it. We may assert therefore that it springs equally with them from the Apostolic Form: and that it has preserved all those essentials with a most jealous care, whilst successive Bishops have exerted their legitimate power, and added such prayers and ceremonies as they thought fit. As Muratori says, "Canoni certe, in quo tremendi mysterii summa consistit, nihil unquam additum fuit, quod vel minimum substantiam rei mutet.

"960

In attempting to give a most brief account of the Roman liturgy, I said in the preface to the first edition of this work, that we could not do better, as regards it, than adopt the words of a very careful inquirer, (to whose labours both upon this and other subjects,1 the English Church owes a heavy debt of gratitude,) the author of the Origines Liturgica. I should have to appeal to the same sources as himself, and I have found no reason, after further examination, to suppose that any other plan would be more advantageous now. He tells us then, "that many of the mistakes into which men have fallen on this matter have arisen from confounding two very different things, the missal and the liturgy. The missal is a large volume containing a number of missæ, or offices for particular days, which were to be added in the Canon.62 By the liturgy we are to understand the" Ordinary and "Canon which did not vary,

60 De rebus Liturg. P. 119.

61 More particularly, in his excellent Treatise of the Church, a work to which we must attribute very much of the better tone of theology which of late years has distinguished writers in the English Church.

62 I have no hesitation in adopting Mr. Palmer's account, but we must take the term Liturgy in its most strict sense, and an unusual

one, to exclude the other portions of the missal from it; in the present instance it is allowable, if we include, as I doubt not was intended, the Ordinary with the Canon. It is much to be wished that Mr. Palmer had remembered his own definition; and not upon the other hand extended somewhat improperly the idea of a Liturgy, in giving such a title as Origines Liturgica to his whole work,

and the number and order of the prayers which were to be added from the missal.-It is acknowledged that Gregory collected, arranged, improved, and abbreviated 63 the contents of the individual Missæ, and inserted a short passage into the Canon, viz. Diesque nostros in tua pace disponas, atque ab æterna damnatione eripi, et in electorum tuorum jubeas grege numerari. He joined also the Lord's Prayer to the Canon, from which it had previously been separated by the breaking of bread. All this amounts to positive proof that Gregory was the reviser and improver, not the author, of the Roman Liturgy.' "Seventy years before Gregory, Vigilius, Patriarch of Rome, in an epistle to Profuturus, Bishop of Braga in Spain, says that he had received the text of the Canon from Apostolical tradition: he then gives him a description of it, which coincides accurately with the Roman liturgy in subsequent times." "Before him, Gelasius, Patriarch, A. D. 492, ordained prayers or collects, and prefaces, and arranged them in a sacramentary, which in after ages commonly bore his name."

"964

63 I would add from Muratori: "Certe vetustis sæculis Præfationes complures in usu fuere. Hasce sanctus Gregorius M. ad paucas nunc usitatas redegit. Psalmi etiam integri adhibiti antiquitus, sive cantati in missa fuerunt; idque ex non uno Sancti Augustini loco, et ex Homiliis sancti Petri Chrysologi constat; verum nostris temporibus versiculus tantummodo ex iis canitur, aut recitatur. Cur autem a sancto Gregorio Pontifice breviata fuerit Liturgia, id factum suspicari licet ad majus Fidelium commodum, atque ut omnes divinis Mysteriis interesse possent. Olim quoque multos occupabat cura filiorum, custo

dia agrorum et bestiarum, servitium dominis præstitum, ut alia impedimenta omittam. Hosce, ut opinari fas est, absterrebat a sacris prolixitas Liturgiæ. Idcirco satius visum fuit, eamdem contrahere, et præsertim postquam præceptum invaluit de Missa audienda singulis Dominicis, aliisque Festis solennibus." De rebus Liturg. p. 14.

61 So Renaudot observes: "In Latina ecclesia, præcipuum locum obtinet Canon Romanus, qui, quod a Gelasio Papa primum, deinde a Gregorio magno, in eam quam nunc habet formam reductus est Gregorianus vulgo appellatur." Dissertatio. Vol. 1. p. 8.

Again, "a manuscript sacramentary is in existence, supposed to have been written before the time of Gelasius, evidently referring to the same order and Canon as that used in his time: and is known by the name of the Leonian Sacramentary. Leo the Great, Bishop in 451, is said to have added certain words, which also are specified; sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam: so that the remainder of the Canon was in existence before his time." "Some time again before Leo, Innocentius the Bishop speaks of the Roman rites as having descended from S. Peter the Apostle, and there is no sort of reason to think that they differed materially from those used by Gelasius at the end of the same century." And we are brought to this conclusion: "That this liturgy was substantially the same in the time of Gelasius as it was in that of Gregory, that it appears to have been the same in the time of Innocentius at the beginning of the fifth century, and was then esteemed to be of Apostolical antiquity." 66

65

65

Muratori, p. 10, says, " Accipe nunc, quæ de ipsa Romana Ecclesia Anno Christi 416, hoc est tot ante Gregorium Magnum annos, scripserit Innocentius I. summus Pontifex: 'Si instituta Ecclesiastica ut sunt a beatis Apostolis tradita, integra vellent servare Domini Sacerdotes, nulla diversitas, nulla varietas in ipsis Ordinibus, et Consecrationibus haberetur.' Addit infra: 'Quis enim nesciat aut non advertat id, quod a principe Apostolorum Petro Romanæ Ecclesiæ traditum est, ac nunc usque custoditur, ab omnibus debere servari.'" Mr. Palmer gives the same passage from Labbe. Concil. 2. 1245.

66 Origines Liturgica. Vol. 1. p. 111-119. To add the opinion of

a very learned writer: "Neque enim a Græcis sacros ritus Romani acceperunt, sed ab Apostolorum principibus." Muratori. p. 13.

And the very succinct account which another ritualist gives us : "Romanæ Liturgia triplex veluti ordo seu status considerandus est. Unus primigenius, ab Ecclesiæ nascentis exordio ad Gelasium usque receptus alter Gelasianus, auctorem seu amplificationem habens Gelasium Papam ejus nominis primum: tertius Gregorianus, ita dictus ex nomine Gregorii M. qui Gelasianum ordinem correxisse memoratur. Qualis fuerit primigenius ille, non omnino constat. Gelasianus diu desideratus est: sed tandem illum e tenebris eruit vir de ecclesia

The reader, if he wishes to enquire further into this most interesting subject, will find a good account of the various additions and alterations made from time to time in the liturgy of the Church of Rome, in a not uncommon book, the Thesaurus Sacrorum Rituum of Gavantus; tom. i. p. 322. But he will do well to correct this by the older ritualists, Walafrid Strabo and others; and especially by two most ancient histories of the changes made in that Service, which have been printed by Georgius in the appendix to his third volume, De Liturgia Romani Pontificis.68 These were found in the celebrated manuscript of the Queen of Sweden, now preserved in the library of the Vatican. But before we pass on, I cannot but add, as to a single point, the authority of one of our own most celebrated men, the Venerable Bede, who was almost a contemporary of him of whom he is speaking, Pope Gregory the Great: "Sed et in ipsa missarum celebratione tria verba maximæ perfectionis plena superadjecit, Diesque nostros in tua pace disponas, atque ab æterna damnatione nos eripi, et in electorum tuorum jubeas grege numerari.'"69

When, however, we speak of additions, these were as regarded the Ordinary and Canon, small both in number and extent: and there can be but little doubt, that

bene meritus Josephus Thomasius. Gregorianus demum in usu communi est modo apud omnes fere ecclesias, notis et observationibus a Menardo nostro illustratus. Gregoriani a Gelasiano totum discrimen est in varietate et numero earum orationum, quas Collectas vocant: nam cætera utriusque eædem omnino partes sunt. In Gelasiano duæ aut tres ante epistolam orationes; unica secreta ante præfationem; atque duæ post communionem, quarum una est supra po

pulum. At in Gregoriano tres tantum ad singulas Missas assignantur orationes, quarum una ante epistolam, altera secreta, tertia post communionem." Mabillon de Lit. Gallicana. Lib. 1. Cap. 2. iv. Compare also, Gavantus. Thesaurus. Tom. 1. p. 5.

67 I mean the Edition to which I refer in these notes, with the excellent commentary of Merati: 3 vols, folio. 1763.

68 Append. x. xi.

69 Hist. Eccles. lib. 2. cap. i. 87.

the liturgy, in its strictest sense, of the Church of Rome was in the earliest centuries considerably longer than it now is; which is indeed certain, if S. Gregory, as it has been remarked, not only arranged but abbreviated it. Therefore, it would at that time be more like the other ancient liturgies, and the account given us by Justin Martyr. Muratori 70 observes, that as in the Greek Churches before the Preface prayers were said for the whole church, for kings, for catechumens, &c. and others again, after the consecration, for the clergy; so an old Latin writer upon the sacraments, speaking of the Eucharist, says: "in it praises are offered to God, and prayers for the people, for kings, and others." But in the Roman Canon, as it has been for a thousand years, the Pope, the Bishop of the particular Church, the king, &c. are recommended to God, not merely in very few words, but in the secret prayers. And as I have observed below, P. 72, Note 89, there were formerly many more Prefaces than there are now.

It is a most interesting question (one which we can scarcely hope to be answered because of the almost certain destruction of all copies of it which may be identified,) what was the primitive liturgy of the Churches of England before the arrival of S. Augustine. The difficulty seems to be acknowledged, by very eminent authorities. Azevedo says, "Anglicani autem officii nullum est monumentum, quo cognosci possit ante S. Gregorii ævum, qui evangelii præcones ad Christianam religionem restituendam illuc misit."" And Mabillon, to cite no more: "Qualis fuerit apud Britones et Hibernos sacrificandi ritus, non plane compertum est. Modum tamen illum a Romano diversum extitisse intelligitur ex Bernardo in libro de vita Malachiæ, ubi Malachias barbaras

70 De rebus Liturg. p. 14.

71 De divino Officio. Exercit. ix. p. 47.