Eucharistic Office BCP

THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE OF
. THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

HANDBOOKS OF CHRISTIAN LITERATURE
THE EUCHARISTIC
OFfICE OF THE BOOK
OF COMMON PRAYER
BY THE REV.
LESLIE WRIGHT, M.A., B.D.

LATE SCHOLAR AND SENIOR FISH EXHIBITIONER OF ST. jOHN'S ' COLLEGF, OXFORD
DIOCESAN INSPECTOR OP' SCHOOLS FOR THE DIOCESE OF CHICHESTBR
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
19 19
UXORI MEAE
CHRISTINAE ]OANNAE
AMIC ARUM FIDELISSI MAE
SOCIARUM GRATISSIMAE
-----,'
PREFACE
THESE pages were not originally written with a
view to publicatiqn. They are merely the result of
several years of study. J only publish them now
on the advice of a friend whose judgment in matters
liturgical I am bound to respect. For I am fulIy
conscious of the defects of this little book. Liturgical
study demands an amount of sustained concentration
and exactitude which is practically incompatible with
the busy and broken life of a Diocesan Inspector.
Such as it is, however, I hope my book may be
useful to students and teachers and to those laymen
and laywomen who desire knowledge of our English
rite but are not prepared to master so exhaustive a
work as Dr. Brightman's monumental treatise.
I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to
the Rev.]. H. Clayton, Vicar of Bognor, and E. G. P.
Wyatt, Esq., of Rustington Hall, Sussex. Both of
them read my work in MS. and sent me valuable
suggestions, some of which, with their kind permission,
I have incorporated in the notes.
L. W.
vii
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAOE
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER: THE PARENT RITE. 13
I. TO THE END OF THE COMMANDMENTS • 26
11. FROM THE COLLECTS TO THE END OF THE

CREED 42
111. THE OFFERTORY 54
IV. THE PREPARATION FOR COMMUNION 74
V. FROl.r/ THE SURSUM CORDA TO THE END OF
THE CONSECRATION . 78
VI. THE COMMUNION AND OBLATION 101
VII. TO THE END OF THE SERVICE 114
It
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Brightman · = Brightman, F.E., Liturgies, Eastern and Western.

Vol. I. Oxford, 1898.
Dearmer · = Dearmer, P., The ParsOl"s Handbook. London,
1902.
Duchesne · = Duchesne, L., Christian Worship: Its Origin and
Evolution (translation of Origines du Culte Chr{-
tien). 4th Edition. London, 1912.
Fortescue · = Fortescue, A. The Mass. London.
P. G. · = Migne, Patrologia GYf1!ca.
P. L. · = Mi"ne, Patrologia Latina.
Pullan · = Pullan, L., History of the Book of Common Prayer.
London.
Wickham Legg = Wickham Legg, J., Three Chapters ill Recent
Liturgical Research. London, 1903.
xi
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
THE PARENT RITE
THE Roman rite, now usc:!d so far and wide, is,
as will be seen, full of Gallican additions. In earJly
centuries its use was comparativeiy Focal-not even
North and South Italy used it. In Cenfred Italy
alone was it used; tn fact, it was a diocesan liturgy
for Rome and its neighbourhood. It bears dear
marks of its Roman origin, espechl'Pfy when separated
from the accretions which have heel1' added' later.
"The Roman' rite evoFved' out of the (presumed)
universal, but quife fluid rite of the first three
centuries, during the (liturgically) almost ttnktrown
time' from the fourth' ~o the si:lith century." 'Fhe
developed and fater stage of it is found' in th€
Leonine and Gelasian ,Sacramentaries.
Since' the sixteenth century it has practically sup-
planted an other uses in the West. The Atnf>rosian
and MozaTabi'c rites remafu~ tbe former in Milan, t!ire
latter in Toledo and Salamanca, and the Greek rite
in Southern Italy, Sicily and Corsica. The Decree of
14 THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE OF
Pope Pius V in 1570 suppressed all rites which were
less than two centuries old, and, from those days until
now, the tendency has been to insist upon the use
of the Roman rite (as used in Rome itself) to the
exclusion of all variant and diverse uses. Its adoption
far and wide may be attributed ):0 a great extent
to the growing influence of the patriarchal See of
Rome and the gradual extension of its claim to
jurisdiction. It bears traces of extreme antiquity,
and has certain peculiar features which separate it
from other rites, Eastern or Gallican.
The earliest books of the Latin rite known to us
are the Sacramentaries, z'. e. books containing the
priest's prayers, for the Eucharist and for other
occasions. The name" sacramentarium" means the
"liber sacramentorum "-of which a number are still
extant. The most representative and important of
these are the Leonine, the Gelasian and the Gregorian.
The Leonine, which is the oldest, exists in a single
seventh-century l\iS. 1 The attribution of it to St.
Leo was a conjecture of Bianchini, who discovered
it in the cathedral library of Verona in 1735. It is
not an altar book, as we commonly understand that
term-the Ordinary and Canon are wanting. It is
practically a collection of alternate Masses dating
from January; twenty-eight, for instance, are given
for the Feast of St. Peter and St. Pau1. 2 The arrange-
ment in parts is confused, and some of the Masses are
out of place. It is, however, full of local reference to
1 Edition by Feltoe. Cambridge, 1896.
:I FeItoe, pp. 36-5 0 .
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 15
the city and Church of Rome,l and throughout is
obviously pure Roman. Duchesne, who discusses the
book in his Origines,2 contends that it is a private
collection, copied out from the official books, some-
where about the year 538,3 by a somewhat careless
writer. Muratori dated it in the reign of Felix 11 I,
483-92.4 Probst dates the Sacramentary between
366 and 461. Buchwald suggests Gregory of Tours
(d. 594) as the author, and thinks it was drawn up
as a book of liturgical materials for Gaul.
The Gelasian Sacramentary is a Roman book with
some Gallican infusions, the stages of which are
represented in the different MSS. extant. The
earliest is seventh century.5 It is a fuller document
than the Leonine book, and is in three parts: I. The
Book of Sacraments. 2. The Propers and Commons
of Saints. 3. The Canon of the Mass, Sunday
Masses and Votive Masses.
Duchesne 6 thinks it is a specimen of the seventh-
or eighth-century service books, but that it is too
Gallicanised to afford much" uniform evidence to the
customs of the Roman Church.". It was probably
composed in the Frankish dominions-the allusions
to Rome, so constant in the Leonine book, are entirely
1 Mass of St. Peter and St. Paul. Note the words" our city!'
Feltoe, p. 47.
2 Duchesne, pp. 134-44.
. 3 For date cf. Feitoe, p. 73. The Secret in the Easter Mass
IS thought to refer to the raising of the siege of Rome by the
Goths.
, Lit. Rom. Vetus, xxvi.
6 Edition by H. A. Wiison. Oxford 1894.
6 pp. 12 5-34.
wanting. Bishop 1 would da:te it much earlier than
Dnchesne, and puts it in the sixth century.
The Gregorian Sacramentary dates, in its esserttial
parts, from 781--91. It was the book sent by Adrian
I at the reqnest of Charles the Great. It was copied
many times, and the extant versions contain additions
made by the copyists. 2 Adrian's book can be di's-
tinguished easily from the later additions. These
additions (made first, according to PameHus,by the
Fr:ankish Abbot Grimotd, and afterwards by Alcuin)
were carcfuHy noted in the margin~ and subsequently
were merged altogether into the text of the book.
Ad,ian himselfsafd that the book he sent was written
"by our holy predecessor, the divinely speaking Pope
Gregory." Whether that was true of the complete
work it is difficult to say. John the Deacon, when
wriHng the life of the great Pope, says, " He collected
the Sacramentary of Gelasitls in one book, leavmg
01lIt much." The nucleus of the book, wc need, not
doubt, is' Gregorian, and P'robst (quoted by Fortescue}
mailltafns that the Sacramenta-ry; as we ha~ ft
now, is "a Gelasian book, reformed accordj.ng to the
Gregorian."
It is in three parts: 1. The Ordmary of the Mass.
2. The Propers for the year. 3. The Ordination rites.
These last in some MSS. come first. Ducnesne
thinks it was" a copy for the Pope's special use." It
represents; he thinks, the Roman rite of the eighth
1 In the Dublilt Review, 1894. "The Earliest Roman Nfass

Book."
3 P. L., lxxviii. 25-602. Muratori, Lit. Rom. Vetus, i
-
century, and he would prefer to call it the" Sacra-

mentary of Adrian." I t was much copied for practical
purposes, and much has, no doubt, been added at
subsequent times according to the need of the church
for which that particular copy was destined. These
additions were partly Gelasian, partly Gallican.
During the period between the ninth and eleventh
centuries this book, so altered, was taken back to
Rome. There it displaced the pure and original
Roman rite, and became the foundation of the present-
day liturgical books of the Homan Communion.
It will be necessary, also, during this book to refer
occasionally to the fifteen conslletudinaries, now
known as Ordines Romani. They were first printed
by Mabillon in his Museum ltalicum (1689) .1 They
are documents giving instruction concerning liturgical
functions, and constitute a trustworthy source of in-
formation as to the usages of the Roman Church from
the eighth to the fifteenth century, though it may be
doubted whether they represent an absolutely pure
Roman tradition.
When considering the Roman rite careful attention
should be given to a paper entitled, "The Genius
of the Roman Rite," by Edmund Bishop,2 and to
]. Wickham Legg's tractate upon it. 3
In these papers an attempt is made to separate the
native Roman elements of the rite from the later
additions. It can clearly be seen that in the Roman
1 P. L., Ixxxviii. 85 I et seq.
2 Printed in Essays on Cerwzonial, and separately.
3 Being the first paper in Three Chapters in Recent Liturgical
Researc1t. S.P.C.K., 1903.
B
liturgical books as they now stand there are two
distinct types of prayers: the one "pithy, precise,
clean cut, definite," the other exhibiting an "extra-
ordinary diffuseness and verbosity." 1 The former are
e~sily distinguishable as the old Roman forms, the
latter as the Frankish cir Gallican. From a close
examination of MSS~ concerning which Mr. Bishop is
able to say, "I have seen, I think, every manuscript
of real importance for the history of the missal at the
critical period," 2 it is possible to trace the fusion
of the two elements," one of them ... genuinely
Roman, without foreign admixture; the other, though
the substratum-indeed, the bulk of it-is Roman,
has been considerably modified by Gallican hands." 3
This process of fusion took place during the ninth
century_
The important added elements are :-
. I. The Approach to the Altar--Iate.
2. The Kyrie-imported from the East in the
second half of the fifth century.
3. The Gloria in Excelsis-introduced m the
sixth cetitury.
4. The Credo-introduced in the early eleventh
century.
5. The prayers during the Offertory -late
Gallican.
6. The Agnti,S Dei, possibly. Its history is
obscure; .
7. The three prayers before communion.
1 J. Wickham Leg'g, p. 4.
2 Essays on Ceremonial, v. 10, p. 290 . 3. op. cit. p. 290.
i
,i
i" ;
Ui
THE Book OF COMMON PRAYER 19
8. The prayer "'Placeat," Blessing and last
Gospel-all late.
The four chants-Introit, Gtadu,d, Offertory and
Communion-did not originate in Rome, but wete
adopted there as soon as they arOse. They are
simply examples of the way in. which the Psalter,
which was the hymn-book of the early Church, waS
utilised sO as to cover the pauses in the Liturgy;
The elements remaining 1 are the trlie eiements
of the pure Roman rite:-
I. The CoIled.
2. The Epistle.
3. The Gospel-with the Blessing before it.
4. Orate Fratres.
5. The Secret.
6. The Preface.
7. The Canon.
8. The Lord's·Prayer.
9. Pax.
10. Post Communion Collect.
1 I. Ite Missa eSt.
Those who have grasped the native characteristics

of the Roman most clearly will at once recognise how
truly this represents his religious attitude-solid, prac-
tical, opposed to any elaboration . .There is something
in the · British ilatUre which is closely akin to the
" genius of the old Roman," which makc;s It possible
to appreCiate the true beatity underlying the siin-
1 Cf. the description in Nos. 1-21 of Ord(} R011lanus, i. whicH
probably describes a Stational Mass of the time of Gregory the
Great. Grisar, Analecta Romana, i. 193'
~o THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE Of
plicity of the original rite, a'nd to feel that in its old
form it was more devotional and more powerful than
it is in its modern dress. ' The elements which, in
modern days, are usually held to be most typically
Roman Catholic in the rite, are just those elements
which are not Roman at all: the features which are
felt to be the natural and obvious parts of a proper
liturgy are those which are most truly Roman.
We have already, in speaking of the Gregorian
Sacramentary, referred to that fusion between the
Roman and non-Roman parts of the present Roman
rite. It would appear that, when Charles the Great
ascended his throne in '769, he found no enduring
"
i tradition at all in the Frankish dominions. It was
I
with the desire to attain something like order and
uniformity that he requested Pope Adrian to send
him a copy of the Sacramentary which he had seen
in use at Rome. A closer study of it made the stern
reticence of the old Roman rite appear unduly cold
and meagre to Charles. The" enriching" of it with
prayers borrowed from the liturgical books in Gaul,
was the beginning of a process by means of which
the old rite was transformed into the one now in
use, a process which did not end until the reform
of Pius V.
" Rome itself seems to have taken the least possible
interest in all that was going on; and ended in
accepting from the hands of ·the stranger, in place of
the old Gregorianum, the mass book thus compiled
in France." 1
1 E. Bishop, op. cif. p. 303.
The actual origin of the old Roman rite lies

shrouded in the dim centuries when our knowledge
of liturgical matters is small. It bears traces of ·
extreme antiquity, and has features which differen-
tiate it from all other rites, Eastern or GalIican.
The Roman rite has certain peculiarities which
demand attention. It has no Epiklesis-at any rate,
none in the usual form-and a Canon of which the
order and arrangement are more than puzzling. In
every other known liturgy the Great Intercession is
contained in one long prayer. In the Alexandrine
family of rites this comes in the Preface; in the
Antiochene after the Consecration. In the Roman
Canon, on the contrary, it is broken up and inserted
in the Canon in two blocks.! Clearly this was not its
place in the time of J ustin Martyr; but the change
had been made by the time the Gelasian Sacramen-
tary was written. IUs impossible to say more than
that the change was made somewhere between these
two.
Ci.) There was always a close connection in litur-
gical matters between Rome and Africa, and the
African Liturgy of the third century has many points
of contact with the old Roman rite. Fortescue
speaks of it as "the oldest Latin rite." 2 Owing to
the destructive tendencies of the Saracens no litur-
gical texts of the African Eucharist now exist. The
general form of the rite can be reconstructed from
Tertullian (whose writings are especially rich in their
1 "Scattered throughout the Canon," Fortescue, p. Ill.
2 p. 39.
testimppy to the Iiturgic1\1 customs of bis day) and
St, Cypri;w. The result of a scholarly estimate of
the i1.Vi\iJaplc eviclence can be seen in Cabrol and
L~ C.~rcq'·s Dictionnaire d'arcM(l/ogzf cllrllietl1le, under
the articl~. ' I Afrique (Liturgie anteni(:eenne)." The
Mass of the Catechumells resemples the description
given in the Second Book of the Aj(Jslolical Cpnsti-
tUt/OIZS. Tert4UiCln calls it the "administration of
tile Word "-the Liturgy of the Faithful he calls
"th~ offering of the Sacrifice.'!
The Lit1.Jrgy was celeprated "just before the dawn,"l
the mixed chalice was used, and the communicant
receiv~ the form of bread in his hand.
1\. conjecturCl.1 reconstruction of the African Eu-
charist gives US this result:-
MASS OF THE CATECHQMENS

I. Lessons from the Law, the Prophets,
the Epistles and the Gospels.
Antiphonal psalmody. These are
a. Sermon. mentioned
3. Prayers for catechu mens and peni- by Tertul-
Him in the
tents.
DeA lZima.
4. The dismissal of catechu mens and
penitents.
MASS OF TilE FAJTHFUL

I. Prayers of the Faithful ? The Litany. (Cabrol,
oft. c#. i . .600.)
1 TertQUi:mqlls it ' ! antelucanus." AJwl 2 apq St, Cyprian,
Ep. lxiii. 15-1 6.
2. Pax. {Tert. De Orat. 18.)

3. Collection of Alms.
4. Offertory.
5. Sursum Corda-Preface-Sanctus. (Tert. De
.oral. 3.)
6. Recital of the narrative of the Institution.
(Tect. De Anima, 17; St. Cyprian, Ep.
lxiii. 9 .)
8. Anamnesis.
9. Intercession.
10. Lord's Prayer. (Tert. De Orat.)
I I. Communion. (Tert. De Corona, 3.)
12. Dismissal.
The African Liturgy is valuable because it throws
light on the prObable condition of liturgical customs
in Rome during the third century.
(ii.) During the Middle Ages, when no attempt was
made to secure the rigid liturgical uniformity which
has been so widely insisted upon in later days, many
local yariations of the Roman cite existed in various
parts of Eur.o.pe. These were simply modifications
of the Roman Liturgy. Th.e amount ef alteration
in them differed in different" uses," but tlie base was
always Roman. Sf;lch were the local or diocesan
uses of Paris, Lyons, Sarum, York, Rouen, and many
others. Most of them are no longer used, though
some survive, ~.g. Lyons and the r.ite used by the
Dom.i.nkans, which is that of Southern France
(? Languedoc) in the thirteenth century.
One of these latter is of especial interest, as being
the immediate ancestor of the English Liturgy. This
is the" use" of the diocese of Salisbury, more usuaIly
known as the" Sarum use." 1
The Sarum use was the most popular of the old
English variations of the Roman Liturgy. It was
used over most of the south of England, and later
over the greater part of Scotland and Ireland. The
Aberdeen Breviary, for instance, is almost identical
with the Sarum. The use is the work of the noble
St. Osmund, made Bishop. of Salisbury by William I
in 1078, and bears traces of Norman liturgical tradi-
tions. As the use of the Sarum books spread,
laudable local customs were adapted to the Sarum
plan and gave rise to local diversities now often
regarded as different uses. The Aberdeen book,
already quoted, is an example-it is really the Sarum
use. The reforms propagated in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, under the influence of the Fran-
ciscans, penetrated but slowly into England, and the
Sarum use to the end retained the general character-
istics common to the other variants of the eleventh.
century Roman rite-such as that of the Dominicans
and the Caked Carmelites.
TheSarum use was, as we have said, Roman, but
it marks a transition stage in that process by which
the Roman rite has developed into its present state.
The Psalm" Judica me" (43) was said not at the foot
of the Altar, but in the vestry. The Last Gospel
was recited · on the w'a y back from the sanctuary
when the Mass was over. These differences show us
J Saru1n Missal. Cambridge, 1880. Frere, Use of Sarum.
<;:ambridge, 1898.
L.
something of the 'way in which devotions belonging
to the sacristy gradually found their way into the
sanctuary and became attached to the Liturgy itself.
The Offertory Prayers and the Prayers before Com-
munion differ entirely from those of the Pian Missal,
but in all the truly Roman elements the Sarum use
is identical with the old rite. Peculiar Sarum features
which have become familiar to us through the Book
of Common Prayer are the selection of days which
we know as black-letter days (especially St. Cris-
pin, October 25, and the Holy Name of Jesus,
August 7), and the custom of naming the summer
Sundays" after Trinity" instead of" after Pentecost."
Among the Sunday offices which perpetuate the
Sarum tradition may be noticed the Second Sunday
of Lent, which has ifs own Gospel-whereas the
modern Roman Missal repeats the Transfiguration
from the previous Saturday-and the postponing of
Advent I, 11 and Ill-which in the Prayer Book
are I I, 11 1 and IV.
CHAPTER I
TO THE END OF THE COMMANDMENTS
THE Euchadstk rite of the Book of Common

Prayer is of the Roman family of liturgies through
the Salisbury "use." Its general outline, both in
what it contains and in what it lacks, shows a resem-
blance to the old Roman rite. It giNes.moreo.ver,
the same general tone of ., sobri0ty and s.ense" which
are the salient qualities Of the old liturgy. There is
a resemblance between the two which can hardly fail
to strike a careful reader who will compare Q,Hr own
rite with the native rite .of Rome, as given in Dr.
Wickham Legg's paper on "Mr. Edmund Bislwp and
the early Roman Liturgy."
Like all other liturgies it has two parts-corre-
sponding to the Missa Catechumenorum and the
Missa Fidelium. These two parts, it seems more
than likely; have no necessary connection with one
another.1 The former Dom Cabrol attributes to the
early Christian assembly for prayer (the "Synaxis
aliturgica "},such as that to which reference is made
in Pliny's letter-the inference in which is that an
appreciable time elapsed after the meeting for prayer
1 ct: Cabrol in Rtvue du Clerge Franfais. Aottt, 1900, p.61
and Sept., p. 6 •
,26
before the Christians met again to partake of the
Sacrament. The" breaking of bread" was a separate
service altogether at first, very often, but not always,
following the other. The same seems to he witnessed
to as an anciemt <:;ustom by Socrates Scholasticus llt
Alexandria,! and the passage is quoted by Bright-
man 2 as an Egyptian exam'ple of" table prayers."
Naturally, in time the union of the two would
become constant, until the idea of having the one
without the other would fade out of mind.
The point at which the two have been united is
quite clear in all rites, and they are now One service
everywhere, in the sense that the later part, or Missa
Fidelium, is never celebrated without the introductory
Missa Cateehumenorum. The custom of using this
latter part alone, however, has never died out. In the
Orthodox Church, both Greek and Russian, it remains
under the name of Typica, and is used on those days
when the rule of the Eastern Church does not permit
thecousecration of the Eucharist, c.g. the Wednesday
and Friday before Lent, and the Lenten week-days,
except Saturday j and on days when, for practical
reaSONS, the Eucharist cannot bet celebrated. The
Church of England also retains it for Sundays and
holy days when there is no Communion, as will be
discussed more fully later. In the Latin Church it
seems to have continued as late as the eighteenth
century at least. s
Before passing on to consider the actual service
1 Hist. Eec!. v. 22. Oxford, 1878.
2 J.Th. S. Oct. 1899. 3 Wickham Leg-g,p. 33.
of the English Church, it would be well, in parallel
columns, to compare it with the old form of the
parent rite, to which, as we have said, it shows such
close likeness.
OLD ROMAN RITE ENGLISH RITE
Prepamtion (Lord's Prayer
and Collect for Purity).
Kyries (fifth century). Kyries.
~ ~~~~~f!:
Collect.
Epistle.
Gospel (with its blessing). El Gospel.
Creed (eleventh century). .El Creed.
(Psalm at Offertory, not Ro- ~ Offertory Sentence.
CIl
man, but adopted as soon U
as it appeared as a part of <U
the Liturgy.) -5
Orate Fratres. ..... Possibly the bidding be-
~ fore the Churcn Militant
~ Prayer. but this is not
~ probable.
Secret. Omitted except so far as
contained in the Prayer
for the Church.
(Inserted in two blocks in the Prayer for the Church,
Canon.)
(Confession, etc. Medireval Short Exhortation-Con-
and different in character.) fession, Absolution and
::§ Comfortable Words.
Preface. -5 Preface.
(Three Prayers before Com- 'ca Prayer of Humble Access.
~
munion. after the Lord's
<U
Prayer-medireval. ) -5
Canon. Canon-broken into parts.
'0 Lord's Prayer and
Lord's Prayer. ~ second part of the
~ Canon put after Com-
munion.
Pax. Pax transferred to the end
and joined to the Bless,
ing. 1
1 Because this is the only equivalent of the Pax in the English
rite; but it should be remembered that in the Prayer Book of
tHE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 29
Post-Communion. Thanksgiving (as an alter-
native to the second
:E part of the Canon).
(Gloria in Excelsis, sixth cen- fi Gloria in Excelsis.
'(ij
tury. just after Kyries at the I:<.
beginning of the Mass.) ~
Ite Missa est. -B Pax and Blessing.
'0 (The Rubric. "Let them
depart with this bless-
ing." shows that. like
" ite missa est." it is the
dismissal.)
Without attempting to determine the binding

nature of the rubrics, it will be necessary to deal
with them as being the embodiment of the traditional
way of using the rite. Canon Lacey tells us that the
name first denoted "abstracts of chapters and mar-
ginal references in books of the civic law, which
were written in red ink expressly that they might
be distinguished from the authentic text i it was after-
wards applied to siinilar notes in ritual books." The
earlier .books of the kind were scantily, or not at all,
supplied with such notes. In ancient times. according
to Pliny, it denoted the red earth with which a work-
man marked upon wood the line he desired to cut.
In time it passed to denote, in ecclesiastical usage,
what was to be done, as apart from what was to be
said. The rubrics were the latest part to be written
down, but embodied a tradition which would be as
old as the rite itself in their main essentials. They
are found in the old Sacramentaries (as, Tor instance,
in the Gregorian Book, which instructs priests not to
1549 the Pax appeared in its original position at the end of the
Canon, as well as before the Blessing.
30 THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE oF.
say the Gloria in Excelsis except on Easter Day),!
but they are very few, and are confined to salient
features ~f the rite. The gradual elaboration of the
ceremonial of the Papal Court necessitated the draw-
ing' up of a,ccurate directions. These were called
" Oi-dines," and indicated how the rite should be used.
The Of'dines Romani, produced at· different times
between the eighth and the fifteenth centuries, are
examples of this kind, They contain no prayer, and
are simply meant to be supplementary to the altar
and choir books. Thus" the ancierJt Sacramentaries,
the MSS. missals, and even the early printed missals
contain some, but very few, rubrics. There is every
reason to believe that they were contained in special
collections; known as Ordinaries, Directories and
Rituals." The insertion of rubric into the text of
the rite must have originated simply in convenience.
The first thing to be considered is the title--" The
Order of the Administration of the Lord's Supper,
or Holy Communion." These two are a selection
out of many names for the Eucharist. C" Liturgy"
and "Eucharist," both of them extensively used in .
the East, are Biblical words round which an intensive
meaning has grown.)
The first Prayer Book of Edward VI had the title,
"The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion,
commonly called the .Mass." This latter phrase was
dropped in 1552. It is a short and convenient term
. of wide vogue in the West, but there does not seem
to be any grave reason to I~ment its disappearance.
1 P. L. lxxviii. 25.
TIlE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 3t
Strictly speaking, it only denotes the Latin Liturgy,

being derived from "ttlissio," of whicl1 word it is a
later Latin form, denoting simply" dismissal." The
Rule of St. Benedict gives several tithes the direction
.. fiant niissre" at the end of the Divine bffiCes. 1t
has gro1tn to denote the Eucharist; especially among
Latitl Catholics-a fact which a prominent Roman
Catholic scholar (Dr. Fortescue) 1 notes with surprise,
seeing that it is (he says)" the name of an unessential
deta:il!' As this detail (" ite missa est ") is not present
iI1 our office, the Use bf the word to indicate. the
English rite seems a little meaningless. Save in
assodation, the word is dodrinally colourless, btit
truly understood it is unobjectibtlable. It IS valu~ble
to remeinber the words of Archdeacon Harilrtlond
of Chichester, "The Protestants of the Church of
England believe and reverence, as much as any, the
Sacrifice of the Eucharist, as the roost substantial
and essential act of dUr religion, and doubt not but
the wotd Missa, Mass, hath fitIy been used by the
Western Church to signify it, and herein abhor or
condemI1 nothing but the corruptions and mutilations
which the Chutch of Rome, without care ·of conform-
ing themselves to the universal Church, have admitted
in the celebration." 2-
there has been a tendency in certain quartets to
shM the term "Lord's Stipper" as a name fot the
Eucharistic Sacrifice, under the imptession tliat it \Vas
un-Catholic in meaning. It seems to be quite dear
that such a conclusion is unjustifiable, and that the
1 P.4 00• Z Dispatcher DispatcMd, 1659""
words have borne, and rightly regarded do bear, a
sacrificial meaning. The expression comes, of course,
frofu ' Ufe I st Epistle to the Corinthians, but it is
found as denoting the Eucharist in Tertullian. 1 In
the Middle Ages it was quite a common term for the
Eucharist. 2 Blunt says, "The use of this name for
the Eucharist is almost entirely modern." He thinks
it was adopted from the early Lutherans, who used
it at the Confession of Augsburg (1530), and that its
use in England only dates from the Act of Parliament
of 1547, where, in speaking of the Eucharist, it says
that it is "commonly called . . . in Scripture the
Supper . . . of the Lord." The balance of evidence
seems to be against Blunt's contention. The term,
in fact, seems to have quite a reasonable history
behind it.
The second term, the one most commonly used .,
by English people, has, to some extent, the same
disadvantage as the word" Mass," namely, that it
describes the whole service by the name of one action
in it-with this great difference, that, whereas the
word "Mass" is derived from a liturgical detail,
" Holy Communion" denotes one of the two principal
features of a}l liturgies. Originally it meant" fellow-
ship." In the New Testament it, denotes sometimes
almsgiving, sometimes simply association. St. Paul
employs it in a quasi-technical sense to denote the
result of the service, z'. e. the Communion of the
Ad uxor. ii. 4.
1
Proctor and Frere, History of the Book of Common Prayer,
I
ed. 190 2 , p. 43 2 n. Pullan, p. 53 n.
Body and Blood of Christ. From that, throughout

Christendom, it has acquired a technical signification.
Cardinal Bona was able to say, "The term if. ::.?p:~.~d
not only to. the use of the Sacrament, but also to the
Sacrifice of it." 1
The first rubric deals with a matter of discipline.
It has almost entirely fallen into abeyance. In 1549
it read," overnight or else in the morning," "afore
the beginning of Matins or immediately after." The
present rubric, if enforced, would require notice on
the previous day. The rubric of I 549 im~lied clearly
that Matins, Litany and Holy Communi6n were not
intended to be joined into one "morning service,"
but that after Matins there would be a pause, and
that the Litany (the" Anglican Introit ") and Holy
Communion would come later. This, according to
Peter Heylin, was the custom at Winchester and
South well in 1637.2 The second and third rubrics
are reiterations of ancient order, and are disciplinary
rather than liturgical. •
The fourth rubric gives instructions concerning the
Holy Table. I t is to be covered "at the time of
Communion with a fair white linen cloth." The
Canon of 1603 repeats this command to have a
" fair linen cloth at the time of the ministration," and
also requires a " carpet of silk or other decent stuff."
The gaudy, naked altars of modern continental
churches are, fortunately, forbidden in England. The
"fair white linen cloth" (" venustus," or "decorus")
does not, according to Blunt, indicate the big cloth
1 Quoted by Blunt ad loco 2 Ant£.dotu11l, iii. 61.
~
which in bygone days was spread all over the Altar,
but one of the corporalia-the palla linea. It con-
veys, "not the idea of the meal, but of the linen
clothes." It may be quite conceivable that it is
intended to convey both ideas. Dr. Wickham Legg
maintains that it should reach the ground nearly
on all sides, and quotes the customs of Angers and
Rouen, or the communicant's custom among the
Cistercians of wrapping his hand "in pall a qua
A ltare co-opertum est." 1
As far as the standing of the Altar in "the body
of the church" is concerned, it may be noticed. that
the practice continued until the reign of Charles 1.
It would, however, be difficult to instance examples
of it since Laudian days. Cosin 2 speaks of "the
table always standing in the midst at the upper end
of the chancel."
With the restoration of the Holy Table to the
altar-wise position, the priest of necessity faces east-
wards. So it was recognised in the Lambeth Judg-
ment. This position has now become more or less
general. It is hardly possible to say that it is
absolutely essential, but the practice is so ancient
that it seems needless to desire its alteration. The
habit of the Christians of earlier centuries of worship-
ping eastward was sufficiently general to give rise to
the idea that they were sun-worshippers. 3 In the
Apostolical Constitutions, also, it was laid down that
1 Essays on Ceremonial. "On Some Ancient Liturgical
Customs," p. 51.
2 Durham Book. 3 Tertullian, Apot. 16.
churches should be orientated. l The practice may
have arisen in the idea of the" earthly paradise." , In
the East the rule was generally kept. In the West,
however, the great basilicas of Rome" e.g. St. ,Peter's,
the Lateran and St. Lawrence, face the west. ' This
may possibly be due to the fact that in the fourth
century the celebrant faced the people, and there-
fore would still be looking east. The basilicas which
have been rebuilt, e.g. St. Paul, St. Peter ad Vincula
and the great basilica at Ravenna, have been recon-
structed with an eastern apse. The general principle
of orientation for churches has been admitted smce
the end of the seventh century.
The exact meaning of "north side" has been
much argued. The contention that it means
"north end" -sideways to the people-is generally
discredited. Indeed, had the rubric meant this,
nothing would have been simpler than to have said it.
I n opposition to this, it has been argued that the
rubric must be disregarded altogether, and that, with
the moving of the Altar, the old position naturally
came back. "The position of the Holy Table had,
in 1662, be~n lawfully changed; but yet the revisers
left the old rubric, 'standing at the north side,'
although the tables now stood altar-wise, and had
no north side in the sense of the rubric; therefore
the words' at the north sjde' are now impossible of
fulfilment in the sense originally intended." 2 The
Lincoln Judgment describes the use of the north part
1 Apost. COllst. ii. 7.
Z Lincoln judgment, quoted in Dearmer, p. 355.
of the front of the Altar as a position which can be
regarded orily as an accommodation of the letter of
the rubric to the present position of the Table. 1
This seems, however, in the light of subsequent
study to be inexact. The wording of the rubric was
deliberately left in 1662, in order to indicate the old
position ordered in the Sarum Missal. This book
directs the priest to begin by vesting at the north
side, during which time he was instructed to recite
prayers which included actually the Lord's Prayer
and Collect for Purity which we now say at this
point. This custom obtained also at Westminster
Abbey and in the Cluniac houses,2 and is character-
istic now of the Carthusian order.3 It would seem,
therefore, that" side" is a translation of "latus," or
"cornu," and that the rubric intends the priest to
stand at the north part of the front.'"
With regard to the Prayer Book phrase" Table,"
"Holy Table," "Lord's Table," we may also assert
that it was not a new term. Amularius 5 tells us
of the early resemblance seen between the Christian
Altar and the Table of the Lord-meaning either the
actual table at the Last Supper, or the Cross itself.
The word" altar" occurs in the Canons of 1640, and
in the coronation services. On the other hand,
Lineoilljudgment, p. 4I.
1
"Stat prope sinistrum . . . dicit confessionem."
2
3 Cf. Missale CartusienSis Ordinis., Lyons, 1713. "Pergit ...
ad cornu Evangelii ibique stans," p. 182, mbric.
'Cf. also Missale ad Usum E ec!. Westmollast, 1370.
Bradshaw Society, 1893. Fasc. I1, Col. 8. "Juxta sinistrum
cornu altaris."
6 De Eec!. Otfte. I. xxiv.
" table" or " board" comes in pre-reformation litera-

ture. 1 In earlier liturgical books the word" mensa"
occurs, as also in later post-reformation books. The
word" altar" was used in the Prayer Book of 1549,
but W<;LS omitted in 1552 "to avoid superstition" and
"to em phasise Corn m union." Yet it is al ways the
"Lord's Table," not the "Communion Table "-a
term not found in the Prayer Book. Strictly speak-
ing, the "Table" is simply the slab upon which
the vessels rest, which has always been called the
"m~nsa," as opposed to the "stipes," i. e. the sup-
ports or legs. The words "Lord's Table" were a
"usual media:val term . . . for the Altar," 2 and the
phrase is, therefore, quite in accord with regular and
ancient usage.
The office opens with a "preparation," consisting
of the Lord's Prayer and the Collect for Purity of
Heart. These are drawn from the Ordinarium Missa:
of the Sarum use. The priest was instructed (" dum
. . . induit se sacris vestibus") to recite the hymn,
"Veni Creator Spiritus," which was followed by the
y.r. Emitte Spiritum tuum et creabuntur, 1)7. et reno-
vabis facie m terrae, and the Collect, " Deus cui om ne
cor patet," which is now in our office; the Paternoster
followed among the prayers recited at the foot of the
Altar. The Collect is found in the Sacramentary of
Alcuin, but not in any other. English use, nor in
the Roman rite itself. It is "probably a prayer of
the early Church, but preserved almost solely by the
Church of England." The." Amen" to the Lord's
1 e.g. Tile Lay Folks' Mass Book. 2 Pullan, p. 5:3 1/.
Prayer is to be said by the . priest alone, as the
printing indicates; that to the Collect is meant for
the people. 1
"Then shall the Priest • • . rehearse distinctly all
the Ten Commandments; and the people •.• shall,
after every Commandment, ask God's mercy."
The Kyries are very ancient ejaculations, which
may be traced in both the Old and New Testa-
ments. 2 The New Testament examples seem to
have a quasi-liturgical ring about them. They are
"a remnant of the litany form of prayer." 3 They
occur first in the diaconal litanies of the Eighth
\ '
Book of the Apostolical Constitutions," as being the
I
1\
!j
proper answer to the various petitions. The Mass
at Rome was once said in Greek, and it is tempting
to look upon our Kyrie Eleison as a surviving
1I fragment from that time. 5 This, however, is not
\',I the case. It is an introduction from the East which
il dates from the second half of the fifth century. The
I Latin fathers before St. Chrysostom's time know
i
I nothing of it in the Roman Liturgy.
il The Kyrie seems to have come from Antioch-
!I.
ii
indeed, it was at first an Antiochene peculiarity.
ii Etheria, in ~he P engrinatio, testifies to having heard
i
it at Jerusalem. To her it was a novelty. It
11
spread thence throughout the East and later came
""'I
1 There does not, however, appear to be any support for this
distinction in the MS . anne xed to the Act of 1662.
2 Isaiah xxxiii. 2; St. Mark ix. 27.
3 Duchesne, p. 164.
4 In Book ii. they are interpolated.
5 Fortescue, pp. 230-1.
to Rome. In the Eastern rites it occurs more fre-
quently and at different points in the service; in the
Alexandrine and Antiochene also before the com-
munion; in .the Byzantine at various points through-
out, notably at the DismissaI.1 In the West it occurs
now in the Mozarabic rite, but it is quite obviously a
Roman interpolation. At Milan it also occurs after
the Lessons.
In earlier times at Rome, as at Constantinople, the
Eucharist opened with a litany. In this litany it is
necessarl' to notice that the Kyrie, which in the East
is the people's answer to the petitions, in the \Vest
is confined to the beginning and the end, because
the Kyrie was" adventitious in the Roman Church."
This seems the more clear because in the eighth
century and in the Middle Ages the Kyrie was
omitted on the Litany days.2 On the great ritual
feasts, moreo\'er-:-Easter Eve and Whitsun Eve (which
in the Roman M is sal retain many archaic peculiar-
ities)~the Litany is still sung before Mass and the
Introit and Kyrie omitted, i. e. the Kyrie is simply
the final chant of the Litany itself. This exactly
corresponds to the position of the Litany in the
East. It seems reasonable, therefore, to think that
towards the end of the fifth century, the practice of
saying the Litany at the beginning of the Mass came
to Rome from the East, and that the Kyrie is a
fragment of the practice. Our custom of using the
Prayer Book Litany just before the Eucharist, as at
Ordination, is a parallel to the Syrian Synapte~save
1 Brightman, p. 379; 2 Ordo Rom. xi., Ixiii.
only that we repeat the Kyries again in the service
of Holy Communion itself.
In the first Prayer Book the Kyries were given in
the peculiarly Roman form, i. e. with" Christ, have
mercy," as the alternating petition, as in the Divine
Office; but, with the alteration made in the whole
section of the rite at the later revision, a return was
made to what, in reality, is the more ancient form.
In the Middle Ages it was a common custom to
" farce" the Kyries, a practice which consisted of
introducing additional phrases, and which originated
in the elaborate" neums" to which they were sung.
Our present Kyries are a revival of the custom.1
Twenty-nine specimens may be seen in the York
Missa1. 2
The recitation of the Ten Commandments in the
Eucharistic service is a feature "quite peculiar to
the Church of England." Blunt traces the immediate
origin to the Order of Council published with the
Homilies set forth in I 547, and surmises that the
idea was suggested by the custom of reciting and
explaining them, which had often been insisted upon
by the bishops and synods of the Church of Eng-
land. Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, had, in 1552,
instructed the clergy of his diocese to read them
to the communicants.3 Wickham Legg, on the other
hand, considers that the recital of the Decalogue
corresponds to the" reading of the Old Testament,"
1 Pullan, p. 55. 2 Edition by Henderson.

• Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI and tlte Book of Common
Prayer, p. 291, n. I .
or Prophetic Lesson, and that" our variant of the

Kyrie" corresponds to the psalmus responsorius. 1
Dearmer thinks the same. " They" (£. e. the Com-
mandments) "are liturgically a lesson."2 This is the
opinion also of Mr. E. G. Cuthbert F. Atchley:3 "The
next thing" (i.e. after the Collect for Purity) "in the
Anglican ritual is a lesson from the Old Testament,
called the Ten Commandments, farced or interlarded
with the Kyries. This custom of farcing with extra-
neous matter more or less appropriate was common
in the Middle Ages. For example, there was a pro-
phetic lesson at the cock-crow Mass of Christmas
Day." The rubric, however, says "rehearse," not
"read," and lessons are not usually rehearsed.
1 Wickham Legg, p. 51, and Essays on Ceremonial, p. 74.
2 OJ>. cif. p. 357, n. 3. 3 En/[lish Ceremonial, p. '4.
CHAPTER II
FROM THE COLLECTS TO THE END OF THE CREED
OF the Collects for the King, the first is ancient

in substance, the second was composed in 1549. They
seem at first sight a little unnecessary, as the idea
of them is included in the Prayer for the Church
"I.;
Militant. In the first Prayer Book of Edward VI,
however, the Church Militant prayer still formed part
of the Canon, and came after the Sanctus. It is
possible, therefore, that these Collects were inserted
to ensure the intercession for the King being offered
on days when" table prayers" alone could be said.
"Then shall be said the Collect of the Day." The
order was disturbed here later. In I 549 the Collect
of the Day came after the Commandments, and was
followed by the CoIlect for the King, which was a
" memorial" after the ordinary manner. The change
may have been due to the desire to obviate the turn-
ing of the book. In any case it is immaterial. The
"correct" idea that the Collect of the Day must be
the first prayer of the Eucharist is not borne out by
the facts, as a referenc'e to the structure of the ancient
Ember Masses in the Roman Missal clearly proves.
With the exception of Good Friday and the com-
memorations in Lent, Advent, during the feasts of
42
Christmas week, and when a feast falls upon a Sunday,
the English office retains the ancient custom of having
but one Collect at the Eucharist-this is, of course,
excluding the fixed memorial o~ the KJng. The
oontrary practice seems to have originated at Rome
early in the ninth century. Our own custom, there-
fore, is a return toa more ancient state of things.
The Collect originated in the gathering together of
the people for the" Station." This would be made
at some other church than that in which the Mass
was to be said. When the assembly was complete
and ready to set out, a prayer was said" ad collecti-
onem populi "-this was the" oratio ad coIlectam," or
Collect. The word "collecta" (which is a late form
of " collectio," as " missa" for "missio") corresponds
with the Greek" Synaxis." When the people came
to the church where Mass was to be said, this prayer,
it would seem, was generally repeated. "I t thus
formed the opening prayer by the celebrant after the
common prayer (Litany) and hymn (Gloria)."l The
value of the Collects is inestimable; their pithy
phraseology and their terse and austere dignity makes
them one of the most valu able parts of our liturgical
inheritance. Of their origin and earliest history
nothing is known. They are the growth, mainly,
of the fifth and sixth centuries, though the Sacra-
mentaries of that time which give them are based
upon other liturgical books now lost.
The Collects are a peculiarly Western feature.
Their original principle has been attributed to Pope
1 Fortescue, p. 245.
44 THE EUCHARISTIC ' OFFICE OF
Damasus. Buchwald thinks that they originated in
the Masses said at the tombs of the martyrs. The
whol~ matter is too much wrapped in obscurity to
make it safe to dogmatise.
The Collects from the Leonine Sacramentary are
the oldest. These are represented in the Prayer
Book by Easter I1I,and Trinity V, IX, X, XII, '.
,~
XIII, XIV. A great number are taken from the
Gelasian book-Advent IV, Holy Innocents, Palm
Sunday, Good Friday I I and I I I, Easter Day, Easter
IV and V, Sunday after Ascension, Trinity I, II, VI,
VII, VIII, XI, XV, XVI, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI.
From the Gregorian Sacramentary come St. Stephen,
St. John, Circumcision, Epiphany, Epiphany I, 11,
Ill, IV, V, Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Lent 11, Ill,
IV, V, Good Friday I, Ascension, Whitsunday,
Trinity Sunday, Trinity Ill, IV, XVII, XXII, XXIII,
XXIV, XXV, St. Paul, Purification, Annunciation,
St. Mark, St. Bartholomew, St. Michael. A few are
adapted from other prayers-Advent I, Christmas,
Ash Wednesday, Easter I. The rest are newer com-
positions, e.g. Easter Eve, Advent III and Epiphany
VI are probably the work of Cosin.
The present way of saying the Collect is the remain-
ing fragment of a more elaborate method. The solemn
Collects as given for the Altar Service of Good Friday
in the Roman Missal are a specimen of the older
way. First came 'a bidding, e.g. "Oremus dilectis-
simi nobis, pro Ecclesia Sancta Dei ut," etc., after
which the deacon said, "Flectamus genua." The
people then knelt with him and a silent time for
prayer followed. When sufficient time had passed
the sub-deacon said, "Levate." All rose up, and the
cel~brant finished the whole act of prayer by the
short and pithy form which we know as the Collect.
O(all this only the word" Oremus " remains, and that,
of course, referred to the silent prayer rather than
the Collect which followed. This form remains in the
English office before the Collect for the King; the
fuller bidding (which may possibly be based upon
the actual specimen above quoted) is given later in
the service before the Prayer for the Church Militant.
" And immediately after the Collect the Priest shall
read the Epistle. . . . Then shall he read the Gospel."
This does not necessarily mean that the priest
himself" must" read these both, unless he have no
assistants. 1 The first Prayer Book read, "the priest
or he that is appointed," and the rubrics of the Ordinal
seem to indicate that the old practice of delegating
the Lessons at Mass to subordinate ministers is
intended to continue, as does also the Twenty-fourth
Canon.
The Lessons are one of the most ancient portions
of the Liturgy. The Liturgy of the Catechu mens
itself was a Christian form of the Synagogue Service
and composed of the same elements to a large extent.
The practice of reading portions of Holy Scripture
at public religious meetings was familiar, therefore,
to all converts from Judaism. St. Paul's injunction
concerning his Epistles (as in I Thess. v. 27), ordering
that his letter be read in the church of the Laodiceans,
. 1 Cuthbert Atchley, op. cif. p. 16.
seems to assume also that the reading will take place
at the Synaxis. From the nature of the case, these
readings were not originally fixed in quantity: "as
long as time allowed," was the length of the Lesson,
i. e. until the bishop signalled the reader to stop. The
marking off of determinate portions was a natural and
gradual process in the course of time. A t first the
sections to be read, called" pericopes," were indicated
by margirial references. Certain lists of these, or
"indices," still remain, and may be studied in Dom
Baudot's book on the Lectionary.
Our present number of Lessons is fixed at two, from
which the English rite does not deviate. But this
number is the result of a long process, and is by no
means the uniform use of Christendom. Originally,
it may he taken as certain that the number of the
Lessons (as also their length) was variable and unde-
terminate. They have tended to become systematic,
but in different ways in different rites. The Apos-
tolical Constitutz'ons, Book viii., gives five; several
Eastern rites-Syriac and Coptic, for instance-have
several Lessons.1 In the Temporale of the Roman
rite of to-day the older custom can still be seen, three
or five Lessons being provided on many Greater Ferias,
and sometimes as many as twelve on the great fasts
such as Easter Eve. Three was, perhaps, the most
general arrangement in early times-the. Prophet, the
Apostle, the Gospel~and, as we have seen, it is possible
to see in our custom of reading the Decalogue a
survival of this ancient method.
1 Brightman, pp. 76, 152.
THE BOOK OF C9MMON PRAYER 47
Of the two Lessons now existing, the first is called

in the Prayer Book the" Epistle." It is not neces-
sarily, nor ever was consistently, taken from the
Epistles properly so called in the New Testament /
Canon. It was frequently from the Old Testament,
the Acts of the Apostles or from the Revela-
tion. The Gregorian Sacramentary called it the
" Apostle" ; 1 the Ordo Romanusi. gives, "deinde
Iegitur lectio." In Eastern rites it is called "the
Apostle" to this day. The English rubic orders that,
on days when the liturgical Epistle is not from one
of the New Testament Epistles, it is to be announced
as, "the portion of Scripture appointed for the
Epistle." The alteration was made owing to one of
the objections brought forward by the Puritans, and
in itself is unimportant. The termination, "Here
endeth the Epistle (which apparently is to be used
IJ
always), is a new alternative for the ancient response

"Deo gratias "-though this latter is not very old.
I t does not exist in the Dominican Missal, which at
its base is the typical French rite of the thirteenth
century.
The reading of a passage from the Gospels has
formed a part of the Eucharistic service almost from
the beginning. It formed in all Eastern liturgies
part of the Liturgy of the Catechumens. 2 In the
I West, in some places, it was considered to be part of

the "disciplina arcani," and was not read until the
catechu mens had been dismissed. Ordo Romanus
vii. says that they were dismissed after the Gradual.
1 P. L. Ixxviii. 28. 2 Brightman, p. 5.
j
The evidence for the reading of the Gospel at the
Liturgy is too widespread and well known to need
quoting; the testimony is from Syria,! from Jerusalem,
C<esarea, Antioch, Constantinople, from Egypt,2 from
Africa. 3
Everywhere, in fact, the mind of the Christian
Church clearly felt that the truest instruction was
to ·be found in the sacred narrative of the Saviour's
life and death. It was, in fact, this reading which
was the prominent factor in differentiating the four
Gospels which we now hold as canonical from all
others.
The indices which showed the passages to be read
(after these passages had become fixed) were com-
r
monly written in one or other end of a Bible. The
I
I;
full indices, giving the references for all the Lessons
f to be read, were called a Comes or liber comitis-
i;
which itself broadened out into an actual transcription
of the passages referred to, or a Lectionarium.
The principle which governed the selection of
Gospel passages is not easy to ascertain. In the
Antiochene rite, in early days, composite narratives
were used (was this the origin of the Diatessaron of
Tatian ?), but the more usual practice has been, as now,
to read unaltered a passage from a single Gospel.
Appropriate passages, no doubt, from early days
would be chosen for feast days, e.g. Etheria, in the
Peregrillatio, gives several lists of such. The Homilies
of the fathers on the Gospels show that the Gospels
1 Ap. Const. viii. 5. Z St. Cyril, P. G. Ixxvi. 471.
3 Tertullian, Adv . Marc. iv . .1.
·i
were read straight through, save for these interrup-
tions. This was the custom in the Byzantine rite,
and the same idea rules the liturgical custom of the
East to this day.1
The present custom of the West seems to defy a
final explanation. The practice of consecutive read-
ing has been long since abandoned, leaving us to-day
with a mere selection of representative passages,
chosen mostly with reference to the events or teaching
of the feast or season. It has been suggested that,
given the selected · Gospels- of the great cycles and
Feasts of the Temporale, the rest are a filling in
of the complete picture of our Lord's works and
ministry.
It was from the liturgy that the custom of reading
Lessons or passages of Scripture came into the office.
The Divine Office originally consisted entirely of
psalmody. In the· East, at least, this was the case,
and it was so in the West, too, if the testimony of
Theodemar, abbot of Monte Cassino (A.D. 787), is to
be received. 2 Later the office was enriched by a
lectionary. The Gospel, in particular, was read as a
distinctive feature, and so remains in some offices to
this day. The Roman Office reads a few verses
before the Homily (a remnant of better things), but
the whole Gospel is still read in the monastic rites by
the abbot or prior immediately after the Te Deum,
1 Baudot. Les Evallgeliaires, pp. 18-21, 24~32 . (Paris, 1908.)
2 "Necdum eo tempore in Ecclesia Romana, sicut nunc
leguntur, Sacras Scripturas legi mos fui sse; sed post aliquod
tempus hoc institutum esse, sive a beato Gregorio sive ut ab aliis
adfirmatur ab Honorio." Efist. ad Carolum. P. L. xcv. 1584.
D
and its recitation is still retained in the Greek dawn
Office of the Orthros, the equivalent to the Western
Lauds.
The order of our Gospels differs· during the Trinity
season from the customary Roman order of to-day.
The Roman rite counts the Sun9ays from Pentecost,
and is ahead of our reading one Sunday. Our own
custom is to reckon from Trinity. This is not, as
has sometimes been asserted, a post-reformation
custom. The Dominican rite reckons" post Octavum
Trinitatis"; while in the Cal'thusian rite, which is
based upon the Use of the diocese of LYCl1s, our own .
order may be found exactly, and our method of
reckoning from the Feast of Trinity also. During
all the Lessons, except the Gospel, the people were
.sitting. Ordo Rom. i. speaks of the sub-deacon
beginning when the clergy were "resedentes," and
the people would follow their example.
The rubric "the people all standing up," enforces
the anCient attitude of reverence at the reading of the
Gospel. . Sozomen, writing in the fifth century, knew
"only one exception to this custom, which was that
of the Bishop of Alexandria."
At this point in old days (and in the Roman
Communion to-day) the sermon follo~ed-intended,
according to St. Germanus,. to be an explanation of
the Gospel passage. 1 Duchesne says,2 the custom
1 "Homi\iae autem Sanctorum quae leguntur pro sola prae-
dicatione ponuntur,ut quicquid Propheta, Apostolus vel Evan-
gelium mandavit, hoc doctor vel pastor Ecclesiae apertiosi
sermone populo praedicet."
2 p. 197.
was better observed in Gaul than in Rome., In our
own rite this is now transferred until after the
Creed.
The Creed itself is in the nature of an innovation.
All liturgies now ,possess the Creed-and that the
Nicene Creed-except the Church of America, which
at times uses the Apostles' Creed at this point. The
rubric which orders the people to stand, requires this
attitude as testifying to the corporate faith of the
congregation in the Gospel.
The Creed is not 'an ancient part of the Eucharistic
rite, being early mediceva1. Originally it was the
baptismal formula, and as such the Ap03tles' Creed
is still used. What we know now as the NJcene or
Eucharistic Creed is the one profession of faith in
common use throughout the Church. It is, probably
the Creed of the Church of Jerusalem, revised by St.
Cyril, who added to it a section taken from the Creed
of the Council of N iccea. The added clause, "filioque/,
was added in a Canon of the Synod of Toledo in 447.
It gradually passed into the Toledan text of the
Creed, and thence into the Constantinopolitan form.
From Spain it passed into Southern Gaul, and was
then inserted into the "Quicunque vult." The
" filioque" clause was accepted in England at the
Synod of Hatfield in 680 by Archbishop Theodore.
At Antioch it was introduced in A.D. 471.1 Its first
appearance in the liturgy in the West was in Spain.2
The Se~ond Canon of the Third Synod -of Toledo
(589) inserts it after the Consecration and before
1 Pullan, p. 23. 2 Fortescue, p. 287.
. 52 THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE OF
the Paternoster,! where it is still said in the Moz-
arabic rite. From Spain it spread to Gaul under
Charles the Great. There, as in Spain, it was used
as a practical protest against heresy. At the end of
the eighth century it was used only for the instruction
of candidates for baptism, not at all at Mass, unless
we are prepared to accept Probst's unlikely explana-
tion of Pope Leo II l's letter 2-that there was a
Creed, but that it was said, not sung.
Berno of Richenau tells us 3 that it was introduced
into the Roman Mass at the instance of the Emperor
Henry I I. In IOI4 he was at Rome for his corona-
tion, and missed in the Mass the Creed to which
he had been accustomed in his German home.
It seems to be the opinion of liturgists(e.g. Blunt,
Fortescue, PuJlan) that it dates as a general custom
in the Roman rite from the Pontificate of Benedict
V II I. Since the eleventh century it has been used
throughout the West ,in its present form, with the
clause" filioque." We find it in the fifth and sixth
Roman Ordines, and also in the second, but from
comparison with Micrologus, it may be assumed that l
it is interpolated in this last.
It was not used, however, every time the Eucharist
was celebrated. Our own custom dates from 1552,
and is somewhat of a novelty. Previous to that time
(and elsewhere to-day all over the Western Church)
it was used only upon certain days, and that is still
1 Hefe1e.Leclercq, Hist. des cOllciles, iii. 225.

2 Mansi, xiv. 19.
3 De quibusdam rebus, Migne, cxlii. 106i.
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER S3
the custom except in England. The rubric of the
first Prayer Book of 1549 allowed its omission on
work days, that is to say, upon days which were
not "holidays." This rubric was withdrawn when
the second Prayer Book was issued.
The position of the Creed in various rites is not
uniform. In the Roman, the Anglican, and the
'Gallican rites it comes after the Gospel; the Am-
brosian rite, following Byzantine custom, has it after
the Offertory; the Greek St. J ames, the Jacobite
rites, the Coptic and Abyssinian rites have it before the
Kiss of Peace at the beginning of the Liturgy of the
Faithful; the Liturgy of St. Mark has it after the Kiss,
with which, in Eastern rites, it seems always to have
been connected. The N estorian rites have it after
the Diptychs, while the Mozarabic rite, as we have
said, gives it, according to the Spanish custom, just
before the Paternoster.!
There cannot be much doubt that the rubric
intends the Creed to be sung by the whole body of
worshippers, though this is not so clear now as it
was in the Prayer Book of 1549. This was the
general medi~val custom.
I Fortescue, p. 290. And the referen ces there given to
Brightman .
1
CHAPTER III
THE OFFERTORY
FOLLOWING the Creed come certain rubrics.

The first concerns the general notices which may
have to be given out to the people. Fasting days and
holy days for the. following week are to be announced,
in accordance with the Sixty-fourth Canon.
Then notice is to be given of celebrations of the
Communion (which Blunt says is a remnant of " bad
times "), and should not need to be given "where
Holy Communion is regularly celebrated."
I t should be noticed that there is an omission here
• in the wording of the rubric. After the word" Com-
munion" it should read: "And the banns of Matri-
mony published." The omission is illegal, and is due
to the unauthorised acti<;m of the King's printers, the
delegates of the University Press at Oxford, and the
syndics of the University Press at Cambridge some
sixty years since. The Marriage Act of Lord Hard-
wicke 1 ordered the publication of banns at the
morning service-or, if there were no morning ser-
vice, then after the Second Lesson at evening service.
Morning service is assumed by the Act to cOJlsist
1 Eng/isll C011Stilutional History, by Medley: 5th Edition,
p. 654·
54
of Matins, Litany and Holy Communion (or Ante-
Communion), in which case the banns would be
published in the proper place after the Creed. The
introduction of new customs-early services of Holy
Communion, and the dropping of the old way of
saying Ante-Communion after Litany on Sunday,
and the introduction of twelve o'clock Communion
after what was wrongly considered to be the principal
service of the day-led to a misconstruction of the
wording of the · Act. It . permits the publication of
banns during Divine Office after the Second Lesson
in the evening, and that only in cases where there is
no morning service. The publication of them at
Matins after the Second Lesson is simply an analogy
from Evensong, and one not really permitted by the
Act. It had, however, become general, and the
alteration was made unlawfully.
Then are to be read briefs, citations and excom-
i munications. Briefs are letters patent issued by the
I, sovereign. Citations are summonses to appear under
certain circumstances; the only one now read being
the "Si quis" of an intending ordination candidate.
The discipline of excommunications has practically
ceased in England.
The second rubric prescribes that the "sermon "
is to follow at this point. This rubric is of some
importance, because this is the only place where the
Prayer Book orders a sermon at all. The Forty~fifth
Canon orders one sermon each Sunday. The rubric
ensures that it is to be preached at the Eucharist. It
assumes the presence of the general congregation at
this, the principal service of the day. The Exhorta-
tion to the Godfathers and Godmothers at the end of
the rite . for the Public Baptism of Infants seems, on
the same line of reasoning, to require that children will
be brought to the Sunday Eucharist, and as no rubric
orders the withdrawal of non-communicants, we may
conclude that they are intended to remain until the
end. It is, no doubt, possible to put too much strain
upon this contention, but it is reasonable.
The Fifty-fifth Canon gives the Bidding Prayer,
which is an example of the "bidding" which is to
precede the sermon-it is quite lawless to use a
Collect or Invocation in its place. Bishop Wren
tells us that Cartwright, the }>uritan, was the first to
abandon it. The ascription at the end of a sermon
is merely customary, but a custom stretching back
as far as St. John Chrysostom.1
The Bidding Prayer may be regarded as a parallel
to the ancient" Prayers of the Faithful," which were
in litany form and came at this point. The Benedict-
ine scholars Dom Ferdinand Cabrol and Dom Cagin
think that at this point originally the Diptychs were
read, both in the Roman and in the Gallican rites.
These have disappeared, unless they may be included
under" what shall be proclaimed or published in the
Church during the time of Divine Service," which is
possible, as it usually includes those for whom prayers
are desired, both living and dead .
The sermon its~lf is sometimes regarded as being
(
simply an element of the reformed service. This is
1 Ritual Conformity, p. 34.
obviously erroneous. An instruction on the Scripture

Lessons read in the Eucharist is usual in most rites,
and may possibly be a tradition born of St. Paul's
practice as described in Acts xx. Justin refers to it
as being the normal practice of his own days, and
much of the Patristic literature which has come down
to us consists of homilies composed upon passages
of the Gospels read in the Eucharist. The instruction
of the Church that the canonical sermon of Sunday
shall be preached at the Eucharist (which does not
either involve that a sermon must be preached at
every celebration, or that sermons may not be
preached at other suitable times) determines that the
general congregation should in these days, as in times
gone by, attend the Lord's service on the Lord's day,
and that they should be regularly "instructed on the·
liturgical Gospels and Epistles as being the basis of
I'
Christian dogma."
I The Creed being a later interpolation, the Missa
Catechumenorum ended with the Gospel and the
il
sermon or instruction on the Gospel. In the English
rite it is quite clear that the line of division is after
the sermon. (The Ante-Communion proceeds to the
end of the Church Militant Prayer, but grew up from
a different idea.) At the same time it is necessary
to remember that, although this is the true meeting-
point of the two halves of the liturgy, "in some cases,
the later more important part has drawn to itself some
of the elements of the earlier part." 1 The Gospel
and sermon are historical1y part of the Liturgy of the
1 Wickham Legg, p. 15.
Catechumel1s. Yet instances exist of their dismissal
before the Gospel,1 The Sermon, moreover, is
postponed sometimes until after the singing of the
Creed. This is the case with our own rite and is not
peculiar to it. It seems clear from Durandus 2 that
the sermon was preached after the Creed. Lynewode
says 3 that in England it came after the Offertory.4
It has even been known to have occurred as late as
after the Sanctus at Sienna. 5 All these, hmvever, are
exceptions to what must originally have been the
invariable rule.
There is now no dismissal of the catechumens,
which was such a marked feature of the early disci-
pline. The old form remains in Constantinople; and
at the end of the sixth century the formula was still
used in the Church of Paris: "Ne quis catechumenus,
catechumeni recedant"; 6 but even by that time it
seems to have become a barren phrase. By the eighth
c'entury it had practically disappeared everywhere
as an actual fact. The Church's discipline had been
altered, and there were not, as a rule, any adult
catechu mens at all.
The third rubric brings us to the Offertory, the
beginning of the Missa Fidelium: "Then shall the
Priest return to the Lord's Table, and begin the Offer-
tory, saying," etc. The two first rubrics at the end of
\
the service-that, namely, which immediately follows
1
2
3
4
5
AmuJarius, De Eec!. 'off. Ill. c. xxvi., and Ordo Rom. vii.
Rat. Di7!. Off. IV, c. xxvi. p. I.
Pull an, p. 57.
Provineiale v., ed. Oxford, 1679, p. 291.
Wickham Legg, p. 16. 6 Duchesne, p. 202.
I
i
\
the Blessing and that which follows the Collects which
come after it-seem to make it clear that the Offertory
in the English rite extends from this point to the end
of the Prayer for the Church Militant. The first
indicates six" Collects to be said after the Offertory,
when there is no Communion"; the second orders
these Collects to be recited on those occasions at
. " the. end of the general prayer (for the whole state
of Christ's Church Militant here in earth)." . .
The Sentences now given to be said, "one or more"
according to the celebrant's discretion, represent the
old Offertory Chant. The Prayer Book clearly in-
tends the Sentences to be used as the old chant was
used, i. e. to cover the pause, since it proceeds in the
next rubric after the Sentences with the words:
"Whilst these Sentences are in reading," etc.
Originally the "Sentence" (Offertorium) was a
whole psalm with its antiphon. It is not mentioned
in Apost. Const. viii., but as the celebrant there is
praying privately, it is thought perhaps that the psalm
may have been sung. St. Augustine refers to it. l It
must be remembered that the psalter was the hymn-
book of the early Church. "Hymni ... de Psalm-
orum libro," are St. Augustine's words in the passage
referred to above.
A gradual process of shortening had by the time
of the Gregorian Antiphonary reduced the psalm to
a few verses. This is the testimony also of Ordo
Rom. ii.: 2 "Canitur offertorium cum versibus." The
subsequent omission of the verses left only the Anti-
1 P . L. xxxii. 63. 2 P. L. Ixxviii. 641,972.
phon, which survives to-day in the Sentence. It ;~
never refers to the Oblations, and almost always in "
our own rite refers to the alms which the rubric, after
the Sentences, orders the deacons and others to col-
lect. The celebrant is permitted at his discretion to
" say one or more of these Sentences." This is not a
novelty. Its effect, when carried out, is to restore
partially the use of the old Offertory Chant, and even
so it has parallels in the Antiphona post Evangelium
with its offerenda of the Ambrosian Liturgy, and in the
Sacrificium or Offertorium with its lauds of the Moz"
arabic rite, both of which have more than one verse.
Of necessity the Offertory is a very primitive part
of the Eucharistic rite, and in origin is purely practical.
It was simply the provisions of the elements of bread
and wine required for use in the service itself, though
Justin tells us that, in his day, they were not brought
up until immediately before they were wanted for
consecration. He says that" the bread and the cup
of wine and water are brought to the president of
the brethren" 1 after the Kiss of Peace, and before
the "president" sends up "praise and glory to the
Father." The simple ceremony was gradually elabor-
ated, and by medi~val days had gathered round it
prayers of its own, which were only incorporated into
the rite in later times. We are already able to trace
the beginning of that line of cleavage between official
and semi-official prayers at the Altar, of which our
own office, following primitive models, gives only the
former.
1 I AjJol. Ixv. 3.
The Offertory itself marks a division in liturgical

procedure. In all Eastern rites and in the Gallican
Mass the necessary elements were prepared before
the beginning of the Liturgy at the prothesis. Some-
times the preparation of them was elaborate, and the
custom of preparing the Offertory at that point
continues not only in the East, but in the West also,
among the Dominicans. It was the practice under
the Sarum use. The Carthusians put the wine
into the chalice and the Host on the paten before
the Mass begins-the water at the Offertory. Being
prepared, they were left upon the prothesis or credence,
and were brought up to the Altar at the beginning of
the Liturgy of the Faithful. The Roman rite alone
kept tothe principle of preparing them at the point
when it was customary to put them upon the Holy
Table. The English rite gives us no prayers at the
Offertory, which is a true note of its 11delity to
antiquity. The Coronation Service, however, follow-
ing medi ~val usage, gives a prayer when the sovereign
offers bread and wine. The true Offertory Prayer in
Western liturgies is the" Secret "-the" Oratio super
oblata." I t corresponds presumably to Apost. Const.
vu!., xii. 3, 4, where we are told that "the
deacons bring the gifts to the bishop at the Altar
. . . the bishop having prayed privately." This
obviously is the Offertory Prayer, but the later
development obviated the necessity for another
offertory prayer. The Roman custom is the older.
The other prayers at the Offertory now given in
all the Western rites except the English are, as we
62 THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE OF.
have seen, later and medi;:eval. They are not native
Roman at all-witness the Gregorian Sacramentary
-" deinde offertorium et dicitur oratio super oblata,"l
the" oratio" being said secretly because the Offertory
Psalm was still being chanted. These prayers were
formerly looked upon as the private prayers of the
celebrant, like the prayers before Communion and
the prayers at the foot of the Altar. According
to Mictologus (eleventh century), no prayer was
appointed in the Roman rite after the Offertory until
the Secret. The medi<eval prayers are described as a
" Gallican order," but they are" not from any law, but
as an ecclesiastical custom." 2 The prayers referred
to are the "Veni Sanctificator" and the" Suscipe,
Sancta Trinitas." 3 This did not begin to come into
the Roman Liturgy until the fourteenth century, and
did I)ot become finally stereotyped until the Missal
of Pi us V in 1570. The omission of them here can-
not, therefore, be regarded as in any sense a liturgical
defect, nor is it necessary for any priest to interpolate
them. The Prayer Book aims at a return to primitive
ideas, liturgically as well as doctrinally, and a careful
study of its Eucharistic rite shows how faithfully,
though perhaps not always quite consciously, this
object has been attained.
Of the two really primitive elements of the Offer-
tory, the Chant and the Secret, the former alone
remains, except in so far as the Secret can be t
;
1
S
P. L. lxxviii. 25. 2 Ibid. cH. 979-84.
Paris edition index of Micrologus in British Museum by
1
Hittorp, col. 9·
recognised in the opening sentence of the Prayer
for the Church. This does not seem really to
correspond to it, as will be seen later.
The Sentence is the remaining specimeH of a group
of four psalm chants used in the Eucharist in the
early Church, the Introit, the Gradual, the Offertory,
and the Communion psalm. They are not }{oman in
origin, but were adopted at Rome very early.
The Introit was a complete psalm, or good portion
of a psalm, sung during the entrance of the celebrant
and his approach to the Altar. The first Ordo
Romanus speaks of the "aptiphona ad introitum."
The Gallican Liturgy called it the "antiphona ad
prcelegendum "; in the Ambrosian it is the ''In-
gressa"; in the Mozarabic, Calced Carmelite, Car-
thusian, Dominican and Sarum Missals it is the
" Officium." It was sung most probably as a psalmus
responsorius1-the response or antiphon being repeated
by all between each verse, as with the Invitatorium in
the Breviary Matins (though the Carthusian Breviary
also gives the Invitatory to be said exactly according
to the Prayer Book manner, for week-days from
Trinity to All Saints). The custom, which was as
old as Ord. Rom. i.,2 of cutting the psalm off when
the celebrant was ready to begin the Mass, led
1 Mr. Wyatt sends me this valuable comment: "I think you
are mistaken in classing the Introit as a psalm us responsorius.
Both it and the Communion came under the head of antiphonal
psalmody, while the chants between the Epistle and Gospel
were responsoriaI. The difference is, that the latter consists of
a solo (or perhaps a sman body of voices), responded to by the
people; while the antiphonal implies an alternation between two
bodies of voices." 2 Ed. Atchley, p. 128.
gradually to its being cut down to one verse, with
Gloria Patri and the antiphon before and after, with
slight variations in some uses, e.g. the Caked Car-
melite and Sarum Missals. The first Prayer Book
of 1549 included the Introits-and these, in their
primitive form, as a complete psalm. They were
omitted in 1552. Their loss is much to be regretted,
but there seems to be no reason why they should not
still be sung. Certainly they are much to be preferred
to the collections of introits taken from the later
missals.
The Gradual or Grail was quite the oldest and the
most important of the four chants. The other three
were sung to cover the natural pauses of the liturgy i
the Gradual, on the contrary, was sung for the especial
reason of singing psalms between the Scripture .j
Lessons. We can see in the Lessons and gradual 1
psalms of the Catechumens' Liturgy the beginning ,
of the structure of the Divine Office. I t is the
synagogue tradition perpetuated in Christian worship.
Originally they were whole psalms. The Apostohcal
Constitutions mentioned them. St. Augustine refers
to them also: "V.ie have heard first the Lesson . . .
then we sang a psalm." 1 They were sung for their
own sake, as we sing them in the Divine Office. It
" was the ancient chanting of the psalms which, in the
primitive Church, alternated with the lections from
Holy Scripture." 2 The singing of the whole psalm
remained at least until the time of Leo J.3 The
1 Sermo, c1xxvi. 1. 2 Duchesne, p. 169.
a Sermo II., In anniv assump.
THE BOOK 01<' COMMON PRAYER 65
present Gradual consists of the psalmus responsorius

(shortened), which was sung between the Lessons, and
the Alleluia with its verses, which was sung between
the Epistle and Gospel, except from Septuagesima
to Easter, when it was replaced by the psalmus tractus
(i. e. sung through by the cantor without any choir
responses). .
The Communion (Antiphona ad Communionem)
was the psalm sung while the communicants received
the Holy Sacrament. The Ambrosian rit'>! caUs it the
Transitorium. Originally also a whole psalm with
an antiphon, it was sung until the distribution of the
Sacrament was finished. A sign was then given
by the celebrant, and the rest of the psalm was left
out, the Gloria sung immediately and the antiphon
was repeated. 1 It has now been cut down to a single
verse and put after the Communion. Durandus
speaks of it as being part of the Thanksgiving. 2 The
first Prayer Book preserved it (in this jejune form,
curiously enough), but ordered it to be sung in the
ancient man ner while the people communicat~d.
Of these chants the Offertory or Sentence alone
remains in the English rite, and that in its most jejune
form, though restored to some extent to its ancient use.
It may be doubted whether anything at aU remains
which corresponds to the Secret. The words in the
opening paragraph of the Prayer for the Church
hardly serve the purpose, and, moreover-since the
whole paragraph corresponds to the" Te Igitur," or
opening prayer of the Latin Canon-must refer to the
1 Ordo Rom. i., ed. Atchley, 144. 2 Rationale, iv. 56.
E
i
phrase "haec dona, haec munera" if, that is to say •l!..

y
they refer to the actual oblation of bread and wine at I
all. Pullan 1 contends that they do not, and that the

word "oblations" was introduced in 1661," apparently
in the medi~val sense of money offerings for the
maintenance of the clergy."
The rubric immediately preceding the Prayer for
the Church is the true Offertory rubric. " The Priest
shall then place upon the Table so much Bread and
VVine as he shall think sufficient." Three questions
here arise for solution: the first, the time for the
preparation of the. elements; the second, the question
of leavened or un leavened brcad; the third, the
question of the mixed chalice.
In regard to the first., strictly speaking, our liturgy ~
does not give any directions for the actual preparation
of the elements, but only for their being placed upon
the Holy Table at a certain point. It should be re-
membered that our service comes to us through the
Sarum rite, which directed that they should be pre-
pared before the service began. 2 The rubric in the
Book of 1549 (concenling the mixing of the chalice),
which seemed to imply that the preparation would
take place at the Offertory, was withdrawn in the
later revisions.· There is no doubt that weighty and
widespread liturgical custom is on the side of pre-
paring the elements before the service begins.3 It
p. 135.
1
At High Mass between the Epistle and the Gospel.
2
3 Cf. "Comparative Study of the Time in the Christian
Liturgy at which the Elements are Prepared." Wickham Legg,
St. Paul's Eccles. Soc. Trans. vol. iii. 49-85.
1
I THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 67
I I was the general English custom In .old days,! and js

preserved in the West in the old rite of the Domini-
can Order, in a few other" regular" uses, and in the
Mozarabic rite. I t is, moreover, as we have seen, the
invariable custom of the Orthodox Eastern Church.
It may safely be assumed, therefore, that this rubric
implies simply" the great entrance," not the prepara-
tion of the elements. The present English rite has
extraordinary resemblances to the primitive Roman
rite, but the old English custom must be the correct
interpretation if the family trait of our liturgy is to
be preserved, and this was the attitude taken by the
ecclesiastical authorities in the Lincoln Judgment.
With regard to the second question-the use of
Azyme bread-c--the fifth rubric, at the end of the
service, tells us that "It shall su ffice that the bread
be such as is usual to be eaten, but the best and
purest Wheat Bread that conveniently maybe gotten."
In the Order of I 548 the bread was ordered to
be the same" as heretofore hath been accustomed,"
i.e. un leavened wafer bread. In 1549 the rubric read,
"unleavened and round . . . through all this reaim,
after one sort and fashion."
This rubric can only mean one thing, ,viz. that
either usage is permissible in the English Church.
A reference to the service for the Public Baptism of
Infants, where we read, " But if they certify that .the
child is· weak, it shall suffice to pour water upon ;it,"
makes it clear that the phrase, "it shall suffice," in
Pray(;!r ,Book language means .that a certain method
1 Westm. Missal, col. 485.
of procedure is valid if for any true reason a certain
other and better custom cannot be followed. There
can be no question that either use is valid, and the
Western Church has always maintained that to be so.
There is no real dogmatic importance attached to
the matter at all. It is a question of ancient custom,
of practical convenience, and of ecclesiastical disci-
pline. If the Church of England has any preference,
this rubric clearly shows that it is for the use of
unleavened bread. If wheaten bread be used, it
must be the" best and purest . . . that conveniently
may be gotten," and it is not easy in these days to
get really pure wheaten Dread, unless it be specially
made for the purpose. Our Lord's own practice in
the matter cannot be ascertained indubitably, seeing
that St. John and the Synoptists admit of divers
interpretations. The general feeling in the West,
perhaps, has been that the Last Supper was the
Passover meal, in which case our Lord must have
used un leavened bread. Similarly, the Apostolic
practice cannot be really ascertained.
In the Western Church it has always been main-
tained that leavened or unleavened bread is equally
valid as the element for consecration. The use of
the latter kind has been universal in the West since
the ninth century, save in England since 1552, where
either kind is permitted. The Easterns, apparently
from a desire also 'to emphasise the difference be-
tween the Jewish and Christian Passover, use leavened
bread. The practice of the U niates 1 is valuable testi-
1 They use leavened bread, though part of the Latin Church.
mony to the fact that no real ptinciple is involved

either way. Yet this much may be added: Azyme
bread was used by the Jews in sacrifice, and was
especially commanded for their use at the time of the
Passover. There are many references to it in Holy
Scripture, both in the Old Testament, where it is
called the "bread of affliction," and in the New
Testament, where St. Paul speaks of the" unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth," so that its use is fitting
and proper. At the same time, it would be a hazard-
ous statement to-say that its use is necesslrily primi-
tive. The first notice of it, in fact, which we possess
comes from the Venerable Bede, that is to say, from
the eighth century.1
The third question is that of the mixed chalice.
This originated, there is every reason to think, in
simple necessity. It is the Eastern custom to mix
water with wine, and wine in the East is commonly
so thick in quality as to necessitate the addition of
water in order to make it palatable to drink. It
cannot, therefore, be doubted, on any reasonable
grounds, that our Lord Himself used a mixed cup
at the institution of the rite. ] ustin refers to it,2 so
does Iren.eus,3 and the picture of the African Liturgy
sketched for us by St. Cyprian of Carthage in the
third century shows us the same.
I St. Cyprian, in his Sixty-third Epistle, is especially
emphatic about the matter. In fact, he seems to deny
1 But see Woolley, The Bread of the Eucharist. Alcuin
Club Tract, p. 15. Dr. WooUey contends that ., panem nitidum "
is not wafer bread, but merely" white bread."
2 I Apol. lxvii. 5. 3 Adv. Haer. v. I.
the. validity of th~unmixed cup altogether: "In
sanctifying the cup of the Lord, water alone cannot
be used; just as wine cannot." He bases the practice
on our Lord's example, and draws out fully the doc-
trinal signification: "We see His people figuratively
represented in the water there and His blood in the
wine," The doctrinal defect of the use of an un-
mixed chalice is made clear also: "I f wine alone be
offered, there indeed is the blood of Christ, but then
we are not with it; or if water alone, the people
will be without Christ; but by the mixture of both
together the Sacrament is completed."
The practice is, as we have seen, primitive, and could
be called" cecumenical "-as far as any ceremony can
be. There is nothing' in the Prayer Book ru hrics to
forbid it. The rubric proceeds in the matter of the
wine on the same principle as in the matte r of the
bread, viz. what" shall suffice." The Lincoln J udg-
rnent laid down that "no rule has been made to
change or abolish the all but universal use of a mixed
cup from the beginning " (the Armenians, in fact,
seem to be the only people using an unmixed chalice
as a rule). It is entirely consonant with the Church
of England's appeal to the" laudable practice of the
whole Church of Christ."
The Prayer for the Church is prefaced by an invi-
tation whid1 is. addressed directly to the whole '
congregation, and formed from the tide to an ancient \,
prayer for the living and the dead in the Directo-
rium Anglicanum of 1531. It is simply the lon ger
form of" Oremusdilectissimi," which we have already
considered under the invitation, " L,et us pray," which

precedes the Collects for the King. It stands in the
same place as the" Orate fratres" of the Roman rite,
but this latter is a prayer and response directly con-
nected with the offering of the Sacrifice itself, rather
than the Intercessions.
"Now begins the great Eucharistic prayer, or rather
series of prayers, which we sometimes call the <;:anon,
or better, Anaphora. . . . There are interruptions in
the shape of the Confession, Absolution, and Com-
fortable Words, and of the Prayer of Humble Access.
The Prayer for the Church Militant begins the
Anaphora." 1
This prayer contains the Eucharistic Intercession
brought together and placed immediately after the
Offertory. This is a gain, and denotes once more a
return to primitive custom. The place of the Inter-
cession in the Eucharist is not always the same in
different rites, but the bulk of evidence leads us to
conclude that the origin;)1 and most general position
for it was after the Offertory. The Apostolical Con-
stitutioJls and the Antiochene family of rites have
the Litany of the Faithful at the Offertory with an
Intercession after the .Communion ; the Alexandrine
Liturgy of St. Mark has them here a nd in the Preface;
in the Gallican rite the Diptychs are read after the
Offertory just before the Kiss of Peace; 2 in the Roman
rite they are inserted in the Canon in two blocks.
1 Cuthbert Atchley, English Ceremonial, p. 22.

2 "Nomina defunctorum ideo hora illa qua pallium tollilur "
(Gennanus). Cr. Duchesne, p. 208.
With regard to the arrangement of the I nter-

cessions in the Roman Canon, it may be noticed
that French Benedictine scholars maintain that the
Mementos of the Living and of the Dead, the Nobis
quoque and the Communicantes, do not belong to
the Canon at all. Duchesne, too,1 notes that the
first part of the Canon'" corresponds, on the whole,
with the recitation of the Diptychs prescribed in the
Gallican and Eastern Liturgies, but which were placed
in these liturgies before the beginning of the Preface."
He admits that this latter arrangement is the more
primitive and natural, but at the same time emphasises
the fact that the Roman Canon, as we know it, had
assumed its present form by the beginning of the
fifth century. It seems certain, however (from the
letter of Innocent to Decentius, 416), that previous
to that time the Diptychs had been read in Rome,
as elsewhere, at this time.
I n the Prayer Book of 1549, the existing arrange-
ment was maintained, save only that the Intercession
for the Dead was brought forward and put before
the Consecration; otherwise the principle of having
the Intercession and the Consecration united in
one prayer was maintained. This arrangement was
broken up at the revision of 1552, and the Inter-
cessions were brought forward and put at the
Offertory. The collection and offering of money at
the Eucharist is the later alternative of the collection
and offering of the actual elements for the Sacrifice,
much of which must have been after distributed to
1 p. 180.
the poor for general purposes. The idea is the same,

but the quantity actually needed at this point in
any case is small, so the offering is made in money,
out of part of which the elements are provided.
We can trace the formation of the prayer in broad
correspondence with the wording of the Latin Canon.
The first part, down to " administer Thy holy Sacra-
ment," is equivalent to the T e igitur. The words,
"accept our . . . . oblations," would seem, at first
sight, to be the Secret. I f, however, they refer to
the elements at all, they must correspond to the
"haec dona, haec munera, haec sancta sacrificia
illibata." It does not, however, seem to be quite
clear that the word "oblations" does indicate the
e1ements. l The passage beginning, "and to all Thy
people," and ending with the words, "all the days
of their life," is the Memento of the Living. The
rest of the prayer corresponds to the Communicantes,
and probably also to the Memento of the Dead.
The words, "departed this life in Thy faith and
fear," can refer equally to the saints and the faithful
dead, the difference between the two is one simply
of degree. The phrase, "we and all thy whole
Church," in the Prayer of Oblation is a prayer for the
Church Expectant, no doubt, as well as for the Church
Militant; but the deliberate removal of the Interces-
sions back to their ancient position at the Offertory
requires that we shall interpret the last passage of
the Prayer for the Church as including the faithful
dead, otherwise the Intercession would be incomplete.
1 Cf. Pull an, p. 135.
CHAPTER IV
THE PREPARATION FOR COMMUNION
AFTER the Prayer for the Church are printed the

three Exhortations. Of these the third is obviously
intended to be used at every Eucharist, though in
practice it is rarely ever read. The second is for
occasional use. The use of the first is meant to
depend upon the number of times the Holy Com-
munion is celebrated. The first and the second
Exhortations are to be used after the sermon or
homily. The thir-d is meant to be used apparently
where it stands, as it was originally used in the'
"Order of Communion."
In actual fact they are used but little. The need
for them has, to some extent, passed away, and
Blunt even goes so far as to say that they are" out
of character with the habits of a church in which
there is a regular celebration of Holy Communion
on all Sundays and holy days."
The author of the first Exhortation is unknown.
It formed part of the" Order of Communion." used
in I 548, which was altered in 1552, and assumed its
present form in 1661.
The second was inserted in 1552 (as we learn
from Bishop Cosin) at the instance of Bucer. This
74
one contained, in its original form, a strongly worded

passage against non-communicating attendance-
remaining "to gaze" without receiving. The third
came in the (, Order of Communion," immediately
before the Short Exhortation, as it does now, and
contained the phrase, "If any man be an open
blasphemer," now transferred to the first Exhor-
tation. This third one· was based upon a writing
of Hermann of Cologrie, but appears to have come
originally from the pen of Wolfgang Volprecht. the
prior of the Augustinian Canons of Wittenberg, who
accepted the reformed doctrines. The first and third
Exhortations were given in the fi rst book of 1549.
We pass on to a group of formul<f: beginning with
the Short Exhortation and ending with the Comfort-
able Words. These forms (together with the Prayer
of Humble Access) are taken almost verbally from
the "Order of Communion." This document was
drawti up by a body of bishops and divines, and
was published on March 8, I ~48, to come into use
on Easter Day of that year (A pril I). The Sunday
before, an exhortation was to be read which is
mainly the first Exhortation at present in the
Prayer Book. On the day itself the Latin Mass
was to be said as usual, but the new "order" was
to be inserted after the priest's communion. It con-
sisted of a long Exhortation (practically the third
of those now in the Prayer Book), the Short Exhor-
tation, Confession, Absolution, Comfortable Words.
and the Administration of Communion with almost
the same form of words which now constitute the
.~
I
first half of the present form. The communicants

were then dismissed from the Altar with the prayer
which now constitutes the "Peace" at the end of
our present service, without the Blessing, which would
be given in the normal way at the celebration of the
Mass. This" order" was based upon the Simple
Decision concerning the Reformation of the Churches
0/ the Electorate of Coin, published in 1 543. It
was the work of Bucer, Melanchthon and Sarcerius,
drawn up at the request of Hermann, the Prince
Archbishop of Cologne. This, in its turn, owed much
to the forms in use among the Lutherans of Bran-
denburg, N urn berg and Cassel. It was translated
into English in 1547, under the title of A Simple
and Religious Consultation of us, Hermann, by the
Grace of God A rchbishop of Cologne.
All this block of prayers, including the Prayer of
Humble Access, came in 1549 after the Consecration.
They were moved, in 1552, to their present position.
Some form of confession of sins is common to
most rites. The two great parent liturgies of the
East began with the celebrant's confession. l In
the West the Mass began with the Introit psalm.
The Confession was of the nature of a private pre-
paration-it belonged to,the sacristy rather than the
sanctuary. The idea of making confession part of
the public service is, in the West, medi<eval rather
than primitive.
Blunt draws out the analogy between the Com-
fortable \h.'ords and the psalms sung before the
Consecration in the Liturgies of St. Mark and St.

James, but this seems fanciful. The Comfortable
Words are, in fact, simply the expansion of the
Absolution, to which they belong. They are peculiar
to our English rite. The text of them is not taken
from any particular version.
1
CHAPTER V
FROM THE SURSUM CORDA TO THE END OF THE
CONSECRATION
WITH the Sursum Corda we enter upon the most

solemn part of the rite: the Anaphora or Consecration
prayer. The Versicles and Responses which form the
prelude are extremely ancient, possibly from a Hebrew
tradition based upon Lam. iii. 41,1 which came into
Christian use with Jewish converts in the very earliest
days. They are found in the Canones Hippolyti,
St. Cyprian's Treatise on the Lord's Prayer,2 and
in the Apostolical Constitution: They form, in fact,
one of the earliest liturgical fragments of which we
have any knowledge. The celebrarit catches, as it
were, the idea of the last response and proceeds with
the Preface. This, the first part, strictly speaking,
of the Eucharistic prayer, has alone retained the idea
of the" giving of thanks." The thanksgiving prayer
was sometimes of great length,3 including thanks for
all tHings temporal and spiritual, leading up to the
Incarnation, Passion and Death of Christ, into which
scheme the recitation of the Institution fell naturally.
1 Brightman, p. 556.
2 "Adeo et sacerdos ante orationem praefationis . . . parat
fratrum mentes dicendo: Sursum Corda," etc. Migne, iv. 539.
3 Apost. Cons!. viii. xii. iv -xxxix. Egyptian, cf. Brightman,
pp. 125-33. Antiochene, ibid. pp. 50-2. .
78
THE BOOK ' OF COMMON PRAYER 79
The mention of the Angels, which is universal, led

to the Sanctus-the angelic song of Isaiah vi.-
which caused a slight interruption in the Anaphora.
In the Eastern rites the break is not very marked.
In the West it has split the Anaphora into two parts,
known to us as the Preface and Canon. 1 The singing
of the Preface and Sanctus has accentuated this, ,as
also, in the English rite, has the awkward insertion
at this point of the Prayer of Humble Access. It
is, however, important to remember, in spite of the
fact that this latter prayer has obscured it, that the
Preface belongs to the Eucharistic prayer, to which,
as its Western name implies, it is introductory.
The ancient thanksgiving prayers 2 contained long ,
lists of motives of thanksgiving. Those of the Leo-
nine book, however, have the truly Roman character-
istics of brevity and terseness. There seems, therefore,
to have been a ruthless abbreviation of the Pre;face
before this Sacramentary came into being. The ,
words" et ideo" mark the omitted list and are now
rather unnecessary. Every reference is excluded
except that to the Angels, which had to remain,
apparently, to connect up the idea of thanksgiving
with the Sanctus. The Western Preface is change-
able..These changes (Proper Prefaces) were originally
numerous. The Leonine book has 267, the Gela-
sian fifty-fQUr. These were gradually reduced in the
Roman rite to eleven, in our own rite to five. Two
of these, those namely for Christmas Day and Whit-
1 Ordo Rom. i. 16.
3 As in Clement of Rome, 1 Cor. Ix., IxL
i
i
.80 THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE OF
stln Day, date from 1549, the rest are taken almost
verbally from the old Latin. Indeed, our Preface, as
I
a whole, runs closely to the wording of the Latin ,J
rite. 1 ~
The name .C preface" is Roman. In other liturgies
(except the Ambrosian,. which has borrowed from the
Roman) the Preface is simply the opening part of
the Anaphora, and has no special name. In the
Byzantine and Syrian rites the enumeration of benefits
remains, but is comparatively short. In the Liturgy
of St. Basil it is long, in that of St. Chrysostom
short. The shortest form is the Armenian; the
longest, perhaps, the Egyptian; 2 but this clearly
contains later interpolations.
The Sanctus is simply the continuation of the
Preface and is introduced by the mention of the
Angels. It is based upon the third verse of the sixth
chapter of Isaiah, and it is found in every rite except
the Ethiopic Church Order. 3 We have very early
evidence of it. It is quoted by Clement of Rome,4
and in Origen,5 and it is constantly referred to by
St. Athanasius,6 St. John Chrysostom,7 Germanus of
}'aris,8 and many others. The Leonine and Gelasian
books do not actually give it, but they indicate clearly
that it was said. Yet Dom Cabrol inexplicably con-
tends that it is a later addition. 9 The older texts
1 The present wording of the Preface is a miotranslation of
"Holy Lord, Almighty Father, Everlasting God."
2 Brightman, pp. 12 5-3 2 •
a Ibid. p. IC)O. , 1 Cor. xxxiv. 6-7.
" In lsai. Hom. 1 and 2. 6 P. G. xxvii. 434.
1 P. G. Iv. 393. 8 Duchesne, p. 214.
» LI!S Ort'gines Liturgiques, p. 329. Paris, 1906.
j
give the reading, "Lord God of Sabaoth," which we

have changed into" Lord God of Hosts." The final
verse in the English rite, "Glory be to Thee, 0 Lord
most High," is really a free translation of" Hosanna
in Excelsis." In 1549 it read, "Hosanna in the
Highest," and continued with the Benedictus, end ing
with the words, "Glory be to Thee, 0 Lord, in the
Highest." The Benedictus was cut off in the revision
of 1552. The intention of this omission was bad,!
but it is not without justification. It is probable that
the words were 'used originally to greet the cele-
brating bishop as he entered at the time of the Little
Entrance, as is still the case with the Liturgy of
St. Chrysostom. In the Apostolical Constitutions 2
they occur just before Communion. They do not
occur in the Clementine Liturgy nor in the Egyptian
rite, and their aptness to the occasion may be ques-
tioned. Blunt says that "Benedictus is 110t part
of the Song of the Angels, and is therefore incon-
sistent, strictly speaking, with the words of the
Preface." At Rome the Sanctus is called, in Ordo
Rom. i., "hymnus angelicus," and Ordo Rom. ii.
notes the double hosanna. 3 Possibly this indicates
the point when the Benedictus began to be added to
the Sanctus-originally to greet the bishop, later as
referring to the Eucharist. Cuthbert Atchley" thinks
that it is a Gallican addition to the Roman rite of
the eleventh century. There is no rubric ordering
Sanctus to be said, or sung by the people, but in
1 Pullan, p. 108. 2 viii. xiii. 13. Brightman, p. 24.
3 P. L. Ixxviii. 974, • Ordo Nom. i. 90-5.
F
82 THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE OF.
common practice it is done everywhere. It is not
without dramatic effect, and seems to have been
usual as early as Clement of Rome. A ccording to
the Liber Pontificalis 1 it was due to Sixtus I. - It
seems, in fact, to be a tradition which goes back to
the beginning.
The Prayer of Humble Access, which in the Eng-
lish rite comes at this point,.is, as has been said, a
part of the " Order of Communion" of I 548. In the
first Prayer Book it was placed, with the Confession
, and other prayers, after the Con secra~ion . In 1552
(for Protestant reasons, suggested, no doubt, by the
opposition to the doctrinal statements in Gard ner's
E xplication and Assertion of the True Catholic Faith
'. touching the most blessed Sacrament of the 'Altar,
published ' in 155 I) these prayers were brought for-
ward in the service, and this particular prayer was
placed here. It did not seem advisabl e, in 1661, to
alter it again. Its presence here, how€ver,i s not
an improvement. Liturgical propriety would require
the priest to pass straight from the Preface to the
Prayer of Consecration. Yet a Prayer of Humble
Access is not in itself a novelty. Such a prayer
occurs in the Mozarabic rite after the Offertory, where
it is ordered to be said" with bowed head "-the
ancient equivalent to the attitude required by the
present rubric. In Eastern liturgies the correspond-
ing prayer is called the" prayer of inclination," and
comes immediately before the p.eople's Communion.
Its equivalent in Western rites generally is found in
1 Edition by Duchesne,j. 128.
tHE 'BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 83
the prayers before Communion which follow the

Canon and the Fraction, which, however, are only
medi;eval and ora quasi-private nature. The wording
of the prayer seems to include the" Domine non sum
dignus."
The Prayer of Consecration is, of course, the
nucleus of this and every extant rite. The English
form is possibly derived from the Mozarabic rite
through the form used among the German Pro-
testants in Brandenburg and Nurnberg. 1
The rubric which precedes it says that the priest
is to be "standing before the Table." This seems
to settle definitely what is to be the position of the
priest at this point, at any rate, and it is that position
which is usual; the Latin rubrics give, "stans ante
medium" (" in the middes," 1549) "Altaris." It is, in
fact, the normal position of the priest when offering
sacrifice-it signifies" at the head of" the people, as
their representative, and in full view of them. In
1552 the rubric simply directed the priest to stand
up after the Prayer of Humble Access. The rubric
in its present form dates from 1661, and implies the
eastward position. It is not modified by the subse-
quent phrase" before the people," which, as we shall
see later, only refers to the Fraction. This, is, no
doubt, what the bishops intended to convey. The"
) 1 Pullan, pp. 108-9. Cf. however, Brightman, The EnJ;lish
\ Rite, pp. cviii-ix, where it is shown that this need not be the
source at all. The result of putting together the N. T. records
is the same, so also is the result of combining the N. T. features
of the Roman and Mozarabic rites, or the rites of St. Basil and
St. John Chrysostom.
same question in principle had been raised at the

Savoy Conference, where the Puritans desired that
the minister should face the people during the whole
of the service, as being "most convenient." The
bishops denied this altogether, and asserted that
when speaking to God for them the exact opposite
was more significant. They based this answer upon
ancient Catholic order, quoting St. Augustine as their
reference." 1
The rubric instructs that he shall so stand that he
may "with the more readiness and decency break
the Bread before the people and take the Cup into
his hand." The importance of the phrase" break the
Bread" should be noted, because of its accentuation
in all liturgies. It is one of the Lord's own actions
at the institution of the rite, and therefore is vested
with an unusual sanctity. This, indeed, has always
been recognised, and every liturgy gives directions
for the Fraction. The Lincoln Judgment also drew
attention to it, and stated that, "if any ceremony is
to be visible to the people, this action of Christ
unquestionably ought to be so." 2 The Fraction is to
take place "before the people;" 3 that is to say, in
their presence. The Puritans in 1661 demanded the
words, "in the sight of the people," 4 but the bishops
deliberately chose this phrase. 5
It means simply that the priest shall not conceal
1 Serm. Dom. t'n Monte., Book ii. (Cardwell, Conferences,
p. 353·)
2 Lincoln judgment, p. 5 I.
8 In Bright and Medd's Latin Prayer Bk. " coram populo."
, Dearmer, p. 388. 5 P. L. i. 657.
the Fraction, and it refers solely to this action, not

necessarily to the whole Consecration.
The final phrase of the rubric, "He shall say the
Prayer of Consecration," means, of course, that he
shall say it aloud. It is not quite easy to say what
is the origin of the secret recitation of the Canon,
which holds throughout the rest of the Western
Church to-day. That it is not regarded as an
inviolable principle is demonstrated by the Ordinal of
the Roman rite. The recipients of priesthood recite
the Canon aloud with the celebrant. The custom of
silent recitation was in existence at the date of the
second Roman Ordo, the only part said aloud being
the Ekphonesis. For three centuries certainly the
Canon was said aloud--Tertullian 1 and St. Ambrose 2
are witness to this. It would seem that the "disciplina
arcani" would render its silent recitation unnecessary,
and the name" Secret" attached to the Offertory
Prayer obviously implies that the silent recitation of
that prayer is in contrast to the rest of the liturgy.
We find comparatively early a tendency for the
priest to go on with his own part of the service in a
low voice during the singing or saying of other things,
and this accounts also for the appearance of certain
kinds of devotions, viz. the Approach, Offertory
Prayers, prayers before Communion, said respectively
"during the Introit, Offertory Psalm and Communion
Psalm. The real reason seems, consequently, to have
been the desire to telescope the service.
To recite it 111 silence now is, for us in England,
1 P. L . i. 651. 2 de mysteriis ix. 54; P. L. xvi. 407.
sheer absurdity; to mumble it is worse than absurd,
and needs to be mentioned only td be reprobated.
The Church, in fact, seems always to have objected
to the practice, though her protest was gradually
over-ridden by the weight of other expedients. As
late a.s 1200, in the Synod of London, we get the
decree, " Verba Canonis rotunde cl kantur et distincte,"
which, although it does not necessarily mean that
the Canon is to be said aloud, certainly seems to
imply that the existing custom left a g06d deal to
be desired.
The first part of the Consecration Prayer, down to
the words, "until His coming again" (with the phrase
in the Prayer of Oblation, "by the merits and death
of Thy Son Jesus Ch.rist and through faith in His
Blood "), must be the Anamnesis. Eastern liturgies,
as a rule, mention the Passion, the death and the
resurrection of our Lord, and especially His second
advent. The Roman rite mentioned the passion,
the resurrection and the ascension. Our own
liturgy mentions, with great stress, the Passion and
the death of our Lord, and refers clearly to the
second advent in the wOlds, "Until His coming
again."
This first part is, in fact, the substance of the
prayer, "unde et memores," in the Roman Canon,
expanded and emphasised in order to bring out more
clearly the doctrinal statement of the fulness and
completeness of the Sacrifice of the Cross, and to put
an end for ever to any poss\ble recrudescence of
the mediceval mistake that, in the Sacrifice of the
Eucharist, there was something in the nature of a

repetition rather than a re-presentation.
There is, in the Eighth Book of the Apostolieal Con-
stitutioltS, a parallel to this double anamnesis. The
Anamnesis, properly so called, follows the act of
Consecration, but the Eucharistic prayer contains the
recitation in outline of the Passion before the words
of institution. Doctrinally there is no difficulty in
the matter. Consecration is the answer of God to the
whole Canon. l
The second part of the prayer, beginning with,
" Hear us, 0 merciful Father," and ending with the
words, "His most blessed Body and Blood," is ob-
viously an invocation or epiklesis, but not of the
Holy Spirit. It.is probably an adaptation of the
"Quam oblation em " of the Roman Canon. The
phrase, "partakers of H is most blessed Body and
Blood," is clearly an adaptation of the words, "corpus
et sanguis fiat dilectissimi Filii tui."
The whole question of the Epiklesis is extremely
c1ifncult. It is, generally speaking, understood as
being as invocation of the Holy Ghost to effect the
consecration of the elements. I ts normal position
would be after Consecration, the mention of the Holy
Ghost following the commemoration of the Ascension.
I
In all Eastern rites this is quite definite, e.g. the
Byzantine St. Basil, where it follows immediately
.I the Commemoration of the Passion and Resurrection.
I'1 In the Western rites, the corresponding prayer would

1 To quote an ancient phrase, it is performed" intuitu tot ius
Ii oration is,"
be in the Gallican the Post-Secreta, in the Roman
the Supplices; but of these the former is not always,
and the latter not ever, an invocation of the Holy
Spirit. E. Bishop 1 and W. C. Bishop 2 think that
the Epiklesis in the Roman rite is the prayer, " Quam
oblationem," already referred to, but this seems
unlikely. The Roman rite does not now contain any
clear epiklesis at all.
Its absence, therefore, from the English rite, as an
invocation of the Holy Spirit, is not without parallel.
In the first Prayer Book of 1549 it was retained~ thus,
"Hear us (0 Merciful "Father), we beseech Thee, and
with Thy Holy Spirit and Word vouchsafe to bless
and sanctify these Thy gifts, and creatures of Bread
and Wine, that they may be unto us the Body and
Blood of Thy most dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ."
This form was almost certainly modelled upon the
form in the Liturgy of St. Basil. The prayer later
in the Canon, corresponding to the Supplices of the
Roman rite, was then made to read, that" our prayers
and supplications" might be brought before the sight
of God's Divine Majesty. This epiklesis was removed
in 1552 in favour of the present prayer.
It is oneof the greatest difficulties in the'Roman
Liturgy to account for the absence of the Epiklesis,
and the similarity of the Roman and English rites in
this particular is, in the light of history, the nemesis
of ignorance.
The first witness to the Invocation of the Holy
1 In Connolly, Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, pp. 135-9'
2 Church Quarteri), Review, July 1908.
Ghost at this point is St. Cyri! of Jerusalem. 1 Before

this time there is no evidence to prove its existence,
but it soon after appears throughout the East, and is
i, found also in the West. It seems, therefore, that dur-
ing the fourth century it became general. Normally,
! ,
: I as we have said, it comes after Consecration, following
naturally from the Commemoration of the Ascen-
I sion. This does not, however, prove that it always
came at this point. There is a double epi\desis,
before and after Consecration, in the Alexandrine
Liturgies.2
If the Quam Oblationem (to which our prayer,
"Hear us, 0 Merciful Father," corresponds) be re-
garded as the Epiklesis of the Roman rite, it is but
another example of the Invocation before Consecration.
The Invocation of the Holy Spirit to bless and
sanctify the offerings is a common idea, and may be ·
! traced in various places in different rites. If it be
remembered that a liturgy is, in reality, a single thing,
a united act, it matters little where the Invocation
comes. Apparently its usual and natural position,
at the end of the Anamnesis, is fixed by the idea of
Pentecost.
It has been disputed whether the Roman rite ever
had an Epildesis of the Holy Ghost. It seems
probable that it did. Pope Gelasius I, at the end
l of the fifth century, seems to refer to it: "Quomodo

ad divini mysterii consecrationem coelestis Spiritus
invocatus adveniet, si . . . . " Though both Mgr.
1 Cat. 1l1;),st. P. C. xxxiii. 1072 et seq.
2 Salaville, La double Epiclese, p. '33.
Batiffol 1 and E. Bishop seem to be against such a
view, it is difficult to assign any other reasonable
meaning to the words. The" Supplices," as it now
stands, is the remainder of the old Roman Invoca-
tion. "The prayer, Supplices te rogamus . . . both
by its place and its form . . . plainly suggests the
ghost of an Invocation with all the essential part
left out." 2
To account for the omission is not an easy matter,
but it is probable that, in the attempt to define the
"form" of the Sacrament, the growing conviction in
the West that Consecration was effected solely by
the use of our Lord's words, had much to do with
it. In the De Sacramentis of the Pseudo-Ambrose
(d. 400) the passage occurs:·" Ubi venitur ut con-
. ficiatur venerabile Sacramentum jam non suis verbis
utitur sacerdos sed utitur sermonibus Christi. Ergo
sermo Christi hoc conficit Sacramentum." By the
time of St. Thomas Aquinas this opinion had become
general: "Alii dixerunt quod haec clictio hoc in hoc
locutione facit demonstrationem non ad sensum, sed
:Id intellectum, ut sit sensus: Hoc est corpus meum,
id est, significatum per hoc, est corpus meum. Sed
nec hoc stare potest, quia cum in sacramentis hoc
eJliciatur quod signijicatur non fieret per hanc formam
ut Corpus Christi sit in hoc sacramento secundum
veritatem," et seq.3 The Epiklesis of the Holy
Spirit had disappeared by the time of the Gelasian
Sacramentary.
1 Revue du Clerg/ Fran~az's, Dec. 1908.
2 Fortescue, pp. 110, I J I . 3 Sum. Th eol. iii. q. Ixxviii. art. 5.
~ I .
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
The Invocation in the English rite is addressed to

the Father. This practice of pn invocation, but not
of the Holy Spirit, is not, however, an isolated pheno-
menon. The Liturgy of St. Mark in the Coptic
Church 1 has an invocation addressed to God the
Son, so has the Mozarabic rite. Tht;! Prayer Book
of Sarapion also gives an Epiklesis of the Logos
immediately following the Consec~ation.
The third part of the prayer gives us the actual
words of consecration. The form is-composite. The "
phrase, "in the same night," is, as we have seen, the
Eastern form-the usual form in the West is "qui
pridie." The Consecration of the Bread is, broadly
speaking, Pauline, with the addition, "gave it to His
"\, disciples," from the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the
tl~' words, "which is given for you," from St. Luke.
The Consecration of the Chalice is based on St.
Ma'tthew, with the Pauline addition, "This do in
memory of Me." With the single exception of the
Didache, which puts the chalice first in order, all
rites consecrate fir:;t the bread and then the wine.
The formula, " Likewise after supper," is general in
all liturgies, and makes it clear that this refers to
the fourth or Hallel Clip.
The "manual acts are of considerable importance,
and give in comparati\'e detail the method by which
the Church of England expects her clergy to order
themselves at this point. The first instructs: "Here
the Priest is to take the Paten into his hands." This
is the first mention of the paten. Originally it was
1 Brightman, p_ 148,
a large, flat silver dish 1 used for the purpose of col- ~t

lecting the offerings of bread and wine made by the .i
faithful, and afterwards to distribute the loaf broken .••
by the celebrant to the communicants. It was not
always made of precious metal: it is probable that
wood and copper were used in early days, and glass
patens are mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis. 2
The use of these large patens fell into abeyance
with the decline of frequent communion, i. e. towards
the ninth century. A writer of the eleventh century
tells us that by this time the offering of bread and
wine by the faithful at the Offertory had ceased. 3
The custom grew up for the priest to use a paten
(naturally a smaller one) on the Altar, to obviate the
possible irreverence which might result from the
scattering of crumbs. In the East the" discus" is
used, much larger in size than a modern paten. The
old practice was to consecrate upon the corporal, but
the rubric ~akes it quite clear that this is not the
intention of our rite to-day.
The second rubric reads, "And here to break the
Bread." 4 This is an ancient ceremony, and particular
emphasis is laid upon it in our rite. It is found in
the Gospel narratives, and it has been consistently
used in the Church. In fact, few ceremonies are
more primitive. There is, moreover, considerable
mediceval testimony to its continued use as an im-
portant manual act. . In 1546 Bishop Gardiner of
1 "patenae ministeriales." 2 i. 61, 139. 3 Pullan, p. 57.
4 Cf. for a different and unfavourable· view. of the manual acts
in the English rite, Staley, Ti'e lVanual Ads (Alcuin Club
P. Bk. Revision Pamphlets).
TirE Book OF COMMON PRAVER 93
Winchester issued a pamphlet called, A Detection

of the Devil's Sophistries, in which the presence of
the faithful at the Latin Eucharist is described in the
words," When they saw the Host broken in the Mass."
A fifteenth-century MS. contains the words, "Like
as ye see the Host divided." 1 The prominence which
is given to the action in the Prayer Book is an
accentuation of an ancient and divine ceremony, a
ceremony which is full of meaning, and which, in
Apostolic days, gave its name to the whole service.
Apparently, since the Fraction is to take place in
the presence of the people, the priest is intended to
put the paten down again and to break the bread
somewhere about shoulder high, so as to be seen by
those around him. There is no direction, and certainly
no precedent for his turning half-way round to do so.
The Fraction before Consecration is unusual, and is
peculiar to the Church of England. It is, perhaps, of
ancient existence in England. 2
The fourth direction is, "Here he is to take the
Cup into his hand." The reading "hand" is not
absolutely certain. s Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode's
Book of Common Prayer from the Original lvlS.
prints" hands," but in allY case" hands" is the mean-
ing, as the rubric before the prayer says. The Roman
Canon also says, "venerabiles manus." It may have
been the fact that our Lord so handled the chalice
1 Wickham Legg, Tracts on the llfass, p. 27.
2 Blunt, op. cit. ad loco
a In the facsimile of the MS. A1t1texed it is plainly" hands,"
but in the printed book of 1636, from which the MS. was written,
it is clearly" hand."
94 THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE of'
Himself. Ancient chalices often had two handles ,
e. g. the famous fresco "Fractio panis," for instance,
in . the so-called "CapelIa Graeca" in the catacomb
of St. Priscil1a on the Via Salaria Nova, which shows
a two-handled cup standing immediately before the
celebrant.
The fifth direction, "And he~e to lay his hand
upon every vessel (be it Chalice or Flagon) in which
there is any Wine to be consecrated," is parallel to
the third, "And here to lay his hand upon all the
Bread." These directions seem to have been added
for actual certainty as to what is intended to be
consecrated. The ceremony is new, but it is suffi-
ciently sober and indicative to be obvious and accept-
able. The Twentieth Canon speaks of "a clean and
sweet standing pot or stoup of pewter, if not of purer
metal," which may be what the rubric means by
flagon. It was apparently simply a large cruet, such
as were known in old days, as, for instance, the" two
gilt cruets, that did hold a quart apiece." 1
The chalice is the most ancient of all Euchari?tic
vessels, and the most important. What exactly the
cup used by our Lord at the Last Supper was like
we cannot say for certain. The fresco preserved
above, which suggests that. the two-handled chalice
was in very early use among Christians, supplies us
with an old tradition, but this suggests only a proba-
bility that our Lord may have used this shape of
chalice. The story of the Holy Grail is of late date
and is quite untrustworthy, so that it gives no help.
1 Rites of Durham, Surtees Society, p. 8.
In the sixth century a relic purporting to be the

actual cup used in the Upper Room was shown in
Jerusalem; two others were shown in later centuries,
one at Genoa of green glass, the other at Valencia of
agate.
In early days chalices, according to Hefele, seem
to have been made of glass, ivory, wood, clay, and of
base metals, but the precious metals must have been
preferred for the purpose at an early date. Both
St. Augustine 1 and St. Chrysostom 2 speak of gold
chalices, the latter says set with jewels.
Three forms of chalice were in use in early days.
The amula~, which were very large, were used at the
Offertory. They may correspond to what the rubric
refers to later as a "flagon." The calix sanctus was
the sacrificial chalice used by the priest for ordinary
purposes in the Mass. The calices ministeriales
were used for giving Communion to the faithful,
especially on big feasts when large numbers com-
municated.
The Prayer of Consecration ends with a solemn
"Amen," which, from its being printed in italics,
must be understood as being intended to be said by
the whole congregation present. It is a Hebrew
word which means to "confirm" or "strengthen."
"So frequent was this Hebrew word in the mouth
of our Saviour that it pleased the Holy Ghost to
perpetuate it in the Church of God," says the
Catechism of the Council of Trent. It is a Biblical
feature in the liturgy, suggested, no doubt, by St.
• 1 Contra Cresc. iii., cxxix. 2 Hom. i. in Matt.
Paul's phrase in ( Cor. xiv. 16. The Apostle's
.0 aft~'/J seems to indicate a rec ognised and known
response. It comes always at the end of the Canon,
but in our own rite when the Canon was broken in
two it was added at this point. The Explicatio '
MisSCE, published by Gerbert, explains it thus:
"Amen is a ratification by the faithful of that J
which has been said, and it may be interpreted in '
our tongue as if they all said, May it so be done as
the priest has prayed." Justin, in his description
of the Eucharist, refers to it in his day, "When he"
(i. c. the president) " has ended the prayers and thanks-
giving," (i. e. after Consecration) "all the people
that are present forthwith answer with acclamation,
Amen."!
The rubrics give no directions for the priest to
genuflect after consecrating. This is a recurrence
to an older state of things. Genuflection, in the
form in which we know it now, is peculiar to the
Roman rite of post-medi~val days. The older
Roman Missals make no mention of it. It was
recognised in a semi-official manner first somewhere
about the year 1500. Its first incorporation into
the rubrics of Roman Liturgy (to which it is peculiar)
dates only from the Missal of Pope Pi us V in the
year 1570. It is not the universal custom of the
Roman Communion even to this day. The Car-
thusians have never, strictly speaking, adopted it;
1 I AjJol. lxv., P.G. vi. 428. See the history of the use of
the word in Cabrol and Le Clercq, Diet. d'arch. Cllret., i.
1554-73·
TilE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 97
while theCistercians still only bow. This was the
original, natural and ' primitive custom, and, as will
be seen later, this is the practice which the Prayer
Book seems to assume will be continued. The
absence of constant and explicit directions on this
point constitutes no argument against the use of a
bodily reverence, for the simple reason that ceremonial
directions are the growth of later days. The older
missals left them always to that tradition and custom
which was handed down from one generation of priests
to another. That the English Prayer Book was com-
posed under the influence of this tradition is clearly
manifest in several places, seeing that directions
for the most necessary things are omitted. It is
assumed that the priest will know what is .the
Church's habit with regard to the matter.
The r,ubrics are quite silent, . moreover, as to the
practice of elevation. By elevation we mean that
elevation immediately after the Consecration of the
Elementswbich is so familiar a feature of Eucharistic
worship to-day.
The primitive practice was to elevate theconse-
crated elements at the time of the communion of
the people. This, of course, must always happen
in some form or other, and it was accentuated partly
to exhibit to the faithful the holy gifts of which they
were about to partake, .and partly to indicate that
theactuai timeoL communion . had arrived.
This, however, isa ceremony of a different nature.
Since the ninth century, or before,.it ,had been
the custo,ll1 to elevate slightly ~he elements at
G
the "omnis honor et gloria," at the very end of
the Canon. Dom Cabrol sees in this an invitation
to the people to worship at the time when the
Consecration Prayer had come to an end. The
later custom of elevation immediately after each
separate consecration is a modern ceremony. The
earliest directions with regard to it are those of
..
;
. Eudes de Sully, the Bishop of Paris, at the close of
the eleventh century. The custom had been, at the
Consecration of the Bread, to lift it as high as the
breast, to hold it so during the Consecration, and ·
then to lay it down again. This may be the origin
of our own rubric: "break the Bread before the
people." The custom grew up of holding it a few
minutes longer to stimulate the worship of the
people. Father Thurston, S. J.,1 denies that this is
the same thing as the modern elevation. He traces
this latter, not to the protest against the heresy of
Berengarius, but to a desire to disown and oppose
the teaching of Peter Manducator, the chancellor,
and Peter Cantor, one of the professors of the
University of Paris in the thirteenth century. This
teaching was, that the separate consecrations were
not effective by themselves, and that the Consecration
of the Bread did not come to pass until the Con-
. sec ration of the Chalice. The Adoration of the
Host immediately after its consecration, and the
elevation to show it to the people for the same
purpose, formed a practical denial of this teaching.
There was no such motive in Elevation of the
1 The Tablet, Oct. 19, Oct. 26, Nov. 2, 1907:
Chalice, and the custom of so doing was only slowly
introduced. St. Alban's Abbey did n"t adopt it
until nearly the middle of the fifteenth century,
and the Carthusian Order have no real Elevation of
the Chalice even to this day.
The Reformers were particularly averse from
elevation. In the Order of Communion (1548) a
second elevation was forbidden if a reconsecration
of wine was required, but it was not forbidden in
its ordinary place. I n 1549, however, the first
Prayer Book provided that the Consecration was
to take place "without any elevation or showing
the Sacrament to the people." This rubric was
left. out in 1552, and so were all the other directions
for manual acts. The spirit of the 1552 book is
such that it is impossible to contend that the
omission of the prohibition restored the practice.
It is more likely that elevation had ceased, and
therefore required no more thought.
In answer to a widespread desire to do what
the Lord did, as well as to say what He said, the
manual acts were reinstated in the book of 1662.
Our Lord's "taking" of the elements w<l;s to be
continued by the priest. This, of necessity, involved
a lifting or elevation, but no further instructions were
added, though the rubrical direction that the Fraction
is to take place "before the people," of necessity
implies that, at that point, the bread will be lifted
shoulder high: these ceremonies, however, have a
different rationale from the usual elevation after
Con$ecration. The latter is not in terms forbidden,
100 THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
but it is entirely out of harmony with the tone and

temper of the English' rite, and modern Roman
theologians l have been compelled to admit that the
practice, with all those ceremonies which have be-
come its adjuncts, has gradually tended to throw the
emphasis upon unnecessary and ceremonial actions,
and to distract attention from those central acts of
consecration and communion, which are, of course,
the very essen ce of the Eucharist.
"The last revision of the Book of Common Prayer
restored to our Church a complete representation of
what our Lord is recorded to have said and done
'in the same night that He was betrayed.' We
'tak€ the bread' and' take the cup' as He Himself
did, we say the words of institution which we believe
that He said, we break the bread and bless the cup
as He did, and we perform these significant actions
openly in the sight of the people, and thus' proclaim
the Lord's death till He come.''' 2
1 e.g. Fortescue, p. 345.
2 Bp. Drury, Elevation ill the Eucharist, p. I8!. It is
interesting. to find a prelate of Dr. Drury's school of thought
stating thus clearly that the "memorial" in the Eucharist is
made by the Consecration, not merely by individual reception
of Communion.
I
CHAPTER VI
THE COMMUNION AND OBLATION
THE rubric which follows gives the instructions for

the act of communion: "Then shall the Minister
first receive the Communion in both kinds himself."
Whether this is dogmatically necessary to a valid
Eucharist is not to our present point. What is to be
noticed is that the Church does not allow any such
practice as celebration without the priest's commu-
nion, nor have we any historical evidence -that she
ever did allow it. Without, therefore, making any
doctrinal statement on the matter, we are safe in
saying that, ~s a matter of discipline, the celebrating
priest's communion is essential at every Eucharist.
The Twenty-first Canon clearly enforces this as the law
of the Church of England: "Every Minister, as oft as
he administereth the Communion, shall first receive
that Sacrament himself "-in the second place, it is to
be administered to the other clergy who are present
_ u and then proceed to deliver the same to the
Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, in like manner (if any
be present) "-thirdly, to the faithful, "and after that
to the people also in order, into their hands, all
meekly kneeling." The order for the clergy, naturally,
is that of their ecclesiastical rank, as the wording of
IOI
the rubric suggests; save only that the celebrant, by
universal custom and by the instructions of our rubric,
communicates first, no matter who may be present
in the. church. The order for the people is the
traditional order, which comes down to us from the
Jewlsh Church, of men first and then women. That
the Church early felt that ecclesiastical rank should
be preserved in the receiving of Holy Communion is
witnessed to by the fact that, as early as the First
Council of Nic~a, a rule was issued forbidding the
deacons to communicate before the priests.
The administration of Communion to the laity is
assumed by the Prayer Book to be the work of two
ecclesiastics, that is to say, the celebrant and the
minister. The minister, of course, means a deacon,
or a priest acting as a deacon for the time being,
who would always administer the chalice. This
custom seems to have come down from the beginning.
Communion is to be given to the people" into their
hands."l This is a clear return to primitive ways.
Dionysius of Alexandria 2 tells us that it was the
custom in Egypt in his day, and Tertullian 3 bears
witness to the same custom, so does St. Cyprian 4
and St. Augustine; 5 St. Cyril, in his Fifth Cateche-
tical Lecture, gives the same testimony. St. C~sarius
of Arles and the Council of Auxerre both refer to
Communion being given. into the hand-the man's
1 The Bp. of Truro in Henson, Church Problems (p. 186 n.),

sees in this the emphasis of lay priesthood.
2 Epist. iv. ; P. G. v. 27 A. 3 De Idol. 7.
4 P. L. iv. 478. 6 Ibt"d. xliii. 58.
~ I
hand being bare, the woman's hands wrapped in the

" dominicalis," or linen cloth. This custom seem~ to
have continued until the ninth century, though the
Communion of the laity into the mouth was known
as early as Pope Gregory I.
The laity are instructed to communicate "meekly
kneeling.?> This is not the original position, In
early days the people stood to receive the Holy
Sacrament, and still do so under the Greek rites in
the East and in the Balkan Peninsula. 1 In Western
liturgies the custom survives only in the Pontifical
Mass of the Roman rite, where the deacon still
receives standing. Bingham suggests that the laity
received Communion on fast days kneeling, on other
days standing, that is, they received it in whatever
position they happened to be according to the litur-
gical necessities of the season. The Puritans opposed
it systematically in England. It would have been
I forbidden in the Prayer Book of 1552 save for
I Cranmer's intervention,2 and one of the demands in
the Millenary Petition in 1603 was that kneeling at
',I Communion should be abolished. The present Black
! Rubric (which will be discussed later) dates from
1552. It was not intended to condemn the primi-
tive practice, but because kneeling had come to be
identified with belief in the truth of the Euchar-
istic Presence of Christ, the contrary practice had
come to be revived, as being the signal for those
who denied it. In itself the attitude bears testi-
mony to the corporate faith of the English Church
1 llona. Rryum Liturg. ii. 17, § 8. 2 Pullan, p. 108,
in the Presence, otherwise to insist upon it would be
meaningless.
The two phrases of the rubric, "when he delivereth
the Bread," and "the Minister that deliveret4 the
Cup," read together, show that the Church in this
land kl10WS no such custom as communion in one
kind.
The practice of recetvtng the consecrated bread
alone in Holy Communion, whatever reasons may
be alleged in. justification, is a grave liberty. Until
the twelfth century communion in both kinds was
universal. Certain exceptions to the practice existed,
or had existed, but they were clearly exceptions.
Such were:-
A. The practice (not infrequent) of domestic
communion, in the form of bread only.!
B. Communion of the sick, in the form of bread
only, e.g. the death-bed of St. Basil. 2
C. Communion of infants,usually in the form of
wine only.3
D. Intinctio panis-both kinds received per
11l0dum cibi. Forbidden by the Council
of Braga, 675, but reintroduced in the
eleventh century.' Forbidden again at
Council ~f London, 1175.
E. Communion in the Mass of the Presanctified. 6
These are obviously deviations from the general
1 Tertullian. Ad Uxor, 5.
2 Vita Basil#/ P. G. xxix. 315.
• St. Cyprian, De LajJsis, 25 (by implication).
« Micrologus xix.; P. L. di. 989 et seq.
6 P. L. Ixxiv. 1105. Cf. also Bona. Rerum Li/urg. ii. xviii.
J
j rule. The withdrawal of the chalice from the laity

came to pass gradually. In the time of St.. Thomas
I Aquinas it was not general, for the saint speaks of it

as customary only "in quibusdam ecclesiis." 1 In
1281 the Council of Lambeth directed the laity to
receive unconsecrated wine. The Council of Trent 2
and the CQuncil of Constance 3 (1415), forced the
pt'actice on the Lati.n obedience generally. The
custom is simply Latin. The Roman theologians
do not attempt to claim that there is anything
peculiarly Catholic about it,4 though the average
Anglican would find it difficult to endorse Dr.
Fortescue's dictum that "whether the communicant
receive one kind or both . . . is a matter of ceremony
merely . . . the Church never made a principle of
communion under both kinds." 5 There must be
some special fruit of the chalice, otherwise it would
not have been instituted, and there is nothing to
justify a distinction between celebrant and communi-
cants in the matter. Yet there have been, and are,
exceptions to the present rule. The Council of
Basle (1433) allowed the Calixtines of Bohemia to
communicate under both kinds, on condition that
they acknowledged the doctrine of concomitance,
though this privilege was withdrawn in 1462 by
Paul 11. In 1564 Pi us IV permitted it in certain
of the dioceses of Germany, but withdrew it in the
following year. I t was allowed to the Kings of
I' Summa Theol. iii., q. Ixxx., art. 12.

2 Session XXI. 3 Session XII L
4 Fortescne, p. 376. . 5 pp. 376, 377-
France at coronation and on their death-bed. 1 At
St. Denis, in Paris and at Clugny, the deacon and
sub-deacon at High Mass received in both kinds.
To-day the deacon and sub-deacon at the Solemn
Mass of the Pope receive so; and millions of Uniates
are communicated under both kinds. Among the
Carthusians it appears that, viz. "Aux principales
fetes . . . Le diacre communiait alors sous les de ux
especes." 2
Communion in one kind was due, no doubt, to a
desire for greater reverence, seeing that the necessity
of communicating a number of people from a single
chalice requires, obviously, considerable care, if acci-
dental spilling of the contents is to be avoided. We
feel, however, that all possible difficulties must have
been foreseen by God's wisdom, and that to revise
and correct our Lord's institution is a questionable
way of showing reverence. Our present custom is
a return to the primitive practice.
The words with which Holy Communion is now
administered arc two forms put together in one. The
first part, down to the words "everlasting life," was
given in the first Prayer Book (1549) , slightly altered
from the Order of Communion, 1548. The second
part comes from the second Prayer Book (1552).
The combination dates from 1559. The omission
of the" Amen" should be noticed, as it was the
communicant's act of faith in answer to the priest's
statement. The original form for the Administration
1 Benedict XIV. D e Miss. Sac. ii., xxii., 11. 32.
2 Cabro) and Le C)ercq, Dict. d'Arch . C4ret., c, l047 .
of Communion seems to have been a simple state-

ment by the' priest as to what the element was that he
was delivering.1 The first part of our present form is
./ this statement expanded into a prayer, the latter part
~ was a new composition to express the reformed
attitude towards sacramental doctrine.
" If the consecrated Bread and Wine be all spent
before all have communicated, the Priest is to con-
secrate more according to the Form before prescribed."
This rubric, giving directions as to what is to be done
in the case of re-consecration, simply makes the best
of an admittedly difficult business. No rubric of the
kind existed either in the book of 1549 or in that
of 1552. It was the outcome of experience. The
practice had grown up among the Puritans of
administering unconsecrated elements under these
circumstances, and this rubric, introduced in 1661,
was intended to prevent it. The early medi<eval
custom had been to increase the contents of the
chalice by pouring into it unconsecrated wine, which,
it was assumed, would become incorporated with what
was already there-consecrated, as it were, by contact.
The later practice was to re-consecrate.
One Eucharist can, of course, strictly speaking, have
but one Consecration of the Elements, and to repeat
this consecration is more or less an act of confusion.
The fact, however, remains, that should the elements
become exhausted before the communion of the laity
is finished, something must be done, and it is in order
1 e.g. Apost. Const. viii., xiii. 15. "lw,I'a XPI(TTOV " or '''A,,I'"
XPI(TTOV 1fOT?,P'OV ,.,~r."
Brightman, p. 25.
1
to settle what is to be done that the rubric is given.
At the same time it seems clear that the Prayer
Book does not assume that the priest will have to
re-consecrate as a normal thing. The rubric at the
Offertory orders him to place upon the Holy Table
" so 'much Bread and Wine as he shall think sufficient,"
which implies that he will take some care to ascertain
how much he requires; and this form of re-consecra-
tion is simply given to cover cases of emergency,
" When all have communicated, the Minister shall
return to the Lord's Table, and reverently place upon
it what remaineth of the consecrated Elements, cover-
ing the same with a fair linen cloth."
This rubric, inserted in 1661, ensures the reverent
and respectful handling of the Holy Sacrament, and
its ceremonial veiling during the latter part of the
Canon. It seems to be clear from the word
"reverently" that the" bow" is the form of bodily
ceremonial with which the Prayer Book assumes the
elements will be honoured. It would be pedantic
to press the interpretation over much, but it is reason-
able to assume that the adverb" reverently" implies
"with a reverence," which, in the light of its history,
is exactly what the rite might be expected to
prescribe.
The veiling of the elements IS a suggestive
ceremonial injunction, which cuts the ground from
under the" receptionist" theory, viz. that the Church
·of England regards the Eucharistic species as sacred
only for the act of communion. The seventeenth-
century English 9ivines, inheriting the doctrine of
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 10 9
, the primitive Church, reiterated the old injunction to

cover the chalice, when not actually in use, with a
corporal.
1/ Something in the nature of a corporal must have
~ been used from the earliest times. The· second
Roman Ordo 1 speaks of it as being so big that the
deacon and an assisting deacon fold it up between
them-unless this really implies what we now know
as the" fair white linen cloth" which is spread upon
the Lord's Table before the service begins. At any
,j
L
rate, by the tenth century it had assumed normal
proportions, as it was a common custom to fold it
It up at the end of the Mass and put it away between
the leaves of the missal. ' Even then, however, it was
much larger than it is now, and when spread on the
Altar, the further part of it was brought up from the
back to cover the vessels. This is still the manner of
the Carthusians, who have never departed' from the
ancient custom. In the eleventh and twelfth cen-
turies, probably from an idea of greater convenience,
the corporal was cut jn half, and the old custo'm of
doubling gave way to the new custom of using a
"pair of corporals," one of which was spread on the
Altar, the other (folded) was laid on the mouth of the
chalice. . Our present rubric seems to imply that
a folded corporal will have been used in the ordinary
way, and that at this point the priest will unfold the
second corporal and spread i't over the vessels. 2 The
use in England of the continental "pall" to cover,
the chalice is a breach of ecclesiastical order. The
1 '
c. x. a Dearmer, p. 399.
lIO THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE OF
"pall" (palla) is no doubt the same thing as the
"corporal" (palla corporal is). It seems to be simply
the folded corporal stitched round the edge and
stiffened. But this would not unfold, and therefore
could not be used at this point as a i'veil," as the
ru bric directs.
We pass on now to the Lord's Prayer and the
Prayer of Oblation which follows it. Strictly speak-
ing, this latter is the end of the Canon, and came
immediately after Consecration, followed by the
Lord's Prayer. The Communion came then after
the Lord's Prayer. So it stood in the Book of 1549,
but in 1552, owing, no doubt, to Protestant influence,
this order was abandoned in favour of the present
arrangement. Their position in this place is abn ormal
and anomalous. I t cannot be denied that this is the
great defect of our liturgy as it ~tands to-day.
The Lord's Prayer is common to all Eucharistic :
rites except the Eighth Book of the Apostolical
Constitutions. Its position is not uniform. St.
Augustine 1 says clearly that it came in the African
Liturgy at the end of the Canon and before the Peace :1
-just where it comes in the Roman rite to-day. St.
Gregory I, however,2 tells us that he moved it to this
position. I t seems to have stood before this time
after the Communion. (?) In the East it comes
immediately before the elevation and Fraction.3 The
Gallican, Ambrosian and Mozarabic rites have it after
(
1 Serm. vi. P. L. xlvi. 836.
~ EPist. ix. 12. P. L. lxxvii. 957.
r
i :
i j
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER III
the Fraction. 1 It is admittedly no part of the Canon.

With regard to its present position in our service,
Blunt says, that « it was put to be recited among the
Sarum post-communion vestry prayers." "It is
probable, therefore, that this custom influenced its
present position . . . after Communion as well "as
after Consecration, the public and the private recita-
tion of it being thus combined." As an act of
corporate thanksgiving its position at this point is
a devotional advantage, but at the same time it is
liturgically unusual. "Then shall the Priest say the
Lord's Prayer, the people repeating "a fter him every
petition." This rubric was obviously intended for
~!
times when a majority of the congregation would, in
I many districts, be unable to read. It has been altered
ill by tacit and universal custom into repeating it "with JJ
t
" the priest. Yet the practice ordered by the rubric is
not an innovation. In all Eastern rites and in the
II Gallican Liturgy 2 it is so said. In the Mozarabic
rite the people say" Amen" to each clause.3 In this
I, place the Lord's Prayer ends with a Doxology-
which is almost identical with that given in the
Byzantine rite. 4
The Embolism is really the interpretation or
expansion of the last clause of the prayer, "deliver us
from evil." The Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John
Chrysostom do not contain it, but most Eastern rites
have it. It exists in the Roman rite, and in similar
1 Duchesne, p. 211. Z Ibid. p. 221,

3 Migne, lxxxv. 559.
4 Brightman, pp. 339-40, but it has no Embolism.
II2 THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE OF
forms in the Gallican, Ambrosian and Mozarabic
rites. In this last the Embolism is very beautiful, and
is said also after the Lord's Prayer at Lauds and
Vespers.
The Prayer of Oblation, which follows at this
point, is, as we have said, the later part of the Canon,
and is out of its place. This position for it is not
justifiable by any liturgical precedent, and the interpo-
lation bfthe priest's and people's communion, followed
by the Lord's Prayer, into the middle of the Canon
is without parallel. So far liturgically, but doctrinally
there is no necessary harm done. "If we remember
always that the whole Canon is one prayer . . . it
matters very little in what order. God answers that
one prayer by changing the bread and wine into the
body and blood of our Lord, and no doubt He does
so (according to our idea of time) before the whole
prayer has been spoken." These words of Dr.
Fortescue 1 are used in a slightly different connection,
but they exactly express the solution of the difficulty
before us. The prayer itself is based fairly consec,u-
tivelyon the second part of the old Roman Canon.
I ts opening phrase, down to the words, "praise and
thanksgiving," corresponds)o the" Undeet memores,"
but the Anamnesis is gone, and one phrase of it is
put below. From thence, down to the words, " His
passion;" corresponds to the "Supra quae," and , the
next part, down to'" heavenly benediction," is a com-
paratively close rendering of parts of the prayer
"Supplices." The rest is practically based upon the
1 P.353.
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER II3
spirit of the" nobis quoque." I t is possible that the

phrase, "we and all Thy whole Church," ii meant to
represent the Memento of the Dead, but it is much
more probable that it is simply a repetition of the
thought, and that the true Memento of the Departed
is at the end of the Prayer for the Church, which
would be its true place.
Il
CHAPTER VII
TO THE END OF THE SERVICE
THE Thanksgiving is now added as an alternate

prayer, and it forms (when said) a fixed thanksgiving,
instead of the variable post-communions of the older
rites. It was composed in 1549. The opening
sentences are adapted from the Sarum prayer placed
immediately after the priest's .communion. The
phrasing reminds us also forcibly of the Consumatio
Missc:e in the Stowe and St. Gall Missals, viz. "Gratias
tibi agimus ... qui nos corporis et sanguinis Christi
filii tui communione satiasti," a comparatively frequent
form in earlier thanksgivings. The Thanksgiving is
a beautiful prayer, replete with primitive feeling, and
has as melodious a cadence as any prayer in the rite.
The Gloria in Excelsis forms a magnificent but
unusual addition to the Thanksgiving. I t is a purely
Roman element in the Eucharist. None of the
Eastern liturgies contain the Gloria, nor does the
Gallican.1 It is found now in the Mozarabic and
Ambrosian rites, but it was inserted under Roman
influence in the; seventh or eighth century. Its
'original position was at the beginning of the service,
after the Kyries. So it was used in the Prayer Book
1 Duchesne, p. 166.
114
tHE :Book OF COMMON PRAYER iIS
:; of 1549. In 1552 it was moved to this point-why,

exactly, is not clear, though in some ways it is a great
gain.
The Gloria is a version of an ancient Greek hymn,
which goes back in one form or another possibly
to the first century. In one form it occurs at the
beginning of a morning prayer in the Apostolical
Constitutions.1 A similar form is found in Pseudo-
Athanasius De Virginitate. 2 It is sung in a slightly
fuller form at the Orthros in the Byzantine Church.
It was probably brought to the West by St. ' Hilary
of Poictiers in the fourth century. Originally it
was used only by bishops, though its use was
allowed to priests from about the tenth century,
first at Easter only, and then .at
all times.
The first Prayer Book permitted it, like the Creed,
to be omitted on work days, but its use now is
intended to be constant, and we have no right, in any
circumstances, to omit it. It is worthy of notice that
the address, " 0 Lamb of God," in the English version
of the Gloria is given in a threefold form. It corre-
sponds almost verbally with the ancient "Agnus
Dei "-a communion anthem inserted in the time of
Pope Sergius (700)3 to be sung during the space
occupied by the Fraction. It was ordered, in 1549, to
be sung, "during the time of communion," 'but in
! 5 52, under the pressure of Puritan influence, it was
omitted. It is by no means essential, though it was
a beautiful addition. It is wanting in the Gallican
1 vii. xlvii. I § 29. P. G. xxviii. 275.
3 Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, i. 376.
rite and in the Mozarabic. Its use in the Ambrosian
Liturgy at Requiems is a borrowing from Rome. At
first it was sung once; in the eleventh century twice;
in the twelfth century it had assumed its present
form. The ancient ritual Mass of Holy Saturday
still has 110 Agnus.
The rubric of the Ordinal seems to assume that
a Collect will be said here before the Blessing. The
rubric reads, '''after the last Collect and before . the
Benediction." It is possible that the last Collect here
referred to may simply be the Prayer of Thanks-
giving, which stood in this position before the
removal of the Gloria, and that when this latter
took place the rubric remained unaltered. It seems
more probable, however, that it was advisedly
allowed to remain unaltered, and that the six Col-
lects which are printed after the Blessing were
intended to be used at this point also. 1
The Liturgy is to finish with the Peace and the
Blessing, though the whole form is called by the
latter name. The Peace, according to St. Germanus,
came after the reading of the Diptychs. In the
Roman rite (the distinction between the Mass of
the Catechu mens and the Mass of the Faithful having
entirelY disappeared) this symbol of unity was moved
to the time of communion, an arrangement which
is as old as the early fifth century.2 In our present
rite this is impossible, as it came before the Fraction.
1 Dearmer, p. 400.
2 Letter of Innocent I to Ducentius of Gl!bbio in 416. P. L.
xx. 553.
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER I I7
I t is, therefore, given here in a form which is taken

from the Order of Communion of 1548, though
there is no real reason why it should not have been
I equally well restored to its original place.
Natural as the Blessing 1 seems in this position,
it is not a primitive element of the Eucharistic rite.
It was customary, doubtless, quite in early days for
the Pontiff to bless the people as he went away
when the Liturgy was done-and Micrologus tells
us 2 that priests had begun to do likewise by the
eleventh century, -but the Blessing was no part of
the liturgical text. It is, in fact, a mediCl!val custom
only. It was probably common at Low Mass by
'I
the early fifteenth century, but it is not to be found
i~ in the early missals. The form given in the Prayer
J Book is taken from the form originally used by
I celebrating bishops at the end of the Canon, and is
analogous to the one given in the Exeter Pontifical.
The rubricstiII orders that, if the bishop be pres~nt,
he shall give the Blessing in preference to the
celebrant. The phrase, "shall let them depart,"
indicates that the Blessing, like the old," Ite, missa
est," is the dismissal.
A series of six Collects follow the Blessing. They
are ordered to be used "one or more" after the
Church Militant prayer at Ante-Communion(H when
1 Brightman, The English Rite, cxi. "The Blessing, whi-ch
is an anticlimax after Communion, and no doubt came into
use just because the people had not, as a rule, communicated
in the Mass, never found its way into the English missals,
though it was sometimes used. It appears in the first edition
of the Roman Missal, 1474."
I Migne, cli. 991.
there is no Communion "). A permissive use of them
is granted "after the Collects," either of Matins,
Evensong, Communion or Litany. I t may be as-
sumed from this that they may be used as post-
communions also, between the Gloria in Excelsis
and- the Blessing. Of these prayers the fifth -and
sixth were composed in 1549 - the first, second,
fourth and possibly the third are from ancient
sources. The first is taken from the old Sarum
Mass for Travellers, the second comes from the
"Pretiosa," or short office said at Prime after the
reading of the Martyrology, the fourth is an old
Sarum Collect appointed for use on the Second
Sunday in Lent. It is possible that the third is
from a prayer in the Liturgy of St. James, but it
seems more probable that it, too, was composed
in 1549.
The final rubrics-dating from 1552 and super-
seding longer ones in the first Prayer Book-are
of considerable interest, and of no little importance.
The first has been partly dealt with already. It
gives directions for Dry Mass or Ante-Communion
to be said on all Sundays and holy days upon
which Holy Communion is not celebrated. Missa
Sicca was common in the West in the Middle Ages,
but has gradually either given way, happily, to more
frequent Eucharists, or has in some countries been
forbidden by authority. It consisted simply of the
introductory and final prayers of the Liturgy, omit-
ting the Consecration.
There was not any necessary connection in the
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER II9
earliest time between the Christian assembly for

prayer and the celebration of the Eucharist. More
usually they followed one another, but, as we have
seen in Pliny, they were not regarded as one, or as
necessary to one another. Dom Cabrol traces the
origin of the Mass of the Catechu mens, or A nte-
Communion, to the Vigil Meeting.!
It seems a pity that the assumption of Dr. Lee
and Mr. £urchas, that Ante-Communion is simply
a bad product of English Protestantism, should have
gained so much credence as it has. "A sham rite,
unfortunately peculiar to the modern Church of
England," 2 is a combination in one phrase of two
big blunders.
In the fifth century" Table Prayers" were in use
on Wednesdays and Fridays in the Egyptian Church,
and the same service, known as "typica," exists even
to this day in both the Greek and Russian branches
r
j of the Orthodox Church. In the Middle Ages in
the West, under the name "Missa Sicca," the same
is met with. Durandus gives us two descriptions
of it-one the Epistle, Gospel, Pater and Blessing
read in a stole; the other said in full vestments, and
consisting of the office of Mass to the end of the
Offertory, with the Preface and Post-Communion
added at discretion. We have knowledge of this
form of service being said at sea for the devotion
of St. Louis of France in 1254.
John Burchard, master of ceremonies in the Papal
1 Revue du Clergt! Frm/fat·s. Ao(\t, J900, p. 561.
Z Direct. Angl. 292.
Chapel, 1500, gives us a similar description of Dry
Mass in his day-said out of devotion when two
special masses fell on the same day-the Dry Mass
following immediately on the Mass and the Post-
Communion being added at the end. 1
Among the Carthusians the Dry Mass survives
to this day. 'Dom Degand gives us the following
description of it, as it was said in 1337. "Nous avons
vu combien etait' repandu la pratique du 'nudum
officium' conventuel; il est bon de dire un mot de
son mode de celebration. 11 suivait toujours une
messe a laquelle il se rattrachait sans interruption, et
le meme pretre qui avait chante la messe celebrait
aussi le • nudum officium.' Pour cela, les cierges
restant allumes, il differait la 'complende' et le
, Placeat.' A pres l'evangile, le pretre disait au mi-
lieu de l'autel, sans se tournait, ' Dominus vobiscum,
Oremus,' puis 'ad cornu epistolae' l'offertoire et
la Communion qui suivait la 'complende' ou post-
communion de la messe qui avait precede le 'nudum
officium.' L'office se terminait par le 'Dominus vo-
biscum,' le 'Benedicamus Domino' et le ' Placeat.''' 2
This describes the form of service when tile Dry
Mass was said at the Altar after the Community
Mass. Later on, when the revision of the Carthusian
Books came to pass in 1581, the same writer tells
us: "Le' nudum officium' est, supprime, et on le
rem place par un messe privee." This is a Low Mass
1 Wiekham Legg, p. 20 et seq.

2 Cabrol and Le, Clereq, Dist. d' Arch. Chrtt. fase. xxvii.
col. 1061.
!,I
TIiE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
of Our Lady said· daily, and the old Dry Mass is
now put after the office of Prime" de Beata" (t". e.
121
of the little office of Our Lady), and is said by each

monk in his cell.
The same was ordered for the Dominican friars
by Humbert de Romains, who first brought their
liturgical books into · order, and the Carmelites used
it also.
In the diocese of Milan, also, on Good Friday,
Easter Eve and the Rogations, the Dry Mass is
still said, and in Belgium it lasted until the end
of the sixteenth century. A great crusade, however,
was carried on by Estius and Cardinal Bona against
the practice, and almost everywhere on the continent
it has now been forbidden. Bona speaks of Dry
Mass 1 as "monstrous and repugnant to the institu-
tion and custom of the Church," which ought to
be "reproved and detested." The language seems
unnecessarily strong, and not quite applicable when
it is remembered that the Roman Missal as used
to-day contains a "locus classicus" of the Missa
sicca in the service for the blessing of palms on the
"Dominica in Ramis."
It is, of course, obvious that the Ante-Communiori
service can be wrongly used by making it a substi-
tute for the celebration of the Eucharist, which the
Church assumes will take place wherever it is possible;
,,' but for the purpose for which it is given to us, viz. to
be used on days when, for some valid reason, Holy
Communion cannot be celebrated, it serves now, as it
1 Rerum Liturg. i. xv.
did in centuries gone by, a useful purpose of devo-
tion. 1 The new elements in it as it stands in our
own Prayer Book are the addition of the Creed as
a fixed element, and the Intercession which, in the
Roman rite, would have been included in the Canon.
The second rubric was inserted owing to the in-
frequency with which the laity had come to receive
Holy Communion. "The laity allowed the clergy to
do what they ought to have done for themselves:
they liked the priest to communicate often, but they
disliked doing so themselves." 2 The primary object
of this rule, therefore, was not to restrain the priest
from celebrating often, so much as to stimulate the
laity to more frequent communion.
The third rubric accentuates the second, and pre-
vents the Solitary Mass, an evil which all Christendom
reprobates. s It does seem to make the priest's ability
to celebrate dependent upon the devotion of the laity.
Whether this was always understood subsequently as
being the case does not seem to be quite so certain.
Bishop Cosin, for instance, says: "Better were it to
endure the absence of the people than for the minister
to neglect the usual and daily sacrifice of the Church
1 The rubric of I549 allowed it on "other days except

I . Wednesdays and Fridays" ; in I552 it was restricted to holy
days, and in I66I even to Sundays.
a Pullan, p. 44.
3 The Decree of the Council of Trent, although it is not
obeyed, is worth noting in this connection: "Optat quidem
sacrosancta Synodus ut in singulis missis fideles adstantes non
solum spirituali affectu, sed sacramentali etiam Eucharistiae
perceptione communicent." Sess. XXII. Decretum de Sacrif.
Missae, cap. 6.
by which all people, whether they be there or no,

reap so much benefit." 1 .
The fourth rubric pursues the same line of endea-
vour, by insisting that wherever the conditions of the
previous rubrics may be assumed, there shall at the
least be an administration of the Eucharist every
Sunday.
With the fifth we have already dealt.
The sixth was inserted in 1661 to prevent profanity.
Some of the puritanically-minded clergy had been
guilty of removing what remained of the Holy Sacra-
ment to their homes, to be treated as ordinary food.
This instruction is intended to put an end to such an
abuse. "In recent times this rubric has been inter-
preted as a prohibition of reservation of the Sacrament
~ for the sick, but there appears to be no evidence to
show that any such prohibition was intended." 2 This
practice is often dictated by sheer necessity. To
reserve for the sick is of extreme antiquity. Justin
Martyr 3 mentions it as ordinary in his own time.
St. Cyprian 4 speaks of it in the third century, and
from those times till now there has never been any
break in the custom. There can be little doubt that
this is the ablutions rubric, and that all it is intended
to prevent is either the desecration of the sacred
elements, or the inefficient cleansing of the sacred
vessels. Something in the nature of ablutions must
.~. ha~e existed from the earliest times, though Christian
fervour and reverence rendered it unnecessary to issue
1 U'orks, v. 27. 2 Pu\lan, p. 136.
3 1 Apol. Ixxxvii. 4 De lapsis 26,
any instructions about the matter. The mention of
a towel, and the fact that an acolyte "held the water,"
in Ordo Romanus i. 1 and ii.,2 make it seem probable
that an ablution was made. By the time of the Ordo
Romanus xiv. the instructions were detailed and
complete.
Thus the development of the ablutions into a cere-
mony with prayers and actions of its own is media:val.
The Eastern rites, the Gallican and Mozarabic Liturgies
have not so developed it, and the Ambrosian rules are
borrowed from Rome. This necessary and practical
custom, dictated solely by reverence, and which could
only be opposed in the spirit of factiousness, was
clearly recognised by the Lambeth Judgment: "The
cleansing of the vessels appears to be not an improper
completion of this act (t'. e. the consumption of what
remains) which is ordered to follow the close of the
service without any break or interval." 3 This is the
opinion also of Proctor and Frere. " The rubric was
not intended to touch upon the question of the reser-
vation of the Sacrament for the communion of the
sick; it is only concerned with the consumption of
what remains, and authorised the ablutions by which
this consumption is reverently and adequately carried -'> j
out." The fact that, if necessary, "such other of the
communicants as he shall then call unto him" are to
help consume what rem ains, removes all excuse for
-,~~:" .-I
"
"
_neglecting to carry out this instruction. The assist-
ance of the laity in carrying out the ablutions was
1 P. L. Ixxviii. 947. 2 Ibid. 976.
3 Lambeth Judgment! p. IS.
,

an English mediceval custom 1 and the present rubric
may have arisen from that custom.
The seventh and ninth rubrics are purely practical
and need not detain us here.
The eighth rubric, however, is important, partly as
declaring what the Church of England considers to
be the minimum for her people in the receiving of
Holy Communion, partly as being a revival of earlier
and better precedents -in the matter than were com-
mon in the first half of the sixteenth century. "Every
Parishioner shall communicate at the least three times
in the year, of which Easter to be one."
It was very dear to the heart of the Church in this
land to restore the early practice of frequent com-
munion. "To turn the Mass into a Communion"
,~
was, indeed, a laudable object in view of the prevalent
slackness about receiving the Holy Sacrament. It
only became a false objective when it was assumed
that by encouraging the comm union of the laity the
Mass ceased in some way to be the Mass.
The facts that this great sacrament was instituted
in the elements of bread and wine, i, e. natural daily
food, and that the manna, which was gat.h ered daily,
is used by our Lord as a type of the Eucharist,
seem to suggest that it was intended to be received
frequently for the nourishment of the soul.
The writer of the Acts 2 seems to imply that in the
earliest days at Jerusalem the faithful received daily.
Whether this were the general custom or not, there is
ample evidence that the Holy Sacrament was always
1 F ortescue, p, 38 I. 2 jj,46.
administered on the" Lord's day," the" first day of
the week." 1 Later on there is also abundant testi-
mony to the daily celebration of the Christian
mysteries. 2 The general idea of the Church was
frequent communion for all, but even by the time of
5t. John Chrysostom it appears that the practice was
below t~e ideal. By the time of St. Augustine there
was a diversity of custom both as to celebrating and
as to receiving.3 The decline of fervour and the
spread of the Church, which of necessity brought with
it an infusion of worldliness, had led to a continual
lowering of the standard. In 734 the Venerable Bede
is heard lamenting the rarity of communion in Eng-
land." The degradation was, however, destined to
continue, and the Middle Ages witnessed the nadir.
The Fourth Lateran Council had to make the yearly
Easter communion binding on all the faithful under
pain of excommunication, and later on the Council
of Trent was constrained to express the wish that
"at every Mass the faithful who are present should
communicate." Almost at the same time 'the Church
of England turned her face towards more frequent
communion, an example which the rest of Europe
in these later years has seen fit to follow. The first
Prayer Book retained the rule of one communion, but
in 1552 the older requirement was restored, and at the
1 Acts xx. 6-11 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 2 ; Didache xiv. ; Justin, I. Apol.
Ixvii·37·
2 E.g. St. Cyprian, De Drat. Dom. cxviii.; St. Ambrose in
Psalm cxv. ; P. L. xv. 1461.
a EjJ. liv. ; P. L. xxxiii. 200.
, EPist. ad Egbert P. L. xciv. 66S.
J•
If
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER J27
last revision this rule was adhered to. The history of

the rubric makes it quite clear that the other two
times in the year to which it refers are Christmas and
Whitsuntide.
The final rubric is the famous "Black Rubric."
We have already noticed that the primitive method
of receiving Holy Communion was probably to receive
it standing, but, after the publication of the first
Prayer Book, the extreme Puritan party objected to
the attitude of kneeling, not because it was a subse-
quent development; but because it expressed a faith
in the Real Presence of our Lord in the Blessed
Sacrament. The whole controversy is unpleasant
reading, but the fact of the case was that this rubric,
with a phrase which does not now exist in it cate-
gorically denying the Real Presence, was inserted
under Puritan pressure into the Prayer Book of 1552.
Seven years later this rubric was deleted, and its
omission became one of the regular grievances of the
Puritan party. The Savoy Conference stated quite
clearly that it was unnecessary to replace it at all, on
the ground that" the world being now more in danger
of profanation than of idolatry," they considered the
statements of the Twenty-eighth Article to be adequate
to the purpose.
At the last revision, however, in 1661, the question
was brought up again and the bishops ultimately
decided to re-insert the rubric. But before this was
done, the words" real and essential Presence" were
exchanged for the phrase which now stands in it, viz.
"Corporal Presence." The effect of this change,
128 THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
which was due to Dr. Peter Gunning,! was to turn the

rubric into a protest against the doctrine of a material
presence of Christ's Body. Unless it 'had been in-
tended to teach the doctrine of the real and essential
Presence of our Lord in the Sacrament, it is difficult
to see why any change was made at all.
* * *
There are, perhaps, no words with which this book
* *
could be more aptly closed than the noble statement
of Archbishop Bramhall: "We acknowledge an
Eucharistic Sacrifice' of praise and thanksgiving; a
commemorative Sacrifice, or a memorial of the Sacri-
fice of the Cross; a representative Sacrifice, or a
representation of the Passion of Christ before the eyes
of His Heavenly Father; an impetrative Sacrifice, or
an impetration of the fruit and benefit of His Passion,
by way of real prayer; and lastly, an applicative
Sacrifice, or an application of His merits unto our
souls. · Let him that dare go one step further than we
do, and say that it is a suppletory Sacrifice to supply
the defects of the Sacrifice of the Cross. Or else let
them hold their peace and speak no more against us
in this point of Sacrifice for ever."2
1 Burnet, His!. Ref:. preface to vol. iii.
2 Works, i. Desc. lii.
PRt NTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD - CLAY & SONS, LIMITED.

BRl'N SWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.B. I, AND BUNGAY. SUFFOLIC.

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THE EUCHARISTIC OFFICE OF

. THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

LESLIE WRIGHT, M.A., B.D.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER: THE PARENT RITE. 13

I. TO THE END OF THE COMMANDMENTS • 26

11. FROM THE COLLECTS TO THE END OF THE

VII. TO THE END OF THE SERVICE 114

Brightman · = Brightman, F.E., Liturgies, Eastern and Western.

1 In the Dublilt Review, 1894. "The Earliest Roman Nfass

century, and he would prefer to call it the" Sacra-

Those who have grasped the native characteristics

The actual origin of the old Roman rite lies

MASS OF THE CATECHQMENS

MASS OF TilE FAJTHFUL

2. Pax. {Tert. De Orat. 18.)

THE Euchadstk rite of the Book of Common

Without attempting to determine the binding

Strictly speaking, it only denotes the Latin Liturgy,

Body and Blood of Christ. From that, throughout

" table" or " board" comes in pre-reformation litera-

1 Pullan, p. 55. 2 Edition by Henderson.

or Prophetic Lesson, and that" our variant of the

OF the Collects for the King, the first is ancient

Of the two Lessons now existing, the first is called

always), is a new alternative for the ancient response

I West, in some places, it was considered to be part of

1 Hefe1e.Leclercq, Hist. des cOllciles, iii. 225.

FOLLOWING the Creed come certain rubrics.

obviously erroneous. An instruction on the Scripture

The Offertory itself marks a division in liturgical

present Gradual consists of the psalmus responsorius

phrase "haec dona, haec munera" if, that is to say •l!..

they refer to the actual oblation of bread and wine at I

all. Pullan 1 contends that they do not, and that the

I THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 67

I I was the general English custom In .old days,! and js

mony to the fact that no real ptinciple is involved

considered under the invitation, " L,et us pray," which

1 Cuthbert Atchley, English Ceremonial, p. 22.

With regard to the arrangement of the I nter-

the poor for general purposes. The idea is the same,

AFTER the Prayer for the Church are printed the

one contained, in its original form, a strongly worded

first half of the present form. The communicants

Consecration in the Liturgies of St. Mark and St.

WITH the Sursum Corda we enter upon the most

The mention of the Angels, which is universal, led

give the reading, "Lord God of Sabaoth," which we

the prayers before Communion which follow the

same question in principle had been raised at the

the Fraction, and it refers solely to this action, not

Eucharist, there was something in the nature of a

I'1 In the Western rites, the corresponding prayer would

Ghost at this point is St. Cyri! of Jerusalem. 1 Before

l of the fifth century, seems to refer to it: "Quomodo

The Invocation in the English rite is addressed to

a large, flat silver dish 1 used for the purpose of col- ~t

Winchester issued a pamphlet called, A Detection

In the sixth century a relic purporting to be the

but it is entirely out of harmony with the tone and