I 93. THE SERMON. 399
for how will he say sursum corda ! or Dominus vobiscum ! when there is no one with him ? " A reformatory Synod of Paris, 829, prohibits these masses, and calls them a " reprehen sible practice," which has crept in " partly through neglect, partly through avarice." '
The mysterious character of the eucharist was changed into the miraculous and even the magical with the spread of the belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation. But the doctrine was contested in two controversies before it triumphed in the eleventh century.2
The language of the mass was Greek in the Eastern, Latin in the Western church. The Latin was an unknown tongue to the barbarian races of Europe. It gradually went out of use among the descendants of the Romans, and gave place to the Romanic languages. But the papal church, sacrificing the interests of the people to the priesthood, and rational or spiritual worship3 to external unity, retained the Latin language in the celebration of the mass to this day, as the sacred language of the church. The Council of Trent went so far as to put even the uninspired Latin Vulgate practically on an equality with the inspired Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.4
§ 93. Tlie Sermon.
As the chief part of divine service was unintelligible to the people, it was all the more important to supplement it by
1 Can. 48. Mansi XIV- 529 sqq. Hefele IV. 64.
2 See the next chapter, on Theological Controversies.
3 Cotnp. 2.oyiK?j Tiarpeia, Rom. 12: 1.
4 Sess. IV. (April 8, 1546): " Sacrosancta Synodus statuit et de-
clarat, uf, hrp.c ipsa veins et vulgata editio, quce longo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata cst, in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, prccdicationibus et expositionibus pro authentica habeatur ; et ut nemo illam rejicere qnovis prcctextu audeat vel prasumat." The Council made provision for an authoritative re vision of the Vulgate (April 8, 1546) ; but when the edition of Pope Sixtus V. appeared in 1589 and was enjoined upon the church " by the fullness of apostolic power," it was found to be so full of errors and blunders that it had to be cancelled, and a new edition prepared under Clement VIII. in 1592, which remains the Roman standard edition to this day.
400 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
preaching and catechetical instruction in the vernacular tongues. But this is the weak spot in the church of the middle ages.1
Pope Gregory I. preached occasionally with great earnestness, but few popes followed his example. It was the duty of bishops to preach, but they often neglected it. The Council of Clovesho, near London, which met in 747 under Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury, for the reformation of abuses, de creed that the bishops should annually visit their parishes, instruct and exhort the abbots and monks, and that all pres byters should be able to explain the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the mass, and the office of baptism to the people in the vernacular.2 A Synod of Tours, held in the year 813, and a Sy nod of Mainz, held under Rabanus Maurus in 847, decreed that every bishop should have a collection of homilies and translate them clearly "in rusticam Romanam Unguam aut Theotiscam, i. e. into French (Romance) or German," " in order that all may understand them."3
The great majority of priests were too ignorant to prepare a sermon, and barely understood the Latin liturgical forms. A Synod of Aix, 802, prescribed that they should learn the Athanasian and Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer with ex position, the Sacramentarium or canon of the mass, the formula of exorcism, the commendatio animce, the Penitential, the Calen dar and the Roman cantus; they should learn to understand the homilies for Sundays and holy days as models of preaching, and read the pastoral theology of Pope Gregory. This was the sum and substance of clerical learning.4 The study of the
1 As it is to-day in strictly Roman Catholic countries ; with this difference, that what was excusable in a period of heathen and semi-heathen ignorance and superstition, is inexcusable in an age of advanced civilization furnished with all kinds of educational institutions and facilities.
2 See the acts of this council in Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Eccles. Doff. III. 360-376, and the letter of Boniface to Cuthbert, giving an account of a similar council in Germany, and recommending measures of reform in the English church, p. 37&-S82.
1 A similar canon was passed by other councils. See Hefele III. 758, 764, and IV. 89, 111, 126, 197, 513, 582; Mansi XIV. 82 sqq. * Hefele, III. 745.