CHAPTER  NINE

                FINAL  PRAYERS  OF  THE CANON  AND
DOXOLOGY

At the end of the prayer Nobis quoque there are two formulae of
special interest. The first runs as follows: per quem haec omnia,
Domnie, semper bona creas, santificas vivifcas, benedicis et
pretasas nobis ('through whom [Jesus Christ], O Lord, Thou dost
always create all these things good [i.e., 'create than as good', 'make
them good'], dost hallow, enliven (or 'vivify'), bless and bestow
them upon us".  (See Genesis 1:31; Wisdom 11:25)).  The above
words are usually explained as referring to the blessings of other
gifts presented, together with the offerings of bread and wine, by
the faithful at Mass.  For example, in the Liturgy of Hippolytus
offerings of oil, cheese and olives were presented, and the form of
the blessings of these objects is given in the text.  We have, too, an
actual example in the Tridentine; the solemn Blessing of the Holy
Oil of the sick on Maundy Thursday by every bishop in his own
cathedral, which takes place, moreover, at this very moment in the
Canon.

     ABOVE  EXPLANATION  UNSATISFACTORY:  According
to the Rev. J.B. O'Connell, author of several important books on
the ceremonial of the Roman Rite and editor of the Tridentine
Missal in Latin and English (1949, London: Burns, Oates &
Wasborune, Ltd.) and other liturgical authorities, the words in
question refer primarily to the consecrated Gifts themselves, and
can be so applied quite satisfactorily.  If we remember that the
consecrated (after the Words of Institution) offerings each retain
after consecration the outward appearances and characteristics of
bread and wine - the "accidents" as the theologians say - we shall
see that the word creas (Thou dost create") can certainly be used of
them.  Then the words sanctificas, vivificas, benedicis (Thou dost
hollow, enliven" - i.e., "fill with life", bless) all imply the act of
consecration which in a very true sense sanctifies, fills with life and
blesses the material offerings of bread and wine by changing them
substantially into the Body and Blood of Christ Himself.  The final
words preastas nobis ("Thou dost bestow upon us") refer to the
communion of celebrant, concelebrants and people - upon all of
whom God bestows this "Bread of Life" and "Chalice of Salvation". 
Fr. O'Connell points out that the words per quem ("through whom"
- i.e., Our Lord) which follow the conclusion of the Nobis quoque
(after which come the words discussed above) are closely
connected with the prayers that precede the Nobis quoque.  First,
the Unde et memores ... offerimus ... de tuis donis et datis, hastiam
puram ... panem sanctum vitae aeterne et calicem salutis perpetae
("... we offer ... from the Gifts given us by Thee, a pure Victim ...
the holy Bread of everlasting life and the cup of never-ending
salvation:), and the following words supra quae ("upon which"
[Gifts] and supplices te rogamus ... iube haec ('we humbly beseech
Thee ... command that these [Gifts] be taken up by Holy Angel, to
Thine Altar on high') leading up to per eumdem Christum Dominum
nostrum ("through the same Christ, Our Lord"), after which the
words per quem haec omnia no doubt originally followed at once;
that is, before the addition of the memento etiam and nobis quoque. 
If, however, the latter prayer formed part of the developed Canon
from the first, the per quem haec omnia would still have followed
on quite well.  It may be that the word creas led to the idea that the
whole set of expressions used here could not refer to the
consecrated Elements.  On the contrary, it would seem that the
whole "set" describes what we may call the "evolution" of the
divine action with regard to the Sacred Gifts of the Holy Eucharist.

     Another objection might be made, on account of the plural
words - haec omnia ("all these things") being applied to the Mass as
celebrated by one priest - normally with only one large host and one
chalice.  We must remember, however, that in the days when these
words were written, the small square altars of the Roman basilicas
were often "heaped up" (as one of the Mass Secrets puts it) with a
large number of small loaves - not thin wafers - and several chalices
of wine.  All these loaves and all the wine were offered during the
Mass by the members of the congregation, who all normally
received communion at the Mass, in both kinds.

     THE  WORDS  OF  THE  DOXOLOGY: These are - per ipsum
et cum ipso etc.  ("through Him and with Him"); which follow per
quem haec omina, and are more fittingly united with the preceding
words if these refer to the consecrated gifts, as suggested above. 
The Amen in reply to the doxology was originally chanted by the
whole congregation, and it is still sung by the choir in the
Tridentine - who represent the congregation.  The words
themselves of the doxology sum up the meaning and significance of
the Holy Sacrifice: "through, with, and in [the Divine victim] is
offered to God the Father all honor and glory in unity with the Holy
Spirit".  Very similar words are found in an example taken from the
Missale Gothicum given by Duchesne in his book on Christian
Worship, and it forms the conclusion of the prayer called Post
Secreta, after the consecration; sometimes also called Post Pridie or
Post Mysterium.  The words are as follows: haec nos, Domine,
instituta et praecpta retinentes, supplicitier oramus ... ut  fiat nobis
eucharistia legitma ... in transformationem corporis ac sanguinis
Domini Dei nostri Jesu Christi Unigeniti tui, per quem omnia creas
creta bendicis, benedicta santifuicas et santificata largiris Deus, qui
in Trinitae perfecta vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum ("holding
fast, O Lord, to these institutions and precepts, we humbly pray
Thee ... that a legitimate Eucharist be made for us ... in the
transformation of the body and blood of our Lord and God Jesus
Christ, Thine only-begotten Son through whom Thou dost create
all things; created Thou dost bless them;  blessed, Thou dost
sanctify and sanctified, dost bestow [upon us], O God, Who in
perfect Trinity livest and reignest world without end").  This will be
found in Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution (London:
S.P.C.K., 1903,pp. 217-18).  In a footnote on p. 217 the author
says that the words Ut fiat nobis eucharistia legitima "are a sort of
customary phrase, characteristic of the Gallican Epiclesis".  The
Mozarabic Rite has: "Haec omnia nobis indginis servis tuis valde
bona creas, santificas  ("All these things Thou dost create exceeding
good for us Thine unworthy servants, dost sanctify").  The Missale
Gothicum, as above, omits haec, and omnia as they are not found in
all the MSS.  With regard to this word, cf. Coloss. 1:15-17; I Cor.
8:6.

     THE  "OUR  FATHER"  OR  LORD'S  PRAYER:  Its position
in the Roman Rite, after the doxology of the Canon, is apparently
due to St. Gregory the Great.  The Saint was considered by
liturgical authorities until fairly recently to have merely moved the
Lord's Prayer from the original position before Communion (as in
the African Rite) back to end of the Canon after the doxology.  The
present tendency, however, is to consider that St. Gregory did not
only move the prayer, but actually introduced it into the Canon. 
The view that the Lord's Prayer is a primitive and universal element
of the Eucharistic Liturgy is no longer held by the authorities, since
there are early examples in which it is not found at all.  St. Justin,
for example, does not mention it, and it is not in Hippolytus'
Apostolic Tradition.  Again, in the East it is not in the Apostolic
Constitutions or "Clementine Liturgy", as this document is often
called.  It is true that the Clementine Liturgy was never in use as a
Liturgy; it was merely a composition of liturgical formulae put
together by a learned writer of the fourth century who is generally
believed to have been the same as the interpolator of the Epistles of
St. Ignatius of Antioch.  The fact that this writer made use of the
"Epistle to the Corinthians" written by St. Clement of Rome is the
reason this Liturgy was never in practical use, it is, nevertheless,
founded upon the Syrian liturgical type of the end of the fourth or
beginning of the fifth centuries, and it is the earliest description of
that liturgy in writing.

     FIRST  EVIDENCE  FOR  THE  USE  OF  THE  LORD'S 
PRAYER:  Its position at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer in the
East is declared by St. Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 348); St. John
Chrysostom, a generation later, does not mention it, however, at
Antioch - so apparently it was not a widespread custom in Syria in
Cyril's time (Dix, p. 130).  It is absent in the earlier form of the
Egyptian Rite represented by the Euchologion of Sarapion.

     In the West, St. Ambrose - about A.D. 395 - speaks of the
Lord's Prayer in his work De Sacramentis (iv, 24 - not vi, as given
on p,. 131 in the 1945 edition of The Shape of  the Liturgy), as in
use at Milan.  St. Augustine, early in the fifth century, speaks of the
Pater noster in the Liturgy of Africa - he says: "the whole of this
petition [that is, the Eucharistic Prayer] as the Saint put it: "the
prayers made when the elements are blessed and consecrated and
broken [for distribution] almost the whole Church concludes with
the Lord's Prayer" (Aug. Ep. 59; Ep. 149, 16; see Dix, p. 131; see,
too, Srawley, p. 143, italics mine).  Notice that the Saint says:
"almost the whole Church" - not "the whole" Church, absolutely.  It
is possible that the exception St. Augustine had in mind was the
Church of Rome - where Dix tells us that "the innovation does not
seem to have been accepted until the time of St. Gregory I" (c.
A.D. 595, Dix, p. 131 in footnote 3; a reference to St. Gregory the
Great, Epist. ix. 12 - in which Gregory speaks of the Lord's Prayer
at Mass.  See also: "John the Deacon", Vita Greg. ii. 20); in his
epistle to John, Bishop of Syracuse, he speaks of the Alleluia, the
Kyrie eleison, the vestments of the subdeacon and the Lord's
Prayer.  The Pope says of this latter - Orationem autem Dominicam
idcirco mox post precem dicimus, quia nos apostolorum fuit ut ad
ipsam solummodo orationem oblationis hostiam consecraent; et
valde mihi inconveniens visum est ut precem quam scholasticus
composuerat super oblationem diceremus et ipsam traditionem
quam Redemptor noster composuit super eius corpus et
sanguienem non diceremus. The usual translation runs as follows:
"But we say the Lord's Prayer (orationem ... Dominicam)
immediately after the Canon [precem -i.e., "the Prayer" par
excellence] because it was the custom of the Apostles to consecrate
the victim (hostiam) of the sacrifice (oblationis) by that Prayer [i.e.,
the "Lord's Prayer"] itself only.  And it seems to me very unfitting
valde inconveniens) that we should say over the sacrifice a prayer
which some learned man [scholasticus - perhaps merely "some
student"] had composed, and that we should not say over His Body
and blood that [prayer] which is handed down as our Redeemer's
own composition."

     ANOTHER  POSSIBLE  TRANSLATION: The words - quia
mos apostolorum fuit ut ad ipsam solummodo orationem oblationis
hostiam consecrarent - may be translated thus: "because it was the
custom of the Apostles to consecrate the victim with the Prayer of
Oblation itself only" - that is, with that we now call the Canon
alone, and without any other prayer!  The usual translation is the
result of taking the words oblationis and hostiam together as
meaning the  victim (hostiam) of the sacrifice Oblationis); the
suggested translation here, however, takes the words orationem and
oblationis together as meaning, "the Prayer of Oblation" - the
"Sacrificial Prayer", the Canon.  St. Gregory, according to this
translation, instead of saying that the Apostles used  in consecrating
only the Lord's Prayer, says, on the contrary, that they did not use it
all, but only the "Prayer of Oblation".  This seems more likely to be
the real explanation of his words, for it can hardly be true that St.
Gregory really believed that the Apostles consecrated by means of
the Our Father alone - even if the Words of Institution were
included as well.  What he would seem to have found "unfitting"
(incoveniens) was that Our Lord's own Prayer was not used at all in
His own Sacrifice - even though this was the custom of the
Apostles themselves.  No doubt, also, he knew that the Lord's
Prayer was used in Africa and some other places.  But quite in
accordance with the usual way of the Roman Church, when
adopting usages from elsewhere, the Pope preferred to place the
Our Father immediately after the doxology of the Canon, and so in
closer connection with it rather than in connection with the
communion as in Africa.

     AFTER  THE  LORD'S  PRAYER,  THE  FRACTION:  The
Fraction was the breaking of the bread for communion - an action
which gave a title to the whole Eucharistic Sacrifice itself.  Justin
does not mention the Fraction; the first description of it is found in
Hippolytus' Liturgy in The Apostolic Tradition (see Dix,'s edition,
already quoted, pp. 41 and 44).  The chief celebrant (the bishop)
broke the bread for his own communion and that of the
concelebrating clergy around him; the deacons broke those loaves
consecrated by the bishop for the general communion. The 
concelebrating priests also broke the consecrated loaves held before
them by the deacons upon a "vessel" (probably, as later on at
Rome, a paten).  The original reason for breaking bread at Jewish
meals - and, indeed, at those of all ancient peoples - was simply to
have a practical way for the host to distribute the bread to a number
of people.  But it soon became symbolic in Christianity, and was
looked upon even in Apostolic times as a sign of unity between all
sharing in a common meal, that all should eat the same bread, the
pieces being all broken from one loaf.  This was naturally especially
insisted upon in the Holy Eucharist (I Cor. 10:17; St. Ignatius - of
Antioch - 20:1).  Later on, but before the end of the second
century, another symbolism arose: the breaking of Our Lord's Body
upon the Cross.  This symbolism may have been due to the later use
of many loaves instead of only one from which all received their
portions.  This development - necessary because of the ever-
increasing number of communicants - lessened the external
evidence of the "One Mystical Body" feeding upon the "One
Bread".  This increase in numbers also led to the preparation of
small portions of the Eucharistic bread for consecration, and this no
doubt was the reason of the fraction losing some of its primitive
importance.  Much the same ceremonial was used for both fraction
and administration of communion in the Ordo Romanus Primus, as
in The Apostolic Tradition (p. 40, No. xxiii, and p. 43, No. xxiv).

     IN  THE  ROMAN  TRIDENTINE  MASS:  This part of the
Rite consists of six elements as follows:

     (a) The "Little Elevation", of Host and Chalice together,
so-called to distinguish it from the more solemn elevations of Host
and Chalice (each separately) which were introduced during the
Middle Ages - that of the Chalice not until the fourteenth century. 
The "Little Elevation" take place during the words omnis honoret
gloria ("all honor and glory"), which are the last words in the
doxology of the Canon.

     (b) The chant or recitation of the Pater noster and the
"embolism" (the prayer beginning Liber nos - "Deliver us, we
beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils") now recited secretly after the
Pater noster.

     (c) The Fraction: First of the Host into two halves; secondly, by
detaching a small particle from the left-hand (the right-hand half
being first laid upon the Paten).  The first of the two fractions takes
place during the first words of the conclusion of the Liber (per
enumdem Dominum nostrum - "through the same our Lord", etc.);
the second during the words: Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate
Spiritus sancti Deus ("Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the
unity of the Holy Spirit, one God").

     (d) Three Signs of the Cross made with the small particle over
the Chalice, during the words: Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum
("May the peace of the Lord be ever be with you").

     (e) The Commixture - that is, the mingling of the Sacred Body
and Blood by dropping the small particle into the Chalice with the
words: Haec commixtio et consecratio corporis et sanguinis Domini
nostri Jesu Christi fiat acciptientibus nobis in vitam aeternam ("May
this mingling and hollowing of the Body and Blood our Lord Jesus
Christ avail us receiving them unto life everlasting").  At High Mass
the chant of the Agnus Dei is sung by the choir after the
commixture; at Low Mass the celebrant recites it also after that
Rite.

     (f)  THE  KISS  OF  PEACE:  this follows after the first of the
three prayers said in preparation for his communion by the
celebrant, which is actually a prayer for peace; all three prayers are
of medieval introduction into the Mass.

     From all this it can be seen that the Fraction might easily pass
unnoticed or, if noticed, might appear to be connected with the
commixture rather than with the communion. The Fraction as we
now have it is, in fact, really that carried out originally for this
purpose  (the commixture), and distinct from the solemn fraction
for the communion of all present.
_____

     The words: ta hagia tois hagiois "holy things for the holy" - a
better translation being "The Things of God for the people of God")
are found in all Eastern rites, although there is not always an
accompanying elevation.  In the case of both words and elevation,
the intention is to remind the communicants of what they are about
to receive and the need of fitting preparation and reverence.  (b)
Fraction: This found in all Eastern Rites before the communion as
in the West, but in the Coptic Rite of Egypt there is, besides, a
preliminary fraction when the celebrant says while reciting the
Words of Institution: "He [Our Lord] brake it [the bread] and gave
it to His saintly disciples and holy Apostles."  At these words the
celebrant breaks the bread into three parts but without separating
them - the full Fraction being made at the usual place.  The
Eucharistic Fraction was an attempt to reproduce Our Lord's own
action at the Last Supper - the breaking of bread common in all
Jewish meals as among all ancient nations.  (c) Commixture: This is
not found in all Eastern Rites.  Where it is practiced, its object is to
declare that the broken Bread and the Wine poured out, though
externally distinct and separate, are not in truth separated but are
One.  In the Syrian Liturgy of St. James (Brightman, Liturgies
Eastern and Western, p. 62), a small particle is broken from one of
the large halves (into which the consecrated Bread has been
divided), and is dropped into the Chalice with words similar to the
Agnus Dei of the Roman Mass, which latter words were, in fact,
introduced into the Roman Rite by the Syrian Pope, Segiius I, in
A.D. 700.

     THE  FRACTION  (IN  THE  WESTERN  RITES):  In the
Gallican and Mozarabic (Spanish) Rites the order was: (a) The
chant of the words "holy things for the holy" (in Latin), but without
any elevation.  (b) Fraction and commixture:  The
Pseudo-Germanus of Paris explains the Fraction as representing or
recalling a miracle which had been "described by the holy Fathers,
of old" (declarata antiquitus sanctis patribus fuit).  According to
this story, a priest, while breaking the bread during the Liturgy, saw
an Angel cutting the members of glorious child in pieces.  This
miracle is taken from the Vitae Patrum - translated from the Greek
in Rome about A.D. 550   In Spain, however, the Fraction kept its
original importance as the preparation for communion, following
the example of Our Lord at the Last Supper.  In the formula
accompanying the commixture, the words Sancta sanctis ("holy
things for the holy") were used as an introduction to the rest of the
formula as follows: Sancta sanctis: et commixtio corporis et
sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Chrsti edentibius et bibentibus sit in
vitam aeteram ("holy things for the holy: and may the mingling of
the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ avail those who eat
and drink unto everlasting life").  In the Milanese Rite the formula
used in this place is derived - like other elements in this Rite - from
Gallican sources.  It is practically the same as the above Spanish
formula, but adds the word consecrati to corporis et sanguinis - in
English it would run: "May the mingling of the consecrated Body
and Blood."  This word "consecrati" is evidently an adaption of the
Roman formula: Haec commixtio et consecratio corporis et
sanguinis ("may this mingling and hallowing" - or "consecration" -
"of Body and Blood").  The Roman form speaks of consecration at
this moment, whereas the Milanese form used the word in the past
tense and passive form - the "consecrated Body and blood".  This
would seem to be due to an attempt to solve the theological
difficulty caused by the use in the Roman Rite of the word
"consecration" in connection with what is already consecrated,
while the latter use in the Roman Mass seems to be a relic of the
earlier custom (no longer admitted as valid) of consecrating
unconsecrated wine by dropping a particle of consecrated bread or
pouring consecrated Wine into it.

     The Fraction at Milan is accompanied by the words: Corpus
tuum frangitur, Christie; calix benedictur ("Thy body is broken, O
Christ; the Chalice is blessed") - which, as Dom Capelle, O.S.B.,
(Abbot of Mont-Cesar, Louvian, in an article "Le Rite de la
Fraction dans la Messe Romanie" in the Revue Benedictine t. liii,
Nos. 104, 1941) points out, is a mere statement of fact!  He goes
on to show that the series of acts and prayers in this part of the
Mass, as in the earlier arrangement - elevation, Fraction,
Commixture - in keeping with the most ancient usage, and, too, the
meaning expressed in the series is perfectly clear.  Thus, the Host
and Chalice are elevated to show and to remind the communicants
what they are about to receive as the Food and Drink of their souls
- in the words (probably in the Roman Rite, too, originally, as in the
other Western Rites as well as in the Eastern Rites): "holy things for
the holy".  by these words the communicants were reminded of the
need to prepare themselves as worthily as they could.  The
consecrated bread is then broken so that It may be distributed
among all - that all may be "made one" in the One Bread". The
bread is mingled with the consecrated Wine, to show that the
Sacred Body and Blood, separated in the Sacrifice of the Cross,
were reunited at the Resurrection, and that the two "kinds" in the
Eucharistic Sacrifice, although they are distinct from each other, do
not imply any real separation - for in each kind the whole Christ is
Present.  As we noted above, the Ordo Romanus Primus, in which
is given a full description of the Roman solemn Mass in the eighth
century - and probably in earlier centuries, at least in part - we have
a picture of the earlier and simpler form of the three rites: elevation,
Fraction and Commixture.  But Dom Capelle warns us that we
cannot always depend upon the edition usually quoted, as it was
edited in the seventeenth century by Dom Mabillion, who based his
edition upon a mediocre text.  Dom Capelle himself makes use here
of a number of MSS. of the two earlier recessions of the Ordo
(Revue Benediictine, pp. 9-38).
     THE  "FERMENTUM"  AND  "SANCTA":  The above
mentioned difficulty concerning the Ordo Romanus Primus is
connected chiefly with two rites in the solemn Mass, known as the
Fermentum ("leaven") and the Sancta ("the Holy" -which may be
either in the singular number, agreeing with Hostia, the"Victim"; or
in the plural, meaning simply "the holy things", the offerings of
bread).

     It maybe said at once that in the Fermentum we are dealing with
a well attested historical fact, but in the case of the Sancta there is
no real certainty, for it rests apparently upon the authority of
Mabillon alone, in his commentary on Ordo Romanus Primus (cf.
P.L. t. lxxviii, 869-70).

     THE  FERMENTUM: This rite, which took place in both
Eastern and Western liturgies, is, in the eyes of Dom Gregory Dix,
the earliest example of official reservation of the Blessed Sacrament
- though for only a very short time.  The name fermentum
("leaven") was given to particles broken from the loaves
consecrated by the Pope at the solemn or stational Mass in Rome
(and by other bishops in their episcopal cities), and "reserved", that
is, probably, kept upon the Altar till near the end of the Mass, when
the various particles were carried by acolytes to the titular
churches, where Solemn Mass was being celebrated the same day
as the Papal Mass for those of the faithful unable to assist at the
latter.  These particles were put into the fraction.  The rite of the
fermentum symbolized the fact insisted upon by St. Ignatius of
Antioch (A.D. 50 to between A.D. 98 and 117): "Let that be
accounted a valid Eucharist which is either under the bishop or
under one to them the bishop has assigned this" (Epist. Smyrn, viii,
1).  The fermentum showed, too, the "oneness" of the sacrifice,
although offered by many ministers in many places.  The title
fermentum, "leaven" indicated that the portion of the Pope's or
bishop's oblata consecrated by him, "leavened" (spiritually) the
oblata of the other celebrations of the Mass, permeating them, so to
speak, with the authority of the High Priest of the whole Christian
Priesthood.  When the stational Mass was not celebrated by the
Pope in person, a fermentum was sent by him form his own offering
of the Holy Sacrifice to his deputy in the stational church.  The
fermentum is of every early origin, dating from the second century. 
It is first mentioned by St. Irenaeus of Lyons in letter to Pope
Victory I - in A.D. 195 (Dix, pp. 21, 134, 285; and see A Delection
of Aumbries, by the same author, 1942, pp. 16 et seq.).  The
fermentum is mentioned also, later on in A.D. 416, by Pope
Innocent I in his letter to Bishop Decentius of Gubbio.  The Pope
states that the fermentum must not be carried out to far off country
churches  - to avoid irreverence to the Blessed Sacrament; in Rome
it was carried only to the titular churches or in other cities to the
more important parish churches, not to the lesser places such as the
oratories in cemeteries, etc. (Epist. xxv, ad Decentium ep.
Eugubinum: Migne, P.L. 553).

     The fermentum continued in practice in Rome up till the eight or
ninth centuries; in the East, however, it was probably dropped
during the fourth century.

     THE  SANCTA:  Although this title is used in the Ordo
Romanus Primus in quite general sense, upholders of the "rite of the
Sancta" consider that it is a title, in a technical sense, analogous to
the term  fermentum.  According to the explanation given by Dom
Mabillon and his followers, the Sancta was another particle (like the
fermentum) broken by the Pope from one of his oblata, and left
upon the Altar till the end of the Mass.  It was then reserved -
wherever it was customary to reserve the Most Holy - until the next
Mass celebrated by the Pope.  During this Mass it was dropped into
the Chalice before communion, another particle having been broken
from the consecrated Bread to serve as the Sancta for the next
Mass again.  The object of this rite, it is said, was to symbolize the
oneness of the sacrifice in time, as that of the fermentum did with
regard to place; the Sacrifice offered by the Pontiff yesterday was
thus shown to be identical with that offered today.

     Dom Gregory Dix, in The Shape of the Liturgy, considers that
the Sancta was introduced into the Roman Rite only during the
sixth century, and that it came from the Gallican Rite.  In Gaul the
ceremony seems to have been mentioned first by St. Gregory of
Tours, in his de Gloria Martyrum, 86, (c. A.D. 480; Dix, p. 134 and
footnotes 2 and 4).  In the Gallican Mass in the eighth century, the
Pseudo-Germanus of Paris (c. A.D. 700) speaks of the body and
the Lord carried in procession in vessels shaped like towers (in
turribus) at the moment of the Offertory.  Duchesne, in his Christian
Worship, explains this as referring to the oblations of bread and
wine to be consecrated at Mass and which were brought into the
church in this solemn manner, and to which, by anticipation, the
same honor was shown as they received after consecration - must
as takes place in the ceremony of the "Great Entrance" at the
Offertory in the Byzantine Liturgy today.  (Christian Worship: Its
Origin and Evolution, etc., London, S.P.C.K., 1903, p. 203).  On p.
205 of this book, Monseigneur Duchesne quotes from the writings
of St. Gregory of Tours, mentioned above, where St. Gregory
speaks of the deacon "accepting the tower in which the Mystery of
the Lord's Body was contained" and which he was taking into the
church "that he might place it on the Altar".  The Lord's Body,
however, escaped from his hand and placed Itself upon the Altar - a
miracle which was believed by those present to have indicated the
unworthiness of the deacon in question!  In common with most
liturgical authorities in his day, Duchesne believed that the above
description of the Gallican Rite ascribed to St. Germanus of Paris
(c. A.D. 496-576) was actually written by him, and that the Gallican
Rite in general was of Eastern origin.

     In the Ordo Romanus Primus a similar "procession of the
Blessed Sacrament" is described, which, however, takes place, not
at the Offertory, but at the very beginning of the Mass, as the
Pontiff and his ministers were entering the basilica during the chant
of the Introit Psalm with its repeated antiphon.  As they entered the
Sanctuary, two acolytes approached each bearing a capsa (a kind of
pyx or box of metal) containing the Sancta - the term used here in
the plural - a number of consecrated particles.  The subdeacon,
coming forward, opened each capsa to show the sacred particles to
the Pontiff.  The latter adored the blessed Sacrament and inspected
the contents of the capsae to see if there were too many particles, in
which case he ordered some to be put in the usual place or
reservation - in conditorio, says the text.  Among these particles, it
is maintained, was one which had been consecrated by the Pope in
the preceding Mass and reserved as the Sancta (in the official sense)
to be placed in the Chalice at the end of the actual celebration. 
Nothing is said in the Ordo as to the destiny of the two capsae, but
it is supposed that they were held, or at least one of them was held,
by one of the acolytes in the Sanctuary until the special Sancta was
taken to the Altar.  Some think that this Sancta was taken out of
the capsa and held by the acolyte upon the Paten.  It has long been
a difficulty to explain why the subdeacon (formerly an acolyte) at
High Mass held the empty Paten wrapped in a humeral veil and held
up with such reverence, from the Offertory till the end of the Pater
noster.  The Paten is, it is true, is a consecrated vessel of the altar;
nevertheless, it is not easy to see why it should be treated with such
almost excessive reverence, and not simply laid down (on the
Credence, for example) till wanted at the Altar.  If, however, it was
originally the Blessed Sacrament that was held thus on the Paten,
the difficulty is overcome at once.  In the Ordo Romanus Primus
the writer, after speaking of the Canon as far as the little elevation,
suddenly remembers that he has omitted to say what is to be done
with the Paten.  He says: Nam, quod intemissiimus de patena ("we
have, by the way, omitted something about the Paten"), and he goes
on to describe the very complicated ceremonial of transferring the
Paten from acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and so on, until it is
received by the second deacon from the archdeacon and presented
by him to the Pontiff himself.  The Paten, the writer explains first in
this delayed description, was taken by an acolyte and held -
wrapped in a linen veil - before his breast from the beginning to the
middle of the Canon.  Then follows the above mentioned
complicated description of its "journey" to the Altar.  When the
Pontiff said Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum ("The Peace of the
Lord be ever with you"), he made the Sign of the Cross three times
with his hand over the Chalice, and then dropped the particle of the
consecrated Host into it.  In the text the words are: mittit sancta in
eum "he drops the Holy" - or "the Holies" - "into it" - the Chalice. 
here the word sancta, would seem to be the neuter plural accusative
of sanctum,  and so to mean several particles and not only one.  The
Ordo give no further explanation, but many think that this is the
Sancta in the special sense of that term.  The writer of the Ordo,
after speaking of the Kiss of Peace, goes on to say that the Pope
breaks off a portion from one of the two loaves, which he had
offered himself, on the right side of the loaf and leaves the broken
portion upon the Altar when he goes to the throne to assist at the
general Fraction by the concelebrating bishops and priests and
deacons.  The Ordo explains that the consecrated fragment is thus
left upon the Altar; "so that while the solemnities of the Mass are
celebrated, the Altar may never be left without the sacrifice". 
Nothing is said about the final disposition of the particle.  Dom
Capelle, in his article in the Revue Benedictine, t. liii, treating of
this part of the Ordo, shows that the threefold Sign of the Cross
over the Chalice and the act of dropping a consecrated particle into
it are later interpolations in the original text; he admits the breaking
of the particle which was left upon the Altar by the Pontiff, but
declares that the explanation given for thus leaving it upon the Altar
is also a later interpolation and evidently the work of one not
altogether at home with Roman Rites and observances.

     Dom Capelle, in short, does not believe in the existence of any
such rite as that of the Sancta: He points out that the text of the
Ordo contains no indication of it.  With regard to the adoration of
the reserved particles of the Blessed Sacrament borne by the two
acolytes at the beginning of the ceremony, this seems to be partly in
preparation for offering the Holy Sacrifice, but principally (as the
text itself declares) in order to supervise the condition of the
reserved Sacrament.  There is mention at all of any special Sancta
contained in the capsa since the preceding Mass, and now brought
to the Sanctuary to be consumed at the Mass about to take place. 
If there had been, surely the Ordo (which goes into such detail in
laying down the different ceremonies of the Papal Mass) would
have carefully explained one of such importance as this?  Again,
while there is (as far as have seen above) a long and complicated
description of the transfer of the Paten from one official to another
- and just at the moment of the Mass at which the supposed rite of
the Sancta ought to take place - no suggestion even is given of a
consecrated particle actually upon the Paten.  On the contrary, as
Dom Capelle says: "this Paten which is kissed and passed on, is
evidently empty".  Farther on in his article the Abbot says that while
"the need to underline the hierarchial idea in the tituli [the parish
churches in Rome] in which the priest celebrated only in the name
and in the place of the bishop of  Rome, is easy to understand, the
desire to unite the sacrifice of today with that of yesterday seems
less natural - even far fetched"; and he adds: "In the description of
the ceremonies of our Ordo everything is minutely laid down and
the various duties clearly portioned out between acolytes,
subdeacons and deacons" - why, then, should the passage
concerning the (supposed) rite of the Sancta be such a complete
exception?  Dom Capelle concludes: "This idea [of the Sancta] does
not go back further than Mabillon's brain!"  (Revue Bened., t. liii,
pp. 17-22).  Dom Capelle considers that the portion broken  by the
Pope from one of his own oblata and left upon the Altar, as
described in the Ordo, was the fermentum which, as we noted, was
a consecrated particle to be sent from his own Mass to the Mass
celebrated the same day in the titular churches.  It was at the Pax
Domini that the Pope put this particle aside; it was at the Pax
Domini that it would be dropped by the celebrant of the titular
church into his own Chalice: the two acts correspond.  Dom
Capelle considers that the fragment thus reserved till this moment
of the Mass was placed in one of the capse entrusted to the
"subdeacon oblationer", who took it to the titular church (Revue
Bened., t. liii, p. 16).  It must be confessed the above explanations
are not much clearer, at first sight, than those put forward by
upholders of the Sancta - as far at least as the text of the Ordo is
concerned.  The word  fermentum is not used at all in connection
with the particle left upon the Altar and, as we have noted, nothing
is said as to its final destination.  From the text, too, it would seem
that only one particle was broken off  by the Pontiff - and yet, as we
know, several Masses were celebrated at about the same time as the
Papal stational Mass, in the various titular churches in the city.  The
ceremony of the fermentum consisted in sending a corresponding
number particles, thus broken by the Pope from his own oblata, to
be distributed among the titular churches at more or less the same
time.  No doubt the answer to this would be that the rite of the
fermentum was so well known, and so constantly in practice, that
minute explanations were considered unnecessary.  Moreover, as a
matter of fact, the ceremony is fully described in the first of two
supplements to the Ordo Romanus Primus (of which Dom Capelle
speaks), and this description lays down certain changes in the
rubrics required when the Pope was not himself the celebrant of the
stational Mass.  Such an occasion demanded a fermentum brought
from the Pope's own Mass, celebrated elsewhere.  The text of this
supplement is of ninth century date:"... when he [the Pope's deputy]
is about to say Pax ... vobiscum, the particle of the fermentum
consecrated by the Apostolic [Lord - that is, the Pope] is brought
by the subdeacon oblationer and given to the archdeacon, who
offers it to the bishop.  This latter, making thee Signs [of the Cross]
and saying Pax ... vobiscum, drops it into the Chalice" (P.L., t. liii,
p. 22).
     When the Pope did not celebrate Mass at all and there as
therefore no fermentum for the deputy bishop in the staitonal Mass,
the following rubrics are given: these are the same as the directions
given down in the Ordo for Papal Mass, up to the breaking of the
particle to be left on the Altar.  The supplement order that when the
celebrant says Per monia saecula saeculorum, he breaks the oblation
on the right side, and the portion thus detached is put into the
Chalice.  This is evidently an adaption of the fermentum ceremony -
from mere habit, for there was no real reason to put the particle in
the Chalice, in this case, as in the case of the fermentum sent by the
Pope.  Thus rubric for a Solemn Mass without the fermentum
seems to have been a  respondent to that of the Papal Mass.
According to one text of the Ordo Romanus Primus, the Fraction
and Commixture are made in this way by the Pope - at the Altar,
not at the throne.  But this is a later interpolation, as Dom Capelle
shows.  In the original text there was a fraction simply in order to
obtain the particle which was to be left on the altar, and there was
no Commixture. Dom Capelle presumes - conjecturally, as he
himself admits - that this interpolation was put into the Ordo
elsewhere than in Rome, an also that the special edition of the Ordo
in which it is found was likewise brought out elsewhere than in
Rome (Revue Bened., t. liii, pp. 24 ff).

     THE  SANCTA  AND  THE  PATEN:  One unfortunate result,
if the Sancta be rejected, will be that the satisfactory explanation
which it provided for the subdeacon holding the Paten so solemnly
at High Mass must be rejected also, and so that ceremony still
remains a puzzle!  Perhaps it will be necessary to return to the
explanation generally accepted - that in those days the Altar being
very small and the "Altar breads" being large and thick - little
loaves, in fact - there was not enough room to place the Paten on
the Altar.  In those days, too, there was probably no "Credence
Table", and so the acolyte held the Paten wrapped in a "Humeral
Veil" (the scarf worn round the shoulders - hence the name
"humeral" from the Latin humerus - "a shoulder"), since all sacred
vessels were held thus and not in the bare hands.  But probably this
was done without the elaborate ceremony we find in the case of the
subdeacon, who replaced the acolyte during the Middle Ages.  Dom
Capelle sums up the facts and the conclusions at which he has
arrived as follows: 

     GENERAL CONCLUSIONS: (I) According to the earliest
known series of rubrics in the Papal Ordo in  Rome, the various
ceremonies of the fraction did not begin until after the words Pax
Dominie had been chanted by the Pontiff.  These words were, them,
the signal for the Kiss of Peace to be given among clergy and laity;
it seems that the Pope himself did not give the Kiss to any person -
although he probably kissed the Altar or the Paten.

     (ii) The Fraction as it us found in the Tridentine Mass is in
reality derived from the first Fraction - in the Ordo Romanus
Primus necessary, in order to obtain the fermentum which was left
upon the Altar.   When the rite of the fermentum was given up, the
particle thus broken of, instead of being left upon the Altar, was
dropped at once into the Chalice and so a commixture at the Altar
was introduced into every Mass.  This led finally to the suppression
of the ancient
and most impressive ceremony of the Fraction carried out by all the
assistant clergy for the communion of all taking part in the
Sacrifice.

     (iii) The Chant of the Agnus Dei: this was originally instituted to
be sung during the Fraction - which took a considerable time.  It
was then altogether separated from it, and became separated also
from the short Fraction which replaces the original ceremony.

     (iv) It may be asked why the Host came to be broken into three
portions - first into two halves, then a small particle being detached
from the left-hand half?  Originally the Pope offered for himself two
loaves of  bread.  From one of these loaves he broke off  the
portion to be left upon the Altar.  This Fraction left three portions
of bread - one entire loaf, the broken loaf and the portion broken
from it.  In later times a mystical meaning was given to this number
three.  According to Amalarius of Metz (later Bishop of Treves,
died A.D. 850), a great liturgical writer of the ninth century and
especially interested in the Roman Rite, the three portions of the
Host represent three states of Our Lord; the particle dropped into
the Chalice represents the Body of Christ risen from the dead (the
Body and Blood being united again); the portion received in
communion represents the Body still upon this earth; the third
portion left upon the Altar represents the Body of Our Savior in the
Sepulchre.  In Amalarius' time this latter particle was used no
longer for the fermentum, but served for the Viaticum of the dying
(P.L., t. cv, 1154; cf. Revue Bened., t. liii, pp. 29 and 30). Dom
Capelle concludes this long and interesting study with a suggestion
of the possible restoration of the earlier series of actions in this part
of the Mass - a restoration which could be effected without any
great disturbance of the existing rubrics in the Tridentine Mass - as
follows:

     1. After the Amen of the embolism (Libra nos) which follows
the Lord's Prayer, and which itself might be chanted or recited
aloud (as on Good Friday in the Mass of the Prescantified and in
every Mass in the Milanese Rite), the celebrant would say secretly
the first of the three prayers said just before communion.  This is
actually a prayer for peace: Domine Jesu Christe qui dixisti: pacem
relinquo vobis ("Lord Jesus Christ who didst say ... peace I leave
you"), and so ought to be said before the Kiss of Peace, whether in
act, as at High Mass, or only in word, as at Low Mass.  The "word"
is the phrase: Pax Domini sit semper vobsicum ("May the peace of
the Lord be ever with you") - an invitation to receive the Kiss, and
at High Mass the Kiss would follow immediately after the
invitation.

     2. Having crossed himself with the Paten and kissed it, the
celebrant would carry out the Rites of the Fraction and Commixture
as prescribed in the Trindentine Missal - but in silence as on Good
Friday.  At High Mass the Agnus Dei would be sung during the
Fraction; at Low Mass the celebrant would continue to recite it
after the fraction, as became the actual rule.

     3. Immediately after all this, the celebrant would recite secretly
two remaining prayers before communion (Revue Bened., t., liii,
pp. 39 and 40).

     THE  COMMUNION  OF  THE  CELEBRANT AND  ALL 
PRESENT:  Communion was regarded as the climax and
completion of the Eucharistic Sacrifice by all pre-Nicene writers.  It
seem that in early times it was distributed in both kinds by the
deacons, not by the celebrant or his assistant priests - this is clear
from St. Justin.  But St. Hippolytus in his Apostolic Tradition
insists more than once that the bishop shall, if possible, give the
Bread "to all with his own hand", assisted by the concelebrating
priests.  These latter also administer the Chalice -"or, if there are
not enough to them, the deacons" (Apostolic Tradition,pp. 43 and
44).  In later times this function accorded to the deacons had to be
restricted to a certain extent, as the deacons were inclined
to""promote" themselves above the priests and so to administer
communion in both kinds and even to priests!  The administration
of the Chalice to the faithful laity, however, continued to be the
deacon's duty in Rome until a comparatively late date.  Deacons
were also sometimes allowed to administer communion in the
species of bread from the reserved Sacrament, but they were
ordered to receive communion themselves from the bishop or
concelebrating priest and after the latter had received their own
communion.  In the early period communion was received by all
(lay-folk as well) standing, and by the clergy first.  It appears, also,
that the communicants moved from one "minister" to another - to
receive both kinds - and the latter remained standing before the
Altar.  Prior to the present day Novas Ordo the communicants knelt
at a rail or at the steps of the sanctuary, and the celebrant passed
along the row.

     SECOND HALF OF  THE  EUCHARISTIC  PRAYER:  All
this part of the Mass is composed of what the author of The Shape
of the Liturgy calls the "second halves" of the Eucharistic Prayer,
and which he regards as later additions belonging to the fully
developed forms of the Eucharistic Liturgy.  This he considers is
evidenced by the "great diversity" found in the different rites; he
even looks on the Words of Institution as part of the "second half",
and to (in primitive ages at least) as essential elements.  Dom
Gregory Dix himself, however, when he says (speaking of the
words used in the administration of Communion) that those who
consider that the words of Our Lord at the Last Supper were really
`words of administration' "find no support in the practice of the
primitive church.  On the contrary, that church ... places the Words
of Institution as the central thing in the Eucharistic Prayer"; and on
another page he says: "For this much is certain.  Whether the
reference to the Last Supper belongs to the primitive nucleus or
not, it is the center or pivot of all the developed traditions of the
prayers" (Dix, pp. 137 and 227 - italics mine).  There is really no
difficulty about these diversities in the development of liturgical
forms - even in the case of the Words of Institution.  The diversity
in from, development in expression and clearness of intention are
not proofs that entirely new additions have been made  - in the
sense of new teaching or doctrine.  In spite of diversity in form,
both the words of Institution and the "links" joining the earlier part
of the Eucharistic Prayer with the account of the Last Supper or the
above Words of Institution are all at one in the underlying and
essential "sameness" of meaning and intention - which is all that
really mattes.

     NO  FORMAL,  CORPORATE  THANKSGIVING:  There
was no "postcommunion" prayer and no blessing was given.  The
only ceremony following the Communion was the dismissal.  This
was a pronouncement - made probably by the deacon - that the
service was ended and that all might depart.  In the actual Roman
Mass we have the words: Ite missa est - the word missa is late Latin
for missio, and the whole may be translated as: "Go, it is the
dismissal" - literally, "the sending away".  After this came the
cleansing of the Chalice (the "ablutions", as they are called now)
and the removal of the Altar cloth - which was what we now call
the "corporal"; the service had begun with "laying the cloth" and
placing the Chalice and Paten with their contents (wine, water and
small loaves of bread) upon it.  When during the fourth century a
formal, public act of thanksgiving was added, the ablutions still
usually took place at the same moment, and so before the
Thanksgiving.  But alter on, in the Eastern Churches (in Syria,
before the end of the fourth century), a custom was brought in of
removing to the Sacristy the particles of consecrated Bread that
remained over from Communion.  These consecrated particles were
consumed in the Sacristy, and the Chalice cleansed there also
afterwards.  Dix thinks it possible that this removal of the
consecrated Bread to the Sacristy, before the Prayers of
Thanksgiving, was due to the custom of reservation - which was
then usually in the Sacristy and more or less secret.  The feeling
then was that the Sacred elements should not be on the Altar
"except during the vital sacramental action itself, from the Offertory
to the Communion" (Dix, p. 140).  In the Tridentine Roman Missal
the ablutions take place at the early moment of the Rite and before
the Thanksgiving Prayer.  The celebrant drinks the ablutions from
the Chalice; formerly they were poured away - in the Middle Ages,
down the "piscina" - that is, the drain made for that purpose in the
wall, usually on the south side of the Altar, and having above it a
shelf on which the cruets of wine and water can be placed; the name
"piscina" literally means a fishpond - from the Latin word piscis - a
fish.  It was at this moment of the Liturgy that, according to St.
Justin, some of the consecrated Bread was given to the deacons for
them to take to the sick and those in any way prevented from
communicating during the Liturgy. The faithful present also
received consecrated particles to take with them, to be reserved in
their own homes for communion on those day of the week on
which the Liturgy was not celebrated.

     SUMMARY:  (i) The Tridentine Roman Preface and Canon
formed originally but one long prayer - the Eucharistic Prayer" - of
which the first part consisted of a series of Thanksgivings to God
the Father for all His mercies - especially for the Incarnation and the
Redemption of His Son.  The second part was concerned with
certain petitions justified by the acknowledgement of the above
mentioned Divine mercies; and by the duty of thanksgiving for
these fulfilled in the first part.

     (ii)  The original Eucharistic Prayer was probably not at first
divided into two by the chant of the threefold Sanctus.  This chant
seems to have been introduced into the prayer fairly late in its
history, and, moreover, when it was introduced (apparently in the
Egyptian Rite) it was probably at first placed at the end of the
Eucharistic Prayer, forming the climax of the doxology.  The chant
of the Sanctus seems to have spread from Egypt all over the
Church, both in the East and in West.

     (iii)  The two early Italian Eucharistic Prayers spoken of in
chapter five provide - especially the longer of the two - an idea of
how the original Roman prayer was formed, and they have relics of
the series of thanksgivings which originally comprised the first part
of the prayer.  They show, too, the connection between the
thanksgivings of the first part and the petitions of the second part. 
The longer of the two prayers turns from thanksgiving to petition,
because - "we cannot worthily give thanks to Thy great mercy" ...
therefore ... "we pray Thee of Thy great and merciful love to hold
accepted this sacrifice which we offer unto Thee ... through Jesus
Christ our Lord and God; through Whom we pray and beseech" (in
Latin, per quem petimus et rogamus).  Unfortunately this prayer
stops short at the most important point, but it goes far enough to
show, by comparison with the Tridentine Roman Canon, that it is
an equivalent of the Te igitur section, but without any "Preface" (in
the later sense) or Sanctus. (See Dix, p. 541).  It is clear that the
resemblances between the early Italian and the later Roman prayers
are fairly close.  Both ask for the acceptance of the sacrifice by
God, and both use almost identical words in connection with Our
Lord - e.g. "Through Jesus Christ our Lord and God, through
Whom we pray and beseech" (Italian prayer); "Through Jesus
Christ Thy Son, our Lord, we humbly pray and beseech Thee:
(Roman Canon).  The words italicized are the same, in Latin, in
both cases petimus/ et rogamus, or rogamus ac petimus.

     (iv) The "puzzle" of the Roman Eucharistic Prayer is to a great
extent the reduction of the original thanksgiving series to a mere
statement that: "it is meet and right to give thanks to God in all
places and at all times", the position of the series, stating the
various reasons for this, being taken up with other matters, or
leading up directly to the Sanctus.  Thus, the original use of the
word igitur to indicate the transition from thanksgiving to petition
(as in the Eucharistic Prayer for the consecration of the Chrism)
was obscured and the igitur became a "mystery"!

     (v)  Before the prayers for the Church and the Pope, the
Memento of the living and the Communicantes all became parts of
the Canon, the words quae tibi offerimus ("which we offer unto
Thee" - omitting the in primis, "in the first place'), which come after
haec dona, haec numera, haec sancta sacrificia ilibata ) "these gifts,
these duties, these holy unspotted sacrificial offerings") were
probably the last words of the Te igintur clause, which would then
have been followed immediately by the prayer leading to Our Lord's
words and action at the Last Supper (the consecration of the gifts)
introduced by the words Qui pridie quam pateretur ("Who, on the
day before He suffered").  This prayer is called, by Dix, the "link"
between both the preliminary thanksgiving and petitions and the
account of the Last Supper.  The Roman "link" begins: Quam
oblationem ("which offering"), and so connected with it by the
relative quam ("which").  Perhaps this prayer began, originally, not
with the relative form Quam oblationem, but with one more like the
direct from in the Ambrosian Rite - Fac hac oblationem ("make this
offering" etc., instead of "which offering").  As we have seen, the
Roman Hanc igitur prayer is of later date, and at first was used only
occasionally.

     THE  ROMAN  CANON  IN  GENERAL:  It can be said that,
apart from a few revisions made by the two Popes, Gelasius and
Gregory the Great. the Western type of Liturgy (as developed
during the fourth century) still survives in the Roman Tridentine
Canon in spite of the "enhancements, (referred to by  liturgical
scholars as "improvers"), of all the centuries", as Dix says on p. 557
of The Shape of the Liturgy.  This page (except for barely five lines
at the top) is taken up with two long and most helpful footnotes on
what has been, up till now, a very complicated question.

     In the first of the two footnotes Dix give the following useful
summary: he says: "The history of the Roman Canon does not seem
very difficult to make out in its lines, once we discard theories
about `dislocation' and `diptychs' and the `primitive Roman
epiclesis" (italics mine).  Then comes the summary:

     (i) Preface and Sanctus took the place of the ancient series of
thanksgivings in the fifth century, leaving, practically merely the
words declaring that it "is meet, right and our bounden duty at all
times and in all places to give thanks", etc.

     (ii) The second part of the Te igitur, following after the mention
of the offerings - namely the prayers for the Church, the Pope, local
bishop and probably, originally, of all Orthodox bishops - is
connected, like the Hanc igitur, with the "naming" of those who
presented offerings of bread and wine at Mass which was
introduced at this point in the Canon in the fourth century.

     The first part of the Te igitur, however, belongs to the old
Eucharistic Prayer.  The opening words lead on the petitions which
- as the word igitur ("therefore") indicates - were justified by the
dutiful acts of thanksgiving at the beginning of the Eucharistic
Prayer.

     (iii) Communicantes was introduced by Gelasius (A.D. 492-6) -
the idea being derived from the Jerusalem Rite, in which the Saints
were "named" as well as ordinary persons.

     (iv) Quam oblationem is the survival of the pre-Nicene "link:
between the first part of the Eucharistic Prayer (thanksgivings and
petitions) and the account of the Last Supper, consecration, etc.

     (v) After the Institution comes the prayer known technically as
the Anamnesis - that is, the recalling to mind of the Passion,
Resurrection and Ascension of Our Savior (which appears to have
been at first special to Rome, but to have spread thence all over the
east and West); two prayers follow - for the acceptance of the
Sacrifice by God - as he had accepted the sacrifices of the Old Law
(Supra quae propitio) and for the ratification of the Sacrifice
offered on earth, upon the heavenly Altar (Supplices te rogamus). 
These three prayers are perhaps later  developments of the one
short prayer in the Ambrosian Rite which expresses the ideas of
each.  The Supplices includes prayers for the communicants, which
part was probably fuller and more explicit in earlier times.

     (vi) The Memento etiam - commemoration of the dead - was
originally inserted only in Requiem and funeral Masses and, even
thus, is of fairly late introduction into the Roman Mass.

     (vii) Nobis quoque was introduced by Gelasius at the same time
as the Communicantes, and for the same reason.  It is possible,
however, that Gelasius introduced only the names of the Saints in
the place, and that the rest of the prayer was actually in the Canon
already, and apart from the Memento etiam; it follows on quite well
from the preceding prayer, Supplices, and would seem to have been
a prayer for the celebrant and his concelebrants ("we also, Thy
sinful servants").

     (viii) Per quem haec omnia ("through Whom all these [good
things]") is the old blessing of fruits and other such things offered at
Mass and found as early as the Liturgy described in The Apostolic
Tradition of Hippolytus (pp. 10 and 11 of Dix's edition, 1937).  But
it seems very probable that these words referred originally and still
refer primarily) to the Body and Blood of Our Lord under the
Sacrament category of bread and wine.  Per ipsum is the closing
doxology of the Canon.  It appears, then, that the variable prayers
in the Canon are fifth century additions when the "fashion" of
variable prayers was coming in, in the West, and which nearly
carried the day at Rome as in Gaul.  Dom Gregory Dix concludes:
"I believe that this account of the matter can be fully substantiated
from the evidence, through it has not yet been dome" (p. 557,
footnote I).



































                                 PART  II


                       PRAYER:  THE  DIVINE  OFFICE





































                               CHAPTER  ONE

              THE  CHARACTER  OF  ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN 
WORSHIP

The Divine Office is he solemn public prayer of the Holy Orthodox
Church, just as the celebration of the Divine Liturgy of the
Gregorian Mass is the solemn public sacrifice of the whole Western
Rite in the whole Orthodox Catholic Church.  

     THE  TITLE  "OFFICE":  This is derived from the Latin word
officium, meaning "duty" or "obligation" - or, again, "service".  This
duty, obligation or service is "divine" because it is owed to God
Himself.  In his Holy Rule, St. Benedict calls it "the Work of God"
(Opus Dei), and declares that it is the principal work of the
monastic life, underlying and influencing all other work that my be
undertaken by the monks, and which must never be "preferred" to
the Office  - never "put in its place" (nihil praeponature Operi Dei;
"let nothing be put before the Work of God").  (The Rule of St.
Benedict, chap. xliii: "Of those who come late to the Work of God,
or to table".)

     The Prayer of the Church was fully developed, in the West
primarily and to great extent in the East, only in the fourth century,
but the fundamental elements existed long before that date - even
from the very beginning with the Western Orthodox Church herself. 
It was, however, in the fourth century that Christian worship came
forth from the obscurity of the earlier ages, the ages of persecution. 
It ceased to be the private worship of what was, in the eyes of the
pagan world, merely one among many other "secret societies" for
the service of some god unknown to the ordinary Roman citizen
within the Empire, and became the corporate worship of the One
Holy Orthodox and Apostolic Christian Church recognized and
respected in the civilized world of the day.  This change in the idea
of Christian worship - in the minds of those outside Christianity and
of Christians themselves - was the cause of another change,
especially concerned with the Eucharistic Sacrifice, then as always
the very center of that worship.  This was the change from what is
called the "eschatological" view of the Holy Sacrifice and of
Christian worship in general, to a view affected by the process of
time.  (See Dix, pp. 305-6).  This change does not mean that the
eschatological emphasis was or ever could be entirely lost sight of. 
It still had, and has, its importance, and that importance is being
recognized more and more in the present day.  

     THE   WORD  ESCHATOLOGY:  This term is derived from
the Greek eschaton, which means "the end".  In the eyes of the
Jews and in those of the Christians (who adapted it from the Jewish
point of view), the beginning and end of all life was to be found in
God and His will.  The end especially (the "eschaton") was known
as "the day of the Lord" to which everything in history leads up, in
spite of all the efforts of evil to upset the Divine Plan.  This "End" is
at once in History and beyond it; the summing up of time and its
transformation to what is beyond and above time.  Early
Christianity, which had developed out of Judaism, saw the "End" or
purpose of all history, of all life, in Jesus Christ, in Whom it was at
once proclaimed as about to come and as already accomplished.  In
His death upon the Cross, in His resurrection from that death, and
in His Ascension into Heaven, the End, the "Age to come" was
proclaimed and realized.  His Church, which is His Mystical Body,
is, too, the proclamation and the realization of the "Eschaton" - for
the Church is Christ.  At the same time history continues; so that in
the idea of the End, the Eschaton, we have time and eternity.

     THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  ESCHATOLOGY - which is
concept every difficult to grasp by most of us today - because of the
fact that it concerns very closely the nature of the Eucharistic
Sacrifice, and can be of immense help in understanding the
"Mystery of Faith", as far, that is, as such a Mystery may be
understood.  To most of us the words of our Savior to His disciples
at the Last Supper: "Do this for a commemoration of Me" (or
"memorial of Me" - in Greek, anamnesis - Luke 22:19, etc.) means
that the celebration of the Liturgy of the Mass is the
commemoration in our times of the voluntary Sacrifice offered
upon the Cross in past times - many centuries ago.  This is, of
course, perfectly true and correct as far as it goes, and from the
entirely human point of view.  But there is more than this in its
relationship to the "Mystery of Faith".  From the point of view of
eternity, of God Himself - the Liturgy of the Mass is not only the
memorial of the voluntary offering on the Cross of the God-Man in
the human understanding of that word - simply the reminder by
means of a symbolic act, of something that actually took place
many ages ago - it is, here and now, a re-living in sacred time -
space (if truly participate, concelebrate as His chosen people with
the priest celebrating Divine Liturgy we will be temporarily carried
back in time to being present and witnessing) His voluntary
Sacrifice offered upon the Cross, and, in fact, the whole of the
Redeemer's work on earth; His resurrection, Ascension and
entrance into the heavenly Sanctuary, which in the sight of God is
"now" - time is swallowed up in eternity.  In passing, we find it
strange that the author of The Shape of the Liturgy, who explains
the whole concept of Jewish and Christian eschatology so clearly
and applies it so effectively to the question of the connection
between the Divine Liturgy of the Mass and the Cross, should,
nevertheless, apparently find it difficult to apply it to the Last
Supper and the Sacrifice Jesus Christ offered for us on the Cross. 
He considers the Last Supper as only a "rehearsal" (as he himself
puts it) of what Our Lord wished His disciples to do - after His
death upon the Cross - on the grounds that the "memorial Sacrifice"
could not be offered until the Sacrifice it commemorates had itself
been offered."  But why should Our Savior be thus restricted by the
exigencies of time before His voluntary Offering upon the Cross,
but not after it?  To quote the author's own words: "The same
eternal fact can touch the process of history at more than one point,
and if there is an apparent difference in the effect of such contacts,
that difference is entirely on the side of the temporal process,  for
eternity knows no "difference" and no "before" or "after" (Dix, p.
263, italics mine).












                               CHAPTER  TWO

                   THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  DIVINE  OFFICE

The custom of public prayer distinct from public sacrifice also
comes under the influence of the changed ideas in Christian worship
which came into being during the fourth century.  It has been
maintained by Dix that such a custom began only in the fourth
century, and that in pre-Nicene days, and up to that century, there
was no regular system of corporate prayer except an occasional use
of the service, which generally preceded the celebration of the
Eucharistic Sacrifice, used apart from the Sacrifice.  The existence
even of a regular vigil service on Saturday evening in preparation
for Sunday is denied, and it is maintained that the only vigils were
that of Eastern on the eve of the great Day (Holy Saturday, as we
call now), and perhaps that also on the eve of Pentecost. Later on
there were, besides these vigils the "station days" on which the
service of readings from Holy Scripture, Psalms and intercessory
prayers was celebrated.  In some places (probably at Rome and
Alexandria, for example) these station services did not include the
Eucharist, but in other places (e.g., in North Africa) it followed the
synaxis, as can be gathered from the writings of Tertullian.

     Dom Gregory Dix considers that the regular "Divine Office" is
entirely due to the monks, and that it was adopted by the Church as
a whole only during the course of the fourth century.  His reason
against any corporate daily prayer service in the early Church -
besides the lack of direct evidence - is the contention that the early
Christian life of worship was incompatible with the life of the pagan
world in any public manner; there could be no open intermingling of
daily life and worship.  In other words, Christians had to practice
their religion in secret - or, at least, apart from those of their fellow
men who were not of their own faith.  But in the case of the monks,
daily worship could be carried out in full, since the monk left the
world in order to give himself up to a life of worship and prayer in
the monastery, and so to carry out literally, as far as possible, the
exhortation of Our Lord: "we ought always to pray and not to
faint" (Luke 18:1).  Christian worship, then, was realized fully only
in monastic life.  Nevertheless, as time went on the Church was
influenced to a great extent by the monastic form of prayer
throughout the day, and gradually adopted this scheme of continual
prayer.

     THE  HOURS  OF THE  DIVINE  OFFICE:  Since it is
impossible for human beings  - even monks - to pray always in the
absolutely literal sense (there must be time to eat, sleep, study,
work), the public of "family" prayer of the monks was spread out
over the day by means of the various "Hours", during the night, at
dawn, at the three most important moments of the working day -
the third, sixth and ninth hours (our nine, twelve midday and three
o'clock), the time in ordinary life to start work till after the siesta or
afternoon rest - and finally at sunset and before retiring to rest.  In
this way, too, the words of the Psalter quoted in his Rule by St.
Benedict, when speaking of the Work of God: "Seven times a day I
have given praise to Thee" (Psalm 119:164), in connection with the
Day Hours; and: "I rose at midnight to give praise to Thee" (Psalm
119:52) are fulfilled.  (See Rule of St. Benedict, chap. 16).  In
pre-Nicene times, prayer in the morning and evening, and also at
the above times during the day (the third and ninth hours were, too,
the times at which the Jewish daily sacrifices were offered), was
undoubtedly practiced by both clergy and laity apart from the
monks, but as private devotions, not corporate worship.  

     THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  OFFICE:  While it is
granted willingly that the early monastic communities gave great
importance to the development of the Office during the fourth
century, and that the "Little Hours" (Prime, Terece, Sext, None and
Compline) are almost certainly "monastic inventions: - that is, as
elements of the public Office, for prayer at the third, sixth and ninth
hours was practiced, at least privately, in early times  all the weight
of evidence is that "Vespers and Matins-Lauds grew out of the
vigil, which was the public Liturgy of the Church at which everyone
assisted.  In a book entitled The Influence of the Synagogue upon
the divine Office (Oxford University Press, 1945), Mr. C.W.
Dugmore, B.D. (long time James Mew Rabbinical Hebrew Scholar
in the University of Oxford) maintains and brings forward
arguments  that from the earliest times the Christian Church
possessed two daily services of morning and evening "praise",
which it had inherited and adopted from the example of the
Synagogue.

     MORNING  AND  EVENING  PRAYER:  In the regular
"Divine Service" not only were there two public services on the
Sabbath day (Saturday) and on Monday and Thursday (fast days),
but there were also evening and morning services on every day of
the week.  On Sabbath days and also on the Mondays and
Thursdays, the service consisted of readings from the scriptures
(especially the Law and the Prophets) of the chanting of certain
Psalms, a sermon and prayers; but on the other days, apparently,
only Psalms and prayers were recited; there were no lessons from
Holy Scripture, and there was no sermon.  It is a generally accepted
view, as we have noted previously, that the first part of the
Mass-Liturgy, (which is quite evidently in itself' a complete service)
was derived from the Sabbath service of the synagogue.  
According to Mr. Dugmore - in summing up all his arguments: "It
has been suggested that the Christian week included worship not
only on the Lord's Day but on every days as well."  He says that on
Saturdays "in the East not the West - and Sundays - the Holy
Eucharist was celebrated from the beginning as well as the
Pro-Anaphora", and that in some local churches this double service
was celebrated also on the Wednesday and Friday station days, but
in other places probably the Pro-Anaphora alone. The
Pro-Anaphora alone was, too, the normal service everywhere on
weekdays.  But here again there may have been differences in
practice.  It is certain that at Rome and Alexandria, and in most
other places, Scripture lections and instructions on them were of
daily occurrence.  In some churches, however, the service may have
been confined to prayer and praise.  He concludes that "there can
be no doubt that public worship at dawn and at sunset was the
tradition of the early Church" (p. 112).  The author finds his
evidence for this daily public service of prayer and praise morning
and evening, first of all in the likelihood, even certainty (as far as
that is possible without actual proof) that the early Church,
composed at first entirely of Jews, must have been influenced by
and attached to the observances of the Religion in which her
children had been brought up and which was the Divine preparation
for the Religion to which they now belonged (Dugmore, pp. 43 et
seq.).

     EUCHARISTIC  AND  NON-EUCHARISTIC  WORSHIP: 
Secondly, Mr. Dugmore relies on certain of the early Christian
writers - e.g., Tertullian and Origen, both of second century date. 
The former says explicitly: Aut sacrificium offeture, aut Dei verbum
adminstratur -"either the sacrifice is offered, or the Word of God is
set forth" (De Gult. Fem., II.xi; P.L.,, i, 1445).  All these writers at
least refer to what may be legitimately considered to be daily public
services of prayer, although word-for-word proof cannot be
asserted. At the end of chap. III ("The Christian Week") Mr.
Dugmore says that we may conclude from all that he has written
that daily services modelled upon those of the Synagogue had
existed in the Church from the very beginning, apart from the
celebration of the Holy Eucharist.  The latter was usually (though
by no means always) preceded by a similar service - the
pro-Anaphora or synaxis - but this service had existed as a distinct
service in itself from the earliest times, and was recited without the
Eucharist on weekdays, both in the East and West.  In the latter a
daily celebration of the Eucharist became habitual (introduced
possible in Rome or in North Africa) at the beginning of the third
century, and this custom was found also in certain isolated districts
in the East; but it never became universal there.  With the growth in
the West of the daily Mass and the rise of monasticism in both East
and West, the daily non-Eucharistic services became part of the
developed monastic Hours and influenced the already existing
distinct monastic services of the morning and evening, later known
as "Matins" and "Vespers" (this morning office, later still, was given
the name of "Lauds", see Dugmore, pp. 57 -58).  In the following
chapter, "The Growth of the Canonical Hours", Mr. Dugmore fully
admits the monastic origin of the Little Hours and the fusion which
came about, probably during the fourth century, between the old
ecclesiastical "morning" and "evening praise" and the monastic
"Laus perennis" ("perpetual praise") - perpetual, that is, in the wide
sense of the word, being celebrated throughout the day, and not
only morning and evening.

     THE  VIGIL  SERVICE:  Monasticism was accountable not
only for the Day Hours, but also for the nightly vigil service which
had been celebrated only on Saturdays in the ecclesiastical office. 
With regard to the virgil in general, Mr. Dugmore tells us that it not
till Tertullian's time that we have definite news of the weekly vigil. 
No doubt the Easter Vigil was the first in the use and, just as the
Christian week was formed on the model of what we now call Holy
Week, so the weekly vigil was an adaption of the great Paschal
Vigil.  But, again as in the case of the week itself, the weekly vigil
came into being quite early.  Mr. Dugmore says that this vigil every
week was held probably on the Sunday - that is, on the evening of
Saturday, or, as the Hebrew method of time put it, "between the
evenings".  This means that the sabbath ended in the evening, and
the first day of the week - our Sunday - began and lasted till the
following evening.  The vigil on the anniversaries of the a martyr's
"witness" to Christ our Lord were of somewhat later date than the
weekly vigil - in accordance with the development of the their
"veneration cultus" in the Church.  Tertullian speaks of regular
vigils which he calls nocturnae convocationes (literally "nightly
callings together") (Ad Uxor. II, xiii; P.L., i, 1406).  It seems from
the context that these "convocationes" took place on the station
says.  The vigil properly so-called was a very late service - about
midnight - and in preparation (like the Paschal Vigil) for the Holy
Eucharist; hence it would have been celebrated only in those places
which the Eucharist itself was offered on the station day.  Where
this was not the usage, the ordinary pro- Anaphora office would
have been observed (Dugmore, pp. 41-2).

     TWO  TYPES  OF  OFFICE:  Not only were the two types of
office (ecclesiastical and monastic) distinguished by the different
number of services in each, they were also distinguished by the
difference in the intention for which such acts of worship were
celebrated.  The public service of prayer and praise offered by the
Church was based upon that of the Jewish Liturgy from which it
was derived.  The idea among the Jews underlying he two services
of "morning" and "evening" praise was to "bless" (that is, to
"thank") God, for His gift of light to man.  In the morning God was
blessed for the light of the sun - His immediate creation; in the
evening He was blessed for the light which He had given man the
power to produce himself, in the lighting of the evening lamp.  This
idea was kept on in the Christian Church, with the addition of
thanksgiving for the spiritual light of the soul given to the members
of His Mystical Body by Our Lord in His resurrection, which was
especially honored in the morning office of praise.   In the
synagogue morning service there was at the beginning a benediction
for the gift of light.  In the Christian Church we have the text of
such a benediction, in the form of a hymn, in the Testament of Our
Lord (probably a Syrian liturgical document of about A.D. 350). 
This document is derived from the much older Apostolic Tradition
of St. Hippolytus of Rome, and the text of the morning hymn is not
doubt an example of an earlier tradition.  With regard to the
blessing of the lamp in the evening,  St. Basil the Great, in the same
century, speaks of it as being of immemorial antiquity.  He says: "I
will now add what perhaps would be otherwise too insignificant to
adduce, but on account of its antiquity is required for the refutation
of him who accuses us of novelty.  It seemed good to our fathers
not to receive in silence the gift of light at eventide, but as soon as
it appeared, to return thanks."  What the Saints says next is of
special interest: "Who was the author of these words of
thanksgiving at the lighting the lamps we are unable to say: the
people, however, use the old form, and no one ever thought them
guilty of impiety for saying, `we praise Father, Son and God's Holy
Spirit'."  De Spirit. Sanct. xxix. 73; P.G. xxxii. 205; see Dugmore,
p. 46).  In time the evening service came to be known in Latin as
the lucernarium  (from lucerna, "a lamp"), which might be
translated as "the lamp service".  A striking survival of this service
remains in the Roman (Tridentine) Rite, in the Blessing of the
Paschal Candle by the deacon on Holy Saturday.  The special
blessing of the fire which precedes that of the candle, however, is a
late addition to the Roman Rite, dating only from the eleventh
century and coming from Gallican sources.  The ceremony of the
candle itself - apart from this special form - was an ancient one, for
it was in use in Jerusalem before the end of the fourth century.  The
original Roman ceremony would have been - as the author of The
Shape of the Liturgy puts it: "the practical one of getting a light to
hold the service by" (Dix, pp. 23-24, footnote 3).
 
     In the fourth century we have a very interesting and very living
account of the public services in preparation for Easter in the local
church of Jerusalem.

     AETHERIA  AND  JERUSALEM:  This account - which
incidentally shows the two types of service, ecclesiastical and
monastic, closely united but not yet entirely fused into one  - is
provided in the letters written by a Spanish abbess, called Etheria or
Aetheria, to her nuns describing her journey to the Holy Land in
A.D. 385-8.  These letters were discovered by Signor G.F.
Gamurrini in 1887, and published under the title Peregrinatio
Silviae, because at first this lady was believed to the Silvia, sister of
the celebrated Imperial minister in Aquitaine, Rufinus.  But her true
name and personality were established in later discussions on the
matter (Srawley: The Early History of the Liturgy, Cambridge,
1947, p. 73).  

     In these letters of the Spanish nun, which are referred to by both
Dom Dix and Mr. Dugmore in their respective works, Aetheria
(this apparently the most favored form of her name) describes in
detail the daily offices in the church of the Anastasis (that is,
"Resurrection"), and show very clearly the distinction between the
ecclesiastical and monastic services at the "tenth hour" - about our
(natural) 4 P.M. - which service she calls "licinicon" (the correct
form is luchnicon - the Greek translation of the Latin lucernarium).
Aetheria tells us, too, that there is also an office at dawn: "when it
begins to get light (Lucesere)".  These two hours are ecclesiastical;
other hours of which Aetheria speaks, which are celebrated during
the course of the day, are monastic offices at which the monazontes
and parthenae - monks and nuns (literally "solitaires" and "virgins")
assist regularly.  The clergy and lay folk were also present at all
these hours, but they were present officially only at the morning and
evening offices, which were strictly ecclesiastical.

     THE  MONASTIC  NIGHTLY  VIGIL:  At the "nocturn" as it
was called  only monks and nuns were officially present, although a
few "devout" members of clergy and laity also assisted.  Mr.
Dugmore says: "The special importance attached  to these times of
prayer [that is, the early morning and evening services] is best
explained on the hypothesis that they represent the tradition of the
primitive Church at Jerusalem derived directly from the Synagogue
practice and continued throughout that obscure period of which we
have few, if any, records, until they became incorporated in the
monastic Hours of prayer, some time in the fourth century."  the
chief object of these monastic Hours, was to fulfill - as far as is
possible under the ordinary conditions of human life - the
admonition of Our Lord to "pray always".  The Divine Office
became, in fact, the external mark of and witness to the monastic
vocation; that is, a life dedicated to continual worship and prayer.
The second example of the difference between the early
ecclesiastical and the monastic services lies in the methods of using
the Psalter.  In ecclesiastical services, the Psalms chanted were
specially selected for the circumstances, as devotional "comments"
on the lesson of  Holy Scripture that had just been read aloud.  The
author of the Shape of the Liturgy points out as a good example of
a "devotional comment": "the use of Ps. 138:1-1 as a comment of
Hosea 6 [Osee in the Douay Bible] at the Paschal Vigil, which was
the Roman use in the third and probably in the second century"
(Dix, p. 39 and footnote 3).  Later on the Lesson from Osee
became the first of the two lessons before the Passion in the Good
Friday service, when the twelve prophecies were introduced
(together with other additions) into the Holy Saturday vigil service. 
But on Good Friday a tract from the Prophecy of Habakkuk (chap.
3) now took the place of Psalm 138:1-12.

     The underlying object of the monastic hours of prayer was the
chant of the whole Psalter of 150 Psalms distributed throughout
each Hour, so that the whole would be completed in the week - this
is the express desire of St. Benedict, who says in his Rule that
"those monks would show themselves very slothful in the service of
their devotion["devotion" in the sense of the "consecrated duty" of
their state of life] who said in the course of a week less than the
entire Psalter ... since we read that our holy fathers resolutely
fulfilled in a single day what I would that we tepid monks may
achieve in a whole week" (The Rule of St. Benedict, chap. 18, "In
what order the Psalms are to be said").  The Psalms were the
private as well as the family prayers of the Desert Fathers and
elsewhere before these were united with the establishment of 
communities in the cenobitical  way of life.

     THE  DOUBLE  OFFICE  AT  JERUSALEM: In Aetheria's
time the morning and evening praise of the clergy followed the
morning and evening office of the ascetics.  When the ecclesiastical
vigil service took place on Saturday, the bishop and the greater
number of clergy and laity left the church while the ascetics chanted
their own vigil office, or "night office" those of the clergy and laity
who stayed on for it doing so as a private devotion.  As for the day
hours Terece, Sext and None (at 9 A.m., midday and 3 P.M. of our
time respectively), these hours were hardly more than private
devotions even at this period.  In Jerusalem, according to Aetheria,
Terce was recited only during Lent, although the other two hours
were celebrated every day.  We should not rely on the descriptions
of the Office at Jerusalem by Aetheria as examples of the Divine
Office and its development in general.  This usage is purely local
and an example of the unique character of the church in which it
was celebrated.  The early texts in Africa and Egypt supply the
principles of the later development of the Office during the fourth
century - for both the clergy and the monks.  In the Acts of the
Apostles we find mention of the steadfastness of the Christian
community at Jerusalem in the practice of prayer.  This prayer was
then "community prayer".  We have noticed also the special times
for daily prayer - at the third, sixth and ninth hours (that is, the later
offices of Terece, Sext and None), although these hours were then
private devotion, not liturgical offices.  The ecclesiastical offices or
morning and evening praise are of fairly late date in the history of
the Liturgy.  There is a strong possibility that they were established,
in some places at least, soon after the time of Hippolytus of  Rome. 
The latter - in the third century - mentions the same series of
"hours" of prayer (Terce, Sext and None) spoken of above,
although even in his time they were not yet part of an established
liturgical Office.

     THE  ROMAN OFFICE  MONASTIC:  At Rome, quite
differently from the other Western Rites and from those of the East,
the monastic type of Office seems to have prevailed entirely over
the ecclesiastical type - if, indeed, the latter ever exited at all in the
Roman Church.  As far back as we can go, the Roman Office
appears as a monastic office of the Western type, combining he
usages of both Egypt and the East, but in rather a heavy and rough
and ready manner.

     A  DOUBLE  TRADITION:  The whole question of the history
of the Divine Office lies in the fact that there is everywhere a
double tradition; ecclesiastical and monastic. The first is concerned
with the sanctification of the morning and evening hours, perhaps
influence by the daily morning and evening sacrifices in the Temple
of Jerusalem; lessons from Holy Scripture for the instruction of the
Christian people were added to the chant of Psalm at least the
evening office.  The Paschal Vigil was a most ancient tradition,
which was copied in later times more or less for all Sundays of the
year, and which influenced, too, the "funeral vigils" at the martyrs'
tombs.  It was the influence of the monks which in the service of
the basilicas - that of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in A.D. 340,
and perhaps at Antioch and Constantinople towards the end of the
fourth century, and certainly at Rome and in Gual during the fifth
century - which started the intermingling of the two traditions; and
nowhere else as much as at Rome, did the monastic use prevail over
the ecclesiastical to such an extent.

     THE  FULLY DEVELOPED  OFFICE:  Two other day hours
beside those of Terce. Sext and None are found in later times. 
These are: "Prime" (prima hora - the first hour of the say after
dawn, about 6 A.M. our time, at the equinoxes) and "Compline"
(completorium - from complere - "to end", "complete"), the last
office of the day before retiring to rest.

     THE  OFFICE  OF  PRIME:  In the fourth century, Cassian - an
authority on  monastic life and himself a monk - describing the
psalmody of the Egyptian monks of his day in the second and third
books of his Istitutiones, and comparing it with that of his own
monastery at Bethlehem, speaks of a morning office which had
recently been introduced.  The reason for this new office was to
remedy an abuse that had crept into the observance, namely that of
the monks returning to their beds after the night-office and resting
there as late as the hour of Terce.  For  many years the introduction
of this new office was considered by most liturgical authorities to
mark the origin of the above mentioned office of Prime.  But now
most consider this to be a  mistake, and that the new office was that
called Matins by St. Benedict, which in later times was known as
Lauds, Prime, which was unheard of until the time of  St. Benedict
- that is, during the sixth century.  If this is true and there are
serious reasons to support it, the adoption of an office of morning
praise by the monks was not a mere adaption of the similar office
celebrated by the clergy from the earliest times, but an independent
institution - although it was probably influenced and helped on by
the ecclesiastical service.  In any case, the fairly late adoption of the
morning office by the monks is no argument against the earlier
origin of the ecclesiastical office.

     THE  OFFICE  OF  COMPLINE:  In chap. 4  Cassian describes
the institution of the new "morning office" at Bethlehem , ending
with the statement that this new addition to the "hours'" makes up
the sacred number of seven - in accordance with the words in Psalm
119:164: "seven times a day I have given praise to Thee, because of
Thy righteous judgments." This office mentioned by him in Inst. iv.
19; his words are: "The brethren having met together in one place
in order to chant the Psalms, which they sing habitually when about
to retire to rest" (conenientibus in uum frartibus ad convinendos
psalmos quos quieturi ex more decantant).  The majority of modern
liturgiologists have decided that a formal Compline office cannot be
deduced from this text.  There is no other reference in Cassians's
works to any other evening office after Vespers.  Compline as well
as Prime have a very uncertain origin.  They are generally thought
to be no earlier than the sixth century - that is, in  St. Benedict's
time, but it is not generally held that it was the Saint himself who
introduced either of them.  In the Holy Rule, St. Benedict speaks of
Compline (completorium) - and is the first to call it by that name -
but without any explanation of the office or its name (as though it
were something already well known); he speaks only of the number
of Psalm that are to be said in the office (Rule of St. Benedict,
chaps. xvi, xvii, xviii).

     THE  UNIFICATION  OF  THE  DOUBLE  OFFICE:  This
was effected by the combination of the ecclesiastical and monastic
hours of prayer.  The organization of these two elements at
Jerusalem, as described by Aetheria, seems to have been the work
of  St. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, in A.D. 350.  Some authorities
even consider that he "invented" the ecclesiastical office himself,
but it seems more likely that he only organized it, adopting his ideas
from the monastic "family" prayer, and thus preparing the way for
this later to become also the corporate prayer of the whole Church. 
The as yet partial union between the two types of office found at
Jerusalem in Cyril's time is also evident in both the Mozarabic
(Spanish) and the Ambrosian Rites in the West, and is still,
moreover, quite noticeable in both Rites.  Mr. W.C. Bishop says:"in
the services of the ancient Ambrosia and Mozarabic Rites we find a
survival of genuine examples of the ancient secular service of the
Western Church from which inconsistent accretions can readily be
separated, leaving the original form and order of the services
practically intact and complete." The "inconsistent accretions" are
the additions originally of only two daily services (morning and
evening) and a weekly vigil service, from the monastic cursus which
extended over the whole of each day.

     In the office of Vespers, in both the Ambrosia and Mozarabic
Rites, there is a reference to the lucernarium - the ritual lighting of
the evening lamp which was the chief characteristic of the earlier
service of evening praise.  The Psalms used were originally specially
selected Psalms.   In the monastic cursus, however, the whole
Psalter was arranged to be recited during a certain period of time. 
The same is true of the other office of "nocturns".  This office was
made up of the elements of what are now treated as two distinct
offices - matins and lauds - but which, in the Ambrosian and
Mozarablic Rites, formed only one.  According to Mr. Bishop,
there is evidence that the original Vespers and Nocturns of the
Spanish and Ambrosian Rites were not daily services, but occurred
only on those days on which Mass was celebrated.  This shows,
perhaps, the original identity of the two offices with the weekly
vigil service of the old ecclesiastical cursus.

     THE  BYZANTINE  RITE:  On p. 57  Mr.  Bishop speaks of
the Byzantine Rite and says: "The Byzantine Rite is used by both
monks and seculars ... and in its present shape the Rite is evidently
monastic, though it is probable that some parts of these services are
derived from earlier secular sources; and I believe the same can be
said of the present Coptic, Jacobite and Church of the East hour
services."  C. L. Feltoe on The Mozarabic and Ambrosian Rites,
mentions this book by W.C. Bishop and agrees with the author's
statements.  But there is another possible example of this partial
fusion of the two offices (ecclesiastical and monastic) in the
Byzantine Rite to which the I have failed to find any reference or
even any recognition of its existence, in any literature about the
Eastern offices.

     MIDNIGHT  OFFICE  AND  GREAT  VESPERS: The
Byzantine office possesses besides the usual system of "Hours",
two other offices which are not found in any other liturgical system. 
These are: (a) an office known as the "Midnight Office" (in Greek,
Mesonyktikon) and (b) the office known as "Great Vespers"
(Megalos Hesperinos).  The first of these two is quite distinct from
the office called Daybreak Office" - Orthos, which is equivalent to
the two Western Offices of Matins and Lauds joined together,
although the Midnight Office is often spoken of as though it
corresponded to the Western Matins, and the daybreak Office to
Lauds.  "Great Vespers" is, however, really distinct from "Little
Vespers", this latter being celebrated on ordinary days, while the
former is celebrated only on Saturdays and on days when there is a
long vigil service known as "Pannychis" (that is, "All night
service").  Strictly speaking, the vigil for Solemn Office should start
with "Little Vespers" on Saturday evening, and this office should be
followed immediately by "Great Vespers"; then, in monasteries, the
monks' supper - with a solemnly chanted grace - and after supper,
Apodeipnon - that is, the "after supper" service corresponding to
the Western Compline.  Next should come the Midnight Office
unless there were a "Whole night vigil" (pannychis, referred to
above).  This latter is also called the Agrypnia, i.e., "Watch service"
(from the Greek agrypnein - "to be wakeful" or "watchful").  The
Pannychis really fulfills its name and last the entire night, the service
going on without cessation through all the hours of the Divine
Office up till Sext - after which follows the Divine Liturgy.  It
seems that nowadays, when Great Vespers is usually omitted and
both Compline and the Midnight Office as well. The fact that only
Great Vespers is recited is no doubt the reason why its true
character of a separate office (and, perhaps, of a relic of the early
ecclesiastical vigil) has been lost sight of, and it has become merely
a more solemn form of ordinary Vespers.  It is, however, of quite a
distinct type form the ordinary Vesper office and is much longer. 
Great Vespers consists of the so-called "vesper psalms"; that is,
Psalms cxl, clxi, cxxviii and cxxiii - these are always used though
there are other changeable Psalms also.  Psalm cxl is the "Vesper
Psalm" par excellence, and is found in all Rites.  In the Latin Roman
Rite, use of the whole Psalm is made on ferial Vespers on Friday,
the second verse - Dirigature, Domine, oratio mea, sicut incensum
in conspectu tuo ("Let my prayer arise, O Lord, like incense in Thy
sight") - is always used as "versicle" and "respond" just before the
Magnificat antiphon both at Vespers on ordinary Sundays and ferias
- except Saturday, when the verse is Vespertina oratio acendat ad
te, Domine.  Et descendat super nos misericordia tua ("let the
evening prayer go up Thee, Lord, and let Thy mercy come down
upon us").  These "Vesper Psalms" are perhaps survivals of the
selected Psalms formerly used in the primitive ecclesiastical office;
the same would apply in the case of the Laudate Psalms, always
recited at the Morning Office in both East and formerly in the West. 
It seems, then, to be at least probable that "Great Vespers" is not
really vespers at all in the monastic sense of the term, but is a
survival of the ancient Saturday and festal vigil. Whether this vigil
existed in the earliest days of Christianity or was a later
development does not really matter.

     Besides Psalms and prayers, a number of lessons are read during
"Great Vespers". This is another example of its characteristic of
vigil rather than vespers.

     On ordinary Saturdays and lesser feasts there is no "All night
service".  Little Vespers is followed by Great Vespers (in practice,
as we have already noted, Little Vespers is usually omitted),
Compline and the Midnight and Morning Offices follow latter, and
the usual time intervals between them and the Little Hours and the
Liturgy are observed.

     SUMMARY:  In the probable development of the Byzantine
Office, the Midnight Office is a relic of the monastic daily vigil
service - somewhat reduced in form and length; the Morning - or
Dawn - Office and Little Vespers represent the old ecclesiastical
"Morning" and "Evening" Praise now combined with the monastic
forms of services at the same time.  Perhaps these latter are derived
from the ecclesiastical services, but also, perhaps, they may be
independent "inventions".   Great Vespers is a relic of the
ecclesiastical weekly and festal virgil.

     The Little Hours (Prime, Terce, Trite - Sect. Hekte - None,
Emante and Compline, Apodeipnon) are all monastic in character. 
In passing, we must note that there are two forms of Compline -
"Little Compline" and "Great Compline" (Mikron Apodeipnon;
Megalon Apodeipnon).  But the analogy with great and Little
Vespers goes no further than the names, for Great Compline is
really only a more solemn form of the office than Little Compline,
and takes its place entirely on certain occasions.  It appears on the
Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays of each week in
Lent up till Wednesday in Holy Week.  It may also be recited on the
Wednesdays and Fridays of the "Lents" before Christmas and "The
Apostles" - that is the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul.  Besides these
days, it is recited on the Vigils of Christmas and Epiphany - these
vigils actually beginning with this Office.  In other vigils, as we have
noted, Compline  - that is, Little Compline - is omitted altogether.

     THE  WEEKLY  VIGIL  IN  THE  WEST:  This seem to have
been combined with the monastic daily vigil to form the daily Night
Office, the "Nocturns" as it was also often called. This combination
is perhaps the most evident in the Benedictine Office as laid down
for his monks by St. Benedict in the Holy Rule.  In this office there
are always the twelve Psalms which are spoken of as especially
sacred by Cassian, who even declares that the number was
introduced into the night office of the Pachomian monks by an
Angel.  St. Benedict himself insists very strongly that this "sacred
number" of twelve be adhered to always in the Nocturns, whether
are three or only two of the latter.  The Saint, however, always
anxious to avoid over taxing the strength of his monks, divided the
twelve Psalms into two sets of six - each forming a "nocturn". On
certain feasts, instead of only two nocturns (the third being
composed of three canticles from the Scripture Prophets) and
twelve Lessons.  In summer, as the nights in Italy are very short,
there was only one short Lesson, to be recited by heart.  The twelve
Lessons on the feasts when those occur are divided into three sets
of four Lessons each - for each nocturn.  In the solemn Easter
Virgil on Holy Saturday (formerly celebrated during the night of
Saturday in preparation for Easter Day), there are twelve Lessons
from the Prophets, and these are divided into two sets of four each
by two of the three "tracts" (the fourth and the eighth), the third
tract being sung after the eleventh Prophecy, as the twelfth is
followed immediately by the blessing of the font or by the litany,
where there is no font.  Whether this arrangement implies any real
connection between the Holy Saturday Vigil and the Benedictine
vigils or not, it is impossible to say definitely, but it is at least worth
mentioning.  It must, however, be remembered that the Holy
Saturday vigil with the twelve prophecies is probably not the
original Roman form of the vigil, but comes partly from Gual,
partly from Jerusalem.

     POSSIBLE  SURVIVAL  OF  OLD  VIGIL:  There is one case,
at least, in the West, of an actual vigil service distinct from the night
office, which, however, was celebrated as well.  This case is
mentioned in the writings of Cassiodorus (A.D. 490-583), a
contemporary of  St. Benedict, and like him the founder of a
monastic community, at Vivarium on his own property.  In his
description of the liturgical offices in his monastery, Cassiodorus
speaks of two forms of night office, which he calls respectively,
nocturns and vigils - as we noted, St. Benedict uses both names for
the same office. According to Cassiodorus, nocturns was the name
of the normal night office, while vigils was that of a special office
on Sundays and certain great feasts - which lasted all night.  (The
reference to these two offices in the writings of Cassiodorus is
found in Migne, P.L., t. lxx.)

     The vigil office, which lasted all night was celebrated only on
sunday and certain feast, which sounds remarkably like the
Pannychis of the Byzantine Rite.











































                              CHAPTER  THREE

                           THE  LITURGICAL  YEAR


The eschatological emphasis of the early Liturgy, of which
something has already been said, was also affected by the
development of the Liturgical Year - which the author of Shape of
the Liturgy calls "the sanctification of time" (pp. 303-96 - and see
especially pp. 333 et.seq.).  During the second half of the fourth
century, besides the development of the daily Prayer of the Church,
another development was taking place - that of the calendar or
"guide" to the cycle of the Liturgy during the whole year -
dedicated now in the Christian ideal to the memory of the
redemptive work of Christ our Lord upon earth.  The fully worked
out Office enabled the Church to sanctify human life within the
bounds of time.  This was effected by means of the different
"Hours: of prayer, consecrating the chief parts of every day: the
"watches" of the night; the early dawn; the time for beginning the
day's work; the midday rest during the heat of the day (in Italy and
in Eastern countries); the return to work in the afternoon; the hour
of sunset; and, finally, the time for retiring to rest at the end of the
day.  These were: the Vigils or Night Office; Matins or Lauds;
Prime; Terece; Sext; None; Vespers; Compline.  In the same way
the Liturgical Year, when its main outline had been worked out,
effected the sanctification of all seasons of the year.  In this way
nature itself, and social life which rested upon it, were marked out
by Christian ideas and provided with a Christian outlook.

     DEVELOPMENT  OF  DIVINE  OFFICE  AND 
LITURGICAL  YEAR:  There went on side by side, but each was
at first carried out, to some extent, independently and under more
or less different influences.  As already pointed out, the
development of the Divine Office seems to have been the result of a
combination of the two ecclesiastical daily services of public
worship (morning and evening) and the various hours of prayer
during each day, introduced by the monks.  While some do not
agree with Dix's statement that the Office originated with the
monks and devout laity, it certainly seem to be true that monks and
laity had a good deal to do with the later development and
organization of the Divine Office. That, on the other hand, the
Liturgical year was worked out chiefly by the bishops and the
secular clergy seems certainly to be the case.  (See Dix, p. 334). 
This latter development introduced in a different process in both
Office and Eucharistic service (as regards the Lessons from
Scripture and the prayers), bringing in as the basis of both the year
instead of the day and the week.  The official organization of the
Office and the calendar was beginning, more or less, in the year
A.D. 350, but all this did not take place at once or quite smoothly
everywhere.  The use of the Psalms, too, as already remarked,
differed in the old ecclesiastical Office from that in the monastic
daily round of prayer.  In the former, certain Psalms were chosen
on account of their fitness for various reasons.  But in the monastic
Office, the underlying intention was the recitation of the Psalter as a
whole in a certain fixed period of time and apportioned to the
various hours, days, etc.  In the time of  St. Benedict, the intention
laid down by the Saint in his Rule was that the whole Psalter should
be recited in the course of the week; he says that if his own
arrangement "be displeasing to anyone" - that is, to anyone in
authority, not to any one in general, in the community - "he should,
if he think fit, order otherwise, taking care in any case that the
whole Psalter of a hundred and fifty Psalms be recited every week
... for those monks would show themselves very slothful in the
divine service who said less than the entire Psalter ... since we read
that our holy fathers resolutely performed in a single day what I
pray we tepid monks may achieve in a whole week" (The Rule of
St. Benedict, chap. xviii).  it is true, speaking of the Office on
Saint's days in chap. xiv, the Patriarch of monks lays down that it is
to "be ordered ... as prescribed for Sundays: except that the Psalms,
antiphons and Lessons suitable to the day are to be said".   But
according to some commentators on the Holy Rule, St. Benedict
almost certainly means the Psalms and other elements of the Office
apportioned for each feria (weekday), not specially chosen for the
feasts - otherwise his command that the whole Psalter was to be
recited every week would have been impossible to fulfill.

     "PROPER"  PSALM  AT  JERUSALEM:  In A.D. 385, when
Aetheria paid her famous visit to the Holy Land, she describes - as
something quite new to her - the custom at Jerusalem according to
which, on feast days of  Our Lord and of the Saints, the Psalms and
other parts of the Office were not those of the ordinary weekly
cycle, but were specially chosen as more appropriate to the feast
being celebrated.  In connection with this, according to Dix, it
appears very probable that we owe to Jerusalem and to its
"liturgical minded Bishop St. Cyril", not only the organization of
the daily Office in the Church, but also the introduction of the
"Proper" of the Saints, and, to a great extent, that of the liturgical
seasons as well (Dix, pp. 349 ff.).  In other local churches, and
especially in those of the West, the notion of thus varying the use of
the Psalms on feast days came in more slowly. None of these
changes - nor even the "ordering" of the divine Office, of the
calendar or of the Liturgical Year - was directly brought about by
ecclesiastical authority.  All took place gradually and naturally, as it
were.  Popular devotion  had a great deal to do with the growth of
the Liturgy.  Rubrical decrees and such matters are of fairly modern
date in its history.

     (1) PRE-NICENE  AND  POST-NICENE:  Before the fourth
century the Liturgical Year was of extreme simplicity, and it was
governed, like the center - the Eucharistic Sacrifice - by the
eschatological aspect, in which historical commemorations of
events, taking place at special periods, had practically no place. 
The liturgical cycle consisted originally, all over the Christian
world, of just two annual feasts: (1) the Paschal Feast and (2) the
feast of Pentecost, and besides these, the observance of the Sunday
- "the Lord's Day" - which was a weekly continuation of the
Paschal Feast, the "setting forth" of the Mystery of the Resurrection
of our Savior from the dead  - or, rather, of the Mystery of the
Redemption as a whole. In Rome in Hippolytus' day, and in Africa
in Tertullian's (early third century), the calendar was still of this
simple formation, and even twenty years after that, in Origen's time
in Egypt, it was still the same.  At first the "Liturgical Week" was
the guiding principle of Christian worship.  Then, the spread of the
Christian Faith beyond the Holy Land and its gradual freedom from
persecution led to the development of the Liturgical Year.  In the
week, the "first day" - in time known as "Sunday" or the "Lord's
Day" - was set apart for corporate worship.   Sunday , like the
Paschal Feast, was not so much the memorial of a past event, but
rather the manifestation in time of the eternal Act of Redemption in
Christ.  The title "sunday" is originally pagan and Roman; the first
day of the week was dedicated to the sun god  the dies solis ("day
of the sun").  In English all the other days of the week are also
dedicated to pagan gods, but to those of the Scandinavian theogony 
- except Saturday and Monday.  Thus, we have Tuesday dedicated
to the god Tiu; Wednesday to Woden  (or Odin); Thursday to
Thor; Friday to the goddess Freya; while Saturday, like Sunday, is
dedicated to a Roman god, Saturn, and Monday ("moon day") to
the god of the moon.  The ecclesiastical Latin title of Sunday is
Dies Dominica, the "Lord's Day" (which becomes Dimanche" in
French), as it was and is the day especially consecrated to the
Lord's work among mankind.  During the first three centuries, the
"manifestation" of the Redemption effected by Our Savior on the
Cross, and certified, so to speak, in His Resurrection and
Ascension, was the sole reasons for the observance of Sunday. 
Only during the fourth century did it come to be considered as also
the Christian substitute for the Hebrew Sabbath - the "Day of rest",
in memory of the seventh day upon which God rested, after the
Work of Creation.  In the Jewish  Sabbath it was the avoidance of
all work rather than the attendance at public worship that was
insisted upon by the Pharisees - and from this rigid and narrow
point of view was derived the Puritan and early Presbyterian
observance of Sunday.  But in the early Church it seems that her
children did not hesitate to carry on their usual daily work, just like
their pagan neighbors - once they had worshipped God by taking
part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice at the meeting of the local church. 
It was this act which was, above all else, the Christian duty - the
weekly gathering together of the whole Body of Christ in union
with its Head.  This obligation, of the course, still remains the
supreme and primary obligation of the Orthodox Catholic Church in
the Sunday celebration of the Divine Liturgy of the Mass, at which
she demands the assistance of all the Faithful - unless prevented by
some sufficient reason.  The words used in this connection by the
author of The Shape of the Liturgy deserve our special notice.  The
object, he says, of "the weekly gathering of the whole Body of
Christ to its Head" was in order "to become what it really is, His
Body" (Dix, p. 336).  In every celebration of the Liturgy of the
Mass, no matter under what circumstances it is celebrated -
whether in a cathedral, in the presence of a vast crowd or in a little
chapel with the server alone - is the offering of the whole Body of
Christ throughout the world united in its Head.  But in those early
days this truth was more evident outwardly than it is in these -
although the "liturgical movement" is slowly but surely succeeding
in helping the faithful to realize their part in the offering of the Holy
Sacrifice and in arousing the desire to carry it out more completely
and thoroughly.

     A  DIVINE  PARADOX:  We have noted the existence of this
paradox in the eschatological outlook of the whole of Our Lord's
work in and through His Church, which is at once actually present
here and now, in each period of life, but nevertheless continually
waits for fulfillment.  The "Kingdom of God"  has "come", and yet
we must, by  Our Lord's own command, always pray - "Thy
Kingdom come" (that is, "that Thy Kingdom may come").  The
Paschal Feast is primarily of eschatological significance; it
represents the completion and continuation or - perhaps better - the
"actually" of the Redemption.  It is only secondarily a "looking
back" to the fact of the Resurrection and Ascension, the followers
of Jesus have in reality - in a spiritual manner - been taken up into
the heavenly Kingdom and shown thus to all men in the unity of His
Church on earth.

     JEWISH  SABBATH  AND CHRISTIAN SUNDAY:  In the
earliest period of the Church, the Jewish Sabbath was sometimes
observed as well as the Christian Sunday - especially in the case of
the "Jewish Christians" who, as long as the sect lasted, endeavored
to combine the Jewish and Christian religions into one.  In the
Eastern Churches even now, the idea of the Sabbath is kept up to a
certain extent in the solemnity of the Saturday Liturgy.  And it is
certainly true that the Sabbath did have an effect upon the Sunday,
and probably the concept of the regular observance of the fist day
of the week was suggested by that of the seventh day.

     TWO  FOUNDATION  FEASTS:  The Pasch and Pentecost of
the Christian year seem, like the weekly feast on Sunday, to have
come down from Apostolic times.  Both are Christian adoptions of
Jewish feasts - or rather they are the reality foreshadowed  by the
Jewish days, and the second has handed on its Greek name to its 
successor.  But in the Church these feasts, which among the Jews
were not confined to any particular day of the week, were fixed
always on Sunday, and this arrangement was probably brought
about within the first century - if not actually in Apostolic times.

     PASCH  AND  PASSOVER:  The word "Pasch" (Pascha) is the
Greek form of the Hebrew word pesch, which is translated
"passover".  The name refers to the occasion when the Angel of the
Lord "passed over" the threshold of those houses marked with the
sacrificial blood of the passover lamb (Exod. 12 - see especially
verses 12, 13 and 21-3).  But the word translated "I will pass over"
(in Latin, transibo) should really be "cross over" - the true meaning
of the Hebrew word.  That word does not mean to "pass by" (as it
usually been understood to do), but on the contrary to "pass in" - to
cross over the threshold in order to enter the house - and not to
punish those dwelling in it, but to as a visitor, an honored guest.

     PASSOVER  AND  THRESHOLD  SACRIFICE:  In fact, the
passover sacrifice of the Israelites was probably by adaption of a
very ancient form of sacrifice Semitic peoples, known as the
"threshold sacrifice".  In order to show due honor to guests of
dignity - especially if there were believed to be of divine dignity - a
victim was sacrificed at the entrance of the house or tent, the blood
being poured out on the threshold so that the guest "crossed over"
the blood in entering the dwelling.  The sacrificial blood thus
poured out testified to the host's intention to pay the highest honor
to his guest, symbolizing, as it did, that his own life, like that of the
victim's "in the blood" (Levit. 22:11), belonged to or was subject to
the guest, human or divine.  The latter, by thus "crossing over" the
blood, accepted the act of supreme honor officially.

     THE  CHRISTIAN  VIGIL: The Jewish feast was celebrated in
the evening, and the Christian counterpart was held also at dawn,
after the solemn Saturday vigil.  As usual, the vigil began with the
blessing of the evening lamp, which was the duty of the deacon;
then came a series of Scripture Lessons, between each of which a
responsory Psalm was chanted - as in the ordinary liturgical or
"aliturgical" service.  But it seems that the original Roman Paschal
vigil did not consists of the long services of twelve prophecies - or
even of only four as in the Gregorian Sacarmentary (sixth century),
and as found in the Carthusian and Dominican Rites, but merely of
the two prophecies and the Gospel of St. John, which are found in
the Tridentine Missal for the Good Friday service.  (The prophecies
are Osee xii. - an allusion to the resurrection of the body, and Exod.
12 - the account of the Passover.)  This seems to have ben the case
in A.D. 200.  The chant of the Twelve Prophecies - later to be such
an outstanding feature of the Holy Saturday service - is a later
development derived from Jerusalem during the fourth century.  In
the Jerusalem Rite it appears, too, form a fairly recently discovered
homily on the Passion by Melito, Bishop of Sardis (c. A.D. 190),
that the Paschal Liturgy in Asia Minor contained the same Lessons
from Exodus as in Rome.

     GOOD  FRIDAY  AND  HOLY  SATURDAY:  Since Rome
and Jerusalem differed strongly all during the second century
regarding the date of the Paschal Feast, it seems probable that the
agreement between their respective Paschal Rites are "independent
survivals of a Rite drawn up at  a very early date indeed" (Dix, p.
338).  In the earlier form, after the above two Lessons, followed a
Lesson from the Gospel of St. John, as on Good Friday later on,
but originally on the Saturday, continuing right on to the account of
the resurrection, with "its hint of an Ascension, on Easter Day
itself" (Dix, as above,; see John 20:17).  On good Friday the
Passion Lesson stops at 19:42. After the Gospel and a sermon by
the bishop came the baptism and chrismation (confirmation ) of the
catechumens, who then were able for the first time, as full members
of  Christ's Body, to join in the "Peoples Prayers" (the intercessory
Collects recited on Good Friday); to take part as offerers in the
Eucharistic Sacrifice and to receive the Body and Blood of their
risen Savior in Communion.  The twelve prophecies, which seem to
have originated at Jerusalem, appear in almost every Liturgy for the
Paschal Vigil.   But this extension of what was at first only local
does not seem to be earlier than the fourth century, since, as a
matter of fact, the recital of these prophecies started in Jerusalem
itself only in that country.

     The Paschal Feast was considered from the first as the most
suitable time for conferring the Sacraments of Baptism and
Chrismation (Confirmation) through which the Redemption and its
effects are applied to each individual: Baptism becoming
beneficiaries in "Christ's death and resurrection", and Chrismation
(Confirmation) being the "confirming", that is, ensuring or fixing,
the effects of Baptism through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in
each.  So in the beginning of the Church, the Paschal Feast was not,
as now, primarily the commemoration of the historical fact of the
resurrection of Our Lord "in time".  It was, primarily, the "Liturgy
of the Redemption."  The early Christians did not make a clear
distinction between the death, resurrection and ascension as
complete acts in themselves.  All three acts were not only
connected with the voluntary Sacrifice offered by Christ on the
Cross; they were each a part of the Sacrifice.  The latter was not
reserved - and should never be reserved - to the death of Our Lord
on the Cross alone.  Thus, at first there were no special
commemorations of either the Last Supper or the crucifixion apart
from that of the Resurrection and Ascension.  The whole "Mystery
of Redemption" was included in the solemn Vigil of the Eve, and
especially in the Eucharistic Sacrifice for which the Vigil prepared
the way.  This is continued in every offering of the Holy Sacrifice. 
As at the Paschal Feast, the followers of the Redeemer are
incorporated into Christ's Mystical Body by Baptism/Chrismation,
so at every celebration of the "Sacrifice of Redemption" this
incorporation is intensified, for in each oblation of the One Sacrifice
"the work of our Redemption is carried on".

     PREPARATION  FOR  EASTER:  Today, and as it has been
for many centuries past, we are accustomed to a time of preparation
for the coming of Easter, the central Feast of the Liturgical Year. 
The forty days of Lent and the period of special services lead up to
the last days and acts of Our Savior on earth in "Holy Week", as it
is always called.  But this "public retreat" if of fairly late origin and
development in liturgical history.   In the second century, all
Christians prepared for the Paschal Feast by fasting, but only for a
short time just before the Feast. Some fasted for only one day,
some for forty hours continuously; some again for a week -
according to each persons devotion.  After the Great Day, and
especially during the fifty days between Easter Day and Pentecost,
all fasting was forbidden, as it was also forbidden on all Sundays. 
The fifty days formed the period of special rejoicing in the "glad
tidings" of the Paschal Feast, and were a continuation of it; and the
Sunday was its weekly memorial.  As a matter of fact fasting was at
first a "private mortification"; it was not laid down by the Church as
a law - although approved and often suggested by ecclesiastical
authority.  The time before the Paschal Feast was generally
considered as a natural occasion for such mortification, and it
became obligatory about the end of the fourth century.  Although
Tertullian wrote a treatise on fasting (De Fejunio, ii. 1007), but, he
nowhere speaks of public and general fasting nor do any other early
Fathers of the Church.  The full development of the Lenten Fast
does not mean that fasting was the primary object of the Holy
Season.  The only authentic exposition of the purpose of Lent to be
found in the Western Liturgy is set before us in the Lessons and the
second nocturn of the first Sunday of Lent from the fourth Lenten
Sermon of St. Leo the Great, who was  Pope from 440 -61.  The
forty days of Lent are intended to be forty days of intense spiritual
activity in order to prepare us for taking part in the solemn
commemoration of the outstanding fact in the history of the human
race - our Redemption.    Prayer and good works have their place
as well as mortification.  Lent is the great yearly "retreat" for all
Christians, to enable them to realize more practically the meaning of
the Christian Life, and to encourage them to great efforts in
fulfilling it in their own individual lives.  In his book, The Influence
of the Synagogue upon the Divine Office (pp. 37-41), Mr.
Dugmore says that among the Jews in Our Lord's time, Monday
and Thursday were for public fasting on certain occasions but that
there is no evidence that these days of the week were kept as
regular public fasts during the year, and he continues: "There does
not appear to have been any corresponding custom among the
Christians of the first century in the West" (p. 37-38).  In the East -
as in the case of the Sabbath and its influence on the solemnity of
the Christian Saturday - Jewish usage had its influence, too, on
weekly fast days, and, at first, some even continued to keep the fast
on the Mondays and Thursdays, until these were replaced by the
Wednesday and Friday fasts enjoined as follows in the Didache:
"Let not your fasts coincide with those of the hypocrites, for they
fast on the second and fifth days of the week [that is, Monday and
Thursday]; but fast ye on the fourth day [Wednesday] and on the
preparation - in Greek, parasceve - for the Sabbath]" (Didache, viii,
I; edited Lightfoot, in Apostolic Fathers (1891).  This is quoted,
too, by Dugmore in his book, p. 38, footnote 4).

     JEWISH  AND  CHRISTIAN  FAST  DAYS:  These days
(Wednesday and Friday) were kept as public fast days, some time
during the second century and at first only in the East.  On these
fast days - that is, on Monday and Thursday in the Jewish use - the
regular weekly evening and morning services were held in the
synagogue, but while of a simpler character than on the Sabbath
day, they were more elaborate than on the other days of the week.
Wednesday was chosen instead of Monday by the Church because -
according to the Didascalia Apostolorum (xxi; edited by R.H.
Connolly; Oxford, 1929, p. 184, quoted by Dugmore, p. 39): "The
`custom of the former people' was to be eschewed, while
Wednesdays and Fridays were marked as fast days throughout the
year `because on the forth day of the week they began to destroy
their souls' by apprehending Christ, and Friday was the day on
which they crucified Him."  In the West these days became known
as "station days" (dies stationis), from the Latin statio meaning a
"watch" - that is, a turn or period of military duty, literally a
"standing still".  At first even these fast days were not regarded
either in Rome or in the Church in general as obligatory for all. 
According to Tertullian, the fast before the Paschal Feast - a fast of
merely a few days or even of only one day - "is the only one of
obligation on all Christians" (De Jejunio, 10). This obligation,
however, was introduced by his own followers, the Montanist
heretics.  On the Christian station days there was a special service,
as with the Jews on their weekly fast days.  In some places (e.g.,
Rome and Alexandria) the service consisted of the preliminary
service without the Liturgy; in others the service was followed by
the Eucharist.  The station days seem to have entered the Western
Church from the East and to have been accepted at first rather
reluctantly - according, again, to Tertullian (De Jejunio, 10).

     THE  MASS  OF  THE  PRE-SANCTIFIED: In the West the
only existing survival of the introductory service without the
Eucharist is the "Mass of the Pre-Sanctified" on Good Friday - that
is, as far as the solemn intercessory Collects after the Passion
inclusive.  The communion (in the tridentine of the celebrant alone),
although it is itself probably a survival of the ancient Roman manner
of receiving communion apart from Mass, is a later addition to the
simple service of lessons and prayer; and the Adoration of the
Cross, the procession from the "Altar of Repose" and the rest, are
medieval additions.  In the East, in the Byzantine Rite, a survival of
the pro-Anaphora, without the Eucharistic Liturgy itself or even
communion, is still in regular use.  This is:

     THE  SERVICE  OF  THE  TYPICA:  The original meaning of
this Greek word is  unknown; the service consists of the two psalms
of praise (Psalms 103, and 146. - beginning: bless" or "Praise the
Lord, O my soul"); certain other chants; the Epistle and Gospel of
the day and final chants of thanksgiving.  All this suggests the old
synaxis that is the first part of the Liturgy.  The typica is still a very
normal feature on "aliturgical days" that is, days on which the
Liturgy is not celebrated.  Its very structure suggests that it was
formed on days on which the Liturgy was not celebrated, and as a
substitute for it; later the portions which were not already in the
Liturgy were placed there at the beginning.  The typica is, indeed,
almost the Liturgy without the Anaphora.
 
     THE  EMBER  DAYS:  While the Roman Church, according to
Tertullian when a Montanist, accepted the weekly station days only
reluctantly, she did, as a matter of fact, introduce just about the
same period (third century) her own system of obligatory fast says
in what are known as the "Ember Days".  But these fast days are
held only quarterly - not every week.  They occur, respectively, in
the course of the four seasons of the astronomical year - that is, in
Winter (in December, after the third Sunday of Advent); in Spring
(in March or April, after the first Sunday in Lent); in Summer (in
May or June, after Whitsunday); in Autumn (in September, after the
Feast of the Exhalation [or Uplifting]  of the Holy Cross,
September 14).  Thus, these fasts were observed when the chief
agricultural work of the year was being undertaken in Italy.  Dix
considers that they were introduced as "a deliberate counter
observance to the license of the pagan harvest festivals" (Dix, pp.
342-43).  These fast days were kept on Wednesday and Friday, like
the station days.  But in the case of the Ember Days, Saturday was
added as well as Wednesday and Friday.  On these two days the
service consisted originally, no doubt, of the synaxis without the
Eucharist - while on the Saturday a vigil was held in preparation for 
the Holy Sacrifice on Sunday.  The fast on the Saturday was not
considered to be a separate fast in itself, but merely a prolongation
of that on Friday.  The service on Saturday originally took place in
the evening of that day, which regarded as the beginning of Sunday. 
In actual usage, the Liturgy of the Mass is celebrated on all three
days; but the preliminary service on Wednesday shows the older
form, having a Lesson from the Old Testament before the Epistle. 
On the Saturday, too, the vigil is still apparently in the six Lessons
(including the Epistle) before the Gospel.  The title "Ember Day"
has nothing to do with the embers of a fire!  The word as used here
is probably a corruption of the Latin words quartuor tempora
("quarter times"), reduced first to "quartember", and then, by
dropping the "quator" - or rather "quat", and also the "t" of 
tember" - reduced to "ember" tout court.  Down to the sixth
century the Ember Days were observed only in the Roman Church. 
They were introduced into England by the Anglo-Saxon
missionaries and monks, who had received the usage through St.
Augustine of Canterbury, the Roman monk.  Through these
missionaries the Ember Days were also introduced into Gual and
Germany, but they reached Spain only during the eleventh century. 
Although the West adopted the Eastern station days, the East never
accepted the Western Ember Days; in any case, there is never any
fasting on Saturday in the East, for, as already pointed out, that day
still keeps something of the sanctity of the Jewish Sabbath in the
Eastern Churches.  During Lent, for example, on weekdays only the
Pre-Sanctified Liturgy is celebrated.  The full Liturgy, however, is
always celebrated on Saturday, as on Sunday.

     THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  LENT: This period of preparation
for the Paschal Mystery by prayer, fasting and good works of
gradual development, as we have noted.  At first consisting of only
one day, it was lengthened, before the end of the second century, to
two days (see The Apostolic Tradition, 29, 2), a week or event two
weeks, and what we now know as "Holy Week" - that is, the last
days before the Paschal Feast - became a especially strict period of
fasting.  According to Dix, the fuller development of Lent seems to
be derived, not so much from the above, as from the special
discipline of the catechumens in preparation for their baptism
(which they received normally on the Feast of the Redemption) in
the latter half of the second century, between the times of  St. Justin
and Hippolytus.  During the fourth century, owing to the ascetic
influence of monasticism, all the faithful  began to take part in the
fast before baptism, and the preparation of the catechumens and the
instructions given them by the clergy.  Towards the middle of this
century, the time of preparation and fasting was extended to six
weeks.  Then came the idea of identifying this period of fasting with
the forty days' fast of Our Lord in the desert - another step in the
development on the historical aspect of the Liturgy.  Next arose the
difficulty of obtaining  a full forty days' fast, and various means of
arriving at this were made use of, the difficulty being chiefly due to
the fact that Sundays were never fast days, and in the East,
Saturdays were never fast days either.  Finally - in the seventh
century - the difficulty was overcome by the addition of four days
before the first Sunday of Lent - Ash Wednesday and the three
following days.   But it is interesting to note that, liturgically, the
Lenten Fast, in the full sense, does not start until the first Saturday. 
Up till then the fast lasts only till after None (formerly about 3
P.M.).  But after the first Friday, it lasts till after Vespers (formerly
in the evening).  For long past, however, the Office of None or
Vespers are recited (in choir or privately) before the "one meal" of
the fast day - taken at the usual time. The imposition of ashes on
the Wednesday is a Gallican ceremony of sixth century date,
adopted in Rome; it is not a native Roman Rite.  In much the same
way as the fast of Lent was at first confined to the catechumens and
then extended to all members of the Church, the penitential Rite of
the Ashes, originally imposed only upon public penitents, was
extended to all Christians.

     According to the author of  The Shape of the Liturgy, the
development of the this historical aspect of the Liturgy and of the
various special occasions of commemorating the different events of
Our Lord's life and work for our Redemption is due to Jerusalem
not Rome, and particularly to the personality of its Bishop St. Cyril
of Jerusalem.  The fact that it was in the Holy Land, and especially
in Jerusalem itself, that the actions of the last days of Our Lord's life
took made this a natural development.  We have a very full
description of it all in the letters of the Spanish Abbess Aetheria to
her nuns in A.D. 385, and she gives us a clear account of the Holy
Week observances in Jerusalem.  The "pilgrimage of Aetheria" is, in
fact a mine of knowledge not only for the development of the
Divine Office in general, but for that of Holy Week in particular. 
He description begins with Passion Sunday; leads on to Palm
Sunday, and describes the procession from the Mount of Olives to
Jerusalem bearing Palm branches; on Maunday Thursday, the
special Mass in the morning and another in the evening; on Good
Friday, the veneration of the True Cross in the morning and a
solemn watch from noon till 3 P.M. on Glogatha.  Then, on Holy
Saturday, the Paschal Vigil and the baptisms, followed by the first
Liturgy of the Mass of Easter at which the neophytes receive their
first Communion.  It is also worthy of note that the Holy sacrifice
was not offered on either Good Friday or Holy Saturday. 

     ASH  WEDNESDAY   AND  DAYS  TILL  FIRST  SUNDAY 
IN  LENT:  Another addition to Lent - or rather a preparation for it
- was added during the seventh century in the three weeks
preceding Ash Wednesday;  that is, the Wednesday after the third
of the Three Sundays. These three are called respectively,
"Septuagestima", "Sexagestima" and "Quinquagesima" - the
seventieth, sixtieth and fiftieth Sundays before Easter Sunday - in
reference to the Latin name for the Lenten Season, Quadragesima. 
These titles are, however, only symbolic - the three Sundays are not
literally the seventieth, sixtieth and fiftieth dates before Easter.

     THE  TITLES  "LENT"  AND  "EASTER":  Lent is derived
from a Saxon word meaning Spring Time - it is "The Spring Fast". 
In most other languages the title is a translation of the Latin word 
quadragesima, that is, the fortieth date before Easter  as Pentecost
is the fiftieth date after Easter, e.g. in French we have "Careme". 
The title "Easter" is of very uncertain origin.  According to the
Venerable Bede it is derived from "Eostre", the name of a"Teutonic
goddess of Spring, or worshipped at the beginning of Spring. 
Nothing, however, is known about this goddess - nor is any
reference at all made to her anywhere else.  It has been suggested
that "Easter" may possibly be a corruption of the Greek word
"pascha" (in it latinized form).  In most languages other than
English. the title of the Feast is taken from "pascha"; for example,
again, the French "Paques", and in some Teutonic languages and in
types derived from Teutonic sources also, the title is a form of
"pascha" - in Lowland Scots, for instance, we get Paska".  A
further English difference from other languages in the question of
festal titles is the use of "Whitsunday" for Pentecost, and
"Whitsuntide" for the week following that Sunday.  This word
seems to be simply a corruption of "white Sunday" - in allusion to
the white robes put on by the newly baptized on the preceding
Saturday - as on Holy Saturday.  In this connection, the Saturday
and Sunday immediately following Easter Sunday are both known
in Latin as in albis.  On the Saturday - in albis depositis ("the white
robes laid aside") - the white garments given to the newly baptized
and worn by them all during Easter week were then taken off.  The
Sunday - in ablis depositis ("the while robes laid aside") - was
so-called because it was the first day after this laying aside of the
baptismal robes.  But all this belongs to a somewhat later period of
liturgical history.

     To return to pre-Nicene days and developments thereafter: as
we have already noted,  in the fourth century in accordance with the
new historical emphasis which came to the fore in the manner of
regarding the Liturgy, the "oneness" of the redeeming Sacrifice of
Christ our Lord was "divided" in keeping with the various distinct
historical events.  First, the institution of the Holy Eucharist at the
Last Supper; then the Crucifixion; next the Resurrection each
celebrated on its particular day - the Thursday, Friday and Sunday
of the "Great Week" as it was often called.  The result of all this
was a certain loss in the deeper spiritual union with Our Lord
which, however, is being restored more and more in these day, in
Catholic devotion.  Until the establishment of this historical aspect
of things, the Christian Pasch absorbed the whole process of the
redemptive work of Christ, which was summed up in the one
Sacrifice anticipated at the Last Supper, actually carried out on the
Cross and carried on in the continual renewal in the Mysterious
Sacrifice in the Liturgy of the Mass.  This does not mean that there
was, or could be at any time, any indifference or lack of interest in,
and due observance of, the historical aspect of the Redemption, of
the life of Our Lord, of His Mother or of His disciples.  A return to
the eschatological way of regarding it all means simply a fuller
recognition and use of the "oneness" that underlies the surface
variations, and the distinct acts brought about by the conditions and
limitations of human life in time.

     HOLY  WEEK  IN  ROME:  In Rome the observance of Holy
Week, even after development, was at first extremely simple
compared to the of Jerusalem and elsewhere.  It consisted in a strict
fast every day, and (on the Wednesday and Friday) in the
celebration of the aliturgical service - that is, without the Holy
Eucharist.  On both these days the service ended with the long
series of intercessory Collects later to be recited only on Good
Friday.  There was no Adoration of the Cross nor any "Mass of the
Pre-Sanctified" on Friday, nor any Liturgy of the Mass or memorial
of the institution of the Holy Eucharist on Thursday.  On Saturday
there was no service until the night Vigil of the Paschal Feast,
during which Baptism and Chrismation were conferred and the first
celebration of the Liturgy of the Mass of the Paschal Day was
offered at dawn..  There was no blessing of the New Fire - but the
deacon solemnly blessed the Paschal Candle - originally simply the
light required for the night office.  As noted above, too, there
would probably have been only three Lessons with the repsonsories
between.  This was the Holy Week of the fifth-sixth centuries.

     BLESSING  AND  PROCESSION  OF  PALMS, ETC.:  The
dramatic chant of the Passion, the special offering of the Holy
Sacrifice and the Communion on Maundy Thursday in memory of
the Institution at the Last Supper, with the procession and placing
of the reserved Sacrament on the "Altar of Repose" (or in the
"Chapel of Repose"); the chant of the Reproaches and Adoration of
the Cross on Good Friday and bringing back of the Blessed
Sacrament to the Altar for the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified; the
blessing of the New Fire and the Twelve Prophecies on Holy
Saturday - all these, says Dix, are" demonstrably foreign accretion
from Syrian, Spanish and French sources, only slowly and
reluctantly accepted into the Papal Rite between the seventh and
the fourteenth centuries" (Dix, p. 440, footnote 5).

     Apparently the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified had been established
in the parish churches of Rome long before it was officially
accepted in the Papal Rite for Holy Week.  We have seen already
that it was a survival of the practice of allowing the faithful to take
home some sacred Hosts which they were allowed to reserve there 
and partake of  on those day on which there was no celebration of
the Liturgy.  This custom was transferred to the parish churches
when reservation in private homes was given up - perhaps in the
fifth century.

     We have also noted that besides the aliturgical service, there
were also occasions on which the Eucharist was celebrated without
the former preliminary service (the synaxis). We see examples of
this, both in St. Justin's description of the Liturgy of the Mass in his
time and in the text of the Liturgy in The Apostolic Tradition of St.
Hippolytus.  Although this form of celebrating the Holy Sacrifice
came to an end in the Eastern Churches about A.D. 500, it lasted
longer in some places in the West on Maundy Thursday.

     THE  THREE  MASSES  OF  MAUNDY  THURSDAY:  On
the day, in some Western local churches, there were three
Masses:one for the reconciliation of the penitents who had been
sent out of the church during the afternoon Liturgy, on Ash
Wednesday; one for the consecration of the Chrism (and other holy
oils used by the Roman Church, at midday), and one in the evening,
in commemoration of the Last Supper.  There was no preliminary
service at the first Mass - its place being taken by the long
ceremony of reconciliation.  The second Mass was preceded by the
service as usual; the third Mass began at the Offertory - like the
first Mass - without any preliminary service.  After the ninth century
this even Mass disappeared; the two Masses (of the catechumens
and of the faithful) had become on indivisible service before A.D.
800.  It should be remembered that the welding together of the two
Masses came about just at the time that assistance at Mass began to
be mere assistance - that is, without a regular general communion
and without really active participation in the chant and ceremonial. 
It quite likely that there was a connection between the two, and that
one led to the other.  In the earliest days, as a matter of fact, there
could not have been any active participation of the people in
carrying out the preliminary service - they could only have listened
while the reader read and while the Homily was preached.  At the
most they would have joined in the psalmody, repeating the respond
after  every  verse or two verses, and in the responses to the
intercessory prayers.  Their own participation, strictly so-called in
the latter, was in the silent prayer preceding the Collect.

     When those prayers are transferred to the Holy Eucharist itself -
at first before the Offertory, later on (in the East) within the
Anaphora, the people's share was reduced to listening.  This passive
assistance at the Liturgy move on, so to speak, from the first part to
the second - by a sort of natural "procession" (Dix, p. 443).
     When the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified became normal on Good
Friday in the Roman Rite, it was necessary to consecrate at the
Mass on Maundy Thursday, not only one Host as now, but a
sufficient number for the - probably many - communicants.  These
consecrated Hosts were reserved in an urn or coffer till the service
of Good Friday.  It is not clear where exactly in the basilica the urn
containing the reserved Hosts was kept; perhaps in the secetarium,
that is, the Sacristy, or in a side chapel.  Anyway, there was very
little ceremony attached its transference: the urn or capsa
containing the Most Holy was carried, reverently and with a certain
solemnity no doubt, to the place of reservation, but there was
nothing like the elaborate procession with singing, as in later times. 
On good Friday, again, the capsa was simply carried from the place
of reservation to the Altar.  A Chalice with wine and water in it was
placed thereon (no doubt several Chalices for the people, as well),
and then, after the chant of the Lord's Prayer and the following
prayer Libra nos aloud, all received communion, drank the ablution
from the Chalice and then left the basilica.

     During the Middle Ages this simple ceremony grew into a Rite
symbolizing the burial and resurrection of Our Lord.  Instead of
only the one Host now necessary for the communion of the
celebrant alone on Good Friday, two were consecrated; one of
these was used on Good Friday, the other was reserved till Easter
Sunday.  Both were placed in what was known as the "Easter
Sepulchre" in England - an Aumbry or niche in the north wall
(Gospel side) of the Chancel.  On Easter Day, in the early morning,
the second Host was borne in triumph from the sepulchre to the
High Altar, where it was exposed in a form of Monstrance -
sometimes in the shape of a gold or silver figure of the Risen Savior
- till the High Mass of the Feast.  This ceremonial became a part of
the Dominican Rite but it was never introduced into the Roman
Rite.  The elaborate procession of the Blessed Sacrament on
Maundy Thursday, and the reservation at a specially decorated
"Altar of Repose", became special features in time, with the name
"sepulchre" being, quite often but incorrectly, given to the Altar of
Repose.  The whole ceremony was more or less influenced by the
Sepulchre Rite, but the two rites are utter different; the Most Holy,
in the Roman Rite, is reserved only till the Mass of the
Pre-Sanctified on Good Friday and so the reservation is not
symbolic of the burial or resurrection at all.  During the fifth
century the consecration of the Chrism and other holy oils was
introduced into the Roman Rite on this day.  This takes place
during the Canon - after the words per quem haec omnia.  As
already stated, these words probably referred originally and directly
to the consecrated  bread and wine, but were extended to include
certain material offerings, such as milk, oil and so forth.  Even as
early as The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, offerings were
made, not only of oil, but also of cheese and olives, and, at the
Paschal Mass, of milk and honey" (The Apostolic Tradition of St.
Hippolytus, pp. 10 and 40).  In the sixth century a ceremony was
introduced which has given the name "Maundy Thursday" to this
day in English, the word 'maundy" being derived from the Latin
word mandatum ("commandment") in the words of Our Lord to
His disciples at the Last Supper, after washing their feet (John
13:34).  In memory of this act of humility on the part of Our Lord,
thirteen persons have their feet washed on Maundy Thursday in
cathedral, collegiate and monastic churches, by the bishop, provost,
abbot or prior, as the case may be.  The number thirteen being
chosen in memory of the story told of St. Gregory the Great who,
when washing the feet to twelve poor men chosen for the
ceremony, found that there was a thirteenth - Our Lord Himself -
present.  During the Middle Ages, emperors, kings and princes, as
well as bishops and other ecclesiastics, used to perform the
Maundy.  

     PALM  SUNDAY,  FROM  JERUSALEM:This came about in
the fourth century; but at Rome the Blessing of the Palms at first
involved the celebration of two Masses, each celebrated in a
different basilica. At the first Mass the Palm branches were blessed
and distributed; this was followed by the procession in which the
blessed branches were carried to another basilica, where the second
Mass was celebrated.  The former celebration of two Masses on
this day is still quite evident in the Blessing of the Palms in the
Tridentine Mass. There is a complete "skeleton" of a Mass, with
Introit, Collect, Epistle followed by a responsory Psalm, and
Gospel.  It is especially interesting to note that the Gospel is
followed by a prayer (beginning with the words Auge fidem
"incense" or "strengthen faith"), which holds exactly the place of
the prayer after the Gospel, known at Milan as the Oratio super
sindonem, which probably existed originally in the Roman Mass
also, but was ousted by the prayer before the Epistle in later times.
After this prayer there is a Preface and Sanctus, and this is followed
by five prayers of blessing. Then comes the distribution of the
Palms and procession, ending with the actual Liturgy of the Mass of
the Sunday.  During this Liturgy of the Mass the Passion according
to St. Matthew is chanted.  On Tuesday the Passion according to
St. Mark is chanted at the celebration of the Liturgy, and on
Wednesday and Good Friday respectively those according to St.
Luke and St. John.  Where possible these accounts of the Passion
are chanted by three deacons in a manner that is practically a form
of "Mystery Play".  One of the deacons takes the part of chronista
("chronicler"), chanting the substance of the Gospel narrative;
another takes the part of Our Lord, and chants His words only; the
third takes the part of the Synagogue  - of the priests and Pharisees,
etc. - and also of the disciples.  The part of the turba ("crowd") is
usually taken by a number of those present in the church - in a
monastery by those of the community in choir.  All is sung; the
ceremony is of medieval origin.

     TENEBRAE:  ANOTHER  ADDITION  TO  HOLY  WEEK: 
This is the Office of Matins and Lauds (in the later development
form of the Divine Office) for the last three days of the Great
Week.  These Offices - at first celebrated about midnight on
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, then in the early morning of
Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  They came to be looked on as
practically funeral service in memory of the suffering and death of
Our Savior.  The title tenebrae (a Latin word meaning "darkness")
was given to the Office on account of the custom (which, it seems,
dates back to the fifth century) of gradually extinguishing the lights
till the church or oratory is plunged in darkness.  This gradual
extinction probably took place originally only on Good Friday. 
Later still comes the regulation of the number of candles to fifteen
on the on the Tenebrae "Hearse"; that is, the triangular candlestick. 
In medieval times this candlestick was called "hearse" (from the late
Latin herica, itself derived from the word herpex), meaning a
harrow, owing to the little spikes on the candlestick on which the
candles were fixed.

     THE  CHRISTIAN  PENTECOST:  Fifty days after Easter
comes the second Great Feast of the Early Christian year - that of
Pentecost.  This is derived from the Jewish feast, which has the
same name in Greek and was celebrated at the same time of year. 
The Hebrew name of the feast means "The Feast of Weeks"; the
Greek name "Pentecost" (from penteconta, fifty) was given to this
Feast because it was celebrated fifty days after the Passover Feast.
After Biblical times, the feast, besides being agricultural in
character, celebrated at the close of the harvest, came to be
connected with the giving of the Law on the Mount Sinai and the
setting apart of "The People of God", and this now forms its special
attribution among modern Jews.  In the Old Testament days the
agricultural aspect was connected with the end of the days; and
special sacrifices in accordance with the occasion were offered. 
(Levit. 23:15-21; Deut. 16:9-22; see especially verse 16.)  In the
Christian Church this Feast celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit
to confirm the work of Christ and to establish the Church as the
union of the People of God in the New Covenant.  Any
catechumens who, for some reason, had not received baptism on
the Paschal Feast, received it now on that of Pentecost.  This
Sacrament was administered at other times only in case of grave
illness or in other danger of death - e.g., from persecution and
possible martyrdom.  The Feast of Pentecost like the Paschal feast,
is preceded by a vigil on the Saturday - "Whitsun Eve", as it is
usually called in English.  The Mass, as on "Easter Eve" (the old
medieval title still used by Anglican for Holy Saturday), is preceded
on Whitsun Eve by a series of "prophecies", but there are only six,
not twelve.  These six Lessons complete the number independently.
They are separated from the Epistle of the Mass which follows, as
the prophecies on Holy Saturday are separated from the Epistle on
that day by the Blessings of the fount or at least by the Litany. 
Again, as on Holy Saturday, these so-called "prophecies" are not all
taken from the Old Testament Prophets.

     THE  WHITSUNTIDE  EMBER  DAYS:  These stand out
among the other three: in the first place the joyful Gloria in excelsis
is sung or said at Mass, but, instead of coming at the beginning
after the Kyrie eleison, it is not chanted till after the Alleluia verse -
on Wednesday, after the first of the two Lessons from the Acts of
the Apostles; on Saturday, after the verse which follows the fifth
"prophecy", that is, the prophecy of Daniel (Daniel 3:47-51).  In
both cases the Gloria is followed by Dominus vobiscum oremus and
the Collect which precedes the Epistle of the Mass.  This curious
arrangement is, it seems, the result of the union in one of two
distinct sets of Masses: that of the days within the octave of
Pentecost and that of the Ember Days.  The chant of the Gloria
belongs to the first set of Masses; the prophecies to the second set.

     (II)  LATER  FEASTS:  The oldest of the later Feasts are
Ascension, Christmas and Epiphany, and they were beginning to
spread all over the Church, both in the East and in the West, by the
end of the fourth century.  After these come the Feasts now known
as the Exaltation (uplifting) of the Cross on September 14th.  This
Feast began as "the Feast of the dedication of Constantine's basilica
at Jerusalem on September 14th ... Rome seems ... to have accepted
it only in the eighth century" (Dix, p. 358).  The Feast of the
Ascension - that is, as a distinct feast apart from that of the
Resurrection - seems to be due to the use of Jerusalem, like so
many other developments of the Liturgy.  Aetheria, in her letter
describing her pilgrimage there, speaks of forty days after Easter -
although she does not connect them directly with the Ascension. 
Formerly, the Ascension was included together with the
Resurrection and the Passion as being the Redemptive Sacrifice of
Christ in its fullness: the whole Week of redemption. Aetheria also
mentions the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  Now that Holy Week
and Easter had become a strictly historical commemoration of those
events of Our Lord's life, His Passion and death, His Resurrection
and Ascension - other events of His life also began to receive
similar commemorations in the Liturgy.

     CHRISTMAS AND  EPIPHANY:  This Feast is first mentioned
at Rome at A.D. 354, but it seems to have been kept fairly widely in
the West before this date, perhaps, in some places, before the end
of the third century.  It is thus probably not of Roman origin. 
Aetheria does speak of it at Jerusalem in 385, but it was beginning
to be observed elsewhere in the East about that time.  From the
third century, the Eastern Churches in some cases had already
introduced a Feast of Our Lord birth on January 6th calling it the
"Epiphany" - the Feast of His "Manifestation" from the Greek word
epiphainein ("to show forth, display").  In some places the origin of
this Feast may go back as far as the late second century.  Later, in
the fourth century, East and West began to keep both these Feasts,
Christmas and Epiphany, successively.  Christmas remained the
birthday Feast; the Epiphany becoming the commemoration of
other manifestations of Our Lord, e.g., to the Magi, at His Baptism
and in the Miracle of Cana of Galilee.  Rome adopted the Epiphany
before A.D. 450; as always, she was low in adopting new
observances.  In the East the Armenian Church still keeps the
birthday of Our Lord on the date of our Epiphany, and has never
adopted that of December 25th.  In Scotland, too, the Scots
Presbyterians refuse - officially, at least, to keep Christmas Day
(December 25th), and recognize January 6th as Our Lord's
Birthday, calling that day "Old Christmas".  Of late, however, a
"High Council" movement has taken place in Presbyterianism, and
December 25th and other feasts of the Church (observed also in
Anglicianism and by other religious bodies) are recognized and
have been admitted into her  Liturgy.  Neither of these two dates of
Our Lord's birthday were chosen as being the actual - or even the
traditional - dates; they were chosen chiefly to counteract the
influence of two pagan feasts of the sun god. These were, on
December 25th, the winter solstice and the birthday of the god of
the sun - Natalis Invicti, it was called - that is, "the birthday of the
Unconquered One", the glorious source of light and warmth
unconquered by the enemy of darkness and cold.  On January 6th
there was also a "solstice feast" dedicated to another sun god.  The
choice of this latter date in the East for the commemoration of the
Baptism of Our Lord as well as of His birth seems to have been
influenced by a desire to counteract the pagan belief, in certain
places, that on that day rivers and springs acquired miraculous
qualities and even had the taste of wine.  But the true date of Our
Lord's birthday into this world - the actual day, mouth and year  - is
unknown. The name "Christmas" is the old English title of this
Feast, and is simply "Christ Mass" - simply the principle act on all
Feasts was (as it sill is in the Orthodox Catholic Church) the
celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Liturgy of the Mass.  The
same use of the word "Mass" is found in certain other Feasts - e.g.
Michaelmas (the chief Feast of the Archangel Michael, on
September 11th) and Martinmas  (the chief Feast of St. Martin of
Tours, on November 11th) and Lammas - a corruption of
"loaf-mass", the harvest festival on August 1st, when loaves of
bread were blessed at Mass.  In French the title of the Feast of Our
Lord's birth is "Noel", derived from the Latin word "natalis" - a
birth-day or birth-place - e.g., in the tile (spoken of above) of
Natalis Invicti given by the Romans to the winter solstice.

     IN  THE  AFRICAN  CHURCH:  The Feast of Christmas
existed before that of the Epiphany, exactly as at Rome - with
which Church that of Africa agrees in so many other cases.  In Gual
the opposite is the case: the Epiphany was, as in the East, the Feast
of Christ's birth until the introduction of Christmas from Rome, and
then the miracle of Cana became the prominent feature of the
Epiphany.  In both these cases the object of these Feats was always
principally to establish the mystery and dogma of the Incarnation,
not merely to record the actual date of Christ's birth.

     THE  SEASON  OF  ADVENT:  Like Easter, Christmas is now
preceded by a period or preparation called Advent, in which a
certain element of penance is included.  It is followed - again, like at
Easter - by a period of rejoicing: Christmastide.  The latter last up
till the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary The Theotokas
[the older name being `the Feast of the Purification] or "Candlemas
Day" - on February 2nd.  This latter title is another example of the
use of the term "Mass" to express the significance of the day - in
this case the Blessing of candles, which takes place just before
Mass.

     The name "Advent" comes from the Latin adventus (from
advenio-ire, "to come"); this season prepares for the "Coming" of
the Word of God into the flesh.  Nothing is known of it before the
fifth century, and it was first heard of then, in Gual.  From Gaul is
spread, in the following century, to Italy, and from there throughout
the Western Church.  Advent is referred to at the Councils of Tours
(A.D. 563) and Macon (A.D. 581) as the "Winter Lent", and was of
forty days' duration, from Martinmas (November 11th) till
Christmas, with fasting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 
There were six, five or four "Sunday of Advent", according to the
usage of different places; the number was fixed at four under
Gregory VII (eleventh century).  Advent was, in fact, a mitigated
Lent.  Several of these "Lents" were observed in both Eastern and
Western Churches in the eighth century. But originally the character
of Advent was not penitential: it was a joyful preparation for the
birth of Our Savior.  White vestments were used and the Gloria and
Alleluia were sung at the celebration of the Liturgy of the Mass,
and this was the used at Rome up till the twelfth century.  Since the
Middle ages the character of advent has developed into a mingling
of joy and penance - both expressed in the Mass at which Alleluia is
sung or said, but violet vestments are used.  Advent became in time
a preparation as well for the Second Coming of Our Lord at the end
of the world, and this is, perhaps the chief cause of the penitential
character.  Even at His first Coming, for that matter, the fact that
Our Savior came in order to die as the Lamb of God on the Cross,
"to take away the sin of the world", would suggest the penitential
aspect, too (John 1:29).

     THE  MONASTIC  LENT:  This special season was analogous
to Lent rather than to Advent, for it involved a fast every day, till
after None, i.e., till after 3 P.M.  It lasted from September 14th till
the beginning of the ecclesiastical Lent.  In the Eastern Church
there were, and still are, several "Lents' during the course of the
year.  The strict Lenten fast lasted till after Vespers - fairly late in
the evening.  During the Middle Ages, on account of the growing
difficulties with regard to fasting, the hour of None was pushed
back earlier and earlier, until it became the custom to chant that
Office at twelve o'clock midday - hence our English term
afternoon,that is - "after None" - for the period of the day from
twelve o'clock midday till evening, and of  forenoon ("before
None"), used in Scotland and elsewhere, for the morning hours up
till twelve midday.  For the same reasons, Vespers during Lent
were in time pushed back to midday.

     ADVENT THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  LITURGICAL
YEAR:  The first Sunday of Advent is that nearest to November
30th - Feast of St. Andrew, Apostle.  Originally, Christmas Day
itself, or March 25th - the Annunciation ("Lady Day") - was the
beginning of the Liturgical Year, and even now Papal Briefs are
dated: a die Nativitiatis ("From the day of the Birth"), and Bulls: ab
anno Incarnationis ("From the year of the Incarnation").  Some
liturgical scholars hold that the fixing of a liturgical "New Year's
Day", and even of the whole of the Advent Season, was due to the
desire to wean recent converts to the Faith from the pagan practices
connected with the first day of the civil year; that is, the first day of
the month of January (in Latin, Januarius).  The name was given to
the month as it "opened" the new year, and the word januarius
indicated that the month was dedicated to the god Janus, originally
the "family god" who looked after the door (in Latin, janus) of each
Roman house; later,the god of the State who opened and closed the
year, and who was represented with two faces looking in opposite
directions.

     Advent may be considered as the liturgical "month of Mary": 
Our Lady - The Holy Theotokas is in special prominence all
through this season, and in the advent Ember Wednesday we have
what is practically a Feast of the Virgin Mother of God.  In some
places - for instance, in Spain - the Annunciation was at first kept
during Advent.

     St Bernard points out a third "coming" of Our Lord
commemorated in Advent, which lies between the first and second.
This is Christ's coming into the souls of the members of His
Mystical Body - a purely spiritual and interior "coming", which is
the gradual growth and development of the Mystical Christ, who is
"born" within our souls and into whom we are incorporated (that is,
made one Body with Him) in baptism.

     ADVENT  WESTERN  IN  ORIGIN:  It originated probably in
Gaul or Spain.  In the Eastern Churches there is no liturgical
Advent, though a fast of six weeks' duration is kept from November
14th till Christmas Day.  In practice, this fast is not much observed
outside the monasteries.  Fasting existed also during the period in
the Gallican Churches from November 11th.  In the Roman Rite,
fasting twice a week (on Wednesday and Saturdays) was observed
during Advent till fairly recent times.

     Instead of the six Sundays of Advent in the Gallican Rite, the
Roman Advent had at first only five, reduced later to four.

     Christmas Day is specially marked out by the custom  of
celebrating three Masses - at night, at dawn and "in the day" (in
die).  In cathedrals, collegiate churches and monasteries the last two
of the three Liturgies of the Mass are celebrated, respectively,
"after Prime", the first of the day hours, and "after Terce" (the
Office of the "third Hour"); that is, about 9 A.M.).  The three
Masses were in existence in Rome at the end of the sixth century -
St. Gregory the Great speaks of them in one of his Homilies (viii.
1).  At the beginning of the fifth century, however, there as only
one Mass - in the morning of Christmas Day at St. Peter's.  Pope
Xystus III (A.D. 435-40) rebuilt the Liberian Basilica, and
dedicated it to Our Lady under the title of  Santa Maria Maggorie 
(St. Mary Major).  From that date, a nocturnal "station" and Mass
at Christmas