Introductory Notice

to

the Early Liturgies.

It is in curious contrast with the work of Brett and others like-minded that we have in these Edinburgh translations a reflection from the minds of divines who are unused to liturgies, and who have no interest in their elucidation. For the mere reader this is not an advantage; but the student who goes to the originals will find that it affords at times no inconsiderable help. These translations are “inartificially drawn,” as the lawyers say. They are so much Greek and Latin rendered grammatically by competent scholars, who have no theories to sustain, and who are equally devoid of technique and of a disposition to exhibit it for the support of preconceptions. Not infrequently one gets a new view of certain stereotyped expressions from the way in which they are here handled. The liturgiologist finds his researches freshened by etymologies he had hardly thought of, here literally rendered. Of course, these are mere specimens, and no one can use them for argument, except by comparison with the Greek, or the Latin of Renaudot, or the originals in Syriac or Coptic; but they will prove very useful in many ways. The whole science is in its infancy; and we have no specimen of a primitive liturgy unless it be the Clementine, so called. The specimens here given are like cloth of gold (Ps. xlv. 13), moth-eaten and patched, and spangled over with tinsel; and the true artist has only the one object in view,—to restore it, that is, to the king’s daughter, as it was aforetime.  

The following is the announcement of the Messrs. Clark in the Edinburgh edition: “The Liturgy of St. James has been translated by William Macdonald, M.A.; that of the Evangelist Mark by George Ross Merry, B.A.; and that of the Holy Apostles by Dr. Donaldson.”  

It will be observed that the translations are given in the Edinburgh series with hardly a line of comment, and with no editorial helps to the reader whatever. These have been scantily supplied, here and there, where the case seemed to require some elucidation; and in a few instances I have ventured to reduce a word or two in the rendering to liturgical phraseology.  

The interest which has recently been awakened in liturgiology, and which exists among the learned so generally, will justify me in stating somewhat at large the considerations which are prerequisites to an intelligent study of these compilations. I shall not depart from my rule, nor formulate my personal convictions; but I must indicate sources of information not mentioned by the Edinburgh editors, only remarking, that, while they have cited the learned and excellent Dr. Neale, with others who advance untenable claims in some instances, I shall refer to writers of a more moderate school, such as have taken a less narrow and more historic view of the whole matter. By claiming too much, and by reading their own ideas back into the ancient exemplars, many good and learned men have overdone their argument, and confused scriptural simplicity with the artificial systems of post-Nicene ages. Earnest and worthy of respect as they are, I must therefore prefer a class of writers who breathe the spirit of the ante-Nicene Fathers as better elucidating the primitive epoch and its principles, alike in doctrine and worship.  

Hippolytus, in a few terse sentences, has pointed out the epoch of David, in its vast import, as the dawning of Christianity itself.⁴⁰²⁰

4020

4021 Vol. v. note 2, p. 170.

But, to go behind even the Dean’s stand-point, we shall better comprehend the era of which, under God, Samuel was the author, by noting the immense importance of that specific Mosaic ordinance which not only made it possible, but which proves that an all-wise prolepsis governed the whole law of Moses. We generally conceive of the Mosaic system as one of unlimited hecatombs and burnt-offerings. On the contrary, it was a system restricting and limiting the unsystematized primeval institution of sacrifice, which had done its work by passing into the universal religions and rituals of Gentilism.⁴⁰²²

4022 Vol. vi. p. 542, Elucidation VI.

1. “When ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you,…then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you, your burnt-offerings,” etc.⁴⁰²³

4023 Deut. xii. 6.

2. “Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest; but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of the tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.”⁴⁰²⁴

4024 Deut. xii. 24.

3. “If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put His name there, be too far from thee” [i.e., for frequent sacrifices; observe, nevertheless, the law as to the sanctity of blood in thy common use of meats, and forbear to sacrifice, till the opportunity comes], “only thy holy things which thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt take, and go unto the place which the Lord shall choose; and thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God.”⁴⁰²⁵

4025 Deut. xii. 21, xiv. 24.

4. “Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God, in the place which He shall choose.”⁴⁰²⁶

4026 Exod. xxiii. 17; Deut. xvi. 16.

5. “Thou mayest not sacrifice The Passover within any of thy gates;…but at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place His name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the Passover.”  

Note, further, that all this provision and prevision was part of the great Messianic system, which reached its crisis in the time of David, as prophetic of “the Son of David.”  

It was the office of Samuel to take the Mosaic ordinances just there, and to shape them for the advent of the Lamb of God, for His sacrifice upon Calvary, and for the setting-up of His universal kingdom.  

The Institutions of Samuel, therefore, were in essence institutions for the Gospel-day, and they were completed by the anointing of David as king, and by his prophetic mission to provide the Psalter (of which more, by and by); then the Ark came out of curtains, and the Lord chose and appointed the place of which Moses had spoken,—none other than the spot where Abraham had rehearsed in type the Sacrifice and Resurrection of Christ, according as it was written:⁴⁰²⁷

4027 Gen. xxii. 14.

4028 Heb. xi. 19.

And next, the Psalmist commemorates the putting away of the migratory Tabernacle, and the rest of the Ark of the Covenant in the place designed for the grand accomplishment of redemption (“the sure mercies of David”), as follows:⁴⁰²⁹

4029 Ps. lxxviii. 67–69.

“He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which He loved. And He built His sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which He hath established for ever.”  

Thus, localized sacrifice was made to designate the spot where the one propitiatory sacrifice should be offered, “for the sins of the whole world;” and that spot in turn interpreted the great canon of redemption,⁴⁰³⁰

4030 Heb. ix. 22.

and all this, being accomplished in the Messiah, passed away for ever. The veil of the Temple was rent when Jesus cried, “It is finished.”  

And now let us note the “Institutions of Samuel.” The localizing of the Temple-worship made way for the clearer revelation of spiritual sacrifices: the Temple itself was to be supplied with an expository liturgy. Moreover, a liturgical system, revolving about the central worship of the Temple, was to be brought to every man’s door by the establishment of the synagogue for the villages of Israel.⁴⁰³¹

4031 Ps. lxxxiii. 12, lxxiv. 6.

We have seen that the hour promised by Malachi was supposed by the Ante-Nicene Fathers to be here intended: “My name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto My name, and a pure offering.”⁴⁰³³

4033 Mal. i. 11.

The student of this series must have observed that the primitive writers were universally impressed with these principles,⁴⁰³⁴

4034 This series passim; but, e.g., vol. i. pp. 138, 482, and v. p. 290, note 8.

4035 As above mentioned in his work on Prophecy. See p. 530.

1. We find the prophet Samuel instituting “Schools of the Prophets,” out of which grew the synagogue system supplying the Rabbinical education to Israel, and furnishing chiefs to the synagogues. See Acts iii. 24; and compare 1 Sam. x. 5, xix. 20, and 1 Chron. ix. 22.⁴⁰³⁶

4036 See also Cruden on the word “school” in his Concordance

2. We find the institution of choral worship and the chanting of hymns—e.g., of Moses and Miriam, and Hannah (Samuel’s mother)—in full operation under Samuel.  

3. We find David at this juncture inspired, as “the sweet singer of Israel,” to supply the Psalter, which in divers arrangements has continued among Christians to be the marrow of public worship “in every place,” and throughout the world.  

4. The reading of the law and the prophets was now set in order; and not only was the Temple supplied with teachers, but also the villages in every tribe.⁴⁰³⁷

4037 Dean Smith, Prophecy, etc., p. 124.

5. Thus the Christian Church was provided with a system of worship from the hour of its institution,⁴⁰³⁸

4038 Acts i. 4 (Greek), 14, ii. 1, 42, iv. 24.

4039 Vol. v. Elucidation III. p. 559.

4040 Ibid., Elucidation VI. p. 412.

6. It is most significant, that, as St. Paul was not present at the institution of the Lord’s Supper, he was, nevertheless, “not behind the chiefest of the Apostles,” even in this. He also “received” the whole knowledge of the institution, and became, in so far, the author of an original Gospel in his details of Christ’s great oblation of Himself. Hereupon, he adds the sacrificial expositions⁴⁰⁴¹

4041 See Field, Epistle to the Hebrews, London, Rivingtons, 1882.

4042 1 Cor. vii. 17, xi. 2, 25, 33, etc., xiv. 34–40.

This he seems to have done as “Liturge” and “Hierurge,” or evangelical priest,⁴⁰⁴³

4043 See vol. v. p. 409.

4044 Revised Version of 1881.

Compare, then, with the Scriptures, Justin Martyr’s account of the early worship of Christians; and after consulting the (so-called) “Clementine Liturgy,”⁴⁰⁴⁵

4045 See Apostolic Constitutions, p. 489, supra.

Here follows the Edinburgh Introductory Notice:—  

The word Liturgy has a special meaning as applied to the following documents. It denotes the service used in the celebration of the Eucharist.  

Various liturgies have come down to us from antiquity; and their age, authorship, and genuineness have been matter of keen discussion. In our own country two writers on this subject stand specially prominent: the Rev. William Palmer, M.A., who in his Origines Liturgicæ⁴⁰⁴⁶

4046 Oxford, 1832.

4047 London, 1849.

4048 Second ed. London, 1868.

4049 London, 1850.

Ancient liturgies are generally divided into four families,—the Liturgy of the Jerusalem Church,⁴⁰⁵⁰

4050 [Or of St. James, so called.]

4051 [Called the Liturgy of St. Mark.]

There is also a liturgy not included in any of these families—the Clementine. It seems never to have been used in any public service. It forms part of the eighth book of the Apostolical Constitutions.⁴⁰⁵²

4052 [It is most valuable, and indicates the usages of a period near the age of Justin Martyr. It is typical of an original from which the Liturgy of St. James itself is derived. It was probably used in Gaul, if not also in Rome.]

The age ascribed to these documents depends very much on the temperament and inclination of the inquirer. Those who have great reverence for them think that they must have had an apostolic origin, that they contain the apostolic form, first handed down by tradition, and then committed to writing, but they allow that there is a certain amount of interpolation and addition of a date later than the Nicene Council. Such words as “consubstantial” and “mother of God” bear indisputable witness to this. Others think that there is no real historical proof of their early existence at all,—that they all belong to a late date, and bear evident marks of having been written long after the age of the apostles.⁴⁰⁵³

4053 [A fair view of their origin is to be found in Sir William Palmer’s Origines Liturgicæ, Oxford, 1832.]

There can scarcely be a doubt that they were not committed to writing till a comparatively late day. Those who think that their origin was apostolic allow this. “The period,” says Palmer,⁴⁰⁵⁴

4054 Origines Liturgicæ, p. 11.

Neale⁴⁰⁵⁵

4055 General Introduction to the History of the Holy Eastern Church, p. 319.

1. The Roman Liturgy. The first writer who is supposed to allude to a Roman Liturgy is Innocentius, in the beginning of the fifth century; but it may well be doubted whether his words refer to any liturgy now extant.⁴⁰⁵⁶

4056 [If Justin Martyr describes the liturgy used in Rome, when he lived there under the Antonines, then it was nearly identical with the “Clementine,” and had reached them from the East. See vol. i. p. 185, this series.]

4057 Tübingen, 1870.

2. The Gallican has still less claim to antiquity. In fact, Daniel marks it among the spurious.⁴⁰⁵⁸

4058 νόθοι. Codex Liturgicus, vol. iv. p. 35, note.

4059 Palmer, vol. i. p. 144.

3. The Liturgy of St. James, the Liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem. Asseman, Zaccaria, Dr. Brett, Palmer, Trollope, and Neale, think that the main structure of this liturgy is the work of St. James, while they admit that it contains some evident interpolations. Leo Allatius, Bona, Bellarmine, Baronius, and some others, think that the whole is the genuine production of the apostle. Cave, Fabricius, Dupin, Le Nourry, Basnage, Tillemont, and many others, think that it is entirely destitute of any claim to an apostolic origin, and that it belongs to a much later age.⁴⁰⁶⁰

4060 [Here the weight of authorities is clearly on this side.]

“From the Liturgy of St. James,” says Neale, “are derived, on the one hand, the forty Syro-Jacobite offices: on the other, the Cæsarean office, or Liturgy of St. Basil, with its offshoots; that of St. Chrysostom, and the Armeno-Gregorian.”⁴⁰⁶¹

4061 General Introd., p. 317.

There are only two manuscripts of the Greek Liturgy of St. James,—one of the tenth, the other of the twelfth century,—with fragments of a third.⁴⁰⁶²

4062 [Palmer gives proof of its currency at an early period in some details. O. S., vol. i. p. 42.]

4063 Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1848.

4064 London, 1744.

4065 Vol. iii. [Grabe also attempted this.]

4. The Liturgy of St. Mark, the liturgy of the church of Alexandria. The same difference of opinion exists in regard to the age and genuineness of this liturgy as we found existing in regard to that of St. James, and the same scholars occupy the same relative position.  

The offshoots from St. Mark’s Liturgy are St. Basil, St. Cyril, and St. Gregory, and the Ethiopic Canon or Liturgy of All Apostles. In regard to the Liturgy of St. Cyril, Neale says that it is “to all intents and purposes the same as that of St. Mark; and it seems highly probable that the Liturgy of St. Mark came, as we have it now, from the hands of St. Cyril, or, to use the expression of Abu’lberkat, that Cyril ‘perfected’ it.”⁴⁰⁶⁶

4066 General Introd., p. 324. [From the poverty of ms. authority, we can only form a judgment by comparison with the Clementine and with other more fully represented originals.]

There is only one manuscript of the Liturgy of St. Mark, probably belonging to the twelfth century. The first edition appeared at Paris in 1583. The liturgy is given in Renaudot’s Liturgiarum Orientalium Collectio, tom. i. pp. 120–148,⁴⁰⁶⁷

4067 Editio secunda correctior. Francofurti ad Moenum, 1847.

5. The Liturgy of the Apostles Adæus and Maris. This liturgy has been brought prominently forward by Neale, who says: “It is generally passed over as of very inferior importance, and Renaudot alone seems to have been prepared to acknowledge in some degree its great antiquity.”⁴⁰⁶⁸

4068 General Introd., p. 319.

4069 Ibid., p. 323.

A Latin translation of it is given in Renaudot’s Collectio,⁴⁰⁷⁰

4070 Tom. ii. pp. 578–592, ed. sec.

The Liturgies are divided into two parts,—the part before “Lift we up our hearts,” and the part after this. The first is termed the Proanaphoral Part, the second the Anaphora.  

Trollope describes what he conceives to be the form of worship in the early Church, thus:⁴⁰⁷¹

4071 Introduction, p. 11.

4072 [Hence the value of these liturgies is to be sought in the points of their agreement and their comparative concord with the Clementine.]

Neale gives a more minute account of the different parts of the service. He divides the Proanaphoral portion into parts in the following manner:⁴⁰⁷³

4073 General Introduction, p. 359.

The whole subject is discussed by Mr. Neale with extraordinary minuteness, fulness of detail, and perfect mastery of his subject; and to his work we refer those who wish to prosecute the study of the subject.⁴⁰⁷⁵

4075 [A very fair reviewal of Neale’s theoretical statements may be found in Hammond’s Liturgies, Eastern and Western, Oxford, 1878.]

General Note by the American Editor.

I Have found a few less noted works most useful in my own studies, which began with Palmer’s Origines on their first publication, followed up by Brett, and then by Renaudot. The publications of Drs. Neale and Littledale are sufficiently referred to elsewhere; and I purposely omit the mention of many purely Anglican authorities, as well as costly works from other European sources.  

1. Freeman’s Principles of Divine Service, etc.⁴⁰⁷⁶

4076 Oxford, Parker, 1855.

2. Badger’s Nestorians and their Rituals ⁴⁰⁷⁷

4077 London, Masters, 1852.

3. Warren’s Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church;⁴⁰⁷⁸

4078 Oxford, University Press, 1881.

4. Scudamore’s Notitia Eucharistica;⁴⁰⁷⁹

4079 London, Rivingtons, 1872.

5. Trevor’s Catholic Doctrine of Sacrifice, etc.;⁴⁰⁸⁰

4080 Oxford, Parker, 1876.

6. Hammond’s Liturgies, etc.,⁴⁰⁸¹

4081 Oxford, University Press, 1878. Also Ancient Liturgy of Antioch, Oxford, 1879.

7. Burbidge, Liturgies and Offices,⁴⁰⁸²

4082 London, Bells, 1885.

8. Field’s Apostolic Liturgy and the Ep. to the Hebrews;⁴⁰⁸³

4083 London, Rivingtons, 1882.

9. Pfaffius, Christ. Math. His invaluable Dissertatio de Oblatione, etc.⁴⁰⁸⁴

4084 The Hague, Scheurler, 1715. Let me give the title of this rare book more fully, thus: S. Irenæi Fragmenta Anecdota, etc., quæ illustravit, denique Liturgia Græca Jo. Ern. Grabii, et dissertatione de præjudiciis theologicis auxit Christoph. Matth. Pfaffius Of whom see Lardner, Credib., i. 17. See vol. i. p. 574, note 5.

10. Marriott’s Testimony of the Catacombs;⁴⁰⁸⁵

4085 London, Hatchards, 1870. Valuable for its study of the “Autun Inscription.”

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