Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/203

 o

Oakeley, Frederick, b. 5 Sept., 1802, at Shrews- bury; d. 30 Jan., 1880, at Islington, the youngest son of Sir Charles Oakeley, Bart, he graduated at Christ- church in 1824, and three years later was elected Fellow of Balliol, where he afterwards became the close friend of W. G. Ward, with whom he joined the Tractarian party. In 1839 he became incumbent of Margaret Chapel, the predecessor of the well-known All Saints, Margaret Street, London, soon noted for its high church services: he was a frequent visitor to 0.\ford, and stood by Ward at the time of his con- demnation in 1845. He defended Tract XC and in consequence his bishop suspended him. He retired to Newman's community at Littlemore, and a few weeks later followed him into the Catholic Church. After a short course of theology at St. Edmund's Col- lege, he was ordained by Dr. Wiseman in 1847. The next thirty-three years were spent as a canon of the Westminister chapter and missionary rector of St. John's, Islington. Short-sighted, small of stature, lame, he exercised a wide influence by his personality, his writings, and the charm of his conversation. His chief works are: Before his conversion: "Aristotelian and Platonic Ethics'^ (Oxford, 1S37); "WTiitehall Sermons" (Oxford, 1837-9) "The Subject of Tract XC examined" (London, 1841); "Homilies" (London, 1842); "Life of St. Augustine" (Newman's series, Toovey, 1844). After his conversion: "Practical Ser- mons" (London, 1848); "The Order and Ceremonial of the Mass" (London, 1848) ; "The Catholic Florist" (London, 1851); "The Church of the Bible" (London, 1857); "Lyra Liturgica" (London, 1865); "Historical Notes on the Tractarian Movement" (London, 1865); "The Priest on the Mission" (London, 1871).

Did. of Nat. Bioa-. s. v.; Bihl. Did. Eng. Cath.. a. v.; Ward, Oxford Movement: The Catholic Reviml (London, 1889 and 1893); MozLET, Reminiscences (18S2) ; Browne, An/ials of Tractarian Movement; Obituary notices in Tablet, Weekly Register.

Bernard Ward.

O Antiphons (Roman Breviary: Antiphonce ma- jores, "greater antiphons"), the seven antiphons to the Magnificat in the ferial Office of the seven days pre- ceeding the vigil of Christmas; so called because all begin with the interjection "O". Their opening words are: (1) "O Sapientia", (2) "O Adonai", (3) "O Radix Jesse", (4) "O Clavis David", (5) "O Oriens", (6) "O Rex Gentium", (7) "O Emmanuel". Addressed to Christ under one or other of His Scriptural titles, they conclude with a distinct petition to the coming Lord (e. g. : "O Wisdom . . . come and teach us the way of prudence"; "O Adonai . . . come and redeem us by thy outstretclied arm"; "O Key of David . . . come and lead from prison the captive sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death" etc.). Couched in a poetic and Scriptural phraseology they constitute a notable feature of the Advent Offices. These seven antiphons are found in the Roman Breviary; but other medieval Breviaries added (1) "O virgo virginum quomodo fiet" etc., still retained in the Roman Breviary as the proper anliphon to the Magnificat in the second Ves- pers of the feast Expectatio Partus B.M.V. (18 De- cember), the prayer of this feast being followed by the antiphon "O Adonai" as a commemoration of the ferial office of 18 December; (2) "O Gabriel, nuntius ooelorum', subsequently replaced, almost universally, by the thirteenth-centurj' antiphon, "O Thoma Didyme", for the feast of the Apostle St. Thomas (21

173

December). Some medieval churches had twelve greater antiphons, adding to the above (1) "O Rex Pacifice", (2) "O Mundi Domina", (3) "O Hierusa- lem", addressed respectively to Our Lord, Our Lady, and Jerusalem. Gueranger gives the Latin text of all of these (except the "O Mundi Domina"), with ver- nacular prose translation ("Liturgical Year", Advent, Dublin, 1870, 508-531), besides much devotional and some historical comment. The Parisian Rite added two antiphons ("O sancte sanctorum" and "O pastor Israel") to the seven of the Roman Rite and began the recitation of the nine on the 15th of December. Prose renderings of the Roman Breviary O's will be found in the Marquess of Bute's translation of the Roman Breviary (winter volume). Gueranger remarks that the antiphons were appropriately assigned to the Ves- per Hour because the Saviour came in the evening hour of the world (vcrgenie mundi vespere, as the Church sings) and that they were attached to the Mag- nificat to honour her through whom He came. By ex- ception to the rule for ferial days, the seven antiphons are sung in full both before and after the canticle. "In some Churches it was formerly the practice to sing them thrice: that is, before the Canticle, before the Gloria Patri, and after the Sicut erat" (Gueranger). There are several translations into English verse, both by Catholics and non-Catholics, the most recent being that in Dom Gregory Ould's "Book of Hymns (Edinburgh, 1910. no. 5) by W. Rooke-Ley, in seven quatrains together with a refrain-quatrain giving a translation of the versicle and response ("Rorate", etc). The seven antiphons have been found in MSS. of the eleventh century. A paraphrase of some of these is found in the hymn "Veni, veni, Emmanuel" given by Daniel in his "Thesaurus H>'mnologicus " (II, 336) and translated by Neale in his "Medieval Hymns and Sequences" (3rd ed., London, p. 171) and others, and used in various hymn-books (Latin text in " The Roman Hymnal", New York, 1884, 139). Neale supposed the hymn to be of the twelfth century, but it has not been traced back further than the first decade of the eighteenth century. For first lines of translations, see "Juhan's Diet, of Hymnol." (2nd ed., London, 1907, 74, i; 1551, i; 1721, i). For the Scriptural sources of the antiphons, see John, Mar- quess of Bute, "Roman Breviary", Winter, 203, also Marbach's "Carmina Scripturarum" etc. (Strasburg, 1907) under "O" in the Index Alphabelicus.

Thurston, The Oreal Antipko/ts, Heralds of Christmas in The Month (Dec, 1905). 616-631. gives liturgical uses, literary illus- trations, and peculiar cuatoma relating to the antiphons; ques- tions the view of Cabrol, L^Avent Liturgique in Revue B^idictine 1905), n. 4, that they do not antedate the ninth century, gives much illustration (notably from The Christ of Cynewulf written circa 800) to show that they "are much older", and knows "no valid reason for regarding them as posterior to the rest of the Roman Antiphonary or to the time of Pope Gregory himself": Cabrol in Diet, d^archiologie et liturgie chritienne, s. v. Avent, re- peats (col. 3229) his view, but in a foot-note refers the reader to Thurston's article in The Month; Baylet, Greater Antiphons of Advent in Pax (an Anglican periodical, 6 Dec, 1905), 231-239; Staley, O Sapientia in Church Times (13 Dec, 1907), p. 812; WiTHERoy, Sapientia, Seven Sermons on the Ancient Antiphons for Advent (London. 1906).

H. T. Henry.

Oates'g Plot, a term conventionally used to desig- nate a "Popish Plot" which, during the reign of Charles II of England, Titua Oates pretended to have discovered. Oates was b. at Oakham, Rutlandshire, in 1649. His father, Samuel Oates, is said to have been