LITURGY

(See Common Prayer , Formulary , and Public Worship .) From the Greek word λειτουργία , a public act or duty . This term was originally used to denote the service or form employed in the celebration of the eucharist. In the Eastern Churches, that service was frequently called the “Divine” or “mystical” liturgy; while in the West, though the term “liturgy” was used, yet the name of “mi a” was more common. At the present day, the word is employed to designate the ordinary prescribed service of the Church, either with or without the Communion Office. (See article on Formularies , where the general question of forms of prayer is treated.) The history of liturgies may thus be briefly stated. When the Christians were no longer in fear of the violence and persecutions of the heathens, and in that age when the Church came to be settled, (that is, from the time of Const an tine to that of St. Augustine,) we find there was a liturgy in the Eastern Church. The first Cyril of Jerusalem mentions some parts of an ancient liturgy used in that place, both in respect to the form of baptism, and the celebration of the eucharist. St. Basil composed a liturgy himself, which is to be seen in the Bibliotheca Patrum , and in his book De Spiritu Sancto ; and he tells us how the service of the Church was directed by rules and rubrics. In St. Chrysostom’s time, Omnes unam eandemque precem concipiēbant , and this was not only a public prayer, but a public form; for in that collection of his works set forth by Sir Henry Saville, we find a liturgy of his own making, which was translated out of the Syriac by Masius, and used generally throughout all the Greek churches. Now, if it should be granted that premeditated prayers are not required by God in our private addre es to him, yet it is plain from those instances already mentioned, such prayers were always held nece ary in the public services of the Church; and this further appears by the form prescribed by our Saviour himself, who, when we pray, commanded us to say, “Our Father ,” .; and St. Matthew tells us, that he went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words . The Apostolical Canons mention some set forms of prayer, both before and after the communion; and St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, before mentioned, not only composed set forms themselves, but they describe set liturgies as having been composed by St. Mark and St. James; and the adversaries to such forms have no other plausible pretence to deny these authorities than by alleging these liturgies to be supposititious, which is an answer that may serve upon any occasion to evade an argument, which cannot otherwise be answered. St. Ambrose and Prosper tell us, there were set forms of prayers used in the Church in their time; and they give the reason for it, ne in diversum intellectum nostro evagemur arbitrio : and St. Hilary hath this expre ion on the 66th Psalm, viz. Let those without the Church hear the voice of the people praying within. Now the word praying of the people must signify something more than the bare suffrage Amen ; it must import their joint concurrence in the actual performance of the whole duty, which cannot be done but where the prayers are in a set form. And these are the prayers which Isidore tells us were used in the ancient congregations of the Christians; and it is most certain that such were in use in that great apostate Julian’s time; for Nazianzen informs us, that he endeavoured to establish the heathen ceremonies in imitation of the Christian services, by appointing, not only certain times, but set forms of prayer. It is true, that many of the ancient liturgies were destroyed by the persecuting heathens, yet some fragments of them still remain in the writings of the Fathers, and are such as are used in our Church at this day; as the words before and after the consecration of the sacrament are to be found in St. Ambrose: the question demanded of the godfathers in the sacrament of baptism, viz. “Whether they do, in the name of the infant, renounce the devil and all his works, and the pomps and vanities of this wicked world,” are to be found in the same St. Ambrose, and in Tertullian; the Gloria Patri , of which more hereafter, is in Sozomen; and the supplement to that doxology, viz. “As it was in the beginning,” ., is to be found in Irenæus. In the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, the words pronounced by the priest, viz. “Lift up your hearts,” and the answer, “We lift them up; it is meet and right for us so to do,” are to be found in St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom; and so are these words, viz. “The Lord be with you, And with thy spirit;” and, lastly, Isidore mentions the usual conclusion of all our collects, viz. “Through Jesus Christ our Lord ,” . In the Western Church, St. Cyprian tells us there was a liturgy, viz. in the Church of Africa, which is usually accounted amongst the Churches of the West; and we find some pieces of such liturgies in St. Augustine; and not only approved by him, but by all the Fathers of that Church a embled in a synod, as it appears by the canons which they made, and which are mentioned both by Balsam on and Zonaras, viz. that prayers be performed by all, and not any to be said in public, but only such as have been composed by wise and understanding men, lest anything should be vented against the faith, either through ignorance or want of meditation. Tertullian mentions a liturgy used in Rome, which was probably begun by St. Peter, for it bears his name; and Platina tells us, that several additions were made to it by St. Basil in his time; and in some things this author is very particular, as that Celestine added the Introitus , Gregory added the Kyrie Eleison , Telesphorus the Gloria in Excels is , Sixtus the First added “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts,” which is called the Trisagion ; Gelasius the Collects, St. Jerome the Epistles and Gospels. The Gloria Patri , which has been mentioned before, was not only appointed by the Council of Nice to encounter the Arian heresy, but it was used long before that council, even by the apostles themselves, who were commanded by their Master to baptize in the name of the Father , and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost . This is found in the writings of all those ancient fathers who lived near the time of the apostles, as in Clemens, who was their scholar, and in Dionysius of Alexandria; but the following words, which make up the whole form of the doxology, viz. “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end,” were not brought into the Church till the Arian heresy began to spread, and this was about the time of the Council of Nice. It is true this began first in the Eastern Church, and from thence it came to the West, where Pope Damasus [ A. D. 366–384] was the first who appointed it to be used at the end of the psalms, which made up the greatest part of the public liturgy of that Church. The Churches of France, Spain, and England had the like liturgies, though not exactly the same. Although we have no certain account what rites or forms were used here among the Britons, yet Bede, in his ecclesiastical history, tells us, that as soon as the gospel was planted here, there was a liturgy formed out of the rituals of the most flourishing Churches then in the world. For Pope Gregory advised St. Augustine not to follow the Roman office strictly, but to take what he should approve in any Church, and prescribe the same to the English, which he did; and this liturgy of St. Augustine continued for some ages, till Osmond, bishop of Sarum, [ A. D. 1078,] finding that new prayers and offices abounded everywhere, reduced them all to one form, and from thence it was called secundum usum Sarum . The liturgy of the Irish Church, according to Mr. Palmer, was, during the first ages, probably the same as that of Britain. The ancient Irish liturgy still extant differs considerably from the Roman. It seems, he adds, that in later times there were great varieties in the mode of celebrating Divine worship in Ireland, which were mentioned by Gillebert, bishop of Limerick, A. D. 1090. And which appear to have been removed by the Synod of Arles, A. D. 1152, when the Roman rites were established. By the seventh statute of the Synod, or rather Council, of Cashel, 1172, the regulations of the Irish Church were a imilated to those of England. The use of Sarum was adopted; though it has been supposed that the Irish use lingered for a considerable time in parts of the more distant provinces. As to the liturgy now used amongst us, it was reformed at the time of the Reformation: for the offices of the Church before that time consisting in mi als, breviaries, psalteries, graduals, and pontificals, and every religious order having peculiar rites observed among themselves, it was thought proper that the worship of God should be brought under a set form; and moreover, that nothing should be changed merely out of an affectation of novelty, or because it had been used in times of Popery, so as it had been practised in the primitive times. (See next article.)