*

rather for security than from any desire for ascetical solitude. It was not until the time of the celebrated Antony, and only after he had become known and famous in the first years of the fourth century, that the monastic and eremitical life began to fascinate the Church and, opportunity for the distinction of martyrdom having ceased, to have attractions for the morbidly or ambitiously devout. The suffrage in the litany or 'Universal Collect' (kałoλikỳ) σvvaжTý) in the 'Liturgy of James '+-'For them that lead their lives in virginity and purity and ascetism (ảσkýσei), and in venerable marriage, and them that carry on their struggle in the caves and dens and holes of the earth, our holy fathers and brothers'—would sufficiently confute any pretence of this liturgy—at least, in its present form-to Apostolical authorship.

Further, the mention of the reigning city,—Rome,—and the whole of the introductory prayers in the 'Liturgy of Mark' irresistibly lead us to the same conclusion :‡— 'Deacon: Pray for the king.

'People: Lord, have mercy; Lord, have mercy; Lord, have mercy.

'Priest (secretly): Master, Lord, and God, Father of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, we beseech and supplicate Thee that Thou wouldest perpetually keep our king in peace and fortitude and righteousness. Subject to him, O God, every enemy and adversary; lay hand upon the shield and buckler, and stand up to help him. Grant to him, O God, victories, and that he may be peaceably disposed towards us, and towards Thy holy name. That

* Cf. Robertson, 'Church History,' i., p. 183.

† Swainson, Greek Liturgies,' p. 250. Other suffrages are added in three of his MSS., praying for 'our orthodox sovereigns, the palace and the camp.' Paris, 476, wants these.

Swainson, pp. 7-9. .

we also in the tranquillity of his days may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, through the grace and mercy and benignity of Thine only-begotten Son; (aloud) through whom and with whom be to Thee the glory and the might, in Thine all-holy and good and lifegiving Spirit, now and ever and to ages of ages. 'People: Amen.

'Priest: Peace be with all.

'People: And with thy spirit.

'Deacon: Pray for the pope and the bishop.

'People: Lord, have mercy; Lord, have mercy; Lord, have mercy.

'Priest: Master, Lord, and God, the Almighty, the Father of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, we beseech and supplicate Thee, O Lover of men, O good God, preserving our most holy and blessed pontiff the Pope N., and the most sacred Bishop N., preserve them to us peacefully many years, executing the holy Archpriesthood entrusted by Thee to them according to Thy holy and blessed Word, rightly dividing the Word of Truth, with all orthodox bishops, priests, deacons, sub-deacons, readers, singers, and laymen, with the whole fulness of Thy holy and only Catholic Church, granting to them peace and health and salvation.' All this is an indubitable evidence to the post-Nicence form of the copies of the liturgy, still extant, for the empire had, it is plainly discovered, become Christian. Indeed, many prayers and sentences are confessed to be late interpolations, or in part obscured by corruptions, even by that enthusiastic ritualist, Dr. Neale. (Cf. notes to pp. 5, 9, 11, 13, 17, 20, 32, 42, 54 of his 'Primitive Liturgies.')

For those who may desire to know how far excess in rite and ceremony can go, we may instance the extraordinary office called the 'Prothesis,' the antiquity of which in the

Eastern Church is guaranteed, says Neale, ('Primitive Liturgies,' p. 179, where the whole order is given), by the words of St. Cyril ('Catech. Myst.,' 5). It is a remarkable fact that in the earliest years of the thirteenth century Mark, Patriarch of Alexandria, submitted to the famous Theodore Balsamon, (librarian at Constantinople, and afterwards Patriarch of Antioch,) a question, the answer to which is almost classical: 'Are the liturgies which are read in the neighbourhoods of Alexandria and Jerusalem, and are said to have been composed by the holy Apostles, James and Mark, to be received by the holy Catholic Church? Theodore answered, quoting 1 Cor. i. 10: 'We see, therefore, that neither from the Holy Scriptures, nor from any canon synodically issued, have we ever heard that a liturgy was handed down by the holy Apostle Mark; and the 32nd canon of the council held in Trullo is the only authority that a mystic liturgy was composed by the holy James, brother of the Lord. Neither does the 85th canon of the Apostles, nor the 59th canon of the Council of Laodicea, make any mention whatever of these liturgies; nor does the Catholic Church of the Ecumenical See of Constantinople in any way acknowledge them.'* It would be strange, then, to enforce upon our consciences in the reformed Churches, made, in God's providence, free from the yoke of superstition, these liturgies, although they are so solemnly rejected by the highest ecclesiastical authorities in the Eastern Church, which has pronounced, in these words: 'We decide, therefore, that they ought not to be received.'

Before leaving these liturgies, however, we must allude to three facts of particular interest. Two of them are due to the collation of the newly-discovered MSS., published in Dr. Swainson's critical edition (1884 A.D.), with the received text of the liturgies.

The first is the strong and, we think, decisive evidence that Constantine Palæocappa, a professional copyist of the sixteenth century, modified and altered 'The Divine Liturgy of James' by certain omissions, which might serve to make it appear far more venerable than the MS., which he had used, would warrant. This MS., from the similarity of its readings to the textus receptus of Morel, was probably 2,509 Paris. The omissions-intended, most likely, to destroy all evidence of the real and mediæval date of the MS.—are numerous, while only two additions have been discovered by the collation of 2,509 and Morel's text, which was originally taken from Palæocappa's copy, and which has remained the textus receptus of the liturgy. Now, the declared intention of Paleocappa was to confound the 'heretic Lutherans ('impii homines') 'on the testimony of the divine James,' and especially to confute them upon the doctrine of the Eucharist and the worship of the Virgin. The latter reason is probably that for the two additions, which are both in high worship and adulation of the Virgin, and are given on p. 295 of Dr. Swainson's critical edition as from Morel's text, but which are not found in any of the medieval MSS. --not even in 2,509 Paris. They must therefore be, in all conscience, nothing else than an interpolation of Paleocappa himself in the interests of Catholicism, and to please his patron, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, to whom the preface is addressed.

Another fact may naturally be mentioned here. It relates to the history of the invocation addressed to the Virgin. This invocation is found in the printed editions of the liturgies; but,' says Dr. Swainson, in connections which are palpably impossible,' and evidently as an interpolation, so that no one can be surprised that earlier editors have seen reason to suspect that the passages were insertions of a later date than the rest of the text.' Now, in the 'Liturgy of

:

James,' the newly-found MSS.,-the Messina Roll, and the Rossano MSS.,-contain, instead of these invocations, prayer only that God would remember His saints of old (μvýσonti, Kúpte) - Remember especially the Virgin, Mother of God, John the Baptist, the Apostles, Prophets, the Ecumenical Synods,' etc., all of which Palæocappa has omitted, except only that to the Virgin. Then there followed, in the genuine MSS., 'Remember, Lord, the archangel's voice, which said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured.' 'Years passed,' concludes Dr. Swainson, and the appeal to God to remember His message was omitted, whilst the message was retained; and by this simple process the commemoration of the Annunciation became an invocation of the Virgin. The appeal to God became an appeal to her! Exactly the same process may be seen in the 'Liturgy of Mark,' where the Remember, Lord,' of the Vatican Roll was already omitted when the liturgy was transcribed in the Rossano Codex, i.e., below the year 1000 A.D.

*

Another very startling and incriminating fact is disclosed by Dr. Swainson, and it is one which very emphatically exposes the fraudulent tampering, to which these liturgical documents were subjected in more recent as well as in the more remote times, either as the development of the high sacrificial and sacerdotal ritual of the Churches demanded a constantly-developing revision of the liturgical use, or as these liturgies were needed in still later times to give evidence of such falsified use, as though indeed it had been long actually established, alterations being unscrupulously made, and at the same time the altered ritual being falsely asserted to be ancient and even Apostolical. In 'the Words of Institution' in the 'Liturgy of James' the sentence occurs of the mixed chalice (from the text as printed by Morel), 'He

* Cf. Dr. Swainson's 'Greek Liturgies,' Introd., pp. xxxvii-xxxix, and p. xx.