Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/546

Rh ANGELS 486 ANGELUS angels and the worship paid to God (Demonstratio evang., Ill, 3), and St. Ambrose recommended prayers to them. Kroni the fifth centurj', churclies were frequently dedicated to the angels; Umbria was especially noted in this respect, and in the East Angels, VI Cestdrt, Mosaic in San Vitale, Ravenna churches erected in honour of St. Michael were numerous. In the most ancient litanies the Arch- angels Michael and Gabriel are invoked after the persons of the Trinity and immediately before the Blessed Virgin. DiDRON. Iconographie des anges, in Annales arch. (1858"). XVIII 33-48; Marbiott, in Diet. Christ. Antiq., I, 83; Leclehcq. in Diet, d'arch. chrit., I, 2079. Maurice M. Hassett. Angels of the Churches. — St. John in the Apocalypse is shown seven candlesticks and in their midst the Son of Man holding seven stars (Apoc, i, 13, 20). The candlesticks represent the seven Churches of Asia; the stars, the angels of those Churches. He is bidden to write to the respective angels of tho.se Churches and distribute to each his meed of prai.se or blame. Origen (Hem., xiii in Luc, and Horn., x.x in Num.) explains that these are the guardian angels of the Churches, a view upheld by Dean Alford. But St. Epiphanius (Hser., xxv) ex- plicitly rejects tins view, and, in accordance with the imagery of the passage, explains it of the bishops. The comparison of a teacher to a star is quite Scrip- tural (Dan., xii, 3). St. Augustine's reason for in- terpreting angels of the Churches as the prelates of the church is that St. John speaks of them as falling from their first charity winch is not true of the angels [Ep., xhii (al. clxii), n. 22]. Hugh Pope. Angelas. — Present Usage. — The Angelus is a short practice of devotion in honour of the Incarna- tion repeated three times each day, morning, noon, and evening, at the sound of the bell. It consists essentially in the triple repetition of the Hail Mary, to which in later times have been added three intro- ductory versicles and a concluding versicle and prayer. The prayer is that which belongs to the antiphon of Our Lady, "Alma Redemptoris," and its recitation is not of strict obligation in order to gain the indulgence. From the first word of the three versicles, i. e. Angcbi.f Domini niintiavit Marioe (The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary). the devotion derives its name. The indulgence of 100 days for each recitation, with a plenary once a month, was granted by Benedict XIII, 14 September, 1724, but the conditions prescribed have been some- what modified by Leo XllI, 3 April, 1884. Origi- nally it w.os necessary that the Angelus should be said kneeling (except on Sundays and on Saturday evenings, when the rubrics prescribe a standing pos- ture), and also that it should be said at the sound of the l>ell; but more recent legislation allows these conditions to be dispen.sed with for any suiricient reason, provided the prayer be said approximately at the proper hours, i. e. in the early morning, or about the hour of noon, or towards evening. In this case, however, the whole Angelus as connnonly printed has to l)c recited, but those who do not know the prayers Ijy heart or who are unable to read them, may say five Hail Marys in their place. During paschal time the antiphon of Our Lady, "Kegina ca-li la>tare," with versicle and prayer, is to be substituted for the Angelus. The Angelus in- dulgence is one of those which are not suspended during the year of Jubilee. History. — The history of the Angelus is by no means easy to trace with confidence, and it is well to distinguish in this matter between what is certain and what is in some measure conjectural. In the first place it is certain that the Angelus at midday and in the morning were of later introduction than the evening Angelus. Secondly it is certain that the midday Angelus, which is the most recent of the three, was not a mere development or imitation of the morning and evening devotion. Thirdly, there can be no doubt that the practice of saying three Hail Marys in the evening somewhere about simset had become general througliout Europe in the first half of the fourteenth century, and that it was recommended and indulgenced by Pope John XXII in 1318 and 1327. These facts are admitted by all writers on the subject, but when we trj' to push our investigations further we arc confronted with certain difficulties. It seems needless to dis- cuss all the problems involved. We may be content to state simply the nearly identical conclusions at which T. Esser, O. P., and the present writer have arrived, in two series of articles published about the same time quite independently of each other. The Evening Angelus. — Although according to Father Esser's view we have no certain example of three Hail Marys being recited at the sound of the bell in the evening earlier than a decree of the Pro- vincial Synod of Gran in the year 1307, still there are a good many facts which suggest that some such practice was current in the thirteenth century. Thus there is a vague and not very well confirmed tradi- tion which ascribes to Pope Gregory IX, in 1239, an ordinance enjoining that a bell should be rung for the salutation and praises of Our Lady. Again, there is a grant of Bishop Henry of Brixen to the cliurch of Freins in the Tyrol, also of 1239, which concedes an indulgence for saying three Hail Marys "at the evening tolling". Tliis, indeed, has been suspected of interpolation, but the same objection cannot apply to a decree of the Franciscan Cieneral Chapter in the time of St. Bona venture (12G3 or 1269), directing preachers to encourage the people to say Hail Marys when the Complin bell rang. Moreover, these indications are strongly confirmed by certain inscriptions still to be read on some few bells of the thirteenth century. Further back than this direct testimonials do not go; but on the other hand we read in the "Regularis Concordia", a mo- nastic rule composed by St. Aethelwold of Winchester, c. 97.5, that certain prayers called the ires orationes , preceded by psalms, w-ere to be said after Complin as well as before Matins and again at Prime, and although there is no express mention of a bell being rung after Complin, there is express mention of the bell being rung for the tres orationts at other hours. Tliis practice, it seems, is confirmed by German ex- amnlos (Martene, De Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus, IV, 39), and as time went on it became more and more def- initely associated with three separate peals of the bell, more especially at Bee, at St. Denis, and in the customs of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine (c. g. at Barnwell Priory and elsewhere). We have not in these earlier examples any mention of the Hail Mary (q. v.), which in England first became familiar as an antiphon in the Little Office of Our Lady about the beginning of the eleventh century (The Montli, November, 1901), but it would be the most natural thing in the world that once the Hail Mary had become an everj-day prayer, this should for the laity take the place of the more elaborate Ires orationes recited by the monks; just as in