The oblation and the invocation

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

MORALITY. Of the Doctrine of Morality in Relation to the Grace of the Redemption. 12mo, cloth, |1.50.

SERMONS preached in the Chapel of St. Stephen's College, Annandale, K Y. 8vo, cloth, $2.00.

PART FIRST.— Oblation. CHAP

I. Oblation in Roman Liturgy, , . 29

II. Oblation in the Greek Liturgies, . . 45

III. What is Offered in the Oblation, . . 56

IV. Views of Doctors of the Early Church, . 73 V. Views of Anglican Theologians, . . .89

PART SECOND.— Invocation

I. The Spiritual Gift in the Eucharist, . . 113

II. The Relation of the Holy Ghost to the

III. Eucharistic Controversy, . . .146

HISTOEY OF THE OBLATION AND THE INVOCATION.

" We ha\e as good evidence, as we have for the canon of Scripture itself, that this form and order was used and prescribed by the apostles."— T. Brett.

HISTORY OF THE OBLATION AND THE INVOCATION.

h* the new edition of the standard Prater-Book one of the amendments is the position which is given to the oblation and the invocation in the prayer of consecration. They are now printed as separate paragraphs. Particular attention is thus drawn to them. They are placed before us in a manner to arrest our attention, which will lead to the inquiry, What is their history ? and what is their purport ?

We are often reminded that it is one of the marked and valuable benefits which Bishop Seabury conferred on the Church in this country in introducing them from the Scotch book into the place which they now occupy in our office. This is only partly true ; but it is so far correct as to make us indebted to the first Bishop of Connecticut for the privilege of now using them.

But it is very singular that we never find them explained, illustrated, or held up to view. Other parts of the office are the subject of sermons, essays, and treatises ; but there seems to be a remarkable silence in regard to these two acts. The possible reason is that they are not in the English office. And we allow

12 HISTOBY OF OBLATION AND INVOCATION

ourselves to be so dependent on English Churchmen for our books of theology and liturgical exposition, that, not finding anything from this quarter, we have consequently not any exposition of them at all. But now that they are printed in such a manner as to call special attention to them, we shall, no doubt, be interested in knowing their origin and their import ; and the reason why we are expected to pay especial honor to Seabury for the influence which he exerted in having restored them to our American office, and in thus enabling us to follow the example of nearly all the rest of the Catholic Church.

It will be well, then, to inquire, first, whence they came. In the American book they are preceded by the sacred words, and stand in this order : the words of institution, the oblation, and the invocation. These three acts seem to be the centre of the service, the nucleus, which give character to it, and which make it to be what it is. At any communion, should the elements not be sufficient for the number of communicants, there is ordered by rubric a new consecration ; but the service for this purpose is confined to the use of these three acts — viz., the sacred words, the oblation, and the invocation. Ifc would appear, therefore, without doubt that these three acts make the Eucharist. In the English book of Edward VI. the invocation came first, then the sacred words, and in the third place the oblation; but in the present English book the invocation comes before the words of institution, and the oblation is omitted. It is this invocation which is introduced into the American office, and not the one in the Scotch office. In all the Eastern liturgies, such as that of Constantinople and the Eussian Church, they stand in the same order and with the same distinctness as they do in our book. In the Koman liturgy the sacred words and the oblation following them are very clear and distinct, and occupy the place which is occupied in all the Greek liturgies. But the invocation is not clear and distinct. It is not a prayer for the Holy Ghost to descend on " these gifts and creatures of bread and wine ;" but it certainly implies the same when it says, " We humbly beseech Thee, Almighty God, command these things \haic\ to be carried by the hands of Thy holy angels unto Thy high altar, in the presence of Thy Divine Majesty, that as many of us as, by this participation of the altar, shall receive the most sacred body and blood of Thy Son, may be replenished with all heavenly benediction and grace." In the Clementine liturgy the invocation of the Holy Ghost is for the same purpose. The two agree in their purport, but the Soman omits the direct address to the Holy Ghost.

We have, then, the introduction of these three acts in all the liturgies except the English. Of the omission of the oblation and of the change of the invocation more will be said in another place.

It must strike us at once that there is some special reason why such marked and distinct acts should hold a prominent and central place in all the liturgies. The question is, Whence did they come ? What is their origin ?

Palmer, in his " Origines Liturgicse," * says that the liturgies of the Church may be reduced to four families. He meant by this that all liturgies may be classed under one of these four divisions. The first is that of " St. James, or the great Oriental Liturgy, which prevailed in all the Christian churches from the Euphrates to the Hellespont, and from the Hellespont to the southern extremity of Greece. The second was the Alexandrian, which from time immemorial has been the liturgy of Egypt, Abyssinia, and the country extending along the Mediterranean Sea toward the west. The third was the Koman, which prevailed throughout the whole of Italy, Sicily, and the civil diocese of Africa, The fourth was the Gallican, which was used throughout Caul and Spain, and probably the exarchate of Ephesus."

These liturgies were in use in the Church at the beginning of the fourth century ; but it is plain also that they were in use during the two previous centuries, so that we can quote them as authority, to a certain extent, up to a period within one hundred years of the last of the apostles. We can quote them as bearing witness that these three acts were in all these liturgies up to this date. We may not be able to quote every expression in the oblation or in the invocation. "We cannot say that this or that expression, or that this or that word, was used in making the oblation in any liturgy— say, for instance, that of St. James ; but we can say this, that the liturgy of St. James and other liturgies are witnesses to the fact of there being an oblation and an invocation. There are numerous quotations and references in the sermons and letters and treatises of the great preachers and writers of the fourth, third, and second centuries from the liturgical sources. The Epistles of St. Cyprian, and the treatise of Justin Martyr, and the essays of Tertullian, and the works of Irenasus show lis that there were an oblation and an invocation. There can be no doubt that these important parts of the service existed and were in use in the second century.

Here were liturgies, we may say four, in different parts of the world — throughout the civilized world of that day. If a Christian had travelled from Paris through Aries and Lyons to Milan and Eome, and across the Mediterranean to Hippo and to Carthage, and on to Alexandria and to Cesarea, and back to Constantinople, and to cities on routes shooting out in all directions from the Mediterranean, he would have heard in each church, in each parish church of each of these four grand divisions, on every Sunday morning, the Eucharistic service, in which the sacred words, the oblation, and the invocation formed the nucleus.

16 HISTOBY OF OBLATION AND INVOCATION.

This is revealed to us in quotations from Augustine, and Chrysostom, and Cyril, and Cyprian, and Irenseus, and Tertullian, and Justin Martyr.

Now when we find these three acts in each liturgy, used in every part of the civilized world, in every part of the Koman Empire, and in the provinces beyond it, must we not conclude that the liturgy, and especially the nucleus of the liturgy, came from one source ? Suppose that no one of the liturgies was yet written, still it must be obvious that to the Church of Alexandria, and to Carthage, and to Cesarea, and to Eome, and to Ephesus there must have been brought a form of worship from some common source. Such likeness must indicate and prove that the worship of the Church, as the Church itself, was carried from a centre to these distant cities— that it was carried from the " upper room" of Jerusalem to the churches most remote from that city. Would it not be incredible that St. Mark, at Alexandria, and St. John, at Ephesus, and St. Peter, at Eome, independently and without consultation and agreement, hit upon the same mode, and the same order, and in a large measure on the same expressions in giving utterance to the Eucharistic worship ? In the second century we have proofs from the adoption of these three acts — the sacred words, the oilation, and the invocation — that there was an agreement among the apostles what the worship of the Christian Church should be. There must have been a form of worship which

had taken such a hold on their minds and their memories that it was the one adopted wherever the Church in all the world was planted. The worship of the Church must, therefore, have been of apostolical origin, so far at least as its form was concerned.

But as we find this in the second century, let us look at the assembly of the apostles at Jerusalem.

Immediately after the day of Pentecost we read that numbers were added to the one hundred and twenty disciples of " the upper room ;" and there immediately took place what of necessity must have taken place — namely, an organization ; and the organization was held together, as any organization must be held together, by certain principles and rites. We are told (Acts 2 : 41) that three thousand were added unto them, and held to them by four acts. It was these four acts which separated them from any other society, and which bound them together as one distinct and peculiar body. "We read that all those who had been baptized, who by baptism had been initiated into this society, " continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers" (Acts 2 : 42). This may be more accurately translated thus : They continued in the doctrine and in the fellowship of the apostle3, and in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers. The article points out distinctly four acts, and shows that those acts were marked and separate acts. There was, first, the doctrine ; they all believed that Jesus

Christ was the Son of God (Acts 8 : 37). There was, second, a fellowship ; there was union one with another ; there sprang up at once a society which we call the Church. There was the third act, which was the breaking of the bread. It was not only breaking bread, which might be a social meal, but it was the breaking of the bread, which was appointed for a specific purpose (St. Luke 22 : 19 ; 1 Cor. 11 : 25). And the fourth act was the prayers. They had a service which expressed their relations to God in the Church of the Eedeemed, and they continued day after day in the breaking of bread. And years after at Troas (Acts 20 : 7), "upon the first day of the week, the disciples came together to break bread." Now this was one of the distinguishing acts of the Christian worship. Could this act have been performed daily, or day after day, without the one officiating or leading falling into some form, some specific manner of celebrating the service ? It is not likely that St. John would do it one way to-day and St. Peter another way to-morrow, but it is natural — that is, it is according to man's habits as they spring out of his nature— to fall into a fixed way of performing such an act and of using certain words and expressions, so that all the apostles would come very soon to do it in the same manner. And the first thing would be the repeating the words which our Lord used in instituting this great rite of commemoration and of worship. And after the apostles " were scattered abroad upon the persecution which arose about Stephen' ' (Acts 11 : 19), and they went to the Gentiles to carry the Gospel, and to make converts to the Christian faith, and to set up the worship of the Church, what would be the form in which they would celebrate this worship ? They would, as they had done at Jerusalem, continue steadfast in the doctrine and in the fellowship, and in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers. And would they not do it in the form in which they had done it ? If St. Mark went to Alexandria, would he not carry with him the worship and the breaking of the bread, as well as the doctrine and the fellowship of the apostles, as they had been adopted at Jerusalem? And would not this continue year after year and generation after generation at Alexandria? And would they not call the liturgy of this Church, though amended and enlarged and enriched, the liturgy of St. Mark ? And would not the same be true of the Church of Ephesus and of the Church of Rome ?

It is difficult, nay, impossible, to conceive how in these different and distant churches there should be the same forms, and in many instances the same expressions ; how there should be the use of the sacred words, the oblation, and the invocation in the breaking of the bread, unless it should have come from a common source, from the apostolic college before the dispersion after the persecution about Stephen.

It must be remembered also that the first three

Gospels differ from each other quite as much as the liturgies differ. The three Gospels came from a common source. They are the record of our Lord's acts and words, but the difference is not a contradiction, but a difference which is due to the individuality of those who recorded the acts and the words of our Lord. Yet there is presented the one great truth that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the Saviour of the world, and that He came in human flesh to redeem us. So the different liturgies show the same individuality of the apostles, but also show a unity in these great acts — the sacred words, the oblation, and the invocation. They are the central acts, the nucleus of the Christian worship. The central idea is the Christ, the redemption of the world. It is the commemoration of that great act which is held up and presented before God the Father. Take those acts away and there is no Eucharist left. The service would then become merely the dictate of the human heart. Put in those acts, and the worship becomes Christian worship ; and the great act which they commemorate and exhibit is the great act of Christian redemption.

It is not maintained that the apostles wrote out a liturgy, and that these liturgies which now bear their names were written by them j but we must conclude that the liturgy of St. James, and of Si. Mark, and of St. John, which exhibit the form of worship that prevailed in Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Ephesus, were first given by those apostles, and that alteration and enlargement came afterward, as the condition of the Church demanded them.

It is also apparent from some expressions in the New Testament that the liturgy of St. James was before the mind of the apostle when his Epistle to the Corinthians and the Epistle to the Eomans were written. He said (1 Cor. 2 : 9) : " As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for those that love Him." This has greatly perplexed commentators. "Where does this quotation come from ? Who wrote it ? There is no passage in the Old Testament which agrees with it. Isa. 64 : 1 has been named. But Bloomfield says on this passage that " the dissimilarity with the Hebrew and the Septuagint is so great, that some have fancied the words were quoted from a lost apocryphal book or a traditionary story of the Habbins." But there is another difficulty, which is the pronoun with which the quotation begins, which is ignored in our common version, and which is introduced very clumsily into the new translation. Bloomfield has bracketed it [a], and thinks that it may have crept into the text, and that it was not there originally.

But if we now refer to the liturgy of St. James, which was the liturgy in all the countries in which St. Paul carried on his apostolic work, we shall find

22 BISTORT OF OBLATION AND INVOCATION

the quotation,* and the pronoun with its proper antecedent, and all the trouble will cease. And that the liturgy of St. James should have preceded the Epistle to the Corinthians is as natural as that the establishment of the Church and its worship and sacraments should have existed before he wrote these letters of instruction.

We must believe, therefore, that the liturgy of St. James, or at least an early form of that liturgy, which was afterward to be enlarged and enriched, to express more fully the character of the Eucharist, but the central acts of which consisted then of the sacred words, the oblation, and the invocation, was used in these churches in Greece and in the provinces which we now call Asia Minor ; and that it was the form which St. Paul used in the breaking of bread at Troas, and

* In the common version the quotation reads : " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." In the Greek it stands thus : aXka KaOog yeypairrai a otyBakfioq ovk eiSe % kcli ovg ovk qaovoE, k. r. "X. In the new version it is translated in this manner : " Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that loved Him." But the Greek in the liturgy of St. James stands thus : " aicdvca gov duprjfiara a o^Qaljuog ovk eide, Kai ovg ovk tjkovgs . . . a TjTOLfiaGag , Qeog, roig ayairoGi ce," which is thus translated, and shows the force of the pronoun as the antecedent stands before it. " Grant us these heavenly and eternal rewards which eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard."

at Corinth, and in all the other churches the care of which came upon him.

But we have another proof that one of these liturgies was before the apostle's mind when he wrote to the Church at Eome. The epistle was probably written from Corinth, and therefore the same liturgy of St. James was before him. He says to the Eomans (15 : 15, 16) : "I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister (Xezrvpyov) of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God, that the offering (?} npoaqtopa) up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified {rjyiaa juevr/) by the Holy Ghost. ' ' Now here we have three words which are liturgical words and words of St. James's liturgy, and two of them refer to two of the three acts which form the nucleus of the Eucharistic service. There is first Aeirvpyov, which refers to the one who ministers the liturgy or the Eucharistic service, and from which the word liturgy is derived. Then there is the oblation, which the Greeks called the npoGqiopot, and is the word in the liturgy of St. James which is used in making the offering ; and then we have the word {rfyiaa juevr?) sanctification, which again is the word used in this liturgy — " Send down, Lord, Thy most Holy Spirit . . . that He may sanctify (ayiatfrf)"

When the apostle used these words, which have a liturgical significance, and are used in the New Testament with reference to an appointed service (St. Luke 1 : 23 ; Heb. 9 : 21 ; 8:2), it is certainly probable that he was recalling the words of the liturgy in which he had ministered, and which were familiar to the Eoman and Corinthian Christians. If one should say of any subject on which he may have discoursed, " Mark, learn, and inwardly digest this," we should at once understand that he was quoting the words of the Second Collect for the Advent season. And it is equally obvious when St. Paul uses these words of the liturgy, which prevailed in that portion of the Church which he served, that he was using familiar words, which would be recognized at once as having come from their common service and which they constantly heard.

This line of argument then would seem to prove that the foundation of the liturgy was laid at Jerusalem before the dispersion of the apostles. The liturgy, the form of the Christian service, which was to be rendered unto God, and which was to express Christian thought and acts of Christian redemption, did not come until the churches were planted and had attained a growth. The prayers and the breaking of the bread would come with the doctrine and the fellowship. The Christian service, the Christian liturgy, we must suppose, was provided for at the beginning ; and that we have to-day the nucleus at least of that service which was appointed and used by the

apostles. Thus, as Hooker said,* " if the liturgies of all ancient churches throughout the world be compared among themselves, it may easily be perceived that they all had one original mould. "

Part First. The Oblation

" For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." — 1 Corinthians 11 : 26.

CHAPTEE I.

The Oblation ibt the Eomast Liturgy.

I]sr treating of the oblation it is necessary to haye a distinct perception of the one which is involved. There are three oblations in the Eastern liturgies, in the Eoman rite, and in the Book of Common Prayer. In the Eastern liturgies the first oblation is the offering of the bread and wine by the people to be used in the sacred office. The second oblation is the placing the elements on the altar. They are then called holy gifts, because they have been placed on the altar and offered to God to be used in the Eucharistic rite ; and the third oblation is the offering these gifts as the commemoration of the great act of the Eedeemer in the salvation of the world.

There are the same three oblations in the Eoman rite. The first one is the oblation of these elements for the sacred purposes of worship, which is called the offertorium. The second is the placing them upon the altar, which begins in the ordinarium with the words Suscipe, Sancte Pater, and the bread then, before the great office of consecration begins, is called immaculatam hostiam. The third oblation is the offering of the bread and wine in commemoration, which begins with the words Unde et memories, the meaning and purport of which is the question now involved.

In the American office there is observed the same order. The first oblation is the bread and wine which are placed upon the prothesis, and represent the oblation of the people. They are called oblations in the prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church militant. Then, after the collection of money is made, the bread and the wine, which have stood on the prothesis, are taken, and with the alms are placed upon the altar and presented to God for the great act of worship. They are now offered to God, and cannot any more be used for common purposes. They can now be used only for the great Eucharistic rite, and are called, in the third oblation, as they are in the same place — before consecration — in the liturgy of St. James, these " holy gifts." The third oblation takes place when these holy gifts are offered in commemoration of the acts of the Son of God in the redemption of the world.

The question which we now ask and discuss is this, What is it that the Church offers in this third or last oblation ? It is the question which was asked at the Eef ormation, before the Prayer-Book was compiled — asked in a circular sent to the bishops and some of

OBLATION IN THE BOMAN LITURGY. 31

the great doctors : " What is the oblation and sacrifice of Christ in the mass V 9 Cranmer and Eidley and the other bishops and Cox and other doctors answered it ; some as they inclined to the prevailing views, and others as they tended toward the Eeformation view. They were dogmatic answers not reasoned out. They will be introduced at another place. It is proposed here to find an answer in the words of the liturgy, and not simply in the teachings of the great doctors of the Church. What does the liturgy say, when the oblation is made, that we offer unto God ?

This question is answered in three ways. There are three answers made to it. The first, that it is the Lord Jesus Christ that is offered. That is the distinct and unanimous answer of the Eoman Church. The second answer is that it is the body and blood of Christ that is offered. That is the general view of the Greek Church and of some Anglican divines. The third is that it is the sacramental body and blood in commemoration of the one and only offering of the cross. This is the view of most Anglicans, as will be shown from the Catena in the fifth chapter.

The proper way to get an answer to this question is to investigate the words of the oblation. What do those words import ? There is an oblation made. What do the words, the language of the oblation, declare or signify, or what knowledge do they impart to us ?

It is maintained that the language of the services in liturgical books should guide us. Those words must be taken in their natural sense. We must understand them according to the natural import of language. The theories and doctrines of theologians are not to rule and give meaning to the words of the service, but the words of the service are to express the signification of the acts. If we wish to know what the act is, what it means and imports, we must study the words by which the act is set forth.

This was insisted on in the Gorham controversy. It was maintained that the words of the baptismal office exhibited and declared what the act was, that we must take those words in their natural sense in order to understand what has been done in administering the sacrament of baptism. It is only through language that we can understand the act. If the language of the service does not express it, then we must use other language which will express it. It is the act as originally instituted that we wish to understand. We interpret the language as it was adopted originally to set forth the act, and as it has been used in the Church since to express the meaning of the act. The baptismal office may be reduced to the sacred words with the action of water, but the service adopted expresses the signification of the sacrament. The service is interpreted not by the opinions of the doctors of the Church, but by the natural meaning of the words themselves. The baptismal office in the Prayer-Book exhibits the mind of the Church, and shows what she intends when she performs the act. The meaning of the rite depends upon the interpretation of the language of the service. All this was brought out clearly in the Gorham controversy. The meaning did not depend on the views which Bishop Philpots put on the service or the meaning on which Mr. Gorham insisted, but it all turned on the interpretation of the language of the office ; and the value of the decision of the court depended only on the correct interpretation of the office.