CHAPTER  FIVE

                            THE  MIDDLE  AGES:
                       DEVELOPMENT  and  DEFORMATION


The concept of "Middle Ages" is most nebulous, for it covers a
succession of very varied periods.  Moreover, it is as difficult to tell
when this period began as it is to specify the moment when it
ended.  From our point of view here, we might say that the
Churches which became Nestorian or Monophysite in the Syrian,
Coptic or Armenian East entered into the Middle Ages the minute
that they left the Byzantine orbit spiritually as well as materially. 
Today it would not be possible to say that they have yet completely
emerged from this period.  At Byzantium, on the other hand, if the
Middle Ages existed, they are not really separable from Patristic
antiquity before the time of the fall of Constantinople, that is, at the
moment that we tend to believe the Middle Ages came to an end in
the West.  Even at Rome we can begin the Middle Ages right after
St. Gregory.  But it was a long time before the greater part of the
Western world entered this period itself.

              THE  MULTIPLICATION  OF  THE  LATE 
FORMULARIES
                          AND  THEIR  DEFORMATION

     We understand that we call the Middle Ages here everything
that still tried to preserve the Patristic tradition for better or worse,
although people had already begun to misunderstand it. 
Consequently, this tradition continued to exist in a sort of Patristic
vegetation of practices and formulas rather than through coherent
developments of thought.  Again, we must add that these
developments did not disappear all at once.  And, especially, when
we are thinking of the Latin West, we must never forget that the
Middle Ages were not so much followed by one "renascence" as it
was crossed by successive "renascenes": in the eleventh and in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries particularly, the latter being scarcely
less important than the one which was to follow in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries and seemed - in appearance only - to sweep
away the Middle Ages.

     Since our study here only involves the Eucharistic Prayer, we
shall first have to speak of the latter developments - which are more
deformation than developments - that the Eucharist in this restricted
but original sense was to experience.  Then we shall come to the
problem of the "silence of the Canon," a silence into which the
Eucharistic Prayer, most significantly, fell almost everywhere from
the beginning of the is period.  Lastly we shall treat all the new
creations that were proposed to fill up this silence.  They were first
aimed at the faithful or the simple clerics who followed the priest's
Mass instead of still taking part in the Mass with him.  The priest
himself began, through force of circumstances, being a simple
cleric, and before that a more or less devout layman, he was no
longer able to enter into the silence of the Canon, supposedly
reserved for him, without bringing along very curious grab-bag of a
substitutive Eucharistic piety.  At this moment, despite sporadic
efforts at revival, or simple reaction, the Eucharistic Prayer
survived only as a venerable mummy, respectfully embalmed and
shrouded with protective strips.  Some "reformers" who were only
slightly more impatient than their predecessors were then able to
come onto the scene.  They thought that all they had to do was to
throw out this old dried-up relic in order to rediscover the original
Eucharist.  But after this, nothing more was left.

     After successively adopting the liturgies of St. Basil and St. John
Chrysostom, the Byzantine Church, as we said, held invariably to
these two texts, eliminating little by little all those that had
competed with them.  If the following generations were to develop
considerably the secondary part of the Eucharistic Liturgy, they
made no more modifications in the Eucharistic Prayer except a few
variants of minor importance. The only exception on this point is an
overloading of the Epiclesis, particularly among the Slavs, which
doubled it through the introduction of a prayer addressed directly to
the Holy Spirit and taken into the Eucharist from the divine office. 

     The Armenians have been practically as conservative concerning
the Eucharistic Prayer, despite the richness of their own
compositions in general, and their liberal borrowings from other
traditions, from the old Byzantine tradition to the most evolved
medieval forms of the Roman Liturgy.  After using St. James, St.
Basil and St. John Chrysostom, they finally settled upon one
Eucharistic Prayer which they attribute to  St. Athanasius of
Alexandria, but which seems to be a properly Armenian reworking
of St. Basil or St. James and difficult to date.  Yet they also used in
the past versions in their own language of more or less late Syrian
or Egyptian Liturgies, like those named after St. Ignatius or St.
Gregory of Nazianzus on the one hand, and St. Cyril on the other,
as well as a mysterious Liturgy of St. Isaac (would this be the
Nestorian bishop, Isaac of Niniveh?), and another more or less
autochthonous Liturgy attributed to their great missionary, Gregory
the Illuminator.

     This progressive reduction of the variety of the Eucharistic
Prayers down to one or a few relatively ancient models did not
come about in the other Churches separated from Byzantium, with
one exception, to a certain extent, of the Church of the Nestorians. 
Not only is the very archaic Liturgy of Addai and Mari, which they
have preserved encased in a development which itself is very old,
unquestionably from a rather early period (with the exception of a
few interpolations), but so also are the two other liturgical prayers
which they use, attributed respectively to Nestorius and Theodore
of Mopsuestia.

     The Jacobites of Syria, on the contrary, while retaining the
Anaphora of  St. James, have added to it numerous Eucharistic
Prayers, a great number of which have also been kept in use by the
Maronites,  Brightman, at the end of the last century, pointed to 43
known formularies, of which only 19 were published in the original
Syriac, the others being available through the Latin translations of
Renaudot or Assemani.  He pointed out that there were 21 other
known Anaphoras that were never published.

     The same is true with the Copts of Egypt.  The ancient Church
of Egypt, besides the Liturgy of St. Mark which was more or less
influenced in its evolved forms by the Syrian Liturgies, used an
archaic form of the Liturgy of St. Basil, and an Anaphora attributed
to St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and which in any case is a Syrian
Anaphora brought to the desert monastics and their Skete by monks
of this nationality.  The Coptic documents have versions of these
three Anaphoras (generally attributing that of St. Mark to St.
Cyril), which permits us frequently to go back to a state of the
Greek texts that is older than the one that is directly available to us. 
But they also include a multitude of other later Eucharistic Prayers.

     The Ethiopians, while borrowing the basic part from the Copts
and many other Anaphoras from the Syrians and even the
Armenians did not fail to add compositions of their own making. 
Such are the Anaphora of Our Lord of that of Our Lady as well as
texts attributed to the "318 Orthodox" (the Fathers of the Council
of Nicaea), to St. Athansasius, to St. Epiphanius, etc.  Here we also
find, under the name of the Anaphora of the Apostles, a
combination of the Eucharist of Hippolytus with a framework and
complementary elements taken from St. Mark-St. Cyril.

     The Roman Canon, once it was imposed everywhere, hardly
ever varies in the West except in the Preface.  These Prefaces were
very varied in Patristic times, enriched from Gallican and Mozarabic
sources and continued to proliferate throughout the whole of the
Middle Ages.

     It is not possible to examine in any detail this enormous body of
literature, of which only one part has been published.  We shall have
to be content with a few probings.  These will soon show us that
originally what now mostly consists only in more or less felicitous
variations on themes we have already encountered.  In fact, what
dominates this enormous production is a general tendency to
conceal, if not to disintegrate the original and basic themes of the
Eucharist under parasitical vegetation.  A tradition which attempts
to protract itself, admits that it no longer has any control over itself
except every imperfectly.  When it is not fixed, it tends only to
dissolve.

           THE  EUCHARISTS  OF  NESTORIUS:  SCHOLASTIC 
THEOLOGY
                          AND  BIBLICAL  OVERLAY

The Eucharist that the Nestorians attribute to Nestorius was for
some time looked upon as the old Liturgy of Constantinople of
which the Liturgy of  St. John Chrysostom would be only an
abbreviation by such scholars as Baumstark.  Quite the contrary is
true.  It is the formulary attributed to St. John Chrysostom, or
perhaps to his old Antiochean forbearer, which must have
undergone copious scriptural and theological injections before it
arrived at the formulary named after Nestorius.  We must even
admit that there is among these additions at least one section which
only with difficulty seems attributable to a fifth century editor.

     Here first of all, is the whole part of the prayer that goes up to
the words of Institution inclusively:

         Lord,  mighty on e, Thou who art, e te rnal, God  the Almight
y Fat her who art always       what Thou ar t, it is  meet, fit  and
right that we praise Th ee , that we confess Thee, that  we        
adore Thee,  that we  exalt Thee always and ever.    Thou art
indeed the true,  incomprehensible, infinite, inexplicable, invisible,
simple, imperceptible to the senses, immortal, sublime God, above
the thought and the intelligence of all creatures, Thou who art in
every place, and understood nowhere,Thou and Thy Only-Begotten
Son, and Thy Holy Spirit.  Do thou, Lord, give us the ability to
speak that we might open our mouths in Thy Presence, and offer to
Thee, with a contrite heart and a humbled mind, the spiritual fruits
of our lips, (our) reasonable worship: Thou art indeed our God and
the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, our hope, the One
in whom all the treasures of Wisdom and knowledge are hidden,
and through whom we have received the knowledge of the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from Thee, O Father, and is
of the hidden nature of Thy divinity.  It is through Him sanctified
and perfected. and to Thee, to Thy Only-Begotten Son and to Thy
Holy Spirit, they offer  always perpetual praise, for all are Thy
work.  For it is Thee who have  brought us forth and ordered us out
of nothing to existence.  We have sinned and we have fallen, but
while we were perishing in our decline, Thou renewed us, lifted us
up and redeemed us, Thou had no rest until Thou hast visited us all
in Thy great solicitude, in order to raise us to Heaven and to give
us, by Thy mercy, Thy Kingdom which is to come.  And for all
these benefits in our regard, we give Thee thanks in truth, O God
the Father, and to thy Only-Begotten Son and Thy living and Holy
Spirit as well, as we worship Thee for all these benefits 
     Thou hast   accorded us, both those that we know and those we
do not know, those that  are manifest and those that are secret.  We
give Thee thanks also for this ministry,           beseeching Thee to
receive it from our hands: indeed, what would suffice to tell the
miracles of Thy power and to make all Thy praises heard?

         If even all creatures were but one mouth and one tongue, they
would not s uffice, Lord,     to speak of Thy majesty.  For, before
Thy Trinity, Lord, there stand a thousand thousands      and ten
thousand myriads of Angels: all flying togeth er unceasingly and for
ever, with one shrill voice that is never silent, praise and exult Thee,
crying out to one another, saying and answering:

         Holy, holy, holy, Lord, Strong One, of whom Heaven and
earth are full!

         And togethe   r  with  these heavenly  powers,  we also, good
L or d a nd merciful God. c ry      out an d say:  Thou art truly holy, 
tru ly worthy of bein g      glorified, exal ted,  O Sublim e On e,    
Thou who hast ma d       e Thy wo rshippers on earth w  o    rthy of
being likened to those who glorify Thee in Heaven.  Holy also is
Thy Only-Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, together with the
Holy Spirit, (this Son) who coexists with Thee from all eternity 
partaking in the same nature, and the author of all creatures. We
bless, Lord, God the Word, the hidden Son, who proceeds from
Thy bosom, who, although He was like Thee, and the image of Thy
substance, did not look upon equality with Thee as plunder, but
emptied Himself and took on the likeness of a slave, a perfect man
with a rational, intelligent and immortal soul, and a mortal human
body, which He conjoined to Himself and united to Himself in
glory, power and honor, although He was passible by nature, He
who was formed by the power of the Holy Spirit for the salvation
of all, made from a women, made under the Law, to redeem those
who were under the Law and to give life to all those who died in
Adam; He destroyed sin in His flesh and destroyed the Law of the
Commandments with His commandments; He opened the eyes of
our blinded minds and made straight for us the path of salvation,
and He enlightened us with the light Divine Knowledge.  To these
who received Him, He gave the power of being made children of
God; He purified us and He made atonement for us through the
baptism with holy water, and He sanctified us by His grace in the
gift of the Holy Spirit.   Those who were buried with Him in
baptism, He resurrected, He raised them up, He transported them
to Heaven with Him in accordance with His promise.  And as He
had loved His own in this world, He loved them even to the end,
and offering Himself in our stead for the punishment due to sin of
our race, for the life of all He gave Himself for all over to the death
which ruled over us and to whose power we were subject, having
been sold to it because of our sins, and by His precious blood He
redeemed and saved us, He descended into Hell and united the
bonds of the death which was devouring us. But, since it was right
that the price of our salvation be not held in Hell by death, He rose
from the dead on the third day and became the first fruits of those
who sleep, in such a way that He was the first in all things; He
ascended into Heaven, sat at the right hand of Thy majesty, O God. 
And He left us a memorial of our salvation, this Mystery which we
have offered in Thy Presence.  
     For, when t he time had come for Him to be handed over  for
the l ife of the wo rld, after    having supped, on the Passover of the
law of Moses, He took  bread nto Hi s Holy,      spotless and
immaculate hands, He blessed it, broke it, ate, and gav  e some to
His disciples and said: Take, eat of it all of you, this is My body
which is broken for you for the remission of sins.  Likewise, He
mixed wine and water in the cup, blessed it, drank of it, and gave it
to His disciples and said: Drink of this all of you, that is My Blood
of the New Covenant which is shed for a great number for the
remission of sins, and do this as a memorial of Me until I come. 
Indeed, as often as you eat of this bread and drink of this cup, you
proclaim My death until I come. Thus, whoever with a genuine faith
comes forth to partake of it, let them be for him, Lord, for the
remission of sins, the great expectation of the resurrection from the
dead, and the new life in the Kingdom of Heaven.

     This prayer, undoubtedly, has very attractive aspects, like
beginning the second part of the thanksgiving with the glorification
of God for the very fact that He has allowed us to join in the
glorification that the heavenly spirits give Him.  However, we can
also find here a primary root of the subjective elements which were
to lead to those apologies whereby the priest, before performing his
function of proclaiming the mirabilia Dei, would intermingle
supplications and thanksgivings for the awesome privilege given
him of standing at the Altar.  But, over all, if the whole of this text,
as is obvious, reminds us of the other great example of a theological
and biblical Anaphora, which we owe to St. Basil, and from which
it makes many borrowings, it certainly does not benefit by the
comparison.  It may be said of the Eucharist of Nestorius that it has
the effect of a Basilian Anaphora which lost out on two accounts. 
It is no less doctrinal and no less scriptural, yet it still does not
succeed in fusing the biblical references into an organic whole, nor
in marrying to its own theology the great continuous line of the
history of salvation.  The quotations from the Holy Books  are
merely a rattling off of references, as in a mediocre scholastic tract. 
It could not be otherwise, once theology itself was no longer the
development of a contemplation of the Divine Word, but simple
pile-up of scholarly digressions.

     We shall find the same weaknesses, and even more developed if
possible, in the Anamnesis.  Like other more or less late prayers
which we have already encountered, it turn in order to the
confession of faith.  But, what is more, it cannot always resist every
temptation, either to pile up quotations or to lose itself in some
equally idle digression.  The following intercession, which is equally
prolix, is well formed.

          And  we  als o, Lord God, m ighty Fath er, com memorat e
this comma nd  an d the salvatio n      whic h it has accompl ished f
or us.  Be fore all thi ngs,  we be lieve Tho u and we c onfe ss     
Thee, God, the t rue  Father, and t he etern  al Son, Only-
Begotten, of (Thy) divinity, who proceeds from Thee, conjoint with
Thee by His consubstantiality, His admirable economy which has
come about through our humanity and which has been dispensed
for our salvation; the Cross and the passion, the death, the burial,
the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into Heaven, the
sitting at the right hand and the second coming to us in glory of our
Lord Jesus Christ, where upon He is to judge the living and the
dead, and to render to each according to his works.  We confess
also the Holy Spirit, who is of the glorious substance of Thy
divinity, who, with Thee and Thy Only-Begotten (Son) is adored
and glorified; and we offer Thee this living, holy, acceptable,
glorious and unbloody sacrifice, for all creatures; and for the Holy,
Apostolic and Catholic Church, form one end of the earth to the
other, that Thou may preserve her in Thy tranquility and in shelter
from every scandal, and that there may be in her no spot or blemish
or wrinkle or anything of that sort, indeed, Thou hast said, through
Thy Only-Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that the gates of
Hell would not prevail against her.  And for all Bishops in every
place and region who announce the Orthodox word  of the true
faith.  And for all Priest, who perform their sacrifice in Thy
Presence, in the righteousness and holiness of truth.  And for all
Deacons, who preserve the Mystery of Thy faith in a pure
conscience.  And for every condition of Thy devout and holy
people everywhere.  And for all those who knowingly or in
ignorance have sinned and offended Thee. And for Thy unworthy
and guilty servant whom Thou hast made worthy by Thy grace to
offer this oblation before Thee.  And for all those who celebrate
Thy Holy Church by works of righteousness in a praiseworthy
manner.  And for all those who dispense alms to the poor.  And for
all faithful Kings and the stability of their rule.  And for all the
princes and authorities of this world; we beg and beseech Thee,
Lord, strengthen them in Thy fear, impress Thy truth upon them,
and submit all barbarian nations to them.  We call upon Thy
Godhead, Lord, that Thou might repel wars to the ends of the earth
and that Thou weaken those nations who wish war, so that we
might dwell in tranquility and serenity, in all temperance and fear of
the Lord.  And for the fruits of the earth, and a healthful climate,
that Thou may bless the crown of the year with Thy gra             ce. 
And for this place and those that dwell therein, that Thou may have
mercy upon them, that Thou may bless them, that Thou may keep
and protect them by Thy clemency.  And for all those who travel,
on sea or on land.  And for all those who are in chains, in anguish,
persecutions, oppressions and trials on account Thy Name.  And for
all those in exile, in tribulations and in prisons, sent to far off islands
and to unending suffering, or subject to a bitter slavery.  And for all
our captive brethren; we beseech Thee, Lord, to come to the aid
also of those who are afflicted with miseries and painful infirmities. 
Finally, we call upon Thy mercy, Lord, by Thy grace, for all our
enemies, and those who hate us, and for all those who think evil
against us; not for judgment or vengeance, Lord, mighty God, but
for loving kindness and salvation, and the forgiveness of sins, for
Thou will that all men live and be converted to the recognition of
truth.  It is Thee, indeed, who have commanded us, through Thy
beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to pray to Thee for our
enemies and for those who hate us, and for those who dominate us
violently and unjustly ...

         .. .   Lord, powerful God, we beseec h Th ee, in blessing and
wo rshipping  Thee in  Thy       Presence: convert the wayward , en
lighten those who are in  darkness,  stren gthen the   weak, raise up
those who ha  ve fallen, sustain those who are upri g ht, and
everything that can be fitting and useful, procure for all though Thy
loving kindness.  Again we beg and beseech Thee, Lord, to mindful
in this oblation of the Fathers, the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the
Apostles, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Bishops,
the Priests, the Deacons and all those who partake in our ministry
and who have left this world, and all our brothers in Christ who
have left this world in the true faith, whose names are known to
Thee; absolving and forgiving them all their sins, all in which they
have offended Thee, as men subject to error and to passions,
through the prayers and intercessions of those who have been
pleasing to Thee.  Look upon us and have mercy upon all, Thy
servants and handmaids, who stand before Thy Altar.  Make us
worthy of having a part in the inheritance of the Saints in light, and
give us, in the abundance of charity and the purity of thought, to
live before Thee, in this world wherein we are pilgrims, in the
possession of an exact knowledge of the true faith in Thee, and 
communicating in Thy awesome and Holy Mysteries, that we may
not be confounded and condemned when we stand before the
terrible throne of Thy majesty.  And as in this world Thou hast
made us worthy of the ministry of Thy awesome and Holy
Mysteries, so gant us in the world to come to partake, with
uncovered face, of all the good things which neither pass away nor
perish.  When thou consummate what we attain here in figures and
enigmas, may we possess openly the Holy of holies in Heaven.

     We have omitted a prolix apologia of the celebrant, which for
the length of a page interrupts the prayer for the Church.  It seems
difficult to attribute it to the original text, despite its tendency to
digress. The Epiclesis which comes at the end of the prayer, in
accordance with the order proper to the East Syrian liturgies, here
as in the long form of the Eucharist of Addai and Mari is introduced
by a return to the theme of the Anamnesis, which on the other hand
is found compete in the Liturgy of Theodore of Mopsuestia at the
beginning of the intercessions.

        Wher efore we, Lord, Thy useless, weak and infirm servan ts,
who were far from Thee      but whom, through the multitude of
Thy kindness T hou hast made worthy to stand and   to accomplish
in Thy Presence this awesome, glorious a nd excellent ministry, we
beseech Thy adorable Godhead which restores all creatures: Lord,
let the grace of Thy Spirit come, let it dwell in and repose upon this
oblation which we have offered in Thy Presence, let it sanctify and
make this bread and this cup the Body and Blood of our Lord Je      
          sus Christ, transforming them Thyself and sanctifying them
through the operation of Thy Holy Spirit, so that the reception of
these Holy Mysteries may be for us who partake of them (a source
of) eternal life, and of resurrection from the dead, atonement of
body and soul, illumination of knowledge, confidence before Thee
and the eternal salvation about which Thou hast spoken to us
through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that all of us together may be
joined unanimously, by one and same bond and charity and peace,
and that we may become one Body and one Spirit, just as we have
been called in one hope of our vocation.  Let no one eat or drink of
them unto the condemnation of his body and soul, and let no
sickness or infirmity come to him on account of his sins, because he
would have eaten this bread and drunk this cup unworthily.  May he
rather be strengthened and confirmed for all that is pleasing to
Thee, so that we may be worthy to communicate with a good
conscience in the Body and Blood of Thy Christ.  When we stand
before Thee, at that awesome and glorious tribunal, in the presence
of the throne of Thy majesty, may we obtain mercy and grace,
enjoy the future good thinks which do not pass away, with all those
who, over the centuries, have been pleasing to Thee, by the grace
and the mercies of Thy Only-Begotten Son, with whom, Lord, be
glory, honor, power, and exaltation unto Thee, and to Thy living,
Holy and sanctifying Spirit, now and always and forever and ever.

     Here again, we see, the successful passages are unhappily
smothered by the exhausting dissertations which have more the
feeling of coming from a professional chair than an Altar.  Yet we
should must point out, in the Epiclesis which closes the
intercessions, as well as at their beginning after the Anamnesis, the
profound doctrinal perspective that places the Church, its
fulfillment, first in holiness and then in unity, at the beginning and at
the end of the supplication included in the Eucharist.

     Again we decided to quote this text in its entirety despite its
intolerable longwindedness, or rather because of it. Here we can see
actually how the Eucharist, at the end of the Patristic period, tended
to expand into what first was merely a pedantic rhetoric, but
ultimate soon turned in pious rambling.


            THE  ARMENIAN  EUCHARIST:  FIDELITY  TO 
TRADITION
                           IN  NEW  DEVELOPMENTS

However, we can still find in this body of late literature some more
successful examples of a new expression of the perennial themes. 
The best is perhaps that of the Armenian Eucharist in the form that
was to prevail and which is attributed by the books (without a
shade of probability) to St. Athanasius of Alexandria.  We have
already said that the Armenian Liturgy is both one of the most
eclectic in its sources as well as one of the most creative in original
ritual pieces or details.  But it possesses further the rare privilege of
synthesizing all of this into organic wholes which maintain a
sumptuous but always orderly beauty with the most oriental
opulence.  Devotion can be at its fullest without the sense of the
sacred ever being disturbed.  It would be most easy for this
super-Byzantine Liturgy to become theatrical and melodramatic but
an unfailing esthetic and religious sense preserves it from ever being
so. These features are nowhere more in evidence than in this last of
the ancient Eucharistic Prayers that we shall quote complete

     It is generally looked upon as a reworking of the Basilian
Anaphora, but, despite analogies with this text, it seem to us that it
rather follows the development of St. James.  The interventions on
the part of the faithful (today replaced by the choir) and of the
deacon which gradually invaded all the Eastern liturgies constantly
interrupt the celebrant's prayer to paraphrase it.  This commentary
now has reached the point of hiding its object.  But it is interesting
to see in this Liturgy the rare example of an evolution which despite
this managed to come to halt just at the point where the balance
between tradition and novelty was threatening to break down.

     The priest himself says:

        May the grace and the love and the divine power of the Father
and of the Son and of    the Holy Spirit be with you and with all.

     Choir: And with your spirit.

        It is now the deacon instead of the priest who continues:

     The doors!  The doors!  With wisdom and attentiveness!
     Lift up your minds in the fear of God.

     Choir: We have lifted them up to Thee, Almighty One.

     Deacon: Give thanks to the Lord with all your heart.


     Choir: It is meet and right and availing to salvation (to give
thanks to Him), for in all      places this Christ of God is sacrificed. 
The Seraphim quake, the Cherubim tremble, and   all the heavenly
powers cry out and say:

     During this last response, the priest now says in a low voice the
whole beginning of the Eucharist:

         It is  truly meet and right to glorify Thee with all our  might in 
worshipping Thee     always, Almighty Father, Thou who hast
broken the bond of the   curse by Thy ineffable      Word, the
creator together with Thee, who hast formed Hi s Church from the
people who believe in Thee, and who was pleased to dwell among
us, through the lowliness of our nature, in accordance with the
dispensation that was fulfilled in the Virgin, and who thus made a
heaven of earth, through a new work, a most divine creation.  He
who splendor the heavenly armies, stricken with fear by the brilliant
and inaccessible light of the Godhead, cannot bear, He has become
man for our salvation and has allowed us to join our voices to the
heavenly choirs,

     Then he continues aloud:

        and to be bold with one voice, together with the Seraphim and
the Cherubim, and to     proclaim with assurance, and to cry out
and say: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of the   Powers. 

     Then the choir sings:

        Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of the Powers.  The heavens are
full of Thy glory: blessing      in the highest.  Blessed art Thou, who
hast come and who will come in the Name of the     Lord. Hosanna
in the highest.

     For the moment let us leave this sticking example aside, the first
which we have encountered, of a late development where the choir
reduced to silence a basic element of the Eucharistic Prayer
pronounced by the celebrant.  It seems that here we find the
primary, if not the sole origin of this "silence of the Canon" which
was soon to become universal.  We shall return to it.  For the
moment, let us rather observe the introduction of the theme of the
Church from the very first words of the priestly Eucharist after the
mention of the creation and fall.  It develops splendidly into the idea
of the union of the earth with the Angelic worship which is also
present in Nestorius' text.  But here we see no tendency toward
warping the Eucharist into some sort of subjectivism.  On the
contrary, it is the most objective view of the Mystery which is given
us, earth becoming Heaven and mankind becoming one with the
heavenly choirs.

     A curious consequence of this view seems to be reflected in the
formula of the Sanctus.  While the ancient Qedushah spoke only of
the earth  being filled with God's glory to which the first Christian
Sanctus's (inspired, as we said, by the targumin) added Heaven, the
Armenian Sanctus only Heaven remains.  The blessing which is
followed and not preceded by the Hosanna expresses the
apocalyptic view of the one who "has come and who will come."

     The priest continues, again in a low voice, while the choir sings
the Sanctus:

        Holy, holy, holy, Thou art truly holy: who could claim to
express in words the    tender outpourings of Thy immense kindness
towards us?  O Thou, who from the    beginning, raising fallen man
in so many ways, have comforted him through the Prophets,
     by the gift of the Law, by a priesthood in which the victims
offered are figurative, but  who, when the time was fulfilled, wiping
out entirely the bond of our debts, gave us Thy  Only-Begott     en
Son, to pay for us, to be our ransom, to be th e victim, the
Anointed One, the Lamb, the heavenly bread, the high priest and
the sacrifice which, while it is always dispensed to us, cannot be
consumed, for having become truly man, and having become taken
flesh through a union without misunderstanding of the godly and
holy Virgin Mary, he passed during the time of His flesh through all
the sufferings of human life without sin, and to save the world and
for our salvation, handed Himself over voluntarily to the Cross.

        Taking bread into His holy divine, immortal, spotless and
creative hands, He blessed   it, gave thanks, broke it an gave it to
His chosen and Holy Disciples, while they were at      table with
Him, saying:

     The Deacon interrupts:  Bless, Lord!

     The priest, again in a low voice:

        Likewise, taking the cup, He blessed it, gave thanks, drank
form it, and gave it to His     chosen and holy disciples, while they
were at table with Him, saying (now aloud): Take,   drink of this all
of you, this is My Blood of the Ne w Covenant, which is shed for
you and for many for the expiation and forgiveness of sins.

     The deacon adds a double Amen, and he choir sings:

         Heavenly Father, Thou who hast handed over to death Thy
Son, laden down with our debts, we beseech Thee, by the shedding
of His blood, to have mercy upon Thy true flock.

     Note the analogy with the Anaphora of St. Basil in that a litany
of  biblical expressions defining the redemptive role of Christ is
focused on a capital Pauline text (no longer Philippians 2, but
Colossians 1): the bond against us on account of our trespasses
which is nailed to the Cross.   But now everything is unified in a
vision of the specifically priestly redemption, although there is
constantly superimposed upon the sacrificial images the image of
the cancelled debt.  At the same time, the whole prayer breathes a
very special atmosphere of warm devotion (close to St.. James),
and also of penance.  This is a beautiful example of what ancient
monastic asceticism summed up in the word compunction.  It is a
marked characteristic of the whole of Armenian tradition.  The
broadest expression of it is found in the beautiful book of prayers of
Gregory of  Narek, which was to remain down to our day the
favorite popular manual of devotion among the Armenians.

     Here now is the Anamnesis, continued in a low voice during the
singing of the choir.  It is only here, as in the Liturgy of St. James,
that the thanksgiving for the great deeds of redemption is
completed.  As with Nestorius, it is highly developed, but without
ever lapsing as his does, into a scholarly commentary.

        Th y Only-Begotten Son, our benefactor, has commanded us
to do this always as a    memorial of Thee, and going down into the
land of the dead, in accordance with the flesh  He took from us, and
bursting the gates of Hell in His power He made known to us that
Thou art the one true God, the God of the living and the dead.

         Wher efore we, Lord, following this command, presenting
here this saving Sacrament     of the Body and Blood of Thy
Only-Begotten Son, we make the memorial of His     sufferings of
our salvation, of His life-giving crucifixion, of His burial and His
sitting at Thy right hand, O Father; we confess His awesome and
glorious second coming.

     The deacon: Bless, Lord!

     The priest continues aloud (the Armenian rubric adds: "shedding
tears"):

         We offer Thee what is Thy own from what is Thy own, for all
and for all things.

     The choir continues immediately:

        Thou art blessed in all things, Lord: we bless Thee, we praise
Thee, we give Thee      thanks, we beseech Thee, Lord, our God.

     During this chant, the priest inserts a sacerdotal apologia
analogous to what is found with Nestorius, although shorter, and
incorporated within the rest of the prayer.

         It is right, Lord, Lord our God, that we praise Thee,  and that
we continually give   Thee thanks, Thou, who, overlooking our un 
worthiness,  have made us ministers of this      awesome and
ineffable Sacrament, not because of ou r merits, for we are too poor
and  bereft of every good thing, but always having recourse to Thy
great mercy, we dare to exercise the ministry of the Body and
Blood of Thy Only-Begotten Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, to whom be glory, principality, and honor, now and always,
world without end.  

     The choir continues:

         Son of God, who have immolated Thyself to the Father for
our reconciliation and who   are distributed among us as the Bread
of Life, by the shedding of Thy Blood, we beseech    Thee, have
mercy upon us, the flock which Thou hast redeemed.  

     Meanwhile, the priest goes on to the Epiclesis, still in a low
voice:

         O b eneficent God, we worship Thee, we beseech Thee and
be g  Thee; send down upon  us and these offered gifts Thy
co-existent and co-eternal Ho ly Sp irit, in order through   Him to
make this blessed bread the Body of our Lord and S avior Jesus
Christ (the deacon says: Amen) and this blessed cup the Blood of
our lord and Savior Jesus Christ (another Amen of the deacon),that
through Him from this blessed bread and wine Thou may make the
true Body in His own flesh and the true Blood of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, changing them by Thy Holy Spirit, that He may
be for all those who approach them not for their condemnation but
for the propitiation and remission of sins (final Amen of the
deacon).

     Then follows the intercession which is constantly interlined with
admonitions on the part of the deacon and the singing of the choir
(which we shall omit):

         Through Him, grant us charity, steadfastness and a desirable
peace to th e whole world,     to the Holy Church, and to all
orthodox bishops, to priests, deaco ns, to the kings of the      whole
world, to princes, to peoples, to travelers, t o those at sea, the
captives, the condemned, the afflicted and to those struggling
against barbarians.  Through Him, grant seasonable weather, the
fruits of the earth, and speedy healing to those who suffer  various
ills.

         Through Him, grant rest to all those who sleep in Christ, to
the holy Fathers, the    pontiffs, the Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs,
bishops, priests, deacons and to all clergy of      Thy Holy Church,
as well as to all the laity, men  and women, who have departed from
us in faith (he continues aloud): with whom we beseech Thee to
visit us, beneficent God.

         That memory in this sacrifice be made of the Mother of God,
the holy Virgin Mary,     John the Baptist and Stephen the
Protomartyr and all the Saints, we beseech Thee ...

     Again in a low voice he continues:

                 Remember, Lord, in Thy mercy, to bless Thy Holy ,
Catholic and Apostolic Church    which Thou hast redeemed by the
precious Blood of Thy  Only-Begotten Son and     delivered by the
Holy Cross; grant her a lasting peace; Remember, Lord, in Thy
mercy, to bless all the orthodox bishops who dispense to us in
sound doctrine the word of truth (aloud) and especially our
arch-prelate the true patriarch of the Armenians N.; preserve him
for us for a longtime in sound doctrine.

     He continues in a low voice:

         Remember, Lord, in Thy mercy, to bless this people here
present, and those who offer  this sacrifice and grant them what is
needful and useful.

         Remember, Lord, and have mercy upon those who offer Thee
vows and bear fruit in  Thy Holy Church and who are mindful of
the poor with compassion, and return to them  a hundredfold,
according to Thy bounty and generosity, here and in the world to
come.

          Remember, Lord, in Thy mercy to be propitious to the souls
of the departed, and to   the one for whom we have offered this
sacrifice ...  Give them rest, and light, and number     them among
Thy Saints in Thy heavenly kingdom, and make them worthy of Thy
mercy.

         Remember, Lord, have mercy upon the soul of Thy servant ...
according to Thy loving   kindness: (if he is alive) deliver his body
and soul from every snare.

         Rem ember, Lord, all those who have been recommended to
o ur prayers, living and   dead; direct our prayers and theirs
according to Thy saving good  pleasure, and grant to   all their
reward, but not passing and perishable goods: purif ying our
thoughts, make us Temples worthy of receiving the Body and the
Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (aloud) to whom with
Thee, the Almighty Father as well as the life-giving and liberating
Spirit, be glory, principality and honor, now and always, world
without end.  (Choir): Amen.

     Note the explicit connection, form the beginning of the
Anamnesis, between the Presence of Christ Himself upon the Altar,
as the eternal propitiatory victim, and the intercessions.

     This Eucharistic Prayer can be considered unique because of the
balance it was able to preserve in the pure design of the ancient
Eucharist, while still introducing a devotion to the humanity of the
Savior and a penitential piety, both of which are medieval.  These
sentiments which became prevalent in the Latin West in no way
obscure the glorious vision of the accomplished redemption in this
venerable text.

          LATE  SYRIAN  ANAPHORAS  AND  THE  ETHIOPIAN 
ANAPHORAS

In this regard, we could refer to the Eucharist so dear to the monks
of the Egyptian desert Skete, which they attribute to St. Gregory of
Nazianzus, if it did not show this absolutely uncustomary
characteristic of being entirely addressed to the Son.  However,
Baumstark was inclined to take their attribution seriously, for this
Eucharist undeniably evokes the formulas of prayers to Christ
which abound in the sermons and poems of Gregory.  For our part,
we would be of the opinion that it must have been composed by a
reader of his work, molded by his christocentric piety and filled
with the memory of his expressions.

     But if we go, for example, to the Maronite Anaphoras, even the
most traditionally developed one, called Charar, or the Anaphora of
St. Peter, which made use of elements from Addai and Mari, we are
put off by the exuberant amplification of all the formulas, the
superabundance of the apologias that interrupt at every moment,
and whole tone of melodramatic pleading which transports us
decidedly into another world than that of the traditional Eucharist.

     What can be said of the Ethiopian Anaphoras, in which all
continuity of thought is destroyed by a succession of exclamations
and digressions that are practically limitless!

     The Anaphora of our Lord, after a few words addressed to the
Father, turns to the Son:

               We give Thee thanks, Holy God, th e End of our s ouls,
the Give of  our Life, the   incorruptible Treasure, the Father o f the
Only-Begotten,   Thy S on our Savior who     proclaimed Thy will,
for Thou didst will that we should be save d  through Thee.  Our
hearts give thanks to Thee, O Lord, To Thee, the Might of the
Father, and the Grace of the Gentiles, the Knowledge of truth, the
Wisdom of the erring, the Physician of the soul, the greatness of the
humble, our Friend.  Thou art the Staff of righteous, the Hope of
the persecuted, the Haven of those that are tempest-tossed, the
Light of the perfect, the Son of the Living God.  Make to shine on
us, from Thy grace which is "unsearchable": firmness and strength,
trust and wisdom, power of faith that bendeth not, and hope that
changeth not.  Grant knowledge of the Spirit to our humility that
we Thy servants, O Lord, may ever be purified in righteousness,
and that all Thy People may glorify Thee ...

     From this point there is a return to the Father until after the
words over the bread.  Then, abruptly, the prayer is again addressed
to the Son, which results in the words over the cup being reported
only in an indirect style.  The Anamnesis itself continues to call
upon the Son, but the Epiclesis invokes the Father.  Then, as in
certain East Syrian prayers, the oblation is presented to the whole
Trinity, before the end of the prayer returns to the Father.  From
one end to the other, the same looseness that we observed in the
beginning of the prayer is imply reinforced by these continual
interchanges.

     Still more extravagant is the Eucharist of Our Lady, in which the
greatest part of the prayer is addressed not to a divine person but to
the Virgin.  Beyond that, the disorder of thought (?) is complete
with digressions so far from the subject that the author himself even
says, with a naivete that makes him more likable than his curious
composition: "but let us return to what I was saying!"

     Here are a few samples of this singular piece of work, which
undoubtedly ought to satisfy us:
         Let us arise in the fear of God to magnify and praise Her who
is full of praise, saying,   O full of grace, O river of joy, far greater
the majesty of aspect in Thee than the majesty    of the Cherubim
with many eyes and the Seraphim with six wings ...

     Whereupon the prayer returns to the Son to declare His virginal
conception ineffable, and we then pass to the Sanctus, conceived as
a praise of the Incarnate Son:

     Then we return to the Virgin:

         O Virgin, O fruitful one, who art eaten, and gushing fountain
who art drunk ... O     bread that comes from Thee! ... O the cup
that is derived from Thee! ... And now we shall      offer our praise
to Thy Son ...

     Again, we return to the Son, and then finally to the Father in a
thanksgiving for the redemptive Incarnation which ends with the
Institution Narrative ...

     We must say that all this has neither head nor tail, and the whole
Eucharist is dissolved, as it were, in a sentimental debris.

     We would be wasting time to pile up examples of this kind.  It is
clear that in the East as in the Gallican or Mozarabic West,
Eucharistic improvisation, without ever completely ceasing to
experience partial successes, became very soon lost in a disorderly
abundance and drowned in pious verbiage.


                PREFACE, COMMUNICANTES  AND  HANC 
IGITUR  
                          IN THE  SACRAMENTARIES

In the West, the adoption of the Roman Canon, which gradually
became universal between the ninth and the eleventh centuries as a
result of Charlemagne's decisions practically to abolish the
Mozarabic Rite (like what happened in the Byzantine East with the
Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom), acted aa dike
against the dissolution of the Eucharistic Prayer.  But it did not
protect it completely, since the Roman Canon itself permitted a
certain persistence either of improvisation or variability in its
"Preface."  And, as we have seen, as the whole basic element of
thanksgiving for the creation and the redemption very shortly
became concentrated in this Preface, it is this fundamental element
itself that remained subject to the hazards of inspiration.

     We can calculate the inevitable risks of this flexibility (and its
possible profuseness as well) that had been preserved even in the
oldest Latin Sacramentaries.

     Without at this point being able to tackle all the historical
problems to which these collections give rise, we must at least
recall what seems sufficiently well established today in regard to
their origin and their formation.  What is called the Leonine
Sacramentary is certainly not the Sacramentary of  St. Leo, as was
imagined for some time, when it was discovered in the eighteenth
century in the Verona Library.  This mutilated collection (what we
have left of it begins at the month of April) seems to be a fragment
from an eclectic copy of lebelii which were used by the Popes at the
beginning of the seventh century.  This was made for the use of an
unknown bishop.  Eminent scholars thought they could see in it the
presence of a fascicle going back to Gelasius 1 (492-496) and
another one to Vigilius (end of the first half of the sixth century). 
Nevertheless, a number of pieces, if they cannot with all certainty
be attributed to St. Leo himself, may at least reflect an evident
influence of his thought and style.  This is the case, among others,
of a certain number of Masses from the fascicle that must have been
compiled by Gelasius.

     The so-called old Gelasian Sacramentary, which we know from
a Vatican manuscript that must have been copied in the area of
Paris at the beginning of the eighth century, is still less Gelasius'
Sacramentary than the Leonine is St. Leo's.  It has been established
that its principal stock is made up of a presbyterial  Sacramentary,
i.e., one used not by the Pope but by the priests of the Roman tituli,
at the end of the seventh century.

     What is called the Gelasian Sacramentary of the eighth century
is a synthesis between this old Gelasian, a recession of the earlier
Gregorian Sacramentary of half a century before, and Gallican
sources.  This compilation must have been worked out in
Burgundy, probably at the Abbey of Flavigny.  It became the source
of many other Sacramentaries recopied in Frankish country up to
the eleventh century.

     The so-called Gregorian Sacramentary seems indeed to have as
its basis a collection composed by St. Gregory the Great for his
own personal use.  But the oldest example of it is the manuscript
preserved at Cambrai which is called the Hadrainum and seems to
be the one sent to Charlemagne at his request.  It reflects
contemporary Papal usage.

     A manuscript preserved at Padua, but which must have been
copied in Belgium in the ninth century, represents an adaptation to
Roman presbyterial usage of the same basic collection, which was
undoubtedly made after 650.

     Further, we must not forget that all the Gallican books that have
come down to us, except Mone's Masses, certainly include a good
number of Roman pieces.  In all these collections, which have
preserved for us the oldest fund of Roman pieces available, we see
that they are already intermingled with later pieces.  In the edition
that was made for  the use of the Frankish Gauls on the basis of the
Hardianum, a copious supplement was added, containing the Easter
Vigil, with undeniably Gallican elements, such as the blessing of the
candle, and proper for ordinary Sundays (absent from the Papal
Sacramentary).  In this last part, a good number of prayers were
brought together from other collections of  Roman origin, of the
Gelasian or Paduan type. It is this expanded Gregorian which was
the basis of the medieval Sacramentaries, with the Gelasian of the
eighth century whose influence persisted.

     Among the oldest of these various collections, the Leontine
(despite its mutilated state) is distinguished for the number of its
Prefaces (267).  Like the Gallican books, almost all of these books
present interchangeable pieces, leaving a wide choice to the
celebrant.  It is for this reason that the Leonine has 8 Masses for
Christmas, 28 for Sts. Peter and Paul, etc.

     The old Gelasian is already considerably less rich, since it gives
only 54 Prefaces. But the different recensions of the newer
Gelasians increase this number to about 200. The Hadrianum, on
the other hand, has only 14 Prefaces, but the Paduan has 46.

     The supplement added in Fankish Gaul to the Hadrianum
introduced a miscellany of Prefaces of either Roman or Gallican
origin.

     Towards the end of the tenth century, the canonist Burchard of
Worms attempted to reduce the authorized Prefaces to 9, by
producing a decretal attributed to Pelagius 11 (who died in 590),
but which he most probably made up completely himself.  These
were the Prefaces of Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, the Cross, Easter,
Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity and the Apostles (not to mention the
common Preface), which are still in the Roman Latin Missal.  All
come from the Hadrianum, except the Cross (which only made its
appearance in the ninth century), the Trinity (which already figured
in the old Gelasian, but must have come from the Mozarabic books)
and Lent (common to the Paduan and the newer Gelasian).  The
Preface of the Virgin, as found in the Tridentine, made its
appearance only in the ninth century, but it came from the
elaboration of a formula from the newer Gelasian.

     Still, throughout the Middle Ages, the pseudo-decretal of
Pelagius had scarcely any effect  The Sacramentary of Saint Amand
(ninth century) contains 283 Prefaces, that of Chartres (tenth) 220,
and Moissac (eleventh) 342.  The same was true in italy.  the Missal
of Pious V came down just to the Prefaces of Burchard and that of
the Virgin.  But, through the local propers, a number of more or
less ancient Prefaces were to find their way again into the Roman
Liturgy, not to speak of modern compositions resulting from the
veneration of St. Joseph, the Sacred Heart or Christ the King.  For
its part, the Ambrosian Missal still includes today a distinct Preface
for each Mass.

     We must admit, furthermore, that Burhcard's reaction, and later
of the Tridentine reformers, are very understandable.  For, even at a
very early date, we find in the Roman or Romano-Frankish books
(as well as in the Gallican and Mozarabic books about which we
have already spoken) formulas which have little (or nothing) to do
with the traditional Eucharist.  It might have seemed normal to give
to each Mass an echo in the Preface of the particular theme
underlined in the Gospel of the day within the great harmony of the
Christian Mystery.  But even in many of the most successful
compositions form this viewpoint, we note an inevitable tendency
to retain only a secondary aspect of the Mystery.  And, only too
often, the result was that the Eucharist turned into a moralizing
didacticism.  And what should we say of those Prefaces which
evidently were composed much less to correspond to the Gospel
than to reiterate, for the Almighty, a theme from the homily of
which the author was particularly fond, even though we might
wonder through what aberration he could have reduced the matter
of his Eucharist?  People like Gelasius and Vigilius had already
fallen into this bad habit.  And Eucharistic Prefaces finally appeared
which were nothing more than diatribes against one or another
adversary!

     Later, it was not polemics so much as a more or less fanciful
hagiography that distorted the Eucharist.  Or else, in the Sunday
Prefaces, a simple moralism was substituted for the+ evocation of
the Mystery.

     Prefaces of Martyrs, however, particularly in the old part of the
Leonine Sacramentary, often lent themselves to a satisfactory
evocation of the redemptive Mystery, like this following text:

        ...  Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who, in order to triumph 
more fully over the enemy      of the human race, beyond this
singular glory (which He acquired for Himself) in     trampling him
under foot in an ineffably divine manner, again subjected him to the
martyrs, so that this same victory passed into the members (a
victory) which the Head had first won ...

     A similar and even better example is found more than once in
the Sunday Prefaces of the late Gelasian Sacramentary.  Here is a
Preface from the last Sunday in Advent:

        It is meet and right, equitable and availing to salvation, to give 
thanks to Thee always    and everywhere, Lord, holy Father,
Almighty and eternal God,  sanctifier and creator of    the human
race, Thou, who, through thy Son reigning w ith  Thee in the
eternal light, at the beginning, gave life to man taken from the slime
of the earth in the image of Thy glory, and who, when He sinned by
yielding to temptation, willed to restore to him the eternal succor of
the grace of the Spirit by sending us Jesus Christ our Lord, through
whom ...

     But we must acknowledge that Burchard's choice was not a bad
one and that the Prefaces he retained, if they are looked at side by
side, undoubtedly give the best global expression ever brought
together in the West of the Eucharistic Mystery.  What, on the
other hand, can be regretted is that nothing better has been found
than the so-called Common Preface to replace the old Sunday
Prefaces.  Certainly this formula is older, since we see it together
with the Roman Canon from the earliest examples.  But it is only
the most common schema of the ancient Prefaces, having a specific
application, which was imply cut off from this latter.  The result is
that neither the creation nor the redemption are explicated as a
motif of the Eucharist - an assuredly disastrous lacuna!  The
Mozarabic Preface of the Trinity which is substituted for it on
Sundays where green vestments are worn presents the same
deficiency, for which its litany of abstract formulas could in no way
compensate.

     Moreover, we must not forget that the Preface is not the only
element that has remained variable in the Roman Canon.  The
Communicantes and the Hanc igitur were also variable for a long
time, and the variants of the Communicantes had the valuable good
fortune of maintaining, at least on the great Feasts, an explicit recall
of the redemptive Mystery within the Canon.  But far from profiting
form the possibilities that it was bequeathed, the Middle Ages
simply witnessed the withering away of the richness of the old
Sacramentaries.  Of the six Communicantes that are found in the
oldest of these collections, we have lost the one for Witsun Eve, as
well as two different formulas, for the Ascension and Whitsunday
respectively, which are also found in the Leonine Sacramentary.

     The still greater variety of the Hanc igiturs seems to have been
reduced from the time of St. Gregory the Great, not without some
going back to the traditional basic source attested to by the
Hadrianum at Rome, before the Romano-Frankish proliferation of
formulas, specifying the particular intention of the offering.  It can
be followed through the Frankish, Irish or Italian Sacramentaries or
Missals.  But again, when we are not faced merely with
considerations that are totally foreign to the subject, we are reduced
to hallow wordiness.

                  THE  SILENT CANON AND THE
ACCOMPANYING
                            FALSE  DEVELOPMENTS

But while the development of the Eucharistic Prayer  petered out,
the liturgical evolution caused other factors to appear which tended
to bury what was most traditional in what had survived in this
Eucharist.  The first of these factors is what we call the "silence of
the Canon," or, to use an older formula, "the silence of the
Mysteries."  

     We must admit that this question itself is the most obscure
mystery of perhaps the whole of the history of the Liturgy.  Yet we
hardly get this impression when we read most of the studies on the
subject that have been piled up since the seventeenth century. 
Whatever position the authors take - whether they believe this
practice to be original and essential, or condemn it as late and
unfortunate - one would think, in reading them, that the matter is
clear and can be plainly settled by a few irreproachable texts.  But
when we go to the sources without any preconceived ideas, it is
hard to shear this optimism.  Yet we do not deny that we can reach
certain firm conclusions from examining them.  But, as will be seen,
they are neither so easily accessible, nor of a nature as to dispel all
the obscurities of one of the most complex problems of the history
of the Liturgy.

     A point of departure seems certain:  The great berakoth of the
Jewish Liturgies were certainly recited aloud by the celebrant, or
more precisely chanted to a melodic type similar to our tonus
paefactionis. It is likely, therefore, that the practice was the same
with the first Christians.  Certain indications allow to be of this
opinion.  But we must acknowledge that they are mostly negative. 
If the bond of continuity that we have established between the
Jewish berakoth and the Christian Eucharist did not exist, these
indications of themselves could establish only a limited probability.

     Actually, we do not have any clear statement on the question in
the Patristic period.  The arguments which perhaps people seem to
think furnish proof for the fact of the recitation aloud of the
Eucharist in antiquity, are generally merely in references drawn
from the importance attached by the Fathers to the people's final
Amen.  But at least for twelve centuries in the West, and for still
more in certain regions at least of the East, the people gave this
Amen in response to a few words uttered aloud by the priest in
concluding, and they never seemed to have been concerned about
hearing or even knowing exactly what he might have said
previously and inaudibly for their sake.  In order for this
supposition to be tenable, it needs confirmation form the Jewish
prayers.

     What is certain after this is the fact that from the eighth century
onward in the Roman Liturgy, and from the beginning of the sixth
century in certain Eastern Liturgies, either express rubrics or formal
commentaries certify that the priest recited the greater part of the
Canon or Anaphora in :a low voice."  In the West this applied to
everything following the Sanctus, up to the Per omnia saecula
saceculorum (with the sole exception of the words Nobis quoque
peccatoribus).  In the East, what corresponds to our Preface
(without its final words), and everything that follows the Sanctus is
also silent with the sole exception generally of the words of Christ
in the Institution Narrative, and two or three sentences from the
Anamnesis, the Epiclesis and the intercessions, along with the final
doxology.

     We have some solid indications for believing that this state of
affairs, which had become practically universal, must not have
existed very long before it is presented to us in the documents.  But
the documents themselves do not permit us to date the change
precisely nor even less to discern exactly what the reasons for it
were.

     the 17th homily of the Nestorian Narsai, that can be dated from
the first years of the sixth century, gives us very clear evidence that
the practice then was the rule in his Church, for all practical
purposes and no one evidently questioned it.  We find evidence of
this in the Byzantine Church, at least such decided evidence, only
two centuries later.  But an intermediary document might allow us,
to shed light on the way in which it came about.  Again, we must
acknowledge that its interpretation, first textual and then historical
is quite sticky.

     We are talking about the novelia no. 137 of Justinian.  We have
the authentic Greek Text, but no corresponding Latin text.  It dates
from the 26th of March 565.

     But in fact, up until recently, it was not mentioned in this debate
except in a later Latin text, in which its content is amalgamated
with the novella no. 123, of the 1st of May 546.  What is more
serious is that people have limited themselves to quoting only a few
lines of it.  Read in this way, outside of their original context, as we
find them in the eighteenth century with Le Brun or Robbe, and
then with all those who were content with quoting them through
these latter people, there is no doubt that they give the impression
that the emperor wished to establish something new, but that this
"novelty" is not the recitation of the prayers in a low  voice, but
their recitation aloud.  It seems that for pedagogical reasons, the
emperor, supported only an overly emphasized quote from St. Paul,
wanted to introduce a practice that was in contradiction with what
had become established.

     Bishop was the first to show that the impression is reversed
when we take the trouble to read the particular novella in its
original text, and entirety.  But this still does not mean that all
obscurities disappear at once.

     The emperor began by asserting that he wanted to assure respect
for those Canons that has been violated by clerics, monks and even
certain bishops, in response to some complaints that he had
received.  All of this, he explained, was due to the negligence that
resulted in the abandoning of the regular holding of synods.  Hence
the wide freedom in ordaining men who did not even know the
prayers of the Anaphora or of Baptism.  No longer should men be
ordained who had not first put down in writing "the profession that
they must say aloud, like the Divine Anaphora in the service of the
Holy Communion, the prayers in holy Baptism, and the other
prayers."  After this came the detailed prescriptions for the annual
holding of synods.  Finally, we have the formal declaration:
"Moreover, we order all bishops and priests to say the prayers used
in the Divine Anaphora and holy Baptism, not inaudibly, but in a
voice that can be heard by the faithful, so that the mind of those
listening may be aroused to a greater compunction ..."  This is
followed by the Pauline citations and the conclusion: "It is fitting,
therefore, that the prayers made to the Lord Jesus Christ, our God,
as well as to the Father and the Spirit, in the Holy Anaphora and
elsewhere, be said aloud: those who refuse must answer before the
tribunal of God and, when we meet up with such a case, we shall
not let it go unpunished."

     The first of these two paragraphs admits of more than one
ambiguity.  Does Justinian wish to say that the candidate for
ordination must put down in writing a confession of faith that he
must recite aloud before being ordained, just as he must write the
ritual prayers out, in the same examination?  Or does he mean that
he must write down his own confession of faith, before uttering it,
in order to be ordained, just as he must (in the exercise of his
ministry) utter aloud the ritual prayers?  Or, finally, does he want
simply that the candidate put down in writing the whole of these
texts (confession of faith and prayer) that he will later have to say
aloud?  Grammatically, all three interpretations are equally possible. 
But the parallelism with the final paragraph leads us to think that it
is the second, more probably, or perhaps the third, which is meant.

     This whole conclusion of the novella leaves no doubt on this
point;  the emperor sees in the practice of the recitation of the
prayers in a low voice only intolerable negligence, and he does
indeed intend to extirpate it.  But his insistence betrays the fact that
the practice must already have been rather general.  It must even
have been general enough for the emperor, as was his wont, not to
dream, of invoking an immemorial contrary custom, but rather to
have recourse to imperfectly convincing exegetical considerations
and respectable pedagogical motives, although they do not teach us
anything about the statu quo ante.  The only firm indication that he
established, or wished to establish, a tradition in the process of
being lost, is the reference to the beginning of the novella to the
violation of the Canons.  But, if it is evident that the ignorance of
too facilely ordained priest is involved under this heading, it is not
so clear that the fact of saying the prayers in a low voice, in itself, is
directly involved.  This can be concluded with certainly only if we
are already certain that the final prescription aims at re-establishing
a prior tradition ... Unfortunately, this is precisely what is not
clearly stated.  We therefore find ourselves in a vicious circle.  All
that we can retrieve from this text is that it seems rather in favor of
the antiquity of the recitation aloud than of the contrary.  But we
could not state that it proves it.

     Whatever may have been its immediate effect - of which we
have no knowledge - from the end of the eight century at least (as is
evidenced by the Codex Barberini from circa 800), the major part
of the Byzantine "Eucharist," despite the imperial threats and
commands, was said secretly according to the rubrics themselves
which we have been given.

     Yet if we look at the loud parts on the one hand, and those
where the celebrant prays silently on the other, it becomes difficult
to avoid the impression that this distinction only came about
gradually, not that its origin is imply to be found in the slovenliness
of the celebrants.  More precisely, the thesis upheld by many
scholars seems to be most natural.  We have today  come to this
practically universal state simply because a development of the
collective chants which have induced the ministers to continue the
prayer in a low voice whenever the choir sings, only to resume
aloud those words which give rise to a new choral intervention. 
This would therefore be a pure and simple negligence: an
impatience (a very clerical one, we must admit) to be more quickly
done with the progressively overloaded offices, which would have
given rise to the "silence of the Mysteries."

     To be absolutely precise, it is likely that a process of reciprocal
causality came about at a rather early date, even though we can not
say exactly when.  The choral chants, as they developed, gave the
first pretext for a hasty reading by the celebrant half aloud.  But
this, in turn, fostered an extension of the choir's chants, to the
extent that there only remained a brief ekphoneses on the
celebrant's part, punctuating a series of chants.  To this must be
added a growth in the "admonitions" of the deacon, which filled
out, when necessary, all the gaps that might have remained between
the chants of the choir and those of the priest.

     Certain observations seem to bring a practically decisive
confirmation to this explanation.  The most interesting one concerns
the beginning of the Anaphora.  As said before, while in the Roman
Rite the Preface has always been sung (or at least recited aloud), in
the Byzantine Rite, what corresponds to it has become silent.  But
in the latter, we observe that the response: "it is meet and right" has
grown into: "it is meet and right to worship the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit, consubstantial and indivisible Trinity."  In this case,
it is understandable that the Byzantine priests in contrast to their
Roman colleagues were led to recite in a low voice this first part of
their Eucharist.  It is interesting to note that in Barberini
manuscript, which does not yet include the addition of the response,
also does not include the rubric (which will be found later) to recite
the first part of the Eucharist in a loud voice.  Still, that is was to
have begun at that time is proved by the rest of the text which no
longer introduces the prescription to recite aloud the words
immediately preceding the Sanctus ...

     In the West we are , if that is possible, even less clearly informed
as to the distinct date of the evolution.  Many contemporary
authors, assert with Jungmann that it can be situated between the
Ordo Romanus 1 and the Ordo Romanus 11.  Actually, the texts
are not so clear.  The Ordo Romanus 11 certainly presupposes a
Canon recited in a low voice (at least relatively so).  But neither
does the Ordo Romanus 1 permit us to conclude with certainty that
at its time, at any rate, the canon was said from the beginning to
end out loud, nor do the later Ordines allow us to believe that the
Ordo Romanus 11 was the first to put an end to this practice.

     Undoubtedly this latter text is categorical about the silence
which must follow the Sanctus: Surgit solus pontifex et tacite intrat
in canonem.   In other words, while everyone was involved in the
singing of the Sanctus, the pontiff alone arose and entered in silence
upon the Canon."  that it must be understood as recitation in a low
voice is unquestionably confirmed by the prescription, occurring
further one, that he must say the words Nobis quoque precatoribus
"aperta clamans voce," so that the subdeacons will rise and begin
the Fraction.

     But since the Ordo Romanus 1, was evidently written by
someone who could not have known Ordo 11, we must not rush to
the conclusion that everything that it does nor mention and that is
found in its successor was necessarily unknown to it.  After the
Sanctus which was sung by everyone, the text says simply: Quemm
dum expleverint, surgit pontifex solus (et intrat) in canonem. 
Likewise at the Nobis quoque the author is content to say that the
sub-deacons arose at that time for the Fraction.  With our
recitation, which at this point had become so silent that even the
ministers nearby at the Altar did not hear what the priest said, it
could seem reasonable to conclude that Ordo 1 implicitly excludes
the silence supposed by Ordo 11.  But when we realize, as what
follows will show, that the "silence of the Canon" in the Middle
Ages, did not precisely signify at all such a silence where the
minister would not hear anything at all, but one which they alone
could hear, the comparison of the two texts does not seem quite as
conclusive.  All that can be said is that the composer of Ordo 1
thought it useless to prescribe a recitation in a low voice.  That he
was unfamiliar with such a practice is nothing more than a probable
inference.

     Inversely, the Ordo 11 seems to give evidence that a recitation
aloud may have subsisted after the Ordo 11.  Envisioning the case
of a concelebration, it  prescribes that the concelebrants who are
standing to the left and the right of the bishop "say the Canon at the
same time as he ... in such a way that the bishop's voice is
dominant."  Yet, once we remember the relative character of the
medieval silence in the Canon, to which we shall return, we must
admit that this text can simply mean that they should speak in a
voice that is still lower than the bishop's and not that he should
speak in a voice still louder than theirs!

     However, it is the Ordo XV, attributed to John the Archcantor,
which is a Frankish reworking of the Roman Ordo from the middle
of the eighth century, which permits us to see the silence of the
Canon become established elsewhere than in Rome, and at the same
time to become clear.  After the Sanctus it directs the celebrant: Et
incipit canere dissimili voce et melodia, ita ut a circumstantibus
altari tantum audiatur.  This chant, in a tone of voice and a melody
that are different from those of the Sanctus, and even from the
foregoing Preface, evidently implies only a mitigated "silence." 
That in the thirteenth century it still could be heard in this manner is
evidenced by Canon 36 of the Synod of Salisbury in 1217, which
prescribes: ut verba canonis in missa rotunde et distincte dicantur.

     Nevertheless, at the end of the eighth century,.when we read the
Expositiones Missae, like those that being with Quotiens conta se,
Intoitus missae quare, that of Remigus of Auxerre and others, it
becomes certain that in the Frankish lands as at Rome, from the
Sanctus on, the faithful could no longer hear what the priest was
saying.

     As for what may have been done in the Gallican Rite or in the
old Mozarabic Rite, we know absolutely nothing.  The supposition
that is sometimes formulated, that the post-mysteriums or post-
secretas, because of their titles, would have been said aloud, but
after the words of Institution said in a low voice, is only an
unverifiable inference.

     What stands, on the other hand, is that the Expositiones Missae
explain that the Canon was said in a low voice because of the
Sacred Mystery that was being accomplished, and because of the
reverence it must inspire in us.  The same thing was found already
with Narasi in the sixth century, and asserted just as decisively. 
People then wanted to conclude that the "silence of the Canon" or
the "silence of the Mysteries" resulted from a deliberate intention to
remove the Eucharistic Prayer from any possibility of profanation,
and that this was a typical example of an influence of the pagan
mysteries of Hellenistic antiquity upon the Christian Liturgy.  But
to say this is jump to quickly to a conclusion, and to involve a
whole series of blocking which are not sufficiently justified.  

     In the first place, the most ancient authors with whom the
themes of respectful fear, awesomeness of the Sacred Mystery
make their appearance in relation to the Eucharist, do not betray the
slightest inkling of any conformity between this "Mystery"
viewpoint and a recitation of the prayers in a low voice.  In general,
they seem even to be totally unaware of this custom.  This is still
the case with St. John Chrysostom, in his homilies on the divine
ineffability or in his treatise On the Priesthood, and even with the
Pseudo-Dionysus, and again with his commentators like St.
Maximus in the seventh century.  Furthermore we do not see how
people who still might be familiar with something of the Hellenistic
mysteries could have associated the two.  If these mysteries were so
called, it was so precisely for the opposite reason since the initiates
were able to see and hear in them what the non-initiates were not
supposed to know.  If they did not see and hear without hindrance,
it would have been superfluous to command them so severely to
reveal nothing of what they had seen and heard.  The explanation of
the "silence of the Canon" by arguments of this kind betrays its false
and post-factum character.  People were thereby enabled later to
justify a state of affairs the real reasons of which had been
forgotten, and which could not have been arrived at in this manner.

     We can observe in Narsai himself that the expressions of
respectful fear before the ineffability of the Mystery envelop the
secret pronouncing of the words, rather than pretending to explain
it.  This explanation was able therefore to consolidate the
evolutionary process but it did not determine it.  Furthermore, the
extension of the choral responses in the East contradicts this
explanation.  For in their own fashion they being out the
significance of what is being accomplished at the same moment
through the words of the priest.  For an even stronger reason the
same thing must be said of the more and more prolix explanations
of the deacon which came little by little (particularly in the
Armenian Rite) to fill the rare gaps in which the singers were not
heard between the priest's "ekphoneses."

     It is therefore back to this gradual extension of choral or
diaconal elements that we must go, it seems, in order to arrive at
the source of our problem.  Once again, the progressively growing
silence of the priestly prayer probably originated here, just as this
silence, in turn, fostered their development.  But why were these
new chants of the choir and admonitions of the deacon introduced?

     In the beginning, there were no choral interventions other than
the introductory responses, the Sanctus and the final Amen.  The
deacon, for his part, was limited (at the most) to short admonitions
which at the outset focused on the attitude to be observed rather
than constituting explanation of the Rites: "Let us be attentive" or,
in Egypt, at the resumption of the thanksgiving after the
intercessions: "Toward the East," etc.
 
     At this time, it is clear that the chants or responses - which were
so simple - were made by the whole assembly.  but already in our
oldest Greek manuscripts of the Liturgy of  St. James, the deacons
at the first words of the Institution Narrative exclaimed: "For the
forgiveness of sins and everlasting life."  The faithful then
answered: "Amen," not only at the end of the whole Eucharist as
before, but even after the words over the bread, and then after the
prayers for the cup.  Immediately after the first development of the
words: "Do this in memorial of Me," the deacons again exclaimed:
"We believe and confess," and the people followed with: "We
announce Thy death, Lord, and we proclaim Thy resurrection."

     Before the Epiclesis, when the priest said: "Thy People and Thy
Church beseech Thee," the people replied: "Have mercy upon us,
Lord God, Almighty Father," and they inserted two of their Amens
in the conclusion of the Epiclesis.  After other diaconal
interventions inviting the people to prayer during the great final
intercessions, the people exclaimed: "Take away, forgive, pardon,
O God, our voluntary nd involuntary offenses, those that are known
and those unknown."

     Most of these responses must be ancient, for they are found also
in the Syriac manuscripts and there are even some which find their
equivalent in Serapion.

     Likewise, the Liturgy of  St. John Chrysostom, even in the form
given to us by the Codex Barberini, contains the four Amens of the
words of Institution and the Epiclesis, along with the response "We
hymn Thee" after the ekphonesis terminating the Anamnesis. 

     We may think that these interventions of the faithful were
introduced to revivify their wavering attention during a prolonged
Eucharist.  Does St. Basil not already allude to the fact that even
among monks many minds wandered during the Eucharistic Prayer?

     But the development and the growing complexity of these
interventions, supposedly on the part of the people, soon caused
them to be given to a choir of chanters.  This choir, after first
leading and supporting the people, came to be more or less totally
substituted for them. The chants which had become more and more
ornate in their melodies, soon became signable only by specialists. 
At the same time their length reduced the formulas of the priest
pronounced aloud to a few ekphoneses which are all that remain of
these in the East.  The diaconal admonitions, as we saw particularly
in the Armenian Liturgy, tended for their part to swell to the point
of filling out all the remaining intervals.  Then, we find ourselves
with a Eucharistic commentary that has followed this step by step. 
But, with the purpose of facilitating the people's understanding of
it, it substituted a repetition of the thought which was only an
approximate parallelism.  This is precisely the same phenomenon
that came about earlier in our own century when the
"commentators", at the "children's or instructional Mass" in the
local parish church,  repeated in the vernacular an old Latin prayer
which tended to become independent of the celebrant.  At this
stage, it may be said that a Eucharistic Prayer that has become
exclusively sacerdotal is only a survival of the ancient Eucharistic
Prayer, which has now been deprived of direct contact with the
faithful.  A didactic Liturgy was grafted upon it for their use, which,
in fact, no longer allowed them to participate in the action since
they merely listened passively.  In this way it covered the true
Liturgy, in which they had no part, with a false excrescence whose
spirit had become more and more foreign to it.  Narsai could still
say that the priest was everyone's voice.  It is a voice which
undoubtedly speaks in the people's name.  Yet, it is no longer
expressing their common prayer but a prayer in which their own
tended simply to become parallel.

     In the West it was worse.  The diaconal admonitions were never
introduced there.  And the chants of the choir grew without any
direct connection with the prayer of the priest.  Under the pretext
of praying for the priest who prays for us, in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries the choir came in many churches to sing
throughout the whole of the Canon Psalms and Orations that no
longer had any relationship to it.  The Missa Illyrica, for example,
prescribed the recitation of Psalms 19, 24, 50, 89 and 90, followed
by verses and prayers for the intention of the priest and the faithful.
In the Religious Orders, the lay brothers were taught during this
time to recite series of Paters.  It may be said that the priest had
become so enshrouded in the Silence of the Canon that in the eyes
of the faithful he appeared to vanish within it.  For their part, they
also prayed, but without any concern for any concordance between
their prayer and his.

     People were to go even further afield from the traditional
Eucharist.  When the priest celebrated it, since he himself was first
formed in following it in this extrinsic manner, he soon thought that
he could no longer do so devoutly without including all kinds of
personal prayers.  Evidently, these better responded to his own
devotion than the official text which he was content to perform
functionally. These are the "apologias" and the related prayers. 
After becoming multiplied as a prelude to the whole of the Liturgy
of the Mass, the reading of the Gospel and the Eucharistic Prayer
itself, they came to pervade the latter like some foreign growth. 
Nothing of the old Liturgy was left intact, and it came to be
considered merely as a support for a private devotion which was
inspired form other sources.

     The same phenomenon appeared in the East at a rather early
date, but it never knew a similar growth.  The Liturgy of Theodore
of Mopsuestia, under the form in which it has come down to us,
already possess an "apologia" of this type, that is obviously an
addition between the Sanctus and the prayer destined to follow it. 
Even earlier, we can perceive the first root of this practice in the
intercessory formulas of the great Syrian Eucharistic Prayers in
which there was a proliferation of the invocations for the ministers
themselves who offered the sacrifice.  Something of this is already
found in the oldest Greek or Syriac manuscripts of the Liturgy of
St. James, and even in the evolved form of the Liturgy of Addai and
Mari.  We have pointed out the intrusion of a formula of this type,
which was particularly developed, in the Liturgy of Nestorius,
between the Anamnesis and the intercessions.  It is worth quoting
both for its individualism and its penitential character, which are
harbingers of the most characteristic traits of Medieval devotion
both in the East and West.

          Lord Go d, the mercifu l, the  compassionate, and the elem
ent,  here am I begi nning to    speak before Th ee,  I who am only
dust, sinful, powe rles s and poor, guil ty before Thee     from my m
other 's womb, in exile from the moment I   left her bosom, a
transgressor since that time.  Have mercy upon me, Lord, according
to Thy loving kindness, and snatch me from the ocean of my faults
through Thy clemency; bring me out of the abyss of my sins
through Thy goodness; heal the ulcer of my vices and the wound of
my trespass, Thou, the comforter and healer. Grant me to open my
mouth in Thy presence, and make me worthy to move my lips
before Thee.  Grant me to render Thee propitious towards my
offenses, so that I may obtain the forgiveness of sins, and the
pardon of faults, the wiping away of my own blemishes and of the
sins of those who are like me and my companions: may I ask of
Thee what is suitable to Thy Godhead, and what should be asked of
Thee; for Thou are rich and Thy treasure is never exhausted; divers
petitions are ever made to Thee, and an abundance of numberless
gifts distributed by Thee in answer.  In Thy goodness and
long-suffering, be not angry with me, for I do not have such
assurance in Thy presence that I can say things with a good
conscience before Thy majesty;  yet accept from me this audacity,
for Thy great Name has been invoked upon me.  Receive this
sacrifice from my powerless hands for Thy People and the sheep of
Thy pasture, wherefore I give thanks to Thy Name, and offer
worship to Thy Majesty, O Lord of all.

     Formulas of this type, in the West, came to be introduced
everywhere. The famous Missa Illyrica is the best known example,.
But it is far from being unique!  It received its name from the
reformer Flacius Illyricus who published it in 1557, thinking that he
had a Liturgy of the eight century without any mention either of the
Eucharistic Presence or sacrifice.  In fact, it dates from the eleventh
century. It is a group of 35 devotional formulas which the priest is
invited to say during all the chants of the Liturgy of the Mass, and
in connection with each of the Rites he is performing up to after the
Sanctus and during the Communion.  It is a fact that it no longer
reflects anything of the spirit of the ancient Eucharist, but an
interpolation of the Eucharistic Ritual popularized by the
Expositiones Missae, especially after Amalar's time. Still, the first
outlines of these explanations are found in Theodore of Mopsuestia
and Narsai. All the rites receive a symbolic interpretation,
dominated by a dramatic notion of the ritual that is obviously
completely imaginary. The rites and formulas, according to it,
would be only a theatrical imitation of all the gestures and words of 
Jesus during His Passion.   Spread on this canvas, the new prayers
express only a pathos of personal unworthiness, mingled with pity
before the sufferings of the Savior.

     At this stage, even if the traditional Eucharist is still present, it
may be said that a Eucharistic spirituality, and even a theology of
the Eucharist, both without any serious roots in tradition, have
buried it and almost completely stifled it with their parasitical
excrescences.































                               CHAPTER   SIX

                              MODERN  TIMES:
                      DECOMPOSITION  and  REFORMATION

Beginning with the twelfth century, the Offices recited by the choir
in the West during the Eucharistic Prayer, although practically
independent from its content, were in the process of disappearing. 
They were progressively replaced by another development, which is
not without its analogy with that of the choir chants in East,
although its virtue is even more uncertain.  It is not that entirely
new chants or responses were added, but that people began to
amplify the Sanctus and Benedictus (and all the other chants of the
ordinary) with what were called tropes.  Their origin seems to be
Germanic, but they were soon seen to proliferate throughout all of
"Gothic" Europe, with the one exception of Italy.  Concurrently
with the melodic and soon to be polyphonic developments of the
old chants, interpolative words came to be introduced into the
flowery vocalizations which had begun by indefinitely extending the
individual syllables.  Either in Latin or the vernacular, they started
out as a paraphrase of the basic text.  But from paraphrase a
transition to free amplification was soon to be made, and this
became less and less connected with the original text.


               THE  EUCHARIST  BURIED  UNDER 
UNTRADITIONAL
                     FORMULARIES  AND INTERPRETATIONS

     These tropes are a reflection of the religious feeling of the times:
adoration of the humanity of the Savior present in the Eucharist,
and effective recall of His Passion, and expression of the feeling of
unworthiness on the part of those who approach the august
Mystery are their better themes.  But all sorts of ideas soon came to
be added.  At the end of the Middle Ages, in the compositions with
multiple parts, it was not uncommon to hear one of the voices sing
the words of a popular song which had been taken over for use in
the Liturgy, intermingled with the Latin phrases of the Sanctus.

     For the priest himself, the apologies and the acts of affective
devotion to the Savior as present and sacrificed still continued to
inflate the recitation of the Canon.

     Beginning with the thirteenth century a new factor presented
itself, which was to weigh heavily on the evolution of the Eucharist. 
This was the new elevation of the Oblation which was introduced
immediately after the Institution Narrative, and raising up of the
Host for all to see which was its reason.  Attended by motels
composed precisely for this action, in order to adore the Presence
of the Savior, this ceremony was to draw the whole popular
devotion in the Mass to itself.  It was the result of the theology that
was developed to counteract Berengarius and his denial of a Real
Presence of the True Body of Christ: as a reaction, the entire
Liturgy of the  Mass tended to center around the production of this
Presence, which was seen as the result of the repetition of Christ's
words over the bread and wine.

     At the same time, as communions became rare, so-called private
Masses came into being.
They were offered for the most varied intentions, which were often
mingled a superstition undeniably more magical than religious.  At
the very least, there resulted a tendency to look upon the Mass as a
sort of recommencement of  Calvary, which was destined to obtain
for us each time everything that we might especially be wishing for. 
The later assertion of the Augsburg Confession (which stated that
people had come to believe that the Cross had  atoned for Original
Sin alone, and that each Mass was destined to atone for actual sins)
is perhaps an exaggerated systematized  description.  Yet it is hard
to deny that it does express a tendency that was at least in the air
and which was not even the worst of the deformations that were to
be found at the time.

     Without going so far as these extreme cases, we must admit that
the best commentaries on the Liturgy of the Mass for the use of
priest during the Middle Ages, such as that of Innocent 111, or later
with Gabriel Biel, in which Luther's Eucharistic piety was formed,
one could find merely traces of the original sense of the Eucharist
as a thanksgiving for the mirabilia Dei, or of the Anamnesis as the
Sacramental Presence of the redemptive Mystery.  The
"thanksgiving" was reduced to an expression of gratitude for the
gift of God received in Communion, or expected from the
celebration.  The Sacramental actuality of the sacrifice gave way to
the consideration of the "fruits" that we expected from it and which
no one tried enumerating.  But, most often, they had very little in
common with the ancient view of the whole Church being fulfilled
in its common participation in the one redemptive sacrifice, so
magnificently expressed by St. Augustine.

     In the piety of the best of  these commentaries, the Liturgy of
the Mass appears as a "representation" of the sacrifice, not in the
sacramental sense such as the word might have with Tertullian, of
example, but in the sense of a devotional play.  Through its figured
recall of Calvary, it was to excite feelings of compassion and
compunction which the immediate and tangible Presence of Calvary
could awaken in pious souls.  Spirituality, like theology, retained
only the words of Institution among the formulas of the Canon
since they seemed to resurrect this spectacle for the soul meditating
upon them at the moment where they renewed the Real Presence of
the Body broken and Blood shed for our sins.

     Fr. Francis Clark, S.J. attempted to prove erroneous those
Protestant or Anglican (... even Roman Catholic) historians who
pointed out these deformations.  To do this he gleaned a few fine
formulas in which something of the ancient tradition had survived
down to the end of the Middle Ages. It goes without saying that
this tradition could not become completely defunct in the Church,
but the whole question is to what extent these formulas were really
characteristic of the average piety either of the clergy or the simple
faithful.  One of Fr. Clark's conferees, Fr. Stephenson, had no
difficulty in establishing that we are quite wide of the mark. He
went so far as to maintain that the "repraesentatio" of the Cross in
the Eucharist for St. Thomas himself must be understood in the
purely imaginative sense in which we understand the word
"representation" today.  Without being fully convinced by this
counter-proof, we must acknowledge that a few formulas of the
saintly doctor do reflect something of such a notion.  The least that
can be said is that it was already one of the most widespread ideas
in the context in which he found himself.

     In any case, we may say that the best theologians and divines at
the beginning of the sixteenth century were convinced that all of
this required an energetic "reformation" along with many other
things in the practice and event he theory of the Church.  In
addition, through returning to the sources it so praised, the best of
Christian humanism was capable to rediscovering what was
essential; it recovered the original and restored its genuine
interpretation which had been forgotten or warped through so much
overlay and so many aberrant commentaries.  The misfortune of the
Protestant Reformation, on this point as on many others, was that a
more enthusiastic than enlightened impetuosity often rejected the
best with the worst, instead of turning to the most authentic
sources.  The result was that instead of retaining what was original
and essential, it was the most secondary and the most recent that
remained.

     The story of the Missa Illyrica, which we have mentioned, is
such a perfect illustration of this failure that it seems hardly
believable.  At the height of the controversies on the Eucharist
between Protestants and Roman Catholics, Flacious Illyricus came
upon an eleventh century manuscript giving a series of priestly
devotions containing a prayer for each Rite or formula of the
traditional Liturgy of the Mass.  But no clear expression of the Real
Presence was to be found, even though it had become obsessive in
the following centuries as a reaction against Ratramnus and
Berengarius.  Nor was there any mention of the Eucharistic
Sacrifice as the Fathers had conceived of it. Everything boiled down
to a childish explanation of the ritual, interpreted as an itemized
evocation of every detail of the Passion.  Onto this canvas there
was added a series of prayers of penance and emotional meditations
on the sufferings of the Savior.  Flacius Illyricus thought he had
brought to light a primitive Liturgy that was unharmed by medieval
corruptions, and he published his discovery as a justification of the
Protestant theses and practices regarding the Eucharist.  In reality,
as he soon had to acknowledge, all he had disinterred was a
compilation of late formulas aimed at ridding the traditional Liturgy
with their fanciful additions.  But he had unwittingly demonstrated
that those liturgies and theologies which boasted about being the
most "reformed," instead of returning to the original Eucharist,
actually retained only those developments of the medieval Eucharist
which had no foundation in Christian antiquity.

             LUTHER'S  FORMULA  MISSAE  AND  DEUTCSHE 
MESSE,
                THE  LAST  PRODUCT  OF  MEDIEVAL 
DEVIATION

These findings are all the more striking since Luther might have
seemed relatively well equipped for getting back to the original
subsoil through the morass of medieval excrescences.  In the first
place, as Gustaf Aulen so well showed in his book Christus Victor,
Luther certainly did very soon rediscover something of the Patristic
idea of the Cross as God's victory in Christ, overturning all the
powers of enmity between man and God and restoring man to a
filial relationship with the heavenly Father.

     On the other hand, Yugve Brilioth has no less justly underlined
the spiritual riches, which are equally as Patristic, in the sermon
Von dem hochwurdigen Sakrament des heilgien wahren Leichnams
Christi und von den bruderschafen (1519). This is a renewed
expression of the Augustinian notion that in the Eucharist Christ is
Present with His whole Mystical Body in order to incorporate us in
it and to make us live from then on a life which is but the unfolding
in us of His saving Mystery.  Nor is Brilioth wrong in underlining
that Luther retained his attachment to the forms of the traditional
Eucharist, not out of a simple conservatism but on account of an
indelible impression of man's encounter with the Divine Mystery
that the devout use of these forms had left with him.

     Yet, after 1523, when under the pressure of those about him he
wished to translate all of this into liturgical innovations, it became
not only warped but even devitalized.  If we try to find out why, it
soon becomes evident that his polemical preoccupations, however,
weighty they may have been, were much less the cause than the
inertia of medieval notions and practices from which he was no
more capable of freeing himself than the other Protestants who
came after him.  Undoubtedly, form this point on, he was obsessed
by a fixed idea: to rid the concept of the sacrifice of the Liturgy of
the Mass of every idea that tended to make it a sacrifice different
from that of the Cross and one which man can offer for novel ends. 
But to do this he saw no other possibility than to get rid of any
notion of a Presence of Christ's sacrifice in the Liturgy of the Mass,
and therefore to remove from the Canon of the Mass everything
which expressed such a notion.  Yet in doing so he merely stretched
the logic of the medieval Latin idea that only the words of
Institution, isolated from their traditional context, were essential for
the Eucharistic consecration.  And without further resistance, he
yielded to the devotion which as a consequence of this centered on
the showing forth of the consecrated host and its adoration.

     Doubtless other factors did tend to compensate to a certain
extent for these two defects inherited from the Middle Ages and
pushed to their ultimate extreme.  Luther's reaction against the
abusive multiplication of private Masses, together with the
reintegration of the Communion of both the faithful and the priest
as being as essential aspect of the celebration had a positive effect. 
But this was see soon weakened by the fact that Luther, still
following the medieval pattern, looked upon the Communion as the
foremost opportunity for acts of penance grafted upon the worship
of the Christus passus.  The sole "thanksgiving" he retained was the
medieval thanksgiving for the assurance of forgiveness that was
renewed in this way.

     Actually, the polemical way in which he flatly opposed it to the
idea of a Presence of Christ's sacrifice prevented him from drawing
the most positive consequences from it.  He was well aware that the
Eucharist must involve us in a pure "sacrifice of thanksgiving" for
the gift received from the savior.  But, for him, and even more
narrowly for his followers, this gift tended to be reduced to the
subjective awareness of forgiveness.  In this way, we come face to
face with the greatest paradox of the Protestant Eucharist: in order
to prevent the Liturgy of the Mass from appearing to be a new
sacrifice, distinct from Christ's, which the priests could perform at
will, no other sacrifice was admitted than the subjective
self-offering made by the believer in his grateful commitment to
God's elicited by his renewed sense of forgiveness. Among strict
Lutherans, for whom this is possible only on the basis of an
effective Communion in the dead and risen Christ, this was to be a
possible starting point of a return - at least in embryo - to the
Patristic views on our participation in the unique saving sacrifice. 
But, as Eric Mascall observed, with the other Protestants who more
or less decidedly reject the Real Presence, there can be no longer
any other sacrifice in the Eucharist than the very Pelagain sacrifice
that man, and man alone, offers to God in gratitude for his benefits.
How could it be otherwise, since they have excluded every notion
of a participation in the unique and completely Divine Sacrifice in
rejecting the Sacramental Communion of its reality?
     
     The Formula Missae brought out by Luther in 1523 is a kind of
monument to his basic failure, even though the best of the Lutheran
liturgies down to our own day have been taken from it.  With the
exception of the restoration of general communion, it in no way
represents a return to the original Eucharist.  On the contrary, it is
the final result of certain of the most aberrant tendencies that
threatened the whole practice and theory of the Eucharist in the
Middle Ages.  Yet we must not neglect to acknowledge its
undeniable literary merit, although this simply resulted from having
adapted, more ably and more daringly than anything that had been
attempted previously, the old Eucharist of the Eucharistic piety and
theology of the Middle Ages in what was most foreign there to the
original tradition.  To do this, it was necessary, as Luther did, to
throw out all the elements whose meaning had tended to be lost
even before Luther, and refashion the others in a sense which was
no longer theirs.

     Luther kept the common Preface, but only up to the Per
Christum Dominum nostrum.  At this point, through a clever
discovery, he immediately introduced the Qui pridie pateretur and
the rest of the Institution Narrative.  Only then do we have the
Sanctus.  During the Benedictus, the priest raised the Host and Cup
together. At this moment, the Eucharist properly so-called, in the
primary sense of the term, is accomplished.  We pass immediately
to the Pater, then to the Pax Domini, and the Communion is
distributed during the Agnus Dei, after the priest has said aloud, but
in the plural, the second of the preparatory prayers from the Roman
Latin Missal: Domine Jesus Christe, Fili Dei vivi, qui ex voluntate
Patris, etc.

     In singing of the Communion antiphon follows the Communion
Proper (as was already in the medieval practice), instead of
accompanying it.  The celebration ends with an invariable Post-
Communion, composed from the two medieval devotional prayers
Quod ore sumpismus and Corpus tuum (the plural was also
introduced into this latter prayer).

     This service is certainly of a very skillful and fully harmonious
composition.  But it is in no way a reformation of medieval
practice, if we mean by that a return to the Eucharist of the Fathers
and the New Testament.  It is rather an ultimate deformation of that
type which reduced everything to the adoration of the Real
Presence, consecrated solely by the words of Institution, before a
Communion in which forgiveness for sins absorbs all the other
aspects of the believer's union with the crucified Savior.  On the
other hand, the "thanksgiving" is nothing more than an anticipated
thanks for the evidence that we are about to receive of this
forgiveness.

     Two years later, Luther produced another Liturgy, which was
no longer in Latin like the Formula Missae, but in German: the
Deutsche Messe.  It went even further in getting rid of the most
primitive elements of the Liturgy of the Mass.  It may be considered
as the first of these innumerable Protestant liturgies of the Eucharist
which strictly speaking no longer contain anything "eucharistic." 
The Preface disappeared, and it was not another prayer that
replaced it but an exhortation addressed to the faithful which led up
to the Verba Christi.  These are no less expressly called
"consecratory" (dermunge).  The Communion is distributed
immediately, in principle with the Host after the words over the
bread and with the cup after those over the wine, while the Sanctus
and Angus Dei are sung in German paraphrases.  But Luther still
underlines the fittingness of the elevation immediately before the
Sanctus as in the Formula Missae.  This time, we may say that
irresistible logic of the medieval inheritance finally triumphed over
everything which still resisted ejection in the authentically
traditional Eucharist.

     Yet we should not forget that in Luther's mind this "German
Mass," according to its Preface, was merely a transitional last
resort, destined for the instruction of less enlightened peoples. 
Throughout his own explanations, we can see the confusion
resulting in the effective loss of elements of tradition whose value
he continued to acknowledge, even though he no longer knew what
place to give them in his teaching.  He plainly admits that he is not
in favor of an exclusive use of the vernacular in the Liturgy, with
the exception of the Bible readings and the chorales which were
more or less direct paraphrases of traditional hymns.  He feared that
a completely German Liturgy would become a source of religious
provincialism and a severance from the tradition of the universal
Church.  More profoundly, he wanted the traditional forms of the
Eucharist to be retained as much as possible.  His express wish
therefore was that the type of the Formula Missae would for this
reason remain the customary usage for schools and universities in
particular.

     In fact, the Deustche Messe of 1525 served as a model only for
the Liturgies of the Rhineland where Lutheranism was soon 
influenced by another form of Protestantism, much more radical in
its break with tradition: that of the "Reformed Churches, influenced
either by Zwingli or Calvin.  These were the ordines of Wurtemberg
(composed by Brenz), of Strasbourg (by Bucer), of Baden, Worms,
Rhein-Pfalz, etc.

     As in the Zwinglian or  Calvinist liturgies, the Eucharistic Prayer
simply disappeared.  But contrary to what happened with these
latter liturgies, the words of  Institution  continued to be looked
upon as effecting the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of
Christ in the oblations of bread and wine, even though these words
were no longer part of a prayer but were included in an exhortation
addressed to the faithful.

     In most of the other Lutheran Churches, people generally held
to translations and adaptations of the Formula Messe, which often
brought it closer to the traditional order.  For example, the
immediate connection between the Preface and the Sanctus was
re-established, or the various Proper Prefaces were retained.

     But frequently too, the influence of the Deustche Messe made
itself felt.  For example, the Lord's Prayer, as in the Deutshe Messe,
was said not after but before the consecration.  This is what we find
in the Liturgy composed in 1528 by Bugenhagen in Hamburg and
Lubeck, and then in Denmark.  The same thing is found in the
Liturgy of Saxony, composed by Jonas in 1539, for Feast Days
(there the Deutsche Messe was still retained for ordinary Sundays). 
Inversely the  Brandenburg- Nuremberg Liturgy of 1553 knew only
the schema of the Duetsche Messe, although it returned the Lord's
Prayer to its traditional place and retained a goodly number of Latin
prayers and chants.

     In the Electorate of Brandenburg, on the other hand, the Liturgy
composed under the influence of the Elector Joachim 11, by
Statner, Bucholzer and Matthias von Jagow went much further than
the Forumla Missae.  The Latin Prefaces followed by the Sanctus
were preserved, and during the singing of the latter, the celebrant
said four prayers in a low voice and in German: for the Emperor,
the authorities, the clergy, the unity of the Church, for the
forgiveness of sins, after which he recited or sang in German the
words of Consecration, followed by the elevation and a Latin motet
or a German song.  There followed the Lord's Prayer and the
Angus Dei.  Then there was inserted an exhortation inspired by the
Deustche Messe (taken word for word from the Nurmberg ordo)
before the communion.  Again in 157, David Chytaeus composed a
Liturgy for the Lutherans of Austria.  The same tendencies
appeared at Riga (1530), and at Pfalz-Neuburg (1543).  But,
generally speaking, it is the model of the Forumla Missae which
more or less completely predominated in Lutheran Germany.

     It is interesting and even amusing to see Luther's reaction to
these divergent tendencies. When questioned with some anxiety by
Bucholzer, Joachim's chaplain,about his master's liturgical
conservatism, he made no objection.  The comic nature of his
answer gives a characteristic picture of an irony which did not spare
the scruples of the most "advanced" reformers any more than it did
the ritualism of the Elector. "If your Lord, the Margave and
Elector, allows the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached openly,
clearly and purely, and the two Sacraments of Baptism and the flesh
and blood of Christ to be administered and given in accordance
with His institution ... then, in the Name of God, go in procession,
wear a cross of silver or gold, a chasuble and alb of velvet, silk or
linen! And if the chasuble or an alb are not enough for your lord
Elector, then put on three one on top of the other like Aaron! ...
For such things, if they are not mingled with abuse, take nothing
more away from the Gospel than they add to it ... And if the Pope
was to allow us freedom in this regard, and if the Gospel were
preached, he could certainly order me to wear my breeches about
my neck.  I should do as he pleased!"

            THE UN-EUCHARISTIC  EUCHARIST  OF  THE 
REFORMERS"
                ZWINGLI, OECOLAMPADIUS,  FAREL  AND 
CALVIN

This rather likeable mixture of traditional spirit and freedom was
not at all to the taste of the other reformers, and especially those
who called themselves "reformed." who were as much opposed to
the Lutherans as to the Roman Catholics, like Zwingli and Calvin. 
For them there could be no question of reforming the Liturgy of the
mass, but only of abolishing it.

     What they put in its place, under the name of "Holy Supper,"
while claiming to return to the original Eucharist, retained only the
Institution Narrative, immersed in more and more wordy and less
and less religious exhortations.  Moreover, the prayers that could
be added to it were constantly developing in accordance with the
very medieval impetus of the apologies and the affective mediation
on the Passion.  Thus, this break with tradition, in the name of
"Gospel alone" ended up in fact by retaining only the most anemic
elements of a tradition that came after the ninth century.  Rarely
have seen a reform end up with a practice that was such a total
contradiction of its theoretical principle.

     Zwingli in Zurich, like Oecolampadius at Basel, radically denied
not only the sacrificial character of the Liturgy of the Mass but any
idea of a Real Presence in the Eucharist.  For Zwingli in particular
"to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man" meant
exclusively to be nourished by the faith of the word of the Gospel.
The Eucharist is merely a community meal in which the faithful
proclaim their common faith in gratitude to God, by imitating and
recalling the last meal taken by Christ with His followers.  But there
is no question of the Sacrament in itself, however it is understood,
uniting them to Christ.  He remains in Heaven and it is explicitly
asserted that He is no more present or present in a different way in
the celebration of the Holy Supper than in any other gathering
where people listen together to His word.

     In a first phase, however, Zwingli in Zurich, like Oecolampadius
in Basel, was careful not to introduce a service that would be so
obviously different from the Liturgy of the Mass as the reformed
Holy Supper was to become.  His De canone missae epicheiresis of
1523 agrees to keep the Mass practically as it was up the Sanctus
inclusively.  But then for the Roman Canon he substituted four
Latin prayers leading up to the institution account, completed by
the sentence from St.Paul on the "proclamation" of the death of
Christ in the Eucharist.  Then came the Communion, introduced by
Christ's call: "Come to Me all you who are heavy laden and I shall
give you rest," and followed the Nunc Dimittis.  The first of these
four prayers (which follows the Our Father) is a commemoration of
the history of salvation in a thanksgiving that is not without its
reminder of the ancient Anaphoras.   But the second, in beseeching
God to feed us with the heavenly bread, specified that this bread is
the word of Christ alone.  The third, despite this, speak not only of
Christ's giving Himself as food to our souls under the forms of
bread and wine, but again of our partaking of His Body and His
Blood.  If it is read without reference to the foregoing one, we
might think that it had kept the traditional sense of the Eucharist:

        . . .   He gave himself to us as food, so that just as He 
vanquished the world, we,     nourished by Him, might hope to
vanquish it in turn  ...  Grant us, therefore, merciful    Father,
through Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, through  whom Thou givest life
to all and renewest and sustainest all things, that we may manifest
Him in our life, so that the likeness we have lost in Adam may be
recovered.  And so that this may come about, grant effectively to all
of us who partake of the Body and Blood of Thy Son to have but
one mind and one purpose and to be ourselves one in Him who is
one with Thee.

     Finally, the last prayer is a petition that the communicants
through the light of grace might partake worthily in the banquet of
the Son, "in which He is Himself both out host and our food," and
this leads directly to the Institution Narrative.   We must
acknowledge the paradoxical fact that this Eucharistic Prayer more
than any ancient Lutheran formula, comes close to the traditional
formularies.  Read by a devout but uncritical reader it could
certainly arouse a Eucharistic devotion of good quality, despite the
vague character of it allusions to the sacrifice, even that of the
Cross.  But read with  care, it betrays a quasi-Renanesque art of
expressing merely rationalizing platitudes under the guise of
traditional formulas and with an unctuous tone that is most proper
for leading people astray.

     The same year we have in Basel an analogous attempt with Das
Testament Jesu Christi of Oecolampadius, although the prayers
here made use more clearly of the sacrificial themes, but exclusively
in order to apply them to the offering of one's self in faith on the
part of the Christian.

     Zwingli, less than any one else, was not to take his first liturgical
composition seriously, since he had conceived it merely as a
transition destined to prepare people's mind for what he hoped
would be his end result.  After April 1525, feeling more sure of
himself in the city, he published his Action oder Bruch des
Nachtmahis.  A characteristic trait of developed Zwingilianism is
that all singing was banned.  The deacon here and not the celebrant
read an exhortation.  After this the Lord's Prayer was recited.  
Then the celebrant read the one Institution Narrative, and the bread
and wine were distributed to the seated congregation.

     The service began felicitously, before the meal proper, with a
prayer asking for the grace to perform fittingly "the praise and the
thanksgiving which Thy Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has
commanded us, His faithful, to do in memory of His death." But
this praise and thanksgiving are realized concretely only in the
recitation of the Gloria in excelsis, inserted between the reading of
1 Corinthians 11:20-29 and John 6:47-63, before the meal, and that
of Psalm 113 (according to the Hebrew numbering) afterwards. 
There is no longer the least trace of properly Eucharistic Prayer.

     This Eucharistic Liturgy without a Eucharist, on the other hand,
is foreseen for only yearly celebrations (Christmas, Easter,
Whitsunday and once during the Autumn).  It is looked upon
entirely as a Feast of the Christian Community in which the
Community expresses its solidarity in this infrequently meal.  It is
indeed a socio-religious act, but one which tends to be merely
social.  It has been justly pointed out that as a consequence there
persisted the disconcerting fact in Zurich that the communion
service brought out a much larger congregation than the regular
attendance at Sunday worship.

     Partly under the influence in Strasbourg of what Lutheran
elements Bucer had preserved, Calvin made an effort to restore to
this "Supper" a religious and Sacramental content. Without
teaching the Real Presence in the oblations themselves, as the
Lutherans continued to do, he maintained that eating of this meal
was not simply a sign of our common faith in the word of the
Gospel, but a sign given by God of a Real Communion in the Body
and Blood of His Son crucified for us.  Yet, like Zwingli, he
maintained that the Body of Christ existed now only in Heaven and
could not come down again.  But he asserted no less energetically
that the signs given by God raise us up to Heaven, provided that we
receive them with faith, and incorporate us into the glorified Christ
so that the Church becomes, mystically but really, His very Body.

     Yet he did not make any really substantial changes in the
Zwinglian Supper which had come to Geneva in a much more
lengthy if still unimproved form through Guillaume Farel.

     After a first exhortation, Farel's service included a formula of
confession of sins, the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, a second
exhortation leading to the Institution Narrative, a third exhortation,
the distribution of Communion, and finally a fourth and last
exhortation before the blessing and the dismissal.  Here the most
obsessive didactism took the place, not only of the Eucharistic
Prayer, but of every prayer, with the exception of the confession of
sins.

     After a prayer for the Church, and the reading of the Institution
Narrative (according to St. Paul), Calvin's service introduced an
excommunication with regard to a whole series of sinners regarded
as particularly scandalous, which was borrowed from the
Strasbourg ritual composed by Bucer. Then came a very long
exhortation in which Calvin tried to explain completely his doctrine
of the Supper (we have given a summation of it above, precisely
according to this text).  The distribution of Communion followed
immediately, accompanied either by the singing of a Psalm or
biblical verses recited by the minister.  A prayer of "thanksgiving,"
in the narrow sense of gratitude for the gifts received and
commitment to a renewed fidelity, end the service with the Nunc
Deimittis and the blessing.
          
     Calvin wanted this Supper to be celebrated each Sunday after
the service of readings and prayers.  Despite his doctrinal attempt
to infuse it with a content totally missing in the Zwinglian Supper, it
is understood that this service, which was almost as heavily didactic
as Farel's, never came to be celebrated much more often than
Zwingli's.  Calvin's theoretical sacramental realism changed nothing
of the anemic reality of the ritual meal to which he applied it:
people were still left with a non- Eucharistic "eucharist."



          SURVIVALS  AND  FIRST  ATTEMPTS  AT
RESTORATION  AMONG
               THE  LUTHERANS;  THE  SWEDISH  LITURGY 
FROM
                        OLAUS  PETRI  TO  JOHN  111

On the other hand, throughout the whole of the seventeenth and
well into the eighteenth century, the Lutheran Mass remained the
living hearth of the piety of Lutherans: a piety which the theological
renewal of the great tradition coming from Johann Gerhard
nourished with a genuine mysticism of Christ-in--us, taken
particularly form the Greek Fathers. Whatever its defects may have
been, and they were, once again, medieval defects pushed to their
extreme, this Lutheran Mass preserved for the faithful all that they
had found best about the Liturgy of the Mass of the Middle Ages. 
The absence of elements from the Canon such as the Anamnesis, as
shocking as that may be, passed practically unnoticed.  For a long
time, these elements had not only not been understood but were not
even known to the laity, since no account of them had been given in
the teaching that they had for centuries been receiving on the
Eucharist.  On the other hand, following a rather lengthy service of
readings and chants in which nothing had been changed from the
pre- Reformation Liturgy of the Mass, the Preface, the words of
consecration uttered aloud, kneeling at the sound of the bell for the
adoration of the Holy Presence, which was heralded by the Sanctus
and Benedictus, not only retained but popularized whatever
properly Eucharistic elements remained in the Liturgy of the Middle
Ages thanks to the vernacular and the catechetical instruction. 
Relieved of the pervading burden of the topes and adventitious
devotions, enriched by the tender and virile piety of the chorales,
this Liturgy on the other hand preserved the best aspects of the
affective devotion to the dying Savior for us in a petition for the
forgiveness expected from His saving grace and it recentered it
around frequent Communion which was restored to its normal
place in the Eucharistic celebration.  Along with the ceremonial,
liturgical chant, sacred vestments, the crucifix and statues, incense
and candles, the Liturgy of the Mass of devout Lutherans still fond
in their worship the whole atmosphere of adoration which the best
Christians of the Middle Ages found in the Holy Presence and the
evocation of the saving Cross.  But, unwittingly, leaving aside the
certainly capital fact that they were no longer content merely to
assist at Mass but they took Communion, they had certainly
progressed rather than regressed along the fateful path that had
never ceased to lead their forebears astray from the tradition of the
ancient and primitive Church.  However rich their Eucharistic piety
often was, it was still attached merely to a stunted concept of the
Eucharist.

     In Germany at least, this situation hardly survived the difficulties
wrought by the Thirty Years War, and began to decompose under
official influence in the states where union with Prussia required
conformity to the most devitalized "reformed" practices. But this
abolishment itself was to give rise as a reaction to a conscious
rebirth of old Lutheranism which in our own day has become at
times very close to the Catholicism of the first centuries.

     This rebirth only came about three centuries after the
Reformation.  Yet it was a the least outlined beginning with the end
of the sixteenth century in some particular instances which merit
our attention.  It is the first of these liturgical renascence in
Protestantism, and it was to mark the Church of Sweden
permanently. 

     Protestantism had been introduced into Sweden, as in many
other places, for reasons that were chiefly political.  But it remained
extremely moderate in its transformation of the traditional forms of
church life, and particularly church worship.  Its chief promotor
was the preacher Olaus Petri who was formed at Wittenberg.  He is
the author of the first Swedish Liturgy of the Mass, published in
1531.

     It is very close to the Formula Missae of Luther in the sense that
it connects immediately the words of Institution with the Per
Christum of the Preface, while the Sanctus and the Benedictus
announce the elevation.  But if differs from it on a capital point in
that it reintroduces something of the traditional Anaphora, not in a
form of intercessory prayers more or less directly inspired by those
of the Canon, as in the Brandenburg Liturgy of 1540, but through
an amplification of the Preface itself.

     The amplification combines unexpectedly, but most fortuitously,
the medieval and Protestant emphasis on the forgiveness of sins of
the participants with an evocation of the history of salvation. 
Brillioth, doubtless correctly, thinks that this amplification must
have been inspired by the Easter Preface. But we may not
absolutely exclude the supposition that this is a first instance of a
perceptible influence on the Protestant Liturgy if not of the Eastern
Liturgies, then at least of the Greek Fathers.  Here is the text:

         Verily it is meet and right and blessed that we sh ould in all pl
aces give  thanks and   praise to Thee, Holy Lord, Almighty Father,
everlas ting God for a ll Thy be nefits, and     especially for that one
that Thou didst unto us, when we  all  by reason of sins were in so
bad a case that nought but damnation and eternal death awaited us,
and no creature in Heaven or earth could help us, then Thou didst
send forth Thine Only-Begotten Son Jesus Christ, who was of the
same Divine Nature as Thyself, didst suffer Him to become a man
for our sake, didst lay our sins upon Him, and didst suffer Him to
undergo death instead of our all dying eternally, and as He hath
overcome death and risen again into life, and now dieth nevermore,
so likewise shall all they who put their trust therein overcome sin
and death and through Him attain to everlasting life, and for our
admonition that we should bear in mind and never forget such His
benefit, in the night that He was betrayed, etc. ...

     After the Sanctus-Benedictus we come to the Communion
through the Lord's Prayer, the Pax Domini and the Agnus Dei. 
Right before the distribution there is introduced an exhortation
taken from the Nuremberg Liturgy, as is the singing of the Nunc
Dimittis accompanying the Communion itself.

     On the other hand, the subjective and penitential aspect is still
present in the formula of collective confession that precedes the
whole service, before the Introit, one of the first examples of such
compositions in a Protestant Liturgy.  Yet, it is absent from the
fixed post-communion which ends the service, and which is quite
traditional in spirit with its remarkable eschatological reference.

     This Swedish Liturgy of the Mass was not destined, it seems, to
replace the High Mass, but rather to furnish what we should call a
Low Mass with Communion. Forty years later, Archbishop
Lauentius Petri, Olaus' brother, adapted his brother's formulary for
the High Mass itself.  But he retained the possibility of keeping and
singing (still in Latin) the Proper Prefaces, along with al the
traditional Latin chants.  In this case he prescribed that they
immediately follow from the Sanctus before the words of
consecration.  This specification was accompanied by a  detailed
ordinance which has allowed the Church of Sweden to retain down 
our own day the whole complex of ceremonial and liturgical decor
which had been part of Western Catholic tradition.  But this
ordinance, in its doctrinal teachings, is still more interesting.  For
the first time in Protestantism Archbishop Laurentius, relying on
Olaus' own formulas, attempted to develop a positive doctrine of
the Eucharistic sacrifice, which is very close to the teachings of the
Fathers.

     Not only did he admit the "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving"
in terms which show well that he means much more by it than the
reformers did (who saw in it merely a metaphorical expression of
our gratitude for the gifts received): not only did he connect this
sacrifice which consists in the offering or ourselves with the will of
God, but he added a capital phase which is practically unparalleled
in the other Lutheran authors of the time:

        But,  if you wish to call the Liturgy of the Mass a sacrifice
because it signifies or   represents the sacrifice made by Christ on
the Cross, and not as if you were     appropriating to yourself or to
the priests who are said to offer it Christ's own function, then it can
be accepted.

     He goes so far as to add in a formula that is both very medieval
and very Lutheran that the Liturgy of the Mass is indeed a sacrifice
"because the priest and the people place it between their sins and
God's wrath as a pledge of peace.

     Here we have the seed, as it were, of a joint recuperation of the
liturgical and theological traditions.  This movement was to
continue under the episcopate of his son-in-law and successor,
Archbishop Lauentius Petri Gothus, under the aegis of King John
111, aided by his secretary Petrus Fecht, a former pupil of the
humanist and chief collaborator of Luther, Melanchthon.

     This "return to the sources" bore it fruits in a revised Liturgy
which King John made obligatory for some years and which
certainly represents the boldest traditional reaction that could yet be
seen in a Lutheran country. It was not simply a return to the Roman
Canon, but an attempt (more ingenious, perhaps, than successful)
to restore many discarded elements to the schema of Olaus Petri's
Mass, without modifying its structure inherited form the Formula
Missae of Luther.  Further, to this we must add an effort, which this
time cannot be doubted, to derive inspiration form Eastern
Liturgies.  On sentence from the new formulary, taken word for
word from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, is enough to attest
it.  What is more, the King himself justified his liturgical reform in
advance, before the whole body of clergy in Stockholm in 1574, be
voicing the need to return to the ancient models of the Liturgies of
St. James, St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose and St. Gregory
the Great.  A reading of the new text in fact easily convinces us that
if the Eastern liturgies which  Olaus Petri had already claimed as
supporting his composition could have been advanced with
confidence by him, it was certain no longer the case here.

     Similarly, in the Liturgy of  Laurentius Petri (the father-in-law of
Laurentius Petri Gothus), a connection was made between the
ancient Proper Preface, or the Common Preface (given as an
interchangeable formula for Sundays and ferial days) and the words
of consecration through the intermediary of the formula: "And He,
that we might never forget His benefits, in the night He was
betrayed, etc. ..."  After the traditional conclusion of the ancient
Prefaces the Scantus is then sung or recited.  But, while it is sung
during the Liturgy of the  High Mass, or once it has been recited in
a Low Mass, the priest adds an Anamnesis and an Epiclesis for
which no Lutheran Liturgy, even the most conservative, had an
equivalent before that time.  They paraphrase in a most interesting
way the Unde et memores, the Supra quae and the Supplices of the
Roman Canon:

          Therefore we also remember, O Lord God, t his blessed 
command and the s ame Thy    Son our Lord Jesus Christ's Holy
Passion and death, His resu rrection and Ascen sion.  And  this Thy
Son Thou hast in Thy boundless mercy sent and given  unt o us,
that He might be an offering for our sins, and by His one offering
on the Cross pay the price of our redemption, fulfill Thy justice and
make perfect such an offering as might serve for the welfare of all
the elect unto the end of the world.  The same Thy Son, the same
offering, which is pure, holy and undefiled offering, set before us
for our reconciliation, our shield, defense, and covering against Thy
wrath, against the terror of sins and of death, we take and receive
with faith and offer before Thy glorious Majesty with our humble 
supplications.  For these Thy great benefits we give Thee fervent
thanks with heart and mouth, yet not as our bounden duty is but
according to our power.
          And we humbly beseech Thee through the same Thy S on,
whom Thou in thy Godly      and secret counsel hast set before us
as our only medi ator, that Thou wilt vouchsafe to   look upon us
and our prayers with mercy and pity ing eye, suffer them to come to
Thy heavenly Altar before Thy Divine Majesty and be pleasing unto
Thee, that all we who are partakers of this Altar of the blessed and
holy food and drink, the holy bread of Eternal Life and the cup of 
Eternal Salvation, which is the Holy Body and Precious Blood of
Thy Son, may also be fulfilled with all heavenly benediction and
grace.

     This is followed by a Nobis quoque where the Saint's names
although not their general mention have been removed, which leads
to the conclusion of the Roman Canon: Per quem haec omnia, etc.
... The end of the service corresponds to that the Liturgy of the
previous Archbishop, except that several alternative
Post-Communions have been proposed.

     It is equally interesting to note what the Anamnesis retains from
the Roman Unde et memores and what it adds to it.  It begins by
connecting the memorial to Christ's precept (amndatum).  At first
sight this appears to be traditional, but what is not traditional is that
the memorial in fact becomes here a subjective commemoration of
the Last supper, before indirectly recalling the Passion and the
whole work of salvation.  From the outset we find ourselves in the
context of  the medieval and Protestant view of things.   But
everything that follows is an attempt to force it, in so far as that is
possible to rejoin the ancient notion. The second amplification,
emphasizing the divine mercy and exalting the uniqueness of the
sacrifice of the Cross, has not only the Epistle to the Hebrews to
recommend it but also similar formularies from the Patristic era like
the Armenian Liturgy.  Still, there is no doubt that these formulas
are there in order to satisfy a Protestant theology in which the
uniqueness of the redemptive sacrifice is confounded with the
impossibility not only of repeating it but of perpetuating its
Sacramental Presence.  The explanation given of this sacrifice, as if
it were reduced to the Anselmian notion of penal satisfaction, is
quite typical not only of Luther himself but of Lutheran
scholasticism which took over this explanation precisely in order to
set the whole redemption within the strict framework of the past. 
The subsequent use, then, of expressions like hostiam puram,
hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam applies them solely to the
Cross, and no longer to the Sacrament of the sacrifice.

     But the context prepares for a reintroduction of everything
which seems to have been excluded, in an exceptionally skillful
way.  The turn-about was effected through an accumulation of
expressions taken directly from Luther which, however, as Aulen
has shown so well, connect his thought very closely with the
thought of the Greek Fathers.  The crucified Christ is called
propitialionem, scutum et umbraculum nostrum contra iram tuam,
contra terrorem peccali et mortis.  The presentation of the dead
Christ to the Father, in order to protect us from His wrath, is an
expression familiar to Luther to describe the way in which he
conceives our justification by faith.  The idea that we find liberation
here from the terrors of sin and death is no less his, but it is taken
directly from the biblical text most often quoted b the Fathers (the
Greeks in particular) to express the effect of the redemption
(Hebrews 11:14-15).  It is in this context  that the prayer, in terms
that are still quite Lutheran, manages to reintegrate the idea of an
objective Presence of the Cross in the Mass and a consecutive
offering of the one sacrifice which we can here make our own:
eumdem Filium tuum, ejusdem mortm et oblationem ... nobis
propsitum fide amplectimur, tuaeque pracelarae majetali humilimis
nostris precibus offerimus.  In one sense, there is nothing  more
Lutheran than this "gap" of the one oblation of Christ by the
believers in the prayer of faith.  But that Christ and His offering of
Himself, inseparably, are considered as nobis propositum in the
Eucharistic celebration, and that it is said that "we offer Him" by
this very prayer which "grasps" Him in faith, comes down to
introducing into the very heart of the most unquestionably Lutheran
notion of salvation that traditional notion of the Mass which Luther,
in fact, was never successful in integrating into it.  Indeed, how
could he have been, since for him the Eucharistic sacrifice always
had meant either a sacrifice other than that of the Cross (which he
obviously had to reject) or else merely an expression of our
gratitude for the forgiveness granted to our faith?  Here on the
contrary, the Eucharist becomes again the Sacramental encounter in
which our faith can effectively grasp the Cross, since the dead and
risen Christ is objectively "proposed" to it, with the result that we
become associated with His one offering in the prayer which grasps
this heavenly gift.  We may say that everything positive in the
Lutheran notion of salvation has been retained, but the whole is
reintegrated into the ancient notion of the Eucharist to which
Luther at times came very close, although he never quite succeeded
in clearly untangling it from its later caricatures.

     As ingenious as this composition was in successfully making use
of all those formulas (which were the cause in the first place of the
idea of sacrifice being expelled from the Eucharist) in order that it
might reintroduce the notion of sacrifice, it still remains very
artificial.  Indeed, for it not to be factious, the reintegration that it
hoped for would have required the initial abandonment of the false
notion that the "memorial" was merely a subjective commemoration
of Jesus' last meal with His followers.  As long as the Protestants
were unsuccessful in ridding themselves of this strictly
psychological and anecdotal notion, a most unfortunately uncritical
inheritance from the Middle Ages, all their attempts at escaping the
alternative: one sacrifice of the Cross or a multiplication of
sacrifices added to the Cross, would appear to be a wish to
reconcile the irreconcilable.

     The Epiclesis reflects a process exactly like that of the
Anamnesis.  It fuses into one the Supra quae and the Supplices, in a
way that might have been suggested by the De Sacramentis (let us
recall that John 111 expressly cited St. Ambrose among the sources
of the ancient Eucharist to whom a return should be made).  But it
omits the mention of the ancient sacrifices and the Angels, and
substitutes in their place an evocation (once again inspired by the
Epistle to the Hebrews) of Christ interceding for us in the heavenly
Sanctuary.  The conclusion repeats that of the Supplices, although
at this point it inserts two formulas which had disappeared from the
Unde et memores (panem sanctum vitae aeternae et calicem salutis
peretuae).  But it is obvious that they did not wish here to extend
the idea, outlined in the preceding prayer, of the one sacrifice
becoming our own in the Eucharist, with the result that they limited
themselves to asking for the acceptance upon the heavenly Altar
not of this sacrifice but only of our prayers.  Yet, since these
prayers themselves somewhat earlier had acquired a sacrificial
meaning, it is not impossible to transfer to this Epiclesis the ancient
content of the Roman formulas that inspired it.

     There is nothing to be said about the Nobis quoque, but it is
worthy to note that they did not dare to introduce either the
Memento of the dead or any formal prayer for the departed, for fear
of colliding with the suspicion that every prayer for the dead in the
Liturgy of the Mass implied a repetition of the one sacrifice and not
merely its sacramental actualization.

     But we must mention the strangest peculiarity of this whole
Liturgy, which is not only that they reintroduced a properly
consecratory Epiclesis before the Institution Narrative and, in
imitation of the Eastern liturgies, addressed it to the Holy Spirit, but
also that they placed it before the beginning of the Eucharist proper. 
The reason for this curious innovation is quite simple: as long as
they wished to keep intact the schema of the Formula Missae
adopted by Olaus Petri, they were unable to find any other place for
it.  The offertory, then, concludes with a series of three prayers: the
first is a sort of fixed "secreta," the second a recoup of the Te igitur
in which, once again, the mention of the sacrifice is replaced by the
mention of our prayers, and the third, the text that follows:

             O Lord, God, who  willest that Thy Son' s holy  and most
worthy Supper should be unto    us a pledge and assurance of Thy
mercy: a w aken our heart, that we who celebrate the  same His
Supper may have a salutary  remem brance of Thy benefits, and
humbly give Thee true and bounden thanks, glory, honor, and
praise for evermore.  Help us Thy servants and Thy people that we
may herewith remember the holy, pure, stainless and blessed
offering of Thy Son, which He made upon the Cross for us, and
worthily celebrate the Mystery of the New Testament and eternal
Covenant.  Bless and sanctify with the power of Thy Holy Spirit
that which is prepared and set apart for this holy use, bread and
wine, that rightly used it may be unto us the Body and Blood of
Thy Son, the food of eternal life, which we may desire and seek
with greatest longing.  Through the same ...

     Here, more than ever, they attempted the impossible: after the
most intensely subjective formulation of the "memorial," the
Eucharist is nonetheless designated by the expression "mysterium
peragere," enhanced by its parallel with the "hostia ... in ara crucis
peracta."  The conclusion, too, is a consecratory Epiclesis which is
a s clear as it can be, although there is a repetition of these
expressions sacro usui destinate" and "in vera usu" which are
familiar to Protestant ears.  But, for the Lutheran scholasticism
influenced by Melanchthon and concerned with coming as close as
possible to the Calvinists, these words signified that the Eucharistic
Presence is reduced to the celebration, and even to the act of
consuming the bread and wine.  It seems evident that nothing of
this sort is any longer meant by these words, but merely, at the
most that the Liturgy of the Mass is availing for the salvation of
those participating only insofar as they come to it with the proper
dispositions.  In other words, in this prayer (more perhaps than in
any of the others) we can see the twofold ambiguity of the whole of
this Liturgy: all the Lutheran formulas have assuredly become
susceptible of a perfectly Catholic sense.  Actually, the King's
sincere intention does seem to have been to return to the ancient
tradition, but without thereby losing any of the positive elements of
Lutheranism.  However, we must admit, the procedure followed
seems to pretend to adapt the Catholic formulas to Lutheran
doctrine, in order to camouflage a Catholic doctrine beneath
Lutheran formulas. The undeniable wish of the King to return
Sweden to Catholic unity at a time when men were in no way
prepared for it, and the secret maneuvering of too crafty
negotiators flurrying about his court, soon persuaded practically
everyone that such was the true nature of this text.  As Archbishop
Laurentius Petri Gothus had foreseen, at the very moment when he
had endorsed it, the "red book" of John 111 could not truly satisfy
either the Protestants nor the Catholics.  Once the King was dead,
in fact, his Liturgy furnished an excellent pretext for the small party
of radical "reformed" theologians supported by the Regent, Duke
Charles, to attempt to swing the Swedish pendulum to their side. 
But their efforts were not destined to be any more successful than
his, and Sweden soon returned to the Liturgy of Olaus Petri in the
form that Laurentius Petri had worked out in 1571.  It was to retain
it practically intact down to our own day.


                  CRAMMER  AND  THE  ANGLICAN  EUCHARIST

A very different example of a Protestant Liturgy susceptible of a
Catholic interpretation was offered in the middle of the century by
the first Anglican Eucharistic Liturgy.  But in this instance, the
intention was not to reintroduce a Catholic sense into Lutheran
formulas, but rather the possible introduction of a Zwinglian sense
into the Catholic formulas (something which, as we have seen,
Zwingli had already tried in his first and completely provisional
Liturgy). We mean naturally the text composed by Crammer and
published in 1549 in his first Prayer Book.

     This book itself proceeds from a still-born Liturgy: the one that
had been patronized by the Archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von
Wied, and which was composed by Bucer in collaboration with
Melanchthon.  It reflected something from most of the Lutheran
ordines that were already published, especially the two divergent
Ordines of Brandenburg, while making an effort, like the Swedish
liturgies, to come closer also to the ancient liturgies.  The energetic
opposition of the chapter, upheld by the university, prevented this
composition, published in 1543, from ever having any local use. 
Charles V forbade its use and Hermann, excommunicated by Paul
111 in 1546, died deprived of his see in 1552.  Although it was
never used in Cologne, the book to which he gave his name did
have some success among the Lutherans of Hesse and the Saar and
in a few places in Alsace.

     For his Liturgy of the English Mass, Crammer took from it only
the formula of general confession of sins at the beginning and the
biblical verses (the "comfortable words") which accompanied the
absolution that followed.  But he took no inspiration from its
Eucharistic Preface in which there seemed to have been a
combination of Galllican and Eastern influences and which was
followed by the Institution Narrative immediately after the Sanctus. 
Actually, if Crammer's personal literary tasted caused him to retain
as many as possible of the traditional formulas to which Henry
V111 remained strongly attached (just as he was to the Catholic
doctrines on the Sacraments), he was not and never had been more
Lutheran than his master.  Nonetheless, he had abandoned the
medieval doctrines on the Eucharist, although he took great care
not to let Henry see this, and immediately adopted a radical
Zwinglianism.  He was to try, with the same prudence shown by
Zwingli in Zurich, first to insinuate it beneath a phraseology which
was still Catholic in appearance at the end of  Henry's reign, and
then with the Protestantism of the government of Edward V1 to
express it plainly.

     Dom Gregory Dix has established irrefutably that the
interpretation long given by catholicizing Anglicans of the
difference between his Eucharist of 1549 and the one produced in
1552 is untenable.  For from being still Catholic or, at the most,
"Lutheranized," the first Eucharist is only Catholic in appearance
and simply disguises under a veil of ambiguities the same doctrine
which is so frankly stated in the second, a doctrine which is not
only "reformed" but properly Zwinglian.  But, like Zwingli's first
Liturgy and still more skillfully, Crammer's first Liturgy retains all
that could be kept of the ancient formulas in making them
susceptible of a completely different understanding.  The same
prudence guided him, not only for the sake of the King, but because
of the sentiments of the mass of people and great part of the
English clergy, which had remained basically Catholic.  We must
just add that his refined humanism caused him to bring to his task
the taste of an antiquarian and an artist, without which the
astounding and lasting success of this ambiguous composition
would be incomprehensible.
     
     This English Eucharist seems to have been very badly received
by the laity, who as a whole were in no way anxious to abandon the
Latin Liturgy with which they had always been familiar.  But it is
incontestably that the mass of the clergy which had come in contact
with humanism, even though it was still so attached to Catholic
doctrines, saw no objection to using these Anglicized formulas
rather than the Canon of the Roman Mass.  Somewhat later Bishop
Gardiner relied on two passages from this Liturgy to uphold against
Crammer himself the permanent legitimacy within the Anglican
Church of the teaching which had always been that of the Catholic
Church.  In the first place, he cited these words from Crammer's
Canon, immediately before the Institution Narrative: "Hear us, O
merciful Father, we beseech Thee: and with Thy Holy Spirit and
word, vouchsafe to bless and sanctify these Thy gifts, and creatures
of  bread and wine, that they may be unto us the Body and Blood of
Thy most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ." With these he
connected the words that followed in the same narrative: "most
humbly beseeching Thee, that whosever shall be partakers of this
holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body
and Blood of thy Son ..."  To which he again added this formula
from the preparatory prayer for communion: "Grant us therefore ...
so to eat the flesh of  Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His
Blood in these Holy Mysteries, that we may evermore dwell in Him
..." But Crammer replied drily that to interpel these texts as the
Bishop of Winchester did was "a plain untruth."

     Indeed, we must pay close attention to the sense that Crammer,
in Zwingli's wake, gave constantly to the evangelical formulas
concerning the eating of Christ's Body (or Flesh) and His Blood
becoming our drink.  His Defence repeats tirelessly that  the only
possible sense of these expressions is "to believe in our hearts, that
His Flesh was rent and torn for us upon the Cross and His Blood
shed for our redemption."  As he says again, this eating is in no way
specific to the Eucharist; we eat and rink Christ and feed on Him as
long as we are members of His Body (obviously the Mystical
Body), with the result that He may be eaten and drunk in the Old
Testament just as well as today.  Under these conditions the Supper
was instituted "that very man eating and drinking thereof should
remember that Christ died for him, and so should exercise his faith,
and comfort himself by the remembrance of Christ's benefits."  Not
only does he expressly reject every idea of a sanctification of the
oblations other than the material fact of their being set aside for the
celebration, but even Calvin's idea of a spiritual but real eating of
the Body and Blood of Christ present in Heaven in quite foreign to
him.  For him, "to eat the Flesh and drink the Blood" is only a
metaphor for believing (in the presence of the bread and wine, but
without this Presence as well) in the benefits of the Cross which the
word of the Gospel alone allows us to know.  One could not be
clearer than he on this point.

     The same is true, for stronger reasons, in regard to the sacrificial
expressions that he may use in his Eucharistic Prayer.  The
"sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" (still according to his
Defence) if set off against the propitiatory sacrifice whereby Christ
has reconciled us with God.  It is "another kind of sacrifice ... which
doth not reconcile us to God, ut is made of them that be reconciled
by Christ, to testify our duties unto God, and to shew ourselves
thankful unto Him; and therefore they be called sacrifices of laud,
praise and thanksgiving. The first kind of sacrifice Christ offered to
God for us; the second kind we ourselves offer to God by Christ. 
And by the first kind of sacrifice Christ offered us also unto His
Father; and by the second we offer ourselves and all that we have,
unto Him and His Father.  And this sacrifice generally is our whole
obedience unto God, in keeping His laws and commandments."