
 promise made to man of restoration, for redemption also. 
 
 The Consecration, with Invocation of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The Great Intercession and Memorial of the Dead. 
 
 Communion and Thanksgiving. 
 
 Benediction and Dismissal. 
 
 TertuUian gives us in his various writings sufficient details to 
 
 see that the Eucharistic Service, as he knew it, consisted in 
 
 Africa of — 
 
 Common Prayer. 
 
 {Law. 
 Prophet. 
 Apostle. 
 Gospel. 
 Psalms. 
 Sermon. 
 Dismissals. 
 Intercessions. 
 Offertory of Bread and Wine. 
 (Preface.) 
 Triumphal Hymn. 
 The Great Eucharistic Prayer, containing praise for all God 
 has done for man. 
 
THE CLEMENTINE LITURGY. 6^ 
 
 The Great Intercession. 
 
 The Kiss of Peace. 
 
 The Communion. 
 
 The Dismissal, 
 
 We cannot, however, ascertain from the scattered notices 
 what the exact order was in which each member occurred. 
 From S. Augustine, however, we get a little further help. 
 A psalm was sung between the Epistle and Gospel ; the 
 SursuJii corda led to the Preface, which was followed by the 
 Triumphal Hymn ; then came the Great Thanksgiving, the 
 Words of Institution, the Memorial for living and dead ; 
 then the Kiss of Peace, the Lord's Prayer, the Communion, 
 a Benediction and Dismissal. From S. Chrysostom we learn 
 that at Antioch the liturgy consisted of — 
 
 [ Old Test. 
 
 Lections -! Epistle. 
 
 '^ Gospel, 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 Dismissal of Catechumens, &c. 
 
 Offertory of Bread and Wine. 
 
 Litany of Intercession. 
 
 The Kiss of Peace. 
 
 Siirsum corda and Preface. 
 
 The Triumphal Hymn. 
 
 The Great Eucharistic Prayer. 
 
 The Commemoration. 
 
 The Great Intercession. 
 
 The Communion, 
 
 Thanksgiving and Dismissal. 
 
 Now let us see what is the character of the forms of prayer 
 given in the liturgy in the eighth book of the "Constitutions"; 
 it will be seen to have a curious antithetical or parallel 
 
64 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 character, very similar to what has been pointed out as 
 marking Hebrew poetry. 
 
 We find that a three-fold type repeats itself continually. 
 There are three intercessions for all sorts and condition of 
 men, and each intercession is divided up thus — 
 
 Call of the Deacon to intercession. 
 
 Cry of intercession by the People. 
 
 Collect of intercession by the Bishop. 
 
 In the case of the dismissal of the Catechumens and 
 of others the same triple form is maintained. 
 
 Call of the Deacon to prayer for the Catechumens. 
 
 Silent prayer of the Catechumens. 
 Collect of intercession and benediction by the Bishop. 
 Even the Deacon's call is subdivided thus : — 
 
 Call of the Deacon to the people to pray. 
 
 Cry of prayer by the people. 
 
 Call of the Deacon to the Catechumens to pray. 
 
 This three-fold division appears throughout the liturgy.* 
 Exactly the same arrangement occurs in the prayer for all 
 the Faithful, when the catechumens and others have been 
 dismissed ; the congregation arc called to rise, they stand up, 
 and in silent prayer bow their heads for the Celebrant's 
 Collect. Before the Communion, in what may be called the 
 " Prayer of Humble Access," the same three-fold division 
 recurs. The Deacon repeats a short form of general Inter- 
 cession ; he then says to the people, " Let us rise and 
 commend ourselves to God through His Christ" — the regular 
 formula — and then follows the Bishop's Collect. So again. 
 
 * It has been noted that the mad people (energumens) alone are not, in the 
 Clementine liturgy, bidden pray in silence for themselves, and S. Chrysostom con- 
 firms this ; he says they were bidden only to bow their heads, and not to pray. 
 
THE CLEMENTINE LITURGY. 6$ 
 
 at the close of the service, after reception, the thanksgiving 
 is cast in the same mould. 
 
 In the Eastern Liturgies the Lord's Prayer is given, as it 
 were, wings. There is an introduction, then the people pray 
 it ; then follows a collect called the " Embolismus " against 
 temptation, by the priest. Again, the great Canon, Anaphora, 
 or great Eucharistic prayer, is winged in like manner. Before 
 it comes the Snrstnn corda : — 
 
 Priest. " Lift up your hearts." 
 People. " We lift them up unto the Lord." 
 Priest. " Let us give thanks unto the Lord." 
 People. "It is meet and right to do." 
 
 A. Priest. " It is very meet and right before all things to sing 
 
 praises to Thee .... For all things glorify 
 Thee. Thee, the innumerable host of angels, 
 archangels, thrones, dominions, cherubim and 
 seraphim . . . praise." 
 
 B. People. " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Sabbath," &c. 
 
 THE ANAPHORA, WITH CONSECRATION, 
 
 after which 
 
 A. Priest. " Holy Lord, that restest in the holies . . . receive 
 
 the pure hymn . . . with cherubim and seraphim, 
 
 and from a sinner, crying and saying . . . 
 
 (Lit. S. James.) 
 
 B. People. " One holy, one Lord, Jesus Christ in the glory of 
 
 God the Father," &c. 
 
 After the Institution again we see evidence in the oblation 
 of the same tendency to a triple form, a body between two 
 collateral members. It is framed thus — 
 
 Anamnesis : Having in remembrance the Passion, &c. 
 Epiklesis : We beseech Thee send the H. G., &c. 
 EXOMOLOGESIS : That we may be delivered from, &c. 
 
 F 
 
66 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Now let us take an outline of the Liturgy in the "Constitu- 
 tions of the Apostles" (Bk. VIII.). We will put conjectural 
 restorations between brackets. 
 
 Pro-Anaphora. 
 
 (Preparation). 
 (Litany of Intercessions). 
 1st Lesson : The Law. 
 2nd Lesson : The Prophets. 
 
 Psalm. 
 3rd Lesson : The Epistle. 
 4th Lesson : The Gospel.* 
 
 The Address. 
 1st Dismissal : Catechumens. 
 2nd Dismissal : Energumens. 
 3rd Dismissal : Not Illuminated. 
 4th Dismissal : Penitents. 
 
 The Offertory of Bread and Wine. 
 
 Litany of Intercession. 
 
 The Kiss of Peace. 
 
 Anaphora. 
 
 (Invocation of Holy Ghost). 
 
 Sursum Corda. 
 
 Great Eucharistic Prayer : consisting of — 
 
 Preface, recital of God's glories, and creation. 
 
 (Triumphal Hymn.) 
 Of God's dealing with man after the Fall, of the call 
 of Abraham, of the Patriarchs, of the recovery of 
 Israel out of Egypt, and restoration to the Pro- 
 mised Land. 
 
 Triumphal Hymn. 
 Of God's continued mercies, the sending of the 
 
 * Observe the antithesis : i and 4 answer to each other, and so, likewise, 2 and 3. 
 
THE CLEMENTINE LITURGY. 6/ 
 
 Prophets, of the Incarnation of the Son of God, 
 of the Passion, the Resurrection, and of the 
 Ascension, and Session, and Second coming. 
 The Institution. 
 
 The Observance — consisting of 
 
 1. Oblation. 
 
 2. Invocation. 
 
 3. Confession. 
 
 Great Prayer of Intercession for the whole world, 
 for the Church, for the Flock, for all in need, 
 for the Sovereign, for fruitful seasons. 
 (Memorial of the dead.) 
 Prayer for the Flock. 
 (The Lord's Prayer.) 
 Sancta Sanctis and Hymn of Faith, 
 Prayer of Humble Access. 
 The Communion. 
 Litany of Intercession. 
 Blessing on the Flock. 
 Dismissal. 
 
 F 2 
 
Chapter VIII. 
 
 THE BASILICA. 
 
 THE UPPER CHAMBER — SYRIAN HOUSES — THE CENTRAL COURT AND 
 
 THE DIVAN — THE ROMAN HOUSE — ATRIUM AND TABLINUM 
 
 WINDOWS OF UPPER STOREY LOOKED INTO THE ATRIUM — FALL 
 OF EUTYCHUS AT TROAS — ARRANGEMENT OF SYNAGOGUE TAKEN 
 FROM THAT OF A HOUSE — EARLY CHRISTIAN WORSHIP IN PRIVATE 
 HOUSES EXERCISE OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP UNLAWFUL, THERE- 
 FORE NOT PUBLIC NOBLE ROMAN FAMILIES ACCEPT THE FAITH 
 
 CHURCHES IN THE CATACOMBS BELONG TO TIME OF PERSECUTION — 
 ROMAN HALL OF JUSTICE DID NOT ORIGINATE THE TYPE OF 
 CHRISTIAN BASILICA — NOR THE SCHOLA — THE PRIVATE BASILICAS 
 
 OF NOBLE FAMILIES THE ATRIUM NOT ABANDONED — DESCRIPTION 
 
 OF CHURCH IN BOOK II. OF THE " CONSTITUTIONS " — RESTORATION 
 IDEALLY OF A SCENE OF THE LITURGY IN A PRIVATE ATRIUM 
 AND TABLINUl^L 
 
 The first institution of the Holy Eucharist took place in an 
 upper room ; and it was probably in this same upper room 
 that the Apostles were assembled on Easter Day in the even- 
 ing, " the doors being shut," when Christ appeared in their 
 midst. The houses in Palestine were probably in our Lord's 
 time not veiy different from what they are there now — that 
 is to say, the houses of the poor. The rich had palaces built 
 after Greek and Roman types, with porticoes, halls, and 
 spacious chambers. But the houses of the poor were 
 different ; — they consisted of but a single room on the 
 ground, without window, the light entering through the door ; 
 consequently, when in the parable the woman lost her coin, 
 she was constrained to kindle her lamp in order to search 
 
THE BASILICA. 69 
 
 the corners for the lost piece of money. In the towns the 
 houses were of brick. A flight of stairs outside led upon the 
 roof, and this upper flat was sometimes also covered over, 
 thus forming an upper chamber ; in this a guest was accom- 
 modated. He could obtain access to it, or leave it without 
 inconvenience to the family lodged below. This upper 
 chamber still forms a distinctive feature of Syrian houses. 
 The poor are indeed generally obliged to be content with 
 their one room on the ground ; but the fir.st luxury in which 
 they will indulge is the covering over of their house-top, and 
 so converting it into a guest-chamber. 
 
 The houses of the well-to-do now in Jerusalem and all 
 Palestine, are very much like what the houses of the well-to- 
 do were in our Lord's time. These houses are built about a 
 court into which the windows look. Around part — one, two, 
 or more sides of the court — are pillars forming a cloister, and 
 the pillars support upper chambers, which receive all their light 
 and air from the court. Sometimes there are more courts than 
 one, sometimes a chamber is raised a step or two above the 
 court, opens out of it by an arch, forming a pleasant, airy, 
 and shady apartment for receiving guests, and entertaining 
 friends ; this is what is now called the divan ; in a Roman 
 house it was called the tablinum. 
 
 Our old English architects of the reign of Elizabeth tried 
 to make their houses sun-traps. They built them about 
 quadrangles, and with projecting wings, to catch the sun, and 
 cut off the wind, that in these snuggeries flowers might bloom 
 and children play in spring, unnipped by east winds. But the 
 object of the Oriental builders was to exclude the sun, to form 
 cool well-like courts that, if need be, might be covered in with 
 an awning, and where grey fresh shade might be secured in 
 the hottest day. An Oriental house, now as of old, showed 
 nothing of its comfort and beauty outside — a blank wall, 
 pierced by a door and perhaps a few slits formed the street- 
 front. The passers by could not see anything of the interior. 
 
70 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 which could be reached only through the well-guarded door. 
 Within, riches were lavished, marble and alabaster, and costly- 
 stones, lined and paved the courts and halls, and rich rugs were 
 cast on the floor and over the seats in the divan. Jessamine 
 and roses crept up the walls and scented the air. In a Roman 
 house, or one belonging to a Greek, in this court, before the 
 water-tank, stood a small pedestal, a tiny altar of incense on 
 which fragrant gums were burnt to the tutelary deity of the 
 family, and to fill the house with fragrance. Sometimes in 
 winter a brazier stood in the court, and thither came those 
 who were chilled to warm their hands. In the divan was 
 the lamp, or there were several. A poor Syrian house has but 
 one, on a stand, but a rich mansion would no doubt be 
 provided with several. 
 
 When our Blessed Lord, on Good Friday morning before 
 daylight, was led to the house of Caiaphas, the brazier burnt in 
 the court, and there the servants were clustered, whilst Christ 
 was being tried in the divan. There the priests sat on the 
 seats ranged against the walls. Perhaps it was an apse — the 
 tablinum often was thus formed, and the High Priest would 
 then occupy the place of authority in the midst. But some- 
 times this tablinum was pierced and gave admission to a 
 peristyle and garden beyond. It was raised a step or two 
 above the court or atrium, and when our Lord turned and 
 looked at Peter, He looked down on him by the fire from a 
 slightly higher level. In the spring of 1848 the writer exhumed 
 a large and sumptuous Roman villa in the South of France, 
 near Pau, and the plan will show the reader what was the 
 arrangement of a Roman house, which was universally 
 reproduced with slight modifications. See figure i. 
 
 A. is the atrium, with (i) the impluvium, a tank of water 
 in the midst enclosed within dwarf walls encased in marble. 
 T. is the tablinum, opening out of it by a white marble step. 
 This semicircular room was originally lined with alabaster. 
 At (a) stood a small altar to the household deities. On each 
 
THE BASILICA. 
 
 71 
 
 side of the atrium were chambers, on one side they were small, 
 over a hypocaust for winter, on the other they were large, for 
 
 PERISTYLE 
 
 a\S» 
 
 FIG. I.— Plan of part of a Roman House at Pau. 
 
 summer use. Admission to the atrium was obtained through 
 a peristyle, an ambulatory paved with mosaics. A second plan 
 of a Roman house is given, showing much the same arrange- 
 ment, and figure 3 represents a divan in a harem at Damascus, 
 which will give the reader an idea how the classic type has 
 lingered on. The atrium still maintains its place in a 
 modern oriental house, and the tablinum is now the divan in 
 which guests are received. Into this court or atrium the 
 windows of the upper storey looked, as shown in a section of 
 a house in Pompeii, of which the topmost storey is a restoration. 
 When divine service was held in a Christian house, doubtless 
 the Lord's table would be placed in the tablinum, and the 
 congregation would occupy both the floor of the atrium and 
 
72 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 the rooms of the floor above that commanded the tablinum. 
 This was apparently the arrangement at Troas, where the 
 
 FIG. 2.— Plan of Roman House. 
 
 house was of three stages, not perhaps three superimposed, 
 but like that of which the Pompeian plan is given. Eutychus 
 occupied one of the windows looking into the court. S. Paul 
 was in the tablinum — an upper atrium and tablinum, and 
 
 FIG. 3. — Divan at Damascus. 
 (From Smith'i " Dutionary qf t)tf Bible," iy kind firtnissittt of Mr. Johyi Murray.) 
 
 the latter itself raised two or three steps above the court, so 
 that when Eutychus fell down into the court, S. Paul is said 
 to have gone down to him. This is the most probable 
 explanation of the arrangement at Troas. 
 
THE BASILICA. 
 
 71 
 
74 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 As the atrium and divan were the parts to which guests 
 were admitted, the remainder of the house being private, this 
 is the portion of the house which originally served as a church. 
 
 The arrangement of the synagogue was very simple. The 
 building consisted of a square hall. There was a raised 
 platform on which sat the scribes and elders, and at the 
 " Jerusalem end," in the midst was the sacred ark, Tebah, in 
 which were kept the rolls of the Law and the Prophets. The 
 elders sat between the congregation and the Ark. 
 
 Devout Jews sometimes had synagogue assemblies in 
 their houses, sometimes gave up their houses to become 
 permanent synagogues. The structural synagogue followed 
 the type of the private house, i.e., courtyard and divan. The 
 court became the hall for the congregation, the divan served 
 as pattern for the apse that held the ark and the elders. 
 
 The Apostles and early Christians assembled, we know, in 
 private houses. The gathering at Troas (Acts xx. 9) was clearly 
 in such a one. At Ephesus the church, the place of assem- 
 bly, was in the house of Aquila and Priscilla (i Cor. xvi. 19). 
 In Rome, tradition points out the houses of the Senator 
 Pudens, of S. Caecilia, and of the matrons Eutropia, Lucina, 
 and Anastasia, as the first meeting-houses for hearing the 
 Word and for the celebration of the Eucharist. When, in 165, 
 Justin Martyr, the Christian Apologist, was brought before 
 the prefect, he was asked to divulge the places of assembly of 
 the Christians. He replied, " Where each one chooses and 
 can : for do you fancy that we all meet in the very same 
 place ? Not so ; for the God of the Christians is not circum- 
 scribed by place ; but being invisible, fills heaven and earth, 
 and everywhere is worshipped and glorified by the faithful." 
 Rusticus, the prefect, said, " Tell me where you assemble, or 
 into what place you collect your followers." Justin said, " I 
 live above one Martin at the Timothean Bath,* and during 
 
 • Believed to be in the house of Timotheus son of Pudens, and therefore of a 
 wealthy and noble Christian. 
 
THE BASILICA. 75 
 
 the whole time of my residence at Rome, I have known of no 
 other meeting than there." The answer was evasive ; but it 
 suffices to show that at that time the meetings of the Church 
 were held in private houses. The Christians had no churches 
 other than the apartments and courts lent them. The author 
 of the Dialogue of Philopatris, in his mocking tone, describes 
 his entry by accident into a Christian assembly in a private 
 house. " He stepped up into a strange house by some steps, 
 and found himself in a room with inlaid walls like the house 
 of Menelaus, described by Homer ; but there were no lovely 
 Helens there, only a posse of withered crones on their knees." 
 
 The use of private mansions for churches continued for 
 some time after the cessation of persecution. The Council of 
 Gangra (A.D. 364), after anathematising those who held aloof 
 from churches, and attended conventicles in private houses, 
 added, " We are full of reverence for the houses of God, and 
 we regard as holy and profitable the assemblies held in them ; 
 but we do not limit devotion to these houses, we venerate 
 every place where buildings have been erected to the honour 
 of God. We approve of divine service being celebrated in 
 the presence of all the faithful in the house of God." The 
 Council of Laodicsea, however, about the same time, had ta 
 forbid the continuation of the celebration of the Eucharist in 
 private houses, on account of the spirit of schism which 
 was manifesting itself. After churches were built, some 
 Christians were reluctant to attend the Eucharist in them, 
 but clung to the private house devotional gatherings. 
 
 In the year 379, after the see of Constantinople had 
 been for forty years in the hands of the Arians, and the 
 orthodox had been without a church and bishops, Gregory 
 Nazianzen converted the house of a kinsman, placed at his 
 disposal, into a church for the faithful, and out of this private 
 dwelling grew the great church of the Anastasia, or 
 Resurrection — but at first it was simply the central court of 
 the house employed for worship. The " houses of God " were 
 
"jG OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 much more than churches : they comprised a room for love- 
 feasts, lodgings for the poor and for the sick, sometimes 
 baths ; and, indeed, a number of offices, and in this differed 
 from the basilicas, which were halls given up to the Church 
 for Divine worship, but for nothing else. 
 
 Let us get a clear idea as to the situation of the Christians 
 with respect to the celebration of worship in the first three 
 centuries. 
 
 Certain religions were regarded as lawful in the Roman 
 Empire ; the Jews, for instance, by the payment of a tax, were 
 allowed to assemble in their synagogues unmolested. But 
 Christianity was not one of these licensed religions. The 
 first form in which any Christian body was recognized by 
 the law, was as a benefit-club with special view to the 
 interment of the dead. The several trades in Rome and 
 elsewhere had their guilds, and managed for a monthly 
 subscription to give their members a decent funeral when 
 dead. They had their guild-rooms and club-feasts. Even 
 the servants in a large establishment formed " colleges " or 
 clubs for this end. A memorial has been found of one such, 
 made up of the domestics of one Abullius Dexter, a 
 manufacturer of shields and statues. Another is of " the 
 College in the house of Sergius Paulus," and the title reminds 
 us of the " Church which is in the house of Aquila and 
 Priscilla" (Rom. xvi. 5; i Cor. xvi, 19). There exists no 
 doubt whatever that the early Christians took advantage 
 of the toleration accorded to these clubs to evade the law 
 against illicit religious meetings. But this was a precarious 
 shelter, for the assembly of societies was strictly watched and 
 repressed by some Emperors, who feared that these meetings 
 might lead to revolutionary confederations. Thus, when 
 after a disastrous fire at Nicomedia Pliny recommended the 
 formation of a fire-company, Trajan forbade it on this very 
 ground. 
 
 Christianity made rapid progress, and gained not the 
 
THE BASILICA. yj 
 
 slaves and the poor only, but the wealthy and the noble. 
 St. Paul sent his greeting to those of Caesar's house. The 
 Imperial household became a chief centre of Christianity 
 in the metropolis. Several of the family of Vespasian 
 
 accepted the faith. 
 
 Tit. Fl. Sabinus = Vespasia Polla. 
 
 Titus FI. = Plautia. Titus Fl. Vespasianus Aug. = Flavia Flavia. 
 
 Sabinus I Emp. 69, d. 79. I Domitilla (i). 
 
 +riautilla= +T. Fl. Clemens Titus Fl. Vespasianus Fl. Dom- = 
 
 I i = +F]avia Aug. Emp. 79, I itilla (2) I 
 
 I Domitilla (3). d. 81. _J | 
 
 +Flavia Domi- | | 
 
 tilla (4) Tit. Fl. Domitianus +F1. Domitilla(3) 
 
 Aug. Emp. (w. of T. Fl. 
 
 (A cross indicates those members 81, d. 96. Clemens.) 
 
 who were Christians. ) 
 
 This little table of the family of the Flavian Emperors 
 will show how Christianity had penetrated among them. 
 
 Investigations in the catacombs of Rome have revealed the 
 fact that many of these grew out of the private burial-places 
 of members of illustrious Roman families, the Cascilian and 
 Cornelian, that of Pomponius Bassus and Pomponia Graecina, 
 Tertullian, at the beginning of the third century, says that 
 Septimius Severus protected Christian senators and their 
 wives ; and he says that not only were the cities full of 
 Christians, but also the senate and the imperial palace. It 
 must not be forgotten that every Christian who assembled 
 with his brethren for the worship of Christ was guilty of a 
 capital offence, and though the law was not persistently and 
 strenuously enforced against them, yet it was not repealed, 
 and could at any time be invoked for their destruction. 
 
 To the times of persecution, when it was not safe to 
 assemble in their own houses, do the rude churches belong, 
 dug out of the rock in the catacombs. Of these several 
 remain, dating in some cases from the second century. We give 
 
7S 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 two ground plans, figs. 5 and 6. In the first the form is that 
 of three squares. A is the chancel, and corresponds to a 
 square tabhnum or divan. B and C represent the court or 
 hall where the laity assembled ; a is the conjectural position 
 
 FIG. 5.— Church in the Catacomb of S. Agnes. 
 
 of the altar, I? is the bishop's throne cut out of the living rock, 
 with c c the seats for the presbyters around the chancel. In 
 fig. 6 there is a niche, b, square below, rounded above, in the 
 apse, A, which probably held the bishop's throne. E is 
 apparently a sacristy or vestry. 
 
 FIG. 6.— Church in the Catacomb of Salita del Cocomero. 
 
 It has been argued that the Christian basilica derived its 
 shape from the Roman hall of justice, called a basilica, and it 
 is supposed that Constantine made over these courts of 
 justice to the Church for her use as places of worship. Not 
 only is this pure unfounded conjecture, and most unlikely, 
 but also it is an unncessary assumption. We have already, 
 in these subterranean churches, the type determined before 
 Constantine's time. 
 
THE BASILICA. 79 
 
 Another suggestion made is that this type grew out of the 
 schola or guild-room of the confraternities. These rooms were 
 oblong halls with an apsidal end, at all events sometimes, and 
 the presidents of the guilds sat round the semicircle on a tribune 
 or raised platform, with a small altar in front for libations 
 and incense. That derivation is plausible, but it is more likely 
 that both the schola and the church sprang out of a common 
 origin, the atrium with its tablinum. The guilds met in 
 private houses before they built their halls, and when they 
 erected the latter they followed the arrangement they had 
 found convenient in the house, just as did the Jews in their 
 synagogues. The synagogue, the guild-hall, and the church 
 have all a common form. How otherwise account for this 
 than that all three grew out of conventicles assembled in 
 private houses } 
 
 When persecution relaxed, and the wealthy were not afraid 
 to throw open their more public and splendid halls to the 
 Church, then the divine liturgy was no longer confined to the 
 atrium and tablinum, but was translated to the basilica. We 
 do not mean the Courts of Justice, but the private basilicas of 
 the princely families who were Christians. It must be remem- 
 bered that the term basilica was not confined to a Court of 
 Justice, it meant a royal hall, such as emperors added to their 
 palaces ; and following them, noble families erected in con- 
 nexion with their mansions. The Christian church took its 
 designation of basilica from these latter, and from these latter 
 also the Courts of Justice were termed basilicas, the term came 
 to mean — a Hall ; but as for any donation of Constantine by 
 which halls of justice were converted into churches, history 
 knows nothing. Justin Martyr, in his Address to the Greeks 
 (c. 36), speaks of the basilica or hall of the house of Sibyl at 
 Cumae. 
 
 At Jerusalem, Herod added to his palace two princely 
 pillared basilicas, which Josephus describes. Vitruvius 
 distinguishes between those halls which are Corinthian and 
 
8o OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 those which are Egyptian ; the former had barrel-vaulted 
 roofs rising from the architrave above the pillars, whereas the 
 Egyptian halls had what we should call now clerestories above 
 the pillars, and flat roofs. In the villa of the Gordians were 
 three such basilicas, in each were a hundred pillars. S. Jerome 
 speaks of the size and elevation of the private basilicas, that 
 is to say, halls attached to houses, in which, he says, human 
 beings moved about like pigmies.* We are told that Theo- 
 philus, a wealthy inhabitant of Antioch, " gave up the great 
 basilica of his house to be a church." This statement, it is 
 true, comes to us from the apocryphal book of the " Recog- 
 nitions," but as that book belongs to the first half of the 
 third century, the statement shows what was customary even 
 at that date. The great hall of the palace of the Lateran, — the 
 house in which the Emperor Marcus Aurelius was born, was 
 given up to be a church, and became the mother church of 
 Rome.f 
 
 In 1862 the foundations of one of these basilicas, that 
 adjoining the house of the Flavii on the Palatine, was 
 exhumed. It is an oblong hall, with an apse semicircular at 
 one end, and this was raised above the level of the rest of the 
 hall, and reached by marble steps. It was separated from it 
 by a balustrade. This balustrade remained as a feature in the 
 Christian church, and gave its name to the chancel, that portion 
 of the sacred building which it screened off. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the first Christians got posses- 
 sion of, and dared to use, basilicas, the stately halls attached to 
 noble mansions, at an early period. They contented them- 
 selves with gathering in the small dwelling-houses, where they 
 could assemble in the atrium without attracting attention, 
 and where they would be unobserved at their worship. 
 
 "When the basilica was made into a church, then the 
 Christians could not quite shake off their idea of the atrium, 
 
 * Ep. 18. ad Marcellani. t Hicron. Ep. ad Oceanum. 
 
THE BASILICA. 
 
 and they tacked on one to the end of the basilica opposite the 
 apse. In fig. 7 we give a plan of a church or basilica of 
 
 FIG. 7.— Plan of Old Christian Basilica. 
 
 the age that follows. Several very interesting specimens 
 remain, that of S. Ambrose at Milan, though re-constructed in 
 Lombard times, is rebuilt on the old lines. 
 
 FIG. 8.— Plan of Basilica of S. Sinforosa, with Cella adjoining. 
 
 Fig. 8 shows a basilica with pillars, and with two little 
 vestries opening out of the apse. It is given because adjoining 
 it are the foundations, as shown on the plan, of a sepulchral 
 cella, that is a chapel such as existed in all the heathen 
 cemeteries, when the funeral banquets were given. These 
 cellcz were used perhaps also by Christians for their love-feasts 
 in commemoration of the martyrs, and by some it has been 
 thought that they furnished the type of the triple apse so 
 common in Christian churches. This we greatly doubt. The 
 side chapels, one on each side of the chancel or apse, grew out 
 of the sacristies, the little rooms adjoining the tablimtm of a 
 
 G 
 
82 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 house, which lent themselves for purposes connected with the 
 carrying on of divine worship. 
 
 The description of a church, as given in the Second Book 
 of the " Constitutions of the Apostles," is as follows : — 
 
 " Let the building be long, with its head to the east, with its 
 vestries on both sides at the east end, and so will it be like a 
 ship. In the middle let the Bishop's throne be placed, and on 
 each side of him let the presbytery sit down ; and let the 
 deacons stand near at hand in close and small-girt garments, 
 for they are like the mariners and managers of the ships ; and 
 let the laity sit in the other part, with all quietness and good 
 order. And let the women sit by themselves. In the middle 
 let the reader stand upon some high place . . . the same 
 description and pattern was both in the tabernacle of the 
 testimony, and in the temple of God. . . . The Church is 
 not only like a ship, but also like a sheep-fold" (ii., c. 57).* 
 
 This description cannot belong to so early a period as the 
 rest of this book. It is — like the rubrics to the liturgy in 
 Book VIII. — an addition of the compiler. Not before peace 
 was established could the eastw-ard direction of a church be 
 ruled. Before that, the Christians, praying, turned to 
 the east, yet were obliged for their public worship to accept 
 any suitable place offered them. 
 
 Several of the Roman basilicas, now in use as churches, 
 laeing the converted halls of noble families given up to the 
 ■Church, are not orientated. But though the direction to set 
 the head of the sacred building towards the east is certainly 
 an addition of the fourth century, yet the general description of 
 the arrangement of the clergy in the church is in accordance 
 
 • The analogy between the ship and the church is drawn out with greater ful- 
 ness in the Epistle of Clement to James prefixed to the " Recoj^nitions," c. 14. 
 It is noticeable that as above there is a mixture of similes, the ship and the sheep- 
 fold, so also on a gold engraved Gospel cover recently discovered at Sinigaglia, of 
 the 7th century, where the Church is represented as a ship supported on the back 
 of the Mystic Fish, Christ, and up the anchor-chain from the depths of the sea 
 sheep are scrambling to escape the ramping and roaring lion (the Uevil). 
 
THE BASILICA. 83 
 
 with the usage then general, old and traditional, — whether 
 derived from the guild practice, or, what is more probable, 
 from the synagogue. 
 
 Let us draw for ourselves a picture of a Christian assembly 
 in a private house in the first and second centuries. We pass 
 out of the street through the narrow entry by a door guarded 
 strictly by the porter {ostiariiis), himself a Christian, who 
 knows who are faithful and who are not ; and who excludes 
 such as he mistrusts. An important post is that of a porter; 
 on his caution depends a great deal. Through the passage we 
 pass to the court-yard occupying the centre of the house. In a 
 large mansion this is pillared round and roofed over, except 
 in the middle over the water tank. Opposite the door of 
 entrance a couple of marble steps rise to the divan, the walls 
 richly adorned with marbles and paintings ; it is the part of 
 the house on which most cost has been lavished. On each 
 side of the entrance to this divan hang curtains that can be 
 drawn if requisite, shutting off this square or apsidal room 
 from the court. In this divan, on seats round it, are the 
 presbyters in tunics, and over these the white woollen mantles 
 worn on state occasions. In the midst is an altar, and behind 
 that, against the wall, a throne, on which is the bishop. This 
 chamber is hung with lighted lamps. 
 
 From side chambers hurry to and fro the deacons in girded 
 tunics, bringing such things as are requisite — the sacred rolls 
 &c.^or keeping order among the congregation. Those holding 
 the sacred books or vessels have, in addition, over the shoulder 
 a towel or napkin, with which to envelop the hands, so as not 
 to stain what they touch, should their hands be hot and soiled. 
 Does this seem too elaborate a picture for so early an age } 
 The reader will see from the next chapter that unexpected 
 testimony comes to confirm it, and even to enhance its 
 colouring. 
 
 G 2 
 
Chapter IX. 
 
 THE CELESTIAL TEMPLE. 
 
 THE PICTURE OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WORSHIP GIVEN CONTRARY TO 
 USUAL CONCEPTION — NO PREJUDICE IN EARLY CHURCH AGAINST 
 DIGNITY OF WORSHIP— NO EVIDENCE THAT OUR LORD AND THE 
 APOSTLES REJECTED DIGNITY AND SPLENDOUR OF WORSHIP — THE 
 REVELATION OF S. JOHN — THE DESCRIPTION OF THE HEAVENLY 
 TEMPLE AND THE WORSHIP THEREIN — WAS THIS GIVEN TO SET 
 BEFORE THE CHURCH THE TYPE SHE WAS TO COPY ; OR, WAS THIS 
 WORSHIP SEEN BY S. JOHN THE IDEALIZATION OF THE ALREADY 
 FIXED TYPE OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP ON EARTH ? — THE DIFFERENCE 
 BETWEEN THE CELESTIAL SANCTUARY AND THE TEMPLE — THE 
 IDENTITY IN TYPE WITH THAT OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND 
 WORSHIP— ERROR IN EPISTLE TO HEBREWS — HOW EXPLICABLE- 
 INCENSE. 
 
 The reader may have been startled by the picture of a 
 Christian assembly for the Eucharistic Service presented at 
 the close of the last chapter. He may have thought that 
 it represented a condition of affairs very different from what 
 he had pictured to himself as constituting the arrangement 
 for worship in a primitive age, previous to the cessation of 
 persecution, and the influx of fresh ideas into the Church. 
 
 In the first place, we may assume for certain that the 
 Apostles and the first Christians had not what are called 
 Puritan prejudices against anything conducive to giving pomp 
 and dignity to divine service. They had been bred up in the 
 idea that splendour befitted the worship of God ; the utmost 
 splendour and pomp attended the worship in the Temple, 
 and this worship they held to have been divinely instituted. 
 Not only did their Lord and Master not rebuke this, but He 
 showed His zeal for the Temple, in twice purifying it of those 
 
THE CELESTIAL TEMPLE. 85 
 
 who profaned it, and in walking within its courts ; and accord- 
 ingly, after His ascension, the Apostles continued to frequent 
 the Temple. They knew that the sacrifices were fulfilled and 
 done away in Christ, but not the principle of worship. That 
 was ever due to God, and due to Him offered in the best 
 manner possible by man. 
 
 Without distinct evidence — and there is none — that our 
 Lord and the Apostles set themselves against giving all the 
 dignity possible to divine worship, we have no right to 
 attribute to them feelings which are modern, and the reaction 
 against ritual extravagance and inordinate magnificence. If 
 in their worship the mode of performance was meagre, it 
 was through lack of means of making it better, not through 
 lack of will to do so. 
 
 We must remember that the Apostles and the first Jewish 
 converts had acquired a mental habit of associating order 
 and dignity and reverence with the worship of God, of which 
 they could not divest themselves without an effort, and from a 
 sense of duty ; but we have not the smallest ground for 
 supposing that they felt themselves called upon to make this 
 effort. There was little splendour in Apostolic worship, 
 because of the necessity of the case ; the first Christians were 
 poor, and were persecuted, and splendour was impossible 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 Now let us look at the Revelation of S. John, and see 
 what is there shown us as the worship of heaven, — let us see 
 if that is meagre and shorn of splendour. We will grant that 
 what is told us is symbolic ; but we ask, — A symbol being 
 taken from something known, to illustrate the unknown, 
 where was the known reality from which this picture was 
 taken and transferred to heavenly things, where, if not in the 
 worship of the Church in Apostolic times } 
 
 We will take in order all the passages of the Apocalypse 
 referring to this worship of the Celestial Temple, and note 
 afterwards what inferences are to be drawn from them. 
 
86 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 " I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven ; and 
 the fiiT.t voice which I heard was, as it were, of a trumpet 
 talking with me ; which said, Come up hither. . . . And, 
 behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne 
 . . . and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight 
 like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were 
 four and twenty seats : and upon the seats I saw four and 
 twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment ; and they had 
 on their heads crowns of gold. . . . And there were seven 
 lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven 
 spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of 
 glass like unto a crystal. . . . The four and twenty elders fall 
 down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that 
 livcth for ever and ever. . . . And I saw in the right hand of 
 him that sat on the throne a book. And lo ! in the midst of 
 the throne, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb, as 
 it had been slain . . . and he came and took the book out 
 of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And 
 when he had taken the book, the four and twenty elders fell 
 down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and 
 golden vials full of odours, which are the pra}-ers of saints ; 
 and they sang a new song " (Rev. iv., v.). 
 
 " After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude which . . . 
 cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation {i.e., Hosanna) to 
 our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. 
 And all the angels stood round about the throne . . . and 
 fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God " 
 (vii.). " And another angel came and stood at the altar, 
 having a golden censer ; and there was given unto him much 
 incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints 
 upon the golden altar, which was before the throne. And 
 the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of 
 the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand " 
 (viii. 3, 4). We are given again glimpses in the 12th chapter. 
 " The angel stood, saying. Rise and measure the temple of 
 
THE CELESTIAL TEMPLE. 8/ 
 
 God, and the altar, and them that worship therein, but the 
 court which is without the temple leave out and measure it 
 not." "And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and 
 there was seen in His temple the ark of His Testament," 
 
 Again in the fourteenth chapter, " I heard a voice from 
 heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a 
 great thunder : and I heard the voice of harpers harping 
 with their harps : and they sang as it were a new song before 
 the throne." 
 
 " An angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, 
 having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from 
 the altar, which had power over fire." It is as though the 
 seer looked into the Heaven of heavens, with driving clouds 
 passing between his eye and the courts above ; now all is 
 clear, then obscured, and then he catches the strains from 
 above, but sees nothing within. In the next chapter the cloud 
 has passed. First he sees " the sea of glass mingled with 
 fire," then the cloud beyond is raised, " After that I looked, 
 and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony 
 in heaven was opened : and the seven angels came out of 
 the temple, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their 
 breasts girded with golden girdles." And to these angels 
 were given " seven golden vials." " And the temple was filled 
 with smoke from the glory of God " (xv. 2, 5-8). Then 
 follows the destruction of Babylon. After that the smoke 
 of her torment has rolled away, " I heard a great voice of 
 much people in heaven, saying. Alleluia ; Salvation (Hosanna) 
 and glory and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God, . . . 
 And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped 
 God that sat on the throne, saying. Amen ; Alleluia," Then 
 comes the final conflict with the powers of evil, and the 
 last judgment. After that, as the seer looks up into heaven, 
 he sees all changed. " I saw no temple therein," nor altar, 
 nor lamps of fire, nor sea of glass, but only the throne, which 
 s now that of God a/id the Lamb, 
 
88 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 " It was the work of the last surviving Apostle both to add 
 the last portion to the four-fold Gospel record, and to com- 
 plete the entire canon of the New Testament. His office to 
 the Gospel much resembled that of Moses to the Pentateuch. 
 The Law-giver had to systematize the ancient annals and 
 traditions of his people, to compile the history of their travels 
 in the desert, and to record the divine utterances of Sinai. 
 After this was done, it was his work to complete the primitive 
 canon of Scripture, by adding the book of Deuteronomy, as 
 a supplement to the former books, and as the deeper exponent 
 of their true theological meaning. As Deuteronomy stands 
 to the remainder of the Law, so stands S. John's Gospel to the 
 other three, and his Apocalypse to the rest of the New Testa- 
 ment."* Now, there are two ways in which this revelation of 
 the worship in heaven as given by S. John may be explained ; 
 either it was shown to him as the pattern upon which the 
 worship of the Church on earth was to be modelled, or else 
 it was shown him after the pattern already in use in the 
 Church on earth ; that is to say, the worship of heaven was 
 shown to him like that of the Church below, on a more 
 glorious and complete scale. 
 
 The first explanation has something to be said for it. "As 
 the ritual and sanctuary of heaven were shown to Moses in 
 his vision upon Mount Sinai, so S. John, separated from his 
 people in the seclusion of Patnios, was carried up in spirit to 
 heaven, and saw the same sanctuary, as it had now become 
 perfected by the presence of the Incarnate Word. The 
 object of the revelation to Moses was that he might make all 
 the appurtenances of the earthly tabernacle, and of its 
 worship, according to the pattern shown to him on the mount. 
 Was there not an analogous object in S. John's vision — 
 that he might finally set in order the worship of the Church, 
 after the pattern of that greater perfection which the 
 
 * "The Celestial Sanctuary of the Apocalypse," in "The Sacristy," No. 5, 
 1S72. 
 
THE CELESTIAL TEMPLE. 89 
 
 ascension of Christ had given to it in heaven ? "* But we are 
 inclined to adopt the other view, that the rudiments of the 
 Eucharistic worship were already fixed when S. John wrote, 
 and that what he saw was the worship of the Church on 
 earth reflected, magnified, idealised in heaven. 
 
 Only in one of these ways can the vision of the Celestial 
 worship be explained. It cannot be so by the Temple worship 
 at Jerusalem, for it deviates in several important particulars 
 from that ; and it cannot by the service of the synagogue, 
 for that is hardly worship at all. The synagogue was for 
 teaching, and the Temple for worship. 
 
 That the account of the worship in heaven, in the Temple 
 there, differs materially from that in the Temple at Jerusalem, 
 and that nevertheless there are points of similarity, cannot be 
 doubted. 
 
 In the Temple there was an outer court in which was the 
 Sea of Brass, the great laver for the priests to wash their 
 hands and feet in. So also in the heavenly court. There is 
 the Sea of Glass, like unto crystal. Between the entrance to 
 the court and the entrance to the Temple itself was the great 
 altar of burnt offering. This sacrificial altar is no longer seen 
 in the analogous court in heaven. In the Temple the brazen 
 altar stood in the midst, and the brazen laver at one side, 
 probably ; but in the vision accorded to S. John the altar is 
 absent, and the glass-like pool of water takes its place in the 
 centre — ^just where the iiiipluviiim stood in a Roman house. A 
 flight of steps led to the Temple, which was divided into two parts 
 — the outer, the holy place, in which stood, in the middle, 
 the golden altar of incense ; on the right the table of shew- 
 bread, on the left the candlestick of seven branches. Then 
 came the double curtains of many colours hung to four 
 pillars. Behind this was the Holy of Holies, in plan a cube, 
 with the Ark of the Covenant and mercy-seat in the midst. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
go OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Into the Holy of Holies entered the high priest but once in 
 the year. Now in the heavenly vision there is the Temple 
 also, but no distinction is seen between Holy of Holies and 
 Holy Place ; in shape it seems to accord with an apse opening 
 out of the court. Where was the mercy-scat in the Temple 
 on earth, there we have the throne in the Temple in heaven, but 
 whereas in the Temple no scats were about it for the priests, 
 in heaven there are seats occupied by four and twenty elders. 
 That the throne represents the mercy-seat is probable, for in 
 the account in Revelation we have the four cherubic beasts, 
 and about the mercy-seat were cherubs extending their wings ; 
 two were in the Jewish Temple, there are four in the heavenly 
 Temple. 
 
 Before the throne in heaven is the altar of gold, on which 
 apparently is the Lamb as He had been slain. Thus we have 
 the sacrificial altar identified with the golden altar of incense, 
 and moved to a place immediately before the throne of God. 
 There is no veil dividing the Temple in half, and hiding the 
 mercy-seat from all eyes ; instead, it is furled back, and forms 
 a halo or circle, through which the altar and the throne are 
 seen — it is " the rainbow round about the throne in sight like 
 unto an emerald." S. John, looking into the heavenly 
 Temple, saw the throne and the golden altar through this 
 arch ; and the arch was no other than the riven, back-furled 
 veil, which had been " taken away." It was in appearance 
 like the halo seen at times about the sun, glittering with 
 prismatic hues. 
 
 In the Temple the great Eulogy was performed by minstrels 
 and singers on the steps outside the Holy Place. In the 
 vision of S. John the minstrels and singers are seen within, in 
 the Holy of Holies. A notable change of position to be 
 spoken of again, later. 
 
 In the Temple at Jerusalem was a golden candlestick, with 
 seven lamps on several branches, outside the veil, not in the 
 Holy of Holies, but in the Holy Place ; but in the vision of 
 
THE CELESTIAL TEMPLE. 9 1 
 
 S. John there are seven lamps of fire burning, not outside, but 
 within, before the throne. Nothing corresponding to the table 
 of shew-bread is described. In one place we have the 
 mention of the Ark of the Testament, in the Heavenly- 
 Sanctuary, but this is the same as the Golden Altar, which 
 occupies the place of the Ark overlaid with gold ; and as under 
 the first Covenant, the Shechinah, the cloud of glory resting 
 on the mercy-seat, was the token and pledge of God's Cove- 
 nant ; so in this second Temple, the Lamb, as it had been 
 slain, is seen resting where the Shechinah was on the mercy- 
 seat of the Golden Altar, and that Lamb is Emmanuel, God 
 with us. 
 
 Now unquestionably the visions of S. John accord in a most 
 marked manner with the arrangements of a Christian church,, 
 as we might suppose it to be in — perhaps the third or fourth 
 century, when some ritual magnificence was adopted. That 
 later Church worship should accord with S. John's vision could 
 be explained if the Apocalypse had been accepted by the 
 Church from the first as an authoritative exposition of God's 
 will as to how it was to be conducted, but this it was not. 
 The Apocalypse was received with great hesitation. It is not 
 inserted in the list of canonicpl Scriptures drawn up by the 
 Council of Laodicjea, so late as the middle of the fourth 
 century. We cannot account for the resemblance in that 
 way. We are driven to account for it in the other — that 
 John, familiar with the worship of the Christian Church on 
 earth, saw the same reflected in magnified scale and idealized 
 splendour in his heavenly visions. He describes the celestial 
 worship after that of his own church at Ephesus, at the per- 
 formance of the Liturgy. 
 
 If we look at the Epistle to the Hebrews, we find a curious 
 slip in the account of the arrangement and furniture of the 
 Temple. Dr. Davidson says : " The author betrays an 
 imperfect knowledge of the Temple and its furniture. He is 
 even mistaken in some particulars, a thing that could not be 
 
92 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 asserted of Paul, who lived in Jerusalem for a considerable 
 time,"* 
 
 The author by mistake puts the golden altar of incense 
 witliin the veil, instead of outside, in the Holy Place. Our 
 translators, aware of the discrepancy, endeavoured to mitigate 
 it, by rendering the word Ovcriaa-Ti'ipioi' "censer," and the word 
 is ambiguous. It might thus be used, but this does not get 
 over the difficulty, for the censer was not kept in the Holy 
 of Holies, any more than was the altar of incense. That 
 there is an error, a slip, we do not dispute — but we ask, How 
 is it to be accounted for ? Now the author of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, in speaking of the golden altar of incense, uses 
 the word which is continually emplo)-cd by the early Fathers 
 for the Christian altar. The writer was thinking back from 
 the Christian Church to the old Temple, and showing how 
 Christ was the fulfilment of all that was in the Tabernacle 
 and Temple, in sacrifice and symbolic priestly act. In this 
 process of going back, he saw the Temple through the 
 Church, and by an oversight described the golden altar in 
 the place to which in the Church it had been moved, in the 
 same place in which S. John describes it, and not in 
 the situation without, which it had occupied under the old 
 Covenant. 
 
 " We have an altar," the writer goes on, " whereof they 
 have no right to cat which serve the tabernacle." He goes 
 on to show that the sacrifices were burnt " without the camp," 
 but the blood was brought within, " into the sanctuary," that 
 is, the Holy of Holies. So, he urges, let Christians bear re- 
 proach without, but draw near to the altar within, as partakers, 
 " offering the sacrifice of praise to God continually," using 
 an expression which every instructed Christian would under- 
 stand as referring to the P3ucharistic oblations. 
 
 S. Methodius, a writer of the close of the 3rd century. 
 
 • Introd. to Study of the N. T., 1868, Vol. I., p. 238. 
 
THE CELESTIAL TEMPLE. 93 
 
 makes precisely the same mistake, and for the same reason. 
 He says that the Jews had " the golden altar within the 
 Holy of Holies, before the Presence of the Testimony." He 
 also is thinking back through the medium of the Church. 
 " The law contained the images of good things to come. 
 Let us then strip off the veil of the letter, and consider the 
 true meaning. The Hebrews were commanded to ornament 
 the Tabernacle as a type of the Church, to announce before- 
 hand the image of divine things. For the pattern shown 
 Moses in the mount, on which he was to fashion the 
 Tabernacle, was a representation of the heavenly dwelling. 
 Now the Jews prophesied our state, and we in turn fore- 
 shadow the heavenly ; for the Tabernacle was a fore- 
 shadowing of the Church, and the Church is a foretype of 
 Heaven." * 
 
 To sum up the results at which we have arrived : — 
 
 1. The type of the arrangement of a Christian church for 
 worship was determined by the interior arrangements of a 
 house of the better class at the Apostolic period, with court 
 for the people and divan for the clergy. But this arrange- 
 ment was not unaffected by the known disposition of parts 
 of the Temple and the synagogue. 
 
 2. The basilicas, or halls of the palaces of the nobles, 
 were eventually given up to the Church, and these being 
 oblong introduced a modification, the body of the church 
 being no longer square, or a succession of squares, but long, 
 and sometimes divided into a nave with side aisles by pillars. 
 
 The basilica, and before that the church in the private 
 house, had its one altar, in the chord of the apse, against the 
 wall of which sat the presbyters facing the altar, the bishop's 
 throne occupying the central place behind the altar. Lights, 
 usually oil lamps, were placed about, hanging from the roof, 
 
 * Symposium, V. c. 7, 8. 
 
94 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 or supported on stands. It will be remembered that there 
 were "many lights" (lamps) "in the upper chamber," at 
 Troas, in which " the disciples came together to break bread." 
 The commencement of S. John's vision represents an 
 analogous scene ; there is the altar, on which is the Victim 
 Lamb, before the throne of the Father, and semi-encircled by 
 the seats of the four and twenty elders ; the angels are 
 represented hovering round, as in the church the white- 
 robed deacons hurried to and fro. A brightly coloured 
 veil is furled back ; there are seven lamps of fire burning 
 before the Divine Presence, as they burnt in the temple, and 
 as in the synagogue, one lamp burnt before the ark that con- 
 tained the Law. Outside is a vessel filled with water — a tank 
 or "sea." In the Apocalyptic vision angels bear censers with 
 incense, and the fragrant smoke rises and fills the house. It 
 is remarkable that in the "Constitutions" there is no mention 
 of incense in divine worship, that Tertullian speaks of a 
 Christian never buying the grains of fragrant gums, and that 
 Irena^us implies that in his time incense was not used. 
 Even as late as 320, Eusebius, in his " Demonstratio Evan- 
 gelica" (III. 3, § 7), declares that smoking sacrifices do not 
 belong to the immortal and eternal God. Is it that in the 
 church of the Seer incense was a peculiar introduction, or 
 that he looked forward in his ideal vision to the time when 
 the Church, freed from the cramping bands of fear, might 
 develop her ritual and add the oblation of the symbolic 
 incense to the actual offering of prayer ? 
 
Chapter X. 
 
 THE COLLECT. 
 
 THE CHURCH LIKENED TO A SHIP IN THE SECOND BOOK OF THE " CON- 
 STITUTIONS" — A ROMAN SHIP — BEGINNING OF THE PRO-ANAPHORA — 
 THE LITANY OF INTERCESSION — REMAINS IN THE LITURGY OF S. 
 MARK — THE NINE KYRIES IN THE ROMAN MASS— HOW THE RE- 
 FORMERS DEALT WITH THEM —THE TEN COMMANDMENTS — THE 
 COLLECTS— WHAT A COLLECT MEANS — THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE 
 COLLECTS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR — WHICH ORIGINALLY BELONGED 
 TO THE LITANY OF INTERCESSION — PRAYER FOR THE KING OR 
 QUEEN — TRANSFORMATION OF THE LITANY COMPLETE, BUT IN 
 ESSENCE RETAINED. 
 
 " When, O bishop, thou callest an assembly of the Church, 
 as one that is commander of a great ship, appoint the assem- 
 bhes to be made with all possible skill, charging the deacons 
 as mariners to prepare places for the brethren as for passen- 
 gers, with all due care and decency. And first, let the build- 
 ing be long, with its head to the east, with its vestries on both 
 sides at the east end, and so it will be like a ship." 
 
 Thus begins the account of the liturgy in the second book 
 of the " Constitutions " ; and, before going further, it will be 
 well to explain the analogy of the ship. 
 
 A Greek or Roman ship was propelled both with sails and 
 with oars. In the poop was the aplustre, or covered-over 
 stern of the boat, a semi-circular screen or shelter, in which 
 sat the steersman, who with two large paddles {pcdalia or 
 gubernacula) turned the vessel about. There was no hinged 
 rudder. Near the steersman stood or sat the proreiis, the 
 mate, who observed the sky, looked out ahead, and advised 
 
96 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 the steersman in what direction to turn the peak of the 
 vessel, and what dangers to avoid. He issued the orders to 
 the common sailors. The rowers who propelled the ship 
 were under the direction of the pausarius, who gave the 
 stroke with the sound of a pipe. Now we can see how a 
 Church resembled a ship. In the apse, on the bevia, the 
 raised platform, sat in the midst the bishop as governor. 
 About him were the presbyters as prorei, or mates, advising 
 him and directing the deacons, who resembled the mariners, 
 and the deacons both managed the business of the church, 
 and also kept the people in place in the body of the church, 
 and gave signals for their responses. 
 
 Unfortunately we have no full account in cither the second 
 or the eighth books of the " Constitutions " of the beginning 
 of the Pro-Anaphora, the Mass of the Catechumens, but we 
 cannot be far wrong in supposing that it was opened with a 
 prayer of preparation and a psalm. All the liturgies have 
 these introductory prayers, and we have in our own Com- 
 munion Service the beautiful invocation of the assistance of 
 the Holy Ghost : " Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be 
 open . . . cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration 
 of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and 
 worthily magnify Thy holy Name." This is a representative 
 of the Prayer of Approach in the liturgies of S. Mark, 
 S. James, &c. 
 
 The psalm has perpetuated itself in the Introit. We 
 come now to a feature that has gone through extraordinary 
 changes. 
 
 The liturgy of S. Mark has the remains of this — 
 
 Call of Deacon : Pray for the King. 
 Response of People : Lord, ha\-c mcrc)-. 
 
 Lord, have mercy. 
 
 Lord, have mercy. 
 Collect of Priest : Prayer for the King. 
 
THE COLLECT. 97 
 
 Call of Deacons : Pray for the Pope {i.e.^ Patriarch of Alex- 
 andria) and the Bishops. 
 Response of People : Lord, have mercy. 
 Lord, have mercy. 
 Lord, have mercy. 
 Collect of Priest : Prayer for Patriarch, bishops, presbytery- 
 deacons, and all orders in the 
 Church, the whole Catholic Church,, 
 subjugation of enemies of the 
 Church. 
 Call of Deacon : Stand for prayer (for yourselves). 
 
 Response of People : Lord, have mercy. 
 Lord, have mercy. 
 Lord, have mercy. 
 Collect of Priest : Blessing on the flock. 
 
 In the Armenian Liturgy we find a prayer of Invocation 
 of the Holy Spirit at the beginning, corresponding to that in 
 the English office, but the Litany of Intercession has dwindled 
 to this short collect. 
 
 " O Lord our God, save alive Thy congregation, and bless 
 thine inheritance ; keep whole the fulness of Thy Church ;, 
 sanctify those who in love visit the beauty of Thy house ; 
 do Thou glorify us, O Lord, by Thy divine power, and forsake 
 not those who put their trust in Thee." 
 
 Traces of the Intercession in this place remain in most 
 liturgies. The reader will have doubtless observed that the 
 form in S. Mark's liturgy is a ruin. Originally the Kyrie 
 Eleison followed each petition singly, and the form, judging 
 from the other litanies, was in the first place, as under : — 
 
 Deacon : Let us pray for the Emperor. 
 
 People : Lord, have mercy. 
 
 Priest : Collect of Intercession for the Emperor. 
 
 Deacon : Let us pray for the magistrates and rulers. 
 
 H 
 
98 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 People : Lord, have mercy. 
 
 Priest : Collect of Intercession for magistrates and rulers. 
 
 Deacon : Let us pray for the army. 
 
 People : Lord, have mercy. 
 
 Priest : Collect of Intercession for the army. 
 
 So also for bishops, presbytery, and deacons, for the faithful 
 and for Catechumens, &c. But as the intercessions by this 
 triple arrangement of bidding prayer, response, and collect, 
 so often repeated in the service, made it enormously long, and 
 was only tolerable when the Pro-Anaphora was a separate 
 service for the Sabbath, as soon as it was joined on to the 
 Lord's Day Eucharist, it suffered curtailment with the knife, 
 and very little indeed of it was left. 
 
 It is observable that in the Roman Mass all has disappeared 
 except nine Kyries. " Lord, have mercy upon us " {thrice). 
 "Christ, have mercy upon us" {thrice). " Lord, have mercy upon 
 us " {thrice). So in the liturgy of S. Mark, there are nine 
 Kyries in three groups, and the bidding prayers and 
 collects have shrunk to three. We in our English Eucharist 
 have retained ten Kyries, and have interjected between them 
 the Commandments. The Reformers found the nine Kyries, 
 and were puzzled what to make of them, for certainly as 
 they stand in the Roman Mass they are meaningless. The 
 Reformers kept the nine, and added a tenth in a somewhat 
 altered form, and gave them a new but not inappropriate 
 sisrnification. The necessities of the time called for some- 
 thing of the sort. The Lutheran doctrine of Free Justifica- 
 tion was in the air, dissolving the basis of all Christian 
 morality. The English Reformers, in their desire to empha- 
 size the obligation of the moral law on Christians, and finding 
 these nine K}'ries in a mass, like empty husks, did the 
 best they could with them, turned them to a purpose greatly 
 needed at the moment. We have no reason to regret it. 
 We have these Kyries revived and given cogency, whereas 
 they lie about in other liturgies as effete forms. 
 
THE COLLECT. 99 
 
 Now we come to the Collects for the Day. Their history is 
 closely bound up with this Litany of Intercession. It will be 
 necessary first of all to say something about the word 
 Collect. 
 
 In Greek, the assembly of the congregation for prayer is 
 called a Synaxis, in Latin a Collectio. 
 
 At first by Collect was meant a gathering together of the 
 faithful for prayer. But it acquired a further meaning ; it was 
 applied to the prayer of the Celebrant after the bidding call 
 and Kyrie, as the summing up, and collecting into one, of the 
 desires and petitions of the people. A Collect presupposes 
 the call of the deacon to Intercession, and the response of 
 the people. 
 
 In the Roman Mass the Gloria in Excelsis Deo came in 
 after the Kyries and before the Collects — but we know that 
 this was a late insertion. It was inserted in this place when 
 all recollection had been lost of the intim.ate original relation 
 of the Kyries to the Collect. 
 
 In the English Communion Service we have had restored 
 before the Collect for the day, a Collect for the Sovereign ; 
 and very happily, for the litany began with bidding prayer. 
 Response, and Collect for the King. Such a restoration is 
 ritually correct ; so that in the beginning of our Pro- 
 Anaphora we go nearer by far to primitive models than the 
 Roman Mass. 
 
 We hear not infrequently sneers at the intercessions for 
 the Queen that occur tiuice in the liturgy ; as if it was a piece 
 of base adulation on the part of the Anglican Church to the 
 Crown. But such critics knew nothing of the early liturgies, 
 or they would speak with less captiousness. In the primitive 
 Eucharist, made up of Pro- Anaphora and Anaphora, there 
 were /our Collects for the King, beside the bidding prayers of 
 the deacon. 
 
 Anyone examining the Collects will see in them how 
 strongly comes out the flavour of intercession. It is almost 
 
 H 2 
 
lOO OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 possible to reconstruct out of them the entire chain of Col- 
 lects for all conditions of men. 
 
 1st Collect. F'or the King and all in authority. 
 
 2nd „ For the Church (15th Sun. after Trin., i6th 
 
 after Trin., &c.) 
 3rd „ For all orders and conditions in the Church 
 
 (Good Friday, 2). 
 4th „ For the Jews, Turks, infidels, heretics (Good 
 
 Friday, 3). 
 5th „ For the distressed, the weak (2nd Sun, in 
 
 Lent). 
 6th „ For the Catechumens (3rd Sun. after Easter). 
 
 7th „ For the Penitents (Ash Wed.). 
 
 8th „ For the Energumens (6th Sun. after Epiph.). 
 
 9th „ For the Flock (Good Friday, i). 
 
 Though we may perhaps be disposed to regret the loss of 
 the grand Ektene, or Litany of Intercession, with its Collects, 
 gone from the beginning of the Communion Service, yet we 
 cannot but feel that it has left us a splendid heritage — to us 
 in the West — in the varying Collects for the Sundays and 
 Festivals. The East has lost this. In the East this Litany 
 was cut down more and more, till it remained only as a prayer 
 for the Church or the congregation. The West was 
 reluctant to abandon it, chary of applying the knife. 
 Accordingly it broke up the Litany into parts ; and on one 
 Sunday prayed for the King, on the next for the Church, on 
 another for heretics and heathens, on another for the Cate- 
 chumens, and so on ; and thus out of the Litany of Inter- 
 cession, at first emplo}'ed at the opening of the Pro-Anaphora 
 every Lord's Day, came that glorious chain of pearls, the 
 Collects for the Christian year. 
 
Chapter XI. 
 
 THE LECTIONS. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF ACCOUNT IN SECOND BOOK OF THE "CONSTITUTIONS" 
 — THE LECTIONS FOUR: I. THE LAW; 2. THE PROPHETS; 3. THE 
 EPISTLES ; 4. THE GOSPELS— THE BEMA OR AMBONE — THE READING 
 OF THE LAW IN THE SYNAGOGUE — THE HAPHTARAH — A PSALM^THE 
 EPISTLE — THE GOSPEL — STANDING FOR THE GOSPEL-LECTION 
 — TRACES OF THE FOUR LECTIONS IN THE LITURGIES — MENTION OF 
 THE FOUR LESSONS BY THE FATHERS — THE SERMON — FORMERLY 
 MORE THAN ONE — PROBABLY AN EXPOSITION FOLLOWED EACH 
 LECTION — THE PROCESSION WITH THE GOSPEL — THE SCENE AS DE- 
 SCRIBED BY S. JOHN IN HEAVEN— AS SEEN IN MILAN CATHEDRAL — 
 THE women's ENTRANCES INTO THE CHURCH — REGULATIONS FOR 
 THE OBSERVANCE OF ORDER — THE PATTERN OF THE SHIP — NO 
 FORM OF PRAYER GIVEN IN THE DESCRIPTION IN THE SECOND BOOK 
 OF THE "CONSTITUTIONS" — DIFFERENT IN THE EIGHTH BOOK — 
 BENEDICTIONS AND RESPONSES. 
 
 The directions in the second book of the " Constitutions," 
 v^hich we have interrupted to give an account of the Collect, 
 go on : — 
 
 " In the middle let the bishop's throne be placed, and on 
 each side let the presbyters be seated ; and let the deacons 
 stand near in close and small-girt garments, for they are 
 like the mariners and managers of the ship. With regard 
 to the laity, let them sit on the other side " : that is of the 
 step, like those in the body of the ship below the quarterdeck. 
 
 " In the midst, let the reader stand upon some high place : 
 let him read the books of Moses, of Joshua son of Nun, of 
 the Judges, and of the Kings, and of the Chronicles, and 
 those written after the return from Captivity ; and besides 
 
I02 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 these the books of Job and of Solomon, and of the sixteen 
 prophets. But when two of these have been severally read, 
 let some other person sing the Psalms of David, and let 
 the people join in at the conclusion of the verses. After- 
 wards let the Acts be read, and the Epistles of Paul, which 
 he sent to the Churches, under the conduct of the Holy 
 Spirit ; and afterwards let a deacon or a presbyter read the 
 Gospels. And while the Gospel is read, let all the presbyters 
 and deacons and all the people stand up in great silence." 
 The lofty place from which the lessons are read must 
 be explained from the synagogue, where there was a sort 
 of desk at which the reader stood, on one side of the 
 building. This was reproduced in the Christian Church in 
 the ambonc. This name for the desk is etymologically the 
 same as that for the bema, and means' a projecting elevated 
 platform,* which took the form of a semicircle, and on 
 which stood the curule chair, whence the Latin name of 
 Tribunal. This platform came to be used for all persons of 
 eminence when seated in public, and was used for the clergy 
 of the Church in divine worship. Origen gives us a fuller 
 detailed account than that in the " Constitutions ; " according 
 to him the beina was semicircular, and the priests sat along 
 the curve, with the throne of the bishop in the midst. In 
 the 56th Canon of the Synod of Laodic^ea the presbytery 
 were forbidden to seat themselves there before the bishop 
 had taken his place. The avibone was probably a portion 
 of this platform, projecting into the body of the church, or 
 there may have been a separate raised dais in the nave, 
 whence the Lections were read. In the third vision of 
 Hermas, a work of the beginning of the second century, 
 we have the Church herself represented as an old woman 
 surrounded by four deacons, who shows him an ivory throne 
 covered with a linen cushion, and overspread with fine 
 white linen. She leads him to this seat, but he hesitates 
 
 * Bcma, from j3dw, ^a(vw ; Ambone, from dva^alvw. 
 
THE LECTIONS. IO3 
 
 to occupy it till the presbyters have taken their seats. We 
 can see in this that the arrangement of the beina was in vogue 
 as described in the " Constitutions " at a much earlier period. 
 In the catacombs Christ is represented on the throne as 
 teacher in the midst of the Apostles, just as the bishops 
 sat surrounded by the clergy. But about the fourth cen- 
 tury we meet with the ambonc as a raised desk, a distinct 
 article of furniture, used both as a place whence Lections 
 were read and sermons were preached. Probably originally 
 the Lections were read from the step of the benia. 
 
 In the synagogue, the Torah, or Law, was divided into 153 
 sections, so that in three years the whole was read through. 
 Subsequently these sections were made three times as long, 
 and the whole Law was read through in one year. This was 
 the practice at Babylon, but it was not adopted in Palestine in 
 the first century, and the portion read each Sabbath was 
 about fifty verses. In all probability the Early Church 
 adopted the division already in use in the synagogue. After 
 the reading' of the Law came an explanation given by the 
 reader ; then came a second reading, from the Prophets. 
 This was called the haphtarah, the closing lesson, because it 
 completed the service. It will be remembered that Christ at 
 Nazareth at the commencement of His ministry read the 
 haphtarah in the synagogue (Luke iv. 16-19), and afterwards 
 gave an explanation of it, which led to an uproar. It will be 
 seen that in the Church the same sequence was observed, the 
 Law first, and then the Prophets. Whether in the synagogue 
 the psalms were sung between the lessons, we do not know ; 
 but psalmody was certainly used. It will be seen by the order 
 in the " Constitutions " that a psalm was to be sung after the 
 conclusion of the reading from the Prophets, before the 
 reading of the Epistles ; and that the psalm was to be one 
 with a refrain, in which the congregation could join, as the 
 looth : P. " O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious." 
 R. " And His mercy endureth for ever." 
 
I04 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 After the psalm came the Epistle, and then the Gospel, for 
 which all stood. The usage of standing for the Gospel 
 Lection therefore dates back to a remote antiquity. In the 
 liturgy of S. Mark, the deacon calls to the congregation, 
 " Stand : let us hear the holy Gospel." 
 
 If, as we suppose, there was no written formulary of prayers 
 and thanksgivings for the Eucharist for two or three hundred 
 years, there may, nevertheless, have been a sort of schedule 
 of what the structure of the service was to be ; and then this 
 schedule may have been filled out in after times. With regard to 
 the four Lections ordered in the " Constitutions," we may note 
 that traces of such readings remain in many liturgies. In the 
 Constantinopolitan are three Lections, one from the Old Testa- 
 ment, then Epistle and Gospel. In the Seleucian are all four, 
 with the psalm between the Prophet and the Epistle, and 
 again between Epistle and Gospel. In the Armenian liturgy 
 are. Prophet, Epistle, and Gospel ; in that of North Africa, 
 according to S. Augustine, it was the same. In the Ambrosian 
 use of Milan it was also so, with the psalm as directed in the 
 " Constitutions," and this liturgy is still employed. In the 
 Roman Missal the prophecy is retained on certain days.* In 
 the ancient Galilean, and in the Spanish, both founded on the 
 use of Ephesus, there are Prophet, Apostle, Evangelist, with 
 the psalm with response, in the same place as described in the 
 " Constitutions." We may certainly conclude that in the 
 Apostolic Church the service began with a reading of the 
 Law, then with a lesson from a Prophet ; when the Apostles 
 sent Epistles to the Churches, then these Epistles were read ; 
 and when, finally, the Gospels were composed, then they took 
 the place of the narrative of Christ's life, and acts, and words, 
 related by the preacher. 
 
 The references to the four Lections, more or less distinct, that 
 
 * In our own Liturgy on certain days the Prophet is substituted for the Apostle, 
 before the Gospel. 
 
THE LECTIONS. IO5 
 
 we find in the early Fathers are numerous. It is not, indeed, 
 always certain that they are speaking of Law, Prophet, Epistle, 
 Gospel as Lections, but it is probable that the allusions they 
 make owe their significance to the familiarity with this quad- 
 ruple reading of those to whom they write. Thus Clement 
 of Alexandria speaks of the " ecclesiastical symphony of 
 Law and Prophets, and the Apostles with the Gospel." * 
 
 In the very early Epistle to Diognetus, in the hyperbolical 
 description of the Eucharist, towards the close, of which the 
 writer will not give particulars, but which he promises 
 Diognetus shall know if he places himself under instruction, 
 he says of the service : " Then the fear of the Law is chanted, 
 the grace of the PropJiets made known, the faith of the Gospel 
 is established, the tradition of the Apostles is preserved.""|" 
 
 From Origen we learn that the Lections of the wars of the 
 Israelites would not have been read in the Church were it not 
 that they symbolized the struggles of Christians against 
 their spiritual foes ; and he refers the institution of these 
 Lections to S. Paul. He speaks of the lessons being in por- 
 tions. After having given a homily on Isaiah, he says that 
 his- hearers will learn something to the purpose from the 
 reading in Leviticus which will occur in the next " collect " or 
 assembly.+ Tertullian, in one of his grand passages against 
 heretics, appeals to the unity of the tradition and usages of 
 the Church, traceable to Apostolic sources ; and then, speaking 
 of the African Church, he says: "She mingles Law and Prophets 
 with the writings of Evangelists and Apostles, from which 
 she drinks her faith ; this she seals with the (baptismal) water, 
 arrays with the Holy Ghost, feeds with the Eucharist, and 
 cheers with martyrdom. "§ This may mean merely that the 
 Church has the books, but he seems to associate it with a 
 Mass of the Catechumens. 
 
 * Strom, vi., c. ii. f Ep. ad. Diognet. c. 11. 
 
 + In Isai. Horn i. § De Praescrip. c. 36. 
 
I06 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 The " Constitutions " continue thus : — 
 
 " In the next place, let the presbyters one by one, not all 
 together, exhort the people, and the bishop in the last place, 
 as being the commander." 
 
 It would seem from this that the Lections were followed by 
 a series of exhortations, but this is not quite certain. The 
 Jewish method in the synagogue was for the reading of the 
 Law to be followed by an explanation, and then the reading of 
 the Prophet to be succeeded by another. Perhaps this was 
 what took place in the early Church, and the direction in the 
 text may mean, not that after the lessons were finished there 
 ensued a succession of short sermons, but that after the 
 reading of the Law one of the presbyters stood up and gave 
 an exhortation thereon, showing what in the Law was abrogated, 
 and what remained fast, and how that the sacrifices of the 
 Law pointed to Christ. When he sat down, then followed the 
 reading of the Prophet, after which another presbyter rose 
 and showed how that the prophecy declared the coming of the 
 kingdom and the incarnation, the passion and the glorification 
 of Christ. Then ensued the psalm with its responses. Next 
 came the reading of an Apostolic epistle, and this also was 
 followed by a word of exhortation on the subject. After the 
 Gospel the bishop rose, and he delivered the final address on 
 the mysteries of the Gospel. 
 
 In the account of the worship of Heaven by S. John the 
 book is in the hand of the Eternal One on His throne. And 
 the Lamb, " as it had been slain . . . came and took the 
 book out of the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne." 
 The meaning is the Revelation of the Gospel ; the m}'stery 
 of the Incarnation which was hid is taken by Christ, the 
 priest and victim, and He reveals the purpose of God to man. 
 But S. John is probably describing or referring to some cere- 
 mony in use in the Church on earth, and this was the taking 
 of the Gospel, which was in the hand of the bishop, and 
 
THE LECTIONS. lO/ 
 
 bringing it forward to the amboiic, to be read to the 
 people.* 
 
 The bishop in the Christian Church sat where in the syna- 
 gogue is the ark containing the Law ; and the fetching of the 
 sacred roll and the bringing it to the desk is attended with 
 much ceremony. When the Church possessed the Book of 
 the Gospels, the ceremony which in the synagogue attended 
 the bringing forth of the Torah was transferred to the bring- 
 ing forth of the Gospel. To the present day in the Roman 
 Church it is done with some pomp. At Milan, in the splendid 
 and solemn cathedral, the writer has seen a lector robed in 
 green and black take the Book of the Gospels from the altar, 
 committed to him by the celebrant who represents the bishop, 
 and then, attended by burning lights and attendants, he 
 passed down the choir, and ascended a flight of stairs to the 
 ambone, a pulpit on the same level and of the same size as 
 that from which sermons are preached, but on the north side 
 instead of the south, and there read the Lection for the day. 
 Now it must be remembered that the Milanese use was 
 probably brought from Ephesus, and it was at Ephesus that 
 S. John the Divine passed his latter days, and there wrote his 
 Gospel, and perhaps also the Apocalypse. He seems in that 
 vision of the taking and bringing forward of the book to 
 allude to an usage analogous to the production of the Torah 
 in the synagogue, but transferred to the solemn bringing 
 forth of the Gospel. But in that vision he shows that Christ 
 is not only priest and victim, but also the lector, the declarer 
 of the mysteries of God to the people. 
 
 The " Constitutions " order further : — 
 
 " Let the porter stand by the entries of the men, and 
 observe them. Let the deaconesses also stand at those of the 
 
 * With this agrees the account in the visions of Hermas, where the Church 
 herself is represented on the Episcopal throne, holding the book in her hand. . 
 
I08 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 women, like shipmen. For the same description and pattern 
 was both in the Tabernacle of the testimony and in the 
 Temple of God." 
 
 In an Eastern house — and it was the same in a Greek and 
 Roman house — the women had their court and apartments 
 communicating with the main court by a passage and door. 
 We can see how this arrangement continued later. When 
 there was a church built, then the men were expected to 
 enter by the main door, and the women came in and went 
 out by a side door. Such doors are found in the old rude 
 churches in the catacombs. The doorkeeper was an im- 
 portant functionary ; he had to watch in time of persecution 
 that none but the faithful and those under instruction for 
 baptism were admitted. So important was his office con- 
 sidered, in that he held the life of the faithful in his hands, 
 and any want of caution on his part might lead to disastrous 
 results, that he was after a while regarded as a minister of the 
 Church, invested with special sacredness, 
 
 " If anyone be found sitting out of his place, let him be 
 rebuked by the deacon, as a manager of the foreship, and be 
 removed into the place proper for him ; for the Church is not 
 only like a ship, but also like a sheepfold." 
 
 Here we have an allusion to the benches of rowers in the 
 ship, and the ruler of the rowers putting the right men on 
 their proper benches. In a trireme there were three stages of 
 oars and rowers. So in a fold there is a compartment for the 
 sheep, another for the goats. It will be seen by the plans of 
 churches in the catacombs that these also were divided into 
 pens or sections. The meaning of the text is that the faith- 
 ful are to be all together in their special part, the Catechumens 
 preparing for baptism in theirpart,thc penitents again separated, 
 and the encrgumcns, the insane, also apart. As there was a 
 ruler over each stage of oars in a ship, so was there a deacon 
 to look after each class in the Church, and to see that the 
 
THE LECTIONS. IO9 
 
 classes did not mix. We shall see presently that there was a 
 necessity for this, to avoid confusion. That this is the 
 meaning of the order is made abundantly clear by what 
 ensues. 
 
 " For as the shepherds place all the brute creatures dis- 
 tinctly, goats and sheep, according to their herd and their 
 age, and all go together, like to like ; so is it to be in the 
 Church. Let the young sit by themselves, if there be a 
 place for them ; if not, let them stand upright. But let 
 those that are already stricken in years, sit in order. For the 
 children which stand, let their fathers and mothers take them 
 to them. Let the young women also sit by themselves, if 
 there be a place for them ; but if there be not, let them stand 
 behind the (elder) women. Let those women which are 
 married, and have children, be placed by themselves ; but let 
 the virgins, and the widows, and the old women, stand or sit 
 before the rest ; and let the deacon be the disposer of the 
 places, that everyone of these that comes in may go to his 
 proper place, and may not sit at the entrance. In like 
 manner, let the deacon oversee the people, that nobody 
 whisper, nor go to sleep, nor nod ; for all ought to stand in 
 the Church wisely, soberly, and attentively, having their 
 thoughts fixed upon the word of the Lord. 
 
 " After this, let all rise up with one consent, and looking 
 towards the East, after the Catechumens and penitents are 
 gone out, pray to God eastwards." 
 
 It will be noticed that in all this we have not a single form 
 of prayer ; only a general sketch of the conduct of divine 
 service and the order of the parts. In the complete liturgy 
 given in the eighth book all this is altered ; there we have full 
 detail. That which is there given agrees with what is directed 
 in the text we have taken from Book 2, but it is filled out. 
 The times of persecution were over, and the compiler had no 
 scruple in writing down the form of prayer and thanksgiving. 
 
no OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 What he gives is quite as ancient as the rules in the second 
 book, though committed to writing later. 
 
 This is the account in the eighth book. 
 
 " After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the 
 Epistles, and Acts, and the Gospels, let the bishop salute the 
 Church, saying : The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 love of God and our Father, and the communion of the 
 Holy Ghost be with you all. 
 
 " And let all answer : And with thy Spirit. After this, 
 let him address to the people words of exhortation, and 
 when he hath accomplished the word of teaching, then all 
 standing up, let the deacon ascend to some high place, and 
 proclaim : Let none of the hearers : let none of the un- 
 believers (remain)." 
 
Chapter XIL 
 the gospels. 
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE PRO-ANAPHORA ON WORSHIPPERS — A SERVICE OF 
 WITNESS-BEARING TO CHRIST — THE CONTRAST TO THE SCENE IN THE 
 HALL OF CAIAPHAS WITH HIS FALSE WITNESSES — LIGHTS AT THE 
 GOSPEL — THE ORIGIN OF THE USAGE— THE ORIGIN OF THE FOUR 
 GOSPELS — THE APOSTOLIC MEMORABILIA NOT ORIGINALLY UNITED 
 INTO GOSPELS— DIFFERENT MEMORABILIA IN USE IN DIFFERENT 
 CHURCHES— THE ORIGIN OF S. LUKE'S GOSPEL — OF S. MATTHEW'S 
 GOSPEL— OF THAT OF S. MARK — SAME MATERIAL WORKED UP IN THE 
 GOSPELS OF SAINT MATTHEW AND SAINT MARK — THE ONLY SATIS- 
 FACTORY WAY OF ACCOUNTING FOR THE DISCREPANCIES IN THE 
 SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS — DIFFICULTY OF CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGE- 
 MENT ACKNOWLEDGED BY ORIGEN — FAITH DOES NOT DEPEND ON 
 ORDER OF CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE, BUT ON THE TRUTH OF THE 
 FACTS RECORDED. 
 
 The Divine Service, as far as we have now seen it rendered, 
 must have had a solemn and impressive effect on hearers and 
 the uninstructed who were suffered to be present. 
 
 The effect was one of the stepping forward of testimony on 
 testimony to Christ. First came Moses. The Law was 
 brought forward to the elevated place above the floor where 
 stood the people, and he gave his witness. Then came 
 forward the Prophets. Their words of rebuke, and warning, 
 and vision, as to the coming of the Messiah were read. Next 
 advanced the Apostles ; their epistles were read, showing their 
 living, burning faith. Lastly, Christ Himself stood forth, 
 revealed in the Gospel of His words and works. 
 
 There was something even dramatic, unconsciously dramatic, 
 in the arrangement. The sequence grew up quite naturally ; 
 
112 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 but when established, it constituted a wondrous whole, which 
 not only must have impressed the audience, but which did — for 
 we find evidence of the impression in the early Apologists, as 
 we shall see presently. 
 
 But there was another feature in this coming forward of 
 testimonies to Christ which was significant, and which 
 deserves notice. To understand its force, we must go back 
 to the scene on Good Friday morning in the hall of Caiaphas. 
 
 That hall was an atrium, in which burnt the fire at which 
 the servants and Peter warmed themselves. Raised a step or 
 two above it, at the further side to the entrance was the 
 tablimun, with seats against two of the sides, on which sat 
 the council of the priests. On each side of the tabliiiuvi, 
 sometimes opening out of the atrhim, sometimes out of the 
 tablinuDi, were two doors communicating with small rooms. 
 In one of these, that on the further side to Christ, lurked the 
 false witnesses. According to Jewish law, the \\'itnesses 
 remained hidden from the eye of the accused till the time 
 came for them to produce their testimony. Whilst in conceal- 
 ment, however, they were required to observe the face of the 
 accused, so as to be quite satisfied as to the identity of the 
 man ; to facilitate their observation of him, if needful, lights 
 were held before his face, strongly illuminating his features, 
 whilst the witnesses were unobserved in the dark. 
 
 Now picture the scene. The servants of the high priest 
 hold up their torches before the Lord, as He stands before 
 the chief priests in the tabliiiiun, and from the dark door 
 into the windowless store-room at the side peep the witnesses. 
 The signal for them to advance is given, and forth they glide, 
 one after another, mount the bcuin, and produce their false 
 testimony. Change the scene. Again an atrium, in which 
 stands thick a Christian congregation. Round the tablimini 
 sit the elders of the Church which has risen out of fallen 
 Jewdom. Forth from the side doors come the Jewish testi- 
 monies. But who are they .'' Moses and the Prophets come 
 
THE GOSPELS. II3 
 
 to bear true witness to Christ. Then the Apostles themselves, 
 and lastly, with torches held aloft before Him, Christ in His 
 Gospel. 
 
 This custom of holding lights at the reading of the Gospels 
 is very ancient. S. Jerome speaks of it, " that by the symbol 
 of natural light, that light might be shown forth of which the 
 psalmist speaks when he says. Thy Word is a lamp to my 
 feet."* When did this custom spring up .■* Was it merely a 
 late homage to the Gospel, a symbolic act to show forth the 
 truth that Christ was the true light ? Or did it descend from 
 Apostolic institution — a recollection of that scene in the hall 
 of Caiaphas, and a desire to show honour to Him whom the 
 Jews dishonoured — that as they produced false witnesses, the 
 Church should produce true witnesses ; as they exhibited 
 Him by torches that He might be falsely accused, the Church 
 should honour Him with torches, revealing Him as the very 
 eternal and superhuman light of the world ? We cannot say. 
 
 On the way to Emmaus Christ had Himself indicated the 
 line along which proof of His mission was to be sought and 
 found. " Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He ex- 
 pounded unto them " (the disciples on the way) " in all the 
 Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke xxiv. 27). 
 Moreover, in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, He had 
 referred back to " Moses and the Prophets." 
 
 In the vision of Ezekiel, where the throne of God is de- 
 scribed, there are lamps of fire moving about it ; and there are- 
 the four mystic beasts, which, as soon as the canonical Gospels- 
 were fixed at four, were taken to symbolize the evangelists. 
 The greatest reverence was shown to the Gospels in the earljr 
 Church after the canon was fixed. At a Council of the 
 Church the Gospel Book was placed in the midst of the 
 assembly, to show that Christ Himself was the Head and 
 authority of the Council ; and it was placed in a position 
 
 Cont. Vigil, c. 3. 
 
114 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 of honour in the church, in a sort of ark or cabinet, when 
 not exposed on a small table or altar. As, however, we are 
 considering Christian worship at the earliest period, before 
 the canon was fixed, it will be necessary at this point to 
 say something about the origin of our four Gospels. 
 
 It must be borne w^ell in mind that Christian worship was 
 organized long before the Gospels were written, and when 
 there were only the Law and the Prophets as recognized 
 authoritative Scriptures. But before the Church had the 
 Gospels, the Epistles were read in divine service.* It is 
 probable that when the Apostles founded Churches, their 
 instructions on the sayings and doings of Jesus were taken 
 down, and in the absence of the Apostles these were read to 
 the congregation. In the account of the liturgy in the eighth 
 book of the "Constitutions," the Gospels are already fixed and 
 ordered to be read ; so also in the account in the second 
 book ; but it was not so, as already shown, in the original 
 liturgy of S. James. The ancient Gospels were not divided 
 into chapters, but into pericopes, or portions read to the con- 
 gregation. But when we say that the Gospels were so 
 divided, we are speaking of a later use. Originally only these 
 fragmentary memorials of our Lord by the Apostles existed, 
 and the extant Gospels are made up of these portions more 
 •or less chronologically pieced together, again to be broken up 
 into Sunday and festival Lections without regard to the 
 original pericopes. To these fragmentary records S. Luke 
 alludes when he says that "many had taken in hand to arrange 
 in a consecutive account {avaTa^aa-Qai i^n'iy}j(7iv)f those things 
 which were most fully believed " among the faithful. These 
 he "traced up from the beginning accurately one after another" 
 yjrapr]Ko\ovBi}KVTi ai/coOev ttho-iv aKpijSioi KaOepij^Y 
 
 Here we have clearly the existence of records, disconnected 
 
 * Col. iv. i6 ; I Thess. v. 27. They were handed on from one Church to 
 another (Col. iv. 16). 
 
 + This may however be rendered "To go regularly through again." 
 
THE GOSPELS. II5 
 
 in the first place, which many strung together in consecutive 
 order, with more or less success, and S. Luke takes pains, as 
 he tells us, to make this order chronological. Some Churches 
 had one set of memorabilia — recollections of the Lord's 
 sayings and doings by their Apostle — others had a different 
 set. That of Antioch had the memorials of S. Peter, that of 
 Jerusalem the recollections of S. James, S. Simeon, and S. 
 Jude. S. Luke indicates the source whence he drew his 
 account of the nativity and early years of the Lord, the 
 recollections of the Virgin Mother, communicated to him 
 orally. He speaks of her as keeping in her heart the things 
 that happened, and pondering on them (ii. 19, 51). Another 
 time it is contemporaries, Mary certainly included (i. 66). 
 On both occasions it is in reference to events connected with 
 the Infancy. Why did he thus insist on her having taken 
 pains to remember these things ? Surely to show whence he 
 drew his information. He narrated these events on the testi- 
 mony of her word ; and her word is to be relied on ; for 
 these things, he assures us, were deeply impressed on her 
 memory. 
 
 The memorabilia in use in the different Churches founded 
 by the Apostles would probably be strung together in such 
 order as they were generally read. Such an order would be 
 only approximately chronological ; therefore many took in 
 hand, as S. Luke tells us, to correct this, and he took special 
 care to give the sequence of events as they occurred, not as 
 they were read, by obtaining information from the best 
 sources available.* It is probable that the " Recollections " 
 
 * The author has gone into the matter with considerable fulness in his " Lost 
 and Hostile Gospels," Williams and Norgate, 1874, to which he refers his readers 
 for particulars. It is noticeable that Justin Martyr always speaks of the Gospel 
 records as the " Memoirs of the Apostles." In the ist Apology : "The Apostles, 
 in the Memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels;" "we find recorded 
 in the Memoirs of His Apostles" (" Dial. c. Trypho," c. 100, cf. also c. 103, c. 106) ; 
 and his quotations are not apparently made from any of the Gospels as we have 
 them. 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 of S. Peter, written in disjointed notes by S. Mark, were in 
 circulation through many Churches before S. Mark set to 
 work to co-ordinate them and compile them into the Gospel 
 that goes by his name. From Antioch to Rome they were 
 read at the divine service, and some of these, which had 
 found their way to the Churches of Asia Minor, have been 
 taken up by S. Luke and incorporated into his Gospel. 
 Others circulating in Palestine were in the hands of the 
 compiler of S. Matthew's Gospel. 
 
 S. Luke was not himself a Jew,* and when he wrote the 
 Acts he wrote in Greek, free from Hebraisms ; but it was 
 otherwise with the Gospel. The first two chapters are totally 
 distinct in style from the rest, and are so coloured with 
 Hebraisms that they may be translated into Aramaic almost 
 verbatim. They reveal their origin as a Greek version from 
 an Aramaic text, just as certainly as a poor translation from 
 the French, by the structure of the sentences, declares that it 
 is not English in origin. As S. Luke, S. Mark, and the 
 composer of the first Gospel acted independently, their 
 chronological sequences differ. Their Gospels are three 
 kaleidoscopic groups of the same pieces. 
 
 According to a fragment of a lost work by Papias, a con- 
 temporary of Polycarp, who was a disciple of S. John, and 
 who carefully collected all information he could obtain con- 
 cerning the Apostles, " Matthew wrote his sayings in the 
 Hebrew dialect, and everyone translated it as he was able."t 
 Irena:us, a disciple of Polycarp, and therefore likely also to 
 have trustworthy information on this matter, says; "Matthew, 
 among the Hebrews wrote a Gospel in their own language, 
 while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome, 
 and founding the Church there." J In a fragment also of 
 Irenaeus it is said that " the Gospel according to Matthew 
 was written to the Jews." 
 
 • Col. iv. II, J4. t Eusel)., II. E., iii., c. 39. t Ibid., v., c. 8. 
 
THE GOSPELS. 11/ 
 
 From what Papias says, the Gospel as originally written 
 was — I. In Hebrew ; 2. Was a collection of the sayings of 
 Jesus. These sayings, " logia, " could only be His discourses, 
 and Papias gave his book accordingly the title of " Com- 
 mentary on the Sayings of the Lord." 
 
 This brief notice is sufficient to show that S. Matthew's 
 collection was not the Gospel as it now stands. It was not a 
 biography, it was solely a collection of Christ's discourses. This 
 is made clearer by what Papias says in the same work on S. 
 Mark. He relates that the latter wrote not only what Jesus 
 said, but also what he did ; whereas Matthew wrote only 
 what had been said. 
 
 The work of Matthew, therefore, contained no record of 
 the doings of our Lord, and the sayings were given in the 
 vernacular Aramaic. 
 
 According to the preface of Papias, he had obtained his 
 knowledge, not directly from the Apostles, but from the 
 mouths of men who had companied with the old priests and 
 disciples of the Apostles. Besides the testimony of these, 
 Papias appealed further to the evidence of Aristion and the 
 priest John, disciples of the Lord, still alive and bearing 
 testimony when he wrote. 
 
 Papias said of S. Mark's Gospel : — 
 
 " John the Priest said this : Mark being the interpreter of 
 Peter, whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great accuracy, 
 but not, however, in the order in which it was spoken or done 
 by our Lord ; for he himself had neither heard nor followed 
 our Lord, but, as before said, he was in company with Peter, 
 who gave him such instruction as occasion called forth, but 
 did not study to give a history of our Lord's discourses. 
 Wherefore Mark has not erred in anything, by writing this 
 and that as he remembered them ; for he was carefully 
 attentive to one thing — not to pass by anything he had heard, 
 nor to state anything falsely in these accounts."* 
 
 * Euseb., n. E., iii., c. 39. 
 
Il8 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 John accordingly gives five characteristics of the work of 
 Mark :— 
 
 1. A striving after accuracy. 
 
 2. Want of chronological succession in his narrative, which 
 had rather the character of a string of anecdotes and sayings 
 than a biography. 
 
 3. It was composed of records of both the sayings and the 
 doings of Jesus. 
 
 4. It was no collection of sayings only (crwra^i? XoyioDv^^ 
 like the work of Matthew. 
 
 These characteristic features of the work of Mark, as 
 described by John the Priest, agree with the Mark Gospel as 
 we have it, some of the special features of which are : — 
 
 1. Want of order : it is made up of a string of episodes and 
 anecdotes, and of sayings manifestly unconnected with 
 each other. 
 
 2. The order of events is wholly different from that in the 
 Dther Gospels. 
 
 3. Both the sayings and the doings are given in it. 
 
 4. It contains no long discourses, like those in the Gospel of 
 S. Matthew, arranged in systematic order. 
 
 5. It contains many incidents which point to S. Peter as 
 the authority for them, and recall his preaching. 
 
 To this last belong — the manner in which the Gospel opens 
 with the baptism of John, just as S. Peter's address (Acts x. 
 37-41) begins with that event also ; the many little incidents 
 mentioned which give token of having been related by an 
 eye-witness, and in which the narrative of S. Matthew is 
 deficient.'' S. Mark's Gospel is also rich in indications of the 
 
 * Mark i. 20, " They loft their father Zcbedee in tlie sliip Tc/Z/i /'/!t'a''ay-/a^<7wr^rj;" 
 i. 31, " //^ fooi her by the hand;" ii. 3, "A paralytic, borne of four ;" ii. 4, 
 "They broke up the roof and let down the bed ; " iii. 10, "They pressed upon 
 Him to touch Him ; " iii. 20, "They could not so much as eat bread ;" iii. 32, 
 "The multitude sat about Him;" iv. 36, "They took Him even as He 7vas" 
 
THE GOSPELS. 1 19 
 
 feelings of the people towards Jesus, such as an eye-witness 
 must have observed * and of notices of movements of the 
 body — small, significant acts, which could not escape one 
 present, who described what he had seen.f 
 
 That the composer of S. Matthew's Gospel as we have 
 it made use of the materials out of which S. Mark com- 
 piled his, that is, of the Memorabilia of S. Peter, is evident. 
 Whole passages occur word for word, or nearly so, in the 
 Gospel of S. Matthew. 
 
 That this incorporation took place before the Gospel of 
 S. Mark was put together into one consecutive narrative — 
 that is, while it was in circulation merely as anecdotes of 
 the Lord, is also apparent, because the order in S. 
 Matthew and the order in S. Mark differ. The compilator 
 of the first Gospel not only used these anecdotes written down 
 from the mouth of S. Peter by his disciple, Mark, but he also 
 slightly altered them in some places, where he either mis- 
 understood them, or thought they wanted explanation. Two 
 instances will suffice. 
 
 In S. Mark (xii. 8) it is said that the vine-dressers, when the 
 son came to them, "slew him and cast him out," meaning that 
 they slew the son and cast forth the dead body. The 
 compiler of S. Matthew did not catch this, so he altered 
 the sentence into, " They cast him out : and slew him." 
 
 In S. Matthew (x. 11) occurs the unmeaning command, 
 
 without His going home to get what was necessary; iv. 38, " 0« a pillow ;" 
 V. 3-5, 25-34 ; vi. 40, the ranks, the hundreds, the green grass; vi. 53-56; x. 17, 
 "There came one running, and kneeled to Him;" x. 50, "Casting away His 
 robe ; " xi. 4, " A colt tied by a door without in a place where two ways met ; " 
 and many others. 
 
 * Mark i, 33, 45 ; ii. 2, 13 ; iii. 9, 20, 32 ; iv. 10 ; v. 21, 24, 31 ; vi. 31, 55 ; 
 viii. 34 ; xi. 18. 
 
 f Mark i. 7, " He bowed Himself;" iii. 5, " He looked round with anger;" 
 ix. 38, " He sat down ; " x. 16, " He took them up in His arms, and laid His 
 hands on them ; " xiv. 3, " She brake the box ; " xiv. 40, " They knew not what 
 to answer Him ; " xiv. 4, 67 ; &c. 
 
I20 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 " Into whatsoever town or village ye enter, remain therein till 
 ye leave it." The true sense is only ascertained by reference 
 to S. Mark, where (vi. lo) we find that the command ran, 
 " Wherever, in whatsoever town or village ye enter into a 
 house, remain in that house, till ye leave that town or 
 village." This is the paraphrase ; by leaving out the 
 word "house,", the Matthew compiler made nonsense of 
 the sentence. 
 
 It is abundantly evident that the deutero-Matthew, he 
 who ingrafted into the book of the Sayings of the Lord Jesus 
 the anecdotes of His doings, laid under contribution a 
 large number of fragmentary memorabilia. He sorted them 
 out, and wove them in with the " Logia," written by S. 
 Matthew, and afterwards, independently, S. Mark compiled 
 his Gospel. Thus, S. Matthew's is the first Gospel in order of 
 composition, though much of the material of S. Mark's 
 Gospel was written and in circulation first. 
 
 The theory that the Synoptical Gospels were composed of 
 various disconnected materials, variously united into consecu- 
 tive biographies, was accepted by Bishop Marsh, and it is the 
 only theory that relieves the theologian from the unsatisfactory 
 obligation of making "harmonies" of the Gospels. If we 
 adopt the received popular conception of the composition of the 
 Synoptical Gospels, we not only go against distinct testimony, 
 given by those of the age nearest the apostolic times and to 
 the composition of the Gospels, but we are also driven to 
 desperate shifts to fit them together, and reconcile their 
 discrepancies. The difficulty of effecting such a harmony was 
 felt by the early Christian writers. Origen says that the 
 attempt to reconcile them made him giddy. Eusebius 
 adventured on an explanation " of the discords of the evan- 
 gelists." S. Ambrose exercised his pen on a concordance ; 
 S. Augustine, in his efforts to force the Gospels into agree- 
 ment, was driven to strange suppositions — as that when our 
 Lord went through Jericho there were two blind men there, 
 
THE GOSPELS. 121 
 
 one by the road-side leading into the city, another by the 
 road-side leading out of it on the further side, and that both 
 were healed under very similar circumstances. 
 
 Such an admission as that the Synoptical Gospels were 
 composed in the manner pointed out in no way affects their 
 incomparable value. Faith does not depend on the chrono- 
 logical sequence of the events, but on the verity of the events 
 themselves. " Never mind," said Tertullian, " if there does 
 occur some variation in the order of the narratives, provided 
 that there be agreement in the essential matters of the 
 faith." " See ! " exclaimed S. Chrysostom, " how, through 
 the contradictions of the evangelical history in minor 
 particulars, the truth of the main facts transpires, and the 
 trustworthiness of the authors is made clear." 
 
 In every thing, both human and divine, where united, there 
 is a union of infallibility in that which is essential, and of 
 fallibility in non-essentials. " Many things divine — many 
 things human," was the motto Tholuck inscribed on his copy 
 of the sacred oracles. 
 
Chapter XIII. 
 
 THE DISMISSALS. 
 
 THE ORDER TO DEPART — EARNEST HEARERS ADMITTED TO THE PRO- 
 ANAPHORA — THE DIVISIONS OF THE CATECHUMENATE OF 
 COMPARATIVELY LATE DEVELOPMENT — THE COMPETENTES — IT IS 
 DOUBTFUL WHETHER THOSE ABOUT TO BE BAPTIZED WERE 
 INSTRUCTED IN THE MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST — THE TERM 
 COMPETENTES PROBABLY EXTENDED TO THE BAPTIZED UNDER 
 INSTRUCTION FOR THE EUCHARIST— THE COMPLETE FORMS OF 
 DISMISSALS NOT PART OF THE ORIGINAL PRO-ANAPHORA — PARAL- 
 LELISM IN THE DISMISSALS — THE FORM OF DISMISSAL AS IT STOOD 
 ORIGINALLY — REMAINS OF THE DISMISSALS IN THE LITURGIES — 
 WEEKLY COMMUNION THE RULE — DECLINE OF ZEAL AND CESSATION 
 OF FREQUENT COMMUNION — CONSEQUENCE, EITHER THAT THE NON- 
 COMMUNICANTS WENT OUT WITH THE CATECHUMENS— OR THAT 
 THEY REMAINED ON WITHOUT COMMUNICATING — THE LATTER 
 ARRANGEMENT GENERALLY ADOPTED— DOUBTFUL WHICH WAS AND IS 
 THE BEST PLAN— THE ENGLISH CHURCH LAYS DOWN NO RULE. 
 
 After the sermon, the deacon, " ascending some place," 
 proclaimed, " Let none of the hearers (remain). Let none of 
 the unbelievers (remain)." 
 
 S. Paul speaks of the unlearned and unbelievers being 
 admitted to the service of the Church (i Cor. xiv. i6, 23), so 
 that, no doubt, whenever it was possible without incurring 
 risk, such earnest heathen were admitted as were inquiring into 
 the tenets and worship of the Christians, but who had not as 
 yet made up their minds to enrol themselves as Catechumens. 
 
 After their departure, " When quiet has been resumed," 
 continues the rubric in the liturgy, " Let the deacon say, Ye 
 that arc Catechumens, pray." 
 
 The discipline of the Catechumenate was not developed in 
 
THE DISMISSALS. 12^ 
 
 the Apostolic age, but the question must soon have arisen^ 
 how and for how long seekers were to be trained, before they 
 were admitted to full knowledge of the truth, and admitted 
 to full privileges. Various names are employed by early 
 writers to designate these candidates, and it has been fancied 
 that a whole category of classes was elaborated, going by the 
 different names. Modern criticism has dispelled this theory.* 
 The length of preparation depended on the sincerity of the 
 candidates. They were instructed in the first principles of 
 the faith till they were thought ready to be baptized, when the 
 final instructions were given them on the deepest mysteries of 
 the faith, and they were made to learn a creed by heart. The 
 giving to them of the creed was called the Tradition^ and their 
 recital of it, the Reddition. In the final stage, when fasting, 
 making amends for wrongs done, effecting reconciliation with 
 enemies, paying up debts previous to baptism, they were 
 called coinpetentes, or photizomenoi^ those that were being 
 illuminated. 
 
 A question still remains not fully solved, whether some 
 sort of preparation was not gone through after Baptism, 
 before admission to the Eucharist, to Communion ; and 
 if so, whether the designation of Seekers and Those-being- 
 illuminated, being initiated, may not originally have applied, 
 not only to those preparing for the minor initiation by 
 Baptism, but for the major initiation through Communion ; that 
 is to say, whether the full explanation of the Eucharistic 
 mystery was not made after Baptism, and not before. A seal, 
 the sign of the cross, was the token of admission into the 
 class of Catechumens ; then came instructions on the truths 
 of Christianity and the acquisition of the Creed, the 
 preparation for Baptism. 
 
 Then came the initiation into the doctrine of Communion 
 
 * Funk : in Tubingen Quartalschrift, 1883 ; see also Rochat : de Catechumenat 
 au IVme Siecle ; Paris, 1875. 
 
124 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 with Christ by the Eucharist. Unfortunately we have not 
 sufficient information as to the system in the first ages to 
 answer with certainty whether this was the rule, but it seems 
 most probable that it was so, and that the term " those 
 being illuminated," " those being initiated," may have 
 applied to both classes, such as were preparing for initiation 
 by Baptism, and such as were preparing for perfection by the 
 Eucharist.* Be this as it may, we must conclude that at a 
 tolerably early period some sort of discipline must have been 
 agreed upon both as to Catechumens and as to those Chris- 
 tians who had lapsed after baptism into grievous sin, and 
 who repented. S. Paul implies some sort of penitential 
 discipline, when he writes about the incestuous Corinthian 
 (2 Cor, ii. 6, 7). 
 
 The form of service as given in the " Constitutions," Book 
 viii., shows us the discipline respecting Catechumens and other 
 classes fully developed. This form of service did not belong 
 to the original office ; it was an adjunct appended when it 
 became advisable to make some distinction between classes 
 not admitted to the Eucharist. 
 
 Originally all non-communicants went out when the deacon 
 called to the hearers and unbelievers to depart, and then 
 the Eucharist began at once with the Offertory. 
 
 But probably soon a change was made. In the Eucharistic 
 
 * The usual, the received notion is that the baptized passed at once to partici- 
 pation in the Eucharist ; that therefore the greatest of mysteries was confided to 
 the candidate before he had shown himself worthy of the first. Is this likely ? 
 Moreover, Dionysius, in his " Terrestrial Hierarchy," clearly implies a double and 
 consequent initiation. There are, according to him, several Teletes or ends to 
 which the aspirant strains. The first Telete is the spiritual generation, the 
 initiation into supernatural life, which is accomplished in Baptism. The cere- 
 monies he describes minutely, then gives what he calls the contemplation, i.e., 
 the inner spiritual signification of the symbolic acts. After that comes the 
 mystery of the synaxis or communion, to which Telete the aspirant is next 
 initiated, whilst still in his baptismal white robes, which were worn for some time, 
 probably till he had been admitted to the Eucharist, after which, being fully 
 illuminated, he laid them aside. The Eucharist was, according to Dionysius, 
 the Tclelc of Teletes, summing up in itself all precedent mysteries. 
 
THE DISMISSALS. 1 25 
 
 Service, after the oblation of the elements, ensued a great 
 intercessional Litany, in which among other classes prayed 
 for were those seeking baptism — the penitents, the insane, 
 and those seeking perfect illumination. In order to construct 
 a service for them, the bidding prayers, responses, and collects 
 referring to them were removed from this Litany, and were 
 put at the end of the Pro-Anaphora, to form the conclusion 
 of that service ; so that there might be an orderly sequence 
 of dismissals, first of the — (i) Catechumens ; (2) next of the 
 insane ; (3) then of those seeking illumination ; (4) lastly, of 
 the penitents. 
 
 We can see how here a certain parallelism was observed. 
 
 A. The I St class of seekers after Light. 
 
 B. The 1st class of those darkened by Satan, 
 C. The 2nd class of seekers after Light. 
 
 D. The 2nd class of those darkened by Satan. 
 
 If, as we are inclined to suspect, the first class of seekers 
 after Light meant those seeking illumination through Bap- 
 tism, and the second class those seeking illumination through 
 the Eucharist, we can see how also in the antithetical dis- 
 missals we have also two distinct stages. The first are those 
 possessed in mind by the evil spirit, to be expelled by 
 exorcism. The second are those who have fallen in heart 
 and soul under the power of the evil spirit, to be expelled by 
 repentance previous to reception. 
 
 The formulary used for each class is remarkable. We give 
 that for Catechumens. The others resemble it with the 
 solitary exception of that for the possessed. They^ and they 
 only, are not bidden pray for themselves, because mentally 
 incapable, or supposed to be incapable, of so doing. 
 
 Deacon. Ye that are Catechumens, pray. 
 People. Lord, have mercy. 
 
 CatecJiumens pray (kneeling) in silence. 
 Deacon. Bidding prayer for the Catechumens. 
 
126 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 People. Lord, have mercy. 
 
 Catechumens, still kneeling, continue in prayer. 
 
 Deacon. Call to Catechumens to rise up and pray standing. 
 CatecJnimeiis stand up and pray silently, standing. 
 
 Deacon. Call to Catechumens to bow the head for the 
 blessing. 
 CatccJinmcns bow the head for the blessing. 
 
 Bishop. Collect of intercession and benediction for the Cate- 
 chumens. 
 Catechumens still with bowed head. 
 
 Deacon. Call to Catechumens to depart in peace. 
 Catechumens leave the church. 
 
 This, of course, looks more intricate than it is ; in reality it 
 is not so ; three attitudes are prescribed to the Catechumens 
 — kneeling, standing, bowing, and twice they hear prayers 
 over them, from the people and from the bishop. 
 
 There was probably from the beginning some form of 
 dismissal for all those who were not competent to remain, but 
 the elaborated and classified form cf dismissals was an 
 accretion that only lasted as long as the disciplinary system of 
 the Church remained in force ; nevertheless traces of the 
 dismissal remained in most liturgies. 
 
 In no liturgy is the form so full as in that in the "Consti- 
 tutions." It can hardly have begun before the 2nd century, 
 nor lasted after the 5th. 
 
 In the liturgy of S. James, the deacon proclaims, "Let none 
 of the Catechumens, let none of the uninitiated, let none of 
 those who are not able to join with us in prayer (remain). 
 Look at each other. Keep the doors ! " 
 
 S. Chrysostom mentions the pra}'er over and dismissal of 
 those afflicted with evil spirits, and the penitents, as well as 
 of the Catechumens. 
 
 In the Syriac version of S. James, the deacon proclaims, 
 
THE DISMISSALS. 12/ 
 
 *' Go in peace, ye hearers, go in peace. Draw near, ye that 
 are baptized to your peace. Shut the doors." 
 
 In the Armenian service, the deacon dismisses with these 
 words, "Let none of the Catechumens, no men of little faith, 
 none of the penitents, nor of the unclean [i.e., possessed), draw 
 near to this divine mystery." 
 
 The ancient liturgy of the Church of Alexandria remains 
 only in a fragmentary condition in two MSS. In it are 
 traces of the dismissal, in the call of the deacon, " See that 
 none of the Catechumens ." The rest is not given. 
 
 The dismissals have gone out of the Ethiopic liturgy of the 
 Twelve Apostles, but remain in that of SS. Adaeus and 
 Maris, in use among the Syrian Nestorians. 
 
 In the Canons of the Council of Laodicsea (mid. 4th cent.) 
 is one to this effect. " Let the prayer for the Catechumens be 
 said separately after the homily delivered by the bishop ; 
 and when the Catechumens are gone out, then let the prayer 
 for the penitents be said, and after they have received the 
 imposition of hands, and have, in like manner, gone out, then 
 let there be three prayers for the faithful." (Can. 19.) 
 
 This canon was passed because of the tendency manifest, 
 which became more and more accentuated, to run all the 
 collects together into one prayer of intercession for all these 
 classes en bloc, and then to dismiss them all together, making 
 one great exit. When this was the case, a number of the 
 faithful, who were either careless, cool, or conscious of their 
 unfitness to communicate, took advantage of the rush out of 
 church to join in the stampede. 
 
 The Council of Laodicaea endeavoured to restore the old 
 usage, but failed, and the Church was left to face a very per- 
 plexing problem, how to deal with the lukewarm and 
 indifferent. Were they to be allowed to depart — to virtually 
 excommunicate themselves, or were they to be required to 
 remain through the entire Eucharistic service, and not to be 
 required to communicate? 
 
128 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 As the Church increased, and infant baptisms became 
 general, the number of Catechumens greatly dwindled, 
 whereas the number of cool, careless, indifferent Christians 
 enormously multiplied. Tertullian greatly doubted the ex- 
 pediency of infant baptism for this very reason. The Church 
 was being flooded with a chill influx of Christians in name 
 and profession, who in their lives were but little better than 
 the heathen. As the Church grew in geometrical progression, 
 in like inverse proportion decreased the number of daily and 
 even of weekly communicants. 
 
 In Apostolic times and for three centuries the rule, the 
 privilege was — weekly, if not daily communion. All who 
 were qualified to communicate did communicate every Lord's 
 Day at least. The dismissals were a provision for eliminating 
 from the congregation all such as were not qualified, that only 
 communicants might remain. 
 
 With the change of condition of the Church, two opposed 
 practices grew up. One, non-communicating attendance; the 
 other practice was for those who rightly or wrongly deemed 
 themselves unfit to approach the Lord's Table, to associate 
 themselves with the Catechumens, and penitents, and insane, 
 in leaving the church after the sermon. It is hard not to suspect 
 that some such practice subsisted in England through the 
 Middle Ages, though we have no direct evidence of the fact ; 
 otherwise it is not easy to explain the sudden recrudescence in 
 the 1 6th century of a custom which sprang up as an abuse in the 
 4th or 5th century, and which has not been sanctioned in the 
 Prayer Book. 
 
 In the life of John the Almsgiver, patriarch of Alexandria 
 (a.D. 609-620) by Leontius, a contemporary, we learn that 
 the abuse had grown to a head in the Church of Alexandria. 
 After the sermon out trooped a large portion, if not the major 
 half of the congregation, and remained chatting in the 
 portico and court without, whilst the Anaphora took place. 
 The patriarch, to break this custom, left his throne and went 
 
THE DISMISSALS. 1 29 
 
 out among the non-communicants, saying pleasantly, "Where 
 the sheep are, there the shepherd must be also," 
 
 It appears that for the time at least, John stopped the 
 custom, and that thenceforth all remained, whether they 
 intended to communicate or not. 
 
 In the Apostolic Canons, which date from the 2nd and 3rd 
 centuries, there are two which bear more or less on the point. 
 
 Canon VIII. If any bishop, priest, or deacon, or person on the 
 clerical roll, does not partake when the oblation takes place, let him 
 state the reason. And if that be satisfactory, let him be excused ; but if 
 he does not tell it, let him be excommunicated, as deserving blame, and 
 raising a suspicion in the congregation against the celebrant. 
 
 Canon IX. All who enter church, and hear the Scriptures, but do not 
 remain for the Prayer and the Communion, must be excommunicated, as 
 occasioning disorder in the church. 
 
 The first of these refers to those clergy who, by abstaining 
 from Communion, cast a slur on the celebrant, as holding him 
 to be unorthodox, and so exciting a prejudice against him. 
 It does not really concern non-communicating attendance, as 
 we are considering it. The other Canon evidently refers to 
 those who slipped out along with the classes dismissed before 
 the Anaphora. The prayer mentioned is the Great Eucharistic 
 Prayer ; it enjoins attendance at that, and also at the 
 Communion, clearly that all may receive together. If 
 some do not, and remain self-excommunicated, then the 
 Canon enjoins that they shall be formally recognised as excom- 
 municate persons, and struck off the Church roll. 
 
 The Second Council of Antioch, A.D. 341, ordered — 
 
 All who attend God's church, and hear the Holy Scriptures, but who 
 do not communicate in the prayer along with the congregation, or turn 
 away from the Communion of the Eucharist in any disorderly way, are to 
 be cast out of the Church, until having made confession and shewn fruits 
 of repentance, and made entreaty, they may be able to receive pardon. 
 
 This Canon is plainly modelled on the older one cited 
 above, and puts the matter on exactly the same footing. More- 
 over, Dionysius the Little, who made a Latin translation of the 
 
 K 
 
I30 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Apostolic Canons in the 6th century, rendered the phrase 
 "remains for Communion," in the Apostolic Canon, " receive the 
 Communion." If Balsamon, in the latter half of the 12th 
 century, in his Treatise on the Canons, interpreted the words 
 otherwise, that merely shows how far removed he was in 
 mind, influenced by late usage, from the tone of feeling in 
 the Early Church. When these Canons were drawn up, 
 indifference had not made such strides that the majority of 
 Christians in profession had ceased to be communicants ; and 
 these Canons show us the Churches striving in the face of 
 the rise of indiffcrentism to maintain the traditional, Apostolic 
 institution of weekly Communion. 
 
 In the last year of the 4th century a Canon of the First 
 Council of Toledo enacts : " Concerning those who come to 
 Church, and are noticed never to communicate, let them be 
 warned that if they do not communicate, they must undergo 
 penance." From this we see that already the practice of non- 
 communicating attendance had invaded the Church, and was 
 to some extent recognized, for those only are put to penance 
 who " never " communicate. Eusebius of Alexandria, about 
 A.D. 415, says: "Be early in church. . . . Abide during the 
 divine and holy Eucharistic Service, by no means leave before 
 the dismissal {i.e., the final dismissal). If thou hast thy 
 conscience clean, approach and communicate, . . . but if thy 
 conscience condemn thee, decline the Communion till thou 
 have amended by repentance," 
 
 S. C.nesarius of Aries, about A.D. 500, advises : — 
 
 " I beseech you, dearest brethren, and warn you with fatherly affection, 
 that as often as Mass is celebrated, either on Sunday or on other greater 
 festivals, no one may go out of church until the Divine Mysteries have 
 been completed. And although there are many in whose faith and devo- 
 tion we rejoice, yet there are more who, thinking less of their souls' 
 health, depart from the church immediately after the Divine Lessons 
 have been read. . . . Mass is not celebrated when the Divine Lessons are 
 read in church, but when the oblations are made, and the Body and 
 Blood of the Lord is consecrated. As to the Lessons, whether from the 
 
THE DISMISSALS. I3I 
 
 Prophets, or the Apostles, or the EvangeUsts, you might either read them 
 yourselves at home, or hear others read them ; but you will not be able 
 to see the consecration of the Body and Blood of the Lord anywhere else 
 
 but in the house of God Truly he is ignorant how much 
 
 benefit is gained in celebrating Mass who is in a hurry to leave church. 
 . . . . And so, brethren, warn those who are neither willing to say 
 the Lord's Prayer nor to receive the Benediction, and do not cease to 
 rebuke them, telling them, and plainly warning them, that it is no 
 profit to them to hear the Divine Lessons, if they depart before the 
 Divine Mysteries are completed." * 
 
 This passage is of great interest. It shows us that in the 
 Church of Gaul, at the beginning of the 6th century, there 
 was such a rush out of Church as we are accustomed to see 
 in our own country after the Gospel and Sermon. S. 
 Caesarius, like John the Almsgiver, endeavoured to alter this 
 custom into one of all staying through the Anaphora. In 
 506, a Canon of the Council of Agde in Spain, ordered : — 
 
 Canon 18. Laymen who shall not have communicated at Christmas, 
 Easter, and Whitsuntide may not be held for Catholic, nor be counted 
 among Catholics. 
 
 Canon 47. We ordain by a special decree that the whole of the service 
 of Mass shall be attended by laymen on Sunday, so that the congregation 
 presume not to go out before the priest's benediction. Those who shall 
 do so shall be publicly rebuked by the Bishop. 
 
 Two Councils of Orleans enact similar canons in 5 ii and 
 538, and the witness of the English Church in the following 
 century appears in a canon of S. Theodore of Tarsus, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, about 668. 
 
 " When the people come to celebrate Mass in the name of the Lord, they 
 may not depart from the Church till Mass is ended, and the Deacon 
 cries : ' Ite, missa est.'" 
 
 We see that the practice was for the non-communicants to 
 solve the difficulty their own way, and not in the only way in 
 which it ought to have been solved, and we see the Church 
 endeavouring to enforce a half measure, as it could no 
 longer exact the whole, 
 
 * In App. to Benedictine edition of S. Augustine, No. 281. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Which was, which is, the best plan — for the non- 
 communicants to depart when, of old, the penitents, the pos- 
 sessed with devils, and the unbaptized left the church, 
 or to require them to remain through the whole liturgy 
 without partaking of the Eucharistic feast, remains where the 
 English Church has left it, an open question. It is one of ex- 
 pediency, and of expediency alone, not of principle. 
 
 The writer has had much experience of both systems. He 
 has been a great deal in foreign Catholic countries, and is 
 familiar with the Eucharistic Service, Greek, and Latin, and 
 English ; he has seen the advantages and the abuses of both 
 practices, and is obliged to acknowledge also, as the result of 
 his experience, that his mind remains in suspense. Each is 
 a departure, a deplorable departure from primitive fervour, 
 and it is doubtful which causes the heart the greater ache 
 — the irreverence of crowds assisting with indifference, some 
 with contempt, at mysteries that were hid of old from all but 
 the sincere, mysteries before which angels and archangels veil 
 their faces ; or the coldness and self-complacency with which 
 so many troop out of church, unwilling to draw nigh to 
 the Lord's table, and taste as well as see His graciousness. 
 
Chapter XIV. 
 
 THE SABBATH. 
 
 THE FIRST CHRISTIANS JEWS — ACCUSTOMED TO THE SYNAGOGUE 
 SERVICES- NO ANTAGONISM BETWEEN THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL — 
 OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH— CONTINUED IN THE CHURCH — 
 SATURDAY CALLED THE SABBATH — THE SABBATH MORNING SERVICE 
 OF THE SYNAGOGUE — THE PREFACE AND SANCTUS TAKEN FROM 
 THIS SERVICE — TERTULLIAN ON WASHING BEFORE PRAYER — THE 
 SABBATH SERVICE TRANSFERRED TO THE EVENING — THEN BECOMES 
 THE PRO-ANAPHORA ON THE LORD'S DAY — THE CONNEXION OF 
 THE SERVICES — THE AGAPE INTERVENED. 
 
 The Apostles had grown up from infancy to manhood 
 familiar with the devotions of the synagogue and with 
 the solemn worship of the Temple. Christ had himself 
 attended the Sabbath services of the synagogue, and had 
 shown His zeal for the honour of His Father's house. After 
 the Ascension, the Apostles thought themselves justified in 
 continuing their attendance in both synagogue and Temple. 
 
 The first Christians were also Jews and proselytes. To 
 such the wrench would be great to cease from those services 
 of instruction and prayer and praise in which they had grown 
 up, and which they had come to love ; services which 
 had opened and prepared their hearts and minds to receive 
 the fuller truth. 
 
 There was nothing, absolutely nothing, in that worship 
 opposed to their faith, the sacrifices of blood only excepted. 
 These were fulfilled in Christ ; not so the other services, which 
 had but acquired a new, a deeper signification and purpose. 
 The synagogue service was good, it needed emphasis only to 
 make it very good. The Law was the pedagogue entrusted by 
 
134 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 the Father with His child to lead him to Christ, and the 
 Law failed in its obligation only when it clutched the child's 
 hand and led him past Christ. The synagogue was a 
 preparatory school for the College of Christ ; it was only 
 faulty when it regarded itself as a finishing school. 
 
 The early Fathers are very emphatic on the relation 
 between the Church and the Synagogue, between the Gospel 
 and the Law. There was no antagonism, there could be none, 
 between the flower and the stalk ; between the harp and the 
 music drawn from its many strings. 
 
 The antagonism that sprang up after awhile was due 
 in part to the bitterness with which the Jews regarded 
 the Christians, and refused to extend to them that legal 
 protection which they, themselves, bought with a tax, and partly 
 to the retrograde tendency of Jewish believers, who refused 
 to allow the Gospel to be more than an adjunct to the Law, 
 and the Church to be other than a new wing to the Temple. 
 
 We notice the conservative tendency of the Apostles 
 and their converts manifest in the observance of the 
 Sabbath. The " Constitutions of the Apostles " exact its 
 observance. They order, "Assemble yourselves together every 
 day, but principally on the Sabbath Day ; and on the day of 
 the Lord's resurrection meet more diligently" (ii. 59). "Keep 
 the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, because the former 
 is the memorial of Creation, and the latter of the 
 Resurrection" (vii. 23). " Let the slaves work five days, but 
 on the Sabbath Day and the Lord's Day let them have 
 leisure to go to church for instruction in piety" (viii. 33). 
 
 In the epistle of Barnabas the Sabbath is not spoken of as 
 abolished : " We shall be able to sanctify it, having first been 
 sanctified ourselves. . . Also we keep the eighth day with 
 joyfulness, the day on which Christ rose from the dead " 
 (c. 15). Ignatius, in his I'^pistle to the Magnesians, enjoins : 
 " Let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual 
 manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in rela.xation 
 
THE SABBATH. 135 
 
 of the body. . . And after the observance of the Sabbath, let 
 every friend of Christ keep the Lord's day as a festival, the 
 Resurrection day, the queen and chief of all days" (c. 9). 
 And though Justin Martyr and Tertullian speak of the 
 abrogation of the Sabbath, they do so only as to the obliga- 
 tion of cessation from work on that day, not as to its cessation 
 as a festival commemorative of Creation. 
 
 Irenaeus says that the Sabbath, as a day of commemoration 
 of the rest God took from His works, is to be observed by 
 man as one in which to serve God, rest from servile labour, 
 and on which to "partake of God's table."* 
 
 Clement of Alexandria speaks with approval of the heathen 
 poets and philosophers who recognized the sanctity of the 
 seventh day.-f- In the Apostolic Canons fasting on the 
 Sabbath, as well as on the Lord's Day, is forbidden (Can. 64). 
 S. Augustine says that they who hunger for the Word of God 
 make a point to attend church on the Sabbath. The 
 Easterns reproached the Christians of the West for fasting on 
 the Sabbath. Sozomen says that in his day (circ. 440) the 
 Sabbath was observed as well as the Lord's Day in Constan- 
 tinople. + In some Churches so strictly was the Sabbatical 
 service of the synagogue followed that, on the Sabbath, only 
 the Lections of the Old Law were read. § 
 
 Among Christian inscriptions in the catacombs, the Sab- 
 bath is mentioned in a Greek inscription in A.D. 222, and 
 on a Latin one in A.D. 404. 
 
 So strongly had the observance of the Sabbath stamped 
 itself on those nations which first accepted Christianity, that 
 the Saturday took the name of Sabbath everywhere, except 
 among the Teutonic or Scandinavian peoples, who received 
 the faith after the observance of the Sabbath had been 
 abandoned. 
 
 *Adv. Hseres, iv. i. f .Strom., v. 14. 
 
 X Hist. Eccl., vii. 19. § Cone. Laod., Can. 16. 
 
136 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Now let us see what were the synagogue services for the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 The Jews had four services of prayer in the day, Schacharith, 
 Musaph, Mincha, and Arbith. 
 
 The Schacharith was the morning prayer, Arbith the 
 Compline. Musaph, in practice, was usually joined to 
 Schacharith, but it might be said any time before sundown. 
 
 The Morning Prayer is composite — it consists of a repro- 
 duction with modifications of the old Temple rite, when there 
 was purification, and sacrifices were offered, first of blood, then 
 of incense. This was followed by psalmody and the recitation 
 of the Schema, which consists of a benediction for light and 
 the Law, and the " Hear, O Israel," together with other passages 
 from Deuteronomy and Numbers. But the principal service 
 consists in the bringing forth of the Law, and in reading from 
 the Law ; then from the Prophets, followed by an exposition. 
 After that comes psalmody and prayer. If there be a priest 
 present, the Aaronic blessing is given to the people, and 
 with a short prayer for peace, the service closes. 
 
 Unfortunately we have no earlier authorities for the ritual 
 and prayers of the morning service of the synagogue than 
 the 5th century, and we know that much change took place in 
 the service after the destruction of the Temple, and the 
 cessation of the sacrifices. Nevertheless, we know of what the 
 general outlines of the service consisted, both from internal 
 evidence and from incidental notices in the Gospels and in 
 the Acts, For instance, we know not only from the Mischna, 
 but from the New Testament, that the Law, and then the 
 Prophets, were read. S. James (Acts xv, 21) declared that 
 the Books of Moses were read in the synagogue every 
 Sabbath Day ; and Josephus says much the same. S. Luke 
 speaks of the reading of the Prophets (iv. 16), and of the 
 discourse or sermon that followed it. One passage of the 
 Acts (xiii. 14) gives us the order — first the Law, then the 
 Prophets, after which the Sermon. 
 
THE SABBATH. 1 3/ 
 
 Sundry portions of the liturgy remind one strongly of the 
 forms in the synagogue ; for instance, the Preface and Sanctus 
 are a Christian version of the Keduscha. 
 
 The precentor says, " Let us hallow Thy name on earth, 
 as it is hallowed in the heavenly heights ; as it is written in 
 the prophet : One called to another and said " : — Whereupon 
 the congregation respond, " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of 
 Hosts ! All the earth is full of Thy glory." The precentor 
 continues, " The Ophanim, the holy beings, with a great 
 rushing sound, rise to the Seraphim, who rejoin with 
 praise" : — The congregation respond, " Blessed be the Glory of 
 the Lord from His habitation, The Lord shall reign," &c. 
 
 We have in the synagogue service also, " O Lord, open Thou 
 our lips : — And my mouth shall declare Thy praise." 
 
 We have the prayer for peace, to which corresponds a 
 prayer in the liturgy, and the Great Intercession answers 
 paragraph to paragraph to the intercession in the synagogue, 
 only that the response in the former is. Lord, have mercy, 
 and in the latter is Amen. Words also have been taken 
 over by the Church from the synagogue, as Hallelujah ! 
 Hosanna ! and Amen. 
 
 Tertullian speaks of the custom of the Christians of 
 always washing their hands before prayer — it had become 
 a piece of mere formality. The tank in the atrium was 
 incessantly dipped into, as though prayer were unavailing 
 without this continuous washing ; and this was taken 
 from the Temple where the washing and sprinkling pre- 
 ceded every sacrifice. Indeed, in the synagogue morning 
 service there is now the memorial made of this purification 
 at the beginning. " The Lord spake unto Moses, When 
 Aaron and his sons go into the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation, let them wash with water, that they die not . . . 
 so they shall wash their hands and their feet, and this 
 shall be a statute for ever to them, and to his seed 
 throughout their generations." 
 
138 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 The Aaronic benediction was retained, with the same ges- 
 tures. The same positions of prayer were retained, only added 
 to by the extension of the arms, to signify the Cross of Christ. 
 
 It is not possible to doubt that the Pro- Anaphora is no 
 other than the Sabbath morning service of the synagogue 
 expanded, and given a Christian conclusion. 
 
 At first, after Pentecost, the Apostles and the faithful 
 continued to attend the synagogue service on the Sabbath ; 
 but also, to hold their own assemblies for the Eucharist, on the 
 Lord's Day, in private houses. But when they were cast forth 
 from the synagogue, it became impossible for them to con- 
 tinue to frequent the same places of worship with the Jews ; 
 and as, wherever ten persons were found, there a synagogue 
 could be established in a private house, so the first Christians 
 transferred the Sabbath service from the synagogues, whence 
 they had been expelled, to the private houses, where, on the 
 following day, they held their special Christian worship. As 
 the Law prepared the way for Christ, so did the Sabbath 
 prepare for the Lord's Day. Christ had abrogated the 
 necessity to abstain from work on the seventh day, but not 
 the duty to keep it by assembling for Divine worship. More- 
 over, the synagogue service, amplified, and given a Christian 
 completion, formed an admirably suitable form of worship, 
 to which to admit hearers and seekers after truth. 
 
 But practical difficulties arose in the way of the observance 
 of the Sabbath and the Lord's Day in succession ; all religious 
 meetings were illegal, all persons attending them were guilty, 
 capitally, according to the law. The law might not always be 
 enforced but it hung over the heads of the Christians, ready 
 to fall when invoked by any who bore them a grudge. To 
 minimise to the utmost the danger in which they stood, the 
 Eucharist was celebrated early, and the Sabbath Day service 
 thrust forward to the last hours of the Saturday, It became the 
 evening service preparatory to the Eucharist, from which it 
 was separated by the Agape, or Love Feast. The Sabbath 
 
THE SABBATH. 1 39 
 
 service, the Agape, and the Eucharist were made to follow 
 in immediate succession, so that one assembly did for all 
 purposes. 
 
 We cannot, indeed, say for certain that this was so ; but 
 this explanation accounts in the simplest manner for the 
 curious phenomenon of the transfer of the Sabbath morning 
 service to another place. When the Agape was abolished, 
 then it coalesced with the Eucharist, thrust still further forward, 
 from the Sabbath morning to the Sunday morning ; still 
 with the idea that this service of Jewish origin was a proper 
 introduction to the specially Christian service, just as the Law 
 led to Christ. 
 
 That the union of the services, and their performance in 
 close succession, had become an accomplished fact at the time 
 when the "Constitutions" were put together, appears not only 
 from the two accounts of some length in them, but from 
 other notices. For instance, " O Bishop, when you go to 
 prayer, after the Lessons and the Psalmody and the instruc- 
 tion out of the Scriptures, let the deacons stand nigh ; " and 
 the writer proceeds with an exhortation on reconciliation of 
 enemies founded on the Kiss of Peace, and then with a para- 
 phrase of the Great Eucharistic Prayer and Intercession ; then 
 goes on to the Lord's Prayer and allusion to Communion 
 (II., c. 54, 55). Again, II., 59, " On the day of the Lord's 
 resurrection, which is the Lord's Day, meet, sending praises 
 to God who made the universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us, 
 and condescended to let Him suffer, and raised Him from 
 the dead " (a condensation of the Eucharistic Thanksgiving). 
 " Otherwise what excuse will be made to God by him who 
 does not assemble on that day to hear the saving word con- 
 cerning the resurrection, ... in which is performed the read- 
 ing of the prophets, the preaching of the Gospel, the oblation 
 of the sacrifice, the gift of the Holy Food ?" Here we have 
 together the Pro-Anaphoral Lections, then the Eucharistic 
 oblation, followed by the Communion, 
 
I40 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 The transfer of the Sabbath morning service to the Sunday 
 morning in a manner resembles the curious transfer in popular 
 Protestant terminology of the title Sabbath to the Lord's Day. 
 That the transfer did take place can hardly be disputed. The 
 Pro-Anaphora /j- the Sabbath Day service. When it was so, 
 it was regarded as preparatory to the Lord's Day celebration ; 
 and when difficulties stood in the way of the observance of 
 both days, then the preparatory service was said before that 
 to which it led, either on the Sabbath evening, or was thrust 
 still further forward to Sunday morning. That which makes 
 us think it may have been used in the evening is that it would 
 serve to lead on to the Agape, which, in turn, after midnight, led 
 to the Eucharist, and the Offertory originally embraced oblations 
 for both Agape and Eucharist. Moreover, in the suture of Pro- 
 Anaphora and Anaphora there is an uncertain portion which 
 is attributable to the one service or to the other, just where the 
 Agape intervened, and which seems to imply that the Pro- 
 Anaphora was attached to the Offertory and Agape, and that 
 at one time it preceded it. The following table will show 
 the over-lapping of the parts. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 < 
 
 in 
 o 
 
 U. H 
 
 pi 
 
 in 
 
 f i£ ^" 
 
 r 
 
 r w 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ioB- 
 
 
 
 < 
 
 
 5 
 
 r 
 
 < M 
 
 
 <; 
 
 
 o 
 
 _ 
 
 e-( 
 
 u> 
 
 
 u. 
 
 
 I = 
 
 
 ^ H 
 
 L 
 
 r < 
 
 
 '-. 
 
 r 
 
 1. Introductory Prayers. 
 
 2. Litany of Intercession. 
 
 3. Lessons. 
 
 4. Sermon. 
 
 5. Prayers for and Dismissal of Catechumens. 
 
 6. Kiss of Peace.* 
 
 7. Offertory. 
 
 8. (Litany of the Faithful. )t 
 
 9. Preface and Trium])hal Hymn. 
 
 10. Great Eucharistic Prayer of Thanksgiving. 
 
 11. The Consecration, consisting of — 
 
 A. The Institution. 
 
 B. The Observance. 
 
 12. The Great Intercession. 
 
 13. Preparation for Communion. 
 
 14. Communion. 
 
 15. Thanksgiving and Dismissal. 
 
 * Sometimes kiss before the Offertory, sometimes after. 
 
 I The original position not quite certain, whether before or after the Offertory. 
 Probably the latter. 
 
THE SABBATH. 141 
 
 In our opinion, the combination took place as indicated 
 above. 
 
 We are confronted with this remarkable fact, that the 
 Torah, the second part of the Jewish morning service, comes 
 to us in its altered form as the first part of the Christian 
 morning liturgy. We shall see in the ensuing chapter that 
 the first part of the Jewish morning service — which is the 
 morning sacrifice of the Temple — finds its reproduction in the 
 second part of the Christian liturgy. The order of succession 
 is reversed. The suggestion made explains this. The Torah 
 became the Sabbath Day service of the primitive Christians ; 
 and the Temple Eulogy in the morning became their Lord's 
 Day Eucharist. When the Sabbath celebration was aban- 
 doned, then the Sabbath service, the Torah — the Pro-Anaphora 
 was thrust forward to Sunday morning, and so took its place 
 in the Christian Church in exactly the reverse order to that it 
 occupies in the Jewish liturgy. 
 
Chapter XV. 
 
 THE JE WISH MORNING PR A YER. 
 
 ANECDOTE OF A PRIEST DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION— WHAT 
 JERUSALEM WAS TO THE JEW— THE SACRIFICES THERE OFFERED OF 
 GENERAL APPLICATION— JEWISH MORNING PRAYER BASED ON THE 
 MORNING SERVICE OF THE TEMPLE— THE TORAH SPECIAL TO THE 
 SYNAGOGUE — THE SCHEMA — THE SCHMONEH ESREH — PRAYERS THAT 
 MUST BE SAID STANDING— THE MORNING SERVICE IN THE TEMPLE— 
 THE KEDUSCHA — THE CHANGE OF POSITION OF THE SINGERS IN THE 
 HEAVENLY SANCTUARY — HOW THE EUCHARISTIC ANAPHORA FOLLOWS 
 THE ORDER OF THE FIRST PART OF THE SCHACHARITH — THE 
 APOSTLES INTIMATELY FAMILIAR WITH THAT— THE INSTITUTION 
 PROBABLY FOLLOWED ITS ORDER. 
 
 The author of this book was shown, nearly forty years ago, 
 at Blaye, on the Gironde, a cell in the fortress, where, during 
 the Terror, a priest was confined. Every morning, far away 
 on the other side of the river in a cottage, a priest secretly said 
 Mass, and when he did so, a stick with a white hand- 
 kerchief was stuck up in the cottage garden hedge. The 
 prisoner, holding to the iron stanchions of his cell window, 
 waited till he saw the flutter of white, and then in heart and 
 soul was before the humble altar, uniting in the worship of 
 his God. That was his great consolation and source of joy in 
 his prison. 
 
 To the Jew there was but one place in all the earth that was 
 holy for the sacrificial worship of God, and on but one 
 altar there was the sacrifice of blood made. 
 
 Wherever he was, in Eg>'pt, in Babylon, in Asia Minor, 
 at Rome, in heart the Jew turned morning and evening to 
 
THE JEWISH MORNING PRAYER. I43 
 
 Jerusalem, and in that direction looked as he made his "spiritual 
 communion" with the sacrifice offered in his glorious temple, 
 in that loved city which was " the joy of the whole earth." 
 
 Wherever he was, he spiritually associated himself with the 
 worship in the Lord's courts, and his morning and evening 
 prayers were echoes of the devotions offered morning and 
 evening in the Temple at Jerusalem. 
 
 As the priest who offered incense, filling the house with 
 smoke, when he came forth, and through the day bore about 
 with him, in his hair, his raiment, his breath, the fragrance of 
 that incense, so did the Jew, though only visiting the Temple 
 once in the year, carry about with him everywhere and always 
 the scent of its blessed courts. " All thy garments smell 
 of myrrh, aloes, and cassia." 
 
 The sacrifices offered in the morning and in the evening were 
 propitiatory sacrifices for the whole people, wherever scattered ; 
 and the Jew above the cataracts of the Nile, he also beyond the 
 Pillars of Hercules, and the Hebrew sitting sad by the waters 
 of Babylon, all alike had part in the daily sacrifice. Distance 
 did not affect its efficacy, the blood pleaded for all alike 
 everywhere. The Jew knew this, and this knowledge deeply 
 affected him. 
 
 Holding this, he acted on it, and his morning and evening 
 prayers savoured of the Temple sacrifices. 
 
 Privately, in the Schacharith (morning prayer) and in 
 the Mincha (evening prayer), he commemorated these daily 
 sacrifices. In them he made what a Catholic would call 
 his spiritual communion with the sacrifice in the Temple. 
 
 Where ten Jews resided, there a synagogue was established, 
 and the synagogue service, naturally, was but the private 
 devotion of every Jew said in common. That is to say, the 
 morning and evening prayers of the synagogue were a reflex of 
 the daily sacrificial worship in the Temple. 
 
 The Temple is gone, not one stone is left on another ; 
 Jerusalem is trodden under foot of the Gentiles : the sacrifices 
 
144 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 have ceased ; but the memorials of these sacrifices linger on in 
 the morning and evening prayers of the Jews, and from them, 
 and the notices we have in the Talmud, we are able to 
 reconstruct with tolerable accuracy the whole ceremonial 
 and liturgy of the morning and evening sacrifices in the 
 Temple. 
 
 But the Jewish prayer-book of to-day contains more 
 than these reminiscences. 
 
 The old houses of assembly of the Jews were originally 
 termed " Houses of Prayer," but gradually lost that name, and 
 came to be designated " Houses of Assembly, or Synagogues."* 
 For a new element entered into their meetings. These came 
 to be regarded as gatherings, not only for prayer, but 
 for edification, and to the first service, which was a repetition 
 of that in the Temple, was appended another, the Torah, which 
 consisted in the reading and expounding of the Law and 
 the Prophets. We also have, in our Eucharistic Service, two 
 distinct parts, the Pro-Anaphora, which is for edification, 
 altogether subjective ; and the Anaphora, which is for worship, 
 mainly objective. With the Jews, the objective service came 
 first, and the subjective second. With us, the order is 
 reversed. Why so, we have seen. 
 
 Now, there are certain forms that are obligatory on 
 every Jew, forms that he is bound to go through daily, 
 and these are the ScJiemaJi and the ScJivioneh Esreh. 
 
 The Schema now consists of three extracts from the Law — 
 Deut. vi. 4-9 ; xi. 13-21 ; Numb. xv. 37-41 — to which are 
 prefixed two prayers, the Jozer and the Ahaba, and a third 
 prayer, the Gciula, is affixed. 
 
 The first extract from the Law is this : — 
 
 " Hear, O Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord : and thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all 
 thy soul, and with all thy might," &c. 
 
 • Zunz : Goltesdienstliche Vertriige d. Juden, Berlin, 1S32, p. 1-2. 
 
THE JEWISH MORNING PRAYER. I45 
 
 This is the key-note of the whole song of praise, the note on 
 which the whole Jewish life is bound to form its harmony. 
 To the Jew it is what the " Allah is great, and Mohammed is 
 his Prophet " is to the Mussulman, a confession of faith and a 
 shout of triumph. The second paragraph is hortatory, "If 
 ye shall hearken diligently to My commandments. . . I will 
 give you the rain in due season. . . Take heed to your- 
 selves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside," &c. 
 
 The third extract concerns the fringes on the garments. 
 
 The object of the daily recitation of the Schema is to impress 
 on the Jewish mind the obligation of allegiance to the 
 One true God, and the danger of leaving Him. It gives the 
 stamp to the Jew, just as the sign of the cross stamps the 
 Christian, and the " La ilia Allah " stamps the Mohammedan. 
 
 The Schema was unquestionably recited in the Temple, 
 it was proclaimed from the Temple steps as the priest 
 came forth after the oblation of incense — so, at least, we 
 may almost surely conclude from its position in the 
 Jewish Synagogue liturgy. 
 
 Maimonides (Jav Hasasaka, c. vi., § 4) says that previous to 
 the Schema the Decalogue was recited. 
 
 The second obligatory formula is the Tephilla {i.e., The 
 Prayer), otherwise called the Schmoneh Esreh, or the 
 Eighteen Benedictions. This at present consists of nineteen 
 exclamations, which are partly prayer, and partly blessing, and 
 which belong to very different periods. On the Sabbath, and 
 on festivals, the first three and the last three only are said, 
 and these six are alone obligatory, one prayer being 
 interpolated with reference to Sabbath or festival, upon which 
 the Benedictions are recited. 
 
 They begin with : — 
 
 *' O Eternal, open Thou my lips, that my mouth may- 
 declare Thy praise. 
 
 I. Blessed art Thou, O Eternal, One God ! the God of 
 
 L 
 
146 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 our fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; the 
 great, mighty, tremendous God ! the Most High, 
 who bestowest favours ; possessor of all things, who 
 rememberest the piety of the Patriarchs, and who, loving 
 us, wilt send a Redeemer to their posterity, for His 
 Name's sake. 
 
 I I. Thou art mighty for ever, O Eternal ; Thou restorest life 
 to the dead, art mighty to save [in winter causing the 
 wind to blow, and the rain to fall]. Thou sustainest the 
 living by Thy goodness, rcvivest the dead with mercy, 
 supportest the fallen, healest the sick, releasest the 
 captive, accomplishest Thy faith in them that sleep in 
 the dust. Who is like unto Thee, Lord of mighty 
 deeds ? Who is equal unto Thee, the Supreme King, 
 who ordercst death and restorest life, and causest 
 salvation to spring forth. 
 
 III. Thou art holy, Thy Name is holy, and holy people shall 
 praise Thcc. Selah. Blessed art Thou, O Eternal ! the 
 holy God." 
 
 We need not give all, these will serve as a sample. 
 They belong to three periods ; and although Zunz holds 
 that those asking for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and release 
 from bondage and restoration of Judges, belong to the period 
 of the Babylonish captivity, it is not impossible that 
 they may be later, belonging to a period subsequent to 
 the final destruction of the Temple and dispersion of the 
 people. 
 
 The Jewish prayer book, as we now have it, has been 
 added to and altered by the ritual reformers of the loth 
 •century, when a school sprang up under Elasar ben Jacob 
 Kalir, called the Peitan, who made considerable alterations 
 in the devotions of the Jews, introducing alphabetical order 
 and rhythm, after a fashion that commended itself to their 
 
THE JEWISH MORNING PRAYER. I47 
 
 taste. " Kalir," says Zunz, " tyrannized over the Hebrew, 
 forced it into capricious forms, but with such strength and 
 vehemence, that one is disposed to excuse the awkwardness 
 of expression for the sake of the majesty of thought it 
 utters." Words and phrases were tortured to accommodate 
 themselves to acrostic structure. The very ruggedness of his 
 language and artificiality of his arrangement, however, serve 
 to distinguish his work and that of those who followed in 
 his footsteps from the original material.* 
 
 Among the Jews, certain prayers and formularies were 
 to be said in certain positions. The Schmoneh Esreh, for 
 instance, had to be recited standing. There is another form, 
 to which, as of special dignity, the same rule applies, and that 
 is the Eulogy in the first part of the morning prayer, when 
 the oblation of the incense took place. The Hallel, 
 Ps. 113 — 118, was only sung on the great festivals. 
 
 We know pretty well what was the order of the morning 
 sacrifice. 
 
 After the opening of the Temple gates, the priest on 
 whom the lot had fallen ascended to slay the lamb at 
 the altar of sacrifice, having first washed himself at the 
 laver. No doubt he said a prayer of humble approach 
 and the Psalm of Degrees as he mounted the Temple 
 steps, for these we now find in the beginning of the service 
 of the Jews. 
 
 After the slaying of the lamb, the priest on whom the 
 lot had fallen took incense, and went into the Holy Place, and 
 there made offering of the fragrant gums, filling the house 
 with smoke. Whilst he was thus engaged the people 
 remained outside. 
 
 Then came the great song of thanksgiving. 
 
 The Jewish Liturgy contains at this place a magnificent 
 Eucharistic hymn which begins, " Blessed is He who spake, 
 
 * Zunz, op. cit., p. 381-4. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 and the world was made. Blessed is He who made creation. 
 Blessed is He who speaketh and it is done. Blessed is 
 He who ordaineth and establisheth. Blessed is He who hath 
 compassion on all the earth, who pitieth His creatures," &c. 
 Then follows Ps, cv., then Psalms that vary, Ps. cxlvi.-cl., then 
 I Chron. xxix. 10-13, the blessing of David commemorating 
 the glories of God, then from Nehem. ix. 5-12, the memorial 
 of Creation, the call of Abraham, and the delivery by Moses, 
 and then the hymn of Moses. 
 
 Along with this came the Kedjischa, which bears so striking 
 a resemblance to the Preface and Sanctus in the Christian 
 Liturgy. 
 
 The Psalms were sung by the priests and Levites on the steps 
 leading up to the Holy Place, with instrumental accompani- 
 ment, and this great Eucharistic oblation of hymnody to 
 God was associated with the oblation of incense on the altar 
 of gold within. 
 
 Probably after this the Schema was declared with loud voice; 
 but though it is not quite certain, this is the position in the 
 Jewish Liturgy now. Some think it occupied an earlier place. 
 
 After the priest who had offered incense came forth, 
 the sacrifice was burnt on the altar in the court ; then, with a 
 benediction, the service closed. 
 
 The Keduscha, to which we have already alluded as bear- 
 ing a most marked resemblance to the Christian Eucharistic 
 Preface, and Sanctus, occupies a somewhat uncertain position in 
 the Jewish Liturgy, for it is found in several places. It occurs 
 in the morning service before the Schema, and again it inter- 
 rupts the Eighteen Benedictions, coming after the third. 
 Apparently it was a movable invitatory to praise, and we are 
 perhaps justified in thinking that originally it initiated the 
 great Eulogy sung on the steps leading into the Holy Place. 
 
 In the vision of S. John, in the Apocalypse, we have the same 
 (Rev. iv.8), but this remarkable difference occurs, that in his 
 description of the Triumphal Song, it is no longer sung on the 
 
THE JEWISH MORNING PRAYER. 149 
 
 Steps leading into the Holy Place, but in the Holy of Holies 
 itself, precisely where it is sung in the Christian Church. This 
 is one of the many indications that show that S. John drew his 
 picture from the worship of the Church, which he idealized 
 and perfected, and not directly from the Temple. It re- 
 sembles that of the Temple only so far as the Christian 
 Eucharist is derivable from the Temple service, and it 
 follows all the developments and alterations and adapta- 
 tions that had taken place to convert the Jewish service 
 into one for the Church. 
 
 That must have been a glorious scene, when the con- 
 gregation stood in the Temple court and looked up to the 
 great gates of the Holy Place, and saw harpers, trumpeters, 
 and singers ranged there, with the incense steaming out 
 from behind them through the parted curtains, and before 
 them the altar of sacrifice with the blood streaming from it. 
 Then suddenly, with a loud voice, came the call to thanks- 
 giving and glory, in union with angels, and cherubim, and 
 seraphim, and Avith a clang of harps and blare of silver 
 trumpets, and the shout of a great multitude, priests 
 and Levites robed in white, there rose the song — 
 
 " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of 
 Thy glory." 
 
 And there is deep significance in the change as shown 
 by S. John. The altar of sacrifice, identified with the altar of 
 incense, is no longer without in the court, nor the golden 
 altar in the Holy Place, but the combined altar of sacrifice 
 and incense is within the veil in the Holy of Holies, and tJiere 
 around it are the white-robed harpers, and incense bearers, 
 and singers, and there, on it, is the Lamb that had been 
 slam. 
 
 We lose wholly the significance of the vision of S. 
 John, unless we first picture to ourselves the scene at the 
 morning sacrifice in Jerusalem below, and then see in what 
 
150 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 points the service differs, as revealed in the Jerusalem which 
 is above. 
 
 According to Maimonides, in the place already referred to, 
 the order of service was — i. Ahaba ; 2. Decalogue ; 3. 
 Schema ; 4. The last three of the Eighteen Benedictions, 
 together with the Aaronic Benediction ; 5. A Psalm varying 
 according to the day of the week. 
 
 As we shall see, the Eucharistic service contains the 
 elements of the Jewish Liturgy. It follows the morning 
 service step by step, only the sacrifice of blood is taken away, 
 and the " unbloody sacrifice " takes place where, in the 
 Temple, came the oblation of incense. 
 
 For the Psalm of Degrees we have the Introit. 
 
 For the washing by the priest comes the ablution of hands 
 by the priest. 
 
 For the entrance through the veil into the Holy Place, 
 comes the Prayer of the Veil found in the Eastern Liturgies, 
 and which has left traces of its presence in the West. 
 
 For the oblation of the incense comes the oblation of 
 the bread and wine. 
 
 For the Keduscha comes Preface and Sanctus. 
 
 For the great Eulogy, praising God for creation, for pro- 
 tection, for continued mercies, for the call of Abraham, for 
 the delivery of Israel by Moses, comes the great Eucharistic 
 prayer, commemorating all these events, and continuing to 
 the end of Redemption. 
 
 And as the Jew when absent, by a memorial, recalls the 
 institution of sacrifice, so does the Christian priest com- 
 memorate the Institution of the Eucharist. 
 
 For the Schema, " Hear, O Israel, the Eternal, our God, 
 the Eternal, is One. Blessed be the name of the glory of 
 His Kingdom for ever," came the Saiicta Sanctis, when, as 
 S. Chrysostom says, the priest with a loud voice, standing 
 aloft with raised hands, as a herald, proclaims, " Holy things 
 to the holy ! " and the people respond with a shout, " There 
 
THE JEWISH MORNING PRAYER. I51 
 
 is One Holy, One Lord, Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory 
 for ever and ever." 
 
 Both services conclude with a benediction. 
 
 If we do not much mistake, the Christian Eucharistic 
 service, from the Offertory to the end, that is to say, the Mass 
 of the Faithful, is as unmistakably based on the morning 
 service of the Temple, as is the Ante-Communion Service, the 
 Mass of the Catechumens, based on the second part of the 
 Jewish Liturgy for the morning, the Torah, the part special to 
 the synagogue. How it was that the order of the parts 
 was reversed in the Church, we have seen. 
 
 How it is that the Anaphora follows the order of the Temple 
 service for the morning was, we believe this : — that Christ 
 instituted the Eucharist after midnight, — that He began the 
 usual morning prayer before leaving the upper room, but that 
 He transformed that morning prayer with its memorial of 
 sacrifice, and of incense, into the Eucharistic service for His 
 Church, by the institution in it of the New Sacrament that 
 summed up the old memorials into One Oblation. 
 
 The study of the Jewish service for the morning is emi- 
 nently instructive, with its glorious prayers and benedictions, 
 rich in sacred beauty. The student comes on many links of 
 association with the Christian Liturgy. 
 
 And this is not to be wondered at. The Apostles had 
 been accustomed from childhood to this morning service, 
 whether seen performed in all its sacred pomp at Jerusalem, 
 or less ornately in the synagogue, or in the private closet. 
 It was the same service always, every day, becoming a 
 part of the web of their minds, an integral portion of their 
 inmost and holiest thoughts. Christ, when with them, must 
 have recited the same Schacharith daily ; and after He was 
 gone, when they came to organize divine worship, what 
 more likely, what more certain, than that the worship they 
 organized should savour of that to which they had been 
 accustomed all their lives ? 
 
152 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Moreover, if, as we think probable, our Lord, at the in- 
 stitution of the Eucharist, actually began the Schacharith, 
 and continued it, adding and developing, and exchanging 
 the oblation of incense for the oblation and consecration of 
 the bread and wine, then the Apostles would most certainly 
 follow exactly, or as near as might be, every line He laid down. 
 This would have a double advantage, for not only would the 
 liturgy be a faithful reproduction in every particular of the 
 Institution in the Upper Chamber, but also, it would be a 
 service that would be quite familiar in its main outlines to all 
 Jewish converts. They believed, were baptized, passed into the 
 Church without a break of continuity in their prayers said 
 every day, save that the Eucharist was their morning prayer, 
 to which was given a new and deeper signification. It was 
 no more a mere memorial of the slaying of a lamb, but of 
 the blood-shedding of the Lamb of God ; no more a memorial 
 of the priest offering incense, but a memorial of the all- 
 prevailing intercession of Jesus, the great High Priest ; no 
 more a memorial of the consumption of the sacrifice by 
 fire, but an actual participation by the communicants of 
 the gifts presented at the altar. 
 
 For reference we add an analysis of the Schacharith, 
 or morning prayer of the Jews, eliminating those portions only 
 which are certainly additions since the destruction of 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 '(Iljc ^Ijadjan'rlj. 
 
 INTROIT. " How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob," &;c. 
 
 Prayer of " I will call upon Thee, and Thou wilt answer ; 
 
 Appro.\CH. incline Thine ear, and hearken unto my prayer,'' &c. 
 
 Song of " I was glad when they said unto me, We will go 
 
 Degrees. into the house of the Lord," &c. 
 
 A A R O N I C " The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord 
 
 Blessing. make His face to shine upon thee, and give thee peace," 
 &c. 
 
THE JEWISH MORNING PRAYER. 
 
 153 
 
 Prayer " May it be Thy will, O Lord our God, to make us 
 
 LIKE THE walk in Thy law. Lead us not into sin. Suffer not an 
 
 "Our Father." evil imagination to prevail, but deliver us from evil 
 
 associates. Cause us to become attached to virtue. 
 
 Grant us this day Thy grace. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, 
 
 who bestowest favours on Israel." 
 
 " O Lord, may it be Thy will to deliver me this day from 
 evil men, evil associates, evil neighbours, evil accidents 
 and the devil," &c. This has its exact counterpart in the 
 embolismos of the Greek Liturgies. 
 
 Prayer of "Lord of all the earth, not trusting in our own 
 Humble righteousness — but coming as Thy people and the sheep 
 Access, of Thy pasture — we are bound to give thanks to Thee 
 for ever." 
 
 Short Schema. " Hear, O Israel for ever and ever." 
 
 Memorial OF Exod. xxx. 17-21. 
 Washing. 
 
 Me]\iorial of Numb, xxviii. i-ii 
 Oblation of 
 The Lamb. 
 
 Memorial of 
 Slaving the 
 Lamb. 
 
 Levit. i. 2. 
 
 Memorial of 
 
 Oblation of 
 
 Incense. 
 
 Exod. xxx. 34. 
 
 Great " Blessed is He who spake, and the world was made. 
 
 Eulogy, Blessed art Thou, O Lord, a King adored with 
 
 said standing, praises." 
 
 Several psalms differing on week-days from those on 
 the Sabbath. 
 
 " Blessed be the Eternal for ever. Blessed be His, 
 
 glorious Name : let the whole earth be filled with His 
 glory, Amen and Amen." 
 
 The thanksgiving song of David, extolling the 
 Majesty of God. 
 
 The thanksgiving for creation, for the call of Abraham, 
 for the deliverance from Egypt (Neh. ix. 5-12.) 
 
 The thanksgiving of Moses (Exod. xv. 1-19.) 
 
154 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Hymn of " The souls of all living shall bless Thy Name, O Lord 
 
 Praise. our God," &c. 
 
 Kaddish. "Let the name of the Lord be praised. Bless ye 
 
 the Lord, the ever blessed." 
 
 1^7. " Blessed be the Lord, blessed for ever and ever." 
 
 Benediction. Praise of God, the Creator of light, who called and 
 chose Israel. 
 
 Short Ka- 
 
 DUSCHA. 
 
 Schema, 
 schmoneh 
 
 ESREH. 
 
 Invitatory to praise, based on Is. vi. 2-3. 
 
 /Two prayers. 
 
 -^ Deut. vi. 4-9 ; xi. 13-22 ; Numb. xv. 37-41. 
 
 (One prayer. 
 
 Of the eighteen benedictions on the Sabbath only the 
 first three are said, after which the Kaduscha in full. 
 Then the last three benedictions. 
 
 Benediction. "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who blessest His 
 people with peace." 
 
 Then follotvs the Service of the Torah. 
 
Chapter XVI. 
 
 THE PASCHAL LAMB. 
 
 THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY— POLYCARP, BISHOP OF SMYRNA— HIS 
 CHARACTER — THE CLASH OF CUSTOMS RELATIVE TO EASTER : 
 DECISION OF THE COUNCIL OF NIC^A— THE PASCHA— THE FOUR- 
 TEENTH NISAN THE DAY OF CHRIST'S DEATH — THAT THE DAY 
 OBSERVED BY THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH— DIFFERENCE OF USAGE, 
 THE ASIATICS OBSERVED THE FOURTEENTH NISAN, THE REST OF 
 THE CHURCH THE NEAREST FRIDAY TO FOURTEENTH NISAN — 
 DIFFERENCE AS TO WHEN THE FAST TERMINATED — THE ASIATICS 
 KEPT THE PASCHAL SUPPER AT THE SAME TIME AS THE JEWS — THE 
 ASIATICS HAD NO EASTER FESTIVAL, ONLY THE PASCHA AS I4-15TH 
 NISAN — THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY NOT ABOUT EASTER, BUT ABOUT 
 THE DAY OF CRUCIFIXION — COMPLICATION OF THE QUESTION — DID 
 CHRIST ANTEDATE THE PASSOVER P — ALMOST CERTAINLY CHRIST 
 DIED ON I4TH NISAN — THE ANALOGY BETWEEN HIS DEATH AND 
 THE DEATH OF THE PASCHAL LAMB, AND HIS RESURRECTION AND 
 THE OBLATION OF THE FIRST FRUITS — EXPLANATION OF THE- 
 APPARENT DISCREPANCY — THE USE OF LEAVENED BREAD A 
 TESTIMONY TO THE TRADITION OF 14TH NISAN — APOLLINARIS AND 
 POLYCRATES ON THE CONTROVERSY — PETER AND ANATOLIUS. 
 
 The first controversy in the Christian Church that 
 threatened it with disruption sprang up out of difference in 
 the usage of the observance of Easter. The Churches of Asia 
 Minor claimed S. John and S. Philip as their authorities 
 for holding the Pascha on the 14th of Nisan, on whatever day 
 of the week it fell. The Church of Rome always kept the com- 
 memoration of the Crucifixion on the Friday nearest to 14th 
 Nisan, and claimed the authority of SS. Peter and Paul for 
 this practice. 
 
 Every student of Church History knows of the visit paid 
 about A.D. 158 by Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, the disciple of 
 
156 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 S. John, to Anicctus, Bishop of Rome. Anicctus was seventh 
 bishop of the Church in the imperial city since the beginning 
 of the century. Polycarp had occupied the see of Smyrna 
 during the whole time. There was no bishop of the Western 
 Church comparable with him in this respect. As I^ishop 
 Lightfoot has pointed out in his introductory essay to the 
 Epistle of Polycarp, he was a man of very ordinary intelligence, 
 who in his writings never shows a gleam of originality ; his 
 distinguishing feature is intense tenacity to his convictions, 
 whether in matters of faith or of practice. What he had 
 received from S. John he held to, and nothing could make 
 him alter or develop it. He was constituted by mental 
 organisation a narrow Conservative, but it is precisely this un- 
 thinking conservatism which makes his testimony so 
 valuable. Polycarp and Anicetus met, discussed the point of 
 difference, neither could persuade the other to yield, and they 
 separated in perfect amity. 
 
 But when the Faith had spread, and the Churches of 
 East and West met, there was a clash of customs which 
 proved distracting to such as occupied that strip of sand where 
 the two seas met. The controversy threatened to provoke 
 schism ; and the Council of Nicaea was obliged to settle 
 the question for the sake of Christian unity. It decided 
 in favour of the Western usage. Some Christians, reluctant 
 to yield, continued for a while to adhere to their traditional 
 observance, and so originated the Ouartodeciman schism, 
 provoking much bitterness and angry polemic. The question 
 got further mixed and confused by errors in calculation, but 
 the original point of difference was simple. It was briefly 
 this : — 
 
 The Church from the first continued to commemorate the 
 day of the Lord's death — the 14th Nisan, the day of the pre- 
 paration for the Passover, according to S. John ; and to this 
 commemoration the name of Pascha, the Passover, adhered. 
 It was observed as a day of fasting and tears till sunset, 
 
THE PASCHAL LAMB. 1 5/ 
 
 when the Church assembled to eat the Agape, as a sort cf 
 Paschal Supper, with rejoicing. The Asiatic Churches always, 
 from their foundation, observed the 14th Nisan, so that they 
 fasted and wept for the Crucifixion, sometimes on one day of 
 the week, sometimes on another. 
 
 The Church of Rome, and probably also the Churches of 
 Jerusalem and Antioch and Egypt, held to the day of the 
 weck^ not of the ino?itk, on which Christ died. Consequently 
 they celebrated the Pascha, that is, the commemoration 
 of the Death and Resurection, beginning always on the 
 nearest Friday to the 14th Nisan. 
 
 This was the first point of difference. 
 
 But there was another. In Rome, Egypt, Palestine, the 
 Christians remained fasting from Friday till Sunday at dawn, 
 on which day they broke their fast with the Eucharist. The 
 intervening Sabbath was the only Sabbath in the year on 
 which fasting was permissible ; on that it was enjoined.* 
 
 The Westerns considered the death of Christ from 
 its historic side, and placed themselves in the disposition 
 of mind in which the disciples were on the day when 
 Christ was crucified, and wherein they remained till the 
 Resurrection. 
 
 The Orientals, on the other hand, regarded it from its 
 dogmatic side, as the Day of Redemption ; and although they 
 fasted till the ninth hour, after that they laid aside their 
 mourning, and began their festivity along with the Jews, 
 who at the same time ate the Passover, t 
 
 The controversy can only be clearly understood by remem- 
 bering that the Pascha, Easter, did riot mean primarily the 
 Feast of the Resurrection, but the commemoration of Christ's 
 Death, So Tertullian writes:* " On the day of the Pascha, 
 when the religious observance of a fast is general, and almost 
 
 * Can. Apost. 64; Const. Apost. , vii. 23. 
 fHefele, Concilien Gesch., Bk ii., § 37. *De Orat., c. 18. 
 
158 OUR INHERITANCE, 
 
 public, wc forego the kiss (of peace)." But he speaks also of 
 the annual commemoration of the Lord's Resurrection as the 
 day on which there was no kneeling in divine worship.* He 
 speaks of the Paschal solemnities as lasting all night, but 
 these arc the solemnities of the Maundy Thursday night, or 
 of the night of Easter Eve, it is uncertain which, f A more 
 explicit statement is that in his "Answer to the Jews," in 
 which he clearly points out that 'the death of Christ took 
 place on the 14th Nisan. 
 
 " Moses prophesied, foretelling that all the community of 
 Israel should at eventide sacrifice a lamb, and eat this solemn 
 sacrifice — the Passover of unleavened bread with bitterness ; 
 and he added that it was the Passover of the Lord, — that is 
 to say, the Passion of Christ. Which prediction was fulfilled, 
 for on the first day of unleavened bread ye slew Christ."^ 
 
 There was no doubt at all as to the day on which Christ 
 died ; it was on the Day of the Preparation, the 14th Nisan ; 
 therefore the institution of the Eucharist took place on the 
 night of the I3th-i4th, and was preceded by the Last 
 Supper. About that, also, there was no dispute. 
 
 The difference sprang up relative to other matters; there 
 were three usages for the observance of the Pascha. 
 
 That of Lesser Asia consisted, as already said, in the 
 observance of the 14th Nisan as a solemn fast, on whatso- 
 ever day of the week it fell, and of keeping the Agape at the 
 same time as the Jews ate the Passover ; i.e., of continuing the 
 Passover under another form, a love-feast, followed by 
 prophesying, exhortation, and psalm-singing ; till early morn, 
 when the Eucharist was celebrated. 
 
 The Lesser Asian Churches, so far as we know, had no 
 annual commemoration of the Resurrection. They observed, 
 along with the Jews, the Paschal night, but by so doing, they 
 laid themselves open to the charge that they were not 
 
 *De Orat. c. 23. t-^"^' Uxorcni, ii. c. 4. t Adv. Judxnis, c. 10. 
 
THE PASCHAL LAMB. 
 
 159 
 
 commemorating the Last Supper and the institution of the 
 Eucharist on the same night as that on which Christ partook 
 of the Supper and ordained the Eucharist, but on the night 
 that followed. They replied that Christ antedated the Institu- 
 tion, because it was not possible for Him to institute the 
 New Passover on the night of the I4th-i5th Nisan, since He, 
 the Paschal Lamb, would die on the evening of the 14th. 
 
 Moreover, S. Paul's words certainly do seem to imply that 
 he held that Christ died on the 14th as the Paschal Lamb, 
 and that the Christian Passover should be eaten on the 
 ensuing night. 
 
 " Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us," he says, and the 
 inference is — at the same time as the typal lamb. " Therefore," 
 he adds — Our Lamb being slain, "Let us keep the feast — 
 with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (i Cor. v. 
 7). Here he clearly associates the Eucharistic commemoration 
 with the celebration of the Jewish Passover on the night of 
 the 1 4th- 1 5th. He does more, he goes further. On the 
 i6th Nisan the first-fruits were brought in procession early 
 to the Temple, and were lifted up, and waved before God at 
 the altar. " Christ," S. Paul goes on to say, " is risen from the 
 dead, and became the first-fruits of them that slept" (i Cor. 
 XV. 20). If Christ died when the Paschal lamb died, and rose 
 when the first-fruits were lifted up, the double type is 
 complete, and the significance of S. Paul's words is apparent. 
 
 O. T. 
 
 14th. Nisan (afternoon). The Pas- 
 chal Lamb slain outside the 
 Temple, in the court. 
 
 l6th. Nisan (early morning). The 
 first-fruits raised up in the 
 Temple. 
 
 N. T. 
 14th. Nisan (afternoon). The true 
 
 Lamb of God slain outside 
 
 the city. 
 i6th. Nisan (early morning). The 
 
 first-fruits of all men raised 
 
 from the dead. 
 
 The Lesser Asian usage led to conflict with the general 
 usage, in that it followed the Jews in always adhering to the 
 14th Nisan, and so changing the day of the week. It 
 
l6o OUR INHERITANCE 
 
 might therefore happen, and did happen, that when the 
 14th Nisan fell on a Sunday, the Asiatic Christians 
 would be found fasting and weeping for the death of 
 Christ, on the weekly festival of the Resurrection. If 
 they observed the Feast of the Resurrection on a set day 
 of the week, the inconvenience of their observing the day of 
 the Crucifixion by an annual commemoration, fixed by the 
 day of the month, was obvious. So obvious, so incongruous 
 did this seem to the rest of the Church, that everywhere else 
 the commemoration of the day of the Crucifixion was 
 determined by the Friday next to the 14th Nisan. 
 
 The arrangement of the Asiatic Church was so natural, so 
 easily made, and so soon proved unsuitable, that we can at 
 once see that it was the earliest arrived at, and that the other 
 usage was a modification of the usage to counteract or get 
 over the difficulties. That the Sunday had been fixed in 
 Apostolic times as the weekly memorial of the Resurrection 
 is certain ; that the annual memorial of the Crucifixion was 
 observed is almost certain ; the Christians were annually 
 reminded of it — it was fixed for them by the Jews making 
 their preparations for the Feast. Thus, the Asiatic arrange- 
 ment was one into which they would fall naturally — without 
 any drawing up of a festal calendar for themselves. It was 
 settled for them, Christ died on the day of the preparation, 
 and when they saw the Jews preparing annually on 14th 
 Nisan for the Passover, they recalled the events of the death 
 of Christ, and wept, and fasted. But the very first time that 
 the 14th Nisan fell on the Lord's Day, the unsuitableness of 
 this system would appear, for the Christians would be weeping 
 for the Death on the day in which they were bound to 
 rejoice for the Resurrection. Consequently, universally, 
 excepting only in Asia Minor, a change was made, substituting 
 the Friday nearest to the Passover, as the appropriate day for 
 commemoration of the Crucifixion, instead of the month- 
 day, as previously observed. 
 
THE PASCHAL LAMB. l6l 
 
 We repeat that the custom of the Asiatic Churches is 
 that which was obviously the earliest, and that the other usage 
 was as obviously a later rectification. 
 
 Now we come to the next variation. 
 
 As already said, the Asiatic Christians continued to 
 observe the Passover on the same night as the Jews, the 
 I4-I5th Nisan, only they gave it a new signification as a 
 memorial of the Lord's Supper, and it was followed at early 
 morning by the Eucharist. This met with two objections. 
 
 Firstly : It was Judaising. Christ ate the Last Supper 
 after sunset of the I3-I4th Nisan, and instituted the Eucharist 
 in the early morning of the 14th. The Asiatic Christians were 
 therefore clinging to Jewish customs in postponing their 
 Christian Passover till the night after the Crucifixion. 
 
 On account of the movable character of the commemora- 
 tion, in the second place, the Lesser Asiatics were feasting 
 when other Christians were fasting, and fasting when others 
 were feasting. 
 
 So far as we know, the Asiatics had no aujiual commemora- 
 tion of the Resurrection ; they kept the weekly commemora- 
 tion only. 
 
 But the rest of the Church kept both the animal and the 
 tveekly memorials of the Resurrection, and by the simple 
 arrangement of observing the Friday nearest to 14th Nisan, 
 they were able to do so without inconvenience. 
 
 The Asiatic Pascha lasted only one day. 
 
 The rest of the Church kept the Pascha from the Thursday 
 night to the Sunday morning. The Friday was the Pascha of 
 the Crucifixion {iraa-^a a-Tavpuxri^ov) and the Sunday was the 
 Pascha of the Resurrection (Tracrxa avaa-rdcrijuov). 
 
 We can realise the feeling of a Western by something 
 analogous amongst ourselves. Good Friday is among 
 Dissenters a day on which in the evening great public teas 
 and rejoicings with brass bands and flags flying take 
 place ; and a devout Churchman regards such demonstrations 
 
 M 
 
1 62 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 with ill-controlled horror and aversion. He looks on such 
 exhibitions on the day of the Lord's death as comparable only 
 to the rejoicing of the Jews over the judicial murder of 
 the Messiah. Such a feeling is very natural, but also very 
 unjust. 
 
 In the same way, when Western Christians on Good 
 Friday, or the Pascha, as they would call it, saw Eastern 
 Christians preparing for a feast, they could not contain their 
 anger and disgust. The Eastern behaviour was unseemly, 
 Jewish, devilish ; and as the Jews were at the same time 
 keeping their Passover, the Westerns denounced this 
 observance as an adherence to Mosaic traditions that warred 
 against true Christianity. 
 
 There came in other questions to further complicate matters. 
 The Jews had got out of their reckoning of the proper day, 
 so that the 15th Nisan did not any longer coincide with 
 the full moon. Theoretically the 15th Nisan was the 
 first full moon after the Spring equino.x, but the Jewish 
 calculation had become so wrong, that the moon and the 
 month-day no longer came together. The rectification of the 
 calendar was the occasion of an astronomical controversy 
 which entered into, became entangled with, and bewildered 
 the original dispute. Into this we need not enter. 
 
 The whole Church, not the Asiatics only, kept the memorial 
 of the Last Supper, and the subsequent institution of the 
 Eucharist ; but the Church generally observed it on the night 
 of the Thursday — Friday, nearest to the full moon after the 
 vernal equinox. Consequently even when the Asiatic and 
 other Christians kept the memorial of the Crucifixion on the 
 same day, that is when Friday and 14th Nisan coincided, yet 
 still there was this difference between them, that the Christians 
 of Syria and of the West held their Agape and Eucharist on 
 the night 13th- 14th, whereas, the Lesser Asian Christians held 
 theirs on the night I4th-i5th, along with the Jews. 
 
 We can quite understand how that converts from Judaism 
 
THE PASCHAL LAMB. 163 
 
 were reluctant to abandon the Passover. Their God had 
 delivered them from Egypt, and had appointed the Passover 
 as an everlasting memorial of the Deliverance. They 
 recognized an additional, or spiritual, delivery as well ; but if 
 Christ came to fulfil, not to abolish, the Law, then the Chris- 
 tian Passover would be an amplification of the Jewish 
 Passover, and would not abrogate the celebration on the 
 prescribed night. Sincere Christians though they might be, 
 they would hesitate to abandon the Paschal commemoration 
 altogether on the night prescribed ; when they were charged 
 with Judaising, they invoked as their justification the 
 command of God, making of it a perpetual obligation. It 
 was only when the Gentile element enormously preponderated 
 in the Church, that this clinging to the Passover could be 
 relaxed. 
 
 We come now to the question, Did Christ die on the 14th 
 Nisan, as S.John leads us to believe, or on the i5thNisan, as 
 we are led to conclude from the Synoptics ? 
 
 This is a question which has been pretty well threshed out ; 
 and so much has been said on both sides, that it may 
 seem presumptuous in the writer to add anything to this con- 
 troversy. 
 
 At first sight, it certainly seems that the Synoptics assert 
 that the Last Supper and the Passover took place on the night 
 of the I4th-i5th ; and that Christ died on the 15th. Here is a 
 quotation of their statements : — 
 
 " Now the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came 
 to Jesus, saying unto Him, Where wilt Thou that we prepare 
 for Thee to eat the Passover ? " (Matt. xxvi. 17). " I will 
 keep the Passover at thy house" (x\i. 18). "They made 
 ready the Passover " (19). 
 
 Similarly, in the Gospel of S. Mark (xiv. 12-17) '• "And the 
 first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover, 
 the disciples said unto Him, Where wilt Thou that we go and 
 
 M 2 
 
164 OUR INIIKRITANCE. 
 
 prepare, that Thou mayest eat the Passover ? " " The Master 
 saith, Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the 
 Passover with my disciples ? " " And they made ready the 
 Passover. And in the evening He cometh with the twelve. 
 And as they sat and did eat," &c. And in the Gospel of S. 
 Luke (xxii. 7-15) : " Then came the day of unleavened bread, 
 when the Passover must be killed." " Go and prepare us the 
 Passover, that we may eat." " Where is the guest-chamber 
 where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples } " " With 
 desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you before I 
 suffer." There are two points to be considered in the 
 consideration of these passages. 
 
 1. The Jewish day began at sundown : consequently, if the 
 sun had set, the first day of unleavened bread had begun with 
 the dusk of the Thursday, and nearly all these passages 
 quoted will apply to the same day as that stated by S. John, 
 if we suppose Christ to have entered Jerusalem in the evening. 
 
 2. That Passover which Christ desired with desire to 
 eat was 7iot the rite that was to be abolished, but the rite He 
 was about to institute. Consequently when He spoke of the 
 Passover His thoughts were directed to the Eucharistic 
 institution, but His disciples understood Him to be speaking 
 of the legal rite. 
 
 But there is a third point that deserves to be noted. The 
 Passover began on the evening of the 13th- 14th Nisan with 
 the solemn search with lights for leaven, and the putting it 
 away to be burnt before mid-day on the 14th, a rite attended 
 with certain prescribed prayers. When, therefore, Christ 
 bade His disciples go and prepare for the Passover, they went 
 and secured a room twenty-four hours before the Passover 
 was to be eaten, so that the full ceremonial might be observed, 
 beginning with the search for leaven that evening. 
 
 Moreover, it is inconceivable that Christ should not have 
 come into Jerusalem and begun to provide before the afternoon 
 of the 14th, for there was much to be done that day, the leaven 
 
THE PASCHAL LAMB. 1 65 
 
 to be burnt, and the lamb to be taken to the Temple to be 
 sacrificed. The ordinary evening service in the Temple would 
 be begun at 12.30 p.m., and over by 2.30, when the 
 sacrifices would be made, that is, the slaughtering of the lambs 
 for the Paschal meal would take place. Christ would have to 
 be in Jerusalem early on the 14th to secure a lamb, and next 
 to attend the court of the Temple in the afternoon with the 
 lamb, and then prepare for the roasting of the lamb. Is it 
 not most probable that He and His Apostles would come into 
 Jerusalem the day before and secure their room, and be ready 
 for the business of the Paschal Day of Preparation ? To come 
 into Jerusalem on the very day of Preparation would involve 
 great difficulties, the uncertainty of getting a lodging, the 
 uncertainty of securing a lamb, and the neglect of the 
 obligation to put away the leaven on the previous evening. 
 It would be quite inconsistent with the gravity and calm 
 of Christ to leave all this to be done in a scramble at the last 
 moment. 
 
 If we put ourselves in the position of reckoning days from 
 sundown, the difficulties disappear, and the Synoptics are 
 reconciled with S. John, who, in his account leaves no doubt 
 about the matter. 
 
 S. John says that Jesus ate the Last Supper " on the day 
 before the Feast" (xiii. i), that is, on the night between the 
 Thursday and Friday, the day with the Jew beginning with 
 the first twilight. In xviii. 28, S. John says of the Friday, 
 " and they themselves (the Jews) went not into the judgment 
 hall, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the 
 Passover!' This implies that when Jesus was brought before 
 Pilate, the Paschal Supper of the Jews was still future, of 
 which they were to partake on the following evening. Again, 
 in xix. 14, we read " it was the preparation of the Passover ; " 
 i.e., the 14th of Nisan was the day on which Christ suffered. 
 Lastly, in xix. 31 it is stated "for the Sabbath day was a 
 high day." Here the Sabbath, beginning with the evening of the 
 
l66 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 da)' of crucifixion, is called " a great day," because it coincided 
 with the first day of the festival proper, i.e., the 15th Nisan. 
 When Christ was dead, says S. Mark, there was haste made 
 to bury Him, "because it was the Preparation, that is, the 
 day before the Sabbath " (xv. 42). S. Matthew is in complete 
 accord when he says, speaking of the Sabbath, " The next day 
 that followed the Day of the Preparation " (xxvii. 62). 
 
 Christ had been at Bethany ; on the evening of the Thursday 
 He started for Jerusalem, to make ready for the Passover — to 
 secure a suitable room, to put away the leaven, and to institute 
 the Eucharist. As He spoke of the Passover — the New 
 Passover — his disciples naturally thought He spoke of the 
 Mosaic Supper for which they were to prepare, by the pur- 
 chase of a lamb on the morrow morning, and the leading 
 it to the altar of sacrifice in the afternoon. Perhaps they 
 may have asked, " Where is the lamb ? " What would 
 happen should there not be sufficient for sale ? Or should 
 there be blemish found ? And then, perhaps, Christ may 
 have answered as had Abraham, " God will provide Him- 
 self a lamb for a burnt-offering." So they went on their 
 way together. 
 
 Little did the Apostles then think that He who was 
 then with them was the Lamb, and that He would be slain 
 on the morrow. Their minds were turned only to the types 
 — the Lamb, the Supper, and could not see the antitypes, 
 which were before the eyes of their Master, the Sacrifice of 
 Calvary, the Eucharistic feast. 
 
 For that anniversary there was no need to provide a lamb. 
 God had given them the true Lamb. There was no need for 
 them to lay out money in the purchase. The Lamb was 
 already bought at the price of thirty pieces of silver. There 
 would be no need for them to drag the reluctant animal to 
 the slaughter, the True Victim would be drawn to the place 
 of sacrifice by the hands of the Jews. 
 
 If we allow that the Paschal lamb found fulfilment in 
 
THE PASCHAL LAMB. 1 6/ 
 
 Christ — and S. Paul insists that He was the very Paschal 
 lamb — then assuredly the type loses half its significance, if 
 the fulfilment, the sacrifice of the antitype, did not take place 
 simultaneously with the death of the type. If Christ be the 
 first-fruits — and S. Paul says that He is — then the oblation 
 of the first-fruits loses half its significance if it did not take 
 place at the same time on the same day as that on which 
 Christ rose from the dead. 
 
 If we insist on the synoptic Evangelists as asserting that 
 the Institution was on the night of the I4th-i5th — then we 
 make them contradict themselves, for they assert that He died 
 on the Day of the Preparation, precisely as does S. John, 
 (Matt, xxvii. 52 ; Mark xv. 42). 
 
 The tradition of the Church, burnt into its heart, is that 
 Jesus died on the 14th Nisan ; and this tradition should have 
 great weight in determining the day. The reason why 
 the confusion has arisen, and the Synoptics have been supposed 
 to contradict themselves and S. John is that, in the first place, 
 the mind fails to grasp the division of days from sundown to 
 sundown, and next, that the Last Supper has been supposed 
 to have been the Paschal Supper, or to have been immediately 
 connected with it. If the Paschal Supper was eaten, then 
 it has been contended, this must have been eaten on the night 
 of 14th- 1 5th; and if so, then Jesus must have died on 15th 
 Nisan. But, there are two serious objections to this calculation. 
 In the first place, Christ's Institution was a fulfilment of 
 the Passover, consequently it bore a strong resemblance to the 
 Paschal rite, so that a description of the Institution would, up 
 to a certain point, be a description of a Paschal supper 
 also. The Institution was a Passover into which new signifi- 
 cance had been poured, the old prayers, and benedictions, 
 and ritual were observed, but modified, altered, glorified. In 
 the second place, the unwavering usage of the Church in 
 the first centuries, the never altered usage of the Oriental 
 Church to the present day, has been to employ for the 
 
l68 - OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Eucharist leavened bread, because Christ instituted the Holy 
 Sacrament on the evening of the I3th-I4th Nisan in leavened 
 bread. The introduction of unleavened bread, as we show 
 later, began in the West comparatively late. If Christ 
 had instituted on the following night, He must have used 
 unleavened bread. 
 
 The tradition of the Church in this particular is of the 
 greatest weight. She would not have dared in those first ages, 
 when every point of the Institution was observed with 
 scrupulous exactness, to make an alteration so great as this. 
 When unleavened bread was introduced in the West in the 
 5th and 6th centuries it was under a misconception — the sup- 
 position that Christ had ante-dated the Passover, and accom- 
 plished the formality of the law (on the wrong night) before He 
 appointed the new rite, that was to take its place.* 
 
 Mclito, Bishop of Sardis, wrote a book on the Pascha, the 
 commencement of which is given by Eusebius, but un- 
 fortunately he docs not give us his line of argument. But a 
 contemporary, Apollinaris, Bishop of Hicrapolis, a friend 
 of Melito, also wrote. His date was about A.D. 170, and 
 he was a contemporary of Polycarp. Fragments of his work 
 are preserved in the Paschal Chronicle. He says, '* There 
 are some who through ignorance contend about these 
 things. . . . They say that the Lord ate the lamb with His 
 disciples on the 14th, and that He Himself suffered on 
 the Great Day of unleavened bread ; and they declare that 
 Matthew says what they understand the matter to be," &c. 
 It will be seen that there were some even at that day who 
 tried to make out that Christ died on the 15th Nisan ; but 
 Apollinaris answers : " The 14th is the true Pascha of the 
 Lord, the Great Sacrifice, the Son of God dying in place of the 
 
 * The ablest advocate of the theory that Christ died on the 15th Nisan, and 
 ate the Jewish Passover on the I4-I5tli, Dr. Edersheim ("The Temple and 
 its Services," R. T. .S., London, 1874, Appendix), fails, we think, to establish the 
 argument in face of some of the objections alwve stated. 
 
THE PASCHAL LAMB. 1 69 
 
 (Paschal) Lamb . . . and He poured from His side water 
 of blood . . . and He was buried on the day of the Pascha." 
 Here he opposes to these strange opinions the tradition of the 
 Church. 
 
 In 190 Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, addressed a letter 
 to Victor of Rome, in which he says, " We observe the genuine 
 day," and he insists that Philip the Apostle, and S. John, "who 
 rested on the bosom of the Lord," Polycarp, the disciple 
 of John, " and all the bishops of the Churches in succession," 
 had observed "the 14th Nisan, the day of the Pascha, 
 according to the Gospel, deviating in no respect ; but 
 following the Rule of Faith." 
 
 But the controversy with Victor was not about the day being 
 the 14th or 15th, but about the observance on the month-day 
 or the week-day. Polycrates adhered to the month-day 
 observance, Victor to the nearest Friday to the month-day.* 
 
 Peter, Bishop of Alexandria and martyr, wrote A.D. 306, 
 about the observance of Easter. He says : " The Passover is 
 on the 14th day of the first of months. — We have no other 
 object than to keep the remembrance of His passion, and 
 that at this very time, as those who were eye-witnesses of it 
 handed down from the beginning, before the Egyptians 
 received the faith. — Up to the period of the Lord's death and 
 to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, the people of 
 Israel, rightly observing the 14th of the first lunar month, 
 celebrated the Passover of the Lord — Christ said, I came not 
 to destroy the law, or the prophets, but to fulfil them. But 
 after His public ministry He did not eat of the lamb, but He 
 Himself suffered as the true Lamb at the Paschal Feast, as 
 John the Divine and Evangelist teaches. On that day, there- 
 fore (the Day of the Preparation) in which the Jews were 
 about to eat the Passover in the evening, our Lord and Saviour 
 
 * For the account of the Paschal Controversy, see Hefele : "Concilien 
 Geschichte," Bk. ii., %'}>]', Weitzel : "Die Christliche Passafeir," Pforzheim 
 1S44 ; " Kraus : Real-Encyclopadie d. Christl. Alterthiimer," 1886, ii. 565. 
 
I70 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Jesus Christ was crucified, being made the victim — and not as 
 some ignorantly affirm that after He had eaten the Passover 
 He was betrayed ; which we neither learn from the holy- 
 Evangelists, nor has any of the blessed Apostles handed 
 down to us. At the time, therefore, in which our Lord and 
 God, Jesus Christ suffered for us, according to the flesh. He 
 did not eat the legal Passover ; but, as I have said. He Him- 
 self suffered for us on the feast of the typical Passover, on the 
 Day of the Preparation, on the 14th of the first lunar month." 
 Anatolius of Laodiccea, also, about A.D., 270 wrote, " Nothing 
 was difficult to such as lawfully kept the Passover on the 14th 
 of the moon after the equinox. Following their example up 
 to the present time, the Bishops of Asia celebrate the Paschal 
 Feast every year, on the 14th of the moon, when the lamb 
 was sacrificed by the Jews after the equinox was passed, in 
 this differing from the successors of Peter and Paul, who 
 celebrated the solemn festival of the Resurrection only on the 
 Lord's Day." Then speaking of the contention that arose, he 
 adds, "One party kept the Paschal day on the 14th of the 
 first month, according to the Gospel. And the other party, 
 passing the day of the Lord's Passion in sadness and sorrow, 
 hold that it is not lawful to celebrate the mystery of the Pass- 
 over (Eucharist) at any other time than on the Lord's Day, 
 when Christ rose, for it is one thing to be sad with the sad, 
 and suffer with Him who endures the cross, and another to 
 rejoice with the victor as he triumphs over the old enemy." 
 
 Dr. Edersheim contends that the words of S. John can be 
 tortured into agreement with those of the Synoptics, which 
 seem to imply that Christ ate the old Passover on the legal 
 night. But the testimony of tradition has been left out of 
 account. S. John wrote after the Synoptics; and S. Polycarp, 
 his disciple, certainly had no doubt whatever as to what S. 
 John's meaning was : — that Christ died on the Day of the 
 Preparation ; that, therefore. He ate the Last Supper on the 
 night before the legal Passover night. We have the Churches 
 
THE PASCHAL LAMB. I/I 
 
 of Asia Minor strongly insisting on this tradition as Apostolic; 
 and it is inconceivable that they should have misunderstood 
 their organizer, if not exactly their founder, S. John. As we 
 have seen, the Church of Alexandria held the same. S. Cyril 
 of Jerusalem, in his Catechetical Lectures, testifies that the 
 Church over which he presided had the same tradition (De 
 Symb. xiv. 22). 
 
 S. Hippolytus (A.D., 225), in his " Refutation of all Heresies,"' 
 shows us (viii. 11) that the controversy with the Ouartodeci- 
 mans was not relative to the day, but relative to the mode 
 of observance of the day. 
 
 Besides, — Every other Church held the same tradition. 
 There was no contention as to the month-day of Christ's 
 death, the whole Church held that it was on the 14th Nisan. 
 In face of this general witness we cannot believe that the 
 theory is right that Christ died on the 15th. The annual 
 Jewish Preparation Day for the Passover served as an aimual 
 reminder to Christians, whenever they were in proximity 
 to Jews, that the saddest day in the world's history had 
 come. The weight of the custom of the Church is all on 
 one side. 
 
Chapter XVII. 
 
 THE AGAPE. 
 
 THE CONTROVERSY AS TO THE TIME OF BREAKING THE PASCHAL- 
 FAST — THE LORD'S SUPPER TOOK PLACE IN THE EVENING — THE 
 AGAPE THE COMMEMORATION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER — THE 
 EUCHARIST DISTINCT, BUT STILL TERMED THE LORD'S SUPPER, 
 BECAUSE ORIGINALLY THE AGAPE AND EUCHARIST WERE UNITED — 
 SCANDALS AT THE AGAPE IN S. PAUL'S TIME — SCANDALOUS STORIES 
 ABOUT THE AGAPE — NOT ALTOGETHER UNFOUNDED — THE FREE 
 PROPHECY AFTER THE FEAST — TERTULLIAN'S ACCOUNT OF THE AGAPE 
 — HE ALSO HINTS AT IMMORALITIES — S. CYPRIAN ON THE SEPARA- 
 TION OF EUCHARIST AND AGAPE — THE EDICT OF TRAJAN — THE AGAPE 
 UNITED TO THE EUCHARIST ONLY ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
 INSTITUTION — LINGERS ON WITH ALTERED MEANING— FASTING 
 COMMUNION THE PROTEST OF THE CHURCH AGAINST ITS ABOMINA- 
 TIONS—THE AGAPE AS A FUNERAL BANQUET — A MEMORIAL FEAST 
 TO MARTYRS — NOT HELD IN CHURCHES, BUT IN DINING HALLS — 
 PICTURES IN THE CATACOMBS— REMAINS OF THE AGAPE IN THE 
 ANTIDORON AND PAIN B^NIT — THE OFFERTORY — MILAN USE — 
 LINCOLN. 
 
 The difference between East and West as to the ob- 
 servance of the Pascha, the Day of the Crucifixion, became 
 most pronounced when both Orientals and Occidentals 
 happened to coincide as to the day of the week on which 
 it was observed, that is, when it chanced that the 14th Nisan 
 fell on a Friday ; for then the Easterns met to feast on the 
 ensuing night, whereas the Westerns maintained their 
 fast. 
 
 As soon as three o'clock was past, then the Eastern 
 Christians began their preparations for the Lord's Supper, 
 the ^eiiTvov kvoiov. 
 
174 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 As Jesus ate with His disciples, first a supper, which 
 some supposed was an anticipatory Passover, but others 
 maintained was an ordinary supper, so did the early 
 Christians begin their commemoration with a supper in 
 the evening, and that being ended, as the Lord's Day 
 drew towards dawn, they celebrated the Eucharist. 
 
 It would seem, from the account given by the Evangelists, 
 that the order of proceedings on the night previous to the 
 Death was this : — 
 
 1. (Probably : — Evening Prayer.) 
 
 2. The washing of the feet. 
 
 3. The Last Supper. 
 
 4. The long address as recorded by S. John on the Vine 
 and on Unity. 
 
 5. The Institution of the Eucharist. 
 
 6. The Hymn of Praise. 
 
 After this came the departure to the Garden, where 
 Christ was taken just before dawn. 
 
 The Western view was that Christ celebrated the 
 Passover by anticipation in the evening, as closing the old 
 covenant by its most solemn institution, and that then, at 
 the turn to the new day. He appointed the Eucharist as 
 the most solemn institution of the New Covenant. But 
 we need not now consider whether what first was eaten 
 was the Passover or a common supper. Whichever it was, 
 it was the Lord's Supper ; and both East and West 
 thought proper to reproduce, as nearly as might be, in the 
 commemoration of Christ's Passion the exact sequence 
 of events that took place on the eve of His death, only 
 transferring the whole in the Weekly Commemoration to 
 the night between Saturday and Sunday, and in the Atunial 
 Commemoration, in the P^ast, to the night between the 14th 
 and 15th Nisan ; in the West, to the night of 13th and 14th 
 Nisan. 
 
 The Pascha, the annual celebration, was infinitely the most 
 
THE AGAPE. 1 75 
 
 solemn. It is not quite certain that the entire dramatic 
 sequence was observed every week, or even monthly. 
 
 According to the custom of religious Jews, it can hardly 
 have been otherwise than that Christ and His Apostles began 
 the evening with the Psalms and Prayers of the evening ; 
 after which they sat down to supper. So also, when Chris- 
 tians assembled, they doubtless began with prayers and 
 psalms ; then went on to partake of the Lord's Supper, 
 the Agape, or Love Feast. So indissolubly united in the 
 general mind were the Agape and the Eucharist, that, 
 although the former has been discontinued for centuries, 
 the Eucharist still retains the name of Coena Domini, the 
 Lord's Supper, given to it when held in conjunction with the 
 Agape, a designation proper only to this precedent Supper. 
 
 In S. Paul's time (a.d. 57, 58) the Eucharist was plainly 
 combined with this supper. The instructions he gives to the 
 Corinthians (i Cor. xi. 20-34) seem to imply it. The 
 assembly was held, and in eating the Lord's Supper (the 
 Agape) there was a sad exhibition of greed and bad manners. 
 There were cases of drunkenness. Some of the guests were 
 left hungry because of the coarse selfishness of those who 
 snatched the food for themselves. This occasioned " dissen- 
 sions," irritation, and recrimination. The Love-Feast, instead 
 of fulfilling its name, provoked heart-burnings, animosities, 
 and flagrant breaches of brotherhood. 
 
 Then— immediately after, came the Eucharist, the institu- 
 tion of which S. Paul proceeds to give, and finally warns the 
 Corinthians of the danger of unworthy Communion if they 
 venture to receive the Eucharist in the state of acerbity, 
 inebriation, and disorder in which the Love-Feast has plunged 
 some of them. " What ! " he exclaims, " have ye not (your 
 own) houses to eat and to drink in ? or despise ye the Church 
 of God, and shame them that have not ? — Wherefore, my 
 brethren, when ye come together to eat (the Agape), tarry 
 one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at 
 
176 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 home ; that ye come not together unto condemnation " — that 
 is to say, lest the bad blood engendered, the surfeiting and 
 drunkenness which have taken place by abuse of the meats 
 and drinks at the Agape, cause you to " eat the bread and 
 drink the cup of the Lord " in the consequent Eucharist 
 " unworthily," and so become " guilty of the Body and Blood 
 of the Lord." 
 
 In the account of the assembly at Troas, the same order 
 was probably followed. " Upon the first day of the week "(z>., 
 after sunset on Saturday), " when the disciples came together 
 to break bread" (in the Agape), "Paul preached unto them, 
 ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech 
 until midnight." There were the breaking of bread and 
 instructions first, as on the occasion of the Last Supper ; first 
 the supper, and then the discourse. Then came midnight, 
 and after midnight, as we are expressly informed, ensued the 
 Eucharist, the second breaking of bread. 
 
 That the Agape provoked scandals elsewhere than at 
 Corinth, we are informed by S. Jude, who says that certain 
 men invaded these assemblies who misconducted themselves: 
 " These are spots in your Agapes, when they feast with 
 you, feeding themselves without fear — murmurcrs, com- 
 plainers, walking after their own lusts." 
 
 From the Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnians, the date 
 of which is about A.D. 112, it is clear that the separation 
 of the Eucharist from the Agape had not taken place in 
 Asia Minor at that date. He says, " It is not permitted 
 without a bishop either to baptize or to hold an Agape." 
 In such a connexion, says Bishop Lightfoot, the omission 
 of the most important function in the Christian Church, the 
 Eucharist, is inconceivable : " Therefore the Eucharist must 
 be implicitly contained in the Agape. The expression here, 
 in fact, is equivalent to the tingere et offerre^ which are 
 mentioned by Tertullian as the chief functions of the priestly 
 office." 
 
THE AGAPE. I// 
 
 Of the same date as the letter of Ignatius is that of Pliny 
 the Younger, governor of Bithynia, to Trajan, relative to the 
 assemblies of the Christians ; and it is clear from it that the 
 Agape had begun to provoke unfavourable comments outside 
 the Church. The stigma of " Thyestian " banquets and 
 " QEdipodean pollutions " was already attaching to them. 
 
 Pliny inquired of renegades, and questioned Christians by 
 torture, to ascertain the nature of the assemblies ; and he 
 wrote to the Emperor, " These men affirmed that their 
 fault or error amounted to this only, that they were accus- 
 tomed to meet on a regular day, before it was light, and to 
 join in a set form of words addressed to Christ as to God. 
 (They also entered into a sacred obligation, which had no 
 criminal tendency, but only bound themselves not to steal, 
 or commit adultery, or break their word, or refuse to restore 
 pledges.)* When this was over, they were in the habit of 
 breaking up, until they met again to partake of a common 
 meal, at which persons of all ranks attended, but in a manner 
 perfectly harmless." 
 
 We have here apparently the first meeting for the Eucharist 
 on Sunday morning, and then the Agape already detached 
 from the Institution, and postponed to the Sunday evening. 
 
 S. Methodius, the martyr, who suffered A.D. 312, gives us 
 in his Symposium what is, no doubt, a painting of an allegorical 
 subject on the lines of the old Agape. He represents ten 
 virgins assembled to a sacred banquet in the garden of Arete 
 (Virtue). After the supper each rises and utters a discourse 
 on chastity, and this is followed by prayer and a hymn with 
 response by way of antiphon. 
 
 That the service of combined preparatory office, Agape^ 
 and Eucharist occupied the whole night, we see from the 
 account of the assembly at Troas. 
 
 * Pliny has mixed up the baptismal pledge with the Eucharist. One can easily 
 understand how he could do this, taking down the confessions of men on the rack. 
 
 N 
 
178 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Tertullian, in dissuading Christian women from marriage 
 with heathens, refers to these long night assemblies, and very 
 pertinently asks what the husbands will think of them. 
 " Who will willingly bear her being taken from his side by 
 nocturnal convocations ? Who, without suspicion, will endure 
 her absence all the night at the paschal solemnities ? " * In 
 his time the Agape was therefore limited, in connexion with 
 the Eucharist, to the Paschal celebration. 
 
 To the floating rumours of horrible scenes of licentiousness 
 and savagery, Tertullian devotes himself in his Apology, and 
 with caustic wit turns the tables on the heathen. t Clement 
 of Alexandria has a word on the abuse of the Agape, " the 
 pots and pouring out of sauces, the drink, the dainties, the 
 games," " the sweetmeats, and honey-cakes, and sugar-plums," 
 which are found at the Agape. " Such entertainments," he 
 says, "the Lord did not call Agap3e." + 
 
 In the first part of the Epistles on Virginity attributed to 
 Clement of Rome, and which, if not by him, are certainly 
 very early productions, there is not merely allusion to the 
 scandals occasioned by the Agapae, but an admission that the 
 charges of immorality attaching to them were not unfounded. 
 *' We speak in consequence of the evil reports . . . Some eat 
 and drink (with maidens) at entertainments, allowing them- 
 selves loose behaviour, and much uncleanness — such as 
 ought not to be among believers, and especially among such 
 as have elected holiness for themselves." 
 
 In the "Apostolic Constitutions," the Agapae have changed 
 character, they are either charitable feasts made by the rich 
 for the poor,§ or they are feasts held on the anniversaries of 
 martyrs.^ Then, the writer says, " remember to feast in 
 good order, in the fear of God, . . . since you are presbyters 
 and deacons of Christ, be sober, both among yourselves and 
 abroad. We do not say, that they are not to drink at all, 
 
 *Ad Uxorem. ii. c. 4. fApologct. cc. 7-9. jrcedag. II. c. I. §11. c. 28. 
 HVIII. c. 44. 
 
THE AGAPE. 1/9 
 
 which would be reproaching God for what He has made to 
 cheer us, but not to drink wine in excess. Scripture does 
 not say, Drink not wine, but drink not wine to drunkenness ; 
 nor do we address this to the clergy only, but to every lay 
 Christian." 
 
 That the charges of immorality were not altogether 
 unfounded we gather, not only from the admissions of the 
 Apostle Paul, but also from the fact that among heretical 
 bodies that broke away from the Church and carried with 
 them the usages of the Church, gross immoralities did occur, 
 and the heathens unable to distinguish between the 
 sects and the .Church, attributed to the latter things 
 perpetrated by the former, and, indeed the Apologists com- 
 plain that the heathens misjudged the Church by confounding 
 the heretics with it. 
 
 Mark, founder of the Marcosites, who lived in the latter 
 half of the 2nd century, was followed by trains of women 
 prophetesses. His custom was, in the religious assemblies, 
 to extend a chalice to a woman saying, " The grace of God, 
 which excels all, fill all your inner being and increase His 
 knowledge in you, dropping the grains of mustard-seed into 
 good ground." A scene like a Bryanite revival followed. 
 The woman was urged to speak in prophecy ; she hesitated, 
 declared her inability. Warm, passionate appeals followed 
 closely one on another, couched in equivocal language, exciting 
 the religious and sensual passions simultaneously. The end 
 was a convulsive fit of incoherent utterances, and the curtain 
 fell on the rapturous embraces of the prophet and his spiritual 
 bride.* 
 
 We can even see whence Mark drew this hideous parody. 
 Tertullian, in an account he gives of the Agape, informs us 
 that it was followed by those present singing hymns, either 
 of their own composition, or from Holy Scripture. His 
 
 *Epiph. Ilreres. xxxiv. i ; Iren, Hseres. i. 9, 
 
 N 2 
 
l8o OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 account shows us the faded remains of the wild scene which 
 S. Paul describes. " How is it, brethren, when ye come 
 together," i.e., to the Agape, that after it, " every one of you 
 hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revela- 
 tion, hath an interpretation " (i Cor. xiv. 26). Those who 
 had risen from the love-feast were flushed, some with religious 
 fervour, others with wine ; others again were in that maudlin 
 condition of pious inconsequence, which is a combination 
 of both. There was a difficulty then, through ignorance 
 of physical and psychical sciences, of distinguishing between 
 what is genuine and what is the result of disease and hysteria. 
 Just as there were simultaneously real possession by evil spirits, 
 and insanity, and both insane and possessed were alike 
 involved in the one idea of encrgumens, so was there real 
 inspiration and hysterical ecstasy. There w^as a real gift of 
 tongues, and there was the incoherent jabber of semi-delirious 
 enthusiasts charged with wine and vanity. 
 
 S. Paul allows us a glimpse of a curious scene ; he lets us 
 look through the door after the conclusion of the Agape, and 
 suffers us to be deafened by the clamour of all speaking 
 with tongues, some shouting hymns, some maundering over 
 their spiritual experiences, some, half-tipsy, muttering pro- 
 phecies, some insisting on their interpretations being listened 
 to as serious revelations, and a few sorrowful souls looking on, 
 wondering whether this unseemly exhibition was an advance 
 on the orgies of Mithras and Dionysus. 
 
 " If there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers," 
 says the Apostle, " will they not say that you are mad .'' " That 
 scene was in A.D. 57. It occurred when no very certain 
 knowledge existed concerning nervous disorders, hysteria, and 
 its cognate forms of excitation. S. Paul was undecided how 
 to consider these wild ebullitions. But one occasion of scandal 
 could be cut off, the Agape could be removed to another 
 time than that preceding the Eucharist. 
 
 Tcrtullian writes about A.D. 190, and we see how that 
 
THE AGAPE. l8l 
 
 ecclesiastical discipline had effected a change. The Agape 
 was banished from its place on the night before the Eucharist ; 
 it retained this place on one night only in the whole year, the 
 night of the Ccena Domini, the anniversary of the Last 
 Supper. The Agape led up to a very modified version of 
 that free prophesying which startled and offended S. Paul. 
 It was now reduced to the recitation of hymns. Tertullian 
 says, " I will at once describe the peculiarities of the 
 Christians' society, that, as I have refuted the evil charged 
 against it, I may also show what is the positive good in it. 
 We meet together, as an assembly, and offer up prayer to 
 God with united force. We pray for the Emperors, their 
 officers, and all in authority, for the welfare of the world, for 
 the prevalence of peace, for the delay of the final consumma- 
 tion." We see he is referring to the Ektene, or Litany of 
 Intercession.* " We read our sacred writings. Also in the 
 same place exhortations are made, rebukes and censures are 
 administered." Here, then, we have the Pro-Anaphora, with 
 its Litany, Lections, and Sermon. "On the monthly collecting 
 day, each puts a small donation into the treasury, if it be his 
 pleasure, and as he is able." 
 
 Then he goes on to describe the Agape, following the 
 Pro-Anaphora. " You also abuse us for our humble feasts, 
 on the ground of extravagance and infamous wickedness. . . . 
 Our feast explains itself by its name. The Greeks call it 
 Love (Agape). With the good things of the feast we benefit 
 the needy. As it is a religious rite, it permits no vileness or 
 immodesty. The participants, before reclining, taste first of 
 prayer to God. As much is eaten as satisfies the cravings of 
 hunger ; as much is drunk as benefits the chaste. After 
 washing of hands, and the bringing in of lights, each is asked 
 to stand forth, and to sing as he is able, a hymn to God, 
 
 * That before the Lections, of which our Kyries and Collect for the Queen and for 
 the day are the remains. 
 
l82 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 either taken out of Holy Scripture, or one of his own 
 composition. As the feast commences, so does it close, with 
 prayer." * 
 
 This is evidently painted in rosy tints, but that the Agape 
 was not always, even in that age, innocent, Tertullian hints, 
 without openly stating it, in a later tract. 
 
 " With you," he says, " love (Agape) shows its favour 
 in saucepans, faith warms itself in kitchens, hope lurks in 
 pipkins, but of far greater account is Agape, because — per 
 hanc adolescentes tui cum sororibusjacenty "j" That this is an 
 allusion to the Agape follows from what he says afterwards 
 about the presence of the presbyters and their taking 
 double shares of meat and drink, and we know from the 
 "Constitutions" that at these love-feasts the clergy had 
 their portions allotted according to their rank. 
 
 S. Cyprian, in a curious and peculiarly difficult passage 
 in his letter to Ca;cilius, speaks of the separation of the 
 Eucharist from the Agape. The passage is so difficult 
 that we will here quote it, and then explain it. He is writing 
 against a use which had been introduced by one or more 
 clergy of employing water in place of wine at the Eucharist. 
 This was an encroachment of Paganism on Christian worship, 
 for in the Mithraic rites there was a ceremonial act something 
 like the Eucharist, in which bread and water were employed. + 
 Timid Christians favoured this innovation, because in time 
 of persecution they could be detected by the smell of the 
 Eucharistic wine on their lips early in the morning. 
 
 Cyprian, writing in A.D. 253, sa}s, " Does anyone 
 perchance flatter himself with this notion, that although in the 
 morning water alone seems to be offered, yet when we 
 come to supper we offer the mingled cup } But when we 
 sup, it is not legitimate to call the people together to our 
 banquet, thereat to celebrate the truth of the sacrament in the 
 
 * Apol. c. 28. t "De Jejunio," c. 17. \ Justin M. Apol., i., c. 66. 
 
THE AGAPE. 183 
 
 presence of the brotherhood. But still, it may be said, it was 
 not in the morning, but after supper, that the Lord offered the 
 mingled cup. Ought we, then, to celebrate the Lord's 
 rite after supper, that so by continual repetition of the Lord's 
 institution we may offer the mingled cup ?"* He goes on 
 to argue against evening Communions, but with that we 
 will not now concern ourselves. 
 
 The only interpretation of this difficult passage which wih 
 fit in with his argument is this. We will paraphrase his 
 words. 
 
 " Suppose, then, that we use water for the Eucharist in the 
 morning, can anyone satisfy himself that he is fulfilling the 
 commandment, ' Do this in remembrance of Me,' if he uses 
 water at the Eucharist, and employs the mixed cup of wine 
 and water in the evening at the Agape } It is no fulfilling 
 of the command, for it is not lawful for us to celebrate the 
 Eucharist along with the Agape. Christ, indeed, combined 
 the two, because the circumstance of His coming death 
 necessitated it ; but this is not any longer lawful for us." 
 
 The edict of Trajan against club-gatherings probably led to 
 the severance of the Agape from the Eucharist in the first 
 years of the second century ; indeed Pliny says, in his letter, 
 that at his command the Christians in Bithynia had abandoned 
 their love feasts. " There can be but little doubt," says Bishop 
 Lightfoot, "that the union of the two did not generally survive 
 the persecution of Trajan." Certainly, when Justin Martyr 
 wrote, twenty-eight years later, the two were separated. It is 
 by no means unlikely that the Church was relieved to have 
 an excuse for getting rid of that which, adopted out of pious 
 desire in all things to conform to the example of Christ, had 
 proved experimentally to be a source of scandal. 
 
 * Ad Ccecil. c. 16. "An ilia sibi aliquis contemplatione blanditur, quod 
 etsi mane aqua sola offerri videtur, tamen cum ad coenandum venimus, mixtum 
 calicem offeiimus ? Sed cum coenamus, ad convivium nostrum plebem convocare 
 non possumus, ut sacramenti veritatem fraternitate omni prresente celebremus." 
 We have taken "non possumus" as equivalent to "non licet." 
 
I 84 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 The Agape, however, remained united to the Eucharist, 
 preceding it on one night in the year, the commemoration of 
 the Last Supper and Institution. Socrates, in his "Ecclesiastical 
 History" (v. 27), says that the Egyptians in the neighbourhood 
 of Alexandria and in the Thebaid held their assemblies on the 
 Sabbath, and that after a feast in the evening they made the 
 Eucharistic oblation, and received the Communion. Sozomen 
 says the same (vii. 19), so that even to the end of the fourth 
 century the earlier usage hung on in places. But TertuUian, 
 when he speaks of the Christian wife of the unbeliever spending 
 the entire night in the Christian assembly, speaks of it as only 
 occurring at the Paschal solemnities, so that in the African 
 and Roman Churches the combination survived solely on the 
 Maundy Thursday night. The third council of Carthage, 
 A.D. 397, enjoined that the Holy Communion should be 
 received fasting, "except only on that one anniversary day on 
 which the Lord's Supper is celebrated." 
 
 In the Latin and African Churches the commemoration of 
 the Last Supper took place on Maundy Thursday night ; 
 whereas in the Lesser Asiatic Churches it took place on the 
 evening of the commemoration of the Crucifixion, taking the 
 place of the Jewish Passover. 
 
 The Council in Trullo, A.D. 692, finally removed even this 
 concession, and made the rule of fasting Communion general. 
 
 It is hard to understand the emphasis with which the 
 Church enjoined fasting Communion, except as the shudder of 
 her conscience at the recollection of the disorders and pro- 
 fanities that ensued on the Agape. 
 
 Love-Feasts were associated with the anniversaries of the 
 martyrs. The heathen were accustomed to have banquets in 
 the cell<2 of the cemeteries, erected for the purpose, solemn 
 feasts of the dead, and the Christians made use of this custom 
 as a means of having love-feasts in the cemeteries of their 
 dead, on the anniversaries of the deaths of the martyrs, without 
 attracting observation and provoking suspicion. 
 
THE AGAPE. I85 
 
 S. John Chrysostom entreats his hearers to partake of the 
 meal to be appointed in honour of the martyr JuHan, beside 
 the church, instead of trooping off to Daphne, the grove and 
 suburb of Antioch, of old dedicated to the goddess, but which 
 came to be a sort of Prater, or Champs Elysees, to Antioch. 
 
 There was drunkenness even when the Agape had been 
 dissociated from the Eucharist, and was not held inside a 
 church. S. Augustine* and S. Ambrose! both speak of it. 
 The Council of Laodicsea forbade the holding of these feasts 
 in churches and the houses of God (Can. 28) ; and rebuked 
 the clerks or laity who carried home with them the food 
 prepared for the feast (Can. 27). The Council of Gangra, 
 held about the same date (latter part of 4th century), on 
 the other hand, rebuked those who disregarded invitations 
 to Agapes and held aloof The name Agape acquired 
 a broader meaning, it came to be applied to all charitable 
 dinners given by the rich to the poor ; and their true 
 successors among ourselves are the harvest-teas, school-treats, 
 and club-feasts. 
 
 The Agape had gone through many modifications before it 
 wholly disappeared. As a symbol of the banquet of eternal 
 life, at which Christians would sit down together with the 
 prophets and patriarchs, it was cherished, and, in spite of its 
 abuses, allowed to remain ; preserving, however, less and less of 
 religious significance, the convivial side of it becoming more 
 and more prominent, till finally the name ceased to have any 
 sacred meaning, and was given to any feast that was associated 
 with a baptism, a marriage, or a funeral. 
 
 The Agape went through these stages in succession : — 
 
 1. Celebrated in the evening, followed by prophecies, and 
 psalms, and instruction, till after midnight. Then the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 2, Postponed to the evening after the Eucharist ; or, 
 
 * Ep. 22, ad Aurelium, c. 3. f De Elia et Jejunio, c. 17. 
 
l86 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 postponed to immediately after the Eucharist. It is so 
 spoken of by S. Jerome* and by S. Chrysostom.t Tolerated 
 in its original place only on one night in the year, Maundy 
 Thursday. This forbidden also in 692. 
 
 3. Ceased to be a religious feast. Became only a charitable 
 banquet given to the poor. Also, all christening, wedding, 
 and funeral feasts were given the same name. 
 
 We have no reason to suppose that the Agape was 
 originally held in the same place as the Eucharist. When 
 the liturgy was said in private houses, the Agape was pro- 
 bably given in the tricliniinn^ the dining-room of the house, 
 and when houses were given up to be churches, these salles ct 
 manger remained as the proper places in which the love feasts 
 continued to be held. When churches were erected, then 
 dining-rooms were built adjoining them. So, in the sermon 
 of S. Chrysostom already referred to, the saint urges his 
 hearers to come to the Agape in the building adjoining the 
 church. But, no doubt, in some places, the dining-tables 
 invaded the body of the church as well, and this will account 
 for the canons of councils forbidding the abuse,J from the 4th 
 century to the close of the 7th. In the catacombs there are 
 many representations of banquets, but we cannot say for 
 certain that they are love-feasts ; though unquestionably 
 they have some religious significance. It has been 
 conjectured that they symbolize the refection of the just 
 in the heavenly kingdom. Christ said, " Blessed are 
 those servants whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall 
 find watching : verily I say unto you, that He shall gird 
 Himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come 
 forth and serve them" (Luke xii. 37). The joys of heaven 
 were therefore likened by Him to a feast ; and perhaps the 
 Agape was regarded as a foreshadowing of the " feast of 
 
 * Comm. in I Cor. xi. t Horn. 27 in i Cor. 
 
 % Laod. c. 28 ; Carthag. iii. c. 30; Aurcl. ii. c. 12 ; Quinisext, c. 74. 
 
THE AGAPE. 18/ 
 
 good things and wine on the lees," which would be made in 
 Heaven for those that love Christ. 
 
 Formerly it was believed that the representations in the 
 catacombs of feasts referred certainly to the Agape. This is 
 now doubted, as we know that the love-feasts were not held 
 in the catacombs, but in the ccllc3 above ground. It is not, 
 however, unlikely that these representations may have a 
 double reference, to the Agape as the symbol, and the Eternal 
 Banquet in Heaven as the fulfilment. 
 
 It may now be asked, Has the Agape left any trace of its 
 presence in the Divine Service of the Church .'' We cannot 
 but think that it has. 
 
 As we have already seen, Tertullian speaks of the Pro- 
 Anaphora as the introduction to it, 
 
 Tertullian speaks of the lighting of the lamps, and of the 
 collection of alms once a month — alms in money — but we 
 may well suspect that the money alms was a commutation of 
 offerings in kind, bread, wine, oil, fruit, meat, &c. And this 
 we know did take place. The Pro-Anaphora ended, the rich 
 advanced and made their offerings of bread, wine, and meat, 
 and fruit for the common meal. The " Constitutions " order 
 what is to be offered ; they forbid the presenting of more than 
 bread, wine, and oil. From Tertullian's account, in his time 
 this had been changed into a money collection, with which 
 what was necessary was purchased ; for, when the rich offered, 
 there was sometimes superfluity, occasionally gluttony and 
 drunkenness, and should the offerings come in scantily there 
 might not be enough. 
 
 The writer was one Sunday in a little Bohemian church. 
 At the offertory the men of the congregation stood up, and 
 one after another walked up to the altar, and laid a coin on 
 the south corner ; and when they had finished making 
 their gifts, the women followed in like manner. 
 
 One July day the writer was at Milan, and entered its 
 wonderfully solemn Cathedral for service. Thirty-seven 
 
l88 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 architects were engaged on tlie plans, carr}'ing out, altering, 
 and undoing the work of their predecessors, and adding 
 something of their own, yet the grand idea of the original 
 creator of the church as seen within is unchanged. Few of 
 those who visit Milan know, or, if they know, care for, the 
 fact that this Church enjoys its own venerable liturgy. To 
 the writer, however, this fact was of intense interest, and he 
 watched the service with close attention. 
 
 Immediately after the sermon, where the Roman Mass has 
 an unmeaning call to prayer, followed by no prayer, the 
 Milanese liturgy has a Prayer of the Veil, which shall be 
 spoken of later, and then from the altar descends the celebrant 
 with his attendant deacons to the chancel steps, and at the 
 same time there come up the church two old men in very 
 long, full, white linen cloaks, like Roman togas, attended 
 by two other men in short surplices, and two old women in 
 semi-religious garb. These old men and women have their 
 hands wrapped in white linen, and with the linen hold an 
 offering of bread and wine, the bread in the right hand, the 
 wine in the left. These oblations are received by the cele- 
 brant, who returns with them to the altar. The money 
 oblation as offered in Bohemia is the remains of the changed 
 gift, from kind to coin ; the offering at Milan represents the 
 earlier, unaltered offering ; but now a select number only are 
 allowed to make the oblations, and that offering is directed 
 only towards the Eucharistic celebration, whereas the money 
 offering is devoted to the poor. In our own service there is 
 a double presentation, of alms for the poor, and of bread and 
 wine for the Eucharist, but the bread and wine are no 
 longer presented by the congregation, except in theory, 
 for they are paid for by the churchwardens as represen- 
 tatives of the congregation. But the Church of Milan is the 
 only Church in all Christendom which preserves the oblation of 
 the elements by the people. 
 
 The reader, if he has been in France, may have been startled 
 
THE AGAPE. 1 89 
 
 and perplexed by seeing the choir-boys come round during 
 the Mass with silver wire baskets, containing small loaves, 
 which they distribute among the congregation. This is the 
 pain bcnit, and is, theoretically, the superfluity from the bread 
 offered by the people at the oblation, and the congregation 
 eat it in church. This also is a faint reminiscence of the 
 old Agape united to the Eucharist, and is partaken of by 
 them instead of communicating. In the Greek or Russian 
 Church, after the liturgy, the priest comes round with small 
 loaves, the anti-doron, which is actually the surplus bread, not 
 wanted for the Eucharist, and this is given away among the 
 congregation — again a reminiscence of the Agape, transposed, 
 and put after the Eucharist, 
 
 There were other curious traces of it, now gone. 
 Mabillon, in his " Museum Italicum " (T. ii), gives a very 
 curious invitation in one of the Ordines Roinani. After 
 Mass, the Pope solemnly invited those present to dinner. 
 There was something similar in the old Lincoln use, where the 
 Hebdomadarius entertained the clergy after Mass, at what 
 looks much like a stand-up lunch.* These were the lingering 
 relics of the primitive Agape. 
 
 In conclusion, we need only say a few words relative to the 
 time at which the Eucharist was celebrated. 
 
 Through a curious confusion of ideas and ignorance of 
 primitive usage, it has been often urged that the Holy 
 Eucharist was instituted in the evening. We have no grounds 
 for concluding that this was the case. The Last Supper was, 
 indeed, eaten in the evening, and that was followed, probably 
 after a considerable lapse of time — during which our Lord 
 gave the discourses recorded by S. John, and offered His 
 great prayer for unity and protection — by the institution of 
 the new rite of the New Covenant at the beginning of the 
 new day. If, as some believe, Christ ante-dated the Paschal 
 
 * See Wordsworth in " Archseologia," vol. 51. 1888. 
 
190 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Supper, then we can see a singular appropriateness in closing 
 the old day with the rite of that covenant which was decaying, 
 and about to be swept away, as there is a singular appro- 
 priateness in initiating the day of the New Covenant with the 
 institution of the new rite. 
 
 The usage of the Church seems never to have swerved from 
 morning celebrations. The tradition of the Church on this 
 point is more reliable than on matters of pious belief ; 
 for the Eucharist was of weekly repetition, and this incessant 
 iteration hammered custom into a hard and unalterable con- 
 viction that the morning was the only suitable time of the 
 day for the celebration of the Holy Communion. 
 
 The Lord's Supper, indeed, took place in the evening, and 
 the Agape, its counterpart in the Church, was held to be most 
 appropriately observed in the evening, and in the evening 
 before the observance of the Divine command to " Do this in 
 remembrance of Me." But the Agape was displaced almost 
 in the lifetime of S. John ; at any rate, in that of the disciples 
 of the Apostles. It was moved about till it was rejected 
 altogether. But the conscience of Christendom, the uni\-ersal 
 conviction of the Church, never hesitated about the Eucharist 
 — in affirming that it should be celebrated in the morning, as 
 the festival of a dawning and ever-growing light, lightening 
 to the perfect Day, not as a rite of darkness, decline, and 
 extinction. 
 
 This appropriateness of associating the New Institution 
 with the dawn of a new day was, however, not the first 
 thought in the Christian mind. The first thought was to 
 reproduce as exactly as might be in every particular, as to 
 time, as to detail, the original Institution in the Upper 
 Chamber. TJiat is it which furnishes the key to explain all 
 the special peculiarities of the Eucharist. We have seen how 
 that it was this desire exactly to reproduce the order of events 
 which induced the primitive Church to celebrate an Agape in 
 the evening before the Eucharist, to combine a Lord's Supper 
 
THE AGAPE. 191 
 
 with the New Institution. It was this which caused the 
 primitive Church universally to employ leavened bread, 
 holding, as she did, that Christ instituted on the night of the 
 14th Nisan. The usage of unleavened bread came in only 
 when there had arisen confusion in men's minds as to the 
 real day of the Crucifixion. It was this which caused, as we 
 shall see presently, many other usages and ceremonies to be 
 associated with the Eucharist. In everything, down to the 
 smallest gesture and act, the Church loved to hold to the 
 example of Christ at the first Institution on the night 
 preceding His Passion. 
 
Chapter XVIII. 
 
 THE FIRST-FRUITS. 
 
 THE CEREMONY OF THE FIRST-FRUITS — THE TYPE FULFILLED ON 
 EASTER MORNING — S. PAUL SO SPEAKS OF CHRIST— THE GREAT 
 ENTRANCE — THE REPRODUCTION IN THE CHURCH OF THE OBLATION 
 OF FIRST-FRUITS — THE FATHERS SPEAK OF THE EUCHARISTIC ELE- 
 MENTS AS THE FIRST-FRUITS — BUT AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF THE 
 TEMPLE CEASED TO UNDERSTAND WHY THEY WERE SO CALLED — THE 
 ADORATION AT THE GREAT ENTRANCE EXPLAINED— THE APPLICATION 
 OF THE TERM FIRST-FRUITS ANOTHER ARGUMENT IN FAVOUR OF THE 
 CRUCIFIXION HAVING TAKEN PLACE ON 14TH NISAN. 
 
 In the early morning of the i6th Nisan, the day after the 
 Passover, a striking ceremony was performed in Jerusalem. 
 On that morning the first-fruits of the corn that had slept in 
 the earth, that had germinated and ripened, was brought with 
 triumph from the vale of Kedron to the Temple, and there 
 waved before the Lord. 
 
 On the previous evening delegates of the Sanhedrim went 
 forth from Jerusalem over the brook to a cornfield, and bowed 
 down some ears of corn with their hands to the earth. Then, 
 when the sun was setting, one of them cried, " Lo ! the sun 
 is setting ! " and the people answered, " It is well." Then he 
 asked, " Shall I reap ! " and they replied, " Reap." This was 
 done thrice, then the corn was reaped and laid on the soil, 
 where it lay all night, and the delegates returned to Jerusalem. 
 
 The people of the country places were, however, camping 
 out by the roads, and sleeping outside the city in the fields, 
 under tents, awaiting the coming day. 
 
 Early in the morning, one who was constituted the chief cried. 
 
THE FIRST-FRUITS. I93 
 
 " Arise ! let us ascend to Zion ! to the House of our Lord 
 God ! " Thereupon all the people arose, and the chief took 
 the corn that had been reaped, and the first-fruits of vine and 
 fig, and went forward, all the people in train following him. 
 They had, moreover, an ox leading the way, with gilded 
 horns, and a crown of olive about its head. 
 
 A trumpet sounded and announced to Jerusalem that the 
 procession approached ; then the citizens came forth from 
 their houses to salute the train. 
 
 From the left side the procession entered the Temple 
 court, and there was met by the Levites, who sang Psa. xxx., 
 " I will magnify Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast set me up, and 
 not made my foes to triumph over me." 
 
 He who bore the sheaf of the first-fruits, said, in the name of 
 the people, " A Syrian ready to perish was my father, 
 and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a 
 few, and .... the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted 
 us. And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, 
 the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and 
 our labours, and our oppression. And the Lord brought us 
 forth . . . and brought us unto this land, even a land that 
 floweth with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have 
 brought the first-fruits of the land, which Thou, O Lord, hast 
 given us." 
 
 Then the priest took the sheaf and the first-fruits, and placed 
 them before the altar, and waved the sheaf of new corn before 
 the Lord (Deut. xxvi.).* 
 
 Now, accepting what seems to have been the conviction 
 of the early Church, that Christ died on the 14th Nisan, then 
 let us turn and look at Him. 
 
 He, the broken and cut-down ear of corn, had lain in the 
 earth ; but His Spirit had descended to those in prison, the 
 prisoners of hope, those who looked for release through the 
 
 * Otho, " Lex. Rabbin," 1757 ; s. v. Primitice. 
 
194 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Blood of the Covenant. To them Clirist preached release. 
 He broke the gates of brass, and smote the bars of iron 
 asunder, and, as — and at the same time as — the great train 
 from the country came streaming into Jerusalem, headed by 
 the first-fruits, so did the mighty train of the redeemed and 
 released rise from their sleep in the prison-hold of hope, "and 
 appeared in the holy city after His resurrection." He, our 
 First-Fruits and our Sacrifice, of whom the sheaf and the ox 
 were signs, on Easter morning, led the vast train of those who 
 had waited on His salvation, into the city, the New Jerusalem 
 of His Church, soon to be presented by Him in the Temple 
 of God on high. The ceremony of the first-fruits was very 
 real to S. Paul, and he associated it with the Resurrection in 
 such a manner as to make us believe that he also held that 
 the Resurrection took place on the same day as the presen- 
 tation of the first-fruits, just as he also seems to imply, 
 Avhen he speaks of Christ our Passovxr being sacrificed for us, 
 that Jesus died at the same time as the typical Paschal lambs 
 were slain — on the afternoon of the 14th Nisan. "Now is 
 Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of 
 them that slept. . . . Every man [shall rise] in his own order." 
 He has the ascending procession in his eye — " Christ, the 
 first-fruits ; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming" 
 (i Cor. XV. 20, 23). 
 
 " Ourselves, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we 
 ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to 
 wit, the redemption of our body " (Rom. viii. 23). " What shall 
 the receiving of them [the Jews] be, but life from the dead ? 
 For, if the first-fruits [Christ] be holy, the lump is also holy " 
 (Rom. xi. 16). These two passages show a reverse order of 
 ideas in the mind of S. Paul. Having in the first spoken of 
 first-fruits, and that in relation to the Holy Spirit, not Christ, 
 still the mention of first-fruits at once drew his thoughts to the 
 ceremonial offering on the i6th Nisan, and as that was 
 associated with resurrection, he at once went on to speak of 
 
THE FIRST-FRUITS. 195 
 
 the "redemption of the body." In the next passage it was 
 otherwise ; there he was speaking of the reception of the Jews 
 by the Church — there flashed through his mind the scene of 
 the city Jerusalem turning out to salute and welcome the 
 villagers coming in with the first-fruits ; and at once connecting 
 that ceremony with the Resurrection, he went on to apply the 
 idea, and draw an argument from it to prove his case. If 
 Christ be the first-fruits, it is of the Jewish harvest field. 
 If He be holy, then all the corn is holy too. 
 
 When S. Paul says, " Christ our Passover is sacrificed for 
 us, therefore let us keep the feast; not with the old leaven, 
 but with the unleaven bread" (i Cor. v. 7), his similitude 
 loses half its force unless we understand him as referring to 
 an actual synchronism of type and anti-type. On the after- 
 noon of 14th Nisan, the lambs were slain for the Passover — so 
 Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. When the sun set 
 the Paschal feast began, not with leaven, but with unleavened 
 bread — so let us eat our Passover, Christ, with the unleavened 
 bread of sincerity and truth. 
 
 In the Eastern Church is a very striking ceremony at the 
 beginning of the Mass of the Faithful. 
 
 The Pro-Anaphora is over. The unbelievers, those pos- 
 sessed with evil spirits, those unworthy of the highest privi- 
 leges, are gone out. 
 
 Then from the north side comes in a train of clergy, priests, 
 deacons, acolytes, with candles, and incense, bearing the bread 
 and wine for the Eucharist. 
 
 This is called the Great Entrance. 
 
 It is hardly possible to doubt, that this is a ceremony taken 
 from the procession with the first-fruits. They are brought 
 from the same side of the church, the left, as the original 
 first-fruits were brought into the Temple, and as the first- 
 fruits were heaved or waved before the Lord at the altar, so 
 are the Christian first-fruits elevated in oblation to God. 
 
 If we had only the resemblance in ceremony to go by, we 
 
 O 2 
 
196 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 might err in associating the Christian rite with that in Jeru- 
 salem ; but we have further grounds. The early Fathers call 
 the Eucharistic oblation by that very name, " first-fruits." 
 
 Irenasus says that Christ gave to His disciples the com- 
 mand " to offer to God the first-fruits of His own created 
 things. He took that created thing, bread, and gave thanks, 
 and said. This is My Body. And the cup, likewise, He con- 
 fessed to be His Blood, and taught the new oblation of the 
 new covenant ; which the Church, receiving from the Apostles, 
 offers to God throughout all the world, to Him who gives us 
 the first-fruits of His gifts in the New Testament ; concern- 
 ing which Malachi thus prophesied : From the rising of the 
 sun unto the going down of the same My name shall be 
 glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place shall incense 
 be offered to My name, and a pure sacrifice," &c.* " We are 
 bound," says he, in the following chapter, " to offer to God 
 
 the first-fruits of creation The kind of oblation has 
 
 not been abolished ; for there were oblations [among the 
 Jews] and there are oblations here [in the Church]. Sacri- 
 fices there were among the Gentiles, and sacrifices there are 
 in the Church also ; but [in this latter case] the Xv//ci' of obla- 
 tion is changed." He means that among the Jews were the 
 oblations of the first-fruits, which remain ;-f- among the Gen- 
 tiles were bloody sacrifices, those are done away with. He 
 goes on, " It behoves us to make oblation to God, offering the 
 first-fruits of His created things ; and the Church alone offers 
 the pure oblation to the Creator with Eucharists of things 
 taken from the creation. But the Jews do not offer this [i.e., 
 a pure offering], for their hands are full of blood." Accord- 
 ing to Irena:us, the Bread and Wine offered to God in the 
 Eucharist are a first-fruits offering ; not that God standeth 
 
 * Adv. litres, iv. , c. 17. 
 
 + Among the Jews were also bloody sncrifices, but he is not alluding to these 
 when he says that the kind remains. 
 
THE FIRST-FRUITS. I97 
 
 in need of man's oblation, but that the Creator exacts of His 
 people a representative offering of the things He has made. 
 
 Again, " It was fit that Moses should give manna as food 
 to the fathers, but Joshua wheat, as the first-fruits of life, a 
 type of the Body of Christ ; for Scripture declares that the 
 manna of the Lord ceased when the people had eaten wheat 
 from the land." He takes manna as typical of the nourish- 
 ment under the Law, and wheat as the first-fruits, the food 
 of those led by Joshua (Jesus) under the New Covenant.* 
 
 These passages belong to the writings of a man of the 
 second age after the Apostles, one who in his youth had 
 known Polycarp, the disciple of S. John. " Polycarp," 
 he says, " having received [information] from the eye- 
 witnesses of the Word of Life, would recount things — and 
 I listened attentively, and treasured them up, not on paper, 
 but in my heart, and I am continually, by God's grace, 
 turning these things over in my mind."t 
 
 In the eighth Book of the "Constitutions" the rubric concern- 
 ing the bringing in of the oblations is very short : " Let the 
 deacons bring the gifts to the bishop at the altar." In the 
 Liturgy of S. James it is equally terse: "The priest brings in 
 the holy gifts." In that of S. Mark : " The holy things enter 
 to the altar." 
 
 The ceremonial of the Great Entrance, if modelled on that 
 of the oblation of the first-fruits in the Temple, must have 
 been so modelled before the destruction of the Temple, and be 
 a portion of the ritual as ordered by the Apostles. Its signifi- 
 cation, as we see from Irenaeus, had begun to fade, and Origen 
 goes about in quite a different direction to explain the term 
 first-fruits applied to the oblations of Bread and Wine. 
 After referring to the creation of " herb-yielding seed and 
 tree-yielding fruit," he takes wheat as the firstling, or highest 
 type, of the former class, the herb yielding seed, and the vine 
 
 * Iren. Fragm., 19. f Iren. Fragm., 2. 
 
198 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 as the noblest attainment of the tree-yielding fruit ; he says to 
 Celsus, who had charged Christians with making oblations of 
 first-fruits to demons, that " it was true Christians offered 
 first-fruits of herb and tree, and poured forth prayers to 
 Him to whom the first-fruits were offered, even to Him who 
 has gone up into heaven, Jesus, the Son of God."* In the 
 Great Intercession in the Liturgy of the " Constitutions " there 
 is a prayer for all such as bring " offerings and first-fruits to 
 the Lord our God " (Ta9 Ot/o-Za? kui ra? a7rap-)(ag'j, where the 
 reference is apparently to the prophecy of Malachi, the 
 " incense and pure offering " being the prayers and first- 
 fruits, the oblation of Bread and Wine, t 
 
 At the Great Entrance in the Eastern Church it is the 
 custom for the congregation to fall on their knees, and the 
 Westerns have attacked the Orientals for what they suppose 
 to be anticipative adoration of the elements before consecration. 
 The Roman censors have abolished this in the Uniate rites ; 
 and the Eastern liturgical writers have had great difficulty in 
 defending the practice. The fact is that the practice has out- 
 lived its original meaning. 
 
 The Great Entrance, as the representative of the oblation 
 of first-fruits, was understood, at first, as the united offering 
 by the Church, by priests, and people of Bread, and Wine as 
 representatives of God's gifts to man in creation. And as 
 the offerer in the temple put his hands with the hands of 
 the priest to the sheaf when it was raised and waved, so did 
 the people kneel at the entrance of the gifts, to show that 
 the}' tendered them with the celebrant at the altar in one 
 united oblation. 
 
 After the cessation of the Temple worship, the recollection 
 
 * Adv. Cels., viii. c 34. 
 
 + In the Alexandrine Canons, wrongly attributed to Ilippolytus, Can. 36 is on 
 the dedication of the lirst-fruits; the next on the vesting of the clcrgj' in white 
 robes for the Eucharistic mysteries ; the (irst-fniits, almost certainly, in the 
 canon, mean the Bread and Wine. 
 
THE FIRST-FRUITS. 199 
 
 of the wave ofifering of first-fruits died away, and the 
 connexion of the Eucharistic oblation with it was no longer 
 perceived, the relation was lost sight of. 
 
 When we remember that the Lord's Day was appointed as 
 the feast of perpetual remembrance of the Resurrection, and 
 that — if we are right that this took place on i6th Nisan — the 
 Resurrection and the oblation of the first-fruits took place 
 simultaneously, then we can see how appropriate was the 
 recurrence every Lord's Day of the first-fruits offering. 
 
 We can see also how that the destruction of the Temple 
 and the cessation of the oblation by the Jews would lead to 
 the gradual extinction, in the mind of Christians, of the 
 connexion as it originally existed, and how that such a 
 connexion was never even surmised by Gentile converts, who 
 knew nothing of Jewish rites. 
 
Chapter XIX. 
 
 THE BREAD. 
 
 THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT UNLEAVENED BREAD— THE AZYMITES — 
 MARTYRDOM OF MONKS — DID CHRIST INSTITUTE THE EUCHARIST IN 
 UNLEAVENED OR LEAVENED BREAD? — WHAT WAS THE USAGE OF THE 
 PRIMITIVE CHURCH — THE MEANING OF LEAVEN — THE SHEW-BREAD — 
 UNLEAVENED, TYPIFIED CHRIST — IF CHRIST INSTITUTED THE 
 EUCHARIST ON THE NIGHT OF I3TH-I4TH NISAN, HE MAY HAVE EM- 
 PLOYED LEAVENED BREAD — THE TRADITION OF THE CHURCH THAT 
 IT WAS LEAVENED— REASONS FOR THE USE OF LEAVEN — THE BREAD 
 WHEATEN — IN ROME FERMENTED TILL THE TENTH CENTURY — 
 REPRESENTATIONS IN THE CATACOMBS — THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 MAKES NO RULE AS TO LEAVENED OR UNLEAVENED BREAD. 
 
 In the middle of the iith century, the simmering 
 antagonism between the Greeks and the Latins, bred of 
 national antipathies and mutual grievances, became active. 
 Michael Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople, and Leo of 
 Achrida, declared the Eucharists of the Latins void, because 
 they used unleavened bread, and Constantine, an archer of the 
 guard, broke into the Latin Church, got hold of the Eucharistic 
 wafer, and insultingly, ostentatiously trampled it under foot. 
 The Greeks called the Latins Azymites in scorn, and a fierce 
 polemic broke out on the subject of leaven. For some time 
 the Latins stood on the defensive. They could not deny that 
 the use was of recent introduction, nevertheless they endea- 
 voured to defend it on the ground that Christ had instituted 
 the Sacrament in unleavened bread. To such extravagance 
 did polemical fury rage on this topic, that in 1225, when the 
 island of Cyprus was being reduced to the Latin obedience by 
 
THE BREAD. 20I 
 
 Hugh, the Lusignan king, and by Honorius III., thirteen Greek 
 monks, who refused to allow that the Eucharist if consecrated 
 in unleavened bread was valid, were burnt alive as heretics ; 
 and are now reckoned as martyrs by the Orthodox Church.* 
 
 The question whether unleavened bread is lawful in 
 England at the Eucharist has been made of late years subject 
 of dispute and of litigation. It is therefore well here to 
 discuss — I. Whether Christ at the institution used unleavened 
 bread ; 2. What was the usage of the Early Church in this 
 particular. 
 
 Under the old Law leaven was forbidden in all offerings 
 made to the Lord by fire. The idea which underlies the 
 prohibition is that leaven is a product of corruption, and that, 
 therefore, it symbolises what is impure, and therefore evil. 
 It is to this property of leaven that our Saviour points when 
 He speaks of the " leaven {i.e., the corrupt doctrine) of the 
 Pharisees and of the Sadducees " (Matt. xvi. 6) ; and S. Paul 
 when he exhorts to the rejection of the " leaven of malice and 
 wickedness" (i Cor. v. 7). 
 
 When, however, an offering was to be consumed by the 
 priests, and not to be offered on the altar, there leaven was 
 permitted. But an oblation to God of what was leavened was 
 regarded in the same light as the offering of a blemished 
 beast. Amos ironically bids the priests, " Offer a sacrifice of 
 thanksgiving with leaven" (iv. 5). The twelve loaves which 
 were exposed in the Temple as Shew-bread, were unleavened. 
 These loaves were offered on the table every Sabbath, the old 
 ones removed and replaced by new. Then the old ones were 
 eaten by the priests in the Holy Place, as they might not be 
 taken out thence. 
 
 Now it is remarkable that no explanation whatever was 
 given to the Jews of the meaning of these loaves. They were 
 called Lechem pdnini, " Bread of the Face, or Faces," that is 
 
 Boll. Acta SS., Aug. I., 156. 
 
202 OUR INIIKRITAN'CE. 
 
 to say, Bread of the Presence. The term Pdnhii is applied 
 solely to the Bread and the Table on which it was exposed, 
 nothing else showed the Presence, but that Bread only. To 
 see the Face of God is to behold His presence ; and it has 
 been conjectured that this Shcw-bread was the Bread through 
 which was signified the presence of God among His people as 
 their constant sustainer and protector. 
 
 " The Bread of the Face is that Bread through which God 
 is seen, that is, with the participation of which the seeing of 
 God is bound up, or through participation of which man 
 attains the sight of God."* 
 
 What that dark and unexplained rite of weekly iteration 
 signified, that the primitive Church was not slow to under- 
 stand and interpret. That Table of Shew-bread prefigured 
 the Christian altar, on which alone the true Bread of the 
 Presence is seen, through participation of which man attains 
 to life and light and true knowledge. 
 
 " The Shew-breads," says Origen, " were in themselves 
 nothing ; they had their end and fulfilment in the Eucharist." 
 " What atoning virtue," he asks, " could reside in those 
 loaves } But if from them you turn your eyes to the 
 Great Mystery, then you will see that this was a memorial 
 possessed of a mighty atoning efficacy. When you consider 
 that Bread which came down from heaven and gave His life 
 for the world, that Shew-brcad which God has set forth for 
 reconciliation through faith in His blood, and then when you 
 reflect on that memorial, of which the Lord said, ' Do this in 
 remembrance of me,' then you will find that this is the sole 
 memorial that reconciles God with man. If then you 
 attentively consider the mysteries of the Church, you will see 
 that what the Law ordered, was the pre-figuring of the future 
 
 Reality." t 
 
 " The Shcw-bread — the True Shew-bread — of which that 
 
 •Smith's "Diet, of the Bible." s.v., .Shcw-bread. t In Levit. Horn., 13, n. 3. 
 
THE BREAD. 203 
 
 of the Jews was a shadow, is that which God has shown forth 
 for our atonement, through faith in His blood. Through faith 
 in His blood, Christ, Himself, His person, is our atonement. 
 The Shew-bread (of the Temple) cannot symbolize (spiritual) 
 teaching, nor be the representative of (spiritual) means of 
 nourishment. Let us go on to the next point. By the ' Bread 
 which came down from heaven,' the teaching of Christ cannot 
 be meant, for the context forbids that interpretation. The 
 Bread that came down from heaven and the Bread that is for 
 atonement are one and the same Bread. And this last is the 
 person of the Redeemer, therefore so is the former."* 
 
 S. Cyril of Jerusalem, also, in his fourth lecture on the 
 Mysteries, points out that the Eucharist is the fulfilment of 
 the old rite of the Shew-bread. 
 
 The Shew-bread, in which was no leaven, and which was 
 sprinkled with oil, typified Christ, in whom was no guile, and 
 who was anointed by the Holy Ghost ; and as Christ instituted 
 the Eucharist as the pledge of His abiding presence and 
 earnest of His atoning Sacrifice in the Church, therefore the 
 Shew-bread of the Temple symbolized Christ first, and then 
 fore-shadowed His institution. 
 
 We can see, therefore, a reason why the Church might use 
 unfermented bread on her altars, since she regarded the 
 Eucharist as the fulfilment of the old institution of the 
 Bread of the Presence in Tabernacle and Temple, and also 
 as best representing Christ, whose nature was without the 
 leaven of evil. 
 
 Next comes the question : Did Christ employ unleavened 
 bread at the institution ? 
 
 On the 10th Nisan the lamb was set apart for the Paschal 
 sacrifice. The Passover lasted seven or ten days, during which 
 no leavened bread might be eaten. On the evening of the 
 13th the head of every household lighted a lamp and went 
 
 De Orat., c. 27. 
 
204 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 through the house, searching everywhere for leaven, or any- 
 thing in a decaying condition, sour, and fermenting. Whatever 
 was found in this state was thrown into a chest and locked up. 
 Then the master of the house said, " All the leaven that was 
 with me, what I have seen and what I have not seen, let it be 
 as the dust of the earth." 
 
 The Jews anticipated the coming of the Messiah on the 
 Paschal night, therefore they put away from them on the 
 previous night all those elements which savoured of sin. The 
 leaven had all to be destroyed, burnt, or thrown away, before 
 midday of the 14th. 
 
 " Our learned men have declared that unleavened and 
 leavened bread figure the good and the evil inclinations in 
 us." * " He who on the Passover eats leavened bread, commits 
 a sin equal to the worship of idols." i* " Why are we bound 
 to eat unleavened bread at the Passover .'' Because Israel 
 at this time draws near to the holiness of God, therefore must 
 it put away from it all leaven, that t)'pifies evil lusts." + 
 " Rabbi Alexander was wont to say, at the close of his 
 prayer, ' Lord of the world, Thou knowest that my desire is to 
 fulfil, in all things. Thy will, but I am paralysed through the 
 leaven in the lump {i.e., the evil inclination in my nature).'" § 
 
 S. Paul also says, " Know ye not that a little leaven 
 leaveneth the whole lump .'' Purge out, therefore, the old 
 leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. 
 For even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us : Therefore 
 let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, neither with the 
 leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened 
 bread of sincerity and truth " (i Cor. v. 6-8). 
 
 On the evening of the 13th- 14th Nisan all leaven was 
 put away, but sufficient leavened bread was allowed to be 
 retained to serve for food during the next hours up to 
 sundown of the ensuing day, i.e., till sundown of 14th 
 Nisan. 
 *Sohar, f. 17. i Ilnd., f. 71. } Ibid, f. 120. § Nevech .Schalom, f. 191. 
 
THE BREAD. 205 
 
 Consequently it is quite possible that Christ may have con- 
 secrated leavened bread if He instituted the Eucharist on the 
 night of 1 3th- 14th. At the same time, unleavened bread was 
 used as well as leavened by the Jews, and is still by the 
 Syrians, at other times than the days of obligation to eat only 
 unleavened cake. The tradition of the whole Church, 
 however, for several centuries was altogether on the side 
 of leavened bread ; and this tradition is so important, and the 
 date of the introduction of the unleavened is so recent — com- 
 paratively — that it is not easy to bring the mind to believe 
 that Christ employed the Paschal wafer-bread. 
 
 Are there, however, any grounds for accounting for 
 the change of unleavened into leavened bread in the Church, 
 supposing that Christ had instituted the Sacrament in the 
 former ? 
 
 There are three. The first is, that Christ had spoken of 
 leaven as a symbol of the Gospel. " The kingdom of heaven 
 is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in three 
 measures of meal, till the whole was leavened " (Matt. xiii. 33). 
 The measures of meal were taken to represent the whole 
 mass of mankind, descended from the three sons of Noah. 
 Or the three measures signified man made up of body, 
 mind, and soul ; and the Divine leaven penetrated through, 
 transformed and sanctified man's complete nature. So leaven 
 had a good significance, according to the Lord's word. 
 Moreover, when He condemned the leaven of the Pharisees, 
 He implied as a correlative that His leaven, His doctrine, 
 was good. 
 
 And leaven was specially appropriate to the Eucharist, for 
 as leaven entered into and transformed the whole lump, so 
 did the Eucharistic gift enter into and transform the carnal 
 man into the spiritual man. 
 
 Again, it was possible — possible only — that the Early 
 Church might have adopted leavened bread as a protest against 
 Judaizing tendencies ; just as Sunday was taken in con- 
 
206 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 tradistinction to the Sabbath. But neither of these reasons 
 carries much weight. In the first age, in such a matter as the 
 Eucharist, the Church was most conservative, it altered 
 nothing ; and the simplest explanation of the use of leavened 
 bread is that in this, as in everything else, she followed the 
 Institution of Christ. She used wheaten bread, because He 
 had used wheaten bread ; the mixed cup, because He had 
 consecrated the mixed cup ; covered her altars with fine linen, 
 because fine linen covered the table He had used ; lighted 
 lamps above it, because over it had hung and burnt the 
 Sabbatical lamp ; and because He had employed leavened 
 bread, so did she. 
 
 And, thirdly, passages in the Synoptics seem to imply that 
 the time of unleavened bread had begun (Matt. xxvi. 17 ; 
 Mark xiv. 12 ; Luke xxii. 7), though we believe that these 
 refer to the Preparation, when the leaven was put away, 
 beginning with the evening of 14th Nisan. Moreover, i Cor. 
 V. 7, 8, was taken to imply the use of unleavened bread, and 
 it was on the strength of these passages that the Western 
 Church upset the earlier tradition. 
 
 Wheaten bread, we have said, has been used invariably. 
 In the passage from Ircnnjus, already quoted, relative to the 
 first-fruits that Christians offer in the Eucharist, he specially 
 mentions w^heaten bread. Clement of Alexandria* makes 
 barley bread the symbol of Judaism, and " divine wheat " (Oeio^ 
 'TTvpof) the emblem of Christianity. So also Origen speaks 
 of wheat as the food of the Gospel, the most perfect and 
 nutritious of corn ; whereas barley was a proper type of the 
 Old Covenant that fed, but did not satisfy.t 
 
 In the East there has been no swerving from the employ- 
 ment of leavened bread. In the West our earliest notices of 
 Eucharistic bread arc in the Papal Pontifical Books, wherein 
 we are given particulars relative to the orders of Melchiades 
 
 * " Strom.," vi. c. 11. f See also " Irenseus, Fragm., xix." 
 
THE BREAD. 20/ 
 
 (a.D. 3 1 1-4), Siricius (a.D. 384-398), Innocent I. (a.D. 402-417) 
 about the Eucharist, Avhich leave us in no doubt whatever 
 on this point. (Oblationes consecratae .... quod de- 
 clarantur fennentinn — ut nullus presbyter celebraret nisi 
 consecratam susciperet, quod nominatur fermentnui — presby- 
 teri fennentuin a nobis confectum per acolythos accipiunt).* 
 Moreover, no signs of polemic against the Westerns on the 
 ground of the use of bread of a different nature from that 
 employed in the East appears before Michael Cerularius 
 (a.D. 105 i), which would certainly have been the case had 
 there been a difference of usage in the two Churches. That 
 the employment of unleavened wafers came in by degrees 
 earlier, but had not become general till the nth century, is 
 probable enough. The reason of the introduction was that 
 all danger of Judaizing was at an end, and the conviction had 
 impressed itself on the Western mind that Christ had insti- 
 tuted the Sacrament with unleavened bread, and that it was 
 therefore advisable to employ it. 
 
 That the bread for the Eucharist was specially baked by 
 Christians is most probable, for that which was offered in the 
 markets had been sprinkled with water of aspersion to the 
 idols, at least under Diocletian and Julian. Much later it was 
 regarded as an abuse to employ ordinary bread, and this was 
 forbidden by the sixth canon of the Sixteenth Council of 
 Toledo, in 693, where priests are condemned for cutting off 
 round slices from their common house bread, and the Council 
 insists that only a whole loaf must be used. *f* 
 
 Among the heathen it was customary to bake little figures 
 of dough, representing sacrificial animals, and these were 
 offered in the temples in place of the beasts. Epiphanius says, 
 
 * " Kraus, Real Encyklopsedie," s. v. Brod. 
 
 + A point was made about all being partakers of one loaf. See Ignat. ad 
 Philad., iv., " One loaf is broken to all ; one cup distributed to all." Ad 
 Eph., XX., "With one undivided mind, breaking one and the same bread, 
 which is the medicine of immortality." 
 
208 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 in reference to these, " In the Most one can sec nothing hke a 
 human shape — what we see is round."* Sophronius of Jeru- 
 salem, who Hved A.D. 630, says that the bread was broken into 
 particles, according to the number of the communicants, 
 and that a special piece for the celebrant was cut with 
 a knife out of the loaf or cake. The breads for the Eucharist 
 were marked with a cross, says S. Chrysostom. Sometimes 
 the breads were round rings, and S. Gregory the Great 
 accordingly calls them crowns. 
 
 We have already mentioned the pain bcuit in the French 
 churches ; these resemble the antidora of the Oriental 
 churches, small round cakes or rolls, which are given to the 
 congregation. In the French churches these have remained 
 what they originally were, but the Eucharistic bread has been 
 changed to the unleavened wafer. Originally all were one, 
 and they were the bread that remained over, not required for 
 the consecration, distributed among the faithful Avho did not 
 communicate ; now, they are different in quality and kind 
 from the Eucharistic bread. 
 
 ©ffl® 
 
 FIG. 10.— From a tombstone at Modena. 
 
 In the catacombs the Eucharistic bread is frequently 
 represented, always as small round cakes or rolls. On an 
 early tombstone of one Syntrophion, found at Modena, are 
 two fishes, symbols of Christians, feeding on Eucharistic bread. 
 
 FIG. II.— From the cemetery of S. Lucina. 
 
 In a very remarkable fresco in the cemetery of S. Lucina is 
 a fish bearing a basket full of bread, and inside is what 
 appears to be a glass with something red, probably wine. The 
 
 * Anchor., 57. 
 
THE BREAD. 209 
 
 fish is Christ. S. Jerome seems to have had some such a 
 picture under his eyes when he wrote of Eucherius, Bishop of 
 Toulouse, "None can be richer than he who carries Christ's 
 body in a plaited basket, and His blood in a glass vessel, 
 about him." * In this fresco the breads are round. 
 
 The great question of the nature of the bread used by 
 Christ at the Institution remains unsolved, and accordingly 
 we may admire the wise moderation of the Church of 
 England, which does not pronounce decisively for either 
 leavened or unleavened ; but rules, "It shall suffice that 
 the bread be such as is usually eaten ; but (if so, then) 
 the best and purest wheat-bread that conveniently may be 
 gotten." 
 
 Ep. 125. 
 
CHArTER XX. 
 
 THE WINE. 
 
 THE MIXED CUP EMPLOYED AT THE INSTITUTION — FERMENTED WINE 
 USED— THE MIXED CUP USED IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH— TES- 
 TIMONY OF THE FATHERS— JUSTIN MARTYR— IREN.EUS — CYPRIAN 
 — ARMENIAN MONOPHYSITES ALONE USE \VINE ONLY — THE ORIEN- 
 TAL USE. 
 
 That at the institution of the Eucharist the Lord employed 
 wine mingled with water is almost certain. It was the cus- 
 tom of the Jews so to drink ; they were forbidden to use 
 wine unmingled, and at the Paschal rite, certainly this was 
 .strictly enforced. No blessing could be said, according to 
 the Rabbis, over a cup in which stood wine undiluted ;* and 
 the gloss on this rule in the Talmud is "that the wine is too 
 strong when unmixed, it is only fit to be drunk when com- 
 mingled with water." 
 
 That the wine was "the fruit of the vine" we know from 
 our Lord's own words ; that it was fermented we may be 
 certain, both because wine has another name, " must," when 
 unfermented, and because "must" would not keep a week with- 
 out fermentation. Moreover, the time of the year when the 
 Institution took place was not that of wine-making, when 
 " must " would be available. 
 
 The early notices of the Eucharist show that water was 
 mixed with the wine. Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, 
 says, " There is brought to the president of the brethren 
 
 * Beracoth, f. 50. 
 
THE WINE. 211 
 
 bread, and a cup of wine mingled with water, and he taking 
 them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe," 
 &c. * Irenseus says, " When the mingled cup and the 
 manufactured bread receive the Word of God, the Eucharist 
 becomes the Body and the Blood of Christ," &c.t Again, 
 " How could the Lord, with justice, if He belonged to 
 another father (than the Creator), have acknowledged the 
 bread to be His Body, while He took it from the creation to 
 which we belong, and affirmed the mixed cup to be His 
 Blood ? " + Elsewhere he hints as much, when he says, 
 " How can they be consistent with themselves ? " He is 
 attacking those who declared that the Creator was evil, and 
 another God than the Father of Christ, " when they say that 
 the bread over which thanks have been given is the Body of 
 their God, and the cup His Blood, if they do not regard Him 
 as the Son of the Creator, His Word, through whom the 
 wood fructifies {i.e., the vine produces grapes), and the foun- 
 tains pour forth (water), and the earth yields corn."§ Clement 
 of Alexandria, in his allegorizing of the Eucharist, says, " The 
 blood of the grape, that is, the Word " (who hung on the 
 Tree), "is mixed with water, so the blood is mingled with 
 salvation. . . . To drink the blood of Jesus is to become 
 partaker of the Lord's immortality. . . . Accordingly, wine 
 is blended with water, so is the Spirit with man. And the 
 one — the mixture of wine and Avater — nourishes to faith. 
 The mixture of both — of the water and the Word — is called 
 the Eucharist — renowned and glorious grace ; and they who 
 by faith partake are sanctified in body and soul." || 
 
 Elsewhere he writes against the Encratites, who used cups 
 of water without wine, and this in an exhortation on modera- 
 tion in drink. After having said, " As wine, when taken, 
 makes people love it, so does water also," he attacks drunken- 
 
 * Apol. i., c. 65. f Adv. Hrer. v., c. 2. J Ibid, iv., c. 33. 
 
 § Ibid. iv. , c. 18. I! Piedag. ii., c. 2. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 ness, and says: "Our Lord Himself partook of wine, He 
 blessed the wine, saying, ' Take, drink ; this is My Blood — the 
 blood of the vine.' . . . And that it was wine which He 
 blessed. He showed again, when He said to His disciples, ' I 
 will not drink of this fruit of the vine, till I drink it with you 
 in the kingdom of the Father.' " * 
 
 S. Cyprian, also writing against those who pretended to 
 receive the Eucharist in water only, says : " In offering the 
 cup, the tradition of the Lord must be observed, and nothing 
 done by us but what the Lord first did on our behalf, as that 
 the cup which is offered in remembrance of Him should be 
 offered mingled with wine. For when Christ says, ' I am the 
 true vine,' the Blood of Christ assuredly is not water, but 
 wine ; neither can His blood, by which we are redeemed and 
 quickened, appear to be in the cup, when in the cup there is 
 no wine whereby the blood of Christ is shown forth. ... In 
 the sacrifice of Melchizedek, the priest was the figure of 
 Christ's sacrifice, ordained in bread and wine ; which thing 
 the Lord completing and fulfilling, offered bread and the cup 
 mixed with wine, and so fulfilled the prefigured image. 
 Moreover, the Holy Spirit by Solomon shows the type of the 
 Lord's sacrifice, making mention of the immolated victim, of the 
 bread and w^ine, and of the altar, and of the Apostles, saj'ing, 
 ' Wisdom hath buildcd her house, she hath underlaid her seven 
 pillars ; she hath killed her victims ; she hath mingled her 
 wine in the chalice ; she hath furnished her table ; she hath 
 sent forth her servants, calling whoso is simple. Let him come 
 to me. To those needing understanding she saith. Come, eat 
 of m)' bread, and drink of the wine that I have mingled for 
 you.' He declares the wine mingled, foretelling with pro- 
 phetic voice the cup that the Lord mingled with water and 
 wine, so that in the Lord's Passion that was accomplished 
 which was predicted. . . . We ma}' not break even the 
 
 • Pcedag. ii. c. 2. 
 
THE WINE. 213 
 
 least of the Lord's commandments; how much rather is it 
 forbidden to infringe such important ones, so great, so per- 
 taining to the very Sacrament of our Lord's Passion and 
 our own redemption, and change by human tradition what is 
 divinely appointed. For if Jesus Christ is Himself the High 
 Priest to God the Father, and first offered Himself a sacrifice, 
 and then commanded this to be done as a memorial of 
 Himself, then certainly that priest (only) truly discharges the 
 office of Christ who imitates what Christ did ; only so does 
 he offer a true and full sacrifice in the Church to the Father, 
 when he offers it according to Christ's institution. We 
 cannot be pardoned if we who have been admonished and 
 instructed by the Lord to offer the cup mingled with wine, 
 according as the Lord offered, should neglect to urge our 
 colleagues to observe the evangelical law and the Lord's 
 tradition, and not to depart from what Christ taught and 
 did." * 
 
 The Armenian Monophysites, in order to emphasize their 
 heresy — that Christ's nature was but one — employed wine only 
 in the Eucharist, and this was condemned by the Council in 
 Trullo (a.d. 692) in its 32nd Canon. But the mixed chalice 
 had been ordered before by the Council of Orleans, Can. 4 
 (a.d. 541) ; and by the fourth Council of Braga, Can. 2 
 (a.d. 675). The use of water with the wine is universal in the 
 Orthodox Eastern Church, and has always been observed in 
 the Latin, as a part of the Divine institution. 
 
 * Cypr. Ep. Ixii. ad Coscil. 
 
Chapter XXI. 
 
 THE VEIL. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF SS. JOHN AND PAUL ON THE CCELIAN HILL— PAINTING 
 THEREIN — THE VEIL IN THE TEMPLE— WHAT STOOD WITHIN THE 
 HOLY OF HOLIES — THE ENTRY OF THE HIGH PRIEST ONCE IN THE 
 YEAR — THE RENDING OF THE VEIL— THE VEIL OF THE HEAVENS— 
 THE AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS GIVES IT ANOTHER 
 MEANING, THE FLESH OF CHRIST — MIXED METAPHORS — THE VEIL 
 IN THE VISION OF S. JOHN— THE PRAYER OF THE VEIL IN THE 
 LITURGIES— THE VEIL IN PRIVATE HOUSES — CURTAINS IN CHURCHES 
 — S. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM REFERS TO THE VEIL — AND S. AMBROSE — 
 CONTINUED WHEN NON-COMMUNICATING ATTENDANCE BECAME 
 GENERAL — THE LENTEN VEIL — THE AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE TO 
 THE HEBREWS SUPPOSED TO HAVE QUOTED FROM THE PRAYER OF 
 THE VEIL — THE STRUCTURE OF THE PRAYER OF THE VEIL — THE 
 PRAYER LOSES ITS ORIGINAL SIGNIFICANCE. 
 
 Recently, a remarkable discovery has been made at Rome. 
 On the side of the Coehan hill stands the church of SS. John 
 and Paul, chamberlains to Constantia, daughter of Con- 
 stantine the Great. These men were put to death in their 
 own house, and buried in it, by order of Julian the Apostate. 
 Their Acts (Record of Martyrdom) have been so tampered 
 with, that Httle or no reliance has been placed on them, and 
 they have been treated as apocryphal. Recent research has, 
 however, shown that they are an embroidery on a substratum 
 of fact. 
 
 After the death of Julian, the bodies of the martyrs were 
 exhumed, and in the reign of Jovian placed in a "Confession," 
 or chapel ; and liasilicus and his son Pammachius, the friend 
 of S. Jerome, erected above their house a stately basilica 
 in honour of the mart}'rs, so that visitors to the scene of 
 
THE VEIL. 215 
 
 the martyrdom could descend into the house beneath the 
 church, to which it served as a sort of a crypt. After a while, 
 the basilica fell, and in its fall buried the house. When the 
 new church o.f SS. John and Paul was built, the foundations 
 were laid on the mingled mass of rubbish and ruin, and the 
 existence of the house beneath it was forgotten. Only this year 
 (1888) has it been in part exhumed and re-discovered, and it has 
 been found in fair preservation. It presents to us the unique 
 instance of an old house of a Christian in imperial times. 
 Now, among the sacred paintings, that adorn the walls and 
 ceilings, is one that represents an orans, a man praying, before 
 two curtains that are drawn back, one on each side. He is 
 about to pass beyond these veils, and behind him are shown 
 male and female worshippers bowed in devotion. There can, 
 we think, be little doubt that this interesting painting of the 
 fourth century represents the so-called "Prayer of the Veil." 
 We will now address ourselves to the consideration of this 
 prayer. 
 
 One of the most remarkable points of contact between the 
 Church and the Temple, and at the same time one of the most 
 remarkable evidences of the great antiquity of her liturgy, is 
 the Veil. The Holy of Holies in the Temple was separated 
 from the Holy Place by a great veil, or to be more exact, by 
 two. When the Temple was rebuilt, a question arose whether 
 the veil should hang on the inner or the outer side of the sup- 
 porting pillars that divided the Holy of Holies from the Holy 
 Place. To make sure of being right, two veils were hung, one 
 on each side of these pillars or pilasters ; but in the Evan- 
 gelistic account, as by Josephus, the two are spoken of as one. 
 The veil was woven in one piece of four colours, azure, purple, 
 scarlet, and white ; and a special officer of the Temple had 
 charge of it, as of the other curtains of the sacred place. 
 
 Within the veil had stood the Ark with the Mercy Seat ; 
 that, however, had not any more a place within, since the 
 return from Babylon and the restoration of the Temple. 
 
2l6 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Into the Holy of Holies entered the High Priest once 
 every year, carrying the blood of sacrifice, wherewith he 
 sprinkled the site of the Ark and walls. He entered in his 
 plain white robes ; the censer he placed where the Ark had 
 been, and filled the house with fragrant smoke. 
 
 The veil signified the sky. The Holy of Holies represented 
 the heaven of heavens, where were the Throne and presence of 
 God Almighty. 
 
 When Christ died, the veil of the Temple was rent asunder 
 from top to bottom, to show that the way into heaven was 
 now open to all. 
 
 As the High Priest passed behind the veil to make atone- 
 ment before the Mercy Seat for the sins of the people, so did 
 Christ our Great High Priest ascend into the heavens, where 
 He ever standeth making intercession for us, there offering 
 His most precious Blood for the remission of our transgres- 
 sions. 
 
 As by Christ the veil was rent, so by Him also is the 
 veil taken away that was on the face of Moses (2 Cor. iii. 
 13-16). 
 
 But the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews gave to 
 the veil a further allegorical signification. It was the rent 
 flesh of Christ, and it is through it that access is obtained 
 to heaven (Heb. x. 20). To us sober Westerns of modern 
 times, much of the figurative interpretation of the Apostle 
 seems strained and fanciful ; not so to an Oriental. 
 
 In one place the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 mixes his metaphors. He speaks of " Hope as an anchor 
 of the soul, which entercth into that within the veil ; whither 
 the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made our 
 High Priest for ever " (Heb. vi. 19, 20). Here he sees Christ 
 as the eternal High Priest on the Day of Atonement 
 passing behind the veil of the heavens ; but then Christ 
 is also our hope, and the symbol of hope is an anchor ; 
 also the sea is a blue veil ; much as is the sky. As the 
 
THE VEIL. 217 
 
 anchor, cast down through the blue sea, fastens to a rock and 
 holds fast the ship, so is the ship of the Church held fast 
 by its anchor passed through another blue veil, above, and 
 is holding to the throne of God. Thus Christ is the 
 Anchor of the vessel of the Church, fixed above, as well 
 as the High Priest entered into heaven making intercession. 
 
 As we have already seen, in the vision of S. John of the 
 heavenly Temple, the veil reappears, not covering the 
 entrance to the Holy of Holies, but furled back on all sides, 
 and forming thus furled a rainbow, through which the seer 
 looks to the further glory, to the throne and the altar. 
 
 We have strong grounds for believing that when Christian 
 worship was instituted by the Apostles, the veil was 
 introduced and used, for we find numerous allusions to it ; 
 but what is perhaps the most striking evidence of this is, that 
 nearly every early liturgy had traces of a prayer used at the 
 veil, as the celebrant passed through into the Sanctuary, 
 but so displaced and altered as to have completely lost its 
 original signification ; its presence, however, is only ex- 
 plicable on the supposition that in the original primitive 
 worship of the Church the veil was used, and this prayer was 
 uttered at it before entering into the bema, or sanctuary. 
 
 If, as we suppose, the first churches were private houses, 
 and the worship of God was carried on in the atriiiui and 
 tahlimmi, then the curtain or veil would be found there almost 
 certainly. In Roman, Greek, and Oriental houses such 
 curtains were common. A rod ran between pillars, and 
 curtains on rings hung from them. Curtains decked the 
 walls, and were suspended over doors. In the mosaics of 
 S. Apollinaris, at Ravenna, of the 6th century, and in those of 
 S. George's Church at Thessalonica, of the 4th, we see 
 curtains used very generally between pillars and covering 
 doorways. Almost certainly every house that had a divan 
 opening into the court had a rod running across from one 
 side to the other of the opening, with curtains hung to this 
 
2l8 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 rod, easily drawn forward or back ; and we can well under- 
 stand how that early Christians of Jewish origin would con- 
 trast their worship with that of the Temple in this matter of 
 curtains. Under the Law the inner part was screened off ; in 
 the temporary Christian churches it was thrown open. The 
 presence of the drawn-back curtains would at once suggest 
 this thought to a Jewish convert, especially when his mind was 
 full of the thoughts of the rending of the veil at Christ's death, 
 and of the significance of the veil, as indicated by the writer of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews. The veils were not put up for 
 the sake of making a contrast, but the veils being there, the 
 contrast naturally presented itself to the mind. When the 
 Church escaped from secrecy, and had houses of her own, 
 then, accustomed to these curtains, and associating them 
 with the idea of the way into the Holiest of all being opened 
 by Christ, of which the parted veil was a continual reminder, 
 she introduced them into her new homes. Either curtains 
 were hung across the entrance to the apse, or else a sort of 
 canopy was erected over the altar, with four pillars, at each 
 
 FIG. 12.— Ciborum and Veil from an ivory of the thirteenth century. 
 
THE VEIL. 219 
 
 corner of the altar, and rods between these pillars were hung 
 with curtains. When these curtains were drawn the altar was 
 completely enclosed. Anastatius the Librarian mentions 
 such in his lives of Popes Gregory III. (a.d. 731), Leo IIL 
 (A.D. 793), and Hadrian IL (a.d. 867) ; and Paul the Silentiary 
 speaks of them in his description of the Church of S. Sophia 
 at Constantinople. But we have earlier mention of them 
 than these, for S. John Chrysostom alludes to the veil when he 
 says in one of his sermons, " When thou hearest the call (of 
 the deacon), then let all pray together with one accord ; and 
 when thou seest the veils let fall, then consider that the 
 heavens are dropping (at the presence of God) and the angels 
 descending."* Here he refers to the dropping of the veils at 
 the consecration. In Oriental liturgies now, for the Consecra- 
 tion, the doors of the screen are closed, and curtains fall over 
 them noiselessly, afterwards as noiselessly to be withdrawn, 
 and the doors to roll back when the consecration is accom- 
 plished — and most striking the effect is. 
 
 S. Ambrose probably also refers to the veil, " Not all can 
 look into the depths of the mysteries, because they are veiled 
 by the Levites (ie., deacons), that they may not see and take 
 and keep that to which they are not qualified to have 
 access." "f* A passage which not only refers in all probability 
 to the veiling and closing of doors at the oblation, but also 
 to the relaxation of discipline which allowed non-communi- 
 cants, perhaps also catechumens, and even hearers only, to 
 be present. 
 
 It is possible, if not probable, that the dropping of the 
 curtains was the protest against the presence of those unquali- 
 fied to communicate. As the congregation became mixed, 
 and it was no more possible to exclude the worldly, the 
 indifferent, the easy livers, and the dissolute, even the 
 heathen, then the Church kept hidden from vulgar and pro- 
 
 * Horn. 3, in Ep. ad Eph. f De Offic. i. 50. 
 
220 OUR IXHKRITANCE. 
 
 fane eyes the central mystery itself, the Consecration. An 
 
 explanation of the dead Gallican Liturgy of the 6th century 
 shows us that in the Ephesine family of liturgies the veil was 
 used. For the author says, " The curtain before the mysteries 
 is adorned, because that curtain, the sky, that veils the Lord 
 who is exalted, that curtain also is besprent with wondrous 
 splendour." * 
 
 In an early epistle, attributed falsely to S. Clement of 
 Rome, there is mention of a similar veil. 
 
 The Armenian Church still has a curtain hung before the 
 altar ; and the Latin Church, with that curious conservatism 
 which manifests itself in Lent, in which season it retains so 
 much that has been lost at other times, has a veil hanging 
 before the chancel. The writer remembers a large mar- 
 vellously embroidered or woven one in a single piece still 
 employed in the Cathedral of Freiburg, which legend says 
 was made by one woman in an old house in the market- 
 place in the 15th century, and her loom is still supposed to 
 be heard rattling in the attic on stormy nights. 
 
 " In England," says Dr. Rock, " the Lenten veil hung down 
 between the people and the Holy of Holies. In cathedrals it 
 parted the presbytery from the choir, in parish churches the 
 chancel from the nave. It was only at the Gospel that it 
 was pulled aside, and so remained till the Orate fratres" -^ 
 
 Most liturgies retain a " prayer of the veil," which was said 
 at the Great Entrance, when the celebrant entered the chancel ; 
 but in nearly all the meaning has been lost, and the prayer is 
 turned to a different purpose — the uncovering of the elements. 
 The original purport, however, is implied in some ; for instance, 
 the prayer of the veil in the Liturgy of S. James, which speaks 
 of an "entrance into the HoK- Place, through the new and 
 living way which Thou hast consecrated for us through the 
 veil of the Flesh of Thy Christ. We, to whom it hath been 
 
 • Mailenc, Anccd., v. 95. 
 t Church of our lathers, 1853, III., V\. ii., p. 221. 
 
THE VEIL. 221 
 
 vouchsafed to enter into the place of the tabernacle of Thy 
 glory, and to be within the veil, and to behold the Holy of 
 Holies, we fall down before Thy goodness." 
 
 It has been argued that instead of this prayer being a 
 quotation from the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author of that 
 Epistle quotes this prayer ;* but the reasons urged are by 
 no means convincing. The argument used is that in the 
 prayer are found the thoughts and words found at length 
 throughout the exposition, here condensed into a short 
 prayer. " It is almost inconceivable that the compiler of 
 that short prayer could have collected all these scattered 
 expressions up and down this long chapter, and thus have 
 fitted them to this purpose."! This we fail to see. The 
 composer of the prayer, knowing the words of the epistle 
 well, naturally fell into a form of expression which recalled 
 it without literal and consecutive quotation. 
 
 The leading thoughts in the prayer of the veil are these : 
 
 1. We give thanks for the boldness with which we are able 
 to enter through the veil into the presence of God. 
 
 2. We obtain this entrance only through the Flesh of 
 Christ incarnate, which we partake of sacramentally in the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 3. We fall down with awe and adoration. 
 
 4. We come to offer the Bloodless Sacrifice for our sins 
 and for that of the people. 
 
 5. And we pray that we may be hallowed and cleansed in 
 conscience. 
 
 In most liturgies this prayer has got adrift altogether, and 
 is turned into one said whilst the pall, or silk veil, is removed 
 from the elements which it has covered. The prayer has 
 been very carefully traced through the liturgies by Mr. 
 Field in the book referred to, and he fully establishes its 
 presence originally in all, showing at the same time how com- 
 
 * Field : "The Apostolic Liturgy and the Epistle to the Hebrews,' 1882. 
 t //'/(/., p. 241. 
 
222 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 pletely in all — the original idea having been lost — the prayer 
 had been altered to give it some other significance. 
 
 We can follow the course of alteration of this prayer 
 pretty accurately. 
 
 1. At first it was used on entering into the sanctuary, in 
 reference to admission to the Holy of Holies. 
 
 2. Then the association with the old Temple veil and the 
 Holy of Holies faded out of men's minds, and the chancel or 
 altar veils were used as veils to Jiidc the mysteries from 
 profane eyes. 
 
 3. With this altered significance of the veil from a revealing 
 to a hiding piece of furniture, some other application for the 
 prayer was sought ; it was either turned into an ordinary 
 prayer of worthy approach, all allusions to the veil being 
 taken out, or : — 
 
 4. It was transferred to the place where the celebrant 
 unveiled the chalice and patten, and the Eucharistic bread and 
 wine, preparatory to consecration, so as to make the idea of 
 revealing which lay in the prayer fit in with some act of 
 uncovering or opening. 
 
 The immense changes which the prayer has gone through 
 indicate the remote antiquity of the prayer itself, as a pra}'er 
 of access associated with a veil. It cannot have been added 
 to the liturgy after the destruction of Jerusalem, and its 
 diffusion in all liturgies points to its having formed a part of 
 the primitive Apostolic Eucharistic order. 
 
Chapter XXII. 
 
 THE KISS OF PEACE, 
 
 THE KISS OF PEACE IN RUSSIA ON EASTER NIGHT— THE PAX IN THE 
 ROMAN MASS— THE APOSTOLIC ORIGIN OF THE KISS OF PEACE — THE 
 KISS IN THE LITURGY OF THE "CONSTITUTIONS" — COLLECT FOR PEACE 
 — THE LITURGY OF S. JAMES— THE MALABAR LITURGY — THE ARGU- 
 MENT OF THE AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IN CHAP. 
 XII. — THE FATHERS MENTION THE KISS OF PEACE— ORIGEN ON THE 
 KISS — THE PLACE OF THE PAX IN THE ROMAN LITURGY — THE REPRE- 
 SENTATIVE OF THE PAX IN THE ENGLISH OFFICE — THE OUTWARD 
 SYMBOL HAS GENERALLY BEEN ABANDONED. 
 
 On the night preceding Easter day, the Russian churches are 
 densely thronged with the people, standing in darkness, 
 holding unlighted candles, silent, expectant. When the mid- 
 night hour has struck then from far away outside the church 
 a plaintive strain of music is heard ; a thrill goes through 
 the assembly ; the music approaches, waxes louder, sounding 
 more joyous. The great western doors roll back, and light 
 appears flowing into the church, attended by jubilant song. 
 The procession of choir and clergy are entering with 
 lights and incense, in gorgeous robes, a train of light and colour, 
 of music and fragrance. Instantly the light is caught from 
 the entering tapers, and runs in sparks through the church, 
 flying from candle to candle, and every worshipper stands 
 with his light burning, so that the vast gloomy interior is 
 suddenly a palace of glory. But this is not all. At the same 
 moment each turns to his neighbour, exclaiming "Christ is 
 risen," and kisses him. Christ is risen, love is shed abroad, 
 all men are brothers ! 
 
224 OUR INIIKRITANCE. 
 
 The Kiss of Peace, which is given in the Greek and 
 Russian Church on the day of the Resurrection, finds a place 
 also in the West. In the Roman Liturgy it is also given, but 
 not among the laity, but in the choir among the clergy, and 
 not as formerly, at the commencement of the Eucharist, but 
 immediately before the Communion. The command of the 
 Apostles, "Salute one another with an holy kiss" (Rom. xvi. 
 i6); "Greet ye one another with an holy kiss"(i Cor. xvi, 20, 
 2 Cor. xiii. 12); "Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss" 
 (i Thess. V. 26) ; "Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. 
 Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus" (i Pet. v. 14). 
 This command, given alike by S. Peter and S. Paul, to 
 Romans, Corinthians, Thessalonians, and the Church at large, 
 was literally observed. Whether it was obser\-cd as part of 
 the liturgy, in compliance with the x-\postolic command, or 
 whether the Apostles mere!)- in their letters mentioned, empha- 
 sized, and approved a custom already by them established — 
 and the latter supposition is the more probable — cannot be 
 decided. We know, however, that the Kiss of Peace was 
 universal, though not always introduced exactly in the same 
 part of the service. Here it was given before the collection of 
 the alms and oblations of the congregation, there it ensued 
 only when those unqualified to communicate had withdrawn, 
 elsewhere again immediately before participation in the 
 Kucharistic food. 
 
 In the second book of the " Apostolic Constitutions " we 
 have this order, " O bishop, when you are to go to prayer 
 after the lessons, and the psalmody, and the instruction out of 
 the Scriptures, let the deacon stand nigh you, and with a loud 
 voice say, ' Let none have any quarrel with another ; let 
 none come in hypocrisy ; that if there be any controversy 
 found among you, they may not be affected in conscience, 
 and may pray to God, and be reconciled to their brethren.' 
 For if, upon coming into anyone's house, we are bound to sa)-, 
 Peace be to this house — how much more is it incumbent on 
 
THE KISS OF PEACE. 22$ 
 
 those that enter the church of God, before all things to pray 
 for the peace of God " (ii. c. 54). Then at once follows a 
 paraphrase of the Great Thanksgiving. From this we obtain 
 the same order as elsewhere, only the Litany and Collect 
 of Intercession are not mentioned. In the description of the 
 liturgy in the 57th chapter of the same book we have — 
 Lections, Exhortation, expulsion of Catechumens, with 
 Intercession, Offertory, then the Kiss of Peace. "As to the 
 deacons, after the prayer (of dismissal) is over, let some 
 of them attend upon the oblation of the Eucharist, 
 ministering to the Lord's Body with fear. But let the deacon 
 Avho is at the high priest's hand say to the people, ' Let no 
 one have any quarrel against another ; let no one come 
 in hypocrisy.' Then let the men give the men, and the 
 women give the women, the Lord's kiss. But let no one do it 
 with deceit, as Judas betrayed the Lord with a kiss. After 
 this let the deacon pray for the whole Church, for the whole 
 world, and the several parts of it, for the priests and rulers,, 
 for the high priest and the king, and the peace of the universe. 
 After this let the high priest pray for peace upon the people^ 
 and bless them in these words, ' The Lord bless thee,, 
 and keep thee : the Lord make His face to shine upon 
 thee, and give thee peace.' Let the bishop pray for the 
 people, and say, ' Save thy people, O Lord, and bless Thine 
 inheritance, which Thou hast obtained with the precious blood 
 of Thy Christ, and hast called to be a royal priesthood, and 
 an holy nation.' After this let the sacrifice follow." Here we 
 have the Kiss of Peace associated with the Litany for Peace 
 and the celebrant's Collect for Peace. 
 
 As already said, in some uses the Kiss and Memorial of 
 Peace have been moved to a place before the offertory, in 
 reference to our Lord's saying, "If thy brother hath ought 
 against thee, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come 
 and offer thy gift." 
 
 In the liturgy in the eighth book this is the order. The 
 
 Q 
 
226 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Litany and Collect of Intercession come first, then " Let the 
 deacon say, ' Let us attend.' And let the bishop salute the 
 Church, and say, ' The peace of God with you all.' And let 
 the people answer, ' And with thy spirit ; ' and let the deacons 
 say to all, ' Salute ye one another with the holy kiss.' And let 
 the clergy salute the bishop, and the men of the laity salute 
 the men, and the women the women." 
 
 In the Liturgy of S. James, the deacon exclaims : " Let us 
 kiss one another with an holy kiss." In that of S. Mark, he 
 says, " Kiss one the other," and this is followed by the 
 celebrant's " Prayer of the Kiss : " — " Master, and Lord 
 Almighty, look down from heaven upon Thy Church, and 
 upon all Thy people, and all Thy flocks, and grant unto us 
 Thy peace, and Thy Ipve, and Thy help, that in a pure heart 
 we may salute one another with an holy kiss, not in hypocrisy, 
 as the apostle (Judas), but blameless and unspotted, in one 
 spirit, in the bond of peace," &c. Then, in the Alexandrian 
 use, follows the Offertory. 
 
 In the Malabar Liturgy it remains but as a savour, a 
 fragrance of charity. 
 
 " Priest : Peace be with all. 
 
 " Deacon : With thee, and with thy spirit. 
 
 '''Priest: Give the peace to each other." 
 
 It is deserving of notice how that the triple structure 
 common to most parts of the service, in which celebrant and 
 people join, is preserved. We have the deacon's Call to 
 Salutation; then the people's Kiss of Charity; lastly, the 
 priest's Collect of Peace. 
 
 Another point to be observed is the remarkable way in 
 which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in his 
 argument in chapter xii., seems to have had this part of 
 the Eucharistic service in mind as he wrote. It is as though 
 his mind, accustomed to the order of service, moved naturally 
 in the sequence of its acts. 
 
THE KISS OF PEACE. 22/ 
 
 He had been referring to the Old Covenant in chap, xi., then 
 he turns to the New in chap. xii. ; and on that bases a word of 
 exhortation. Then, in verse 12, he calls to prayer, " Lift up 
 the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees." Next he 
 urges, " Follow peace with all men and holiness, without 
 which no man shall see the Lord," and then cautions against 
 the admission of the renegade and the uncharitable and 
 profane, and speaks of the expulsion of Esau from the 
 covenant. After that he goes on to say, " Ye are come unto 
 mount Sion, unto the city of the living God, and to an 
 innumerable company of angels " — we catch an echo of the 
 Preface leading to the Sanctus. There is no direct quotation, 
 perhaps in the writer no conscious following, of the liturgy, 
 and yet his words seem to be full of allusion to the ancient 
 form and order of liturgy, and in a sequence, that can hardly 
 be accidental. 
 
 Justin Martyr, in his Apology, offered to the Emperor in 
 A.D. 148, speaks of the kiss. He says, " We offer hearty 
 prayers in common for ourselves, and for the illuminated, and 
 for all others in every place. . . . Having ended the prayers,- 
 we salute one another with a kiss" (i Apol. c. 6). After which, 
 according to Justin, comes the oblation of bread and wine. 
 Here the order is not quite the same, there is clearly a 
 Dismissal after the intercessions, then Kiss of peace, then the 
 Offertory. Clement of Alexandria {circ. A.D. 190) refers to 
 the kiss, but does not give sufficient particulars to enable us 
 to decide when it came in the Alexandrian liturgy of his 
 day. It may here be remarked that in the Coptic Church, 
 the lineal descendant of that of Alexandria, the kiss is given 
 to this day as of old ; it there comes after the intercessions. 
 There the order is: — 
 
 I. Prayer of the Veil, 2. Intercession, (3. Creed), 4. Kiss of 
 Peace. 
 
 Origen tells us {circ. A.D. 220) that the custom was observed 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 in the Church at the time of the celebration of the sacred 
 
 m}'stcrie.s ;* that after the prayer of intercession, it was cus- 
 tomary for the brethren to kiss one another. This usage, he 
 says, was due to tradition founded on the ApostoHc precept, 
 " Greet ye one another with an holy kiss." Paul called it a 
 holy kiss, therefore it must be pure and without hypocrisy ; 
 not like that of Judas, who gave the salutation with his lips, 
 and had treason in his heart. The kiss of the faithful must 
 be first pure, and then a kiss of peace and holy simplicity and 
 undisscmblcd love.f What was the custom in Egypt and 
 Palestine was the custom at Rome also. Tertullian speaks of 
 it in the same century, and gives its place after the interces- 
 sions, but before the oblations.^ Only, he says, on the Pass- 
 over — that is, on Good Friday— no kiss was given. " We go 
 not up to the altar of God," says the same writer, " without 
 composing first whatever discord or offence we have con- 
 tracted with our brethren. For what sort of deed is it to 
 approach the Peace § of God without peace ? to approach the 
 remission of debts whilst you retain them ? How appease 
 the Father when angry with one's brother .? "|| From this 
 we may gather that />ossid/j' in the Roman and Carthaginian 
 Churches there was a reconciliation and kiss of peace in the 
 place where it now stands in the Roman Liturgy, before the 
 Communion ; but not necessarily, for the words of Tertullian 
 ma)' mean that the reconciliation begins the whole service. 
 
 The Kiss of Peace and Call to peace have not left our 
 liturgy without a trace of their presence, and that in the 
 primitive rather than in the later Roman place. "Ye that do 
 truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and a/v in love 
 and charity with your neighbours^ draw near with faith." And 
 
 * In Cantic. i. f Ad Rom. x. c. ^},. 
 
 % Do Oral. J c. 18. Elsewhere he speaks of the objection taken by an un- 
 believing husband at seeing a believing wife meet "one of the brethren and 
 exchange the kiss." Ad Uxor., ii. c. 4. 
 
 § That is— Christ our Peace. || De Orat., c. ii. 
 
THE KISS OF PEACE. 229 
 
 " Dearly beloved in the Lord, ye that mind to come to the 
 Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour 
 Christ — be in perfect charity zuitk all men ; so shall ye be meet 
 partakers of those holy mysteries." These exhortations, or 
 calls to charity and fraternal forgiveness, take the exact posi- 
 tion in the English Eucharistic service occupied in the 
 majority of ancient liturgies by the call, or exhortation, of the 
 deacon to peace. The kiss is retained in its primitive place 
 in the Mozarabic Liturgy said in the one side chapel of the 
 glorious Cathedral of Seville. It occupied that same position 
 in the Galilean Liturgies, that are all dead ; it is gone from 
 that of Milan, transferred to the place it occupies in the 
 Roman use ; but in Greece, in Russia, in the Holy Land, in 
 Syria, in Egypt, in Abyssinia, it stands where we have the 
 Call to the communicants to be in love and charity together. 
 The outward symbol — the kiss — has fallen away almost 
 everywhere ; but the thought that only through love and 
 forgiveness is sure access found to the Throne of Grace — that 
 is nowhere forgotten, wherever the Gospel is spread ; where- 
 ever the Church celebrates the mysteries of the death of 
 Christ our Peace, who Himself loved us, and has left us the 
 commandment that so, in like manner, we should love one 
 another. 
 
Chapter XXIII. 
 
 THE VESTURE. 
 
 the order in the "constitutions "' to assume a shining vestment 
 — an addition by the compiler in the fourth century— the 
 fathers object to dyed garments and forced meats as shams 
 — no law for us — the hippolytan canons — medieval attempt 
 to make the traditional eucharistic vesture agree with 
 that of the high priest — the eucharistic vestments derived 
 from the state garments of the romans — the tunic— the 
 toga — the alb— the surplice— the tunic alone, a badge of 
 servitude— worn accordingly by deacons — fashions in dress 
 vary, but the eucharistic vestments remained unaltered — 
 the reason— the garments of christ — at the institution — 
 the seamless robe— the mantles— the towel— these garments 
 originated the eucharistic vestments— the tunic — the stole 
 —the planeta— the pall— the desire of the church to copy 
 Christ's institution in every particular. 
 
 In the eighth book of the " Constitutions," the celebrant is 
 directed to assume his shining-, histrous garment at the 
 Offertory and Great Entrance. The rubrics to the liturgy are 
 certainly posterior to the liturgy itself, and this injunction 
 shows us no more than this, that at the period when the com- 
 piler drew uf) his re-edition of the " Constitutions," together 
 with the anccdota of his library, a specially rich garment was 
 employed at the Eucharist. His words, however, mean no 
 more than that the garment is to be of lustrous white 
 (Xafxirpuv eaBTiTU ^erevSv^). Tertullian, Clement of Alex- 
 andria, and other early Fathers made it their object to oppose 
 the use of all dyes, which they held to be an adulteration of 
 the original material of which garments were made. They 
 
THE VESTURE. 23 1 
 
 would have all Christians wear " Jaeger " garments, as being 
 that which came by nature ; if, says Tertullian, God had 
 intended woollen clothing to be tinctured. He would have 
 made sheep run about blue and scarlet. It was, therefore, 
 quite in accordance with the view of the leaders of thought 
 in the early Church to hold to white, or nature-coloured, wool 
 and linen textures. The polemic of Tertullian and Clement 
 resembled that of Mr. Ruskin against shams. Let every- 
 thing show openly what it was, and do not disguise its nature 
 by plunging it in the dye-vat. 
 
 On precisely the same grounds Tertullian inveighs against 
 all stuffing and larding of meat, and adding of sauces, because 
 altering the natural, God-given flavour of the meat. So also 
 the Fathers objected to musical instruments sounded by the 
 breath, as disguising and altering the natural tones.* In all 
 three instances this rigorism is absurd in its extravagance.-f- 
 
 Mr. Wharton Marriott, in his " Vestiarium Christianum " 
 (London, 1868), urges with insistence that white alone was 
 recognized as legitimate in the service of God in the early 
 Church, but he misses the reason why this was so — because 
 the early Church, or rather the religious and rigorist opinion 
 in the early Church, thought all tincturing of raiment was 
 infecting it with falsity. 
 
 In the Hippolytan Canons received by the Abyssinian 
 Church, and which are due, not to the Hippolytus of Rome, 
 but to Hippolytus of Portus (Aden, in Arabia), at whose lessons 
 Origen assisted, and who is named by Eusebius along with the 
 African bishop, Beryllus, it is ordered — " As often as a bishop 
 takes the sacred mysteries, let the deacons and presbyters be 
 clothed in white robes, brilliant, in the view of all the people, 
 and in like manner, the lector." This canon gives, however, 
 no instructions as to the vesture of the celebrating bishop. 
 
 The mediaeval Church strove to conform the traditional 
 
 * De Spectac. 8, attributed to S. Cyprian. f De Pallio, c. 5. 
 
232 
 
 OUR IXIll.RITANCE. 
 
 vesture of the bishop to that described by Moses as the 
 proper raiment of the High Priest in the Temple; but such 
 conformity was entirely mediaeval. There is no evidence 
 whatever forthcoming to show that any such connection was 
 thought to exist between them at an earlier period.* 
 
 To understand the origin of special Eucharistic vestments, 
 we must take first into consideration what was the raiment 
 worn in the period at which the Apostles and their immediate 
 successors fixed the usage of the Church. 
 
 The clothing of the ancient classic world, in the first 
 Christian ages, was everywhere much the same, and fell under 
 these categories : — the //idin/ienta, garments drawn on, as shirt 
 and drawers, and the auiictus, raiment thrown over the body, 
 as cloak or shawl. To the first category belonged the 
 Tunic. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 FIG. 13. Man in Tunic (short), from a Fresco in the Catacombs. 
 
 Of tunics there were two sorts ; one, the shirt, short and 
 sometimes sleeveless, for work ; and the long flowing one, 
 tunica talaris, used on festive occasions, on visits, when at 
 
 * Dr. Bock, in his '' Geschichte d. littirgischen Gewdnder d. MittelalUrs ^' 
 (Bonn, 1859), has done what could be done to prove the connexion, and has 
 failed. 
 
THE VESTURE. 
 
 233 
 
 meals, receiving friends, walking in the streets. Sometimes 
 the long tunic was girded up so as to allow the legs to be free 
 from the knee, whilst at work, then the girdle was loosed, and 
 the garment allowed to fall down to the feet. The Greek 
 name for the tunic was y(}TO)v, The tunic was of linen, and 
 white. 
 
 Over the tunic the Romans threw the TOGA, and the 
 Greeks the Ifi-anov. The toga was worn like a Scotch plaid. 
 The Himation was a wide mantle. The toga and himation 
 were of wool. This plaid was thrown over the left shoulder 
 and brought round under the left arm, so as to leave the 
 right arm free (fig. 14). In imperial times the cumbrous 
 
 FIG. 14. — Toga, from a Fresco in the Catacombs. 
 
 and very hot toga gradually gave place to the Jiiviation 
 or cloak, which the Romans called the Pallium.* In the 
 Clementine " Recognitions," S. Peter is represented as saying, 
 " My dress is, as you see, a tunic with a pallium " (vii. 6). 
 
 -' * Tertullian, in his treatise " De Pallio," speaks of the cumbrousness of the toga, 
 the drawing of the folds about the body, the buckle over the shoulder, the tucking 
 under the arm, and the sigh of relief with which it is cast aside " immediately after 
 crossing your own threshold. There is really no garment which a man is more 
 relieved to be rid of than the toga." As for the pallium, it is whipped on in no 
 time. "No compulsory waste of time in dressing yourself in w-hat consists in 
 simply casting over the shoulders." This treatise of Tertullian, full of extrava- 
 gance, deserves reading in connexion with the change of vesture in the Roman 
 world. 
 
234 
 
 OUR INUKKITANCE. 
 
 Both festal tunic and pall were adorned with purple stripes, the 
 Clavi, broader or narrower, according to the degree of the 
 wearer. As, however, the Romans had become accustomed, 
 from long use of the toga, to have the right arm free, they 
 either twisted the pall about, so that the opening of the cloak 
 fell along the right side of the body, instead of being in front, 
 or slit it down, and buckled it together above the right 
 shoulder (Fig. 15). The pall had various designations, 
 
 FIG. 15. — The Pallium, from a Mosaic at Ravenna. 
 
 according to whether it was worn split or without opening 
 down half its diameter. If worn as a bell-shaped vestment, 
 like that in Fig. 16, it was called in Greek, P/ic/oiiion, in 
 Latin, Paiiula, or was nicknamed Casula, a little hut, because 
 something like the small hovels erected b)' barbarians of 
 sticks planted in the ground and brought together in the 
 midst, covered with hides, the hole in the top serving as 
 chimney. A richly adorned mantle, with gold and em- 
 broider}', went by tiic name o{ Plaucta. 
 
 In any public assembl}-, even in the streets, a man would 
 as little think of appearing in tunic onl}- — unless engaged in 
 
THE VESTURE. 
 
 235 
 
 work — as he would nowadays, to use Mr. Marriott's expres- 
 sion, of walking down Regent Street in his shirt-sleeves. 
 Indeed, a man in his tunic only was spoken of as naked. 
 
 Kk,\ O 
 
 FIG. 16. — Peenula, from a Fresco in the Catacomb of SS. Peter and Marcellinus. 
 
 We may be quite sure, that when Christians assembled for 
 public worship, not the clergy only, but all the worshippers, 
 would wear their best raiment, i.e., the timica talaris and 
 the pall or toga. 
 
 With the deacons it was somewhat different, they were the 
 ministers, the servants attending on the altar and arranging 
 the people. Consequently they, and they only, in token of 
 their position as servants, would wear the bound or girded 
 tunic ; but not turned or tucked up and short-sleeved, as if 
 they were labourers in the field, but the flowing tunic girded 
 round the waist. 
 
 This long white tunic-shirt has remained in the Church as 
 the alb and surplice. 
 
 The surplice is simply an accommodation to convenience. 
 When worn over other garments, the tight sleeves were found 
 
2^6 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 inconvenient, especially in winter, when furs were employed 
 in the cold unwarmed churches ; as a winter garment to 
 go over the furs, the alb or tunic was made large, with 
 loose sleeves, and the name sur-plicc {super pelliciiini) testifies 
 still to its meaning. After a while the clergy found it much 
 more convenient to slip on and off a loose surplice than a 
 tight alb, and so employed it in summer as well as winter 
 for their ordinary ministrations, reserving the tight-fitting 
 girded alb or tunica talaris for the liturgy. 
 
 The alb or surplice is, therefore, the distinct badge of 
 ministry, as worn by the deacons when serving, at a time 
 when everyone else was in pall or toga. In much the same 
 way, at a village club-dinner, we have seen the stewards pull 
 ofif their coats and wait in their shirt-sleeves on the clubmen 
 at table. 
 
 Fashion in dress changed rapidly in the ages of the decline 
 of the Empire. The congregations that assembled in the 
 churches no longer appeared in the same vesture as did 
 the first worshippers in the liturgy, but the vesture of the 
 clergy remained unaltered. 
 
 In East and West, in Orthodox Churches and heretical 
 communions that branched off in the fifth century, in every 
 quarter of the old world, from India to the Straits of 
 Hercules, from Africa to Britain, everywhere the same old 
 fashion of vesture remained fixed at the liturgy. With slight 
 variations it was, and is, the same in the highlands of Ethiopia, 
 in the pepper swamps of Malabar, in the rude churches of the 
 Khurd Mountains, in the domed cathedral of Moscow, and in 
 the minsters of France, and the basilicas of Rome. 
 
 There must be some reason for this fixity of usage relative 
 to the raiment worn by the celebrant and deacons. What 
 that reason is we will now consider. 
 
 When, in a former chapter, we quoted S. Cyprian relative to 
 the mixed chalice, we saw what immense weight he gave 
 to the unswerving adherence to every particular of the 
 
THE VESTURE. 237 
 
 institution by Christ. That was to be reproduced down 
 to its minutest features ; nothing might be altered in that. 
 
 This, we beHeve, gives the key to solve this singular 
 unity and universality of custom relative to the Eu- 
 charistic vesture. The celebrant, not only in gesture and 
 word, but in vesture also, sought exactly to reproduce the 
 precise form of institution by Christ. 
 
 If we look at the account of the Institution by our Blessed 
 Lord, we shall see that we have data on which to go to deter- 
 mine what He wore on that occasion. 
 
 Christ wore : — i. The seamless white robe, the tunica 
 talaris, without any purple stripes. Doubtless this was the 
 Hebrew KethonetJi, rendered by the Seventy, X'-'^^^ TroSr'jp}]?, 
 a fine white linen garment. Girded it certainly was, for 
 convenience in walking, to pull up a portion to leave the lower 
 limbs free. 
 
 2. Over this Christ wore another garment, doubtless the 
 pallium ox planet a. S. John says that, "supper being ended, 
 He laid aside His garments," to. IfxaTia uinov, that is, one or 
 more cloaks. So again, when the washing of the feet was 
 over, we are told that He resumed His mantles, eXa(3eu to. 
 ijULaTia avTou. At the Crucifixion, when the soldiers had 
 finished the nailing and elevation of the cross, they " took 
 His cloaks {tjULdria), and made four parts ; and also His tunic 
 (j(Jltwv). Now the tunic was "without seam, woven from top 
 throughout" (John xix. 23). It would seem then clear that 
 Christ wore over His tunic of white linen more than one 
 mantle. The mantles were divided, torn into four parts ; we 
 must, therefore, conclude that there were two of them, each of 
 which was parted. 
 
 3. Monuments of ancient art, perhaps, explain the difficulty. 
 Along with the cloak was sometimes worn another of wool, 
 wrapped round the neck and shoulders as a kind of mufifler. 
 
238 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 It was a pall, but a pall much reduced in width, used in cold 
 weather, or to add to splendour of vesture. 
 
 The night of the Institution was cold, and Christ, feeling 
 the cold, may have wrapped this pall round Him, in addition 
 to His flowing mantle ox plaiieta. 
 
 4. There was still another article worn by Christ, at 
 least for a part of the time, — the towel. With this He girded 
 Himself 
 
 After He had done washing the feet, we are not told 
 that He removed the towel, but that He resumed His cloaks. 
 He may have — we should have supposed, probably would 
 have — cast off and aside the wet towel, but we are not told 
 that He did so. 
 
 But that He did not remove it we arc inclined to conjecture 
 from the fact that the liturgical vesture of celebrants, as soon 
 as the curtain of doubt and uncertainty rises — is found every- 
 where to consist in (i) The long, white, seamless robe ; (2) 
 The towel ; (3) The plaiicta or mantle ; (4) Even the pall, or 
 muffler reappears. 
 
 1. The white linen tunic remained as the alb. In the 
 second book of the " Constitutions " the deacons are bidden 
 wear it, close girded, during the liturgy. As early as the Fourth 
 Council of Carthage (a.D. 398) we find a canon (41st) regula- 
 ting its use as a garb to be worn by deacons at the Eucharist, 
 and at the Lections. 
 
 2. The towel : This, called the orarinm, not only for its 
 utility but as belonging to the institution, has remained in 
 use in the Church. " We are probably right in thinking 
 that the word orariiini is connected with os, mouth (of which 
 or is the real root-form), or, in its plural form, ora, the face ; 
 and regard the term as originally equivalent to our own 
 handkerchief."* Not only would the towel be a reminiscence 
 
 * Marriott: "Vest. Christianuni," p. l.wiii. 
 
THE VESTURE. 239 
 
 of the towel with which Christ girded Himself, but it was also 
 necessary, or, at all events, convenient, for wiping the hands, 
 and for wrapping about the hands when holding the sacred 
 vessels and volumes. The orarium, or napkin, retains its 
 name in the East, it has become the maniple in the West. 
 
 3. The mantle, or planeta, of white wool : This was 
 also called the casjila, a word which has been converted into 
 chasuble. That Christ wore at least one such is certain from 
 the words of the Evangelist. 
 
 The pcumila, in Greek pJielonion, was a bell-shaped, 
 wide garment, worn originally by the lower classes, made 
 first of frieze, or even leather ; it was only employed by 
 persons of a superior class, when travelling in cold weather. 
 It was like the South American and Mexican poncho. 
 In the days of the Republic it was not regarded as a 
 proper habit in which to be seen in town. A change of 
 opinion towards it set in, and leave was accorded by the 
 Emperors to wear it. Macrinus (a.d. 218) made gifts of 
 red pcBHuIas ; and still later Theodsius (A.D. 438) forbade 
 senators wearing the military cloak, and ordered them to 
 assume the pcenida. It was regarded as the specially state 
 garment, that suitable for festive celebrations, and especially 
 the garment of those of senatorial rank. From the time of 
 the acceptance of the pconila among the upper classes, 
 it became classified as either thepcsniila simple, or the rich long 
 embroidered planeia, a name which, however, is not met with 
 before the 6th century. 
 
 The earliest mention of the pccnida, or planeta, under its 
 Greek name phelonion, as a liturgical vestment, is in the 
 Liturgy of S. Chrysostom, in a rubric, but we do not know the 
 date at which the rubric was added. The earliest certain 
 notice is by Germanus of Constantinople, in the 8th century. 
 He says that the pJielonion was worn at the liturgy and at 
 baptisms, crimson or purple, because of the robe which Christ 
 
240 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 wore when exposed crowned with thorns. Later, Nicephorus, 
 patriarch of Constantinople (a.D. 806-514), sent one of chest- 
 nut hue and seamless to Pope Leo IIL The oldest monu- 
 mental representations of it we have in the church of S. 
 George, at Thessalonica, of the 4th centur}-. There bishop 
 and priest wear purple ///r/tv^/cr. 
 
 Christ's vesture-mantle was not, however, the Roman lay- 
 vesture, but the Syrian. Th.e pcB)iula was like the Syrian and 
 Arab kaftan or bcniscJi, and it was this latter that Christ 
 wore. The pcenula was the Latin name for the vestment 
 most like to it. 
 
 4. The muffler was used in altered form. It is called 
 the cpitracJicUoii. We only know that Christ wore more than 
 one mantle over His tunic, and we can but guess what 
 that was. Now, we find that in East and in West alike, 
 in addition to the vestments already mentioned, worn by the 
 celebrant, is another, the stole, or epitracJiclion, that goes round 
 the neck. In the accompanying cut (Fig. 17) is shown how a 
 
 FIG. 17.— Epitrachclion, from an ivory at Milan. 
 
 garment was thus folded and wrapped about the shoulders. 
 We know that Christ, on the night of the Institution, wore a 
 
THE VESTURE. 24I 
 
 second over-garment as well as the mantle, and from the con- 
 tinued existence of the epitrachelioji, or stole, among the vest- 
 ments of the celebrant, we may conjecture that the stole 
 represents this second article of raiment, worn by Him on 
 that night as a sort of muffler, because of the cold. 
 
 The stole as worn in the East differs somewhat from that 
 worn in the West, where it has dwindled into a long strip. 
 In the East it forms one piece, with a hole in it, through 
 which the head is passed. The same vestment was used 
 again, as an over-garment of special dignity, by Archbishops, 
 and made of white wool. So worn, it is called the Pall. 
 
 Writers of recent date have shown, and shown conclu- 
 sively, that the Eucharistic vestments in East and West are not 
 derived from the sacriiicial robes of the Levitical priesthood,, 
 but from the vesture of the classic period ; this, indeed, can 
 be well established ; but the reason why the Church has 
 held to this vesture everywhere, with unswerving, even blind 
 determination not to change it, has not been sufficiently 
 accounted for. Nor would we think that a desire to adhere 
 as closely as might be to the traditional vesture of Christ at 
 the Institution would be the probable solution of the question, 
 unless we could show that precisely the same rigorous con- 
 servatism was observable in other particulars as specially 
 characterizing the attitude of the Church towards the Holy^ 
 Eucharist in the first three centuries. 
 
Chapter XXIV. 
 
 THE LITANY OF INTERCESSION. 
 
 THE LITANY OF GENERAL INTERCESSION — THE ORDER IN THE SECOND 
 BOOK OF THE "CONSTITUTIONS" — THE KISS OF PEACE SHIFTED — THE 
 LITANY AS GIVEN IN THE EIGHTH BOOK INCOMPLETE — THE COLLECT 
 OF THE BISHOP— REMAINS OF THE LITANY IN THE VARIOUS LITURGIES 
 — THE REMAINS ON GOOD FRIDAY IN THE ROMAN LITURGY A MERE 
 "WRECK— HOW TO BE RESTORED — THE REFERENCE TO THE LITANY OF 
 INTERCESSION IN THE NEWLY RECOVERED PORTION OF THE EPISTLE 
 OF S. CLEMENT — JUSTIN MARTYR'S REFERENCE TO IT — S. PAUL 
 EXHORTS TO IT— THE ANGLICAN PRAYER FOR THE CHURCH MILITANT 
 EX.\CTLY OCCUPIES THE PLACE OF THIS PRIMITIVE LITANY OF 
 GENERAL INTERCESSION. 
 
 In the place where now stands our "Prayer for all sorts and 
 conditions of men," stood originally a Litany of general 
 intercession. 
 
 It was framed in the customary manner of a bidding call 
 by the deacon, then an exclamation of "Lord have mercy" 
 by the people, and this was followed by a collect said by 
 the celebrant. 
 
 This is the order as given in the second book of the "Con- 
 stitutions" — I. The Dismissal ; 2. The Offertory ; 3. The Kiss 
 of Peace ; 4. The Litany of Intercession. But in the eighth 
 book the order differs. There the Litany comes before the 
 Kiss of Peace. 
 
 The Kiss of Peace was shifted from its place after the 
 Offertory to before it, because of the saying of our Lord, "If 
 thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remembcrest that 
 thy brother hath aught against thee, first be reconciled to thy 
 
THE LITANY OF INTERCESSION. 243 
 
 brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Matt. v. 23, 24). 
 This displacement of the Kiss of Peace led to a displacement 
 of the Litany, or, perhaps it was thought that as the catechu- 
 mens, energumens, and penitents had been prayed for, which 
 prayers had been taken out from this Litany, the whole 
 Litany might be transferred to the Pro-Anaphora. Originally, 
 however, almost certainly, the Mass of the Faithful began, 
 like the Mass of the Catechumens, with a Litany. 
 
 Now in the form as given in the "Constitutions," the original 
 structure no longer remains intact. Instead of each clause of the 
 bidding prayer being followed, after the exclamation of the 
 people by a collect, there is but one Celebrant's Collect, and 
 this is put at the end of the Litany, a curtailment — and a very 
 practical one — of the original lengthy and intricate arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 Now, without further preface, let us take this Litany. All 
 being together, the doors shut, the deacon calls, "Let us all 
 with one accord cry to God through His Christ." Then he 
 bids to prayer, and the people respond to each clause, "Lord 
 have mercy" {Kyrie Elcison), 
 
 " Let us pray for the peace and prosperity of the world, and 
 for the holy Churches let us make our supplication, that He 
 who is the God of all may bestow peace perpetual on 
 us, that cannot be taken away ; that He may preserve us 
 perseveringly in the fulness of virtue, according to godliness." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 "Let us pray for the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
 which is from one end of the earth to the other, that the Lord 
 would preserve and guard it perpetually, unshaken by storm, 
 until the end of all things, founded upon the rock." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for the holy dioceses here, that the Lord of 
 all may vouchsafe to make us sharers in His heavenly hope, 
 and bestow upon us unceasingly the reward of our prayers." 
 
 ^. Kyrie Eleison* 
 
 R 2 
 
244 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 "Let us pray for every episcopate under heaven of those 
 who rightly divide the word of truth ; and for our Bishop 
 James and his dioceses." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Elc'ison. 
 
 ["Let us pray for our Bishop Clement and his dioceses." 
 
 Fy'. Kyrie Ele'ison. 
 
 "Let us pray for our Bishop Euodius and his dioceses." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison.']* 
 
 " That the merciful God may vouchsafe them to their holy 
 Churches, safe, honourable, full of days ; and may afford them 
 an honourable old age in piety and righteousness." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pra}' for their presbyters, that the Lord will 
 preserve them from every unseemly and wicked thing, and 
 grant them their priestly office, safe and honourable." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for all the diaconate and ministry in Christ, 
 and that the Lord may preserve their services blameless." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for the readers, singers, maidens, and widows 
 and orphans ; for those who are married and parents of 
 children ; that the Lord may have mercy on them all." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for eunuchs walking hoHly." 
 
 ty . Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for those in chastity and piety." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for those that bring forth fruit in Thy Holy 
 Church, and give alms to the poor." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for those that bring offerings and first-fruits 
 to the Lord our God, that the all-good God may recompense 
 them with His heavenly gifts, and give them an hundredfold 
 
 * These are probably additions. 
 
THE LITANY OF INTERCESSION. 245 
 
 more in this present world, and in the world to come life 
 everlasting ; and His grace may repay them heavenly things 
 for things earthly." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Ele'ison. 
 
 " Let us pray for our newly-illuminated brethren, that the 
 Lord may confirm and stablish them." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Ele'ison. 
 
 " Let us pray for our brethren that are exercised by sick- 
 ness ; that the Lord may preserve them from all diseases and 
 infirmity, and may restore them safely to His Holy Church." 
 
 ^?. Kyrie Ele'isoii. 
 
 " Let us pray for them that sail and travel." 
 
 ^. Kyrie Ele'ison. 
 
 " Let us pray for them that are in mines and are exiles, in 
 bond and imprisonment for the Name of the Lord." 
 
 I^. Kyrie E lei son. 
 
 " Let us pray for them that labour in bitter slavery." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for our enemies, and them that hate us, for 
 the Lord's sake ; that the Lord may soften their mind, and 
 disperse their fury against us." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for those without [the fold] and erring 
 \i.e.^ heretics and schismatics] ; that the Lord may convert 
 them." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us remember the little ones of the Church, that the 
 Lord, perfecting them in His fear, may bring them to the full 
 measure of age." 
 
 I^. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 " Let us pray for each other, that the Lord may guard us 
 and preserve us by His grace to the end, and may defend us 
 from the wicked one, and from all the scandals that work 
 iniquity, and may save us and bring us to His heavenly 
 kingdom." 
 
246 OUR INHERITANCE, 
 
 I^. Kyrie Elehoti. 
 
 " Let us pray for every Christian soul. Preserve and raise 
 us up, O God, by Thy pity." 
 I^. Kyrie Elei'son* 
 
 This simple and touching litany, called in Greek the 
 Ektene^ deserves a few words. It will be noticed that in it 
 none of the minor orders, subdeacons, exorcists, door-keepers, 
 &c., are prayed for, so that in its present form it is earlier 
 than their development. The reader is prayed for, but the 
 reader was adopted from the synagogue, and in the prayer 
 there is nothing to indicate that he was regarded as one of 
 the clerical order. The reader is included in the class with 
 the maiden, the orphan, and the widow. 
 
 It is ob.servablc also that there is prayer for those Chris- 
 tians who were suffering for the name of Christ, in bonds and 
 imprisonment, and consigned to work in the mines. Also 
 that there is a prayer for the heathen emperor and persecut- 
 ing judges, under the general term of " those that hate us for 
 the Lord's sake." 
 
 This litany is not complete. There certainly were other 
 suffrages, for the emperor, for the army, and for fruitful seasons, 
 but probably the compiler gave them from memory, and 
 some may have escaped his recollection. Just as now, if a 
 clergyman were set to write out the Litany from recollection, 
 ten chances to one but he would forget to give all the clauses. 
 Besides, it cannot be insisted on too frequently that there 
 were no written formularies of prayer. The deacon might 
 call for prayer for as many cases as he thought needed the 
 intercession of the people. When his voice ceased, they burst 
 forth with their response, " Lord, have mercy ! " 
 
 The Litany or Ektene ended, the deacon exclaimed, "Let 
 
 * The Kyries arc not written in the M.SS., but there can be no doubt that the 
 rubric, "For each of those whom the deacon mentions, let the people say, 
 Lord, have mercy," applies to these petitions ; besides, they remain in the Liturgy 
 of .S. James, in the Armenian, &c. 
 
THE LITANY OF INTERCESSION. 247 
 
 US Stand up," for during the Litany all had knelt. Then he 
 added, "Having earnestly made our supplication, let us com- 
 mit ourselves and each other to the living God, through His 
 Christ." " Then let the bishop pray over them, saying, 'Lord 
 Almighty, most Highest, Thou that dwellest in the highest, 
 Thou Holy One that restest in the holies, without beginning, 
 the only ruler ; Thou, who through Christ didst give us the 
 preaching of knowledge for the acknowledgment of Thy 
 glory and of Thy name, which He revealed < to our compre- 
 hensions ; do Thou Thyself now look down through Him upon 
 this Thy flock. Free it from all ignorance and evil practices, 
 and grant that it may entirely fear Thee and perfectly love 
 Thee, and may be endued with the glory of Thy countenance. 
 Be Thou propitious to them, and merciful, and ready to hear 
 their supplications, and keep them without turning, without 
 blame, without accusations, that they may be holy in body and 
 soul, not having spot nor wrinkle, nor any such thing ; but that 
 they may be perfect, and not one of them may be imperfect 
 and incomplete. Thou that art the Helper, the Mighty, Thou 
 that respectest not the persons of men, become Thou the 
 assistance of this Thy people, whom Thou didst purchase 
 with the precious blood of Thy Christ. Defender, Guardian, 
 Steward, most sure Wall, Fence and Security, none can 
 pluck out of Thine hands. Nor is there any other God like 
 Thee, for in Thee is our trust. Sanctify them in Thy truth, for 
 Thy word is truth. Thou that art not to be flattered, that canst 
 not be deceived, preserve them from all sickness and infirmity, 
 from every fall, from all injury and deceit, from the fear of the 
 enemy, from the arrow that flieth by day, and from that [thing] 
 which walketh in darkness ; and vouchsafe to them eternal 
 life, which is in Thine only begotten Son, Christ, our God and 
 Saviour, through Whom,' &c. 
 
 "And after this, let the deacon say, 'Let us attend.' 
 "And let the bishop salute the Church and say, 'Let the 
 peace of God be with you all.' 
 
248 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 "And let the people answer, 'And with Thy spirit.'" 
 
 The bishop's prayer is a blessing or intercession, or collect 
 of peace for the flock. 
 
 From the old Alexandrine Liturgy of S. Mark, the Litany 
 has fallen out ; or, at all events, is not given, perhaps, because 
 it belonged to the deacon and congregation, and not to the cele- 
 brant. On the other hand, the corresponding collect, which, in 
 the liturgy in the "Constitutions," can only distantly be said 
 to sum up the intercessions of the Litany, has a much more dis- 
 tinct character as the prayer of intercession for the sick, for 
 travellers, for the rising of the waters of the Nile, for the king, 
 the city of Alexandria, for the bishop, the priesthood, for the 
 whole Church, the episcopate, the diaconate, and all minor 
 orders, for the faithful people; and though in the only MSS. 
 that remain of this liturgy, — the order, as may be judged 
 from what has been given, is in sad confusion — yet such a 
 summing up of the suffrages of the people is undoubtedly 
 what was designed by the bishop's collect after the Litany. 
 He prayed for that which the people had asked. 
 
 In the Liturgy of Malabar, that of the Christians of 
 S. Thomas, the collect of the celebrant remains, in which 
 he prays "for the patriarchs, bishops, presbyters, deacons, 
 and for those who, having accomplished this life, have 
 departed out of this congregation of the Church, and for the 
 peace of the world, and the crown of the year, that it 
 may be blessed and filled with Thy mercy, and for all 
 Thy servants, and for us all." But the Litany of deacon 
 and people have fallen awa)-. The Litany has also dropped 
 out of the Coptic Liturgy, but the collect remains. The 
 more conservative Ethiopic Liturgy retains both litany and 
 collect. 
 
 We have already alluded to the curious conservatism shown 
 by the Roman Church in her Lenten and Holy Week services, 
 where features of primitive times have been retained that 
 have disappeared from her liturgy in festal seasons. 
 
THE LITANY OF INTERCESSION. 249 
 
 Now, on Good Friday, in the Latin Church, when the 
 Gospel is ended, then follow what are properly called " The 
 Prayers," i.e., the Intercessions, and they are the relics, the 
 wreckage of this Litany of Intercession which we have been 
 considering. 
 
 The deacon calls to the faithful to kneel down. 
 
 Then the celebrant says, "Let us pray for the Holy 
 Church, that the Lord God may grant her peace and union, 
 and may preserve her throughout the world. That He 
 would bring into her bosom the princes and potentates of 
 the earth. That He would grant us peace and tran- 
 quillity in this life, and to glorify God the Father 
 Almighty." 
 
 Then follows a collect,"© Almighty and Eternal God, who, 
 by Christ, hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, preserve the 
 works of Thy own mercy, that Thy Church, spread over the 
 whole world, may persevere with constant faith in the con- 
 fession of Thy name, through," &c. 
 
 After this comes another Bidding Prayer, or call to inter- 
 cession. "Let us pray for our most holy father, Pope N., 
 that our Lord God, who hath chosen him in the order of the 
 episcopy, may preserve him in health and safety," &c. 
 
 Then comes a collect, after which again the invitation — 
 
 " Let us pray also for all bishops, priests, deacons, sub-deacons, aco- 
 lytes, exorcists, readers, door-keepers, confessors, virgins, widows, and 
 for all the holy people of God." 
 
 Then again a collect, partly embodied in the English Com- 
 munion Office for Good Friday. Then again the Bidding 
 call— 
 
 " Let us pray also for the Emperor N., that the Lord God may reduce 
 the barbarous nations to his obedience," &c. 
 
 After this a collect, and the next call — 
 
 " Let us pray also for our catechumens, that our Lord God may open 
 for them the ears of their hearts," &c. 
 
250 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Then a collect for the catechumens, and another Bidding — 
 
 " Let us pray to dod the Father Ahnighty, that He may purge the 
 world of errors, cure diseases, expel famine, open prisons, grant return to 
 travellers, health to the sick," &c. 
 
 Followed by a collect and another call — 
 
 " Let us pray also for all heretics and schismatics," &c. 
 
 Then a collect, and again — 
 
 " Let us pray also for the perfidious Jews, that," iS:c. 
 
 The collect following, and the next after, and that which pre- 
 cedes, have been combined into the third of the collects for 
 Good Friday in the English Communion Service — 
 
 " Let us pray also for the pagans, that the Almighty God would 
 remove all iniquity from their hearts,"' &.c. 
 
 Another collect follows. 
 
 Now it is obvious that we have here the old Ektene or 
 Bidding praj-er of the deacon, with the collect of the celebrant 
 following it, but fallen into a state of strange decomposition, 
 which, in one particular, verges on the grotesque. It ^\•ill be 
 remembered, that for the Litany the congregation were 
 required to kneel. It is also certain that for the pra)'er of the 
 celebrant they stood. Now in the Roman service the Bidding 
 prayer has been transferred from the deacon to the priest, who 
 first bids to intercession, and then offers the prayer. This has 
 led to a very strange consequence. The deacon calls, " Let us 
 kneel down," and immediately the sub-deacon responds, "Stand 
 up." The true position for the Bidding prayer was between 
 the order to kneel and that to rise. 
 
 By the transfer of position of the Bidding prayer, the two 
 orders, as to the position of the worshippers, were left in 
 juxtaposition and in contradiction. 
 
 Another change, apparent in other liturgies, was that of 
 breaking up the long Bidding prayer into short calls, and 
 breaking up in like manner the long collect embracing all 
 conditions of men into .short collects concerning each class. 
 
THE LITANY OF INTERCESSION. 
 
 251 
 
 There was, however, an awkwardness in this, for it entailed 
 a continual change of position by the laity, with an effect 
 hardly decorous. This is obviated in the Roman use by 
 countermanding at once the order to rise. 
 
 We will put the development, or rather disintegration, in 
 tabular form, taking only a general outline — 
 
 I. Original. 
 
 Dea. Kneel down. 
 
 Dea. calls to general petition 
 for all in Church and State, for 
 catechumens, for sick, &c., and 
 for heretics. 
 
 Dea. calls to congregation. 
 Stand up. 
 
 Pr. Long collect for all in 
 Church and State, for cate- 
 chumens, for sick, &c., and for 
 heretics. 
 
 III. Roman form. 
 
 Dea. Kneeldoivn. SUBD. Stand 
 
 tip. 
 Pr. Calls to petition for all in 
 the Church. 
 „ Collect for all in Church. 
 Dea. Kneel down. SUBD. Stafid 
 
 up. 
 Pr. Call to petition for all in 
 State. 
 „ Collect for all in State. 
 Dea. Kneel down. SUBD. Stand 
 
 up. 
 Pr. Call to petition for cate- 
 chumens. 
 „ Collect for catechumens. 
 Dea. Kneel doivn. Sued. Stand 
 
 up. 
 Pr. Call to petition for sick, 
 &c. 
 „ Collect for sick, «S:c. 
 Dea. Kneel down. SUBD. Stand 
 
 up. 
 Pr. Call to petition for 
 heretics. 
 „ Collect for heretics. 
 
 It is easy to see what was the intermediate form. 
 
 II. Dea. Kneel down. 
 
 „ Call to petition for Church. R7. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 Sued. Stand up. 
 
 Pr. Collect for the Church. 
 
 Dea. Kneel down. 
 
 „ Call to petition for State. ^7- Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 Sued. Stand up. 
 
 Pr. Collect for the State. 
 
252 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Dea. Kneel down. 
 
 „ Call to prayer for catechumens. R7. Kyrie Eleison. 
 
 SUBD. Siand up. 
 
 Pr. Collect for catechumens. 
 
 And so on throughout. 
 
 That the Church of Rome should have left this Litany, 
 this relic of primitive worship, in the Good Friday service is 
 not so extraordinary, for the services of Holy Week have 
 suffered least change ; indeed, on Good Friday there are three 
 Lections, Prophet, Law, and Gospel ; only the Epistle 
 omitted, and Prophet and Moses inverted in order. On the 
 Wednesday in Holy Week there are also three lessons, 
 Prophet, then Prophet again in place of Epistle, and lastly 
 Gospel. 
 
 And now let us look at the recently recovered portion of 
 the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, or to be 
 more correct, the Epistle of the Church of Rome to the 
 Corinthians, written by Clement. This Clement is believed 
 to be he of whom S. Paul speaks, as one whose name 
 is written in the Book of Life. The letter was sent by the 
 Church of Rome to the Corinthian.s, about A.D. 94. Bishop 
 Lightfoot sees reasons to believe that the Fortunatus, who 
 was one of the bearers of the Epistle, is the same who is men- 
 tioned by S. Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (xvi. 
 17). This Epistle of the Church of Rome, written by Clement, 
 is the earliest monument we have of Christian literature, not 
 by an Apostle, but written by those who had heard and been 
 taught by the Apostles. 
 
 It is remarkable that in the recently recovered portions 
 of this Epistle is a long and eloquent passage introduced by 
 these words, " We will ask with fervency of prayer and sup- 
 plication, that the Creator may guard intact the number of 
 His elect, that is numbered throughout the whole world, 
 through His beloved Son, Jesus Christ." And in introducing 
 the prayer the writer uses the w ord eKrevt], actually empha- 
 
THE LITANY OF INTERCESSION. 253 
 
 sizing its relation to the Ektenc, or Litany, to which it bears a 
 striking resemblance. "This prayer or Litany begins," says 
 Bishop Lightfoot, " with an elaborate invocation of God, 
 arranged for the most part in antithetical sentences. Then 
 comes a special intercession for the afflicted, the lowly, the 
 fallen, the needy, the wanderers, the hungry, the prisoners, 
 and so forth. After this follows a general confession of sin, 
 and prayer for forgiveness and help. ... It is impossible not 
 to be struck with the resemblances in this passage to portions 
 of the earliest known liturgies. Not only is there a general 
 coincidence in the objects of the several petitions, but it has 
 also individual phrases, and in one place a whole cluster of 
 petitions* in common with one or other of these."t 
 
 Justin Martyr (d. 167) seems to refer to this Litany, for in 
 writing to Trypho the Jew, he says, "We pray for you, and 
 all that hate us, that Christ may have mercy on you."+ 
 
 In another place he says that Christians pray for kings 
 and princes, but indeed S. Paul had given advice that so it 
 should be. " I exhort that, first of all, supplications, prayers, 
 intercessions, and giving of thanks [Eucharist] be made for 
 all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we 
 may lead a quiet and peaceable life" (i Tim. ii. 2). In this 
 passage we have a remarkable combination, that can hardly 
 be fortuitous, of the elements that go to make up the liturgy : 
 the prayers, the intercessions, and the thanksgivings ; and it 
 is remarkable also, how that he refers to the "peaceable life," 
 the prayer for peace forming the beginning or opening of the 
 intercession, both in the Liturgy of the "Constitutions," and in 
 the fragment that remains in the Roman Liturgy for Good Fri- 
 day, as well as in the Oriental Liturgies. This again can hardly 
 
 * Bishop Lightfoot refers to the parallel in the Liturg)' of S. Mark. 
 
 f S. Clement of Rome : an Appendix, containing the newly recovered portions, 
 Lond., 1877, p. 269. 
 
 :J; Dial. c. Tryphone, c. 96. 
 
254 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 be accidental. That the Reformers in the revision and partial 
 re-construction of the AngHcan Communion Office should have 
 replaced the intercessions precisely in the old position from 
 which they had disappeared in the Latin missals, except only 
 on Good Friday, is certainly deserving of congratulation. It 
 was a revision in a risht direction. 
 
Chapter XXV. 
 
 THE PREFACE. 
 
 THE ACCOUNT OF THE LITURGY GIVEN BY JUSTIN MARTYR — OF THE 
 GREAT EUCHARISTIC PRAYER — IN THE EPISTLE OF S. CLEMENT THE 
 EUCHARISTIC PRAYER IS PARAPHRASED — AND THE SANCTUS IS GIVEN 
 — THE PREFACE IN THE LITURGY OF THE "CONSTITUTIONS" — THE 
 RULE OF FAITH, OR TRADITION OF THE APOSTLES— THIS GAVE 
 CHARACTER TO THE PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING — THE PREFACE IN THE 
 SYNAGOGUE SERVICE— THE UPLIFTED HANDS— SURSUM CORDA — HOW 
 IT ORIGINATED — THE CANON OF GREAT LENGTH — SHORTENED — THE 
 SANCTUS IN THE MALABAR LITURGY. 
 
 We have now arrived at the central point of the whole 
 liturgy, the great Eucharistic Thanksgiving. Justin Martyr, 
 who is the first to give us a description of the liturgy, thus 
 records the order of proceedings on Sunday in his Apology for 
 the Christians, presented to the Emperor Antoninus Pius. 
 The date of Justin's birth is about A.D. 114. He was a native 
 of Flavia Neapolis, a city of Samaria, and suffered martyrdom 
 for the faith, A.D. 165. In his Apology he gives two accounts 
 of the Eucharistic Service, from one of which we have already 
 given an extract. We will now quote the second. 
 
 " On the day called Sunday all who live in cities or in the 
 country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the 
 Apostles or the writings of the Prophets are read as long as 
 time permits." Here it may be noted that the " or " between 
 the mention of the writings of the Apostles and Prophets is not 
 alternative, as previously it is not when he speaks of those who 
 live in cities or in the country. Justin means that all citizens and 
 country men assemble and hear both Apostles and Prophets, 
 
256 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 By the memoirs of the Apostles the Gospels arc signified, and 
 perhaps the Epistles also. Justin does not write exactly 
 distinguishing the Lections, because his Apology is addressed 
 to a heathen, who knew nothing of Law and Prophets and 
 Gospels and Epistles. As by Prophets he includes Moses with 
 those usually termed Prophets, so by memoirs of Apostles he 
 probably included Epistles with Gospels. He proceeds — 
 " Then, when the reader has ceased, the President verbally 
 instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things." 
 This is the sermon. " Then we all rise together and pray." 
 In the other account he gives an outline of this prayer " for our- 
 selves, and for the newly-baptized, and for all others in every 
 place, that we may be counted worthy . . . and be found good 
 citizens." To return to the account we are quoting in full : 
 " When the prayer is ended bread and wine with water are 
 brought, and the President in like manner offers prayers and 
 thanksgivings according to his ability, and the people assent, 
 saying : Amen." In the other account we have the same 
 thing somewhat fuller. " There is then brought to the 
 presiding brother bread, and a cup of wine mingled with 
 water ; and he, taking them, gives praise and glory to the 
 Father of the Universe, through the name of the Son and of 
 the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for 
 our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands. 
 And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, 
 all the people express their assent by saying, Amen." Again, 
 in a previous chapter he gives an epitome of this Eucharistic 
 prayer. 
 
 " We praise God to the utmost of our power by the 
 exercise of prayer and thanksgiving for all things where- 
 with we are supjilicd, as we have been taught that the 
 only honour worthy of Him is to use His gifts for our 
 selves and for those who need, and with gratitude to offer 
 thanks by solemn prayers and hymns* for our creation 
 
 * TTO/tTrds Kal 0/xvovi. 
 
THE PREFACE. 257 
 
 and for all the means of health, and for the various 
 qualities of the different kinds of things, and for the changes 
 of the seasons ; and to present before Him petitions that 
 we may live again in incorruption, through faith in Him."* 
 Again, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Justin says: 
 " The oblation of fine flour which was prescribed [by Moses] 
 in behalf of those purified from leprosy was a type of the 
 bread of the Eucharist, the celebration of which our Lord 
 Jesus Christ prescribed, in remembrance of His sufferings, 
 on behalf of those purified in soul from all iniquity, in 
 order that we at the same time may give praise to God for 
 having created the world, with all things therein, and for 
 delivering us from the evil, by overthrowing principalities and 
 powers, by Him who suffered according to His will. Hence 
 God speaks by the mouth of Malachi about the sacrifices 
 presented by you [Jews] : ' I have no pleasure in you, saith 
 the Lord ; and I will not accept your sacrifices ; for, from the 
 rising of the sun until the going down of the same. My 
 Name shall be glorified among the Gentiles, and in every 
 place shall incense be offered to My Name, and a pure 
 offering : for My Name is great among the Gentiles, saith 
 the Lord ; but ye profane it.' So He speaks of the 
 Gentiles, that is, of us, who in every place offer sacrifices 
 to Him, i.e., the bread and the cup of the Eucharist, affirming 
 that we glorify His Name, and that you profane it."-f- To this 
 Justin again recurs in the same dialogue.:]: 
 
 Clement of Rome, the disciple of S. Paul, " whose name is 
 written in the Book of Life," in his Epistle to the Corinthians, 
 exhorts them to unity, warns them against dissension, and 
 entreats them to be at peace among themselves. 
 
 He, or rather the Church of Rome which writes through 
 him, is not giving a doctrinal lecture, is not apologizing for 
 the Christian religion ; the whole aim of the writer is to 
 
 * I App. c. 13. t Dial c. Tryph. c. 41. % Ibid. c. 117. 
 
 S 
 
258 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 inculcate peace. Now, after having so urged, he suddenly 
 bursts forth into this eloquent passage : " The Creator and 
 Master of the universe Himself rejoiceth in His works. For 
 by His exceeding great might He established the heavens ; 
 and by His incomprehensible wisdom He set them in order. 
 And the earth He separated from the water that surroundeth 
 it ; and He set it firm on the sure foundation of His own 
 will ; and the living creatures that move upon it He com- 
 manded to exist by His ordinance. Having before created 
 the sea and the living creatures therein He enclosed it by 
 His own power. Above all, as the most excellent and 
 exceeding great work of His intelligence, with His sacred and 
 faultless hands, He formed man in the impress of His own 
 image. And having finished all these things, He praised and 
 
 blessed them, and said. Increase and multiply Let us 
 
 then submit ourselves to His will ; let us mark the whole 
 host of His angels, how they stand by and minister unto His 
 will. For the Scriptures saith, Ten thousands of ten 
 thousands stood by Him, and thousands of thousands 
 ministered unto Him ; and they cried aloud : — 
 
 " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth, all 
 creation is full of his glory. 
 
 " Yea, let us ourselves then, gathered together in concord 
 and intentncss of heart, cry unto Him as from one mouth 
 earnestly, that we may be made partakers of His great and 
 glorious promises." * 
 
 S. Clement is not in this place speaking of the Euchartst, 
 he is simply speaking of peace ; but can we doubt that, after 
 the urgent appeal for peace among the brethren, his mind 
 went to the Kiss and Collect for Peace, and then at once ran 
 on to the great Eucharistic Preface that led up to the 
 Sanctus ? 
 
 *Acl Cor., 33, 34. 
 
THE PREFACE. 259 
 
 Let US put the commencement of this prayer from the 
 " Constitutions " in opposition with the words of S. Clement ; 
 only somewhat curtailing the wealth of expletive. 
 
 " Bishop : Lift up your mind. 
 
 " People : We lift it up unto the Lord. 
 
 " Bishop : Let us give thanks to the Lord. 
 
 " People : It is meet and right so to do. 
 
 "Bishop : It is very meet and right before all things to sing 
 praises to Thee, the true God, from everlasting, of whom the 
 whole family in heaven and earth is named. At Thy word, 
 all things sprang into being. Thou createdst all things out of 
 nothing by Thine Only Begotten Son. By Him Thou didst 
 make first the Cherubim and Seraphim, the Ages, Thrones, 
 Archangels, and Angels, and after these didst by Him create 
 this visible world, and all things that are therein. Thou didst 
 fix the heaven like an arch, and spread it as a tent ; Thou 
 didst establish the firmament and prepare night and day ; 
 Thou didst appoint the sun to rule the day, and the moon to 
 govern the night ; and inscribedst in the heavens a choir of 
 stars ; Thou didst make water for drinking and cleansing, the 
 air to breathe. . . . Thou didst divide the sea from the land, and 
 replenish them with beasts, small and great, and cover the 
 earth with herbage. . . . Thou didst make man to be a citizen of 
 the world, giving him an immortal soul and a perishable body. 
 And when he had broken Thy commandment and had eaten 
 the forbidden fruit. Thou didst not leave him without hope of 
 resurrection. ... * For all these things, glory be to Thee, 
 O Lord Almighty ; Thee, the innumerable hosts of angels, 
 archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, virtues, powers, 
 the Cherubim and Seraphim .... say, together with thou- 
 sand thousands of archangels, and ten thousand times ten 
 
 * We have omitted the narrative of the history of the world till the recovery of 
 Palestine, on account of its enormous length. See for the uncurtailed form, Neale 
 and Littledale, Translation of the "Primitive Liturgies," pp. 76-82, 
 
 S 2 
 
26o OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 thousand angels, crying incessantly in uninterrupted shouts of 
 praise : — 
 
 " Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Sabaoth ; heaven and 
 earth are full of His glory. Blessed be He for evermore. 
 Amen." 
 
 The Apostles left behind them the Faith, but not any 
 fixed form of the Faith ; a Rule of Faith, but no Creed. It 
 is thought that the original rule or canon of the Faith, also 
 called the Tradition of the Apostles, consisted briefly of this : 
 An account of the nature and glories of God ; then of Crea- 
 tion, of the Fall, then of the history of man, with indication 
 of God's continual guidance, till it came to the Incarnation ; 
 then the canon went on with the narrative of the Life of 
 Christ, the Institution of the Eucharist, the Passion, the 
 Resurrection, the Ascension, and Pentecost. Just as we hold 
 that the Apostles gave an outline how the Eucharist was to be 
 celebrated, but gave no form of words in which it was to be 
 celebrated, so do we hold that they gave an outline of the 
 Faith which was to be taught to all candidates for baptism, 
 but no form of words to be committed to heart, embodying 
 this teaching. 
 
 We meet with this canon everywhere ; in catechetical 
 lectures, in allusions, and in thanksgivings. In the earliest 
 liturgies, indeed, before the fifth and sixth centuries, no 
 formal creed was recited in the liturgies, for the Rule of 
 
 Faith was used, transformed into a song of thanksgiving, as 
 the great Eucharistic act of praise. 
 
 It was always and everywhere introduced by the same call 
 
 and response, the celebrant exclaiming, "Lift up your hearts," 
 
 and the people responding, " We lift them up unto the Lord." 
 There can be little doubt as to the origin of this portion of 
 
 the service, the preface, introduced by the Sursnin Corda. 
 
 It is found in the morning service of Temple and Synagogue 
 
 Wc put them side by side — 
 
THE PREFACE. 
 
 261 
 
 Church. 
 
 ^. Lift up your hearts. 
 
 R7. We lift them up unto the 
 Lord. 
 
 It is very meet, right, and our 
 bounden duty to give praise to God 
 who did create . . . (more or less 
 lengthy enumeration of the works 
 of creation, the calling of light out 
 of darkness, the fixing of days and 
 seasons). Therefore with Angels 
 and Archangels, Cherubim and 
 Seraphim, and all the host of 
 heaven, we praise and laud and 
 glorify Thee, saying. 
 
 Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of 
 hosts ; Heaven and Earth are full 
 of Thy Glory. 
 
 Synagogue. 
 
 JI. Bless ye the Lord, who is 
 blessed for ever. 
 
 R7. Blessed be the Lord, who is 
 blessed for ever. 
 
 Blessed indeed art Thou who 
 didst create light and darkness ; 
 who formedst all things ; who 
 broughtest the sun from its place, 
 and the moon. . . . Who renew- 
 est daily all creatures. God is the 
 Lord of all His creation, exalted 
 above angels, and all the heavenly 
 host, Cherubim and Seraphim, who 
 ascribe to Him praise and glory 
 and majesty, saying, 
 
 Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of hosts ! 
 the whole world is full of Thy 
 Glory. 
 
 Whence came the exchange of " Bless ye the Lord " to " Lift 
 up your hearts ? " 
 
 It has been already said that the Great Eucharistic Prayer 
 was said with uplifted hands. In the many paintings of 
 Christian worshippers in the catacombs, we see them with up- 
 lifted hands. " We commend our prayers to God with our 
 hands, not too loftily elevated, but becomingly and mode- 
 rately," says Tertullian.* " We not only raise, but even 
 expand our arms ; taking our model from Christ's passion ; 
 even in prayer we give praise to Him." i* Clement of 
 Rome % speaks of stretching out the hands in prayer ; so 
 does Clement of Alexandria. § 
 
 The idea continually recurred to by the Fathers is that as 
 Moses stretched out his arms, and thus in prayer conquered 
 Amalek, so did Christ stretch out His arms on the cross, 
 and conquer the powers of darkness ; and that Christians when 
 in prayer should in like manner " lift up holy hands," but 
 especially in that Eucharistic prayer which is commemora- 
 tive of the death and intercession of Christ on the cross. 
 
 De Prec, c. 17. f Ibid., c. 14. % Ad Corinth. 2. 
 
 § Strom, vii. 7. 
 
262 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 So when Ignatius says, " Gather yourselves together more 
 frequently for Eucharistic praise. By your frequent gather- 
 ings the powers of Satan arc quelled ;"* the meaning does 
 
 not appear on the surface, but wc can see how there stands 
 in his mind's eye the picture of the faithful at the Eucharist 
 with outstretched arms, and he connects it with the defeat of 
 Amalek, which symbolized the victory of the Cross over Satan. 
 S. Paul in his First Epistle to Timothy exhorts, " I will that 
 men pray every where, lifting up holy hands " (ii. 8) ; he adds 
 
 Ad. Smym. c. 13. 
 
THE PREFACE. 263 
 
 "without wrath and doubting," as though in some connexion 
 with reconciliation and peace. The author of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews also, in the passage we have already noticed as 
 having a curious reference to the order of the liturgy, speaks 
 of the lifting up of the hands that hang down. 
 
 The passage to which reference was probably made in the 
 call of the priest to raise the hearts is that in Jeremiah's 
 Lamentations, " Let us lift our hearts with our hands unto 
 God in the heavens " (iii. 41). As the rubric of the Roman 
 Mass orders, and as it is the custom throughout the East, for 
 the celebrant at the Sursum Corda to raise his hands at the 
 cry, "Lift up your hearts," so probably in the primitive Church 
 the call was "Lift up your hearts and hands ;" but because with 
 the raising of the priest's hands, all the congregation also raised 
 theirs, after a while the versicle became contracted to " Lift 
 up your hearts." 
 
 The Canon, or Rule of Faith, converted into a great prayer 
 of praise, may perhaps have been broken more than once by 
 the burst of the Trishagion from the people. As already said, 
 the Canon was long ; it contained the record of God's creation, 
 then of His dealings with mankind, of the Incarnation and the 
 Redemption. 
 
 When the celebrant came to the mention of angels, then at 
 once the congregation joined with angels and archangels in 
 the ascription of Thrice Holy. In the form in the eighth book 
 of the " Constitutions" the Sanctus is given after the record of 
 the restoration of the Israelites to the Promised Land. There 
 are traces of it again after the conclusion of the narrative 
 of redemption. It is of this Triumphal Hymn that Pliny 
 speaks in his letter to Trajan, when he says that the 
 Christians sing a hymn to Christ as God. 
 
 Here is an account of it as heard among the poor remnants 
 of the Christians of S. Thomas on the Malabar Coast : 
 
 " As soon as the Catanar (priest) had finished the prayer, 
 the people raised as it were with one voice that glorious 
 
264 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 hymn, KadisJia Aloha, &c., which I found to be the Trisagium. 
 No description can convey an adequate idea of the effect 
 produced by the singing of this hymn. It was accompanied 
 by the clash of cymbals as well as by the ringing of two large 
 bells just overhead, but the sound of human voices was so 
 loud as to render these accompaniments comparatively 
 indistinct, their clash and clang only adding to the amazing 
 discord of the whole. Yet it was very impressive and 
 exciting, and the effect was heightened by the perfume of the 
 incense, which, wafted from the chancel, now filled the whole 
 church, and brought forcibly to mind the prayer of the 
 Psalmist, and the words of the Prophet Malachi, " In every 
 place incense shall be offered unto My Name, and a pure 
 offering : for My Name shall be great among the heathen, 
 saith the Lord of Hosts."* 
 
 * "The Christians of S. Thomas and their Liturgies," by Rev. G. B. Howard. 
 London 1864, p. 13 
 
Chapter XXVI. 
 
 THE GREAT THANKSGIVING. 
 
 THE GREAT EUCHARISTIC PRAYER HAS SUFFERED MORE DISINTEGRA- 
 TION THAN ANY OTHER PORTION OF THE LITURGY — THIS PRAYER 
 FORMED ON THE RULE OF FAITH— TERTULLIAN ON THE RULE— HIS 
 EPITOME— NOV ATI AN — THE DESCRIPTION OF THE GREAT EUCHARISTIC 
 PRAYER BY JUSTIN MARTYR — THE CHRISTIAN HALLEL — THE FOUR 
 HYMNS OF PRAISE— THE OUTBREAK OF HERESIES NECESSITATED 
 THE FIXING OF THE CREED — THE EUCHARISTIC PRAYER IN THE 
 "constitutions" SHARPENED AGAINST HERESIES — THE VARYING 
 PREFACES BELONG TO THE OLD EUCHARISTIC PRAYER — THE CREED 
 INSERTED IN THE LITURGY — THE TE DEUM A PARAPHRASE OF THE 
 GREAT PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING — THE EUCHARISTIC PRAYER IN 
 EIGHT LITURGIES. 
 
 The Great Eucharistic Prayer, the Christian Hallel, has gone 
 through more contraction and displacement than almost any- 
 other part of the liturgy. 
 
 There was an occasion for this condensation and displace- 
 ment. As already said, it was an Eucharistic version of the 
 Canon, or Rule of Faith, the doctrine of the Apostles relative 
 to the scheme of God for the salvation of man. This rule 
 went by many names — the Doctrine, the Discipline, the Tra- 
 dition of the Apostles — and it formed the basis of catechetical 
 instructions previous to baptism. 
 
 In that remarkable book, "On Prescription against Here- 
 tics," by Tertullian, there is a compendium of the rule, and 
 a good deal about it. Tertullian was a man of commanding 
 intellect and of caustic wit, a man in whom the combative 
 qualities of Christianity appear prominent, rather than the 
 pacific. It is saddening, and yet instructive, to see a man so 
 
266 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 zealous for the faith, so miHtant against heresy, so abhorrent 
 of schism, end his days by a lapse into heresy, impelled into 
 schism by the vehemence of that cutting spirit which was 
 untempered by love and forbearance. 
 
 In his treatise on "Prescription against Heretics," 
 Turtullian lays down the futility of arguing with them from 
 Scripture. Scripture, he says, belongs to the Church, and can 
 only be interpreted by the Church. None can understand the 
 meaning of Scripture till they have accepted — and accepted 
 as final — the Rule of Faith. All argument with heretics on 
 Scriptural ground is waste of breath. 
 
 Heresy is a fever, deranging the mind, distorting the 
 vision. It is bred of restlessness, reluctance to accept the Rule 
 of Faith as final, a thrusting forward after things unrevealed, 
 leading to loss of equilibrium. A seeking after divine know- 
 ledge is never out of place nor excessive, if confined within the 
 Rule of Faith. " That old woman [in the parable] searched 
 for the piece of silver within her own house. When she found 
 it, she desisted from further search." No man receives illumi- 
 nation from that quarter where all is darkness. Let our 
 seeking be in that which is our own — that, and that only, can 
 become a legitimate object of inquiry without impairing the 
 Rule of Faith. 
 
 " Now, with regard to this Rule of Faith, it is that which 
 prescribes belief that there is one only God. 
 
 " That He is the Creator of the world, who made all things 
 out of nought by His Word, first of all sent forth. 
 
 " That this Word is called His Son. 
 
 " That He, as God, was seen in divers manners by the 
 Patriarchs ; heard at all times by the Prophets. 
 
 " That He at the last, brought down b}' the Spirit of Power 
 of the Father, was made flesh in the womb of the Virgin 
 Mary ; being born of her, went forth as Jesus Christ. 
 
 " That thenceforth He preached the new law and the new 
 promise of the kingdom of heaven, and worked miracles. 
 
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING. 26/ 
 
 " That He was crucified. 
 
 " That He rose again the third day. 
 
 " That He ascended into the heavens. 
 
 " That He sat down at the right hand of the Father. 
 
 " That he sent the Power of the Holy Ghost in His room to 
 lead such as believe. 
 
 "That He will come with glory to take the saints to the 
 enjoyment of everlasting life and of the heavenly promises, 
 and will condemn the wicked to everlasting fire. 
 
 " After the Resurrection of both [good and bad], with 
 restoration of the flesh. 
 
 " This rule was taught by Christ, and raises amongst our- 
 selves no such questions as those which heresies introduce 
 and make men heretics."* 
 
 " From whom, through whom, and when, and to whom, was 
 handed down that rule {disciplind) by which men become 
 Christians.? Jesus Christ, our Lord, did whilst on earth 
 Himself declare what He was, what He had been, what was 
 the Father's will, what was man's duty either openly to the 
 people or privately to His disciples, of whom he had chosen 
 
 the twelve chief ones These, having obtained the 
 
 promised power of the Holy Ghost, and having borne witness 
 to the faith in Jesus Christ throughout Judaea, and founded 
 Churches there, next went forth into the world and preached 
 the same doctrine of the same faith to the nations [of the 
 world]. They then, in like manner, founded Churches in 
 every city, from which all other Churches, one after another, 
 derived the tradition of the faith and the seeds of doctrine, 
 and are every day deriving them, that they may become 
 Churches. On this account alone can they call themselves 
 apostolic, as being the offspring of Apostolic Churches. 
 Every creature belongs by origin to its kind. Therefore the 
 Churches, though so many and so great, comprise but one 
 
 * Proesc. c. 13. Compare with this the Rule as given by Irenteus Adv. Hreres. 
 I. c. 10. 
 
268 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Primitive Church, founded by the Apostles, from which they 
 all derive [by filiation]. In this way all are primitive, all are 
 one in unity, in peaceful communion, brotherhood, bond of 
 hospitality — rights which no other rule directs than the one 
 tradition of the self-same mystery {i.e., the faith)."* 
 
 " In the Lord's Apostles we possess our authority ; for 
 even they did not of themselves choose to introduce anything, 
 but faithfully delivered to the nations [of mankind] the 
 rule {disciplinam) which they had received from 
 Chrisf't 
 
 " Come now, examine the Apostolic Churches, in which the 
 very thrones of the Apostles still preside in place, in which 
 their own authentic writings are read, revealing the voice and 
 countenance of each [Apostle] severally.":}: 
 
 The rule§ is also that with which Novatian (who wrote before 
 262,) begins his treatise concerning the Trinity, and it forms the 
 basis of his first chapter. He continues describing the glory 
 of God till he comes to the creation of angels, and there, 
 when in the Thanksgiving the Sanctus would come, he 
 breaks off to discuss the nature of God ; but in the eighth 
 chapter returns to the Canon with these significant words : 
 " Setting aside the fables of the heretics, let us consider 
 the God whom the Church knows and worships, to whom 
 creation bears witness, whom angels adore," &c. Then he follows 
 the Canon through its course, the planting of Paradise, the 
 Fall of man, the Flood, the election of Abraham, the history 
 of the Patriarchs, the delivery of Israel out of Egypt, the 
 inspiration of the Prophets, then finally proceeds to the Incarna- 
 tion. His words are the very echo of the Eucharistic 
 Thanksgiving ; and that there might be no mistake as to 
 whence he derived his teaching, he proceeds in the next 
 chapter, " The same Rule of Truth teaches us to believe, after 
 the Father, also in the Son of God, Jesus Christ," &c. And 
 
 * Prnesc. cc. 19, 20. t Ihi(f. c. 6. % IH<L c. 36. 
 
 § 6 KavCcv iKK\r)ffia<TTiK6i, Clem. Alex. Slrom. 6 Kavuiv rrjs d\r]0^tai, Iren. I. i. 
 
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING. 269 
 
 then he goes on to attack the Docetic heresy, which denied 
 the reahty of the body Christ assumed. 
 
 S. Cyprian, also, in his Treatise on the Vanity of Idols, 
 naturally, instinctively, falls back on the Rule, or the Great 
 Eucharistic Prayer, as the basis from which he starts to attack 
 heathenism and idolatry. 
 
 The Rule of Faith meets us everywhere in the Fathers of 
 the first four centuries, either as the basis of reasoning, or in 
 allusion more or less distinct. There was a Canon (Rule) of 
 Faith, a Canon of Eucharistic offering, and finally, a Canon 
 of Scripture, none absolutely fixed at first, as to the exact 
 words, but becoming so as time went on. 
 
 The Canon of the Eucharist followed the Canon of the Faith, 
 it was a paraphrase converted from a confession of belief into 
 subject-matter of thanksgiving. This Eucharistic hymn was 
 given forth by the celebrant " to the best of his ability," says 
 Justin Martyr. In the Didache is the command, " Suffer ye 
 the prophets to give thanks as much {or in what words) they 
 will." 
 
 When Justin Martyr says that the oblation of thanksgiving 
 was with pomps and hymns, he means that there was a 
 stately, psalm-like character impressed on this Hymn of 
 Praise, and the choral song he refers to is the Thrice Holy 
 following the Preface, which was thundered forth in union 
 with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, 
 by the congregation. 
 
 It would exhaust the patience of the reader to go through 
 the early Christian writers, and show him how this Eucharistic 
 psalm, which is itself a re-edition of the Rule of Faith, reflects 
 itself in their writings. It must have impressed itself deeply 
 on their minds, filled them with a glow of faith and love that 
 could not be disguised. It breaks forth in gleams through 
 their arguments, exhortations, rebukes. It reminds the 
 reader of the story of a patriarch of Constantinople, who 
 on his way to church having been solicited for alms by a 
 
270 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 naked be<;gar, stripped off his coat and gave it to the poor 
 man. When, in the basilica, he stood at the altar celebrat- 
 ing, with the Eucharistic vestment over him, the Emperor 
 wondered, as he watched, for he saw flashing from beneath 
 the vestment a radiancy, as though of the sun. And lo ! it was 
 the vesture of charity that covered the patriarch's nakedness, 
 that glowed forth beneath the folds of the ecclesiastical 
 raiment. 
 
 The question now arises. Whence came the Great Eucharistic 
 Prayer ? 
 
 To answer this we must understand exactly what it 
 represented. In the Christian Church it represented exactly 
 that which was represented by the great Eulogy on the 
 steps of the Holy Place, at the oblation of incense : — It was 
 a mighty hymn of praise to God in honour of his Name, in 
 thanks for creation, for redemption, and for sanctification. 
 The celebrant always, deep in his heart, kept this impressed 
 upon him, the Eucharistic Prayer was to commemorate God's 
 glories, and in it he was to give Him thanks for all He has done 
 for man. But the Rule of Faith was the record of God's mercies, 
 as well as an instruction on His nature ; therefore naturally, 
 instinctively, the celebrant, when he began the Canon of 
 Praise, followed the lines of the Canon of Faith. He con- 
 verted what was subjective instruction into objective 
 worship. 
 
 That we may take as established. 
 
 But we go further, and ask, Where was the original germ, 
 out of which the Eucharistic Prayer grew ? 
 
 We look to the Great Psalmody at the oblation of incense, 
 and find it there. It was there that, in all probability, first 
 came the call to united praise in unison with angels and 
 archangels, leading up to the Triumphal Hymn. It was 
 there that the solemn thanksgiving was made to God for His 
 glories, the creation. His delivery of Noah, His call of 
 Abraham, His protection extended to the Patriarchs, the 
 
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING. 
 
 271 
 
 delivery of Israel out of Egypt by Moses. There also was 
 sung the Great Hallel, and the Eucharistic Prayer follows this 
 step by step. If we had the exact form of the hymnody 
 offered to God in the Morning Service on the Temple stairs, 
 we should probably find that the primitive liturgy of the 
 Church most closely followed it. It has, since the Dispersion, 
 gone through much change, dislocation, and amplification ; 
 but, nevertheless, there is apparent in this morning Eulogy 
 the main idea of a great thanksgiving offered to God for all 
 His glory and His glorious works, and this main idea forms 
 also the substance of the Christian Eucharistic Prayer.* 
 
 We will take the Hallel (Ps. cxxxvi.), which may be called 
 the Rule of the Jewish Church, an epitome of its thanksgiving, 
 and show the likeness that existed between the Great Thanks- 
 giving and it.f 
 
 The Great Hallel. 
 
 O give thanks unto the Lord, for 
 He is gracious, and His mercy 
 endureth for ever. 
 
 O give thanks unto the God of 
 Gods. 
 
 O give thanks unto the Lord of 
 hosts. 
 
 Who alone doeth great wonders. 
 
 Who by His excellent Wisdom 
 made the heavens. 
 
 Who laid out the earth above 
 the waters. 
 
 Who made great lights ; the sun 
 to rule the day. 
 
 The moon and stars to govern 
 the night. 
 
 The Great Thanksgiving. 
 (" Constitutions.'''') 
 
 Thou alone, the sovereign Lord, 
 the Author of all good things, we 
 praise. 
 
 Thou, without beginning, self- 
 existing, the same for ever. 
 
 Who by Thy woi'd createdst all 
 things. 
 
 Who by Thy Son, the living 
 Wisdom., madest the angels, and 
 heaven, the earth and the waters. 
 
 Day and night ; the sun to shine 
 by day ; 
 
 The moon and stars by night. 
 
 * evxo.pi.cTTe'tv ocra OeKovaiv. 
 
 f The whole has been minutely worked out by Pabst, "Liturgied. drei ersten 
 Xtlichen Jahrhundert." Tubingen, 1870. 
 
 The account given by the pseudo-Dionysius, at the end of the fifth or beginning 
 of the sixth century, of the liturgy, probably the Byzantine, shows us the Great 
 Eucharistic Prayer almost in its perfect original form. He tells us how then the 
 celebrant thanks God for not having left man hopeless after the Fall, but given to 
 
272 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Who smote Egypt with their 
 first born. 
 
 Who brought out Israel from 
 among them, with a miglity hand 
 and a stretched out arm. 
 
 Who dividedst the Red Sea in 
 two parts ; and madest Israel to 
 go through the midst ; but didst 
 destroy Pharaoh and his host. 
 
 Who led the people through the 
 wilderness ; smote great kings ; 
 gave away their land for an herit- 
 age. 
 
 Who giveth food to all flesh. 
 
 O give thanks unto the God of 
 heaven. 
 
 O give thanks unto the Lord of 
 hosts. 
 
 (Further details about Creation, 
 the Fall, the Flood, the call of 
 Abraham, concerning Job, Isaac, 
 Joseph, Moses and Aaron.) 
 
 Who smote Egypt with the 
 plague. 
 
 Who didst punish Israel, but 
 didst restore it again. 
 
 Who didst divide the Sea, and 
 madest Israel to pass through, 
 but overwhelmedst Pharaoh and 
 his host. 
 
 Who didst lead the people 
 through the wilderness, illumining 
 and defending them, and giving 
 them the lands of the heathen. 
 
 Who gavest manna from 
 heaven. 
 
 Who didst divide Judah. 
 
 For all these things glory^ be to 
 Thee, O Lord Almighty. Thee 
 the host of heaven praise. 
 
 Here, where the Hallel ends, there in the " Constitutions " 
 came the break with the Sanctus. Then follows the second 
 part, an account of how God dealt with His people, not leav- 
 ing Himself without witness in His prophets, leading to the 
 third part, which giv-es an account of the Incarnation. Was 
 there originally here again a burst of Holy, Holy, Holy, as 
 there was after the record of Creation, and after the account 
 of the restoration to the Promised Land .-* Probably there 
 was, at the announcement of the Incarnation, to correspond 
 with the song of the angels at Christ's birth, and also to that 
 of the angels at Creation. The contraction and alteration of 
 the Canon displaced these several shouts of praise. It is 
 worthy of consideration, that though displaced, they have not 
 
 him hopes of restoration, and how that Christ came in fulfilment of this promise, 
 wherefore the Great Thanksgiving goes on to thank God for the Incarnation and 
 Passion. For such readers as may be unable to read Dionysius in the original, 
 or who need, what is very necessary, an analysis of his argument and philosophy, 
 see " Qiuvres dc Saint Denys," par I'Abbe Dulac (Paris, 1S65). 
 
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING. 2/3 
 
 been dispensed with, but somewhat varied in expression. 
 Thus, in the Liturgy of S. James, we have — 
 
 1. The Trishagion (now at the beginning of the Pro- 
 Anaphora) : " Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immor- 
 tal, have mercy on us." 
 
 2. Gloria in excelsis (now after the Litany that follows the 
 Kiss of Peace). 
 
 3. The Trishagion (after the Preface and account of 
 Creation). 
 
 4. (After the Sancta Sanctis) " One Holy, one Lord, Jesus 
 Christ, in the glory of God the Father, to whom be glory for 
 ever and ever." 
 
 The occasion of the great wave of change which passed 
 over and disturbed the Eucharistic Canon was the outbreak of 
 heresy, disturbing the faith, and necessitating the dogmatic 
 consolidation of the Church's belief in the nature of Christ 
 into set terms. 
 
 First came that amazing Docetic theory, so utterly opposed 
 to our present difficulties as to be hardly intelligible to us^ 
 and yet it was a peril, and a severe one, to the primitive 
 Church. The Docetic dream was that Christ was a phantom. 
 That was no true Christ who suffered on the cross ; the 
 true Christ came down on the man Jesus at His baptism, 
 and left Him at His Passion. Then came the inrush of 
 Gnosticism, making the universe a series of emanations 
 from the fulness of the Godhead, and Christ only one out of 
 the many emanations, and distinguishing the God of Creation 
 from the Almighty. It was but natural, it was but right, that 
 in the Eucharistic Thanksgiving the celebrant should sharpen 
 and level his words against the enemy that threatened 
 the faith ; that as in his catechumenical instructions he 
 insisted specially on the doctrines most endangered by the 
 heretics, so in his canonical Prayer of Praise, which was 
 but the same Canon of Faith turned into a psalm of thanks- 
 
 T 
 
274 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 giving, he shoukl insist specially on these same points 
 of difference, for the establishing of the faith of the 
 believers, and, also, because his own mind was charged 
 with thought and feeling connected with these very doctrines. 
 Now, the I'^Licharistic Prayer, as j)rescribcd in the 
 "Constitutions," is of peculiar interest, not only because it 
 is the earliest and completest we have, but also because 
 it bears tokens of this pointing and levelling against prevalent 
 error. The author of an article on the liturgy published in 
 the CliurcJi Quarterly Revieiv (1882), points out that this is so, 
 and indicates the phase of heresy specially in the eye of the 
 celebrant when he framed his prayer.* 
 
 The rise and diffusion of the Arian heresy, denying that 
 Christ was of one nature with the Father, brought matters to 
 a head, and the faith was condensed and crystallized into 
 a Creed at Nica^a, A.D. 325, which received its complete 
 and final form in the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381. 
 Half the Christian world was Arian ; the condition of affairs 
 demanded exceptional treatment. The Creed was introduced 
 into the Liturgy, and ordered to be recited by the people, 
 that the recitation might stamp the verities it contained 
 into their hearts, and arm them against error. The Creed 
 was first adopted into the Eucharistic service in the East ; 
 the first notice we have of its admission in the West is in 
 a decree of the Council of Toledo, A.D. 589. It was not 
 inserted in the Roman Mass till A.D. 1014. The introduction 
 of the formal Creed had its dissolving effect on the Canon. 
 The Creed contained, " steamed down to an essence," the 
 whole Christian faith, the Rule of the Apostles ; therefore 
 the necessity for the recital of all the works of God, 
 the Creation, the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and 
 Ascension, of Pentecost, by the celebrant, ceased ; he and 
 the congregation had together professed this faith with 
 
 • That heresy was Valentinianism, which broke out about a.d. 140, and 
 rapidly spread through the East. 
 
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING. 
 
 275 
 
 one voice. Consequently, this great liturgical prayer began 
 to show signs of shrinkage very early, and finally all dropped 
 out except the essential parts concerning the Institution. 
 
 Nevertheless traces of its completeness remain, and one 
 of these traces is found in the varying prefaces. 
 
 After that the account of God's creation and governance of 
 the world through the time of the Old Covenant had dropped 
 out, there still remained in consecutive form the narrative of 
 our Lord's life. But in the West, with the introduction of 
 a festival series, a Church year, commemorative of Christ's 
 Birth, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and the sending of 
 the Holy Ghost, each clause of the old consecutive narrative 
 was used on the corresponding festival, and all the rest 
 left out. The process may be shown by a table. 
 
 Original Form. 
 
 Thou art holy and exalted, who 
 didst give Thy Son to be born for 
 us of a pure Virgin. . . . 
 
 And to be seized by cruel men, 
 betrayed, and to suffer death on the 
 cross, and to be laid in the grave. 
 
 And to be raised from the dead 
 on the third day. 
 
 And after continuing forty days, 
 to ascend into heaven, 
 
 And didst send down the Holy 
 Ghost the Comforter. 
 
 Broken Form, 
 We praise Thee because. . . . 
 Christmas : Thou didst give 
 Jesus Christ Thine only Son to be 
 born at this time for us. . . . 
 
 Easter : Of the glorious Resur- 
 rection of Thy Son Jesus Christ 
 our Lord. 
 
 Ascensio7i : Who after His most 
 glorious Resurrection manifestly 
 appeared to His Apostles and as- 
 cended up into heaven, 
 
 Whitsicnday .-According to 
 whose promise, the Holy Ghost 
 came down as at this time. 
 
 That the Creed, on being formed out of the Great Euchar- 
 istic Prayer or Canon after the fourth century, and on being 
 forced into the liturgy, did not occupy everywhere the same 
 place, is not to be wondered at. 
 
 Primarily it did not displace, and was not intended to 
 displace, the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, but was merely a 
 
 T 2 
 
276 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 summary of the same for popular recitation, to impress on 
 the people the dogmatic truths which were assailed by heresy. 
 Nevertheless, little by little, it did act as a solvent on this 
 prayer. 
 
 Regarded as the Canon in another form, condensed, the 
 Creed carried along with it the mode of recitation with up- 
 lifted arms, and so the Creed is still enjoined to be said by 
 the priest. But, as the Creed was fixed, and the Canon was 
 not so verbally, by degrees the Canon was curtailed, till 
 it lost its original features as a narration of the glories of 
 God, and of His work as Creator and Redeemer and 
 Sanctifier, and shrivelled down to little more than the Insti- 
 tution. The Preface remained, but after the Sanctus in 
 the Constantinopolitan, and before the Sanctus in the Roman, 
 everything about God's guidance of man from Creation 
 till the Redemption by prophet and king disappeared 
 wholly. 
 
 The following table will show how much remains of the 
 original Prayer of Thanksgiving in the most important 
 liturgies. 
 
 It is worth noting that the Te Deum is a paraphrase of 
 an ancient prayer of thanksgiving and prayer of intercession, 
 the Institution being omitted. It was drawn up before 
 the Canon had been as much mutilated as we have it now. It 
 began with — 
 
 Preface, narrating the Glory of God. 
 Sanctus. 
 
 Commemoration of Incarnation and Passion, Resurrection, 
 Ascension, and Session and Second Coming. 
 Intercession. 
 
 By means of the Te Deum, it would not be difficult to 
 reconstruct the Canon of the early (African } ) Eucharist. 
 
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2/8 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE 
 
 The Te Deum. 
 
 " The identity of the primitive form of the Hturgy in the 
 East and West is strangely ilkistrated by the Te Deum. The 
 chief part of this canticle, representing a Western tradition, is 
 evidently based, clause by clause, upon a liturgy closely 
 resembling that of S. James."* 
 
 Te Deum. 
 We praise Thee, O God, we 
 give thanks to Thee, O Lord. 
 
 2. Thee, the Eternal Father, all 
 
 the earth doth worship. 
 
 3. To Thee all angels. 
 
 To Thee the heavens and all 
 their powers, 
 
 4. To Thee cherubim and sera- 
 
 phim with ceaseless voice cry 
 aloud, 
 
 5. Holy, holy, holy. Lord God of 
 
 Sabaoth. 
 
 6. Heaven and earth are full of 
 
 Thy glory. 
 
 7. Thee, the glorious choir of the 
 
 Apostles, 
 
 8. Thee, the laudable number of 
 
 Prophets, 
 9 Thee the white-robed army of 
 
 martyrs praiscth. 
 10. To Thee the Holy Church 
 throughout the world con- 
 fesses. 
 
 __<! 
 
 Liturgy. 
 
 1. It is meet . . to praise Thee 
 
 . . to worship Thee . . 
 to give thanks to Thee, 
 God and Lord of all. 
 
 2. Whom the heavens and all 
 
 their powers — the earth 
 and all things therein, 
 
 3. 4. Angels . . . and cheru- 
 
 bim and seraphim . . . 
 with ceaseless voices 
 crying loud, 
 
 5. Sanctus : Holy, holy, holy, 
 Lord of Sabaoth. 
 r 6. Heaven and earth are full 
 of Thy glory. 
 
 7. Commemoration of the 
 faithful departed. Apos- 
 tles. 
 
 
 
 8. 
 
 Prophets. 
 
 E 
 
 9- 
 
 Martyrs. 
 
 
 ^10. 
 
 All the faithful 
 
 ♦Field: "The Apostolic Liturgy, and the Epistle to the Hebrews," 
 Appendix II., p. 472. 
 
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING. 
 
 279 
 
 11. The Father of an Infinite 
 
 Majesty. 
 
 12. Thine adorable, true, and only 
 
 Son. 
 
 13. Also the Holy Ghost, the Com- 
 
 forter. 
 
 14. Thou, the King of Glory, Christ. 
 
 15. Thou, the Father's everlasting 
 
 Son. 
 
 16. Thou, when Thou wouldest take 
 
 upon Thee humanity to deliver 
 it, didst not abhor the Virgin's 
 womb. 
 
 17. Thou, when the sting of death 
 
 was vanquished, didst open 
 the kingdom of heaven to 
 believers. 
 
 18. Thou sittest at the right hand 
 
 of God in the glory of the 
 Father. 
 
 19. We believe that Thou shalt 
 
 come to be our Judge. 
 
 20. We therefore pray Thee help 
 
 Thy servants whom Thou 
 hast redeemed by Thy pre- 
 cious Blood. 
 
 21. Make them to be numbered 
 
 with Thy saints, in glory ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 22. Save Thy people, O Lord, and 
 
 bless Thy heritage. [ever. 
 
 23. Rule them, and set them up for 
 
 24. Day by day we bless Thee. 
 
 25. And praise thy Name from 
 
 ages to ages. 
 
 26. Grant, O Lord, to keep us this 
 
 day without sin. 
 
 27. Have mercy on us, O Lord, 
 
 have mercy on us. 
 
 28. Let Thy mercy be on us, Lord, 
 
 as we have hoped in Thee. 
 
 29. In Thee, Lord, have I hoped, I 
 
 shall not be confounded for 
 
 fll. 
 
 (X, 
 
 •n<' 
 w 
 
 o 
 
 Commemoration of the 
 Glory and Nature of 
 God the Father, 
 
 12. The Son, 
 
 13. The Holy Ghost. 
 
 14. The Son, very God of the 
 
 Divine Nature. 
 
 15. Very begotten before all 
 
 time, of the Father. 
 
 16. Commemoration of the 
 
 Incarnation. 
 
 17. Commemoration of Pas- 
 sion and Resurrection. 
 
 in 
 u 
 
 bJ3 
 
 <U 
 
 > 
 
 
 
 C 
 
 
 >— ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 rt 
 
 G 
 
 <u 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 to 
 
 18. And of Session at the right 
 
 hand of God. 
 
 19. And of Second Coming in 
 
 Judgment. 
 Consecration — 
 
 f 20. Intercession for all the 
 
 I living, the whole 
 
 Church, and all orders. 
 
 21-23. ^^^ administrations 
 I in the same. 
 
 24. 
 
 25- 
 
 Introduction to 
 
 Prayer. 
 Lord's Prayer. 
 
 Lord's 
 
 26. Embolismus. 
 
 L 
 
 27, 28. Kyries. 
 
 (Remains of a Litany of 
 Intercession at this 
 place, said by Com- 
 municants.) 
 
 28. Prayer of Dismissal. 
 
280 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 The latter part is more conjectural than the first. The 
 composer of the Te Deum no longer followed the liturgy 
 exactly after the conclusion of the Great Intercession. The 
 Consecration he, of course, omitted. 
 
 It will be noticed that in this liturgy the Great Inter- 
 cession was broken up, as in the Roman, but in reverse order, 
 the dead were commemorated first, then, after the Consecra- 
 tion, the living. 
 
Chapter XXVII. 
 
 THE CONSECRATION. 
 
 THE CONSECRATION THE CENTRE OF THE WHOLE LITURGY — THE 
 DISPUtA of RAPHAEL — THE EUCHARIST THE POINT OF JUNCTION 
 OF THINGS DIVINE AND HUMAN — THE PARALLELISM IN THE STRUC- 
 TURE OF THE CANON— PARALLELISM IN THE CONSECRATION — THE 
 REASON OF THE SCANTINESS OF THE RECORD OF INSTITUTION IN 
 THE GOSPELS — OF ST. JOHN PASSING OVER THE INSTITUTION AL- 
 TOGETHER — THE ACCOUNT IN THE LITURGIES FULLER THAN THOSE 
 IN THE GOSPELS, BECAUSE EARLIER — THE SPECIAL CHARACTER OF 
 THE THINGS MENTIONED IN THE LITURGIES— INDICATE THE OBSER- 
 VATION OF EYE-WITNESSES — CONTROVERSY RELATIVE TO THE CON- 
 SECRATION — EASTERN VIEW AT VARIANCE WITH WESTERN — A MIS- 
 UNDERSTANDING — THE WESTERN OBSERVANCE A FOLDING OVER THE 
 INSTITUTION— THE EPIKLESIS— IN THE ROMAN MASS— OMISSION OF 
 WORDS ON INSTITUTION IN NESTORIAN LITURGIES— NOT OMITTED 
 IN THE OLDER LITURGIES — THE PARTS THAT COMPOSE THE OBSERV- 
 ANCE—DISTURBED IN THE ANGLICAN OFFICE, 
 
 The focus, the axle of the entire Eucharistic Service, is the 
 consecration of the Eucharistic bread and wine to become 
 " verily and indeed " the Body and Blood of our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ, so " that our sinful bodies may be made clean 
 by His Body, and our souls washed through His most pre- 
 cious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and 
 He in us." 
 
 Perhaps the grandest, certainly the most suggestive, of the 
 pictures of Raphael is the so-called Disputa in the Vatican. 
 It represents heaven open, and Christ in the midst, on a 
 throne of white cloud, with uplifted hands, like Moses in the 
 battle against Amalek, showing His wounds to the Eternal 
 
282 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Father. On right and left of Him are seated the Saints and 
 just men made perfect — from Adam onwards — Abraham, 
 Moses, David, the Baptist, Apostles, and Martyrs ; whilst 
 above and behind, melting into infinite space, flickering in 
 glory, are myriads of angel forms and faces. 
 
 Below is earth, and on earth is gathered a multitude, 
 ascending steps to an altar, and on this altar stands high 
 uplifted the central feature of the entire picture — the link 
 between heaven and earth — the Holy Eucharist, that which 
 is of the earth, and yet is of heaven. 
 
 The Holy Eucharist is not only the bond between Christ 
 and the elect — the point of junction and passing-over of 
 things human into the Divine sphere, and of Divine things 
 into human relations — but it is also the tie that unites with 
 the past, as it is also the earnest of the future. We are now 
 concerned with it only as it links us with the past. Through 
 it we look back to the Institution in the upper chamber, just 
 as to that Institution all the sacrifices of the Old Covenant 
 looked forward. 
 
 The liturgy is not only the memorial of Christ's death, it is 
 also the perpetual reiteration of the Institution. Now if the 
 Rule of Faith be regarded as a great Christian Hallel, we 
 find that the adaptation into it of the words or record of 
 institution involves some difficulty. 
 
 If given in the historical order, it would interrupt and injure 
 the /<?;-/// of the Christian Hallel, for the Institution could not 
 be summarised like the Incarnation, the Crucifi.xion, and the 
 Resurrection, but must be given in full as the charter of the 
 Church, authorising her to repeat the same unto the end of 
 time. 
 
 Con.sequenll)', mention of the Institution in the historic 
 order was either omitted, or the Institution was mentioned 
 only, and the full charter was postponed till after the thanks- 
 giving prayer for redemption. 
 
 Then, after it had been given in full, the celebrant went 
 
THE CONSECRATION. 
 
 285 
 
 back, making a short summary of the Passion, Death, Resur- 
 rection, and Ascension, and went on to the observance of 
 the command. 
 
 The Consecration consisted of two parts, the first was the 
 charter authorising the Church to reiterate the rite, then came 
 the reiteration ; a perfect form was thus given to the whole 
 Consecration. 
 
 This will be best seen by the following analysis. 
 
 I. Great Eucharistic Thankseivincf. 
 
 II. 
 
 c 
 o 
 
 a. Introd. : Calling to remembrance these things (the 
 Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, &c.), 
 we give thanks unto Thee, O God Al- 
 mighty, and seek to fulfil Thy holy 
 command, 
 d. Institution : Who, in the same night as He was 
 betrayed, taking bread ■ — and 
 having mingled the cup — did 
 bless, &c. 
 c. Command : And gave commandment. Do 
 this in remembrance of Me. 
 a. Introd. : Calling to remembrance these things 
 (His Death, Passion, His Resurrection, 
 and Ascension), we seek to fulfil His 
 holy command. 
 d. Observance : We therefore now take this bread 
 and this cup mingled with wine 
 and water, and do bless, &c. 
 c. Confession : Confessing our unworthiness, 
 and beseeching pardon for 
 our sins, &c. 
 
 III. Great Eucharistic Intercession. 
 
 It will be noticed how here, also, the triple arrangement 
 prevails. We have the Great Eucharistic Intercession 
 
284 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 balancing the Great Eucharistic Thanksgiving, and the 
 Consecration forming the body between these wings. Then 
 we have the Consecration divided into two parts, the Institu- 
 tion itself made up of three members, and the Observance also 
 composed of three parts. The introduction to the Institution 
 leads off from the Great Thanksgiving with words of praise ; 
 and the Confession leads on to the Great Intercession with 
 words of prayer. 
 
 There exists a remarkable parallelism, moreover, between 
 the Institution and the Observance. These two main mem- 
 bers of the Consecration are hinged together by the command 
 to perpetuate the Sacrament. 
 
 The structural beauty will be best seen by an analysis — 
 
 Introd. :— Calling to mind the things Christ did suffer, &c. 
 
 I. Who did take bread into His hands . . . and likewise the cup. 
 2. And did look up to Thee, His Father. 
 3. And gave thanks, elevating the gifts. 
 4. And blessed. 
 
 5. And hallowed (with Invocation of the Holy Ghost). 
 6. And brake. 
 7. And tasted. 
 
 8. And distributed. 
 
 Commandment : — And didst command, saying, Do this in remem- 
 brance of Me, for as oft as, &c. 
 
 Introd. :— Calling to mind the things He did suffer, &c. 
 
 I. We offer to Thee this bread . . . and likewise this cup. 
 2. With the eyes raised to Heaven. 
 
 3. And give thanks, elevating the gifts. 
 4. And bless. 
 5. And hallow with Invocation of the Holy Ghost. 
 6. And break. 
 7. And taste. 
 
 8. And distribute. 
 
 All these members are not indeed to be found everywhere 
 united ; for instance, the seventh, the eating of the bread by 
 Christ, and the tasting of the cup, is found only in the 
 Armenian, in a Syro-Jacobite Liturgy " of the Apostles,"* and 
 
 * Neale and Little.lale, p. 195. 
 
THE CONSECRATION. 285 
 
 a few others. In the Clementine there are only three members 
 in the Institution, and four in the Observance ; but by comparing 
 one liturgy with another, it is not difficult to reconstruct the 
 whole. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the very scantiness of the 
 record in the Gospels has caused the curtailment of the 
 original Institution form. That was recited every Lord's 
 Day for many years before the Gospels were written, and for 
 many more before they were regarded as a paramount 
 authority. The very fact that every detail was perfectly 
 familiar to every Christian, may have induced the Evangelists 
 to give but a cursory account of the Institution, pretermitting 
 particulars which were recited weekly, and which were fami- 
 liar to every believer. For the same reason, doubtless, 
 S. John omitted the account of the Institution from his 
 Gospel. As the revisers of our daily offices ordered, that 
 when at Mattins the Benedictus is read in the Lesson for the 
 day, it is not to be sung before the Creed, so S. John, know- 
 ing that his Gospel would be read at the liturgy, and knowing 
 that the minute recitation of the Institution would be made 
 in the church every Lord's Day, to avoid redundancy, left out 
 an account of the Institution from his Gospel. 
 
 When, however, the Gospels came to be regarded as a 
 supreme authority, then the record of the Institution was cut 
 down, and shorn of many of its particulars, to accommodate it 
 exactly to the account as given by the Evangelists. In most 
 of the liturgies, however, more particulars remain than is 
 found in the Gospels. In those of S. Mark, S. James, S. Basil, in 
 the Ethiopic of All the Apostles, are seven, in those of 
 S. Chrysostom, the Ambrosian, and the Roman, are six. In 
 the Armenian, only four, and among these the rare " He 
 tasted." 
 
 For simplicity and shortness, the consecration of both bread 
 and wine have been run together in our analysis ; all the num- 
 bers, however, do not apply to both. For instance, the fraction 
 
286 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 of course refers to the bread alone. That there was a looking 
 up to heaven at the consecration of the cup is probable, but it 
 has disappeared from most liturgies. Among the words of 
 command we find this form in some, " Do this in remembrance 
 of Me, for as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye 
 set forth My death till I come." In others it is altered into 
 accordance with the words of S. Paul, " Ye set forth the Lord's 
 death till He come." 
 
 It is probable that the words, as found in the first person, 
 were really used by Christ, and that S. Paul quoted them from 
 the liturgical recitation of the Institution, altering them to 
 suit his purpose. He turned them into a reason for exhorting 
 the Corinthians to devout preparation for Communion. His 
 words may be thus paraphrased, " Do ye not know that He 
 said, As oft as ye cat this bread and drink this cup, ye set 
 forth II is death till He come .-* Therefore, let a man examine 
 himself," &c. 
 
 In the Clementine Liturgj' we have the words as spoken by 
 Christ, so also in the Roman Canon. 
 
 The lifting up the eyes to heaven is mentioned by no 
 Evangelist, yet is found in every liturgy. 
 
 So also the mixing of the cup is not recorded in the 
 Gospels; nevertheless, it is uni^•ersaI. 
 
 The blessing of the species by laying the hand on them is 
 not described in the Gospels. In the Roman Mass, the cele- 
 brant so blesses only the chalice. 
 
 At the giving of thanks comes a raising of the bread and 
 wine, as the first-fruits, offering them to the Father. Al- 
 though this elevation is not recorded, it is of general observ- 
 ance. The hallowing was probably an invocation of the Holy 
 Ghost. This invocation is nowhere, either in Gospel or in 
 liturgy, expressly stated, but the corresponding number to it 
 in the Observance is the Epiklcsis, or Invocation. 
 
 It is hardly conceivable that so many particulars can have 
 been arbitrarily added to the narrative of what Christ did on 
 
THE CONSECRATION. 287 
 
 a certain night, and that there should be such extraordinary- 
 coincidence in these particulars everywhere found. We can 
 account for their being cutout, through respect for theGospels, 
 we cannot account for their having been added. The only ex- 
 planation of their existence in the narrative of Institution is 
 that they belonged to the narrative given by the Apostles, 
 and of weekly recitation, before the Evangelists began to 
 write. 
 
 When we look closely into these particulars, we see that they 
 have a special character; they refer to gestures of the Lord, 
 the raising the eyes, the elevation of the bread and cup, the 
 laying His hand on the elements, the partaking first Himself 
 of bread and wine. These are precisely the little matters 
 which could come only from eye-witnesses of the Institution, 
 and their existence in the liturgies is really an evidence to us 
 of the Apostolic origin of the Eucharistic Service, especially of 
 its most important point and core, the Consecration. 
 
 In tender love and reverent piety, they sought to reproduce 
 that memorable scene in the Upper Chamber, down to its 
 minutest particulars — the sequence of incidents, the supper 
 first, then the Eucharist — the prayers, the praises employed, 
 the very vesture of the Saviour, all His gestures and manual 
 acts are recalled, were recapitulated and reproduced, and com- 
 mitted to the memory of the Church. 
 
 We come now to one great point of difference between 
 the East and West. 
 
 Raphael's great picture was designed on the idea of the 
 Eucharist as the reconciling medium between earth and 
 heaven, and the bond of concord between all parts of the 
 Church on earth. But the popular mind missed the 
 significance, and, poisoned by bitter experience, called it the 
 Dispute of the Blessed Sacrament. And, alas ! the Holy 
 Eucharist has been an occasion of dispute. A misunder- 
 standing has led to a discord of view between East and 
 West relative to the Consecration. This difference may be 
 
OUR INIIERITAN'CE. 
 
 briefly explained thus : — The Eastern Church holds that the 
 record of Institution is the charter authorising Consecration, 
 not the Consecration itself. It holds that the celebrant first 
 announces his authority for acting, and then acts, and that 
 the act of the celebrant is the true Consecration. The 
 Western Church holds, on the contrary, that nothing can 
 add to and complete what is in itself perfect, — that the 
 Institution is the true Consecration, and that what follows is 
 the mere entreaty that God may accept what has been 
 done. 
 
 If we take a piece of ruby glass, and another of white, and 
 hold one before the other, and both in the ray of the sun, then 
 there falls through them a blood-red beam. The ray comes, 
 indeed, through the white glass, but receives its dye 
 from the red one. So the Divine effluence pours through the 
 Institution and the Observance, and occasions the change, 
 the Consecration. But instead of holding the two sheets of 
 glass apart, the Western Church has welded them together, 
 and declares that all the virtue, splendour, colour, come 
 from the ruby glass alone. 
 
 The way in which this has been done is seen at once by 
 the marginal rubrics. The celebrant, whilst reciting the 
 words of Institution, takes the elements into his hands ; when 
 he says that the Lord took them, uhen he records how Christ 
 raised His eyes to heaven, he also looks up ; when he tells 
 how Christ offered, he elevates the gifts ; when he announces 
 that Christ blessed, he lays his hand on the elements ; 
 and finall}-, when he tells how Christ broke, he also 
 breaks. 
 
 Thus : — Just as in the well-known problem of Euclid, 
 wherein two equal triangles are proved to be equal, by 
 triangle D E F being superimposed on ABC, so is it here. 
 The celebrant's observance is made to synchronize with the 
 narration of the appointment ; they are fused into one by 
 the flux of the command, " Do this in remembrance of Me." 
 
THE CONSECRATION. 289 
 
 There can, however, be no doubt as to which is the 
 primitive form, for the form of words of the observance, now 
 void of force, remain in the Latin Canon, as empty shells, 
 from which the kernel has been extracted.* From this 
 shifting of the focus, this change of the burning-point, arose 
 another difficulty. 
 
 The Greeks hold that the invocation of the Holy Ghost is 
 essential to consecration. It is gone from the Latin form, or 
 so disguised in the " Supplices te rogamus" as to be no more 
 valid. But the Roman form Jias an invocation before the 
 Canon : " Come, O Sanctifier, Almighty, Eternal God, and 
 bless this sacrifice, prepared for Thy holy name." 
 
 In the Liturgy of S. James the form is, " Send down upon 
 us, and upon these gifts. Thy most Holy Spirit, that He may 
 hallow them, and make this bread the holy Body of 'Wvy 
 Christ ; and this cup the precious Blood of Thy Christ." 
 
 The Liturgy in the " Constitutions " has " We beseech Thee 
 that Thou wilt look graciously on these gifts, and send- 
 down Thy Holy Spirit, that He may make this bread the 
 Body of Thy Christ, and this cup the Blood of Thy Christ."" 
 The Ethiopic, the Syriac, the Alexandrine, are all very 
 similar. 
 
 Irenaeus, in the third century, gives us the form in use in Gaul. 
 He says, " Those who have become acquainted with the 
 secondary dispositions of the Apostles" — he means those which 
 they made after and according to the appointment of Christ — 
 "are aware that the Lord instituted a new oblation in the 
 new covenant, according to the words of Malachi : ' For from 
 the rising of the sun even to the setting, My name shall be 
 glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense be 
 
 Greek : a Anamnesis. 
 
 /3 Oblation. 
 7 Thanksgiving 
 
 5 Epiklesis. 
 
 e Exomologesis. 
 
 Latin : a Unde et memores. 
 
 /3 Offerimus — de tuis donis- 
 7 Supra qua: — respicere 
 digneris. 
 
 Supplices te rogamus. 
 
 e Nobis quoque peccatoribus- 
 
 u 
 
290 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 offered in My name, and a pure offering.' . . . The oblation 
 of the Eucharist is not carnal, but spiritual, and so may be 
 entitled a pure offering. For we make oblation to God of 
 the bread and cup of blessing, giving Him thanks in that He 
 has commanded the earth to bring forth these fruits for our 
 nourishment." Here is an allusion to the oblation as of 
 first-fruits, the elevation as wave offering. " And then, 
 when we have perfected the oblation, we invoke the Holy 
 Spirit, that He may exhibit the sacrifice, both the bread as 
 the Body of Christ and the cup as the Blood of Christ, in 
 order that the receivers of these antitypes may obtain 
 remission of sins and life eternal." * 
 
 Here we have the oblation, with (probably) the elevation, 
 and then the Epiklesis, the Invocation. 
 
 In the Roman Liturgy, the Invocation of the Holy Spirit 
 on the gifts is found before the Great Eucharistic Prayer, and 
 the Invocation on the receivers of the gifts in an obscured 
 form after the Institution. Originally, we imagine, the 
 Apostolic Liturgy had the two Invocations, the first before 
 the Eucharistic Prayer on the gifts to effect the change, the 
 second after the Consecration upon the communicants. Then, 
 as the focus varied in East and West, the first Invocation was 
 moved from its place in the East, and combined with the 
 other, to form the Epiklesis ; and in the West it remained in 
 the original position, but the second Invocation lost its point 
 and distinctness. 
 
 It must be remembered that the Eucharistic service proper 
 consists of two distinct parts — the sacrificial, which sums up in 
 itself the .sacrifices of the Old Law; and the second, the par- 
 ticipatory part, which sums up in it all those rites of the Old 
 Law, which consisted in eating of the sacrifice, as the eating 
 of the Paschal Lamb, and of the Shew-bread. Originally the 
 distinction was sharply emphasized by the Invocation of the 
 
 * PfafT, Frag, xxxviii. 
 
THE CONSECRATION. 29I 
 
 Holy Ghost preceding each. The loss of the two Invocations 
 has tended to confusion of ideas relative to the parts. 
 
 It is a matter of regret that in our own English Eucharis- 
 tic service, there should be no Invocation ; there is one in the 
 Scottish office. Moreover, the oblation has been transferred, 
 along with a fragment of the great Eucharistic Intercession, 
 to a place for which there is no warrant, after the Communion. 
 
 From the Nestorian Liturgy of the Apostles, and that of SS. 
 Adaeus and Maris, the words of Institution are omitted. 
 This is a unique feature of the liturgies of Eastern Syria. 
 "There is no doubt," says Mr. Hammond, "that they must 
 be supplied somewhere ; the evidence of their belonging to 
 the liturgy is too strong to admit of doubt. For i. Their 
 presence in the other two liturgies (of the East Syrian Church) 
 shows that it would be no peculiarity of the Nestorian body 
 to omit them. 2. In fact, one of the principal Nestorian 
 writers, Ebedjesus, acknowledges that the words of Christ are 
 essential to consecration. 3. An Anaphora of this family, of 
 the sixth century, in the British Museum, has the words. 4. 
 George of Arbela, another Nestorian doctor, in the tenth 
 century, mentions them. 5. The Liturgy of Malabar, which 
 represents this same liturgy, speaks of the consecration being 
 wrought ' by the Word of God and the Holy Ghost' 6. We 
 know that the correctors of the Malabar Liturgy at the Synod 
 of Diamper found the words of Institution in it, for they 
 mention certain additions which they expunged." * 
 
 The main portions of what we call the Observance, that is, 
 of the celebrant's portion, after the words of Institution, are 
 almost verbally identical in all liturgies throughout the world 
 and in all periods of the Church's history. No portion of 
 the Eucharistic Office has remained more untouched than 
 this, its very heart and axle, however widely apart the 
 
 * " Ancient Liturgies," lix. Bickell, " Conspectus rei Syrorum literarice," p. 
 61.5. 
 
 U 2 
 
292 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Churches may be divided b}- distance, or by aHenation and 
 mutual antipathies. The Observance consists of: — 
 
 1. The Anavmesis, of which the form in the "Constitu- 
 tions " may be taken as the type. 
 
 "Wherefore, having in remembrance His Passion and Resurrection 
 from the dead, His return into heaven, and His future second coming, 
 when He shall judge the quick and the dead, to render to every man 
 according to his works." 
 
 2. The Oblation, to which the Anamnesis leads. 
 
 "We offer to Thee, our King and our God, according to the institu- 
 tion, this bread and this cup, giving thanks to Thee through Him, that 
 Thou hast thought us worthy to stand before Thee, and to sacrifice 
 unto Thee." 
 
 3. The Epiklesis, or Invocation of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 a. "We beseech Thee that Thou will graciously look down on 
 these gifts now lying before Thee, and accept them to the honour of 
 Thy Christ." 
 
 /3. "And send down Thy Holy Spirit. ... on this sacrifice, that He 
 may make the bread the Body and this cup the Blood of Thy 
 Christ." 
 
 4. The Exomologesis, or confession of unworthiness. 
 
 "That all who shall partake may be confirmed in godliness, and be 
 pardoned their sins, may be deli\ered from the devil, may be made 
 worthy of Thy Christ, and obtain everlasting life ; Thou being reconciled 
 to them, O Lord Almighty." 
 
 That in the Anglican Liturgy there should have been a dis- 
 placement of these parts, is not to be wondered at. Left as 
 they were in the Roman Missal, without connexion and 
 meaning, the Reformers could not understand their signifi- 
 cance. We know what was Archbishop Cranmcr's library, 
 wc have his books, annotated by his own hand,* and we see 
 
 * Burbiilge : "Liturgies and Offices of the Church"; Lond., 1S85, xv.-xxxii. 
 He hail .S. Chrysostom's Liturgy, and the account of the Liturgy in Dionysius. 
 That was all. 
 
THE CONSECRATION. 293 
 
 that he had not the means of becoming acquainted with the 
 primitive liturgies, and was therefore liable to commit errors 
 in the excision of some parts and the transposition of others. 
 We may well be thankful that the deviations from the 
 Apostolic service were so few, and that in some points the 
 Reformed Liturgy was brought into closer likeness to that 
 which was primitive than the liturgy of Rome. 
 
Chapter XXVIII. 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET. 
 
 THE MARTYRDOM OF S. GENESIUS — PROFANATION OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 SACRAMENTS ON THE STAGE — EARLY CHRISTIANS SHRANK FROM 
 ALLOWING THE HEATHEN TO KNOW OF THE EUCHARIST, FOR FEAR 
 OF PROFANATION — MYSTERIES — NATURE OF THE MYSTERY OF THE 
 EUCHARIST LIABLE TO MISINTERPRETATION — OMOPHAGIC MYSTERIES 
 — THE WHOLE TRUTH NOT REVEALED TO ALL — BUT AS MEN WERE 
 ABLE TO BEAR IT — AND PROVED TRUSTWORTHY — THE AUTHOR OF 
 THE EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS EMPLOYS VAGUE EXPRESSIONS RELA- 
 TIVE TO THE EUCHARIST — CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA SHOWS RE- 
 SERVE — THIS RESERVE MADE A CHARGE AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS 
 — OPENNESS OF JUSTIN MARTYR RELATIVE TO THE EUCHARIST — 
 HOW ACCOUNTED FOR — TERTULLIAN ON RESERVE— RESERVE SHOWN 
 BY THE PAINTERS IN THE CATACOMBS — RESERVE IN EPITAPHS — 
 S. CYRIL ON RESERVE— THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM "DISCIPLINE OF 
 THE SECRET"- NO RULE OF SILENCE, THE FAITH TRUSTED TO 
 NATURAL REVERENCE— CHIVALRY RELATIVE TO THE EUCHARISTIC 
 MYSTERY — MODERN INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND HOLY RESERVE. 
 
 On a certain day, in A.D. 303, the Emperor Diocletian 
 attended a theatrical performance at Rome. The piece that 
 was performed was a farcical comedy, representing and ridicul- 
 ing Christians. On the stage appeared a favourite actor, 
 Genesius by name. He was a clever mimic ; and the subject 
 chosen for burlesque was a sick man troubled in mind, doubt- 
 ing the truth of his gods, alarmed at the future, of which he 
 knew nothing ; then hearing of Christ, of heaven, of a judg- 
 ment to come, believing and crying out for baptism. Very 
 possibly, to qualify himself for the part, Genesius had read an 
 Apology, that perhaps of Justin Martyr, or the ruthless slash- 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET. 295 
 
 ing of heathen folly administered by Clement of Alexandria 
 in his " Exhortation to the Heathen." 
 
 The curtain rose on Genesius lying on a bed, sick unto 
 death, and groaning. 
 
 " I am weighed down," moaned the actor ; " the burden of 
 the past is on my conscience ; my sins oppress me unendur- 
 ably. Oh that I could obtain relief — that I were light and 
 free ! " 
 
 " Why, how so, good fellow .'' " said the other mimes about 
 the sick couch. "If you are burdened, how can we lighten 
 you ? " 
 
 " Ah, ah ! " laughed he to the audience who took the part 
 of clown. " We must take him to a carpenter's and have him 
 reduced in bulk." 
 
 The sally produced a roar of laughter. 
 
 " No," said the sick man, " I desire to die a Christian : by 
 that means only can I obtain relief" 
 
 " Why ; for what do you desire to be a Christian .? " 
 
 " That I may fly to my God." 
 
 " Call in a priest and an exorcist." 
 
 In came two actors dressed for their parts. The priest sat 
 down by the bedside, put on a commiserating air, and said, 
 " Why hast thou sent for me, my son ? " 
 
 " I desire the favour of Christ," answered Genesius," by 
 which I may be born again to a new, a holier, a purer life." 
 
 Then a great vat of water was brought upon the stage, and 
 the ceremony of baptism was gone through upon the sick 
 man, who was drawn out of bed for the purpose, and amidst 
 the reiterated bursts of merriment from the audience, was 
 plunged in the water, and then clothed in white. 
 
 Scarcely had this been effected, when from the sides 
 rushed on some of the company dressed as Roman soldiers, 
 who seized on the new convert, and drew him before the 
 Emperor's stall, that he might be tried and sentenced. It 
 was part of the farce, the concerted spectacle. 
 
296 OUR IiMIKRITANCE. 
 
 Genesius shook off his guards, and springing upon a 
 pedestal from which he threw down the statue of Venus, 
 exclaimed, " Sire, and all you present, hear what I say. 
 I have ever hated the Christian name, and when I have seen 
 Christians brought before the magistrate I have exulted. 
 My parents and kinsmen have been Christians, and from 
 them I heard all concerning the faith, and the manner of 
 baptizing. But all I heard I turned to mockery, and this 
 day have used my knowledge so obtained for the purpose of 
 a merry jest. But, lo ! sire, as I lay on the bed, the realities 
 of sickness and approaching death stood naked before me. 
 And all my sins from infancy rose before my eyes, filling a 
 long, dark scroll. Sire, believe me, when the water touched 
 me, and I renounced the evil one, and accepted Christ with 
 my lips, my heart went with my words. And I saw a great 
 light, and angels shining above me, and the darkness of sin 
 seemed to roll away before the clear dawn of a heavenly day. 
 And now, sire, and all you people who have been laughing 
 so heartily, believe me when I say that I confess Christ as 
 very God, and that He is the true light shining, and the 
 eternal Truth, and perfect goodness, and in Him, and in Him 
 only, do I trust." 
 
 There was something in his look, his attitude, his voice, too 
 real to be mistaken for mimicry. You might have heard a 
 pin fall in that great theatre ; no man knew what to think. 
 
 Diocletian called the actor before him. 
 
 " Jesting may be carried too far. The spectacle was well 
 produced. Now return behind the scenes, and change the 
 piece." 
 
 " Sire, I am in earnest." 
 
 "Then I shall be in earnest also. Ho! let him be beaten." 
 
 Blows were showered on the actor. He bore them with 
 patience. 
 
 "Take him away to the prefect," said the Emperor, and 
 Genesius the actor was drawn out of the theatre. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET. 297 
 
 "There is no King but Him whom I have seen, and whom 
 I adore," was his testimony before the prefect. " His I am, 
 and His I shall be. Bitterly do I repent that I knew Him 
 only so late." Then he was ordered forth to execution with 
 the sword. 
 
 Such is the story of Genesius the actor, commemorated in 
 the Carthaginian as well as the Roman Kalendars. There 
 are several versions of the Acts, or Record of Martyrdom, 
 some are amplifications of the short Acts, which seem to 
 be, in substance, trustworthy. 
 
 The reason why we have told the story of S. Genesius is to 
 point out how Christian sacraments might be, and were, 
 mimicked on the stage, leading to hideous profanation. Two 
 reasons led the early Christians to exercise the utmost reserve 
 relative to the Holy Eucharist ; one, this dread of profanation 
 by production in farce on the stage, the other the express 
 command of Christ to exercise reserve. " Give not that 
 which is holy to the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before 
 swine." Some Protestant controversialists have contended 
 that there was none of this reserve among the first Christians, 
 none of that shrinking from subjecting what they regarded as 
 of the utmost sacredness to the mockery of the heathen, 
 and that they did not hold the view of the Eucharist as 
 a mystery, concerning which none but the initiated should 
 know, till about the fourth century. They have argued that the 
 idea of converting the Eucharist into a mystery was due to 
 heathen influence, a desire to imitate the Eleusinian, Dionysiac, 
 and Mithraic mysteries. 
 
 We need not attempt to dispute that a so-to-speak craving 
 after mysteries existed in the first ages of the Christian Church 
 among the heathen, but that craving sprang out of the hunger 
 after the truth which earnest hearts felt. Men were dis- 
 satisfied with the heathen religions, and asked for some 
 deeper, truer, and more satisfying teaching, and this was 
 offered to them in the mysteries. They were initiated 
 
:gS OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 into these, because they hoped in them to find the truth, 
 but found to their discouragement, that they, also, were vain 
 delusions. 
 
 In so far as the Christian faith was a thing unknown to the 
 world, but revealed to the instructed, it was a mystery, and S. 
 Paul has no scruple of speaking of it as such. " We speak," 
 he says, " the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden 
 wisdom " (i Cor. ii. 7).* We have lost the sense of the word 
 " mystery," which even Christ used (S. Mark iv. 11), but it 
 had a well-understood meaning in the times when it was used, 
 as a sacred truth not known to all, kept as a precious deposit 
 by those to whom it was revealed. 
 
 And among the truths of the faith, none was more solemn 
 than the truth that Christ on the eve of His death had 
 instituted and ordained a holy mystery, in which His death 
 was to be commemorated, and through which communion was 
 to be maintained with Him. 
 
 When Christ gave command that holy things should not be 
 given to those without, not to the brutal-minded, the early 
 Church at once concluded that He forbade the divulging of 
 the holiest and deepest truths to all but those who were 
 worthy to receive them. 
 
 Not only would their natural reverence and desire to act in 
 obedience impel them to reserve, but also the nature of the 
 Eucharistic mystery, for in it they held that they received the 
 Body and Blood of Christ, and this was a teaching calculated 
 to misconception. We know that it was misconceived when 
 Christ promulgated it. Many of His disciples, " when they 
 had heard this, said, This is a hard saying ; who can hear it ? 
 .... From that time many of His disciples went back, and 
 walked no more with Him " (S. John vi. 60, 66). It was a 
 mystery which the carnal mind could not receive, only the 
 mind illumined by the Spirit. " It is the Spirit that quickeneth 
 
 * Cf. also Eiih. iii. 3, vi. 19 ; Col. ii. 2 ; i Tim. iii. 9, iC. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET. 299 
 
 (to comprehension of spiritual things), the flesh profiteth 
 nothing (to understanding them)." 
 
 How liable the doctrine of the Eucharist was to misconcep- 
 tion, we may judge from the fact that there were omophagic 
 mysteries in the heathen religion. The Dionysiac mystery 
 bore a startling resemblance to the Christian. According to 
 the myths, Dionysus Zagreus was torn to pieces by the Titans, 
 and out of his blood sprang the pomegranate, or the vine. 
 Dionysus was the world-god, and the torn body of the god, 
 rent by plough and spade, yielded the fruit-tree and the 
 corn. 
 
 In Chios and Tenedos, every three years, in celebrating the 
 mysteries, a man was torn to pieces and his flesh devoured raw.* 
 Livy says that at a time of pestilence in Rome, some such 
 horrible rite had found its way into the city, and the Senate 
 were obliged to take precautions to suppress it. This was in 
 the year 326 of the city. Elsewhere he gives a fuller account 
 of these horrors. He says how that B.C. 186 an investigation 
 was made, and as many as seven thousand men and women 
 were found involved in this hideous mystery.i" The investiga- 
 tion was carried out not only in Rome, but throughout Italy. 
 Crowds of those who were involved took to flight, others put 
 an end to themselves. Thereupon, the consul Posthumus 
 destroyed all the meeting-houses of these Bacchanalian 
 murderers and cannibals. Many of those found guilty were 
 sentenced to death. But such horrors were not put an end 
 to; there continued to be secret gatherings of those who 
 perpetrated these theurgic murders, and ate of the flesh of the 
 victim. + The consciousness that in the general unrest of 
 minds, and hunger for the hidden truth — men were 
 
 * Porphyr. de Abstinent, ii. 55. 
 
 t " Hoc Sacramento initiatos," lAv. xxix. 8-19. 
 
 t Cf. Catull. Epithal. Pelei, v. 256, sq. Pliny, H. N, xxviii. i ; Pausan. vii, 
 21, I. 
 
30O OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 capable of committing these abominations, never left 
 the heathen mind, and made the public and the magis- 
 trates ready to suspect of guilt all secret assemblies. 
 The Christians must nccessaril)' hold their gatherings in 
 private, but it was of the most vital importance to them for 
 their safety not to allow a whisper to get abroad relative to 
 the mystery of the Eucharist, lest suspicion should attach to 
 them of omophagic rites. As it was, such suspicion did fall 
 on them, and just as in those Dionysiac mysteries, there was 
 not only flesh-eating, but also promiscuous immorality, the 
 opinion sprang up among the heathen that the like took place 
 at the Christian gatherings. 
 
 When S. Paul says to the elders at Miletus, " I kept back 
 nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, 
 and have taught you publicl)', and from house to house " 
 (Acts XX. 20), there is an apparent reference to a hidden 
 teaching, as well as to a public teaching. There was the 
 broad Gospel truth declared in public, and there was the 
 deeper, fuller truth rcxcalcd from house to house to the ciders; 
 but that any secrecy was observed in apostolic times as a prin- 
 ciple of religion, is not to be believed. 
 
 The truth was revealed as men were able to bear it, milk 
 to babes, meat to the adults in faith. When, however, the 
 Church extended beyond the Jewish nation, and was brought 
 in contact with heathenism, natural reverence, as well as 
 necessary precaution, would force on the Church the practice 
 of reserve in speaking of the Holy Eucharist, and in 
 admitting to it such persons as were not fully competent, 
 through faith, and intelligence, and trustworthiness, to treat 
 the mystery with veneration, and not to compromise their 
 fellow-Christians. Pliny, in his letter to Trajan, was able to 
 give a very meagre and confused account of Christian wor- 
 ship, an account which mixed up Baptism with Communion, 
 because, although he put deaconesses to the torture, he could 
 ■wrinfr out of them no further information. In the first half of 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET. 30I 
 
 the second century* a certain Diognetus showed great desire 
 to know something concerning the Christian faith and prac- 
 tice. The unknown writer of the remarkable answer to him 
 which has come down to us, gives him accordingly a general 
 instruction, but adds, " I suppose, now, you are sufficiently 
 convinced that the Christians abstain from vanity and error ; 
 but you must not hope to learn the mystery of their 
 peculiar mode of worshipping God from any mortal."! The 
 same very early writer, however, towards the close of his 
 letter, uses words, under a veiled form, which a Christian 
 communicant would understand. He says, " The fear of 
 the Law is chanted, the grace of the Prophets is known, the 
 faith of the Gospels is established, the tradition of the 
 Apostles is preserved." This looks like a reference to the 
 four Lections of Law, Prophets, Epistle, Gospel. Then he 
 goes on to encourage Diognetus, that if he perseveres, he "will 
 come to know those things which the Word teaches, by 
 whom He wills, and when He pleases. "J Then he further 
 hints mysteriously, "When you have read and carefully 
 listened to these things, you shall know what God bestows on 
 such as rightly love Him." Then, after a curious account of 
 the trees of knowledge and of life planted in the garden, 
 which garden is the Church, he points out that the fruit of 
 true knowledge must first be tasted before the tree of life 
 can be partaken of "Displaying, then, the fruit of this tree 
 (of knowledge), you will be able to gather those things 
 desired by God, unreached by the serpent, untouched by 
 
 deception The passover of the Lord advances, the 
 
 choirs assemble, the Word rejoices in teaching the Saints, by 
 whom the Father is glorified : to Whom be glory for ever. 
 Amen." So ends this remarkable epistle, — remarkable not 
 only for what it says, but for the testimony it affords to the 
 
 * He speaks of Christianity as a new religion just entered into the world. He 
 also speaks of the Jewish sacrifices as still offered — but this must be rhetorical, 
 t Ep. ad Diog. c. 4. J c. 11. 
 
302 OUR INIIKKITAXCE. 
 
 prevalence of the " discipline of the secret," reserve concern- 
 ing Eucharistic teaching in the age immediately follow- 
 ing that of the Apostles. To us, the conclusion of the epistle is 
 intelligible enough ; the author shows how that, if Diognetus 
 will place himself under instruction, and receive baptism, he 
 will be brought to the True Passover of the Lord, and to eat 
 of the Tree of Life in the midst of the new Eden, even of 
 Jesus Christ Himself, who gave His flesh for the life of the 
 world. 
 
 Over and over again does Clement of Alexandria allude to 
 the "discipline of the secret."* "Christ," he says, "did not 
 disclose to the many what did not belong to the many, but 
 to the few to whom He knew that they belonged, who were 
 capable of receiving them. Secret things are entrusted to 
 speech, not to writing. . . . To him who is able to observe 
 what is delivered, that which is now veiled shall be revealed 
 in full ; what is hidden to the many shall be manifested to the 
 few. . . . The mysteries are mystically delivered. . . . Some 
 things my treatise will only hint at ; on some it will linger ; 
 some merely mention — it will speak imperceptibly, exhibit 
 secretly, demonstrate silently."t " The Saviour Himself 
 plainly initiates us into the mysteries, according to the words 
 of the tragedy : ' Seeing those who see, he gives the orgies.' 
 And if you ask what is the nature of these orgies, you will 
 be told that ' it is forbidden to mortals who have not been 
 initiated into the Bacchic rites to know.' And a closer in- 
 quirer will be informed : ' It is not lawful for thee to hear 
 what is well worth knowing. Him who practises impiety the 
 rites of God abhor."+ " Things are not to be exposed 
 indiscriminately to all and sundry, and the benefits of 
 wisdom communicated to the unpurified ;" and he commends 
 
 * This expression was invented in the seventeenth century to describe the 
 secrecy observed by the early Christians relative to the Eucharist. It was 
 first used by Geier, 1677. 
 
 t Strom. I. c. I. * Strom. IV. c. 25. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET. 303 
 
 the expulsion of Hipparchus, and his treatment as one dead, 
 when he had revealed by writing the tenets of Pythagoras* 
 These are but samples out of miany of his sayings relative to 
 his mode of treatment of the mysteries in his books. Accord- 
 ingly, when he writes of the Eucharist, and explains our 
 Lord's institution, he allegorizes it — apparently away. This 
 treatment of the Holy Sacrament might mislead the student, 
 unless he had before heard stated with emphasis what 
 Clement's mode of dealing with the deepest truths would be. 
 
 It would seem that this reserve on the part of the Christians 
 was made a charge against them, for Origen, in his book 
 against Celsus, answers the charge : " That there should be 
 certain doctrines not published to the multitude, which are 
 revealed after the exoteric doctrines have been taught, is not 
 a peculiarity of Christianity, but is common to all philosophic 
 systems in which certain truths are exoteric, and others 
 esoteric " (c. 7). 
 
 It has been objected to the early adoption of the Discipline 
 of the Secret that Justin Martyr gives an account — nay, two, of 
 the Eucharist, in his Apology to Antoninus Pius. If the Dis- 
 pline had existed, as it has been urged, he would not have done 
 this. But, it must be remarked, in the first place, that Justin's 
 argument is that as the devils instituted certain rites to mislead 
 men against the truth which was to be revealed, so they 
 induced men to adopt washings and sprinklings in connec- 
 tion with their temple-worship ; and so they appointed the 
 mysteries to prejudice men's minds against the sacred 
 Eucharist. Justin is constrained by his argument to show 
 first what baptism is, of which the heathen lustrations are 
 demon imitations ; and then what the Eucharist is, of which 
 the mysteries are devilish copies. But he is very careful to 
 speak vaguely, and not to give any particulars about the 
 Consecration, lest profanation should ensue ; moreover, he 
 
 * Strom. V. c. 9. 
 
304 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 feels himself obliged to excuse himself for having said as 
 much as he has. "If we were to omit" these things, "we 
 would seem to be unfair in our explanations." 
 
 His account of the doctrine of the Eucharist is this : — 
 " This food is called among us the Eucharist, of which no one 
 is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the 
 things which we teach are true, and who has been washed 
 with the washing for regeneration and remission of sins, and 
 who is living as Christ enjoined. For, not as common bread 
 and common drink do we receive these ; but in like manner as 
 Jesus Christ, our Saviour, having been made flesh by the 
 word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so 
 likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed 
 by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and 
 flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the Flesh and Blood 
 of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the Apostles, in the 
 memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have 
 thus delivered unto us what was enjoined unto them, that 
 Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, ' This 
 do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body ; ' and that 
 after the same manner, having taken the cup and given 
 thanks. He said, ' This is My blood,' and gave it to them 
 alone, which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries 
 of Mithras, commanding the same to be done."* This is 
 certainly plainer speaking than we should expect were the 
 " Discipline of the Secret " a formal!}' acknowledged rule 
 imposed on Christians by the Church. But it was not that, 
 it never was that ; it was a natural, holy reserve, a shrinking 
 from exposing to mockery and mimicry, what was to them 
 most holy. Where occasion required, the secret might be 
 broken. It was so, to a certain degree, by Justin, and for a 
 good reason. The Christians were charged with committing 
 unmentionable abominations at their meetings, and with 
 
 I. Apol. c. 66. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET. 305 
 
 devouring human victims, whom they had immolated. Jus- 
 tin's answer is — This, which I describe, is our mystery ; these 
 horrors with which we are charged are devilish imitations, 
 devised with fiendish cunning to mislead men's minds, and set 
 them against us. Besides, his Apology was not addressed to 
 the public, but to the Emperor, who held the lives of the 
 Christians in his hand. Justin wrote in A.D. 148. Tertullian, 
 in his Apology, about fifty-seven years later, speaks of Chris- 
 tians observing " that fealty of silence ever due to mysteries." 
 In his vigorous, almost fierce, style, he writes : "We are accused 
 of observing a holy rite, in which we kill a child and eat it, 
 and after this feast the dogs upset the lights, and we practise 
 incest. This is what is constantly laid to our charge. . . . 
 We are daily beset by foes, we are daily betrayed, we are 
 often surprised in the midst of our assemblies. How is it 
 that the screams of the child have not been heard ? How is 
 it that our blood-stained mouths have not convicted us .-^ 
 Where is the discoverer of these crimes, who either revealed 
 theiu, or was bribed to silence ? " Then he goes on to say 
 that these falsehoods could not have been told by Christians,, 
 for they would naturally keep silence relative to their mys- 
 teries, and if these things were told by those who had not been 
 initiated, they were worthless inventions, wicked calumnies.* 
 
 In his " Prescription against Heretics," he casts it in the 
 teeth of sectaries that they have no reserve. "It is doubtful 
 who is a catechumen, and who a believer. They allow access 
 to all alike ; all hear alike, pray alike. That which is holy 
 they cast to the dogs, and their pearls — though, by the way,. 
 they are sham ones — they fling to the swine." t 
 
 From another quarter we obtain the same testimony. The 
 paintings in the catacombs show that the early Christians 
 practised great reserve in the representation of their myste- 
 ries. Their paintings were all figurative, never historical. 
 
 * Ajiol. c. 7. f I'nesc. c. 41. 
 
306 OUR INIIERITANXE. 
 
 The heavenly Shepherd (Hermes) typified Christ ; the fasci- 
 nating Orpheus, who charmed all beasts, was a parable of 
 Christ and His Gospel. Jonah symbolized the Resurrection, 
 and a fish Christ. As the fish, 'X^"^^) contained in its name 
 the initial letters of 'Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour,' it 
 was used on signets, funeral monuments, lamps, goblets, as 
 a token of Christ, and not of Christ only, but also of the 
 Eucharist. The account of Jesus, after His Resurrection, 
 appearing to the Apostles, and giving them to eat bread and 
 fish (John xxi. 13), was taken to represent His gift of Him- 
 self in the Holy Communion. * Prosper of Aquitaine 
 speaks of Christ as " the Great Fish who fed His disciples 
 with Himself, and who gave Himself as a Fish to the whole 
 world." -f- In paintings, the Eucharist is figured as a fish with 
 panicrs of bread. Another symbol of the same was honey 
 and milk, and the divine Lamb is frequently represented with 
 a vessel of milk slung round it. 
 
 But, perhaps the most curious instance of the reserve exer- 
 cised by the early Christians in treating of the mysteries is to 
 be seen in the monument of Abercius, Bishop of Hierapolis, 
 in Phrygia, at the beginning of the 2nd century. Somewhat 
 abridged, it runs thus : — 
 
 " I, citizen of a notable city, made this (tomb) to be in due 
 season the resting place of my body. Abercius by name, I 
 am a disciple of the pure Shepherd, who feedeth His flocks 
 on mountains and plains, who hath great eyes looking on 
 all sides. ... In company with Paul I journeyed ; faitJi led 
 the way, and set before me for food the Fish from the fountain, 
 mighty and immaculate, grasped by a pure Virgin ; who gave 
 this to His friends ever to eat, having good wine, and giving 
 bread, with the mixed chalice," &c. X Only an initiated 
 Christian would understand thejneaning of this ; that Aber- 
 
 * August, in Job. Tract. 123. f Do Promiss. et Prcvdic. Dei. 
 
 % For a full account of Abercius and the monument, see Lighffoot's " S. Igna- 
 iius," I., p. 477, sq. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET. 
 
 307 
 
 cius by faith ate of Christ, to whom he was admitted by 
 baptism (the fountain) ; that Fish, Christ, was born of a pure 
 Virgin, and gave Himself, under the forms of bread and the 
 mixed cup, as the Eucharistic food of the faithful. 
 
 Another Christian monument, found at Autun, and belong- 
 ing to the end of the third century, also plays on the same idea 
 of the Fish. Christians are " the divine children of the 
 heavenly Fish, and the faithful are enjoined to eat the " sweet 
 food of the Saviour." " Eat with hunger, holding the Fish in 
 Thy hand."* 
 
 How late this reserve was carried may be seen in the 
 golden book cover, and other golden and silver-gilt articles 
 recently discovered in the tomb of a bishop at Sinigaglia, and 
 acquired by the Cavaliere de Rossi. There, as will be seen by 
 the accompanying figure, Christ is represented as the mystic 
 Fish at the Table instituting the Eucharist, with one fin 
 touching the bread, the other the chalice. This belongs to 
 the 7th or beginning of the 8th century.f 
 
 FIG. 19.— The Institution. From a gold book cover found at Sinigaglia. 
 
 We obtain a clear view of the feelings of the Church about 
 the mysteries from the Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril, 
 
 * Kraus, " Roma Sotterranea," p. 249. Witherow, "Catacombs of Rome," 
 p. 258. 
 t Waal: " Riimische Quartalschrift," 1888. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 OUR INIIKKITAN'CE. 
 
 delivered by him in the church on Golgotha, in the year 347, 
 or perhaps 348. He explains how that Christian doctine is two- 
 fold ; there is milk for babes, and strong meat for full-grown 
 men. With the milk only the catechumens and those under 
 preliminary instruction are fed. The more solid teaching is 
 given only after baptism. Consequently he divides his 
 lectures into two parts; the first, the milk diet, consists of 
 instruction on the Creed, and is delivered to the catechu- 
 mens. The second, the solid food, the initiation into the 
 mysteries, is given after baptism to those being illuminated, 
 preparing for Communion. This distinction of food, to 
 symbolize distinction in teaching, was used long before. 
 Indeed, S. Paul employs the illustration (Heb. v. 12, 13), and 
 S. Peter also (i Pet. ii. 2). Those who had been baptized, but 
 were not yet initiated fully, and had not become communicants, 
 were regarded still as babes or children ; and so among the 
 early Christian inscriptions in the catacombs, we have men of 
 thirty-seven years, for this reason described as piicri, children ;* 
 and Christ is represented as the Lamb, bearing a vessel full of 
 milk, the figure of the " pure milk of the word," the simple 
 elementary teaching. F"rom all the heathen, from catechu- 
 mens, everything concerning the Eucharist was kept back. 
 Even the instruction on the Creed was not imparted to 
 heathens, to them only the great broad principles that under- 
 lie Christianity. So S. Cyril exhorts his candidates, " When 
 the catechizing has taken place, should a catechumen " — that 
 is, one desirous of becoming a candidate, but not yet admitted 
 to instruction for baptism — "ask what the teachers have said, 
 tell nothing to a stranger, for we deliver to thee a mystery — 
 keep the mystery for Him who will reward thee. Let no man 
 say to thee, ' What harm, if I also know it V So the sick ask for 
 wine, but if it be unreasonably given them, it occasions delirium. 
 So is it with the catechumen if he hears from the believer ; he, 
 
 * Kraus : " Rcal-Encycl.," p. 394. 
 
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET. 3C9 
 
 not understanding what he has heard, finds fault and 
 scoffs. Thou thyself wast once a catechumen, and then I 
 told thee not what was coming."* And to his lectures S. Cyril 
 prefixes this solemn adjuration : " These catechetical lectures 
 thou mayest put into the hands of candidates for baptism, 
 and of baptized believers, but by no means of catechumens, 
 nor of any others who are not Christians ; as thou shalt 
 answer to the Lord. And if thou makest a copy of them 
 write this in the beginning, as in the sight of the Lord." S. 
 Cyril quotes a saying of our Lord, also quoted by other 
 Fathers, " Be ye wise bankers," and applies it to those to whom 
 explanation of the mysteries is given. The mysteries form a 
 sacred deposit committed by Christ to His faithful, and when 
 He comes again He will exact of them that they have kept it 
 sacred, and have not dispersed it and scattered it abroad, 
 giving that which is holy to those unworthy to hear and re- 
 ceive holy things. " These mysteries the Church speaks to 
 thee, because thou art removed from among the catechumens ; 
 it is not customary to speak [of these things] to Gentiles. To 
 Gentiles we do not speak of the Father, and the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost, nor before catechumens do we discourse plainly 
 about mysteries ; but many things many times we speak in a 
 covert manner, that the faithful who know may understand, 
 and that the ignorant may receive no harm." f 
 
 The Disciplina Arcani (Discipline of the Secret) is a sonor- 
 ous name, invented in modern times to designate what never 
 existed in the way supposed, as an obligation imposed on 
 Christians, like the oath of secrecy wrung by threat from the 
 initiated into heathen mysteries. No oath, no promise was 
 exacted of the illuminated when admitted to the Lord's table. 
 Yet a sacrament means a pledge, an oath of fealty ; but the 
 secrecy observed was a self-imposed and voluntarily under- 
 taken silence. There grew up, in the midst of the sneer and 
 
 * De Symb. Introd. 12. \ Ibid. Lect. vi. 29. 
 
3IO OUR INHKRITANC?:. 
 
 slander of the heathen, and the peril of persecution, a spirit of 
 loyalty to Christ, a chivalrous defence of His honour, a 
 soldierly regard for the dignity of the great Captain of Salva- 
 tion, which made each of the faithful shrink from subjecting 
 the precious gifts of Christ to vulgar stare and unseemly com- 
 ment, and carnal misconception. At the Creed the Hun- 
 garians of old drew their swords to show that they were ready 
 to fight for the Faith. The carl}' Christians drew before the 
 Eucharist the veil of silence, to protect it from sacrilege. It 
 was a legacy left them by Christ — left to the love and innate 
 reverence of the soul to guard. No sword, no oath, was to 
 be its protection, only Christian chivalry of heart. 
 
 On Calvary the Jews passed sneering under the cross, 
 wagging their heads, and saying, " Ah ! Thou that destroyest 
 the Temple, and buildest it in three days, save Thyself, 
 and come down from the cross." They mocked the Godhead 
 because of Christ's human weakness. In heaven S, John 
 saw angels and cherubim and the redeemed prostrate before 
 the Lamb that had been slain, full of awe and reverence 
 because of His weakness, a weakness to which He had 
 stooped for our sakes. He left behind Him the pledge of 
 His love, again in weakness ; and the Church on earth walled 
 it about with love and worship, and shut out from contem- 
 plation of the m)'stery the unspiritual and the unclean. 
 
 We, in these days of trailing holy things in the dirt ; of 
 dangling divine verities before yelping dogs ; of paving our 
 pigstyes with the pearls of Christ, can hardly understand this 
 reverence and holy fear, which could withhold anj'thing from 
 those unworth)' of receiving, which could say, with the 
 Prophet, " On all the glory there shall be a defence." 
 
Chapter XXIX. 
 
 THE GREAT INTERCESSION. 
 
 THE GREAT INTERCESSION BALANCES THE GREAT THANKSGIVING — THE 
 MANY INTERCESSIONS IN THE LITURGY— THE FORM OF THE INTER- 
 CESSION — THE COMPLETE CANON OF PRODIGIOUS LENGTH — ARRANGE- 
 MENT IN FOUR LITURGIES— ORIGINAL THEORY OF ARRANGEMENT — 
 THE COMBINATION OF THE PRO-ANAPHORA WITH THE LITURGY 
 PROPER HELPED TO DISPLACE AND REDUCE THE INTERCESSIONS — 
 THE VAST IMPORTANCE ATTACHED TO INTERCESSION IN THE 
 CHRISTIAN CHURCH — VERY LITTLE OF IT IN THE SYNAGOGUE OR 
 TEMPLE SERVICE— THE SUDDEN OUTBURST OF INTERCESSION IN THE 
 CHURCH — THE STRUCTURE OF A COLLECT. 
 
 Closely linked with the Eucharistic Thanksgiving and Con- 
 secration was the Great Intercession, which balances it. 
 
 In the Liturgy in the "Apostolic Constitutions" there are 
 several intercessions. There is first, that which we have con- 
 sidered under the head of the Litany, when the deacon called to 
 prayer, and the people responded with the Kyrie, and which the 
 celebrant then summed upin oneprayerorcollectof intercession 
 for all sorts and conditions of men. There are, as has been 
 already pointed out, indications of a still earlier litany and 
 collect of intercession in the place where now stand our Ten 
 Commandments, with the Kyries and the Collect for the day. 
 This litany has almost evaporated, leaving only a few granular 
 traces of its former presence. The Eucharistic Office proper also 
 began with the Ektene, or Litany of Intercession, which has its 
 representative in our Church Militant prayer. But the Great 
 Eucharistic Intercession took place immediately after Conse- 
 cration, andit also was of like nature, threefold, a bidding-prayer 
 
312 OUR INHKRITANCE. 
 
 with response by the congregation, and a collect by the cele- 
 brant. In the Liturgy given in the "Apostolic Constitutions," 
 a confusion has taken place; the collect is put first, and 
 the bidding-prayer next ; but either the arrangement was the 
 same as before, or else the deacon's call took place whilst the 
 celebrant was engaged in private intercession at the altar. 
 The prayer given is as follows : — 
 
 " We further pray Thee, 'O Lord, for Thy Holy ChiircJi^ 
 spread throughout the world, which Thou has purchased with 
 the precious blood of Thy Christ, that Thou wilt keep it 
 steadfast and immovable unto the end of the world. 
 
 " For every episcopate rightly dividing the word of truth. 
 
 " For uic, unworthy, who am now offering. 
 
 " For the whole Presbytery. 
 
 " For the deacons and all the clergy. That Thou wouldst 
 endue them with wisdom, and fill them with the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 " Further, we call on Thee for the king, and all that are in 
 authority, 
 
 " For the army, that they may be kindly disposed towards 
 us, that leading our life in peace and quietness, we may 
 glorify Thee through Jesus Christ, our hope. 
 
 " Further, we offer to Thee for all the saints zuJio have pleased 
 Thee, from the beginning of the world, patriarchs, prophets, 
 righteous men, apostles, martyrs, confessors, bishops, priests, 
 deacons, sub-deacons, readers, singers, virgins, widows, laymen, 
 and all whose names Thou knowest. 
 
 " Further, we offer to Thee for this Thy people, that Thou 
 wilt render them a royal priesthood, an holy nation. 
 
 " For the virgins, and all living in chastity. 
 
 " For the ^cidozus of the Church. 
 
 " For the married, and those bearing child. 
 
 " For the children among Thy people, that Thou wilt not 
 i:)ermit any of us to become castaways. 
 
THE GREAT INTERCESSION. 313 
 
 " Further, we pray for this city, and the inhabitants thereof. 
 
 " For the sick. 
 
 " For those in bitter slavery, and for those in banisiunent, 
 for those in prison. 
 
 " For those who travel by land or water, that Thou wilt 
 be to all a helper, strengthener, and support. 
 
 " Further, we beseech Thee for tJiose who Jiate and persecute 
 us for Thy name's sake. 
 
 " For {heretics) those who wander in error, and {heathen) 
 those without, that Thou wouldst convert them to that which 
 is good, and appease their wrath against us. 
 
 " Further, we pray Thee for the Catechnniens. 
 
 " For those possessed. 
 
 " For the penitents, that Thou wouldest perfect the first in 
 Thy faith ; relieve the second from the power of the evil one ; 
 and accept the repentance of the last, and give to them and 
 us remission of sin. 
 
 " Further, we offer Thee for seasonable weather, that we may 
 have the fruits of the earth in due season, that receiving of 
 Thy good things we may praise Thee incessantly. 
 
 " Further, we pray for the absent, that Thou wilt preserve 
 all of us in goodness, and gather us together in the kingdom 
 of Christ our King, the God of all living. 
 
 "And that Thou wilt keep us steadfast, unblamable, and un- 
 reprovable. For to Thee is due all glory, adoration, and 
 thanksgiving, honour, and worship to the Father, and to the 
 Son, and to the Holy Ghost, both now and ever, and world 
 without end. Amen." 
 
 Now, when the complete Canon or Anaphora con- 
 sisted of — 
 
 1. Preface. 
 
 2. Great Thanksgiving, with the history of the World from 
 
 Creation to Redemption. 
 
3'4 
 
 OUU INIII•.RITA^•CK. 
 
 3. The Consecration, consisting of — 
 
 a. The Institution. 
 (3. The Observance. 
 
 4. Great Intercession, — 
 
 Then, as may be judged, the length was prodigious, and 
 exhausting both to people and celebrant, all of whom during 
 the prayer stood with uplifted hands. It was therefore 
 broken up early in the days of the Church ; — the Inter- 
 cession was perhaps not said with elevated hands, only the 
 Eucharistic Thanksgiving; and if so, by intercalcating 
 portions of the Intercession between portions of the 
 Thanksgiving, sensible relief would be accorded. We have, 
 already seen how that the record of God's dealings with 
 man was condensed into the Nicene Creed, and removed to 
 an earlier position in the service ; but though removed, it 
 carried with it the obligation in the celebrant to hold up 
 his hands, the rubric for which has followed it. We shall 
 see now how this Great Intercession has been broken up. 
 Apostolic 
 
 Liturgy. 
 Preface. 
 
 S. jAiMi:s. 
 Preface. 
 
 Great Thanks- Great Thanks- 
 giving. 
 Consecration. 
 Great Inter- 
 
 cession. 
 
 giving. 
 Consecration. 
 Great Inter- 
 cession. 
 
 S. Mark. 
 Preface begun. 
 Great Inter- 
 cession. 
 Preface con- 
 cluded. 
 Great Thanks- 
 giving. 
 Consecration. 
 
 Roman. 
 Preface . 
 Great Thanks- 
 giving begun. 
 Great Inter- 
 cession begun. 
 Consecration. 
 Great Inter- 
 cession ended. 
 
 We need not take more than these as samples of the two 
 most divergent uses. That of S. Mark shows us the 
 attempt to combine both intercessions by bringing the first 
 away from its place at the commencement of the " Mass of 
 the Faithful," and the second one away from its place after the 
 Consecration, and making of the two one intercession at a 
 point half way between their original positions. In the 
 Roman Liturgy a different arrangement took place. The 
 first was wholly suppressed, then the Canon began with a 
 
THE GREAT INTERCESSION. 315 
 
 petition for a blessing on the gifts, and at once proceeded 
 to that part of the Great Intercession which referred to 
 the Hving Church, followed by the Institution, the Observ- 
 ance, and then that portion of the Great Intercession 
 which commemorated the dead. From our own Eucharistic 
 Service all the second intercession has dropped away ; and 
 the first has been restored to tolerable completeness — a 
 completeness far in advance of anything of the sort in the 
 Roman Mass, which is a rubble-heap of abraded remains. 
 
 The Original Liturgy contained, as already pointed out, 
 also a third — or, if one be admitted before the Lections, a 
 fourth, — intercession. This has disappeared from most 
 liturgies. The idea seems to have been that the Eucharist 
 should begin with a Great Intercession, in token of general 
 love and forgiveness. Then, at the oblation, that a great 
 prayer for all the world and for all men in it, and for the 
 Church, should be offered up, as Christ prayed on the Cross 
 for His murderers, making intercession then, and so setting 
 an example what should be done when commemoration 
 was made of His death. Lastly, when all had communi- 
 cated, then again all, united, by participation in the one 
 Bread, with each other and with Him, should unite in 
 the mighty intercession which the Mediator is ever making 
 for the world before the Throne of the Father. 
 
 The Pro-Anaphora, or Mass of the Catechumens, was a dis- 
 tinct service, probably the evening office of the Church, which, 
 when the Agape was cast out, coalesced with the Eucharist, 
 and brought with it its own intercessions. These were either 
 one before the Lessons, and one after, or only one before. It 
 is not quite certain whether the Intercessional Litany we first 
 noticed belonged, in the first instance, to this Pro-Anaphora 
 as a distinct office, or to the Eucharistic Service proper ; if to 
 the former, then each service had its two intercessions. Any- 
 how, one point comes out very distinctly in an investigation — 
 the immense importance attributed in the primitive Church 
 
1 6 OUR IXHKKITANCE. 
 
 to intercessory prayer. This is a remarkable feature, for it was 
 one new to the world. In the Temple, in the Synagogue, 
 there was very little intercession. Praise was abundant, but 
 intercession was only in the germ. It received enormous, 
 preponderating weight in the Christian Liturgy. Christ's 
 mediatorial office was recognised, and the Church poured forth 
 streams of prayer for all men — faithful, heathen, heretics alike 
 — in confidence that her prayers would be united to the great 
 intercession in Heaven. Perhaps no feature is more impres- 
 sive than this sudden outburst of intercession, of which the 
 liturgies give evidence. It is as though men's hearts had 
 been sealed up, till prayer was suddenly made efficacious 
 through Christ, when forth rushed the pent-up desire of the 
 soul. It means more — it means the realisation of the unity 
 of mankind, the fellowship of all the sons of Adam, the one 
 with the other — the sense of one common brotherhood, which 
 impels Christians to pray for one another, whether faithful, or 
 erring, or rebellious. It is certainly interesting to note, in our 
 own Sunday morning service, in which Mattins is followed by 
 Litany, and Litany by the Communion Service, that in prin- 
 ciple and practice the same emphasis on intercession is laid. 
 We have intercession in the Collects, intercession in the 
 Litany, intercession in the prayer for all sorts and conditions 
 of men, and again, joined to the oblation, after the Com- 
 munion. 
 
 We may now, in the complete Canon, consisting of Preface, 
 recitation of God's works, and of supplication, see the t\'pe 
 on which every perfect collect is formed. This Canon had 
 so impressed its character on the hearts and minds of the old 
 Fathers, that when they composed prayers, all prayers 
 assumed the same threefold, we may say fourfold, division, 
 for they conclude " through the merits of Jesus Christ," which 
 is a reminiscence of the Oblation. All members are not 
 indeed found in every collect, but three at least are found 
 in every one that has not lost all flavour of antiquity. 
 
THE GREAT INTERCESSION. 
 
 317 
 
 Canon. 
 
 Preface. Memorial of God's 
 Nature and Glor)^ 
 
 EuCHARisTic Prayer. Memo- 
 rial of God's dealings with man. 
 
 Great Intercession. Prayer 
 for various persons and various 
 necessities. 
 
 Oblation. Offering through the 
 merits of Chrisr. 
 
 Amen. (Response of the people.) 
 
 Collect. 
 Lord of all Power and Might, 
 
 Who art the Author and Giver 
 of all good things, 
 
 Graft in our hearts the love of 
 Thy name, increase in us true reli- 
 gion, nourish us with all goodness, 
 and of Thy great mercy keep us in 
 the same. 
 
 Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. 
 
 Amen. (Response of the people.) 
 
 Sometimes one member — the attribution of glory and 
 praise to God — is lost or reduced to a minimum, or cast to 
 the end, where it reproduces the song which we shall have to 
 speak of presently following the Sancta Sanctis. 
 
 Canon. 
 
 Preface. 
 
 Eucharistic Thanksgiving 
 for Incarnation, and memorial of 
 session and second coming. 
 
 Great Intercession. 
 
 " There is One Holy, One Lord, 
 One Jesus Christ, to the Glory of 
 God the Father, blessed for ever- 
 more." Amen. 
 
 Canon. 
 Preface. Commemoration of 
 God's Nature and perfections. 
 Great Intercession. 
 
 Oblation. 
 Amen. 
 
 Collect. 
 
 O God, 
 
 Whose blessed Son was mani- 
 fested that He might destroy the 
 works of the devil, and make us 
 the sons of God, and heirs of 
 Eternal Life, 
 
 Grant us, we beseech Thee, that, 
 having this hope we may purify 
 ourselves, even as He is pure ; 
 that, when He shall appear again 
 with power and great glory, we 
 may be made like unto Him in His 
 Eternal and Glorious Kingdom. 
 
 Where with Thee, O Father, and 
 Thee, O Holy Ghost, He liveth 
 and reigneth, ever one God, world 
 without end. Amen. 
 
 Collect. 
 
 O God, our refuge and strength, 
 who art the Author of all godliness, 
 
 Be ready, we beseech Thee, to 
 hear the devout prayers of Thy 
 Church, &c. 
 
 Through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 Amen. 
 
Chapter XXX. 
 
 THE PREPARATION. 
 
 THE THREE PARTS OF THE EUCHARISTIC SERVICE— THE COMMUNION — 
 THE PRAYER IN THE DIDACHE ONLY A PREPARATION FOR AND THANKS- 
 GIVING AFTER COMMUNION — THE SUPER-SUBSTANTIAL BREAD — THE 
 LORD'S PRAYER— THE INTRODUCTORY PRAYER— THE EMBOLISMUS— 
 ITS COUNTERPART IN THE JEWISH PRAYER-BOOK— THE SANCTA 
 SANCTIS— CONVERTED IN THE ROMAN LITURGY INTO A CONFESSION 
 OF UNWORTHINESS— THE ACCLAMATION AFTER THE SANCTA SANCTIS 
 A CHRISTIAN VERSION OF THE JEWISH SCHEME. 
 
 We have come now to the third part or subdivision of the 
 Euchari-stic Service. There was, first of all, the Pro-Anaphora 
 as introduction, then the Anaphora, as the great Eucharistic 
 oblation, and now we arrive at the third part, the Commu- 
 nion. As already pointed out, the Anaphora, or Liturgy- 
 proper, consisted of two parts — the first sacrificial, headed by 
 the Invocation of the Holy Ghost on the gifts ; the second 
 had to do with Communion, and this was headed by the Invo- 
 cations on those who approached to receive, that they might 
 receive worthily. Before the reception of the most precious 
 gifts, there preceded it, reasonably and rightly, a preparation, 
 just as we shall see that, reasonably and rightly, reception is fol- 
 lowed by a thanksgiving. In the Didache, that little manual 
 for the laity, the only prayers for the Eucharist given are these 
 two, the preparatory prayer, previous to Communion, and the 
 Post-Communion. The preparation involved the recitation of 
 the Lord's Prayer. This prayer contained as its central portion 
 a petition for the daily bread, or the super-substantial bread ; 
 it was therefore the most appropriate praj-er that could be 
 
THE rREPARATION. 319 
 
 employed. In S. Matthew's Gospel, and in S. Luke's also, we 
 have the petition for tov ap-rov rjinwv tov eTriovcriov. The 
 word €7riova-io9 is one met with nowhere else, and is peculiar. 
 The word ova-la means originally that which is essential, and 
 belongs to the true nature or property of things. It was the 
 word over which the Arian controversy raged, whether Christ 
 was of one onsia, nature, or substance with the Father, or of 
 like nature or substance. In the apocryphal Gospel of the 
 Hebrews, however, the prayer stood thus, " Give us this day 
 the bread for the morrow," — i.e., our " daily bread," but the 
 true rendering of the word in the canonical Gospel is certainly 
 " super-substantial," or " supernatural." It is remarkable that 
 the Protestant reformers should have followed the Latin mis- 
 translation of " panem quotidianum," instead of reverting to 
 the original meaning of the Greek. 
 
 The Lord's Prayer does not occur in the Liturgy of the 
 " Constitutions ;" but then it is precisely at this point that the 
 compiler deserted one of his MS. authorities for another ; and 
 we can hardly be wrong in thinking that this omission was an 
 oversight due to this change of authorities, for the Lord's 
 Prayer is found in every other liturgy. S. Gregory the Great, 
 we know, found it out of its proper place in the Roman, and 
 restored it to that where it ought to be, and now stands. He 
 found it in the midst of the Canon ; perhaps in the recitation 
 of the works of Christ for our redemption came the account 
 of how He gave to His disciples the Prayer of prayers. He 
 removed it thence to a place before Communion, and was 
 reproached by some of the narrow conservative minds of the 
 Roman Church for so doing, as a copying of the custom of 
 the Oriental Church.* Some Protestant controversialists, with 
 extraordinary blindness to the facts of the case, have endeav- 
 oured to build up a theory on this fact, that before Gregory's 
 time consecration consisted only in the recitation of the Lord's 
 
 Greg. Ep. ad Joan. Syrac. 1. ix. ep. 12. 
 
320 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Prayer, As we know both what the revisions of the Hturgy 
 by Gclasius, and then again by Gregory, were, this theory 
 is untenable. The Lord's Prayer in the Eastern Liturgies had 
 both an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction is a 
 Prayer of Humble Access, and the conclusion is an expansion 
 of the petition against the evil one, and is called in Greek the 
 Embolisums. These, Introduction and Embolismus, are so 
 universal, and so much alike, that it is safe to attribute to 
 them a very early origin. 
 
 The Preparatory Prayer, or Prayer of Humble Access, 
 remains in the Liturgy of the " Constitutions." 
 
 " O God, who art great, great in name and counsel, powerful in Thy 
 works, the God and Father of Thy Holy Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour, 
 look upon this Thy flock, which Thou hast chosen through Him to the 
 glory of Thy name ; sanctify us in body and soul ; grant that, purified 
 from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, we may partake of the mystic 
 blessings now lying before Thee, and judge none of us unworthy of them, 
 but be Thou our Supporter, Helper, Defender, through Thy Christ, with 
 whom be glory, honour," &c. 
 
 The corresponding Prayer of Humble Access has been 
 moved in our Anglican Liturgy to a place before the Consecra- 
 tion ; and, most unaccountably and unmeaningly, the Lord's 
 Prayer relegated to a place after Communion. 
 
 The Embolismus, or prayer against Satan, was also called 
 the prayer of bowed heads, or " of the Bowing-down." It is 
 referred to as early as the beginning of the second century, in 
 the letter of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, which, after 
 references to the Preface, Sanctus, Eucharistic Prayer, and 
 Great Intercession, says : " It is right for us to submit the neck, 
 and, occupying the place of obedience, take our side with them 
 that are leaders of our souls, ceasing from foolish dissensions, 
 and keeping aloof from every fault."* An allusion which 
 would be well understood by those to whom he wrote, and 
 whom he warned against that strife and envy which was 
 the work of the evil one. 
 
 * c. 63. 
 
THE TREPARATION. 32 1 
 
 That the Embolismus is a very primitive feature can hardly 
 be doubted, partly because it serves to give form to the 
 Prayer of prayers, acting as a corresponding wing to the intro- 
 duction, but also because a strictly analogous prayer is found 
 after a prayer that corresponds with the Lord's Prayer, in the 
 service of the Synagogue. The doxology at the end of the 
 Lord's Prayer is also taken from Jewish usage. 
 
 When this prayer of the Bowing-down had been said by the 
 celebrant, then followed a remarkable ritual act, which we find 
 everywhere in the East. He turned to the people, and hold- 
 ing up the consecrated Bread and Wine, cried aloud, 
 
 " Holy Things to the Holy." 
 
 S. Chrysostom thus describes this : — " With a loud voice» 
 with a solemn shout, just as some herald, raising his hand on 
 high, standing aloft, and conspicuous to all, and crying out 
 mightily in that awful silence, the priest summons som.e [to 
 draw nigh], and bids others keep away — for, when he says 
 ' Holy things to the holy,' this is his meaning : If any be not 
 holy, let him not draw near."* 
 
 It is noticeable that in the Paschal rite the master of the 
 feast, at a certain point in it, has to take the shoulder of the 
 lamb, and to lift it up off the dish before all present, as a wave- 
 offering to the Lord, and that in like manner he raises the 
 cup, and also the unleavened bread. The elevation formed 
 an integral part of the Paschal rite, and also of the oblations 
 of first-fruits, and of sacrifice, so that it almost certainly 
 formed an integral portion of the Eucharist as regulated by 
 the Apostles ; moreover, it also almost certainly was per- 
 formed by Christ in the Upper Chamber. In the Paschal 
 ceremony the recitation of the delivery out of Egypt took 
 place, as giving the institution of the Passover ; the order in 
 the Eucharist was directly analogous; after the recitation of the 
 work of redemption, came the record of the Institution, and 
 
 * In Ep. ad Ileljr., Horn. xvii. Compare also, in Matt., Horn. vii. 
 
 Y 
 
OUR INIIEKITAXCE. 
 
 as in the Passover the elevation of the slain lamb that was 
 to be eaten followed, so did the elevation of the Eucharistic 
 species follow in the liturgy. The words of S. Paul in i Cor. 
 xi. 26, inaccurately translated, " do show forth the Lord's 
 death " (A.V.), are rightly rendered in the Revised Version, " do 
 proclaim " as a herald "the Lord's death ; "* and they point 
 almost certainly to the use in the primitive liturgy of a 
 narration of the connexion between the Institution and the 
 Passion, and hint at such a proclamation with loud voice as 
 we find in the Greek Liturgies. 
 
 Great difference of opinion exists relative to the exclama- 
 tion, " Holy things to the holy," the usual opinion being that 
 it is — as S. John Chrysostom and S. Cyril of Jerusalem say, — 
 a warning against unworthy Communion. 
 
 But there is another explanation of the words. It has been 
 thought that "to the holy" does not refer to the communicants, 
 but to the heavenly places, and that with the elevation, the 
 celebrant made oblation of the sacrifice to the heavenly altar, 
 and that it was this idea which led to the curious form of 
 prayer in the Roman Mass, "We most humbly beseech Thee, 
 O God, to command these things to be carried by the hands 
 of Thy holy angel to Thy altar on high, in the sight of Thy 
 divine Majesty." This explanation would accord with the 
 elevation of the lamb at the Paschal feast, and also the wave- 
 offering in the Temple. The Rev. Dr. Littledale, a high 
 authority on liturgies, says, in a letter to the author, " My 
 theory of the matter is this — the earthly Church and the 
 earthly priest can offer nothing but mere bread and wine, and 
 cannot make that oblation to be more, or more efficacious than, 
 mere bread and wine. Christ is the One consecrating High 
 Priest, who, by outpouring of the Holy Spirit, consecrates the 
 bread and wine into His Body and Blood. Then, no longer 
 mere bread and wine, but mysteriously subjected to a mighty 
 
 * Karayy^\\fT€, 
 
THE PREPARATION. 323 
 
 spiritual change, the oblations are capable of being" presented 
 and offered, not on earth alone, but actually in heaven, 
 whither material oblations cannot come. They are, so to 
 speak, caught up to heaven in mystery, there to be offered by 
 the Great High Priest Himself at the golden altar before 
 the white throne. And this translation of the earthly rite into 
 heavenly localit}^ agency, and efficiency, is what the Sancta 
 Sanctis means, in my mind." 
 
 Dr. Littledale is probably right. Such was the primary 
 meaning, but, like all divine things, it had both an objective 
 and a subjective meaning. It was at once a rendering of the 
 oblation to God, it was also a caution to men drawing nigh ; 
 and it is in this latter sense that S. John Chrysostom explains 
 it. The one explanation does not exclude the other. Now 
 let us consider it in its subjective sense. 
 
 It was the last warning against profanation. As, before, the 
 unqualified and unworthy had been called on, to depart, so now 
 the intending communicants are called on, to hold back from 
 the Holy Table, unless worthy. It is, in few words, what we 
 find expanded in our own Exhortation : "If any of you be a 
 hinderer or slanderer of God's word, an adulterer, or be in 
 malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of 
 your sins, or else come not to this Holy Sacrament." 
 
 The Western celebrant pronounces a general absolution : 
 
 " May the Almighty and Merciful Lord give you pardon, absokition, 
 and remission of sins." 
 
 Then he elevates a particle of the Blessed Sacrament, 
 and cries : — 
 
 " Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sins of 
 the World." 
 
 Then with, and in the name of, the communicant, says : — 
 
 " Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof but 
 speak the word only, and my soul shall be healed." 
 
 It will be seen that the conscience in the West shrank from 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 OUR INIIERITANXE. 
 
 the acknowledgment of worthiness to approach, implied by 
 the Eastern form, and converted it into a supplication for 
 pardon, with c}'e lifted to the Lamb of God, who alone can 
 make worthy, and into an acknowledgment of unworthiness 
 without His absolving mercy. 
 
 When the celebrant had cried, " Holy things to holy 
 persons," then ensued a burst of praise to God : " There 
 is One Holy, One Lord, One Jesus Christ, to the glory 
 of God the Father, blessed for evermore. Amen." 
 
 To this the Liturgy in the " Constitutions " adds, " Hosanna 
 to the Son of David. Blessed is He that cometh in the name 
 of the Lord. God is the Lord, and He hath appeared unto 
 us. Hosanna in the highest." 
 
 The Hosanna, however, in other liturgies, goes with the 
 Sanctus and the Benedictus, before Communion. 
 
 This song of faith in the unity of God, and in the Incarna- 
 tion, which may be termed a Creed in acclamation, takes 
 the place of the Jewish acclamation of faith, " Hear, O Israel, 
 the Lord thy God is One God. Blessed be the name of the 
 glory of His Kingdom for ever." 
 
Chapter XXXI. 
 the communion. 
 
 THE SECOND FRACTION — THE COMMIXTURE — PSALM SUNG DURING 
 COMMUNION — WORDS OF ADMINISTRATION — ORDER OF COMMUNI- 
 CANTS RECEIVING — COMMUNION IN BOTH KINDS — EXCEPTIONS — 
 RESERVATION — DAILY COMMUNION — ON CERTAIN DAYS — THE 
 EUCHARIST TAKEN IN A BASKET — THE BROTHER OF S. AMBROSE TOOK 
 THE EUCHARIST WITH HIM WHEN ON A JOURNEY — THE TIME OF THE 
 DAY FOR COMMUNION, THE MORNING — THE INVARIABLE RULE OF 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 Into the Fraction and Commixture, or Intinction, that 
 follow, we need not enter at length. The holy Bread, which 
 had been broken simply at the Consecration, was again 
 broken immediately before the Communion into as many 
 pieces as were thought requisite for the communicants. This 
 practical need originated what became in later ages a cere- 
 monial fraction. So also with the Intinction, or dipping the 
 Host into the chalice. When the Body was given to com- 
 municants after dipping in the Blood, in one act, this intinction 
 became necessary. Theii communicants received in both 
 kinds at once. In the Roman Church the communicants 
 have had the Sacred Blood withdrawn from them, but the 
 commixture remains as a relic of the transitional stage. 
 
 That this is no part of the Apostolic institution is 
 apparent. 
 
 Whilst the people came up to communicate, a psalm was 
 sung; according to the " Constitutions," it was the thirty- 
 fourth. As the communicant received the Bread of Life, 
 
326 OUR INlIliRITANCE. 
 
 the celebrant said, " The Body of Christ," to which he 
 responded " Amen." At the presentation of the cup was said, 
 " The Blood of Christ, the cup of Life," to which came the 
 response, " Amen." 
 
 Of the psalm sung during the Communion, the Roman 
 Mass retains only the antiphon, " O taste and see how 
 gracious the Lord is. Blessed is the man that trusteth in 
 Him." In the Liturgy of S. James is the same anthem. 
 
 The form in the Liturgy of S. Mark is, — for the bread, 
 " The Holy Body ; " for the chalice, — " The precious Blood of 
 our Lord and God and Saviour." Then the forty-second 
 Psalm is sung : " Like as the hart desireth the water brooks, 
 so pantcth my soul after Thee, O God." 
 
 The form in the Roman Mass is, " May the Body of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul to life everlasting." 
 
 The bishops and clergy communicated first in their order of 
 rank, the bishops and priests at the altar, the deacons behind 
 it, the rest of the clergy in the choir, and the laity in the nave 
 or body of the church. The position in which the Eucharistic 
 gifts were received was, certainly in the East, probably in the 
 West, standing. The Body of Christ was received in the right 
 hand, sustained by the left placed under it, cross-wise.* The 
 chalice might be given to the communicants by the deacons; 
 this was the custom in Africa, and is the order in the "Apostolic 
 Constitutions." Sometimes a deacon distributed also the 
 consecrated Bread, but this was forbidden by the iSth Canon 
 of the Council of Nicaea. 
 
 The Roman modern usage of putting the Host into 
 the mouth, instead of into the hand, came in gradually 
 with the introduction of the thin wafer-bread. The first 
 mention of it is in the time of Pope Agapetus, who died 
 A.D. 536 t 
 
 The communicants received in both kinds, with the excep- 
 
 * Cyril Ilicrosol. Catcch. 23, 21 ; Cone. Trull, c. lo. 
 t tlreg. Mag. Dial. iii. 3. 
 
THE COMMUNION. 327 
 
 tion of children, who were given to taste of the chaHce only, 
 and perhaps also the absent had the species of Bread alone 
 sent to them. 
 
 It was customary, not only for communicants to receive at 
 the Eucharist, but also to carry away with them the Body of 
 the Lord, and sometimes, also, the Blood, that they might 
 communicate themselves privately at home, when unable to 
 come to the church. Moreover, the deacons received and 
 carried the Eucharist to captives and the sick. 
 
 In the Apostles' time, when possible, the Breaking of Bread 
 was daily. As the sacrifice was daily offered in the Temple, so 
 also the commemorative sacrifice in the Church. 
 
 S. Cyprian says, " We, as priests, daily celebrate the sacri- 
 fices of God." * 
 
 That daily Communion was the rule is almost certain. 
 S. Cyprian says, in his explanation of the Lord's Prayer.f 
 " Christ is the Bread of those who are in union with His 
 Body. And we ask that this Bread should be given to us 
 daily, that we who are in Christ, and daily receive the 
 Eucharist for the food of salvation, may not, by the inter- 
 position of some heinous sin, by being prevented, or withheld, 
 and not communicating, from partaking of the heavenly 
 bread, be separated from His Body." Elsewhere, warning 
 the people of Thibaris of the breaking out of persecution 
 (a.D. 252), he says : " A severer and fiercer fight is threat- 
 ening, for which the soldiers of Christ should prepare them- 
 selves with uncorrupt faith and strong courage, seeing that 
 they drink the cup of Christ's Blood daily."+ But as it was 
 not possible for all Christians to attend the Eucharist daily, 
 rather than fail to communicate daily, they took it home with 
 them, and partook of it the first thing in the morning. 
 Tertullian, when opposing the marriages of Christian women 
 with heathen husbands, asks pertinently, " Will not your 
 
 * Ep. liii. (Ivii. Oxford) c. 3. t In Orat. Dom. c. 17. 
 
 t Ep. iv. (Iviii, Oxf.) c. i. 
 
328 OUR imii:ritanci: 
 
 husband know what it is that you sccictl} taste before any- 
 other food ? — Will every husband, not understanding, endure 
 such things?"* Elsewhere he speaks of men tlaily stretching 
 forth the hands to receive the Body of the Lord.t Again he 
 says, " \Vc receive, in meetings before daybreak, the Sacra- 
 ment of the Eucharist, and from the hand of none but the 
 presidents, which the Lord hath commanded to be eaten at 
 meal-times." + This would seem to imply that it was re- 
 served to be the first food partaken of before every meal, but 
 as there is no other passage which gives any support to 
 this, we must suppose that by meal-times he means the 
 morning meal only, and that his words signify that the Chris- 
 tians received the Eucharist to take home with them that 
 they might partake of it daily before their morning 
 meal. Clement of Alexandria implies a daily Com- 
 munion, apparently in connexion with a daily Eucharist, for 
 he says that Jesus, the nourisher of men, gives the bread of 
 immortality daily.§ S. Cyprian tells a story of judgment 
 on an unworthy person who had taken the Blessed Sacrament 
 home with him for his daily morning Communion. 1| 
 Cyprian speaks of the Sacramental food as being preserved in 
 a box, but it was also taken from Church in such a wicker 
 basket as that represented on the back of the Sacred Fish 
 (fig. II, p. 2oS), and to this S. Jerome refers, as already 
 mentioned. 
 
 That this custom of prixate reservation led to abuse is not 
 surprising, and the First Council of Toledo in A.D. 400 con- 
 demns them as sacrilegious who,ha\ ing received the ICucharist, 
 do not consume it (Can. 14.). After this reservation had 
 ceased to be usual, it remained in force among hermits. The 
 Eucharist was either convc)'ed to them, or they carried away 
 with them sufficient to serve them till they could again attend 
 the liturgy. % The brother of S. Ambrose, when on a sca- 
 
 * Ad Uxor. i. c- 5. t I^t; Idol. c. 7. :J: De Corona c. 3. 
 
 § Quis dives, c. 23. ;, Dc Lapsis, c. 26. X Kp. ad Coesar. Patric, 93. 
 
THE COMMUNION. 329 
 
 voyage, carried the Blessed Sacrament with him, and when 
 wrecked, wrapped it in a napkin, and threw himself into the 
 sea with it.* The custom of daily Communion ceased, as the 
 fervour of Christians cooled, and the limits of the Church 
 were extended. And now, the Church is glad if she can in- 
 duce her members to receive the Eucharist thrice or even 
 once in the year. 
 
 That the proper time of the day for reception is the morn- 
 ing appears, because morning was also the fixed time for the 
 Eucharist. A passage quoted in chap. xvi. from S. Cyprian 
 shows that in his day it was not regarded as right that the 
 Eucharist should be celebrated at any other time. Tertullian 
 speaks of it as being received before any other food. Justin 
 Martyr (and Pliny also) shows us the Eucharist as a service 
 before daybreak. 
 
 Clement of Rome says that " the Divine Master hath 
 commanded us to perform all things in order at their 
 appointed seasons. Now He commanded the offerings 
 and ministrations to be performed with care, and not to be 
 done rashly or in disorder, but at fixed times and seasons " 
 (c. 40). 
 
 Here this disciple of S. Paul shows us that the Apostles 
 had some fixed rule laid down by Christ as their guide, both 
 as to the seasons, z>., as to the days of the week, and as to 
 the time of the day, for the Oblation. There is no evidence 
 of the Eucharist having ever been celebrated in the evening. 
 Just as the Passover was eaten in the evening as t}-pical of 
 its being a rite of a declining and ciisappearing covenant, so 
 the Eucharist was celebrated in the morning as the Sacra- 
 ment of a New Day, a day of a New Covenant which was 
 to have no end. 
 
 S. Ambros. de Excessu Satyri. 
 
Chapter XXXII. 
 
 THE POST-COMMUNION. 
 
 ANOTHER LITANY OF INTERCESSION— THIS HAS DISAPPEARED — LEAVING 
 ONLY TRACES OF ITS PRESENCE — THANKSGIVING AFTER COiMMUNION 
 — GLORY TO GOD — THE THANKSGIVING A REFLEX OF THE PREFACE — 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION IN SOME LITURGIES— THE 
 GLORIA IN EXCELSIS— ORIGINALLY ALLOWED AT EASTER ONLY — AND 
 AT PONTIFICAL MASSES — THEN ACCORDED TO THE MONKS OF MONTE 
 CASSINO— THE GLORIA IN EXCELSIS USUALLY OCCURS IN THE PRO- 
 ANAPHORA — THE HYMN AFTER THE INSTITUTION — THE GLORIA IN 
 EXCELSIS SUITABLY PLACED IN THE ANGLICAN OFFICE. 
 
 The Communion of the people ended, or perhaps whilst in 
 progress, there followed according to the Liturgy in the "Con- 
 stitutions," a Litany strictly the same as that with which the 
 Pro-Anaphoral* service began. It was probably inserted with 
 that remarkable adhesion to form which we notice throughout 
 the Liturgy, and which really gives to it its stamp of 
 antiquity. 
 
 The intention was that these two Litanies should balance 
 each other, one on each side of the Great Central Prayer of 
 Intercession by the celebrant. 
 
 It has gone, leaving only traces here and there, as in the 
 Ethiopic Liturgy, where an intercessional collect by the cele- 
 brant remains in this place. Perhaps the twelve Kyries recited 
 one after another in the Constantinopolitan Post-Communion, 
 but postponed to a still later position, may be the remains of 
 
 * This Litany was probably said during the Communion of the people ; the 
 Liturgy in the " Constitutions " is confused at this point. But this seems to be the 
 meaning of the rubrics and the arrangement. 
 
THE POST-COMMUNION. 33 I 
 
 this Litany, just as we have seen that our ten Kyries before the 
 Collects are the relics of an Intercessional Litany in that 
 place. 
 
 Then came the Thanksgiving after Communion, with a call 
 from the deacon and a collect by the celebrant. In the 
 " Constitutions " there is no hymn of praise; but this portion 
 of the liturgy, as there given, is somewhat confused. Judging 
 from the order in other Eastern Liturgies, there would be an 
 ascription of praise. In that of S. James, after the priest has 
 communicated, he says, " Glory to God, Who hath sanctified, 
 and sanctifieth us all." And the deacon responds, " Set up 
 Thyself, O God, above the heavens, and Thy glory above all 
 the earth. Thy kingdom remaineth for ever and ever." 
 
 After the Communion of the people, the priest exclaims, 
 *' Glory to our God, Who hath sanctified us all," whereupon 
 the deacons and people respond, " Fill our mouths with Thy 
 praise, O Lord, and fill our lips with thankfulness, that we 
 may celebrate Thy glory and majesty all the day long. We 
 give Thee thanks, Christ our God, that Thou hast vouchsafed 
 to make us partakers of Thy Body and Blood, for the re- 
 mission of sins and eternal life. Keep us, we beseech Thee, 
 without condemnation, because Thou art good, and the lover 
 of men." 
 
 Then the deacon calls at the entrance doors to the chancel, 
 " Glory be to Thee, glory be to Thee, glory be to Thee, Christ 
 the King, Only Begotten Word of the Father, for that Thou 
 hast vouchsafed us sinners. Thy unworthy servants, to enjoy 
 Thy spotless mysteries, for the forgiveness of sins, and for 
 eternal life. Glory be to Thee." 
 
 It deserves to be noted how completely this hymn of praise 
 from the people pre-supposes them all to have just communi- 
 cated, and it thus proves to belong to a period anterior to the 
 relaxation of discipline, which allowed non-communicating 
 attendance. 
 
 In the Constantinopolitan Liturgy, the Thanksgiving is 
 
332 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 reduced to this exclamation, " Standing upright, having par- 
 taken of the Divine, spotless, immortal .... mysteries, let us 
 meekly give thanks to the Lord, and say, 'Assist and preserve 
 us, that we may pass this clay [without sin]. For Thou art 
 our sanctification, and to Thee we ascribe glory, O Father, 
 Son, and Holy Ghost, now and ever, and to ages of ages.' " 
 
 The Malabar Liturgy gives a fuller, richer form. " Glory 
 be to God for I lis unspeakable gift. It is very meet, just, and 
 right, O Lord, that all times and days and hours, we should 
 laud, magnify, and praise the name of Thy Majesty. By Thy 
 grace and love. Thou hast vouchsafed to our weak nature, 
 that we may hallow Thy Name, together with blessed spirits, 
 and hast made us partakers of Thy mysteries. . . . Therefore, 
 we offer praise to Thy Godhead, O Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost." 
 
 Then follows the " Our Father." 
 
 The Thanksgiving is clearly a reflex of the Preface. 
 How it is that the Anglican Reformers followed the Malabar 
 usage of placing the Lord's Prayer after Communion is inex- 
 plicable. In the Malabar Liturgy it is said in the proper 
 place as well, before Communion. In the Ethiopic Liturgy 
 it is also found after Communion. It was going far afield, to 
 the coast of India and the Abyssinian highlands, for a prece- 
 dent to justify a change which had nothing to commend it. 
 
 The Reformers substituted the "Gloria in excelsis " for 
 the acclamations of praise and responses after Communion, 
 giving glory to God for having fed His people with the 
 super-substantial food. 
 
 The " Gloria in e.xcelsis " is found first as a morning h}-mn 
 in the "Apostolic Constitutions" (vii. c. 47) : — 
 
 " Glory be to God in the highest, and upon earth peace, goodwill 
 among men. We praise Thee, we sing hymns to Tliec, we bless Thee, 
 we glorify Thee, we worship Thee, by Thy Great High Priest ; Thee 
 who art the true God, who art the One Unbegotten. the only inaccessible 
 Being. For Thy great glory, O Lord and Heavenly King, O God the 
 Father Almighty, O Lord God, the Father of Christ the immaculate 
 
THE POST-COMMUNION. 333 
 
 Lamb, who taketh away the sin of the world, rccei\e our prayer, Thou 
 that sittest upon the cherubim, for Thou only art holy, Thou only art 
 the Lord Jesus, the Christ of the God of all creation, our King, by 
 whom glor)-, honour, and worship be to Thee." 
 
 It is not mentioned as a portion of the liturgy by S. Cyril 
 of Jerusalem in his Catechetical Lectures, in the 4th century, 
 nor do we find allusions to it, as constituting part of the 
 liturgy, in the earlier Fathers. This hymn must have become 
 generally known in the fourth and fifth centuries. It is found 
 in the tract " De Virginitate," which has been wrongly attri- 
 buted to S. Athanasius ; and it occurs in the rule of S. 
 Ca^sarius of Aries (c. 21), end of 5th century. According to 
 the Pontifical Book, Pope Symmachus (a.D. 498) ordered 
 that it should be sung on all Sundays and festivals. Gregory 
 the Great limited its use in the liturgy to Easter, and to 
 bishops. Nicholas I. allowed it further to be read on Maundy 
 Thursday. The general use of the "Gloria in excelsis" in other 
 Masses than those at which bishops were present was intro- 
 duced only in the Middle Ages. The monks of Monte Cassino 
 were the first to whom it was allowed, by a special privilege 
 granted by Pope Zacharias in the twelfth century. 
 
 The first Scriptural strain of the "Gloria in Excelsis" is found 
 in several of the Eastern Liturgies, as in the Greek S. James, 
 the Syriac S. James, and that of SS. Adseus and Maris, always 
 early in the service, but in very different places. In the 
 Roman it occurs immediately after the nine Kyries, between 
 them and the Collects, a clear proof of late intrusion, when the 
 mutual relation of the Kyries and Collects was forgotten. In 
 the Greek S. James it occurs before the Prayer of the Veil. 
 In the Syriac S. James at the very beginning of the Pro- 
 Anaphora, evidence that it was added after the separation of 
 the Jacobite heretics from the Orthodox Church in the fifth 
 century. It begins also the Nestorian Liturgy of SS. Adaeus 
 and Maris. 
 
 After the Institution we are told that the Apostles sang a 
 
334 ^^-''"^ IMIKKITAN'CE. 
 
 hymn, and went out to the Mount of Olives. The revisers of 
 the Angh'c.'in Liturgy were desirous of restoring the hymn in 
 the place at the Thanksgiving, which they perhaps believed had 
 existed there originally, but which had disappeared from the 
 Roman Liturgy, and guided by the ascription of Glory to God, 
 and to Christ, found in some Oriental Liturgies at this place, in- 
 troduced here the Great Doxology. As that certainly did not 
 belong to the Primitive Apostolic Eucharistic office, they were 
 perfectly justified in putting it where they thought proper, if it 
 was to be admitted at all ; and it can hardly be denied that 
 the position assigned it is suitable and seemly. 
 
 The liturgy closes with Benediction and Dismissal. 
 
Chapter XXXIII. 
 
 TRADITION. 
 
 FAMILY LIKENESS IN THE LITURGIES — NO DEVELOPMENT OF RITUAL 
 POSSIBLE IN TIME OF PERSECUTION — ALTERATION IN THE FORM 
 OF DIVINE WORSHIP UNLIKELY IN THE TIME OF THE DISCIPLES OF 
 THE APOSTLES— THE IDEA OF TRADITION — APPEAL TO TRADITION 
 AGAINST THE HERETICS — ONLY APPEAL POSSIBLE — IREN^US ON 
 TRADITION — HIPPOLYTUS — CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA — TER- 
 TULLIAN — THE APPEAL TO TRADITION ABUSED IN THE MIDDLE 
 AGES — TRADITION OF THE FAITH AND OF THE FORM OF WORSHIP 
 SIMPLE — THE TRADITION OF THE FAITH A CHAIN OF FACTS — 
 THE WITNESS TO TRADITION FORMED A CHAIN — CLEMENT OF ROME 
 — THE TIME OF CHANGE WAS WHEN THE STATE FAVOURED 
 CHRISTIANITY AND THE WORLD FLOWED INTO THE CHURCH — THE 
 CHURCH THEN ASSIMILATED THINGS SECULAR AND EVEN PAGAN 
 —THE LACK OF ASSIMILATIVE POWER EVIL, AND ITS EXCESS AN 
 EVIL— THE CHECK OF TRADITION — THE RESULT OF OUR SEARCH 
 — THE PRIMITIVE LITURGY — TABLE OF THE LITURGICAL STRUCTURE, 
 ACCORDING TO EARLY WRITERS. 
 
 We have seen what a striking family likeness prevails in the 
 liturgies, pointing to a common original. That original was 
 the Apostolic Eucharistic Service in use throughout the 
 Church from Pentecost till the cessation of persecution by the 
 accession of Constantine in 306, that is to say, for about two 
 hundred and seventy years. 
 
 Those had not been years in which any great development 
 of ritual could have taken place, because during the whole of 
 that time the exercise of the worship of Christians was illegal, 
 and the machinery whereby any personal wrong could be 
 avenged on Christians was available. Worship was, and was 
 necessarily, more or less private, and was exercised with 
 
T,T,6 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 caution. Till the death of the disciples of the Apostles, 
 there would almost certainly be no alteration, and Ignatius 
 died in A.D. 107 ; Polycarp in A.D. 155 or 156. Even after 
 that time tradition held tenaciously to what had been handed 
 down in faith and worship. A rule held good for both, and 
 this rule might not be deviated from. What was new was 
 erroneous, only what was traditional everywhere was 
 Apostolic and true. This is insisted on by the Fathers with 
 vehemence against the heretics. Those must be wrong, 
 because their tenets, their worship, were confessedly new. 
 
 " True knowledge," says Irenaeus, " is [found in] the 
 doctrine of the Apostles, and the ancient constitution of the 
 Church throughout all the world, and the distinctive mani- 
 festation of the Body of Christ, according to the successions of 
 bishops, by which they have handed down that Church which 
 exists in every place, guarded and preserved by a very com- 
 plete system of doctrine, neither added to, nor curtailed."* 
 Irenaeus is opposing heresy, and he falls back on the rigid 
 adherence of the Church to what is old, traditionally received, 
 unchanged from age to age. 
 
 " Now all heretics are of much later date than the bishops 
 
 to whom the Apostles committed the Churches The 
 
 Church possesses the true tradition of the Apostles." f 
 
 " We refer the heretics to that tradition which origi- 
 nates from the Apostles, and is preserved by means of the 
 successions of presbyters in the Churches." 
 
 " It is in the power of all, in every Church, of those who 
 may wish to know the truth, to consider the tradition of the 
 Apostles manifested throughout the whole world. We can 
 reckon up those who were instituted by the Apostles as 
 Bishops in the Churches, and the successions of these men to 
 our own times. The Apostles .... were desirous that those 
 men whom they left behind as their successors should be very 
 perfect and blameless." 
 
 * Irenceus, Adv. IIa:r. iv. 6. f ■^'''"Z. v. c. 20. 
 
o o o 
 
 2,H 
 
 
 • 3 
 
 O 
 
 w' 
 
 I 
 
35^ OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 " To put to confusion those who assemble in unauthorised 
 meetings, we indicate the tradition derived from the Apostles 
 of the very great, ancient, and universally known Church 
 founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious 
 Apostles, Peter and Paul, as also the faith preached, which 
 comes down to our time by the successions of the bishops," 
 After having traced the successions of the Roman bishops, 
 he says, " In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesias- 
 tical tradition from the Apostles, and the preaching of the 
 truth, have come down to us." 
 
 Then he takes the Church of Smyrna. " Polycarp there 
 was not only instructed by Apostles, and had conversed 
 with many who had seen Christ, but was also appointed 
 bishop of that Church by Apostles, — him I also saw in my 
 early youth, for he tarried [on earth] for a very long time, and 
 when a very old man gloriously departed this life by 
 martyrdom, having always taught the things w^hich he had 
 learned from the Apostles, and which the Church has handed 
 down, and which alone are true. To these things testify all 
 the Asiatic Churches, as do those men also who succeeded 
 Polycarp, to the present time."* 
 
 " It is incumbent to obey the presb}-ters in the Church, who 
 possess the succession from the Apostles, and with the suc- 
 cession of the episcopate, the certain gift of truth. But hold 
 in suspicion those who depart from the primitive succession, 
 and assemble themselves anywhere. All such have fallen 
 from the truth."-f- 
 
 Now these passages show a temper of mind in one who be- 
 longed to the second century which was eminently conserva- 
 tive, in the face of heretics altering the truth and devising 
 strange rites ; he would hold with the utmost rigidity to what 
 he had received from Polycarp and others, disciples of the 
 Apostles, and would no more venture to innovate on Divine 
 
 * Ironxnis, Ad. Ilcer, Hi. c. 2,3. t /^'<A iv. c. 26. 
 
TRADITION. 339 
 
 worship than on the doctrines he had received. We find pre- 
 cisely the same appeal to the unswerving unity between 
 present and past, in faith and practice, in other writers. 
 
 Hippolytus, who wrote between A.D. 235 and 239, falls back 
 on the same argument against heretics, in his " Refutation of 
 all Heresies"; their teaching, their practices are new, and being 
 new, must be wrong. 
 
 " None can refute these [men], save the Holy Spirit be- 
 queathed to the Church, which the Apostles first received, and 
 then transmitted to right believers. We, their successors, 
 participators in their grace, high priesthood, and teaching 
 functions, as well as being regarded as the guardians of the 
 Church, must not be slack in vigilance, and backward with 
 the truth." * 
 
 Clement of Alexandria speaks of his own reminiscences as 
 the guarantee for the orthodoxy of his teaching. He had sat 
 at the feet of men who had been the disciples of the Apostles. 
 " They preserve that tradition of the blessed, — ' What is 
 old is true ' ; the Church holds the Apostolic ordering, the 
 rule the founders of the Church imposed, that she never 
 swerves from ; what is new is not Christian, it is false." 
 
 " The Church has received the apostolic doctrine derived 
 directly from the holy Apostles, Peter, James, John, and Paul, 
 the son receiving it from the father, it has come to us also, 
 by God's will, to sow these ancestral and apostolic seeds." f 
 Clement speaks further of the " Venerable Rule of Tradition." 
 
 The observance of this rule of tradition constitutes true 
 wisdom. The Gnostic — i.e., the truly wise man — he says, 
 " maintains Apostolic and ecclesiastical orthodoxy in doctrine." 
 " The life of the true Gnostic is nothing else but a correspond- 
 ence in deed and word with the tradition of the Lord. "J 
 
 According to Tertullian, in his " Prescription against 
 Heretics," Christ first delivered the Rule of Faith, the Apostles 
 
 * Hippol., Philosoph. Prosem. t Strom, i., Proaem. % Ibid. vii. c. 16. 
 
 Z 2 
 
340 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 taught it everywhere, the Churches they founded became the 
 depositories of the Rule; and every Church that they founded, 
 and all Churches that have issued by spiritual generation from 
 these Apostolic Churches, all carry with them the same 
 tradition, unaltered, undiminished, unadded to (c. 20). Such 
 doctrine alone is true, which comes through the Church from 
 the Apostles, for they received the truth from God through 
 Christ. All opinion which has no such succession, filiation, 
 and Apostolic origin to show, is prejudged, ipso facto ^ to be 
 false (c. 2i). But granted that the Apostles taught and insti- 
 tuted what was true, have all Churches remained faithful, and 
 retained the deposit unaltered, unalloyed? This, Tertullian 
 says, is inconceivable (c. 27), for every Church, wherever 
 found, is like all the rest, the one tradition is seen everywhere, 
 the same substantially. Besides, the Holy Spirit of Truth is 
 the guide and light of the Church, given her to protect her 
 from error by Christ. " Is it likely that so many Churches, 
 and they so great, should all have gone astray ? Errors in 
 the several Churches would have led them into various issues. 
 When, however, that which has been deposited among many 
 is found to be one and the same, it is no result of error, it 
 springs out of one tradition " (c. 28). The truth had free circu- 
 lation first, then came heresy. The priority of the Church's 
 doctrine is a mark of its truth (c. 29). Falsehood is the per- 
 version of truth, and can only exist after truth has been re- 
 vealed, the good seed is sown first, then come the tares (c. 31). 
 Tertullian, it will be seen, takes precisely the same line 
 in contending with heretics as did Irenaeus at the begin- 
 ning. " No other teaching," he says to Marcion, " has any 
 right to be received as Apostolic but that which is at the 
 present day proclaimed by Churches of Apostolic founda- 
 tion. . . . Show us one of your Churches tracing its descent 
 from an Apostle, and you will have gained the day."* " We 
 
 * Tertull. .idv. Marcion, i. c 21. 
 
TRADITION. 341 
 
 at once put in a plea against these tainters of our purity, 
 asserting that [our faith] is that rule of faith which comes 
 down from Christ by transmission through His companions, 
 to whom we shall show that all these devisers of strange 
 doctrines are posterior."* 
 
 In his treatise " De Corona " Tertullian speaks of liturgical 
 and sacramental acts. He says that a written order for each 
 particular practice in baptism and the Eucharist is unneces- 
 sary ; there is custom, there is unbroken tradition, to sanc- 
 tion them.t We have already quoted some telling passages 
 from his " Prescription against Heretics," in the same vein ; 
 but the whole of that remarkable treatise should be read ; 
 the gist of the tract is this: "We say, Let them produce 
 the original records of their Churches, let them unfold the 
 roll of their bishops, running down in due succession 
 from the beginning in such a manner that they can show 
 their first bishop was ordained, and preceded by, an Apostle 
 or an apostolic man — one who continued steadfast with the 
 Apostles. For in this manner do the Apostolic Churches 
 transmit their registers, as the Church of Smyrna, which 
 records that Pol}'carp was placed there by John ; as the 
 Church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been 
 ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way 
 the other Churches show [their succession of bishops], whom, 
 as having been appointed to their episcopal offices by the 
 Apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. . . . 
 As the Apostles would never have taught things contradic- 
 tory, so the apostolic men — {i.e., their successors) — would not 
 have taught differently from the Apostles. Let all heresies be 
 challenged by the Church to these two tests " — i.e., succession 
 of bishops from the Apostles, and identity of doctrine through 
 all time of their existence from the Apostles (c. 32). Again, 
 and yet again, does Tertullian revert to the same evidence, as 
 a crushing, overwhelming, conclusive reply to heresy. 
 
 * Id. Apologet. c. 47. f Id, De Corona, c. 3. 
 
342 OUR INHERITANXE. 
 
 S. Cyprian is the same. With him also the appeal is to 
 the past, the evidence against error in practice is the invari- 
 able tradition from the Apostles. 
 
 In the disputation of Bishop Archelaus with the heretic 
 Manes, that took place in the year A. I). 262, the bishop makes 
 a great point of the unbroken tradition of the Church. He 
 says, supposing a father leaves a rich inheritance, will the 
 judges adjudicate it to the man who pretends to be the true 
 representative of the deceased, unless he can show direct, 
 patent, descent from him? How then can a heretic represent 
 Christ, when he is a new phenomenon, whereas the Church 
 has been from the time Christ founded her? " That master- 
 builder of Christ, Paul, laid our foundation, and has put us in 
 trust of the law {i.e., the Rule of Faith), ordaining ministers, 
 presbyters, and bishops in the same, and showing in what 
 manner, and with what character, the ministers of God should 
 conduct themselves, in what repute the presbyters should be 
 held, how constituted, and what manner of persons should 
 desire the office of bishop. All these institutions, once settled, 
 preserve their proper standing and order with us to this day ; 
 the regular administration of the rules abides amongst us still. 
 But as for this fellow. Manes," &c., he proceeds to show that 
 his doctrine, his sect, are novel, and therefore false. 
 
 The appeal to Scripture, and to Scripture alone, in dealing 
 with heretics, was found by the Fathers to be inconclusive for 
 two reasons. 
 
 I. The Canon of Scripture was not definite!}' fixed, and the 
 heretics appealed to certain Gospels, which they insisted had 
 equal, if not greater, authorit}- than those received by the 
 Church. Or, if they appealed to the same Gospels, they 
 appealed to earlier or different editions. Thus, the Ebionites 
 had the Gospel of the Hebrews, which there is every reason tO' 
 believe was an early recension of that of S. Matthew, earlier 
 than the edition finally adopted b}' the Church. So Marcion 
 appealed to his Gospel of S. Luke, which also was probably 
 
TRADITION. 343 
 
 not mutilated by him, but actually a first edition of the third 
 Gospel. 
 
 2. In the next place, when Catholics and heretics were 
 agreed as to what books were canonical, they disagreed as to 
 the interpretation of the texts. When the text was quoted 
 literally, an allegorical interpretation was opposed to it. 
 
 It was the habit of mind then for all alike to look for the 
 meaning of Scripture everywhere save on the surface, and the 
 more strange and recondite the meaning drawn from it, the 
 more likely was it thought to be the true signification. We 
 have only to look at the " Philosophoumena " of Hippolytus to 
 see how that the wildest and even obscene heresies found the 
 authority for their wildness and obscenity in Scripture. The 
 Catholics, therefore, in contending with heretics, found that the 
 quotation of texts availed them nothing, and carried no force. 
 But it was quite another matter with tradition. They could 
 appeal to a living witness, the Church, which had always 
 taught the same truths, and had the same rule of ecclesiastical 
 and liturgical order as she had of faith. This was a testimony 
 not to be gainsaid or evaded. It was plain, conclusive, and 
 crushing. 
 
 Now, with the Church assailed on all sides by heresy, 
 obliged to defend herself and the faith, and with the very 
 unity of her teaching and practice as the main engine with 
 which to hold her position, is it conceivable that she should 
 vitiate her own claim, spike her own guns ? Alteration of 
 her liturgy would be a salient change, recognisable by all. It 
 would be far less easy to convict her of change of faith than 
 it would be of alteration of liturgy, for the faith might be 
 changed by subtleties of expression that might for a while 
 pass undetected, but the liturgy was what was performed 
 every Lord's Day at the least, in some churches four times in 
 the week. Its structure, its rh}-thm of parts, had become 
 one with the recollections of all her members from childhood. 
 An alteration would jar and be detected at once, just as at the 
 
344 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 present time a Lection from the Revised Version — grating on 
 the ear, and exasperating to the conservative instinct, certain 
 to provoke a protest. Men will tolerate change of doctrine 
 rather than a minute ritual variation from what they have 
 become accustomed to. Would not the Church have at once 
 laid herself bare to the charge, " You say that you have kept 
 the faith ; how is it then that you have, in a lifetime, made so 
 many alterations in the Eucharistic service, that sacred 
 deposit ? There are among us men who can testify that the 
 Liturgy as now said differs in many particulars from the 
 Liturgy of their youth. If you have varied in that, what 
 guarantee have we that you have not shifted your ground in 
 the matter of belief.? " The very fact that the Church gave the 
 title of Canon or Rule to both the Faith and to the Anaphora, 
 as, later, to the fixed collection of sacred and received books 
 that constituted Scripture, showed that she regarded all three 
 as things fixed, sacred, and not to be altered. Only in this 
 did the two first Canons vary from the last, that the two 
 first were not Rules determining the word and letter, but 
 preserving form and spirit, whereas in Scripture the letter 
 was fixed and unalterable. 
 
 The Faith was one deposit, not to be tampered with, cur- 
 tailed, or amplified, but the Faith was tied up to no form of 
 words ; it was a Tradition, a Teaching, to be communicated 
 from one to another : always the same, yet infinitely varied in 
 the mode of expression by him who taught. So was the 
 Eucharistic mystery a deposit, the liturgy regulated only as 
 to its constituent parts, its organic structure ; but it was left 
 to every celebrant to clothe the bones with what words he 
 could. This, as already asserted, alone explains the variety 
 of the liturgies, subsisting along with their essential unity. 
 
 "The Church," says Irena2us, "having received the Apos- 
 tolic preaching and faith, although scattered throughout the 
 whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully 
 preserves it. She believes the points [of doctrine] every- 
 
TRADITION. 345 
 
 where, as if she had but one soul, one and the same heart ; 
 and she proclaims them, teaches them, hands them down, 
 with perfect harmony, as if possessed of but one mouth. For 
 though the languages of the world be dissimilar, yet is the 
 import of the tradition one and the same. For the Churches 
 planted in Germany do not believe and hand down anything 
 different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those 
 in the East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those 
 which have been established in the central regions [Rome or 
 Palestine]. But as the sun is one, and the same throughout 
 the whole world, so is the preaching of the Truth that en- 
 lightens men. Nor will any one of the rulers of the Churches, 
 however gifted, teach differently, for no one is greater than 
 his Master ; nor, on the other hand, will he who is deficient in 
 power, inflict injury on the tradition. For the Faith, being 
 ever one and the same, neither does one who is able and 
 eloquent add to it, nor does one who can say little diminish 
 it." * The Liturgy stands on the same footing as the Faith, 
 both were deposits, and deposits of equal value, equally 
 divine, and equally essential. It cannot be said that the 
 early Christians regarded the Eucharist with less reverence 
 and awe than they did the Faith. As they kept the one, so 
 did they keep the other. As the Faith was found, when peace 
 settled down on the Church, to be everywhere the same, so 
 was the Liturgy found also to be everywhere the same. The 
 force and significance of a General Council lay in the appeal 
 to Tradition. The bishops did not assemble to excogitate 
 new doctrine, but to give evidence to what Jiad been taught 
 and believed in their Churches relative to the Faith. 
 
 Unless this be grasped and realised, we totally misunderstand 
 the position of the Church in the face of heretics and heathen, 
 and fail to appreciate the hesitation and shrinking she felt at 
 touching and modifying anything which she held to belong 
 to the divine deposit committed to her. 
 
 * Irenseus adv. Hser., i. c. 2. 
 
346 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 The appeal to tradition has been so abused and dis- 
 credited, that a certain amount of mistrust of it has been 
 engendered in men's minds, and they are hardly prepared to 
 allow to Tradition in the first three centuries that weight 
 which properly belongs to it. But there is a wide difference 
 between tradition of the Faith and of the Liturgy, as then under- 
 stood, and the wide and all-embracing signification given to 
 tradition in the Middle Ages, permitting it to envelop with its 
 sanction what had no warrant in antiquity. Many an abuse 
 crept into the Chuch, hugging itself in the stolen mantle, and 
 was not at once detected and exposed. 
 
 But the tradition of Faith and Liturgy was, though a very 
 serious, yet a very simple, matter. The faith was an exposition 
 of God's dealings with man from Creation to Sanctification 
 through Redemption ; and this exposition was made incessantly, 
 both in catechumenical preparations, and in weekly exhortation 
 to the flock. And the Liturgy was also simple, as well as 
 serious. There was an initial prayer on approach to the 
 Altar, then a Litany of Intercession, after that the Great 
 Thanksgiving, which was no other than an Eucharistic ver- 
 sion of the Rule of Faith, then the Consecration, consisting of 
 the recitation of the Institution, and the reproduction of the 
 same acts by the celebrant ; this was followed by the Great 
 Priestly Intercession, then came the preparator)- pra}'er for 
 Communion, the Communion, and the conclusion with 
 Thanksgiving, Litany, and Benediction. The sequence was 
 intelligible. Each part led on to the other, and there were 
 well known cues for the guidance of the people in respond- 
 ing. This was a rule repeated at the least weekly, every 
 repetition grounding it deeper in the memory, and settling 
 itself into habit, so that an}'thing like alteration would 
 arouse opposition in the congregation, and would revolt the 
 celebrant's conscience also. 
 
 The witnesses to tradition in the fust three centuries 
 formed a closely knit chain, or rather the one overlapped 
 
TRADITION. 347 
 
 the other, through the two hundred years from the time 
 when the Apostles had fallen. Already, at the beginning of 
 the second century, the appeal had begun to tradition. We 
 see how it was in the matter of the celebration of Easter. 
 Polycarp would not yield the matter of month-day for week- 
 day observance, because he would not yield one point in the 
 tradition he had received. Clement, the disciple of S. Peter 
 and S. Paul, shows us in the Epistle to the Corinthians, the 
 bent of mind which became fixed later. 
 
 " The Apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord 
 Jesus Christ ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. So 
 then Christ is from God, and the Apostles are from Christ. 
 Both, therefore, came of the will of God in the appointed 
 order. Having therefore received a charge, they went forth 
 with the glad tidings that the Kingdom of God should come. 
 So, preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed 
 their first-fruits, when they had proved them by the Spirit, to 
 be bishops and deacons unto them that should believe. And 
 this they did in no new fashion ; for, indeed, it had been 
 written, concerning bishops and deacons from very ancient 
 times ; for thus saith the Scripture, in a certain place, ' I will 
 appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in 
 faith ? ' " (c. 42). 
 
 Clement was writing, not about a liturgical abuse or 
 quarrel, but about some strife concerning ecclesiastical per- 
 sons. Can it be doubted but that he would have taken the 
 same line, had there been differences about Eucharistical 
 celebration } Would he not at once, in this temper of mind, 
 have appealed to what had been instituted by the Apostles 
 and received by the Church .'' 
 
 This is a temper of mind almost inconceivable by the 
 Western brain and heart — at least the English — which is ever 
 on the quest for some new nostrum in religion, as in medicine, 
 which shall remedy the spiritual disorders that abound. 
 What thought is there of Apostolic institution, when Salva- 
 
348 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 tion Armies, and Flower Services, and Bands of Hope, and 
 Teetotal Crusades are instituted ? The sanction for these 
 things is the prospective possibility of their "doing good." 
 
 The analogous period to the present was that when the 
 Church, dazzled and giddy, came forth from the catacombs to 
 be crowned ; and then, in the whirl of change, she also 
 sought, by new adaptations, new experiments, borrowings 
 here and surrenders there, to " do good " after human lights, 
 without appeal to the past. As now, the tunes of the opera 
 are adapted to religious hymns, and the music-hall is 
 borrowed for an Evangelistic meeting, and the railway wait- 
 ing-room deemed appropriate for the diffusion of sacred texts, 
 so then did the clergy appropriate pagan ceremonial for 
 Christian worship, and consecrate heathen festivals to take a 
 place in the sacred cycle of the year. 
 
 This assimilative, transforming energy is not to be depre- 
 cated, for it springs out of ever-buoyant, self-confident evan- 
 gelical conviction. It was this which urged Gregory the 
 Great to give his memorable advice to Augustine, " Choose 
 among the Churches all that is pious and reasonable, and out 
 of what you thus collect, form the use of the English Church." 
 
 It was this same energy which enabled the Church to 
 grapple with every social problem that arose, as wave 
 on wave of barbarism swept over the face of the civilised 
 world, and as new civilisations asked of her to direct them to 
 Christ. 
 
 But it was that same force, unrestrained, which filled the 
 mediaeval Church with such an influx of worldliness and 
 wantonness, that it bred the very revolt against the shreds of 
 tradition remaining to the Church in the West, that revolt 
 which was itself only the same daring, self-determinative 
 spirit in explosion. 
 
 It was that same force which gave to the reforming move- 
 ments of the sixteenth century, to Lutheranism, Calvinism, 
 Zwinglianism, their momentum and luminosity. They rose 
 
TRADITION. 349 
 
 and shone like rockets through this force, and it is this 
 same force, leaving them, which fills the sky with a rain of 
 coruscating, falling sects, kindled by them, carried up by 
 them, and draining them of their energy and fire, whereas 
 in the sky stand the constant stars of the Apostolic Churches, 
 divinely lighted, moving in their God-appointed orbits, 
 held by the bond of unbroken continuity with the past, and 
 through the past with Christ. 
 
 It is the lack of this power that has given to the Oriental 
 Churches their fixity, has stricken them with inability to con- 
 tend against, and overcome, and transform Mohammedanism. 
 Thus if, on the one side, we see an excess of the forward, 
 future-directed force, we see on the other the extravagance 
 of the conservative caution. In medio tiitissinius ibis. 
 
 But we are wandering from a consideration of the past, to 
 rest in the present. 
 
 Let us now sum up the result of our search, and see what 
 remains to be established. 
 
 We have seen that the liturgies of the whole Church, as we 
 have them, point back through all their variations to a mother 
 liturgy. 
 
 That these variations are nowhere radical, affecting the 
 organism of the liturgies, but consist for the most part of con- 
 tractions, condensations, and small displacements. 
 
 That the only liturgy of the third century we have is that 
 in the " Constitutions," and that with it agree in structure all 
 the liturgies of later date that have come to us. 
 
 That this liturgy itself is not in its primitive form, but is 
 easily restorable to that form. 
 
 That the variations in the liturgies were produced after the 
 middle of the second century, mostly in the period from the 
 third to the sixth, by the altered relations in which the Church 
 found herself in respect to the world and the State. 
 
 We have seen incidentally that the notices of all the writers 
 of the first three centuries point to familiarity with a liturgy 
 
350 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 which was practically identical with that given in the " Con- 
 stitutions." 
 
 Wc have also seen that the spirit of resolute clinging to 
 what was believed to have been apostolically appointed was a 
 vital principle in the Church of the three first centuries, and 
 that this principle must, almost certainly, have prevented 
 any radical changes affecting the liturgy. 
 
 As an appendix to this chapter, we show in tabular form 
 the notices of the liturgy in the early writers. These notices are 
 necessarily sketchy, but sketchy though they are, they follow 
 the main lines of the Eucharistic service, as we know them 
 from the literary monuments themselves. 
 
 We have no reason to suspect that the liturgy went through 
 any important, far less any revolutionary, alteration between 
 the time of the Apostles and the middle of the third century. 
 What the liturgy was, is revealed to us both by the form in the 
 "Constitutions," and by the analysis of the extant liturgies 
 in use or dead. 
 
 It is most probable, if not certain, that the Apostles, before 
 separating, would have agreed to some order of administra- 
 tion of the Sacrament, and what specially concerns us, to a 
 liturgical framework for the Eucharist. 
 
 It is also most probable, if not certain, that in so doing they 
 would follow as closely as might be the order and character 
 of the Institution of the Holy Eucharist by Christ Himself in 
 the Upper Chamber, on the night before He died. 
 
 As wc have seen, the very wording of the recitation of the 
 Institution points to such an origin, in that it is fuller than 
 the account in the Gospels, and details such small matters 
 of gesture as would only be known by an eye-witness of 
 the Institution. 
 
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Chapter XXXIV. 
 
 THE SUMMING-UP IN ONE. 
 
 THE CONSTITUENTS OF WORSHIP ACCORDING TO THE JEWS — ACCORD- 
 ING TO THE EARLY CHRISTIANS — THE EUCHARIST THE REPRESEN- 
 TATIVE OF THE MORNING SERVICE IN THE TEMPLE— THE SACRIFICE 
 OF BLOOD NO PART OF WORSHIP, BUT A PREPARATION FOR WORSHIP 
 — THE EARLY LITURGY RESEMBLED JEWISH RITES— THE SHEW- 
 BREAD— THE PASSOVER— CEREMONIAL OF THE PASCHAL SUPPER — 
 THE GREAT THANKSGIVING AND GREAT INTERCESSION AND BENE- 
 DICTION OF CUP AND BREAD TAKEN FROM THE PASCHAL RITE — 
 PASSOVER AND EUCHARIST BOTH MEMORIALS — HOW ALL SACRIFICES 
 WERE FULFILLED IN CHRIST — THE PEACE-OFFERING — THE OTHER 
 SACRIFICES — THE SACRIFICIAL ASPECT OF THE EUCHARIST — WHY 
 THE PROPHECY OF MALACHI IS QUOTED BY THE FATHERS — THE 
 ALTAR OF INCENSE — TABLE OF COMPARISON OF THE FRAMEWORK 
 OF TEMPLE SCHACHARITH AND EUCHARIST. 
 
 According to Rabbinic teaching, worship is made up of 
 two main constituents, Thanksgiving and Supplication. To' 
 these correspond the two sorts of prayer employed of old by 
 the Jew in public worship ; — the Benediction and the 
 TephillaJi. These terms indicate, the one Adoration, the 
 other Intercession. Sacrifice was distinct from either. Sacri- 
 fice was not worship, but the preparation for it. Till the 
 worshipper was cleansed and reconciled, he could not draw 
 near to God. Accordingly, the sacrifice with the shedding of 
 blood preceded, but did not constitute, worship. This must 
 be clearly grasped, if we are to understand the principle of the 
 Temple worship. 
 
 In the early Church we find the same distinction, the same 
 elements are designated, Thanksgiving and Supplication, but 
 
 AA 
 
354 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Thanksgiving is subdivided into Praise and Benediction, and 
 Supplication into Prayer and Intercession. S. Paul in his 
 first Epistle to Timothy names all four,* and Origen enters 
 into an elaborate disquisition on their several natures.t But 
 with this we need not trouble the reader. 
 
 We have already in Chap. xv. given an account of the 
 Morning Service in the Temple, and have shown how that 
 the Jewish Common Morning Prayer of every day reproduces 
 it with necessary modifications. And we have also shown 
 how that the Eucharistic Service proper bears a remarkable 
 likeness to it. 
 
 Whether in the Temple Service any fixed form of words 
 existed has been questioned, and rightly, but that a general 
 form existed on which the prayers and benedictions were 
 framed is undoubted. Dr. Edcrshcim says, " It may be 
 questioned whether, in the prescribed liturgical formulas, the 
 words were always rigidly adhered to, perhaps even accu- 
 rately remembered. Hence the Talmud lays it down that in 
 such cases it sufficed to say the substance of the prescribed 
 prayers.''^ 
 
 That the same form of worship constituted the type 
 of private or family morning prayer in our Lord's time is 
 certain. The Liturgy of the Temple reproduced itself in 
 echoes in every household and synagogue wherever there 
 were Jews. 
 
 That this Morning Service should be retraccable in the 
 Christian Liturgy is not surprising. If, as is most probable, 
 the Institution took place after midnight, then it was in all 
 likelihood associated with this Morning Service. What notices 
 we have in S. John's Gospel point to this conclusion. We 
 have the Ablution like that of the priests before beginning 
 the Service, we have our Lord's explanation of the Vine as a 
 
 * I Tim. ii. i., "I exhort therefore, that first of all Se^crets, 7r/30(reiix«is, ivrei^eii, 
 fuXctpiffTtas be made for all men." 
 i De Orat. c. 14. + " The Temple and its Services," London, 1874, p. 126. 
 
THE SUMMING-UP IN ONE. 355 
 
 symbol of Himself, a distinct reference to the great golden 
 Vine that was suspended over and about the doorway into 
 the Holy Place, under which the Priest stood before entering 
 to make the sacrifice of incense. This gigantic Vine, the 
 figure of Israel,* was of pure gold, and each cluster of grapes 
 on it was the height of a man. Our Lord seems by His words 
 to have called attention to this Vine, and so to Himself as the 
 Priest about to enter beneath it to the great act of worship. 
 He prayed for the glorification of the Name of God, and 
 for Unity, developing, and giving a new significance to, the 
 morning prayer of the Jews to this purport ; and the whole 
 concluded with the hymn sung by the Apostles and Christ 
 before leaving for Gethsemane, like the great psalm singing 
 on the steps at and after the sacrifice. 
 
 The early liturgies give even stronger indications of their 
 connexion with this Morning Service of the Temple, for they 
 contain many of its elements, — not the sacrifice of blood, that 
 was done away with. Christ, the True Lamb, is slain, by whose 
 blood we have access to the Father, therefore all that portion 
 of the morning ritual is abolished, but it is otherwise with the 
 rest. We have the Great Eucharistic Thanksgiving, which is 
 an expansion of the Great Eulogy recited at the offering of the 
 incense, and we have the Preface leading up to the Sanctus, 
 which is taken directly from the Morning Service, we have 
 the prayers for unity and peace, the Aaronic blessing, and the 
 Psalms, and the Lord's Prayer. The Schema on the binding 
 of the phylacteries has fallen away, as no longer appropriate, 
 just as the sacrifice of blood is abolished in Christ. The order 
 in which Preface, Sanctus, and Great Eulogy come is slightly 
 different in the Church from what it is at present in the 
 Synagogue, but this is due to disarrangement in the latter, the 
 Church preserving the earlier sequence. 
 
 But the Eucharist as instituted by Christ, and organized 
 
 * Ps. Ixxx. 8; Jer. ii. 21 ; Ezek. xix. 10 ; Joel i. 7. 
 
 AA 2 
 
356 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 into a litury;}- by the Apostles, was more than a reproduction 
 of the Morning Service of the Temple. In Christ all the 
 sacrifices had their fulfilment. Christ is the first-fruits of 
 the dead, and the striking ritual of the bringing in of the 
 first shock of wheat, and its being heaved or waved before 
 God at the altar, had its interpretation in Him, He was cut 
 down, He lay in the earth. He was raised up and ascended to 
 the Temple of God, eternal in the heavens, where He appears 
 as our First-Fruits, as redeeming the whole harvest-field of 
 mankind. 
 
 The significance of sacrifice was this. The earth was the 
 Lord's, and the fulness thereof. All things were His, and He 
 might claim everything as His own. But He consented to 
 accept a part for the whole, the first lamb of the flock for the 
 whole flock, the first bullock for the whole herd, the eldest 
 son for the whole family, the first shock for the whole 
 harv'cst, the first bunch of grapes for the whole vintage. The 
 first-fruits go for the whole products, the life of the sacrifice 
 for the life of the sacrificer. " This idea of substitution, as 
 introduced, adopted, and sanctioned by God Himself, is 
 expressed by tlie sacrificial form rendered in our version 
 ' atonement,' but which really means covering, the substitute 
 in the acceptance of God taking the place of, and so covering, 
 as it were, the person of the offerer."* 
 
 We can well understand how the Apostles endeavoured to 
 show forth the truth that Christ was the first-fruits, by 
 introducing into the Christian Liturgy some of the ceremonial 
 of the oblation of the new corn, and also of the first 
 loaves, and so originating the ceremony of the Great 
 Entrance, which has almost ceased to have any ceremonial 
 dignity in the West, and is reduced to the mere transfer to 
 the altar of the bread and wine in oblation, before the 
 Anaphora. 
 
 Dr. Edcrshcini, "Tlie Temple," p. Si. 
 
THE SUMMING-UP IN ONE. 357 
 
 In the first age, when the Temple was standing, the liturgy 
 must have been of extraordinary significance to a Jewish 
 convert. It showed him his old Mosaic ritual of sacrifices 
 and offerings fulfilled in Christ, in such a way as we cannot 
 now at all realise. 
 
 But there was another feature of the Temple that received 
 its fulfilment in Christ, and its recognition in the Eucharist, 
 and that was the shew-bread. Our word " shew-bread " is 
 inaccurate ; the true name was Bread of the Presence 
 (literally " of Faces "), and the signification of the shew-bread 
 was the Abiding Presence of God among His people. It is 
 not clear that the Jews themselves understood its significance. 
 
 The rite was as follows : — 
 
 In the Holy Place on the north-side, before the veil that 
 separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place, stood a 
 table of gold, about 3-ft. long. 
 
 The shew-bread was made of the finest wheaten flour, 
 that had passed through eleven sieves. There were twelve 
 cakes, anointed on the upper side with oil in the form of a 
 cross. On the Sabbath four priests entered the Holy Place, 
 and removed the old shew-bread. They were followed by 
 four others with the new bread, which they placed along 
 with incense on the golden table. The priests then ate the 
 old shew-bread that same day in the Temple, and burnt the 
 old incense on the altar of burnt-offering. 
 
 The Bread of the Presence was regarded as in some way 
 an emblem of the Messiah. " The mediatorial ministry, in 
 the name of, and representing Israel, laid before God the 
 Bread of the Presence, kindled the seven-lamped candlestick, 
 and burnt incense on the golden altar. The bread laid before 
 Him in the northern or most sacred part of the Holy Place 
 was that of His Presence, and meant that the covenant people 
 owned His Presence as their bread and their life ; the 
 candlestick, that He was their light-giver and light, while be- 
 tween the table of shew-bread and the candlestick burned the 
 
3S8 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 incense on the golden altar, to show that life and light are 
 joined together, and come to us in fellowship with God and 
 prayer. For a similar reason, pure incense was placed be- 
 tween the shew-breads — for the life which is in His Presence is 
 one of praise ; while the incense was burned before the shew- 
 bread was eaten by the priests, to indicate God's acceptance 
 and ratification of Israel's dependence upon Him, as also to 
 betoken praise to God while living upon His presence."* 
 
 That Bread of the Presence, of which the Jew but dimly saw 
 the significance, had its fulfilment in Christ Himself. "The 
 Bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and 
 giveth life unto the world. ... I am the bread which came 
 down from heaven. ... I am the Bread of Life. . . This is the 
 bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat 
 thereof, and not die " (S. John vi.). As the shew-bread was 
 anointed, so was Christ. As the shew-brcad was the earnest 
 of God's abiding presence with His people, so is Christ. As 
 the shew-bread was eaten by the priests, so is Christ the food, 
 not of the priesthood only, but of all the faithful. 
 
 Wc sec in the early representations of the Eucharist in the 
 catacombs (fig. lo), that the Christians sometimes marked 
 their Eucharistic bread with the cross, like the shew-breads. 
 
 As the Bread of the Presence was to the Jews the token 
 that God was in their midst, as their life and sustenance, so is 
 the Eucharist to the Christian the witness of Christ, that He 
 is with us always, even unto the end of the world, as our 
 spiritual food and sustenance. The whole rite of the shew- 
 bread only reached its interpretation after Christ had insti- 
 tuted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. 
 
 In the Revelation of S. John, heaven was beheld open, and 
 in it the worship of God was revealed to the seer, not after 
 the pattern of the Temple at Jerusalem, but after a new 
 pattern altogether. The arrangement, as wc have already 
 
 Edersheim, op. cit. p. 157. 
 
THE SUMMING-UP IN ONE. 359 
 
 pointed out, was different. There is no more an altar of 
 burnt-offering. That is aboHshed, but there is still the altar of 
 incense. There are still the seven lamps, still the veil, still 
 the laver, but the positions are changed. The veil is parted 
 and furled back. The altar of incense, now combined into 
 one with the table of shew-bread, stands in the midst of the 
 Holy of Holies, and above it burn the seven lamps, whilst be- 
 hind it is the restored mercy-seat, the throne of God.* The 
 Ark of the Covenant had been lost, and in the Temple, after 
 the return from Babylon, there was only a broad stone that 
 marked the spot where it had been. In the heavenly temple 
 we see it again, but not in the same position, thrust back, 
 and in the midst the altar of incense, which is also the 
 altar on which is the Lamb that was slain, but no more 
 shedding blood. In the Apocalypse, we are not told that the 
 table of shew-bread was seen, but we may either take it as 
 united with the altar of incense, or regard it as the special 
 altar or table of the Church on earth, and therefore, not 
 shown in heaven. 
 
 We have, then, in the Eucharistic worship of the Church 
 the antitypal worship, of which the morning sacrifice in the 
 Temple, the oblation of the first-fruits, and the setting forth 
 of the shew-bread were shadows and figures going before. 
 
 We must now consider what other elements went towards 
 the formation of the liturgy. 
 
 In the very forefront of all the sacrificial system of the 
 Jews stood the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb. That was 
 instituted first, and the rest of the system followed after. 
 With that sacrifice and sacrificial meal began the Covenant, 
 and the redemption out of bondage. 
 
 Whether we hold that Christ died on the 14th or on the 
 15th Nisan ; whether we hold that He did not, or did, eat 
 first the Jewish Passover with His disciples, before instituting 
 
 • It is notable that as the throne in Heaven is a "great white throne," so the 
 episcopal throne in a church was always covered with white linen. 
 
360 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 the Eucharist, we may be sure that His Institution, which 
 was the fulfihuent and revivification of the old rite under a 
 new form, must have borne in its arranj^ement some traces of 
 h'kencss to the Paschal Supper. 
 
 A great deal has been written on the subject of the con- 
 nexion between the Eucharistic Institution and the Pass- 
 over ; and it has been contended that the Institution took 
 place either at the third or the fourth cup. 
 
 There were four cups taken at the Passover, but the third 
 was entitled the Cup of Blessing, and was invested with some 
 solemnity of benediction. Because S. Paul designates the 
 Eucharistic chalice by the same name wherewith the third 
 cup at the Passover was known, it has been assumed that 
 the institution of the Eucharist took place then. This sup- 
 position, however, does violence to the words of the Evange- 
 lists, who say that the Institution took place after Supper 
 was ended, whereas the third cup formed one of the integral 
 portions of the Paschal Supper, 
 
 A more weighty argument supports the theory that the 
 Institution took place at the Cup of the Hallel, which was a 
 supplementary rite after the conclusion of the Passover 
 Supper, and this is strongly contended for by Dr. Bickell.* 
 
 We will take the Paschal rite in order, briefly, omitting 
 such portions as are mediaeval accretions. t 
 
 After that all leaven has been put away, the first cup is 
 filled with mingled wine and water, with the words, " Praised 
 be Thou, O Lord our God, King of the World, Who hast 
 created the fruit of the Vine " ; a benediction which recalls 
 that in the Didache. Then comes a thanksgiving to God for 
 having chosen Israel out of all the nations, and for having 
 appointed the festival of unleavened bread in memorial of the 
 release from Egypt. 
 
 * Messe u. I'ascha, Mainz, 1S72. 
 
 t Fiirstenlhal : Die beidcn Possachabencle, Prag. 1SS7 ; Dr. Edersheini, op. cit. ; 
 Bickell, Messe u. Pascha, &c. 
 
THE SUMMING-UP IN ONE. 361 
 
 Then the first cup is drunk. 
 
 The master of the house then washes his hands, dips some 
 herbs in salt and water, and distributes among those present, 
 saying, " Praised be Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the 
 World, who didst create fruits out of the earth." 
 
 Then the second cup is filled, and the youngest child 
 present enquires the meaning of the ceremony. The answer 
 is given as enjoined by Moses (Deut. xxvi. 5-1 1). 
 
 That answer given, the president begins a long and solemn 
 recitation of the wondrous Works of God ; how He called 
 Abraham and made a promise to him, and he elevates the 
 cup, saying, " This promise has been the strength of our fore- 
 fathers, when men rose up against us in every age to destroy 
 us ; then the Holy One, praised be His name, hath delivered 
 us out of their hands." 
 
 Then ensues the record of God's deliverances, — how Jacob 
 went down into Egypt with a few, and became a great nation ; 
 how, when the Egyptians evil-entreated Israel, the Lord 
 stood by them, and when heavy tasks were laid on the people, 
 the Lord delivered them by a mighty hand and a stretched- 
 out arm, smiting Egypt with plagues, and slaying the first- 
 born, and with signs and wonders led them through the Red 
 Sea. Then again is the cup elevated, and with loud voice 
 the president says, " Wherefore it is meet that we should 
 thank Him, praise and laud Him, honour and adore Him who 
 showed all these wonders, and delivered us out of bondage 
 into freedom, out of sorrow into joy, out of mourning into 
 rejoicing, out of darkness into light, out of servitude into 
 redemption, hallelujah ! " 
 
 Then is sung the psalm, " Praise the Lord, ye servants, O 
 praise the Name of the Lord " (cxiii.), followed by the next, 
 "When Israel came out of Egypt" (cxiv.), concluding with 
 this brief thanksgiving, " Blessed art Thou, Jehovah, our God, 
 King of the world, who hast redeemed our fathers from 
 Egypt." The usual blessing is said over the second cup, and 
 it is drunk. 
 
362 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Hands are now washed a second time, and one of the two 
 unleavened cakes is broken after a benediction similar to that 
 on the cup, " Praised be Thou, Jehovah, our God, King of the 
 world, who hast brought forth food out of the earth." The 
 broken bread is given to all those present. 
 
 Then the third cup is filled. 
 
 Now follows the Paschal Supper proper, — all that preceded 
 was preparatory. Over it a long prayer of thanksgiving is 
 said, thanking God for nourishing the earth with His good- 
 ness, for assuring to His people that they shall never lack 
 food ; then again for having delivered Israel out of Egypt, 
 for having given the law, for having fed His people continu- 
 ously, for having brought them into the Promised Land, 
 concluding with a great intercession for Israel, for pardon, 
 for succour, for restoration. This leads to a burst of prayer 
 mingled with praise, like the song of one whose voice is full of 
 sobs. '' Praised be Thou, Eternal One, our God, Lord of the 
 world. Almighty, our Father, our King, our Creator, 
 Redeemer, the Holy One of Jacob, our Leader, our Shepherd, 
 King of Israel, who art full of mercy and goodness to all, and 
 leadest us into all good. Do Thou continue forth Thy loving- 
 kindness towards us, show us protection, grace, pity, freedom, 
 delivery, blessing, comfort, nourishment, and shelter, and fill 
 us with all things needful. May the All Merciful be our 
 King for ever and ever ! The All Merciful One be praised in 
 Heaven and earth, from generation to generation, may His 
 fame be spread through all eternit}', and glorified for ever ! 
 May the All Merciful One sustain us with food, may He 
 break the yoke off our necks, and lead us into our own land ! 
 May He richly bless this house and this table, may He send 
 the pro[)lict IClias, and announce to us tidings of great joy. 
 May the All Merciful One bless my father, the master of this 
 house, my mother, the hostess, her, her house and her 
 posterity, as were blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob with abundant blessing. Amen." 
 
THE SUMMING-UP IN ONE. 363 
 
 Then the third cup is drunk, also after the usual benedic- 
 tion of God, who created the fruit of the vine. After that the 
 fourth cup, the Cup of the Hallel, is prepared, and the Hallel 
 is continued, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us" (Ps. cxv.). 
 " I am well pleased that the Lord hath heard the voice of my 
 prayer" (cxvi.). O praise the Lord, all ye heathen" (cxvii.) ;. 
 the whole ending with the so-called Blessing of Song, which 
 comprises two brief prayers. 
 
 It can hardly escape the observant reader that the third 
 cup is either a duplication of the second, or that the second 
 is an addition on the same motif as the third. 
 
 Each is attended by a great prayer of thanksgiving for 
 mercies shown to Israel from God, with a record of His 
 glorious works, and the third prayer of thanksgiving leads 
 into a great prayer of intercession. Now it seems to us that 
 the attempts that have been made to get the Eucharistic 
 Institution into the Paschal Supper are not altogether 
 satisfactory. We must not forget that the primitive tradition 
 of the Church was emphatically against the view that Christ 
 ate the Passover the night before His death. That, however,. 
 the Institution bears a strong likeness to, traces a descent from, 
 the Passover, we admit, because it summed up in itself the 
 Paschal Institution, as well as other rites of the ancient 
 Covenant. 
 
 It summed up in itself also the old sacrifices. 
 
 Christ was the end of the Law. To Him all lambs and 
 bulls and heifers pointed, that bled in sacrifice ; and the 
 New Sacrifice was not one of blood, but, inasmuch as it 
 was a memorial of the one, great, and all-sufficient 
 Sacrifice on the Cross, it reflected these sacri- 
 fices. The very name given to it, " Sacrifice of Praise " 
 {Qvcr'ia aivecrem) is itself a technical term for the voluntary 
 " Peace-offering " (Levit. vii. 2, 3, 5, &c.), one of the three 
 great classes of offerings under the Law of Moses, all typical 
 under different aspects of our Saviour's great oblation of 
 
364 OUR INHERITANCE, 
 
 Himself, and all gathered up into, and fulfilled by that. The 
 peculiar feature of the Peace-offering, as contrasted with the 
 other classes of sacrifices, consisted in this, that the flesh was 
 to be consumed at a solemn sacrificial feast by him who 
 had offered, and by his friends (Levit. iii. and vii.). The 
 Peace-offering, then, had a peculiar relation to the Holy 
 Eucharist, which is implied by the term, " Sacrifice of Praise 
 and Thanksgiving," so commonly applied to it.* 
 
 Christ was also the Sin-offering. 
 
 But, to avoid confusion, let us see to what classes the 
 sacrifices under the Law belonged. They belonged to 
 Three : — 
 
 I. Self-dedicatory. The Burnt-offering. 
 n. EUCHARISTIC. (a) The unbloody Meat-offering. 
 
 (d) The bloody Peace-offering. 
 HI. Expiatory. The Sin-offering ; the Trespass-offering. 
 
 I. Self-dedicatory Sacrifices. 
 
 The idea of these was not expiatory. The blood of the vic- 
 tim was not sprinkled on the altar, but round about it. He 
 who offered laid his hand on the head of the victim to denote 
 his devotion, soul and body, to Jehovah (Rom. xii. i). The 
 death of the victim was, so to speak, an incidental feature. 
 Now we can see at once how that Christ was the fulfilment 
 of this. He who came, not to do His own will, but the \\'\\\ 
 of Him who sent Him. Among the heathen, the idea of 
 free-will, voluntary oblation was inherent, and oxen brought 
 to the altar had oil put into their ears to make them nod 
 their heads, as though consenting to their being presented as 
 sacrifice. Christ came voluntarily. He laid down His life 
 
 * "Notes on the .Sacrificial Aspect of the Holy Eucharist," by Rev. C. E. 
 Hanimond. Oxford, 1885. See also Rendall, "Theology of the Hebrew 
 Christians " (second essay), London, 1885. 
 
THE SUMMING-UP IN ONE. 365 
 
 of His own free will. So, in the Eucharist, the self-dedica- 
 tory character reflects itself down from Him who gave Him- 
 self for us to those who unite in the worship. " Here we offer 
 and present unto Thee, O Lord, ouselves, our souls and 
 bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto 
 Thee" — just as Jesus, our Lord and Victim, is Himself, in 
 soul and body, an all-holy, living, and " logistic " sacrifice. 
 
 n. EucHARisTic Sacrifices. 
 
 Of these there were two, the unbloody meat-offering, of 
 which there were {a) the Daily Oblation that attended the 
 daily burnt offering (Exod. xxix. 40-41). {h) The Shew- 
 bread, or Bread of the Presence, renewed every Sabbath. 
 {c) The special Meat-offerings at the Sabbath and great festi- 
 vals, {d) The First-fruits of the produce of the earth, of 
 these we have already treated. The object of these sacrifices 
 was to thank God as the giver of all good things to men. 
 The daily oblation of incense may also be taken as {e) an 
 Eucharistic sacrifice ; and of this we have treated. The 
 second class was bloody. To this belonged the Peace-offering, 
 already spoken of The man who offered, as already said, 
 partook of the Sacrifice, and the idea conveyed by it was that 
 thereby he was brought into communion with God. 
 
 It can hardly fail to be noticed by any who realise the con- 
 nexion between the Old and the New Covenant, by any who 
 will put themselves in the position of the Apostles, as coming 
 direct from the usages of the Law to Christ, that the terms 
 they employed, to be properly understood by us, must be 
 given that signification which they would bear by association 
 in their own minds, and would convey to their hearers. Conse- 
 quently all the terms, "Sacrifice of Thanksgiving," "Sacrifice 
 of Praise," " giving of thanks," &c., used by S. Paul and the 
 primitive Fathers, are applicable to the Eucharist as the 
 Christian Peace-offering, in which the faithful, by participa- 
 
S66 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 tion in the body of Christ, who is made our Peace, are brought 
 into communion with the Father. 
 
 III. — Expiatory Sacrifices. 
 
 The Sin-offering showed man out of favour with God, 
 seeking reconciliation with God, by acknowledgment of his 
 sin, and by the shedding of blood. The first of all these 
 sacrifices was the Paschal Lamb, and from that came the 
 others. It looked to the Atonement, to that Lamb of God 
 who should take away the sin of the world by His blood. 
 And as the One Expiatory Sacrifice, the Lamb that still bears 
 the marks and character of the slain one (Rev. v. 6, 
 apv'iov o)? earcpajfievovyis our Atoning Sacrifice, so every Euchar- 
 ist, which is a memorial to the Father of His death, partakes of 
 the quality and nature of the old sin-offering. There is no 
 fresh sacrifice for sin, but a continual pleading of the one, all- 
 perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice. When our Lord said, " This 
 do as a memorial of Me," His words undoubtedly would con- 
 vey to a Greek ear the idea oi offerijig* 
 
 Thus is Christ the fulfilment of all the sacrifices of the Law, 
 and as a picture bears a resemblance to the original, so do all 
 the Eucharists bear in them the likeness to the One great real 
 
 * Mr, Hammond says: — "There are two passages in Justin Martyr (Dial. c. 
 Tryph. 41, 70) which incontestably prove this. He speaks twice of the Bread 
 which Jesus Christ Trap^SwKev {jfuv woieTi'. In the second passage he also speaks 
 of the cup which Jesus Christ TrapiddSKiv iroieTv. No moaning but that of ' conse- 
 crate ' or 'offer' will make any sense at all of the passages." Of the words, 
 "In remembrance of Me," Mr. Hammond continues, "The word avd/xvijcn 
 occurs twice in the text of the LXX. (Lev. xxiv. 7, Num. x. 10), and in both 
 places it must mean 'a memorial before God,' a means of bringing something 
 before God, not before man's recollection. . . The word is also once elsewhere 
 used in the New Testament (Heb. x. 3), in reference to the special sacrifice of the 
 Day of Atonement. That, in this case too, the memorial was before God, not 
 before men, is manifest when we consider that no man, not even the priests, were 
 allowed to be present when the Atonement was being made by the High Priest." 
 — " Notes on the Sacrificial Aspect of the Holy Eucharist," by C. E. Hammond, 
 Oxford, 18S5. 
 
THE SUMMING-UP IN ONE. 367 
 
 Sacrifice, and through that to the sacrifices under the Old 
 Dispensation. 
 
 If we do not greatly mistake, the framework of the primi- 
 tive liturgy, which is almost certainly a close approximation 
 to the actual facts and order of events of the original Institu- 
 tion, was the Morning Service of the Temple, less the sacrifice 
 of the Lamb, but with the consecration of the Bread and the 
 Wine inserted where in the Temple was the offering of the 
 incense. At that oblation a great prayer of thanksgiving was 
 offered, and as Christ's Institution was a fulfilling of the 
 Passover, as well as of the sacrifice and oblation of incense, 
 He took into this framework of service the Great Prayer of 
 Thanksgiving, with the benedictions of the cup and bread, 
 and the elevation, and the fraction of the bread, and also the 
 Great Intercession. After that, as He fulfilled not only the 
 Passover, but also the Bread of the Presence, He gave to 
 His Apostles to eat of the true Bread of the Presence, which 
 He had consecrated. There is something of the Passover, 
 there is something of the oblation of incense, there is some- 
 thing of the offering of the first-fruits, there is something of the 
 distribution of the shew-bread, in the Eucharist, for that sums 
 up all these ancient mysteries in one, just as Jesus Himself 
 sums up in Himself all the various sacrifices, and all the many 
 types of old. 
 
 Christ took the outline of the early Morning Service of the 
 Temple, an outline which had become the usual form of 
 prayer among the Jews everywhere, and abolished the sacri- 
 fice of blood, and substituted for the sacrifice of incense, 
 which was the focus and culminating point of the morning 
 service. His new institution. The sacrifice of blood had no 
 part in that worship, it was the mere preparation for it. After 
 Christ's death there needed no more sacrifice, no more 
 bringing near, no other reconciliation. He had done all that. 
 And then, in place of the Temple service of the oblation of 
 incense, He appointed the Eucharistic prayer of praise and 
 
368 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 intercession over the cup and the bread, and this Eucharistic 
 prayer of praise and intercession He modelled on the forms 
 observed at the Passover. 
 
 It is unnecessary to dispute about the cups, whether Christ 
 blessed the third or the fourth ; the cup He blessed was the 
 One Chalice of His Blood, to which all the other cups pointed 
 and led up, the cup of preparation, the cup of thanksgiving, 
 the cup of blessing. The Rabbis multiplied rites. There is 
 even a fifth cup sometimes drunk ; but we may be tolerably 
 confident that originally there were only three — one, the 
 cup of preparation ; one, the cup of • remembrance at the 
 Supper itself ; and the last, the cup of thanksgiving at the 
 end. Christ united all into one, which is at once the cup 
 of preparation, of memorial, and of thanksgiving. 
 
 The Paschal Supper was a great memorial of God's 
 mercies shown to His people from the call of Abraham, 
 through the release from Hg}pt to their establishment in 
 the Land of Promise. So was the Eucharistic Feast, as we 
 see by the primitive liturgies, a memorial of God's mercies 
 from creation through all the ages of the world, to the 
 Redemption by Jesus Christ. This is lost by the muti- 
 lation of the Canon in our modern liturgies, but it comes 
 out distinctly in the old ; and the relationship that the 
 Eucharist bears to the Passover comes out with such clear- 
 ness as to be unmistakable, when we compare the original 
 Prayer of Thanksgiving, the blessing, elevation, fraction, 
 and distribution with the original Prayer of Thanksgiving, 
 blessing, elevation, fraction, and distribution in the Pass- 
 over. But there the resemblance ends. The Institution 
 was not a supper, it did not take place in the evening, it 
 took place in the carl}' morning, some time after the 
 Supper had been eaten, and it was not ordained to be an 
 evening service, but to take in the Church the place of the 
 early Morning Service of the Temple. That is why the 
 framework is derived from the Temple worship. 
 
THE SUMMING-UP IN ONE. 369 
 
 When we have realised this, we are in a position at once 
 to see the force of the reasoning of the early Fathers, who, 
 with almost weariful iteration, quote the prophecy of 
 Malachi as spoken of the Christian Eucharist. " From the 
 rising of the sun," said God, " unto the going down of the 
 same, in every place incense shall be offered unto My 
 Name, and a pure offering." That of the Jews was re- 
 jected. God had no pleasure in it — their hands were full 
 of blood. The blood defiled. The sacrifice of blood was 
 abolished. The Temple was destroyed. Now — " in every 
 place," — throughout the whole world, no longer only on the 
 one altar in the one Temple of Jerusalem, was an offering 
 to be made, and that offering was to be pure, — of the first 
 fruits of Him who is the Bread that came down from 
 Heaven, of Him who has left the Eucharist behind as the 
 Bread of the Presence in His Church. 
 
 Moreover, we can see why it was that, with one accord, they 
 rejected that term for altar (^co/ulo?), which implied the 
 shedding of blood, and from S. Paul, downwards, adopted 
 that for the incense oblation. The Christian altar was 
 the TJmsiasterion, the altar of incense. The reason was 
 that the Christian altar had taken the place of the Jewish 
 altar of incense, and the Christian liturgy had taken the 
 place of the Jewish liturgy that concerned the oblation on 
 that incense altar. 
 
 " We have an altar," says the author of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, " whereof they have no right to eat which serve the 
 tabernacle," but that is no altar on which blood is poured 
 forth, but is "the Lord's Table" (i Cor. x. 21), that is, the 
 shew-bread table, which is now one with the altar of incense, 
 and one also with the altar of the slain Lamb, as it is on that 
 altar that Christ was seen in heaven by S. John. As the 
 Jewish altar typified the coming sacrifice of Calvary, so does 
 the Christian altar look back to that Sacrifice ; as the altar of 
 incense foreshadowed the all-prevailing mediation of Christ, 
 
 BB 
 
370 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 SO does the Christian altar ; it serves as the meeting-place at 
 which the prayers of the saints are gathered, and united with 
 the ever ascending smoke of the intercession of Christ. 
 And as the shcw-bread indicated the coming of One who 
 would give Himself to be the nourishment of His people, 
 who would, under the form of bread, remain with His Church 
 unto the end of the world, so does the Christian altar prove 
 to be our table of shcw-bread, whence we draw the nourish- 
 ment of our souls, the earnest of resurrection, the Bread of 
 the ever-abiding Presence. 
 
 The following comparison between the Morning Service of 
 the Temple (restored from tbe Morning Service of the 
 Synagogue, and from the traditions preserved in the Mischna) 
 and the Christian ^Anaphora, will show how close was the 
 resemblance. One transposition has been made of the Jewish 
 Invitatory to Praise, which has been put before the Great 
 Prayer of Praise, instead of the place it now occupies in the 
 Jewish pra)'er-book. 
 
 Morning Service of Temple. 
 Preparatory : Introit. 
 Prayer. 
 
 Washing of hands 
 and feet. 
 Prayer of Approach. 
 Aaronic Blessing. 
 Hear, O Israel. 
 Prayer for hallowing of Name 
 and for Unity. 
 
 [Sacrifice of Lamb.] 
 Invitation to Praise, along with 
 Cherubim and Seraphim. 
 Holy, holy, holy. 
 Great Eulogy. 
 
 [Oblation of Incense.] 
 Psalms of Praise. 
 Prayer for Israel. 
 Schema : Hear, O Israel, the 
 Lord thy God is One Lord. 
 
 Thanksgiving. 
 Benediction and Dismissal. 
 
 Christian Liturgy. 
 Preparatory : Introit. 
 Prayer. 
 
 Washing of the 
 hands. 
 Prayer of the Veil. 
 Aaronic Blessing. 
 
 (Creed.) 
 The pledge of Unity and Prayer 
 for Peace. 
 
 Preface : Call to Praise, along 
 with Angels and Archangels. 
 
 Holy, holy, holy. 
 
 Great Eulogy. 
 
 (Consecration.) 
 
 Great Intercession. 
 
 Prayer for the Flock. 
 
 Sancta Sanctis : People's Hymn 
 of Faith. "There is One Holy, 
 One Lord, One Christ." 
 (Communion.) 
 
 Thanksgiving. 
 
 Benediction and Dismissal. 
 
Chapter XXV. 
 
 THE ALTAR. 
 
 THE OPENING OF THE EYES TO THE BEAUTY OF NATURE — MINUCIUS 
 FELIX — THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN OCTAVIUS AND CyECILlUS — NO 
 TEMPLES AND NO ALTARS — ORIGEN — THE MEANING OF TEMPLES AND 
 ALTARS— A HEATHEN TEMPLE— A HEATHEN ALTAR — THE SIGNIFI- 
 CATION OF A SACRIFICE — SPIRITUAL WORSHIP— NOT EXCLUSIVE OF 
 LITURGICAL WORSHIP — THE CHRISTIAN ALTAR — THE RELATIONS 
 BORNE BY THE WORSHIP OF THE OLD COVENANT TO THAT IN THE 
 CELESTIAL TEMPLE AND TO THAT OF THE CHURCH ON EARTH — IN 
 WHAT SENSE THE EUCHARIST IS A SACRIFICE — THE AMORPHOUS 
 VIEW OF CHURCH HISTORY— NO EVIDENCE THAT THE PRIMITIVE 
 CHURCH WAS UNORGANIZED — DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 Humboldt, in the second volume of his " Cosmos," remarks 
 on the small appreciation the classic Greeks and Romans had 
 for the beauties of nature, and he says that with Christianity 
 the eyes of men seemed to ppen to the loveliness of the 
 world, and then he at once refers to the description of the sea- 
 shore by Minucius Felix. 
 
 But, indeed, the description S. Basil gives of his moun- 
 tain retreat on the Strymon, the pleasant picture Sidonius 
 Apollinaris paints of his villa and grounds under the 
 cones of Auvergne, S. Cyprian's account of his vine-bower, 
 all show how that with the softening and cleansing of man's 
 heart came a power to see beauties, invisible save to the gentle 
 and pure of soul. 
 
 Fresh and delightful is the little book of Minucius Felix. 
 
 BB 2 
 
372 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 He and his two friends, C.xcilius and Octavius, were strol- 
 ling one hot day by the shore of the Mediterranean, near 
 Ostia, " breathing the fresh air, and deriving pleasure as the 
 footstep made its impress in the yielding yellow sands. The 
 gentle rippling wave was smoothing the outer marge of sand, 
 as levelling them for a promenade ; and as the sea is always 
 restless, even when the winds are lulled, it came up on the 
 shore, not with crested, foaming waves, but with wavelets 
 crisped and curling. We were vastly pleased with its vagaries, 
 as at the threshold of the water we wet the soles of our feet, 
 and watched the waves by turns approaching to break upon 
 our feet, and then retire, sucked back as it were into them- 
 selves. And so — slowly, quietly sauntering on, we tracked 
 the shore in its gentle sweep, beguiling the way with 
 stories." 
 
 It happened that the three friends passed a statue of 
 Serapis, as they left the baths, whereat Caecilius put his 
 hand to his lips in salutation ; whereat Octavius made a dis- 
 paraging remark. 
 
 Presently the friends came on a party of boys playing at 
 throwing shells into the sea, " to choose a shell, rubbed smooth 
 by the tossing of the waves ; to hold it horizontally, to whirl 
 it along sloping, as low as possible on the waves, so that it 
 might either skim the back of the wave, or cleave the top, 
 and dance from one to another by a series of bounds. That 
 boy claimed to be conqueror whose shell went out furthest, 
 and leaped most frequently." 
 
 Whilst thus watching the boys, Minucius observed that 
 Caecilius seemed uneasy, and dissatisfied, and he asked him 
 what was the matter. Then Cajcilius bitterly exclaimed at 
 the sneer of Octavius at him for having kissed his hand to 
 the image of Serapis. 
 
 This led to a hot argument. Minucius sat down on a rock, 
 with Octavius on one side, Caecilius on the other, and they 
 constituted hiin arbiter in their dispute. 
 
THE ALTAR. 373 
 
 Csecilius began by pouring forth abuse on the Christians, 
 retaiHng all the scandalous stories he had heard of the Agape, 
 and also the distorted tale that was told of the Eucharist, how 
 that a child was smothered in flour, and then stabbed, and 
 after that eaten. Then he went on, "Why do they endeavour 
 with such pains to conceal and cloak over what they wor- 
 ship .-' Things that are honourable court publicity, crimes 
 only lurk in secret. Why have they no altars, no temples, 
 no consecrated images?" "Those charges," answered Octavius, 
 "which are brought against us — charges of murder and abomi- 
 nable uncleanness — are mere calumnies. They have never 
 been proved against us. Do you think that we conceal 
 what we worship, if we have not temples and altars ? What 
 temple shall I build to Him who fashioned the world ? Shall 
 I offer victims and sacrifices to the Lord ? — I offer him a pure 
 mind and sound judgment."* 
 
 A great and unnecessary stress has been laid on this 
 passage by Protestant writers, to show that the Christians 
 of the first three centuries had no idea of the sacredness 
 of places, and no sacrificial notion connected with the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 The passage will not bear the weight laid on it. Octavius 
 answers Ccnecilius that the Christians had no churches, — they 
 could not have in time of persecution ; moreover, they did not 
 believe that God was confined within the precincts of a 
 temple, like the pagan idols ; they had no altars streaming with 
 blood, and reeking with the ill savour of burnt bones ; they 
 offered no sacrifices, their God needed none. 
 
 But when this answer was given, temple, altar, sacrifice, 
 had a signification that has been rubbed down and almost 
 lost in later days ; or, to speak more exactly, it has been 
 expanded to embrace a new order of ideas. When contro- 
 versialists say, " See what the Apologists of the first centuries 
 
 * So also Origen adv. Cels, vii. 64 ; Cyprian ad Demetr. 12. 
 
374 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 assert about temples, altars, and sacrifices ; they deny that 
 Christians had them, therefore we deny that they had 
 temple, altar, sacrifice, in the modern sense of the terms." 
 When, they thus argue, we contend that they are drawing 
 un\varrantable conclusions. 
 
 Let us consider these three words shortly, and let us, for so 
 doing, place ourselves mentally in the situation of a Christian 
 of the first three centuries. 
 
 We have seen what Minucius Fcli.x asserts. This is what 
 Origen says. It is to the same effect. 
 
 Celsus, against whom Origen writes, had charged the 
 Christians with " shrinking from raising altars, statues, and 
 temples." Origen answers that, on the contrary. Christians 
 do erect temples, altars, and images ; the temples they hallow 
 and venerate arc human bodies made temples of the Holy 
 Ghost. The statues the}^ erect arc the image of Jesus Christ 
 formed in man, b}' conformity to the dixine will, and the 
 altars of sacrifice with them are human hearts, from which 
 ascends the steam of perpetual prajxr (Adv. Cels. viii. cc. 
 17-20). Elsewhere, Origen sa}s that the Gets have reared 
 temples and statues to Zamol.xis, the Cilians to Mopsus, and 
 the Thebans to Amphiarius. " But we have refrained from 
 offering to the Deity honour of such sort ; " and then, at 
 once, he goes on to sa}^ that such temples, altars, and statues 
 as were raised to heroes and gods were " adapted rather to 
 demons " (iii. c. 34). 
 
 That the Christians had no fi.xcd sacred edifices is quite 
 certain. They could not. Such as are foiuid in the cata- 
 combs were cmplo}'ed only in times of persecution. In 
 ordinary seasons the Christians assembled in each other's 
 houses. 
 
 Even if they wished to build churches, the)- might not do 
 so, as Christianit}' was not a religion allowed by the State. 
 So strictly was the prohibition against the exercise of un- 
 authorised religions enforced, that the Sicarians were put to 
 
THE ALTAR. 
 
 i75 
 
 death, merely because they practised circumcision, which was 
 a rite allowed by law to the Jews alone* 
 
 Moreover, the Christians did not want the temples ; and if 
 temples had been handed over to them by the State, they 
 could not have used them. 
 
 Christian worship was congregational. Pagan \vorship was 
 individual. Except in processions, the heathen had nothing 
 like a united service of prayer and praise. The temple was 
 erected with no provision for the assembling of a con- 
 gregation within it. Let us see what it was like. 
 
 The sjiggcstus was a paved platform, like a pedestal, raising 
 the temple several feet above the soil ; and this platform was 
 reached, either by a flight of steps in front, or was so arranged 
 as to be accessible by steps all round. 
 
 On this platform stood the temple itself, the roof of which 
 covered a colonnade {porticus, Trrepwfxa)^ and this colonnade 
 formed a pleasant, cool walk round the inner block of the 
 temple itself This inner block was provided with a porch 
 {antrum, irpovaoi), and sometimes with a porch behind {posti- 
 aimyOTria-OoSofxo?). The cell, in which stood the image of 
 the god {cella, vaoi), was accessible through both. This cell 
 had no windows, the only light entered through the doors, 
 themselves shaded by both the porch and the portico ; and it 
 was comparatively small. The accompanying plan of the 
 Temple of Theseus at Athens will give a good idea of a 
 
 
 # 
 
 © 
 
 
 FIG. 20.— The Temple of Theseus at Athens. 
 
 * Origen adv. Cels. ii. c. 13 ; Modestinus, Leg. vi. Regularum ad legem 
 Corneliam de Sicariis. 
 
376 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 classic temple, and, if compared with the plans of Christian 
 churches, given in chap, viii., and with Fig. 21, will show how 
 radically different was the idea exhibited in each. They had 
 not a point in common. 
 
 r/-^^Myy^.X',zy^,f;y'^;>^^y ^^AJ'yt^,'^>V^ 
 
 ^mmii';'ji^/^:iiiM^i>i}^i:Si!mmfi'::^^ 
 
 FIG. 21.— Plan of the Church of SS. Cosmas and Damian at Rome. 
 
 By permission of Utessrs. Hachctle. 
 
 Now, when a charge was brought against Christians that 
 they had no temples, they thought of these structures, 
 which were as inappropriate to the worship of the true 
 God as would be a labyrinth, and they could, with clear 
 conscience, answer that they had no such things, and did not 
 want them. 
 
 Again, with regard to altars and sacrifices. 
 
 To a primitive Christian an altar was a structure besmeared 
 with blood, reeking with burnt carrion, and a sacrifice was 
 more than a mere symbol, it was an actual feeding of 
 devils. 
 
 The heathen thought that the sacrifices supplied the gods 
 with their daily breakfasts, dinners, and suppers. Aristo- 
 phanes, in the " Birds," tells us how, when the birds built 
 their Cloud-cuckoo-city in the heavens, it intercepted the 
 oblations to the gods ; and he sa}s that the Northern gods 
 squeaked with hunger, because they did not receive their 
 accustomed breakfast of hashed entrails. The primitive 
 Christians did not deny the existence of the gods, but 
 
THE ALTAR. 377 
 
 asserted that they were devils who arrogated to themselves 
 the worship due to the Creator, and they also believed that 
 the sacrifices actually nourished and fattened these demons. 
 So Origen and other Christian writers speak of the devils as 
 hovering round the sacrificial altars, snuffing in the scent of 
 the roast meat and frying bones on them. And they believed 
 that by abstention from sacrifice, the devils might be starved 
 out. 
 
 This conception of the altar and the oblations on it is to us 
 so extraordinary that we cannot at once realise it, but till we 
 do, we cannot understand the force of the argument of the 
 Apologists, who, having this idea in their minds, contend 
 against demon-worship, and declare that the true God does 
 not need sacrifices and altars, " If I be hungry, I will not tell 
 thee ; for the whole world is Mine, and all that is therein. 
 Thinkest thou that I will eat bull's flesh, and drink the blood 
 of goats ? Offer unto God thanksgiving ; and pay thy vows 
 unto the Most Highest" (Ps. 1. 12-14). These words of 
 Asaph form the text of their diatribe against idol and devil 
 worship, and on the purity of the worship to be given to God. 
 
 When they mention the first-fruits. Bread and Wine, 
 offered in the Eucharist, they are careful to explain that 
 these are not given to God because He needs food, but as 
 symbols of the produce of the earth. The Christian House of 
 Worship had no likeness whatsoever to a Temple ; the Chris- 
 tian sacrifice, which was unbloody and commemorative, was 
 radically different from a sacrifice such as was offered by the 
 pagans, and the Lord's Table had nothing in common with 
 an altar fetid and bloody. 
 
 The Apologists insist on spiritual worship, on the oblation 
 of the soul to God, on the sacrifice of prayer, and of a good 
 life. But when they so do, they do not necessarily exclude 
 the idea of public worship and Eucharistic offering. The 
 view that the best of sacrifices is spiritual is one that neither 
 an Orthodox Eastern nor a Latin Catholic would refuse to 
 
378 J OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 admit at the present day ; what they would refuse to admit 
 would be that such a sacrifice was exclusive of sacramental 
 oblation and worship. The onl}' Apologist who asserts that 
 he w ill hold nothing back is Justin Martj-r, and he does give 
 a description of the liturgy. The others do not profess to do 
 more than proclaim the broad principles of Christianity. 
 Origen insists on there being esoteric teaching, which he does 
 not reveal. Cclsus had charged the Christians with declaring 
 their doctrines in the market-places to slaves, and hucksters, 
 and all kinds of rabble. Origen retorts that the Christians 
 are forbidden to do more than give milk to babes, and that 
 onl}- the \cr)- elements of Divine Truth are offered to such as 
 are ignorant and incapable of receiving the full revelation of 
 the mystery of the Gospel. 
 
 If, with some Protestant controversialists, we allow that 
 the words of Minucius Feli.x, Origen, Clement of xAlexandria, 
 &c., exclude all sacrificial worship, we are left to face the 
 difficulty that we have collateral evidence showing that such 
 worship did exist in the Church. 
 
 A similar case to that of temples, and altars, and sacrifices 
 is that of holy seasons. 
 
 Origen says : "Those are blind in their minds indeed, who, 
 in ignorance of God, give themselves to temples, and images, 
 and so-called sacred seasons" (Adv. Cels. iii. c. 'jy). An 
 argument might be drawn from this that the earl\- Christians 
 did not observe sacred times, festivals, seasons, and days. 
 But we know from other sources that they did, — they observed 
 both the Lord's Day, the Sabbath, and the annual com- 
 memoration of the Death and Resurrection of Christ. Sacred 
 seasons in a pagan sense meant one thing, in a Christian 
 sense meant another. In a pagan sense they meant the orgies 
 of the Thesmophoria, and the like, grotesque, obscene, and 
 disorderly. Such as these \\cre unknown to Christian wor- 
 ship, and dissonant with it. 
 
 When we speak now of a Christian altar, we give it a title 
 
THE ALTAR. 379 
 
 that has changed its signification wholly. An altar to a 
 pagan was the bar at which the gods were served with their 
 victuals. An altar in the Christian acceptation of the term 
 is something radically different. The Jewish altar was unlike 
 in theory to the pagan altar. It was not a place at which the 
 gods were fed ; a sacrifice was offered on it, but this sacrifice 
 was prospective, it looked forward to the Lamb of God, who, 
 by His death on the Cross, would put away the sins of the 
 world. The Grund-idct\ as the Germans would term it, the 
 root-conception, was different. Christ came, and died on the 
 Cross. In the Holy Eucharist we have the continued 
 memorial of that death— that sacrifice, and a continual plead- 
 ing of it. Consequently, in the same way as the Jewish altar 
 was an altar, in that it foreshadowed the One Sacrifice, so is 
 the Lord's Table an altar, in that it is retrospective to that 
 same One Sacrifice. That One Sacrifice radiated into the 
 past, and made efficacious and sacrificially characterised all 
 the oblations in the Temple court, and it radiates into the 
 future, and gives efficacy and sacrificial character to every 
 Eucharist celebrated to the end of time. 
 
 If Ca^cilius had asked Octavius, " Have you Christians no 
 offerings, no oblations made to God ? " his friend would 
 most assuredly have replied, " None in the sense you give to 
 them. Our God requires nothing that we can give, for He is 
 the Creator and sustainer of all things ; sacrifice of blood is 
 abolished, but the oblation of the pure offering and of prayer, 
 as was prophesied by Malachi, has taken its place." 
 
 The idea which the primitive Christians opposed to the 
 bloody altars was that of the altar of incense. They did not 
 themselves offer incense, but regarded it as symbolical of prayer 
 and praise. They adopt the title of altar of incense, as 
 designative of the Christian altar, or of the church where 
 prayer is offered. The word they employ is Thnsiasterion. 
 It is found in the evangelists (Matt. v. 23, 24; Luke i. 11), 
 employed for the altars of incense and burnt-sacrifice. In 
 
380 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews (xiii. 10) it is applied to the 
 golden altar of incense. S. Ignatius uses the word frequently 
 in his epistles. All the passages are quoted in the Appen- 
 dix (iv.). He employs it, however, sometimes in the broad 
 sense of " place of sacrifice," and evidently means the be^na 
 or chancel of the church, the place that contained the Lord's 
 Table, and where the oblation was made. Elsewhere he 
 applies it to widows, because their hearts smoke with 
 devotion. 
 
 In one sense the Church had no altar, in another sense it 
 had ; and when an Apologist denies to a heathen that the 
 Christians have altars, he naturally denies that they have 
 them in the only sense understood by a heathen. 
 
 In the 3rd (2nd) Canon of the Apostles, the word TJiusias- 
 terion is employed for the Christian Eucharistic Table, and 
 orders are given as to what ma}' and what ma}- not be offered 
 on it. It is the same in the " Apostolic Constitutions " (iv. 7). 
 
 "God," says Irena^us, "does not stand in need of our services, 
 yet He desires that we should render them for our own 
 advantage. Therefore, the Word gave the precept of making 
 oblations, not that He needed them, but that men might 
 learn to serve God. Thus He wills us to offer a gift at the 
 altar, frequently, and without intermission. The altar is in 
 heaven, to which our prayers and oblations are turned. The 
 Temple is there also."* We see that Irenaeus has in his 
 mind the pagan notion that the gods live on the sacrifice, 
 and he opposes it. God does not need what is given. Then 
 he goes on to show that the Temple is in heaven, and the 
 altar also, the prototypes of those on earth. The worship 
 offered here is received abo\c, the oblations given here are 
 presented on the heaven!)- altar. W'C have already quoted 
 the words of S. Methodius, who shows how that the Temple 
 and altar under the Old Dispensation foreshadowed the 
 
 * Adv. Ilxrcs. iv. c. i8. 
 
THE ALTAR. 38 1 
 
 Church and Lord's Table under the New, and how that the 
 Christian basihca and altar are figures in their turn of the 
 celestial temple, and of the heavenly altar which is before the 
 throne of God. 
 
 Certain Protestant controversialists have contended that in 
 the primitive Church no other notion of the Eucharist ex- 
 isted save as a Communion, and that there was no notion 
 that it was a sacrifice. We think that they mistake. A 
 Communion it was, a partaking of Christ, but that was not 
 all, it was also an oblation, a showing forth of the Lord's death, 
 just as the Paschal rite was a showing forth of the faith of the 
 Jew in the coming sacrifice of the true Lamb, by Whom 
 redemption from a spiritual Egypt was to be obtained, as well 
 as a partaking of the meal. The theology that overlooks the 
 truth that the celestial sanctuary contains an altar that sums 
 in itself the altar of burnt-sacrifice, the altar of incense, and 
 the table of the Bread of the Presence, fails to see the per- 
 manence and continuity of Divine revelation and operation. 
 In heaven we see all that was under the Law fulfilled, and the 
 Church on earth is a reflex of that in heaven, and through it 
 has relations with the Church of the fathers under the Old 
 Covenant. 
 
 But the Church on earth is more than a reflex of that in 
 heaven, it is one with it, as soul and body constitute one man. 
 The Word is in heaven, yet sounds in our earthly temples ; the 
 light of truth is in that land that needs and has no other light, 
 but it irradiates as well the whole Church below, and scintillates 
 in every creed, and prayer, and hymn. The sacrifice is above, 
 pleaded before the Eternal Father, yet it is pleaded here as 
 well, just as the sun is in heaven, yet is reflected in every 
 pool and dewdrop. In heaven the Lord Jesus is present, but 
 He is present also on earth, in the midst of adoring hosts 
 above, in the midst of His suffering saints below. In heaven 
 the house is full of the smoke of the mediatorial intercession 
 of Christ, and here on earth up-steams from every anxious 
 
iS2 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 heart and broken spirit in litany and prayer, the intercession 
 which is blended with and sanctified by the high priestly 
 mediation above. 
 
 Whatsoever was under the Old Covenant is in heaven, 
 fulfilled by Christ, and heaven and earth are bound up so 
 intimately in one, that what is done in heaven is done also 
 on earth. The altar above is reproduced in tens of thousands 
 of altars here, and the one priesthood there is communicated 
 to every priest throughout the world, without diminution, and 
 without loss to the giver. It is true that the Christian 
 Communion is a Paschal feast, but the Paschal feast involved 
 the Paschal sacrifice, and so the Eucharist is a memorial of 
 the sacrifice of the death of Christ. It was instituted firstly to 
 be that, and secondly to be a communion, a means of grace, 
 of being joined to Christ, and through Him to all believers. 
 
 The Fathers, rejecting all savour of a bloody sacrifice, have 
 no scruple about speaking of the Eucharist as a sacrifice in 
 the other sense, they call it a " logic sacrifice" (^Ova-la XoyiK)}), 
 for the Logos is the Word of God, Jesus Christ. The word 
 " oblation " [irpocrcpopd) they employ of the offering of the 
 first-fruits, of alms, of bread and wine, but the sacrifice (^Ova-la) 
 refers with them to the Eucharistic consecration and oblation. 
 
 Both Ircna^us and Tertullian speak plainly enough about 
 the Eucharist as an offering before God ; Tertullian uses the 
 words sacrifice and altar {sacrificiimi and altare.) We. need 
 not, however, quote their words and crowd our pages with 
 them ; our object here is to point out the true signification of 
 the term altar, and the true interpretation of the Eucharist as 
 a sacrifice. If this were clcarl}' understood, there would be 
 more likelihood of those narrow prejudices which cloud the 
 mind, like the veil on the faces of the Jews in the reading of 
 the Scriptures, being done away. 
 
 When C;ecilius detailed before Minucius and Octa\ius his 
 objections to Christianit}', Octavius listened in surprise and 
 smiled, for Ciucilius was charging the Christians with beliefs 
 
THE ALTAR. 383 
 
 and acts and with a worship which were wide of the truth. So 
 with those controversaHsts who assail the faith of the Church 
 and her practice with regard to the Eucharist. If they can be 
 prevailed on to listen, and purge out of the heart the old sour 
 leaven of negation, they will come to see that the simple 
 Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist is no cunningly devised 
 fable or monstrous delusion. 
 
 The Magdeburg Centuriators in the sixteenth century pi'o- 
 pounded a theory of the Church that has held its ground for 
 three hundred years, and has found wide and enthusiastic 
 acceptance. 
 
 The theory may be briefly stated as follows : — 
 
 It supposes that the Church in the first age, as left by 
 Christ and the Apostles, was amorphous and inorganic, that 
 the entire system of ecclesiastical order, discipline, and wor- 
 ship, which we find fully complete in the third century, was 
 the rapid development, in two hundred years or less, out of 
 certain germs introduced into the Church from outside, but 
 not properly belonging to the Divine Institution, and indeed 
 contrary to the intention of the Founder. 
 
 It supposes the Apostolic Church, or rather, Apostolic 
 Christianity, to have been analogous to the condition of the 
 Universe on the first day of Creation, when light had indeed 
 broken forth in full effulgence, but shone on a world fluid, 
 formless, structureless ; or like that of a people in the most 
 rudimentary state of society, in which no institutions, social 
 or political, have appeared ; or, once more, similar to the 
 lowest type of life in the hardly vitalised Amoeba, a mass of 
 jelly in which the nerve-centres have not yet begun to 
 form. According to this theory, the Church did gradually 
 develop into an organism, but no such development was 
 designed by the Divine Founder, nor was called into 
 existence by the brooding Spirit ; and all such organism, all 
 such articulation and differentiation, was not development, but 
 corruption. In other words, God's ordering of the Church 
 
384 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 was exactly contrary to His law imposed on all that has life, 
 the law of upward progress and perfection of parts. 
 
 Protestantism seeks to reproduce the incoherent, inverte- 
 brate, acephalous Christianity which it assumes to have 
 existed in the first century. 
 
 That Christianity ever was incoherent, invertebrate, acepha- 
 lous, is what wc have good reason to doubt. The theory 
 that it was such repo.ses on not very solid grounds. 
 
 Some evidence is found, or is thought to be found, in the 
 earliest writers who speak of Christianity ; and there is cer- 
 tainly evidence that institutions did become more fixed as 
 time went on ; from whence it is argued that there were no 
 such institutions at the beginning, or that they were utterly 
 unlike what they ultimately became. 
 
 Let us briefly examine these points. 
 
 I. In the first age there are two or three testimonies at 
 the outside on which reliance is placed to establish the 
 doctrine that there was a period of liturgical barbarism and 
 ecclesiastical inorganism. These testimonies are Justin 
 Martyr, Pliny, and the Didache. 
 
 Justin was born about A.D. 103, converted in 133, wrote his 
 first Apology to the Emperor Antoninus Pius in 148, and died 
 a martyr in 165. 
 
 Justin gives an account of the Eucharist, which those who 
 take the amorphous view of primitive Christianity regard as 
 a complete and exact description of the liturgy in the second 
 century. 
 
 Justin wrote to the Emperor to clear the Christians of four 
 charo-es brought against them : i. Atheism ; 2. Sedition ; 
 3. Immorality ; 4. Cannibalism. 
 
 He shows the Emperor, without difficult)', that Christians 
 believe in God, are peaceable ; and that, so far from being 
 given over to uncleanness, they lead chaste lives ; then, in 
 order to clear away the charge of cannibalism, he is obliged 
 to enter at some length into the Christian belief touching the 
 
THE ALTAR. 385 
 
 Eucharist. He describes the Eucharist, but only sHghtly, 
 and mainly in its aspect as a communion ; and he lays stress 
 on the doctrine of the bread and wine being partaken of as a 
 memorial of Christ, and as representatives of His body and 
 blood. Out of this had grown the calumny against Christians, 
 that they ate real flesh and drank human blood. 
 
 Now it is obviously laying a stress on Justin's account it 
 was never meant to endure, to take this slight sketch as a 
 complete description of the primitive liturgy, and to argue 
 from it that, because it is slight, therefore the early liturgy 
 was structureless. Justin had no motive for writing a full 
 account ; he had, on the contrary, reasons for representing 
 the liturgy as something hardly coming up to the designation 
 of an act of worship, for the exercise of unauthorized worship 
 was a capital offence. 
 
 The next testimony on which reliance is placed is Pliny's 
 letter to Trajan, in which he tells the Emperor what he has 
 learned about the Christians by torture and from renegades. 
 His account is, as might be expected, from the way in which 
 he got his information, confused, and it is necessarily 
 incomplete. 
 
 The third testimony is the Didache, about which we have 
 already spoken. The Didache gives a short account of what 
 may, or may not be, the Eucharist ; but the Didache is clearly 
 a manual of rudimentary instruction and prayer — a sort of 
 primer — for the laity ; and in the second place, is certainly a 
 heretical composition, belonging to an Ebionite sect directly 
 sprung out of the Essenes, who substituted a sacred common 
 meal for participation in the sacrifices of the Temple at 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Now, so far as they go, all these testimonies do agree with 
 what we have shown was the original form of the liturgy, and 
 may be said to give in the rough what from other sources we 
 fill in in detail. They do not contradict the witnesses we 
 have for a very complete Eucharistic service in any degree ; 
 
 CC 
 
386 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 that they do not describe it fully is due to the circumstances 
 under which these witnesses were produced. 
 
 2. It is true that the Church did undergo development, 
 that the law that applies to all creation, to every human 
 institution, applied to her also ; that her discipline, organism, 
 faith, liturgy, became more articulated and differentiated, as 
 time progressed, and as circumstances admitted. But if we 
 suppose that this was all contrary to the will of the Founder 
 and the direction of the Holy Ghost, we are driven to very 
 startling consequences — we as much as declare that the 
 Founder built the Church as badly as the worst contractor 
 whose fabric goes to pieces through dry rot and friable 
 mortar as soon as finished ; and also that the Spirit given to 
 the Church, as its guide into all truth, brooded over general 
 decomposition, becoming more, and daily more, offensive, 
 instead of developing into perfection that life of which the 
 rudiments had been laid. 
 
 It is surely more consistent with what we know of the 
 course of Divine operation to suppose that the Church, when 
 it left the hands of the Creator, Christ, after the Great Forty 
 Days, was fully organized, only not fully grown, that every- 
 thing which afterwards appeared in it — the Ecclesiastical 
 Order, the Rule of Faith, the form of Liturgy — were con- 
 stituted to take full perfection of expansion and development 
 as time served and opportunity came ; also, that the Spirit of 
 Illumination, the Spirit of Truth, who was to serve as the 
 Guide and Paraclete, did so lead the hearts of God's faithful 
 people, that as every occasion came the corresponding 
 development appeared. 
 
 To such reformers as think otherwise, that all was wrong, 
 rotten, erroneous in the Church, from the sub-apostolic time 
 till the great outbreak in the sixteenth century, we may apply 
 the words of Tertullian to Marcion, " O Christ, most endur- 
 ing Lord, who didst bear so many years with this interference 
 with Thy revelation, until Marcion forsooth, came to Thy 
 
THE ALTAR. 387 
 
 rescue ! " * " An amender of the Gospel is he, forsooth, which 
 was all topsy-turvy, from the days of Tiberius till he appeared 
 — the moment so looked for by Christ, who was all along 
 regretting that He had been in such a hurry to send out His 
 Apostles before Marcion could come to His aid ! " f 
 
 * Adv. Marc i. c. 20. f J^l'id- iv. c. 4. 
 
 CC 2 
 
Chapter XXXVI. 
 
 THE UPPER CHAMBER. 
 
 THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS ON THE NIGHT OF THE INSTITUTION — 
 THE I4TH NISAN HAD BEGUN WHEN CHRIST ENTERED JERUSALEM— 
 THE COVENANT OF JUDAS MADE ON THE I3TH — CHRIST THE TRUE 
 PASCHAL LAMB— DIFFICULTY OF ACCOMMODATING THE ACCOUNT OF 
 THE INSTITUTION WITH THE PASSOVER — THE INSTITUTION REPRO- 
 DUCES SOME FEATURES OF THE PASSOVER — THE SEARCH FOR 
 LEAVEN — THE WASHING OF THE FEET— INTRODUCTORY TO A RELI- 
 GIOUS RITE— THE DISCOURSES — THE PRAYER — THE INVITATORY — 
 THE GREAT HALLEL AND THE CONSECRATION— ANOTHER INTER- 
 CESSION — COMMUNION — THANKSGIVING — DEPARTURE— WHY THE 
 GOSPELS OMIT SOME THINGS AND DETAIL OTHERS— CHRIST'S MONU- 
 MENT IS HIS CHURCH — THE MEMORIAL OF THAT NIGHT IN THE 
 UPPER CHAMBER IS THE EUCHARIST— EVERYWHERE THE LITURGY IS 
 ORGANICALLY ONE— CONCLUSION FROM S. CYPRIAN — CONCLUDING 
 PRAYER FROM LITURGY OF S. JAMES. 
 
 Let US now try to picture to ourselves the scene, and bring 
 up before us, in sequence, the events of the solemn night of 
 the Institution, 
 
 If, as we suppose, the sun had set when Christ entered 
 Jerusalem, and mounted the steps to the upper chamber of 
 the house where He was to institute the New Passover in His 
 own Blood, then, according to Jewish computation, the 14th 
 Nisan had already begun — the Day of the Preparation, on 
 which He, the true Lamb, was to die, that by His Blood 
 redemption might be obtained from the bondage of cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 The upper chamber was reached by steps from outside the 
 house of the man with whom the disciples had covenanted. 
 
THE UPPER CHAMBER. 389 
 
 The disciples, with Jesus, had been at Bethany, on the 
 Wednesday, 13th Nisan. He said, "Ye know that after two 
 days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of Man is 
 betrayed to be crucified." 
 
 On that same day " assembled the chief priests and the 
 scribes and the elders of the people unto the palace of the 
 high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted that they 
 might take Jesus by subtilty and kill Him. But they said, 
 Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the 
 people " (Matt. xxvi. 1-5). Therefore Judas agreed to betray 
 Him on the following day, the Day of the Preparation. So 
 Christ came into Jerusalem to the Betrayal on the evening of 
 the Thursday, and went after sun-down into the house pre- 
 pared, where the disciples intended to make ready the Pass- 
 over for the appointed night, the night of the ensuing day, 
 the beginning of the 15th Nisan. As the evening had closed, 
 the hour of the Mincha was over ; supper was prepared, the 
 last — the Lord's Supper, in the upper room, by lamp-light. 
 
 Was that supper, the Paschal ritual supper antedated .■• 
 That is a question that must be left unsolved. The writer, 
 in a former work, accepted the general Western belief that it 
 was ; * but further consideration has made him hesitate in 
 this conviction, because there is no evidence that this Western 
 belief is not of comparatively late growth, and also because 
 the difficulties in the way of holding it are very serious. The 
 Paschal lambs were slain on the afternoon of the 14th Nisan, 
 and there seems an evident fitness in Christ dying on the 
 Cross at the same time, on the same day, as the types were 
 slaughtered. Maimonides says, " The Paschal lamb was to be 
 slain in the outer court only, where the other sacrifices were 
 slain, on the 14th of the first month, in the afternoon, after 
 the usual sacrifice and that of incense " ; that is to say, 
 about half-past two or three, according to our time. More- 
 
 * "The Passion of Jesus," London, 1885, p. 29. 
 
390 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 over, according to Maimonides, that man was esteemed guilty 
 as of murder who slew the Paschal lamb elsewhere than as 
 aforesaid, along with all Israel, also if he anticipated the 
 sacrifice by a day, and did not observe exactly the 14th Nisan * 
 It is quite true that Maimonides is a late writer (end of twelfth 
 century) ; but he certainly reflected traditional prejudice. 
 
 Be that as it may, it does not greatly affect our inquiry, 
 for the Eucharistic Institution was the New Passover, and 
 would be likely to reproduce, in some measure, the features 
 of the type. 
 
 Dr. Bickell, in an elaborate and masterly treatise, f has 
 argued that Christ did eat the Passover, and then, at the post- 
 Paschal ritual — drinking of the Cup of the Hallel, consecrated 
 the Eucharist ; but he has failed completely to do more than 
 show a remarkable coincidence between the Eucharistic 
 Prayer and the Great Hallel, which was sung at this supple- 
 mentary service. This we allow, but contend that, taking 
 the Eucharist as the Christian Passover, it would necessarily 
 reflect certain features of the old Passover. The new would 
 be an expansion of, an interpretation of, and a fulfilment of 
 the old. Now, though the Great Eucharistic Prayer does, to 
 a certain extent, follow the lines of the 135th Psalm, as we 
 have already shown, that Psalm belongs to the Morning Ser- 
 vice, and not to the Paschal rite. At the Passover there is a 
 commemoration of the wondrous works of the Lord, and 
 the Great Eucharistic Prayer is as well an amplification 
 and extension of that, forwards and backwards, backwards to 
 embrace Creation, and forwards to include Redemption. 
 
 Supper being ended, there was a pause. If that evening 
 were, as we believe, the beginning of the Day of the Prepara- 
 tion, then our Lord would seek the chamber with a light in 
 quest of leaven, and if any were found, put it away to be 
 burnt on the morrow. As this search for leaven had to be 
 
 * Maimon, Korban Pesach, cap. i. f Messe ii. Pascha, Mainz, 1872. 
 
THE UPPER CHAMBER. 39 1 
 
 made on the night of the I3th-I4th, it is not likely that Jesus 
 would have postponed His coming to the strange house till the 
 evening of the I4th-i5th. The search for and the putting 
 away of the leaven was part of the necessary preparation for 
 the feast. Supper was over, the Lord's Supper, of which 
 in after times the Agape was the representative. At what 
 time after sunset it took place we do not know. 
 
 Then, probably, our Lord took water, put off His two 
 mantles, took a towel and girded Himself, and washed the 
 disciples' feet. This was a symbolic act, perfectly under- 
 stood, as the opening of a religious service. The priests 
 washed their feet, putting the hands under the feet, before 
 they began the Services of the Temple, and this act of our 
 Lord showed plainly to His Eleven that they were about to 
 enter on some solemn religious act.* 
 
 Then our Lord gave His last discourse, which we have in 
 the Gospel of S. John. As the last Evangelist does not 
 mention the Institution, though he does the Last Supper, it 
 is not possible to be quite certain as to the sequence, but we 
 are probably not wrong in concluding that the discourse 
 immediately followed the Supper. 
 
 Christ also washed His disciples' feet. This was clearly 
 preparatory to something. As the Jews washed before a 
 sacrifice, and before partaking of the Passover, so Christ 
 washed His disciples' feet to show them the need of cleansing 
 before being present at His sacrifice, and partaking of the 
 Antitypal Feast. 
 
 Moreover, the discourse, or discourses, Christ gave, furnished 
 the precedent for those performances of the prophets which 
 became afterwards such a scandal at Corinth. 
 
 Christ's discourse was divided into several parts. It began 
 at the 31st verse of chap, xiii., and was interrupted several 
 times by questions from S. Peter, S. Thomas, S. Philip, and 
 S. Thaddaeus. 
 
 * See Appendix I. 
 
392 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 He began with a farewell to His Apostles. " Little child- 
 ren, yet a little while I am with you, ye shall seek Me ; and 
 as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come, so now 
 I say unto you." Then came an interruption from Simon 
 Peter, "Lord, whither goest Thou.'" When his question 
 had been answered, Jesus proceeded, " In My Father's house 
 arc many mansions — I go to prepare a place for you — and 
 whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." 
 
 Thomas thereupon broke in with the remark, " Lord, we 
 know not whither Thou goest ; and how can we know the 
 way.?" Then Philip asked a question. Next followed the 
 discourse on the vision of the Father, on the virtue of prayer, 
 and on the coming of the Paraclete. Then came the instruc- 
 tion on the Vine. 
 
 The fourth interruption came from Judas Thaddseus, who 
 said, " How is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and 
 not unto the world ? " The answer was triple : First, Christ 
 said, by obedience to My law ; secondly, by the instruction 
 of the Paraclete; thirdly,by My peace, which I will shed abroad 
 in the hearts of the faithful. 
 
 After Christ had instructed His Apostles, He laid aside 
 His prophetic, to assume His intercessory, priestly function. 
 He lifted up his eyes to heaven, and prayed. The 17th 
 chapter of S. John's Gospel contains this prayer. 
 
 The prayer began with an introduction. Christ prayed that 
 He might be glorified ; then, between the introduction and 
 the close, three things were specially desired by Christ. He 
 prayed that the truth might prevail, that the chosen might be 
 sanctified, and that they might be kept in Unity. 
 
 This prayer, as we have already noticed, recalls one in the 
 Morning Service of the Synagogue, derived from the use in 
 the Temple. It finds its counterpart in the liturgies in 
 the Prayer for Peace and the Litany of Intercession. 
 
 S. John passes over the Institution as something with the 
 details of which every Christian was familiar. W'c ma\' sup- 
 
THE UPPER CHAMBER. 393 
 
 pose that then Jesus brought bread and wine, mingled the 
 cup, and placed them on a table that perhaps stood before 
 them, where they were seated, and began the familiar invita- 
 tory to praise. Thereupon, all rose ; and when he 
 recited how the Cherubim and Seraphim, and all the heavenly 
 host, laud and glorify God, then the Eleven raised their voices 
 in the well-known strain of " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of 
 Hosts." 
 
 Now they knew to what He had called them — it was to the 
 Morning Prayer. They continued standing, and heard Him 
 begin the great Psalm of Praise and Glory to God for all His 
 wondrous works, great and magnifical, Who by His excellent 
 wisdom made the heavens. Who stretched out the earth above 
 the waters. Who made great lights. Who smote Egypt with 
 their first-born, and brought out Israel from among them, 
 with a strong hand and a stretched out arm ; Who divided 
 the Red Sea, and led the people through the wilderness ; Who 
 smote great Kings, and gave their land for an heritage unto 
 Israel His servant ; Who remembered man in his low estate, 
 and gave food to all flesh. Thereupon, Christ took the 
 Bread, and blessed it, raising it, and lifting up His 
 eyes to heaven. He laid His hand on the Bread, and brake, 
 and said, " Take, eat, this is My Body," 
 
 Then He took the Cup of mingled wine and water, and 
 raising it. He looked up to heaven, and blessed, and laid His 
 hand on the Cup, and said, " This Cup is the New Testament 
 in My Blood, which is shed for you. Verily I say unto you, 
 as often as ye eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup, ye do 
 show forth My Death till I come." 
 
 Then He distributed among His wondering disciples. 
 
 That before He distributed, after the Great Prayer of 
 Praise, Our Lord again prayed for His disciples, is most 
 probable, and this would account for the introduction of the 
 Great Intercession at this place in all the liturgies. 
 
 After the Communion came the Hymn of Thanksgiving, 
 
394 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 probably also a Benediction, and then the break-up and de- 
 parture for Gethscmane. 
 
 We can hardly doubt that the discourse of Our Lord, pre- 
 vious to the Institution and after the Supper, gave occasion 
 to the prophecies and exhortations which were allowed in the 
 first century between the Agape and the celebration of the 
 Eucharist. Afterwards, when the Agape was abolished, and 
 the Pro -Anaphora grafted on to the Eucharist, it served the 
 same purpose, as the authority for the sermon that preceded 
 the Great Entrance. 
 
 We can imagine the scene. The seven-nozzled Sabbatical 
 lamp was lighted over the table, and the }-ellow light fell on 
 the Saviour as He stood at the linen-covered table, and the 
 Eleven surrounded Him, standing, looking on in wonder, 
 familiar with much that He said, able to respond when He 
 led up to a well remembered h\-mn or verse, but perplexed 
 at the significance of the new rite imported into the ordinary 
 Morning Prayer — a rite strangely like the Passover, and yet 
 in some mysterious and inexplicable way different. Every 
 act, every gesture, almost every word, stamped itself on their 
 memory. 
 
 The Gospels were not committed to writing till the Church 
 was organised, had spread widely, and her worship was pretty 
 well fixed. And they were written in such a manner as to 
 give full details concerning those things that were transitory, 
 and to pass over such others as were by their nature per- 
 manent, as things speaking for themselves. I-^or instance, 
 the incidents of the birth, and death, and resurrection were 
 transitory ; they had occurred within the memory of the 
 Evangelists, or of men with whom they had talked, and from 
 whom they had learned all particulars. These events had 
 passed into history, and every year that elapsed made them 
 more remote, and therefore made it more necessar}' that a 
 well authenticated record of these historical and not to be 
 repeated events should be made. So also with the words of 
 
THE UPPER CHAMBER. 395 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ. It was of paramount importance 
 that they should be preserved unaltered. 
 
 But it was otherwise with things of the second class, those 
 which by their nature were to be permanent. Thus, every- 
 thing connected with the government of the Church, the 
 conduct of the sacraments, the mode of divine worship — these 
 things were not recorded, there was no need to record them. 
 The Church was to be a permanent institution, her officers 
 were to be continued in succession to the end of time, and 
 the sacraments to be administered, if not daily, at all events 
 weekly. 
 
 When the Gospels were written, the Church was an 
 organised kingdom, its officers in place and knowing their 
 several functions, and the liturgy perfectly familiar to every 
 believer. There was absolutely no need for the Evangelists 
 to write about these constant and rooted institutions ; accord- 
 ingly the fact that, in the Great Forty Days after the 
 Resurrection, Christ was instructing His Apostles in the 
 Constitution of His Church, how it was to be governed, 
 what it was to be taught, what faith to profess, what sacra- 
 ments to minister, and how divine worship was to be carried 
 on, what was to be held to, and what allowed free — all this 
 is passed over by the Evangelist, with the words. He was 
 "seen of them (the Apostles) forty days, speaking of the 
 things pertaining to the Kingdom of God " (Acts i. 3). 
 
 If we want to know what was the life of Sir Christopher 
 Wren, we look to the biography of the great man, but if we 
 want to know what was his work, we take the motto of his 
 tomb, " Circumspice," and contemplate S. Paul's Cathedral. 
 
 So, if we want to know what was the life, and what were the 
 words of the Saviour, we go to the Gospels, but if we desire 
 to learn what He did, what He created, we look at the 
 Catholic Church.* 
 
 * See Biidgett, " In Spirit and in Truth," London, 1869. 
 
396 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 If we want to know what took place in that most 
 solemn night before He died, what were His prayers, 
 His thanksgivings, His very gestures of hand and eye, 
 what was the vesture He wore, we obtain an answer — an 
 answer from every Church throughout the world, from 
 North and South, from East and West, from the tundras 
 of Siberia to the pepper swamps of India, from the seven- 
 hilled Rome to the mountains of Abyssinia, from stately 
 Seville, from marble Milan, to the mud chapels of the 
 Khurdish shepherds — and that answer comes to us from the 
 liturgies. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, we will take the words of S. 
 Cyprian to C?ecilius : " In offering the Cup, the tradition of 
 the Lord must be observed, and nothing be done by us but 
 what the Lord first did on our behalf There is no reason 
 for any to follow strange customs, for we must enquire whom 
 they follow [who introduce them.] For if in the sacrifice that 
 Christ offered, none is to be followed but Christ, assuredly it 
 behoves us to obey and do that which Christ did, and what 
 He commanded to be done, since He Himself says in the 
 Gospel, ' If ye do whatsoever I command you, henceforth I 
 call you not servants, but friends.' Therefore, if Christ alone 
 must be heard, we ought not to give heed to what another 
 before us may have thought was to be done, but what Christ, 
 who is before all, did first. The discipline of all religion and 
 truth is overturned, unless what is spiritually prescribed be 
 faithfully observed. Therefore, it befits our religion, and our 
 fear, and the place itself, and the office of our priesthood, to 
 keep the truth of the Lord's tradition, and, at the warning of 
 the Lord, to correct that which seems with some to have been 
 erroneous, so that when He shall come in the brightness of 
 His heavenly Majesty, He may find that we keep what He 
 admonished us, that we observe what He taught, that we 
 do what He did. Farewell." 
 
 " From glory to glory advancing, we hymn Thee, O 
 
THE UPPER CHAMBER. 397 
 
 Saviour of our souls. From strength to strength advancing, 
 having accomplished the Divine Liturgy of Thy Temple, we 
 pray Thee vouchsafe us Thy abundant mercy, rightly divide 
 our paths, root out of us all fear, and count us worthy of 
 Thy heavenly kingdom." — Lit. of S. James. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. — The Washing. 
 
 A difficulty exists in fixing the time at which Our Lord 
 washed the feet of the Apostles. Tischendorf, in his "Synopsis 
 Evangelica," § 145, regards it as having taken place at the 
 commencement of the evening, and connects it with S. Luke 
 xxii. 24-30, where the Apostles are said to have striven among 
 them which of them should be accounted the greatest. The 
 words of S. John are ScIttvov yevofxivov (xiii. 3), which 
 may be rendered " during supper (time)." Mr. Ham- 
 mond, in a letter to the author, says, " My idea is something 
 of this kind — the little company having walked to the guest 
 chamber, the regular thing, according to Jewish custom, 
 would be that their feet should be washed. Ordinarily, this 
 would be done by the servants. But as they had no servants, 
 the duty would devolve naturally upon one of themselves. 
 They all tried to decline this menial task. Hence, Jesus, to set 
 them an example of humility, rose from the couch, where He 
 had taken His seat, and Himself performed it. Then the 
 meal proceeded." 
 
 This explanation is very beautiful, but at the same time it 
 certainly seems from the wording of S. John, as if the wash- 
 ing took place after. For putting aside the passage quoted, 
 SeiTTvov yevojuevov we have in verse 4, " He riseth from 
 supper, and layeth aside His garments." eyeiperai e/c tov 
 ^e'nrvov, which implies that the meal was concluded. 
 
 If we look to the Institution as following the order of 
 
400 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Morning Prayer, then the washing would take place at the 
 beginning, in the place where the memorial of washing was 
 recited. 
 
 Again, according to Tertullian, the washing took place 
 after the Agape, which would indicate that the tradition of 
 the Church held that Christ's performance of the washing 
 took place after the Lord's Supper and before the Institu- 
 tion of the Eucharist. 
 
 Again, it would seem appropriate that Christ should 
 wash before the Institution, to show the necessity of puri- 
 fication before approach to the Christian Sacrament, just as 
 washing was required before approach to a Mosaic 
 sacrifice. 
 
 In the Liturgy of the "Constitutions " the washing comes 
 after the Kiss of Peace given among the faithful when the 
 catechumens, &c., have gone out. In the Roman Mass the 
 washing comes after the Prayer of Approach and the Invo- 
 cation of the Holy Ghost. It would seem that tradition is 
 all on the side of holding the washing to have taken 
 place after Supper and before the Institution. 
 
 II. — Leavened versus Unleavened Bread. 
 
 The case of leavened versus unleavened bread for the 
 Eucharist may be briefly summarised. 
 For Unleavened Bread. 
 
 1. If our Lord celebrated the Passover — the legal Passover — 
 on the evening of the I4th-i5th Nisan, and after this insti- 
 tuted the Holy Eucharist, then He most certainly did employ 
 «;^leavened bread ; for the use of leavened bread on that night 
 was not allowed. 
 
 2. If our Lord instituted on the night of the I3th-i4th, then 
 He had first complied so far with the Law's demands as to 
 eat first the Passover, though on the wrong night, antedating 
 
APPENDIX. 401 
 
 it SO as to finish with the institution of the Passover before 
 ordaining the new institution of the Eucharist. If so, he 
 would use unleavened bread, as an integral part of the legal 
 institution of the Passover. 
 
 3. If our Lord instituted on the night of I3th-I4th, it was 
 after the putting forth of all leaven out of the house, which 
 took place on that night, and therefore He would almost 
 certainly have unleavened bread only for the institution of 
 the Eucharist. 
 
 4. The substitution of the leavened bread for the unleav- 
 ened was due to the opposition of the Church to the Judaizing 
 tendencies of the Hebrew converts. 
 
 5. S. Paul (i Cor. v. 7) implies that the Eucharist was, at 
 the time at which he wrote, celebrated with the unleavened 
 wafer. 
 
 6. That,as soon as all danger of Judaizing ceased, the Church 
 reverted to unleavened bread. 
 
 7. The Synoptics state that the time of Unleavened Bread 
 had begun. 
 
 For Leavened Bread. 
 
 1. That the tradition of the Church in the first three 
 centuries was that Christ died on the 14th Nisan. That,. 
 therefore, He instituted on the night of 13th- 14th. 
 
 2. That the tradition of the Church in the first three 
 centuries was that Christ did not eat first the legal Paschal 
 Supper, antedated. 
 
 3. That leavened bread was allowed to be eaten on the 
 night of the 13th- 14th and was only forbidden for the 
 ensuing night. 
 
 4. That the Early Church everywhere employed leavened 
 bread ; and the Oriental Church does so still. 
 
 5. That there is no evidence of any change from un- 
 leavened to leavened bread, in opposition to Ebionite or 
 other heresy ; and that such a change is pure matter of 
 conjecture. 
 
 DD 
 
402 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 6. That, considering the temper of mind of the Early 
 Church, it would not have ventured to make such a change ; 
 its principle being to adhere exactly, in every particular, to 
 the Institution by Christ. 
 
 7. That the alteration from leavened to unleavened bread, 
 demonstrably took place in the 7th, or 6th century at earliest, 
 in the West, and that the unleavened bread did not become 
 general in the West till the loth century. 
 
 8. That this change was made through misapprehension. 
 It was supposed that the Early Church was in error in think- 
 ing that Christ died on the 14th Nisan. That He really died 
 on the iSth, and that therefore He instituted the Eucharist in 
 unleavened bread. Therefore, in order, most closely to adhere 
 to His institution, it was thought right to revert to unleavened 
 bread. 
 
 9. That the words of S. Paul (i Cor. v. 7) do not apply to 
 the Eucharistic bread. S. Paul's words may thus be para- 
 phrased : — 
 
 " The Paschal Lamb was slain, and then was eaten ; along with it, as 
 condiment, was unleavened bread ; so ; — 
 
 "Christ, our Paschal Lamb is slain ; let us also partake of Him, sacra- 
 mentally, and, in so doing, let us also bring as condiment, sincerity and 
 truth." 
 
 The Type.— The Lamb. 
 
 The Condiments, which were — 
 a. Bitter herbs. 
 ^. Unleavened Bread. 
 
 The Antitype {Objective).— Chnst . 
 
 {Subjective). — The Condiments are — 
 o. Penitence. 
 j8. Sincerity and Truth. 
 
 It will be seen that the drift of S. Paul's words is missed if 
 we apply the unleavened bread to the Eucharistic bread. 
 
 10. The words of the Synoptics that imply the beginning 
 of the days of unleavened bread include 14th Nisan, when the 
 leaven was put away, though the use of leavened bread on 
 that day was permissible for consumption. 
 
APPENDIX. 403 
 
 III. — Reconstruction of the Anglican Liturgy 
 ON Primitive Pattern. 
 
 In the Anglican Liturgy nothing essential is lost, unless we 
 consider the Invocation as essential, and that is implied by 
 the imposition of hands on the Gifts ; but if nothing essential 
 be lost, yet there has been displacement of parts, and a restora- 
 tion, without being revolutionary in the changes, is desirable. 
 The reformers had not, and at the time at which they worked 
 could not have, the knowledge which is in our possession ; 
 consequently their work was faulty in some particulars. The 
 Roman Liturgy is so likewise. It resembles a stained-glass 
 window that composed a complete and symmetrical figure, 
 fallen to pieces, and re-put together by an unintelligent 
 plumber. For the reconstruction of our Liturgy, if it be ever 
 taken in hand, which is much to be desired, the pattern 
 looked to must not be the disordered Roman Liturgy, but the 
 primitive type, as revealed by the earliest Oriental Liturgies. 
 
 In the suggested Reconstruction which is here appended, 
 some of the alterations subsequent to the Nicene Council 
 have been accepted, such as the insertion of the Creed in the 
 Pro-Anaphora. This has been accepted almost universally 
 by the Church. The Old Eucharistic Prayer has been con- 
 densed and crystallized into the Creed on one side, and into 
 the stray spars of the Proper Prefaces which might with 
 advantage be increased in number, though there existed but 
 few in the Gelasian and Gregorian Canon. 
 
 The place of the Prayer of the Veil ought to be indicated, 
 also that of the Kiss of Peace by a prayer for peace. 
 
 As the Anglican, with the whole Western Church, combines 
 the Consecration by the priest with the Institution record, the 
 Invocation should precede the Canon, but it would be well to 
 retain the remains of the Oblation and Exomologesis, and 
 supply the Anamnesis, which has been lost also. The Lord's 
 Prayer should be returned to its proper place. 
 
 DD 2 
 
404 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Preparation. 
 
 Old Litany of Inter- 
 cession. 
 
 Lections. 
 
 Great Eucharistic 
 
 Prayer. 
 Psalmody, 
 Sermon. 
 Dismissals. 
 Great Entrance. 
 Prayer of Veil. 
 Kiss of Peace. 
 
 Old Litany and Col- 
 lect OF Interces- 
 sion. 
 
 Epiklesis (a). 
 
 Sursum Corda. 
 
 Preface. 
 
 Great Eucharistic 
 Prayer. 
 
 Sanctus. z 
 
 Institution. ^-^ 
 
 Anamnesis. (j 
 
 Oblation. 
 
 ( Our Father. 
 
 ( Almighty God, the Fountain of all Wisdom. 
 
 Commandments, with ten Kyries. 
 
 Prayer for Queen. 
 
 Collect or Collects for day. 
 
 Epistle. 
 
 Gospel. 
 
 Creed of NicKa.* 
 
 (Psalm or Hymn.) 
 
 Sermon. 
 
 (Exit of Non-Communicants.)t 
 
 Offertory. 
 
 (Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings.) X 
 
 (O God, who art the author of peace and lover 
 
 of concord.") § 
 Church Militant Prayer, and Memorial of the 
 
 Dead. 
 
 Epiklesis (6). 
 exomologesis. 
 Sancta Sanctis. 
 
 Preparation for 
 Communion. 
 
 Communion. 
 Post-Communion. 
 Thanksgiving. 
 Benediction. 
 
 (Invocation of the Holy Ghost. )|| 
 
 Lift up your hearts. 
 
 It is very meet, &c. 
 (Proper Prefaces, relics of Great Eucharistic 
 Prayer.) 
 
 Holy, holy, holy. 
 
 Institution and Consecration. 
 
 (Wherefore mindful of, &c.) ^ 
 
 We, Thy humble servants, entirely desire. . . . 
 Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the 
 inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit. 
 [O Lord and heavenly Father. 
 
 And although we be unworthy. 
 
 Ye that do truly. 
 /'Confession and Absolution. 
 \ Prayer of Humble Access. We do not pre- 
 I sume. 
 V Lord's Prayer. 
 
 Communion. 
 
 Almighty and ever-living God. 
 
 Gloria in excelsis Deo.** 
 
 The peace of God, which passeth. 
 
 * The Creed is really the Great Thanksgiving Prayer, which was a psalm-like 
 version of the Rule of Faith, reconverted into a Rule of Faith, and translated to 
 the Mass of the Catechumens. It found its way into the Roman Liturgy only in 
 the middle ages. It was not in that of Gelasius and Gregory. 
 
 f The exit of non-communicants is not ordered in the Anglican Liturgy, but is 
 
APPENDIX. 405 
 
 IV. — EUCHARISTIC NOTICES IN 'IHE EARLY FATHERS. 
 
 I. S. Clement of Rome. 
 
 Clement, the friend of S. Paul, was bishop of Rome 
 after Anacletus. S. Paul mentions him in Phil. iv. 3. He wrote 
 a letter to the Church of Corinth in the name of the 
 Church of Rome, to exhort to peace, as divisions had arisen, 
 and the Corinthians had expelled some of their presbyters. 
 In the letter he treats of the evils produced by envy, then 
 exhorts to repentance, to hospitality, and to humility. He 
 urges the Corinthians not to give ear to seditious members 
 of their society, and to be careful to cultivate peace. He 
 goes on to bid those whom he addresses to remember that 
 Christ is coming again, and this leads to a digression on 
 the resurrection. In hope of this resurrection he exhorts 
 to purity and a gentle life, and to the practice of good works, 
 having God before their eyes, who Himself set us an example 
 of working. 
 
 Then comes a passage moulded on the Canon, or Rule of 
 Faith, which is one with the Eucharistic Thanksgiving (c. 33). 
 
 Canon : — The Creator and Lord of all rejoices in His works. By His 
 infinitely great power He made the heavens, by His incomprehensible 
 
 matter of custom. The English Church nowhere orders the expulsion of earnest 
 behevers who do not feel themselves worthy to receive every time the Eucharist is 
 celebrated, but at the same time hardly can desire to see the careless, the 
 indifferent livers, the insincere, those without true convictions, present during the 
 sacrifice. 
 
 X A more appropriate Collect for the Prayer of the Veil might be composed, or 
 one taken from an ancient liturgy. 
 
 § Some recognition of the place formerly occupied by the Pax is advisable. The 
 introduction at this place of the Prayer for Peace from Mattins would answer the 
 purpose. 
 
 II As the Consecration is a combined act in the Western Church, this is the 
 place for the Invocation on the Gifts, and later on that on the communicants. 
 
 ^ The Anamnesis, which is universal in the Church, should be restored. 
 
 ** As the Gloria in Excelsis is a late introduction, this place would do well 
 for it, though in the liturgies it usually comes at the beginning of the Pro- 
 Anaphora. 
 
406 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 wisdom He adorned them. He divided also the earth from the water 
 that surrounds it ; and fixed it on the immutable basis of His will. 
 By His word He called into being the animals that are on it. So like- 
 wise, when He had formed the sea, and the living creatures therein, He 
 bounded them by His power. Above all, with holy and undefiled hands* 
 He formed man, the chiefest of His creatures, truly great through the 
 understanding given him — the express likeness of His image. . . Having 
 finished these things He approved them, and said. Increase and multiply. 
 We see then how the Lord, adorning Himself with His works, rejoiced,t 
 and all righteous men are adorned with good works also." 
 
 Clement at once goes on by an abrupt transition (c. 34) : — 
 
 Preface and Sanctus :— " Let us consider the whole multitude of 
 His angels, how they stand ready to minister to His will. For Scripture 
 saith. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him, and thousand 
 times of thousands ministered unto Him, and cried, saying — 
 
 Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Sabaoth ; all Creation is full of 
 His glory. 
 
 Let us therefore conscientiously, uniting together in one (o-waY^ti'Tts 
 €7ri TO avTo+) cry to Him heartily, as with one mouth, that we may be 
 made partakers of His great and glorious promises ; as is said, "Eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the 
 things which He hath prepared for them that wait for Him." § 
 
 Here we have an allusion to the Canon, leading in the 
 writer's mind to the thought of the harmony there is in the 
 Angel choirs, whereat he paraphrases the Preface, and this 
 leads on to a quotation which the Fathers apply in two 
 senses : ist, to the Mystery of the Eucharistic ; then 2nd, 
 to the Eternal blessedness, of which we are made heirs 
 through participation in the Eucharist. This passage is used 
 by S. Paul as a quotation (i Cor. ii. 9). Clement also quotes. 
 It probably occurred in some Jewish liturgical praj-er, which 
 
 * An Eucharistic expression found in all forms of the Institution. 
 
 \ An allusion to an expression in the Canon of the Liturgy of the "Constitutions." 
 Thou hast made man — as the adornment of the world." 
 
 \ iirl rb aiirb is a term often employed by the Fathers to designate the place of 
 asscmV)ly for the Eucharist, See Probst, p. 43-65. 
 
 § Neale, in his Liturgical Essays contends that .S. Paul quoted from the 
 Liturgy of S. James. This does not follow. He may have (]uoted from a 
 Jewish formula. 
 
APPENDIX. 407 
 
 was taken on into the Eucharistic Canon, where it is found 
 in many liturgies. 
 
 Then Clement proceeds (c. 35) : — 
 
 " How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the Gifts (8a)pa) of God ! 
 Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in perfect confi- 
 dence, faith in assurance, self-control in holiness." 
 
 We quote this only because he again uses a term which is 
 of general application to the Eucharist (cf. John iv. 10). 
 S. Clement goes on to liken Christ to a leader in an army, 
 and to show how that as soldiers in an army have to obey 
 their officers, so must the members of the Church submit to 
 those set over them. He says next (c. 40) : — 
 
 " It behoves us to do all things in order, which the Lord has com- 
 manded us to perform at stated times. He has enjoined offerings [to be 
 made] and' service to be tendered, and that not thoughtlessly and 
 irregularly, but at appointed times and hours. Where, and by whom, 
 He desires these things to be done, He has Himself fixed by His will, 
 that all things may be piously performed according to His good pleasure, 
 and so be acceptable to Him. 
 
 " Those, therefore, who present their oblations at the appointed times, 
 are accepted and blessed ; they sin not, for they follow the ordinance 
 of God. 
 
 " For [of old] the high priest had his own special services, and the 
 priests their own, and the Levites also theirs. The layman is bound by 
 laws pertaining to laymen. 
 
 " Let every one of your brethren give thanks {evyapLcneiro) to God 
 [therefore] in his proper order." 
 
 The argument of S. Clement here deserves attention. He 
 is still exhorting the unruly Corinthians to submit to their 
 clergy, against whom they have revolted. After the exhor- 
 tation, based on the general order of Creation, and the order 
 maintained by the angels in heaven, he shows that God 
 appointed order and differentiation of offices in the Church. 
 It was so, he shows, under the Old Covenant, how much more 
 so under the New Dispensation And as at first, there were 
 — a high priest, priests, Levites ; and these had set places 
 
408 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 and times for performing service, and their several functions, 
 so is it in the Church. 
 
 " The Apostles preached the Gospel to us by command of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ [were sent] from God. Christ was sent by God. The 
 Apostles were sent by Christ. Both appointments were orderly. Hav- 
 ing received their orders . . . the Apostles went forth. . . . They also 
 preaching in countries and cities, appointed the first-fruits [of their 
 labours] to be bishops and deacons of those who should believe." 
 
 " The Apostles appointed these, and gave them instructions that, when 
 they were about to fall asleep, other approved men should succeed 
 them in their ministry " (c. 42). 
 
 On this Clement founds a fresh argument against the dis- 
 orderly conduct of the Corinthians (c. 44). 
 
 " Such men cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry (AetTox'/syms). 
 Our sin will not be small, if we eject from the Episcopate those who 
 have blamelessly and holily offered the Gifts (-pocrereyKorTas to. ^wpa)." 
 
 S. Clement goes on to show that the righteous will be 
 persecuted in this life, but that their persecutors are of the 
 Evil One, and that therefore his hearers should be careful to 
 cleave to tlie righteous and avoid worrying them. This leads 
 him to the positive side of his argument, an appeal to 
 brotherly love, which love he illustrates by examples. Then 
 comes a reference to the trayers FOR penitents. 
 
 " Let us pray for those who have fallen into any sin, that meekness and 
 humility may be given them, that they may submit, not to us, but to God's 
 will. 
 
 " These exhortations, by which we admonish one another, are good and 
 profitable " (c. 56). 
 
 Clement shows the disorderly Corinthians that their proper 
 place is that of penitents, over whom the deacon calls the 
 Bidding Prayer ; and having got the thought of this in his 
 mind, the conclusion of his epistle is full of echoes of the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 Litany of Interckssion : "We will ask with instancy (Litany) of 
 prayer and supplication (^alTrjaofieda, €kt£1'J} tt/i' Serja-iv Kal iKfcriav 
 
APPENDIX. 409 
 
 iroLovfievoL), that the Creator of the universe may guard intact to the end 
 the number that hath been numbered of His elect* throughout the whole 
 world, through His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, through whom He called 
 us out of darkness into light, out of ignorance to the full knowledge of the 
 glory of His Name. 
 
 Grant unto us, Lord, that we may set our hope on Thy Name — open 
 the eyes of our hearts, that we may know Thee, who alone abidest 
 Highest in the highest, Holy in the holy ; who humblest the insolence of 
 the proud, and scatterest the imagination of the Gentiles, who settest the 
 lowly on high, and bringest down the lofty, who makest rich and makest 
 poor, who killest and makest alive ; the Benefactor of spirits, the God of 
 all flesh, who lookest into the abysses, who scannest the works of man : 
 the Succour of them that are in peril, the Saviour of them that are in 
 despair, the Creator and Bishop of all spirits ; who niultipliest the nations 
 upon earth, and hast chosen out those that love Thee through Christ 
 Jesus, Thy beloved Son, through whom Thou dost instruct, sanctify, and 
 honour us. 
 
 We beseech Thee, Lord and Master, to be our Help and Defender. 
 
 Save those among us who are in Tribulation ; 
 
 Have mercy upon the Lowly ; 
 
 Raise up the Fallen ; 
 
 Show Thyself [a help] unto the Needy ; 
 
 Heal those that are Ungodly ; 
 
 Convert the Wanderers of Thy people ; 
 
 Feed the Hungry ; 
 
 Release the Captive ; 
 
 Raise up the Weak ; 
 
 Comfort the Faint-hearted ; 
 
 Make the Gentiles to know that Thou alone art God, and Jesus Christ 
 is Thy Son, and we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture. 
 
 Prayer of the Flock. — Thou, through Thine operation, didst 
 make manifest the everlasting fabric of the world. 
 
 Thou, O Lord, didst create the earth. 
 
 Thou art faithful throughout all generations, righteous in Thy judg- 
 ments, marvellous in strength and excellence, Thou art wise in creating, 
 provident in establishing that which Thou hast made. Thou art good in the 
 things which are seen, and faithful unto them that trust in Thee, pitiful and 
 compassionate ; forgive us our iniquities and our unrighteousness, and 
 our transgressions and shortcomings. 
 
 Lay not to our account every sin of Thy servants and Thine handmaids, 
 but cleanse us with the cleansing of Thy Truth, and guide our steps to 
 walk in holiness, and righteousness, and singleness of heart, and to do 
 such things as are good and well-pleasing in Thy sight and in the sight 
 of our rulers. 
 
 * Same expression, App. Const, viii. 22 ; and in the Roman Liturgy. 
 
4IO OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Prayer for Peace. — Yea, Lord, make Thy face to shine upon us in 
 Peace for our good, that we may be sheltered by Thy mighty hand, and 
 delivered from every sin by Thy uplifted arm. And deliver us from them 
 that h;ite us wrongfully. 
 
 Give peace and concord to us and to all that dwell on the earth, as 
 Thou gavest unto our fathers, when they called on Thee in faith and truth 
 with holiness, that we may be hallowed, while we render obedience to Thine 
 Almighty and Most Excellent Name, and to our rulers and governors on 
 earth. 
 
 Thou, Lord and Master, hast given them power and authority through 
 Thine excellent might, that we, knowing the glory and honour which 
 Thou hast given them, may submit ourselves unto them, in nothing resist- 
 ing Thy will. 
 
 Grant unto them, therefore, O Lord, health, peace, concord, stability, 
 that they may administer the government Thou hast given them, without 
 failure. For Thou, O heavenly Master, King of Ages, givest to the sons 
 of men glory, and honour, and power over all kings on earth. Do Thou, 
 O Lord, direct their council as is well-pleasing in Thy sight, that, adminis- 
 tering the power Thou hast given them, in peace, and gentleness, and 
 godliness, they may obtain Thy favour. 
 
 O Thou, who alone art able to do these things, and things far exceed- 
 ing good than these for us, we praise Thee, through Jesus Christ, the 
 High Priest and Guardian of our souls, through whom be glory and 
 majesty to Thee, both now and for all generations, for ever and ever. 
 Amen." 
 
 That this is an echo of liturgical offices can hardly be 
 questioned ; the form, the very words, are so similar to what 
 are found in every ancient liturgy. 
 
 Clement also makes a passing allusion to the PRAYER OF 
 Bowing Down ; in the liturgies, after the Lord's Prayer 
 and its supplement, the Embolismus, comes the prayer so 
 named. The Deacon calls, " Let us bow our heads to the 
 Lord," and the Priest prays, " To Thee, O Lord, we Thy ser- 
 vants have bowed our necks," &c. 
 
 S. Clement says (c. 63) : — 
 
 " Therefore it is right for us to bow the neck and take the place of 
 obedience beside those who are the leaders of our souls.'' 
 
 The drift of his words is this : — At the Eucharist the 
 celebrant prays for you when you have inclined the neck in 
 
APPENDIX. 411 
 
 submission — therefore in heart, as with head, submit your- 
 selves to these overseers of your souls. 
 
 He concludes with a BENEDICTION. 
 
 " May the All-seeing God and Master of Spirits, the Lord of all Flesh,* 
 who chose the Lord Jesus Christ, and us through Him for a pecuhar 
 people, grant unto every soul that is called after His excellent and holy 
 Name, faith, fear, peace, patience, Jong-suffering, temperance, chastity, 
 soberness, that they may be well-pleasing unto His Name through Jesus 
 Christ, our High Priest and Guardian, t through whom, unto Him, 
 be glory and majesty, might and honour, both now and for ever and 
 ever. Amen." 
 
 " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you and with all men, 
 in all places, who have been called by God, and through Him, through 
 whom be glory and honour, power and greatness and eternal dominion, 
 unto Him, from ages past and for ever and ever. Amen." 
 
 It is deserving of remark that the Collect just quoted has 
 the exact liturgical structure, which is in itself a reflex of the 
 Eucharistic Canon, i. Ascription of honour to God. 2, Me- 
 morial of His goodness. 3. Intercession. 4. Doxology. 
 
 II. S. POLYCARP. 
 
 Polycarp was born about A.D. 69, and was a disciple of the 
 Apostles, especially of S. John, who appointed him Bishop of 
 Smyrna. Irenaeus, who was the disciple of Polycarp, says of 
 him that "he was instructed by the Apostles, and was brought 
 in contact with many who had seen Christ." He died a 
 martyr's death in A.D. 155. We have of him one epistle 
 written to the Philippians, who seem to have asked the advice 
 of the Church of Smyrna with special reference to the 
 troubles caused by the Docetic heretics, who denied the 
 reality of Christ's body. He was a man of small intellectual 
 powers, but wonderfully tenacious of all he had received from 
 the Apostles. His short letter does not give much scope for 
 
 • Observe the repetition of this formula used before in the Litany of Intercession, 
 t Observe the repetition of this attribute, and also the close of this Benediction, 
 which is the same as that in the Prayer for Peace. 
 
412 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 mention of the Eucharist, and he docs not speak of it, as it is 
 addressed to practical duties and the resistance of heresy. 
 Nevertheless, there occurs an allusion to the Great Inter- 
 cession or to the Litany. 
 
 " Pray for all the saints, pray for the emperor also, and for potentates 
 and princes, and for them that persecute you and hate you, and for the 
 enemies of the Cross" (c. 12). 
 
 In the letter of the Church of Smyrna to the Church at 
 Philomclium, giving an account of his martyrdom, there are 
 one or two allusions that deserve quotation. 
 
 " He was engaged in nothing else night and day than praying for all 
 men, and for the Churches throughout the world, according to his 
 usual custom " (c. 5). 
 
 " Now, as soon as he had ceased praying, having made mention of all 
 that had at any time come in contact with him, both great and small, 
 illustrious and obscure, as well as the whole Catholic Church throughout 
 the world," &c. (c. 8). 
 
 These passages merely show that his private prayers were 
 modelled on the General Intercession. His prayer at the 
 stake also is precisely framed on the plan of all collects. It 
 begins with an attribution of praise to God, next recites what 
 He has done, then contains a supplication, and concludes with 
 a doxology. 
 
 III. S. Ignatius. 
 
 Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, next after Evodius, about 
 A.D. 70, was martyred in A.D. 107. Polycarp alludes to him in 
 His Epistle to the Philippians, and also to his letters. He had 
 certainly been a disciple of the Apostles. After his con- 
 demnation at Antioch, he was sent to Rome, there to suffer 
 in the fights with beasts. After a long voyage he reached 
 Smyrna, of which St. Polycarp was then bishop, and thence 
 he wrote his four l*4)istlcs to the Ephcsians, the Magnesians, 
 the Trallians, and the Romans. From Smyrna he came to 
 Troas, whence he wrote to the Philadelphians, the Smyrnneans, 
 
APPENDIX. 413 
 
 and to Polycarp. Of his genuine letters there exist two 
 versions, a longer and a shorter, and doubt has arisen as to 
 which is the genuine text. The controversy on this head has 
 been now finally settled by Bishop Lightfoot in his " Apostolic 
 Fathers." 
 
 The epistles of Ignatius were hortatory, against divisions, 
 and against heresies, and also concerning his own approaching 
 martyrdom. He gives the most decided and conclusive evi- 
 dence in favour of Episcopacy, as of Apostolic appointment, 
 but with this we have here nothing to do. His references 
 to the Eucharist, from the nature of the case, could only be 
 incidental. 
 
 In his Epistle to the Ephesians, he urges to harmony, and for 
 this end, he likens the orders of the Church to the strings of a 
 harp, some shorter, some longer, with the bishop, "joined to- 
 gether in concord and harmonious love, become one choir, so 
 that agreeing together in concord, ye may indeed be one in 
 harmonious feeling with God the Father and His Son Jesus 
 Christ, our Lord." 
 
 " I reckon you happy, who so depend on your bishop, as the Church 
 depends on the Lord Jesus, and as the Lord does on God and His 
 Father, that so all things may agree in unity. 
 
 " Let no man deceive himself. If any one be not within the sanctuary 
 (OvcnacrTr]p(,ov)* he is deprived of the Bread of God. For if the prayer 
 (7rpocr€u;)(7y) of one or two possess such efficacy that Christ stands in the 
 midst of them, how much more will the prayer of the bishop and of 
 the whole Church ascending in harmony to God, avail " (c. 5). 
 
 An exhortation to intercession for unbelievers is found in 
 Chap. X. Then after a word of praise of the Ephesians, he 
 says : — 
 
 "Take heed often to come together to give thanks and praise (els 
 evxapia-Tiav Beo{5 koX ei's 8o^av). For when ye assemble frequently in 
 the same place (IttI to avTo) the powers of Satan are destroyed, the 
 concord of your faith is their ruin" (c. 13). 
 
 * See above p. 379, and again in Ep. to Philad., c. 10. Thusiasterion, with 
 Clement, is the apse or betfia, where is the altar, redolent with the sacrifice. 
 
414 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Here we have Eucharistic Thanksgiving and the conven- 
 tional term for the Church assembly noticed before. 
 
 " I will again write to you, if the Lord make known to me that ye all 
 meet together in common, every individual of you, through grace, in one 
 faith, and in Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David according to the 
 flesh, both Son of Man and Son of God, so that ye obey the bishop and 
 the presbytery with undivided mind, breaking one and the same bread, 
 which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death [the 
 means] whereby we should live for ever in Christ Jesus " (c. 20). 
 
 To the Magnesians S. Ignatius wrote a word of counsel. 
 Their bishop was young, and he advised them not on that 
 account to despise him. 
 
 " As the Lord did nothing without the Father, so neither do ye anything 
 without the bishop and the presbyters — when ye come together into the 
 same place (€7rt to aiVo) let there be one prayer (Trpocrevxi]), one 
 supplication (So/crts), one mind, one hope, in love and joy undefiled. 
 There is but one Jesus Christ. Do ye therefore all run together as into 
 one Temple of God, as to one altar (dva-iaa-Ti'jpLov), as to one Jesus 
 Christ " (c. 7).* 
 
 He asks that both he and the Church that is in Syria may 
 be included in the intercessions of the Magnesian Church (c. 
 14). 
 
 To the Trallians he writes : — 
 
 " Continue in intimate union with Jesus Christ our God, and the 
 bishop, and the appointments (StuTay/xaTwv) of the Apostles. He who 
 is within the sanctuary (^Ova-iaa-Trjpcov) is pure, but he who is without is 
 impure ; that is, he who does anything apart from the bishop, and 
 presbytery, and deacons " (c. 7). 
 
 Here, as in other places, the "place of incense" is the apse or 
 sanctuary, where the bishop and the presbyters sit, and the 
 deacons minister ; and where there is the altar at which the 
 Bread of Life is given. If we hold this picture before our 
 eyes, the references in Ignatius are quite intelligible. 
 
 * Bishop Lifjhtfoot would read : " As to one shrine — even 10 God, and to One 
 Holy Place (the place of incense) — eren Christ, through whom access is had to the 
 Hcjly of Holies" (App. Pathers ii., sec. i, p. 122). 
 
APPENDIX. 415 
 
 He also solicits the intercession of the Trallian Church. 
 In his Epistle to the Romans there is an allusion, faint, yet 
 distinct, to the Eucharist as a sacrifice. He says that he 
 is about to be devoured by wild beasts, and so to offer him- 
 self as a sacrifice to God. He says : — 
 
 " I am the wheat of God, let me be ground by their teeth, that I may 
 be found the pure Bread of Christ." 
 
 Then he adds : — 
 
 " I have no delight in corruptible food — what I desire is the Bread of 
 God, the heavenly Bread, the Bread of Life, which is the Flesh of Jesus 
 Christ, the Son of God, who became of the seed of David and Abraham ; 
 also I desire to drink of God, namely. His Blood, which is incorruptible 
 love and eternal life " (c. 7). 
 
 He concludes — 
 
 " Remember in your prayers the Church in Syria, which now has God 
 for its Shepherd instead of me. Jesus Christ alone will oversee it ; and 
 your love " (c. 9). 
 
 In the Epistle to the Philadelphians he writes : — 
 
 "Take heed to have but one Eucharist. For there is but One Flesh 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one Cup into the unity of His Blood ; one 
 altar (^dva-Laa-Trjpiov) ;* as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery 
 and deacons, my fellow-servants " (c. 4). 
 
 The First Intercession and the Lections are 
 alluded to in the passage that follows. 
 
 " Your prayer to God shall make me perfect, that I may attain to that 
 portion which through mercy has been allotted me, whilst I flee to the 
 Gospel, as to the Flesh of Jesus, and to the Apostles^ as to the presbytery 
 of the Church. And let us also love the Prophets " (c. 5).t 
 
 In the longer version we have another passage to the same 
 effect, " All are good together, the Law, the Prophets, the 
 Apostles, the whole company of the believers " (c. 9). 
 
 * Or one sanctuary — i.e., the bema, where is the altar, with bishop and clergy 
 grouped about it. 
 
 f Again in Ep. to Smyrn. c. 5. 
 
4l6 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 In the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, Ignatius begins with a 
 brief paraphrase of the Rule of Faith, on which he bases an 
 argument against the Docetae, who denied the reality of 
 Christ's bod)'. He also says : — 
 
 "They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they 
 confess not that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, 
 who suffered for our sins, and was raised again by the Father " (c. 7). 
 
 " Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is [administered] either 
 by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the 
 bishop shall appear, there let the congregation be ; even as, wherever 
 Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church " (c. 8). 
 
 IV. The Epistle to Diognetus. 
 
 This remarkable letter to a heathen, on the vanity of idols 
 and on the superstitions of the Jews, and on the excellence 
 of the Christian faith belongs to a very early date. It speaks 
 of the Christian religion as new. There is only one passage 
 in which, in a strange metaphorical manner, the Eucharist is 
 referred to. The unknown author tells his heathen friend 
 that he cannot know more till he is brought under instruc- 
 tion in the faith. He alludes to the Lections of Law, Prophets, 
 and Apostles, and concludes with a passage already quoted 
 in the text of this book (p. 301). 
 
 V. Justin Martyr. 
 
 Justin was born in Flavia Neapolis, a city of Samaritan 
 Palestine, about A.D. 114. After having studied philosophy 
 and found that this meant payment of fees to professors, and 
 nothing got in return, he was converted, and died a martyr 
 A.D. 165. 
 
 Justin wrote two Apologies for Christianity, the first in A.D. 
 148, the second in A.D. i6i. He also wrote a Disputation with 
 Trypho, a Jew, and some addresses to the Gentiles on the 
 Vanity of Idols, and the abomination of the heathen 
 mythology. 
 
APPENDIX. 417 
 
 Justin was a stupid man, and quite incapable of arguing 
 logically and keeping to his point. His discussion with the 
 Jew, Trypho, is a marvel of absurdity. Where he is at his 
 best is in picking to pieces the heathen religion. However 
 mean his abilities were, he is an important witness, and great 
 stress has been laid on his account of the Eucharist, in his 
 Apology to Antoninus Pius, to show that in the second cen- 
 tury it had no great ceremonial development. This account 
 has already been given (p. 255-7), ^"^ its value discounted 
 (p. 284-5). 
 
 We will here quote all other passages in which he refers, 
 openly or covertly, to the Eucharist. 
 
 EucHARiSTic Thanksgiving : Short paraphrase. 
 
 " What sober-minded man will not allow that we are not atheists, when 
 he knovys that we worship the Maker of this miiverse — not with streams 
 of blood and libations and incense, but to the uttermost of our power by 
 the exercise of prayer and thanksgiving for all things wherewith we have 
 been supplied — with gratitude we offer thanks by solemn prayers and 
 hymns for our Creation, for the means of health, for the various qualities 
 of different kinds of things, for the changes of the seasons ; and present 
 before Him petitions for our existing again in incorruption through faith 
 in Him. Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who was born for 
 this, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and we reasonably worship Hira 
 who is the Son of God Himself" (I. Apol. c. 13). 
 
 EUCHARISTIC Oblation and Thanksgiving. 
 
 '• The offering of fine flour, which was prescribed to be presented on 
 behalf of those purified [by the Law], was a type of the Bread of the 
 Eucharist, the celebration of which our Lord Jesus Christ ordered in 
 remembrance of the suffering He endured for those who are purified 
 from iniquity, in order that we may at the same time thank Him for 
 having created the world, and all things that are therein, for the sake 
 of man, and for delivering us from the evil in which we were, and for 
 utterly overthrowing principalities and powers by Him who suffered after 
 His will. Hence God speaks by Malachi about your sacrifices : ' I have 
 no pleasure in you, saith the Lord, I will not accept your sacrifices at 
 your hands : for from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the 
 same, My name shall be glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place 
 incense is offered in My name, and of pure offering.' So, He speaks of 
 the Gentiles, that is of us, who in every place offer Sacrifices to Him, /.£■., 
 
 EE 
 
41 8 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 the Bread of the Eucharist, and also the Cup of the Eucharist, affirming 
 that, on the one hand, we glorify His name, and, on the other, that you 
 profane it" (Trypho, c. 41). 
 
 " God — Justin again refers to the prophecy of Malachi — anticipating 
 the sacrifices we offer in His name, according to the commandment of 
 Jesus Christ, i.e., in the Eucharist [the Sacrifice] of the Bread and the 
 Cup, and which are offered by Christians in all places throughout the 
 world, God [I say] bears witness that these are acceptable to Him. 
 But those that j'^« offer, and by those priests of yours. He utterly rejects, 
 saying, ' I will not accept sacrifices at your hands.' " 
 
 " Now I readily admit that prayers and thanksgiving, when offered by 
 worthy men, are the only perfect and well-pleasing sacrifices to God. 
 But these are they that Christians alone have undertaken to offer, and 
 that in the memorial represented by their solid and liquid food {i.e.., by 
 Bread and Wine) whereby the Passion of the Son of God is com- 
 memorated" (Trypho, c. 117). 
 
 VI. Atiienagoras. 
 
 A man of a very different order of mind from Justin was 
 Athenagoras the philosopher. It is a singular fact that his 
 name is hardly noticed by the early writers, yet he is by far 
 the ablest writer to be found among the Christian apologists 
 of the period. His Apology was addressed to the Emperors 
 Aurelius and Commodus about A.D. 177. Beside his Apology, 
 his only other extant work is one on the Resurrection — a 
 work of real value, clear, logical, and impressive. 
 
 In his Apology, Athenagoras combats the same charges 
 that Justin undertook to refute, i. Atheism. 2. Sedition. 
 3. Impurity. 4. Cannibalism. Ikit he does it in a far abler 
 manner. To explain the charge of cannibalism, Justin had 
 entered into an explanation of the doctrine of the Communion 
 of Christ's Flesh and Blood, which was held by Christians, 
 and on which the charge was founded. Athenagoras, seeing that 
 a heathen would not understand the distinction, and also 
 afraid to expose to blasphemers a mystery of the faith, set to 
 work to disprove the accusation in another way. The story 
 told of Christians was that they covered a child with flour, 
 then stabbed it, and when dead, ate it and drank its blood 
 
APPENDIX. 419 
 
 Athenagoras does not stop to show out of what this fable 
 grew, but he argues thus. Christians beheve in a resurrec- 
 tion of the body. Beheving in a resurrection, are they hkely 
 to eat human flesh, and thus stultify their faith ? 
 
 The only place in which he glances at the Eucharist is 
 this : — 
 
 "We are charged with Atheism, because we do not offer sacrifice. 
 Now, the Framer and Father of the world does not need blood, nor the 
 savour of burnt-offerings, nor the fragrance of flowers and incense, for as 
 much as He himself is perfect fragrance, having no need of anything 
 within or without. The noblest sacrifice to Him is for us to know who 
 stretched out and overarched the heavens, who fixed the earth in its 
 place, who gathered the waters into seas, and divided the light from the 
 darkness, who adorned the sky with stars, and made the earth to 
 produce seed of every sort, who made the beasts, and who fashioned 
 man. 
 
 When, regarding God as the Creator and the Preserver of all things, 
 and as He who superintends all things by His knowledge and adminis- 
 trative skill, we lift up holy hands to Him, what need has He of another 
 hecatomb ? 
 
 What have I to do with holocausts, of which God has no need ? — 
 Nevertheless we are bound to make oblation to Him of a Bloodless 
 Sacrifice and a Rational Service" (Apol. c. 13). 
 
 In this passage we have allusions to the Eucharist as the 
 Bloodless Sacrifice, a term continually applied to it by the 
 Fathers, as also the Rational or Logistic service. The up- 
 lifted hands with which the Great Thanksgiving was said are 
 also referred to ; Athenagoras paraphrases the commence- 
 ment of that great Act of Praise. Into what the Bloodless 
 Sacrifice was, he does not enter, as he is addressing the 
 heathen, showing more discretion than Justin. 
 
 In another place he refers to the Kiss of Peace, quoting in 
 so doing a saying of Our Lord, not found in the Gospels 
 (c. 32). 
 
 VII. S. IREN^US. 
 
 Irenaeus is believed to have been a native of Smyrna. He 
 himself tells us that he was in early youth acquainted with 
 
 EE 2 
 
420 OUR INHERITANCE, 
 
 PoI}'carp. the disciple of S. John, and \vc have ah'eady quoted 
 the beautiful passage in which he describes his early recol- 
 lections, and the impression that Polycarp and his lessons had 
 left on his mind. He was born about A.D. 130, and was bishop 
 of Lyons in Gaul after the death of S. Pothinus in A.D. 177, 
 His great work Against Heresies was written between A.D. 
 182 and A.D. 188. He is supposed to have died in or about 
 A.D. 202. To him probably is due the ancient Gallican Liturgy, 
 which has so strong an Oriental flavour about it as to distin- 
 guish it markedly from the Roman and African Liturgies. 
 
 " Christ, after giving directions to His disciples to offer to God the first- 
 fruits of His created things, took that created thing. Bread, and gave 
 thanks, saying, ' This is My body.' And the Cup likewise, part of the 
 creation to which we belong, He confessed to be His Blood, and taught 
 the New Oblation of the New Covenant, which the Church, receiving 
 from the Apostles, offers to God throughout the world." 
 
 Then he goes on to quote the prophecy of Malachi, and 
 show how that God rejected the oblations of the Jews to 
 accept those of the Gentiles, which latter were the " pure 
 sacrifice," and he adds, " To the omnipotent God the Church 
 makes offerings through Jesus Christ," and these offerings are 
 the Eucharist (Hsres. iv. c. 17). 
 
 The Oi5Lation. 
 
 " The Oblation of the Church, therefore, which the Lord gave instruc- 
 tions to be offered throughout the world, is accounted with God a pure 
 sacrifice, and is acceptable to Him. ... By the gift both honour and 
 affection are shown forth towards the King. 
 
 " Now the Lord, wishing us to offer it in all simplicity and innocence, 
 said, ' When thou offerest thy gift upon the altar, if thou remember that 
 thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, 
 and go thy way ; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then return and 
 offer thy gift.' We are bound then to offer to God the first-fruits of His 
 creation. 
 
 " And the class of oblation has not been abolished, for there were obla- 
 tions among the Jews, and oblations are among Christians, sacrifices 
 among the Gentiles, and sacrifices in the Church. Not the class, but the 
 species, is changed. The offering was that of slaves, now it is that of 
 
APPENDIX. 421 
 
 free men. ... At the beginning, God had respect to the gifts of Abel, but 
 He had none for the offering of Cain. 
 
 " Inasmuch as the Church offers with single-mindedness, her gift is 
 esteemed a pure sacrifice with God. 
 
 " The Church alone offers this pure oblation to the Creator, offering to 
 Him with thanksgiving the things of creation. But the Jews do not so 
 offer, for their hands are full of blood. They have not received the Word, 
 and it is through the Word [i.e. Christ] that the offering is made to God " 
 (iv. c. 18). 
 
 Then he goes on to argue against the heretics, who said that 
 the God who created the world was evil, but that the God 
 whom Christ revealed was the Good God. Irenaeus argues, 
 How can the Creator be evil, when the fruits of the earthy 
 bread and wine, are offered God. 
 
 " How can they be consistent with themselves [when they say] that the 
 bread over which thanksgiving has been made is the Body of their Lord, 
 and the cup is His Blood, if they deny that He is the Son of the Creator 
 of the World, His word who maketh the wood to produce fruit, the foun- 
 tains to gush forth, and the earth to give the corn.?" — 3/d. 
 
 Irenaeus here speaks of the bread and the mingled cup, i.e., 
 the fruit of the vine and the water of the fountain. 
 
 " Then again, how can they say that the flesh [of man] nourished by 
 the Body and Blood of the Lord, turns to corruption uninfused with life? 
 Let them either charge their opinion, or cease to offer those things men- 
 tioned. Our opinion, on the other hand, agrees with the Eucharist, and 
 the Eucharist confirms our opinion. For we [hold that we] offer to God 
 of His own creatui-es, announcing consistently the fellowship and union 
 of flesh and spirit. For as the bread that has been produced from the 
 earth, when it has received the invocation of God, is no longer common 
 bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, one earthly, the 
 other heavenly, so also our bodies, when they have received the Eucharist, 
 are no longer corruptible, having in them the earnest of resurrection to 
 eternity. ' 
 
 " The Word gave to the people the precept of oblations, not that He 
 needed anything of them, but to teach them to serve God. So also He 
 wills that we frequently and unintermittently should offer a gift at the 
 altar. The altar is in heaven, towards which our prayers and oblations 
 are directed, and the Temple also is there." — /did. 
 
 Still arguing against the Marcionites, he asks : — 
 
 " How could the Lord, with any justice, have acknowledged the brea 
 to be His Body, while He took it from the creation to which we be- 
 
422 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 long, and affirm the mixed cup to be His Blood, if He belonged to another 
 Father ?" (Hajres. iv. c. 33).* 
 
 " Wrong in every respect are they who disallow the salvation of the 
 flesh. If the flesh is not to attain salvation, then neither did the Lord 
 redeem us with His Blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the com- 
 munion of His Blood, nor the bread we break the communion of His 
 Body. 
 
 " He acknowledged the cup, which is a part of creation, to be His 
 own Blood, from which He irrigates our blood ; and the bread, also a 
 part of creation, He ordained as His Body, from which to give increase 
 to our bodies. 
 
 " When, therefore, the mixed cup and the manufactured bread receive 
 the Word of God, and the Eucharist becomes the Blood and Body of 
 Christ, from which the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, 
 how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the Gift of 
 God, which is Eternal Life, when the flesh is nourished by the Body and 
 Blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him ? 
 
 " S. Paul says that we are members of His body, His flesh, and of His 
 bones. He does not speak of some spiritual and invisible man, for a 
 spirit has not flesh and bones, but of that actual man, consisting of flesh 
 and nerves and bones which is nourished by the cup which is His 
 Blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His Body. 
 
 "Just as a vine-cutting fructifies in its season, after planting, or as 
 corn falling into the earth rises with manifold increase, so they [the 
 gifts], by the Spirit of God, having received the Word of God, become 
 the Eucharist, which is the Body and Blood of Christ ; and, so also, our 
 bodies, nourished by It, after having been laid in the ground, rise again 
 in their appointed season, the Word of God granting them immortality " 
 (V. c. 2). 
 
 Further, he goes on to show how our human bodies take 
 in and absorb the elements of Eternal Life, as sponges 
 absorb water, or as torches catch jRre (V. 3). 
 
 " It is by means of communion with Himself that the Lord reconciles 
 man to God the Father, by the Body of His Flesh, and redemption by 
 His Blood. 
 
 " In every Epistle the Apostle plainly testifies that it is through the 
 Flesh of the Lord, and through His Blood, that we have been saved" 
 (V. c. 14). 
 
 That Ircn.eus held that the bread and wine became so 
 " verily and indeed " the Body and Blood of Christ as to 
 
 * Again he recurs to this ar};iimcnt a little furtlier on. 
 
APPENDIX. 423 
 
 transform our vile bodies, infusing into them a new principle, 
 the principle of Eternal Life, is unquestionable. 
 
 In a fragment he draws out the likeness between Jesus and 
 Joshua. Moses gave manna in the wilderness, but the manna 
 ceased when Joshua brought the people into the land where 
 they tasted the new wheat. So the old dispensation ceased 
 when Jesus instituted the Eucharist. 
 
 "Jesus (Joshua) was no untrue type of the Word made flesh. It was 
 right that Moses should give manna to the fathers, but Jesus (Joshua) 
 wheat ; as the first-fruits of Hfe, a type of the Body of Christ, as the 
 Scripture says that the manna ceased when the people had eaten wheat 
 from the land " (Fragm. xix.). 
 
 In another fragment, after again quoting Malachi's pro- 
 phecy, as proof of the institution of a new sacrifice, a pure 
 one, Irenaeus goes on : — 
 
 " The oblation of the Eucharist is not carnal, but spiritual, and there- 
 fore pure. 
 
 " For we make an oblation to God of the bread and the cup of bless- 
 ing, giving Him thanks in that He commanded the earth to bring forth 
 these fruits to our nourishment. And then, when we have perfected the 
 OBLATION, we invoke the Holy Spirit {Epik/esis), that He may exhibit 
 the Sacrifice, both the bread to be the Body of Christ, and the cup to be 
 His Blood, in order that the receivers of these antitypes may obtain 
 remission of sins and eternal life. Those who perform these oblations 
 in memorial of the Lord do not fall in with Jewish views ; but perform- 
 ing the service after a spiritual manner, they shall be called the Sons of 
 Wisdom " (Fragm. xxxvii.). 
 
 VIII. Theophilus. 
 
 Little or nothing is known of the personal history of 
 Theophilus. He had been brought up in paganism, but em- 
 braced Christianity, and became Bishop of Antioch in A.D. 
 
 168. He is variably said to have died in A.D. 181 or A.D. 
 
 188, after an episcopate, according to some of thirteen, of 
 others of twenty-one, years. The only extant work of his is a 
 sort of Apology for Christianity, addressed to one Autolycus, 
 his friend, in three books. 
 
424 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 He begins with that great truth that the eye of the soul, if 
 it would see God, must be prepared by a pure life, and 
 earnestness, and longing after the Truth. When a mirror is 
 coated with rust, a man's face may not be seen therein ; if the 
 mirror is to reveal anything, it must be cleared of its rust — so 
 the soul must be purged of its sins before it can behold 
 God. 
 
 After having said this, suddenly Theophilus bursts forth 
 into a narration of God's majesty and His attributes. His 
 first address to Autolycus is no other than a Sursiun Corda^ 
 and this leads him on to a sort of paraphrase of the opening of 
 the Great Eucharistic Pra}-cr. He shows how that God is all 
 glorious, full of majesty, infinite in power, a Father of men, 
 and all-holy. Then he proceeds to Creation, and shows how 
 God reveals Himself by His works, he describes Creation 
 poetically, urges Autolycus to faith, and promises him 
 the resurrection of the flesh. The connexion between the 
 Eucharist and the resurrection was so intimately close in the 
 minds of the first Christians, that we see again and again how, 
 when they touch on the Eucharist, even vaguely, it at once sug- 
 gests to them the idea of resurrection, and they are carried 
 on to it. Such a connexion of ideas is only explicable if we 
 allow that they held that the Eucharist was a sowing in 
 men's natures the seed of the Divine life, the communication 
 of the germs of immortality. 
 
 Next, Theophilus goes on to speak of the evil gods of the 
 heathen, as unclean demons ; tvJiy he goes on at once to this 
 point we can guess, because at this period of his argument 
 he thought of the fall of man, and the intercourse of the devils 
 — the fallen angels — with the daughters of men, an idea that 
 occurs in other writers of the period. Then he has a word on 
 the Christians pra)'ing for the Emperor and those in authority 
 an allusion to the petition in the Great Intercession. So ends 
 his first book. 
 
 In the second, after ridiculing the fables as to the gods of the 
 
APPENDIX. 425 
 
 heathen, he returns to the account of the Creation of the world 
 by God, who made all things by His Word, and he goes 
 through the narrative of Creation and the Fall, and of how 
 when God cast man forth, He did not leave him without hope 
 of restoration ; how the Flood came, and how men were dis- 
 persed. Then he goes on to the Prophets, and shows how 
 even the heathen were not left without witness, for the 
 Sibyls, and the poets and philosophers, testified to them. So 
 ends the second book. 
 
 In the third, Theophilus shows how the cannibalism 
 and immoralities attributed to Christians are calumnies, but 
 he turns the tables by showing that such things were com- 
 mended to the heathen by the example of their gods. Then 
 he finishes up by showing that the Prophets were more ancient 
 than any writers possessed by the heathen. 
 
 There is no direct mention of, even no allusion to, the 
 Eucharist in Theophilus, and yet one can see by the sequence 
 of his ideas, that he had the Eucharistic Thanksgiving in his 
 mind as he wrote. 
 
 IX. S. HiPPOLYTUS. 
 
 Hippolytus, Bishop and Martyr, was the bitter opponent 
 of Calixtus, Bishop of Rome (A.D. 218-223). He suffered 
 martyrdom somewhere about A.D. 235-239. His great 
 work, the " Refutation of Heresies," was composed about A.D. 
 224. Hippolytus was a disciple of S. Irenaeus, S. Irenseus of 
 S. Polycarp, and S. Polycarp of S. John the Divine. His "Refu- 
 tation " concerns the Docetic and other errors of the Gnostics, 
 and nothing leads him to speak of the Eucharist in it ; but in 
 his other writings there are allusions not to be mistaken. 
 
 In his treatise on " Christ and Anti-Christ," he begins his 
 address to his brother Theophilus with a recitation of what 
 the Prophets had done for man, and then goes on to recount the 
 Incarnation of the Son of God, and then says, " As time 
 
426 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 presses — and as what has been already said in this inlroduc- 
 tion with regard to the glory of God must suffice," &c.* — a 
 strange expression, for Hippolytus has said nothing about the 
 glory of God. When, however, we know that he was in his 
 exordium following the course of the Eucharistic Thanks- 
 giving, we obtain at once the clue to his so designating this 
 introduction. In explaining Proverbs ix. i, 2, " Wisdom hath 
 builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars ; she 
 hath killed her beasts ; she hath mingled her wine , she hath 
 also furnished her table," Hippolytus says, " By mingling her 
 wine is meant that the Saviour, uniting His Godhead, like 
 pure wine, with the flesh in the Virgin, was born of her. . . . 
 And she hath furnished her table ; that denotes the promised 
 knowledge of the Trinity; and also refers to His honoured 
 and undefiled Body and Blood, which are daily administered 
 and offered sacrificiall}- at the spiritual Di\"inc table, as a 
 memorial of that first and ever memorable table of the 
 spiritual Divine Supper." In his explanation of Daniel's 
 visions, he explains that in which " in the midst of the week 
 sacrifice and oblation will be removed " in this manner ; 
 *' When Anti-Christ comes, the sacrifice and oblation which 
 are now offered to God in every place by the Gentiles — these 
 will be taken awa)- " (c. "jy). He refers unquestionably to the 
 Eucharist. He speaks of this as a "continuous sacrifice" 
 (c. 43), which will be taken away by Anti-Christ. In his 
 treatise on Susanna he says that just as the elders intruded on 
 the garden of Susanna, when she desired to have the doors 
 shut and all prying eyes excluded, so did the Jews of his day 
 intrude into Christian churches with bold curiosit}', whilst the 
 Christians were engaged in prayer and praise. He is referring 
 to the ICucharistic mysteries, to which none were admitted 
 save the fiithful, and the praj'er and praise refer to the 
 
 * His narrative curiously corresponds with the order and words of the Great 
 Thanl;sgiving in the Clementine Liturgy. 
 
APPENDIX. 427 
 
 Eucharistic Thanksgiving and the Great Intercession, at which 
 the Jews had no right to be present. 
 
 X. — Clement of Alexandria. 
 
 Clement professed to have been instructed by those who 
 had been taught by the Disciples of the Apostles. He had 
 Pantaenus as his master, and he succeeded him in the Cate- 
 chetical School at Alexandria about A.D. 189. He continued 
 to teach till A.D. 202, when the persecution under Severus 
 compelled him to retire from /Alexandria. He is supposed to 
 have died about A.D. 220. 
 
 An omnivorous reader, he was unable to digest properly 
 what he read. His master was really Philo, on whom he 
 engrafted Christianity, and used Philo's method of interpre- 
 tation of the Scriptures, which consisted of never understand- 
 ing a text in the sense in which it was written. There was 
 but one passage in Scripture which Clement interpreted 
 literally, and that was, " When they persecute you in one city, 
 flee to another." He was a clever man, who said smart 
 things now and then, but one is constrained to pity the 
 pupils in his Catechetical School, for his teaching was calcu- 
 lated not to edify, but to bewilder. He laboriously enveloped 
 in a mist of words whatever he designed to say. Out of the 
 labyrinth of error in which the heathen world was lost, he 
 presented himself as a guide to lead the way into light and 
 liberty, but the only clue to which he held was one spun out 
 of his own bowels, and with that he further entangled himself 
 and his followers, without getting within reach of more than a 
 glimmer of the true Light, and perceptibly further out of the 
 maze. His writings are valuable, because they are a mine of 
 fragments, quotations from classic authors, some of whom have 
 been lost, but there his value ends. From such a writer as this 
 little to our purpose can be got. When contrasting Christian 
 mysteries with heathen orgies, he says to the heathen : — 
 
 " If it be thy wish to be initiated, thou shalt join the choir along with 
 
428 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 angels round the Unbegotten and Only True God, the Word of God, 
 raising the hymn with us. This Jesus, the Eternal One, the One High 
 Priest of the One God, His Father, intercedes for and exhorts men " 
 (Hort. ad Gent., c. 12). 
 
 Then he goes on to say that in this Christian Mystery, this 
 same Jesus imparts His grace, bestows the boon of immor- 
 tality, the word and knowledge of God, even Himself 
 
 We can see that the writer is thinking of the Preface and 
 Sanctus, and of the Eucharistic Gift, but he would not be 
 Clement of Alexandria, if he said this plainly. 
 
 In the "Stromata" bespeaks of the harmony in the ecclesias- 
 tical s)'mphony of the Law, the Prophets, the Apostles, and the 
 Gospel (vi. 1 1), which seems to apply to the four Lections, In 
 another place he speaks of the oblation of the first-fruits of 
 food, and drink, and unguents (that is, of bread and wine, and 
 oil for the lamps) to the Giver of all, giving thanks at the 
 time (vii. 7). "Giving thanks always," he says, "for all things 
 to God, by righteous hearing and divine reading, by true 
 investigation, by holy oblation, by blessed prayer, lauding, 
 h}-mning, blessing, praising, such a soul is never separated 
 from God" (vi. 14). This passage contains an allusion to 
 the Eucharistic Service, for it includes the several parts that 
 go to make up the liturgy. 
 
 In his treatise on " What rich man can be saved," Clement 
 introduces our Lord addressing the soul of man. " I regene- 
 rated thee, who wast born by the world to death. I released, 
 healed, ransomed thee. Follow thou Me. I will bring thee 
 to a refreshment (another reading is "a rest") of ineffable 
 and unutterable blessings, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear 
 heard, nor have entered into the heart of men ; into which 
 angels desire to look, to see the good things God hath pre- 
 pared for the saints and children who love Him. I feed thee, 
 giving Myself as Bread, of which he who tastes is granted 
 immortality, and suppl)'ing day by day the drink of immor- 
 tality " (c. 23). Here the m)stery into which angels 
 
APPENDIX. 429 
 
 desire to look, and which eye hath not seen, &c., is clearly 
 the Eucharist. 
 
 XI. — Tertullian. 
 
 This brilliant writer was born at Carthage, about A.D. 160, 
 and died about A.D. 245. He was a priest, and married. 
 After some time he embraced the party or schism of Mon- 
 tanus, who professed to have revelations from the Paraclete. 
 To the reader passing from Clement of Alexandria to 
 Tertullian is like a change from a steaming, sweltering 
 atmosphere to a breezy March morning. 
 
 Tertullian is a biting, witty writer, clever and accomplished. 
 His voluminous works are a storehouse of information on 
 the manners and morals, heathen and Christian, of his time. 
 Clement impresses the reader with the notion that he never 
 had made up his mind on any point, and that he laboured 
 to confuse his pupils to the same point of obfuscation as him- 
 self Tertullian never put pen to paper without knowing 
 perfectly his own mind, but (apart from his style, which is 
 difficult, as indeed that of all African writers is) he wrote 
 sometimes in such violent excitement as to be obscure 
 through the boiling fury that consumed him. 
 
 If Tertullian had but possessed a small portion of the 
 spirit of charity which so abounded in Clement of Rome, 
 his writings would not have stung like a blister, but have 
 healed like a plaster ; and if Clement of Alexandria had but 
 acquired a little of the common sense which characterised 
 Tertullian, he would have presented a different spectacle than 
 that of the drunken helot of Alexandrine Christianity, be- 
 mused with the various drinks of old Platonism, frothy 
 Philonian exegesis, and the new wine of the Gospel. 
 
 Tertullian mentions public prayer made for Princes and 
 those in authority. He notices the GREAT INTERCESSION, 
 or Litany. 
 
 " You persecute us ; but we offer prayer for the safety of our princes 
 to the eternal, true, and living God " (Apol. 29). 
 
430 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 " The king gets his power from heaven. Thither we hft our eyes, with 
 hands ouTstretched, with heads uncovered, without a monitor ; because 
 from the heart we supplicate. Without ceasing, we offer prayer for the 
 emperors. 
 
 " We pray for Hfe prolonged ; for security to the Empire ; for protection 
 to the imperial house ; for brave armies, a faithful senate ; for a virtuous 
 people, and for the world at rest " {Ibid). 
 
 Here Tertullian only refers to that part of the prayer which 
 concerns the emperor and empire. It is worth comparing 
 this passage with that quoted from Clement of Rome, and 
 with the prayer in the " Constitutions." In the same Apology 
 he describes the Pro-Anaphora. 
 
 " I at once proceed to give an account of the peculiarities of the 
 Christian Society. We are a body knit together by a common religious 
 profession, by unity of discipline, by the bond of a common hope. 
 
 " We meet as an assembly and a congregation, that, offering up prayer 
 to God as with united force, we might wrestle with Him in supplication. 
 
 " We pray for the emperors ; for their ministers, and all in authority ; 
 for the welfare of the world ; for the prevalence of peace ; for the delay of 
 the final consummation.* 
 
 " We assemble to read over sacred writings. 
 
 " In the same place also exhortations are made ; rebukes and sacred 
 censures are administered. 
 
 " The tried men of our elders preside over us ; obtaining the honour 
 not by purchase, but by merit. 
 
 " We have our treasury. On the monthly collection day anyone who 
 likes puts in a small donation " (Apol. 39). 
 
 Tertullian does not speak of the Anaphora, the Eucharistic 
 Service proper, as he is writing to the heathen ; but he does 
 give an account of the Agape later on ; an account we have 
 already given, because it was at this feast that Christians 
 were accused of shameless immorality. In his treatise on 
 prayer, when explaining the second clause of the Lord's 
 Prayer, he refers to the use of the TRIUMPHAL Hv.MN. 
 
 " The name of God is hallowed ; He who sanctifies all ; He to whom 
 the surrounding circle of angels cease not to say : — 
 
 " Holy, Holy, Holy ! 
 
 • From the position he is giving to the Intercession, it would appear that the 
 litany in Tertullian's time still remained at the beginning of the Pro-Anaphora. 
 
APPENDIX. 431 
 
 " In like manner we, too, begin, even here on earth, to learn by heart 
 that strain, hereafter to be raised to God " (In Orat. 3). 
 
 He speaks of the Kiss of Peace. 
 
 " Such as are fasting withhold the Kiss of Peace, which is the seal of 
 prayer ; of common prayer with the brethren. What prayer is complete, 
 divorced from the holy kiss ? What kind of sacrifice is that from which 
 men depart without peace ? 
 
 " On the day of the Pascha (Good Friday), indeed, when fasting is 
 general, all but public, we do forego the kiss " (In Orat. 18). 
 
 Of the Eucharist as a Sacrifce he says, addressing the 
 Marcionite heretics, after quoting the famihar prophecy of 
 Malachi, relative to the sacrifice and pure offering that was 
 in every place to be offered to God : — 
 
 " Now, inasmuch as all these things — ascription of glory, blessing, and 
 praise, and hymns — are also found amongst you, as also the sign [of the 
 cross] upon the forehead, and the Sacraments of the Church, and the 
 offering of the pure sacrifice, you ought also (z>., as well as we) to burst 
 forth in declaration that the Spirit of the Creator prophesied of your 
 Christ " (Adv. Marcion iii., c. 22). Elsewhere he speaks of this prophecy 
 of Malachi as referring to the " simple oblation of a pure conscience " 
 (iv., c. I). 
 
 Also of Communion. He is opposing those who on Wed- 
 nesday and Friday, because fasting, refuse to communicate. 
 
 " On the days of the Stations (fast days), most suppose that they need 
 not be present at the Sacrificial Prayer (z>., the Anaphora), on the 
 ground that the fast is dissolved by reception of the Lord's Body. Does 
 the Eucharist cancel a divine obligation, or cement it ? Will not your fast 
 be more solemn if you have stood at God's altar {ara) } When the Lord's 
 Body has been received and reserved, every point is secured ; the partici- 
 pation in the Sacrifice, and the discharge of the obligation [to fast] 
 {Ibid. 19). 
 
 It is obvious from this that those who did not intend to 
 communicate, i.e., those fasting rigorously on Wednesdays 
 and Fridays, departed with the Catechumens before the 
 Anaphora, and so neither partook in the Kiss, nor in the 
 Sacrifice, nor in the Communion. 
 
432 OUR INHERITANXE. 
 
 \Vc have already quoted and commented on the passages 
 relative to reservation of the Eucharist and daily Com- 
 munion. In his " Prescription against Heretics," Tertullian 
 refers to the DISMISSALS. He says that among the heretics 
 there is no discipline, no exclusion of the Catechumens, but 
 all attend the service indiscriminately. What would he have 
 said of the present usage, both in the Latin and in the 
 Eastern Churches? 
 
 " It is doubtful who is a Catechumen, among them, and who is a 
 believer, where all have access alike, all hear alike, all pray alike— even 
 heathens, if any happen to be present. That which is holy they cast to 
 dogs, and pearls — but to be sure they possess only sham ones — these 
 they fling to swine " (c. 41). 
 
 On Communion, he says, "The flesh feeds on the Body 
 and Blood of Christ, that the soul may fatten on God " (De 
 Resurr. Carnis., c. 8). 
 
 Against Marcion, who made out that the Creator was an 
 Evil God, Tertullian, noticing the Great Thanksgiving, 
 says mockingly, 
 
 " So ! — baptized to God in water that belongs [by creation] to another 
 [god], stretching out the hands [in prayer] to God in a heaven that 
 belongs to another [god], kneeling to God on ground which is [the creation] 
 of another [god] : Offers thanksgivings to God over bread which belongs 
 to another [creator] ; and distributes alms for God of gifts belonging to 
 another" (^Adv. Marcion i. c. 23). 
 
 Tertullian, in describing the ecstasies of a Montanist sister, 
 gives, in a few words, the outline of the PrO-Anaphora. 
 
 " Whether it be in the reading of the Scriptures, or in the chanting of 
 the Psalms, or in the preaching of Sermons, or in the Oblation of the 
 prayers — in all these religious services she is afforded opportunity of see- 
 ing visions " (Ue Anima, i. 9). 
 
 In an oratorical passage on the glories of the Apostolical 
 Church, Tertullian apparently refers to the LECTIONS. 
 
 " The Church unites the Law and the Prophets in one with the writings 
 of the Evangelists and Apostles, and from these she drinks her faith" 
 (Praeser. adv. Ha^r., c. 36). 
 
APPENDIX. 433 
 
 Though this may apply to the union of the Old and New 
 Testaments, into one book, elsewhere, however (Apol. c. 22), 
 he explains the oracles as inspired by demons who hear the 
 true prophecies of God read aloud in the churches, and then 
 whisper them into their agents. Tertullian rebukes the 
 heretic Apelles because he, in his religious assemblies, reads 
 unauthorised Lections (De Praesc. c. 51). 
 
 Tertullian distinguished between two kinds of prayers, 
 those with uplifted, extended arms, and those with bowed 
 knees, the orationes and the petitiones. He seems to refer to 
 Prayer for the Dead in one of his sarcastic passages in the 
 exhortation to Chastity. " Will you," he asks — he is rebuk- 
 ing second marriages — " will you stand before God with as 
 many wives [at the Resurrection] as you commemorate in 
 prayer [now] ? Will you offer [the Sacrifice] for two } Will 
 you commend these two [to God] by the ministry of a priest } 
 Will your sacrifice ascend with unabashed front .-•" (c. 11). 
 
 He also divides the divine service into its two parts ; the 
 one, the Anaphora, is that in which the Sacrifice is offered ; the 
 other, the Pro-Anaphora, that in which is the ministration of 
 the word (De Cultu F^m., c. 11). 
 
 Xn. Origen. 
 
 This voluminous writer was born at Alexandria about A.D. 
 185, and died at Tyre in A.D. 253. At the age of eighteen he 
 succeeded Clement of Alexandria, his master and teacher in 
 the Catechetical School of Alexandria, and unfortunately had 
 so suffered from his baleful influence as to have followed his 
 method of Scriptural distortion. A man of brilliant parts 
 and subtle intellect, he was entangled in the web of absurd 
 exegesis favoured by the Alexandrine school, and this both 
 marred his utility and led him into serious error. 
 
 His allusions to various parts of the Eucharistic service 
 are numerous. We have extracted the most important, and 
 
 FF 
 
434 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 incorpoiTitccl them in the text of this book. Every allusion 
 has been picked out and ranj^ed in order by Probst in his 
 book on the Liturgy of the First Three Centuries, and to him 
 we refer our readers. 
 
 XIII. S. Cyprian. 
 
 This glorious martyr, whom to read is to know, and whom 
 to know is to love, was elected to the see of Carthage in 
 A.D. 246, before he was baptized. He was baptized in order 
 that he might receive ordination. He died a martyr in 
 A.D. 258. "Give me my Master," he said of Tertullian, of 
 whom he read something every day, and whom in some of his 
 treatises he closely copied. His precious letters breathe a 
 tolerant, loving spirit ; and also show a clear, a Roman 
 mind. 
 
 In his treatise on the Vanity of Idols, addressed to the 
 heathen, he paraphrases the Eucharistic Thanksgiving. 
 
 " The one Lord of all is God. 
 
 " He cannot be seen ; He is too bright for vision. He cannot be com- 
 prehended ; He is too pure for our discernment. He cannot be estimated; 
 He is too great for our perception. 
 
 " God is His name. He is One, and He, in His entirety, is everywhere 
 diffused. 
 
 " First of all, God gave his favour to the Jews. 
 
 " He foretold what would happen as ages passed on, and the end of the 
 world drew near ; that He would gather to Himself out of every nation 
 and people, and place, worshippers better in obedience, stronger in faith, 
 who would draw from the Divine Gift that mercy which the Jews received, 
 and lost. 
 
 " Therefore of His mercy the Word and Son of God was sent, who by 
 the Prophets of old had been announced as the illuminator and teacher 
 of the human race. 
 
 " He is the Power of God ; He is His Wisdom and Glory. He enters 
 into a Virgin, with the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, is endowed with 
 flesh— Cod is united to man. This is our God, this our Christ, who, as 
 the Mediator between two, puts on the man that He may bring man to 
 to the Father. 
 
 " And the Jews knew Him not. He, in accordance with the words of 
 the Prophets, expelled demons, nerved the paralytic, cleansed the lepers, 
 
APPENDIX, 435 
 
 enlightened the blind, gave soundness to the lame, raised the dead, com- 
 pelled the elements to obedience. 
 
 "The Jews, regarding Him as a magician, inflamed with wrath, seized 
 Him, and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate, demanding His death and 
 crucifixion. 
 
 " It behoved Him to suffer, that he might conquer death, and might 
 return to heaven, to show the power of the Divine Majesty. 
 
 "When crucified, He Himself, of His own will, gave up the ghost, 
 and on the third day rose again. 
 
 " He appeared to the disciples like as He had been. 
 
 " He associated with them, being with them forty days, instructing them 
 n the precepts of life, that they might know what to teach. Then a cloud 
 spread around Him, and He was carried up into heaven, that, as a 
 conqueror, He might bring to the Father that humanity He had loved, 
 assumed, and which He shielded from death. 
 
 " Soon will He coine from heaven in judgment of the human race, with 
 the force of a judge and an avenger ; and His disciples, scattered over the 
 world at the bidding of their Master and God, gave forth His precepts for 
 salvation, guided men from their error in darkness into the way of light, 
 ' gave eyes to the blind and ignorant for the acknowledgment of the truth,'" 
 (cc. 8-14). 
 
 Cyprian speaks of the Corban or Offertory in his treatise 
 on " Works and Alms." He says : — 
 
 " You who are rich, do you think you are celebrating the Lord's Insti- 
 tution (' Dominicum te celebrare credis '), not at all considering the 
 Oblation (Corban). You who come to the Lord's Institution (in 
 Dominicum) without a sacrifice, and yet take part of the sacrifice which 
 the poor man has offered " (c. 15). 
 
 We have in the text of this book quoted largely from S. 
 Cyprian's letter to Csecilius touching- the mixed cup, a letter 
 which affords us a good deal of interesting information rela- 
 tive to the celebration of the Eucharist in Africa in his time. 
 His letters on discipline with regard to the lapsed, and on the 
 baptism of heretics, unfortunately touch but slightly on sub- 
 jects which give opening for references to liturgical uses. 
 S. Cyprian is very distinct in asserting the sacrificial character 
 of the Eucharist, that is to say he takes it to be an oblation, in 
 the first instance, of the bread and wine as first-fruits of the 
 earth, but in the second, and chief significance, it is the 
 great Christian memorial of the death of Christ before the 
 
 FF 2 
 
436 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Klcrnal Father, a showing forth before Him of Christ's death, 
 
 and a pleading of His all-prevaiUng merit. 
 
 Those who assert that the sacrificial character of the 
 
 Eucharist was a development of which only germs may be 
 
 found before, are unable to deny that it is fully reached in 
 
 Cyprian. But Cyprian merely followed what he had learned 
 
 in his brief period of catechumcnical training. Our object 
 
 here is, however, not to discuss dogma, but liturgical 
 
 forms. 
 
 Cyprian, in his treatise on the Lord's Prayer, notices the 
 
 SURSUM CORDA. 
 
 " Let all carnal and worldly thoughts be banished. To teach this 
 the priest, by way of preface before the Prayer, prepares the minds of 
 the brethren by saying — 
 
 " Lift up your hearts ! 
 
 "That so, upon the response of the people — 
 
 "We lift them up unto the Lord! he may be reminded that he him- 
 self ought to think of nothing but the Lord " (c. 31). 
 
 He speaks of the lectors reading the Gospel aloud from an 
 elevated place (Ep. 33). Also, he says that the unbelieving, the 
 penitents, and catechumens were not admitted to be present 
 at the Mass of the Faithful. Admission to Communion is with 
 him reception into peace, he associates the Pax with Com- 
 munion, so that we may believe that in his time the Pax was 
 only given to communicants either at the beginning of the 
 Anaphora, or immediately before reception. He lets us under- 
 stand that the Lord's Prayer occurred in the liturgy by his 
 exhortation to the people not to pray too noisily when reciting 
 it. There arc in his writings numerous slight allusions, and 
 for these we must refer the reader to Probst, p. 215-229. 
 They are often very slight, such as the reference to the Dove 
 as a meet symbol of the Holy Ghost, because the doves give 
 each other the kiss of peace with their beaks (In Unit. 9). 
 
 XIV.— S. Methodius. 
 
 This saint was Bishop of Olympus and Patara in L)cia, 
 
APPENDIX. 437 
 
 and suffered martyrdom about A.D. 312 at Chalcis, in Greece, 
 though some think the scene of his martyrdom was Chalcis 
 in Syria. 
 
 The only complete work of this author that we have is his 
 " Banquet of the Ten Virgins," a quaint conceit,* in which he 
 represents a supper at which ten damsels partake, and then 
 each in order rises, prays, and holds forth in praise of a 
 virginal life, after which all unite, led by one of them 
 in a song, with chorus, of great charm and beauty. We have 
 already noticed what is of interest to us in Methodius, the 
 relation of this banquet to the Agape, and the anologies be- 
 tween the Tabernacle, the Church, and Heaven, which are 
 drawn out by one of the virgins. 
 
 In an oration concerning the Presentation in the Temple 
 attributed to Methodius, the authenticity of which is ques- 
 tioned, but which certainly in style resembles his undoubted 
 works, there is an allusion to the Triumphal Hymn. 
 
 " Let us betake ourselves to that hymn which is not beyond our powers, 
 let us join the rejoicing chorus of Christ's flock, keeping holiday." 
 Thenhequotes the vision of Isaiah. "I saw the Lord sittingupon His throne, 
 high and Hfted up, and the house was full of His glory. And the sera- 
 phim stood I'ound about Him : each had six wings. And one cried to 
 the other, and said, HoLY, HoLY, HoLY, is the Lord of hosts : the whole 
 earth is full of His glory." 
 
 He proceeds to quote the passage in which one of the 
 seraphim brought a live coal in his hand from the altar, and 
 therewith touched the lips of the prophet. Elsewhere he 
 calls the Blessed Virgin the tongs that holds the live coal. 
 The " coal" is a common Oriental designation of the Eucha- 
 ristic bread. In some rubrics to the liturgies it is simply 
 called "the coal." 
 
 XV. — COMMODIAN. 
 
 This strange writer, who composed a series of metrical 
 
 It is an imitation of Plato's " Symposium. 
 
438 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 acrostics, was probaby a native of Gaza. Little or nothing is 
 known of him, but he is said to have lived at the close of the 
 third century. 
 
 In his seventy-sixth instruction, " On those that gossip," he 
 says : — 
 
 "The women rush into church as if they were running into a bathing 
 establishment. They crowd on one another just as if going to a fair. 
 
 "The Lord's priest commanded a Lift up vour hearts, when prayer 
 was about to be made, in order that there might ensue silence. Thou 
 respondest with readiness, and dost not abstain from promises. 
 
 " He entreats the Most High on behalf of a devoted people, lest any 
 should perish, and thou turnest thyself to fables." 
 
 XVI. — The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. 
 
 This is an apocryphal work believed to belong to the end 
 of the first or beginning of the second century, and is evidently 
 the work of a converted Jew. In the Testament of Levi we 
 have the following passage : — 
 
 " I beheld, and lo, seven men in white came unto me, and said unto 
 me, Be a priest of the Lord— and the first anointed me with oil, and the 
 second washed me with pure water, and gave me Bread and Wine, and 
 said. This is the Holy of Holies ; and put on me a garment of glory. 
 And they said unto me, Three great men shall arise of thy race — the Third 
 shall have a new name, and He shall issue out of the tribe of Judah, and 
 shall be a King, and also a Priest exercising a new priesthood ; He shall 
 be sought by the Gentiles, and shall be followed by all peoples. His 
 advent shall be ineffable as that of the prophet of the Most High. All 
 that can be desired shall be found in thy family. It shall be fed of the 
 finest wheat, and it will distribute the Bread of the Lord's Table to men, 
 and the Holy Word shall remain inviolable in their mouths." 
 
 XVII. The " Apostolic Constitutions." 
 
 Beside the account of the Eucharist given in the second 
 book, and the complete liturgy in the eighth, the following 
 passages deserve notice : — 
 
 " You, O bishops, arc to the people priests and Levites, ministering to 
 
APPENDIX. 439 
 
 the holy tabernacle, the Holy Catholic Church ; who stand at the altar 
 of the Lord your God, and offer Him I'easonable and unbloody sacrifice 
 through Jesus the Great High Priest" (ii. c. 25). 
 
 " Thou, O Catholic Church, hast believed in Jesus, art named after 
 His Name. Those old sacrifices are now exchanged for Prayers, Inter- 
 cessions, and Thanksgivings. Those which were of old first-fruits, tithes 
 and offerings, are now oblations that are presented by holy bishops to 
 the Lord God, through Jesus Christ, who died for them " {Ibid.). 
 
 " Bring your sacrifices and oblations to the Bishop, as to your high 
 priest, either by yourselves, or by the deacons ; and not these only, but 
 also your first-fruits, and your tithes, and freewill offerings " (ii. c. 27). 
 
 '' Do not desert the church of Christ, but go thither in the morning 
 before all thy work, and again meet there in the evening, to return 
 thanks to God that He has preserved thy life" (ii. c. 36). 
 
 " The heathen are not to be received to Communion till after baptism, 
 but they may be admitted into the Church to hear the Word. But as for 
 penitents, let them not be admitted to Communion in prayer ; let them 
 depart after the reading of the Law, and the Prophets, and the Gospel " 
 (ii. c. 39). 
 
 " O bishop, when you go to prayer after the Lessons, and the 
 Psalmody, and the Instruction out of the Scriptures, let the deacon stand 
 by you, and with loud voice say, Let none have a quarrel with another, 
 let none come in hypocrisy " (ii. c. 54). 
 
 Canon : " God, a God of Mercy, from the beginning called every 
 generation to repentance by righteous men and prophets. He instructed 
 those before the flood by Abel, Sem, and Seth, and by Enos also ; also 
 by Enoch that was translated ; those at the flood by Noah ; the inhabi- 
 tants of Sodom by Lot ; those after the flood by Melchizedek, and the 
 patriarchs, and Job ; and the Egyptians by Moses ; the Israelites by 
 him, by Joshua, and the rest ; those after the Law by angels and 
 prophets, and the same by His Incarnation of a Virgin ; those a little 
 before His bodily Epiphany by John the forerunner, and the same by 
 the same one after His birth ; those after His Passion by us, the Twelve 
 Apostles, and Paul, the chosen vessel " {Ibid.). 
 
 Then follows a reference to the Lord's Prayer, and then 
 to Communion. There is clearly here throughout indirect 
 reference to the Anaphora, from the call of the deacon to 
 peace to the end, through Canon, Lord's Prayer, and Com- 
 munion. 
 
 In the account of the liturgy that follows, after the 
 description of the arrangement of the church, with the 
 
440 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Lections, and Psalms, and Exhortations, as quoted already, 
 we are given the Dismissals, and then : — 
 
 " Let all rise up with one consent, and looking to the East, after the 
 catechumens and penitents are gone out, pray to God eastwards. 
 
 " As to the deacons, after the prayer is concluded, let some of them 
 attend on the oblation of the Eucharist, ministering to the Lord's Body 
 with fear. 
 
 ■' And let that deacon who is at the high priest's hand, say to the 
 people, ' Let no one have any quarrel against another ; let no one come 
 in hypocrisy.' 
 
 "Then let the men give the men, and the women give the women, the 
 Lord's kiss. 
 
 " After this let the deacon pray {i.e., bid for prayer) for the whole Church, 
 for the whole world, and the several parts of it, and the fruits of it, for 
 the priests and rulers, for the high priest and the king, and the peace of 
 the world. 
 
 " After this let the high priest pray for peace upon the people, and bless 
 them, as Moses commanded. 
 
 " And let the bishop pray for the people, and say, ' Save Thy people, O 
 Lord, and bless Thine inheritance, which Thou hast ordained with the 
 precious Blood of Thy Christ, and hast called a royal priesthood and a 
 holy nation.' 
 
 " After this let the .Sacrifice follow, the people praying silently and 
 standing. 
 
 " When the oblation has been made, let every rank by order partake of 
 the Lord's Body and precious Blood, approaching with reverence and 
 holy fear, as to the Body of their King. 
 
 " Let the door be watched, lest any unbeliever, or one not initiated, 
 come in " (ii. c. 57). 
 
 This is a distinct account, by another pen, from that imme- 
 diately preceding it. 
 
 " Assemble yourselves together every day, morning and evening, sing- 
 ing psalms and praying in the Lord's House, — but principally on the 
 Sabbath Day. 
 
 The Canon. — "And on the Lord's Day, the day of the Lord's Resur- 
 rection, meet more diligently, sending praise to God that made the 
 universe by Jesus, and sent Him to us, and condescended to let Him 
 suffer, and raised Him from the dead. 
 
 " If otherwise, what excuse will be made to God by him who does not 
 assemble on that day to hear the saving word — in which is performed 
 the Reading of the Prophets, the Preaching of the Gospel, the Oblation 
 of the Sacrifice, and the Gift of the Holy Foodf'Xu. c. 59). 
 
APPENDIX. 441 
 
 " Instead of a bloody Sacrifice, He has appointed that reasonable and 
 unbloody mystical Sacrifice of His Body and Blood, which is celebrated 
 to represent the death of the Lord by symbols " (vi. c. 23). 
 
 "Assemble in the cemeteries, reading the sacred books, singing for the 
 martyrs that have fallen asleep, and for all saints from the beginning of the 
 world, and for your brethren that are asleep in the Lord, and offer the 
 acceptable Eucharist, the representation of the royal Body of Christ, 
 both in your churches and in the cemeteries, and at funerals " (vi. c. 30). 
 
 Next we come to the passages resembling those in the 
 Didache ; either the compiler of the " Constitutions " altered 
 the heretical work, or, what is more probable, had an orthodox 
 cop3% which he inserted in his collection. 
 
 As this portion of the Didache, with its prayer and thanks- 
 giving, has been already quoted, (chap, v.), it is unnecessary 
 to quote it again. We proceed to the next extract from 
 the Didache in the " Constitutions." 
 
 " On the day of the Resurrection of the Lord, that is, on the Lord's day 
 assemble without fail, giving thanks to God, and praising Him for those 
 mercies God has bestowed upon you through Christ, and has delivered 
 you from ignorance, error, and bondage, that your Sacrifice may be 
 unblemished and acceptable to God, who has said concerning His 
 Universal Church : In every place shall incense and a pure sacrifice be 
 offered unto Me ; for I am a great King, and My Name is wonderful 
 among the heathen " (vii. c. 30). 
 
 In chapters 33-38 of the same book, comes a paraphrase 
 of the Eucharistic Prayer of Thanksgiving. It is of enormous 
 length, and cannot here be quoted. It goes through the 
 regular course of praise to God for having created the world 
 and made man, "the ornament of the world," forming his 
 body " out of the four elements," and then leads, after men- 
 tion of the Angels and Cherubim, to the Triumphal Hymn, 
 " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts ! Heaven and Earth 
 are full of Thy Glory." 
 
 Then the prayer proceeds with an enumeration of God's 
 works, of the Incarnation, the Passion, and Resurrection 
 "so that the Lord's Day commands us to offer unto Thee, O 
 Lord, thanksgiving for all." 
 
442 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 This is followed by a paraphrase of the Prayer of Ob- 
 lation. 
 
 In chapter 47 is given the " Gloria in Excelsis " as a 
 morning hymn. 
 
 In the eighth book is the complete liturgy, which see in 
 Neale and Littledale's "Translations of the Primitive Liturgies," 
 London, 1869, pp. 65-91; or " The Apostolic Constitutions," 
 in Clark's "Ante-Nicene Librar}'," Edinburgh, pp. 216- 
 237- 
 
 XVIII. Lactantius. 
 
 It is not known for certain either where, or at what date, this 
 writer was born, but he was certainly a very old man in 
 A.D. 315, when he settled at Treves, where he died about ten 
 years later. His principal work is " The Institutions," or " An 
 Introduction to True Religion," in seven books. In this 
 book he demonstrates the falsity of the heathen religions, 
 the vanity of pagan philosophies, and undertakes the defence 
 of Christianity. 
 
 If we look for any full explanation of the Christian faith 
 in this book, we shall be disappointed. It was not intended 
 to supersede catechetical instruction previous to baptism, but 
 to dispose men's minds to submit to become hearers. Con- 
 sequently the book aims more at unsettling the confidence of 
 the heathen in their systems of religion and philosoph}", than 
 at teaching the faith. The fourth book of the " Institutions" 
 deals with true wisdom and religion, and in this the old line of 
 argument is followed. God is shown to be the Father by 
 creation, then to have spoken by the Prophets, then to have 
 revealed Himself by the Son. Lactantius concludes the book 
 with an earnest exhortation to listen to the Church, in which 
 alone is safety, and not to allowthe heretics who ensnare the soul. 
 The sixth book is on true worship, but in it we hardly get a 
 hint of Eucharistic worship, for the book, it must not be for- 
 
APPENDIX. 443 
 
 gotten, is addressed to those who have not as yet consented 
 to become catechumens. He begins, " I come now to that 
 which is the chief portion of this work, to teach in what 
 manner, and by what sacrifice, God must be worshipped." 
 But he goes off to show the falsity of the heathen systems of 
 worship, and contents himself with saying that the sacrifice 
 must not be of blood, not of anything corruptible, but a pure 
 mind and good purpose. " We are bound to sacrifice to God 
 in word, inasmuch as God is the Word. Therefore the chief 
 ceremonial in the worship of God is praise from the mouth 
 of a just man directed to God. But he who would address 
 God must be free from every stain, and must pray for nothing 
 else but pardon for his sins. And let him not suppose that 
 this is done only in the Temple, but it is done also at home, 
 even in his bed. In short, let him always have God in his 
 heart, himself the Temple of God." 
 
 We cannot expect any fuller account from Lactantius, 
 considering the object of his work, and those to whom it was 
 addressed. 
 
 S. Cyril of Jerusalem. 
 
 S. Cyril succeeded Maximus as Bishop of Jerusalem in 
 A.D. 349, or 350. Shortly before this, in A.D. 347, during his 
 priesthood, he delivered the series of Catechetical Lectures 
 that have come down to us. These were delivered in the 
 great church erected by Constantine on Golgotha. These 
 wonderful lectures were delivered to the candidates for baptism 
 and for Communion. The season was Lent when the first set 
 were delivered. The others were given after Easter. 
 
 The first series is on the Creed ; the second on the Mysteries 
 of the Faith, i.e., on Baptism and the Eucharist. We have 
 already quoted S. Cyril on the Discipline of the Secret. He 
 earnestly enjoins such as shall copy his book, or have it, not 
 to suffer it to come into the hands of those who have not been 
 
444 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 illuminated. In the first series there is hardly an allusion to 
 the Eucharist. As he says : " Certain mysteries the Church 
 speaks to thee who art removed from among the Catechu- 
 mens, which it is not customary to mention to the Gentiles. 
 To a Gentile we do not utter the my.steries concerning- the 
 Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost ; nor before cate- 
 chumens do we discourse plainly about mysteries ; but many 
 things we speak in a covert manner, understandable to the 
 faithful only, so that those who know not may receive no 
 harm " (vi. 29). It is otherwise in those addresses spoken to 
 the baptized who are in preparation for Communion. When 
 arguing against participation in meats offered to idols, he 
 says : — 
 
 " As the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist before the holy invocation 
 of the adorable Trinity was simply bread and wine, but after the invoca- 
 tions the bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the wine the Blood of 
 Christ, so do the meats belonging to the pomp of Satan, though by nature 
 plain, become profane by the invocation of the evil spirit" (De Myst. i. 7). 
 
 He says much the same in the third lecture (iii. 3). The 
 whole of the fourth is devoted to the Mystery of the Real 
 Presence ; but this wc will not quote, as our object is litur- 
 gical rather than doctrinal, and wc pass on to his mention of 
 the parts of the liturgy which enable us to reconstruct the 
 Eucharistic Service of the Church of Jerusalem at the begin- 
 ning of the fourth century. 
 
 In the fourteenth lecture Cyril speaks of the Mass OF THE 
 Catechumens, to which his hearers had been admitted. He 
 mentions the fixed lessons and the address that had been 
 given, and apparently the Creed that had been recited.^ 
 
 " Thou hast heard [concerning the Ascension] yesterday, on the Lord's 
 Day ; since by the providence of Divine grace, the course of LessonS 
 in the Church included the account of the Saviour's going up into the 
 heavens, and though what was then spoken was for all, for the united body 
 of the brethren, yet still it was specially for you. Now I ask, didst thou 
 attend to what was said ? Thou knowest the words that follow in the 
 
APPENDIX. 445 
 
 Creed teach thee to beUeve in Him who rose again the third day and 
 ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father. Now, 
 I suppose that thou certainly rememberest the Sermon," &c. (xiv. 24). 
 
 From the Fifth Lecture on the Mysteries we get an account 
 of the Mass of the FArrHFUL. 
 
 " Ye saw the Deacon give the Priest water to wash, and to the presby- 
 ters who stood round God's altar. . . . This washing of hands is a 
 symbol that ye ought to be pure from all sinful deeds. 
 
 " Then the Deacon cries aloud, ' Receive ye one another ; and let us 
 KISS one another.' Think not that this kiss ranks with those given in 
 public by common friends. 
 
 "After this the Priest cries aloud, ' Lift up your hearts' (Sursum 
 Corda). Then ye answer, ' We lift them up unto the Lord.' 
 
 " Then the Priest says, ' Let us give thanks to the Lord.' For in good 
 sooth we are bound to give thanks. Then ye say, ' It is meet and right.' 
 
 " After this, we make mention of heaven, and earth, and the sea, the 
 sun, and the moon ; of the stars, and of all creation, rational and irra- 
 tional, visible and invisible ; of Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Dominions, 
 Principalities, Powers, Thrones ; of the Cherubim, .... we make men- 
 tion also of the Seraphim (Preface) encirchng the throne of God, who 
 cried : — 
 
 " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. 
 
 " Then having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual hymns, we call 
 upon the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit (EpiKLESis) upon 
 the gifts lying before Him ; that He may make the bread the Body of 
 Christ, and the wine the Blood of Christ (Consecration) ; for whatso- 
 ever the Holy Ghost has touched is sanctified and changed. 
 
 " Then after the spiritual sacrifice is perfected (Oblation), the Blood- 
 less Service upon the Sacrifice of Propitiation, we entreat God for the 
 peace of the Church, for the tranquillity of the world ; for kings, for 
 soldiers, and allies ; for the sick ; for the afflicted ; and, in a word, for all 
 who stand in need of succour, we all supplicate and offer this sacrifice. 
 (Great Intercession). 
 
 " Then we Commemorate the dead, all such as have fallen asleep 
 before us, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, that at their prayers 
 and intervention, God would receive our petition. Afterwards also on 
 behalf of the holy Fathers and Bishops who have fallen asleep among 
 us, believing that it will be a great advantage to their souls for whom the 
 supplication is put up, while that holy and most awful Sacrifice is pre- 
 sented. 
 
 "Then we say the prayer which the Saviour delivered to His disciples 
 (Lord's Prayer). 
 
 " Then, after completing the prayer, thou sayest. Amen. 
 
 "After this the Priest says, 'Holy things to the holy' (Sancta 
 
446 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Sanctis). Holy are the gifts presented, since they have been visited by 
 the Holy Ghost ; holy are you also, since the Holy Ghost has been 
 vouchsafed you ; and the holy things correspond to holy persons. 
 " Then ye respond, ' One is holy, One is the Lord, Jesus Christ.' 
 "After this ye hear the chanter with a sacred melody invite you to the 
 Communion of the Holy Mysteries, saying, 'O taste and see that the 
 Lord is good.' Trust not the decision to thy bodily palate ; no, but to 
 faith unfiiltering ; for when we taste, we are bidden to taste, not bread 
 and wine, but the sign (avriTv-ov) of the Body and Blood of Christ." 
 
 After directions how the Sacred Gift is to be received into 
 the hollow of the hand, and how the chalice is to be taken, 
 St. Cyril concludes his account with : — 
 
 " Then wait for the Prayer, and give thanks to God, who has 
 accounted thee worthy of so great mysteries." 
 
 XIX. S. John Chrysostom. 
 
 Although this saint belongs to a later date, his notices of 
 the Eucharist are included, because he preserves for us an 
 account in scattered references to the Liturgy of the Church of 
 Antioch which was used in his day, and which has textually 
 disappeared. S. Chrysostom was born at Antioch about A.D. 
 347, and was baptized, and instructed, and ordained reader, 
 and then deacon, by S. Meletius, Bishop of Antioch. S. 
 Flavian, who succeeded Meletius, ordained him priest. He 
 succeeded Nectarius, as Patriarch of Constantinople, in 398, 
 and died in exile A.D. 407. The Antiochian Liturgy, as he 
 refers to it, shows a great similarity to that found in the 
 "Constitutions." 
 
 "There are places where the Priest is in no wise dif- 
 ferent from the subject (the layman) ; for example, when 
 they have to taste and enjoy the awful Mysteries. For 
 we are all thought equally worthy of the same things, not 
 as in the Old Covenant, when the Priest ate one portion 
 and the layman another, and it was not lawful for the 
 laity to partake of those things of which the Priest par- 
 took. It is otherwise now, one Body is available for all 
 now, and one Cup. In the prayers, also, one can see 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 447 
 
 DISMISSALS. 
 
 how great is the share of the laity ; for indeed, on 
 account of the Energumens and the Penitents, common 
 prayers arise for them from Priest and people, and all 
 utter one prayer, a prayer full of pity. Again, when we 
 dismiss from the sacred places those who cannot partake 
 PRAYERS OF of the Holy Table, there must arise a different sort of 
 THE FAITHFUL, prayer, we all alike prostrate ourselves and alike arise. 
 
 " When we partake of and give the Kiss OF Peace we 
 alike greet each other. 
 
 " Again, at the very moment of the most awful Mys- 
 teries, the Priest blesses the people, and the people bless 
 him in response, 'And with thy spirit.^ 
 
 " The Thanksgiving again is common, nor does the 
 Priest offer it alone, but also the whole laity ; for, first 
 collecting their voices and their assent, he begins the 
 Eucharist. Why wonder if the people speak with the 
 Priest at a place where they utter the sacred hymns in 
 common with the Cherubim and the powers above .'"' * 
 
 ANAPHORA. 
 
 preface. 
 
 TRIUMPHAL 
 HYMN. 
 
 What follows are small allusions scattered in the writings 
 of S. John Chrysostom : — 
 
 MASS OF the 
 
 CATECHUMENS. 
 GLORIA. 
 
 LECTIONS. 
 
 The Priest : Peace be with you all. 
 
 The Laity : And with Thy spirit. 
 
 Glory to God in the highest, &c. 
 
 Reader : Thus saith the Lord. 
 
 Deacon : Let us pay attention. 
 
 Lesson from the Old Testament. 
 
 The Reader. — Thus saith the Lord. 
 
 Epistle. 
 
 Gospel. 
 
 The Preacher. — Peace be with you all. 
 
 The People. — And with thy spirit. 
 
 The sermon (or sermons), ending with a Doxology to 
 the Blessed Trinity. 
 
 TJie Deacon.^Let us make our prayer with fervour for 
 Catechumens. Let us stand decently. Let us pray. 
 
 That the most pitiful and merciful God would hear 
 their petitions, that He would open the ears of their hearts 
 to hear what eye hath not seen nor ear heard, and hath 
 not entered into the heart of man, and that the Word 
 instruct them in the word of truth, and sow the word of 
 truth in them, and confirm His faith in their understand- 
 ings ; that He would reveal to them the Gospel of 
 
 * This and all the rest are translated from the extracts made by Mr. Hammond, 
 and collected in his "Ancient Liturgy of the Church of Antioch." 
 
 DISMISSALS. 
 
448 
 
 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Offertory. 
 
 Litany of 
 Intercession. 
 
 righteousness, that He would give to them a mind 
 inspired, a temperate judgment, and a virtuous conversa- 
 tion, always to think His things, to judge and to study 
 them, and to walk in His law day and night. 
 
 Let us beseech on their account more fervently, that 
 He would take them from every evil and strange deed, 
 and from every diabolical sin, and from all the assault of 
 the adversary, that He may deem them worthy in fitting 
 time of the washing of the New Birth, of remission of sins, 
 and of the putting upon of immortality ; that He would 
 bless their coming in and going out, all their lives, their 
 houses and their hovels, that He would multiply their 
 children and bless them, and bring them to the measure 
 of the stature [of the perfect Man], and guide them in 
 wisdom ; that He would conform all their purposes to 
 utility. 
 
 Arise, ask the Angel of Peace, O ye Catechumens, let 
 all your intents be peaceful, ask that the present day, and 
 all the days of your life, may be full of peace, that 
 Christian objects — the comely, the useful, may be before 
 you. Give yourselves up to the living God and His 
 Christ. Bow your heads. 
 
 Tlie President blesses them. 
 
 All respond. Amen. 
 
 A similar Bidding Prayer by the Deacon and Bless- 
 ing by the celebrant over — 2, The Energumens ; 3, The 
 Penitents. 
 
 The Deacon. — Depart all in repentance. Depart all 
 who are not able to pray with us. Let none of the 
 Catechumens. Let none of those inadmissible. Let 
 none of the non-communicants. Let no spies, no unin- 
 itiated [remain]. Observe each other. 
 
 Then, when all are gone forth. 
 
 The Deacon. — Let us all pray together. 
 
 Then the Elements are brought in and placed on the 
 Altar. 
 
 Deacon. — Let us pray. 
 
 The Bidding Prayer included the following Petitions. 
 
 For the World. 
 
 For the Church extended unto the end of the earth ; 
 and for the Bishops holding rule in her. 
 
 For the Bishop, and the Elders, and the assistants, 
 and that they may rightly divide the word of Truth, 
 for these present and elsewhere. 
 
 For the Presbyters. 
 
 For the Emperor. 
 
APPENDIX. 449 
 
 For those in authority. 
 For the sick. 
 
 For the fruits of the earth and the sea. 
 For good weather. 
 
 Let us implore the Angel of peace ... let us ask that 
 our intention be wholly peaceful. 
 Pries/. — Peace to all. 
 People. — And to thy spirit. 
 
 Here followed probably a Prayer of the Celebrant, or 
 an ascription of Praise. 
 Priest. — Peace to all. 
 People. — And to thy spirit. 
 
 The Kiss of Peace. 
 Priest : Peace to all. 
 People : And with Thy spirit. 
 Deacon : Let us stand decently. 
 Benediction. Priest: The grace of the Lord, &c., or Grace and 
 peace be to you, &c. 
 
 People. — And to Thy spirit. 
 Pfiest. — Lift up your hearts and minds. 
 People. — We lift them up unto the Lord. 
 Priest. — Let us give thanks unto the Lord. 
 People. — It is meet and right so to do. 
 Preface. Here begins the Great Thanksgiving, with mention of 
 
 the Cherubim and Seraphim, leading up to — 
 The Trium- Holy, holy, holy, &c., frequently referred to by S.. 
 
 PHAL Hymn. Chrysostom. 
 The Great Continuation of the Thanksgiving for the glorious. 
 EUCHARISTIC works of God, recounting the work of Redemption. 
 Prayer. 
 
 The Words of Institution. 
 
 The Great Oblation. 
 
 The Invocation of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The Great This contained, according to S. Chrysostom, prayers 
 
 Interces- for the peace of the world, for all men, for the living 
 
 SION. Church, the faithful dead, those who made memorial for 
 
 them, with martyrs, confessors, and priests. It included 
 
 also a confession of sin, and ended in the words, " For 
 
 ever and ever," to which the people responded " Amen." 
 
 This Intercession, or its chief petitions, was repeated 
 in acclamation by the deacon calling to prayer. 
 The Lord's Prayer. 
 Priest. — Peace to all. 
 People. — And to Thy spirit. 
 
 GO 
 
450 OUR INHERITANCE 
 
 Sancta Sanctis. Pn'esf.— Holy things to holy people. 
 The Communion. 
 Thanksgiving after Communion. 
 Dismissal. Deacon : Depart in peace, 
 
 " I subjoin a few passages (from S. Chrysostom)," says Mr. Hammond 
 " which throw some light upon ritual and other ecclesiastical usages, 
 though not strictly indicating parts of the liturgy. 
 
 "The churches had porches or vestibules; and the sanctuary, ^^wa, 
 within, in which stood the altar, raised above the rest of the church, 
 and separated off by curtains, which concealed the altar from view, and 
 were drawn aside at some part of the service. The women were sepa- 
 rated from the men by wooden barriers : though this was not a custom of 
 ong standing. Two customs practised on entering the church are men- 
 tioned, — viz. {a) of washing the hands, for which purpose there were 
 fountains, or vessels of water, placed near the door ; {b) of kissing the 
 doorposts or thresholds of the entrance. The use of the cross in connec- 
 tion both with the altar and the Holy Bread is clearly indicated. The 
 deacons appear to have distributed the consecrated elements, as in the 
 Greek Liturgy of S. James, and to have exercised some discretion in 
 rejecting notoriously unworthy communicants. They were vested in white 
 albs, and seem to have worn a stole or tippet of linen on their shoulders, 
 which floated in the air with any rapid movement."* 
 
 XX. DiONYSius (the Areopagite). 
 
 Dionysius, abbot of Rhinocorura, in Egypt, about A.D. 375, 
 
 wrote on Mystical Theology, on the Celestial and Terrestrial 
 
 Hierarchies, and some letters to friends. By a curious 
 
 blunder he was mistaken for Dionysius the Areopagite, the 
 
 onvert of S. Paul.-f- 
 
 Dionysius was a man of ideas, and was a philosopher worthy 
 of attention, but not without the faults inherent in the Alexan- 
 drine School. His doctrine was that all created beings stood 
 on stages or planes of existence, those highest and nearest to 
 
 * " The Ancient Liturgy of Antioch." Mr. Hammond quotes every passage in 
 
 substantiation of what he advances. 
 
 + The identification followed is that of Dr. Jocham, in Wetzer and Welte's 
 ■" Kirchen Lexikon," Freiburg, 1884, s.v. 
 
APPENDIX. 451 
 
 God drank in light and wisdom from the primal source, which 
 they communicated to those on the stage below, and so, by 
 various degrees, the light streamed mediately down into the 
 lowest abysses of darkness. And the object of man should 
 be the acquisition of more and more light to ascend from 
 plane to plane to God. The angels who see God face to face 
 turn and flash down the perfect light on the angels below them 
 on the scale, and they also in order to the rank below. Thus 
 all heaven is full of a hierarchy of graduated existences, 
 drinking a light from those above, and communicating it to 
 those below. The ecclesiastical hierarchy is constituted on 
 the same principle, from the bishop to the simple neophyte, 
 through all the stages of ecclesiastical order. 
 
 Dionysius explains the sacraments as means whereby men 
 mount from step to step, " from glory to glory advancing," 
 and when he comes to explain how that the Eucharist is a 
 means of enlightening and elevating, he touches on what 
 nearly concerns us in this enquiry. 
 
 His account of the Synaxis, or Communion, begins with a 
 prayer at the foot of the altar {6va-iacrTi]piov), which is followed 
 by incense, and then a round made of the church. 
 
 " Returned to the altar, he begins the pious melody of the psalms, in 
 which all the ecclesiastical orders join harmoniously. 
 
 Then the Liturgi (Deacons)* read the sacred Scriptures, after which 
 the catechumens, energumens, and penitents are excluded as unworthy to 
 look into and partake of the divine mysteries." 
 
 Here we have in few words the Mass OF THE CATECHU- 
 MENS. 
 
 "The deacons keep the doors, others fulfil some other function, those 
 highest in dignity offer with the priests on the holy altar the sacred bread 
 and the Cup of blessing, after that all the assembly in choir has sung the 
 Catholic hymn." 
 
 • We will employ the usual expressions far the orders 'v(i the sequel. 
 
 GG 2 
 
452 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 Here \vc have the OFFERTORY followed by the TRIUMPHAL 
 Hymn. 
 
 " Then the Bishop recites a holy prayer, and wishes all peace ; and all 
 having exchanged the kiss, the proclamation of the diptychs follows." 
 
 Here we have the PRAYER FOR PEACE and the KiSS OF 
 Peace, followed by the reading out of the names of those for 
 whom prayer was to be offered. The diptychs took the place 
 of the deacon's Bidding Prayer, or call to the LiTANY OF 
 
 Intercession. 
 
 " After that, the Bishop and Priests wash their hands with water. 
 
 " Then the Bishop takes his place in the midst of the altar, surrounded 
 by the Priests and the chief of the Deacons. 
 
 " The Bishop, praising the divine works of God, consecrates the most 
 divine of mysteries, which he solemnly exposes under the veil of venerable 
 symbols. 
 
 "And when he has declared the gifts of the works of God, he makes 
 preparation himself to take a religious part in them, and thereto also he 
 invites the rest. 
 
 " After having received and distributed the ineffable Communion, he 
 concludes with a thanksgiving." 
 
 Here we have the WASHING, then the Great Thanks- 
 giving, then the CONSECRATION, the Prayer of Humble 
 Access, the Communion, and the Final Thanksgiving. 
 
 Having given this brief sketch of the Liturgy, Dionysius 
 proceeds to explain the signification of each part. 
 
 " We must then go into the Holy of Holies, so to speak, and under- 
 stand why the Bishop goes to the august altar at the end of the temple, 
 there to diffuse incense, after which he returns to the place whence he 
 started." 
 
 Then he gives an account of the books read in the Pro- 
 Anaphora — Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, 
 Judges, the Books of the Kings, the Books of Wisdom, the 
 Canticles, the Prophets, Gospels, Acts and Epistles, and Apo- 
 calypse. He sums up by saying that the LECTIONS are first 
 from the Old Testament, then from the New. 
 
APPENDIX. 453 
 
 After that he enters into an elaborate explanation of the 
 Dismissals of catechumens, energumens, and penitents. 
 
 " Then, the sacred ministers and pious assistants, with eyes fixed on 
 the great object of their worship, exah in an universal hymn the Great 
 Author and Giver of all good, by Whom we were given these great and 
 precious things. 
 
 " Some call this exultation a hymn ; others, a symbol of religion. I 
 would call it the very Holy Thanksgiving, as summing up all the names 
 of God that have reached us. It is clear that all the creatures of God 
 which we there laud assist in advancing us to Life." 
 
 What this great hymn is, we are able to say. It is the 
 Cherubic Hymn which occurs in this place in the 
 Alexandrian Liturgy of S. Mark. The text is : — 
 
 " Let us, who mystically represent the Cherubim, and sing the holy 
 Jhymn to the quickening Trinity, lay aside at this time all worldly cares, 
 that we may receive the King of Glory, invisibly attended by the angelic 
 orders. Alleluia ! Alleluia ! Alleluia ! " 
 
 It occurs also in the Liturgy of S. Chrysostom, &c. The 
 creatures of God therein lauded are the Cherubim. 
 
 " At the end of this pious hymn, the sacred bread, covered with a veil, 
 is presented with the cup of blessing, after which comes the Holy Kiss, 
 and then the Diptychs." 
 
 Then Dionysius goes on to examine the Ablutions. 
 
 "Then the Bishop exalts the august works of God, consecrates the 
 Divine mysteries, and exposes to the eyes of all the object of his praises." 
 
 Dionysius next shows, relative to the GREAT THANKS- 
 GIVING, how that man is restored from his fall by the operation 
 of God. He relates how that man fell into sin, and wandered 
 from grace ; how that God did not leave him without hope 
 and guidance, and took our nature upon Him to raise man 
 again to innocence and to glory. 
 
 "The works of God having been celebrated, and His providence 
 towards us, and what Jesus obtained for our race, the Bishop goes on 
 
454 OUR INHERITANCE. 
 
 to the Consecration of the symbols in the manner in which God 
 instituted. He excuses himself for OFFERING A SACRIFICE so superior to 
 himself, but pleads the command to Do this in remembrance of Me. 
 Then he seeks to copy Christ holily in the making and distribution of the 
 divine mysteries, to all such as are worthy to approach." 
 
 We have here the use of the words of Institution ; then 
 the repetition or fulfilment of the command by the celebrant, 
 with a Prayer of Humble Access. 
 
 " Then he completes the most sacred of marvels, he offers to view the 
 symbols which veil the mystery." 
 
 This is the ELEVATION with Sancta Sanctis. 
 
 " Uncovering and dividing the bread that was covered and undivided 
 and dividing among all the same cup." 
 
 This is the SECOND Fraction and the Communion. 
 
 " After that he has administered to himself, and has distributed the 
 Holy Communion, the Bishop and all the assembly conclude with a 
 Thanksgiving." 
 
 " All the orders of the hierarchy united in the church, after having 
 received the sacred mysteries, give pious thanks, giving thanks and praise 
 for the graces of the divine works. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 — ^- 
 
 Aaronic Benediction, 138, 150, 152, 355. 
 
 Abercius, Tomb of, 306. 
 
 Abgarus, K. Edessa, 27. 
 
 Ablutions, see Washing. 
 
 Absolution, 323, 
 
 Addeus and Maris, SS., 27. 
 
 African Church, 31, 184. 
 
 Agape, 138-40, 157-8, 162, 173-91. 315. 
 
 391. 394. 430, 437- 
 Ababa, 144, 150. 
 Alfred, K., 28. 
 Altar, Christian, 371-87, 413-5, 439, 
 
 45'. 452- 
 Altar, Heathen, 89, 369, 374-7, 378-9. 
 ,, Jewish, of Sacrifice, 149, 359, 
 
 369. 379- 
 Altar of Incense, 89-93, 148-9, 359, 
 
 369. 379, 413-5- 
 Ambone, 102-3, 
 Amen, 61, 256. 
 
 Ambrose, S., B., 30, 185, 219, 32S. 
 Anamnesis, 65, 289, 292, 403-5. 
 Anaphora, 15, 65, 129, 140, 144, 151, 
 
 318, 344, 431, 433, 439, 447. 
 Anaphora, Antiquity of Roman, 34-5. 
 Anaphoras, Composed, 33. 
 Anatolius of Laodicsea, 170. 
 Anicetus, B. of Rome, 9, 155-6. 
 Ante-Communion, 16, 37. 
 Antedoron, 189, 208. 
 Apocalypse, 85-94, 106-7, 148-9, 217, 
 
 358-9- 
 
 ApoUinaris, B. Hierapolis, 168. 
 
 Apostles, Memoirs of, 115, 256. 
 
 Apostolic Canons, 129-30, 135, 380. 
 ,, Constitutions, 12, 32, 36-44, 
 
 46, 48-50, 60-1, 82, 95-6, loi, 104, 
 106-7, 134. 139, 178, 182, 197, 224. 
 230, 243-8, 253, 274, 31 1-3, 319, 
 324, 330-1, 350, 380, 438-42. 
 
 Apse, 81, 138-9. 
 
 Archelaus, B., 342. 
 
 Arian Heresy, 274. 
 
 Ark of Covenant, 89, 91, 359. 
 
 Armenian Church, 25, 220. 
 
 Arms uplifted, 19, 138, 261-3, 3^4. 433- 
 
 Asia Minor, Churches of, 155, 158-61, 
 
 341. 
 Athenagoras, 337, 418-9. 
 Atonement, 356. 
 Atrium, 70-4, 112, 217. 
 Augustine, S., 31, 185. 
 Azymites, 200. 
 Baptism, Infant, 128. 
 Baptismal Service, 38. 
 Barnabas, Ep. of, 46, 134. 
 Basil, S., 371. 
 Basilica, 68, 78-82, 93. 
 Bema, 102, 112, 413, 415. 
 Benediction at Passover, 360-3, 367. 
 
 ,, of Oil, 39. 
 
 Benedictus, 324. 
 Benefit Clubs, 76, 79, 
 Blaye, 142. 
 
 Bowing Down, Prayer of, 320, 410. 
 Bread, Eucharistic, 200-9. 
 
 ,, see Unleavened. 
 
 ,, of Presence, see Shew-Bread. 
 Csesarius, S., B. Aries, 130- 1, 333. 
 Calif, Story of, 36. 
 Candlestick, Seven-branched, 89, 90, 
 
 359- 
 Cannibalism, 297-9, 305, 373, 384, 
 
 418-9, 425. 
 Canon, 32, 260, 344, 404, 405, 407, 
 
 411, 439, 440 ; see also Rule. 
 Canons, Hippolytan, 231. 
 Casula, 234. 
 
 Catecombs, 77-9, 135, 305-6. 
 Catechumenate, 122-3. 
 
456 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Celebration, Daily, 327, 328 ; see also 
 
 Communion, Early. 
 Cella, 81, 184, 187. 
 Changes, when made in Liturgy, 84, 
 
 273, 248. 
 Charges against Christians, 177, 179, 
 
 303. 373> 384-5. 418-9, 425- 
 Cherubic Hymn, 453. 
 Chrysostom, 51?^ S. John Chrysostom. 
 Clement of Alexandria, 8, 105, 135, 
 
 206, 227, 230-1, 239, 302-3, 337, 
 
 427-9. 433- 
 Clement, S., of Rome, 3, 10, 11, 39, 
 178, 220, 252-3, 257-9, 329, 338, 
 341, 347, 405-11- 
 "Coal," 437 
 Collect, 95-100, 311. 
 
 ,, Structure of, 316-7, 41 1. 
 Colleges, 76, 79. 
 Commodian, 337, 437-8. 
 Communion, 61, 139, 184, 304, 325-9, 
 330-1, 393, 421-2, 428, 431, 435, 439. 
 446, 451, 452, 454. 
 Communion, Daily, 327-9. 
 
 „ Fasting, 184, 329. 
 
 ,, Unworthy, 175. 
 
 ,, In one or both kinds, 
 
 325-7- 
 Competentes, 123. 
 Consecrations, in what consisting, 17, 
 
 18, 281-292, 445.452,454. 
 Conservatism in the Church, 134, i68, 
 
 191, 206, 237-8, 241, 247, 287, 336, 
 
 338, 347, 350. 
 Constantine the Great, 9. 
 Coptic Church, 227. 
 Corban, 435. 
 Council of Agde, 131 ; Antioch, 129 ; 
 
 Braga, 213 ; Gangra, 75; Laodiccea, 
 
 75, 91, 127; Niccea, 156; Toledo, 
 
 130, 207, 329; Trullo, 12, 184, 213. 
 Creed, 123, 260, 274, 275, 276, 310, 
 
 324, 403, 443, 444-5. 
 Cup, Mixed, 182-3, 206, 210-3, 285-6, 
 
 306-7, 360, 393, 421. 
 Cup, Tasted by Christ, 284. 
 Cups, Paschal, 360-3, 368. 
 Curtailment of Liturgy, 40. 
 Cyprian, S., 31, 182, 212, 236, 269, 
 
 327-8, 342, 371, 396, 434-6. 
 
 Cyril, S., of Jerusalem, 9, 61, 171, 307- 
 
 9. 443-6- 
 Danes in London, 27-8. 
 Decalogue, 98, 145, 150. 
 Didache, 38-40, 45-51, 269, 318, 360, 
 
 384-5- 
 Diognetus, Ep. to, 301, 416. 
 Dionysiac Mysteries, 297, 330. 
 Dionysius Areopag., 124, 27 1 -2, 351, 
 
 450-54- 
 Diptychs, 453. 
 
 Discipline of the Secret, 293-306, 444. 
 Dismissals, 62-4, 122-32, 222, 225, 
 
 334. 432, 440, 447, 450, 453- 
 Disputa, 281-2, 287. 
 Docetic Heresy, 273, 411, 416. 
 Dyes, Objections to, 230-1. 
 Easter, 157-8, 161-2. In Russia, 223. 
 Ebionite Heresy, 46, 49, 342. 
 Ektene, 181, 246, 252-3, 311 ; see also 
 
 Litany. 
 Elevation, 285-6, 290, 321-2, 454. 
 
 ,, in Paschal Rite, 321-2, 323, 
 
 361, 367. 
 Embolismus, 153, 279, 320-1. 
 Encratites, 211. 
 Energumens, 64, 125. 
 Entrance, the Great, 195-7, 198, 220, 
 
 356, 404- 
 Entrance, the Little, 107. 
 Epiklesis, 65, 286, 289, 290, 292, 318, 
 
 400, 404, 423, 444, 445, 449. 
 Epiphanius, S., 207. 
 Epistle, 104, 1 14. 
 Epitrachelion, 240- 1. 
 Eucharist, the Focus of all Institutions, 
 
 7, 352-370- 
 Eucharist, not a Communion only, 381. 
 Eucharistic Prayer, Great, 19, 21, 38, 
 
 44, 50-1, 61-3, 150, 265 -So, 283.4, 
 
 3". 314, 355. 367. 417, 424-5. 
 
 426-7, 434-5, 449. 452, 453- 
 Eucharistic Sacrifices of Jews, 364-6. 
 Eulogy, Great, in Temple, 90, 147-50, 
 
 153, 270-1, 355, 370, 393. 
 Eusebius of Alexandria, 130. 
 Eutychus, 72. 
 
 Exomologesis, 65, 289, 292, 404. 
 Expiatory Sacrifices, 364, 366. 
 " Eye hath not seen," 406, 428. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 457 
 
 Family Likeness, 1-2. 
 Faroes Colonised, 14. 
 Fasting Communion, 184, 329. 
 First-fruits, 159, 192-9, 356, 359, 365, 
 
 367, 420, 428, 439. 
 Fish, Sacred, 208, 306-7, 328. 
 Fraction, 325, 361, 367, 454. 
 Gelasius, 33, 320. 
 Genesius, S. , Martyr, 293-6. 
 Geiila, 144. 
 Gloria in Excelsis, 32, 38, 99, 273, 332- 
 
 3, 404-5, 447. 
 Gnostic Heresy, 273. 
 
 „ the True, 339. 
 Good Friday, 155-71, 173, 228, 249, 
 
 250, 253, 359. 
 Gospel of the Hebrews, 342. 
 
 „ XH., 46, 48. 
 Gospels, the, 102, 104, no, 111-21, 
 
 394-5- 
 Gradual, 103. 
 Great Intercession, see Intercession. 
 
 ,, Eucharistic Prayer, see Euchar- 
 
 istic Prayer. 
 Hallel, 259, 271-2, 390. 
 Hallelujah, 137. 
 Haphtarah, 103. 
 Hebrews, Ep. to, 91, 216, 218, 226-7, 
 
 263. 
 Hermas, 46, 102, 337. 
 Hilduin, 30. 
 Himation, 233. 
 Hippolytus, S., 231, 337, 339, 343, 
 
 425-7- 
 Hosanna, 46, 86, 87, 137, 324. 
 House of SS. John and Paul, 214-5. 
 Houses, Classic, 68, 71-6, 80, 103. 
 ,, Oriental, 68-70, 103. 
 „ of God, 75. 
 Human Nature, 37, 40. 
 Humble Access, Prayer of, 64, 222, 
 
 320, 452, 454- 
 Humboldt, 371. 
 Iceland Colonised, 14. 
 Ignatius, S., 8, 134, 176, 207, 21 1-2, 
 
 337, 380, 412-6. 
 Impluvium, 70, 89. 
 Incense, 10, 94. 
 
 Institution, Eucharistic, Recitation of, 
 17, 260, 262-88, 31 1-7, 321-2, 449, 454. 
 
 Institution in Upper Chamber, 152, 
 
 190- 1, 237-8, 282, 2S7, 388-394. 
 Institution of Passover, 17, 321-2. 
 
 ,, Incompleteness of Gospel 
 Account, 285. 
 Intercession, Great, 18-20, 62-3, 137, 
 255> 283, 3U-8, 368, 412,415. 429. 
 445> 449- 
 Intercession, Litany of, 18, 23, 41, 60, 
 96-100, iSi, 226, 242-54, 311, 330, 
 408-9, 412, 415, 429, 448, 452. 
 Intercessions, Numerous, 18. 
 Intinction, 325. 
 Introit, 96, 150, 152. 
 Invocation, 291, see Epiklesis. 
 Irenseus, S., 8, 10, 29, 135, 196, 206, 
 
 336-8, 344, 380, 382, 411, 419-23- 
 Isidore, S., 30. 
 James of Edessa, 13, 25. 
 Jerome, S., 186, 209. 
 Jewish Rites familiar to the Apostles, 
 
 85, 133-8, 151- 
 John, S., the Almsgiver, 128, 131. 
 
 ,, Chrysostom, 25, 61, 121, 185- 
 
 6, 208, 321, 446-50. 
 „ Divine, 7, 9, 84, 90-1, 94, 107, 
 148, 155, 169, 217, 337, 341, 399. 
 Jozer,_ 144. 
 
 Justin, S., Martyr, 8, 9, 33, 60, 61, 74, 
 135, 183, 203-5, 210, 227, 255-7, 269, 
 329, 366, 416-8. 
 Kalir, 145-6. 
 
 Keduscha, 137, 148, 150, 154. 
 King, Prayer for, 99, 246, 249, 253. 
 Kissof Peace, 61-3, 158, 213-9,242-3, 
 400, 403, 404, 405, 431, 435, 449. 
 452. 
 Kyrie, 96-8, 243-6, 311, 330-1, 333. 
 Lactantius, 442-3. 
 Law, the Pedagogue, 133-4, 138. 
 Leaven, Meaning of, 201-5. 
 
 ,, Putting away of, 164, 203-4, 
 
 260, 262, 391. 
 
 Lections, 60, 101-7, II0-2, 136,139, 
 
 181, 225, 252, 256, 415, 428,432, 
 
 435> 439. 447. 452- 
 
 Lights, 93, 94, 181, 187, 206, 359, 394, 
 
 „ at the Gospel, 113. 
 Linen on the Altar, 206. 
 
458 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Liturgies : African, 31-2, 34, 61-3, 104. 
 „ Alexandrine, 23,26,61-2,96-7, 
 104, 127. 248, 314, 326, 
 328, 453- 
 ,, Armenian, 104, 127, 220, 246. 
 
 ,, Clementine, 34, 60-7, 286. 
 ,, Edessa, 23, 27, 29, 127, 291. 
 ,, Ephesus, 23, 29, 107. 
 ,, Jerusalem, 22, 24, 25, 61. 
 
 Rome, 23, 30, 31-5, 98, 99, 
 188, 249-50, 289, 290, 314, 322-3, 
 400, 403. 
 Liturgy of Antioch, 25, 61, 63, 446-50. 
 „ SS. Addeus and Maris, 23, 
 27, 29, 127, 291. 
 Liturgy of S. Basil, 25. 
 ,, ,, Constantinople, 25, 26, 330, 
 
 331, 453- 
 Liturgy of Copts, 26-7, 227. 
 ,, ,, S. Cyril, 26. 
 ,, ,, Ethiopia, 26, 127, 330. 
 „ the Frank, 29, 30, 31. 
 ,, ,, Gallic, 29, 30, 31, 420. 
 „ of S.James, 11-3,22, 24,65, 
 126, 197, 220, 226, 289, 314, 326, 
 
 331. 396-7- 
 Liturgy, Malabar, 24, 28, 29, 248, 
 
 291. 332. 
 Liturgy of S. Mark, 29, 96, 104, 197, 
 
 227, 248, 314, 326, 453. 
 Liturgy, Mozarabic, 30-1, 104, 229, 
 
 248. 
 Liturgies, Unwritten, 10- 1, 43. 
 Liturgical Forms, 3, 5, 6, 11; Splen- 
 dour, 84-5. 
 Lord's Day, 46-9, 135, 13S-9, 140, 160, 
 
 199, 441. 
 Lord's Day Service, 16, 20, 441. 
 Lord's Prayer, Position of, 34, 42, 45, 
 
 65, 318-20, 332, 403-4, 435, 445.449- 
 Lord's Prayer, Structure of, 55. Jewish 
 
 Prayer like, 153. 
 Lord's Supper, 159, 161-4, 167, 170-1, 
 
 173-5, 181, 184, 189-90, 390,439- 
 Maimonidcs, 145, 389. 
 Malabar Church, 28, 263-4, 291. 
 Malachi, Prophecy of, 196, 198, 257, 
 
 264, 289, 369, 420, 423, 441. 
 Manes, Heretic, 342. 
 Marcion, Heretic, 343. 
 
 Mark, Heretic, 179. 
 
 Martyrs, Memorials of, 184-5. 
 
 Maundy Thursday, 184, 186. 
 
 Melito of Sardis, 168. 
 
 Memorials of Sacrifice, I44, 151, 153. 
 
 Mercy Seat, 89, 359. 
 
 Methodius, S., 92, 177, 337, 380, 436-7. 
 
 Milan Cathedral, 187-8. 
 
 , , , , Bishops of, 30. 
 
 Milk Diet, 388. 
 Minucius Felix, 371-4, 382. 
 Missa Catechumenorum, 16, 20,24,96, 
 
 140, 151,444. 447.451- 
 Missa Fidelium, 16, 20, 140, 151, 195, 
 
 435. 445- 
 Modena, Tomb at, 208. 
 Monophysite Heresy, 13, 15, 213. 
 Monte Cassino, 333. 
 Morning Prayer in the Temple, 141 -3, 
 
 147-8, 149, 151, 393. 
 Morning Prayer in the Synagogue, 
 
 136-7, 143, 151, 393. 
 Mysteries, Christian, 202, 298, 300, 
 
 302, 305, 426,428, 429, 443-4. 
 Mysteries, Heathen, 182, 297. 300, 303, 
 
 304- 
 Nestorian Heresy, 4, 13, 15, 291. 
 Nisan, 14th, 155-71, 191. '93-4. 204, 
 
 359. 389, 400-2. 
 Nisan, 16th, 159, 177, 199. 
 Norse Tongue, 15. 
 Non-Communicating Attendance, 127- 
 
 31- 
 
 Novatian, Heretic, 268-9. 
 
 Oblation, Eucharistic, 1S4, 196, 198, 
 
 269, 290, 316, 317, 329, 404, 417, 
 
 420-1, 423, 42S, 440, 442, 445, 449. 
 Oblation of Incense, 145, 147, 270. 
 Offertory, 61-3, 66, 187-8, 195, 198, 
 
 225, 435. 448, 452- 
 Ordinal, 38. 
 Origen, 61, 105, 197, 202, 206, 227-8, 
 
 354, 374, 377, 378, 433-4. 
 Ostiarius, 63, 107-8. 
 Pa;nula, 234, 240. 
 Pain benit, 189, 208. 
 Pallium, 233-4, 237. 
 Parallelisms, 52-9, 125, 284, 330. 
 Papias, 9, 29, 116-7. 
 Pascha, 157-S, i6r, 162, 16S, 173-4. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 459 
 
 Paschal Supper, 51, 155-6, 161-71, 
 203-4, 321-2, 360-3, 367-8, 389. 
 
 Passover, Reluctance to Abandon, 163. 
 
 Paul, S., 105, 123, 175, 179, 180, 253, 
 262, 286, 300, 337, 402. 
 
 Peace Offerings, 363-5. 
 
 Peace, Prayer for, 137, 410, 452. 
 
 Peitan, 145. 
 
 Peter, S., Ap., 337, 341, 391. Dress 
 of, 233. 
 
 Peter, S., of Alexandria, 169. 
 
 Philemon, Ep. to, 55. 
 
 Planeta, 234, 237. 
 
 Pliny, 177, 300, 329, 384. 
 
 Polycarp, S., 7-9, 10, 29, 155-6, 197, 
 
 336-7, 341, 411-2. 
 Polycrates of Ephesus, 169. 
 Post-Communion, 330-4. 
 Prayer of Veil, see Veil. 
 
 „ for Dead, 39, 433, 445. 
 
 ,, Book of Jews, 144, 146. 
 Preface, 62, 63, 137, 148, 275-6, 227, 
 
 355. 403. 406, 445, 447, 449- 
 
 Preparation for Communion, 320-4. 
 
 Pro- Anaphora, 15, 17, 38, 42, 138, 140- 
 I, 144, 181, 187, 195, 242, 315, 318, 
 330, 394, 403, 430, 433, 452. 
 
 Prophecies, 180, 394. 
 
 Psalm of Degrees, 150, 152. 
 
 Pudens, 74- 
 
 Quartodeciman Schism, 156, 171. 
 
 Raising the Eyes, 285-6. 
 
 Reservation of Eucharist, 3289. 
 
 Roman Church, 31-5, 248, 252, 314, 
 
 325, 326, 341, 405- 
 Rule of Faith, 169, 260, 263, 265-9, 
 
 274, 282, 340-2, 344, 346, 386, 416. 
 Sabbath, 133-41, 184- 
 
 ,, Service, 16, 20, 136, 138. 
 Sacramentaries, 33. 
 Sacrifice, the Eucharistic, 363-7, 379, 
 
 382, 415, 419, 420-1, 426, 431, 
 
 435-6, 439,441, 454- 
 Sacrifice, Technical Terms for, 363, 
 
 365, 366. 
 Sacrifice among the Jews, 143, 144, 
 
 147, 353, 356, 364- 
 Sacrifice among the Pagans, 369, 377. 
 Sancta Sanctis, 67, 150, 273, 321-3, 
 
 370, 445-6, 450, 454- 
 
 Sanctus, 227, 258. 260, 263-4, 268, 272, 
 
 273, 276, 406. 
 Schacarith, 16, 136, 143, 151-4. 
 Schema, 144-5, HS, 150, 153-4, 355, 
 
 370. 
 Schmone Esreh, 144-7, 150, 154. 
 Schola, 79. 
 Scripture, Appeal to, 266, 342-3. 
 
 ,, Canon of, 269, 342. 
 
 Sea of Brass, 89, 94. 
 Seaside, 371. 
 
 Self-dedicatory Sacrifices, 364-5. 
 Sermon, 60-3, 107, 136, 181, 391. 
 
 ,, on Mount, 55. 
 Sheepfold, the Church, 82, 109. 
 Shew-bread, 201-3, 257-9, 265, 367. 
 Ship, the Church, 82, 95-6, 108. 
 Sicarii, 374-5. 
 Sidonius Apollinaris, 371. 
 Sin-offerings, 364. 
 Stole, 290-1. 
 Summing-up, 353-70. 
 Supplication, How Divided, 354. 
 Surplice, 235-6. 
 Sursum Corda, 62, 63, 65, 227, 260- 1, 
 
 355, 436, 438, 445- 
 Symmetrical Structure, 52-9, 64. Proof 
 
 of Antiquity, 58-9. 
 Synagogue Services, 136, 140, 143-4. 
 
 „ Structure of, 74. 
 Table of Shew-bread, 91, 359.. 
 Tablinum, 70-4, 81, 1 12, 217. 
 Tebah, 74. 
 
 Te Deum, 276, 278-80. 
 Temple at Jerusalem, 142-3, 215. 
 
 ,, Morning Service in, 354-6, 367, 
 
 370. 
 Temple, Pagan, 373-6. 
 Ten Commandments, 98 ; see Deca- 
 logue. 
 Tephilla, 145. 
 Tertullian, 31, 61, 62, 105, 121, 128, 
 
 137, 157, 178-9, 182, 187, 228, 
 
 230-1, 233, 240-1, 265-6, 305, 382, 
 
 400, 429-33- 
 Testament of the XII. Patriarchs, 
 
 438. 
 Thanksgiving, Great ; see Eucharistic 
 
 Prayer. 
 
46o 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Thanksgiving, Collect in Didache, 47- 
 
 9. Si- 
 Thanksgiving, Subdivision of, 354. 
 Theophilus, 337, 423-5. 
 " This do," a Sacrificial term, 366. 
 Throne of Bishops, loi, 359. 
 Toga, 233-4. 
 
 Torah, 103, 107, 141, 151, 154. 
 Tradition, 8, 40, 169, 335-50. 
 Trajan, Edict of, 183. 
 Triclinium, 186. 
 Triumphal Hymn, 17, 32, 62-3, 65, 
 
 263-4, 270, 273, 370, 393, 406, 430, 
 
 437, 441, 445. 447, 449, 452- 
 Troas, Eucharist at, 72, 74, 176-7. 
 Tunic, 232-3, 236, 237. 
 " Two Ways," The, 46. 
 Unleavened Bread, 167-8, 191, 200-9, 
 
 400-2. 
 Upper Room, 68, 152, 190, 388. 
 Veil in Churches, 94, 218-20. 
 ,, in Houses, 217-8. 
 
 Veil in the Temple, 90, 215-7, 359. 
 ,, Prayer of, 22, 150, 1S8, 215, 220-2, 
 227, 370, 403-5. 
 Vesture, Christ's, 237-41. 
 ,, Classic, 232-6. 
 ,, of Celebrant, 230-41. 
 Victor of Rome, 169. 
 Vine, Symbolic, 355, 392. 
 Washing of Feet by Christ, 354, 391, 
 
 399-400. 
 Washing at the Passover, 361. 
 in Temple, 354, 370. 
 ,, of Christians before Prayer, 
 137, 181, 445, 453. 
 Water Used in Place of Wine, 182, 211. 
 Wine, Eucharistic, 210-3, S^^- 
 Worship, Christian, Congregational, 
 
 375- 
 Worship, Spiritual, 377. 
 
 ,, of what composed, 353. 
 
 Ximenes, 30. 
 " Ye do shew forth," 286. 
 
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