of them: " ye understand," says he," the sacrament in the order of its administration. First after prayer, (meaning the prayer for the whole state of the Church, which went before,) ye are taught to lift up your hearts. Therefore when it is said, 'Lift up your hearts;' ye answer, 'We lift them up unto the Lord.' The bishop or presbyter, who officiates, goes on and says,' Let us give thanks unto our Lord God:' and ye give in your attestation, and say, It is meet and right so to do.' Then after the consecration of the sacrifice we say the Lord's prayer. And after that, the priest says, 'Peace be with you,' and Christians salute one another with an holy kiss." Here we have not only the method of the communion-service, but the several forms of it in order one after another. And these forms are frequently mentioned by St. Austin in other places. The Lord's-prayer, he says, was always used by the whole Church almost, as the close of the consecration-service, and at other times as the daily prayer of the faithful, peculiarly belonging to them and not to the catechumens, as we shall shew more fully hereafter.* The form, "Sursum corda, lift up your hearts, &c," he says, was used by all Christians throughout the world, who daily answered with one voice, "We lift up our hearts unto the Lord," as he speaks in his Book of True Religion, and other places. And to this he says the priests added that other form, "Let us give thanks to our Lord God:" to which the people answered, "it is meet and right so to do:" as he speaks in his Epistles to Dardanus and Honoratus, and in his Book of the Gift of Perseverance against the Pelagians, and De Spiritu et Litera, and suo. Aug. Hom. 83. de Diversis. tom. x. p. 556. Tenetis sacramentum ordine Primo post orationem admonemini sursum habere cor, &c. Ideò cùm dicitur, sursum cor,' respondetis, Habemus ad Dominum.'- -Sequitur episcopus vel presbyter, qui offert, et dicit, Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro! et vos attestamini, Dignum et justum est,' dicentes. Deinde post santificationem sacrificii dicimus Orationem Dominicam. Post istam dicitur, Pax vobiscum:' et osculantur se Christiani osculo sancto. Aug. Ep. lix. ad Paulin. 8 Ep. cxxi. ad Probam. Enchirid. ad Laurent. cap. lxxi. Homil. xlii. inter 50. De Bono De Bono Viduitatis, which being all to the same purpose, need not here be repeated. He also mentions in his other writings the solemn form of the priest's saying, "Peace be with you," and the people's giving one another thereupon the kiss of peace, which was a symbol of that innocency and peace, which ought to be the qualification of true Christian doves. And this rite, he says, was observed not only by the Catholics, but by the Donatists also. So that here is unquestionable evidence for the use of all these forms in the writings of St. Austin. And though he does not give us the whole forms of the longer prayers made by the bishop at the altar, yet he mentions some parts of them, and makes such references and appeals to them both in his discourses to the Orthodox, and confutations of heretics, as plainly shews they were common forms, which they were well acquainted with, and by remembering them might understand the doctrine of the Church. Thus in his Book of Perseverance, he says, " those of the Church need not any operose disputations to convince them of the necessity of God's grace to persevere; they need only remember her daily prayers, how she prays, that infidels may believe, and that believers may persevere. And again, he tells them, "it is the safest way for weak men in this dispute, to look upon these prayers which the Church always had, and always will have to the end of the world. For when did not the Church pray for infidels and her enemies, that they might believe? or who ever, when he heard the priest pray Habere cum fratribus veram 2 Cont. Literas Aug. Hom. vi. in Joan. tom. ix. p. 21. pacem, quam significant oscula columbarum, &c. Petilian. lib. ii. cap. xxiii. Illum commemoro, Optatum Gildonianum, cui pacis osculum inter sacramenta copulabatis. 3 De Bono Persever. cap. vii. In hâc re non operosas disputationes expectet Ecclesia, sed attendat quotidianas orationes suas. Orat, ut credentes perseverent. 4 Ibid. cap. xxiii. Ut magis intuerentur orationes suas, quas semper habuit et habebit Ecclesia. Quando enim non oratum est in Ecclesiâ pro infidelibus atque inimicis ejus, ut crederent?-Aut quis sacerdotem super fideles Dominum invocantem, si quando dixit,' da illis, Domine, in te perseverare usque in finem, non solùm voce ausus est, sed saltem cogitatione reprehendere; ac non potiùs super ejus talem benedictionem, et corde credente et ore confitente respondit Amen: cùm aliud in ipsâ Oratione Dominicâ non erant fideles, &c. ing over the faithful, and saying Grant, O Lord, that they may persevere in Thee unto the end,' durst either in word or thought find fault with him, and not rather with faith in his heart, and confession in his mouth, answer amen to such a benediction? When the faithful pray no otherwise in the Lord's prayer, especially when they say, Lead us not into temptation.' By all which it appears, that both the larger and the shorter prayers, in the communion-office of the African Church in St. Austin's time, were offered up in such forms, as the people could easily remember, when he referred to them as evidence in some disputes, which this was an easy way to determine. Fourthly, there was one sort of prayers more, which St. Austin distinguishes from the former, by the name of the common-prayers, dictated or indicted to the people by the voice of the deacon. Now these prayers, as I shall shew more fully hereafter,' differed from the bishop's prayer in this, that the bishop's prayer was a direct and continued invocation of God, to which 'the people answered only, amen! in the conclusion; but the deacon's prayer was a sort of bidding-prayer, or direction to the people what particulars they were to pray for; the deacon going before them, and repeating every petition, to which they made answer, "Lord hear us, or "Lord help us," or "Lord have mercy," or the like. And this sort of prayer St. Austin expressly calls," Communis Oratio voce Diaconi indicta, common prayer dictated by the voice of the deacon." And he seems in one of his Epistles to specify some of the particular petitions contained in that prayer. For writing to one, who was infected with the Pelagian doctrine, maintaining that infidels were only to be preached to, and not prayed for, because faith was not the work of God's grace, but the effect of man's own free-will, he urges him with the known prayers of the Church, which the man himself frequented. Exercise," says he, "your disputations against the prayers of the Church, and when you hear the priest of God at the altar exhorting the people of Book xv. chap. i. sect. 2. cap. xviii. 3 2 Aug. Ep. 119. ad. Paulin. Ep. 107. ad. Vitalem. p. 187. God to pray for unbelievers, that they may be converted to the faith; and for catechumens, 'that God would inspire them with a desire of regeneration;' and for the faithful, that by his gift they may persevere in that wherein they have begun;' mock at these pious words, and say, you do not do what you here are exhorted to do." And again,' "when you hear the priest of God at the altar exhorting the people to pray to God, or else hear him praying with an audible voice, that God would compel the unbelieving Gentiles to come in to his faith,' do you not answer and say, 'amen?" These seem to be usual parts of the prayer for the whole state of the world, in which infidels were prayed for as well as others, to which St. Austin refers, as things well known to all that frequented the prayers of the Church. Besides these, there were some occasional offices, such as the office of exorcism, and the institution of the catechumens, and baptism, in which many forms, and rites, and ceremonies were observed, agreeable to the practice then obtaining in the Church: but of these I have had occasion to speak largely out of St. Austin and other writers in a former book, and therefore think it needless to repeat them in this place. All, I shall further add, is two or three canons of the African Councils, held in St. Austin's time, at some of which he was present and assisted. He was a member of the third Council of Carthage, in one of whose canons there are several orders and directions given concerning the public prayers, that no one in prayers should name the Father for the Son, or the Son for the Father. And when they stood at the altar, all prayers should be directed to the Father. And whatever prayers any one writ out for himself, or from other books, he should not use them before they were examined by his more learned brethren. This is as plain an argument for set forms as can be given, and yet some, I know not by what means, make 2 Books ix. and x. 1 Ep. 107. ad Vitalem. p. 191. Con. Carthag. iii. can. 23. Ut nemo in precibus vel Patrem pro Filio, vel Filium pro Patre nominet. Et cum ad altare assistitur, semper ad Patrem dirigatur oratio. Et quicunque sibi preces aliunde describit, (al. quascunque sibi preces aliquis describit) non eis utatur, priusquam eas cum instructioribus fratribus contulerit. it an argument against them. The design of the canon was plainly to prevent all irregularities and corruptions creeping into the devotions of the Church: and therefore the Fathers made an order, that no bishop should use any prayers in his Church, but such as were first examined and approved by his fellow-bishops in a Council. As another canon in the African Code explains it," that such prayers should be used by all, as had been authorised and confirmed in synod, whether they were prefaces, or commendations, or impositions of hands, and that no other should be brought in against the faith, but those only be said, which were collected or examined by men of greater abilities and understanding." And this is repeated again in the Council of Milevis almost in the same words. These African Fathers probably had observed, that there were some country bishops, who had not sufficient abilities to compose orthodox forms for the use of their own Churches: and therefore they a little restrained the ancient liberty, which every bishop had of composing a form of prayer for his own Church, and obliged them to use such as were composed by men of greater abilities, or such as had been approved in synod, that no heretical opinion might creep into the public worship, either by their ignorance or want of care in their compositions. By all this it appears, that the public devotions of the African Church, were at this time directed by certain forms of worship, and those not left to every bishop to compose for himself, but he must use such prayers as were first approved by his brethren, or established and confirmed in Council. And this seems to be the first beginning of that custom, which afterward prevailed all over the Church, as has been before observed in this chapter, that all provin 3 1 Cod. Afric. can. 106. Ὥτε τὰς κεκυρώμενας ἱκεσίας, εἴτε οἴμια, εἴτε παραθέσεις εἴτε τὰς τῆς χειρὸς ἐπιθέσεις ἀπὸ παντων ἐπιτελεῖσθαι, κ παντελῶς ἄλλας κατὰ τῆς πίςεως μηδέποτε προσενεχθῆναι, ἀλλ ̓ αἵτινες δήποτε ἀπὸ τῶν συνετωτέρων συνήχθησαν, λεχθήσονται. Con. Milevit. can. xii. Placuit etiam et illud, ut preces vel orationes seu missæ, quæ probatæ fuerint in synodo, sive præfationes, sive commendationes, sive manûs impositiones, ab omnibus celebrentur. Nec aliæ omninò dicantur, nisi quæ à prudentioribus tractatæ, vel comprobatæ in synodo fuerint, ne forte aliquid contra fidem, vel per ignorantiam, vel per minus studium sit compositum. See before in this chap. sect. 2. |