Part  III — Supplementary Essays

The Lesser Hours

By E. C. Trenholme

      The services of Prime and Compline in the 1928 Prayer Book are a revival of two of the ancient Lesser Hours of prayer.  The greater services of Mattins and Evensong (or Vespers) were supplemented by five shorter and less varying services, Prime in the early morning, Terce at the third hour, about 9 a.m., Sext at the sixth or midday hour, None at the ninth hour, about 2 or 3 p.m., and Compline the last thing at night.  Apart from variations for festivals, most of the Psalms were said in regular order at the greater services, in the course of a week; but the 119th Psalm and some others were reserved for daily repetition at the Lesser Hours.

      Historically the two chief services were derived from the family devotions used by the early Christians at dawn and sunset.  The Lesser Hours had their forerunners in Jewish and primitive Christian times of private prayer, on rising and thrice in the day and at bedtime.  The Book of Daniel, the Psalms, the Acts of the Apostles, bear witness to prayer being offered three times or even seven times a day, and specifically at the third, sixth and ninth hours (Dan. 6:10, Ps. 55:17, 119:164; Acts 2:15, 10:9, 3:1).

      In the early Church these hours were devotionally connected with Gospel events, as when St. Cyprian in his tractate On the Lord’s Prayer (c. 34) would have Christians to pray at the third hour, when the Spirit descended at Pentecost, and at the sixth and ninth as the times of our Saviour’s crucifixion and death.  In keeping with this, the office of Terce has its hymn to the Holy Spirit, and all the Hours have been linked up in thought with the Passion of our Redeemer.

At Mattins bound, at Prime reviled,

            condemned to death at Tierce,

Nailed to the Cross at Sext, at None

            his blessed side they pierce :

They take him down at Vesper-tide,

            in grave at Compline lay,

Who thenceforth bids his Church observe

            her sevenfold Hours alway.

      When martyrdom gave way to peace, and monasteries arose, the monks or virgins were wont to assemble for psalmody at the Hours, and the old prayer-times became occasions for services of praise.  In the fourth century, when these devotions were adopted and developed by Eastern monasteries, Mattins was moved back to a time just after midnight (cf. St. Basil’s Longer Rules, xxxvii).  In the West, two centuries later, St. Benedict devoted part of his famous Rule for monks to regulating the Divine Office, basing his arrangement partly on that of the Roman Church, but with wide variations.  Presumably Psalm 119 was already used daily at the Hours in Rome, as part of the arrangement of the Psalter for the week. St. Benedict altered this in favour of another arrangement of Psalms, which is preserved in the monastic breviary.  The Roman breviary kept its old arrangement until in our own day Pope Pius X altered the whole distribution of the Psalms.  The ancient daily use of Psalm 119 is apparently now confined to the Anglican Communion, in which Religious Communities and not a few of the clergy and laity recite it at the Hours.

      The frequent breaking away from other occupations to praise God together was part of the devotional ideal of the monk or nun.  It is an ideal commendable to other Christians, but for them the Hours must generally mean private rather than common prayer.  The system was indeed taken over from monasticism and became the common prayer of the secular clergy in the West, as we find it in the breviary, but in practice it had to be modified.  The Hours came to be said in groups, instead of separately at their proper times.  At last, in the English Prayer Book, only the two greater daily services were retained, and the Psalter was spread over a month instead of a week.  Our Mattins contains parts of Prime, as the Hour which used to be combined with Mattins, and our Evensong witnesses to the former combination of Vespers and Compline.

      Yet there was a form in which the Lesser Hours survived the Reformation in England.  There were the primers.  In the Middle Ages, these prayer books for the laity contained a shortened and simplified form of the Hours of our Lady, a special office in honour of Christ’s Mother and of the Incarnation.  In the breviary, the office of the Blessed Virgin was a customary addition to the canonical Hours of the Church.  In the primers, it was the devout layman’s office, in Latin or English, and was accompanied by other popular devotions, such as the Hours of the Passion.  Several primers of the Reformation period, under Edward VI and Elizabeth, contain reformed editions of the Hours, with the former Psalms from the office of our Lady.  The Hours are unvarying in form, and extremely short, Terce, Sext, and None having only one short Psalm each.

      Since these primers there have been no authorized Hours till the appearance of the new Order of Prime and of Compline (England, 1928).  But the tradition was maintained by a succession of private manuals, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, beginning with Cosin’s Collection of Private Devotions in 1627.

      These primer Hours were intended only for private devotion.  They would serve the Christian who sings a Psalm by himself at his prayers, as the devout William Law recommended; but they are too short for Church or community services.  In the nineteenth century, new English office books went back to the full breviary order for the Hours, thus recovering not only the ancient use of Psalm 119 and others, but also the old liturgical variations of antiphons, and other changeable parts of the office, which graced the Christian year.  They demonstrate how well, with competent editing, the old Latin forms appear in an English dress.  But they are hardly a popularization of the Hours.

      If, however, the Hours are to be included among the Church services in the Prayer Book, simplification is undoubtedly desirable and indeed necessary.  The revisers are therefore right in omitting the numerous old variations in Prime and Compline.  If any of them were to be allowed, the Eastertide and festal Alleluias in the responsory after the short lesson would have a strong claim.

      Prime and Compline are the first and last of the five Lesser Hours.  After Mattins in the night, and a rest, the monks rose again to begin the day with Prime.  Its Psalms included the first sections of 119, to which the Athanasian Creed was added.  Its Collect is now our third Collect of Morning Prayer. Preparatory to dispersing for work after Prime, another prayer was said, now the second additional Collect at the end of the Communion Service.  This our revisers have taken as the Collect for their Prime.  The Athanasian Creed, which need not be said at Mattins, may be said (if desired) every day at Prime.

      To what extent, and in what ways, the Order of Prime will be useful as a Church service remains to be seen.  It would gain in devotional value if Terce, Sext and None were also restored, and the whole of Psalm 119 recited as a great utterance of the soul to God.  These Lesser Hours are very fitting little services for such occasions as Retreats and Quiet Days, when common prayer is made and spiritual addresses are given at intervals through the day.  Unofficial versions of the Hours are already much used for this purpose.

      As possible Church services, Terce, Sext or None would be too short, by themselves, to justify the ringing of the church bell and the summoning of a congregation.  In Retreats, each Hour included in the timetable is followed usually by an address, or intercessions, or a period of private meditation.  In Religious Houses, certain of the Hours have appended to them such exercises as the common reading of the Rule, or the daily offering of the community intercessions, or a spell of silence for midday self-examination or night prayers.  The drawback of their brevity for public Church services could be met in similar ways.  The gathering need not be for the Hour alone.  It can be made the occasion for giving a devotional reading, or for offering intercessions and thanksgivings, or for some kind of class or profitable meeting.

      With the Hours restored to the Prayer Book, it is conceivable that here and there, in some cathedral or collegiate church, the praises of God might be offered again in their generous old sevenfold daily round, or in some approximation to its fullness.  Sanctuaries where time is given to worship are justified, in a world which renders too little worship to Heaven.  Is this mere dreaming of the old medievalism, which flew too high and broke down in failure?  Not quite, for there are new factors, such as the change of liturgical language from Latin into noble English, and the advance of education and culture to appreciate traditional devotions.

      The spiritual value of the Lesser Hours, whether for public or private devotion, is very much that of the great Psalm recited in their course, 119.  Superficially, this Psalm may appear monotonous, owing to its constant repetition of the same thoughts in the simplest words, bare of all imagery.  But many earnest hearts find it, on the contrary, an absorbingly satisfying utterance.  Repeated daily for years, and known by heart throughout, it loses nothing of its freshness and reality, but rather gains in them with the years.  This assuredly would be testified in most Religious Houses where the daily office is assiduously chanted or recited in choir by the community.

      Canon Liddon’s tractate, The Priest in his Inner Life, contains his thoughts on what he calls “that marvelous Psalm, the 119th,” in its connection with the Hours.  He is at pains to point out that it does indeed represent in the very highest degree what “is more or less true of all Scripture, the paradox of seeming simplicity overlying fathomless depth.”  He recommends to the clergy the recitation of the lesser canonical Hours as “a natural complement to the Mattins and Evensong of the English Church,” and dwells on the features of Psalm 119 as supremely expressive of the true spirit of ecclesiastics ... the inward and outward bearing of the Priest of Jesus Christ.”

      There will always be some amongst the laity too who will appreciate the Hours.  A layman, Lord Beauchamp, compiled what was the standard English version of them in the middle of the nineteenth century.  In some modern hour books useful devotional additions have been made to the prayers of the Hours, in the form of intercessory and other special Collects.

      Thus the unity of the Church is prayed for at the Third Hour, the conversion of sinners at the Sixth, and the confirmation of the faithful at the Ninth, in Collects which seem to have been thus used from Tractarian times.  A series of Collects on the Hours of the Passion of Christ is also a frequent addition, from old sources.  The 1928 Order of Compline includes a Passion prayer from this series.

      The three central Hours have properly more variations for days and seasons than Prime and Compline have.  For popular use and Church services the amount of variation should be reduced.  But there might be changes of antiphon, etc., at least to mark the chief seasons, and to distinguish festival from common days.

      Compline, in Latin Completorium, is the completion – of the Hours, and of the day.  The 1928 Order of Compline will be a useful additional evening service; a musical setting is obtainable.  The three alternative short lessons give scope for some seasonal variety, and the Sarum changes of hymn might be followed from a hymnbook.  The pleasing first Collect is Roman; “Lighten our darkness” is Sarum; the third is from the Hours of the Passion, and is followed by two more evening Collects of considerable beauty.

      The structure of Compline in the Scottish Book is rather different.  The Confession and Absolution come before the Psalms instead of towards the end of the Office, thus conforming to the Anglican custom of beginning with confession of sins, as in Mattins and Evensong, and to the modern Roman use, as opposed to the Sarum; the hymn “Before the ending of the day” is not printed.

The Coronation Service

By L. G. Wickham Legg

      The observant visitor to England has often found a cause for wonder, and sometimes for envy, in that, in order to meet the need of the present, we have from time to time revolutionized our Constitution and our customs, while at the same time we preserve with curious tenacity the antique trappings in which they were decked in the past.  The most solemn of all our ordinary State functions, the opening of Parliament, is in its arrangements the same as it was under Edward I, long before Parliament Act, or collective responsibility of Ministers, or even House of Lords and House of Commons had been conceived.  Again, the judges administer laws made yesterday in the wigs and gowns of bygone ages, and it needs no deep reflection to perceive that we are surrounded on all hands by survivals of a similar nature.  Time, by the perfectly natural process of the development of ideas, has, as it were, transubstantiated our institutions: the substance has changed beyond recognition, the accidents remain; for, inasmuch as we are not, as a people, prone to wanton destruction, we allow the accidents to survive as interesting remnants of the past, provided they do not hamper our movements.  Such, to a superficial observer, might the Coronation Service seem to be; striking him at first sight as a curious survival of a purely mediaeval ceremony from which any original meaning has been entirely evacuated, and yet no ingenuity is needed to show that through something like a thousand years of history it has, with far more constancy than any other of our ancient and customary ceremonies, maintained an inner meaning of permanent value.  For, long before the Papacy, by putting forward its claims to universal sovereignty, drove men to the doctrine of the divine right of Kings, longer still before the Huguenots expounded the theory of an original compact or Rousseau seduced Europe with his Social Contract, the Coronation Service had explicitly taught that a Christian king is no irresponsible despot, but a ruler with duties towards his people; while its structure implied that, unless certain conditions were fulfilled, it was the right of the Church to refuse to make him King, for only after some form of recognition by the people and an oath to rule justly would the blessing of the Church be given and the King be invested with the insignia of office.

The Service.

      The service may be regarded as a drama in three acts, all of which have been constant parts of it from the earliest times.  In the first, the prince presents himself to the people and makes certain promises; in the second, he is consecrated and anointed, and in the third the King, invested in the full majesty of state with robes and regalia, is solemnly enthroned.  This is the climax; afterwards he receives Communion, to offer himself and his people to God in the most sacred office of the Christian religion.  But before we actually begin to describe the service it would be well to note the rubric that “On the morning of the Coronation early, care is to be taken that the Ampulla be filled with oil, and together with the spoon, laid ready upon the Altar in the Abbey Church.”

      The Ampulla has an interest of its own.  It is in shape an eagle of gold, the oil being poured into the spoon through the beak.  There should be no need to remind the reader of the famous story how at the baptism of Clovis a crystal phial was brought down from heaven with the chrism for the anointing of the King, and how every French King down to the ill-starred Louis XVI was anointed at his coronation with chrism into which a small fragment of the solidified oil of Clovis was mixed.  In days of Anglo-French rivalry the prestige accruing to the King of France from being anointed with this heaven-sent oil was a source of much jealousy to the King of England, and we find traces of a rival story under Edward II, which ripens under Richard II into the detailed legend that the Virgin Mary had given to St. Thomas of Canterbury, when in exile, a phial of oil for the anointing of the King of England.  It would seem that Richard had had ideas of being anointed a second time with oil from this phial which was miraculously and opportunely found at the Tower, but nothing was done before his deposition.  To Henry IV the discovery of the phial was a godsend.  In view of the weakness of his title to the throne, he could obtain great prestige as compared with Richard, if he could say he had been consecrated with oil from St. Thomas’ holy ampulla while his rival had not.  The phial was therefore placed in a golden eagle, and what eventually became of it is uncertain (a shrewd guess might be urged that Henry VIII’s campaign against the memory of St. Thomas was the signal for its disappearance), but the eagle remained, to be broken up with the rest of the regalia on the abolition of the monarchy in 1649, and the present eagle is the substitute made in 1660.  The spoon is an old mediaeval silver-gilt spoon, but the burden of proof that it is the spoon that was used for the coronation before 1649 lies on the shoulders of those who propound that thesis.

      As to the oil, it must be remembered that before 1603 the King was anointed with two kinds of oil.  Of the three kinds of oil blessed on Maundy Thursday, that of the sick, that of the catechumens, and the chrism, the two former were simple olive oil, the last was a mixture of oil and various scents.  The King used to be anointed not merely on the head, breast and hands as in 1911, but between the shoulder blades and on the elbows as well, but it was only on the head that he was anointed with chrism; for the other places the oil of the catechumens was used.  At and since the coronation of James I, owing to the discontinuance of the blessing of the oils in this country at the Reformation, compound oil made specially for the purpose has alone been used on at least three occasions, and probably more often.

      I.  The recognition and oath. – There is some reason to believe that in days gone by the recognition was the culminating point of an elaborate rite, the opening scene of which was not in the church but in Westminster Hall, where, in the assembly of magnates, the King was enthroned, and afterwards led in procession [The procession in many minute details remained the same from the coronation of Richard I, when we have the earliest description of it.] on foot to the Abbey church, and presented to the assembled people, who gave their assent by acclamation.  The last occasion upon which these ceremonies were carried out in full was at the coronation of George IV; in the following reign motives of economy were alleged for suppressing the ceremony in Westminster Hall and the procession, and these parts of the inauguration rites have not been since revived.  Nowadays, [We shall follow in this description the Coronation Service for our present King and Queen.] therefore, the King, preceded by lords carrying the regalia and the three swords, viz. Curtana (or sword of mercy), which is carried between that of justice to the temporality and that of the spirituality, passes from the door up to the presbytery, and on the platform erected under the lantern, technically known as the “theatre,” is presented to the people at the south, west and north sides by the Archbishop asking whether those assembled to do the King their homage and service are willing to do the same, and peers and people “with loud and repeated acclamations” signify their assent.

      Now, although under a monarchy the succession to which is regulated by Act of Parliament there can be no question of a real election, it is impossible to doubt that the origin of this ceremony goes back far into the darkness of antiquity, when election was more a reality than it has ever been in historic times except at revolutionary periods.  It may indeed asked whether the effective election was not that in Westminster Hall, and whether the recognition in the Abbey was not merely of the nature of a confirmation before the specifically ecclesiastical rite could begin.  Be that as it may, for many centuries it has been a form, seeing that, before the Yorkists claimed the throne by hereditary descent alone, the only approach to an opportunity being given to the people to reverse the decision of the magnates is contained in the story, probably apocryphal, that Hubert Walter tried at this moment to divest himself of the responsibility of crowning John.  Yet, form though it was, it is interesting to note that at the Revolution a certain nervousness was here apparent.  Whereas the Archbishop used to present the King as “the rightful inheritor of the crown of this realm,” any awkward questions of a legitimist nature were avoided in 1689 by the present formula: “the undoubted King of this realm.”

      When the acclamation has ceased, there follows a solemn supplication for the King in the form of a litany, sung by two bishops.  A litany has been a continuous feature of the service since the days of the Normans, and it became part of the preparation for the consecration of the King and closely linked with it; but since the insertion in 1689 of the consecration and investiture into the body of the Communion Service, the litany has resumed its more normal position as the “Anglican introit”.  In the Communion Service, the collect for wise government that is now used is one of the most ancient prayers in the service, having been a feature of the service ever since the very earliest days, not indeed as the Collect, but as one of the consecratory prayers before the anointing, [It was made the Collect in 1902.] or elsewhere; and the Epistle and Gospel are those passages of Holy Scripture which were chosen for the purpose in the Middle Ages.

      After the Creed and the sermon, “which is to be short, and suitable to the great occasion” (for so runs the rubric drawn by men who knew the capacity of seventeenth-century divines), the King is invited to take the oath.  In its earliest form the oath is scarcely an oath at all; it is a general precept incumbent upon Kings, and, placed as it is at the end of the service and drawn in the third person, it reads almost like a rubric.  In St. Dunstan’s order, however, it appears as a solemn declaration in the first person singular at the beginning of the service, and is implicitly a condition sine qua non for the Archbishop proceeding further with the coronation.  By this early oath the King promises three things : protection and peace to the Church; the repression of rapacity and all iniquity; the tempering of justice with mercy, “in order that to me and you a clement and merciful God may vouchsafe his pardon.”  According to tradition it was the ignorance of Edward II which caused the oath to be changed from a continuous declaration into an examination of the King by way of question and answer, a form which has ever since been retained.  Down to the Revolution the King swore to observe the laws of the glorious King St. Edward his predecessor, and those which the commonalty of his kingdom shall have chosen (quas vulgus elegerit); to maintain peace; to exercise mercy in his judgments; while to the Church he promised protection and the maintenance of its privileges.  The actions of James II showed that the language of this oath was far too vague, and so, as the time had not yet come when calling God to witness could be regarded as “a mere matter of form,” it comes about that no part of the service reflects more clearly the constitutional conflict of the seventeenth century and the triumph of the movement against “popery and arbitrary power”.  In the first place, the form of the oath is determined by Act of Parliament, and secondly, instead of promising to govern according to laws made by St. Edward and the common people, a phrase which, whatever meaning it may have had in the Middle Ages, is unintelligible in modern times, the King swears to govern “according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on and the laws and customs of the land.” Prerogative above the common law, suspending and dispensing powers are here by implication all abandoned ; and whereas James II had promised to protect “the Church,” without openly specifying what he meant by this term, the new oath laid down that the King is to protect “the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law” and “the settlement of the Church of England.” [There are traces of a coronation oath of a totally different character which may be that taken by Edward I, though it appears in none of the service books.  The French text is printed in Stubbs, Constitutional History, Vol. II, § 179, (p. 109 in the edition of 1896).  In it the King promised to maintain the ancient rights of the Church, the honours and dignities of the Crown without diminishment, recall those hurt, decayed or lost into their ancient estate, as well as to regard peace and equity in his judgments, and abolish all evil customs.  This oath was known to Henry VIII, whose personal alterations are still extant (Brit. Mus. MS. Tib. E. viii. fo. 89).  I know of no document which illustrates more clearly the despotic nature of Henry’s conception of the Constitution, for all through run provisos that the laws and customs he is to keep by oath shall not be “prejudicial to his crown and dignity royal”.  Fortunately it was never administered, and all the Stuart Kings took the mediaeval oath.  In this connection it may be remarked that one of the charges against Laud was that he had tampered with the coronation oath by omitting the word “chosen” from the clause: “the laws which the commonalty shall have chosen.”  But the omission was of earlier date and due perhaps to a slip of the pen.]

      II.  The consecration and anointing. – The Archbishop has now received the pledges he requires; from the people in their recognition of the King, and from the King in his oath to govern according to law; and he now enters upon the solemn consecration of the King. [In the mediaeval rites and Stuart times this consisted of Veni Creator, and no less than four consecratory prayers, culminating in a prolix consecratory preface.]  After the singing of the hymn Veni Creator, a single consecratory prayer, “to bless and sanctify thy chosen servant who is to be anointed with this oil [It is perhaps unfortunate that the direction to the Archbishop to lay his hand upon the Ampulla has been inserted here since 1689.  It suggests that the prayer, which is clearly a consecration of the King, is also in some way a consecration of the chrism, whereas ever since the Reformation it has been customary for the chrism to be consecrated on the morning of the coronation by a Bishop of the chapter of Westminster.] and consecrated King,” invokes upon the King the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit, at the end of which the King, rising from his knees, goes to the chair of King Edward, in which is the “stone of destiny,” and which is placed in the middle of the presbytery facing the altar.  Seated in this ancient chair, he is anointed with chrism in the form of a cross from the spoon by the Archbishop upon the head, the breast and the hands, and is afterwards blessed with a solemn and ancient benediction.  Meanwhile, to veil these secret rites from the public eye, four Knights of the Garter hold a canopy over the King, while the choir sings the famous anthem, “Zadok the priest,” the only anthem in the service that has always remained in its original place.

      III.  The investiture and enthronement. – According to the mediaeval theory, the most decisive moment of the service has now been passed; the prince is now King and ready to receive the regalia and be enthroned.  First of all, then, he is robed in a long white linen vestment like a rochet, called the colobium sindonis, over which is passed the supertunica of cloth of gold, with sleeves like a dalmatic.  Over this supertunica the King is girt with the sword, immediately after receiving the spurs.  Though handed from the altar by ecclesiastics, these emblems of chivalry are actually put upon the King’s person by a layman, the Lord Great Chamberlain.  Not so the emblems of royalty proper, with all of which the King is invested by churchmen.  It is the Dean of Westminster who places round the King’s neck the armilla, [The relation of the armilla to bracelets is an obscure question which cannot be gone into here.] which in shape is nothing but a stole, and the Imperial robe or pallium embroidered with the eagles of empire and the floral emblems of England, Scotland, Ireland and India. [The lotus of India was substituted at the coronation of King Edward VII for the lilies of France, which were in the pallium of Queen Victoria.]  This vestment, which is fastened in front by a clasp in manner of a cope, is probably the descendant of the imperial chlamys; it is also four-cornered, which gave occasion formerly to remind the King that the four corners of the world were subject to the power and empire of God.  The symbolism of Empire conveyed in the pallium was doubtless the reason why since 1685 the orb is delivered at the same moment, an innovation which is perhaps unfortunate, for the orb has to be immediately surrendered in order to leave the King’s hands free, and thereby an element of hesitation is introduced into the steady progress of the investiture.  Immediately afterwards, the Archbishop himself delivers the ring, “the ensign of kingly dignity and of defense of the Catholic faith,” the Royal scepter (with the cross), “the ensign of kingly power and justice,” and the rod with the dove, the emblem of “equity and mercy,” and finally, after a prayer over the crown of St. Edward, he places it upon the King’s head, amid the acclamations of the people, the blare of trumpets and salvoes of artillery. [This acclamation does not appear before 1685, and is due to the conception that the act of coronation is the central part of the ceremony.  It is doubtful whether this can historically be justified, the crown being merely one of a number of regalia of which perhaps the scepter, the emblem proper of sovereignty, is the most important.  But though it spoils the dramatic arrangement of the service, coronation is so firmly fixed in the popular mind as the supreme moment that it would be unfortunate to alter such a detail.]  And then follows the delivery of the Bible, introduced in 1689, a ceremony which, however significant it may be to pious eyes, is dramatically weak when placed in close juxtaposition after the climax of the coronation.

      This brings the investiture to a close, and the Archbishop sums it up in a benediction upon the newly-invested King, which is directed upon him personally in the first instance, then upon his reign, and finally widens out to a general benediction upon the nation at large.

      Rising now from King Edward’s chair, in which he was anointed and crowned, the King, surrounded by the Bishops and representatives of the House of Lords, passes up to the throne upon the ‘ theatre,’ and is there enthroned by the Archbishop with an address inculcating steadfastness and courage. After which, as monarch in full state, he receives the fealty of the lords spiritual and the homage of the lords temporal, and is finally acclaimed as King by the rest of the people.

      The Queen’s coronation. – At this point follows the coronation of the Queen Consort.  Kneeling before the altar, the Queen is consecrated on its steps, and afterwards, also kneeling between the steps and King Edward’s chair, and under a pall held by four peeresses, she is nowadays anointed on the head only, and is invested with the ring, “the seal of a sincere faith,” the crown “of glory, honour and joy,” and the scepter and ivory rod, two regalia which are delivered without any set formula.  After a short prayer bringing the rite to a close, the Queen rises, and goes to the “theatre,” and not the least touching sight in the whole of the ceremonies of the day is when the Queen “as she passeth by the King on his throne, boweth herself reverently to His Majesty,” and then seats herself in her throne, beside, but below that of the King.

      This little service has preserved the mediaeval structure far more than that of the King, for it retains the mediaeval order of the delivery of the insignia, in that the crown is still delivered before the scepter and rod (which was the old sequence for the King); and it may be noted that the Queen is anointed kneeling, not seated, like the King.  That the King should be anointed seated, which is a singular position, may arise from the circumstance of the “stone of destiny”.

      The Communion. – When the Queen has taken her place in her throne, the choir sings the offertory anthem, during which the King and Queen come down from the “theatre,” and laying aside their crowns and scepters kneel down on the steps of the altar to make their oblation.  First of all the King offers bread and wine for the Communion, over which the Archbishop says a Collect, which is the old “secret” of the mediaeval orders.  After which the King offers an altar cloth and an ingot of gold weighing a pound, while the Queen also offers an altar cloth and a “mark of gold”. [The old oblation was (1) a pall and pound of gold by the King, (2) a pall by the Queen, at the first oblation; and bread and wine and a mark of gold by the King only at the second oblation.]  The combining of these two oblations in one stage of the service is an innovation of 1902.  Formerly the oblations of the altar cloths were made when the King and Queen entered the church immediately after the Recognition; it is a small matter, but some may regret that what seemed to be an act of humility and gratitude at the outset of the service has been merged into an oblation specifically connected with the Communion Service itself.

      After receiving Communion, the King and Queen return once more, crowned and carrying their scepters, to their thrones, and during the Te Deum of thanksgiving (which used till 1902 to follow the King’s enthronement, but is equally well placed as it is) retire into the chapel of St. Edward behind the high altar, where the King is divested of his crown, scepters and coronation robes, and arrayed in a parliament robe [A robe lined with ermine with a cape above it of the same fur.] of purple velvet.  Wearing this, and crowned, no longer with the crown of St. Edward, but with the richly jeweled Imperial crown, and with scepter and orb in his hands, the King returns through the church to the west door, followed by the Queen arrayed as before, among the peers and peeresses wearing the coronets of their several degrees.

History and theory of the Coronation Service.

      It is a curious reflection that it is in England, where, so far as our knowledge at present goes, the Christian coronation rite had its origin, that it has survived the longest, for with the Hungarian monarchy in abeyance, and the other mediaeval monarchies of Europe absorbed or destroyed, no State is left on the Continent where mediaeval traditions have been continuously maintained.

      The English Coronation Service has been subjected to six different recensions or editions, of which no less than four were made in the Middle Ages, and the fifth is peculiar to the coronation of James II.  Save for a few alterations of detail, the service as we know it today belongs to the sixth recension, originally drawn up for the coronation of William and Mary.  Of these recensions the first need not detain us beyond noting that it may possibly have arisen in the ninth century; the most important were the second, the fourth and the sixth.  The second, as Dr. Armitage Robinson has given us reason for believing, was framed by no less a person than St. Dunstan for the great coronation of King Edgar at Bath, when in 973 there was celebrated the final union under one scepter of the Saxons, the Mercians and the Northumbrians.  But it has another interest in its wide diffusion beyond England.  Long after it had been abandoned in its native land, it continued to be used for the coronation of the Kings of France, and it was last used at the coronation of the unhappy Charles X.  Like his predecessors on the throne of the lilies, he was consecrated with a prayer that he would not abandon the scepter of the Saxons, Mercians and Northumbrians, while it is clear that at one time the order spread to Italy, for a Milanese pontifical contains a Coronation Service of this selfsame recension, with the prayer that the King of Italy likewise may rule over the Saxons, Mercians and Northumbrians. [Paris, Bib. Nat. MS. Latin, 977.]  In the native home of the order, it is not surprising to find that these allusions to the centrifugal tendencies of the Anglo-Saxon polity disappeared under the centralizing Normans; but the conservative Englishman may be pardoned a smile when he reflects that in this case it was the logical and realistic Latins who were guilty of retaining these formulae in circumstances where they can have had no meaning whatever.

      The fourth recension, drafted in the fourteenth century and preserved in two magnificent manuscripts – the missal of Abbot Litlington, which lay on the altar at Westminster and was used by the Archbishop at the coronation, and the Liber regalis, which was held by the King during the service – has a twofold appeal.  To medievalists it is the full flower of the mediaeval English coronation in which the service attained to the highest pitch of elaboration.  To others it is attractive because, with all its faults, its structure is dramatically the most logical of all, and it has the prestige of having been in use for a longer period than any other. [The translation made in 1603 carries literalness to the verge of baldness.]  Its faults are the turgidity of diction common to most Latin liturgical forms, and an overloading with Biblical illustration that would have roused the envy of a Covenanter; defects which, it is true, it inherits from its predecessors.  And even with the omission, since 1603, of the seven Penitential Psalms, James II was not exaggerating when he spoke of the “extreme length of the service”.  Strangely enough, it was the accession of a Roman Catholic king which dealt the deathblow to the mediaeval coronation rite.  Under royal orders, Archbishop Sancroft revised the whole service, seriously dislocating the mediaeval arrangement and carefully removing all words that suggest the consecration of inanimate objects; but at the Revolution yet more drastic rearrangement took place in the sixth recension.  By inserting the Coronation Service proper into the order for Holy Communion, [By a curious coincidence, this was a reversion to the arrangement in the first recension.] it was hoped to secure that the scandal of James II’s refusal to communicate should not recur, while the interests of the Church of England were consulted by the new coronation oath, and the Protestant tinge was deepened by the presentation of the Bible, “the most valuable thing the world affords, the royal law and lively oracles of God.”

      There can be little doubt whence was derived the central idea of initiating the monarch with these rites.  The stories of Saul and David and Jehu gave irresistible precedent for the rite of anointing, while from pagan sources there was universal experience on which men could draw for investiture with the emblems of authority, whether a scourge or a staff or a fillet or a lance or a crown; and the combination of the Bible precedents with the practice of all primitive chieftains gives us the kernel of the Coronation Service.  But if we go further and ask what precisely the Coronation Service did, or what its relation was in later ages to the theories of monarchy prevalent from time to time, it is as well to be cautious.  On one point, however, we can speak decisively.  Until Edward I, no king dated his reign from his predecessor’s death; there was in every case an interregnum between the death of the predecessor and the coronation of the successor, while a careful examination of the rubrics of the Liber regalis will show that a century after the accession of Edward I the word rex is only used to denote the anointed king: the service made the King, and the reign begins at the moment of anointing.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea

Can wash the balm off from an anointed King;

The breath of worldly men cannot depose

The deputy elected by the Lord—

are lines (so hackneyed that an apology is almost required for quoting them) which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of the first royal exponent in England of the doctrine of divine right; but he did not explain that two very different ideas of royal power are expressed in them.  An inauguration ceremony involving not only an implied election but an oath to govern on conditions, and coronation at the hands of the Church, runs counter to the whole theory of divine, indefeasible, hereditary right.  For if the deputy be really elected by the Lord, the Coronation Service becomes a pageant into which it is difficult to read much significance.  James I, with his usual philosophical acumen, seems to have realized the difficulty, [Trew law of free monarchies (Works of ... King James I, London, 1616), p. 195.] and indeed it is rather a wonderful thing that, seeing that there was no Protestant rite at hand for his coronation, he did not suppress the ceremony altogether.  Immemorial custom and possibly personal vanity on the part of the King must have served to keep the ceremony alive.

      The first two lines, however, suggest another train of thought.  If the balm cannot be washed off from an anointed King, it follows that, even if he be deposed, something has happened which no worldly events can destroy; the King, like the clergy at ordination, has received something which is indelible.  The parallel between the Coronation Service and the order for the consecration of a bishop has often been pointed out, but it would be more convincing if no analogy could likewise be drawn with the coronation of a Queen Consort and the investiture of a Duke of Normandy, or the ordination of a priest.  In truth, structure is in itself no strong argument, for it would seem that ecclesiastical imagination was not equal to providing fundamentally different rites for every kind of inauguration ceremony.  Again, while it is true that certain kings were anointed with chrism like a bishop, so too are candidates for confirmation, and if it can be shown that the anointing of a King, so far from being borrowed from the consecration of a bishop, did in fact serve as a precedent for anointing the bishop, is there much force in the argument that because the King is anointed like a bishop, therefore he receives a sacred and indelible “character”?  Many people, both now and in the Middle Ages, have been struck by the curious similarity of the colobium sindonis, supertunica, armilla and pallium to the alb, dalmatic, stole and cope, so that poor little Henry VI is described as having been after his coronation “despoyled of all his busshoppes geare,” but it is difficult to meet the argument that the colobium sindonis is in reality a white robe to cover the newly-anointed body of the King, like the white gloves and coif which he used to wear for the same reason, and that the pallium is an Imperial chlamys. [In France, while retaining its similarity to the chlamys by being clasped on the shoulder, the mantle falling over the King’s left arm and being raised upon it led to the denomination of the “coronation chasuble”.  In this connection we may also remember that the King of France at his coronation communicated in both kinds, like a priest.]  But while the arguments from parallelism should not individually be pressed too far, cumulatively, they certainly have an effect, and it would be exceedingly rash to go to the opposite extreme, and deny that historically there is any foundation for the view that the King does receive a “character” upon consecration.  That Rex est persona mixta cum sacerdote is a maxim of the common law of England, derived perhaps from faint traditions of priest-kings and kept alive by the coronation rites in Christian times.  Nor is our common law singular in this opinion.  The theory was propounded in France in the fifteenth century, and in the Empire the maxim that Imperator non est omnino laicus was countenanced by the custom which required that vested as a deacon he should read the Gospel Exiit edictum on Christmas Day.

      It is perfectly true, on the other hand, that canon law repudiates this doctrine, and not without a certain roughness.  Why then does lay law say one thing and ecclesiastical law say another?  The answer is that, prior at any rate to the eleventh century, there does not seem to have been any ecclesiastical opposition to the approximation of the royal and clerical character, as is shown in Sta et retine, the address made when enthroning the King, where the Archbishop used to draw a parallel that just as Christ is the mediator between God and man, so the King was mediator between clergy and people. [Quatenus mediator Dei et hominum te mediatorem cleli et plebis in hoc regni solio confirmet ... Iesus Christus Dominus noster.]  If he could not be called pontifex, he was at any rate pons, and it is little distance (if any) from this to the doctrine of persona mixta.  But when the investiture contest began, the Hildebrandine papacy was quick to realize what a formidable weapon this doctrine was in the hands of its Imperial opponents, and repudiated it toto corde, [The whole matter is learnedly set out by Eduard Eichmann, Königsund Bischofsweihe (Sitzungsberichte d. Bayerischen Akad. d. Wissenschaften), Munich, 1928, to which I am deeply indebted in the above sketch.  The late Dr. Brightman was kind enough to put this tract into my hands, but I need not say he is in no way responsible for any opinions I have here expressed.] and Grosseteste, when consulted on this question by Henry III, replied that an anointed king was of greater dignity than others, but carefully warned Henry against any doctrine that a sacerdotal character was conferred.  Anyhow, before the Church took up a decided line on the matter, it is clear that opinion was definite, for if the Coronation Service is of the nature of an ordination, how can it be reconciled with the practice of recoronation?  Yet this was comparatively frequent.  We know that Edgar was crowned at least twice, and if Dr. Robinson’s theory be correct, the last coronation was something of peculiar solemnity of which the rite of anointing formed an integral part.  Later on in the Middle Ages there was clearly no insistence on anything like the indelibility of orders.  Captivity, for instance, was a disaster that seems to have deprived the King of his royal “character,” for Richard Coeur de Lion was crowned a second time after his ransom from Austria, and in like manner, Henry III, crowned in the first instance at Gloucester, was crowned once more at Westminster after the expulsion of Louis of France.  It may be that the Church welcomed the opportunity thus offered to deal a blow at the theory of an ordination; it is more likely that on the lay side the full implications of the theory were never worked out, and that the inconsistency of a second coronation with the idea of ordination was never realized. [Of course these coronations are quite different from the Norman curiae coronate held thrice a year, which were more of the nature of a levee at which business was transacted.]

      One final point.  With the monarchy and its succession limited by Parliament are not we, like the believers in divine right, in danger of depriving the ceremony of all significance?  That there is such a danger we may frankly recognize, and yet this service, the structure of which is based on the idea of a contract, is not in theory alien to the constitutional monarchy under which we live.  Even if we admit that the contract is more feudal than modern, it can scarcely be denied that this “great and glorious solemnity,” irrespective of time, and disregarding the current theories of absolutist kings or oligarchical factions, the fancies of the ages of faith and the coldness of ages of indifference, has steadily borne witness to those very political ideas which appeal to us today as of real value, by reminding King and people alike that power is subject to law and that the brightest ornaments of sovereignty, in whose hands soever it may lie, are piety, courage, honour, justice, mercy and peace.

The Consecration of Churches and Other Occasional Services

By The Editor

[The preliminary research in connection with this article was done by Canon Sydney Cooper.]

      A title is difficult to find for this article.  “Pontificals” would be the obvious title, but the Confirmation Service forms a part of all Anglican Prayer Books, with which also the Ordinal is bound up.  “Diocesan Services” would be suitable if our attention were confined to England, but is inappropriate here in that the most important services to be discussed form part of Prayer Books used elsewhere.  So we fall back on the present cumbrous title.

      The Pontifical is the Bishop’s book, containing the offices, blessings, etc., which he alone can use.  These are found in the Sacramentaries and Ordines.  The earliest extant collection of them is the Pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York (d. 766), which is in three parts: (1) Ordination Services, Confirmation, Consecration of Churches and Churchyards, Benediction of Fonts and other holy objects, Reconciliation of holy places; (2) Benedictions, pronounced by the Bishop during the Mass; (3) Benedictions of various states of life, Service for a Synod, Reconciliation of Penitents, Consecration of the Holy Oils, etc.  The present Roman Pontifical is substantially that of Clement VIII (issued in 1596), and its contents correspond to the first and third divisions of Egbert’s book.

      Of these various rites only Confirmation, which had formed part of the Sarum Manual, found its way into the 1549 Prayer Book.  The Ordinal was bound up with the Prayer Book of 1552, and in 1662 was mentioned on the title page.  The rubrics suggest that the Bishops have a slight power of varying the prescribed order.  Thus the Ordinary may prescribe the saying of the Litany on additional days (1552 and onwards), or, like the King, may enjoin that proclamations be made in church (rubric at the Offertory, 1662).  The Elizabethan Bishops had to a limited extent the power of ordering additional services or prayers. [See The Chronicle of Convocation of Canterbury, 1870, Report to the Lower House; and a Report to the Lambeth Conference of 1897 (The Six Lambeth Conferences, p. 274).  Both accounts are based on the Parker Society volume of Occasional Forms of Prayer set forth in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1847).]  The following are examples of episcopal authority only.

      1560.  An order of prayer for seasonable weather, “to be used ... by the discretion of the Ordinaries within the Province of Canterbury.”

      1563.  Archbishop Parker prescribed prayers in the city of Canterbury, “not enjoining the like to the rest of my diocese, nor to the rest of my province, for want of sufficient warrant from the Prince or Council.”

      1564.  Thanksgiving for the cessation of the Plague, “set forth by the Bishop of London to be used” in his diocese.

      1565.  A Form to be used on Wednesday and Friday in the Diocese of Salisbury, on behalf of Christendom attacked by the Turks.

      1565.  Thanksgiving for victories over the Turks, set forth by the Archbishop of Canterbury for his province.

      1585.  “An Order of Prayer and Thanksgiving for the preservation of the Queenes Majesties life and salftie,” to be used in the Diocese of Winchester; it consists of a prayer and a psalm following the sermon.

      Early seventeenth-century forms for consecrating churches, etc. are discussed below.  In 1640 Laud proposed to the Upper House of Convocation the preparation of a uniform rite for consecrating churches, but no action followed.  Cosin at the Restoration prepared a form, but apparently it was too late to be added to the Prayer Book.  Queen Anne in 1711–12 and George I in 1715 gave Letters of Business to the Convocations to enable them to prepare such forms; but they were never officially promulgated, owing to the silencing of the Convocations.  However, the Bishops based their diocesan forms on those drawn up by the Convocations at that time.  Thomas Deacon’s Compleat Collection of Devotions (the Non-jurors’ Prayer book, published in 1734) contains a number of special offices, such as prayers for consecrating oil, milk and honey at Baptism, the consecration of chrism and oil for the sick, and the Ordination of Deaconesses.

      When the Convocation of Canterbury resumed its deliberations it was hoped that a Pontifical might be framed. [Warren, Synodalia, p. 93.]  A Report to the Lower House in 1870 concludes that the Bishops have the power of authorizing special forms of prayer.  The Elizabethan services (mentioned above) are probably only a few out of many.  They seem to show that in the sixteenth century the Act of Uniformity was intended to provide for uniformity in the ordinary services and to prevent recurrence to the unreformed services.  That the Crown has issued services supports this interpretation.  Certainly the Act of Uniformity of 14 Charles II contemplates no additional services, put forth by either Crown or Bishop.  But the Prayer Book services do not exhaust those actually used.  Commemoration of founders and benefactors, [Such as Laud sanctioned in Oxford College chapels.] enthronization of Bishops and installation of Deans, are allowed by custom.  To these the Coronation Service, the Maundy Service at the Chapel Royal, and possibly some other public forms are to be added.  “Moreover, the Bishops have their own forms of Consecration of Churches and Churchyards, set forth in their several Dioceses by their own authority.”  It has been the custom for the Crown to order the observance of a day of thanksgiving or a public fast, and then to direct the Archbishop to prepare a service.  “The long disuse of this power of ordering special services by the Bishops and by the Archbishop, unless in obedience to the commands of the Crown, may perhaps be thought to throw some doubt on the lawfulness of its exercise now.”

      This seems to be the last treatment of the problem that can in any sense be called official.  It has been argued that Canon 36, as amended by the Convocations in 1865, by which the minister engages to “use the form in the said Book prescribed and none other, except so far as shall be ordered by lawful authority,” refers only to the statutory services and their possible future revision; that, so long as these are said, additional services .may be freely used at the discretion of the parish priest.  But there seems to be no historical justification for this view.  The Act of Uniformity Amendment Act of 1872 did, however, give authority to the Ordinary to approve special forms of service, provided “there be not introduced into such service anything, except anthems or hymns, which does not form part of the Holy Scriptures or Book of Common Prayer.”  A period of hesitation on the part of the English Bishops ensued.  Successive Lambeth Conferences revealed that Bishops overseas were much bolder in exercising their liturgical powers, and in 1897 Resolution 45 of the Conference recognized “the exclusive right of each Bishop to put forth or sanction additional services for use within his jurisdiction, subject to such limitations as may be imposed by the provincial or other lawful authority.”  “Or other lawful” safeguarded the English Episcopate from a possible charge of defying the Act of 1872, but by that time it had fallen into desuetude so far as the excluding of phraseology not derived from the Bible or Prayer Book was concerned.  As no protest has been raised by the State, the Act is for practical purposes obsolete.*

      [*The quotations in the 1870 Convocation Report are valuable as showing the degree of initiative possessed by the Archbishop.

      1563.  Archbishop Parker to Sir William Cecil, July 23.  “I thought it good, upon my private consideration, to call upon the mayor and his commonalty on Friday last to meet with me at the cathedral church. ... And, for hereafter, have appointed them Fridays so to be used with prayer and preaching, prescribing that common prayer that was appointed in the Guise’s time (altering a few words in the same) [not enjoined to the rest of the diocese or to the province] ... And, although ye may say we by our vocation should have special regard of such matter, yet, because we be holden within certain limits by statutes, we may stand in doubt how it will be taken if we give order herein, and therefore do not charge the rest of my diocese with injunction, as leaving them to their own liberty, to follow us in the city for common prayer if they will.  If I had your warrant, I would direct my precepts, as I think very necessary, to exercise the said public prayers.”

      1563.  The Queen to the Archbishop. August 1.  “... understanding that you have thought and considered upon some good order to be prescribed therein, for the which ye require the application of Our authority for the better observance thereof amongst our people, We ... command all ... Our subjects, to execute, follow, and obey such godly and wholesome orders as you, being primate of all England and Metropolitan of this province of Canterbury, upon godly advice and consideration shall uniformly desire, prescribe, and publish. ...”

      The principle is clear.  The Archbishop can authorize additional services; he may not prescribe them with the authority of the Crown.

      The numerous services put out by royal authority are outside the scope of this survey.  The materials for a history of them are for the most part in Lambeth Palace Library.  The custom has been apparently to consult the Archbishop of Canterbury, as a member of the Privy Council, or, failing him, the Bishop of London, acting in the same capacity.  Such services are issued by the King’s Printer.  During the years 1914–19 two services were thus issued, at the outbreak of war and to commemorate the signing of the Peace Treaty.]

      Between 1914 and 1918 rules were greatly relaxed.  Naval and military chaplains claimed the right to devise and use any service that seemed to edify the men.  As most of their services were not held in churches the Act of Uniformity was not relevant.  But it was impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between services held within and without a consecrated building.  Civilian churchgoers also became accustomed to drastic changes.  Some chaplains after 1918 wished to continue the experiments which had commended themselves during the War and parish priests generally were inclined to use their discretion to a hitherto unprecedented extent, especially as regards prayers after the Third Collect at Evensong.  The proposed measure authorizing the Permissive use of the Revised Prayer Book, as published in 1923, included a clause providing that “the House of Bishops [i.e. of the Church Assembly], or the Convocations of Canterbury and York” should have power to “issue such supplementary forms of service as they may consider best adapted to the fuller satisfaction of the exigencies of public worship.” [In 1927–28 “the archbishop and bishops of each province” was the phrase used; the Convocations were not mentioned.]  The Church of England may be held to be agreed in asking for the repeal of the restrictions of the 1872 Act.  We now proceed to discuss the services separately.

The Consecration of Churches and Churchyards.

      The Dedication [Strictly speaking, churches are dedicated to Almighty God, in honour of a Saint or in special commemoration of a mystery of redemption, such as Christ the Incarnate Son, or the Annunciation.  Consecration is used of sacred objects, benediction of persons.  But the terms are often interchanged.] of Christian churches arose naturally from that of the Jewish Temple by Solomon as recorded in 1 Kings: “So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord” (by prayer and sacrifice, 8:63).  The rededication of the Temple in 165 B.C. was still fresh in Jewish tradition in the time of our Lord. [See 1 Macc. 4:36: “Let us go up to cleanse the holy place, and to dedicate it afresh”; John 10:22: “it was the feast of the dedication.”]  When “the peace of the Church” allowed the erection of substantial buildings for worship it was natural that a rite based on the Jewish prototype should develop.  So Eusebius says: “After this there was brought about that spectacle for which we all prayed and longed: festivals of dedication in the cities and consecrations of the newly-built houses of prayer.” [H. E., x. 3.]  Much space is given to the dedication of the church at Tyre in 314.  Unfortunately for our purpose, Eusebius gives his own sermon in full and describes the ceremonies only in general terms.  “Our leaders conducted perfect ceremonies, and the consecrated priests performed the sacred rites and stately ordinances of the Church, here with psalmody and recitation of such other words as have been given us from God, there with the ministering of divine and mystic services; and the ineffable symbols of the Saviour’s Passion were present.”  St. Athanasius found it necessary to defend himself to Constantius against the charge of the Arians that he had celebrated in an unconsecrated church.  The occasion was Easter; the Lenten congregations in the other churches had been so dense as to endanger life; even larger crowds were expected at Easter.  He had seen an unfinished church used in the same way both at Treves and Aquileia.  His words exclude the idea that celebration of the Eucharist in itself constituted dedication: “we kept no day of dedication (it would certainly have been unlawful to do so, before receiving order from you).” [Apologia ad Constantium, 14, 15.]

      The rites of the Eastern Orthodox Church are elaborate. [See I. Hapgood’s edition, pp. 479 ff.]  The founding of a church is reserved for a bishop or his delegate.  Relics are deposited below the cross depicted on the cornerstone, though this ceremony may be omitted. [Special provision is made for the case of a wooden church.]  The Rector censes the trenches.  Water and oil are blessed and put on the cornerstone, the oil with special reference to Jacob’s stone.  The foundations are sprinkled with holy water, “and the workmen shall immediately begin their labours with speed, in the name of the Lord.”  The consecration of a church is always performed by a bishop.  The altar ceremonies are numerous.  Wax-mastic is laid on a column of the altar in the form of a cross; it hardens rapidly and is made firm with nails.  The altar is washed, then anointed with red wine mingled with rosewater.  Then the coverings are laid on and sprinkled.  The whole church is censed.  The walls are sprinkled with holy water and anointed over the doors.  Then after prayers candles are lighted and relics are fetched from another church.  The Hours follow, and after them the Liturgy is celebrated.

      The Latin rite of Dedication has an exceptionally interesting history. [See Duchesne, Christian Worship, pp. 403 ff.]  Its component parts are Roman and Gallican, each with its distinctive rationale.

      (a) Before the sixth century a Roman Church was dedicated by the saying of Mass in it, relics, if any, having been first deposited.  When a ceremony came into use it was virtually identical with the translation of relics.  The Bishop solemnly placed the relics in the cavity of the altar stone, representing the tomb, which he then anointed, inside and out, and sealed.  Every church was thus brought into line with the cemetery chapels of the early Roman Church. [It would be too much to say that the importance attached to relics was a Christianization of the widespread custom of human sacrifice to ensure the stability of a building (cf. 1 Kings 16:34); but the Christian custom at least meets the demands of a persisting human instinct.]

      (b) The Gallican rite “follows the line prescribed for initiation into the Christian mysteries.  Just as the Christian is dedicated by water and oil, by baptism and confirmation, so the altar in the first place, and the church in the second, are consecrated by ablutions and anointing.” [Duchesne, p. 413.]

      In the present Roman rite, the Blessing and Laying of the Foundation Stone is the first stage.  A wooden cross is set up on the site of the future altar, and the cornerstone, representing Christ, is prepared.  The Bishop (or priest authorized by the Bishop), after sprinkling the site of the altar with holy water, goes to the stone, which is let down into its place with accompanying prayers.  He then traverses the site of the church and its foundations, with lustrations and prayers.

      A simple ceremony of Benediction, which may be performed by a priest, precedes the saying of Mass in the completed church.

      The actual Consecration may be long deferred.  The church must have a fixed altar, detached from the wall, and the places of anointing must be of stone.  For some reason or other, even cathedrals have remained unconsecrated.

      The ceremony takes place in the morning.  The church is completely bare of ornaments, seats, etc.  The Bishop is met in the church by the clergy, and a procession is formed to fetch the relics from a neighbouring chapel (or hall); a deacon remains behind.  On its return the procession makes a threefold circuit of the exterior, the Bishop sprinkling the walls.  After each circuit he knocks at the door and is answered by the deacon, the dialogue being taken from Psalm 24.  The third time, the door is opened and the procession enters.  The alphabet ceremony follows: the Bishop traces a St. Andrew’s Cross with ashes right across the nave, on which he proceeds to print with the end of his crozier the Greek and Latin alphabets. [The cross, the Greek X, recalls Christ; the alphabet “I am Alpha and Omega.”  The secular antecedent is the ceremony by which Roman surveyors measured land.  The Bishop takes possession of the land in the name of Christ and marks out its boundaries.  Like the neophyte in baptism, it is signed with the cross (Duchesne, p. 457).]  Lustrations and anointings follow, and the “initiation” of the church is complete.  The translation of the relics follows, and the censings and anointings of the altar; the twelve “consecration crosses” are anointed in this part of the service.  Finally, Mass is sung.

      The rite described is an example of symbolism developed to its utmost extent.  We are not surprised, therefore, to find it condemned unsparingly by the Puritans, to whom it seemed “conjuring” and “juggling of Antichrist”.  [See Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, V. 12 ff. for a reply to the Puritans.]  The question was not pressing in the reformed Church of England, since the number of churches was ample and only rarely was a new church required for a long time to come. [What follows is based mainly on J. W. Legg’s English Orders for Consecrating Churches in the Seventeenth Century (Henry Bradshaw Society, XLI).  See also Bp. J. Wordsworth’s Lecture, On the Rite of Consecration of Churches (Church Historical Society, LII; E. C. Harington, On the Consecration of Churches (1842); R. W. Muncey, A History of the Consecration of Churches and Churchyards; Hierurgia Anglicana, Vol. I, revised edition.]  The examples, collected by Dr. Wickham Legg, are very few.  In 1564 Bishop Grindal and in 1597 Bishop Bancroft dedicated rebuilt churches per alios.  The first post-Reformation consecration was of a chapel at Croydon, by Bishop Bancroft, commissioned by Archbishop Whitgift.  These services are very simple, belonging as they do to a type in which the prayer of consecration is said on entering the church, and special prayers are provided after that “for the clergy and people” and in the Communion Service.  Relics under the altar being now impossible, the guiding principle was that the word of God and prayer, and the celebration of Holy Communion, consecrated the building.  The surrender of the land and building by the owner or founder was an indispensable preliminary.  Dr. Legg associates this type with the name of Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln.

      Bishop Andrewes’ form, used for the consecration of Jesus Chapel, Peartree, near Southampton, in 1620, is far more interesting and edifying.  The petition of the founder is read outside the church.  “In the name of God then let us begin,” says the Bishop.  Psalms 24 and 122 follow.  Entering the church the Bishop says: “Let us dedicate and offer unto God this place, with the same prayer that King David did offer up his.”  Next comes a perambulation of the church with appropriate prayers at each place – baptistery, pulpit, lectern, Holy Table, place of matrimony, pavement (for interments).  When the Bishop reaches the chancel the congregation is admitted.  The idea is to have as many services as possible.  In Mattins, Litany, and Holy Communion special prayers are inserted.  There was a churching, but no baptism or marriage was convenient.  In the Holy Communion the Bishop says the prayer of King Solomon, reads the Act of Consecration, and prays for the founder.

      The Convocations in 1662 and again in 1663 discussed the providing of an official form. [T. Lathbury, History of the Convocation of the Church of England, pp. 252, 259.  In 1640 “some other things there were in proportion and design that never ripened into acts of execution,” e.g. a Pontifical, including new offices to be bound with Confirmation and the Ordinal in a separate volume (p. 232, quoting Heylin’s Cyprianus Anglicus, life of Laud).]  The Irish Form of Consecrating Churches (1666) was, so Dr. Legg thinks, that compiled by Bishop Cosin for the 1662 Prayer Book.  In the first half of the eighteenth century it used to be bound up with the larger Irish Prayer Books, on the authority of the printer, so Archbishop King wrote in 1718.  It provided lessons to be read in different parts of the church, a dedication of the altar and a presentation of ornaments, a prayer from the Epistle of St. Clement, and a “Euphemism,” that is, a cento of verses from the Psalms.

      In England a form was approved by both Houses in 1712.  In 1714, in response to Letters of Business issued by George I, it was revised, but it never received synodical authority.  Based on Bishop Andrewes’ form, it was, however, impoverished; the prayers were shortened and the procession to different parts of the church was omitted, the appropriate prayers being said from the altar.  This form, with slight modifications, was generally used by the bishops up to the middle of the nineteenth century at least.  When evening services became the general rule, some bishops, desiring to have as large a congregation as possible, omitted the Eucharist, or postponed it until the next morning.

      The services in current use in the Anglican Communion may conveniently be treated under three heads: (a) the Irish, American, and Canadian forms; (b) the Scottish form and two English forms (Oxford and Salisbury); (c) notes on other English forms.

      (c) The other English forms for the most part occupy an intermediate position between the simple (a) type and the more elaborate (b).  The following features may be noticed.

      “Then shall the Bishop, proceeding to the north side of the sanctuary ... mark one of the stones with the consecration cross” (Portsmouth).  The special benedictions may be omitted (Portsmouth).  “At the first celebration of Holy Communion, in completion of the consecration of the church ...” (Southwark).  It is desirable that a fragment from the Cathedral be built into the wall (Southwark).  A service of thanksgiving later in the day, with a baptism, is recommended (Portsmouth).  No Holy Communion is mentioned in Birmingham (1928).  The services used at the consecration of Truro (1887) and Liverpool (1924) Cathedrals were very elaborate and impressive.

Laying the Foundation Stone of a Church.

      The Canadian Church has included this Office in the Prayer Book.  Drawn mainly from the Winchester form, it is simple and impressive.  After the Invocation and Versicles and Responses, Psalm 84 is sung and Ezra 3 to read.  More Versicles and Responses follow, then the prayer “O Lord Jesu Christ ...” shortened from the corresponding one in the Roman Pontifical.  The words accompanying the laying of the stone, and the Bishop’s announcement (“Here let true faith, the fear of God, and brotherly love ever remain.  This place is set apart ...”), also keep closely to the Pontifical.  Various prayers conclude the service.  The English forms are very like the Canadian.  Truro divides the Office into four sections – the Praises, the Prayers, the Stone-laying, the Final Prayers.  Salisbury recommends an adaptation of the alphabet ceremony to the Laying of Foundation Stones of a Church, five in number.  Four corner-stones of the nave are to be laid by four persons; αω AZ are to be marked on their upper surface.  The fifth stone is to be laid by the Bishop at the east end.

      Kindred forms to Consecration and Laying of a Foundation Stone are the Dedication of a Mission Chapel; the Consecration of an Altar (by a Bishop only – Oxford, Southwark, etc.); the Benediction of Bells, Organs, Windows, or ornaments of a church; the Reopening of a Church after restoration.  Some of these have an interesting history, since their use during the Laudian revival exasperated the Puritans.  The consecration of an altar at Wolverhampton in 1635 was referred to in the Puritan Petition of the City of London; also of altar cloths, “as they said, to the glory of God” – after the sermon four ministers “kneeled down and prayed over the cloth and the other consecrated things.”  About 1640 a font in Canterbury Cathedral was consecrated by the Lord Bishop of Oxford ... who went about it reading in a book. [The separate consecration of a font is liturgically important, in view of the baptistery’s having been originally separate from the church.]  In 1637 plate was consecrated in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, by the Bishop of Winchester.  “The prelate with his hand touched every piece severally, as on God’s part receiving them”; and then made prayers of Consecration and Benediction of donors.  In the same year the Rector of St. Mary Axe, authorized thereto by the Bishop of London, received Communion plate, saying: “I ... do put them into his possession” [i.e. of Jesus Christ]; “at the saying of these words, and do put them into His possession, the flagons were set on the Communion table.” [These examples are taken from Hierurgia Anglicana, as are those in the next paragraph.]

      The Church of St. Werburgh, Bristol, polluted on June 11, 1624, was kept locked till July II, when it was reconciled by the Bishop.  The reopening after restoration, and reconciliation after pollution, of Lichfield Cathedral in 1669 was a very elaborate ceremony.

The Consecration of Churchyards.

      In the mediaeval rite of Consecrating a Churchyard, found as early as the Pontifical of Egbert, crosses were erected at the four corners of the ground, and a fifth one in the centre.  The Bishop went in procession while Psalm 51 and a Litany were sung, visiting the crosses, which he sprinkled with holy water, and saying prayers at each.  The prayer of consecration was said at the central cross and Mass followed.  The seventeenth-century forms, given by Dr. Legg, are for the most part short additions [Bishop Andrewes’ form (1620), however, is long and divided into two parts by the reading of the Act of Consecration.] to the Consecrations of Churches ; in only one case (Dublin, 1667) is the churchyard consecrated independently of the church.  The Convocation forms of 1712 and 1715 provide for the reading of the service of the day in church, after which the Bishop goes to the churchyard, the instrument of donation is read, and a prayer said.

      The present Irish and Canadian Prayer Books include forms.  The Irish provides three psalms and some prayers, followed by the reading of the Act of Consecration.  The Canadian has a perambulation of the ground.  Among the English diocesan forms the following may be noted: the Sursum corda and a Preface precede the consecration in Salisbury, Truro, and Chichester; Chelmsford orders the singing of the hymn “Abide with me”; Truro restores the ceremony of the five crosses of wood, or, alternatively, five crosses cut in the ground.

Institution and Induction.

      According to Professor E. W. Watson, the parish priest in Teutonic countries was originally the man of his secular lord.  After the Norman Conquest a Church feudal system was built up in England.  The parish clergy “became the Bishop’s men, in the feudal sense, and so they have continued.  The promise of canonical obedience and the act of institution are thoroughly feudal.”  This change strengthened the position of the clergy, which became more of a freehold than before.  The new status of the Bishop was justified by a legal fiction, which was historically baseless.  “It was asserted that parishes had arisen from the delegation by the Bishop of his pastoral duty in parts of his diocese.  That was true enough of the towns around the coasts of the Mediterranean, where the churches had originally the Bishop for their one pastor, and the parishes had been separated off one by one.  It had never been true of Western Europe. ... But feudal thought, which assumed that the relation between lord and man began in a grant by the former, was compelled to postulate such a grant from Bishop to priest.” [The Church of England, pp. 40–42.  Cf. H. W. Cripps, The Law Relating to the Church and Clergy (6th ed., 1886, p. 465):  “Institution by the ordinary was introduced about the time of Richard I or John”; it replaced investiture by the patron.]

      The ordinary mediaeval method, [Information kindly supplied by Prof. A. H. Thompson.  Further valuable help has been given by Canon Christopher Wordsworth, extracts from whose letter is given in the notes.] which continued until well within living memory, was for the presentee to come to the Bishop or his delegate, usually at some central or convenient place, and receive admission, usually conveyed per traditionem bireti, [Nov. 29, 1296, Archbishop Winchelsey’s Commissary said: “Admittimus et to rectorem instituimus ac per birettum nostrum canonice investimus” (Reg. Winchelsey, p. 149).  Archbishop Peckham once instituted a vicar “per librum,” but more usually gave seisin by using his own ring (Register, pp. 122, 129–34), a practice which prevailed in the Cambridge Law School within living memory [Wordsworth].] after taking the oath of canonical obedience in the presence of witnesses.  His letters of institution, following a stereotyped form, which varied, however, in different dioceses, were delivered to him, and a mandate for induction was issued to the archdeacon or his official, or the rural dean, or sometimes to special commissaries.  There is no hint of any liturgical accompaniment, and this in itself is significant, as no mediaeval bishop would have added prayers to such an act unless he had some set form to guide him. [Canon A. T. Bannister writes that he knows of no evidence in medieval registers of any liturgical accompaniment.]  I think it probable that, where the act took place, as it generally did, in one of the Bishop’s manor houses, it was in the chapel, which was the normal scene of acts belonging to his spiritual office; and the vicar-general of the Archbishop of York habitually sat for this purpose in the Minster.  But it could be performed anywhere, and any itinerary of a mediaeval bishop who lived much in his diocese shows that candidates for institution frequently intercepted him at any place on his route from one of his houses to another.

      The practice of Archbishop Kempe, a constant absentee from the diocese of York for more than a quarter of a century, was to collate benefices in his own gift at the Old Temple or in his private house at Olanteigh in Kent, and to leave ordinary institutions to his vicar general at York; and in this he was generally followed by his successors, e.g. William Booth, Rotherham and Wolsey.  I may note also the following points:

      (1) Institutions to benefices in ecclesiastical peculiars lay with the local ordinary by custom and by permanent consent of the diocesan – e.g. the archdeacon of Richmond instituted to all benefices in his archdeaconry except a few which were in the peculiar of the dean and chapter of York.  Or, again, the Archbishop of York presented to the church of Patrington, but could not collate, as institution belonged to the chapter of Beverley.  Examples of this kind occur in most dioceses, but York is a very conspicuous instance.

      (2) The case of royal free chapels, e.g. Windsor and St. Stephen’s, is interesting, as institution was conferred by royal letters patent, and induction was usually committed to a lay official.  Lyndwood has a very long argument (ed. 1679, pp. 125, 126) about this, taking St. Martin’s-le-Grand as his example, as it conflicted with his theory that canonical institution was essentially episcopal. [According to W. Dansey, Horae Decanicae Rurales (2nd ed., 1844, i. 370), in some dioceses the archpriests enjoyed the right of institution by custom; it was, however, liable to suspension if they deviated from the canons.  “Many cathedrals, notably St. Paul’s and Salisbury, exercised an episcopal authority over a number of parishes which was only abolished in 1836.  In such parishes the dean, not the Bishop, instituted the incumbents” (E. W. Watson, op. cit., p. 49).] ...”

      All these instances point to the mediaeval view of institution as a purely legal formality, and this view was certainly maintained long after the Reformation.

      If Institution gave titulus or jus in re to the clerk who by presentation had titulus or jus ad rem, Induction added possessio.  The Letters of Induction were originally addressed to the dean or archpresbyter rural.  There was a real risk of impersonation, and precautions had to be taken.  In Lyndwood’s time the letter had begun to be addressed to the archdeacon instead of to the dean. [Dansey, loc. cit.]  In 1157 a clerk was invested by the key in possession of Poorstock Church, Dorset, possession being given by the Archdeacon of Dorset.  This form of seisin per clavem has continued to the present day. [Wordsworth, as above.]  No form of service is recorded as accompanying Induction, but in a church with daily Mass and the recitation of Hours it may be surmised that the newly-inducted clerk would say Mass or one of the Hours. [Id.]

      The Reformation made no essential change in the manner of admission.  In the early years of Elizabeth one Perceval Wiburn wrote that “the power of patronage still remains there, and Institution, as it is called, and Induction, as in the time of popery.” [Zurich Letters, ii. 360.  Canon S. L. Ollard kindly supplied this reference and most of the seventeenth and eighteenth century records which follow.]  Some examples of post-Reformation practice may be of interest.

      The Manner of Induction prescribed by the Rt. Rev. Lancelot Andrewes. [Minor Works (Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology), p. 164.]

      The neighbour minister, that inducts you, let him read in the Church Porch (the Church being empty and the door locked) the Mandate ad Inductionem, verbatim.

      That done, let him give you hold of the ring or key, and say,

      By virtue hereof, I, C. D., give you, I. N., real, actual and corporal possession of this Parish, together with all and singular the tithes, rights, and commodities of and belonging to the same.

      Then unlock the door, and go into the Church alone, and lock or bolt the door, and execute these particulars, which you shall write on the back side of your mandate, viz.: – Accepi clavem, intravi solus, oravi, tetigi sacra, pulsavi campanas, In nomine Patris, Filii, et S. St.  Amen.  Per me, I. N. (Then endorsed by C. D.)

      This “oravi” is happily illustrated by the well-known passage in Izaak Walton’s Life of George Herbert: “When at Induction he was shut into Bemerton Church, being left there alone to toll the bell (as the law requires), he stayed so much longer than an ordinary time before he returned to those friends that stayed expecting him at the church door, that his friend Mr. Woodnot looked in at the church window, and saw him lie prostrate on the ground before the altar; at which time and place (as he after told Mr. Woodnot) he set some rules to himself, for the future management of his life.”

      John Johnson in The Clergyman’s Vade Mecum (5th ed., 1723) gives a full description of the ceremonies existing in his time (pp. 79–84).  The Ordinary institutes a clerk presented by the patron, or collates him to a benefice in his gift and within his jurisdiction.  Donatives are livings which the patron can bestow without the clerk’s needing to be instituted or inducted. [They were abolished in 1898.]  The Bishop either institutes in person or gives a fiat to the Vicar-general, Chancellor, or Commissary, to institute in his behalf.  The clerk should get witnesses; none are more proper than the Bishop’s servants; he should take their names.  “The Archdeacon does rarely in person Induct the Clerk, but issues out his warrant to all Clerks and letter’d Persons [Does this suggest that the original purpose of the Mandate of Induction was to ensure that the man who turned up, say, in an Oxford village was the man who had been actually instituted in far-off Lincoln, and that the essence of the ceremony was his identification?] within the Archdeaconry, empow’ring them, or any of them, to do it in his stead.”  The inductor was usually a neighbouring clergyman.  The tolling of the bell was not universal; merely to take hold of the door handle was enough.  “It has been held sufficient, that the Clerk did, within the time limited, read the Common Prayer and Thirty-nine Articles in the Church Porch.”  So that there was no reason to say that it was done clandestinely; therefore the tolling of the Bell is no insignificant ceremony.”

      H. W. Cripps in his The Law relating to the Church and the Clergy (pp. 459–480) adds but little to the above account.  There are four stages: (1) Presentation; (2) Admission (the Ordinary’s approval of the presentee as a fit person); (3) Institution; (4) Induction.  The clerk must make the declaration of assent to the Prayer Book and Articles, and the Declaration against Simony, and take the oaths of allegiance and canonical obedience.  The Institution may take place outside the diocese.  After Institution the clerk is responsible for the cure of souls; he enters on the temporalities, but cannot sue for them until he is inducted.  Induction is “delivery of possession” (“feudum sine investitura nullo modo constitui potest”).  It arose at a time when writing was seldom practiced, and a public and notorious act was required.

      It seems, therefore, that Institution and Induction are by origin two parts of a purely legal ceremony.  The modern view, that Institution is the conveyance of the spiritual charge, may seem to be supported by the traditional phrase at Institution, [Cf. Sir Simon Degge’s Parson’s Counsellor (1677), where the form is given as: “Instituo A. B. rectorem Ecclesiae C. cum cura animarum: et accipe curam tuam et meam.”  Institution is to the benefice, to which the cure of souls is generally attached.  But there were sinecures.] “Accipe meam curam et tuam,” but is not borne out by the older interpretation of the phrase.  These are presumably the words of Institution, “out of a written Instrument, drawn beforehand for this purpose,” to which John Johnson refers. [Op. cit., i. 81.]  It was prepared beforehand in the diocesan registry.  The direction to kneel, holding the seal appendant, suggests a legal rather than spiritual ceremony.  Archbishop Sancroft, one of the most devout of the seventeenth-century prelates, after 1688, merely sent the message “Fiat Institutio, W. C.” to his Vicar-general. [In 1887 the Archbishop of York (Thomson) instituted Canon Vashon Baker to the Rectory of Brandesburton, in a London office; he said that there was nothing spiritual about the ceremony, which was purely legal.  The only religious feature we have been able to find in England prior to 1871 is in the Works of Bishop Wilson, V. 217 (Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology), where there is a prayer before Institution, which may have been said with the clerk.]  We now proceed to trace the transformation of both Institution and Induction into impressive services designed to edify both clerk and congregation.

      The American Church in 1804 accepted an Office of Induction as an addition to the Prayer Book.  It was based upon the Office adopted by the Diocese of New York in 1802.  An earlier form was adopted by the Diocese of Connecticut in 1799, possibly going back to some form used in Maryland, where the clergy had claimed the right of Institution and Induction.  Canon XVII of 1789 refers to the Induction and Institution of ministers.  The 1804 Service was normally taken by a Presbyter appointed by the Bishop, who transmitted a Letter of Induction, which included these words: “We ... hereby do Induct you into said Parish, possessed of full Power to perform every Act of sacerdotal function ... so we authorize you to claim and enjoy all the accustomed Temporalities appertaining to your Cure.”  Morning Prayer was said by a visiting priest.  After the congregation had been given an opportunity of objecting, the Letter of Induction was read and the Senior Warden handed the keys to the new Rector, who accepted them “as the pledges of my Induction, and of your parochial recognition.”  An Office followed, including a prayer which referred to “the Ministers of Apostolic Succession.”  After a Sermon the new Rector “shall proceed to the Communion Service, and to administer the holy Eucharist to his Congregation.”  A new Canon in 1804 made the right to vote in the Diocesan Convention dependent on Induction.

      In 1808, to avoid conflict with the laws of certain States and the rights of some Vestries, the word “Institution” was used instead of “Induction,” and the Office was made optional.  In 1814 the above-mentioned provision of the 1804 Canon was repealed and election by the parish, duly notified to the Bishop, gave the minister the rights hitherto conveyed by Institution.  “For many years the Office was rarely, if ever, used.  Its revival was in the main brought about by Bishop H. C. Potter of New York.  He once said that Dr. William Smith (of Connecticut), the compiler of the Office, drew upon Bishop Andrewes.  This is the nearest clue we have to its origin.” [Information kindly supplied by the Rev. E. R. Hardie of New York, who has helped in this section.]  The present (1929) Book supposes that the Bishop will normally be the Institutor.  The Service is substantially as in 1804, but may be used in conjunction with Morning or Evening Prayer, or with the Eucharist, or separately.  The newly-instituted priest blesses the congregation, even when the Bishop is present.

      The earliest instance in England of a desire for a service seems to be the printing in Warren’s Synodalia (1853, p. 433) of the Service for the Induction of Ministers to their Cures used in the Diocese of Fredericton.  It is the ordinary service with special Psalms, Lessons, Collect, etc.; Institution and Induction apparently being not distinguished.  In 1875 a Committee of the Lower House was appointed to prepare an Order of Service, which was commended to the Upper House.

      Meanwhile [In 1873 a Committee appointed by the Lower Houses of Canterbury and York presented a Report containing proposed Canons.  No. X was: “Of the Manner of Instituting or Collating to a Benefice with Cure of Souls.”  It provides, for the edification of the laity, that Institution shall always take place in the parish church concerned, after the ordinary service.  If the Bishop is unable to be present, he shall issue his commission to another “spiritual person”.  The Induction shall follow “as soon after as conveniently may be.”] the first Institution and Induction Services had been issued in 1871 by the Bishop of Winchester (Wilberforce), followed by a Lichfield form in 1873 (Bishop Selwyn).  Further information is given by the debates in the Lower House in 1876 and 1879.  By 1876 Lincoln, Peterborough, and Oxford also had Services of Institution.  The Archdeaconry of Sarum had introduced the practice of inducting inside the church.  The Archdeacon of Totnes (afterwards Bishop Earle, of Marlborough) had since 1872 used a form which included the perambulation of the church with appropriate lections and prayers at different places. [This was evidently inspired by Bishop Andrewes’ form of Consecrating Churches.  No effort has been spared to trace the origin of this now familiar form; no positive evidence has been found for its composition by Dr. Earle, but that he composed it seems probable.] Lord Alwyne Compton, as Archdeacon of Oakham (Peterborough), more than once used a form of Institution and Induction, having been commissioned by the Bishop to institute. [E.g. on April 19, 1877, Institution and Induction of Canon Christopher Wordsworth to the Rectory of Glaston.]  Archdeacon Hessey (London Diocese) in 1879 said: “When I inducted the son of our much-respected Archbishop, his Grace after the service came into the vestry and said, ‘I never saw anything of this sort before. ... I approve of this public service most heartily.’”

      In 1905, Report No. 394 of a Joint Committee revealed a bewildering variety of practice.  In its revised form (No. 398, 1906), signed by Bishop John Wordsworth of Salisbury, it recommended that “Induction may take place in a purely legal form, without any public service,” or before Morning or Evening Prayer, or as part of a separate service.  In 1907 the Report was deferred sine die.

      The current practice in large rural dioceses is for the Bishop to institute in his private chapel, the Archdeacon or Rural Dean inducting.  In dioceses of manageable area the Bishop generally visits the parish to institute in person, and Induction by the Archdeacon or Rural Dean follows immediately.  The perambulation of the church usually takes place when the Induction is held alone, but is often omitted when it is combined with Institution. [Two other details may be mentioned.  A form of combined Institution and Induction, both taken by the Bishop, was published in the fourth edition of The Priest’s Prayer Book (1870), as part of a Pontifical drawn up by Dr. R. F. Littledale at the request of Bishop Jenner (consecrated for Dunedin in 1866).  “Perpetual Curates,” i.e. ministers of most modern parishes, were never instituted or inducted, but were simply licensed.  An Act of 1869 gave them the designation of Vicar.  Soon afterwards, bishops began to give them the choice of being instituted or licensed.  Convocation debates reveal that Institution involved much higher fees.]

      The Scottish Church has an Office of Institution, in which the Bishop grants and conveys “the charge and spiritual jurisdiction” over the church to the Rector.  The service is mainly taken from the Ordering of Priests.  The Irish Prayer Book has a Service of Institution taken by the Bishop.  Neither Scotland nor Ireland has any Induction.  The Canadian Prayer Book borrows from the American Service the presentation of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer and the delivery of the keys.  It distinguishes carefully between “Institution into the Cure of Souls” and “Induction into the Incumbency with all the rights and emoluments thereto belonging.”

      We have seen Institution, a legal transaction peculiar to Western Europe, turn into a purely spiritual act in Canada.  In Scotland it is assimilated to Ordination; in the United States it is little more than a Recognition of Ministers, described as Institution or Induction indifferently.  Theoretically a combined Institution and Induction Service is open to objection, for the clerk should not be in the church at all before he is admitted at the door.  And the logical form for an Induction Service to assume is the conducting of a Prayer Book service by the newly-inducted clerk, at which the Archdeacon would naturally preach.  But “special services” are popular, and the modern English custom is undeniably edifying. [In the Codex Juris Canonici four methods of “provision” of offices are distinguished: Collation, Institution (after presentation by a patron, or nomination), Confirmation or Admission (after election or “postulatio”), or simple Acceptance of the elect in cases where Confirmation is not necessary; see Can. 148.  Patrons have considerable rights; benefices are called curata or noncurata, according to whether or no they have the cure of souls annexed to them (1411).]

The Making of Deaconesses. [In the first form of the proposed English Book of 1927 the 1925 Service (see below) was included.  Later, however, it was omitted owing to technical difficulties in the presentation of the Book to Parliament.  The position of deaconesses in the Anglican Communion is not yet sufficiently established to justify our including them in the chapter on the Ordinal.]

      Phoebe is the typical deaconess in the New Testament (Rom. 16:1, R.V. Margin).  Pliny in his letter to Trajan (c. 112) refers to “ancillae quae vocantur ministrae”.  After that, evidence for the continued existence of the order is lacking until the third, or even fourth, century.  Deaconesses stood in a special relation to the Bishop as regards his dealings with women, assisted at the baptism of members of their sex, visited sick women and took the Eucharist to them, taught women, and acted as doorkeepers on the women’s side of the church.  In the Apostolic Constitutions (viii. 18, 19) the Bishop ordains the deaconess by the laying on of his hand.  The later Eastern rite is assimilated to the Ordering of Deacons; the Bishop puts the diaconal stole round her neck, and after Communion gives her the chalice, which she immediately restores to the altar.  The Office became obsolete in the Middle Ages.  In the West a rite suitable for blessing widows or nuns survived, which has features suggesting its origin in a form for the Ordination of a Deaconess.  The modern Roman Pontifical has a rarely used form for blessing a consecrated nun, between the Epistle and the Gospel, which also goes back to the Ordination of a Deaconess. [For the rather obscure history thus summarized see The Ministry of Women (SPCK, 1919).]

      The modern order of deaconesses originated in the desire to meet practical needs, which it seemed could best be done by reviving the institutions of the Apostolic Church.  As early as the sixteenth century there were sporadic instances of deaconesses, but the first important move was the founding of the Kaiserswerth Deaconess House (Lutheran) in 1836.  In 1862 Archbishop Tait admitted Elizabeth Ferard to be the first duly ordained deaconess in the Church of England.  The American Church had anticipated this step, for a Deaconess House had been opened in Baltimore in 1855.  In 1875 Dr. Tait stated in Convocation that he had been in the habit of praying when ladies were set apart for this work.  Asked if they were a distinct office, he replied, “hardly as yet”.  The forms used prior to the Lambeth Conference of 1920, which marked an advance in the position given to the Office, may be consulted in The Ministry of Women, the Report of a Committee appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  In a typical English form (London), the Bishop lays his hand “on the head of the person to be made deaconess,” blesses her, and says: “N—, I admit thee to the office of deaconess.  In the Name, etc.”  In the American form the Bishop says: “Take thou authority to exercise the office of a Deaconess in the Church of God, whereunto thou art now set apart.”  The order is formally recognized by the Canons of the American Church.

      The Upper Houses of Canterbury and York in 1925 adopted a “Form and Manner of Making of Deaconesses,” in which the following points deserve notice.  The form, which comes between the Epistle and the Gospel, follows that for the Ordering of Deacons very closely, its essential features being prayer and the laying on of hands.  The Bishop’s words are: “Take thou authority to execute the office of a Deaconess in the Church of God committed unto thee.  In the Name, etc.”  The work is defined thus: “It appertaineth to the office of a Deaconess in the place where she shall be appointed to serve, in things both temporal and spiritual; to minister to the welfare and happiness of those to whom she is sent; to give instruction in the Holy Scriptures and in the Christian Faith, and to help the Minister of the Parish in his work of preparing candidates for Baptism and Confirmation; to assist at the administration of Holy Baptism; to advise and pray with such women as desire help in difficulties and perplexities; to intimate the names of those who are in need, sickness, or other distress unto the Minister of the Parish, and to be at his disposition in the work of relief and succour to the parishioners.  Will you do this gladly and willingly?” [The form for Ordaining Deaconesses in the Nonjurors’ Prayer Book of 1734 testifies to a desire to revive primitive institutions, but its interest is purely antiquarian.]

The Admission of Readers.

      To read the Scriptures at a meeting of the faithful was an important function from the first (see Mark 13:14; 1 Tim. 4:13).  The president would call upon anyone to read, as he thought fit.  But the lectors’ status soon became an Office, which was reckoned as a minor rank of the clergy.  According to Duchesne, [See Christian Worship, pp. 345 ff.] the superior ranks of the minor orders – subdeacon and acolyte – are differentiations of the ministry of the deacon, being concerned with the altar.  The other three minor orders are exorcists, lectors and doorkeepers.  The subdeacons absorbed the functions of the exorcists, and the lectors constituted the real first order for young clerics.  When the special work of reading the lections, other than the Epistle and Gospel, ceased with their disappearance, there was no longer any need for adult lectors, and the juniors who constituted the order were largely identical with the Schola Cantorum.  The English Church at the Reformation abolished the minor orders, but the “clerks” of the Prayer Book rubrics are in a sense the representatives of the former “readers”.

      The modern revival of the Office dates from the appointment of Scripture Readers in town parishes at a period when the masses were largely illiterate and could only know the Bible if it were read aloud to them.  The gradual regularizing of their position, as shown in the method of admitting them to office, is described in the Chronicle of Canterbury Convocation for 1875.  The Archbishop (Dr. Tait) explained that the first stage was the giving of a verbal commission by Bishop Blomfield (London).  He himself, when Bishop of London, prayed with the Scripture Readers in his study.  His successor transferred the prayers to his chapel.  A form had been drawn up some years previously after a meeting at which the four Archbishops (of the United Church of England and Ireland) and nearly all the Bishops were present.  It had been generally accepted, and was used by the Bishops in their private chapels. [Where the Act of Uniformity did not apply.]

      In 1921 the English Bishops put out a common form.  The Readers are presented by “the Warden,” who testifies that they are “meet for the duties that will be required of them.”  The Bishop delivers a New Testament into the hands of each, with the words: “I admit thee to the Office of a Reader.  In the Name, etc.”  The “duties” are not defined.  This vagueness reflects the prevailing uncertainty as to their position and usefulness in the Church of England.  In many overseas dioceses their work is of great importance.  It should be noted that traditionally they rank below the laymen whose work is connected with the altar, but according to Anglican practice they, being the only laymen admitted to office by the Bishop, would logically come next to the clergy in spiritual precedence.

Admission of Dignitaries to Office.

      (a)  The Enthronization of Bishops. – This until recently was a mere ceremony.  As late as the 1896 edition of Dean Hook’s Church Dictionary it is contrasted with the “religious ceremony” of the installation of a Knight of the Garter.  A correspondent at Canterbury informs us that “on several occasions the Archbishops were enthroned by proxy, and the service became almost formal.”  The beautiful service at which the present Archbishop (Dr. Lang) was enthroned was composed by Archbishop Lord Davidson, Dr. Bell (the Dean, now Bishop of Chichester), and others.  The heart of an enthronement service is the solemn Te Deum, which should follow immediately upon the actual enthronement.

      (b)  The Installation of Deans. – Most cathedrals have a service prescribed by the Statutes, whether mediaeval as at Lincoln, Marian as at Durham, or modern as at Truro; and all use some authorized form.

      (c)  Canons, etc. – In most cathedrals other officials are admitted with prayer and ceremony.  The Salisbury Diocesan Service Book has a form in which the Bishop collates to the Prebend or Canonry, saying, “Accipe curam meam et tuam.”

      (d)  There is no form, we are told, for institution of Rural Deans before the sixteenth century.  It was by “oral declaration or nomination, and traditional of the decanal seal.” [Dansey, Horae Rurales Decanicae, i. 132–4.]  “There was no great solemnity in appointing men to execute the declining office.” [White Kennett, Parochial Antiquities, ii. 358.]

Reception of Penitents.

      The preparation of a form was contemplated in 1640. [T. Lathbury, History of the Convocation, p. 232.]  In Hierurgia Anglicana [iii. 89 (1904 edition).] a Form of Receiving Penitents is printed, dating from 1704, put forth by Bishop Wilson for the Diocese of Sodor and Man.  In 1713 the Letters of Business included the preparation of an official form; this was done, but the form was not authorized.

The Reception of Schismatics.

      In 1854 a desire was expressed in Convocation for a service for admitting converts from the Church of Rome.  That prepared by the Upper House of Convocation in 1714 was recommended by the Committee on Church Services, with a few modifications.  A form was put out by Bishop Creighton for the Diocese of London in 1898, based on that which had been before the Upper House in 1891.  It provides that such reception is not “necessary in the case of foreigners in Catholic Communion who shall desire to become Communicants of the Church of England.”  The lesson is the Parable of the Lost Sheep.  The “penitent” is asked: “Dost thou renounce the errors of thy former conversation?” [Church Historical Society (old series), No. XLIX.]  Another form, published by the S.P.C.K., is entitled “A Form for receiving Lay-persons already confirmed into the Church of England.”  The applicant is merely questioned as to the baptismal vows, and whether he intends “to abide in the Communion of the Church of England in faithful membership.” [Reception of a person from a non-episcopal communion naturally takes the form of Confirmation.]  This was superseded by “A Reception Office,” issued by the Bishops in 1932, which has more searching questions.

Rogationtide Devotions.

      In Queen Elizabeth’s reign Royal Injunctions ordered the perambulation of the parish at Rogationtide to be continued, with certain proper psalms.  As late as 1581 Bishop Chaderton of Chester found it necessary to forbid “banners, crosses, handbells, or any such-like popish ceremonies” in these processions. [W. P. M. Kennedy, Elizabethan Episcopal Administration, I. xliii, lxxv.]  In their secular form of “beating the bounds” of the parish the perambulations have continued down to our own time.  In some places a devotional observance, with litanies, etc., has been revived, and authorized diocesan forms have been put forth.  However, Archbishop Tait’s words to Convocation in 1875 seem to hold good.  He had been asked about a service for the launching of a ship.  But it is not held in church, so the Act of Uniformity does not apply; “a clergyman is at liberty to use any service he pleases.”

Healing.

      Hierurgia Anglicana [iii. 176.] prints a form of “Prayers at the Healing” Mark 16:14 ff. is read; at the words “they shall lay their hands, etc.” the infirm persons are presented to the King upon their knees, and he lays his hands upon them.  Then John 1:1 ff. is read; at “that light was the true light” they are presented again, “and the King puts his gold chain about their necks.”  In Queen Anne’s reign a form for touching for the King’s Evil (scrofula) was printed at the end of the Prayer Book; the subject, however, was never discussed in Convocation. [Lathbury, History of Convocation, p. 361.]

Parochial Offices, etc.

      It is sufficient to remark on the distance travelled between the time when a Harvest Thanksgiving Service was held to be illegal [See Chronicle of Convocation, 1863.] and Children’s Services were painfully designed to conform to the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act [See below.] to the year 1920, when Bishop Burge wrote his preface to the Oxford Diocesan Service Book.  He sanctions the use of Dr. Eck’s Parochial Office Book, and adds: “It is not necessary to obtain any sanction for non-liturgical services, in which no set form is used, such as Prayer Meetings, Mission Services, Services of Intercession, the ‘Three Hours’ Service,’ provided such services are in accord with the standard of the Prayer Book.  Such services should be conducted elsewhere than in the chancel, and may be conducted without a surplice.”

      Among other forms put out by Diocesan authority may be mentioned : The Opening of a Synod of Clergy, a Bidding Prayer, Episcopal Benedictions [A number of Benedictions are printed in The Priest’s Prayer Book.  The Preface says: “Although some of the Benedictions are properly episcopal, they are so as a matter of order, and not of essential right.”  For the modern Roman Benedictions see Liturgia, pp. 787–90.  Thirteen are reserved to the Ordinary or his delegate; 66 have some other limitation; 70 others, varying from bees to a seismograph, are within the competence of the parish priest.] (Salisbury); the Benediction of a Vicarage, including the garage (Portsmouth); and a Service for Ringers (Oxford).  Many services for occasional needs, such as Armistice Day celebrations, are put out by the S.P.C.K., sometimes with the approval of the Archbishops, sometimes on the initiative of the Society.  Whether they may be used in church depends entirely on the individual diocesan.

      Our concluding remarks, like much of the foregoing, apply to the Provinces of Canterbury and York only, though other Churches and Provinces may learn from our wisdom and our mistakes.  If some of our diocesan forms have given a lead to the whole Anglican Communion, we have clearly suffered from an excess of individualism.  It cannot be a good thing for the 43 English dioceses to set to work on building up Diocesan Service Books.  This is a waste of energy and uneconomical; besides, it would be too much to expect the requisite liturgical knowledge to be available in each diocese.  Again, it is open to objection when, as sometimes happens, a new Bishop embarks on a revision of the existing forms in accordance with his private views shortly after they have been carefully revised by his predecessor.

      If we may be allowed to suggest a policy, something like the following would seem desirable.

      In the first place, let a large number of services be recognized as best left to the discretion of the clergy, at any rate for the present.  For example, no good purpose is served when a diocese puts out an official Children’s Service, thus stereotyping what should be flexible.

      The remaining Services and Forms are either proper to the Bishop, in which case they will be the nucleus of a Pontifical, or belong to the parish priest’s Manual of Supplementary Offices.  The Pontifical is solely a matter for the Upper Houses of Convocation.  The Order of Making Deaconesses has already been authorized.  It would be a simple matter to add from time to time authorized forms of collation and institution, consecrating of churches and churchyards, the opening of a synod, admission of converts in holy orders, etc.

      The Manual would be compiled and promulgated by the Convocations, and would contain material needed by the parish priest in his pastoral capacity.  But a word of warning should be given.  For the purposes of this chapter the whole of the records of Convocations since 1852 have been studied.  A perusal of them shows that a great deal of energy has been wasted in producing prayers and services which have not come into general use.  They have been far too “official” in tone to have any chance of acceptance.  The cooperation of liturgical scholars and working parish priests is necessary.  It would be better for the Convocations to aim at a small output of services likely to be permanently useful than to try to cover the ground.  The submission of proposed forms to the Diocesan Synods of Clergy for their suggestions would help the Convocations to avoid repeating past mistakes.

Anglican Adaptations of Some Latin Rites and Ceremonies

By K. D. Mackenzie

(a)  Ceremonies belonging to special occasions in the liturgical year.

      One of the chief effects of the Oxford Movement has been an increased sense of the value of the liturgical year.  Puritanism detested the cycle of festival and fast, which seemed to fly in the face of St. Paul’s rebuke of the observance of “days and months and times and years”.  If the Puritans had had their way there would be no Christmas, no Easter, no Pentecost.  The Anglican Reformers refused to bind themselves by such rigid scripturalism, and accepted the position that “the Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies” (Art. XX).  At the same time they claimed that “every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, or abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority” (Art. XXXIV).  Abolition was in the air, and the watchword of the Anglican reforms was, for doctrine, “Back to the Scripture, as interpreted by the Fathers,” and for ritual, “Back to the primitive Church.”  The result was that, though in theory the Reformers advocated the retention of old ceremonies which were edifying (see Cranmer’s Preface, Of Ceremonies), the result in practice was something like a clean sweep of all the distinctively mediaeval ritual.  Nearly all the special ritual observances of the liturgical seasons were of mediaeval growth; and therefore the consequence of the application of Anglican principles in this matter has been, to put it frankly, that the official Anglican ecclesiastical year has a very monotonous character.  To take a striking example, there is no ritual or ceremonial difference between Good Friday and Easter Day, except that the variable parts of the service bear on the subjects of the day, and that there are three Collects on Good Friday, while on Easter Day a special canticle takes the place of the Venite.  The only special service for a special day is the somewhat forbidding Commination on Ash Wednesday.

      But the position which the Tractarians had to face was more depressing still.  Hanoverian sluggishness had almost effected what Puritan zeal had failed to produce, and the observance even of Lent, Holy Week, and the feasts of the Saints had well-nigh disappeared from ordinary Anglican Church life.  No doubt the deadness of the times must not be exaggerated; the very fact that Nelson’s Companion to the Fasts and Festivals of the Church continued to appear in new editions during the whole of the Hanoverian period must to some extent modify what has been said.  Still, on the whole it is true to say that one of the first tasks of the Tractarians was to revive what had been left to Anglicanism of the light and shade of the Christian Year.  The name of Keble springs to the mind in this connection.

      But when all had been done, and even when the unauthorized revival of hymnody had infused a little more life and variety and some of the power of religious association into the observance of the seasons of the Church, it remained true that sixteenth-century iconoclasm had made it difficult to enter into the full and beautiful variety with which the mediaeval Church had adorned individual fasts and festivals.  When once the ceremonial revival had begun, it was inevitable that men should look back with envy upon the historic observances of Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, and Holy Week, and should ask whether it was not possible to have these powerful aids to devotion restored within the English Church.  Obviously this depended on whether the principle that omission is equivalent to prohibition is a true one or not.  If not, there is no reason why they should not be revived or borrowed, simply on the ground that if we see a good custom anywhere we cannot do better than adopt it, unless such adoption actually conflicts with obligations which we are bound to observe.

      On examination it was found that most of these ceremonies were, in fact, external to the actual liturgy of the day, and it therefore seemed to an increasing number of the clergy that there could be no more harm in performing them than there was in holding any other service, such as a Prayer Meeting or a Harvest Thanksgiving, which did not conflict with the authorized ritual of the Book of Common Prayer.  It was recognized, of course, that the bishop’s jus liturgicum would give him the right to forbid them, if he chose so to do, but, failing such action on his part, it seemed allowable to make the experiment.

      Some of the clergy therefore attempted a direct revival of the mediaeval customs, others simply translated the modern Latin rites into English and used them in full, others adapted them by drastic abbreviation.

      The origin of the ceremonies. – There have been two districts in which, at different periods, dramatic ceremonial has enjoyed great popular favour in connection with the rites of the Church.  One was Jerusalem.  From the first moment at which the peace of the Church allowed Christianity to come out into the open, the Christians of the holy city delighted to observe the times and places of our Lord’s life and sufferings by yearly ceremonial acts of recollection.  A document known as the Peregrinatio Etheriae gives an interesting account of the customs of the Church of Jerusalem towards the end of the fourth century.  From this we learn that there was a procession on the Feast of the Purification, a special commemorative service at Bethany on the eve of Palm Sunday, and on the afternoon of the day itself a procession from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem with palms and the anthem “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”  In the same way the faithful followed the story of the Passion, moving from place to place according to the narrative of the Gospels.  On Good Friday morning at the actual site of Golgotha the whole assembly, having already kept vigil in the garden of Gethsemane and visited the column of the Flagellation, passed one by one in front of the relic of the holy Cross and kissed it with great devotion.

      At a later date the churches of North-Western Europe were the great homes of dramatic ceremonial.  The Gallican rite always tended to greater elaboration and complexity than the Roman, and even after it had been almost everywhere abandoned in favour of the latter, the Gallican affection for the florid still lingered in its ancient homes.  Thus for our present purpose it is interesting to notice how in the Sarum rite on Candlemas Day an image of the Child Jesus met the procession as it entered the church, so as to reproduce as far as possible the scene in the Temple at Jerusalem.  So at Canterbury, as early as the eleventh century, the Blessed Sacrament was carried in the procession on Palm Sunday.  The Easter sepulchre, of which the remains are to be found in so many English churches, represents also a far more dramatic symbolism than anything that has ever been known in Rome.  A Host was “buried” on Good Friday, and brought back to the Altar with great solemnity on Easter Day.  This ceremony was carried out in addition to that which will be described below, and should be carefully distinguished from it.

      The influence of Rome until quite modern times has always been in the direction of curtailing ceremonial.  It is perhaps worth drawing attention to this point, in view of the frequently used argument that the floridity of Italian taste is unsuited to the cold austerity of the Northern temperament.  As a matter of fact, none of the symbolical ceremonies of the liturgical year is of pure Roman origin, with the possible exception of the Candlemas ceremonies, which may have had some connection with the pagan Ambarvalia. [The washing of feet as a ceremony distinctive of Maundy Thursday may also be of Roman origin.  See below.]  They are all non-Roman decorations which, with some purging, have been admitted into the Roman rite.

      So far as the author is aware, no attempts have been made to introduce into Anglican churches what may be called the ultra-dramatic mediaeval ceremonies, even in those churches which in the main base their ceremonial arrangements on the Sarum rite.

      Candlemas. – The observance of this feast by a special procession had spread to Rome by the seventh century, but the blessing and distribution of candles, which is the distinctive feature of the present ritual, cannot be traced further back than the eleventh.  The symbolism is direct, obvious, and very beautiful; the Candlemas procession is the entry of the true Light into the world, and the gradual illumination of the whole world by Him.  This is expressed by the lighting of the candles from each other until they are held by the whole congregation, and also by the carrying of the lights into every part of the church during the procession.

      The candles at the beginning of the service are placed on a table near the south corner of the Altar.  The celebrant, accompanied, if possible, by deacon and subdeacon, approaches the Altar wearing a violet cope.  He recites certain prayers of blessing, and sprinkles and censes the candles.  These two actions may be taken to represent ceremonially the result of the blessing of anything for a sacred purpose.  The sprinkling represents the negative result, a holy object is one which is purified from all lower associations: the censing represents the positive result, a holy object is one which is sanctified for a religious purpose.  It is not to be supposed that the sprinkling and censing themselves produce these results.  They merely express symbolically the effect of the prayer of blessing which has just been uttered.

      After the blessing of the candles they are distributed to the congregation, who come and kneel for the purpose at the Communion rail or at the entrance to the chancel.  The choir meanwhile sing the Nunc Dimittis, treating verse 4 as a refrain after each of the other verses.  Finally, the candles are lighted and carried round the church in procession.

      This service takes place on February 2nd in any case, even though (through one of the three Sundays before Lent falling on the same day) the observance of the feast may be postponed.  If, however, as normally happens, the procession takes place on the Feast of the Purification, the celebrant changes into white vestments as soon as it is over and proceeds to the celebration of the Eucharist. In this case the candles are again lighted and held at the Gospel, and from the beginning of the canon to the end of the Communion.

      This ritual is often used in its entirety in Anglican churches, the only change being that it is translated into English.

      Ash Wednesday. – The observance of Lent, as the Commination Service reminds us, is originally connected with the system of public penance.  From about the seventh century those who had committed serious sins, and were prepared to submit to public penance, were sent into a monastery at the beginning of Lent for their penitential exercises and did not emerge until just before Easter.  In Rome such penitents were ceremonially presented with a hair shirt on Ash Wednesday in token of what was in store for them.

      A little later, with the decay of public penance, the idea grew up of the whole Church putting itself to penance during Lent, and already we find the connection of “ashes” with the title of the first day of Lent in the eighth century.  AElfric, c. 1000, recommends the pouring of ashes on the head in token of penitence at this time, and the Council of Beneventum (1091) seems to assume it as a general custom.

      The present Latin custom is to bless the ashes in church and immediately afterwards to touch with them the foreheads of the congregation one by one.  The service in the Missale Romanum is very like that for Candlemas Day.  The ashes are blessed, sprinkled and censed; and the people kneel to receive them as they do to take the candles in the Candlemas ceremony; but there is, of course, no procession.  This service, like the other, is often merely translated into English and used in Anglican churches without alteration.

      Palm Sunday – The ceremonial of Palm Sunday is in its essence far more ancient than that of the two solemnities we have hitherto considered.  We have already seen how even in the fourth century there was a procession with palms in the Holy Land.  The mere fact that the observance always fell on a Sunday meant that the ceremonial could always be carried out with some pomp and dignity, and its position as the inauguration of the most solemn week of the year naturally gave it a prominence beyond that of less important days.

      We notice at once that the service for the blessing of palms, unlike those for the blessing of ashes and candles, has a complete liturgical structure of its own.  It is a service, not a mere blessing of something to be used in a service.  As we shall see, it has a form very like that of the Mass itself; and some have thought that it is the relic of a Mass said in the early morning, in addition to the usual mid-morning Sunday liturgy.  It is perhaps more probable that it represents a service which took place at another church than that in which the great Mass of the day was to be celebrated.  The palms would thus be blessed at the close of service in one church, and carried in procession to the other.

      The service, as it stands in the Latin rite today, begins with an antiphon which reminds us of the introit of the Mass.  This is followed by a Collect, a lesson, a chant (corresponding to the gradual or tract) and a Gospel.  All these are recited with the same solemnity as the corresponding features of a High Mass, except that the celebrant wears a cope instead of a chasuble.  A Eucharistic preface follows with Sanctus and Benedictus: then, corresponding to the canon of the Mass, comes the blessing of the palms in a form similar to the blessings used on Candlemas and Ash Wednesday.  The palms are distributed, carried in procession, and held at the Gospel.  The procession on this day goes outside the church, if possible, and a station is made outside the principal entrance.  Meanwhile the hymn Gloria, laus et honor is sung by cantors within the church and the rest of the choir outside answers with the refrain.  At the end of the hymn the subdeacon strikes the door with the end of the processional cross, the door is opened and the procession enters the church.  (In the Sarum rite three other stations were made: one for the reading of the appropriate Gospel, one before the Rood, and a final one before the Altar.)  Then Mass begins and is sung as usual, with one very striking variation.  The greater part of the Gospel is not sung with the usual ceremonies, but chanted dramatically by three deacons, while the choir sing the words which belong to “the multitude”.  The last few sentences of the Gospel are sung by the deacon of the Mass in the usual way, except that the acolytes do not carry their candles.  Usually they hold palm branches instead.

      The whole of the Palm Sunday service is of the most exquisite beauty, and there seems no reason why its special ceremonies should not be used in their completeness in Anglican churches.  For the most part they fall outside the official service of the Book of Common Prayer, and the singing of the Passion by three deacons and the choir is no more than a technical breach of the rubric which says “then shall he” (i.e. apparently the celebrant) “read the Gospel.”  (The rubric in the English 1928 Revision is as follows: “The Deacon or Priest that readeth the Gospel ... shall say ... And the Gospel shall be read.”  The same revision allowed the whole of the Passion according to Matthew to be used on Palm Sunday, instead of only the 27th chapter, as provided in the Book of Common Prayer, and recognized the distinction between the “Passion” and the “Gospel”.)  It must be acknowledged, however, that the service is a very long one, and in many churches the preliminary service for the blessing of the palms is considerably curtailed.

      Maundy Thursday. – From the earliest times this day has been kept with great solemnity in commemoration of the Last Supper and the institution of the Holy Eucharist.  It is natural, therefore, that it should have always been a day of general Communion.  So also in the early Middle Ages was Good Friday.  But because the whole weight of tradition has always been against the idea of actually celebrating the Eucharist on Good Friday, it was necessary to reserve the Blessed Sacrament against the Communion of the following day.  Hence comes the most notable peculiarity of the Maundy Thursday Mass, the fact that the Consecration is deliberately arranged to provide for Communion on Friday as well as on Thursday.  The custom of concluding what Anglicans call the “Ante-Communion service” by a public Communion with the previously consecrated Sacrament has been common in the Church from the earliest times, and not only on Good Friday.  The Quinisext Synod (692) approves it as already ancient.  In the East to the present day it is the regular official form of service for all Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent.  But in mediaeval times in the West this rite was only used on Good Friday, and thus on Maundy Thursday attention was vividly called to the fact that the service was, so to say, to be continued on the morrow.  A second Host of suitable size was consecrated and reserved conspicuously in a place of great dignity.  (In the Sarum rite two additional Hosts were used, one being required for the Easter sepulchre.)  By the close of the Middle Ages frequent Communion had quite died out, and in consequence no Communion was contemplated for Good Friday on the part of anyone except the celebrant.  No special reservation was therefore made for a general Communion.

      In the Roman Church there is normally only one Mass in any one church on Maundy Thursday, a reversion to the archaic custom that all should usually assemble together to feast on the Bread of life. [But curiously enough in the primitive Church Maundy Thursday was an exception to the general custom.  St. Augustine testifies to two Masses on that day, the earlier for those who wished to take a bath, the later for those who desired to fast all day.  In Rome about the sixth century there were three Masses, one for the reconciliation of penitents, one for the blessing of the oils, and one for the commemoration of the Last Supper.  See Schuster, The Sacramentary, Vol. II. pp. 13–20, 199; Cabrol, Liturgical Prayer, p. 165.]  The rite is celebrated in white vestments, and concludes with the solemn placing of the Holy Sacrament in what the Missal calls a locus aptus until it is needed for the Good Friday Communion.  It is usual to ring the bells and play the organ at the singing of Gloria in excelsis, and neither are heard again until the first Mass of Easter.  In the course of this Mass, in cathedrals, the bishop consecrates the three holy Oils for the use of his diocese during the succeeding twelve months: the Oleum Infirmorum during the canon, the Chrism and the Oleum Catechumenorum after the Communion.

      After the service the altars are stripped, and in some places the mediaeval custom of washing them with wine and water is still retained.

      Later in the day all bishops and abbots perform the ceremony of the Maundy, or feet-washing.  The name of Maundy Thursday seems to be derived from the Mandatum given on that day by our Lord: “Ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.”  But there does not seem to be any clear evidence of the date when the solemn ceremonial action of the pedilavium was first performed.  A Council at Toledo in 694 enacted that all superiors were to wash the feet of their subjects, but says nothing about the day on which this was to be done.  In the latter half of the twelfth century the custom was already established in Rome as part of the regular routine of Maundy Thursday.  After Mass the Pope used to wash the feet of twelve subdeacons, and again after supper the feet of thirteen poor men.  It is said that the number of thirteen originated in a miraculous appearance of our Lord Himself when St. Gregory the Great was performing the action.  If this story has any historical basis it of course provides a far earlier date.

      Modern Latin practice confines the ceremony for the most part to prelates, but in theory it can be performed by simple priests, or even, unliturgically, by lay people of either sex.

      The liturgical rite is short and simple.  The celebrant wears violet vestments, the deacon and subdeacon white.  The deacon sings the appropriate Gospel with the usual ceremonies.  Then the celebrant removes his cope and girds himself with a towel.  He kneels before each of thirteen poor men, [Or, alternatively, thirteen canons, according to the Caerimoniale Episcoporum.] washes his right foot, wipes and kisses it.  Alms are distributed.  The celebrant then resumes his cope and finishes the service at the Altar with the Pater Noster, versicles and responses, and a prayer.

      In mediaeval times emperors and kings delighted thus to express humility.  The King of Spain continued to do so until 1931.  Indeed we have here a unique instance of a special Holy Week ceremony which survived the English Reformation; for it was regularly performed by the Sovereign until the time of James II.  William III and his successors discontinued the practice, as is not surprising.

      At Westminster Abbey the Sovereign, by the hands of his representatives, the Lord High Almoner and the Sub-Almoner, makes a gift of money to selected poor men and women, the number of the recipients equaling the years of his own age.  The ceremonial contains many reminiscences of earlier customs.  The Almoner still removes his cope and girds himself with a towel, as though about to perform an actual pedilavium.  The long thongs of the purses were originally meant for fastening into the towel, or into the girdle of the alb.  Those who conduct the ceremony are provided with bunches of flowers and foliage.  These are a survival of the fragrant herbs with which the Yeomen of the Laundry perfumed the water in which they carried out a preliminary ablution.  It has even been suggested that the red and white colours of the purses which contain the alms have their origin in the gift of three red and three white herrings given by the munificence of Cardinal Wolsey in 1530!  Until the nineteenth century actual clothes and provisions were given as alms as well as money.  At the present day an additional sum of money is given in lieu of these.  In 1932 King George V gave the purses of money in person.

      The actual service consists of psalms, anthems and prayers, and does not bear any similarity to the Latin rite. [The writer is indebted for this information to the courtesy of Mr. Egbert Ratcliffe, of the Royal Almonry.]

      A few Anglican bishops have now revived the blessing of the holy Oils during the course of the Maundy Thursday liturgy; but it is obvious that there are more difficulties in adapting some of the special ceremonies of the day to the Anglican rite than in the cases of Candlemas and Palm Sunday.  The little ceremony of the bells and the organ loses all point if the Gloria is sung at the end of the service.  The white vestments accord very ill with the story of the Passion which is assigned as the Gospel of the day.  The former ceremony therefore has to be omitted unless the priest thinks himself justified (just for once) in having the Gloria sung in its traditional place.  Probably all priests who use vestments wear white ones on this day; and a way out of the second difficulty might be found by having the story of the Passion sung by three deacons with violet stoles and maniples as on the earlier days of Holy Week, and supplementing the rite with a Gospel borrowed from the Missal, for which the white dalmatic would be suitable.  But of course there is no authority for this.

      Good Friday. – The chief service of this day has from the very earliest times been what Anglicans call the Ante-Communion.  That is to say, it has consisted of readings, psalm-singing and prayers.  The first part of the so-called Mass of the Presanctified in the Roman Missal is perhaps the most primitive thing which it contains, if we except the bare essentials of the sacrificial action.  To this from very early times two additions have been made.  One is the veneration of the Cross.  In origin, as we have seen, this was the veneration of an actual relic kept at Jerusalem, but it was not long before the desire to live in spirit in Jerusalem on this day caused the custom to grow up of venerating a representation of the Cross at the end of the ordinary service of the day.  In the ninth century the affecting chant known as the Reproaches began to be sung while the veneration was in progress.  The other addition is a Communion made with the previously consecrated Sacrament.  The Missal provides for both of these additional rites.  At the end of the solemn Collects (probably the last survivors of the primitive “Prayer of the faithful”) the celebrant removes from the cross the Passiontide veil, singing, as he does so, the chant Ecce lignum crucis.  The cross is then laid on a cushion and all who so desire come up and reverently kiss it.

      The veneration ended, the Holy Sacrament is solemnly brought to the Altar, incense is offered, and the Lord’s Prayer is sung with the Embolismus (an ancient prayer which takes up the last clause of the Pater Noster and proceeds Libera nos, quaesumus Domine, ab omnibus malis, etc.).  The celebrant then communicates and the service at once comes to an end.

      It will he seen that this service also seems to require a certain amount of adaptation in order to fit it in with the Anglican rite.  But when once it is recognized that the first part of it is simply the Latin form of the Ante-Communion service, it will be seen that the Anglican form can be substituted without impropriety.  As soon as this is over we can proceed to the Veneration of the Cross.  The act of Communion at the end of the service is perhaps the most moving ceremony of the whole liturgical year.  No one who has not experienced it can realize what a climax it makes to the observance of Good Friday, or how near we are brought in spirit to the Divine Victim of the Cross.  In theory perhaps we ought to wish for a restoration of the general Communion of Good Friday, but in practice the very fact of abstinence from Communion is felt by many to enhance the essential feeling of the day, that the Bridegroom is taken away from us.

      Holy Saturday. – The ancient way of observing Easter Eve and Easter Day was to treat the former as a solemn fast without public worship until the evening.  Then began the great Easter vigil service lasting all night, and culminating in the Baptism and Confirmation of neophytes and the great Easter Mass, which began about dawn.  The present Holy Saturday function of the Roman Missal is simply the Easter vigil and Mass anticipated.  It is, in fact, an attempt to keep a vigil without sitting up all night!  If this is to be done, and if the Mass is still to be kept as the climax of the vigil without a night interposing, it is clear that either the Mass must be sung on Saturday night, or else the vigil service must be brought a long way forward.  The former course is practically excluded by the rule of the fast before Communion, and thus the custom has arisen of celebrating both the vigil service and the Mass on Saturday morning.  To some this appears to be an entirely indefensible arrangement, and some Roman Catholic authorities criticize it severely; others, however, regarding it as a development which has seemed good to the Church and has now a long history behind it, find no difficulty in accommodating their minds to it, and simply beginning their Easter on the morning of Easter Eve.  They would argue that in practice everything is anticipated in Holy Week.  The Palm Sunday procession really took place in the afternoon.  The Maundy Thursday Mass and the Good Friday function are liturgically afternoon services, and in collegiate churches are not celebrated until after the service of None (anticipated like everything else).  Mattins and Lauds are commonly said in the afternoon or evening before the day to which they properly belong, and in Holy Week this is always done in the most marked and ceremonious manner, in the service known as Tenebrae.  Thus the only important service which is proper to the daytime of Easter Eve has already been said on Good Friday, and the forestalling of the Easter vigil and Mass is merely a still more extreme case of that anticipation which the Church allows as a concession to bodily weakness.

      The Holy Saturday service in the Missal is fivefold.  It begins with the blessing of the new fire.  The actual origin of this ceremony is probably mixed.  In part it seems to be a revival of the ancient daily custom of prayer at the lighting of the lamps, a custom attested by the well-known hymn “O gladsome Light”.  It may also be connected with Celtic pagan customs.  But as a piece of Paschal symbolism it is most beautiful and stirring.  All lamps in the church have been extinguished and a fire struck from a flint burns in the church porch.  This fire is blessed by the celebrant, and from it is lighted a triple taper which is carried up the church by the deacon, wearing a white dalmatic.  Three stations are made, at each of which are sung the words Lumen Christi.  On arriving at the sanctuary the deacon sings a magnificent chant announcing the Paschal victory.  During the course of this he lights the great Paschal candle which burns at all liturgical services during Eastertide.  Then all the lamps are lit.

      Why this festival feature comes so early in the service it seems impossible to say; for when it is finished the deacon resumes his violet vestments, and the vigil service begins; This consists of twelve lessons from the Old Testament, each followed by a prayer.  Next comes the blessing of the font, or rather of the baptismal water.  The night of Easter Eve is the ancient time for Baptism, and the Latin custom is to bless the water on this occasion (and on the vigil of Pentecost) and let it serve, so far as possible, for all future baptisms.  It is possible, of course, to bless baptismal water at any time, but it is not, as with us, a regular feature of the administration of the Sacrament.  Baptism and even Confirmation still take place occasionally as part of the service of Holy Saturday, but in any case every church which possesses a font is obliged to have the blessing on this occasion.  The procession then returns to the sanctuary singing a litany.  On arriving there the celebrant and sacred ministers remain prostrate until the litany is nearly over.  Then they retire to the sacristy to vest for the Easter Mass.  The final Kyrie of the Litany is treated as the Kyrie of the Mass.  There is no introit, and Mass begins at once with the Gloria, during which, as on Maundy Thursday, all the bells are rung.  Also during the Gloria the Passiontide veils are removed from all pictures and images in the church.

      This Mass has several peculiarities.  It has an archaic character.  With the exception of the Gloria (inserted for obvious reasons) all chants except the most ancient are omitted.  There is no introit, nor creed, nor Offertory antiphon, nor Agnus Dei, nor Communion antiphon.  Only the chants before the Gospel, and the Sanctus, are sung.  Strangely enough the immemorial kiss of peace is omitted.  Immediately after the Epistle, Alleluia, silent since Septuagesima, returns to the liturgy.  The celebrant sings it three times, answered by the choir.  The end of the Mass is very curious, incorporating into itself Vespers in miniature.  Instead of the Communion antiphon one psalm (of only two verses) is sung, followed at once by the Magnificat and by a Collect which serves both for the post-communion prayer and for the Collect of Vespers.

      This service has not been so widely adopted in the Anglican Communion as the Holy Week ceremonies properly so called.  Many priests feel that they cannot bring themselves to anticipate Easter in this way.  Moreover, the great length of the service certainly makes it, a most exhausting finale to Holy Week.  On the other hand, its beauty and historical interest have led others to revive it, and it must be remembered that the first Mass of Easter, the climax of the Easter vigil, is liturgically the greatest service of the year, and it is in every way suitable that it should be marked by special observances.

      It might be thought that some attempt would have been made to restore the service to something like its proper time.  This could be done in various ways, either by separating the vigil service from that of Easter, and holding the former on Saturday evening, and the latter, beginning with the litany, on Sunday morning; or by beginning the service at, say, 10:30 p.m. and singing the Mass at midnight, a course which might be thought to require the permission of the Ordinary; or by beginning at about 4:30 a.m. and so restoring the Mass to its original character as a service for the dawn.  Some churches have established a custom of blessing the new fire and lighting the Paschal candle after Evensong on Saturday, but no attempt seems to have been made to restore the vigil as a night service.

      Tenebrae. – The service known by this name is simply the Mattins and Lauds of the last three days of Holy Week, sung by anticipation in the afternoon or evening of the preceding day.  In parish churches of the Latin rite these are the only occasions on which Lauds is ever sung publicly.  In consequence these three offices have come to hold the position of special Holy Week services.  They are accompanied by a remarkable ceremony.  A triangular stand of candles is placed near the Altar and one candle is extinguished at the end of each psalm, until only one is left alight.  Then, during the Benedictus, the Altar candles and any non-ceremonial lights are put out.  Finally, the one remaining candle is concealed behind the Altar while the Miserere is said or sung.  Then, after the Collect of the day, there is a time of silence, broken at last by a strepitus (any kind of harsh noise) which is the signal for departure.  The remaining candle is then brought out and left alight at the top of the stand.

      The symbolism of all this points very clearly to the death of our Lord with the physical and spiritual darkness and disturbance which accompanied it.  The one candle concealed yet still alight seems to typify the descent of His Soul into Hades, and its restoration to the top of the candlestick may be a foreshadowing of the Resurrection.

      It is obvious that there is no proper place for this service in the Anglican rite.  It is an integral part of the regular course of the Latin offices which continues throughout the year.  If it is taken over it must be simply on the pragmatic ground of its beauty and its associations.  In other words, it must be treated as though it were really a special Holy Week service, and of course it must be recited in addition to the regular Anglican Morning and Evening Prayer.  Used in this way it is liturgically a solecism, but that does not prevent it from having its peculiar beauty and appeal.

      A very praiseworthy attempt has been made to provide an Anglican Tenebrae, by grafting on to the appointed order of Morning Prayer some of the most striking features of the Latin office, and in particular the lessons from the Lamentations which the Book of Common Prayer has rather strangely relegated to the earlier part of Holy Week. [See Holy Week Book (published by the Society of SS. Peter and Paul).]  It is recognized by the compilers that this service could only be substituted for the regular office by special permission of the bishop; but it is thought that some bishops might consider themselves justified in giving such a permission.  This experiment does not, however, seem to have been tried in many places.

(b)  Extra-liturgical services in connection with the Blessed Sacrament.

      I.  Origin. – The thirteenth century was a time of much Eucharistic controversy.  The earlier disputes as to the nature of the change effected by Consecration seemed to have been settled by the official adoption of the word Transubstantiation, but the development of sacramental doctrine was not yet by any means complete.  In particular there were two points on which a new stress was beginning to be laid.

      First, far greater importance was coming to be attached to the presence of the Person of Christ under the forms of bread and wine.  The identity of the Eucharistic mystery with the Body and Blood of Christ had been unquestioned from time immemorial.  But the inference that the Blessed Sacrament mediates a special presence of Christ Himself, in His human Soul and in His Divinity, however implicit in the earlier doctrine, hardly seems to have found its way explicitly into the general consciousness of the Church.  It was not, of course, denied.  It seems implicit in our Lord’s own equation of “I” and “my flesh” in St. John 6.  It is clearly enunciated by St. John Chrysostom.  It seems to be taught by the very early addition of Benedictus qui venit to the Sanctus, and by the famous “Let all mortal flesh keep silence” sung at the Great Entrance in the Liturgy of St. James (fifth century?). [“He goeth before us to be sacrificed and given to the faithful for their food.”  The translation in The English Hymnal is very free.]  So also it is implied by the rubrical directions for genuflection and adoration in connection with the processions of the Blessed Sacrament in the eleventh century.  But it cannot be said that it is prominent either in the ancient theologians or in those of the early Middle Ages.

      The second point was the doctrine that either part of the Sacrament by itself mediates the whole Christ.  This again, which is known as the doctrine of Concomitance, was implicit in the early practice of Reservation in one kind, but it was left to the thirteenth century to make it part of the dogmatic teaching of the Western Church.

      A less important matter must also be mentioned, the dispute as to the “moment of Consecration”.  Was the Consecration of the bread a separate action from that of the wine, or did both take place at the same moment?  If, as was the prevailing view, the two actions are separate, it follows from what has been said that the theologians of the thirteenth century would wish to emphasize the fact that adoration must be paid to the sacramental and personal presence of Christ immediately after the Consecration of the bread without waiting for that of the wine.  This emphasis was expressed by the new ceremony of elevating the Host before the eyes of the people immediately after it had been consecrated.  There can be little doubt that this new practice of elevation after Consecration also stimulated the people’s devotion to the Person of Christ as mediated by the Sacrament.  The fact that the Blessed Sacrament could actually be seen was felt to be a special call to adoration.  Indeed the earlier idea of the meaning of the elevation was forgotten, and the showing of the Sacrament to the people for their adoration came to hold an altogether disproportionate importance in the popular mind.  From being a didactic gesture it came to be thought of as though it were the central action of the Mass.  This, no doubt, was a very serious corruption, and engendered not a little superstition.  Yet we may perhaps call to mind that abusus non tollit usum.  The mediaeval abuse undoubtedly was connected with a false emphasis, yet it seems to testify that the actual sight of the Blessed Sacrament has a valid appeal to the heart of the believer. [This also was foreshadowed many centuries earlier.  See the Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, which are evidence for the devotional practice of Syrian Christians at the end of the fifth century.  “Look upon him that is now mystically slain upon the altar,” “Look, O men ... look steadfastly upon the bread and wine that are upon the table” (Texts and Studies, viii. 10, 11, 56, with E. Bishop’s remarks in the Appendix, p. 90).]

      However this may be – and this is not the place to argue it – there can be no doubt that we can trace during the next three centuries the development of the devotional idea of the adorability of Christ personally present in the Sacrament, coupled with a strong sense of the privilege and blessing to be enjoyed by actually gazing on the sacred Mystery.  Both the doctrine and the cult have been immensely affected by the theology and still more by the hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas, and it would be difficult to overestimate the influence of O Salutaris and Tantum ergo in the formation of the Western attitude towards the Sacrament of the Altar.  Adoro Te devote is a still more striking identification of the Eucharist with Christ Himself.  In the fourteenth century we find the beginning of an attempt to continue the elevation, so to say, by the practice of exposing the Host in a transparent vessel, which gradually came to take the form known today as the monstrance.  The elaborate Sacrament houses of Germany seem to have been built for this purpose, as well as to afford some protection to the Blessed Sacrament against that over-familiarity which already seemed to be a danger.

      The service known as “Benediction of the most holy Sacrament” seems to have originated in the fourteenth century and to have been well known in Germany and Switzerland in the fifteenth.  From that time until the nineteenth century it has grown more and more popular: but at the present moment there are some signs of a reaction against it under the influence of the Benedictine liturgical movement.

      The origin of this form of public extra-liturgical devotion to the Blessed Sacrament appears to be threefold.  (1) It had become customary to hold a popular service in the evening, chiefly in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and, in order to stimulate devotion, a further custom grew up of (2) exposing the Blessed Sacrament while this service was going on.  Finally, (3) it seemed natural, when the service was over, to bless the people with the Blessed Sacrament as it was put back into its place.  We might compare the very common custom of making the sign of the cross with a particle of the Sacrament over each communicant just before reception.  It seems to have been in this almost casual way that the most popular, and perhaps the most useful, of modern Roman devotions grew up.

      In later times the emphasis again became altered.  The presence of the Blessed Sacrament became the centre of devotion instead of being little more than an adjunct to the veneration of the Blessed Virgin.  (It seems, however, that the term Salut, which is the usual name for the service in French-speaking countries, still points to its original connection with our Lady.) [See Hedley, The Holy Eucharist, p. 270.]  Finally, the closing benediction, though having no clear theological significance, became the most striking feature of the service, so that both in Latin and English it provides the official name of the whole ceremony.

      II.  Modern Latin practice. – In modern times the service of Benediction, though actually extra-liturgical, has a semi-liturgical character.  It is obvious that a ceremony connected with the Blessed Sacrament could not be left altogether to individual fancy.  More variation is tolerated than in the case of the Mass; but the ceremonial is carefully laid down by rubrical directions, and there are also certain invariable ritual features.  On the other hand, much of the service is left to the discretion of the priest, and so long as he uses forms which have a general authorization for use in church, he has a certain freedom of choice. In this completely unliturgical portion of the service the use of the vernacular is allowed.

      Benediction takes two forms, solemn and simple.

      Solemn Benediction requires the permission of the Ordinary except on the feast and during the octave of Corpus Christi.  The officiant wears a cope, and may be attended by deacon and subdeacon.  The Blessed Sacrament, enclosed in a monstrance, is placed high up over the Altar on a “throne,” the Altar cross being removed.  The service begins with the singing of O Salutaris, during which as a rule the officiant censes the Blessed Sacrament.  Then may follow popular devotions, such as hymns or the litany of Loretto, according to the discretion of the parish priest.  Then comes the quasi-liturgical core of the service.  Tantum ergo is sung while the officiant again censes the Sacrament.  Then comes a versicle and response:

                  V.  Panem de coelo praestitisti eis.

                  R.  Omne delectamentum in se habentem.

and the well-known collect of St. Thomas, Deus, qui nobis sub Sacramento mirabili. [A translation of this prayer is found in the Prayer Book as proposed in 1928 as the Collect for the service in Thanksgiving for the institution of Holy Communion.  Deus is strangely translated “Lord”.]  The officiant then has a white silk veil placed on his shoulders, and enveloping the monstrance with the ends of it makes the sign of the cross with the Blessed Sacrament over the people.  The Sacrament is then put back into the tabernacle while the psalm Laudate Dominum (117 according to the English Bible) is sung with the antiphon, Adoremus in aeternum sanctissimum Sacramentum.

      Simple Benediction may be given without special permission in any church in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved.  The monstrance is not used, nor the “throne”.  The officiant wears only surplice and stole, and incense is not necessary.  The door of the tabernacle is opened at the beginning of the service, so that the worshippers may see the ciborium which contains the Blessed Sacrament, but the vessel is only taken out for the purpose of the actual Benediction, and immediately replaced.  The words of the service are the same as in the solemn form.  It will be seen that this little ceremony is not unlike the “Vesper hymn” and blessing with which the Anglican evening service is often concluded.

      Other devotions connected with the Blessed Sacrament are Exposition and Processions.

      Exposition is employed by permission of the Ordinary on any occasions of special solemnity.  A frequent case of it is the devotion of the Forty Hours, by means of which a chain of continuous adoration is supposed to be kept up from one church to another during a period which nominally lasts for that time in each church, but is in practice somewhat longer. [In practice actual continuity from church to church seems only to be attained in great ecclesiastical centers such as Rome or Milan.]

      Processions of the Blessed Sacrament are specially characteristic of the Feast of Corpus Christi, but are also used, by permission, on other great occasions. [Such Processions within the Liturgy are of very great antiquity.  See the Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, in which we are told that “The Sacrament goes forth with splendour and glory, with an escort of priests and a great procession of deacons. ..  All the sons of the Church rejoice, when they see the Body setting forth from the midst of the Altar” (op. cit., pp. 27, 28).]

      III.  Anglican adaptations. – Something must be said as to the motives which have led some Anglican priests to adopt, or adapt, the Latin customs which have just been described.  Many of them have felt that there was a crying need of some simple public devotion by means of which we could approach our Lord as closely as possible, short of actual sacramental Communion.  They have observed Roman practice and been convinced that our brethren have been allowed to evolve something really valuable.  Magnificent service as we all know the Anglican Evensong to be, these priests have come to the conclusion that its somewhat cold, intellectual character does not give a full outlet to the emotions and to the faculty of adoration, and that it needs supplementing with something warmer, and more personal.  Some of them have had the needs of simple people chiefly in mind.  They have tried Evensong, and they have tried mission services, but they have found that neither of them has the same appeal, or the same converting efficacy, or the same power of drawing out devotion, as a service definitely connected with the sacramental presence of our Lord.  Others have had their most devout and best instructed communicants in view.  These have been taught to pray before the tabernacle, and have learned to find in such prayer a very special incentive to adoration, contemplation and intercession, and not unnaturally feel the desire to give corporate expression to that which they have experienced as individuals.  Others have felt that the emphasis which the earlier leaders in the Catholic revival placed on acts of adoration to the Presence of our Lord during the actual course of the Eucharistic service had a tendency to distort the true intention of the rite.  Eucharistic worship had come to mean for some people that the adoration of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was the chief reason for which they came to the Liturgy, and the offering of the sacrifice tended to be obscured.  This was specially noticeable where the custom had grown up of singing “O Lamb of God” immediately after the Prayer of Consecration, as though the chief object of our Lord’s sacramental Presence was to invite our worship to Himself.  Others again felt constrained to lead their people in adoration as a corporate recognition of the fact of Christ’s Eucharistic Presence implied by the reservation of the Holy Sacrament.  It seemed to them impossible to have the Sacrament in church and not testify to their faith in the real Presence by definite acts of devotion.

      With such objects in view a considerable number of priests in different parts of the Anglican Communion have deliberately borrowed either the whole or a part of the Latin customs of which we have spoken.  A very few have adopted the whole service of Benediction, generally, however, translating all the prayers and hymns into the vernacular.

      Dr. Neale was probably the first to do so, in 1858 or possibly earlier.  His example was followed by Fr. Ignatius and Dr. Littledale; but there is probably no instance of it in a parish church until about 1875, when it was introduced at St. James the Less, Liverpool.  A few years later it became customary in certain churches in Plymouth.

      These are isolated instances.  In recent years this type of service has become far more common, but the actual benediction with the Blessed Sacrament has usually been omitted in deference to the wishes of the authorities.  It is recognized, moreover, that though this is the emotional climax of the Latin service it is not really its most important feature.

      When no benediction is given it is obvious that some other name must be found for the service, and various names have in fact been applied to it.  Devotions, Adoration, Worship, Salutation have all been used, but no differences can be detected which in any way correspond with the different names.

      There is, however, an extraordinary amount of difference in the ways in which the service has been conducted.  Sometimes the monstrance or the veiled ciborium has been set on a “throne”; sometimes the tabernacle door has been opened; sometimes it has been left shut.  Sometimes the Blessed Sacrament is censed, sometimes the censer is merely swung from side to side, sometimes no incense is used.  Some priests wear a cope for the purpose, some surplice and stole, some only the surplice.  Sometimes the skeleton of the service is the same as in Roman churches, sometimes something totally different, such as a part of the English Litany, is used.  Very often the greater part of the service consists of intercession.  The only constant feature is that the officiant kneels in front of the altar where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, and that the prayers and hymns are said and sung with consciousness of the sacramental presence of our Lord.

      One reason for these differences is the fact that the Anglican bishops are not all of one mind on the matter.  Some of them wish to suppress the whole extra-liturgical cultus of the Blessed Sacrament altogether: some are content if it be drastically modified: others would prefer not to interfere with it: on the other hand, a few overseas bishops have established the full service of Benediction in their dioceses.

      Anglican priests take different views of the authority of the bishop in this matter.  Some hold that no service may take place in church without the bishop’s permission, others that any service may take place which he does not actually forbid; others hesitate to handle the Blessed Sacrament (except for purposes of Communion) without a direct license to do so; others, in the absence of Anglican canon law on the subject, hold themselves free to conduct any service which does not imply false doctrine, in virtue of their jurisdiction as parish priests, and without reference to the bishop, so long as these services are strictly additional, and are not substituted for those of canonical obligation.

      The English Book “as proposed in 1928” has a rubric in the Alternative Order for the Communion of the Sick: “There shall be no service or ceremony in connection with the Sacrament so reserved, nor shall it be exposed or removed except in order to be received in Communion, or otherwise reverently consumed.”  It must, of course, be remembered that this Book has never received canonical status.

      The other, and more ancient, non-liturgical observances in connection with the Blessed Sacrament are rare within the Anglican Communion.  Both Exposition and Processions of the Blessed Sacrament are known, and for the revival of these also Dr. Neale and Fr. Ignatius seem to have been responsible.  But in England and Scotland they have usually been suppressed by authority.

Modern Prayers and Their Writers

By E. Milner-White

      The Oxford Movement revived and transformed the prayer life of England.  Much of its architecture in this sphere went unobserved and unassailed.  Its achievement can be clearly seen now, if we compare the devotional temper, the liturgical understanding and the ideals of worship today with those of one hundred years ago.  Since the days of the Caroline and Restoration divines nothing had been added to devotional practice but the hymn: much had been lost.  The Tractarians first recovered, then added.

      The Revival – so far as the development of prayer can be outwardly traced – set three streams aflow.

      In the first place, it brought wholly new powers bf appreciation to the Prayer Book, and to the work and aims of those who had fashioned it.  A Liturgy which had become “incomparable” through old associations, the Tractarian leaders found to be so under a searching criticism and on grounds of far deeper importance.  If now we find lack or blemish in detail in the 1662 Book, it is only because we have relearned from itself, and desire to express more fully, all that the Book had stood for, silently, immovably, through three hundred unsympathetic years.  In the Prayer Book the Tractarians saw an invincible foundation for their Catholic theology.  Again, it gave them a basis for a richer and wider devotional life, of which hitherto full advantage had not been taken.  Not to mention the Eucharist, the affection felt for Mattins and Evensong placed the understanding and power of ordered liturgy behind all advance in worship.  The common prayer life of no other people was so firmly founded on ancient structure, or so permeated by the sense of liturgical form.

      The large Tractarian scholarship at once turned to liturgiology.  It is not a branch of study which has appealed to other sections of the English Church, and only the sheer force of learned result has compelled recognition of its necessity and practical usefulness.  Liturgies are the documents and registers of the history of Christian prayer, and to refuse to learn from a history so rich were folly.  To comprehend the Prayer Book, and to justify or even to perceive its deeper excellences, meant that the whole field of liturgy, Eastern and Western, must be mastered.  The names of Palmer, Maskell, Forbes, Neale, Wordsworth, Blew, Legg, Frere, Brightman, and the volumes of the Henry Bradshaw and other liturgical societies witness to the splendour of the toil.  It is happy to think that in this field of scholarship Anglican and Roman doctors work and dwell together in unity.  The result has been that the only standards of formal prayer, whether corporate or private, which the Anglican Church will tolerate, are those of oecumenical, not local, Christianity.

      In the second place, the more Catholic outlook of the Tractarian leaders, and their passion to base their movement upon personal as well as corporate devotion, led at once to an emphasis on wider and better devotional reading.  Dr. Pusey edited a series of devotional manuals, followed by Bishop Forbes in Scotland.  So came translations of Scupoli’s Spiritual Combat, Nouet’s Life of Jesus Christ in Glory, Avrillon’s Guide for passing Lent holily, Arvisenet’s Memoriale Vita Sacerdotalis, Pinart’s Meditations, Merlo of Horst’s Paradise of the Christian Soul and The Nourishment of the Christian Soul.  The Imitatio bounded into new popularity in unexpurgated editions.  Nothing has been more impressive in the last century than the streams of editions of devotional classics, and they cease not.  Fresh stimulus came at the turn of the century when Dr. Inge on the intellectual side, and Miss Underhill on the devotional, popularized the study of the Christian mystics.  The library of ascetical theology now accessible in England to the most modest purse embraces nearly all the works of Christian piety worthy of survival and use.  And they are used.  The English Church can never again become insular, because its private life of prayer has become in the best sense cosmopolitan, that is to say, Catholic.  It has reached a point where it is completely and intimately at home with the devotional classics of all ages and peoples, and has secured both spiritual experience and spiritual discrimination.  This marks a great expansion which makes naught of external lines of division.  Its mind, for instance, accepts and freely uses the spiritual output of the Counter-Reformation, of St. Theresa, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis de Sales, Augustine Baker; but not less does the excellent strength of these together with its liturgical training make it regret and refuse the more ecstatic and sentimental directions into which much modern Roman devotion has strayed.

      And thirdly, in the expression of its devotional mind the Church of England has found an individual manner which is both noble in itself and also reinforces and exalts its standards of splendour and awe in prayer.  We owe this to the exceeding magnificence of the English tongue in Tudor and Stuart days, and, not less to a race of divines supremely capable of wielding it.  They fall into two groups: the Henrican, which was responsible for the Great Bible (1539–41, Coverdale presiding), which still gives the Prayer Book its Psalter, for the Litany (Cranmer, 1544) in its markedly English form, and for the first Prayer Books, which settled the English manner of Collect and Prayer for ever; and the Caroline, responsible for the Authorized Version, for the revision of 1662, and for the final establishment of the diction of English worship by its sermons and private devotions. [The Elizabethan period is in liturgical diction strangely turgid and unsatisfactory.]

      Thus the Church gained a tongue meet for celestial service; and away from the language of Bible, Prayer Book, or some approximation to their standard, the Englishman is never comfortable for long in public prayer.  It has not been so generally noticed that this feeling has influenced private devotion also, and that here again the Carolines set a decisive example.  The devotions of Laud and of Cosin are both marked by a terse “Prayer Book” atmosphere.  They consist largely of definitely constructed prayers.  Their liturgical type and descent from the mediaeval Primers are further emphasized by provision for daily observance of the “Lesser Hours,” Cosin’s with a series of complete Offices, Laud’s with a group of three prayers for each “Hour”.  Laud again builds his devotion preeminently upon the Psalms.  Cosin, who prepared his Manual at King Charles’ request for the ladies of the Court, states definitely the liturgical ideal, “that men, before they set themselves to pray, might know what to say; and avoid, as near as might be, all extemporal effusions of irksome and indigested prayers ... subject to no good order and form of words.”

      But above these, influential as they have proved, towers the greatest book of private devotions that Christian and Catholic piety has begotten, the Preces Privatae of Lancelot Andrewes.  The history of its editions, translations and arrangements has been troubled and unsatisfactory; what must surely be its final form in English, despite the admirable partial versions of Newman and of Neale, only arrived in 1903, with the edition of Dr. Brightman. [This edition, published by Methuen, is out of print.  It is most regrettable.  No abridged edition can take the place of the whole.]  But even in bad and imperfect editions, its influence upon the greater men of prayer and upon modern manuals of devotion has been vast.  It marries together the liturgical sense of fine order trained by the Prayer Book, and the sanctities of expression which Andrewes’ own age – and pen – gave to the Bible.  It brought new wealth by the inclusion of passages from the Greek liturgies in such a way as to preserve their accent while banishing anything alien in their position or sound.  “The solid matter of the Preces Privatae, the beauty of their materials, the picturesqueness and imaginativeness of treatment,” are welded together by “the originality and pointedness of their structural form” in a way which sets the unofficial prayers of the Church a standard of order and content which is unsurpassable.  The Church of England has been slow to recognize consciously its supreme devotional classic.  Many Englishmen might hear with astonishment the verdict of the Scottish presbyterian, Dr. Alexander Whyte.  “There is nothing in the whole range of devotional literature to be set beside Andrewes’ incomparable Devotions.”  They “stand alone and unapproached in the literature of the closet and of the mercy seat. ... Every page pierces us, solemnizes us, and subdues us to tears and to prayer and to obedience as no other book of its kind has ever done.  Every page, almost every line, of the Private Devotions has some strong word in it, some startling word, some selected, compounded and compacted word, some heart-laden clause, some scriptural or liturgical expression set in a blaze of new light and life, and ever after to be filled with new power as we employ it in our own prayers and praises.” [Whyte, Lancelot Andrewes and his Private Devotions, pp. 31–59.]

      Building both on the writings and on the spirit of the Carolines, the Tractarian leaders in the first flush of their movement turned their attention to forms of devotion.  We must try to trace the development.  In 1845, after a proposed Union for Prayer for Unity had been snuffed out by a timid Archbishop and Bishop, Keble, Pusey and Marriott circulated some short prayers for use at the traditional Hours.  Which of the three was actual author we do not know, but it is a glorious doubt.  The series deserves to be printed in full as the simple herald of a vast development of prayer.

I – Prayer for the Third Hour (9 a.m.)

The Hour of the Descent of the Holy Ghost

                  V.  Jerusalem is built as a city

                  R.  That is at unity in itself.

                        O pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

      Collect. – Vouchsafe, we beseech thee, Almighty God, to grant unto the whole Christian people, and especially to thy servants in [N.], and all for whom our prayers are desired, unity, peace, and true concord, both visible and invisible, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

II – Prayer for the Sixth Hour (12 p.m.)

The Hour of the Crucifixion

                  V.  Turn us, O God, our Saviour,

                  R.  And let thine anger cease from us.

                        O let the wickedness of the ungodly come to an end.

      Collect. – Almighty God, we beseech thee to hear our prayers for such as sin against thee, or neglect to serve thee, especially those in [N.], and others for whom our prayers are desired, that thou wouldst vouchsafe to bestow upon them true repentance, and an earnest desire to serve thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

III – Prayer for the Ninth Hour (3 p.m.)

The Hour of the Death of Our Lord

                  V.  Thy God hath sent forth strength for thee.

                  R.  Stablish the thing, O God, that thou hast wrought in us.

                  They will go from strength to strength, and unto the God of gods appeareth every one of them in Sion.

      Collect. – Vouchsafe, we beseech thee, O Lord, to strengthen and confirm all thy faithful, especially those in [N.], and all others for whom we are desired to pray, and to lift them up more and more continually to heavenly desires, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

      With the italicized passages omitted, and the antiphon placed before instead of after the V and R, these prayers, by way of the Cuddesdon Office Book and Prime and Hours, have now a permanent place as Memorials at Terce, Sext and None, not by reason of their authorship, but by their merit.  They possess in full the terseness, distinction and nobility natural to a Cranmer collect, and it was a loss to the English Church that the 1928 Book did not include among its Occasional Prayers these for unity, for the conversion of sinners, and for the spiritual growth of the faithful.

      A few years later (1852) “J. D. C.” published The Psalter or Seven Ordinary Hours of Prayer, a translation of the “framework and many of the particulars” of the Sarum Breviary.  To bring the name of John David Chambers from oblivion is a grateful task; devoted layman, sound lawyer, hymn writer inferior only to Neale, he did yeoman service to the revival.  Some details of his liturgical work are likely to survive by reason of its eventual inclusion in the important work next to be mentioned.

      The Cuddesdon Office Book appeared when the movement had scarcely recovered from the departure of Newman, and the bold experiment of theological colleges had barely begun.  The first edition (1856) bore the title Hours of Prayer for Daily Use, and contained the offices of Prime, Terce, Sext, None and Compline; its compiler, the first Vice-Principal, Liddon, had already produced for the students a series of devotional helps: Hours of Prayer (1854), Private Prayers (1855), Prayers before and after the Blessed Sacrament (1856).  To the Church of that day the book was novel; to its devotion it proved decisive.  The enemy fell upon it.  To the charge that it was “concocted from the seven Canonical Hours of the Romish Church,” the Principal with no less truth could reply: “It has been ascertained on a more careful examination that the Book of Devotions ... consists (with the exception of a few Collects) of extracts from the Bible and Prayer Book, of prayers taken from Bishop Cosin, and some few from original sources.  It is confidently affirmed that the keenest eye can detect no trace of Romish error in them as they stand.”  Bishop Wilberforce appointed his archdeacons a commission to examine this with other complaints.  They reported: “We have examined the prayers and hymns and think them not only unexceptionable, but highly valuable.  The Book ... has, however, been cast in a form which bears an unfortunate resemblance to the Breviary of the Church of Rome; and we think it would be much improved if the compilers would abandon the title of Antiphon, and the obsolete designation of the Hours, rearrange the order and number of the services and remodel the whole book.”

      The compilers bowed to the finding. A modified edition was issued in 1858.  The Antiphon was called “the Text”.  The Hours were reduced to three, entitled Morning Service, Midday Service, Evening Service.  Not till the third edition (1880) were the original five Offices and their proper titles restored.  But the deed had been done, and to the Cuddesdon Office Book belongs the honour of restoring the lesser Hours to the devotional life and the affections of the Church in England.

      The example was soon followed, and The Day Hours of the Church of England (1858) followed the more complicated Sarum Use in preference to Liddon’s free abridgment of the Breviary.  This book, revised and enriched from time to time, and others of a similar character, are used chiefly by religious communities.  A simpler Sarum tradition has passed into more general employment by way of Prime and Hours, the first and best known section of The Priest’s Book of Private Devotion, compiled in 1872 by Dr. Oldknow and the Rev. A. D. Crake.  Each edition made the provision for the Hours more complete, and at the eighth (1897) the prayers from the Cuddesdon Office Book and the Litany of Foreign Missions from the Cuddesdon Intercessory Manual were included en bloc, and became thus the familiar possession of the Church.

      Offices, of course, can never constitute the main devotion of a praying Church.  They are one link between official liturgy and wholly personal prayer.  Their use is confined to priests, religious, and those whose first interest is the devotional life; powerful as foundation and discipline for less formal prayer, and as instruments of the “pause unto God” at frequent times during the day.  The sense of ordered, liturgical prayer evoked by the Oxford Movement was indeed sometimes carried to extremes.  In The Priest’s Prayer Book (Littledale and Vaux) a liturgical “office” was provided for every conceivable emergency, even “For an unmarried mother after childbirth” and “After an attempted suicide”.

      Before leaving the Cuddesdon Office Book we must notice its good work in another direction.  The genius of Liddon set a standard, worthy of the Prayer Book, in the form and language of its prayers.  Some he borrowed from Cosin: others he wrote himself.  Most of the latter are specialized to the life of a theological college, but the prayer For the inward life of Jesus Christ [Quoted in Occasional Prayers Reconsidered, S.P.C.K., p. 27.  It is a free translation of a prayer of Fr. Condren of the French Oratory, and his spiritual son M. Olier, founder of the Sulpicians.] is the noblest Eucharistic prayer of modern days, and of an evangelical type too little represented in the Prayer Book.  The well-known Litany of the Holy Ghost traces back to his Private Prayers of 1855: he prepared a wholly new one for the 1858 edition of the Office Book; the two were fused together by Edward Francis Willis, who edited the 1880 edition.  This quiet and devout Vice-Principal, who afterwards led out the Oxford Mission to Calcutta, must himself be numbered among the writers of prayers that endure.  His is the Litany of Intercession for Foreign Missions in general use.  His adaptation of the prayer, “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who at the hour of Compline didst rest in the sepulchre ...” was recited beside the fallen in Flanders, and has passed into the 1928 Prayer Book in the Order for Compline.  But part of the credit for this, and the whole for the Terce Collect, “O Lord Jesus Christ, who at the third hour of the day wast led forth to the pain of the Cross ...” should be given to Chambers, who had followed up his earlier work by a translation of the Sarum Encheiridion (1860), a little book which had small popular success at the time, but proved to be a well from which many later manuals drew.

      The eminence of Liddon in the history of English prayer has never received its due meed of honour.  And his liturgical initiative, already so full of result, did not cease.  When harried into resigning his Vice-Principalship, he became pioneer in another province by inspiring and helping P. G. Medd of University College, Oxford, to prepare a no less influential work, The Priest to the Altar, 1860.  This book was the father of the numerous unofficial missals by which Anglican devotion supplemented and streamed over the text of the 1662 rite.  Thus began an extraordinary chapter in the history of liturgy in England, ranging from the sober and strong English Liturgy, which contented itself with the provision of additional Collects, Epistles and Gospels for black-letter days and occasional fasts and festivals, to a number of missals reproducing the modern Western rite in varied and often puzzling combination with that of 1662.  The difficulties to ecclesiastical order caused by this phase cannot be hidden: what is often neither seen nor valued is the increase of devotion and the appreciation of devotional quality of which it is the sign and the solace.  Apart from its Preparations and Thanksgivings, The Priest to the Altar provided for the priest’s private devotion, Secrets, Post-Communions and Benedictions mainly from the Gregorian Sacramentary, enough to show, to eyes that could see, the new wealth that was entering into practical devotion through the study of the ancient service books.

      For congregations a similar expansion came with the publication of a large number of manuals, mainly Eucharistic, but covering also the daily life of prayer and penitence.  The Treasury of Devotion, sponsored by Canon Carter of Clewer, appeared in 1869: Before the Throne in 1886.  Catholic Prayers, for which the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline recommended the removal of Father Stanton’s license, in tone and content was very “Latin,” Dr. Dearmer’s Sanctuary no less English: attempts to control this flood were made by the Convocation Book of Private Prayer, 1893 and 1907, a book deserving wider success than it won.  These manuals made familiar such devotions as Anima Christi, the Divine Praises, the Angelus, Litanies of many kinds, besides helping the faithful to understand and enter into the Eucharistic action more deeply: so that their sense of liturgy grew apace.  At the same time a stronger and more objective note was coming into English hymnody whether by translations of the Latin and Greek hymns (Neale’s especially) or by the doctrinal hymns of Dr. William Bright; the Evangelical hymn, which is the voice of the believer, began to give way to the liturgical hymn, which is the voice of the worshipping Church.

      Of enduring influence, moreover, were three manuals designed to serve the purpose of richer and wider intercession.  The first in time was Dr. Bright’s Ancient Collects (1861).  The majority of the prayers which he translated came “from Western rituals older than Anglo-Saxon Christianity ... the merest gatherings from an ample and splendid storehouse – a few drops from a cup filled to overflowing.”  The Preface went on to say: “Many of the Collects ... seem quite equal in depth and beauty to those well-known specimens of their class which the child’s ear so readily welcomes and the man’s heart finds so inexhaustible.”  Bright translated literally and not as Cranmer; but his success in opening up a magnificent portal of prayer was complete.  In an appendix he contributed some collects of his own constructed on the ancient model, including one of great beauty based on the traditional antithesis “between via, the pilgrim’s path in this world, which is the region of faith, and patria, the heavenly country which is the region of fruition”:

      O God, who hast brought us near to an innumerable company of angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect: Grant us during our (earthly) pilgrimage to abide in their fellowship, and in our (heavenly) Country to become partakers of their joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. [Occasional Prayers Reconsidered, p. 29.]

      The Manual of Intercessory Prayer arranged by Father Benson, founder of S.S.J.E., systematized intercession for all sorts and conditions of men and occupations by a collection of some 300 prayers, most of them in strict collect form with antiphon, versicle and response.  The well-known “Before a Retreat” [Ibid., p. 18.] is typical of the intense scriptural fervour which pervades this large assemblage, reasserting in the approach to modern needs the Caroline tone, grave, rich and strong.  Sursum Corda (1898), compiled by Dr. Frere and Mrs. Illingworth, carried system further by arranging subjects and collects for each day of the week.  Of even greater importance was its series of intercessions and thanksgivings in litany form, inspired by the Private Prayers of Lancelot Andrewes.  Sursum Corda is indeed a most distinguished manual.  By it, after fifty years of revival, the treasure bequeathed by Andrewes begins to bear full interest, and the creative and original note sounds once again in Anglican devotion.

      Two other names deserve similar honour.  Archbishop Benson had a genius for the ordering of ceremony and service.  One inspiration, half original, half revival, presented Truro Cathedral with the “Nine Lessons with Carols” for Christmas Eve.  This exquisite devotion, full of movement, meaning, colour and Christmas atmosphere, is winning way, year by year, though it is often marred by lessening the lections and increasing the carols.  And Canon Bullock-Webster, apart from the services he has rendered to missionary prayer by the Quarterly Intercession Paper, did a pioneer work when, in the Churchman’s Prayer Manual, he brought together a number of Acts and Litanies suitable for use in church.  Through it the private manuals gave their fruit to corporate devotion, and if, since the war, the book which effected this seems to have been superseded, it would be both mistake and ingratitude to overlook its part in the history of English public prayer.

      Here for a moment let us pause and sum up.  By the turn of the century both liturgical knowledge and liturgical sense had been recovered.  A large output of devotional manuals and ascetic writings witnessed by their large sale to the burning desire for better prayer.  In judging the religion of a movement, a church or an age, no testimony is so sure as its books of devotion.  In England public and private prayer kept close together, continually interacting; and while the Prayer Book standards of form, aided by the language of the Bible and the piety of the Carolines, maintained their authority, the Prayer Book as a manual of public and private prayer was supplemented from many sources, Eastern and Western, new and old, legitimately, inevitably.  There were some people, indeed, who could not understand that the Roman Missal is an ancient liturgy to be drawn and learned from as any other ancient liturgy; that a prayer or form of prayer is not bad merely because a Roman Catholic prays it.  There were others who on loftier ground, for the sake of their poor, yearned for forms and language simpler and warmer; and, availing themselves of the only matter ready to hand and in wide use, sought to acclimatize the more emotional and exotic popular devotions of Rome.  But such books as we have mentioned mark the main line of advance, gradually making clear an English and Catholic tradition, which was both solemn and full, which drew freely from Scripture and ancient liturgy, yet served both modern need and modern intelligence, and though as yet only at the beginning of its history, of highest devotional promise.

      All these tendencies, gathering and combining force, put the Prayer Book in a new position.  Supreme still in quality, it had become, by the working out of its own good influence, too small in range.  Old age, new yearning and liturgical scholarship together destroyed its authority, not its beauty.  In 1907 Convocation began, in response to Royal Letters of Business, to consider its revision; but progress was slow until the Great War opened a new chapter in the history of Anglican prayer.

      Then, suddenly, it became manifest to all that the 1662 book was out of date. [Cf. The Church in the Furnace, Essays VII and VIII.]  It gave no help to the memorial services of a mourning people.  The Burial Office itself, needed for tens of thousands, could not be used as it stood.  Cold and distant in such a world seemed Mattins and Evensong; and Englishmen had not learned to use the Eucharist for their needs and sorrows.  It became plain, and chaplains in the field felt it most, that the country had no semblance of a popular, familiar devotion except the General Confession and Lord’s Prayer, followed by extracts from Evensong.  The Prayer Book did not seem able to reflect the lineaments of the Lord Jesus Christ, thereby failing to minister the love of God to souls desperately wistful.  It may not be a test which comes often to a service book, and the fault may lie less with the book than with the unsacramental tradition of its use.  But with the return of controversy we are in danger of forgetting that in days of no controversy, but of bitter need, it was generally recognized that public worship must be reordered, its scope widened, its accent shifted from might to love, its bareness clothed upon with the preciousness of many a discarded ancient form, with sympathy toward the searches and strivings of modern life, and with evangelical colour.  The devotions, private and public, connected with the Reservation of the Sacrament have always this to their credit, that they represent one effort to meet a need proven and existing.  Others we shall mention presently.

      The change of outlook became apparent in the books issued by two dioceses for occasional services, the Salisbury Book of Occasional Offices, 1917, and the Oxford Diocesan Service Book, 1920.  We cannot here describe or criticize these works in detail; they derive great importance from the fact that they are official supplements to the Prayer Book in two large dioceses; and they deserve it.  Both maintain strict liturgical standards; reintroduce ancient and excellent forms, such as antiphons, versicles and responses; make open prayer for the dead; add Collects, Epistles and Gospels for seasons and holy days unprovided for in the Prayer Book; include new prayers of high merit.  The Salisbury book, particularly, gives a series of Collects for lesser Saints’ days, many from the pen of Bishop John Wordsworth. [Cf. Sermons and Selected Prayers, by John Wordsworth (Longmans).]  No modern Collects have shown more strength, originality and distinction; we may instance those of St. George, St. Hugh, St. Alban, St. Martin, St. Clement of Rome.  The Bishop’s Commemoration of the Departed has found place in the 1928 Prayer Book.

      It is scarcely a digression to suggest that the revival of the historical sense in the Church, of great value to personal piety and to that common heritage in the Saints which makes both for inspiration and for unity, renders it desirable to use particular Collects for particular Saints, and not a common, wherever possible.  Only so can the manifold lessons of the rich history of heroic Christianity pass into the Church’s prayer.  Thanks to Bishop John Wordsworth and others, among whom the Rev. A. Campbell Fraser must receive special mention, [Collects for the Black-Letter Days (Elliot Stock, 1917), Memorial Collects of Saints and Worthies (Mowbray, 1921), and A Book of Prayers (Blackwell, 1932).] there seems to be no reason why Collects for many of the lesser feasts of the Calendar should not be provided for all in the Prayer Book, rather than for a few in Diocesan books.

      But the new outlook was naturally more clearly marked in unofficial than in official books.  A spirit of liturgical initiative arrives.  On its conservative side it is represented by such a manual as Cambridge Offices and Orisons; on its radical, by the so-called Grey Book, the first serious attempt of the more liberal Evangelicals to enter the liturgical field; [The widely used Acts of Devotion also deserves mention.] on its romantic, by the remarkable ceremonies and services of Toc H; on its missionary, by the development of broadcasting.

      The Grey Book attempted to influence the revision of the Prayer Book by putting the Church year to a new use, and by modernizing the orders of service, and the prayers, by inclusion, by exclusion, by rearrangement and by rewording.  The intention was more excellent than the result.  Its hand bore heavily upon the most dearly loved beauties of the Prayer Book, and flung away recklessly both the sanctities of familiar use and the safeguards of liturgical history.  Few pages are without something distasteful, in diction, in construction, in theology, in common sense.  The claim for greater freedom and variety is not advanced by a cornucopia of doctrinaire schemes.  Nor usually can devotions that consist of words enter the solemn liturgy of the Church unless they illustrate or are accompanied by appropriate action.  The aim of liturgy is not to evoke the interest of the passer-by, but to achieve a common prayer before God of which the worshipping Church cannot tire.  The experiments of Liverpool Cathedral will be valuable if they teach discrimination between devotions borne on the passing winds of novelty or special occasion and those which have catholic substance and endurance.

      The Toc H schemes stand on firmer ground.  Here action and words combine for an end of very definite meaning.  The idea behind the symbolism of Toc H is real and rich, and based on historical event and clear purpose.  So it can legitimately employ the high language of comradeship, pilgrimage, adventure and battle; and it does so with the daring imagination which has become its tradition.  Its search for novelty has its own great dangers; the high-flown is not the sublime; yet Toc H is writing a chapter in the history of English devotion which may leave a mark on service books which we cannot yet foresee.  That depends upon its power of building the permanent and divine upon the past event; upon its success in relighting, by unashamed remembrance of the sacrifice and fellowship of a bygone war, the flame of Christian gallantry in the daily conflict, and the Catholic faith in the Communion of Saints.  It is enough now to be grateful for the loftiness of its aspiration, and for the originality of the forms of prayer which it creates or selects.

      Broadcasting must eventually influence beyond measure English prayer and service books.  At present the guiding hand is that of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, which mingles ancient and modern, order and freedom, with judgment.  Services for Broadcasting (1930) shows a new model in process of creation, “the humble adaptation of existing forms to the necessary requirements of a new medium.”  The conditions indeed are important.  These are devotions to be heard only, not heard and seen.  They must be nondenominational, “a universal act of worship,” the preface states.  There is a third, though perhaps a minor danger, that the beauty of voice be allowed to conceal a low standard of form and expression.  B.B.C. responsibility is great and grave, not only to its immediate listeners, but to the whole dignity and honour of the worship of God.

      In 1927 the “Deposited Book” registered the results of a century of development in public prayer.  Here we have no concern with its disciplinary problems, or with its rejection by the House of Commons: these things make not the least difference in its testimony to the march of prayer.  The Book was rightly and rigidly conservative, as befits the mother manual of a large Communion.  Most of its additions and even its rare experiments went back for origin far behind 1662.  It yielded to no temptation to modify the superb diction of former days, even though its attempts to reproduce it were not always successful.  The influences which damaged it came not from any issue of living prayer, but from the suspicions and thraldoms of theological controversy.  The rejection, however lamentable from other points of view, is no setback to the Book itself, which will continue to count just for what it is worth – which is much: it only means a further period of thought and work which will reveal any weaknesses, and give opportunity for the ferment of liturgical initiative since the war to make its contributions with the authority which comes from experience, and not from generous impatience.

      Not the least important factor in the postwar developments we have left to the last.  And that is, that the influence of the Tractarian revival has affected not only the Church of England and its venerable Prayer Book, but all English-speaking Christianity.  So far this influence, writes an American critic, “has been liturgical rather than doctrinal.  None of the non-episcopal churches has revised its doctrine of church and sacrament under pressure from Oxford, but all of them have modified their worship.” [L. F. Benson, The English Hymn, p. 573.]  Scottish Presbyterianism has produced a Book of Common Order.  Following upon Sir Henry Lunn’s The Love of Jesus, 1911 (full of Bishop Andrewes), and Dr. Orchard’s Order of Divine Service for Public Worship, 1921 (full of the Prayer Book and Bright’s Ancient Collects), the Free Churches are bringing forth service books, unofficial and experimental, no doubt, but significant.  For they do not bear witness only to an appreciation, contrary to all their history, of corporate worship on ordered lines, but to an appropriation, in the change of view, of the riches of ancient, historic and catholic devotion.  Thus gradually, inevitably, the quality of prayer rises; its range widens; and liturgy continues to make its silent and immense contribution to the fullest worship of God, and thereby to the movement, along the deepest channels of all, to Christian unity.

Extempore Prayer

By Charles Harris

      This essay strictly limits attention to Extempore Prayer in connection with the Public Liturgical Services of the Church, including the Visitation of the Sick, which, according to not only primitive and mediaeval, but also Reformation ideas, was a public, not a private ministration, conducted with considerable pomp and ceremony, and involving (whenever possible) the attendance of assistant ministers and a congregation [Among modern Anglican Offices for the Sick, the American explicitly recognizes the presence of a congregation.  It contains a prayer on behalf of “all present at the Visitation”.] (see, in addition to the authorities already mentioned, [In article “Visitation of the Sick”.] the 1549 Clerk’s Book, edited with valuable annotations for the Henry Bradshaw Society by Dr. J. Wickham Legg).

      It may be stated that the Parish Clerk regularly attended the Parish Priest when he visited the sick until long after the Reformation (in some places as late as the middle of the eighteenth century), in order to lead the responses, and in other ways to act as the Priest’s “minister” or server.

Sick Visitation.

      It is probable that from the beginning not only extempore exhortation, but also extempore prayer was freely employed by the presbyters in their ministrations to the sick; but it is a remarkable fact that only in two or three instances do the early and mediaeval Offices for the Sick explicitly recognize extempore prayer.  Even the exorcisms were as a rule learnt by heart, and repeated verbatim, as is still the case in the Orthodox Church.  Nevertheless, reading between the lines, it seems safe to conclude that extempore ministrations were fairly frequent.  For example, when the formulae prescribed to accompany Unction and Imposition of Hands were extremely brief and vague (as was sometimes the case), the Priest was almost certainly intended to supply their deficiencies by extempore prayer, suited to the patient’s condition.  It was certainly the usual custom for the Priest to allude in his prayer to almost every detail of the sick person’s physical, spiritual, and mental condition, and to bless, exorcise and anoint almost the entire body, particularly the seat of the disease, or the place of greatest pain.

      The 1549 and 1552 Books recognize only extempore exhortation and instruction, not extempore prayer.  On the other hand, Canon 68 of 1604 permits “preaching” ministers to substitute extempore ministration for the entire Visitation Office (“The Minister or Curate ... shall resort unto [sick persons] to instruct and comfort them in their distress, according to the order of the Communion Book, if he be no Preacher, or if he be a Preacher, then as he shall think most needful and convenient.”)  This Canon governs the interpretation of the 1661 Visitation Office, which nowhere explicitly authorizes extempore prayer; and indeed, if narrowly interpreted, excludes it.  The 1928 Visitation Office explicitly recognizes extempore prayer (“The Curate shall minister to the sick person after the form following, or in like manner”).  All the Reformed Anglican Books (including that of 1928) exclude extempore prayer from the Communion of the Sick, and it is not likely that the vaguely worded Canon of 1604 was intended to permit it.

      The following modern Anglican Visitation Offices also allow extempore prayer: – the Scottish, 1929 (“The Priest shall minister to the sick person after the Form following, or in like manner”); (2) the Canadian, 1918 (“But, if necessity so require, nothing in this Order prescribed shall prevent the Minister from edifying and comforting the sick by instruction or prayer, as he shall think meet and convenient, in place of the Order here set forth”); (3) the Irish, 1927, which contains a similar rubric, but adds, “but if the sick person shall require it, he shall use this Office, or some portion of it.”

      Neither the revised American (1929) nor the revised South African (1930) Visitation Office recognizes extempore prayer – indeed, according to a rigid interpretation, they exclude it.

The Eucharist.

      The Eucharistic Liturgy, commemorating as it does the historical event of the Institution of the Sacrament by our Lord at the Last Supper, as a memorial of Himself; and particularly of His Redemptive Death, has always had a fixed nucleus, consisting of the recital, either singly or in combination (usually with some amount of devotional amplification), of the scriptural narratives, Matt. 26:26–28, Mark 14:22–24, Luke 22:19–20, 1 Cor. 11:24–25.  This nucleus has always determined and limited the general character of the Canon, even in those ages in which considerable liberty of extempore prayer has been accorded to the celebrant.

      Fixed forms of liturgical thanksgiving, for use before and after Communion, are already provided in the Didache (10) , a document of uncertain provenance and date, but probably not much later than A.D. 100. [The Didache clearly belongs to some remote group of Churches, outside the main stream of apostolic tradition, peculiar in their constitution and environment, and undeveloped in respect of their theological – and especially their Christological – doctrine.  It is impossible that it can have emanated (as Streeter suggests) from Antioch, the Church of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Ignatius.]  As they contain no allusion to the historical Institution, [The author’s acquaintance with the usual tradition of the Institution is undoubted, for he frequently quotes St. Matthew’s Gospel, and when speaking of Baptism prescribes the Matthaean Trinitarian formula (Matt. 28:59), and emphasizes it by directing triple immersion (ch. vii.).] and are entirely devotional, they probably formed no part of the consecratory Canon recited by the celebrant.  Under ordinary circumstances, they were probably led by one of the celebrant’s assistants, and repeated by the communicants.  If, however, prophets were present, extempore prayer was offered by them, either in addition to, or in substitution for, the two forms provided: “But permit the prophets to give thanks as much as they desire (ευχαριστειν όσα θέλουσιν).”  Since fixed forms were provided for the use of the communicants, it is at least probable that a rudimentary form of Canon was provided for the use – or at least for the guidance – of the celebrant.  In many cases he would adhere to the form provided, but if he were a “prophet,” or possessed of the gift of extempore prayer to an unusual degree (the two qualifications usually went together), he would probably expand the form, or improvise another.

      The Didache contemplates the possibility of a distinguished itinerant prophet settling permanently in a local Church and becoming its high (or chief) priest (αρχιερεύς).  In this case he would become the normal celebrant of the Eucharist, and would usually extemporize the Canon, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (see ch. 13).

      According to the Didache, the Eucharist is normally celebrated by “bishops” (επίσχοποι), assisted by deacons.  To secure such celebration (ουν), the congregation are to appoint (χειροτονήσατε not ordain) for themselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, and these are not to be despised (chs. 14, 15).

      The above interpretation of the obscure directions of the Didache seems the most probable in itself; and is obviously that adopted by the compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions (c. A.D. 375), who reproduces, in an expanded (and more definitely orthodox [The writer’s own orthodoxy, however, hardly seems to reach – in expression at least – the full Nicene standard.]) form the devotions prescribed in the Didache for the communicants, adding this direction, “Permit also your presbyters to give thanks,” evidently extemporaneously, after the manner of the “prophets” of the Didache (Bk. vii, chs. 25–26).

      In the Apostolic Constitutions the Bishop (not the presbyters) is the celebrant, and the Canon to be used by him is set forth at length in the eighth book, chs. 5–15.

      In the days of Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 155), the Eucharistic prayers of the celebrant, who was almost certainly the Bishop, followed a fixed order, and were probably already to a considerable extent stereotyped.  The exact meaning of the words, “The President offers prayers and thanksgivings over the bread and wine, όση δύναμις αυτω,” has been much debated.  Their literal significance is probably “with all possible energy or fervour,” which is certainly the meaning of όση δύναμις in 1 Ap. 13.  But such an expression is much more natural if the Canon was – in part at least – extemporized, than if it was entirely read from a manuscript.  Considering that in the Church of Rome (to which Justin belonged at the time of writing) extempore prayer was certainly permitted to the celebrant in the next generation, considering also (for what it is worth) the evidence of the Didache, it seems safe to conclude that the same practice also prevailed in Rome in Justin’s time.

The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus.

      The first entirely unambiguous evidence for extempore prayer at the Eucharist in “the great Church” is supplied by the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, which belongs to the early third century (see above).  The original Greek is not extant, but the Latin Verona Fragment, the Ethiopic and Coptic versions of the “Egyptian Church Order,” and the “Canons of Hippolytus” (the last by implication only) concur in permitting the celebrating Bishop, if properly qualified, to extemporize.

      The Coptic (which transliterates the Greek term ευχαριστειν) runs as follows: – “Now the Bishop shall give thanks (ευχαριστειν) according to the things which we said before (i.e. the Canon).  It is not altogether necessary for him to recite the same words which we said before, as if learning to say them by heart in his thanksgiving (ευχαριστία) to God ; but according to the ability of each one he is to pray.  If indeed he is able to pray sufficiently well with a grand prayer, then it is good; but if also he should pray and recite a prayer in (due) measure, no one may forbid him, only let him pray being sound in orthodoxy.” [G. Homer, The Statutes of the Apostles, 1904, p. 309.]

      The Ethiopic reads: “And it is [not] [The negative has been accidentally omitted.] necessary that he should mention the things which we have already said, [but] that he should recite clearly and carefully, [We have evidence here that in the age of Hippolytus the Canon was still said aloud.] and give thanks to God as it is proper for each to pray.  And if there was one who could pray with devotion or use (make) a grand and elevated prayer, and he himself being good; and if he prayed and speaks praise with moderation, no one shall be prevented from praying, who is truly right (in his faith).” [G. Homer, op. cit., p. 146.]

      The Verona Latin Fragment only explicitly gives permission to the Bishop to extemporize when blessing the Oil of the Sick at the close of the Canon, but doubtless the permission is indeed to apply to the entire Eucharistic Service (for the text and translation of this Blessing, see above in chapter “Visitation of the Sick”).

      The evidence, therefore, is complete and definite, that in Rome in the second and third centuries, and in Eastern Churches also, the gift of extempore prayer was greatly valued, and was allowed to be exercised by competent persons even in the Eucharistic Canon, although even at this early period written liturgies (of a somewhat meager type) already existed.

The Liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions.

      We possess in the 8th Book of the Apostolic Constitutions, chs. 5–15, an instructive specimen of “a grand and elevated prayer” for the Eucharistic Offering, such as Hippolytus would have approved.  It is very much longer and more elaborate than the Anaphora of Serapion, or even than the highly developed Anaphora of the Greek Liturgy of St. James, which Dr. Brightman believes is quoted by St. Cyril of Jerusalem (in 348), and which was therefore compiled in the early fourth century, though it has received considerable later additions, as even a cursory inspection makes clear.

      Accepting, then, the view that the so-called “Clementine Liturgy” of the Apostolic Constitutions was not intended for actual use – at any rate on an ordinary Sunday – but is rather an “ideal” production, representing the kind of Eucharistic Prayer which (in the opinion of the compiler) a newly consecrated bishop ought to offer as a public demonstration of his facility and fervour in extemporizing, we have evidence that, even in the latter half of the fourth century, extempore prayer at the Eucharist was not only permitted, but (on important occasions) even encouraged, although such extemporization was based upon a traditional (and usually written) scheme.

      If, however, this view be taken of the Eucharistic Liturgy, then numerous other prayers contained in the Constitutions must also be regarded as “ideal” productions – suggestive models to be followed (in the spirit, not in the letter) by offerers of extempore prayer, and compilers of local Liturgies, Service Books, and Manuals of Devotion.

      In the early Eastern Liturgies, not only the celebrant, but also the deacon was entrusted with an important ministry of public intercession.  Having in mind the value attached to extempore prayer even in the fourth century, it is hardly possible to read the Litanies and the elaborate “biddings” or invitations to prayer assigned to the deacon, without feeling certain that not only were these “biddings” enlarged ad libitum to suit the circumstances of the place and time, but also that the deacon, after the prescribed “bidding,” added suitable extempore prayer of his own.

Traces of Extempore Prayer in Liturgies still in use.

      After the fourth century, the tendency was for public worship to become more stereotyped, and more strictly confined to written forms.  But even the existing Services of the Eastern and Western Churches contain a few opportunities for extempore prayer definitely provided for by rubric.

      The Canon of the Roman Mass contains two rubrics, directing short pauses, during which the celebrant is to pray by name for such of the living and the dead as he wishes.  Similar rubrics occur in the Liturgies of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil.  In the primitive period, when the entire Service was performed audibly, audible extempore prayer would have been offered at these points by the celebrant.

      The Liturgies of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil have a similar rubric referring to the deacon: “The deacon censes the Holy Table in a circle, and commemorates [the diptychs of] such of the living and dead as he wills.”

The Bidding of the Bedes (i.e. “the praying of the prayers” [The words “bid” (to command) and “bid” (to pray) are entirely distinct.  Originally to “bid” prayers meant not to “request” them, but to say them.]).

      In the present Roman Ordo Missae, there occurs at the Offertory the word Oremus, without any prayer following.

      All ancient Liturgies either have or have had at some time in their history, a series of intercessions (often in Litany form) at or near this point.  Such intercessions followed the Sermon, or the Gospel if there was no Sermon.

      Already in the eighth century, for some unexplained reason, the original Roman intercessions were confined to Good Friday, the word Oremus only remaining as an indication of their original occurrence at this point.  The Roman Missal gives the following directions for the saying of these Intercessions at the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday.  “Then the Priest, standing at the horn of the Epistle, begins thus in a distinct voice, with his hands folded.  Let us pray, ye who are most dear to us, for the most holy Church of God, that our Lord and God may vouchsafe to give peace and unity to it, and to protect it throughout the world, subjecting to it principalities and powers, and to grant that we, living a quiet and tranquil life, may glorify God the Father Almighty.  Then the deacon says, Let us bend our knees [originally the people here knelt for silent prayer].  The subdeacon responds, Arise [originally the people rose].”  Then the Priest, with hands extended, chants a prayer for the Church and the Pope.  Here once succeeded another pause for silent prayer (the people kneeling).  Then follows prayer for bishops, presbyters, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, doorkeepers, confessors, virgins, widows, and all the holy people of God.  The Priest then asks for prayers for “our most Christian Emperor, that our Lord and God may subject to him all barbarous nations”; also for catechumens, for heretics and schismatics, for “the perfidious Jews, that our God and Lord may remove the veil from their hearts”; and for pagans, that, “forsaking their idols, they may turn to the living and true God, and his only Son Jesus Christ our God and Lord!”  Prayer was also offered against famine and pestilence, and on behalf of prisoners, travelers, the sick, and voyagers.

      The loss of these moving petitions from the Roman Liturgy was apparently felt. [See Brightman, The English Rite, pp. 1020 ff., to whom this section is principally indebted.]  At any rate, as early as the ninth century it became customary for the Priest after his Sermon at Mass on Sundays and Festivals to admonish the people to pray for all orders of men in Church and State, and for the faithful departed.  The Priest mentioned a subject for intercession, and then left a space for silent prayer, or himself led the intercessions of the people, with the use either of a suitable Collect or of extempore prayer.  The preacher was always and everywhere allowed a free hand to vary the form and manner of “bidding” at his discretion.  Regino of Prüm (died 915), who enjoins this custom, quotes as authority for it 1 Tim. 2:1 ff., and adds, “and let the Priest solemnly recite (expleat) prayers conformable thereto.”

      In England and France it became the custom for the Priest to “bid the bedes” before, instead of after his sermon.

      That the preacher was allowed to extemporize his “bidding of the bedes” in the period immediately before the Reformation is shown by the short original form of bidding attached to John Colet’s famous Convocation Sermon of 1512, [See J. H. Lupton, Life of John Colet, p. 294.] and by Latimer’s Convocation Sermon of June 9, 1536 (published by the Parker Society).  Fuller details are given in H. O. C[oxe], Forms of Bidding Prayer, 1840.

Bidding Prayer of 1604.

      Canon 55 enjoins the use of a Bidding Prayer almost identical with that prescribed by the Elizabethan Injunctions of 1559.  “Before all Sermons, Lectures, and Homilies, the Preachers and Ministers shall move the people to join with them in prayer in this form, or to this effect, as briefly as they conveniently may: Ye shall pray for Christ’s Holy Catholic Church ... always concluding with the Lord’s Prayer.”

      This Canon requires a Bidding Prayer to be used before all sermons, including of course those preached at the Eucharist, where alone the 1559 and 1661 Books required a Sermon (or Homily) to be delivered.

      The words “or to this effect” obviously permit extempore prayer by the Minister in substitution for the form given.  This has been contested on the ground that the form directs the congregation (not the Minister) to pray.  But the last clause runs, “Finally let us praise God (not ye shall praise God) for all those which are departed,” etc.; nor is there any suggestion that the Minister’s prayer should be silent.

      Dr. Brightman states that this Canon has been widely understood, not only by Puritans, but also by definite churchmen, as authorizing direct extempore prayer by the minister; [Among other authorities, this is definitely stated by Peter Heylin in a tract written in 1636, but first printed in his Ecclesia Vindicata in 1657.] and it has even been urged (in arguing against Dissenters) that “the Church of England permits extempore prayer before Sermon.” [E.g. by Dr. John Scott in A Collection of Cases and other Discourses to recover Dissenters to the Communion of the C. of E., 1698.]

      After the Restoration, the fear of undesirable extempore effusions from Puritan and anti-royalist ministers caused both Houses of the Convocation of Canterbury strongly to desire to replace the traditional “bidding of the bedes” by a prescribed prayer before sermon (the Upper House also desired one after).  But though the project was discussed for sixty or seventy years, nothing ultimately came of it; and Canon 55 of 1604 is still theoretically in force, though it is little observed, except at University Sermons and on important civic occasions.  As a matter of fact, most of the ground covered by the prescribed Bidding Prayer is also covered by the Prayer for the Church, which since 1549 has been fully intelligible to the people.  In these days a comprehensive Bidding Prayer at the Eucharist is hardly needed.  If one is used, great care should be used to avoid “vain repetition”.

      When a sermon is preached apart from a service, it should be introduced by a comprehensive Bidding Prayer of the kind prescribed.  Now that the practice of prayer for the departed has again become general, it is desirable at the close of the “bidding,” not merely to praise God for the faithful departed, but also to pray for them, as was the original custom.

Modern Revisions of the Prayer Book.

      The 1928 Communion Office (England) places the following rubric before the “Prayer for the Church”: – “The Priest may here bid special prayers and thanksgivings.”

      If the traditional and etymological interpretation of “bid” be adopted, the Priest is here permitted to offer special prayers and thanksgivings, either extemporaneous or precomposed.  On the other hand, if the more usual modern interpretation of “bid” be adopted, the Priest is not here allowed himself to offer prayer but only to request the people to pray silently.  A third alternative is, that the compilers deliberately used “bid” in an indeterminate sense, with the object of permitting both practices.  Upon the whole, the last interpretation seems the most likely.

      Since the 1604 Canon requires the bidding of prayers and thanksgiving to take place, not before the Intercession for the Church, but before the sermon (or after the Nicene Creed), the 1928 rubric ought to be transferred to this position.  A Canon cannot be repealed by a Liturgical Book which has not as yet been authorized by any “synodical act” of Convocation.

      Extempore prayer on an extensive scale is authorized by the following rubric of the 1928 Book, which occurs at the end of the Occasional Prayers and Thanksgivings.  “Note, that subject to any direction which the Bishop may give, the Minister may, at his discretion, after the conclusion of Morning or Evening Prayer, or of any Service contained in this Book, offer prayer in his own words.”

      As Morning and Evening Prayer close in the 1928 Book (as in that of 1549) at the third Collect, any prayers after this depending entirely upon the “discretion” of the Minister, it follows that the 1928 Book allows the whole of the devotions after the third Collect (if there are any) to be extemporaneous.  To understand by the “conclusion of Morning and Evening Prayer” the conclusion of the Occasional Prayers and Thanksgivings, which are not organic parts of Mattins or Evensong, nor of the Litany and Communion Service at which also they are permitted to be said, would be extremely unnatural.

      The words “subject to any directions the Bishop may give” are to be understood as meaning “directions for the proper regulation of extempore devotions,” with a view to greater reverence and edification.  To understand such “directions” as including power to prohibit extempore prayer altogether would be extremely unnatural, though perhaps not quite impossible grammatically.

      No other Church in the Anglican Communion gives anything like this ample scope for the exercise of the gift of extempore prayer.  It is to be hoped that this great privilege – fraught with danger as well as blessing – will not be widely abused.  Its importance, in view of possible reunion with Protestant Nonconformity in a future still remote, is obvious and needs no emphasis.

      Hitherto Anglicanism has unduly emphasized rigid liturgical uniformity.  Nonconformity extempore prayer.  Impartial judges in these days are for the most part of opinion that the complete triumph of neither principle is desirable, but that what is needed is a judicious combination of both.  To achieve this synthesis is the most urgent liturgical task of the modern Anglican Communion.

      The American Prayer Book (1929) contains a Bidding Prayer “to be used before Sermons, or on Special Occasions,” in the use of which the Minister is allowed a certain amount of discretion (“the Minister, in his discretion, may omit any of the clauses in this Prayer, or may add others, as occasion may require”); but he receives no permission to use extempore prayer.  Only the Congregation (not the Minister) are directed to pray, but mental prayer by the Minister is implied in the words, “And now, brethren, summing up all our petitions,” etc.

      Before the Sermon at the “Eucharist” other authorized prayers and intercessions may be substituted for the Bidding Prayer.

      The Scottish Communion Office has this rubric immediately before the Offertory: “The Presbyter may here bid special prayers and thanksgivings.”  If “bid” here means “pray,” extempore prayer is directly authorized; even if not, it is not excluded.

      The new South African Communion Office (1927) has the following rubric: “When Intercession or Thanksgiving is to be offered for any special object it shall be provided for by a Form of Bidding either here [before the Prayer for the Church] or before the Offertory.”

      If “bidding” here means, not “prayer,” but “requests for prayer,” extempore prayer is not excluded.  The Priest would first announce the subject of the prayer, and then actually offer it.

Interpolations in the Communion Office.

      The interpolations in the Communion Office to which least objection can be made are those which are sometimes used in the Prayer for the Church.  To insert the names of the Archbishop of the Province, of the Bishop and assistant Bishop of the diocese, of the sick and afflicted persons for whom prayers are desired, also of the patron Saint of the Church or of the day, and in certain cases to mention some special need of national or local importance, gives warmth and colour to the Prayer, and is justified by practical needs and primitive precedent.

      Interpolations in, or unauthorized additions to, the Canon (even when entirely inaudible) raise a more difficult problem.  Objection to them is widely – and not unreasonably – felt, and the 1928 Revisers attempted to suppress them by inserting the following rubric: “The Order here provided shall not be supplemented by additional prayers, save so far as is herein permitted; nor shall the private devotions of the Priest be such as to hinder, interrupt, or alter the course of the service.”

      In connection with this difficult question, two points ought to be remembered: (1) That it is not disloyal to desire a better and fuller Canon.  The Laudian School as a whole preferred the Canon of 1549 to that of 1552, and, had political and ecclesiastical circumstances been propitious, they would have restored it (or something like it) in 1661.  (2) That the primitive Church permitted (and indeed encouraged, when the Bishop possessed in unusual measure the charisma of extempore prayer) the expansion of the somewhat jejune and uninspiring Canons which were at first committed to writing (e.g. that of Hippolytus) by the extempore devotions of the celebrant.  The Church of the later fourth and fifth centuries removed the need of extensive interpolations by the celebrant, by gradually expanding and improving the existing Canons, until they embraced nearly every important aspect of Eucharistic worship, and nearly every human need.  The Eucharistic Canon ceased to be interpolated to any considerable extent, mainly because it no longer needed interpolation – it had achieved (relative) perfection.

      The difficulty is that the new Canon provided in 1928 has not proved acceptable to the majority of those for whom it was intended, with the result that interpolation continues.  The 1928 Revision was wrecked by the decision to construct a new Canon, instead of authorizing the alternative use of that of 1549.  The 1549 Canon is Cranmer’s greatest liturgical achievement.  It skillfully combines the standpoints of the Old and of the New Learning.  It is definitely a Reformation document, and yet a conservative like Gardiner could use it and praise it.  Its Epiklesis recognizes the truth contained in the Eastern theory of Consecration, and yet does not abandon the Western, as the Epiclesis of 1928 seems to many to do.  It was used by the entire Church of England by the joint authority of Convocation and Parliament, and its supersession has been regretted by a long line of distinguished divines from the Elizabethan age to our own: Overall, Cosin, Laud, Heylin, Sancroft, Taylor, Thorndike, J. Johnson, Archbishop John Sharpe, Bishop Wilson, Brett, Whiston, Wheatly, and many more.  Dr. Brightman shortly before his death reiterated his desire that in any future Revision the alternative Canon be that of 1549, with only a single change, viz., the transference of the Intercession to the Offertory, in accordance with Gallican precedent, and that of the 1637 Scottish Book.  He approved the form and position of the 1549 Epiklesis.

Liturgical Silence

By Charles Harris

      In a liturgical work it would be inappropriate to discuss at length either the general question of the devotional value and use of silence, or its psychology.  Such subjects as the use of silence as a philosophic discipline (as among the Pythagoreans), or as a part of monastic discipline ; or in connection with retreats, missions, prayer meetings, and private devotion, lie beyond our province.  Still less need we consider the devotional value attached to silence in the religions of the middle and far East, e.g. by Hinduism and Buddhism.  What we propose to deal with exclusively here is Liturgical Silence, more particularly silence at the Eucharist.

      Among Protestants, the religious body which has most fully explored (and in some periods even abused to the neglect of the Ministry of the Word) the practice of silent worship is the Friends or Quakers.

      Among Western Catholics, a similar instinctive appreciation of the value of silent worship led in the early Middle Ages, if not to the establishment, [Probably the desire to multiply Masses, arising from a belief in the separate and distinct efficacy of each Mass, was the main productive cause of the system of Low Masses.] at least to the continual extension and increasing popularity of Low Mass.  At the present day not a few Latin Catholics definitely prefer Low to High Mass, partly, it would seem, on account of its brevity and simplicity, but still more on account of the devotional effect of the mystical or subdued voice employed by the celebrant even in those portions of the service intended to be audible.  Similarly not a few Anglicans prefer a quiet service, conducted in a subdued voice, to the Choral Eucharistic Service with Sermon or Homily which alone the rubrics expressly prescribe or contemplate. [The rubrics direct the Nicene Creed, and the Sanctus (with its introductory Preface), to be “sung” or “said”; the Gloria in excelsis to be “said” or “sung”.]

      In Eastern Christendom the Holy Eucharist is always chorally rendered with full ceremonial, as it originally was in the West also.  But inasmuch as many of the prayers are said in a low or inaudible voice, ample opportunities are afforded for silent worship, even though, according to present and longstanding use, the Priest’s inaudible prayers are largely accompanied by the singing of anthems by the choir.

      Sufficient information on the general subject of religious silence (with a few references to its liturgical use) will be found in the instructive volume of Essays by T. Hodgkin (Quaker), L. V. Hodgkin (Quaker), Percy Dearmer, J. C. Fitzgerald, and the late Cyril Hepher (editor), entitled The Fellowship of Silence (1915); in its sequel The Fruits of Silence; and in Rufus Jones’s article “Silence” in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.

      With regard to the psychological processes involved, it is sufficient here to say that the effect of silence (or of subdued or whispered speech) is to lull the outward senses into a receptive condition; to induce tranquility, repose, and inward peace; to relax the tension of the nervous system; and gradually to induce a state of restful waiting upon God, which opens the “subconscious” or “unconscious” mind to the influence of grace and religious suggestion.

Eucharistic Silence.

      It is practically certain, and generally admitted, that in the earliest period the entire Eucharistic Office, including the Canon or Prayer of Consecration, was recited in an audible voice.  Justin Martyr (see above) mentions that the people expressed their assent to the President’s Eucharistic Prayer by responding Amen.  Similar testimony is given by Tertullian, c. 200 (De spectaculis, xxv.), and the author of the De Mysteriis (ix.), who was probably St. Ambrose.  Dionysius of Alexandria (c. 255) speaks of a man who “listened to the [Eucharistic] thanksgiving, and joined in answering, Amen” (Euseb., H.E., vii. 9).  Still more decisive is the fact that the celebrant in primitive times was allowed a certain liberty of extemporizing, even in the Canon, which plainly indicates that his words were audible to the congregation (see Extempore Prayer above).

      Nevertheless, at an early but undetermined date, it gradually became customary, both in the East and in the West, to recite certain of the most solemn Eucharistic prayers, particularly the greatest part of the Canon, in a very low or inaudible voice.  Such recitation was termed “mystic” (μυστιχός), an epithet which sufficiently indicates its significance.  It expressed on the part of the Priest, and was designed to evoke in the laity, a religious emotion compounded of awe, reverence, and fear.  It evinced just such an overpowering sense, not merely of humility, but even of “abjection” and “nothingness,” as befits a creature admitted to the immediate presence of its Creator.  What R. Otto calls “creature feeling,” “creature consciousness,” and “numinous feeling” was powerfully experienced by the ancient Church at the celebration of the Eucharist; and it was this humble abasement which tended to find expression in a subdued or inaudible tone of voice, which seems to have been adopted by the celebrant in some places as early as the fourth century.

      There are obvious disadvantages, both of a devotional and of an intellectual kind, in the silent recitation of the Canon or Anaphora.  On the other hand, it can hardly be denied that the “mystic” prayer of the celebrant has been a prime factor in creating that thrilling atmosphere of rapt adoration which has been the distinctive feature of Catholic worship throughout the ages; and which the more intellectual, instructive, and “edifying” worship of modern Protestants seems unable to evoke.  One of the most important tasks which lies before the Anglican Communion at the present moment is to produce a working synthesis between these two distinct, but not really incompatible, ideals and systems of public worship.

Origin of Liturgical Silence.

      Stress upon mystical awe (which found instinctive expression in “mystical” prayer) is specially characteristic of the Eucharistic teaching of St. John Chrysostom (c. 345–407).  It is also a most prominent feature in the Greek Liturgy which bears his name, and “with the composition of which [he] may have had something to do, or he may not” (Brightman).  But even from the beginning of Christianity some degree of awe and dread accompanied the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, as is clear from the language of St. Paul (1 Cor. 11:26–33). [It may be that overemphasis upon the awe-inspiring and “fearful” aspect of the Mysteries accounted in part for the increasing reluctance of the laity to communicate, the beginnings of which were already noticed and rebuked by St. Chrysostom (Hom. iii. de Incompr. Nat. Dei, 6: Hom. iii. in Epist. ad Ephes. 4; etc.).  Beyond doubt the terrifying language of the first and third Exhortations in the Anglican Communion Office has scared from the altar thousands of devout but timid and scrupulous souls, who ought to have been regular communicants.  Though these are now seldom read, their effect remains.]

      A fixed date for the beginning of the emphasis on awe and dread, which (in the writer’s judgment) led quickly to the “mystical” recitation of the most solemn prayers, is afforded by the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem (delivered in A.D. 348), and by the early Liturgy of Jerusalem (the primitive form of the Liturgy of St. James), which is freely quoted by St. Cyril.  This Liturgy, as we now possess it, has been interpolated with the object of expressing not only the consubstantiality of the Son (which probably found expression in its oldest form), but also that of the Holy Ghost (defined by the First (Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381); also of giving adequate recognition to that greater reverence for the Blessed Virgin, which naturally resulted from the official ascription to her of the title “Mother of God” by the (Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431).

      Dr. Brightman shows clearly, by a careful comparison of St. Cyril’s quotations with our present text (see Eastern Liturgies, pp. 464 ff.), that St. James’s Liturgy already existed in substantially its existing form as early as A.D. 348.  But since its devotional attitude towards our Lord’s Person is emphatically “Nicene,” its date of composition must fall later than A.D. 325, and may be fixed approximately at A.D. 330–35.

      An atmosphere of mystical awe pervades the whole of this Liturgy.  The worshippers are said to be “full of fear and dread” while they offer “this fearful and unbloody sacrifice,” which is further described as “a fearful and awe-inspiring (φριχτης) ministration”.  After consecration, the elements are spoken of as “hallowed, precious, celestial, ineffable, stainless, glorious, terrible (φοβερων), dreadful (φριχτων), divine (θείων).”

      Cyril’s own language is equally emphatic.  For him the offering of the Anaphora is “the hour of greatest trembling (την φριχωδεστάτην ώραν)”; and the consecrated gifts, as they lie before the Priest on the altar, “are the holy and most tremendous (φριχωδεστάτης) sacrifice.”  The communicant approaches the altar to receive them “in the manner of adoration and religious reverence (σεβάσματος),” making his left hand a “throne” for his right hand, because the latter is about to receive a “king”.  No crumb must be dropped, for each fragment is more valuable than gold and precious stones (Catecheses, 22 and 23).

      We have quoted this ancient Liturgy with St. Cyril’s comments at some length, principally to fix approximately the beginning of “mystical” liturgical prayer, partly also to demonstrate how baseless is the statement recently made by Prof. Karl Adam, and repeated by several English writers, that religious awe and fear at the celebration of the Eucharist scarcely antedates the pastoral activity of St. John Chrysostom, who was ordained deacon in 381, priest in 386, and died in 407.  “This transformation,” says Adam, “set in with ... St. John Chrysostom ... Now for the first time in the history of the Eucharist is there talk of the ‘awful sacrifice,’ the ‘awful bread,’ and of the ‘fear and trembling’ with which we should receive the Body of the Lord,” etc. (Christ our Brother, 1931, pp. 46 ff.).

      There is truth in Adam’s contention that the conflict with Arianism led to the Divinity of Christ being unduly emphasized to the neglect of His humanity; also that one result of this was the heightening of the awe and dread with which the Eucharist was received.  But our quotations prove conclusively that such sentiments were widely entertained a whole generation before Chrysostom; and 1 Cor. 11:28 ff. is proof positive that the attitude of the Apostolic Church towards the consecrated gifts was very similar.*

      [*From very early days the Eucharist was “the holy thing” or “things” (το άγιον, τα άγια, sanctum, sanctissimum, sancta).  Thus the Didache (c. A.D. 100) applies Matt. 7:6 to the Eucharist, as also do Cyprian, De Lapsis, 26, and Athanasius, Fragment on Matt. 7:6 (P.G., xxvii. 1380).  The following passages also testify to the deep reverence with which the Eucharist was regarded in the period before Chrysostom: Tert., De Cor., 3; Hil. Pict., C. Constant., 11; Optatus, De Schism. Don., 8. 13–17; Ambrose, De Spir., 5. 3. 80; Amb. apud Thdt. H.E., 5.18.

      The Apostolic Constitutions, which, though compiled about A.D. 375, represent a pre-Nicene type of devotion, give similar testimony.  They represent the deacons as “ministering the Lord’s Body with fear,” and the laity as “approaching with reverence and holy fear as to the Body of their King” (ii. 57, cf. viii. 13).

      Hippolytus’s direction in his Apostolic Tradition (E.C.O. 8): “The Body of Christ is to be eaten by believers, and is not to be despised,” is evidence against (not for) Adam’s contention.  It refers to the reception of the Eucharist, not publicly in church, but privately at home.  The Roman artisan who carried the Eucharist home with him from church in a cheap box, and stored it in a not very suitable place in his mean and crowded dwelling, required to be reminded that familiarity with holy things may breed contempt, and that it was his duty to show not less reverence to the Eucharist in his own home, than in the cathedral church.]

      Hardly less emphasis on awe and dread is found in the Liturgy of St. Basil, of which the Anaphora is pronounced by Dr. Brightman to be “almost certainly the work of the great Basil of Caesarea” (c. 330–379).  A sense of “numinous” awe pervades this Liturgy, which speaks of the Mysteries as not only “divine, holy, spotless, immortal, heavenly, and quickening”; but also as “tremendous” or “fearful” (φριχτων, literally “to be shuddered at”).

      The rubrics of this Liturgy, which prescribe that nearly all the Anaphora should be recited “mystically,” are doubtless of much later date; but they probably embody a long-standing tradition.  At any rate the psychological and devotional attitude of St. Cyril, St. Basil, and St. Chrysostom towards the Holy Eucharist was such, that it would be no matter of surprise if already in their day the mystical recitation of the Anaphora had begun in their cathedral churches.  St. Chrysostom’s remarks on 1 Cor. 14:16 (Hom. xxx. in I Cor.) are far from conclusive evidence to the contrary.  All that they clearly indicate is that part of the Anaphora was recited audibly, in particular the concluding words “for ever and ever,” which gave the cue for the people’s response, Amen.  Even as at present used in the Orthodox Church, the Liturgies of St. James, St. Chrysostom, and St. Basil direct that our Lord’s words concerning both the Bread and the Cup, also the concluding words “for ever and ever,” should be pronounced aloud, and be followed in all three cases by the people’s Amen.

      The earliest direct and absolutely undeniable evidence for liturgical silence at the Anaphora comes from a Nestorian source, The Liturgical Homilies of Narsai. [Edited by Dom. R. H. Connolly in Texts and Studies, Vol. VIII. 1, 1909.  I am assuming that Homily xvii is authentic.]  Narsai died in A.D. 502.  His Liturgy seems to have been a revision of an earlier Persian rite attributed to Addai and Mari.

      From Hom. xvii we learn that, after the Sursum corda and before the Sanctus, “all the ecclesiastical body now observes silence, and all set themselves to pray earnestly in their hearts.  The Priests are still, and the deacons stand in silence ... the whole people is quiet and still, subdued and calm. ... The Mysteries are set in order, the censers are smoking, the lamps are shining, and the deacons are hovering and brandishing [fans] in likeness of watchers [i.e. angels].  Deep silence and peaceful calm settles on that place: it is filled and overflows with brightness and splendour, beauty and power.  The bright [-robed] Priest opens his mouth and speaks in secret with God, as a familiar friend.”  After the Sanctus, which is said aloud, the church “returns to silence” for the Prayer of Consecration, which is said silently till after the Words of Institution, when the Priest “raises his voice at the end of his prayer, to make it audible to the people.  He makes his voice heard, and with his hand he signs the Mysteries that are set [on the altar], and the people with Amen concur and acquiesce in the prayer of the Priest.”

      The Epiklesis, by which consecration is declared by Narsai to be effected, is apparently pronounced inaudibly, the Priest worshipping, “with quaking, and fear, and harrowing dread.”  But the exact moment of it is proclaimed to the congregation: “Then the herald of the church cries in that hour, ‘In silence and fear be ye standing: peace be with us.  Let all the people be in fear at this moment in which the adorable Mysteries are being accomplished by the descent of the Spirit.’”

      In Narsai’s Liturgy, as in those of St. Chrysostom and St. Basil, the whole Anaphora, with the exception of a few phrases, is said in silence.  Nor is there any reason to suppose that this was a Nestorian peculiarity, adopted later by the Orthodox.  There are good though not decisive grounds for believing that the practice originated more than a century earlier among the Orthodox.

Justinian’s Legislation.

      In Justinian’s day the silent recitation of the Anaphora was common, but far from universal.  The Emperor, and a certain number of the laity, objected to the practice, which was forbidden in the year 565 by civil legislation. [The original Greek text of the Novella is printed in the Corpus juris Civilis, edited by Mommsen and others, Vol. III. pp. 695–99.]  Justinian states or implies that the audible recitation of the Anaphora has been “canonically established by the holy Apostles and Fathers,” but refrains from mentioning to what particular Canons he is referring.  He appeals with more cogency to the Epistle to the Romans and to 1 Corinthians.  His actual directions are as follows: “Moreover, we order all bishops and priests to say the prayers used in the Divine Oblation and in Holy Baptism not inaudibly, but in a voice that can be heard by the faithful people, that the minds of those who listen may be excited to greater compunction. ... It is fitting that the prayers made to our Lord Jesus Christ, our God, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Oblation and elsewhere should be recited aloud (μετα φωνης). Those who refuse must answer at the judgment seat of God, nor will we, when we find this to be the case, leave them unpunished.”

      Upon this “Novel” of Justinian, Edmund Bishop makes the following strange comment: “In the year 565 the recital of the Canon aloud was the traditional and still universal practice through the regions comprised in Justinian’s wide dominions.”  Even what is here quoted of Justinian’s language shows perfectly clearly that such audible recitation was very far from universal.

      Scudamore claims that Justinian’s legislation resulted in a “compromise,” but in reality it seems to have produced no permanent effect.  The Pratum Spirituale of Joannes Moschus, published between 600 and 622, states that because the presbyters in some places said the Anaphora aloud, the children knew it by heart. [He tells a story about bread and wine, over which the Anaphora had been recited by children playing at celebrating the Eucharist, being struck by lightning, which stunned, though it did not kill the children.]  Obviously the practice was not general (see P.G. 3082).

      By the close of the eighth century the “mystical” recitation of the Anaphora was the established and official use, as is shown by the ancient Barberini MS. of the Euchologion (of that date), which contains the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom practically in its present form.  The practice of the separated Eastern Churches in this matter is similar to that of the Orthodox Church. [For the details, see Scudamore, Notitia Eucharistica, Pt. 2, ch. vi., sect. iii.]

The Western Church.

      In the modern Roman Church the entire Canon of the Mass, except the two following short phrases, is said inaudibly: – nobis quoque peccatoribus (at which the voice is slightly raised), and Per omnia saecula saeculorum, which is the signal for the response, Amen (this is spoken with an “intelligible voice,” or sung).  Only at ordinations of priests and consecrations of bishops, when “concelebration” is directed, is the voice of the chief celebrant slightly raised, in order to secure coincident consecration.

      The practice of silent recitation goes back at least to the eighth century, as Ordo Romanus II, [Printed in Mabillon’s Museum Italicum, ii. p. 48; also in Migne, P.L., lxxviii.] our earliest witness of certain date, testifies.  How much more ancient the practice is, we have no means at present of knowing.

      In Gaul, the name given to the prayer immediately following the Recital of the Institution was “post secreta” or “post mysterium,” which implies that at least the actual consecration was silently performed.  In the ancient Gothic rite this prayer is called “post pridie,” so that it affords no evidence as to the method of recitation of the Canon.

Silence in the Anglican Prayer Books.

      The 1661 Book contains only one direction for silence.  In the Ordering of Priests, after the public examination and answers of the candidates, this rubric occurs: “After this, the congregation shall be desired secretly in their prayers to make their humble supplications to God for all these things, for the which prayers there shall be silence kept for a space.”

      The 1928 Book prescribes intervals for silent prayer in all the Ordination Services.

      In the Occasional Prayers this rubric occurs: “If it is desired to pray for ... other needs, it shall be sufficient to say, Let us pray for ... and silence shall be kept for a space.  Then shall follow – V. Lord, hear our prayer; R And let our cry come unto thee.”  A similar rubric occurs at the end of the thanksgivings.  In the new Introduction to Morning or Evening Prayer, the Minister may omit the preliminary exhortation and say instead: “Let us humbly confess our sins to Almighty God.  And thereupon silence shall be kept for a space, all kneeling.”

      In the revised Scottish Prayer Book (1929) the principle of liturgical silence in connection with the Anaphora is recognized by the following rubric occurring after the Eucharistic Lord’s Prayer of the Scottish Liturgy: “Here the Presbyter shall break the consecrated bread, and silence may be kept for a brief space.”  Silent prayer is also directed in all the services of the Ordinal.

      The South African Alternative Liturgy has the following rubric after the Canon and Lord’s Prayer, and just before the Prayer of Humble Access: “Then shall silence be kept for a space.”

      The 1661 Book contains no rubric explicitly directing the Prayer of Consecration to be said audibly; but its inaudible recitation would be a manifest departure from the entire spirit of the vernacular Liturgy.  The 1928 Book inserts this rubric: “The Service following shall be said throughout in a distinct and audible voice.”

      An audible voice need not be a loud voice.  It is possible to obtain the full “mystical” effect of silence by reciting the Canon in a very low and subdued voice, fully audible to every careful listener in the church, and yet expressive and suggestive of the deepest religious awe.  It is not desirable, for the sake of one or two partially deaf persons, to raise the voice, and thus impede the devotion of the general congregation, which is fostered and augmented by the use of a subdued tone of voice.  The Canon should in all cases be succeeded by a short period of absolute and unbroken silence, as is directed in the new South African Liturgy and is permitted in the Scottish.  On no account should the organ (however softly played) be allowed to break in upon this most precious period of silent worship.  It is of great importance that the Agnus Dei should not be sung until full time has been given for the effect of the Prayer of Consecration to sink deeply (during the interval of silence) into the minds of the congregation: – “The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him” (Hab. 2:20).

      What has been said has, of course, no reference to the variable portions of the service (e.g. Collect, Epistle, and Gospel), which should always be read in a resonant and penetrating voice.