A Short History of the Mass

Excerpted

From Orthodoxy, Vol. VII, No. 1, Spring 1956, the journal of the Society of Clerks Secular of St. Basil (received into the Antiochian Archdiocese in 1958)

The law of exchange is inherent in nature and in society: plant and sow, give and take, pay and get. From primitive times man has felt the moral implications of his relation to a supreme power and applied this natural law to it: do something for God—he will do something for you.

Judaism replaced this transactional character with the element of sacrifice, awakening the moral impulse to give through and from love as Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac from sheer obedience.

When our Lord appeared Israel had already heard the call to sacrifice. Thy will be done was the epitome of Jewish spirituality. The motive was subjective—because man was the kind of being he was and would find the highest realization of his true nature in selfless submission to God who had made him. It was not, as we too easily think, an attempt to move the Almighty, for that was beyond man’s power. Love is the bond between two objective entities. Our individuality is God’s manifestation of love, and what makes it possible for us to love him. A worthy sacrifice which is the soul’s urgent and unattainable desire is also a gift of grace. He who planted the desire also supplies the fulfilment. But individuality is the power of separation as well. The highest manifestation of love is respect for individuality. It alone is the bond of charity unstained by possessiveness. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

Our Lord’s sacrifice was free from all taint of human selfishness, a pure gift impelled by love, i.e. by the nature of God. As such it would become an eternal process placed in men’s hands, the new Lamb which they might offer to the Father. The best motives in the world will not convert base metal into gold, though a nuclear scientist might succeed in doing so with the very worst motives. However noble may be man’s self-sacrifice, it can matter very little over the total span of time and space. Only the grace of God gives each soul infinite value and makes the acts of man morally efficacious. Note: it can do so not because God adds goodness to balance man’s deficit. It is because grace changes the nature of man’s efforts in kind, not in degree.

A year before his Passion, our Lord forecast the Eucharist: I am the living bread which comes down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever: and the bread that I give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world (John 6:51). The same sermon continues with further allusions to the exact nature of the Sacrament, its necessity and its application: He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. And not unnaturally, some of those who heard this baffling prophecy found it too hard to take and went their own way.

The sacrificial nature of the Eucharist is plainly defined by the separating of the Body and Blood, the Blood which was to be shed, the Body which was to be broken. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.

The liturgy is the way in which Christians obey that command.

St. Paul, the Apostolic Fathers, and later generations of Christians all affirmed, 1) the sacrificial character of the Eucharist and 2) the transformation of the elements into the true Body and Blood of Christ (I Cor. 10:16-21; Heb. 13:9-10; 15, &c.).

We learn that the first influx of Christians, following upon St. Peter’s sermon continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers (Acts 2:42) and again, and they, continuing daily with one accord in the Temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. The Eucharist had already become a touchstone of the practicing Christian and a bond with the Apostles themselves. Today as then, one is a communicant or a non-communicant.

As Dom Gregory Dix points out (The Shape of the Liturgy, p. 1–2): It is important for the understanding of the whole future history of the liturgy to grasp the fact that eucharistic worship from the outset was not based on scripture at all, but solely on tradition. The authority for its celebration was the historical tradition that, it had been instituted by Jesus, cited incidentally by St. Paul…and attested in the second Christian generation by the written Gospels…One remarkable feature of the N.T. allusions to the eucharist is the rich variety of meanings they already find within the single rite…It is the solemn proclamation of the Lord’s death; but it is also the familiar intercourse of Jesus abiding in the soul…it fulfils all the past…But it also looks forward to the future beyond the end of time…It foreshadowed the exultant welcome of his own at that second coming…By the time the N.T. came to be written the eucharist already illuminated everything concerning Jesus for his disciples—his person, his messianic office, his miracles, his death and the redemption that he brought. It was the vehicle of the gift of his Spirit, the means of eternal life. This fact of a great variety of meanings found within the single rite of the eucharist by the apostolic church of the first generation had important consequences for the future of the liturgy, though it has been curiously little appreciated in modern study.

In the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was a pupil of St. John the Divine, and who died about 107, we read that the Docetae, who disbelieved in the true human Incarnation of our Lord also denied his Real Presence in the Eucharist, and hence could not participate in communion. Had the Eucharist been understood as a mere memorial there would have been no problem.

St. Justin Martyr, who died about 165 says we do not receive these things as common bread and common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Saviour, being made flesh by the Word of God…so we have been taught that the food over which thanks have been given…are the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh (First Apology).

And St. Irenaeus, who was a pupil of St. Polycarp, himself a disciple of St. John, writes thus: He confessed that the chalice (taken) from the creature was his proper blood with which he bedews our blood, and the bread (taken) from the creature he affirmed with a strong affirmation to be his proper body from which he nourishes our bodies. Again: For we offer to him his own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and the Spirit. For as the bread which is produced from the earth when it receives the invocation of God is no longer common bread but the eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly, so also our bodies, when they receive the eucharist are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection into eternity (Against the Heresies).

Thus this doctrine, so taxing to the unillumined reason, was already acknowledged, and those who could not accept it were not of the Church.

Our first written liturgies appear in the third century, but a typical order is indicated prior to that.

1. Lessons from Old and New Testament
2. Psalms between
3. Sermon
4. Prayers
5. Kiss of Peace
6. Offering of bread, wine and water
7. The Eucharistic Thanksgiving
8. Remembrance of our Lord’s death, institution of the Last Supper and command to continue it
9. Amen said by all the people
10. Communion

This much we have from the Didache (90—130) and Justin Martyr (c. 150). To quote Dom Gregory Dix once again (op cit, 103): The proceedings began…with a greeting exchanged between the president and the ecclesia…The peace of God be with you all (in Syria), or The peace of the Lord be always with you (in the West). The church answered, as always, and with thy spirit…One or more deacons now spread a linen cloth which covered the whole altar…The eucharist itself now follows, a single clear swift action in four movements…The bishop is still seated on his throne behind the altar, across which he faces the people. His presbyters are seated in a semi-circle around him…Oblations of the people, and any other offerings in kind which might be made, the deacons now bring up to the altar and arrange upon it from the people’s side…The bishop rises and moves forward a few paces from the throne to stand behind the altar, where he faces the people with a deacon on either hand and his presbyters grouped around and behind him…The bishop and presbyters then laid their hands in silence upon the oblations. There followed the brief dialogue of invitation followed by the bishop’s eucharistic prayer which always ended with a solemn doxology, to which the people answered Amen. The bishop then broke some of the bread and made his communion while the deacons broke the remainder of the bread upon the table and the…presbyters around him broke bread which had been held before them on little glass dishes…There followed the communion, first of the clergy, seemingly behind the altar, and then of all the people before it…After the communion followed the cleansing of the vessels and then a deacon dismissed the ecclesia with a brief formula…Depart in peace…(Ite missa est) or some such phrase.

Liturgical formulas surviving from Judaism had their place and remain today, Amen, Alleluia and the dialogue before the Anaphora. The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus preserves an Anaphora in actual use in Rome in the early third or even in the late second century. A unique Western feature is the phrase Who, the day before he suffered instead of the Eastern form Who, the night in which he was betrayed.

Though its wording was still fluid, the general structure of the liturgy was now everywhere well fixed, with its Mass of the Catechumens and Mass of the Faithful. Only on some few occasions (Maundy Thursday in Rome) was there a Eucharist without the Synaxis, or Mass of the Faithful. In 416 Pope Innocent I (402–417) takes note of the features which distinguish the Roman Liturgy from others: the Pax is after the Fracture before Communion, and the Memento of the Living is in the Canon, after the Oblation. The families of liturgy had begun to form, local customs modifying the non-essentials and affecting the distribution of parts. As the bishop of the chief city would do, so his clergy would follow, and the language itself was becoming settled—although the priest as well as the bishop originally extemporized (the bishop was the invariable celebrant of the Eucharist in the early Church, surrounded by his presbyters; the multiplication of his responsibilities brought the priestly, or presbyteral ministry apart from the bishop; the first recorded instance of the liturgy celebrated by a priest apart from the bishop occurs in an epistle of St. Cyprian of Carthage written in the middle of the third century).

People who repeatedly do the same thing acquire uniform ways of doing it. So ceremonial postures existed from the very beginning of the Eucharistic rite and determined those which should accompany the later parts. Standing for prayer and sitting to hear the lessons was customary. Kneeling was reserved for private prayer, which explains why we are bidden in the Holy Week litanies first to pray for some object, then to bend the knee (for private prayer) then to arise and hear the celebrant pray on behalf of all for the purpose announced. The celebrant summarizes or collects our petitions in a common prayer said on behalf of all. Development of proper masses with assigned parts for festival or season brought proper collects and the introduction of the Gloria after the Kyrie severed responsive litany and celebrant’s prayer. In the East and during Lent at Toledo and Milan these remain joined.

A Canon of the Mass used at Milan and Rome survives in the book De Sacramentis of St. Ambrose (397). In it appear the first recognizable phrases of our modern Western Canon of the Mass: …approved, ratified reasonable&hellip therefore, calling to mind his most glorious passion and resurrection…and we ask and pray that thou wouldst receive this oblation at thine altar on high by the hands of thine angels…as thou didst vouchsafe to receive the offerings of thy righteous servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham…

Pope St. Leo I (440–461) contributed phrases to the Canon including the words a holy host, a spotless host and others. Similarly, the reforming Pope St. Gelasius wrought changes in the liturgy upon which it is now only possible to speculate. He was probably responsible for removing the prayers which closed the Synaxis of the old Roman liturgy following the Sermon, and he may have placed them where the Kyrie now stands—for that vestigial litany began, as we have seen, as a conventional dialogue of invitations and prayers. It may also have been St. Gelasius who transferred the Kiss of Peace, with which the Mass of the Faithful originally began (Justin Martyr) to its present place before Communion. The Sacramentary bearing St Gelasius’ name shows the beginnings of the variables, containing 112 masses proper to occasions—Sundays, feasts, etc.

Throughout this period it is surprisingly difficult to follow the feature which might interest us most: the Eucharistic Prayer or Canon. For, whereas that is the most stable element in the liturgy today, it remained flexible quite late. In liturgical development Rome was the most conservative, and Jerusalem the most adventuresome, of the patriarchates. Leo I caused some stir by adding to the Canon the words pure host, spotless host! Jerusalem’s preeminence as the holy city of Christendom gave it a unique prestige in matters of worship, though in point of continuous life it was the youngest of the patriarchates.

The Canon of Hippolytus shows the general pattern of the Eucharistic Prayer: an address to God through our Lord, a brief rationale of the Sacrament with a recollection of the Institution including our Lord’s own Words of Institution, of his death and Resurrection (anamnesis) and an invocation of God’s blessing upon the elements (epiklesis). The relationship of these and other features, notably the great Intercession and Kiss of Peace, are clues to the source, age and development of liturgies.

We have seen how Pope Innocent I in 416 already speaks of Roman liturgical peculiarities: the position of the Pax (Kiss of Peace) after the Fracture (where it had recently been moved from its more common position before the Offertory) and of the Intercession being within the Canon.

The several rites evolved simultaneously within spheres of primary episcopal influence by which their milieu were established: in the East at Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem; in the West at Rome, and more independently among the Transalpine people of Spain and Gaul.

Between Hippolytus and the eighth century the Roman liturgy underwent a baffling transformation.

Christians always prayed for the living and dead and commemorated the Saints at their meetings, usually at the conclusion of the Synaxis (as in the Gallican rite). When the Eucharist was celebrated apart from the Synaxis this element was placed (first at Jerusalem) within the Eucharistic prayer, or before it began (as it came to be in the Alexandrian Rite). In the Roman Rite it is divided, as is the commemoration of the Saints.

The Pax seems to have been a preliminary greeting of the faithful at the opening of all liturgies as a gesture of both affection and recognition of the initiated, of those eligible to remain for the mysteries. Only in the Alexandrian Rite was it at the present Western position, before Communion, and it is assumed that Roman influence brought that about. In any event it has remained there only in the Roman Rite.

The Roman Rite assigns to the deacon a very scanty part, as also do the Gallican and Mozarabic, and it has lost the litanies which became extremely popular, beginning at Antioch in the fourth century. The Kyrie was probably inspired by its use in the East as the response to the litany intercessions which remained in use there, but not at Rome.

The most vexatious enigma of the Roman Rite is the fate of its Epiklesis. The most popular supposition is that it was deliberately removed (by Gregory I?) to stress the new doctrine of consecration by Words of Institution alone.

Finally, there are apparent textual inconsistencies in the Canon which have inspired numberless theories among liturgiologists. What does the Te igitor, thee therefore refer to? Why therefore? Nothing in the preceeding explains it. And why do we pause just before the Words of Institution to ask again that the gifts be blessed and that we be saved? In fact, how to explain the repeated pleas to accept and bless which are scattered throughout? It is known that many of the Offertory prayers came from Gaul: that the Secret originally followed the Offertory act immediately. But the Canon presents another problem. In Hippolytus there is a tidy series of phrases following one another in terse, orderly sequence—one sentence, actually. De Sacramentis has the equivalent of the later Canon from the words which offering we beseech thee O God to bless… to the prayer that they be received as were the gifts of Abel, Abraham and Melchisedech.

Then in the Gregorian book appear the rest of the prayers of the modern Canon in a perplexing order with enigmatic connectives and references. And the curious double termination of the Canon: 1) by whom O Lord thou dost…bestow upon us all these good things and 2) …for by him and with him is to thee…all honor and glory.

Notwithstanding its logical peculiarities the Roman Canon presents an admirable structural symmetry to which some anonymous reviser gave careful thought. At the beginning we offer our gifts to God asking him to accept and bless them. At the end we give glory to him through what he has accepted and converted into his Body and Blood. We open the Canon by asking his blessing. We close it by giving glory to him through what he has blessed. The second memorial of the Saints echoes the first while our prayer for the living which comes before the Eucharistic presence balances that which we say in the living presence for those who have gone on to live consciously in that presence. What is presented for the last time just before the Words of Institution is immediately represented to God after the Anamnesis. The Preface before the Canon balances the Our Father after it. This in an admirably balanced but obviously contrived composition centered about the Institution narrative and Anamnesis and it anticipates the attention which would be dramatically focused upon a moment of consecration, with all the medieval theatrical staging. The rhythmic alternation of prayer, praise and instruction makes the Synaxis a fitting prologue.

So much had become fixed by the seventh century, the time of Gregory I. Still to come were: the preparatory prayers at the foot of the altar, sequences, Lavabo and Offertory prayers, Agnus Dei, prayers before, during and after Communion, blessing, Last Gospel, and so on.

While the outline of the Canon was unchanged, the additions, amplifications and ceremonies varied from place to place. All rites borrow from one another, and they develop traits of their own. The Roman liturgy assumed, but not uniformly, the features of other liturgies, especially, the Gallican. This process of embellishment led to the medieval derived rites which are more properly called local uses of the Roman Rite. Most of these lapsed in 1570 when the Missal was standardized and imposed upon all Roman Catholics who did not claim a 200 year precedent for their own uses. The English uses of Sarum, York and Hereford were swept away earlier by the Reformation. Most continental Roman Catholics except the regulars were willing to go along with the new, standardized rite. The Dominicans, Carmelites and Carthusians kept theirs which, together with a few local customs and prayers at Paris and Lyons are about the only variants that remain.

Once again: these were not different rites in the sense that the Ambrosian liturgy is different from the Roman. One cannot compare the Roman and Sarum liturgies, for the Sarum liturgy is the Roman liturgy of a certain time and place. The Pian Missal is another, the Dominican, a third, and so on. The differences between these were slight as an examination of the Sarum Missal will reveal: the elements are prepared before a High Mass and not brought to the altar until after the Epistle. Preparatory prayers and Confiteor are different, a Kiss of Peace is given before the Introit which is called the Officium as in the Mozarabic Rite, and which is usually repeated a second time after the verse, as well as at the end. After the Epistle the elements are brought to the altar in a procession. The Offertory was sometimes made by a single act and with a single prayer, rather than with two acts and two prayers.

Blessings would be given at a pontifical Mass before Communion, not after Mass. The priest’s prayers before Communion were different. Two candles were the usual custom and the color system was different, using blue for Lady days, yellow for confessors, and sometimes gray for ferias. Red was used on Sundays out of Paschaltide. Such variations existed throughout Europe in the Middle Ages and affected only the applique of ceremonial and custom which overlaid the essentials. The latter had been settled centuries earlier as we know from the Leonine, Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries.

The present Missal of 1570 represents a wise redaction of these fluid elements, clarified, and appropriately framed for modern use.