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 THANKSGIVING

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THANKSGIVING

always in pre-Elizabethan English took the plural form graces, means nothing but thanksgiving. (Cf. the Latin gratiarum actio and the Itahan grazie, "thanks".) .\lthough the expression of gratitude to God for His bounty when He has supplied the where- withal to satisfy the most primary of human needs is an idea which is by no means exclusively Christian (see Deut., viii, 10;Ex., xviii, 12; Livy, XXXIX, xliii; Athenoeus, iv, 27), still in the Christian dispensation, following the personal ex;i mple of our Sax'iour (.John, vi, 11 and 23), the obligation of thanksgiving seems to have been emphasized from the very beginning. Thus, under conditions which altogether exclude the idea of a Eucharistic celebration, we are told of St. Paul (.Acts, xx-vii,3.i) that "taking bread he gave thanks to God in the sight of them all and when he had broken it he began toeat" (Cf. I Tim., iv, 3- .5; Rom. xiv, 6; I Cor., x,30). Passing over the "Didache", in which the formulie of prayer over food may be connected with the Eucharist or the Agape, we find (c. A. D. 123) the apologist Aristides declaring of his fellow Christians that "over their food and over their drink they ren- der God thanks" (Camb. Texts and Studies, I, 49). Similarly Tertullian, "We do not recline at a banquet before prayer be first tasted — in like manner prayer puts an end to the feast " (De orat., xxv)- In nearly all the pothers similar passages may be found. In par- ticular the Christian poet Prudenfius, at the begin- ning of the fifth century, has a set of hymns "Ante cibum" and "Post cibum" in which occur such verses as the following (Cath. Hymn., Ill, Ante cib., ii, 10 sq.):—

"Without Thy presence, nought, O Lord, is sweet. No pleasure to our lips can aught supply. Whether 'tis wine we drink or food we eat. Till Grace divine and Faith shall .sanctify." Many anecdotes also might be cited from such early writers as Gregory of Tours and Bede, clearly attest- ing the prevalence of the practice of saying grace. Bede, for example, when he wishes to tell us that Os- wald and Bishop Aidan were about to begin dinner, remarks that "they were on the point of stretching out their hands tobiessthe bread" (Hist. Eccl., Ill, vi). The Welsh legal codes, ascribed to the ninth and tenth centuries, when speaking of the king's three indispen- sable attendants, name first "his priest to .say Mass and bless his meat and drink", while the function of the queen's priest is also to bless her meat and drink (Haddan and Stubbs, I, 231 and 235). William of Malmesbury (Gest. pent., IV, 140) refers to St. Wul- stan's blessings at table as if they perpetuated some custom that was peculiarl3- English; but that the Nor- mans were no strangers to such a practice is curiously proved by a scene in the Bayeux tapestry, where we look on Bishop Odo at Bayeux as he stands up before the table at the banquet, while the inscription be- side him tells us: "Et hie episcopus cibum et potum benedicit."

In the religious orders, naturally the custom of grace was much insisted upon. A special section is assigned to it in c. xliii of the Rule of St. Benedict, and this was much amphtied in later e.xpositions. The early monastic rules in fact generally required that each di.sh brought to table should be separately ble.s,sed before it was set before the community. In the ".\n- cren Riwle" (c. .^.n. 1200), which preserves perhaps the earliest instance of the word "graces" in an Enghsh treati.se, the grace is described as .said .stan<ling, and, since it included the "Mi.serere". it must have been pretty long. The souls of the faithful are also prayed for in the thanksgiving after meat. Great impor- tance was attached to the proper learning of the grace by children. It is commonly a prominent feature in the Books of Curtesj'e and other medieval works for the instruction of the young. Moreover most educa- tional foundations, like the English public schools and the colleges at the universities, had special forms of

grace prescribed for them, often metrical in part, some of which are maintained to the present day. The grace offici.TlIy provided by the Church is con- tained in the "Breviarium Romanum" under the heading "Benedictio Mensae". The form for supper, both before and after eating, varies slightly from that assigned for dinner, and during the octaves of certain greater festivals special verses are substituted for those in ordinary use. Grace begins with the acclamation "Benedicite", which is spoken by the officiant and repeated by all present. The "Grace before and after meals" commonly found in the cate- chisms for children and used by the laity consists substantially of a translation of two items in the longer Latin grace, the blessing spoken before the meal and the thanksgiving afterwards.

As for this longer Latin grace contained in the Breviary, Abbot Cabrol says with reason that the w;hole series of formula? with their appropriate cita- tions from the Psalms, particularly Ps. xxxiii, possess a very high antiquity. In point of fact a great part of the existing forms can be traced back to the ninth century. See for example Rhabanus Maurus, " De ins. cleric", II, x. The benediction, "Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts", etc., which is retained in our short grace, is to be found in the "Gelasian Sacramentary", which is considerably earlier. More- over, without precise verbal coincidence, it may be said that our existing longer grace echoes the language of the very earliest document of the kind preserved to us. This is contained in a treatise dubiously ascribed to St. Athanasius, but certainly of early date and, probably at least, the work of a contempo- rary. It is upon this treatise that G. von der Goltz largely bases his theory of the development of grace for meals out of the primitive Eucharist (Goltz, "Tischgebete und Abendmahlsgebete", pp. 33 sq.). This work (De virginitate) is remarkable for the circumstance that the writer recommends as a prayer before an ordinary meal precisely that form of words which we find in the "Didache" in connexion seemingly with a Eucharistic celebration. We also find in this fourth-century document the versicle, "Our merciful and compassionate God has given food to them that fear Him", and in the existing Breviary grace we have: —

"The Lord merciful and compassionate, has per- petuated the memory of His wonders. He has given food to them that fear Him."

Another very early grace may be found in the "Apostolic Constitutions", VII, xliv.

Baudot in Dictionnaire d'archeol. chret. el de lilurgie, s. v. Bfnediclion de la Table: Cabrol, Le litre de fci priire antique (Paris, 1900), 364-369; Gavantus, Thesaurus saerorum riluum III (Venice, 1823), 233-25; Mart4:ne. De iinliquis eeclesice ritibus. IV (Venice, 1783). 29-32; Bhadshaw in Fcrnivall, Ihe Babees Book, Early Eng. Text See, Preface (London. 1885).

The fullest details however are given in the e.xcellent little monograph of H. L. Dixon, Saying Grace (London. 1903), which contains many documents printed entire. But see also: VoN DER Goltz, Tischgebete und Abendmahlsgebete (Leipzig. 1905), one of the series Texte u. Untersuchungen, and Keller in Arch- a:ological Jourruil, XXI, 347-365.

Herbert Thurston.

Thanksgiving Day. — A civil holiday observed an- nually in the United States of America on the last Thursd:iy in Xm-ember. The president issues a proclamation, calling on the citizens, all Federal offi- cials, and othere subject to Federal authority to ob- serve the day as one of national thanksgiving and prayer. The governors of states concur in the presi- dent's proclamation and also reconmiend the citizens to observe the holid.ay, and all public business is sus- pended. The custom originated in l(i21, when Gov- ernor Braflford of the Plymouth colony appointed a day for pubhc praise and prayer after the first har- vest, and the practice spread throtighout the other New England colonies. The first nat ional observance was when President Washington, at the request of