SACRAMENTS AND LITURGIES
[Sidenote: Baptism.]
In the centuries with which we deal the importance of Baptism cannot be
overrated. It was everywhere, in all the missions of the Church,
regarded as the critical point of the individual life and the
indispensable means of entrance to the Christian Church. When the
children of Sebert the king of the East Saxons wished to have all the
privileges of Christians, which their father had had, and "a share in
the white bread" though they were still heathen, Mellitus the bishop
answered, "If you will be washed in that font of salvation in which
your father was washed, then you may also partake of the holy bread of
which he used to partake: but if you despise the laver of life you
cannot possibly receive the bread of life"; and he was driven from the
kingdom because he would not yield an inch. The tale however shows
also that there were still on the fringe of Christianity persons who
were not baptized, not catechumens, yet still interested in the
religion and to some extent anxious to be sharers in its life.
Throughout the early history of Gaulish Christianity the same is to be
observed, and it is doubtless the reason why a number of semi-pagan
customs still survived among those who were nominally Christians, {177}
as well as those who still stood outside the Church. Baptism in the
case of many was a critical point in the history of a tribe or nation.
The baptism of Chlodowech was the greatest historical event in the
history of the Franks: it was of critical importance that the Franks,
with him, accepted orthodox Christianity, that he, robed in the white
vesture which West and East alike considered meet, and which was
sometimes worn for the octave after baptism, confessed his faith in the
Blessed Trinity, was baptized in the name of Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, and was anointed with the holy chrism and signed with the sign
of the cross. Baptism not only admitted into the Christian Church, but
was invested with the associations of the human family, and thus had
transferred to it some of the conditions in which students of
anthropology find such interesting survivals, of primitive ideas. The
conception of spiritual relationship was endowed with the results which
belonged to natural kinship. The sponsors became spiritual parents.
The code of Justinian forbade the marriage of a godchild and godparent,
because "nothing can so much call out fatherly affection and the just
prohibition of marriage as a bond of this kind, by means of which,
through the action of God, their souls are united to one another."
This led to the growth of as elaborate a scheme of spiritual
relationships as that which already hedged round among many tribes the
eligibility for marriage among persons even remotely akin to one
another. In the East, as in the West, baptism was most frequently
conferred at the time of the great Christian festivals, Christmas (as
in the case of Chlodowech), Epiphany, and especially Easter; and Easter
Eve became, later {178} on, especially consecrated to the sacred rite.
In the East baptism was often postponed till the infant was two years
old; and everywhere there was for long a tendency even among Christian
parents to hold back children from the laver of regeneration for fear
of the consequences of post-baptismal sin. It was thus that a name was
often given, and a child received into the Church, some weeks or even
months before the baptism took place. The Greek Syntagma of the
seventh century contains interesting information as to the baptism of
heretics. It is ordered that Sabellians, Montanists, Manichaeans,
Valentianists and such like shall be baptized just as pagans are, after
instruction and examination in the faith, and, after insufflation, by
triple immersion.
[Sidenote: Confirmation.]
Throughout these centuries baptism was not separated from Confirmation,
except in the case of some converts from heresy. The two rites were
regarded as parts of the same sacrament, or at least the former was not
considered complete without the latter. The sacramental life of the
individual in fact was to begin with his entrance into the Church and
never to be intermitted. Even infants were present throughout the
celebration of the sacred mysteries and partook of the Communion, a
custom which was only abandoned in the West because of the difficulty
of frequent giving of Confirmation and the consequent delay of that
rite till later years.
[Sidenote: The Holy Communion.]
Baptism and Confirmation was the gate by which the Christian was
admitted to the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood. The
celebration of that Sacrament was the chief act of the Church's worship
every Sunday and holy day, and in {179} Spain, Africa, Antioch, daily,
in Rome every day except Friday and Saturday, in Alexandria except on
Thursday and Friday: indeed by the end of the sixth century it seems
probable that in most parts of the Church a daily celebration was
usual. From the seventh century the mass of the presanctified, when
the priest communicated from elements previously consecrated, is found
in use on certain days, and in the East throughout except on Saturdays
and Sundays. [Sidenote: Frequent Communion.] It seems clear that at
least up to the sixth century it was usual for all who were confirmed
to communicate whenever they were present, unless they were under
penance; but the custom of noncommunicating attendance was growing up.
In the East a spiritual writer said, "it is not rare or frequent
communion which matters, but to make a good communion with a prepared
conscience"; while in the West Bede's letter to Archbishop Egbert of
York supplies an excellent illustration of custom. [Sidenote: Bede.]
The people are to be told, he advises, "how salutary it is for all
classes of Christians to participate daily in the body and blood of our
Lord, as you know well is done by Christ's Church throughout Italy,
Gaul, Africa, Greece, and all the countries of the East. Now, this
kind of religion and heavenly devotion, through the neglect of our
teachers, has been so long discontinued among almost all the laity of
our province, that those who seem to be most religious among them
communicate in the holy mysteries only on the Day of our Lord's birth,
the Epiphany, and Easter, whilst there are innumerable boys and girls,
of innocent and chaste life, as well as young men and women, old men
and old women, who without any scruple {180} or debate are able to
communicate in the holy mysteries on every Lord's Day, nay, on all the
birthdays of the holy Apostles and martyrs, as you have yourself seen
done in the holy Roman and Apostolic Church." It would seem from this
that frequent communion was inculcated by the first missionaries to
England in the sixth century. Bede tells also how in his day two
Anglian priests went on a mission to the heathen Saxons, and, while
waiting for the decision of the "satrap," "devoted themselves to prayer
and psalm-singing, and daily offered to God the sacrifice of the Saving
Victim, having with them sacred vessels and a hallowed table to serve
as an altar."
[Sidenote: Fasting Communion.]
The Sacrament was received in both kinds and fasting, and the priest
was forbidden to celebrate after taking any food; some exception to
this rule may be inferred from a canon of the Second Council of Mâcon
in 585 enforcing it, and the ecclesiastical historian Socrates (whose
History extends from 306 to 439) states that some in Egypt did not
receive "as the custom is among Christians," but after a meal. The
presence of the Lord in the Eucharist was recognised and adored.
[Sidenote: The doctrine of the Sacrifice.] S. Anastasius of Sinai,
probably of the sixth century, writes: "After the bloodless sacrifice
has been consecrated, the priest lifts up the bread of life, and shows
it to all." The Eucharist is continually spoken of as the holy
Sacrifice, the offering of the Saving Victim, the Celestial Oblation;
and it was offered, as the writings of Gregory the Great show, in
special intercession for the dead as well as the living. From the
beginning of the fifth century it seems to have been, at least
occasionally, {181} reserved in church as well as sent to the sick in
their own houses.
[Sidenote: The Roman mass.]
During the fifth and sixth centuries it would seem that the Roman mass,
the rite which has slowly superseded the local forms of service in most
parts of Europe, was undergoing the modifications which brought it to
the stereotyped form it now has. The severe, terse, practical nature
of the liturgy, in words, ritual, ceremonial, which is so
characteristic of the Roman nature, was being altered by the admixture
of other elements. This was especially the case, it is said, in France
and Germany, during the ninth century. Earlier changes had been made
by Gregory the Great, partly from Eastern sources. [Sidenote: The
fifth century.] At the middle of the fifth century the rite, in words
and action alike, was a simple one. The choir sang an introit, the
priest a collect, epistle and gospel were read, and a psalm was sung:
the gifts were offered, the prayer or "preface" of the day was followed
by the Sanctus, as in the East, and then came the Canon or actual
Consecration. After this was the Lord's Prayer, communion of priests,
clergy and people, a psalm and a collect and the end. The ceremonial
was equally simple, and was connected almost exclusively with the
entrance of the celebrant and his ministers, at which incense was used,
and with the reading of the gospel, where also lights and incense were
prominent. All else was simple and of dignified reticence. "Mystery
never flourished in the clear Roman atmosphere, and symbolism was no
product of the Roman religious mind. Christian symbolism is not of
pure Roman birth, not a native product of the {182} Roman spirit." [1]
This reticent character is most clearly found in the Gregorian missal,
which has been believed to represent the period of Gregory the Great.
More probably the assertion of John the Deacon that Gregory revised the
Gelasian Sacramentary is an error, and what is called the Gregorian
Sacramentary is simply the book which was sent by Pope Hadrian I. to
Charles I. between 784 and 791. But that S. Gregory did make certain
alterations is certain. They were three in the Liturgy, two in the
ceremonial of the mass. The Alleluia was ordered to be more frequently
chanted than before; and we find it used outside the Easter season
almost immediately after this by S. Augustine in England. He added
words to the "Hanc igitur" in the Canon of the mass, praying for peace
and inclusion in the number of the elect. He inserted the Lord's
Prayer immediately after the Canon. He also forbade the deacons to
sing any of the mass except the gospel and the subdeacons to wear
chasubles at the altar.
[Sidenote: The eighth century.]
It is thought that the great change, which made the Roman mass into the
elaborate rite it became, is due to the influence, at the end of the
eighth century, of Charles the Great, who with the determination of a
ruler and the interest of a liturgiologist made one rite to be observed
throughout his dominions, but enriched the Gregorian book with details
and ceremonies derived from uses already common in France. The study
of liturgies became common in the ninth century, and in Gaul additions
were made to the book sent by Pope Hadrian {183} to Charles the Great,
which were finally accepted throughout the greater part of Italy, the
Ambrosian rite in the province of Milan remaining different throughout
the changes.
It is natural that English readers should desire to know more
particularly of the first English Christian worship. How did the
Church's worship first begin in our own land?
[Sidenote: The rites of the Western isles.]
No doubt the Christians who received conversion during the Roman
occupation of Britain, and those of Ireland who were won by the
preaching of S. Patrick, worshipped according to the same rite as the
churches of Spain or the churches of Gaul, following that use which
survived in Spain generally till the eleventh century and in Gaul till
the ninth. Gildas, who wrote during the stress of the conquest of the
Christian Brythons by the heathen English, mentions one custom which
undoubtedly was Gallican, and which is preserved in the Gelasian
Sacramentary and the _Missale Francorum_, the one a Roman collection
which contains Gallican uses, the other a Gallican rite. It is that of
anointing the hands of priests, and perhaps deacons, in ordination, and
the custom was kept up after the conversion of the English, at least in
some parts of England in the tenth and eleventh centuries. But the
influence of the British Church was slight. It is of more interest to
us to know what was the first worship offered in this land by those who
were to convert our own forefathers.
Bede tells us how first Augustine prayed when he came before the
heathen king of Kent. Some days after their landing Aethelbert
received the monks from {184} Rome. [Sidenote: S. Augustine in Kent.]
They had tarried, it seems probable, under the walls of the old Roman
fortress of Richborough. They had waited, in prayer and patience, for
the beginning of their Mission. It was on prayer that they still
depended when they were summoned before the king. On a ridge of rocks
overlooking the sea sat Aethelbert and his gesiths, and watched the
band of some forty men draw near. Slowly they came, and the strange
sound of the Church's music was wafted to the ears of the heathen
company as they drew near. Before them was borne a tall silver cross,
and a banner which displayed the pictured image of the Saviour Lord,
The Cross preceding Him who floats in air,
The pictured Saviour.
S. Gregory, the great pope who had sent the mission, who had himself
long dwelt at the court of the emperors in Constantinople, had learnt
the value of _icons_, of sacred pictures, as texts for an appeal, or as
stimulants to devotion. Those who cannot read, he said, should be
taught by pictures, but pictures are valuable only because they point
to Him whom we adore as incarnate, crucified, sitting at the right hand
of God. As they came, they sang, and Bede says: "they sang litanies,
entreating the Lord for their own salvation and that of those for whom
and to whom they came." The litany ended when they came to the king,
and then Augustine preached the word. He declared, says an old English
writer of later days, "how the merciful Saviour with His own sufferings
redeemed their guilty world, and opened an entrance into the kingdom of
heaven to all faithful men."
The king bade them deliver their message, and they {185} sat--for it
was no formal sermon, but rather, as we should say, a meditation on the
things of God--and "preached the word of life to him and all his
gesiths who were present." Bede tells us the answer of the grave
thoughtful Aethelbert--"They are certainly beautiful words and promises
that you bring; but because they are new and unproved, I cannot give my
assent to them and give up those things which I with all the English
race have so long observed. But since you are strangers and have come
a long way, so that--as I think I can see clearly--you might impart to
us that which you believe to be true and most good, I do not wish you
any harm, but rather will treat you kindly and see that you have all
you need, and we will not hinder you from bringing over to the faith of
your own religion all of our people that you can win." And so he gave
them lodging in his own city, the metropolis, as Bede, as it were by
prophecy, calls it, of Canterbury. [Sidenote: The litanies.] Towards
Canterbury they went, still with litany and procession, and thus, Bede
tells us, it is said they sang--still carrying the holy cross and the
picture of the great King, our Lord Jesus Christ.--
"We beseech Thee, O Lord, according to all Thy mercy, that Thy wrath
and Thine anger may be turned away from this city, and from Thy holy
house; for we have sinned. Alleluia."
A tradition that lasted down to Bede's own day thus handed down their
words. There is great interest in this picture of Christian worship in
the heathen land, our own, that was to be won for Christ. It
illustrates the worship of the land the missionaries came from, as well
as serves as a pattern for the worship which the {186} English, under
Augustine's guidance, should follow. What was this litany? Litanies
at Rome were regulated by S. Gregory himself, and he was very likely
only revising and setting in order a form of service already well
known. But this very litany S. Augustine and his companions had most
likely heard during their passage through Gaul. There the Rogation
litanies had been over a hundred years in use; and these words form
part of a Rogation litany used long after in Vienne, through which
doubtless Augustine travelled. Thus the missionaries were using a part
of the Gallican service-books, and not of the Roman; and the legation
procession, which lasted so long in England, which still lingers in
some places in the form of "beating the bounds," and which in late
years has been here and there revived among us, comes to us with
Augustine from Gaul, and not from Rome, where it was not yet in use.
"Alleluia!" too, a strange ending to a penitential litany in modern
ears, was the close of Gallican litanies at Rogationtide, as later in
Christian England itself, and its use outside the Easter season was
especially authorised by Gregory the Great. And if Augustine's own
first public prayers were Gallican, so most probably was the use of the
chapel of the Kentish Queen Bercta, who was daughter of the West
Frankish king, and who had with her a Frankish bishop, Liudhard. But
his own use would be the Roman, just as his own manner of chanting,
long preserved at Canterbury, was after the manner of the Romans. And
thus, with the strong sense of unity natural to a man trained in the
school of the great Gregory, Augustine was startled at the contrast of
customs when it came to him in practical guise. Why, {187} the faith
being one, are there the different customs of different churches, and
one manner of masses in the holy Roman church, another in that of the
Gauls? So he asked the great teacher who had sent him. A wise answer
came from the wise pope, disclaiming all peculiar authority or special
sanctity for the use of Rome. "Things are not to be loved for the sake
of places, but places for the sake of things." "Select, then," he
advises, "from many churches, whatever you have found in Gaul, or in
Rome, or in any other church, that is good; make a rite for the new
church of the English, such as you think pious and best."
[Sidenote: English uses.]
All this, when Augustine's position is remembered, will be seen to show
how far Rome then was from arrogating to herself any strange supremacy
such as later days have brought. The first primate of the English was
allowed freedom to make an English rite. But, on the other hand, we
have no evidence that he did so. He preferred, we have every reason to
believe, the Roman rite, with only here and there a few changes or
additions. The Council of Clovesho, presided over by Cuthbert,
Archbishop of Canterbury, in 747, followed in his steps, taking in
regard to rites "the model which we have in writing from the Roman
Church." But none the less later English service-books show very
considerable Gallican influence. Celtic missionaries, and the
connection four centuries later with Gaul and Burgundy, left traces in
the way in which the service was performed; and England, up to the
Reformation, like all other countries indeed, had some distinct customs
of its own. Throughout the long history of conversion which spreads
over the whole island, it is noteworthy {188} that preaching and the
singing of litanies, as at the first coming of Augustine, are
conspicuous in the methods of the saints who won England to Christ.
[Sidenote: The Eucharist in the sixth century.]
What then was the service of the Holy Communion, as S. Augustine
celebrated it, and our English forefathers first came to know it? If,
as we suppose, it was the Roman, it would proceed thus. First an
antiphon, which came to be called an introit, or psalm of entrance,
with a verse having special reference to the lesson of the day or
season, was sung, as the priest, wearing a long white surplice or alb
and a chasuble (the robe worn alike by lay and by clerical officials),
entered with two deacons, wearing probably similar garments. In the
Gallican rite, as in the eastern, there followed the singing of the
"Trisagion": and in both Gallican and Roman the "Kyrie Eleeson," as in
our own office to-day, though we now add to it a special prayer for
grace to keep the Commandments. Then in the Roman rite was sung the
"Gloria in Excelsis," while in the Gallican the "Benedictus" took its
place. This was introductory. Now came the collect, the prayer when
all the people were gathered together. Then the Lesson from the Old
Testament, the Epistle, and the Gospel. Between the Old Testament
Lesson and the Epistle was sung the "Gradual," a psalm sung from the
steps of the ambo or pulpit, but gradually the use of Rome was followed
all over Europe, and the Old Testament reading was omitted altogether.
After the Epistle was sung "Alleluia" or the psalm called the Tract.
Then the Gospel was sung, introduced with special solemnity. The
deacon mounted the pulpit, seven candles being carried before him, and
the choir {189} chanting "Glory be to Thee, O Lord." After the deacon
had read the Gospel, a sermon was generally preached, but the Creed was
at this time not said. A short common prayer followed (in the Gallican
rite a litany), and then the mass of the catechumens was over, and
those who were unbaptized or unworthy to remain at that time for the
consecration departed from the church, a custom which has survived in
England under changed conditions.
Then, when the faithful only remained, the offertory was sung, and the
bread and wine and water were offered (the ceremonial was different and
much longer in the Gallican rite, and included the kiss of peace). S.
Augustine, if he followed the Roman use, would offer the bread and wine
himself, with the laity assisting: the Gallican use was to prepare the
elements beforehand, and now bring them into church in procession. The
priest then washed his hands and said privately a collect, while in the
Gallican rite he read from the diptychs, or tablets of the church, the
names of those departed who were to be especially commemorated.
Then followed the prayer called the Preface, and the singing of "Holy,
Holy, Holy." After this, in the Gallican rite, came a special prayer,
and then, as still in the Mozarabic, followed the recital of our Lord's
institution of the Sacrament, as in the English Prayer-book now; but
the Roman rite had also prayers for the Church, for the living and
dead, and both united in the prayer (called _paraklesis_) that the
elements might receive consecration from God, which was the
consecration itself until much later. Then the dead and living were
again prayed for, and the fruits of the earth were dedicated by prayer.
{190}
The Lord's Prayer, by the order of S. Gregory himself, concluded this
part of the service, which came to be known as the Canon, the
invariable part of the Mass. In the Roman rite the kiss of peace
followed, the faithful kissing each other according to the ancient
custom. Then the priest broke the bread, and said the Lord's Prayer
alone till the last clause. Then he placed a piece of the bread in the
cup, and received the Sacrament himself, afterwards giving it in one
kind to the clergy and laity, while the deacon followed with the
chalice. Before the Communion it was a custom taken from Gaul, which
lasted in England up to the Reformation, that the Bishop, if present,
should bless the people. A hymn was sung during the communion of the
people; the ancient "Draw nigh and take the Body of the Lord" remains
still to us from a Celtic source for use at this time. The service
ended with a "Let us pray" and collect after Communion, closely
followed by the second of the alternative post-communion prayers now in
our English office. Immediately after this prayer the deacon said
"Ite, missa est" ("Go: it is the dismissal").
In the English services to-day, while much is changed, and the language
is our own, we can still trace very much that has been used
continuously since the day when S. Augustine first said the whole
office of the Church on British soil.
Much more might be said; but this may suffice to illustrate the
interest and importance which belong to sacraments and liturgical rites
in the ages of which we speak.
[1] Edmund Bishop, "The Genesis of the Roman Rite," in _Essays on
Ceremonial_, 1904.
{191}