Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/345

ALEXANDRINE sing, cry out, praise Thee, and say: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts". And then aloud he goes on: "Sanctify all of us and receive our praise, who with all who sanctify Three, Lord and Master, sing and say" (and the people continue): "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord." After the long Preface the Canon up to the words of Institution is very short. The priest, as usual, takes up the people's words and almost at once comes to "Our Lord, God, and great King, Jesus Christ, who in the night in which he gave himself to a most dreadful death for our sins, taking the bread in His holy, pure, and immaculate hands, and looking up to heaven to Thee, His Father, our God and God of all things, gave thanks, blessed, broke, and gave it to His holy and blessed Disciples and Apostles, saying [aloud]: Take, eat [the deacon tells the concelebrating priests to stretch out their hands], for this is My Body, broken and given for you for the forgiveness of sins." ℞. Amen. The words of Institution of the Chalice are said in the same way. The priest lifts up his voice at the end, saying: "Drink of this all"; the deacon says: "Again stretch out your hands", and the priest continues: "this is My Blood of the New Testament, shed for you and for many and given for the forgiveness of sins." ℞. Amen. "Do this in memory of Me, …" And the Anamnesis follows, referring to Our Lord's death, resurrection, ascension, and second coming and going immediately on to the Epiklesis: "Send down upon us and upon this bread and chalice Thy Holy Ghost that He as Almighty God may bless and perfect them [aloud] and make this bread the Body." ℞. Amen. "And this chalice the Blood of the New Testament, the Blood of our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and great King, Jesus Christ." … The Epiklesis ends with a doxology to which the people answer: "As it was and is". Then follow the Our Father, said first by the priest silently and then aloud by the people, with the usual Embolismos, the Inclination before the Blessed Sacrament—the deacon says: "Let us bow our heads before the Lord", and the people answer: "Before Thee O Lord"; the Elevation with the words: "Holy things to the Holy"; and the answer: "One Holy Father, one Holy Son, one Holy Ghost, in the union of the Holy Ghost. Amen". Then come the Breaking of the Bread, during which Psalm cl (Laudate Dominum in sanctis eius) is sung, and the Communion. The form of Communion is: "The holy Body" and then "the precious Blood of Our Lord, God and Saviour". A short thanksgiving follows, and the people are dismissed with the blessing quoted from II Cor., xiii, 13. Some more prayers are said in the Diakonikon, and the liturgy ends with the words: "Blessed be God who blesses, sanctifies, protects, and keeps us all through the share in His holy mysteries. He is blessed for ever. Amen."

The characteristic points of this rite are the nine Kyrie eleisons at the beginning, the Offertory prayers said at the altar instead of at the Prothesis, and especially the place of the great Supplication before the Sanctus. This last circumstance causes the Consecration to occur much later in this Liturgy than in any of the others. It should be noted that the place of the Supplication is a difficulty in the Roman Mass. We say part of it (for the Church, Pope, and Bishop, the Memento Vivorum and Communicantes) before and part (Memento Defunctorum, Mobis quoque peccatoribus) after the Consecration. In the Antiochene use, and in all those derived from it, the whole Supplication comes after the Epiklesis. It has been suggested that the explanation of these differences is that originally everywhere the deacon began to read out the clauses of the Supplication as soon as the priest had begun the Eucharistic Prayer. They would then go on saying their parts together, the deacon being interrupted by the words said aloud by the priest. The point at which the Supplication ends would then depend on its length; and if eventually that point (at which the priest sums up its clauses in a collect) were taken as its place in the liturgy, it might occur before the Consecration (as at Alexandria), or after it (as at Antioch), or the Supplication might still be said partly before and partly after (as at Rome). The Roman use, then, would repress sent an intermediate stage of development (cf. A. Gastoué in Cabrol, Dict. d'arch. chrét. et de liturgie, Paris, 1904). But the parallels between the Roman and Alexandrine uses are too obvious not to suggest a common source for these Liturgies. There is the Kyrie eleison, said nine times in groups of three, as soon as the priest stands at the altar, just before the Trisagion which more or less corresponds to our Gloria in excelsis. There are, moreover, clauses and even whole prayers whose common origin with those of our Canon cannot be doubted. As an example, let the prayer said after the reading of the diptychs of the dead be compared with our Supra quæ and Supplices te rogamus. In St. Mark's liturgy it is: "Receive, O God, the Sacrifice, offerings, and Eucharist of thy servants on Thy holy, heavenly, and spiritual altar in the height of Heaven by the ministry of thy archangels … as Thou didst receive the gifts of Thy just Abel and the sacrifice of our father Abraham.…" There are other parallel passages no less striking; so that, in spite of likenesses between the Roman Canon and the Syrian Anaphora, it is with this Egyptian Liturgy that ours is generally supposed to have had a common source (Duchesne, Origines, p. 54). Socrates and Sozomen notice some peculiarities of the Alexandrine Patriarchate in the fifth century. On Wednesdays and Fridays the Liturgy was not celebrated (Socr., V, xxii, who says this is a most ancient custom). In this case, too, Alexandria and Rome follow the same practice, whereas that of all the other Eastern Churches is different (Duchesne, Origines, p. 220). The first two sees also agreed in having no Mass on Saturday; in other parts of Egypt there was a Liturgy of the Presanctified, and people received Holy Communion on Saturday evening, not fasting (Socr., ib., Soz., VII, xix, ).

III. .—After the Monophysite schism the Copts composed a number of liturgies in their own language. Three of these became the most inportant and are still used: those of St. Cyril, St. Gregory (of Nazianzus), and St. Basil. They