CHAPTER FOUR THE COMPLETED RITE IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WEST The venerable and learned monk of Solesmes, Dom Paul Cagin, always maintained that the Gallican and Spanish (Mozarabic) Rites were really earlier forms of the Western Liturgy from which the Roman Rite of the seventh (or, perhaps, sixth) century, found in the Gelasian Sacamentary, was a later departure; and he upheld this view with much learning. It must be remembered, however, that the existing texts of these Rites are not earlier than the sixth century, and they therefore give us a form of the Liturgy which is a s much a later development as that of the Roman sacramentaries. It is true, nevertheless, that these Rites still underlie the later additions. Besides the comparatively late date of the Gallican and Spanish texts, there is also the fact that both Rites have borrowed certain elements from Eastern Rites - so much so that the author of Christian Worship (the English translation of Les Origines du Culte Chretien), the learned Mgr. Duchesne, considered that the two Rites were simply Eastern Liturgies introduced into the West. This theory is no longer held by any liturgical authority; the Gallican and Mozarabic Rites seem to be essentially Western in character, and the Eastern elements are simply the results of later local contacts with the East - and the same applies to the Eastern features in the Ambrosian Rite. This latter Rite is still considered by some authorities to be essentially Gallican (in the above sense), with Roman additions. By others it is regarded, on the contrary, as being essentially Roman in character, with later Gallican interpolations. The Rite followed in North Italy and in Celtic countries, and also in Africa, together with those of Gaul (that is, France, Switzerland and part of Germany - this latter was the real "Gallican Rite" in the literal sense and not in the really incorrect "extended sense" used by Dom Cagin and others) and in Spain, are all local forms of one "Western Rite". The Roman and Ambrosian or Milanese Rites (the latter is probably an early type of the former) are also local forms of this Western Rite. But it is an undoubted fact that the Roman Rite - especially as regards the Canon (and on this point the Ambrosian Rite also) - remains somewhat of a puzzle. The differences between it and its Ambrosian "brother-rite" and all other "Western Rites are not only very marked, but there is also absolutely no evidence, to my knowledge obtained as yet as to how or why or when these differences came about. Nevertheless, great advance has been made of in the explanation of its history and in "clearing out" later additions from the more primitive elements - especially in the Canon. THE INTRODUCTION IN THE DEVELOPED GALLICAN RITE: The account given by Pseudo-Germanus of Paris is not to be relied on - at least, as far as the general use is concerned; it probably applies to certain special places at a late date. The developed introduction was as follows: (i) an entrance chant taken from the East - the Trisagian ("The Threefold Holy": "Holy God, Holy Immortal (Strong One), Holy Immortal (One), have mercy on us") - which was used in the Roman Rite only on Good Friday during the Adoration of the Cross. (ii) Kryie eleison chanted three times, and as a chant, not as a litany. Dix suggests that possibly St. Gregory the Great, when he introduced the ninefold Kryie and Christe eleison into the Roman Mass in place of the long litany put in by Celasius, may have got the idea from the above arrangement in the Gallican Rites, and therefore have intended to bring in a "chant" as in Gaul, rather than a short form of litany. He points out, too, that as a matter of fact the Greek Kyrie eleison was not the response of the people in Gelasius' litany, but the Latin form Domine miserere. Dom Gregory Dix insists, too, in another place, that a true litany implies a series of petitions in short form given out by celebrant or deacon to which the congregation rely with Kyrie eleison or some such short cry of appeal to God. He deplores the loose way in which the word litany is used in the case of prayers, which are not true litanies at all - for example, the "Solemn Prayers" (Orationes solemnes), after the Passion in the Good Friday Mass of the Prescantified. In these prayers the people's part, apart from the Amen, was prayer in complete silence and prefatio (a species of proclamation announced by the celebrant) was of some length - in fact, the "Collect", an entirely different type of prayer. (iii) Next came the canticle Benedictus (Luke I:68-79). (iv) The Greeting and Collect. After this Collect came the Lessons with their responsory-Psalms. Before the earlier chants described above had been introduced, the synaxis began with the Lessons themselves, and the number of these latter was very varied, as there was no special rule. But in time - that is, towards the end of the fourth century - the number three became usual: Old Testament; Epistle or Acts; Gospel. In Spain and Gaul, instead of the Old Testament Lessons, one taken from "acts" of the martyrs was read on their Feast days. A responsory taken from the Psalms was sung, in Gaul apparently, between the second Lesson and the Gospel, the first two Lessons having no responsory between them. THE GALLICAN EUCHARIST: This began, as probably in Rome in early times and as at Milan even to the present day, with the "Prayer of the Day" - originally the first prayer of the Mass. In the Gallican Rite, and originally in the Spanish, the full "collect-type" of prayer is found - including the praefatio or admonition by the celebrant to the congregation to pray for certain intentions; the silent prayer of the congregation, followed by the "summing up" prayer of the celebrant. In the Gallican Mass the rubric indicates the Praefatio Missae ("Preface of the Mass" - as this prayer was reckoned as the first, in dignity at least, after others had been added before it); then, after the silent prayer of the people, Collectio sequitur ("the Collect" - i.e., the prayer proper - "follows". The full, original title is given in the Gallican texts, though collectio afterwards degenerated into collecta). In the Spanish Rite the titles were: Missa - for the Praefatio and Alia oratio ("another prayer") instead of Collectio. The first title is a "corruption" of the full title, Praefatio missae; the second is due to the fact that in later times the Praefatio often became itself a prayer, its ancient signification and the ancient character of a collect being forgotten. This change took place in the case of the other liturgical collects also. In the Spanish Rite most of the praefationes have been dropped altogether. After the above prayer followed the recitation of the "Names" - that is, of those who had presented offerings of bread and wine for the Mass and, in later days, also of the dead - the "waiting ones" (pansantium); this part of the Mass will be treated in detail in a latter chapter. Then came a rubric, post nomina ("after the names"), indicating the Praefatio of the following Collect called Ad pacem ("with regard to - or for - peace"), as this often included mention of the offerings of bread and wine. Later the rubric post nomina became the title of the Praefatio - now changed into a prayer, as in the case of the following Collect. Then began the "Eucharistic Prayer", called, in the Gallican Rite, Immolatio ("Sacrifice"). This was the equivalent of the Roman Praefatio ("Preface"), leading up to the threefold Sanctus and the Canon. After the Sanctus in the Gallican Mass, came a prayer usually beginning with the words: Vere sanctus, vere benedictus Filius tuus, Dominus noster Jesus Christus, etc., linking up the Immolatio and Sanctus with the consecratory portion. The prayer itself was usually fairly short and leading directly to the Words of Institution. These in the texts are of Eastern form - in qua nocte tradbatur ("in the night in which He was betrayed"), but this seems to have been merely another example of the Gallican and Mozarabic tendency to borrow from the Eastern Rites, for the prayer following the account of the Institution is often preceded by a rubric post pridie, ("After [the words:] on the day before [He suffered]"), a clear sign of the original usage. This prayer, post pridie, ends with a text just before the Breaking of the Bread closely resembling that in the Roman Canon: Per quem haec omnia, etc/ ) which will be discussed in full in a later chapter); a chant called confractorium was sung during the Fraction, replaced on certain days by the Creed. The Bread was broken during the Creed - when the latter was sung. The Fraction was very elaborate and highly developed. The Lord's Prayer followed immediately, preceded by a little Praefatio, and followed by a prayer beginning with the words Liber nos - or words to that effect. Next came the blessing prayer before Communion preceded by the admonition from the deacon to the people to bow down for it - there was a special form of blessing for a bishop. after this blessing came the Communion of celebrant and people. A chant was sung during the celebrant's communion and, after that of the people, a Thanksgiving Collect was chanted. This Collet was called Consummation Missae ("consummation" or "completion" of the Mass), and was preceded by an admonition called Postcommunioem (perhaps this also was the original arrangement of the Roman prayer after Communion). Between the Praefatio and the Collect itself was the silent prayer of the congregation. The Mass ended with a dismissal pronounced by the deacon after the celebrant had said Dominus sit semper vobiscum and the people had responded et cum spiritu two. The Gallican form of this dismissal is not known; it may have been as in the Stowe Missal: Missa acta est in pace (:The Mass is enacted [i.e., "completed"] in peace"). All the prayers, and, in fact, almost every part of the Mass, were variable in the Gallican and Spanish Rites, and they changed almost every day. Both this variability and the length of the prayers were developed to an exaggerated extent, some of the praefationes to the Collects being really long theological treatises, and the same is true of even the actual prayers themselves. This very marked in comparison with the sober dignity of the Roman Collects. In the later Rite the variability is reduced to a comparatively small number of formulas, and in the case of the Canon is reserved for a few parts only and for special occasions (e.g., Easter, Pentecost). In the Roman Collect, too, the Praefatio was quite early reduced to the one word Oremus ("let us pray"), except in the case of the old form of intercessions still to be found in the Tridentine for Good Friday, and in the ordination Masses. THE COMPLETED RITE AT MILAN: The Ambrosian Rite at Milan closely resembles that of Rome, differences being found chiefly in the name or terms used for the same types of prayer and chants. It is still in use, unlike the Gallican Rites. The Introductory Chant: This is an antiphon usually taken from the Psalms. But the antiphon has no added verse or verses, nor Gloria Patri, as in the Roman Tridentine Rite. The title is Ingressa ("entrance"); then, on the Sundays of Lent, comes a litany of Eastern type chanted by the deacon and answered by the people with the words Domine miserere, followed immediately by Dominus vobiscum. There are two forms of litany in use: one on the first, third and fifth Sundays, the other on the second and fourth. On other days the Gloria in excelsis is chanted in this place. After the latter, or after the litany, Kryie eleison is sung three times - but as a chant and not in any way connected with a litany. The Greeting - Dominus vobiscum: This is followed immediately and without Oremus, by a prayer called: Oratio super populum ("prayer over the people"). This prayer is anlogous to the Roman Oratio before the Epistle, and not to the prayer of the above name recited in the Roman Tridentine Rite in ferial Masses of Lent, after the Postcommunion. The greeting Dominus vobiscum is used about ten times during the Liturgy of the Mass, but the celebrant never turns to the people when chanting or reciting it, and Oremus is never used at all. This Rite, in fact, has gone one step farther than the Roman Tridentine Rite: not only is the Praefatio of the old form of the Collect reduced to the mere word Oremus as in Rome, but even that word itself is suppressed. On many days of the year there are two Lessons before the Gospel: the first is usually taken from the Prophets or other parts of the Old Testament, but on Sundays in Eastertide from the Acts of the Apostles, and on some Saints Feasts from the life of the Saint. Each Lesson is preceded by a special blessing given by the celebrant at the request of the reader - for the Epistle the subdeacon first sings the title and then asks for the blessing. After the first Lesson is sung a responsory called Psalmellus ("little Psalm"), usually consisting of one or two verses from the Psalms; the Epistle is followed by Hallelujah with a verse - again usually taken from the Psalms. On solemn days the word Hallelujah is doubled. In Lent and other penitential season this joyful chant is replaced by a chant called cantus ("chant") resembling the Roman Tridentine Tract. On some solemn feasts (e. g., Christmas and Epiphany) a chant, called Antiphona ante Evangelium ("Antiphon before the Gospel"), is sung after the Hallelujah. The blessing for the Gospel is given to the deacon by the celebrant after the former has sung Dominus vobiscum and has announced the Gospel. After the Gospel the celebrant chants" Dominus vobiscum again, and Kyrie elesion (except in a Requiem Mass) is sung three times; then again comes Dominus vobiscum and the Oratio super sindonem ("the prayer over the linen cloth" - i.e., the corporal, now already spread on the Altar). Then the Antiphona post Evangelium ("antiphon after the Gospel") is sung - it is analogous to the Roman Offertorium ("offertory chant"). After the preparation of the bread and wine, which takes place during this chant, another chant, formerly called offeneda but now, as in Rome, Offertorium, is sung. The two chants were once sung in immediate succession, but are now separated by the private offertory prayers (of medieval introduction), said by the celebrant. After the first chant - the Antiphona post Evangelium - the deacon, turning to the people, sings Pacem habete ("May you have peace"), which hardly makes sense, but formerly the deacon also sang: Erigte vos ad orationem ("Rise up for prayer"); that is, for "the prayer for peace" and for giving the Kiss of Peace, which originally took place here, the more primitive position. As we have seen, it was given originally, even before the bread and wine were brought to the Altar (cf. Liturgy described by St. Justin). The Kiss of Peace is given now at Milan before Communion, as in the present Roman Rite. The offerings of bread and wine by two old men and two old women (representative of the school of St. Ambrose, which consists of ten old men and ten old women known as the Vecchioni) are made at this moment in the metropolitan church - as in ancient times in Rome and elsewhere. their offering are received by the celebrant and sacred ministers at the entrance of the Sanctuary. three altar breads and one silver vessel of white wine are presented by an old man and old woman. The censing of the oblata and the Altar follows; then the Creed is chanted and is followed by Dominus vobiscum and the Oratio super oblata ("prayer over the offerings") - equivalent to the Roman Secreta (actually called, as we have seen by the above name in the Gregorian Sacramentary), but at Milan said aloud. The Canon - except for certain minor differences in the wording - the same as in the Roman Tridentine Rite. The prayer after the Pater noster, which begins with the word Libera as in the Roman Tridentine, is chanted is recited aloud in all Masses. Before the Paster and during the Fraction a chant called confractorium is sung. The Agnus Dei is said only in Requiem Masses. A chant called Transitorium (literally "a passage through") is sung after Communion - formerly during it; this is usually taken from the Gospel text of the day. Then comes the Oratio post communionem ("prayer after Communion") - this was perhaps the original form of the title in the Roman Rite, later shortened into post-communio. After the prayer, Dominus vobiscum is said, and then Kyrie eleison recited three times. The blessings follow; these are: Benedicat et exaudiat nos Deus ("May God bless and hear us"), Bendedicamus Domino - Deo gratias ("Let us bless the Lord - Thanks be to God") - the celebrant then says the prayer Plaecat, as in the Tridentine Rite, but addressed to Deus ("God") instead of Sancta Trinitas ("Holy Trinity"). Then the blessing is given as in the Roman Mass. The Last Gospel, of St. John was introduced in 1560, and ordered by the Council of Milan in 1576. THE AFRICAN AND CELTIC RITES are known of only in scattered accounts - especially in the case of the former. But they are both evidently forms of the general Western Rite. When we begin to hear much about the Celtic Rite in Scotland and Ireland, it is a "conflation" between the so-called Gallican Rite and the later Roman Rite. In the African Rite we know that - usually if not always - there were two Lessons before the Gospel and Psalms were chanted in between. Even in Augustine's time nothing is said about any kind of "entrance chant", like the Roman Introit - although chants during the Offertory and Communion are mentioned. There seem, also, to have been intercessory prayers after the Gospel. But the chief points of interest are first that, in the African Rite, the names of dead individuals and a mention of the dead in general apparently both appeared during Eucharistic Prayer, and that this was the case even as early as the second century. Secondly, the position in Africa of both the Kiss of Peace and the Pater noster. The Latter was recited after the Fraction; the former was given immediately after the recitation of the Pater, and was preceded by the salutation Pax vobiscum ("Peace be with you"). The Kiss followed Gallican and Spanish Rites.and formerly in the Roman Rites also. This position of the Kiss of Peace in Africa and the similar position in Rome is different from the other Western and all the Eastern Rites. In both the Gallican and Spanish Rites the Kiss was given at the beginning of the actual Eucharist - just before the Offertory, and in the Eastern Rites it is still placed before the Anaphora. In the Roman Rite, described by St. Justin, the Kiss was given before the offerings were placed upon the altar, just after the intercessory prayers with which the preliminary synaxis concluded. It is not possible to decide which Church - the Roman or the African - influenced the other as to the positions of the Kiss and the Pater noster. CHAPTER FIVE THE EUCHARISTIC PRAYER: PREFACE, SANCTUS AND CANON The Eucharistic Prayer was the bishop's special "Liturgy", as the normal celebrant surrounded by his priests as concelebrants and assisted by his deacons. The concelebration of the simple priests who shared in the full priesthood of the bishop did not apparently consist, in primitive times, of an active participation in the words and ceremonies of the Liturgy, but simply in the presence near the altar as official witnesses to the bishop's sacrificial action - sharing in it by their presence and consent. But in The Apostolic Tradition the presbyters are more active: it is said, speaking of the Fraction during the Sunday Stational Mass in the third century: "and the presbyters also shall break the bread. And whenever the deacon approaches the presbyter he shall hold out his [vessel] and the presbyter shall himself take and deliver to the people with his hand." Some MSS. of The Tradition read "robe" instead of "vessel" here - which does nor make sense. This is probably a mistake due to a confusion between the words for "vessel" and "dress", which are rather alike in Arabic - one of the texts is written in this language. The "vessel" held by the deacon before the presbyter would seem, according to the editor of The Tradition, to refer to "a practice ascribed by the Liber Pontificalis (not necessarily rightly) to the institution of Pope Zephyrinus (A.D. 198-217), by which, at the Papal Liturgy the concelebrating presbyters actually consecrated not on the Altar with the Pope, but on glass patens held before them by the deacons". He adds that this custom was probably necessitated by the small size of the Altars at that period -"two or three feet square only." In the eighth century, as we know from the Ordo Romanus Primus, linen corporals were used by the concelebrants instead of the glass patens The Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, edited by Dom Gregory Dix, 1937, p. 44, E. 2 and p. 82, No. xxiv.: "The Stational Mass"). From the above it seems, then, that active concelebration had "come in" in Hippolytus' time; that is, in the early third century. This active concelebration of Pope, bishops and priests lasted in Rome - at least on certain great feasts - till about the thirteenth century. In the Eastern churches, both Orthodox and in union with Rome, concelebration is still frequently practiced; for example, when a bishop celebrates pontifically, and also when several priests, or at least two, wish to celebrate at the same time where (as is usually the case) there is only one Altar in the church. The oldest specimens actually existing of the Eucharistic Prayer are those of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch - the three most important Sees in pre-Nicene times. Those of North Africa, Spain and Gaul in the West, and of the churches of the Balkans and of Asia Minor in the East, were of equal antiquity, but unfortunately no texts have survived from pre-Nicene times - or form any period justifying a comparison with the three principal texts mentioned above. Nevertheless, it seems safe to say that they were all fundamentally alike everywhere, although certain phrases and external elements varied according to the different localities. As Dix puts it: "Diversity of form and a fundamental identity of meaning seem to have been the mark of the old local traditions everywhere" (The Shape of the Liturgy, p. 162). THE EARLIEST SOURCES OF INFORMATION: In the West - at Rome - (apart from the descriptions given by St. Justin in his Apologia) there is the text of the Liturgy in the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus (c A.D. 215). In the East the oldest source is found in Egypt - in the Liturgy written by Bishop Sarapion of Thumuis. This Liturgy was found in a MS. of the eleventh century, but the text itself dates from the fourth century (probably before A.D. 350). It seems certain that it is only a revision of an older Egyptian text, the form of which can be gathered to a certain extent from a comparison with passages concerning the Liturgy in the third century Egyptian writes (Dix, p. 162). THE SYRIAN FORM OF EASTERN LITURGIES: This is divided into (i) the old Rite used in the Church of Antioch - of which very little is known; (ii) the other early West Syrian Rites; (iii) the East Syrian Rite, of which the center was Edessa, and which consists of the liturgies used by the Nestorians and Chaldeans; (iv) the South Syrian Rite of Jerusalem. The Eucharistic Prayer - or "Prayer of Oblation" as it is called in Sarapion's Liturgy - was everywhere originally one undivided prayer. It led from the initial series of thanksgivings for the Divine goodness to man, up to certain petitions based, as it were, upon the acts of thanksgiving which had been offered first as in duty bound - Vere dignum et justum est ("it is truly fitting and just"), as the Western Rite has it. The duty of thanksgiving thus carried out provided the right to make petition to God. The petitions were concerned primarily with the acceptance by God of the offerings made to Him by the Church, and for their change from mere bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Son Jesus Christ - true victim of the sacrifice. then, in return for this supreme act of worship, the prayer asked that the offerers be admitted to union with God in Christ through the consecrated offerings. At the conclusion of the Prayer, the celebrants, ministers (deacons, acolytes, etc.) and members of the congregation partook of the sacred food and drink. In this undivided prayer was the complete expression of the sacrifice instituted by Our Savior at the Last Supper. But the textual oneness of the Prayer was gradually obscured to a great extent by its practical division into two distinct portions, owing to the introduction of the chant of the threefold Sanctus. Most liturgical authorities now consider this chant to be of fairly late introduction, and not an original element of the Eucharistic Prayer. Some consider that the Sanctus in the Eucharistic Prayer was probably derived immediately from the use of the Jewish synagogue. But this use of the Sanctus in the synagogue service, and the form of the service itself in general at this period, is very uncertain. In the Eastern liturgies the separation of the Prayer by the Sanctus into two parts is less evident than in the Western Rite - that is, in that of Rome - for in the other Western Rites (Gallican and Mozarabic) the division of the Prayer as found in the sixth century texts resembles more or less closely that in the Eastern Rites. In both the Gallican and Spanish forms the second part of the Prayer, after the Sanctus, usually starts with words directly taken from the Sanctus - e.g., Vere sanctus, vere benedictus, etc. ("truly holy, truly blessed", etc) ... In the Roman Rite, however, there is no apparent connection at all between the first part called the "Preface" (in Latin Praefatio, before) and the second part after the Sanctus, known as the "Canon". It has been suggested by some scholars that the names of these two parts of the Prayer, translated in English preface, does not mean a preface in the sense of an "introduction" to or "preparation" for what follows (in this case, the Canon). Both titles - Preface and canon - were formerly each ascribed to the whole Prayer. For example: Canon actionis - that is, the "rule of the [sacrificial] action" - and Praefatio, which latter does not refer to time but indicates that the formula is a solemn address made "before" - that is, "in the presence of" - the Christian assembly. According to Dom Gregory Dix, however, the word Praefatio should be understood also in the sense of time, a "preparation for" or "introduction to" as above; not, however, an introduction to the Canon, but to the Sanctus itself, up to which it leads. INTRODUCTION OF THE SANCTUS: This introduction led to the first part of the Prayer being transformed from a series of thanksgivings to God for all His mercies into an introduction - a "preface" - to the praises of the Angelic Choirs and the union of the Church therewith; the earlier series, derived from Jewish custom, being almost entirely suppressed. This development brought about a substantial change everywhere in the very nature of the great Act of Thanksgiving - leaving in the Western Rites only a short allusion to the thanksgiving at the start. This is very evident in the Prefaces of the Roman Missal. Most of these begin: Vere dignum et justum est ... nos tibi et obique gratias agere )"It is truly meet and just ... that we should at all times and in all places, give thanks to Thee"), but they go on immediately to speak of the particular feast or liturgical season being kept on that day. In the East, there are no "proper" prefaces for feast days or liturgical season, the Anaphora (which term includes both Preface and Canon) is always the same in each Liturgy, and the thanksgiving series has kept nearer to its earlier form. Sarapion's Prayer, however, is an exception to this: not only are the thanksgiving series omitted, but the very word "thanksgiving" itself is absent and the first section of the Prayer has become a kind of theological hymn leading up to what is now a Preface to the threefold Sanctus. This second of the first part of the Prayer closely resembles that of the later Egyptian (Alexandrian) Rite, and can be traced, according to Dix, in the writings of Origen at Alexandria (c. A.D. 230), and he therefore maintains that in this Rite we have the earliest certain evidence of the use of the Sanctus in the Liturgy. The earliest existing quotations of the Angelic Hymn - that is, quotations from holy Scripture, e.g., by St. Clement of Rome and Tertullian - do not necessarily imply that the threefold Sanctus was actually in use in the Liturgy of the Mass. We have already seen that there is no trace of it in Hippolytus' Liturgy, nor is there any in some other early liturgical documents, and St. Justin does not mention it in his description of the Western Rite in his time. This would seem to indicate that the Sanctus as an element of the Eucharistic Prayer originated in the Alexandrian Church some time before A.D. 230. From there is appears to have spread, first to other Egyptian churches, and finally all over both East and West (Dix, p. 165). If this is really the fact - and there seems to be good reason for it - the Sanctus and its "preface" were introduced from Alexandria first of all into Sarapion's Liturgy - it is not possible to say exactly when. In Sarapion the first part of the Prayer - that originally given up to the various thanksgiving clauses - is much longer than it is in Hippolytus' Liturgy. THE PREFACE AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SANCTUS: This special explanation of the word "preface" certainly makes the whole question of the development of the Eucharistic Prayer much easier to follow. According to this point of view there is in Hippolytus' Prayer no preface at all. It has preserved the original form more closely: it is one undivided prayer. On the other hand, we do not find the long series of thanksgivings, but a thanksgiving through Jesus Christ, for His work in Creation, the Incarnation and the Redemption, leading up to the account of the Last Supper and the Institution of the Holy Eucharist. The Prayer ends with a "statement" of the Church's act in following His example: "doing therefore the anamnesis ("memorial" or "calling back to mind") of His death and resurrection, we offer to thee the bread and the cup, making eucharist ("thanksgiving") to Thee". (See The Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, pp. 8 and 9). In Sarapion's Liturgy the introduction of the preface and Sanctus from Alexandria destroyed the original opening with the thanksgiving series, and the same effect is found substantially in the Roman Rite. In Sarapion's Prayer the gap was filled up by the "theological hymn" already referred to above (Dix, p. 163), but at Rome the gap was not filled up at all. from this it seems that the preface and Sanctus should not be looked upon as a development of the old thanksgiving series, but, rather, as an alternative to them - an alternative that has ended in taking their place altogether. It is only in the East, in the Antiochene type of the Liturgy, that a successful attempt has been made to unite both thanksgivings and preface by putting the preface and Sanctus before the older Antiochene thanksgiving series. Even in this case, instead of the words "give thanks" at the beginning of the Prayer, we find: "Holy art Thou, etc. THE SANCTUS, AT FIRST THE CLIMAX OF THE PRAYER: It seems probable that, at Alexandria, these two new elements of the Eucharistic Prayer were first introduced as the conclusion of the whole Prayer. Hence, preface and Sanctus (strange as this must seem to us now) would have been chanted after the consecration, as the climax of the doxology with which the Eucharistic Prayer came to an end. But in Syria, in those Rites in which the thanksgiving series was retained, the preface and Sanctus were placed before the series. Where the series had been dropped altogether - as at Jerusalem - preface and Sanctus simply took their place. Hence, in the fourth century they appear for the first time as an "introduction" (a "preface" in that sense of the term) to the consecratory portion of the Anaphora. In the Western Rites this arrangement appears during the fifth-sixth centuries. PREFACE AND SANCTUS IN THE ROMAN AND OTHER WESTERN RITES: In all these other Rites - as in the Roman Rite itself - the Eucharistic Prayer begins with only a few words of thanksgiving in quite general terms; there is no "thanksgiving series". These few words, too, on feast days and on other special occasions, lead up to the commemoration of the feast or liturgical period, or other occasions. After this the preface turns to the Church's worship of God on earth, which she shares with the Angels, and so to the threefold Sanctus: "Holy, holy, holy", etc. Thus it appears, according to Dix, that in all the Western Rites - Roman, Milanese, Gallican and Spanish - the preface and Sanctus ousted the long series of thanksgivings of the early Eucharistic Prayer, at some period between Hippolytus (c. A.D. 200) and St. Gregory I (c. A.D. 600), at the latest. It appears also that the insertion of preface and Sanctus in the Roman and other Western Rites is another example of "importation" from Syria. This is supported by the fact that, in the Egyptian Rite and in all the Greek Liturgies and in Greek writers, generally speaking, the Sanctus runs as follows: "Holy, holy, holy Lord of Sabaoth" - following the text of Isaiah 6:3; it is only in the Syriac Liturgies that the form "Lord God of Sabaoth" is found. But this latter form is found also in all Western Rites. PREFACE AND SANCTUS NOT IN ALL MASSES: From the Council of Vaison in the south of France, which was held in A.D. 529, we find in the third canon a decree that in future the threefold Sanctus is to be sung or said in all Masses - "whether these are early Masses (matutinis) or in Lent or in those which are offered for the commemoration of the dead ... in that arrangement (eo ordine) in which it is now said at public Masses'. Thus it appears that while the Sanctus was part of the Rite in southern France, it was at first customary to leave it out in Requiem Masses, in times of penance, and also in "low" or "private" Masses, as we say now. The Sanctus was then reserved for any public Mass, "High Mass" as we say now. It appears, too, that since the chief purpose of the council of Vaison was in this, as in other matters, to bring the southern French customs into conformity with those usual in the West elsewhere, and especially in the Apostolic See of Rome (but without in any way attempting to abolish the Gallican Rite), it follows that the use of the Sanctus at all Masses was already the custom in that city. But this seems to have been "a recent modification [at Rome] of a previous practice of using the Sanctus only at the"stational" liturgy on Sundays and Saints Days", says Dom Gregory Dix, but he adds that "on this we have no Roman evidence" (Dix, pp. 538-9). The exact date of the first adoption of the Sanctus in the Roman and other Western Rites is uncertain: there is no mention of it in St. Ambrose's description of the Mass at Milan, just before A.D. 400. It is true that the Saint refers to the words of Isaiah in his prophecy 6:3, and he speaks of the Cherubim and Seraphim or the Seraphim alone, "with unwearying voices [indefesis vocibus] praising and saying Holy, Holy, Holy". He also quotes the actual text of Isaiah, in which the words indefesis vocibus ("unwearying voices") do not occur. But these references do not necessarily imply the use of this chant of praise in the Liturgy, and St. Ambrose does not make any direct reference to the latter, as would surely be likely if the Sanctus had been an element in the Mass Liturgy in his time. St. Augustine in Africa (c. A.D. 430) does not speak of the Sanctus either, nor again, in A.D. 415, does Pope St. Innocent I, in his famous letter to Decentius, Bishop of Eugubium (Gubbio). The fact that these three Saints were writing explicitly about the Mass Liturgy (and also explicitly about that very part of the Mass in which the Sanctus later occurs) seems to make it at least probable that the chant had not yet been introduced, for such an important element of the Liturgy - and one, too, which was at first chanted by the whole congregation) - could hardly have been left on one side without any reference to it at all. It seems then at least probable that it did not find its way into the Liturgy until towards the end of the fifth century, or even not till the century after. TWO EARLY LATIN EUCHARISTIC PRAYERS: In 1827 Cardinal Mai (then not yet a Cardinal) published the two Latin Eucharistic Prayer which he had discovered in a Milanese MS., fragments of a controversial work written by an Arian writer. This writer made use of the two prayers, as, in his own view, witnessing to this argument that Catholics, in practice, subordinate the Son to the Father just as much as Arians themselves do. This misuse by a heretic of liturgical texts has had an important result with regard to the history of the Liturgy; for it has preserved for future centuries what might otherwise have been completely lost. These two prayers provide examples of the Eucharistic Prayer in the West before the introduction of the Sanctus. But, says Dix - and with reason - they have been unaccountably neglected by all the liturgist of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries" (Italics mine). In his re-edition of his book The Early History of the Liturgy (2nd edition, 1947), Dr. J.H. Srawley does, however, make a short reference to "some north Italian prayers" in chapter vii, p. 150, and on page 165 he gives a short description of the prayers themselves, in which he points out that one of the fragments, in the last clause, "recalls the Te igitur of the Roman Canon", and he declares that "the important feature is that it passes at once from the thanksgiving to the prayer ... without any intervention of the Sanctus and the clauses leading to the Preface, and suggests that the Sanctus and the clauses leading up to it are a later insertion". THE DIFFICULTY OF THE TE IGITUR CLAUSE: In the Roman Canon we have the following: Te igitur elmentissime Pater, per Jesum Chistium filium tuum Dominum nostrum, supplices te rogamus ac petimus ut accepta habeas et benedicas haec dona, haec munera, haec sancta sacrifica illibata ... que tibie offerimus - ("And so, through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, we humbly pray [rogamus] and beseech [petimus] Thee, most gracious Father, to accept and bless these presents [dona], these dutiful offerings [munera], these holy, unblemished sacrificial gifts which we offer Thee"). The word igitur ("therefore" or "and so", "accordingly") has been considered to be an almost insurmountable difficulty. To what exactly does it refer? It has no apparent connection with the preceding preface nor with the Sanctus. In the older forms of the Roman prayer, however, this would have been no difficulty; the connection between the words Te igitur and the thanksgiving series at the beginning would, no doubt, have been quite evident and clear. In his edition of The Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus Dix says that the Eucharistic Prayer is "modelled strictly on those old Jewish `eucharistic' prayers of which many examples are to be found in the Old Testament, e.g., those ascribed to Solomon (2 Chron. 6:4), Ezra (Neh. 9:5 et seq.), Judas the Maccabee (I Macc. 4:30) and others". Such prayers always, it seems, follow the same lines: first there is a series of thanksgivings, usually in the form of blessing God for all His mercies in the past. Secondly, these blessings lead up to and justify certain petitions which are generally introduced by the words "now therefore" - that is, "as we have thanked and praised (or "blessed") Thee for Thy past gifts, we now venture to ask for more"! In the Christian Eucharistic Prayer the chief petition is for the acceptance of the sacrifice offered through the Church by Our Lord's own command, and for all who partake in it. In Hippolytus' prayer the word "therefore" comes towards the end of the prayer: "doing therefore the anamnesis" (in his translation Dom Gregory Dix uses the term untranslated, to insist on the meaning underlying it - much deeper and more expressive than the usual world "being mindful" or "remembering"). In the Latin text the words are: memores, igitur - "the memory"; that is, "of His death and resurrection'? The Greek words are memnemenoi toium (see The Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, p. xii, footnote). In the text of this page Dix points out that: "It is important to note that of over sixty early liturgies, one only, that of Sarapion, has not this arrangement." In the two Italian prayers spoken of previously there is no "therefore" clause - that is, the word "therefore" (or other similar word) is not actually used; the idea, however, is expressed in the whole test of the longer prayer, and one can gather it from even the few words of the shorter one. In the longer prayer, too, we have only a relic of the old thanksgiving series. In the Apostolic Tradition Liturgy the thanksgiving contains four items: thanksgiving for the creation effected through the Word of God and His action in the Incarnation, in the Passion, at the Last Supper - in that order. The Last Supper is put after instead of before the Passion (its historical position) because the Institution of the Eucharistic Sacrifice took place at the Last Supper, which is therefore the "supreme Justification for the communion-petitions about to follow" (Dix, The Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, p. xli - text and third footnote). In the Roman prayer as we have it and as it was in the eighth century (just probably in the two earlier centuries, also), the "Te igitur - clause" is analogous to the above words in Hippolytus - although they come in an earlier place - that is, the words as far as haec dona, haec numera, haec sancta sacrifica illibata [in primus] quae tibi offerimus ("these presents, these dutiful gifts, these holy unblemished sacrificial offerings which [in the first place] we offer Thee"). We put the words in primis or imprimis ("in the first place") in square brackets, as the mention of Church, Pope, bishop, for all of whom the gifts are offered "in the first place", is almost certainly of late introduction in this place. The Te igitur then marks the transition from thanksgiving to petition, or rather did so in the early Roman prayer. A striking example supporting this (but one which seems to have escaped most liturgical scholars) exists in the "Eucharistic" prayer used in cathedrals for - THE BLESSING OF THE HOLY OIL ON MAUNDY THURSDAY: The very words Te igitur are found in the prayer which does not contain the Sanctus nor any other kind of interruption, and so the Te igitur in this case really marks the transition between thanksgiving and petition. The text of this prayer is as follows: Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere: Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, aeterne Deus: qui in principio, inter cetera bonitatis tuae munera, terram producere fructifera ligna iusssiti, inter quae huius pinguissimi liquoris ministrae olivae nascerentur, quarum fructus sacro chrismati deserviret [here follows mention of Our Lord's "consecration" by the Holy Spirit at His Baptism in the Jordan] ... Te igitur deprecamur, Domine sancte, Pater onmipotens, aeterne Deus: per eumdem Jesusm Christum Filium tuum, Dominum nostrum, ut huius creaturae pinguedinem sanctificare tua benedictione digneris, ut sancti Spiritus ei adminiscere virtutem, etc. It is truly meet and just, right and availing unto salvation, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, O Holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God; who in the beginning, among other gifts of Thy goodness, didst command the trees, amongst which sprang froth the ministers of this most strengthening liquid of the olive tree, whereof the fruit serveth for the sacred chrism ... We therefore entreat Thee, O holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God, though the same Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord, that Thou wouldest deign to sanctify by Thy blessing, the fruitfulness of this creature and that Thou wouldest add thereto the strength of the Holy Spirit, etc. THE EXSULTET: There are, too, several other examples in the Roman Rite of the word igitur used to express the transition from thanksgiving to petition. These are found in the solemn Eucharistic Prayer, used on Holy Saturday in inaugurating the Paschal Candle. This prayer is preceded by the Exsultet - which is a kind of introduction to the actual prayer. The latter begins, as usual, with the words ere dignum et justum est, and, after expressing the reasons for thanking God and "proclaiming" (personare) Him and His Divine Son, there are a number of sentences beginning with the word igitur. The one that most closely resembles the Te igitur clause in the Canon of the Mass is as follows: In huius igitur noctis gratia suscipe, sancte Pater incensi huius ... sacrifum vespertinum: quo tibi in hac cerei oblatione soemni ... sacroscanta redit Ecclesia. After having "proclaimed" the goodness and mercy of God comes this petition, in virtue of the above duty thus carried out, that He may accept the offering of the burning candle. The above view of the original signification of the Te igitur that is, of the word igitur especially) was also supported by learned liturgical scholar, H.W. Godrington - quite independently of Dom Gregory Six - in an article entitled "Some Liturgical Notes" on the Liber Ordinum of the Mozarabic Rite edited by Dom Marius Ferotin of Farmsborough Abbey: pp. 321-2 in the Downside Review (April 1941, p. 195); [a British theological magazine ]. He says in this article that "the Te igitur" takes up the "Vere dignum et justum est and the thanksgiving" (p. 197); that it is a connecting link between the first and second parts of the Eucharistic Prayer. He goes on to show that there was once another formula in the place held by the Te igitur, which is found in the Mozarabic Rite. This is a prayer "reproducing or based on an old form of the Roman Canon and corresponding with the Gregorian Canon from the `Te Igitur' up to and inclusive of `Quam oblationem' [and it] appears [in Mozarabic books] as a `Post Pride' [the title of the prayer immediately following the consecration] in a Mass `for those who on feasts of martyrs, offer their vows to God'." As Mr. Godrington goes on to say, that fact that this prayer is placed after the consecration in the Mozarabic Mass is no proof or even probability that it was ever in this position in Rome. This remark refers, no doubt, to the theories maintained by a certain school of liturgical studies, that the Roman Canon has undergone a continual series of upheavals involving changes before and after consecration. The above mentioned Mozarabic prayer closely resembles the Roman Te igitur clause, but instead of those words it begins - Per quem ("through Whom" - that is, Our Lord) and continues: Te petimus et rogamus, Pater, ut accept habeas ... hec [haec] sacrifica inlibata quae tibi in primis ... offerimus, etc. Mr. Godrington goes on(again independently of Dom Dix) to refer to the use of the Te igitur in the blessing of chrism on Maundy Thursday. With all this he compares other analogous words; for example, "idcirco" huic famulo ("for this reason, to this [Thy] servant") in the consecration of a bishop, and also "qua propter" infimitati quoque nostrae ("wherefore, unto our infirmity also") in the ordination of a priest, and, again, In huius `igitur' noctis gratia ("in the grace, therefore, of this night") of the Eucharistic Prayer on Holy Saturday. Mr. Godrington sums up: "All these [that is, the ordination prayers and that on Holy Saturday] are constructed on the model of the old Eucharistic Prayer which is followed even more closely by the BLESSING OF THE FONT. "Te igitur" thus marks the transition from the thanksgiving and the causes thereof to the consequent prayer [of petition]." So far as the sense goes, it repeats the "Et ideo" or the equivalent of these words in the Preface, and possibly it (the phrase Te igitur) "took the place of these before the introduction of the "sanctus" with its preliminary clauses." According to Mr. Godrington, too, the Sanctus was introduced into the Eucharistic Prayer later in the West than in the East, and later still in Rome. SUMMARY: In the earliest form of the Eucharistic Prayer we have: (i) The "Naming of God" - that is, the pronunciation of the Divine Name - always a very solemn act with the Jews and with the early Christians, too. (11) A series of thanksgivings to God for: (a) The Creation (b) The Incarnation and redemption. (c) The New Covenant in Jesus Christ. (d) "Taking Bread", etc. - that is, the account of the Last Supper with the repetition of Our Lord's own act of thanksgiving. (iii) A series of petitions - chiefly concerning the acceptance by God from the Church of the sacrifice of thanksgiving, based upon and consequent to the praise and thanks offered first to God and usually connected with it by some such phrase as "therefore" or "and so". thus, in the supreme type of all prayer - the Lord's Prayer - due honor is first paid to God in the words: "hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done", before the petitions: "give us this day our daily bread; forgive us our trespasses". (iv) The Consecration with the repetition of Our Lord's own action and words of Institution at the Last supper: The great Act of Sacrifice whereby the offerings of the Church were changed into the Offering (by our Lord Himself) of His own Body and Blood. (v) The "Glorifying of the Name" - like the "Naming of God" at the beginning of the prayer, but now made over the consecrated bread and wine on the Altar. This act, too, was derived from Jewish custom. It led up to (vi) The final "Doxology" which ended the Eucharistic Prayer, summing up its whole meaning and significance. (vii) The Communion followed - of celebrant and concelebrants, ministers and people. this was carried out at first, without any special prayers or ceremonies, either before or after the Communion. The whole rite was completed by what may be summed up under the term "the ablutions"; that is, the consumption by celebrant or deacons of anything remaining of the consecrated Bread and Wine, the cleansing of Chalice and Paten and he removal of the Altar cloth. THE ORIGINAL SERIES OF THANKSGIVINGS: This leading up to Our Lord's own act of thanksgiving at the Last supper, has left visible traces in the Egyptian Liturgy of St. Mark. It seems possible, as stated previously, that it was in the Egyptian (or Alexandrian) Liturgy that the threefold Sanctus first found a place, and that it was placed originally at the very end of the Eucharistic Prayer as he conclusion of the doxology. the Anaphora of the Liturgy of St. Mark now begins as follows: (i) The "Naming of God. (ii) Thanksgiving for Creation, and then the prayer turns at once to what Dix calls "the Preface of the Sanctus", leaving aside altogether the rest of the old thanksgiving series. This Egyptian Preface is not also interrupted in the very middle by the series of intercessions and diptychs for the living and the dead. These, since its introduction in this position, are followed by the threeflod Sanctus. In the Alexandrian Liturgy, then, only the first of the thanksgiving series survives, but probably a full series of thanksgiving - for Incarnation, etc., - existed in earlier times, and the words which now follow immediately after the thanksgiving for Creation would originally have been at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, carrying on the Doxology and glorifying the Name,for which purpose they were evidently intended; the words are: "Thou didst make all things by Thy wisdom, Thy true light, Thy Son our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." These words are the normal introduction to a concluding doxology, which then continues: "that we may praise and glorify thee through Thy servant Jesus Christ, through Whom honor and glory be unto Thee with the Holy Spirit, in Thy holy Church,now and for ever and world without end, for Thou art far above every name that is named." These words would have led up to the final climax: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth; full is he heaven and earth of Thy glory"; to which the people would then have answered: ""As it was and is and shall be unto generations of generations and world without end. Amen." These latter words are still the answer of the people at the end of the Eucharistic Prayers, as it is found in the actual manuscripts; but now a long section of the prayer divides the Sanctus from their response and does not in itself lead up to this particular response. THE EUCHARISTIC PRAYER AND THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION: With regard to the original outline and character of the Eucharistic Prayer Dix holds views which are not altogether in keeping with traditional Orthodox Catholic teaching. He apparently favors the idea that in the early days of Christianity the Thanksgiving Prayer, in itself and as such, was probably considered to be enough to bring about the Presence of the divine Victim and to carry out the sacrificial act, without necessarily any direct reference to the Last Supper or any repetition of Our Lord's words at the Super "This is My Body" - "this is My Blood", and without any reference to His admonition to His disciples to "Do this for a commemoration (or in remembrance) of Me" (Luke 22:19). It is not doubt a fact that, during the course of ages, the simple Prayer of Thanksgiving used at the Last Supper, of the same type and character as the prayers used by the Jews at their religious meals, developed considerably and was adapted in form to different times and peoples. But it must have contained from the very beginning some kind of reference to the Last Supper (the actual occasion of its institution as the central act of Christian worship), and some kind of repetition of Our Savior's own solemn "Words of Institution", and of His equally solemn admonition to His immediate disciples, who were to be witnesses of His actions for the Church all over the world. There is only one example in existence of an ancient Liturgy without such a reference and repetition. This is the Liturgy in normal use in the East Syrian Church of Persia - better known as the Nestorian Church, (today using the title of The Church of the East in most Western countries) so called after the heresiarch Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople (A.D. 428) and composed of his followers. The Liturgy to which we refer here is the Liturgy os SS. Addai and Mari, reputed founders of the church of Edessa and apostles of the East Syrians and Persia; the Liturgy is also called "of the Apostles". The Anaphora of this Liturgy, as we have said, does not contain the Word of Institution, nor is there any direct reference tot he Last Supper, and neither seem to have ever formed a part of the text as it now stands. But apart from the fact this Liturgy is connected with a notoriously heretical section of Eastern Christianity, whose heresy, moreover, is concerned especially with the Person of Our Lord, there is the further fact that no really early example of the text is extant. Hence, it is possible - even probable - that the existing texts have been altered or are deficient. It has been suggested, also, that it was never intended for use as a liturgy but that it is a relic of an ancient custom, similar to the agape. EUCHARISTIC MEALS NOT THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE: Possibly the Liturgy of SS. Addai and Mari, the normal Nestorian Liturgy was originally a "eucharistic meal" in memory of the Holy Eucharist, but not the Eucharistic Sacrifice itself. This "eucharistic meal" being a commemoration not in words but in act, that is an imitating of Christ's example, for the euchariistia is said over bread and wine. In other words this form of "eucharist", was independent from the real Eucharist as regards time, occasions, etc.; it was an attempt to connect all Christian meals more closely with the sacrificial meal instituted at the Last Supper. It is possible that "eucharistic meal" is, perhaps, the real explanation of the much discussed Didache - that the Didache, in fact, was not a Eucharistic liturgy at all in the true sense. Dix, however, considers that chapters ix and x of the Didache give an early description of the agape, but that in chapter xiv the full Eucharist is given and under "quite different terms" (Dix, pp. 90 et seq.). Finally, it is difficult to see why a simple reference to the Last Supper should not have been included in the series of thanksgivings, and so have formed part of the undivided Eucharistic Prayer in early times - as it actually does in Hippolytus' Liturgy. The same applies to the recital of the words of Institution. THE WESTERN PREFACE AND CANON: The variable Preface is special to the Western Church. While the Canon (except for the change of the prayer Commuicantes and Hanc igitur - sometimes, only the first - on certain great Feasts, such as Easter and Pentecost) is invariable, the Preface - that is, the part before and leading up to the Sanctus - changes according to the Feast or the Season. The Roman Tridentine Preface, too, has lost the whole of the thanksgiving series at the beginning, and the opening words: Vere diguum et ustun est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere ("Right, indeed, it is and just, proper and for our welfare that we should always and everywhere give thanks to Thee, Holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God") are the only reference to thanksgiving in it, besides the Sanctus. Neither the Gallican nor the Mozarabic Rites nor the Ambrosian have any such series, although all begin the Preface (called in the Gallican and Spanish Rites immolatio - "offering" or "sacrifice; illatio -"like the Greek title, Anpahora - "rise up", that is "offer"; constetatio - "earnest request") with the same type of opening words as in the Roman - Vere dignum,etc. Both the Roman Rite and all these Rites go on at once to a commemoration of the feast or Season of the year. It is not possible to state the exact date of this change in the Western Eucharistic Prayer, as there is no actual evidence - that is, it was not "noted down" in any liturgical manuscript. But as already pointed out, neither St. Ambrose at Milan in his work, De Sacramentis, iv. 4, 14, written just before A.D. 400, in which he treats especially of the Mass, nor, again, St. Augustine in Africa (d. A.D. 430) in his sermons or other works, say anything at all about Preface or Sanctus - though each treats of the actual part of the Rite in which they now occur. St. Ambrose, it is true, in treating of the Canon, says that in the earlier part of it "praises are offered to God" (laudes Deo deferuntur). But these "praises" are, he tells us, "said by the priest", and there is no suggestion that the people join in them, as they always did in the Sanctus when first introduced, and which they continued to do even during the Middle Ages. The above words seem to refer to the "thanksgiving series", then still standing at the opening of the Western Eucharistic Prayer (in A.D. 400). It was precisely in this way that Justin had spoken of the series at the opening of the Roman Eucharistic Prayer, in A.D. 150: the bishop "sends up praise and glory to the Father" (Apologia, i, 654: cf. Dix, p. 222). St. Augustine, too, while he often reminds his people in his sermons of the opening dialogue between priest and people in the Eucharistic Prayer ) that is, Sursum corda) and quotes its exact words, never once gives the idea that the prayer led up to an chant sung by all together. If such a chant had existed in his time in the African Rite, he could hardly have failed to at least refer to it (e.g., Serm. liii, 14). We have discussed the two Italian Eucharistic Prayers discovered by Cardinal Mai before. The texts of these prayers, as already noted, show a Eucharistic Prayer without the Sanctus or any reference to it at all. The longer of the two also leads straight on to what would now be called the "Canon", and there is a close analogy between it and the concluding part of the Te igitur section in the actual Roman Canon. This analogy continues as far as the words sacrificial illibata (inclusive) in the Roman Canon. Both the texts also still possess at least remains of the thanksgiving series of the earliest Eucharistic Prayers. DATE OF THE INTRODUCTION OF THE SANCTUS AT MILAN: This may be gathered, says Dix, from a tradition in the church of Milan that its bishop, EuSebius (A.D. 451-65) was the author of the "Milanese `proper' Prefaces for the greatest Feasts of the year". The arguments are not absolutely decisive, and, in fact, this could hardly have been expected. Nevertheless, Eusebius really seems to have been the author of the most ancient of the Milanese Prefaces. We are told, also, by Ennodius (who knew him) that he was a Greek from Syria (Ennodius, Carmina, ii, 86). So again we find Syria in connection with the Western Liturgy - as "the source of the Western Preface and Sanctus and about the middle of the fifth century as the date of its introduction" (Dix, p. 541). As there was always a close connection between Milan and Rome, and the former was always inclined to follow their admission at Rome. Perhaps, on the other hand, Eusebius in this case showed Rome the way. THE SANCTUS IN THE WEST ON FESTAL OCCASIONS ONLY: This fact may have been the cause of the substitution of a commemoration of the particular Feast or Season in the place of the older thanksgiving series. The Proper Prefaces are older than the common Preface, since it was only on special feast days that the Sanctus and its introduction the Preface were admitted into the Eucharistic Prayer. It was the use of the Preface and Sanctus in all Masses about A.D. 529 (cf. Council of Vaison in France) that probably led to the need of a "common Preface". Although there is no special commemoration to replace the thanksgiving series, as in the case of a Feast, the old thanksgiving series is absent and the Preface leads directly to the Sanctus. But in the Gallican and Mozarabic Rites, the problem was solved by actually providing a special Preface for every day or occasion of the Liturgical Year. Rome - quite characteristically - provided, as above, a single Preface for all ordinary days on which no particular Feast was observed. This common Preface, too, consists merely in "a simplified and abbreviated version of the single invariable introduction to the Sanctus in the Syrian Rite, from which use of the Sanctus had originally been borrowed in the West" (Dix, as above). In the Leonine and Gelasian Sacramentaries there are a large number of Proper Prefaces, but these seem to have been used in parts of Italy outside Rome. PREFACE AND SANCTUS FROM SYRIA: It was in Egypt, as have seen, that the Preface and Sanctus originally started, and spread all over Christendom during the fifth century, so that it soon came to be regarded as a universal, even an Apostolic custom, and up till quite recent times, too. Nevertheless, it was from Rome and the other Western Churches adopted this chant directly, and, moreover, adapted it to their own special way and spirit. In the East, too, it is the Syrian form, not the original Egyptian form, that is preserved - and preserved as it was when taken over. The great importance of this question Of the probable origin and introduction of Preface and Sanctus into the Eucharistic Prayer justifies the number of pages taken up with explaining it. It is really necessary to obtain as clear and distinct a notion as possible of the process if we are to understand the development of this part of the Liturgy. THE CONSECRATORY SECTION OF THE EUCHARISTIC PRAYER: The section of the prayer which follows the Sanctus is called the "Canon" in the West; in the East "Anaphora" is the title of the whole prayer, including both sections. This latter word is Greek and means "raising up" or "carrying up"; that is, "offering" something; it might be translated as "prayer of offering" or "oblation". The word "Canon" is also Greek, although, from its use in the West, it has become a Western word. It means ruler, a straight rod, and so a "rule" or "standard" of either faith or practice. Dix calls the Canon the "second part" of the Eucharistic Prayer, and a part which has been added to it in later times, a later development of the original simple "thanksgiving prayer". We have already noted that there has undoubtedly been considerable development in the whole of the early form of the prayer, and especially, perhaps, in this second section; but it would seem to have been a "development" not of additions from outside but of what already was virtually present - e.g., the reference to the Last Supper and the recitation of the Words of Institution now "enlarged" and insisted upon, rendered clear and outwardly more important. Dix in connection with all this, seems to be influenced by his (surely quite personal and unusual) insistence upon the nature of the Last Supper as "not strictly a eucharist" (Dix, p. 75 et seq.) - not the "first Mass", as an Orthodox Catholic would say - but merely a kind of "rehearsal" of what Christ wished His Church to do after His crucifixion. It is here quite clearly declared that there could not have been any "testimonial sacrifice" of that offered upon the Cross until the latter had actually been offered. This seems to imply setting restrictions upon the actions of Our Savior, as though He (who is God as well as man) were restricted by the limitations of human life and of time. Without question, God had arranged in the divine plane of our Redemption that it should be effected in time, in the conditions of human life, by the physical shedding of the blood of His Son - the complete physical surrender of human life upon the Cross. But this truth in no sense excludes the real, sacramental offering of that life in anticipation at the Last Supper - any more than it excludes the real, sacramental offering of it in anamnesis in the Liturgy of the Mass, on the Altars of the Church. As the Divine Liturgy of the Mass is now, the Last Supper was then - "recalling to mind" of the very Sacrifice of the Cross itself, "differing only in the manner of offering". From the human point of view and in time the Sacrifice offered at the Last Supper proclaimed the end of the old Covenant with its animal sacrifices in the Temple at Jerusalem and looked forward to the "once and for all humankind of the voluntary Sacrifice of the Son of God Himself on behalf of the human race to be offered on the Cross which "inaugurated" a New Covenant - or agreement in His Blood with His Father. Christ's body and blood took the place of the "sacrificial (animal) victim" offered in the Temple and "sealed" the a New Covenant made between God and man which allowed us to become sons and daughters of His Father and to participate in the God- man's Divine Nature. (See 2 Peter 1:4). From the same point of view, the Sacrifice of the Divine Liturgy of the Mass now bring to memory that same Sacrifice. But in the sight of God and in itself, Last Supper, Cross and celebration of the Divine Liturgy form one eternal Act. Orthodox Catholic tradition, also, has always regarded the Last Supper, from the human aspect, as the "First Divine Liturgy which our Lord and God Himself celebrated and commanded His disciples to do in like manner!" As the institution of the "First Mass". DEVELOPMENTS OR ADDITIONS TO THE PRAYER: In maintaining the original simplicity of the undivided "Prayer of Thanksgiving" was added to and a "second half" introduced, Dom Gregory Dix admits that the real difficultly is to lay down exactly where this "second half" begins. He suggests that it lies between the mention of the Last Supper (either a full account of the institution of the Last Supper (either a full account of the institution of the Holy Eucharist or a mere reference to it) and the concluding of the Holy eucharist or a mere reference to it) and the concluding doxology. This latter appears to be universal and to belong to the primitive nucleus of the prayer, but Dix thinks that it is difficult to judge whether or not any reference to the Last Supper can be found in the early prayer. The chief difficulty, according to him, is that: "In all the traditions, the reference to the Last supper is separated from the thanksgiving series by a sort of intervening clause or "link" ... And this link is not the same in any two of them, either in substance or expression." He points out, too, that the link never seems to be at all closely connected with the series of thanksgivings at the beginning of the prayer and that the reference to the Last Supper is never in the form of a "thanksgiving" but in that of "statement". In the case of the Egyptian Preface and Sanctus in which the "original" `glorifying of the Name' has survived in its primitive position ... the allusion to the Last Supper comes after this". All the same, he makes it clear that the reference to the Last Supper and Institution occurs in some form in all the traditions and - what is both interesting and significant - that the form of thanksgivings used in Jewish meals, called the berakah, provides in its final thanksgiving for the earthly food "wherewith Thou feedst us continually". This Jewish thanksgiving, Dix says, might easily have suggested a thanksgiving for the heavenly food of the Eucharist and, further, he shows that St. Justin, in his Apologia (i, 66) speaks of the "word of prayer which comes from" Jesus Himself, and that would seem to point to the fact that something of the sort existed in the Eucharistic Prayer in his time (Dix, pp. 225-30). In his review of The Shape of the Liturgy Fr. Crichton [a Jesuit British theological scholar] in Magnificant, mentions the, no doubt, quite unconscious "writing to a thesis" which is apparent from time to time in the author's attitude, and the consequent tendency on his part to "bend" certain facts in order to make them fit in with that thesis. In the above case, for instance, he seems almost to have made up his mind that the earliest form of the Eucharistic Prayer was "eucharistic" in the strictest sense, and did not admit any other element than that of thanksgiving. and yet in his edition of The Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus he says that "Hippolytus' Canon is, for far as form goes, modelled strictly on those old Jewish "eucharistic prayers", that "the outline of such prayers is always the same", and that it consisted in a series of thanksgivings to God (or as should understand them properly, acts of "blessing God" - the same way as did "the ancient Jews) for His mercies toward man and that these thanksgivings lead up to and justify certain petitions, usually introduced by some word such as "now therefore". the scheme being "Having thanked Thee as is our duty, for Thy gifts and mercies, "we therefore" - or "we now" - proceed to ask for other gifts." In the Shape of the Liturgy, Dix speaks of the reference to the Last Supper as preceded by a "statement of Christ's purpose in instituting the Eucharist" (Dix, pp. 158-9). Surely "statement" is included in the "thanksgiving" and to completely separate the two perceptions and seems to be merely "splitting hairs". Perhaps the character of the reference to the Last Supper and Institution as a "statement" rather than an "act of thanksgiving" in the developed liturgies is the result of the discussions that arose later on as the actual "moment of consecration: in the Eucharistic Prayer and the controversy between the Words of Institution and the Epiclesis; that is, the Invocation of the Holy Spirit. In consequence of all this, it may be that the thanksgiving for the Institution at the Last Supper became the statement of the Words of Institution as an "action" - whether, as in the West itself, action of consecration, or as later in the East, leading up to the action of the Invocation., THE LINK IN THE VARIOUS LITURGIES: The need of a link binding together the thanksgiving portion of the prayer with the consecratory part marks development in the Eucharistic Prayer, but not necessarily additions from outside; that is, any introduction of elements which were not in the prayer before. In Hippolytus, the link between thanksgivings and consecration seems very close (Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, pp. 157-62); The Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, pp. 7-9). In Sarapion, "the link is connected with the final words of the Terscantus - "full is the heaven", etc., and so in the later Egyptian Liturgy, where it is, too, practically an"invocation" of the Holy Spirit (somewhat "watered down") before the consecration. In the liturgies of SS. James, Basil and Chrysostom that link is connected with the actual words or the Tersanctus, Holy, holy, holy". This found also in the Western Liturgies in the Gallican and Spanish Rites, in which the "link" nearly always begins with the words Vere sanctus, vere benedictus. In the Ambrosian Rite, the link is a prayer leading directly to the Words of Institution, which begin with the characteristic Western form, Qui pridie quam pateretur ("Who on the day before He suffered"); the Roman Rite also of the same type as the Ambrosian but slightly different in form. The Roman "Link prayer" is as follows: Quam oblationem tu, Deus, in onmibus quaesumus, benedicatm, adscriptam, ratam, ratiionabilem acceptabilemque facere digneris ("Which same offering we pray Thee, O God, be pleased to make wholly blessed, to consecrate and approve it, making it reasonable and acceptable"). This form begins with a relative clause: Quam oblationem - which now connects it with the preceding payer: Hanc igitur oblationem servitutis nostre ... quaesumus, Domine, ut plactus accipias ("And so, Lord, we Thy servants ... beseech Thee to accept this offering as pleasing to Thee"). The Ambrosian prayer is: Fac nobis, hanc oblationem adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem, acceptatbilem; quod figura est corpis et anguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Qui pridie ("Make this offering for us, Lord, consecrated, approved, acceptable: for it is the figure of the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ: Who the day before: ... etc.). This is the form of the prayer found in the treatise De Sacramentis, written by St. Ambrose (De Sacramentis, iv, 5, 21-3, 26, 27), and what he describes therein of the then existing Milanese Rite probably also provides a more ancient form of that of Rome, or, at any rate, shows a close connection between the two Rites. The Ambrosian prayer is not "relative" like the Roman, and St. Ambrose does not speak of any preceding prayer like the Roman Hanc igitur. Of course, the introduction of Preface and Sanctus has considerably confused the whole question of the Eucharistic Prayer and its development and, in the case of the Roman and Ambrosian Rites, the "oneness" of the prayer has been obscured by what looks like a collection of short prayers connected with one another, but nevertheless each complete in itself. CHAPTER SIX THE ROMAN CANON The later Roman Canon needs a chapter to itself, for it has always been a difficulty above all the many other difficulties in the history of the Liturgy. Theories concerning its origin and development are almost without end, and few of them agree on many points. The learned and perceptive liturgical scholar, Mr. Edmund Bishop, was the first to depreciate this confusion, and in particular, theories which involve the continual disarrangement of the order of prayers in the Canon. In some cases, for instance, it is stated that some of the prayers have been moved from a position before the Words of Institution-Epiclesis to one after it; sometimes prayers originally after have been arbitrarily placed before it. For all this Mr Bishop maintained there was no evidence at all, and he considered that, on the contrary, the Roman Canon was in many ways more "primitive" in its construction than any other existing Liturgy. Nevertheless, it is certainly true that it is quite sui generis in its general make up; entirely different in form from even that of the other Western Rites. We have already noted that, it consists of a series of distinct, though connected, prayers both before and after the Words of Institution-Epiclesis. The Eastern Anaphora, originally one long prayer is now divided by the Sanctus into two sections as in the West. With the section after the Sanctus interrupted by the insertion of diptychs and intercessions, it has, nevertheless, preserved the outward appearance of unity better than the Western Rites. In the Gallican and Mozarabic Rites there is usually only one short prayer after the Sanctus, before the Words of Institution, and another similar prayer after. All the same, Edmund Bishop always maintained the more "primitive" character of the Roman Canon, and the possibility of one day being able to explain the apparent difficulties and difference. In The Shape of the Liturgy, Dom Gregory Dix fully agrees with Bishop's views, which are, indeed, confirmed by the real advance in liturgical studies since his day. Like Bishop, Dix considers that, as regards the contents of the early Eucharistic Prayer, the Western Rites in general have kept the old idea of one prayer more faithfully in some things than those of the East, which underwent some radical changes in the fourth century. As regards the other two Western Rites, Gallican and Mozaraic, it is evident that these, as they stand in the manuscripts of sixth century date, have been influenced by the introduction of the Preface and Sanctus, and by the developed liturgical year with its changing prayers. Scripture Lessons and so on. Both Sanctus and liturgical year appear in the West only in the fifth century. Hence, the fidelity of these two Rites to ancient tradition consists simply "in arranging their new contents on the old Western scheme" (Dix, p. 557, long footnote and p. 558). To turn directly to the Roman Canon: The question of the real significance of the puzzling phrase Te igitur has been dealt with in discussing the general form of the Eucharistic Prayer. The words mark the transition from thanksgiving to petition and declare the justification of the later as flowing from the former - igitur ("therefore"). The special petition of this part of the prayer is concerned with the offering of bread and wine: haec dona, haec munera, haec sancta sacrfica illibata ("these gifts, these official debts, these unspotted sacrificial offerings") which God is asked to accept and bless through His Son, Our Lord. So far, the Te igitur section follows more or less closely the end part of the second of Cardinal Mai's old Italian Eucharistic Prayers - some of the words as we noted, used in both the Roman Canon and this prayer are almost identical. The Roman Canon then goes on to what may be called "truncated intercessions" - the prayers for the Church, the Pope, local bishop and originally, probably, for all orthodox bishops in general. The old Italian prayer ends with the words: Per Iseum Xstum ... per quem petimus et rogamus ("Through Jesus Christ ... through Whom we pray and beseech"), but stops short after rogamus. PRAYERS FOR CHURCH AND POPE: Whether these words were followed by prayers for Church and Pope as in the Roman Canon, or whether they led on at once to the "link" connecting the first part of the prayer with the Last Supper and Institution, it is impossible to say, but as the old Italian prayer gives us the more ancient form, with its relic of the thanksgiving series and absence of the Sanctus, it may at least be suggested that at that date such intercessions had not yet been introduced into the Eucharistic Prayer. In the case of the Roman Canon itself, thee truncated intercessions were almost certainly introduced after the old intercessory Collects (the "Solemn Collects" of Good Friday) had been dropped from regular use at the end of the preliminary service. It is worthy noting that the words of the prayer for the Church are actually the same as the Praefatio of exhortation to the people, recited by the celebrant before the Collect for the Church, still used on Good Friday in the Tridentine: In primis, quae tibi offerimus pro Ecclesia tua ("which we offer Thee in the first place for Thy holy Catholic Church") ... una cum famulo two papa nostro N., et antistie nostro N. et omnibus orthodoxis atque catholicae et Apostolicae fidei cultoribus ("together with Thy servant, our Pope N., and our Bishop N., and with all orthodox believers and professors of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith"). These last words are not found in the earliest manuscripts of the Roman Canon, and Edmund Bishop considered them to be interpolation of a later date. But the Abbot of Mont Cesar in Belgium, Dom Bernard Capelle, maintains, on the contrary, that they belong to the original test - with the exception of the word Catholicae. The other words: omnibus orthodoxis atque Apostolicae fidei cultoribus ("for all orthodox professors of the Apostolic Faith") did not, according to Dom Capelle, refer to the members of the Church in general, who had already been mentioned in the words Ecclesia tua sancta Catholica ("Thy holy Catholic Church"). The word orthodoxis referred to all other bishops who were "orthodox" Catholic bishops. Dom Capelle adds that there is probably a word understood here, such as papis (the dative plural of papa - literally "father"). The Latin title papa, which is normally translated "pope", was not at first reserved exclusively to the Bishop of Rome, but was given to all bishops - each of whom was the papa ("father") of all those in his church - or diocese, as we would say today. These words antistite nostro ("for our Bishop"), used in other places than Rome, as well as the prayer for the Pope - who in Rome is also the "local Bishop" - are later additions which came in after papa had become the special title of the latter alone. It was adopted only when the original meaning of the words orthodoxis (papis) had been forgotten. In his own edition of the Roman Sacramentary, St. Gregory the Great (c. A.D. 600) omitted the words et omnibus orthodoxis atque apotolicae fidei cultoribus altogether, almost certainly because he considered them to be superfluous, since, according to the then generally accepted idea, they referred to the ordinary members of the Church, already included in the prayer for the whole Church. As we know that St. Gregory rearranged the text of the Canon drawn up by St. Gelasius in other ways, and himself probably added the words diseque nostros in tua pace disponas ("order our days in Thy peace") to the Hanc igitur, the above act of the Pope will not seem strange. After this come four distinct (though connected) prayers, beginning respectively with the words: Memento Domine famulorum famularumque tuarum ("be mindful, O Lord, of Thy servants and handmaids"); Communicnates et memoriam venerantes ("in communion with and reverencing" - the prayer goes to mention Our Lady, Apostles and Saints); Hanc igitur oblationem ("This offering, therefore"); Quam oblationem ("which offering do Thou, O Lord, vouchsafe to bless"). We shall discuss the first three of these prayers (Memento, Communicates, Hanc igitur) in the next chapter. We merely state here that none of the three represents the Roman intercession or "diptychs" (the latter word is correctly used only as the title of a custom observed in the Eastern Liturgies - the "Roman `diptychs' are a myth" (Dix, p. 507). But these three prayers are certainly connected with the concept of "intercessions" and with the thought underlying the Eastern diptychs. THE ELUSIVE TERM `IGITUR': This is used again in the prayer beginning Hanc igitur. In this prayer igitur indicates a return to the preliminary, that is, to the solemn sacrificial offering which takes place at the consecration. The preliminary offering comes after the above prayers for Church, Pope, special persons, the Saints and so on. THE LINK: QUAM OBLATIONEM: To turn now to the fourth prayer - Quam oblationem: this prayer is the "link" between the earlier parts of the Eucharistic Prayer and the account of the Last Supper and Institution. The final words are: ut nobis corpus et sanguis fiat dilectissimi Fili tui Domini nosri Jesu Chrsti ("that it [the offering] may become to - or for - us the Body and Blood of Thy most dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ"). The words ut "nobis" corpus et sanguis fiat ("that it [this oblation of bread and wine] may become "to us" the Body and Blood") do not imply that the change is merely subjective or symbolical. The request in this prayer is that the real objective change which the Words of Institution effect may act on us as the body and blood of Christ. In the same way, in the analogous prayer in the Ambrosian Rite the oblation is described as the "figure" of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, and the prayer begins: "make this oblation approved ... for us". The explanation is the same as in the case of the Roman Hanc igitur. The expression "figure" (in Latin, figura) does not mean that after consecration the bread and wine are only "figures" or symbols of the Body and Blood of our Savior; it refers to the outward signs for of bread and wine which remain, even after transmutation has taken place - the "accidents" as theologians call them. The accidents are, in fact, the outward signs or indications - "figures" - of the real objective but inward presence of the Body and Blood (De Sacramentis iv, 14). THE ANAMNESIS: After the consecration come three prayers beginning, respectively: unde quae propitio; Supplices te rogamus: the first of these is known technically as the anamnesis, a Greek word meaning ""memorial"; "calling to mind"; "recollection", since it recalls to mind the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Our Savior - but it is also a solemn expression of the Church's share in the oblation of the "Holy Bread of eternal life and the Cup of everlasting salvation" (Roman Missal, edited by the Rev. J.B. O'Connell). The memorial of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension at this point in the Liturgy seems to have started in Rome and to have spread thence into other Rites, but all liturgies have a prayer of oblation after the consecration. This prayer is followed by two more, one asking for God's acceptance of the sacrifice as offered on earth - as he deigned to accept the sacrifices of the Old Law beginning with that offered by Abel. The second - which has always been for the ratification in Heaven of the sacrifice offered on earth asking that it be "carried up by the hands of Thy holy Angel to Thine Altar on high:. The prayer then closes with the request "that those of us who by partaking of this Altar shall have received the sacred Body and Blood of Thy Son, may be filled with heavenly blessing and grace". This prayer is, then, also a prayer for the communicants, and such a prayer is found in this position in all liturgies. It is probable, too, that this part of the Supplices te rogamus was, in earlier times, much fuller and longer than in the Tridentine. MEMENTO OF THE DEAD: In every Liturgy of the Mass, according to the Roman Rite, a prayer for the dead follows immediate, beginning Menento etiam ("remember also") of the same type as the Memento - for the living, before consecration. This prayer for the dead will also be considered in the next chapter, together with the first Memento. The second Memento is followed by a prayer beginning with the words:Nobis quoque percatoribus famulis tuis ("and to us, also, Thy sinful servants:). The first three words were said aloud by the celebrant, although the rest of the text being recited secretly. Besides being a supplication for "Thy sinful servants" (most probably these words referred originally to the celebrant himself and his concelebration bishops and priests), the text includes the names of certain of the Apostles and Martyrs and asks for union with them - much as in the Communicantes. It seems that it was introduced by Pope Gelasius I, together with that prayer and for the same reason - to bring the names of the Saints into the Eucharistic Prayer. It is possible, however, that Gelasius introduced only the names of the Saints, and that the prayer itself (for celebrant and concelebrants) already exited in the Canon before the Memento etiam. There is no real connection between it and the prayer for the dead (Dix, p. 557); see the long footnote and the reference therein to P.B. Whiteheads article, "The acts of the Council of 499", and the date of the prayers Communicantes and Nobis Quoque, etc., Speculum (1928), ii, 152, et seq.). The Nobis quoque seems to follow quite naturally after the Supplices te rogamus, without either the Memento etiam or the names of the Saints. The words per quem haec omnia, Domine, semper bona ceras, sanctificas vivificas benedictis et praestas nobis ("By whom, Lord, Thou dost ever create, sanctify, quicken, bless and bestow all these good things upon us"), which carry on the final words of the Nobis quoque - that is, the per Christum, etc., are usually explained as a relic of the blessing of fruit, milk and other offerings brought to the Altar, together with the sacrificial bread and wine, by the offerers at Mass and which are found as early as the Liturgy in The Apostolic Tradition (p. 10, v and vi). the words, however, probably referred originally primarily to the consecrated Bread and Wine. The words immediately connected with these - per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso ("through Him and with Him and in Him") - and which are at the very end of the Canon, form the doxology of the Eucharistic Prayer, and they express the whole meaning and significance of Christian worship. To sum up: apart from a few revisions and additions by Gelasius and Gregory the Great, the Western Rite, as it had developed in the fourth century, still survived in the Roman Tridentine Mass. in spite of the "improvers" of all the centuries - and the above account of its history which "can be substantiated from the evidence, though this has not yet been done" (Dix, p. 557 footnote). This no doubt is true, but it is generally admitted that the earlier form of the Liturgy, given in The Apostolic Tradition and described in these pages, represents more or less roughly the type of Liturgy used by the Latin groups in Rome and round about the city at that period, and it still remains an unanswered difficulty as to how and when exactly the later type first came into being. THE VIEWS OF DOM GASSNER: The Canon of the Mass: Its History, Theology and Art, by Dom Jerome Gassner, O.S.B. (Monk of Seitenstetten in Austria), appointed Postulator General in causes of beatification and Posynodal Judge at the Roman Curia in 1949. His book was published by B. Herder Book Coy, St. Louis, Mo. with a Forward by the Abbot of St. Gregory's Abbey, Shawnee, Oklahoma. In general Dom Gassner holds views very similar to those we have expressed in these pages regarding the early forms of the Eucharistic Prayer, the original position of the intercession and "names" (diptychs), etc. He believes, however, that the Sanctus was part of the prayer from the earliest times, deriving from the use of the Jewish Liturgy, the Christian prayer being founded upon the Jewish Hallel. He speaks, too, of the Preface as a relic of the original "Eucharistic Prayer form", although the series of thanksgivings at the beginning have been much reduced. The Preface is not, therefore, in Dom Gassner's view a Preface to the Sanctus, as Dom Gregory Dix calls it, but, as usually understood, it is the Preface to the Canon; that is, the consecratory portion of the Eucharistic Prayer which later came to be regarded as composed of two parts, united but distinct. Dom Jerome Gassner's chief contribution to a newer way of regarding the nature of the Roman Canon is found in his interesting explanation of the two objects of the prayer - namely, thanksgiving and invocation. This may be summed up as follows: The earliest form of the Roman Eucharistic Prayer was that of one, undivided prayer beginning with a series of thanksgivings to God for various expressed reasons, and leading up the account of the Last Supper, the institution of the Eucharistic Sacrifice by Christ; the offering of Him of the Sacrifice and the communion of the disciples present. This form appears in the second and early third centuries, in the Liturgy described by St. Justin, Martyr, in his Apologia, and in the liturgical text given in The Apostolic Tradition. During the course of the second century this prayer was divided into two parts; the first being the "Preface" leading up to the threefold Sanctus, now a distinct chant in itself sung by choir and people; the second being the "Canon", the consecratory part, beginning immediately after the Sanctus. This portion consists of three "pre-consecratory invocations" (the Te igitur - as far as pro Ecclesia tua; the Hanc igitur and the Quam oblationem). These three "pre-consecratory invocations" ask for the sacrificial blessing of the offerings of bread and wine by Our Lord (through His priest), and for the full result of that blessing, the consecration. After the consecration there are again three invocations ("post-consecratory") , which look back to the consecration as the "pre-consecratory invocations" look forward to it, and asks for the results of the consecration in the Communion of those taking part in the sacrifice. Those "invocations", according to Dom Gassner, were introduced into the early form of the Eucharistic Prayer by the Church - or rather, were developed by her out of the early form of the prayer. They are founded on the later (non-Jewish) Christian distinction between the ideas of "thanksgiving" and blessing" as expressed in the words of Institution in the Roman and other Canons: Tibi gratias agens, benedixit ("when He had given thanks, He blessed" or "giving thanks", He blessed"). These two words were identical for a Jew - to bless God meant to thank Him and vice versa - but for Westerners there is a subtle difference between them. In the scriptural accounts of the Last Supper, these two expressions are never found together; it is always either "giving thanks" or "blessing" alone - since these two words for the Evangelists meant one and the same. (See Matthew 24:26 and 27; Mark 14:22, 23; Luke 22:19:1; I Cor. 10:6 - for this use of one or the other phrase.) In Hippolytus' Liturgy only the words "giving thanks" are used, for this Liturgy, as we have seen already, is still impregnated with the original Jewish thanksgiving -prayer character. But in the Roman Rite of later date (sixth, seventh, eighth centuries) we find both expressions. The reason of this introduction by the Church of both terms in the phrase: "giving thanks, He blessed", says Dom Gassner, was first, in order to commemorate and carry out everything said and done by Our Lord at the Last Supper and to hand on each expression used by the different Evangelists respectively. Both expressions were combined in one in the Roman Rite, and this combination is found also in the Ambrosian Rite as given in the De Sacramentis, and in both cases repeated at the consecration of the wine as well as of the bread. Both words are used also in the Byzantine and other Eastern Rites. The second reason for the adoption of the double phrase was to make it clear that the words "giving thanks", while signifying directly the act of thanksgiving, signified also indirectly the invocation of blessing. Vice versa, the term "to bless" signifies directly the act of blessing and indirectly that of thanksgiving. In the term "giving thanks He blessed", the two perceptions are combined. The three "post-consecratory" invocations are according to Dom Gassner: the Super quae, Supplices te rogamus,and also the words Per quem haec omnia, Domine, semper bona creas. With regards to the nature and significance of these "invocations", the author's views seem to be a trifle confused - hesitating between an invocation for consecration and one merely for the effects of consecration in Communion - partly, no doubt, owing to the lack of agreement among authors on the question and also its extreme intricacy. He seems ready, nevertheless, to admit the presence originally of an invocation of Holy Spirit for consecration, and placed after the Words of Institution narrative in the Roman Mass. Dom Gassner holds practically the same views regarding the use of the word igitur in the Te igitur and Hanc igitur as we have expressed in these pages, and he also considers the prayers for Church and Pope in the Te igitur to be a relic of the old intercessory prayers after the Gospel originally recited in every Mass. CHAPTER SEVEN THE MEMENTO OF LIVING AND DEAD; INTERCESSIONS; DIPTCHYS; NAMES In order to really grasp the meaning and significance of the two prayers in the Roman Canon entitled Memento, it is necessary to know and remember that, during the early fourth century, a new form of intercessory prayer found its way into the Eucharistic Liturgy itself - formerly "intercessions" existed only in the preliminary service, the synaxis. The old intercessions for various classes of people; the new intercessions consisted of mere list of the names of certain individuals which were recited aloud by a deacon during the Liturgy. this recital of individual names cannot itself be looked upon an "intercession" or "prayer"; it was, rather a "call to prayer" addressed to clergy and congregation, inviting their personal prayer during the Liturgy for whose names were thus announced. Except that the list of names formed an actual element of the Liturgy, it was of such nature as the notices read out in these days, at the parish Mass, after the Gospel. THE NAMES IN THE EAST: It is in the East that this form of intercession is first heard of during the fourth century, being found in the Euchologion of Sarapion, Bishop of Thmuis, of which we have already spoken. In this Liturgy, the recital of the names takes place in the Anaphora after the Invocation - in this Rite - of the Word, not the Holy Spirit. There is a prayer here for the dead in general, during which a pause is made to read out the names of certain individuals. The prayer is closely connected with the preceding prayer for the communicants - "these people"; that is, the people actually taking part in the Liturgy as offerers and communicants. But both the prayer for the dead and the names of the departed members of "this people" are quite evidently later interpolations in Sarapion's Rite, and it seems most probable that they were brought from the Church of Jerusalem, where the custom of praying for the dead and reading out their names during the Anaphora had been introduced about this period. The custom spread gradually elsewhere in the Eastern Churches. Any intercession in Sarapion's Rite during the Anaphora cannot be a "native" element, for the told form of general intercessions for all classes is still in use and in the original place at the end of the preliminary synaxis. There is even a special "rubric" stating that these prayers (of the old "Collect" type) are to be recited "before the prayer of offering" - that is, the Anaphora. The prayer for the "offerer-communicants" after the Invocation is, however, an early element of the Eucharistic Prayer in all liturgies. It is possible that prayer for the dead and the mention of the names of certain individuals grew out of, a developed from, this latter prayer for the living members of the local Church. There is also a reason for such prayers, for both living and dead, in - this position which is put forward by St. Cyril of Jerusalem - namely, the special efficacy of prayer made in the very presence of the Divine Victim upon the Altar. This reason also suggested or supported the move of the Intercessions for the living from the end of the preliminary service to the Anaphora - usually after the Invocation. EXCEPTIONS TO THIS POSITION: While the custom of reading out the names of the dead during the Anaphora and after the Invocation is found in most of the Eastern Rites, there are at least two exceptions. The later Alexandrian Liturgy, although it kept to the names of the dead only, as in Sarapion's Euchologion, has moved them back to the first part of the Anaphora, adding them to the general intercessions which are found in the very middle of that part of the Anaphora leading up the Scantus. This position is interesting, as it is analogous to the position of the much shorted intercession and recital of names in the Memento of the Roman Canon, and this provides another case of close connection between the Roman and Alexandrian Rites. Secondly, the Alexandrian position of the intercessions and the diptychs of the dead shows fairly clearly that these are interpolation, for they have no direct connection with this part of the Anaphora, and, in fact, completely interrupt it. The second exception is found in the East Syrian (Nestorian) rite, in which the diptychs of both living and dead are recited at the Offertory - and the general intercession - formerly a long series of bidding but now in litany form - are also still in the old place; as follows: (i) The intercessions - as described above. (ii) The dismissals - that is, simple the formulae no one is really dismissed now. (iii) The offertory-ceremonies-placing the elements on the Altar-taking them from a kind of "credence table" near the Altar. they are prepared before the synaxis. (iv) Recital of the Creed. (v) The diptychs of both living and dead-formerly, most probably, only the latter. It is true that now there are short intercessions immediately after the Scantus, but these are very slight and the main intercession is that before the Offertory. This position - most usual in an Eastern rite - which is analogous to the position of the shortened intercession in the Te igitur clause of the Roman Canon, shows that the petitions in the Anaphora were evidently inserted at a later date, about the tenth or eleventh century. It is possible that in the Coptic Rite the diptychs were also formerly recited at the Offertory, since there is still a relic of the offerings made by the people at this part of the Liturgy. The deacon calls on the people three times to bring up their offerings of bread and wine before the Offertory Prayer, saying: "Offer, offer, offer," although the first part of the Offertory takes place now as in the Byzantine Rite, before the Liturgy begins. When the people really did ring up their offerings at the Offertory, it would seem only natural that the names of the dead should have been recited also in that place, as in the Eastern Syrian rite. In Sarapion the prayer for the recital of the names of the dead are connected with the prayer for the people as communicants. It came, no doubt, to be considered natural to pray former communicants now departed. In the East Syrian rite (and perhaps, the Coptic as well) the connection was between departed and the living as offerers. At that period offerers and communicants were closely united, even inseparable, ideas. DEVELOPMENT OF THE DIPTYCHS: Originally the Eastern diptychs were mere lists of the names of those dead persons (later on, of the living also) for whom prayer was to be made during the Liturgy. But, according to The Shape of the Liturgy, these lists came "into sudden prominence at Constantinople c. A.D. 422", and this eminence was brought about by the disputes which arose to whether the name of St. John Chrysotom, who had been deposed from the bishopric of that city and who had died in exile in A.D. 407, should be inserted into the diptychs or not. From all this it appears that the diptychs at Constantinople then consisted of separate lists of the living and the dead, and that each list was arranged according to ecclesiastical precedence: bishops, clergy, laity - headed by the names of dead emperors. The diptychs, as Edmund Bishop also pointed out (in his Appendix III, "The diptychs", in The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, pp. 97-117)., "were to be made a test and touchstone of Orthodoxy." They became actually a part of the text of the Liturgy and developed liturgical formulae and prayers. In this form, says Dix: "the West never had any `diptychs' properly so-called at all". It is, then, a pity to use an Eastern technical term like the word "diptych" in the case of the Western rites, and this and the constant confusion between "intercessions", "names" and "diptychs" - all three really distinct types at least - leads to continual misunderstanding and mistake (Dix pp. 506-7). THE NAMES IN THE WEST: The "names" always remained the "names" and never developed into "diptychs" in the Eastern sense, even though the "thing called diptych which gave the title to the list of names inscribed upon it - that is, the twofold writing tablet of wood or ivory - was used in the West for the purpose. In the West the earliest evidence for the "names" is found in the Spanish or Mozarabic Rite, and is mentioned in the Council of Elvira, in it s twenty ninth canon (c. A.D. 305), as a custom already in existence. Possibly this custom was in use even in the third century (Dix, pp. 499 and 501; see also Appendix III, "The diptychs", in The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, p. 113). On p.115 Bishop refers to the later Council of Macon (A.D. 585), which orders the continuance of, or rather return to, the practice of offering the bread and wine at the Offertory, as the custom had fallen in disuse. From all this we find that in the West the names followed a course exactly opposite to that of the East. The names in the Western Rites were those of the living only and, moreover, of a particular section of the living; that is, of those persons who brought offerings of bread and wine for the Holy sacrifice and presented them at the Offertory of the Mass. In the Spanish Rite, in that of Gaul and, as we shall see, in the Italian Rites apart from that of Rome itself, the names of the living "offerer communicants" were recited aloud (probably by the deacon) either singly, as each person made his offering, or all together immediately after all the offerings had been presented - a kind of "roll call" of the faithful, in fact (Dix, p. 499). IN THE AMBROSIAN RITE: St. Ambrose tells us in his De Sacramentis (iv, 4, c. A.D. 395), that "prayers are asked for kings, for the people and others". In these words St. Ambrose is considered by some writers to be speaking of the names, and that these were recited at an early point of the Eucharistic Prayer itself - more or less the same place, in fact, as that of the Memento in the Roman Canon. But the above words sound much more like the "prayers of the faithful" or great intercession - e.g., in the mention of kings. It would seem, too, that St. Ambrose is not giving the strict order of the prayers here, so he is possibly referring to these intercessions recited after the Gospel, as they had not yet, at this date, been removed from the ordinary Mass Liturgy. St. Ambrose is concerned here, not about the place of the prayers, but as to whether what the celebrant says is said as a man or in the Person of Christ Himself. The former type belong to the earlier parts of the Liturgy; the latter to the part with which he is immediately concerned - the consecratory portion. (See The Early History of the Liturgy, 1947, p. 156.) IN THE ROMAN RITE: The first mention of the names is to be found in the famous letter from Pope Innocent I, in A.D. 416, to Decentius, Bishop of Eugubim (now Gubbio), in Central Italy. The latter, finding that the custom in use in his own diocese differed considerably from those in use in the Mother Church of Rome, had asked the Pope what ought to be done about it. Chief among these customs was that of the position of the names at Mass. This was before the Offertory Prayer very much as in Gaul and Spain, though the order was not exactly the same in detail. In his answer the Pope objected to this position as too early, the recital of the offerers' names taking place before the offerings had been "commended to God" - that is, before any Offertory Prayer had been said. Innocent wished Decentius to adopt the Roman usage in this respect, as also in other points mentioned in the letter. But in these changes which he desired Decentius to make it is most probable that the Pope was not (as have been taken for granted perhaps too easily) insisting upon a return to older customs which had been preserved in Rome, but was striving to introduce new customs which had been adopted there only fairly recently - perhaps by the authority of Innocent himself. It is the much more likely that in provincial Churches, such as Gubbio, the more ancient customs had been kept up and that these had also continued in other Western counties - e.g., Gual and Spain. As Dix says: "The letter of Innocent I has been strangely misunderstood by modern commentators" (Dix, p. 109). But the letter seems to have been strangely misunderstood on another point by Dix himself, as well as by other writers. This misunderstanding concerns the real meaning of the last few words of the letter, and it (the misunderstanding) is irrespective of the view held by the writer about the exact position of the "Names" which the Pope is insisting upon. The meaning of these last word is certainly not clear. TEXT OF THE LETTER TO DECENTIUS: De niminibus vera recitandis antequam precem [or - preces] sacerdos faciat atque eorum oblationes quorum nomina recitanda sunt, sua oratione commendet; quam superfluum sit et ipse tua prudentia reognoseis; ut cuius hostaim necdum Deo offeres, eius ante nomen insinues, quamvis illi incognitum sit nihil. Prius ergo oblationes sunt commendandae, ac tunc eorum nominia quorum sunt edicenda ut inter sacra mysteria nominentur, non inter alia quae ante praemittimus `ut ipis mysteriis viam futuris precibus aperiamus' (Innocent I, Ad Decentium Epist. xxv; P.L., t. xx, col. 553). The usual translation is as follows: "concerning the recitation of the names before the priest says the prayer [or "prayers"] and before he commends in his own prayer the offerings of those whose names are to be recited: your own prudence [or more probably - "wisdom] will show how superfluous it is to introduce the name of one whose offering you have not yet presented to God [that is, by some prayer of oblation - either the Secreta or Oratio super oblata or, perhaps, the Te igitur with its reference to the dona, numera, sacrifica illibata}, since to Him nothing is unknown. The offerings, then, should first be commended [i.e., offered verbally] and afterwards the names of those whose offerings they are, should be recited. They should be recited during the Sacred Mysteries and not among the things which we place before, so that by the Mysteries themselves we may open the way for the prayers that are to come." The first part of the letter - as far as "and afterwards the name of those whose offerings they are, should be recited" - might be understood as referring merely to the difference between the custom at Gubbio of reciting the "names" immediately after the Kiss of Peace was given at the very beginning of the Mass of the faithful before any prayer had been said; an the use in Spain and Gaul of reciting them after a prayer, "commending" the offerings to God. But it is the words which follow that are the cause of difficulty and misunderstanding, namely: "They [the "Names"] should be recited during the Sacred Mysteries and not among the things which we place before, so that by the Mysteries themselves we may open the way for the prayers that are to come." (See Catholic Encyclopedia, Innocent I; The Shape of the Liturgy, p. 500.) In an article in the Journal of Theological Studies (April 1919), xx. 215 ff., entitled "Pope Innocent I - "De nominibus recitandis", the late Dom R. Hugh Connolly of Downside Abbey pointed out the absurdity of the above translation of these last words. But his own translation does not really solve the difficulty. Dom Connolly prefers to consider the word "future" or "to come" (futuris) as applying not to "prayers" (precibus) but to "the Mysteries" (mysteriis). His translation is then: "That by the prayers we may open up the way for the Mysteries themselves which are to follow." Rev. James Norman, M.A., criticizes the above translation, and suggests in its place one in keeping with his own view that Innocent had no intention of ordering the "move" of the offerers' names form Offertory to Canon, but simply a "move" from before the Offertory Prayer to after it, as he considered that the Gubbio position was too early, since it was in the Mass of the Catechumens - and even before the Dismissal of the latter - rather than in that of the Faithful. As paraphrased by Mr. Norman, the whole letter runs as follows: "`Now about reciting the names before the priest says the prayers' [i.e., the "Prayers of the Faithful', the 'intercessions'; Mr. Norman accepts the plural form preces - "prayers"] `and commends in his own prayer' [i.e., the equivalent of the Roman Secreta or Oratio super oblata] `their oblations ... the names ought to be mentioned ... within the Mass of the Faithful, and not as with you, in the Mass of the Catechumens, and thus the most sacred part of the rite (futuris precibus) may be prepared for by that portion of the service which is reserved for the faithful'" (Handbook to the Christian Liturgy, p. 61). This writer says that the Latin words prex and mysteria ("prayer"; "mystery") had not yet become technical terms for the Canon of the Mass. He shows, too, that Dom Connolly himself "takes the words of Boniface I, [c. A.D. 420] inter ipsa mysteria ["during the Mysteries themselves"] as including the Prayers of the Faithful, though he says that [in this particular case] "Innocent certainly employs mysteria to describe the Canon", on the grounds that he is dealing expressly with the different parts of the Mass". This - as Mr. Norman puts it - is a little arbitrary! Mr. Norman's own exposition of this difficult matter seems to be the best and clearest expression of the view that the "Names" were still recited at the Offertory in the Roman Rite in Innocent's time. Dom Gregory Dix, however, although he considers that the offerers' names were originally recited in this early position in the Roman Mass as well as everywhere else in the West, nevertheless believes that a change had been made about Innocent's time - and perhaps by the Pope himself! He says that whether Innocent meant by the"commendation" to God of the offerings a special prayer (Secreta or Oration super oblata) recited at the Offertory, or whether (that prayer not yet being introduced) he was referring to the early part of the Te igitur (in which there really is a "commendation" of the offerings) - "there can be no doubt that c. A.D. 400 the `Naming' of the offerers at Rome comes in approximately the same place as in Milan, in the Eucharistic Prayer itself" (Dix. p. 500). As for the reason for such a change, we can only guess that perhaps the Pope (or whoever it was who brought it about) thought that the important mention of the people's gifts at the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer - itself so near to the moment of consecration which could change these earthly gifts into the heavenly gifts of Christ's Body and blood - was the most fitting time to "commend" the offerers themselves. Probably, too, the example of the Eastern Rites transferring the intercessions from the early part of the Liturgy of the faithful to the Anaphora and the fact that the diptychs were also recited in the Anaphora (and in their case probably from the first) had some influence on it all.. But Dix's translation of the difficult passage of Pope Innocent's letter to Decentius does not really make it clearer than any of the other translations. His translation is: "... `So one should first commend the offerings and afterwards name them who have made them. One should name them during the Divine Mysteries and not in the part of the Rite which precedes, so that the Mysteries themselves lead up to the prayer to be offered'" (Dix, p. 500), italics are mine). What does this sentence - the part italicized - mean? The same question may be asked about Dom Connolly's translation above. THE "CORRECT" TRANSLATION: The only satisfactory translation of this difficult passage in Innocent's letter to Decentius - in fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the only one that makes any sense at all - is that given by the Rev. V.L. Kennedy, C.S.R., in his book The Saints of the Canon of the Mass (Roma, 1938, p. 22). Fr. Kennedy says: the first part of this statement is clear. In substance the Pope says that it is wrong to recite the names of the givers before the priest says the prayer by which the offerings are commended to God ... the second part is more difficult and it is usually interpreted to means that the names are to be recited in the course of the Sacred Mysteries, so that [i.e., 'in order that'] by the Mysteries themselves we may open the way for the prayers [that are] to come ... [but] the Mysteries, the Canon with it consecration, is the `all important thing'. We do not prepare for certain prayers. the mere order of the words [in the letter] is not decisive; the whole clause ut ipis myseris viam futuris precibus operiamus is directly connected with what precedes it - quae antea praemittimus ("those things which we place before"). The meaning then is: the offerings are fist to be commended, and then the names of those, whose offerings they are, to be recited; and this is to be done within the Sacred Mysteries and not in the course of the other things which we place before, that we may [in order that we may] open the way for the coming mysteries themselves by our prayers." This is the exact opposite to the usual translation - but at least it makes Innocent talk sense! Instead of declaring that the Mysteries were to open the way "for other prayers to come" - one might well ask what prayers these could be - the Pope really says that "the other things" - that is, the earlier portions of the Mass preliminary to the Eucharistic Prayer - were put first in order to prepare the way for "the Mysteries" in that prayer. In other words that the names are to be recited during the Canon, and not during that part which precedes the Canon and prepares the way for it. This translation of Innocent's last words in his famous letter "makes sense" as a translation and also shows clearly that he wished the names to be recited within the Canon. Any attempt to make him a supporter of the earlier position in his own period at Rome leads to endless difficulties and practically forces into his words a meaning which they do not really bear. Finally, it may be said that such an attempt makes the whole meaning of the last part of the letter almost impossible to understand. Fr. Kennedy agrees with Dom Hugh Connolly in coupling futuris with mysteriis and not with precibus, but does not agree with his conclusion - that is was the later position of the "Names" which prepared the way for the "Mysteries". FURTHER CONFUSION ABOUT THE LETTER: This confusion is the result of the common tendency to confuse the "Names" with the "Intercessions", and both with the "Diptyches", of which something has already been said. In his letter, Innocent is not talking about either intercessions or diptychs but simply and solely about the Western custom of reciting the names of those who offered the bread and wine at the Liturgy of the Mass. As for the Intercessions, these prayers still existed and were recited after the Gospel at Mass as a regular part of the Holy Sacrifice in Innocent's time (A.D. 417 is the date of his death - his birth date is unknown). They are actually mentioned - in the old form of Collects - and at the old time after the Gospel, and in the ordinary Mass up till the time of Pope Gelasius I. After that time, however, they disappear as a regular element of the Roman Mass, and their place is taken, first by the litany (introduced by Gelasius at the beginning of the service), secondly - perhaps - by the prayer for the Church and Pope in the Te igitur. The very wording of the Memento shows clearly the original object of the prayer: "Be mindful, Lord,, of Thy servants and handmaids, N. & N., and of all here present ...[for whom we offer, or] who offer unto Thee this sacrifice of praise, for themselves, for all their kinsfolk (suisque omnibus)". This latter prayer may possibly be the earliest menton of the dead in the Western Eucharistic Liturgy - that is, the names of the "Blessed Dead", Our Lady and the Saints. It was, in any case, the only reference to any dead persons in the Roman Rite until the late introduction of the Memento etiam (of which we shall speak presently) after the consecration. The Communicantes is not easy to translate; the word communicantes itself is the present participle - meaning "communicating" or "joining with" - without any subject or subjects with which to agree or any principal verb, and the same may be said of the word venerantes ("reverencing"). This curious character of the prayer is perhaps the result of its being a late interpolation from elsewhere by Gelasius (A.D. 492-6). In general the two participles no doubt agree with a subject like nos ("we"), meaning the celebrant, his concelebrants and ministers and members of the congregation. This word may be again the subject of offerimus or qui offerunt ("we offer" or "who offer") in the Memento, or perhaps these participles hark back to the words regamus ac petimus or tibi offerimus ("we humbly pray and beseech" or "we offer unto Thee") in the Te igitur. In any case, the Communicantes is not an original element of the Canon. It is followed by the Hanc igitur. This prayer was also originally connected with the names, but those of certain special persons or those belonging to special classes (religious men and women, the new baptized and so on) or of those who were unable, for some reason, to bring offerings themselves. According to Dix, the fact that this prayer is one of the two prayers of the Canon still changeable on certain occasions, shows that it belongs to the fifth century, when variable prayers were brought into the Liturgy. In the Leonine and Gelasian Sacramentaries many interchangeable forms of this prayer are found. In the Leonine Sacramentary, in the Mass entitled In Pentecosten ascendentibus a fonte ("On [the Day of] Pentecost, for those rising up from font" - i.e., the newly baptized), the Hanc igitur is placed immediately after the Memento between that prayer and the Communicantes. In his edition of the Leonine Sacramentary, Mr. Feltoe says of this: "In one instance [pp. 24-5] the natural order of the Hanc igitur and Communicants is inverted, but this is probably due to the transcriber's carelessness and to nothing else" (The Lenone Sacramentary, edited Feltoe, 1896, p. xvi, footnote). This assertion, however, may be due simply to what Mr. Feltoe, and no doubt most people, consider to be the natural order of the two prayers. Dom Gregory Dix, on the other hand, thinks it quite probable that the Leonine order was the original order and, moreover, the more natural one. For if the original order were Memento; Hanc igitur; Communicants - it would have meant the recital of the names first of the usual offerers (Memento) - and also, in that prayer, the names of certain persons for whom offerings we made if, for some reason, unable to offer themselves (mention is still made of these in the Memento: pro quibus tibi offerimus vel qui tibie offerunt; "for whom we offer or whom themselves offer", etc.); then of particular persons, on particular occasions (Hanc igitur), and finally the recital of the names of the "Blessed Dead" (Communicantes). As to who were the particular persons whose names were mentioned in the Hanc igitur, we find in the Leonine and Gelasian Sacramentaries a large number of special forms of the prayer which, instead of the request to God to accept the offerings, as in the form used in the Tridentine: Hanc igitur oblationem ... quaesumus,Domine, ut placetus acciptas ("we therefore beseech Thee, O Lord, to be appeased and to accept this oblation"), expresses the direct action of offering, and the verb is sometimes in the singular, instead of the more usual plural. Occasionally it is in the third person (singular or plural), or even, again, in the first person singular ("I offer" - offfero). Sometimes this was the celebrant himself. Possibly it was St. Gregory the Great who included the Hanc igitur as a regular feature in the Canon, and who arranged the words: diseque nostros in tua pace disponas ("do Thou order our days in Thy peace"), which remain unchanged, even when the first part varies on certain Feasts. The original connection with the recital of the names has been lost, but it still existed in the sixth century on certain occasions. (See Gelasian Sacramentary, edited Wilson, p. 34). Dix suggests that besides adding the clause disque nostros, St. Gregory was also responsible for changing the position of the prayer to after instead of before the Communicantes and that he probably expanded and rearranged the lists of Saints in both Communicantes and Nobis quoque. In the days when the Hanc igitur admitted the names, on certain occasions, of particular persons; when, too, instead of the words hanc igitur, the prayer began with hanc etiam or itaque ("again" or "and so") - an once, in the Gelasian Sacramentary, hanc quoque ("also") - its position immediately after the Memento and before the Communicantes would have been the more natural position. THE NAMES OF THE DEAD IN THE WEST: In the East, as have noted, the earliest evidence of the "Names" in the Liturgy is that of the dead; in the West the contrary is true - only the names of the living, and of a special section of the living, were recited in early times. IN GAUL AND SPAIN: The earliest evidence of the names of the dead is found in the seventh-eighth centuries. Here the names of the dead were added to those of the living which were recited at the Offertory. This development of the Western Names" was partly due to the Gallican and Spanish tendency, which we discussed earlier, to adopt elements of the Eastern Rites. Thus the Gaulish and Spanish "Names" became much more like the Eastern Diptychs than those of the Roman Rite. The Mozarabic Rite, in the later MSS., declares explicitly that the "Names" are those offerentium et pasusantium ("of the offerers and the departed ones" - i.e., the dead). Gregory Dix says that it is possible that the dead were mentioned by name together with the living in the Gallican and Spanish Rites even in pre-Nicene times, and that the relatives or some representatives of the dead offered in "the names of those departed from that church in its peace and communion"; but he adds that if this idea is "not contradicted by the evidence, it is not explicitly supported by it" (Dix, pp. 499- 500). IN ROME: IN the ROMAN MASS the General Intercession, while it continued to be a part of the everyday rite, did not include in its long series of prayers any mention of the dead. When the "Names" came into fashion in the West, we find at first only those of the offerers at Mass - at Rome this was in the Memento before consecration. The first evidence in Rome for the recital at Mass of the names or ordinary dead person (apart, that is, from the "Blessed Dead") as an item of the regular service, occurs only in the ninth-tenth centuries. This custom was adopted from France, where it had become the regular custom in the eighth-ninth centuries. Both in France and Rome, before that time, the "Names" of dead persons were recited only in Masses celebrated for the dead and at funerals. There are several MSS of the Roman Canon in which there is no reference to the ordinary dead at all. In the later Roman Canon the names of the dead are mentioned in a short prayer beginning Memento etiam ("Be mindufl also"). This prayer was evidently intended to correspond with the Memento (of the living) before the consecration, although introduced into the Canon at a much later date and after the consecration. According to Mr. Edmund Bishop, the Memento etiam is really ancient in style and undoubtedly of Roman composition; but it is an open question as to the date of its introduction into the Roman Rite - even as an element only of the Requiem Mass. As we have seen already while the souls of her departed children were not forgotten by Mother Church, they were not prayed for publicly and liturgically in the earliest period, the Liturgy being primarily and externally concerned with the living members of each local church and, in general, of the Church throughout the world. In both the Memento of the living and that of the dead, the place in the prayer which the "Names" were to be recited, was indicated by the letters N. et N. (for nomen - "name"). In the Memento of the living, the names of those for whom the celebrant wishes and has been asked to pray are still actually mentioned (secretly) at this point. But in the Memento etiam, although N. et N. were printed in every missal before the current Novas Ordro, the mention of the "Names" was put off till after the words quai ... dominunt in somno pacis ("who ... rest in the sleep of peace"). Edmund Bishop says that this arrangement is "a middle term that does not belong to either use, Roman or Gallican, but shows a compromise between the two ... The rubric "nomina" in spite of grammar is made part of the text, and the recitation of the names is deferred and intercalated between the two clauses of which the Memento consists, i.e., between the words ... in somno pacis' and `Ipsis Domine et omnibus ...'; is, again, is a compromise which will allow either of the silent recital of the names by the celebrant, or of the insertion of `the diptychs' ... the latter alternative, "has, derogation of its ancient practice still evidenced by the words of the Memento themselves, been by-and-by adopted by the Roman Church" (The Journal of Theological studies, July 1903, "On the Early Texts of the Roman Canon". pp. 555-77). In this article Mr. Bishop goes into the question of the Memento etiam, and shows that it was a late interpolation into the Canon, and at first only for use in Masses for the dead, and he gives for his authority in this the Lyons deacon, Florus (died c. A.D. 860). (See Journal of Theological Studies, p. 572 and p. 573 and footnotes.) Florus speaks of this early temporary use of the Memento etiam as being the ancient custom still (in his own day) observed by the Roman Church. It would seem to be most likely that it was the introduction of special Masses offered for the dead (special dead persons particularly) which gave rise to the custom of mentioning individual names in the Mass, and it was no doubt started and brought about by the Franco-Irish and Spanish communities, for whom prayer for and mention by name of their departed "dear Ones" was a matter of personal love and devotion. as Bishop says in the above article: "It is no accident that All souls Day originated in France" (Journal of Theological Studies, July 1903, p. 575). POSSIBLE EXCEPTION TO THIS DATE: Some liturgical authorities consider that in Africa, as early as the third century, we have evidence of a "naming" of dead persons in the Liturgy - and, moreover, within the Eucharistic Prayer itself. This evidence is said to be provided by St. Cyprian of Carthage (A.D. 240) in two passages in Epist. xvi. (ix), 2 and in Epist. i (lxvi), 2. The first passage objects to the reception of lapsed person to communion and speaks of their "name being offered". but the reading of the passage in Latin, says Dr. Srawley: "appears to be faulty, and the more recent editions give the correction `offering is made in their name'" and in a footnote: Reading: offetur nomine eorum (Hartel), (Srawley, 1947, pp. 126-7). The second passage from St. Cyprian refers to the decision of an earlier African Council that those bishops who appointed clerics as executors, in their wills, are to have no offerings made for them, nor is the Sacrifice to be celebrated for the repose of their souls. But Dr. Srawley again considers that in this decision the Council is speaking of offering the Mass for the dead and of a yearly commemoration of the dead in general - he says that "this is probably all that is meant in this passage. It is inadequate evidence of the existence of a public recitation of the names of the dead in the normal Eucharists of the Church" (italics mine). He points out that St.Augustine, speaking of this commemoration of the dead, says, distinctly that there is no mention of their names (etiam tacitis nominbus eorum sub generali commemoratione suscipit ecclessia; "The Church admits [the remembrance of the dead] although their names are not mentioned"). Dix, however, thinks that, on the contrary, these words etiam tacitis nominibus eroum ("although their names are not mentioned") imply that there was usually an individual "naming" as well as the general mention. (See, for St. Augustine's words, his De cura pro mortuis gerenda ("Of the solicitude to be shown for the dead"), Migne, P.L., 40, 596; as in "The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai", p. 112, footnote 2, in Appendix III, by E. Bishop). Dr. Srawley shows that Augustine makes a distinction between the ordinary dead for whom prayer was offered and the Martyrs whose prayers were asked for, and that nuns were included as sharing in their martyrdom. The distinction between the martyrs and ordinary dead persons is found also in the Mozarabic Rite - but in the Gallican Rite only the latter's names were recited. In the Roman Rite, on the contrary, only the names of Our Lady and the Saints (the "Blessed Dead") were recited at first, and even these were introduced fairly late into the Canon, and the prayer for the ordinary dead (Memento etiam), did not appear till very late - comparatively speaking - and at first only in Requiem Masses. The conclusion to be drawn from all these differences, thinks Dr. Srawley following Mr. E. Bishop, is "that this divergence of customs in the West with regard to the recital of the names of the dead `points to a later and independent adoption of a practice imported or suggested from elsewhere'". (Srawley, p. 206 and quotation in footnote from article by E. Bishop in Journal of Theological Studies, xii, 392, see also iv, 371 f.). METHOD OF RECITING THE NAMES: Innocent says nothing in his letter to Decentius of Gubbio as to how the "Names" were recited int he Roman Rite - that is, whether aloud or secretly. At Gubbio and elsewhere in other parts of Italy, as in Gual and Spain, the names of the living were recited aloud - probably by the deacon. If they had been recited secretly in Rome, as in the Tridentine use of the Memento, Innocent would surely have drawn Decentius' attention to so striking a difference from the custom at Gubbio, and also have insisted upon its adoption there, together with the other points of which he (the Pope) had spoken. St. Jerome, in an earlier period, tells us "that in his day the names of persons who had made offerings to the Church funds were publicly read out in church ... Although he does not expressly say so, yet from all analogy, and from the use by him of the specific term offerentes, it is only reasonable to conclude that this recitation of names was made at the time of the Mass ... That this ... custom prevailed also in Rome and in Upper Italy appears also from the famous letter of Innocent I to Decentius, bishop of Gubbio of the year 416". In neither the Spanish Council of Elvira in A.D. 305 or 306 - which speaks of the recitation of the names of the offerers in connection with the oblation at the Altar - nor in the above letter is it stated that the names were ever said aloud and publicly; "this must be a matter of inference from Jerome's words and later usage" (Edmund Bishop, in Appendix III: "The Diptychs", in The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, p. 98-99). It seems probable that the Eucharistic Prayer at Rome, and everywhere at that time, was still one prayer, undivided as yet by the Sanctus into two sections, and that the whole prayer was still chanted aloud as far as and including the Words of Institution and continuing thus up till the end. The silent recitation of the section after the Sanctus (the Canon) in the West and of the whole Prayer (the Anaphora in the East - except the Words of Institution, which are chanted aloud) seems to have become customary during the sixth century. it apparently was brought about owing to the influence of the East Syrian Churches at that date. (See The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, Appendix V, "Silent Recital of the Mass of the Faithful", by Edmund Bishop, pp. 121-6). The names of the dead in Gaul, and of the Saints as well in Spain, were recited aloud (when they were introduced), like the names of the living offerers, as they were recited like the later, at the Offertory. But in Rome the late date of their introduction into the Canon brought them into the silent recitation of that part of the Eucharistic Prayer. THE NAMES OF THE SAINTS: Connected with the diptychs are the lists of names of the Saints (preceded by that of Our Lady, Queen of Saints) which are found in all later Liturgies, Eastern and Western. At first local martyrs' names alone were recited; but later those of Patriarchs, Prophets and Apostles were added. This innovation was started by St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catecheses (A.D. 348), and it was adopted everywhere - together with other innovations introduced by that Saint. In Rome the list of Saints was rather haphazard, and it never last altogether its local character. The Tridentine Roman Missal arrangement is due to Gregory the Great, c. A.D. 595. Among the men Saints there are only four non-Roman martyrs among the whole sixteen, and one of the four - St. Ignatius of Antioch - was actually martyred at Rome. Again, among women martyrs there are only four out of seven who were not Roman - two of the (Agatha and Lucy were Silicians) were almost certainly added by St. Gregory. Besides these there is St. Anastasia from the Balkans, whose cultus was due chiefly to Greek settlers in Rome. Her name was introduced into the Canon apparently from confusion with the lady also called Anastasia, who built and old parish church in Rome which became known as the Titulus Anastasie. This word Titulus ("title" - literally a "label" on which the names or "titles" of person or places were written) was given to the early parish churches in Rome served by those priests of the local Roman church, progenitors of the later "cardinal-priests of the Holy Roman Church" (i.e., again the local church of Rome). CHAPTER EIGHT THE INVOCATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE "MOMENT" OF CONSECRATION Immediately after the Words of Institution in the Roman Canon come the three prayers, beginning respectively: Unde et memores ("Wherefore ... mindful:); Supra quae propitio ac sereno vultu ("Upon which [vouchsafe to look] with a favorable and gracious countenance"); supplices te rogamus ... jube haec prefrri ... in sublime altare tuum ("We humbly beseech Thee ... to command that these [offerings] be carried ... to Thine Altar on high"). The first is officially called the Anamnesis - from a Greek word meaning a "calling back to mind" - as it recalls the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord and is, in fact, a development of His words to the disciples at the Last Supper: "Do this for a commemoration of Me" (Luke 22:19). In this full form the prayer seems to be a special feature of the Roman Rite; in the other developed Rites, while there was always a solemn prayer of Oblation after the Words of Institution, only the Roman Rite commemorated also the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension - which all together make up the Sacrifice of our Redemption. But this "Roman type" soon spread elsewhere - not necessarily as a copy of the exact words, but in the underlying idea - and in the East as well as in the West. It was not adopted everywhere, however, even in the West - for example, it is not found in either the Gallican or the Spanish Rites. In Hippolytus' Canon there is the initial form which was fully developed in the later Roman Mass - "when ye do this [ye] do My memorial (anamnesis); doing therefore the memorial (anamnesis) of His death and resurrection, we offer to Thee the bread and cup" (Apostolic Tradition, pp. 7 and 8). In this Liturgy, as a whole, we really have all the elements of the later Roman Canon - except its "interpolations": there is the thanksgiving series of the Eucharistic Prayer (most of which was lost when the threefold Sanctus and its Preface were introduced), leading up to the account of the Last Supper and the Institution of the Eucharist; then comes the "Therefore section", as it might be called - corresponding to the Te igitur in the Roman Canon, but in Hippolytus occurring later in the prayer and connected with the carrying out of the "Memorial" (anamnesis) of the Redemption and with the prayer for the offerers and communicants. (Apostolic Tradition, pp. 8 and 9). THE "EPICLESIS", OR INVOCATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT: In the Eastern liturgies another type of prayer is found in this part of the Anaphora - its precise position differs in different Rites - known as the Epiclesis: this is the Greek title which means "invocation", "calling upon". In this prayer the Holy Spirit is invoked to come upon the offerings of bread and wine, and to change them into the Body and Blood of Our Lord. In the Orthodox Eastern Church the prayer is deemed to be the "moment" of consecration, the Words of Institution being the historical "statement" of what Christ did at the Last Supper and of the commands He gave to His disciples regarding His actions. But in its earlier forms this prayer calls upon the Holy Spirit to come down - not upon the offerings, but upon those who have offered them, upon the people present and about to communicate - in order to sanctify them and make them worthy of the Holy food. Whether the Invocation, even in this earlier form, was a "primitive" element of the Holy Sacrifice is still a much discussed question. It is still a question among liturgical scholars, as to whether or not the Roman Canon originally possessed an Invocation of the Holy Spirit. That it possesses an "invocation" for the consecration of the bread and wine but before the Words of Institution and without special mention of the Holy Spirit, is a fact that cannot be denied. What is called by Dix the "link prayer" (the prayer Quam olationem) is certainly an "invocation" in this wider sense. In the Egyptian Liturgy (and in its earliest form the Liturgy of Sarapion) there is an Invocation and in the MSS. of the Egyptian Liturgy which was discovered at "der Balyzeh", there is a fully developed Invocation of the Holy Spirit for the consecration of the elements, after the Sanctus and well before the Words of Institution. Again (as seems to be inevitable in all such cases!) the MSS. stop short at the important moments, and we are left ignorant as to whether or not there was another Epiclesis as well, after the Words of Institution - as in Sarapion's Liturgy and in the later Alexandrian Rite. THE EPICLESIS IN THE APOSTOLIC TRADITION: In Hippolytus' Liturgy there is an epiclesis of the Holy Spirit after the Words of Institution: "And we pray Thee that [Thou wouldest send Thy Holy Spirit upon the oblation of Thy holy Church] Thou wouldest grant to all [Thy saints] who partake to be made one that they be fulfilled with [the] Holy Spirit, for the confirmation of [their] faith in truth". We have taken this translation form the edition of The Apostolic Tradition by Dom Gregory Dix. It is he who prints the actual epiclesis in square brackets, as he maintains that this apparent example of an epiclesis in the early third century is almost certainly a late Eastern interpolation. It is not found in the text which he entitle "T" in "The textual Materials" of his edition of The Apostolic Tradition (p. lxvi, No. iii et seq.). This is the text of the Testament of Our Lord, which is seventh century Syrian translation of a lost fourth century - or early fifth century - extension and adaption of The Apostolic Tradition. Dom Gregory Dix points out that it is important to remember here that the writer of "T" made use of a very good codex of the Tradition, and that he "also succeeded in treating his source with remarkable respect" (p. lxvii). He adds that an Eastern of the late fourth or fifth century might have been expected to be particularly careful to insist upon the Epiclesis - if such a thing existed in the original text of the Tradition or, if it was not in it, to have himself inserted it into his own edition of the text, especially as he has followed Hippolytus' text word for word right up to this particular point! Moreover, in"T" alone, the clause which follows the part given above in square brackets is really a "coherent text". But there are other liturgical scholars who do not agree with this view, and who regard the Invocation of the Holy Spirit in the other texts of The Apostolic Tradition as genuine and as a striking example of its early introduction into the Eucharistic Prayer. For example, Dr. Srawley declares that "the reading [containing the Invocation] is fully supported by both the Latin and the Ethiopic versions which are direct translations". He adds that "the words contain no petition for the conversion of the elements as in the later Greek forms. The whole emphasis is on the action of Holy Spirit on the minds and hearts of the faithful, "to bring God's people together in one", and "the oblation of holy Church", while it includes the gifts, would seem to suggest the whole action of the Church in offering. it is, in fact, a prayer of communicants" (The Early History of the Liturgy, Cambridge, 1947, p. 70). While this shows that the Invocation in Apostolic Tradition is of the early form, it does not thereby prove that it was in the original text. Dom Bernard Botte.O.S.B. of the Abbey of Mont Cesar, in Belgium, also disagrees with Dom Gregory Dix's view. In his brochure - Hippolyte de Rome: La Tradition Apostolique, 1946 (Blackfriars' Publications, agents for Les Editions du Cerf., Oxford. [pp. 22 and 23) - he says: "I believe that Fr. Dix is mistaken." He himself considers that the absence of the Invocation in The Testament of Our Lord is of much less importance than the agreement about its presence found in other texts - quite independently of each other. As a matter of fact Dom Botte really denies that the Invocation is absent in the text of The Testament. He says that although the Invocation does not appear in exactly the same part of the Prayer as in the particular MS. of The Apostolic Tradition, quoted by Dom G. Dix, it is found, nevertheless, only a little farther on - "In and equivalent form". But what Dom Botte considers to be an equivalent form of Epiclesis in The Testament of Our Lord is simply the last part of the prayer in Hippolytus' Liturgy, in which the actual Epiclesis was inserted in later times (according to Dix), and runs as follows: "And we pray Thee that .... Thou wouldest grant to all [Thy Saints] who partake, to be united [to Thee} that they may be fulfilled with the Holy Spirit for the confirmation of [their] faith in truth" (Apostolic Tradition, p. 9). This is hardly an "Epiclesis", i.e., an invocation of the Holy Spirit at all - although He is mentioned in the prayer which asks that the communicants be "fulfilled with the Holy Spirit for the confirmation of their faith, in truth". Finally, Dom Botte does not touch at all upon the long and detailed discussion of the general question of the Epiclesis of the Holy Spirit; its introduction into the Liturgy; its significance and so on - which is given by Dix in The Apostolic Tradition, pp. 75-80 iv, 11-12; nor does he explain why - if the Epiclesis was really an original part of Hippolytus' text - it was not copied, as it stands, in the text of The Testament! Dom Gregory Dix show that outside Syria the Invocation of the Holy Spirit in the Liturgy "cannot be traced farther back than c. A.D. 330". He sums up: "the explanation which best suites all the facts is that of interpolation [of the Epiclesis] in L.E." L is a "fragmentary Latin version" of the Apostolic Tradition of the late fourth or early fifth century; E is an "Ethiopic version of the whole treatise" of fifth century text of The Apostolic Tradition. (See The Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus, edited Dix, "Textual Materials, p. iii, and "Textual Notes", p. 79.). THE INVOCATION IN THE WEST: In The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai - noted before Mr. Edmund Bishop inclines, like Dom Dix,to the view of the comparative lateness of the Epiclesis of the Holy Spirit as a feature of the Liturgy, and also of the comparative lateness in the explicit development of theology about the Holy Spirit. Even in its earlier form, invoking the Holy Spirit to sanctify the communicants and to enable them to profit by their reception of the divine Food, the Invocation of the Holy Spirit seems to have been a fairly late introduction into the Eucharistic Liturgy. As for its presence in the Western Rite: a direct Invocation of the Holy Spirit is found - occasionally only - in the Gallican and Spanish MSS. - which are of sixth century date, it should be remembered. In the Roman Rite, apart from the Epiclesis found in Hippolytus - which may or may not be genuine the only other "clue" is found in two writings of Pope Gelasius I (A.D. 492-6). The first is a treatise on the two natures of Our Lord written against the Monophysites; the second occurs in a letter to Elpidius (Bishop of Volterra in Tuscany), dealing with the administration of the Sacraments by criminal members of the clergy. In the first the Pope says that "the image and likeness of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the performance of the Mysteries", and that "they pass into this, that is the divine substance, by the operation of the Holy Spirit" (A. Theil, Epp. Rom. Pontif.,(Braunsberg), I, 5-5-1). In the second, Gelasius asks "how will the heavenly Spirit (caelestis spiritus) come [when] called (invocatus) to consecrate the Divine Mystery, if the priest who prayers for His coming be rejected as full of criminous deeds?" (Thiel i, 486). In The Early History of the Liturgy, Dr. Srawley says, after giving he above quotations, that these words of Gelasius "give no indication as to how the Holy Spirit's action in the Eucharistic found expression", and that the first of the two passages could be regarded as referring to "a general recognition of the Holy Spirit's ministry in the Eucharistic rite", while the second passage, the"vague phrase ... (caelestis spiritus) is consistent with something little more than the phrase used in the Epistle to Caesarius, which speaks of 'the divine grace sanctifying the bread at the mediation of the priest'" - in Latin, divina autem sactificante gratia, medinate sacerdote, liberatus est ab appllatione panis (PG. Lii, 758). He adds that it has been argued that the original Epiclesis "has been whittle down in the Roman and other Western Rites under the influence of the idea that the words of Christ constitute the real consecration. But the evidence produced is inadequate to support this conclusion" (p. 178, italics mine). It is incredible that it should have left not a trace behind in any of the MSS., nor any reference to it in any ancient liturgical or other writings, except the above uncertain passages in Gelasius' letters and treatise. Cardinal Schuster, in his Sacramentary (Vol. I, p. 270. English translation, Burns, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1904), while he considers that the words of Gelasius refer to a pre-consecratory Epiclesis" (although he does not explain why or how the words of the Pope imply this latter fact), admits that the passage is not absolutely conclusive, for the Pope in writing to Elpidius may very well have been using an argument ad hominem and basing his reasoning on the Anaphora of his correspondent. THE QUAM OBLATIONEM - AN EPICLESIS: We have noted that some writers look on the Quam olationem as a relic of a former pre-consecratory full Epiclesis of the Holy Spirit, reduced later to a vaguer form - here again even the possible "why" and "how" are not explained, apart from the supposed more recent influence of the Words of Institution. The fact that there is a considerable amount of resemblance between the Roman Canon and the Anaphora of the Egyptian Rite and, especially, that the latter has, besides the usual Eastern Epiclesis after the Words of Institution, an Epiclesis before them - just after the "terasanctus" - certainly strengthens the opinion that the Quam oblationem is a pre-consecratory invocation, asking for the Divine act of consecration, but not necessarily ever an Invocation of the Holy Spirit in the technical sense, as in the Eastern Rites. THE ORIGINAL ROMAN EPICLESIS: Some consider that the Supplices - which is in the same position as the Epiclesis in most Eastern Rites - is a "watered down" relic of the original Roman Epiclesis. But not only is the Epiclesis "watered down" in this prayer - its nature is completely reversed. The Roman prayer, instead of asking for the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the oblations, asks that the oblations may be "borne by the hands of Thy Holy Angel to Thine Altar on high." The late Mr. Codrington, speaking of the above view of the Supplices as the Roman Epiclesis, says, first, that in certain Egyptian Anaphoras translated into Syriac, there is an Epiclesis of the Holy Spirit conjoined with a prayer asking God to receive the sacrifice upon His heavenly Altar (as in the Roman prayer), and he gives as examples the Anaphora of Timothy of Alexandria (British Museum, Add. 14520); the Anaphora of Severus (alias Timothy as above), translated into Latin by Renaudot, Litt. Orien. Coll. ii, 321 ff.; Syriac original (Paris, Bibiliotheque Nationale, MS. 75); Syriac Anaphora of St. John Chyrsostom (Renadudot, ii, 242 ff.). In the Greek Liturgy of St. Mark this prayer is found as the "Prayer of Offerers". i.e., before consecration. This latter position and object of the prayer is of late date and is contrary to the genuine Egyptian use. Mr. Codrington shows also that these two prayers - the prayer invoking the Holy Spirit to consecrate gifts upon the earthly Altar and the prayer asking that they be taken up to the heavenly Altar - are two quite incompatible types and represents two quite different views. In this respect, as in others, the Egyptian Liturgy agrees with that of Rome (Journal of Theological Studies, April 1938, No. 154, xxxix, 141-50). From Mr. Codrington's article it appears that the earlier Egyptian Liturgy (that is, of the date when the Epiclesis was introduced) possessed a "full blown" Epiclesis before consecration (the Words of Institution), and a prayer corresponding to the Roman Supplices (perhaps, rather to its earlier form in the De Sacramentis) after consecration. This provides again further resemblances between the Roman and Egyptian Rites.