THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
celsis, or Greater Doxology, by an unknown author, occurs in the Eastern liturgies, which vary in the position assigned to it, and also forms the opening of a service for morning prayer found in the Apostolic Constitutions (VII., xlvii.), the pseudo-Athanasian De virginitate, and the Codex Alexandrinus. The Latin version used in the Mass, said to haive been made by Hilary of Poitiers, is slightly altered from the original. According to the Liber pontificalis, Pope Telesphorus (q.v.) prescribed the use of the angelic hymn as found in Luke ii. 14 for the Christmas service, and Pope Symmachus (q.v.) of the expanded form for all Sundays and feasts of martyrs. It was then to be used only by bishops; priests might recite it only at Easter and in their first Eucharist. At the end of the eleventh century its use was permitted to priests at all times when it was liturgically prescribed. By the present Roman use, it is omitted on all days not of a festal character. Luther retained it in his Formula missce, but does not mention it in his Deutsche Messe, though this may be because it was taken by many as going with the Kyrie. Most of the Lutheran service-books retained it, and so did the Reformed; Zwingli provided that it should be intoned by the minister in German, and then taken up by the men and women of the congregation alternately. In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer it was removed from the beginning to the end of the communion service; and in the American it was also permitted to be used as an alternative to the Gloria Patri after the psalms.
The Hebrew formula halleluyah, " praise ye Yahweh," which was frequently used in Jewish worship, passed over untranslated into the Christian services. The earliest indication of this use is Rev. xix. 1-8. In the earliest definitely liturgical use it occurred after the reading of the 3. Alleluia, epistle and at the time of communion. In the Eastern Church it is still used even in penitential seasons and in services for the dead. For the West the earliest evidence is Tertullian, De oratione, xxvii. Here, with the stronger emphasis laid on ecclesiastical seasons, it is not surprising that in the African Church it became customary to omit it in Lent (Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmos ex. cxlviii.), while another passage of Augustine (Epist. ad Januarium, lv.) implies that in his day it was regularly sung between Easter and Pentecost, and occasionally at other times. According to Sozomen (Hist, eccl., VII., xix.), it was sung at Rome only on Easterday, and this statement is accepted by Cassiodorus (c. 570) and supported by a mention of Vigilantius (c. 400) in Jerome (Contra Vigilantium, i.), although Johannes Diaconus, in the fifth century, speaks of its being used at Rome during the whole paschal season. According to the most probable interpretation of a passage in Gregory the Great's letters (MPL, lxxvii. 956), it would seem that in the pontificate of Damasus (366-384) the eastern custom of singing Alleluia throughout the year found footing in Rome, and that in the fifth century it began to be restricted to the paschal season, while Gregory permitted a wider use. This may be reconciled with the statement of Sozomen by supposing
that he referred to a special anthem containing the word " Alleluia," and not to the word itself. According to present Roman usage, the word is omitted altogether from Septuagesima to Easter being replaced at the beginning of the choir offices by " Praise to thee, O Lord, King of eternal glory." In the paschal season, on the other hand, it is frequently used, being appended to antiphons, versicles and responses, and to the gradual and offertory in the Mass. Luther retained it in the Formula missce with the gradual, and in the later Lutheran services it is usually placed after the epistle, except in Passion-tide — although Luther prescribed it even here.
Hosanna as a word of praise occurs in the ancient liturgies only in the anthem known as Benedictus (Matt. xxi. 9); and here it is absent from all the liturgies belonging to the Egyptian type and
from many of the Syrian class; it was 4. Hosanna. unknown at Antioch in Chrysostom's
time, at Jerusalem in Cyril's, and in the Byzantine liturgies of the fifth to the eighth centuries as reconstructed by Brightman. It is found, on the other hand, in the Didache (x. 6) and correspondingly in the Apostolic Constitutions (VII., xxvi. 1; also VIII. , xiii. 3); in the Byzantine liturgies of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom; in the liturgy of St. James; in the Armenian and Nestorian liturgies, and in the ninth-century Byzantine. Except in the two first-named sources, it occurs uniformly after the Trisagion or Sanctus. There is reason to believe, however, that this is a later innovation, and that the primitive usage is preserved in the Clementine liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions, where it occurs immediately before the administration, following the proclamation " Holy things to holy persons." It is even possible that just as the Jews sang Ps. cxviii. 25 sqq. after the Passover meal, so the Christian Benedictus was originally sung at the conclusion of the whole service; and this theory is supported by the fact that in the Armenian liturgy and that of the Coptic Jacobites the phrase " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord " is placed after the communion of the people. In the West the Benedictus is found in al] the most various types of liturgical production, almost without exception in connection with the Sanctus. The only noteworthy variant phenomenon is that in the Gallican liturgy it seems not to have been sung by the choir, as the Sanctus was, but to have more often formed the beginning of a collectio post Sanctus recited by the priest- — or perhaps, having been already sung, it was repeated by him to connect the prayer with what had gone before. Luther retained both Sanctus and Benedictus in his Formula missce, but placed them after the words of institution; in the Deutsche Messe he does not mention the Benedictus. In the later Lutheran service-books the Sanctus and Benedictus usually follow the preface. The Anglican Prayer-Book retains the Sanctus but omits the Benedictus; it is very frequently, however, at the present time, sung immediately before the consecration, as is the Agnus Dei after.
The prayer " Lord have mercy upon me " or " us " (Gk., Kyrie eleeson me or hemas) occurs a