§ 98. THE LITUKQIE8. THEIR ORIGIN AND CONTEN-IS. 521
wording, tlie number, the lengtli, and tlie order of the prayers, and in other unessential points, but agree in the most important parts of the service of the Eucliarist. Thej are too different to be derived from a common original, and yet too similar tc have arisen each entirely by itself.'
All the old liturgies combine action and prayer, and prc> suppose, according to the Jewish custom, the participatiou of the people, who frequently respond to the prayers of the priest, and thereby testify their own priestly character. These responses are sometimes a simple Amen^ sometimes Kyrie eleison, sometimes a sort of dialogue with the priest :
Priest: The Lord be with you I People: And with thy spirit! Priest : Lift up your hearts ! People: We lift them up unto the Lord. Priest: Let us give thanks! People : It is meet and right.
Some parts of the litm'gy, as the Creed, the Seraphic Hymn, the Lord's Prayer, were said or sung by the priest and
' Trollope says, in the Introduction to his edition of the Liturgia Jacobi: "Noth. ing short of the reverence due to the authority of an apostle, could have preserved intact, through successive ages, that strict uniformity of rite and striking identity of sentiment, wtdch pervade these venerable compositions ; but there is, at the same time, a sufficient diversity both of expression and arrangement, to mark them as the productions of different authors, each writing without any immediate communication with the others, but all influenced by the same prevaiUng motives of action and the same constant habit of thought," Neale goes further, and, in a special article on Liturgical Quotations (Essays on Liturgiology and Church History, Lond. 1863, p. 411 ff.), endeavors to prove that Paul several times quotes the primitive liturgy, viz., in those passages in which he introduces certain statements with a yeypairrat, or \ey(t, or iriaThs 6 \6yos, while the statements are not to be found in the Old Testament: 1 Cor. ii. 9; xv. 45; Eph. v. 14; 1 Tim. i. 15; iii. 1; iv. 1, 9; 2 Tun. ii. 11-13, 19; Tit. iii. 8. But the only plausible instance is 1 Cor. ii. 9: Kad<i>y yiypairrai • & o<f>daA.^bs ovk elSe, koI oi's ovk ^Koixre, koX eVl Kap^iav avbptinrov ovk ay^^i}, & fjToiiuLaaev 6 @ehs to7s ayairucriv avrSr, which, it is true, occur word for word (though in the form of prayer, therefore with riToi/xaaas, and ayanaxTi ae instead of ayanaxTiv aurof) in the Anaphora of the Liturgia Jacobi, while the parallel commonly cited from Is. Ixiv. 4 is hardly suitable. But if there had been such a primitive written apostolic liturgy, there would have undoubtedly been other and clearer traces of it. The passages adduced may as well have been quotations from primitive Christian hymns and psalms, though such are very nearly akin to liturgiral prayers.
622 THIRD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
congregation together. Originally the whole congregation oi the faithful ' was in teiided to respond ; but with the advance of the hierarchical principle the democratic and popuhir element fell away, and the deacons or the choir assumed the re spouses of the congregation, especially where tlie liturgical language was not intelligible to the people.*
Several of the oldest liturgies, like those of St. Clement and St. James, have long since gone out of use, and have only a historical interest. Others, like those of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, and the Roman, are still used, with various changes and additions made at various times, in the Greek and Latin churches. Many of their most valuable parts have passed, through the medium of the Latin mass-books, into the liturgies and agenda of the Anglican, the Lutheran, and some of the Reformed churches.
But in general they breathe an entirely different atmosphere from the Protestant liturgies, even the Anglican not excepted. For in them all the eucharistic sacrlfioe is the centre around which all the prayers and services revolve. This act of sacrifice for the quick and the dead is a complete service, the sermon being entirely unessential, and in fact usually dispensed with. In Protestantism, on the contrary, the Lord's Supper is almost exclusively Commimioii, and the sermon is the chief matter in every ordinary service.
Between the Oriental and Occidental liturgies there are the following characteristic differenc^es :
1. The Eastern retain the ante-l^icene division of public worship into two parts : the Xairov py la KarTj-y^ovfjiivcov, MissA Catechumenokum, which is mainly didactic, and the \eiTOvpy ia rtav tt t cr t co i/, MissAFiDELroM, which contains the celebration of the Eucharist proper. This division lost its primitive import upon the union of church and state, and the
' In the Clementine Liturgy, all, iravr e s ; in the Liturgy of St. James, the Peo pie, i \a6i.
' In the Liturgies of St. Basil and St. Clirysostom, which have displaced the older Greek liturgies, tlie StaKOfu? or x°P"^ usually responds. In the Roman mass the people fall still further out of view, but accompany tlie priest with silent prayers.