LITURGY. The word “Liturgy” technically denotes the “Order for the Celebration and Administration of the Eucharist.” It has come to be used in a more popular sense to denote any or all of the various services of the Christian church, whether contained in separate volumes or bound up together in the form of a Book of Common Prayer. We propose to treat of “the liturgy” chiefly, but not exclusively, in the former and stricter sense, and, without further discussion of the use of the word in Biblical or patristic literature, and without entering into various questions with reference to their origin, growth, first committal to writing, <kc., to give our readers some account of the principal liturgies which exist, or have existed, in the Christian church.
There are five main families or groups of liturgies, three of them Eastern in origin and use, one Eastern in origin but Western in use, one Western both in origin and use. They are known either by the names of the apostles with whom they are traditionally connected, or by the names of the countries or cities in which they are known or believed to have been once or always in use....
Group I. St James, West Syrian, Jerusalem. — The principal liturgies to be enumerated under this group are the Clementine, so called from being found in the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, which have been erroneously referred to St Clement, first bishop of Rome (lib. viii. 10-15); the Greek and Syriac liturgies of St James; the Greek liturgies of St Basil and St Chrysostom; the Armenian liturgy of St Gregory the Illuminator, first patriarch of Armenia; a large number of later Syriac liturgies springing from the Syriac liturgy of St James. Of these liturgies, that of St Chrysostom is used now by the Orthodox Eastern Church, except on the first five Sundays in Lent, Thursday and Saturday in Holy Week, the vigils of Christmas and Epiphany, and St Basil’s Day, when the liturgy of St Basil is used; and in Lent (except Sundays and Saturdays and Lady Day), when the liturgy of the pre-sanctified is used.
This group, like all the purely Eastern liturgies, is marked by an absence of flexibility as to number and shape of prefaces, collects, &c. Its special feature, if we may adopt a recently employed canon of differentiation, is the position of the great intercession for quick and dead, for rulers in church and state, for the sick, for travellers, for the fruits of the earth, &c., after the consecration of the elements has been completed by the invocation of the Holy Spirit (C. E. Hammond, Lit. Eastern and Western, pp. 26-29).
Group II. St Hark, Egyptian, Alexandria.— This group includes the Greek liturgies of St Mark, St Basil, and St Gregory; the Coptic liturgies of St Cyril, St Basil, and St Gregory; the Ethiopie liturgy known as the “Canon Universalis” or “Liturgy of all the Apostles,” together with sixteen other subordinate Ethiopie liturgies. They are distinguished by the position of the great intercession in the middle of the preface, as well as by the prominent part assigned throughout to the deacon.
Group III. St Adaeus, East Syrian, Edessa.— There are three extant liturgies belonging to this group, now exclusively used by Nestorian Christians,—those of SS. Adaeus and Maris, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Nestorius; the titles of three lost liturgies have been preserved, —those of Narses, Barsumas, and Diodorus of Tarsus. The liturgy of the Christians of St Thomas, on the Malabar coast of India, formerly belonged to this group, but it was almost completely assimilated to the Roman liturgy by Portuguese Jesuits at the synod of Diamper in 1599. The characteristic of this group is the position of the great intercession in the middle of the consecration, between the words of institution (or, to speak more accurately, the place where the words of institution must have occurred) and the invocation.
Group IV. St John, Hispano-Gallican, Ephesus.— This group of Latin liturgies, which once prevailed very widely in western Europe, has been almost universally superseded by the liturgy of the Church of Rome. Where it survives it has been either partially or almost completely assimilated to the Roman pattern. It prevailed once throughout Spain, France, part of northern Italy, and Great Britain and Ireland, in forms of which a detailed account is appended. · The term “Ephesine” has been applied to this family of liturgies, chiefly by modern English liturgiologists, to denote a theory as to their origin which, although upheld by other than English writers, must be regarded rather as a possible hypothesis than a proved fact (Leslie, Pref, to Mozar. Missal, sect. 25; Bickell, Messe und Pascha, P∙ lθ)∙ The many traces of Eastern influence in their composition, and the close connexion which is known to have existed at a very early period between the churches of Lyons and of western Asia Minor, have suggested the theory that the latter country must have been the birthplace of this class of liturgies. The names of the apostle St John and of Ephesus his place of residence have been pressed into service as further particularizations of the same theory. The special feature of these liturgies is the position of the great intercession after the offertory, before the commencement of the preface and canon.
The chief traces of Oriental affinity lie in the following points :—(1) the various proclamations made by the deacon, including that of « Silentium facite” before the epistle (Migne, tom. lxxxv. p. 534); (2) the presence of a third lesson, preceding the epistle, taken from the Old Testament; (3) the occasional presence of “preces,” a series of short intercessions resembling the Greek “Ektene,” or deacon’s litany; (4) the position of the kiss of peace at an early point in the service, before the canon, instead of the Roman position after consecration; (5) the exclamation “sancta sanctis” occurring in the Mozarabic rite, the counterpart of the Eastern τα αγια τoις dγιbιs; (6) traces of the presence of the “Epiklesis,” that is to say, the invocation of the Holy Spirit, in its Eastern position, after the words of institution, as in the collect styled the Post-pridie in the Mozarabic service for the second Sunday after Epiphany :—“We beseech thee that thou wouldest sanctify this oblation with the permixture of Thy Spirit, and conform it with full transformation into the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” On the other hand, the great variableness of its parts, and its immense number of proper prefaces, ally it to the Western family of liturgies.
We now proceed to give a more detailed account of the chief liturgies of the Hispano-Gallican group.
1. The Mozarabic Liturgy.— This was the national liturgy of the Spanish Church till the close of the 11th century, when the Roman liturgy was forced upon it. Its use, however, lingered on, till in the 16th century Cardinal Ximenes, anxious to prevent its becoming quite obsolete, had its books restored and printed, and founded a college of priests at Toledo to perpetuate its use. It survives now only in that and one other church in Spain, and even there not without certain Roman modifications of its original text and ritual.
Its date and origin, like the date and origin of all existing liturgies, are uncertain, and enveloped in the mists of antiquity. It is evidently not derived from the Roman liturgy. Its whole structure, and every separate detail, disprove such a parentage, and therefore it is strange to find St Isidore of Seville (Lib. de Eccles. Offc., i. 15) attributing it to St Peter. No proof is adduced, and the only value which can be placed upon such an unsupported assertion is that it shows that a very high and even apostolic antiquity was claimed for it. A theory, originating with Pinius, that it may have been brought by the Goths from Constantinople when they invaded Spain, is as improbable as it is unproven. It may have been derived from Gaul. The Gallican liturgy stood to it in the relation of twin-sister, if it could not claim that of mother. The resemblance was so great that, when Charles the Bald (843-877) wished to gain some idea of the character of the already obsolete Gallican rite, he sent to Toledo for some Spanish priests to perform mass according to the Mozarabic rite in his presence. But there is no record of the conversion of Spain by Gallican missionaries. Christianity existed in Spain from the earliest times. Probably St Paul travelled there (Rom. xv. 24-28). It may be at least conjectured that its liturgy was Pauline rather than Petrine or Johannine.
2. Gallican Liturgy.— This was the ancient and national liturgy of France till the commencement of the 9th century, when it was suppressed by order of Charlemagne, who directed the Roman missal to be everywhere substituted in its place. All traces of it seemed for some time to have been lost, until three Gallican sacramentaries were discovered and published by Thomasius in 1680, under the titles of Missale Gothicum, Missale Gallicum, and Missale Francorum, and a fourth was discovered and published by Mabillon in 1687, under the title of Sacramentarium Bobbiense. Fragmentary discoveries have been made since then. Mone discovered fragments of eleven Gallican masses, and published them at Carlsruhe in 1850. Other fragments from the library of St Gall have been published by Bunsen (Anal. Ante- Nie., iii. 263-66), and from the Ambrosian library at Milan by Cardinal Mai (Scrip. Vet. Vat. Coll., iii. 2, 247). More of this MS. is being prepared for publication by Dr Ceriani. A single page was discovered in the library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1867, which has not yet been published. These documents, illustrated by early Gallican canons, and by allusions in the writings of Sulpicius Severus, Caesarius of Arles, Gregory of Tours, Germanus of Paris, and other authors, enable scholars to reconstruct the greater part of this liturgy. The previously enumerated signs of Eastern origin and influence are found here as well as in the Mozarabic liturgy, together with certain other more or less minute peculiarities, which would be of interest to professed liturgiologists, but which we must not pause to specify here. They point to the possibility of the theory that the Gallican liturgy was introduced into use by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (c. 130-200), who had learned it in the East from St Polycarp, the disciple of the apostle St John.
3. Ambrosian Liturgy.— Considerable variety of opinion has existed among liturgical writers as to the proper classification of the “Ambrosian” or “Milanese” liturgy. If we are to accept it in its present form, and to make the present position of the great intercession the test of its genus, then we must place it under Group V., the “Petrine,” and consider it as a branch of the Roman family. If, on the other hand, we consider the important variations from the Roman liturgy which yet exist, and the still more marked and numerous traces of variation which confront us in the older printed and MS. copies of the Ambrosian rite, we shall detect in it an original member of the Ephesine group of liturgies, which for centuries past has been undergoing a gradual but ever increasing assimilation to Rome. We know this as a matter of history, as well as ⅝ matter of inference from changes in the text itself. Charlemagne adopted the same policy towards the Milanese as towards the Gallican Church. He carried off all the Milanese Church books which he could obtain, with the view of substituting Roman books in their place, but the completeness of his intentions failed, partly through the attachment of the Lombards to their own rites, partly through the intercession of a Gallican bishop named Eugenius (Mabillon, Mus. Ital., i., ii. p. 106). It has been asserted by Joseph Vicecomes that this is an originally independent liturgy drawn up by St Barnabas, who first preached the gospel at Milan (De Missae Pit., i. chap, xi., xii.), and this tradition is preserved in the title and proper preface for St Barnabas Day in the Ambrosian missal (Pamelius, i. 385, 386).
We can trace the following points in which the Milanese differs from the Roman liturgy, many of them exhibiting distinct lines of Ephesine or Eastern influence. Some of them are no longer found in recent Ambrosian missals, and only survive in the earlier MSS. published by Pamelius (Liturgicοn, tom. i. p. 293), Muratori (Lit. Rom. Vet., i. 132), and Ceriani (in his edition, 1881, of an ancient MS. at Milan).
(a) The collect entitled “oratio super sindonem,” corresponding to the eυχ¾ μeτa τb άπλωθηναι τδ ΐίλ,ητόν ; (b) the proclamation of silence by the deacon before the epistle; (c) the litanies said after the Ingressa (introit) on Sundays in Lent, closely resembling the Greek Ektene; (d) varying forms of introduction to the Lord’s Prayer, in Coena Domini (Ceriani, p. 116), in Pascha (ib., p. 129); (e)the presence of passages in the Prayer of Consecration which are not part of the Roman canon, and one of which at least corresponds in import and position though not in words to the Greek , Ε,τrlκ∖ησιs: Tuum vero est, omnipotens Baler, mittere, &c. (ib., p. 116); (∕) the survival of a distinctly Gallican form of consecration in the Post-Sauctus “in Sabbato Sancto”: Vere Sanctus, vere benedictus Dominus noster, &c. (ib., p. 125); (g) the varying nomenclature of the Sundays after Pentecost; (Ä) the position of the fraction before the Lord’s Prayer; (i) the omission of the second oblation after the words of institution (Muratori, Lit. Rom. Vet., i. 133); (k~) a third lection or Prophetia from the Old Testament pre- ce di n g the epistle and gospel; (Z) the lay offering of the oblations and the formulae accompanying their reception (Pam., i. 297); (m) the position of the ablution of the hands in the middle of the canon just before the words of institution; (n) the position of the “oratio super populum” which corresponds in matter but not in name to the collect for the day before the Gloria in Excelsis.
4. Celtic Liturgy.— We postpone the consideration of this subject to a position under the heading of the liturgies of Great Britain and Ireland.
Group V. St Peter, Italian, Pome.— There is only one liturgy to be enumerated under this group, viz., the present liturgy of the Church of Rome, which, though originally local in character and circumscribed in use, has come to be nearly coextensive with the Roman Church, sometimes cuckoo-like ejecting earlier national liturgies, as in France and Spain, sometimes incorporating more or less of the ancient ritual of a country into itself, and producing from such incorporation a subclass of distinct uses, as in England, France, and North Italy. Even these subordinate uses have for the most part become, or are rapidly becoming, obsolete. The genius and policy of Rome are in favour of uniformity; and it requires no keen powers of vision to foretell that, liturgically speaking, she will be, before long, within all her dominions supreme.
The date, origin, and early history of the Roman liturgy are obscure. The first Christians at Rome were a Greekspeaking community, and their liturgy must have been Greek, and is possibly represented in the so-called Clementine liturgy. But the date when such a state of things ceased, when and by whom the present Latin liturgy was composed, whether it is an original composition, or, as its structure seems to imply, a survival of some intermediate form of liturgy,—all these are questions which are waiting for their solution, and to which no certain answer can be given, unless and until some further discovery shall be given of earlier liturgical remains.
One MS. exists which claims to represent the Roman liturgy as it existed in the time of Leo I., 440-61. It was discovered at Verona by Blanchini in 1735, assigned by him to the 8th century, and published under the title of Sacramentarium Leonianum ; but this title was from the first purely conjectural, and is in the teeth of the internal evidence which the MS. itself affords, and is now being gradually abandoned. It is impossible here to enter into the minutiae of the evidence for this and other conclusions. The question is discussed at some length by Muratori, Lit. Pom. Vet., i. chap. 3.
A MS. of the 9th or 10th century was found at Rome by Thomasius, and published by him in 1680 under the title of Sacramentarium Gelasianum. But it was written in France, and is certainly not a pure Gelasian codex; and, although there is historical evidence of that pope (492-96) having made some changes in the Roman liturgy, and although other MSS. have been published by Gerbertus and others, claiming the title of Gelasian, we neither have nor are likely to have genuine and contemporary MS. evidence of the real state of the liturgy in that pope’s time.
The larger number of MSS. of this group are copies of the Gregorian sacramentary, that is to say, MSS. representing, or purporting to represent, the state of the Roman liturgy in the days of Gregory the Great (590-604). But they cannot be accepted as certain evidence, for the following reasons :—not one of them was written earlier than the 9th century; not one of them was written in Italy, but every one north of the Alps; every one contains internal evidence of a post-Gregorian date in the shape of masses for the repose or for the intercession of St Gregory, and in various other ways.
The Roman liturgy was introduced into England in the 7th, into France in the 9th, and into Spain in the 11th century. In France certain features of the service and certain points in the ritual of the ancient national liturgy became interwoven with its text, and formed those many varying mediaeval Gallican uses, which are associated with the names of the different French sees.
The distinguishing characteristics of the Petrine liturgy are these :—(a) the position of the great intercession within the canon, the commemoration of the living being placed just before, and the commemoration of the departed just after, the words of institution; {b) the absence of the Epiklesis or Invocation of the Holy Spirit; (c) the position of the Pax or “Kiss of Peace” after the consecration and just before the communion, whereas in other liturgies it occurs at a much earlier point in the service.
Liturgies of the British Islands. Period I. The Celtic Church.— Until recently almost nothing was known of the character of the liturgical service of the vast Celtic Church which existed in these islands before the Anglo-Saxon conquest, and which continued to exist in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall for very considerable though varying periods of time after that event. But recently a good deal of light has been thrown on the subject, partly by the publication of the few genuine works of SS. Patrick, Columba, Columbanus, and other Celtic saints; partly by the discovery of liturgical remains in the Scottish Book of Deer, and in the Irish Books of Dimma and Mulling and the Stowe Missal ; partly by the publication of mediaeval Irish compilations such as the Leabhar Breac, Liber Hymnorum, &c., which contain ecclesiastical calendars, legends, treatises, &c., of considerable but very varying antiquity. The evidence collected from these sources is sufficient to prove that the liturgy of the Celtic Church was of the Ephesine type. In central England the churches, together with their books and everything else belonging to them, were destroyed by heathen invaders from Jutland, Schleswig, and Holstein at the close of the 5th century; but the Celtic Church in the remoter parts of England, as well as in the neighbouring kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland, retained its liturgical independence for many centuries afterward.
An examination of its few extant service books and fragments of service books yields the following evidence of the Ephesine origin and character of the Celtic liturgy :—(a) The presence of whole collects and anthems which occur in the Gallican and Mozarabic but not in the Roman liturgy; (ό) various forniulae of thanksgiving after communion; (c) frequent addresses to the people in the form of Gallican Praefationes ; (c?) the Gallican form of consecration prayer, being a variable Post-Sanctus leading up to the words of institution; (e) the complicated rite of fraction as described in an Irish tract at the end of the Stowe missal finds its only counterpart in the elaborate ceremonial of the Mozarabic Church; {f) the presence of the Gallican ceremonial of Pedilavium or “Washing of Feet” in the earliest Irish baptismal office. For a further description of these and of other features which seem to be peculiar to the Celtic liturgy the reader is referred to Warren’s Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, 1881.
Period II. The Anglo-Saxon Church.— We find ourselves here on firmer ground, and can...
denotes all the ceremonies in general belonging to divine service. The word comes from the Greek, λειτȣργία, _public service_, or _public ministry_; formed of λεῖτος, _public_, and ἔργον, _work_. In a more restrained signification, liturgy is used among the Romanists to signify the mass; and among us, the common prayer. All who have written on liturgies agree that, in primitive days, divine service was exceedingly simple, clogged with very few ceremonies, and consisted of but a very small number of prayers; but, by degrees, they increased the number of ceremonies, and added new prayers, to render the office more awful and venerable to the people. At length, things were carried to such a pitch that a regulation became necessary; and it was found needful to put the service, and the manner of performing it, into writing; and this was what they called a liturgy. Liturgies have been different at different times and in different countries. We have the liturgy of St. Chrysostom, of St. Peter, the Armenian liturgy, Gallican liturgy, &c. The properties required in a public liturgy,” says Paley, are these: it must be compendious; express just conceptions of the divine attributes; recite such wants as a congregation are likely to feel, and no other; and contain as few controverted propositions as possible.” The liturgy of the church of England was composed A. D. 1547, and established in the second year of King Edward VI. In the fifth year of this prince, it was reviewed, because some things were contained in that liturgy which showed a compliance with the superstitions of those times; and exceptions were taken against it by learned men at home, and by Calvin abroad. Some alterations were made in it, which consisted in adding the general confession and ...absolution, and the communion service, to begin with the commandments. The use of oil in confirmation and extreme unction, was left out, and also prayers for souls departed, and what related to a belief of the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. The liturgy, so reformed, was established by the acts of 5th and 6th of Edward VI., chap. 1. However, it was abolished by Queen Mary, who enacted that the service should stand as it was commonly used in the last year of King Henry VIII. That of Edward VI. was reëstablished, with some few alterations, by Elizabeth. Some farther alterations were introduced, in consequence of the review of the Common Prayer Book, by order of King James, in the first year of his reign; particularly in the office of private baptism, in several rubrics, and other passages, with the addition of five or six new prayers and thanksgivings, and all that part of the catechism which contains the doctrines of the sacraments. This Book of Common Prayer, so altered, remained in force from the first year of King James to the fourteenth of Charles II. The last review of the liturgy was in the year 1661. It is an invidious cavil, says Dr. Nichols, that our liturgy was compiled out of popish books. Our reformers took nothing from them, but what was taken before from the oldest writers. We have many things out of the Greek liturgies of Basil and Chrysostom; more out of the litanies of Ambrose and Gregory; very much out of the ancient forms of the church dispersed in the works of the fathers, who wrote long before the Roman Breviary, and Canon of the Mass. Our Reformers added many prayers, and thanksgivings, and exhortations, to supply the defect.
