Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/799

 GRADISKA

715

GRADUAL

In the Roman Liturgy the Benedicite and the Graces are compositions in which Psalms cxHv and xxxiii are utiHzed, several versicles being omitted. From the most ancient times Psalm xxxiii has been pre-emi- nently the Communion psalm. At the midday meal Ps. 1 is recited, in the evening Ps. cxvi. The origin of these formulae is monastic, hence the pious commemo- ration of benefactors.

On the chief liturgical feasts: Easter, Pentecost, etc., a selection of verses recalling the solemnity of the day is substituted for the formulie in use at ordinary times. See also Th.^nksgiving.

ScuDAMORE in Dirt. Christ. Antiq., s. v.: C.\BROL, La Priire antique, xxv. 364-369; von der Goltz, Tischgebete und Abend- mahlsgebete in der atlchristlichen und in der griechischen Kirche (Leipzig, 1905).

H. Leclercq.

Gradiska. See Gorz, Diocese of.

Grado, Diocese of. See Aquileia; Venice.

Gradual (Lat. Graduale, from gradus, a step), in English often called Grail, is the oldest and most important of the four chants that make up the choir's part of the Proper of the Ma.ss. Whereas' the three others (Introit, Offertory, and Communion) were introduced later, to fill up the time while something was being done, the CJradual (with its sujiplement, the Tract or Alleluia) represents the singing of psalms alternating with readings from the Bible, a custom that is as old as these readings themselves. Like them, the psalms at this place are an inheritance from the service of the Synagogue. Copied from that service, alternate readings and psalms filled up a great part of the first half of the Liturgy in every part of the Christian world from the beginnmg. Originally whole psalms were sung. In the "Apostolic Constitutions" they are chanteti after the lessons from the Old Testa- ment: "The readings by the two (lectors) bein" finished, let another one sing the hymns of David and the people sing the last words after him" (to. dirio-nxa viro\paWiTu, H, 57). This use of whole psalms wenton till the fifth century. St. Augustine says: "We have heard first the lesson from the .-Vpostle. Then we .sang a psalm. After that the lesson of the gospel showed us the ten lepers healed ..." (Serm. clxxvi, 1). These psalms were an essential part of tlie Liturgy, quite as much as the lessons. "They are sung for their own sake; meanwhile the celebrants and assist- ants have nothing to do but to listen to them" (Du- chesne, "Origines du Culte Chretien", 2nd ed., Paris, 1898, p. IGl). They were sung in the form of a psal- mus responsorius, that is to say, the whole text was chanted by one person — a reader appointed for this purpose. [For some time before St. Gregory I, to sing these psalms was a privilege of deacons at Rome. It was suppressed by him in 595 (Ibid.).] The people answered each clau.se or verse by some acclamation. In the "Apostolic Constitutions" (above) they repeat his last modulations. Another way was to sing some ejaculation each time. An obvious model of this was Ps. cx.xxv with its refrain: "quoniam in seternum misericordia eius"; from which we conclude that the Jews too knew the principle of the responsory psalm. We still have a classical example of it in the Invita- torium of Matins (and the same Ps. xciv in the third Nocturn of the Epiphany). It appears that originally, ■while the nimiber of Biblical lessons was still indefinite, one psalm was sung after each. When three lessons became tlie normal custom (a Prophecy, Epistle, and Gospel) they were separated by two psalms. During the fifth century (Duchesne, op. cit., p. 160) the le-ssons at Rome were reduced to two; but the psalms still remain two, although both are now joined together between the Epistle and Gospel, as we shall see. Meanwhile, as in the ea.se of many parts of the Liturgy, the psalms were curtailed, till only fragments of them were left. This process, applied to the first of the

two, produced our Gradual; the second became the Alleluia or Tract.

I. The name (inuiunl conies from the place where it was sung. In llie First Roman Ordo (10) it is called Responsum; .\malarius of Metz (ninth century) calls it Cantus Responsorius; Isidore (seventh century) Re- sponsorium, "quod uno canente chorus consonando respondet" ("De Eccl. Officiis", I, 8; Ordo Rom. II, 7. Cf. Mabillon, "Musa-um Italic", II, 9, note f). This name was also used, as it still is, for the chants after the lessons at Matins; so the liturgical Responsorium was distinguished later by a special name. The reader who chanted the psalm stood on a higher place, originally on the steps of the ambo. He was not to go right up into the ambo, like the deacon who sang the Gospel, but to stand on the step from which the sub- deacon had read the Epistle (Ordo Roman. I, 10, II, 7: "he does not go up higher, but stands in the same place where the reader stood and begins the Respon- sorium alone ; and all the choir answer and he alone sings the verse of the Responsoriimi. ' ' Cf . Ordo Rom. Ill, 9, VI, 5). Later in various local churches, when the ambo was disappearing, other places were chosen, but the idea of a high place, raised on steps, persists. At Reims, the steps of the choir were used, some- times a special pulpit was erected. Beleth (twelfth century) says that on ordinary days the cantor stands on the altar-steps, on feasts on the ambo (Rationale, II, P. L., CCII) ; Durandus a little later writes: " Dieitur Graduale a gradibus altaris, eo quod in festivis diebus in gradibus cantatur" (Gradual is so called from the steps of the altar, on which it was sung on holidays. — Rationale, IV, 19). There seems then to be no doubt that the name comes from the place where it was sung; Cardinal Bellarmine's idea that the gradus in question are those the deacon is climbing for the Gospel while the Gradual is being chanted (De Missa, II, 16) is a mistake. We have seen that this psalm was not sung to fill up time during the procession to the ambo. Originally the deacon and all the minis- ters would wait till it was over before beginning their preparation for the Gospel. The older name Respon- sorium lasted, as an alternative, into the Middle Ages. Durandus uses it constantly and gives a mystic explanation of the word ("Responsorium vero dieitur quia versui vel epistol^ correspondere debet", etc., loc. cit., i. e. " Responsory is so called because it ought to correspond to the verse or epistle").

It is difficult to say exactly when the Gradual got its present form. We have seen that in St. Augustine's time, in Africa, a whole psalm was still sung. So also St. John Chrysostom alludes to whole psalms sung after the lessons (Horn, in Ps., cxlv); as late as the time of St. Leo I (d. 461), in Rome the psalm seems not yet to have been curtailed; "Wherefore we have sung the psalm of David with united voices, not for our honour, but for the glory of Christ the Lord" (Serm. ii in anniv. assumpt.). Between this time and the early Middle Ages the process of curtailing brought about our present arrangement.

II. Order of the Gradual. — If we open a Missal, at most of the days in the year (the exceptions will be described below), we find between the Epistle and Gospel a set of verses with some Alleluias marked Graduale. Although the whole text follows this head- ing, although we usually speak of it all as the Gradual, there are here two quite distinct liturgical texts, namely the first part, which is the old psalmiis re- sponsorius (now the Gradual in the strictly correct sense), and the Alleluia with its verse, the Alleluiatic verse (versus alleluiaticus). We have seen that these two chants came, originally, one after each of the lessons that preceded the Gospel. Now that we have only one such lesson as a rule ( the Epistle), the Gradual and Alleluiatic verse (or its substitute) are sung to- gether. But there are still cases of their separation. In Lent, as we shall see, the Alleluia is replaced by the