OBLATIONS. - A generic term, liturgical and juridical, used ab antiquo to indicate the spontaneous offerings made by the faithful in church and outside of church, particularly in connection with the celebration of the Mass, on the occasion of the administration of the Sacraments and of other sacred functions and services, as an act of worship and devotion or even for a pious cause.
I. GENERAL CONCEPT
The primary and direct purpose of the oblation is the homage paid to God; its secondary and integral purpose is the maintenance of worship and the support of the ministers deputed to it.
Oblations as an act of worship toward the Divinity are a very ancient institution found in all religions, and it had a particular development among the people of Israel. Especially in Leviticus there is the most precise and complete legislative ordering concerning oblations: at determined times of the year, the Israelites were bound to offer in the Temple part of the produce of the fields and of the animals; particular oblations were further prescribed for the impetration of favors, for thanksgiving, for the expiation of sins, for purification from legal uncleanness, for the healing of diseases, especially from leprosy, etc. Even firstborn children had to be the object of oblations at the Temple, later redeemed with another kind of offering (Lev. 12, 2-8).
Christianity, which in the new sacrifice instituted by Jesus Christ reflects the symbolism of the sacrifice of Melchizedek, inherited and interpreted from the Hebrew system the fundamental concept of oblations, chiefly in relation to the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
II. THE « OBLATIONES COMMUNES »
The use of these goes back to the practice of the Church in the time of the Apostles. The faithful used to offer at the altar the bread and wine that was to serve for the Holy Sacrifice, of which they thus considered themselves, together with the priest, the offerers. The oblations that proved superfluous for the sacrifice were considered ceded for the support of the celebrant and of the ministers, in evident imitation of the sacrifices of the ancient law.
The first establishment of such a system seems to be connected with the Christian agape of apostolic times. Each of the faithful made his own oblation: what was superfluous for the celebration of the rite formed the object of a fraternal meal among those present; the remainder was distributed to the poor. When, later, the agape became detached from the rite of the Mass properly so called, the use of oblations remained united to it, becoming a liturgical requirement of it.
The ritual use of oblations is already found in the customs of the very earliest Christian communities. St. Paul seems to presuppose it when he reproves the faithful of Corinth for certain abuses that occurred in that community on the occasion of the agape (2 Cor. 11, 20-34). The apostolic canons give the impression of regulating an already ancient use when they sanction the prohibition against receiving at the altar any oblations other than the ritual ones of bread and wine; exception is made only for the new wheat and the grapes at the time of the vintage, and the offering of oil for the lamp or of incense for the rite of oblation is tolerated (cann. 3-4). Other kinds cannot constitute lawful matter for oblation at the altar, but must be sent back to the bishop's house and by him distributed to the clergy. The Apostolic Constitutions reaffirm to bishops the obligation of the subsequent distribution to the clergy of the eulogiae of the offerings, that is, quae in mysticis oblationibus superunt. (VIII, 31: ed. F. X. Funk, Paderborn 1905, p. 533). Can. 24 of the Third Council of Carthage (a. 397) forbids offering at the altar quam quod ipse Dominus tradidit, that is, bread and wine or else grapes and wheat: it permits only the offering of honey and milk on the feast of Easter.
To make the oblation was a precise right, denied to those who were not in full communion with the Church, to catechumens, to the excommunicated and to penitents not yet reconciled: a right to which great importance was attached also because only those who offered regarded themselves as partakers of the fruit of the sacrifice. For the rite, v. OFFERTORY.
III. THE « OBLATIONES PECULIARES »
The use of these is likewise very ancient. They arose and established themselves alongside the common ones, when the authority excluded from the oblations ad altare the offerings not compatible with the matter of the sacrifice. At first such oblations were made foris septa altaris, though in church: later ad donum Episcopi. No longer, therefore, a collective oblation for a common participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice, but an individual oblation for the devotion of individuals.
The already cited apostolic canons and can. 24 of the Third Council of Carthage document the very ancient custom of offering other kinds besides the matter for the sacrifice. Even the use of offering money by way of oblation in church and also at the altar is very ancient; examples from the 4th century are cited. The existence in churches of a box for oblations in money, called arca, corba or also gazophilacium, is attested by St. Justin, Tertullian, St. Paulinus of Nola, St. Augustine and others. Already in the very ancient Ethiopian liturgy the particular oblations appear distinct from the common ones, because they were made before the Offertory, while the common ones took place during the singing of the same. In the Capitularies of Charlemagne the distinction is even clearer; in the Carolingian era, in fact, it was tolerated that particular oblations too should again be offered in church, but it was established that the offering be made before the Mass or at least before the reading of the Gospel. Anything could be the object of a particular oblation, provided it was de propria et licitis rebus (c. 3 X 5, 40). St. Paulinus, speaking of what was offered at Nola at the tomb of St. Felix the martyr, attests that carpets, manufactured goods, objects of gold and silver, lamps, perfumes and other things were offered; St. Augustine speaks of the offering of cloths, garments, linen and other articles of clothing. In this way the term oblation acquired a very broad meaning, to the point of including anything that was offered to the church or to the priest, on any title, for the purpose of worship and devotion and also for a pious cause; even a building, a piece of land, a ground rent, a pension, an emphyteutic canon, a tithe, a foundation, and so on.
Originally, the particular oblations, like the common ones, were destined for the bishop and the clergy. Very soon, however, their division into four portions is found: one for the benefit of the bishop, another for the clergy, the third for the poor, the fourth credited to the church (c. 23, C. XII, 9,2). Later, bishops and councils regulated the distribution differently.
IV. OFFERINGS AS A LEGAL INSTITUTION
Originally, the offerings were spontaneous and voluntary. But already from the 5th century onward one notices the tendency to consider them obligatory, as, with the decline of the piety and fervor of the faithful, a gradual decrease in the offerings became more pronounced. Bishops and councils, concerned about the grave problem presented by the support of the clergy, until then based exclusively on the system of spontaneous offerings, began to speak of a true obligation and right, whose proximate title was, on the one hand, the debt of reverence owed to God, and on the other, the duty of contributing to the maintenance of worship and of the ministers deputed to it.
Canon 4 of the Council of Mâcon of 585 established the obligatory offering of bread and wine every Sunday, under penalty of excommunication (ed. Fr. Maassen, MGH, Concilia, I [1893], p. 166). The councils and capitularies of the Carolingian era often treat of the offering (cf. s. v. Oblatio in the indexes of the Concilia and of the Capitularia, in MGH). In the Decretum, Gratian gathered a very indicative body of documentation concerning the obligatory nature of the offerings. It suffices to recall the canon Omnis christianus (c. 69 D. 1 de Consecr.), which reports canon 13 of the Roman Synod of 1078 under Gregory VII, and the canon Statuimus (can. 55 C. 16, q. 1), which, drawing on a provision of Anastasius III (d. 913), imposes a pecuniary composition and excommunication against the recalcitrant. These canons, together with the chapters Cum secundum (c. 16 X, 3, 5) and Ad apostolicam (c. 42 X, 5, 3), were the principal texts on which the decretists and decretalists founded the doctrine concerning the obligatory nature of the offerings. As the chief title of such an obligation, besides the duty of supporting the sacred minister, particular appeal was made to the laudabilis consuetudo (c. 42 X, 5, 3).
V. FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
The first step in this was the separation of particular oblations from common oblations; this, already noticeable in the 6th century, was accompanied by a general cooling in the impulse to offer, while the newly arrived concept of obligatoriness laid the premises for the autonomy of new institutions that had been developing upon them, such as, for example, the tithe and the first-fruits. It is certain that in origin these were simple oblations, later made obligatory by custom; in the 7th century they already constituted autonomous entities. The benefice too finds its first root in particular oblations. At the same time, the common oblations ad altare also underwent a transformation that gradually brought them likewise to become individual and particular. The collective offering for the celebration of Mass was little by little replaced by the offering of individuals, so that, alongside the Missa communis or solemn Mass, there also came to be Missae peculiares. Thus was born and consolidated between the 8th and 9th centuries, as a distinct entity, as the legitimate continuation of the oblations ad altare, the individual stipendium Missae (v. ELEMOSINA, III). Common oblations are nevertheless still encountered in the 10th and 11th centuries, and only in the 12th century can they be said to have been replaced by the particular stipend. In the Middle Ages, under the term oblation, what is understood above all are the peculiares, although the distinction from the communes seems by then to have no further foundation. The meaning of the term is extremely broad. It includes everything that under any title is offered in church, at the various chapels and altars, and, outside church, ad domum. It includes not only the stipend of Mass, by then autonomous, and the iura stolae which are its most genuine continuation, but also many other institutions that arose and developed upon the common source of oblations, such as the pious legacy, donations, pious foundations, certain forms of taxes, pious causes and piae voluntates in general.
VI. MODERN LAW
Even today, by the name of oblations are meant principally the spontaneous offerings given or collected in church and outside of church for the purpose of worship or a pious cause (cc. 1503, 1182 § 2, 3; 630 § 4; 691 § 2, 5; etc.), as well as several other forms, more or less obligatory, of contributions and sacred counter-services, such as stole fees (v.), ecclesiastical taxes (v.), Mass alms (cc. 824-44), the cathedralicum, the seminary tax (v.) and other extraordinary diocesan tributes (c. 1505).
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