23 munion would be very careful in their after celebration to imitate as far as possible their Lord's example. The well-known assertion of Gregory the Great has often been urged to prove that the Apostles consecrated the elements only by the repetition of the Lord's Prayer: but on the contrary, it has been argued that this passage is corrupt. Even if we allowed it not to be so, yet the words of Gregory are part of an argument, not that the Lord's Prayer only was used, but that without it the Apostles did not consecrate. And besides this, the earliest Form could not have been very short: Justin Martyr upon this point is a sufficient evidence: and so also the text in the 1st Epistle to Timothy, ch. i. if it relates, as the best commentators agree, to the Eucharist: "I exhort therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made, for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority." Nor must we forget that the first Christian converts, whether Jews or Gentiles, had been accustomed to the observance of ceremonies and long prayers, and there seems no reason to believe that the Apostles would so far oppose their prejudices in this respect, as to celebrate the very highest and most solemn mysteries only by the bare use of the words "This is My Body; This is My Blood:" or, of the Lord's Prayer. We must not delay upon this inquiry: few will deny that the Apostles used some Form, some Liturgy: alia omnia quæ ad Religionem Christianam constituendam pertinebant. Ab Apostolis acceperunt illam eorum discipuli, &c. Renaudot. Dissert. 2. 23 Muratori, after citing this passage from S. Gregory, adds “Quum sine tabulis ac testibus id ab eo affirmatum fuerit, consensum minime extorquet a nobis. Et præcipue quod aliter senserint antiquiores Ecclesiæ Patres." Dissert. de rebus Lit. 10. whether this at first was enjoined exactly in all the Churches, the variations in the ancient Liturgies render doubtful: but their constant agreement in substance, and their uniform observance in the same order of some few rites, make it certain that the Apostles did at any rate require that order, and declared that those rites are essential. Hence, (manifest interpolations having been removed) there are no differences in the ancient Liturgies which may not be attributed to the legitimate power vested in the Bishop of each diocese to arrange the public services of the people over whom he was appointed: a power very moderately exercised in the 24 24 Etsi nulla supersit cum Occidentalium, tum Orientalium Ecclesiarum Liturgia, quæ eamdem omnino faciem retineat, quam primis sæculis Christianæ religionis sortita fuit: certum tamen est, vel ipsis iis sæculis incruentum Sacrificium celebratum semper fuisse, et preces et ritus, hoc est Liturgiam adhibitam in actione, quæ omnium præstantissimum Mysterium complectitur. Accesserunt sensim aliæ Preces, Orationes et Ritus pro diversa Episcoporum pietate et ingenio, &c. Muratori. Dissert. cap. ix. 119. At nihil simile circa Liturgias Orientales et Occidentales observari potest, cum omnes inter se ita conveniant, ut ab uno fonte, Apostolorum scilicet exemplo et præceptis ad omnes Ecclesias permanasse certissime agnoscantur. Neque aliunde tanta in sanctissimis mysteriis celebrandis conformitas, quam ex communi et omnibus nota traditione nasci potuit, cum Jacobus, qui antiquissimus eorum est, quorum nominibus Liturgiæ insignitæ sunt, nihil præceperit de vino aqua miscendo, de pronunciandis verbis Christi Domini, de invocando super dona proposita Spiritu Sancto, de mittenda absentibus, aut ægrotantibus Eucharistia, ut nec de multis aliis, quæ tamen ubique recepta fuisse et usu quotidiano Ecclesiarum frequentata negari non potest. Nihil Princeps Apostolorum Petrus, aut Antiochiæ, aut Romæ scripsisse legitur, nihil Paulus, nihil alii: sed quod acceperant a Domino idem tradebant novis Christianis. Multo minus Basilius et Chrysostomus novas offerendi sacrificii Eucharistici formas instituere poterant: ut neque a Gelasio primum aut a Gregorio magno Romana Missa, neque ab Ambrosio Ambrosiana, Gothica a Leandro, Gallicana vetus a Gallicanis Episcopis factæ sunt. Verum cum nota esset omnibus vetus et Apostolica forma, quæ paucis verbis constabat, eam primitive ages, though fully allowed and in reality un-limited, so long as the essentials of the Eucharistical office were preserved, and nothing introduced which was obnoxious to the One Holy Catholic Faith. : Although, as was before remarked, some few have contended that the Apostles left behind them written Liturgies, yet so great is the majority against them, that we might say it is agreed upon, that they did not. There is no account of any such composition in the works of the first Fathers and surely, if no others had, Origen or Jerome would have made some mention of it. Councils, at least the very early ones, are silent, and they would have appealed to a written Apostolic Liturgy, if they could, against the errors and teaching of heretics.25 If such, again, ever existed, it would probably have been among the number of Canonical Books, and any addition to it, or alteration, would have been instantly disallowed. But we know that alterations were very anciently made, and prayers if not essential left out, or added, in some of the Liturgies claiming to be Apostolic. It appears also to be not less agreed upon that for many years after, perhaps for the first two centuries, Liturgies were not committed to writing. Renaudot is clearly of this opinion: he says that it is beyond all omnes secuti sunt, nec ab ea recesserunt: orationes quæ inter sacra dicebantur, cum multæ essent, selegerunt, novas etiam addiderunt, tandemque ne perturbatio inter fideles nasceretur, quasdam perscripserunt, et hæc origo fuit diversitatis Liturgiarum. Renaudot. vol. i. 14. 25 Both Tertullian, when speaking of the Eucharistical rites, (de Corona Mil. c. 4) and S. Cyprian, in his Epistle to Cæcilius, upon the question of mixing water with the wine, appeal to tradition only: which surely they would not have done, had they known of any Liturgy written by the Apostles. Compare also S. Basil de Spiritu Sancto, c. 27, quoted by Renaudot, p. 9. controversy, and cites S. Basil, de Spiritu Sancto, to prove that before his time no Liturgy was written. There is frequent mention made, he observes, of the sacred Scriptures being given up to the heathens through fear of punishment or death, but never any book of ceremonies or public worship: neither would the persecutors have inquired so cruelly by torture, what mode of offering and sacrifice the Christians observed, if they could have procured a written Liturgy. Hence the Church required her priests to celebrate from memory. Among her doctrines none were so scrupulously concealed, little less from the catechumen than from the unbeliever, as were those connected with the Blessed Eu-· charist. It was not from her admitted children that she sought to hide them, but from those who were her avowed enemies, or unproved candidates for her privileges. She knew and remembered her Lord's command, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you." That this caution was carefully obeyed is manifest from the very obscure manner in which the Ante-Nicene Fathers, when they speak at all, speak of the Eucharist: so obscure indeed, especially near the Apostolic age, that none could understand their import except those who had been fully admitted into the communion of the Church. Take, for example, the famous passage in S. Justin in a part of his Apology, where he is expressly giving an account of the ceremonies of the Christians in their common worship; how carefully he speaks, how anxiously he seems to weigh every word and each expression, lest he should say, even upon such an occasion, too much. Upon the day called Sunday," : 66 he tells us, "we have an assembly of all who live in the towns or in the country, who meet in an appointed place: and the records of the Apostles or the writings of the Apostles are read, according as the time will allow. And when the reader leaves off, the President 26 (o πρоEσTWC) in a discourse admonishes and exhorts us to imitate such good examples. Then we all stand up together and pray and, as we before said, when that prayer is finished, bread is offered, and wine and water. And the President then also, with all the earnestness in his power, (oon duvaμis avτy,) sends up prayers and thanksgivings. And the people And the people conclude the prayer with him, saying, Amen. Then distribution is made of the consecrated elements, and every one partakes of them which are also sent to such as are absent by the deacons." 27 Such is S. Justin's description of the celebration of the Eucharist upon the Lord's Day, or Sunday, as the Fathers usually call it in their Apologies, because it happened upon the day which was dedicated to the sun, and therefore best known to the heathens by that name. In the section immediately preceding he relates in almost the same language the manner in which the newly baptized was admitted to and received his first communion, in which one circumstance is added, viz. the kiss and thus, short and obscure as this account must 26 That is, the Bishop: and so Reeves renders the word. See his note upon the passage. Vol. i. 107. "Compare from the thanksgiving in the Clementine Liturgy; ευχαριστουμεν σοι, Θεε παντοκρατορ, ουκ όσον οφειλομεν, αλλ' όσον dvvaμɛla." This has reference to a written Liturgy, and there seems no ground for the opinion of those who would argue from these words of S. Justin, for the use of extemporary prayer in the Holy Com munion. |