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 534 LITTROW LITURGY had strenuously opposed Ms election, resigned. In the assembly M. Littre generally acted with the left. In 1863 he commenced the publica- tion of his Dictionnaire de la langue fran- caise, and finished it in 1873 (4 vols. 4to). Its composition occupied a large portion of his time for nearly 30 years, and it is generally re- garded as superior to any similar work in the French language. Among his other works are a translation of Pliny's "Natural History," which appeared in Nisard's Collection des clas- siques latins (1848) ; Conservation, revolution et positivisme (1852) ; Sur la mort de M. Auguste Comte (1857) ; Paroles de philosophic positive (1859) ; Medecine et medecins (1872) ; and La science sous le point de vue philosophique (1873). LITTROW, Joseph Johann von, a German as- tronomer, born at Bischof-Teinitz, Bohemia, March 13, 1781, died in Vienna, Nov. 30, 1840. He studied at Prague, and in 1807 became pro- fessor of astronomy at Cracow. The war of 1809 caused a dissolution of the university there, and Littrow accepted an appointment in that of Kazan. In 1816 he became assis- tant superintendent of the observatory on the Blocksberg in Buda, and some years later pro- fessor of astronomy in the university of Vien- na and director of the observatory there, the excellence of which is chiefly due to his exer- tions. He wrote many valuable works on as- tronomy. His eldest son, KARL LUDWIG, was his assistant from 1831, and after his death suc- ceeded him as director of the observatory. LITURGY (Gr. fairovpyia, a public act or ser- vice), in general, the totality of the prayers and ceremonies which are used by a church for the celebration of divine worship. More common- ly, however, it is taken in a narrower sense, and denotes those formularies or books which contain these prayers and ceremonies. Those who administered the liturgy were called in the ancient church fatrovp-yoi, a term which denoted in Athens the managers of public spectacles, but in later times came to be used exclusively in an ecclesiastical sense. Moses established days for public worship, various sacrificial rites, and forms of words to be used on specified oc- casions. This national order of public worship was made more pompous under Solomon, and afterward it became customary to accompany the offering of sacrifices with psalmody. In these forms Christ and his apostles joined. He also left one form of prayer which has been in universal use among Christians, and the rites of the Lord's supper and baptism, which have been all but universal. I. PSALMODIO LITUR- GIES. It appears well established that the first Christians met at certain hours to pray and sing psalms. The Septuagint version of the Psalms was used for this purpose in the Greek churches, and the old Italic version in the Latin till St. Jerome, by order of Pope Damasus, corrected at first the Italic version, and afterward translated the psalms from the Hebrew and arranged them in a suit- able order for the divine office. This psalter was introduced throughout the West. Pope Gelasius added hymns to it ; and by degrees lessons from the Old and New Testaments, commentaries from the church fathers, and the acts of the local martyrologies relating to the saints commemorated on each day, became a part of the psalmodic office. Thus grew up the long liturgy of the East, and what in an abridged form became the breviary of the western churches. (See BREVIARY.) An im- portant part of this office was the litany (Gr. hiraveia, supplication), which consisted at first in the deacon's reciting from the ambon the most important objects of supplication, to each of which the congregation responded "Lord, have mercy," "Christ, have mercy," "Hear us, Lord," "Help us, Lord," &c. These suc- cessive appeals to the persons of the Trinity were known as the lesser litanies ; but gradu- ally, after the 4th century, these responsive forms were lengthened, became usual in sol- emn processions, and were then called the "greater litanies." The sacramental offices or liturgies were distinguished in the begin- ning by a few simple forms, still underlying the diversity and multiplicity of rites gradu- ally superadded. The primitive forms relating to baptism and the Lord's supper especially have been preserved without alteration. They were carefully handed down unwritten from generation to generation till the age of Con- stantine, when sacramentaries or liturgical for- mularies were published, containing the whole order of divine service. II. EUCHARISTIC LIT- URGIES. As in the sacramental system the eucharist or Lord's supper occupied a cen- tral position, the term liturgy began to be ap- plied chiefly or exclusively to its celebration. The eastern eucharistic liturgies are usually classed into four groups: 1. The "liturgy of the apostles," sketched in the 8th book of the apostolic constitutions attributed to St. Clem- ent, in general use during the first four centu- ries, and which served as a groundwork for subsequent rituals. 2. The liturgy of St. James the Elder, used in the patriarchal churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, and their dependencies. The Greek version of it was successively cor- rected and amplified by St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom. This version was intro- duced into the church of Constantinople in the 6th century, and has ever since continued to be used there. It is the original of the Slavic liturgy of St. Cyril, which became the liturgy of the Russo-Greek church and its offshoots. The Syriac liturgy of St. James in use at An- tioch is considered to be a free version. Modi- fied to suit the Monophysite doctrines, it has been everywhere one of the favorite liturgical forms of the Jacobite churches. Modified to suit the opposite Nestorian tenets, it has always been used by the Nestorian churches of Arme- nia, Mesopotamia, Persia, and the East Indies. 3. The Alexandrian liturgy, attributed to St. Mark, received its complete form from St. Cyril of Alexandria. He permitted it to be