erroneous doctrine was formulated, the language of the Church was less rigidly exact', and expressions might be used which 1 This inexactness of philosophical statement of doctrine in the earlier ages of the Church, and the true bearing of it, require to be constantly borne in mind by theological students, in regard to many questions of dogmatic Theology. Two classes of persons take their stand upon it, one of whom contends that the more strictly formulated doctrines are not true because (as they say) not primitive; the other says, that to insist upon these is uncharitable, because they are not so comprehensive. For the real state of the case we would apply mutatis mutandis the remarks of Canon Liddon in his Bampton Lectures, No. vii (esp. pp. 630–644, ed. 1867). 6 We draw special attention to the point here, in case any of our readers should have met with a pamphlet on the 'Primitive Doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,' the writer of which, who calls himself Clericus Cantabrigiensis,' finds a marvellous 'mare's nest' in the notorious fact that in many places of the Antient Liturgies, Eastern and Western alike, the Sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist is said to be offered to Christ, a fact which, we should have thought, 'every tyro in Liturgies' knew. There are two explanations to be gathered from the Fathers, which exactly illustrate Canon Liddon's remarks. The first is the earlier one and less exact; the other is later and more philosophical, but thoroughly consistent with the former one, and in fact only a ‘translation of the language of one intellectual period into the language of another.' One typical quotation shall suffice for each. For the first, see Epiph. adv. Haer.' lv. § 4 (tom i, p. 471 D, ed. Colon. 1682). Speaking of the one eternal and continuous Priesthood and Sacrifice of Christ substituted for the Mosaic sacrifices, he expresses the early Christian habit of thought, fixed so completely on Christ as to see Him preeminent everywhere, to see him as 'all and in all,' to use S. Paul's phrase. Αὐτὸς ἱερεῖον, αὐτὸς θύμα, αὐτὸς ἱερεύς, αὐτὸς θυσιαστήριον, αὐτὸς Θεός, αὐτὸς ἄνθρωπος, αὐτὸς βασιλεύς, αὐτὸς ἀρχιερεύς, αὐτὸς πρόβατον, αὐτὸς ἄρνιον, τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν γενόμενος. This strikingly illustrates the language of the Liturgy of S. Chrysostom itself (see below, p. 101). Σὺ γὰρ εἶ ὁ προσφέρων καὶ προσφερόμενος, καὶ προσδεχόμενος καὶ διαδιδόμενος, Χριστὲ ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, κ.τ.λ., part of a prayer which is found in the Barberini (8th cent.) codex, and is therefore not recent. Clericus Cantab. does not seem to have observed these four most significant present participles. (Cf. too, 'Orig. c. Cels.' viii. 13.) The second, and simple, explanation is that the Sacrifice is offered to the whole Trinity, and therefore to the Son.' Cf. Fulgentius, lib. ii. ad Monim. cap. 5: Fideles... scire debent omne cujuslibet honorificentiae et sacrificii salutaris obsequium et Patri et Filio et Spiritui sancto, hoc est sanctae Trinitati, ab ecclesia Catholica pariter exhiberi. Chapters 3-5 contain an elaborate explanation by Fulgentius of this very point. The objection raised by Cler. Cantab., that the sacrifice being tics. could be interpreted so as to be consistent with the erroneous teaching. When the Church formally declared her own interpretation of such language, it became necessary to clear up the ambiguity: but naturally the unorthodox retained the old formula, which they pointed to as being in favour of their views. Thus in regard to orthodoxy, all we can say of the Liturgies of the heretical communities is that they are somewhat less exact in their theological terminology than those of the orthodox Church: while, as to their value for comparing them with the other Liturgies, it will be evident that the points of agreement carry us back to a period antecedent to the date of separation, i. e. at least to the beginning of the fifth century: for the mutual hostility of the Church and these separated communities was such that neither would have borrowed from the other, and hence that which is common to both must have been common to them before the division. 1. West Sy- 1. The Liturgies of the West Syrian Family are characterised rian Family. Characteris- by having no variable parts except the Lections and subordinate Hymns. This is common to all Oriental Liturgies. The special peculiarity is that the Great Intercession for Quick and Dead is placed after the Invocation of the Holy Spirit, i.e. after the Consecration (according to Oriental theology) is complete. Greek Syriac The Clementine Liturgy may be taken as the prototype of Liturgies be- this Family, though really perhaps belonging to a period s longing to it. Clementine. What earlier than that at which the different types had established themselves. At any rate the Greek Liturgy of S. James was without doubt a direct modification of a Liturgy nearly, if not quite, identical with the so-called Clementine. A sister Liturgy to the Greek S. James is the Syriac S. James, once no doubt used by the Western and Southern orthodox Syriacspeaking Christians, but now the principal Liturgy of the SyroJacobite communities. A great part of it agrees very closely with the extant Greek S. James. From it spring eighty or more Syriac Liturgies of later growth. From the Greek Liturgy of S. James again was formed the Greek Liturgy of offered to Christ cannot be an offering of Christ, is only another form of a common Arian objection, and involves that heresy. Greek tom. nian. an Family. tics. S. Basil. From the Liturgy of S. Basil sprang on the one S. Chrysoshand the Liturgy of S. Chrysostom, on the other the Armenian The ArmeLiturgy. Of all these we shall have more to say hereafter. 2. Alexandri2. The second chief Oriental Family, that of Alexandria, is Characterismarked by the same invariability; but its proper characteristics are two, namely, the very prominent part assigned to the Deacon', and the occurrence of the Great Intercession in the middle of the Preface. This last feature is seen in the Greek Liturgy of S. Mark, the Coptic S. Cyril, and the Ethiopic; but not in the other two Coptic Liturgies of S. Basil and S. Gregory. We know independently, from the letter of S. James of Edessa, 'ad Thomam Presbyterum,' written in the seventh century (see below, p. xlvi), that this position of the Great Intercession was the chief mark of difference between the orders of the Syrian and Alexandrian Liturgies of his time. The reason why the other Coptic Liturgies follow the Syrian (or Greek) order probably is that the Greek S. Basil's Liturgy was introduced into Egypt at some time or other, and its Anaphora, slightly modified, having been joined to the indigenous pro-anaphoral service, the resulting form of Liturgy was the Coptic S. Basil, the normal Liturgy of the Copto-Jacobites (Monophysites). The Anaphora of S. Gregory is formed upon the model of S. Basil's; and the Copts use the same pro-anaphoral service for all their three Liturgies. Alexandrian -he extant form of S. Mark's Liturgy, like that of the Greek The old S. James, has clearly been modified at some time under the Liturgy. influence of Constantinople. We probably get a truer notion of what the old Alexandrian Liturgy was by comparing this with the Coptic S. Cyril, which is clearly based upon an old Greek Liturgy like that of S. Mark, and agrees with it verbally in many of its parts, and with the Ethiopic. That the original Liturgy was in Greek, here as well as in Syria, is shewn both by the character of the language in which the prayers are 2 1 Something approaching to this is also noticeable in the Syriac S. James' Liturgy of the First Family. * Nominum compositorum quibus illae linguae carent, verborumque aliquando non recta interpretatio, Graecos fontes ita perspicue designat, ut Liturgies be- Coptic Greek Ethiopic 3. East Syrian Family. composed, and still more strikingly by the fact that many actual Greek words are used unchanged in such unexpected places as the proclamations of the deacon to the people; a thing which could only arise from the people having become so accustomed to the formula that it was found advisable to keep it unchanged. There are then extant in this Family three Liturgies in Coptic, viz. those of S. Cyril, S. Basil, and S. Gregory; three in Greek answering exactly to them, viz. S. Mark, S. Basil, and S. Gregory. Of these S. Mark or S. Cyril most nearly represent the old type of Alexandrian Liturgy, though S. Basil is now the normal Liturgy of the Coptic community. From the old Alexandrian Liturgy was derived the Ethiopic Liturgy. The principal form of this is called the Liturgy of All Apostles.' This is the form printed below as the Canon Universalis (p. 238 seq.). There are also, according to Drs. Neale and Littledale, sixteen other subordinate Ethiopic Anaphorae extant. 3. In the East Syrian Family there are three Liturgies extant, often called the Nestorian Liturgies, because they are now used only by that body; though the origin of the principal one certainly reaches up beyond the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), Liturgies be- when the separation took place. They are named after SS. longing to it. Adaeus and Maris, Theodore (of Mopsuestia), and Nestorius. Of these the first-mentioned is the norm, and supplies to the other two not only the pro-anaphoral portion, but (what is peculiar to this family) the whole latter portion of the Anaphora Characteris relating to the Communion. The special characteristic, besides the usual Oriental want of flexibility, is the position of the Great Intercession in the middle of the Consecration, before the Invocation. We shall speak later on (see p. lix.) of the absence of the Words of Institution from the normal Liturgy. The other two possess them. Three other Liturgies of this Family, mentioned by Eastern writers, are now unknown; they bore the names of Narses, Barsumas, and Diodorus of Tarsus. tics. alio preces omnes illae referri non possint.' (Daniel, 'Cod. Liturg.' tom. iv, p. 87 note.) Malabar. The Malabar Liturgy also, formerly used by the Christians Liturgy of of S. Thomas on the Malabar coast of India, who were Nestorians from the fifth century to the Synod of Diamper (A. D. 1599), belongs to this Family. No original copy of it has ever been discovered, so completely was it suppressed by the Portuguese Jesuit Censors. But there are copies of it as altered by them: and, by comparing these with the 'Acta' of the Synod of Diamper, which ordered the alterations, Le Brun in his XIth Dissertation, §§ xi. xii. (Tome iii.) attempts a restora- . tion of the Liturgy. It was evidently all but identical with the Liturgy of SS. Adaeus and Maris of the Nestorians of Mesopotamia. About the year 1665, the Dutch having become masters of the Portuguese settlements and driven out the Jesuits, the Malabar Christians attached themselves to the Syriac (Monophysite) Church of Antioch. Gregorius, bishop of Jerusalem, consecrated their archdeacon to be their metropolitan, and they adopted the Jacobite Liturgies and ritual. They now commonly use the Syriac Liturgy of S. James. Gallican Characteris 4. In the Hispano-Gallican Family the richness of variable 4 Hispanoelements is very great. Not only do the Collects and Prefaces Family. change with every holyday, as well as the Lections and minor tics. Hymns, but the greater part of the Canon (or rather of those prayers which correspond to the Roman Canon) varies also. The Great Intercession is said in this Family immediately after the Offertory, i. e. altogether before the Anaphora begins, though the Mozarabic rite directs a secret Memento pro vivis to be said by the Priest before the Lord's Prayer. A distinct Invocation of the Holy Spirit is wanting in the few extant documents that represent these Liturgies; yet sufficient traces of it remain in several examples of the Prayer that follows the Consecration, called the 'Post-Pridie,' to lead unmistakeably to the inference that originally an Invocation must have formed part of this rite. The Mozarabic and the Gallican Liturgies Liturgies beare two sister developments of this Family. The extant Moz-longing to it. arabic Liturgy represents the restoration of it under Cardinal Mozarabic. Ximenes, which has some Roman modifications introduced. Leslie however, in his learned Preface (§ 7), believes that all |