contents of each book, the first contains the Missal and other Offices connected with the ecclesiastical year; the second, Masses for Saints' days; the third presents a large body of votive Masses, with a certain number for Sundays and week-days.' As to its authorship, Edmund Bishop has this to say: 'By general acquiescence of the learned, rather than by consent after any specific and recent critical investigation, the Gelasianum is commonly allowed to pass, either as an actual production of Pope Gelasius I (492-496), or, at least, as dating from about his time.' 2 The manuscripts of it which we possess are Gallican work of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries. Many of the distinctive Roman features are omitted. There is no mention of a Roman basilica: 'All prayers relating to certain Offices proper to Roman observance, the Mass of St. Anastasia on Christmas Day, the Greater Litany, April 25, the procession at Easter Vespers, the collectae or assemblies at certain feasts, have been suppressed.' 3 3 Yet the groundwork remains distinctly Roman, and into it have been inserted many features of Gallican origin. Stranger still, the use made of the book in one century in Gaul differs greatly from that made of it in another century. The seventh-century manuscript represents a purer Roman origin than does the eighth. How the book came from Rome to Gaul is not apparent, but once in Gaul it became widely popular. Hence arises the puzzling anomaly that the Gelasian Sacramentary, which ought to be the Roman Mass Book of the early part (at least) of the sixth century, contains later liturgical developments which are not found in the Gregorian Sacramentary, a fact which has led more than one writer astray. Fortunately we have authentic knowledge of the history of the introduction of the Gregorian Sacramentary into Gaul, and are therefore the better able to trace the influence of this introduction upon the development of the whole of the Roman Liturgy as it now exists. When Charlemagne succeeded in bringing barbaric Europe into an ordered and civilized system of government, he turned his attention to the securing of liturgical uniformity instead of the liturgical chaos which existed throughout 1 E. Bishop, Liturgica Historica, p. 40. Ibid. pp. 42, 43. 3 Duchesne, Origines du culte Chrétien, 2nd Edition, pp. 130, 131. Quoted, Liturgica Historica, p. 43. his dominions. There were in use Gallican books pure and simple, Gallican books with a slight Roman tincture, and Roman books with a large Gallican admixture. Nothing would achieve his purpose more effectually than the introduction of the Roman rite as carried out in Rome, and he therefore applied to Pope Hadrian for a copy of the Roman Mass Book. Pope Hadrian did not immediately comply with the request, but about the year 791 the desired book came. It was described in the covering letter as the book arranged long ago by our holy predecessor, the God-inspired Gregory.' Hence Mgr. Duchesne calls it now 'Sacramentaire d'Hadrien.' But the path of a liturgical reformer is notoriously not a smooth one-witness the stool flung at the minister's head in Edinburgh as a protest against the imposition on the Scots of the Book of Common Prayer. The new book thus sent to Gaul failed immediately to oust its old Roman and Gallican rivals. All the nations of Europe have their own religious psychology. The Romans, with their gravity, and the Gauls, with their exuberance, differed in their ideals and in their requirements. The new Roman book lacked what the Gauls, for centuries, had devised and pondered over as the vital means of nourishing their faith and devotion. One has only to compare the Roman rite of ordination in the new Gregorian book with the old Gallican rites, to measure the contrast and the disappointment. Charlemagne was compelled to compromise. If he did not act officially others would act unofficially. He drew up a supplement to the Gregorianum, containing a choice of much that was required, and set forth the new book, with a preface by Alcuin, which served at once to explain Charlemagne's purpose and to mark the distinction between the Pope's book and the latest authoritative supplement. In course of time the Preface ceased to appear in its official place, or else was dropped; convenience was more and more consulted, and the contents of the supplement were little by little incorporated into the body of the book. Hence, while Pope Gregory gave the Church four prophecies on Holy Saturday, and the Gelasian Sacramentary 2 ten, Gallican thoroughness required twelve, and twelve stand 1 Cf. Edmund Bishop, Liturgica Historica, 'Earliest Roman Mass Book,' p. 51. Edmund Bishop, Downside Review, July, 1919, p. 7. 2 The later and more Gallican Rheinau codex of the Gelasian gives twelve prophecies. and are read in the Roman Missal down to the present day. For our purpose it is necessary to point out here that the Gelasian Sacramentary and the Gregorian book sent by Hadrian differ materially in the provision which they make for the Masses of the Sundays after Pentecost. In the Vatican manuscript of the Gelasian, a series of fifteen Pentecostal Masses is found; a full series exists in the later codex known as the Rheinau manuscript. With some trifling exceptions these Masses are identical with the corresponding Masses of the present Roman Missal. As a rule a choice of collects is given, usually two, sometimes three and rarely one in number-the Secret and the Post-Communion follow. Perhaps it is due to a failure to observe this that the Mass Pro Tempore Belli has for its Post-Communion prayer (which ought really to have reference to the Communion just received) the prayer which stands as the second in a choice of three in the Gelasian, and the third of three in the Gregorian." In the Sacramentary sent by Hadrian these Pentecostal Masses do not appear at all. 3 It would be easy and obvious to infer that Pope Gregory omitted in his book as unnecessary such a series of Masses. The question, however, is complicated by the discovery that in the seventh century palimpsest at Monte Cassino, examined in 1909 by Dom A. Wilmart, the sets of Masses for the Sundays after Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost are found, and these Masses are textually the same as those found in Alcuin's Supplement to the Gregorian Sacramentary. It is certain that this manuscript, the oldest of its kind, was written in Rome or in the neighbourhood of Rome. Hence we may reasonably ask if Pope Hadrian reformed the Missal as he reformed the Office books.4 More information may some day be gathered on this point, but for the present it must be regarded as another of the mysteries attaching to the development of the liturgy in Rome. Yet, whether these collects are an integral part of the Gelasian book, whether they were retained by Gregory and excluded by Hadrian, they are certainly Roman in origin 1 Cf. Wilson edition of Gelasian Sacramentary, p. 272. ▲ Ibid. p. 63 (note.) and character-not a few of them exist in the Leonian Sacramentary. Their period of origin, therefore, will range (according as we date the Leonian book) from the fifth to the seventh century. Cardinal Newman says of Cicero, that whereas all his classical rivals wrote Latin, he wrote Roman. The compliment may not undeservedly be paid to these virile specimens of Latin Prose. They are Roman in the lines of their architecture and in the religious psychology which their fondness for the use of those essentially Roman words 'Pietas' and 'Mens' so notably marks.1 In them lingers the austere dignity of phrase and rhythm which only an imperial people could fashion as the expression of their genius. They catch up in terms noble and reserved all the aspirations of the Christian Church. They expound the faith and teach the truth against the heresies of the day-the law of prayer giving the law of belief. They blend the conciseness of theological statement with the comeliness of high literary art. Their texture is fragrant with the prayer and praise of Saints. They breathe the spirit of the Church-not of the Catacombs, but of the Basilicas. They are echoes from the chair of the Bishop, and their serenity, because it rests on the consciousness of Apostolic might, is not disturbed even when the barbarians were sweeping through Italy to thunder at the gates of Rome. And yet the very stateliness of their reserve is alien to those intimate outpourings of personal emotion which is so arresting a feature of the Eastern Liturgies. The difference is a fundamental one, lying deep in the cleft which divides East and West. What the Collects lack in this respect is found in amplest measure in the antiphonal portions of the Mass, which provide a means of stirring the feelings of the soul with a warmth and freedom impossible in collected prayer. While the Offertory and Communion show more independence of choice, drawing usually from the Psalms but also from other portions of Holy Scripture, the Introits and Graduals of the Masses which we are discussing are invariably from the Psalms, and, as a rule, it will be found that those portions of the Psalms were chosen which most meet the public and private needs of the hour. 1 Cf. Downside Review, July, 1919. p. 14; 'The Liturgical Reforms of Charlemagne,' E. Bishop. 2 Exceptions are Introit for 20th Sunday, 21st Sunday, 23rd and 24th Sundays, taken from Dan. iii., Esther xiii., Jeremias xxix. VOL. XV-28 The Masses for the proper and common of Saints emphasize the glories and sufferings of the Saints and Martyrs. That is indeed due from the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant. The Sunday Masses, however, emphasize the relations between God and the Church, or between God and the individual soul. Their burden is a belief in God's all enfolding Presence, a longing to see His Face, a conviction of His power, a sense of His Providence and of His readiness to help-that He is our light and our refuge. We are bidden to sing to Him, to proclaim His praises, to rest under the shadow of His wings. He is entreated to bow down His ear and hearken to us. These and all human heart-stirrings find their expression here where Christian Saint and Hebrew Prophet have etched and moulded. EDWARD STEPHENS. |