Chalice

CHALICE. - It is that one, among the sacred vessels, in which the eucharistic wine is consecrated during the Mass.

I. ARCHAEOLOGY

Just as the first places of worship were an ordinary room in private houses, the first altars a simple table, and the first liturgical vestments those of everyday use, so too the chalice was originally nothing but an ordinary vessel of common use, whence also derives its form, which is generally the same both in the East and in the West. The Greeks have ποτήριον, which denotes a chalice without handles, while κρατήρ is used for the chalice with handles; ancient, but rare, is κόπελλον, used in antiquity, for example, in the Apostolic Constitutions (PG 1, 1092) and later by Agathias (d. 580; Histor., I. II: PG 88, 1329). In Latin the most frequent of all is calix, from antiquity both because of its form and because in Italy ποτήριον was translated calix from the Greek κόλιξ.

In the early Christian period scyphus from σκόφος was also used, and Braun holds that by this word was meant the chalice for the consecration, while by c. was designated the one used for the communion of the faithful.

There are then the distinctions of c. sanctus to indicate the one of the consecration used in Rome in the 8th and 9th centuries; c. ministerialis, an expression employed in the Lib. Pont. up to the 8th century for the chalice in use for the communion of the faithful; c. stationarius, the one reserved in Rome for the consecration during the stational services; c. maior or minor according to its dimensions or according to the liturgical solemnity; c. ad Baptismum for administering communion in Rome to the neophytes, as is recalled in the Lib. Pont. in the biography of Innocent I (401-17); c. ad offerendam faciendam or offerendarius, the one in which the offerings of wine for the consecration were collected or the one with which the wine was brought for the divine sacrifice; c. quotidianus, the one used every day, to distinguish it from the other reserved for solemnities (Lib. Pont., I, p. 418, in the biography of Gregory III [731-41]); c. viaticus, the one used on journeys, often of very small dimensions, in use especially in the 11th-13th centuries; c. appensorius or pendentilis, not liturgical, but simply placed as a decorative element hanging from the pergulae in the basilicas and recalled in the biographies of the popes of the 8th and 9th centuries: Gregory III (731-41), Leo III (795-816), Paschal I (817-24), Leo IV (844-55) and also mentioned for the same period in the Ravenna Lib. Pont.

Material and form of the c. - As for the material, in origin there was no distinction; every drinking vessel was permitted, whether of glass or of metal, etc.; for the pre-Carolingian age wood cannot be excluded.

Glass was much in use among the Romans and there certainly were glass chalices in the post-Constantinian period, while chalices in gold and silver are mentioned in the Lib. Pont., in the Constantinian donations.

In the pre-Carolingian era there are also chalices in bronze and copper, but there is no documentation of them, as there is instead for chalices in crystal or in onyx.

The first Christian monument that offers us the representation of a chalice without a foot is that of the painting known as the Fractio panis in Priscilla, whose eucharistic meaning is certain; whereas one must exclude that the chalice coming from the coemeterium maius and now in the Sacred Museum of the Vatican Library, published by De Rossi in his Bullettino d'Archeologia cristiana of 1879, is eucharistic. It is moreover entirely implausible that the form of the eucharistic chalice was derived from that used at the Last Supper. From the very beginning, in fact, two different forms were in promiscuous use: the form with handles and grips or auriculae, with the handles in the shape of ears or in the shape of an S; or the chalice without handles. The foot is generally conical, either simple or with a knot in the center, mostly round and low; in the East there exists a third form: instead of the foot there is a small base that supports the cup, assuming the form of a modern cup.

The cup may be oval, in the shape of a glass or in the manner of a vase, or hemispherical. The form is generally the same both in the East and in the West. In some examples existing in the treasury of St. Mark's and coming from Constantinople, between the knot and the cup a support or a cup-holder is introduced.

Types of chalices with handles are offered by the chalice of Ardagh, today in the museum of Dublin, of uncertain dating, but attributed by many to the 9th century; by the chalice of St-Denis, today in America in a private collection; by the traveling chalice of the cathedral of Cividale, only 9.5 cm high with a cup 5.5 cm wide and furnished with the depictions of Abraham and Melchizedek; by the series of precious chalices of the treasury of St. Mark's in Venice (10th-12th centuries) which are not of metal, but of glass, onyx, crystal, chalcedony and serpentine.

This form remains constant both in the East and in the West from the beginning until 1300; and these chalices served both for the consecration and for the communion of the faithful.

The most ancient example of a chalice without handles is offered by the chalice of Antioch (v.). The same form is found in the chalice por-

carried by the empress Theodora in the mosaic of St. Vitale in Ravenna (6th cent.). Contemporary with it is the one in the fresco of Bāwīṭ in Egypt. Others are depicted in the 6th or 7th century on patens, e.g. the one found at Riha on the Orontes, or in miniatures, as on the Ashburnham Pentateuch. The form then remained constant: see, for example, the silver chalice offered by the deacon Ursus (5th-6th cent.), now at Lamön; the gold and enamel chalice with a conical bowl from Chelles (7th cent.), now lost, said to have been donated by St. Eligius to St. Bathilde; the chalice, of about the 7th century, from Petöhaza (Hungary); the chalice of Chrodegang of Séez (d. 775), now at Leningrad; the copper chalice of Duke Tassilo III (ca. 780) at Kremsmünster (Austria); that of Liutger (d. 809) at Werden (Germany).

In the East there is a group of seven Syrian chalices, all found between Aleppo and Antioch, whose authenticity Braun declares uncertain; while all authentic are the 14 of the treasury of St. Mark in Venice, only one with a metal bowl, the others instead in alabaster, agate, onyx or crystal.

Engelberto Kirschbaum

II. ART

In the Romanesque age the hemispherical cup is inserted directly on the knop, as in the rich example of St. Godehard at Hildesheim or in the far more modest one said to have belonged to St. Francis in the treasury of the basilica of Assisi. At the end of the 13th century the cup takes on a more slender and soaring line, the foot takes on lobed terminals, the stem becomes differentiated and the knop is faceted in order to receive, together with other parts, a rich decoration in which enamel is combined with chasing and niello and with every other most refined technique of the goldsmith's art; the chalice of Nicholas IV in St. Francis at Assisi, by the Sienese Guccio di Manaia, is a typical example of the new orientation. While the Campanian goldsmiths of the 14th century or those of the Abruzzi of the following century remain more attached to traditional forms, the Venetian ones are distinguished by a subtle execution and by the characteristic form that the knop gradually assumes with Gothic framings in which busts of saints find a place. In the 16th century the chalice loses every residual Gothic decorative element; the polychromy of the enamels is replaced by a plastic decoration in which leafy festoons are placed alongside figures. The Baroque chalice has a greater expansion of the cup and an accentuation in the plastic motifs, in the foot and in the knop, which instead tend to be reordered into a more measured scheme in the course of the 18th century. Since then the form and decoration of the chalice have not undergone profound modifications; festoons, eucharistic symbols of the ear of wheat and of the grape, heads of cherubim continue to be arranged according to the established formulas.

Guglielmo Matthiae

III. LITURGY

1. Matter

The present-day prescriptions concerning the matter of the chalice concern especially the cup, which must be of gold or of silver, gilded on the inside; for the stem and the base other suitable metals may also be used; not, however, glass or ivory. Special concessions are made for the missions and for cases of grave poverty (Decreta authentica S. R. Congr., n. 3136, ad 4).

2. Form

The chalice must have a form such as not to provoke astonishment in the faithful; therefore art must adapt itself in line, expression and decoration to the sacred purpose which the chalice serves; the cup must be such as to avoid the danger of tipping over and spilling the Sacred Species (ibid., Appendix, II, n. 4371).

3. Consecration

In ancient times the chalice remained consecrated by the use made of it in the eucharistic sacrifices. The special rite of consecration does not go back beyond the 7th century, and became obligatory, by force of the custom gradually introduced, only from the 9th century. Today the CIC reserves consecration to bishops (can. 1147), to cardinals who are not bishops (can. 239, § 1, n. 20), to apostolic prefects (can. 294, § 2), to abbots and prelates nullius (can. 323, § 2).

4. Desecration

The chalice remains desecrated: a) if it suffers lesions or changes such as to lose its original form and render it unfit for its function (e.g. if it has broken in two; if the cup is pierced or has been notably cracked); b) if it is used in unsuitable cases (e.g. in a theater) or exposed to a public sale (CIC, can. 1305, § 1); if the cup has lost its inner gilding, it does not for this reason lose its consecration; only the obligation remains to have it gilded again (ibid., § 2). - See Plates XXIV-XXV.

Celestino Testore