us all," etc. The following has the Commemoration only: "These things we do, Holy Lord, Almighty Father, Eternal God, commemorating and celebrating the Passion of Thine only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth,"2 etc. The following has the Oblation only:-"Offering to Thee, O God, the Sacrifice of Praise, we pray that Thou accept the offering and sanctify the offerers."3 "Look propitious, O Lord, we beseech Thee, on these present Sacrifices, at which gold, frankincense, and myrrh are not brought forth; but that which by those gifts is set forth, is offered, immolated, taken." The following contain no explicit or necessary reference to any of the proper subjects of the prayer Post Pridie: ·- "O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, Look on us, and pity us; Thou who, being the Priest becamest also the Victim, who being the Redeemer becamest also the Ransom, guard from all evil things, O Saviour, those whom Thou hast redeemed."5 Sanctify, O Lord, the ininistry; make the Minister joyful; light up the temple; deck the Altar; set the people in array; heal the disease; give the remedy; approve the vow; that all, being delivered from the craft of the enemy, may not fear him," etc.

It should be mentioned that the impropriety noted in the Ethiopian Liturgies of addressing the Prayer of Oblation to Him, whose offering of Himself is commemorated and pleaded in it, is by no means confined to those corrupted formularies.

In all the earliest Liturgies, S. James,7 S. Mark, the Clementine, the Roman, the Milanese, 10 in which the Memorial does not vary, the Oblation is made to the Father. This was also quite evidently the case with the originals of the Nestorian forms. In that of Nestorius,11 and in the Malabar,12 the Father is addressed throughout; in that of Theodore,13 the commemoration of the Passion, etc., is addressed to the

1 Leslie, p. 141.

3 Miss. Moz.; Leslie, p. 274.

2 Miss. Goth. Mabill. Lit. Gallic. p. 189.

4 Miss. Goth.; Mab. Lit. Gall. p. 210.

5 Miss. Goth. u.8. p. 238. See another example, p. 294.

6 Miss. Moz.; Leslie, p. 85. See also pp. 50, 63, 279, 351, 364, 415, 460. The Post Secreta in the Reichenau fragment, Missa viii. (Neale and Forbes, p. 25), may, though imperfect, be pronounced with great probability another example, and perhaps the earliest.

7 Lit. PP. p. 24; Assem. tom. v. p. 38.

8 Renaud. tom. i. p. 156.

9 Const. Apost. L. viii. c. xii.; Cotel. tom. i. p. 403.

10 Pamel. tom. i. p. 302.

11 Renaud. tom. ii. p. 630.

12 Raulin, p. 314.

13 Renaud. tom. ii. p. 618.

Father through Jesus Christ; but the Oblation proceeds thus, "We offer this Sacrifice before Thy glorious Trinity," etc. It is remarkable that while S. Basil offers to the Father, Remembering His saving sufferings," etc., S. Chrysostom,2 by omitting the pronoun, leaves the Person so far doubtful, but the language employed could only be addressed to the Father. Of the three Coptic and two Greek Alexandrian Liturgies, those in each class ascribed to S. Gregory 3 make the offering to the Son. The same blot is found in the two Syrian forms in which the Oblation is retained. I do not observe it in the old Gallican Missals, but there are many instances in the Mozarabic; for example, "Jesu, Son of God,

accept this Sacrifice which we offer unto Thee," etc. "Take to Thyself these offerings to be blessed, . . . that through reception of them we may be cleansed from sin, and await Thy glorious Advent without fear." "We place these holocausts of Bread and Wine on Thy Altar, beseeching the boundless pity of Thy mercy, that the undivided Trinity may sanctify these victims by the same Spirit by which incorrupt virginity conceived Thee in the flesh."5 In one instance the Oblation is made to the Holy Ghost:-"Receive, we beseech Thee, O Holy Ghost, Almighty God, the Sacrifice ordained. by Thee." In another, evidently very late, it is addressed to the Holy Trinity:-" O undivided Trinity and One Majesty, who art... brought hither to be propitiated by the appeasing effects of these Sacrifices, we implore Thee . . . to hallow these our Offering," etc.

It will be observed that in none of the most ancient Memorials which we have cited does the Priest profess to make an Oblation of the Body and Blood of Christ, much less of Christ Himself. They are strictly commemorative. The Bread and Wine, though now become by solemn designation, or even consecration, His Body and Blood, are still called the Bread and Cup; but over them, as the symbolical Body

1 Liturg. PP. p. 57. In Goar, p. 168, there is a misprint of σoù for avrou, but the context betrays the error, and his version is "Recordantes nos etiam, Domine, salutarium Ejus passionum."

2 Goar, p. 77.

3 Renaud. tom. i. pp. 31, 105. The resemblance is not of course; for there are marked differences in the Anaphora of these Liturgies, though in the main they are, as Renaudot (p. 347) says, the same.

4 Renaud. tom. ii. pp. 32, 245.

5 Leslie, pp. 130, 17, 40. Comp. 108, 239, 256, 304, 316, etc.

6 Leslie, p. 262.

"Ibid. p. 389. "Post nomina" is an error. Two, very late, are addressed to the Blessed Virgin, viz., those for the Assumption and Conception; but they contain neither Oblation nor Invocation. See pp. 364, 415.

and Blood of Christ, the Church pleads in that prayer before His Father the Sacrifice in which His Body was in very deed pierced and His blood shed. As we have before stated, this act of prayer does not constitute the commemorative character of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and therefore is not a necessary part of any Liturgy. We commemorate the Sacrifice of the Cross effectually and sufficiently by simply doing that which Christ has commanded us to do.

"2

In conclusion, we need only note that, as the prayer of the lesser Oblation was often couched in terms which were only suitable to this great commemorative offering of the Body and Blood, so on the other hand the prayer of the great Oblation often employs language, that is more appropriate to the preliminary presentation of the unconsecrated Elements. Examples of the former error have been given before, Part I. Ch. xiii. Sect. ii. p. 414. The following are instances of the latter:-"We place on Thine Altar whole burnt-offerings of bread and wine;"1 "This victim (hostia) of bread and wine which have been placed by me unworthy on Thy Altar," etc.; "We entreat Thee to accept the offerings and sanctify the offerers." "3 "Propitiated, regard the victims offered unto Thee." These are from the Mozarabic Missal, in which, as may be easily seen, the common object of the Collect Post Pridie (so far as it is a Prayer of Oblation) is to obtain the acceptance of the offerings, not to plead the One great Offering of Christ upon the Cross. An examination of these forms, however, leads to the inference that the prayer for acceptance was originally not a Prayer of Oblation, but one for the descent of the Holy Ghost. Most of the prayers to that effect appear to have been deliberately corrupted, with a view to conform them to the Roman model. See before, Sect. vii. p. 589.

There is reason to think that in all the early Liturgies the Oblation and Invocation were followed by prayers both for the living and the dead. It is so in S. James and S. Clement, and was probably so in S. Mark.7 We find these intercessions also in the Liturgy of Theodore, derived, as we

1 Leslie, pp. 40, 316, 384, 398, 422.

3 Ibid. p. 274.

5 Lit. PP. p. 26; Assem. tom. v. p. 41.

6 Const. Apost. L. viii. c. xii. ; Cotel. tom. i. p. 403.

2 Ibid. p. 445.

4 Ibid. p. 424.

7 Renaud. tom. i. p. 146. The intercessions are now inserted between the Sursum Corda and the Sanctus, and so form part of the Preface, a position which it is not credible that they occupied originally.

8 Renaud. tom. ii. p. 619.

must suppose, from the original office of his Church of Mopsuestia, in that of Nestorius, which belonged to C. P. before the age of S. Chrysostom, and in the Mozarabic,2 which is traced to Ephesus and S. John; only in the last named they follow the Lord's Prayer, having probably been displaced by the Creed, which in that Liturgy follows the Post Pridie. In the Gregorian, as still used by Rome, the commemoration of the dead is retained, but the prayers for the living are confined to those present:-"To us sinners also, Thy servants, hoping from the multitude of Thy mercies, vouchsafe to grant some part and fellowship with Thy Holy Apostles and Martyrs, with John, Stephen, Matthias," etc. These were evidently the departed Saints for whom intercession was originally made by name; but when a change of opinion on the subject of prayer for Martyrs gained ground, a petition for communion with them was substituted, we may suppose, for the original intercession. On this subject see at length Part I. Ch. xiii. Sect. iv. n. iv. p. 425.

There can in truth be no time more apt for intercession, than when that Sacrifice is lying on the Altar through which the Church pleads, as her Great Head hath Himself ordained, the all-atoning merits of His Death and Passion on the Cross. Such was, in fact, at an early period, the avowed reason for the use of intercessory prayer at this "awful hour." Thus S. Cyril of Jerusalem:"Then after the Spiritual Sacrifice has been completed, the bloodless worship upon that Sacrifice of propitiation, we beseech God for the common peace of the Churches, for the tranquillity of the world, for kings, for soldiers, for the sick, for the afflicted, and in a word we all implore Thee, and offer to Thee this Sacrifice, on behalf of all needing help. Then we mention also those who have fallen asleep before us, first Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, that through their prayers and intercessions God may accept our prayer. Then also on behalf of the holy fathers, who have fallen asleep before us, and Bishops, and in a word, all among us who have gone to their rest, believing that a very great benefit will result to the souls on whose behalf the prayer is offered, while that holy and most awful Sacrifice is set forth."

1 Renaud. p. 630. For the age of those Liturgies see Le Brun, Diss. xi. Art. x. tome vi. p. 448.

2 Leslie, pp. 6, 231.

4 Catech. Myst. V. c. vi. p. 297.

3 Murat. tom. ii. col. 4.

CHAPTER VII.

Of the Lord's Prayer in the Canon, and
the Embolis.

SECTION I.-The Lord's Prayer.

IN every ancient Liturgy, except the Clementine, the Prayer of Consecration (taken in a large sense to include the Commemoration, Oblation, etc.) is followed by the Lord's Prayer. This practice must have been very general at an early period, for we find S. Augustine1 in the year 414 affirming that "nearly every Church concluded with the Lord's Prayer" that whole series of "supplications, prayers, and intercessions," which were made when "that which was on the Lord's Table" was being "blessed and hallowed and broken for distribution." One exception which he probably had in view was in the Liturgy of the Church of Rome. In that the Lord's Prayer was not said in this place, until the time of Gregory 1. From a letter of that Pope to the Bishop of Syracuse, it appears that he was blamed by some for having (among other changes) "ordered that the Lord's Prayer should be said directly after the Canon."2 To this he replied, "We say the Lord's Prayer directly after the Prayer, for this reason, because it was the custom of the Apostles to consecrate the Host of Oblation to that very prayer alone; and it appeared to me very unseemly to say over the Oblation a prayer which some scholastic had composed, and to omit saying the prayer which our Redeemer Himself composed, over His Body and Blood." It is clear

1 Ep. cxlix. ad Paulin. n. 16, tom. ii. col. 663. So in a Serm. ad Infantes:-"When the Consecration has been completed, we say the Lord's Prayer, which ye have received and repeated."-S. ccxxvii. tom. vii. col. 974. Elsewhere he observes, "It is said daily in Church at the Altar of God, and the faithful hear it."-Serm. lix. § 12, tom. vii. col. 342. 2 Epp. L. vii. Ind. II. Ep. lxiv. tom. iv. col. p. 275.

3 Et ipsam traditionem (lege Orationem), quam Redemptor noster composuit, super Ejus Corpus et Sanguinem taceremus." This certainly shows that it was not said at all, and confutes the explanation sometimes hazarded (Le Brun, Diss. ii. Art. ii. § ix. tome iii. p. 148), that it had