Canon of the Mass

CANON OF THE MASS. - The word c., having entered the ecclesiastical lexicon, from the 6th century onward is used to indicate the most solemn part and the essential formula of the Eucharistic rite.

I. MEANING

More than a fixed and invariable group of prayers, the word seems to mean a rule for the consecration of the Eucharist. In this sense it is found used for the first time in St. Gregory the Great: orationem dominicam mox post canonem dici statuistis (Epist., IX, 12). However, in 538 Pope Vigilius in his letter to Profuturus makes use of a nearly identical expression: canonicae precis textum. The name C. is nothing but the abbreviation, in use in the 5th-6th century, of Canon actionis, that is, rule of action and of prayers; the present form Canon Missae derives from the Gregorian Sacramentary and ended up prevailing. In the liturgical tradition there is no lack of other terms to indicate the same thing. It is called: prex, oratio oblationis, praecatio, praedicatio, benedictio, actio sacrificii, mysterium, anaphora, etc. The Eastern liturgies have numerous redactions of it, but generally use one typical formula. The Roman one has only one, the C., common also to the Ambrosian liturgy; only the first part of the prayer, the Preface, is variable, and in certain circumstances the Communicantes and the Hanc igitur. The Gallican and Visigothic liturgies changed all the various parts, except for the narrative of the eucharistic institution.

II. GENERAL CHARACTER AND TRADITIONAL SCHEMA

The Canon of the Mass is nothing other than the liturgical unfolding and the dramatic reproduction of what Jesus accomplished at the Last Supper. In substance it is ideally linked to the great Hallél (v.) pronounced by the head of the family during the Jewish paschal banquet, preserving precisely its exterior framework of a blessing hymn; upon this, however, a new concept was inserted and developed, that of the Redemption wrought by Christ. The fundamental idea of the prayer, in the numerous traditional formulas, is therefore thanksgiving (εὐχαριστία), which gave its name to the whole rite, or rather to the sacrifice of Jesus. This content remained most pronounced and immutable in the progressive differentiation of the various liturgies. Considered closely, the development of this theme presents itself as divided into two parts, though coordinated with one another: the laudatory thanksgiving, from which the entire Canon takes its start (the Preface), and the sacrificial thanksgiving which gives concrete form to this concept in the Eucharistic oblation strictly so called.

III. THE PRIMITIVE CANON

The new hymn of blessing seems to have been left free in the earliest times to the celebrant who knew how to improvise it; certainly it was treated in various ways in the written formulas. Nevertheless it reproduced a common fund of ideas, logically linked in an organic plan of the strictest unity. The primitive Canon was in fact a single composition, which unfolded harmoniously from the Sursum corda to the final doxology, before the fraction. In its grand simplicity, it sounded like a song of praise and thanksgiving to the Trinity, whose divine Persons were glorified together with the action carried out by each for the redemption of the world. In commemorating particularly the works attributed to the Son, the account of the Last Supper was given and the words of the Consecration were repeated. Finally the Lord was besought to look with a favorable eye upon the sacrifice and to send down upon it the power of the Holy Spirit, who ratifies the work of Jesus and validates its fulfillment. The original schema can therefore be summarized in the following points: thanksgiving for creation and redemption, account of the supper, anamnesis, epiclesis, doxological conclusion. Such is the literary rhythm of the primitive eucharistic hymn, as can be seen, besides in St. Justin, also from the present-day Eastern anaphoras and from the most ancient formulas we possess, from those of the 4th century, the Canon of Serapion of Thmuis, and the anaphoras of the Apostolic Constitutions, of the Testamentum Domini, and of the papyrus of Dejr-Baljizeh, to that preserved for us in the Apostolic Statutes of Hippolytus, according to the Latin redaction of the palimpsest of Verona (218-35). Upon this last the attention of liturgists has long been concentrated, especially since Cagin believed he recognized in it a common archetype from which the various preces of the liturgies would have derived. These today present no slight differences in the two principal groups of the Eastern and Western liturgies, and even in the families belonging to the same group. The learned monk, thanks to a keen process of elimination and comparison, thought he had succeeded in establishing a formal unity which, if it was not exactly the original one, was at least very close to it. Composed in Greek and inspired by the theme of prayers then in circulation, the prayer of the Traditio Apostolica of Hippolytus, besides for its content and author, draws its exceptional importance from the fact of being the most ancient text of hymnus eucharisticus that has come down to us, prior to interpolations or reworkings. Stripped of all extraneous elements, the Roman Canon, as also the Eastern anaphoras, coincide substantially with this venerable schema. Prior therefore to the interpolations one arrives at a liturgical epoch in which all the churches know an anaphora consisting of a latreutic and eucharistic hymn, of which the preface and the epiclesis constitute the extremities, and the remembrance of the supper and of the mysteries that follow it the center. The documents of this most ancient liturgical epoch, examined and compared with one another by P. Cagin, are: the fragments of Verona (ed. E. Hauler, Leipzig 1900, p. 106 ff.) in Latin; the Statuta Apostolorum (ed. J. Ludolf, Frankfurt am Main 1691) in Ethiopic; the Testamentum Domini (ed. E. Rahamani, Mainz 1899), in Syriac; the Liturgia Salvatoris (ed. J. Ludolf, Frankfurt am Main 1691), in Ethiopic; the Liturgia Apostolorum (ed. E. Renaudot, Paris 1716) in Ethiopic. These five documents, independent of one another, contain common parts and at times surprising coincidences. Since it is impossible to explain this agreement, one is forced to go back to a primordial Canon, unique in its fundamental schema, from which the successive redactions would derive. Cagin started from the presupposition that the «Liturgical Ordering of the Egyptian Church» presents the most ancient testimony of the apostolic tradition on the Canon; but his effort is rather artificial. It is not proved that the anaphora of Hippolytus has really preserved the pure apostolic tradition, given that other texts of the same time have not come down to us. Even without recognizing in it the apostolic anaphora, contemporary with the last years of the apostle John, as the French scholar would wish, the Canon of the Traditio of Hippolytus marks a stage of capital importance in the genesis and formation of the eucharistic prayer.

IV. THE ROMAN CANON OF THE MASS AND ITS AUTHOR

The notable divergence of the Canon of the Roman Church from the anaphoras of the Greek liturgies and from the most ancient forms of the eucharistic prayer has long been observed. In reality it forms a chapter apart in the history of the Mass. Yet, without departing from the traditional theme, it develops it with a singularity of forms, such as to be distinguished literarily from any other prayer. As a whole it can be traced back to the 4th century, although for its composition the author made use of local tradition and earlier documents. St. Justin, the Traditio Apostolica of Hippolytus, the fragments reported in the De Sacramentis, such is the entire literary documentation of the first six centuries on the Roman Canon. St. Justin, a witness to the liturgical usages of the City, presents only a trace of the Canon of his time. The anaphora of Hippolytus, fundamentally Roman and composed perhaps to serve as a norm for the celebrant when its development was still of free inspiration, has left but very weak vestiges in the present Canon, which moves with a rather different rhythm. The passages of the De sacramentis go back only to the end of the 4th century and offer formulas noticeably developed and already far from the primitive nucleus. By that date the Roman text appears clearly delineated and composed in its principal elements. Between the 3rd and 4th centuries, therefore, our Canon received its substantial redaction. To fill this gap of more than a century and to attribute the reform to an author is to venture into the prehistory of the liturgy and to confront nearly insoluble questions. At Rome itself in the 5th-6th century, the era of the composition of the Liber Pontificalis, little was known of the origins and the author of the eucharistic prayer. People contented themselves with a "it is said," to such a point that Pope Vigilius (538), writing to Profuturus of Braga, regards it as actually ex traditione apostolica susceptum. St. Gregory the Great does not profess exaggerated esteem for it and considers it as precem quam scholasticus composuerat, therefore the work of an anonymous man of letters (excluding, of course, the essential part of the consecration). A bold hypothesis of Morin would link this scholasticus to Firmicus Maternus (mid-4th century). Recent scholars have endeavored to dispel such uncertainties, indicating probable authors, but without solid results. Callewaert alludes to the work of St. Leo the Great (S. Léon le Grand et les textes du Léonien, Bruges 1948, pp. 87-125); characteristic is the opinion of Baumstark, who sees in the Roman Canon a translation from the Greek, resting on concepts and grammatical peculiarities proper to the East. The Council of Trent (sess. XXII, chap. 4) says it was composed by the Church, which ut digne reverenterque (sacrificium) offerretur ac perciperetur, sacrum Canonem multis ante saeculis instituit. The disparity of judgments can be harmonized by saying that the substance of the Canon comes from the Apostles (Vigilius); that, however, its ordering is the work of the Church (Council of Trent); and that in the definitive redaction, total or partial, private persons also, or persons charged by the Roman pontiffs, had a hand (Gregory).

V. THE PRINCIPAL RECONSTRUCTIONS OF THE ANCIENT ROMAN CANON

A careful examination of the various parts of the Canon betrays profound reworkings. Evidence of this are the very brief conclusions slipped in here and there to detach the different prayers and to emphasize their disconnectedness all the more. It therefore not only is no longer the primitive eucharistic prayer, but does not even exactly represent the type of Canon of the 4th century, the period of its probable composition. The various retouchings of the eucharistic hymn, the new insertions, and above all the diaconal prayers, which, where there was no deacon, had to be recited by the celebrant himself, have diluted the text of the first anaphora, today dispersed here and there in the Canon of the Mass. Account must especially be taken of the developments that occurred between the 5th and the end of the 6th century, when the Roman prayer assumed a new physiognomy, through the suppression of most ancient elements and the addition of new formulas. In vain, for example, would one today seek in the text that has come down to us an explicit epiclesis, to which Pope Gelasius clearly alludes in 496, writing to Elpidius. The text today possessed cannot be established except upon manuscripts that go back at most to the 7th-8th century. All that is known for certain is that the last retouchings, attributed to Gregory the Great, took place around 600, and that in Rome the Canon may be said to have been definitively fixed at the beginning of the 7th century.

Among the various hypotheses formulated by liturgists on the redaction of the Canon, let it suffice to report the most credible.

1) According to C. Bunsen the Roman Canon, compared with the consecratory prayers of Milan, Gaul and Spain, would represent the product of a more recent period, characterized by greater simplicity and brevity, in opposition therefore to the florid and rhetorical rhythm of the other Western churches. The Leonine and Gelasian Sacramentaries would be documents of this simple Roman style, established in the middle of the 4th century, between Sylvester and Damasus, when precisely the last resistances of the Greek language in the liturgy fell away in Rome. The insertion of the diptychs, whose reading passed from the deacon to the celebrant, and the reworkings of the oblation prayers gave the Canon its present face, characteristic of a disordered collection of texts. Thus the memento of the living would be a kind of parenthesis, a formula in the margin of the Canon spoken by the deacon; consequently the Communicantes would link up logically with the Te igitur, giving to the first word, otherwise almost incomprehensible, a meaning of communion and unity with the Pope and the hierarchy. The addition to the Hanc igitur, attributed to St. Gregory the Great, would not have been limited to the single phrase diseque nostros in tua pace disponas, but would comprise the whole second part of the prayer, which would therefore have formed from the beginning a single thing with the following prayer Quam oblationem.

Bunsen's chief merit is having distinguished the diaconal prayer from the strictly sacerdotal formulas, and thus having opened the way to the solution of the very intricate problem of the intercession prayers in the Roman Canon.

2) F. Probst, a convinced upholder of the theory of the evolution of Roman euchology, seeks the first source of our Canon in Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions. There, according to him, must be found the ancient liturgy una, sancta, catholica et apostolica. Later, under the auspices of St. Damasus, it underwent notable retouchings in the City; in particular, the various stational churches and ecclesiastical feasts were brought into relation with the eucharistic rite, until then extraneous to the unfolding of the liturgical year. From him originated, together with the collects, secrets and postcommunions, also the prefaces; with the consequence, however, of isolating the first part of the eucharistic hymn from the consecration. The free space between the trisagion and the account of the Last Supper was filled with extraneous pieces, the various intercession prayers. Probst's theory remains uncertain and does not appear satisfactory; but he was able to propose it because, in his time, of the whole primitive liturgical literature only Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions was known.

3) To P. Cagin belongs the courageous attempt to carry the origins of the Roman text still further back, almost to the threshold of the so-called apostolic liturgy. By means of ingenious comparisons between the Roman formulas and the corresponding ones of Gaul and Spain (which, contrary to the opinion of Duchesne and other eminent liturgists, he assigns to an identical stock of origin, itself linked to the ancient liturgical source of the Egyptian church) he sought to demonstrate that the texts harmful to the conceptual continuity of the Roman prayer are found in certain documents placed outside their natural position. Brought back to their place of origin, they receive a more exact and logical sense. Thus the two Memento and the Communicantes should be placed without further ado before the Preface, in the offertory zone, where the Gallican Mass has placed ab immemorabili the solemn reading of the diptychs. The Hanc igitur and the Quam oblationem may be considered transition formulas, corresponding to the Gallican Post-sanctus; the Te igitur would be a kind of replacement epiclesis, or prayer of offering, to be recited after the Consecration, akin to the Oratio post pridie of the Gallican liturgy; the Nobis quoque peccatoribus on the contrary would have been found after the Pater, as an embolism of it.

Cagin's highly personal solution has left scholars perplexed and has proved practically untenable. In the times of Innocent I (401-17) the intercession prayers by V. Leroquien. Les Sacramentaires et Missels, mes. des Misétiques publiques de France, Paris 1915, album, tex. 55)
CANON OF THE MASS - Beginning of the Canon with a miniature depicting the blessing and eating of the paschal lamb on the occasion of the Last Supper. The Apostles are standing with staff in hand according to the Mosaic prescription of Ex. 12:11: Missal of Paris (15th cent.) - Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, ms. 412, f. 5.

sion and the diptychs had already been for some time within the Canon, more or less in their present place. It is not to be excluded, however, that Rome originally agreed on this point with the Gallican use.

4) A greater change in the Canon in the 5th-6th century was maintained by P. Drews. He admitted that the Supplices marks the place of the ancient Roman epiclesis, originally conforming to the Eastern ones; however, the Te igitur, the Communicantes and the Memento of the living would have passed to their present place from the other position they previously occupied after the Supplices. The Canon therefore began with the prayer Hanc igitur, while the various formulas of intercession were found gathered together after the Consecration. This transposition occurred after the pontificate of Innocent I (d. 417), probably through the work of Gelasius I (492-96), under Alexandrian and Milanese influences. The presence in Rome of the patriarch John Talaia at the end of the 5th century would have exerted a strong influence on this rearrangement and on the personal work of the Pope, the great protector of the Alexandrian exile.

5) The difficult question was reexamined from a new point of view by A. Baumstark, for whom the author of today's Roman Canon would be not Pope Gelasius, but Gregory the Great. Taking as a basis for a reconstruction of the ancient Roman prayer the aid of the parallel Eastern anaphoras, he too holds that the Syrian liturgy, and in particular that of Jerusalem, decisively influenced the Canon of Rome. To this was added at a later time (perhaps under Leo the Great) the Alexandrian contribution, which made itself felt through the liturgy of Ravenna. The pre-Gregorian Hanc igitur, the Quam oblationem, the greater part of the Supra quae, the Supplices, and parts of the Nobis quoque peccatoribus can be traced back to this source. Through this double path various prayers came into the Roman Canon arranged later by St. Gregory.

Baumstark therefore distinguishes, in the creation of the Roman prayer, three periods, to conclude in the following logical order, which in his judgment must have existed in the ancient Canon of Rome: a) Thanksgiving for creation (Vere dignum et iustum est...); b) The Sanctus without any prayer up to the Consecration (the Hanc igitur and the Quam oblationem do not belong to the Roman Canon, but were introduced by St. Gregory, transferring them from another liturgy distinct from the Alexandrian). The only link between the Sanctus and the account of the Supper is the Vere sanctus et benedictus, qui pridie quam pateretur... After the Consecration and the anamnesis (Unde et memores, and Supra quae) as in all the East, except at Alexandria, the great prayer of intercession finds its place, so as to obtain the following schema: the Te igitur (into which is inserted the epiclesis and a formula to obtain the effects of Communion), the offering of the sacrifice for the Church and the hierarchy, the Memento of the living, the Communicantes, the Memento of the dead and the Nobis quoque peccatoribus.

Despite the favor it encountered among some liturgists, the hypothesis of Baumstark and Drews clashes with precise historical data. Great transpositions in the Canon could not have been carried out by either Gelasius or Gregory. The former is practically to be excluded (although the Canon of the Missal of Stowe, precious for its archaisms, bears the suggestive title: Canon dominicus papae Gilasi) because otherwise half a century later Vigilius would not have affirmed in his letter to Profuturus that the text of the canonical prayer had been preserved up to his times Deo propitio, ex apostolica traditione. Nor does Gregory the Great come into question. His biographer, the Venerable Bede and the Liber Pontificalis, so attentive as to note even the small change of the Hanc igitur, would certainly not have overlooked a rearrangement of such importance. Drews and Baumstark attach great value to the parallels between the Roman liturgy and the Eastern ones. But external resemblances are not enough to arrive at certain derivations. Moreover, they can be explained naturally by the identical purpose for which the prayers are destined in the different liturgies; it is the necessity of expressing equal concepts that brought with it an equal or similar formulation of the text.

6) P. Batiffol placed himself on the path of the historical method, and intends to let the texts and facts speak. For him the Roman Canon is a primitive, homogeneous composition, into which extraneous passages have been introduced, such as, before the Consecration, the Communicantes and the Hanc igitur, and after the Consecration, the Memento of the dead and the Nobis quoque peccatoribus. The Canon therefore of the 4th century would not know such additions and would go back to the times of Damasus and Leo the Great. To arrive at such a conclusion, Batiffol took as his basis the text of the De Sacramentis (end of the 4th century), declaring it substantially identical to the Roman one. Apart from the shortened citation made by the author of the De Sacramentis and justified by the specific purpose of his writing, the texts of the two canons agree in the following elements: Quam oblationem; Qui pridie; Unde et memores; Supra quae; Supplices te rogamus. The Quam oblationem, however, would be a formula of transition, which supposes the «oblationes commendandae et nomina edicenda» (that is, the Te igitur and the Memento of the living), of which Pope Innocent I treats in his letter of 416 to Decentius of Gubbio. Having proved the substantial existence of our Canon from the most ancient times, the French scholar sets about tracing the formation of the replacement prayers. Thus the Memento of the dead enters the anaphora only very late (8th-10th cent.). The Communicantes and the Nobis quoque peccatoribus, casting a glance at the date of the introduction of the cult of some of the Saints remembered there, cannot be earlier than the 6th century. The Hanc igitur, composed by St. Gregory, has its first origins in the times of Pope Symmachus. These replacement or extraneous pieces having therefore been removed, today's Canon would be nothing other than that reported by the De sacramentis and already existing in the 4th century. By drawing attention to this archaic text, Batiffol had the merit of laying a sure foundation for future studies on the subject and of putting an end to all the more or less extravagant hypotheses on the origin and ancient order of the Roman Canon.

VI. SECRECY OF THE CANON OF THE MASS

St. Justin, Dionysius of Alexandria, St. Augustine, the author of the De Sacramentis (c. 400), St. Caesarius of Arles, etc., are unanimous in testifying that the Canon was recited aloud in such a way as to provoke at its end the cry of the people: Amen. Rome could not depart from the general usage. The well-known episode of the death of Melania is an authoritative document of this. The present secrecy of the canon can be regarded as a repercussion of the Byzantine rite, which came about very slowly. Already from the middle of the 4th century in the East a reverential fear had begun to be inspired at this point of the Mass, which later surrounded the altar with curtains and indeed with a wall (iconostasis), to separate the faithful from the priest. This aspect of Greek piety coincides symptomatically with the establishing of the theory of the epiclesis. In the 6th century the practice of reciting it in a low voice had become general in the East. Of an almost equal feeling, though still very imprecise, which penetrated to Rome around the 5th century, the letter of Pope Innocent to the bishop of Gubbio offers interesting particulars. Replying to a series of questions put to him about certain liturgical divergences, the Pontiff employs very measured phrasing, especially when he refers to the Canon, of whose content he does not wish to speak: quae aperire non debeo; and he concludes with a general reservation: reliqua quae scribi fas non erat, cum adfueris, interrogati poterimus edicere; expressions all of which betray a strange preoccupation with secrecy, which is surprising in a private letter, addressed to a bishop, in contrast with the freedom with which contemporaries speak elsewhere of these same mysteries. Certainly in the 7th century the recitation of the Canon at Rome was already done in secret (Ordo romanus of John "Archicantor"; J. A. Jungmann, Praefatio und stiller Kanon, in Gewordene Liturgie, Innsbruck 1941, pp. 53-119).

VII. IL PREFAZIO

The Preface (v.), from the Latin praefari, is the introductory part of the eucharistic prayer. Unlike modern usage, which designates by this name the entire text that solemnly prepares for the singing of the Sanctus, the ancients called Praefatio only the brief initial dialogue between priest and people. Restricted in this sense, the term was already used by St. Cyprian in the 3rd century; proof of the great antiquity of this invitation, which appears in all rites and which can be considered as one of the cornerstones of the primitive liturgy. Its specific function is to prepare souls for the grand theme of the sacrificial prayer, at the same time stirring them to recollection.

VIII. THE INTERCESSORY PRAYERS

Intercession is a form of supplication for specific persons or intentions, which, filtered into the eucharistic prayer, has split in two, before and after the Consecration, while at the same time partaking of the dignity of the august rite. Bound in substance to the use of the diptychs, it is ordinarily based on the concept of offering, and can therefore be related to the gifts presented by the faithful.

1) The first part of it, the Te igitur, is destined to the "recommendation" of the oblations and of the Church militant, gathered around its head and the hierarchy. The mention of the Pope and of the bishop carries a special significance of ecclesiastical unity, necessary especially in the eucharistic celebration. The remembrance of the civil power has hints already in the C. of the De Sacramentis, but appears in definitive form only from the 9th-10th century, without however constituting a constant rule, so much so that in the Missal of Pius V (1570) it no longer appears. By apostolic privilege this remembrance was preserved in Spain and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire until their recent disappearance. To the date recalled above one can trace the words omnibus orthodoxis atque... fidei cultoribus, which even literally betray a late addition. Although of different origin and other content, the Te igitur therefore presents a certain resemblance to the solemn litanic prayer or Oratio fidelium from which it probably received its fundamental schema.

As it sounds today, it can be considered almost a conclusion of the thanksgiving of the Preface, linking up ideally with the initial protocol. The igitur is its logical connecting link, and the same invocative Pater and the incidental phrase per Christum Dominum nostrum return in it.

2) The priest then prays for particular intentions. It is the special fruit of the sacrifice recommended in the Memento of the living. An ancient custom was to recite publicly the name of the offerers and of the persons for whom one intended to pray. These lists were written on tablets of wood or ivory, folded in the form of a book, and called by the Greek term "Diptychs" (v.). The reading of such names, of very ancient origin, must have taken place at first in the offertory zone. It is not possible to know when Rome transferred the diptychs to their present place; certainly in a remote era, since the cited letter of Pope Innocent to the bishop of Gubbio (416) already places the Commendatio nominum within the C. Moreover, the insertion of such names is held to be of extra-Roman origin, and the Gelasian Sacramentary prescribes that they be recited only in private Masses. The words: pro quibus tibi offerimus vel qui tibi offerunt are also an innovation of the 9th-10th century, and many see in them a distinction between those present who offer and the faithful for whom the Sacrifice is offered. The reading of the diptychs, done aloud by the deacon, lasted until the 8th century.

3) It is by now well established that the Communicantes, with its list of twelve Apostles and twelve martyrs, headed by the Virgin Mother of God, does not belong at all to the primitive C., but was inserted late. Proof of this is the violent break in the ideological line, which links up neither with what precedes nor with what follows, and the list of saints, which cannot be earlier than the 6th century, the era, for many of them, of their liturgical cult in Rome (v. below, n. XIII). Rome probably adopted the sanctoral diptychs as a reflection of the use established elsewhere, where the recitation of the names of the martyrs, in whose honor the sacrifice was offered, entered into the intercession after the 4th century; names therefore occasional, at least in their origins. Scholars have striven to determine the vague sense of the word Communicantes, which has remained grammatically without a complement. Bishop, in order to make less jarring the disconnection with the formula that precedes it, proposes a different punctuation of the "memento"... pro spe salutis et incolumitatis suae. Tibi (the suffix que is lacking in the best codices) reddunt vota sua aeterno Deo vivo et vero, communicantes et memoriam venerantes... Nor are manuscripts lacking that link it materially to the last words of the Memento. Schuster, on the other hand, leans toward detaching it entirely from the list of saints, in order to refer it to the name of the pope with whom one was in communion:...una cum famulo tuo papa nostro communicantes; sed et memoriam venerantes...; which solution, if it has the advantage of giving the participle the support of a verb of finite mood, tibi offerimus, encounters the great obstacle of skipping over the commendatio nominum entirely. More logical would seem to link the word Communicantes with the preceding phrase of the Memento, which says qui tibi offerunt, onto which the remembrance of the saints has been grafted, et memoriam venerantes, a remembrance that finds its reason for being in the very excellence of the eucharistic rite. Without departing from the context, the two participles in substance form a single expression. The content of the prayer is therefore obvious: in communion with the saints, divine help is asked for through their merits. It is not so much a supplication that is made in the Communicantes, but rather a commemoration. The participle would thus acquire the sense of "commemorantes"; a meaning that allows one not to isolate entirely the brief embolisms that on certain principal solemnities are added to the text:...et diem sacratissimum celebrantes...

4) The conclusion of the intercession is the formula Hanc igitur. It once admitted many variants, as appears from the sacramentaries. This was in fact the moment in which the particular intentions of the faithful for whom the sacrifice was offered were expressed. It was not a fixed formula, but was recited only in precise circumstances, as, for example, on the occasion of baptismal scrutinies, of ordinations, of marriages, for the dead, in short for persons who in determined circumstances presented a special offering. From this point of view it took on a rather private and individual character. Only later (perhaps with Gregory the Great, who reduced their number, including in it the phrase disque nostros in tua pace disponas) did the prayer receive a formulation of a general nature, which, because destined for the universality of the faithful, came to be almost a duplicate of the great intercessory prayer. Today it has preserved its original character of particular recommendation in very rare cases: Holy Thursday, Easter, Pentecost (baptismal feasts), in the Mass of the consecration of a bishop. The hints contained in the memento for the particular intentions of the faithful: qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis pro se suisque omnibus, pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe salutis et incolumitatis suae, have led some liturgists to suppose that here the concept of individual recommendation, expressed in the Hanc igitur, has been transferred and fused at a later time. The matter is far from being proved.

IX. THE CONSECRATORY PRAYERS

Linked to the intercession is the formula Quam oblationem, which, however, marks the passage from the order of the material offering to that of the Sacrament. In it, petition is made that the gifts presented be blessed and acceptable in such a way as to become the Body and Blood of the Redeemer. The Roman text departs somewhat, by retouching and correcting it, from the archaic one of the De Sacramentis, which contains expressions conforming to ancient tradition, particularly to the anaphora of Serapion. Lately, some have wished to see in it a kind of epiclesis of the Roman liturgy, forgetting, however, that its content already finds examples in certain Secreta of the Gregorian Sacramentary and that the conjunction ut, intended to give it the appearance of a final preparation for the great mystery, is replaced by the more concrete pronouns quod in the text of the De Sacramentis and by the quae of the Canon of the Stowe Missal.

Up to this point the liturgies have freely developed the general theme of the anaphora; among them a symptomatic uniformity now becomes established. The account of the Supper is the only truly immovable element in the history of the Mass. Leclercq has collected as many as 85 consecratory formulas from the various liturgies, in which the agreement appears admirable despite differences of times and places. The Roman text of the account, Qui pridie quam pateretur, substantially reproduces the biblical texts but with verbal modifications and additions intended to frame the consecratory formulas and derived in part from tradition. Peculiar is the clause mysterium fidei among the words of the consecration of the chalice. This addition is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Roman Canon, already expanded by the 6th century. Perhaps it is an interpolation of Gallican origin and probably was at first a ritual acclamation in some church, or else the deacon's warning to call the faithful's attention to the moment of the Consecration. The consecratory formula is immediately followed by an showing forth of the Body and Blood of Christ (v. ELEVAZIONE). Until the 12th century the only elevation of the sacred species in the Mass was the one that still closes the Canon with the doxology. The present one is rather recent and seems to have arisen because of a controversy about the precise moment of transubstantiation debated in the University of Paris at the beginning of the 13th century. The elevation of the chalice came much later and may be said to have arisen from a spirit of symmetry; it became general only with the Missal of Pius V. It is well known how the « visio corporis Christi » enthused the faithful and formed one of the dearest devotions of the last centuries of the Middle Ages. From the 16th century, on the other hand, the practice of gazing upon the sacred species disappears. Today it shows signs of returning, thanks also to the invocation « My Lord and my God », granted an indulgence by Pope Pius X.

X. THE OFFERING OF THE VICTIM

The presentation to the Father of the holy victim logically takes its place after the consecration. The Canon may be said to be wholly contained in this offering. Despite the current divisions into paragraphs, introduced by the rubrics, the three prayers that express its object form a single oration: three aspects of the same oblation. They partake somewhat of the immobility of the central rite; the movement of ideas is virtually the same in all liturgies. The consecratory rite ends with the remembrance of Christ's command to repeat the eucharistic gesture: Haec quotiescumque feceritis... The Canon develops this thought, commemorating the principal mysteries of the life and death of the Redeemer, in the prayer Unde et memores, known to liturgists by the name of "anamnesis" (v.). This may be considered the most exalted expression of thanksgiving to God, since the one gift worthy of Him is offered, de tuis donis ac datis. In the remembrance of these mysteries of salvation, the Church presents to the Father "the bread of eternal life and the chalice of everlasting salvation." The text indicates separately the priestly college from the family of the faithful (servi tui sed et plebs tua), a precious vestige of the primitive custom of the celebration of the Eucharist by the bishop surrounded by his presbyterate. The allusion to the typical sacrifices of the Old Testament (Abel, Abraham, Melchizedek), placed within the formula of offering, is found in almost all the Eastern liturgies of the 5th century. As Baumstark has demonstrated, its symbolism passed from one anaphora to another, becoming a heritage also of the Roman Canon (Supra quae). St. Leo the Great added to it the words sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam, thus bringing out the sacrifice of Melchizedek, which more than the others approaches the eucharistic one. The concept of offering, expressed at this point of the anaphora, finds affinities and interesting echoes in certain "Secrets" of the Mass, notable for their explicit remembrance of the oblation of the victim. This has led to the supposition that formulas and ideas once contained in the anamnesis were transferred into these latter. Such a metamorphosis is, however, still a conjecture.

The third part of the prayer of offering (Supplices te rogamus) is the one that has most opened the field to discussion and research. Even eminent liturgists have wished to see in the mysterious angel, invoked to bear the holy oblation to the altar of heaven, either the Holy Spirit (Mimus), or the divine Word (magni consilii angelus), or a particular celestial spirit (the angel of the sacrifice). In reality it seems that nothing should be seen there but the angelic ministry, which presents to God the tribute of adoration and thanksgiving of the Church, so that it may be not only a sacrifice pleasing to Him, but also a fruitful sacrament for souls. The difficulty is due in part to the fact that the formula has undergone successive alterations, made who knows when and by whom. The comparison with the anaphora of Hippolytus and especially with the De Sacramentis is significant. The first phrase indeed is a prayer of offering (iube haec perferri), while the second is a request for sanctification for the communicants (ut quotquot ex hac altaris... sumpserimus) which in all the other prayers finds its place in the epiclesis. There is therefore no doubt that an affinity exists between the epiclesis and the Roman formula Supplices te rogamus. The term epiclesis (= call, appeal) originally meant the solemn invocation of the divine name upon a person or a thing, so as to make its almighty power descend upon it. In this sense the entire eucharistic Canon may be called an epiclesis. This generic acceptation appears in Irenaeus in the 2nd century (Adversus haereses, IV, 18, 5), and shortly afterward in Firmilian, in his letter to St. Cyprian. Only with the 4th century, at the time of the Macedonian controversies, does the concept insinuate itself of a particular invocation of the Holy Spirit, that He may transform the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Thus in the Eastern liturgies; for in the West the epiclesis was probably limited to the simple invocation of Paradise, perhaps for a Trinitarian purpose. In this sense is explained the presence of an epiclesis at Rome, clearly documented by the letter of Gelasius I to Elpidius of Volterra. Objectively speaking, however, in the present formula Supplices te rogamus, where it is claimed the ancient epiclesis once was, there exists no mention of the Holy Spirit nor any point of resemblance to the Eastern conception. This demonstrates that the Roman Church attributed to the epiclesis no consecratory virtue, but only an impetratory value, so that the Holy Spirit, by His presence, may ratify the common offering, rendering it more pleasing to the Father and more profitable to the faithful.

XI. THE SECOND READING OF THE DIPTYCHS

The return to the prayers of intercession toward the end of the Canon is not original. It is difficult to reconstruct this part of the prayer; probably the two formulas of the diptychs also found a place in the region of the Offertory. About their primitive arrangement and their formulary only conjectures can be advanced. The introduction of the commemoration of the dead in this place is certainly late; it is missing in the oldest codices. Bishop and Andrieu explain its absence by the fact that at Rome until the 9th century no mention of the deceased was made in the public Masses celebrated on Sunday or on a feast day. It is not improbable that at first this commemoration was linked to the Hanc igitur, where the remembrance of the departed was occasioned by the offering presented in their suffrage. It therefore had a private and adventitious character, far removed from that of the memento of the living. Its language still smacks of venerable antiquity and must be considered a reflection of cemeterial epigraphy (praecesserunt...; signum fidei...; in somno pacis...; refrigerium...). The Nobis quoque peccatoribus is a kind of embolism of the memento of the dead; indeed the prayer of intercession continues for the fruits of the sacrifice. The object of the supplication this time, however, is the celebrant himself and the offering college of the presbyters, clearly designated by the classical expression of Christian antiquity: famulis tuis. It is therefore a specifically sacerdotal prayer. Nevertheless, the illogicality of a new enumeration of the saints at this point of the Canon cannot be concealed. The very stylistic form of the prayer, in which the names of the martyrs have a wholly accidental placement, betrays something artificial. Such an enumeration does not constitute an orderly continuation of the list of the Communicantes, but is a supplementary addition to it, inserted here probably by Pope Symmachus at the beginning of the 6th century.

XII. LE DOSSOLOGIE FINALI

The great eucharistic prayer concludes with a solemn glorification of the Trinity, which is one of the most ancient elements of the Mass and is composed of two independent phrases. The first part takes up the initial theme of the C., the glorification of the Father through Jesus Christ: per quem haec omnia...; but its exact value is still debated. The meaning of the entire formula depends on the different way the phrase is linked to the preceding texts. Various authors connect the words haec omnia to ponem sanctum vitae aeternae et calicem salutis perpetuae (indicated precisely by the relative quae in supra quae propitio and by the demonstrative haec in Supplices te rogamus), thus referring the object of the prayer to the gifts of the Sacrifice themselves. However, the word omnia appears somewhat redundant for indicating simply the eucharistic elements. The phrase has perhaps undergone amplifications and the influence of the blessing of the fruits of the earth, which on certain liturgical occasions took place at this point of the Mass. The omnia was well explained by the variety of gifts presented at the altar; sacrificial gifts and gifts of nature. The formulas of the ancient sacramentaries clearly specify this intention. Today there remains, as the sole remnant, the solemn blessing of the Oil of the sick on Holy Thursday. The second part is the true final doxology (per Ipsum, et cum Ipso etc.); supreme and concordant praise of all creation, which united to Christ, in Christ, and through Christ, raises to the holy Triad a song of perennial glory. The concluding amen represents the only intervention of the faithful in the eucharistic prayer. It has its own history; already in the 2nd century the martyr Justin stressed its great importance. It is the cry of the Christian people, which expresses to God the fullness of its worship and says to him the thanks of all redeemed humanity. Even from this point of view, besides the historical, euchological and dogmatic elements, the C. of the M. is the most important literary monument of Western worship.

Arnaldo Roberti

XIII. THE SAINTS OF THE CANON OF THE MASS

In the present Roman Canon we find a twofold list of the names of saints: the first after the Memento of the living, in the formula Communicantes; the second after the Memento of the dead, in the formula Nobis quoque peccatoribus.

The two Mementos were inserted into the Canon at least around the beginning of the 5th century. It is certain that Innocent I, in the well-known letter to Decentius bishop of Gubbio (year 416), urges this custom as something already existing (PL 20, 553).

The two Mementos entered the Canon, as Innocent himself states in the cited letter, in order to bring the names of the offerers close to the central point of the sacrificial liturgy; their original place was immediately after the offering of the faithful, that is, at the reading of the diptychs. To the names of the living and of the dead, inserted in the diptychs, there were soon added also the names of the dead venerated as saints: hence the origin of the lists of saints. This custom originated in the East.

1. The saints of the «Communicantes»

The composition of the present list proves to be the fruit of an intelligent revision. It consists of 24 names, besides that of the Mother of God which precedes them. The 24 saints are: 12 Apostles (with Paul, without Matthias) and 12 martyrs; of these, 6 bishops (5 of Rome, 1 of Carthage), 2 other ecclesiastics (Lawrence and Chrysogonus, the latter believed to be a priest), and 4 laymen. It is commonly believed that the definitive composition, in its present form, is due to St. Gregory the Great. The primitive Roman list (between the 4th and 5th centuries) was probably this: Mary, Peter, Paul, Sixtus, Lawrence, Cornelius, Cyprian. The apostles John and Andrew had liturgical cult at Rome already in the 5th century; during the 6th century also Thomas, Philip and James; in this same century the other martyrs must have entered the Canon, and finally also the missing apostles. No confessor entered the Roman Canon. The fact that this list of the 12 Apostles differs markedly from the biblical lists attests, if there were any need, that it developed on its own account. The Church of Milan accepted (along with the Roman Canon) also its list of saints, in the incomplete state in which it then was, around the beginnings of the 6th century (cf. F. Savio, I dittici del Canone ambrosiano e del Canone romano, in Miscellanea di storia italiana, Turin 1905, pp. 4 ff.).

The list of saints of the Canon underwent outside Rome, in the reception of the Roman liturgy, various additions, especially in the ancient Hispanic and Gallican liturgy. Generally there were added the national saints Hilary and Martin, the doctors (Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome), often also St. Benedict; furthermore names of local saints, so much so that the said names often make it possible to identify the church for which the relevant liturgical book served. The lists of saints sometimes grew to 20 and more names. Gregory III, referring to the monks of one of the monasteries of St. Peter in the Vatican who venerated many relics of saints, proposed to them a comprehensive formula of commemoration of the many saints, a formula which then entered, with variants, into the use of other churches. The reform of St. Pius V permanently reduced the list of saints of the Communicantes to the definitive number of 24.

2. The saints of the «Nobis quoque peccatoribus»

This second list too proves, at first glance, to be the result of a concluding composition, the author of which will have been St. Gregory the Great himself. The list in fact opens with the name of John the Baptist, followed by 14 martyrs, 7 men, 7 women.

Without repeating here the very complex history of the last formulas of the Canon, it is enough to mention that, in all probability, the Nobis quoque originally followed immediately upon the Supplices, while the Memento of the dead forms a happy subsequent insertion, in conformity with the custom of reading the diptychs of the dead.

In any case it is useful to recall the parallel passages of the ancient Egyptian liturgy of St. Mark and the Coptic one, which, in the corresponding prayer, places at the beginning the names of Mary, John the Baptist and Stephen the protomartyr (F. E. Brightman, Liturgies eastern and western, I, Oxford 1896, pp. 128, 169). John the Baptist and Stephen certainly opened also the primitive Roman list (beginning of the 6th century); there followed in all probability: Peter and Marcellinus; Agnes, Cecilia and Felicity, three Roman martyrs. There soon came other saints venerated at Rome, such as Alexander, very probably the one of June 10 (later changed to Pope Alexander I); the two Sicilians Agatha and Lucy, who enjoyed great cult at Rome in the 5th and 6th centuries, and, in the Byzantine era, Anastasia. The name of Felicity, through an easy combination, drew in the celebrated African martyr Perpetua, whence Felicity too was later believed to be the African martyr of the same name. When and why St. Ignatius, then little venerated liturgically, was inserted, we do not know; the last to complete the list were Matthias and Barnabas, evidently with the purpose of including all the apostles in the Canon itself. For this second list of saints too one may repeat the observation made for the first, with regard to the Ambrosian Canon: reception of the Roman list in a still rudimentary state and autonomous perfecting.

The second list of saints too underwent outside Rome the usual additions, but to a much lesser degree. St. Pius V admitted into the Missal the complete Roman list of the times of St. Gregory the Great.

Giuseppe Löw