FRAZIONE DELL'OSTIA. — The rite of breaking the Eucharistic Bread in the primitive Church was a purely ministerial function, an action arising from the necessity of breaking into pieces the large, round, thin Eucharistic Bread in order to distribute it in Communion to the faithful. Nor do the Fathers (Cyprian, Augustine, Clement of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem) assign any special prominence to this function; only St Augustine recalls that prayers were said during II. Subsequently, another action was joined to it, namely, the placing or commingling of the two consecrated Species (Bread and Wine), prior to their distribution. Very soon mystical-symbolic meanings became associated with it, as Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. in 428, hom. VI) indicates. In the East, from the fourth century onward, the importance of the f. dell'O. diminished, and greater prominence was given to the rite of the Consecration and of the commingling; in the West, on the other hand, greater importance was assigned to the rite of the f. dell'O., which became richer and more solemn.
The f. dell'O. was performed immediately after the Canon, before Communion or while the Eucharistic Bread was being distributed (Hippolytus); only among the Copts was the Bread broken already before the Consecration, at the word «fregit». In the Eastern liturgies the Eucharistic Bread was broken after the recitation of the Pater noster; in the African liturgy (St Cyprian, St Augustine) and in the Ambrosian, Gallican, and Mozarabic liturgies, before the Pater noster. In the Roman liturgy, St Gregory the Great ordered that the Pater noster be recited before the f. dell'O., as in the Eastern liturgies. In the ancient Roman rite, the kiss of peace also preceded II.
The present Roman rite of the fraction of the Eucharistic Bread is not original, but results from a simplification carried out over the course of the centuries. The ancient rite was more complex.
According to the ancient papal order of Ordo Romanus I, the pope announces peace after reciting the Pater noster followed by the embolism, saying «Pax Domini etc.»; he makes three crosses with his hand over the chalice, and the «fermentum» is placed in it, that is, a consecrated Species coming from a preceding Mass (the first traditional Roman commingling). Contrary to Capelle, Andrieu considers the reading «mittit Sancta in eum» to be original, since the archaic recension G of Ordo I is mutilated at this point (M. Andrieu, op. cit. in the bibliography, pp. 57–60). While the bishops and priests exchanged the kiss of peace, the pontiff detached a «particle» («a latere dextro») from the Eucharistic Bread (= the first fraction) and placed it on the altar (for the new fermentum, or for the viaticum, or to signify the unity of the Species of the Sacrifice on the altar and of the Communion received at the throne; cf. L. Duchesne, op. cit. in the bibliography, p. 196); the remainder of the Eucharistic Bread was placed on the paten and carried to the throne. Having left the altar and gone to the cathedra, the pope signaled to the bishops to continue the f. dell'O. which he had begun at the altar, that is, the fraction of the other Eucharistic Breads in order to prepare the fragments for Communion (= the second f. dell'O., properly the most original, characteristic, and solemn one, because it was performed at the throne). During this function, by order of Pope Sergius I (682–701), the «Agnus Dei» was sung, having come from the Greek liturgy, whereas previously the action had taken place in silence. Once the f. dell'O. was completed, the pope communicated by detaching a new «particle» from the Host (= the third f. dell'O.) and letting it fall into the chalice for the second commingling, formerly performed in silence and later accompanied by the formula «Fiat commixtio etc.»; afterward he drank from the chalice. Thus, in the papal Mass there were three fractions and two comminglings. The first commingling, involving the «fermentum», was specifically Roman, and the same applies to the first fraction; the third fraction and the second commingling were performed according to the Greek-Eastern manner of commingling the two consecrated Species as a sign of unity. The placing of the fermentum, that is, of a consecrated Species from a preceding Mass, was not omitted even when, because the pope was prevented from officiating, a bishop performed the rite (Ordo Romanum, II, 6; M. Andrieu, op. cit., pp. 62 and 112). Originally, this rite seems to have belonged to Masses in the parish churches of Rome, to signify unity with the pope; in the papal Mass, however, it is secondary, having been introduced later so as to omit none of the ceremony; its use was subsequently generalized in all Masses. The symbolic meaning of the fermentum in the papal Mass, more than in parish Masses, came to signify the unity and continuity of the Sacrifice. Some authors presuppose this rite of the fermentum also in the Eastern liturgy (I. A. Jungmann, op. cit. in ibid., p. 363, n. 39). Outside Rome, in the dissemination of the Roman rite, where the use of the fermentum was unknown, a new fraction of the Eucharistic Bread was introduced in order to fulfill the rite and to have a particle to mix: a particle was detached from the Host of the same Sacrifice, in order to avoid an interruption, before the «Pax Domini» at the end of the embolism; it was then placed in the chalice at the same moment and with the same ceremonies as the fermentum (Ordo III, n. 3; Andrieu, pp. 124–26). It should be noted that the compiler of this Ordo uses here the same words as the rite of the second and third fractions of Ordo I, nos. 97 and 107 (Andrieu), thereby intending to constitute these two rites in place of the three fractions and two comminglings. Ordo III, n. 3, is the first witness, outside Rome, to the elimination of a characteristic ancient Roman rite, namely, the first commingling and the first fraction. It is therefore strange and purely accidental that these ceremonies take place during the embolism of the «Pater noster», since they have no connection with the rite attached to II. Thus, outside Rome, the simplification of the rites of the fraction and the commingling began: there remained only one commingling, namely, that in which the pope placed the fermentum of the first commingling into the chalice. From the rite of the second commingling there remains the prayer «Hæc (instead of «Fiat») commixtio etc.», which is recited immediately after the commingling, at the «Pax Domini». The present single but twofold fraction, before the «Pax Domini», corresponds to the first, which was performed before the pope left the altar, and at the same time to the third, before he drank from the chalice. In the same way, in this single but twofold fraction, the Host is divided first into two parts, and then the particle to be placed in the chalice is detached from one of them; thus the division of the Host into three parts is clearly explained. Today the celebrant consumes the first and second parts; in the Middle Ages, however, with the second part the celebrant communicated the ministers and reserved it as viaticum (Micrologus).
It nevertheless took time to arrive at this simplification and unification. During the tenth to twelfth centuries, the second and properly genuine f. dell'O. disappeared, both because the number of communicants diminished and because the form of the Host changed and particles were introduced for the Communion of the faithful. The Romano-Germanic Pontifical of 950 is its first witness (Jungmann, op. cit., pp. 369–70; Ordo X, n. 5; ibid.; Andrieu, op. cit., pp. 360–361). Nevertheless, traces of this second f. dell'O. are preserved as early as the twelfth century (Jungmann, op. cit., p. 370, n. 11). The recitation of the «Agnus Dei» still recalls it today. The second f. dell'O. was performed on the paten at the cathedra and over the bags of the acolytes; but, because of the reduced number of communicants and the smaller form of the Host, the bags disappeared and the size of the paten was reduced. In remembrance of the f. dell'O., the Host is placed on the paten today before the fraction, and, after the fraction, the parts are placed on the paten; but the single twofold fraction itself, like the pope’s third fraction, is performed over the chalice, beginning in the eleventh or twelfth century (Jungmann, p. 374, n. 33). Outside Rome, and since the use of the fermentum had also ceased in Rome,
either the first or the third fraction of the Host, and one of the two comminglings, had to be suppressed. This uncertainty is attested by the Ordines published by Mabillon and Martène and by the authors Amalarius (850), Giovanni d’Avranches (before 1067), the Micrologus of Beroldus (d. 1100), and Durandus (d. 1296). Since only one commingling was already in use in Amalarius’s time, some carried out the fraction and the commingling before the « Pax Domini » (Ordo VI, n. 59; Andrieu, op. cit., p. 237; Ordo IX, n. 36; Andrieu, ibid., p. 326), while saying nothing of the third fraction and the second commingling (Ord. Off. Eccl. Lateran, by Bernardo, 1145); others, on the contrary, after making the fraction of the Host at the « Pax Domini », inserted the « parcella » after the « Agnus Dei » or immediately before the commingling itself (Martène, Ordo V, n. VII; Sacramentum Ratoldi; Sacramentarium Fuldense, ed. G. Richter-A. Schönfelder, nn. 21–22). Finally, after the reform of Innocent III (PL 217, 905), the practice still in use today was introduced into the Roman Curial Missal, disseminated by the Franciscans; the same is true of Burchard’s Ordo Altsus of 1502. There is one exception, corresponding to the ancient practice of not performing the commingling at the altar: during a solemn Mass, when the pope also places the third « parcella » on the paten, he then leaves the altar and, at the cathedra, after the commingling of the Eucharistic Bread, performs the commingling before drinking from the chalice (Ordo Rom. XIV, addition; PL 78, 1100–91; Innocent III, De soc. Alt. Myst., I, VI, chap. 9; ibid., 217, 911), at the time of the third fraction and the second commingling.
The Milanese rite of the fraction of the Host and of the commingling is performed as in the Roman rite, but after the doxology of the Canon, that is, before the Pater noster, with special formulas; meanwhile the choir sings the « confractorio ». In the Gallican liturgy too, the Eucharistic Bread is broken before the Pater noster, while the choir sings an antiphon: perhaps this was preceded by a practice similar to that of the Roman fermentum (Haberstroh, pp. 28–29). In the Mozarabic rite, after the prayer « Post pridie », the celebrant breaks the Bread into two parts, then divides one into 5 and the other into 4 particles; each of these has a special name: 1) corporatio, 2) nativitas; 3) circumcisio; 4) apparidio; 5) pastio; 6) mors; 7) resurrection; 8) gloria; 9) regnum; the particles are placed on the paten in this order:
| 6 | 1 | 7 |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 8 | |
| 3 | 9 | |
| 4 | 9 | |
| 5 |
The commingling takes place after the « Pater noster » and the Creed, with particle 9, regnum, using formulas that differ from those of feast days.
This rite of the fraction of the Host seems to have arisen late and closely resembles the practice of the Celtic liturgy. In that liturgy, in fact, after the doxology of the Canon, an « intinctio » of the Bread in the chalice was first performed, as in the Syrian liturgy; this was followed by an even more complex fraction of the Host: the number of particles varied according to the character of the day in seven different ways, from 5 particles to as many as 65 on the feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. The commingling was performed after the « Pater noster ». Both in the Mozarabic and in the Celtic liturgy, a « confractorio » was sung. Regarding the arrangement of the particles in the form of a cross, used in the Mozarabic and Celtic rites, Canon 3 of the Council of Tours of 567 should be noted: it opposed arranging the particles in the form of a human figure (« non in imaginario modo ») and prescribed the form of the cross (« sub crucis titulo »; Duchesne, p. 232).
In the Eastern liturgy there are three actions coordinated with one another: the fraction of the Host, the delivery, and the commingling. In relation to the commingling, the fraction of the Host is distinguished from the breaking into pieces to obtain particles and distribute them to the faithful. The Fathers (Basil, G. Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria) knew only the breaking into pieces; they make no mention of the delivery or the commingling. All these rites are found introduced for the first time into the Chaldean and Syrian rites, as early as the sixth century. Associated with the delivery is the intinction, that is, the Eucharistic Bread is placed in the chalice,
but immediately removed again in order to moisten the other particles. In the Byzantine rite, the Bread is divided into four parts, which are then placed on the diskos (paten) in the form of a cross:
IC
NI-KA
XC
the particle IC is placed in the chalice, and water is then poured into II.