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 OFFERTORY

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OFFICE

the prayer "Suscipc sancta Trinitas" which sums up the Offertory idea. The Orale fratres and secrets follow.

At low Mass, the parts of the deacon and subdeacon are taken partly by the server and partly by the cele- brant himself. There is no incense. At requiems the water is not blessed, and the subdeacon does not hold the paten. The Dominicans still prepare the offering before Mass begins. This is one of their Galilean peculiarities and so goes back to the Eastern Proskomide. The Milanese and Mozarabic Missals have adopted the Roman Offertory. The accompany- ing chant is called Sacrificium at Toledo.

DURANDUS. Rationale dimnorum officiorum, IV, 26-32; Dn- CHESNE, Origines du culle Chretien (Paris. 2nd ed., 1898), 165- 167; 194-199; Thalhofer, Handbuch der katholischen Liturgifct II (Freiburg, 1S90); GlHR, Das heilige Messopfer (Freiburg, 1897), 458-508; Eng. tr. (St. Louis, 1908), 494-551; Rietschel, Lehrbuch der Liturgik, I (Berlin, 1900), 376-378.

Adrian Fortescde^ Offertory, Collections at. See Offerings.

Office, Divine. — I. The Expression "Divine Office", signifying etymologically a duty accom- plished for God, or in virtue of a Divine precept, means, in ecclesiastical language, certain prayers to be recited at fixed hours of the day or night by priests, re- ligious, or clerics, and, in general, by all those obliged by their vocation to fulfil this duty. The Divine Office comprises only the recitation of certain prayers in the Breviary, and does not include the Mass and other hturgical ceremonies. "Canonical Hours", "Breviary", "Diurnal and Nocturnal Office", "Eccle- siastical Office", "Cursus ecclesiasticus", or simply "cursus" are synonyms of "Divine Office". "Cursus" is the form used by Gregory writing : ' 'exsurgente abbate cum monachis ad celebrandum cursum " ( De glor. mar- tyr., xv). "Agenda", "agenda mortuorum", "agenda missarum", "solemnitas", "missa" were also used. The Greeks employ "synaxis" and "canon" in this sense. The expression "officiuin divinum" is used in the same sense by the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle (800), the IV Lateran (121.5), and Vienne (1311); but it is also used to signify any office of the Church. Thus Walafrid Strabo, Pseudo-Alcuin, Rupert de Tuy en- title their works on liturgical ceremonies "De officiis divinis". Hittorp, in the sixteenth century, entitled his collection of medieval liturgical works "De Cath- olics Ecclesise divinis officiis ac ministeriis" (Cologne, 1568). The usage in France of the expression "saint- office" as synonymous with "office divin" is not cor- rect. "Saint-office" signifies a Roman congregation, the functions of which are well known, and the words should not be used to replace the name "Divine Of- fice", which is much more suitable and has been used from ancient times. In the articles Breviary ; Hours, Canonical; Matins; Prime; Terce; Sext; None; Vespers, the reader will find treated the special ques- tions concerning the meaning and history of each of the hours, the obligation of reciting these prayers, the history of the formation of the Breviary etc. We deal here only with the general questions that have not been dwelt on in those articles.

II. Primitive Form of the Office. — The cus- tom of reciting prayers at certain hours of the day or night goes back to the Jews, from whom Christians have borrowed it. In the Psalms we find expressions like: "I will meditate on thee in the morning"; "I rose at midnight to give praise to thee"; "Evening and morning, and at noon I will speak and declare: and he shall hear my voice"; "Seven times a day I have given praise to thee"; etc. (Cf. "Jewish Encyclopedia", X, 164-171, s. v. "Prayer"). The Apostles observed the Jewish custom of praying at midnight, terce, sext, none (Acts, x, .3, 9; xvi, 25; etc.). The Christian prayer of that time consisted of almost the same elements as the Jewish : recital or chanting of psalms, reading of the Old Testament, to which was

soon added reading of the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, and at times canticles composed or improvised by the assistants. "Gloria in excelsis" and the "Te decet laus" are apparently vestiges of these primitive in- spirations. At present the elements composing the Divine Office .seem more numerous, but they are de- rived, by gradual changes, from the primitive ele- ments. As appears from the texts of Acts cited above, the first Christians preserved the custom of going to the Temple at the hour of prayer. But they had also their reunions or synaxes in private houses for the celebration of the Eucharist and for sermons and exhortations. But the Eucharistic synaxis soon en- tailed other prayers; the custom of going to the Tem- ple disappeared; and the abuses of the Judaizing party forced the Christians to separate more distinctly from the Jews and their practices and worship. Thence- forth the Christian liturgy rarely borrowed from Judaism.

III. The Development of the Divine Office was probably in the following manner: The cele- bration of the Eucharist was preceded by the recital of the psalms and the reading of the Old and New Testaments. This was called the Mass of the Cate- chumens, which has been preserved almost in its orig- inal form. Probably this part of the Mass was the first form of the Divine Office, and, in the beginning, the vigils and the Eucharistic Synaxis were one. When the Eucharistic service was not celebrated, the prayer was limited to the recital or chanting of the psalms and the reading of the Scriptures. The vigils thus separated from the Mass became an independ- ent office. During the first period the only office cel- ebrated in public was the Eucharistic Synaxis with vigils preceding it, but forming with it one whole. In this hypothesis the Mass of the Catechumens would be the original kernel of the whole Divine Office. The Eucharistic Synaxis beginning at eventide did not ter- minate till dawn. The vigils, independently of the Eucharistic service, were divided naturally into three parts; the beginning of the vigils, ortheeveningOffice; the vigils i)r(i])(>rly so called, and the end of the vigils or the nuitutinal llice. For when the vigils were as yet the only OHice and were celebrated but rarely, they were continued during the greater part of the night. Thus the Office which we have called the Office of evening or Vespers, that of midnight, and that of the morning, called Matins first and then Lauds, were originally but one Office. If this hypoth- esis be rejected, it must be admitted that at first there was only one public office, Vigils. The service of eventide. Vespers, and that of the morning. Matins or Lauds, were gradually separated from it. During the day, Terce, Sext, and None, customary hours of private prayers both with the Jews and the early Christians, became later ecclesiastical Hours, just like Vespers or Lauds. Complin appears as a repetition of Vespers, first in the fourth century (see Complin). Prime is the only hour the precise origin and date of which are known — at the end of the fourth century (see Prime).

At all events, during the course of the fifth century, the Office was composed, as to-day, of a nocturnal Office, viz. Vigils — afterwards Matins — and the seven Offices of the day, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Complin. In the "Apostolic Constitu- tions" we read: "Precationes facite mane, hora tertia, sexta, nona, et vespere atque galli cantu" (VIII, iv). Such were the hours as they then existed. There are omitted only Prime and Complin, w liirh originated not earlier than the end of the fourth century, and the use of which spread only gradually. The elements of which these hours are composed were at first few in number, identical with those of the Mass of the Cate- chumens, psalms recited or chanted uninterruptedly (tract) or by two choirs (antiphons) or by a cantor al- ternating with the choir (responses and versicles) ; les-