Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/386

* LITtTBGY. 342 LITURGY. Old Testament to denote the great public service of the Hebrews, the sacrifices of the Temple, and the work of the priests. Thence it passed into the New Testament, where it is used for any min- istry, including the ministry of the worship of the'Church. Its ecclesiastical use was soon lim- ited to the public religious service, and especially to the Lord's Supper, which is still called in the Greek Church 'the Divine Liturgy.' From the days of the Apostles there has been a form of worship connected with the Lord's Sup- per, no doubt reproducing in more or less detail the ritual and ceremonies of the first institution of that Sacrament by Christ. This form was in- fluenced probably in some degree by the old Jewish Passover' ritual, and numerous attempts have been made to trace the connection. The ref- erences to the liturgj' in the first three centuries are not very numerous, but by a comparison of these we are led to think that in the ante-Nicene period there was a form of service very similar in all parts of the Church. Such a form may very probably he found in the early documents from which "the Eighth Book of the Apostolic Constitutions was compiled, but whether this form was reduced to writing or was a matter of tradition is a disputed point. With the conversion of Constantino a new epoch in the history of the Liturgy begins. The influx of large numbers of the higher classes into the Church, the decay of the catechumenate, the building of large and magnificent places of wor- ship resulted in the enrichment of the service and the elaboration of the ritual. In various parts of the Empire the develop- ment was different, and as a result we have a number of types of liturgy resembling each other in their main features, but differing in details; in all of them the service is divided into two great parts, the first devoted to instruction and consisting of the reading of Scripture, sermon, and prayers. To this part of the service all were admitted, and it received the name of Missa Ciifechumenorum, or the Mass of the Catechu- mens. The second part was reserved for those who were to partake of the Sacrament and was called Missa Fidelium, or Mass of the Faithful; this began with the kiss of peace, then followed the offering of the bread and wine, the Hursum Gorda, Preface, the great prayer of thanksgiving ( Eucha- rist) including the words of institution: this was followed by the invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the elements and intercession for the living and dead. After this, the consecrated elements were distributed, with a formula, and the service ended with a prayer of thanksgiving and the dis- missal of the faithful. The names Missa Cate- chiimenonim and Missa Fidrliiim are of Western origin, but the Greek liturgies are divided on nearly .similar lines into Pro-anaphora and Ana- phora. Tlic two great classes of liturgies, the Eastern and the Western, may be subdivided into families. The best division of the Eastern liturgies is into national rites. The Syrian rite had its centre at Anti- oeh and is at present represented by the Greek liturgy of Saint .James still used on the festival of that saint at Zante. Some account of the earlier form of this liturgy can be gathered from the earlier writings of Saint Chrv-sostom. The Maronite Church of Mount Lebanon still uses a Sj'riac version of this liturgy. The services in the early Church at Jerusalem as reconstructed from the writings of Saint Jerome and Saint Cyril, and the I'cregrinatio of Saint Silvia show a very strong resemblance to this liturgj' ; it is also closely related to the liturgy found in the Apostolic Constitutions and known as the Clem- entine liturgy. The Persian rite, now used by the sect of Nesto- rians, is represented by the liturgy of The Apos- tles Addai and Mari. The centre of this rite is at Edessa. There is one common proanapliora, to which may be attached numerous anaplioras. The language is Syriac. Within recent years many of these Nestorians have joined the Ortho- dox Eastern Church and use its liturgj'. The Byzuntiyiv rite is the most important of all the Eastern rites and is used throughout the world in many difl'erent languages. It is the rite of the great Russian Church, of the Greek Church, and of other smaller communions. There are three liturgies in this rke, that of Saint John Chrysostom, that of Saint Basil, and that of Saint Gregory Dialogos or the Presanctified. The two latter "are used only on special days, while that of Saint Chrysostom is the ordinary liturgy. It is this rite which is used in the Greek churches in America. The Armenian iiliirrjij is a daughter of the Byzantine, though in its present form it has been influenced by the Roman. The Egyptian rite. In a manuscript recently discovered on Mount Athos and first published in 1899 we have a collection of liturgical prayers used by Bishop Serapion. a friend of Saint Athanasius. It is probably not later than A.n. 350, giving us the earliest known form of the Egyptian service, and should be compared with the more developed form in the liturgy of Saint Mark, which is the typical Egyptian liturgy. The Copts still use a version of this liturgy'. In many of the Eastern communities there is a Vniat rite which is a compromise between the Orthodox and the Roman forms, but usually contains the Roman Canon of the Mass. The Western liturgies may be divided into the Latin and the Vernacular; the former represented now by the Roman Mass and the latter by the various Protestant liturgies. The earliest references to the Latin liturgy of the West are found in the writings of the North , African School, and it was probably in North : Africa that the first Latin liturgy was used. At Milan Saint Ambrose took great interest in ; the development of the service ; as a result we 1 have the liturgy which bears his name and is | still used in the diocese of Jlilan. The early i Galilean liturgies were supplanted after Charle- i magne by the Roman; and we know them only i from such remains as have come down to us and l are published in Mabillon, IMone, and others, i The Christians in Spain under Arab rule used what is known as the Mozarabic liturgy, a form of which, revised by Cardinal Ximenes, is still in use in a few churches in Toledo. The Celtic ' or British Church also had its own liturgy, which bears distinct traces of a connection with the Oriental rites. After the time of Saint Angus- i tine (A.D. .597) the older form gave way gradual- i Iv to the form introduced by him, which was i ■ rnodified form of the Roman. Before the Reforma- tion there had developed in England a number of diocesan Uses, which, however, affected the Eucharistic office but little. The most famous